December 10, 2023 rich and beautiful, richie Post a Comment

That’s so cocky!

I spent a lot of time one summer sort of figuring out how web servers worked (largely thanks to my brother, brother-in-law, and uncle-in-law). I bought my first domain, rwhm.net, because it was the only domain of my initials that was available. I sort of learned Flash and created my first website. After that, I went hog wild and bought domains for every kind of website I could think of. It became an addiction that I continue to fight. I remember telling Claire that I wouldn’t buy any more.

It was probably the next day that I asked Claire if I could buy just one more domain. She looked disappointed at my lack of resolve and asked, “Don’t you have enough? What is this one for?” I explained that it was for a family blog, and that the domain was richandbeautiful.org. She gave a barely perceptible smile and said, “Well, I think that’s OK.”

My brother was telling one of his friends about the name, and she replied, “Wow, that is so cocky!” He tried to explain that it was my name, NOT my socioeconomic status, and, to avoid confusion, I added a tagline to the header: “I’m Rich. She’s beautiful.” (Please note that Rich is capitalized because it’s my name, NOT my socioeconomic status.)

At one point, we were posting regularly and were pretty high on search results for “rich and beautiful.” The results were a lot of dating sites for people who want to meet rich people…and our family blog. Now, it’s only the dating sites to meet rich people.

January 23, 2022 my family and other animals, richie, Uncategorized Post a Comment

The Grand Seduction

I don’t remember how we found it, but Claire and I wound up watching the movie The Grand Seduction. It’s a movie about a small fishing village that is trying to convince a young doctor to live there. We thought it was fun, and that it was a movie our parents might like.

I mentioned the name of the movie to my mom, and she said, “You know, Richard, I don’t really enjoy movies like that.”

November 12, 2021 richie Post a Comment

Not a Pregnancy Test

I got an alert saying I had been in close proximity to someone with COVID, so I went to Walgreens to buy one of their rapid tests. I didn’t know you could get a home test, so I started talking to the Walgreens guy.

Rich: “So, these give you a quick result—like a pregnancy test?”

Walgreens Guy: “No, you don’t pee on it. You stick it up your nose.”

Rich (thinking the guy wanted to joke around, pretends to misunderstand): “YOU PEE ON IT! THEN STICK IT UP YOUR NOSE?!?”

Walgreens Guy (a little irritated): “No! I said you don’t pee on it!”

Got it.

September 3, 2020 rich and beautiful, Wild West'n Post a Comment

Back to Surgery Week

Nonessential surgeries have been backed up due to COVID-19, so Claire was waiting for over two months. Maybe an hour after I brought her home from the hospital, Weston was complaining that his side hurt. His doctor uncle came by to see Claire and to drop off all of his non-vegan food. He looked at Weston and said that we should probably take him to the ER. When the ER doctor poked Weston’s right side, Weston screamed and folded in half. The doctor looked at me with a mischievous smile and kept poking Weston’s appendix. Weston’s reaction tapered off, and, eventually the doctor got bored and said, “Yeah, now you know it’s coming.” They took him in for an ultrasound, and asked if I wanted to go with them. I said that I wanted to see if it was a boy or a girl.

Luckily, the surgery went well. His surgeon was great. One of the more entertaining parts was hearing him describe when Weston can play basketball again. He said, after a week, he could bounce the ball a little and do some spinny things.

After a week (and five months of COVID shutdown) he insists he’s ready to go back to school.

April 5, 2020 my family and other animals, richie Post a Comment

The Model

WARNING: this post contains amateur drawing of nudity.

My sister-in-law is a very talented artist. She and my other sister-in-law—also a very talented artist—wanted to practice figure drawing. They stumbled upon a Craigslist ad by someone volunteering to be a nude model. I can understand why someone would be willing to pose, sans clothing, for artists, but I was really struggling to find a motive here. (Spoiler: we never figured it out.) They asked me to tag along for a little extra security in case things got weird.

The model seemed nice, like I imagine most serial killers to be. He didn’t seem a bit deterred by our gang of three. We were not a very intimidating group, but I did expect to see some recalculation happening in his facial expressions. We met him at someone else’s house who had a studio. Not only did this guy volunteer to pose nude, but he went through the trouble of arranging a complimentary studio space.

I tried to wrap my head around the situation and asked as many questions as I could think of:

“Do you do this a lot?”

“Oh, whenever I can.”

“Are you an artist?”

“No, never had that talent.”

“Are you interested in becoming a professional model?”

“No, not really.”

Not only was he doing this for free, he was all business. It wasn’t like the guy in As Good as It Gets, where the model was confused. This guy had a full quiver of different poses at the ready. He ran us through a few warm-up sketches, followed by a longer pose. We just sat there and sketched. I suddenly realized I had wasted the opportunity by not bringing paint. I started to worry that the model would be disappointed in my professionalism or ambition—that I wasn’t as serious about my craft as he was about…his.

After apparently going through the agenda for the afternoon, we thanked him, packed up our supplies, and drove home. The sketches recently resurfaced during a move, so if anyone recognizes this guy, PLEASE ask him why he volunteers to pose nude for people. No judgement. I just want to understand.

June 16, 2019 drunken midgets, Wild West'n Post a Comment

Glass House

When Weston was young, his room had glass doors. He was so young that we didn’t think he would mind the lack of privacy. As he got older, he started to mind a little more. We later updated his room and got some new furniture. The only problem was that now his dresser was right by the window. We also never got around to getting new blinds for his window. So, he had glass doors, and the easiest place to change was right next to a window with no blinds. (I realize how bad this all looks now.)

Around this same time, Weston would often dream about being in the NBA. We were talking about how much fun it would be. I told him that Damian Lillard’s mom lived with him not too far from where we lived. I told him that his getting into the NBA was my retirement plan, and that Claire and I would come live with him when we were old. Weston got a mischievous grin on his face and described our room as having all glass walls and NO BLINDS. I told him that was fine. At that age, I think he’ll care more than I will.