The Houghs: Santa, Four Hours of Pain, and a Tribal Feast

Well, this was definitely one hell of a Saturday.

I'd been looking forward to today for a long, long time. Back in May, after Kris and a bunch of the moms from our Tribe decided to get matching Mom Tattoos, Yours Truly started to reconsider getting more ink done. I had gotten my last tattoos way back in like 2010, and while I had initially intended on getting more back when I was in my early 30's, I kept putting it off, year after year.

By the time I hit my 40's, I had kinda all but forgotten about it. I was too old, too much time had passed, and I figured 'what's the point.'

Then, one day last summer, I was speaking to my nephew, who had recently started getting some work done on his arms. I had expressed my thoughts on being too old nowadays to get back into getting new work done, and he - in all his nineteen-year-old wisdom - commented that I was going to grow old anyway, and that I might as well look like a badass while I slide into my 50's. And Goddamn it, he was right.

So, after doing some research and browsing various artists' portfolios online, I found a local artist named Brenton who worked in BlackBall Tattoo here in town, and he - and his studio - were some of the highest rated in Michigan. I booked a consultation, where I went in - Alayna in tow (because she's already at that age where she's chomping at the bit to get one done herself) - and went over my ideas with him. He's a pretty popular, in-demand artist, so there was a six-month wait list to get in with him, but considering the size and scope of what I wanted done - which I'll disclose later in this post - I was fine with that. I booked an appointment for November and in the meantime began to save up for what would ultimately be a sizable chunk of change.

But, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for (which you'll see for yourself in a sec.)

Aside from my day-long session today, we Houghs had a couple other noteworthy things going on today. First up, was Midland's annual Santa Parade, which herald's Santa Claus' return to Midland (because, you know, he lives here in the weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, which is canon.) Later that evening, we'd be attending our Tribe's annual Friendsgiving, which was once again being hosted by the Griffins. I'd obviously be rolling in a few hours late due to my session, but planned on leaving Black Ball and heading straight to the Griffins once I was done.

So, start to finish, today was absolutely insane. But insane in a good way.

Check it out. . . .

Abby and Midland High's JV Pom Team would be marching directly behind the band. As the parade staging area began to amass at the school, the team was able to get a quick group pic in (some of the pom kids were also in the band, hence the band kids thrown in the mix.)

A local drug addict recovery house kicks the parade off down Ashman Street. Nothing weird about that whatsoever.

Midland High's Marching Band. We were once again set up on the corner between Kris' office and the local Kroger, which was a pretty good vantage point for pics and video, and also allowed us to bypass the unavoidable clusterf*** of traffic once the parade wrapped up. Unfortunately for Yours Truly, I was late meeting up with Kris and the Johnsons (who we were watching the parade with) and ultimately had to park like a frickin' mile and a half down the road and walk to where they were situated. So that was fun.

The Pommers were marching directly behind the band, so our pics of them weren't the greatest (they weren't spread out that well.)

Abby and her squad.

Ella, as enthusiastic as ever.

The Great Lakes Loons roll out their train and mascot for events like this. I want one of those Russian-styled, plaid Loons hats. Gonna have to look into that.

The epic return of this absolute legend. . . .

The Pom Team, on the way back to the high school. Midland High's band marched from their school down to Kroger, then pulled off into the parking lot and Dow High's marching band took over for the last half of the parade. Super convenient for us with them doing it this way, because we didn't have to fight downtown traffic like we did last year when we had to extract Abby from all the chaos at the parade's end.

Abby and Nica (and no, they're not lesbians.)

After over an hour and a half later, at the tail end of the parade (of course), the Northern Railroad finally came by. . .

Santa Claus and his wife (whatever her name is, it's not important.)

So, like it or not, it is now officially the Holiday Season. Because Thanksgiving sucks.

My appointment was at 1pm, so I had just enough time to come home after the parade, get something to eat, and then drive down there when they opened. Upon checking in, I had to fill out the usual waiver forms - liability crap and other such stuff that's pretty par for the course - and then Brenton went over his designs with me for approval.

So I had gone in with only a handful of requests for my tattoo (which would fill in my shoulder and upper arm down to my bicep), and had given him free rein to design it as he saw fit. I wanted a Masonic tattoo with the following elements from Freemasonry: the traditional Masonic square and compass, the latin phrase 'Virtus Junxit Mors Non Separabit' ('Whom Virtue Unites, Death Cannot Separate'), some acacia leaves for filler (it's from the Master Mason degree), and a skull. I stressed that I didn't want the skull to have it's lower jaw, and that I didn't want it to look 'bad ass,' but rather as if it had just been taken out of a crypt. Brenton took all these suggestions and whipped up a design that came out exactly as I had been envisioning - it was perfect.

We started around 2pm, once the design was locked in and transferred to a stencil and placed on my arm (the purple ink you see here, which serves as a road map for him while he works.) About ninety minutes into the session we stopped for about a half an hour so Brenton could get some food, and I took this to send to Kris to update her on my progress.

A couple hours later, around 5:30pm, Kris texted me this pic of folks starting to settle in at the Griffin house for Friendsgiving. Always a ton of awesome food on hand with this group, I was more than ready to eat at this point.

We didn't take any more breaks during the session - I opted to power through it, despite the pain being nearly unbearable at points. Most of the work was a dull pain, but after four hours in a chair even that was wreaking havoc on my stress/adrenaline levels. Whenever he had to work around the back of the arm - the triceps, and especially near the armpit - it became super intense. Brenton was able to get a lot more done with this initial session than we had anticipated, but a second session will have to be scheduled in six to eight weeks once my arm heals. He's going to fill in all the negative space with shading and texture, add detail and shading to the existing work, then add white ink (which is super painful) to the design in areas to boost contrast and add highlights. He's moving studios in two weeks, as he's a master artist and is opening up his own place - he's giving me a Black Friday discount and the next session will be much cheaper (though this first session ended up being less expensive than I had budgeted for anyway, so I was pretty happy with that.) All in all, a great experience and I'm hoping to get more work done by him in the coming years.

Around 7pm, after I had paid and left BlackBall, I swung by a local church to pick up Abby from her 'Stringsgiving' (all the cellos from orchestra had a Thanksgiving of their own that ended at 7pm, so it was perfect timing.) From there we headed over to the Griffin's to meet up with the rest of the Tribe. The wives had all pranked the husbands by buying us all matching, tacky Thanksgiving shirts and coercing us into wearing them out for the evening. When we all showed up in matching shirts, the wives were beside themselves.

Kris demanded I walk around and show off my new ink (you can see the strips of Saniderm or whatever it's called on my arm - that was a lot of fun to strip off the next day, I'll tell you what.)

The Kings of the Hill, all in douchey, matching shirts. Left to Right: Lonnie Big Balls, Steve, The Pro, Baby Driver, Rob, Collier, Damn It Tom, Big E, and the Colonel.

Folks continued to graze for most of the evening. When I first got there I tried eating a little bit, but even though I was hungry I was super shaky from my session and couldn't manage to eat much.