The painted face.

Its origin, though there's no video, can be traced to a cave somewhere in France. A few thousand years back creatures with hairy faces, bad postures and indeterminate motives figured out how to make fire. Aside from warmth, cooked food and light, the charred sticks turned out to be early progenitors of modern cosmetics.

Amazing how a little bit of charcoal dabbed on the face served to lift the spirits of the cave dwellers.

Fast forward to last weekend in a backyard on Chicago's northside and witness a similar enhancement of sentiments as 15 or so kids gathered at our slightly wet Edgewater estate to experience a slightly more expert application of cosmetics. We gathered to welcome our son Jackson's 4th birthday with a jungle-themed party where we happily imitated the charcoal-stick wielding neanderthals and painted the kids faces to match the jungle theme.

And so friends from our Edgewater neighborhood, classmates from Chicago's French School and old friends alike gathered amid a brief respite from the steady drizzle that had been dampening Chicago for days on end and we heartily bid a happy birthday to Jackson with faces and forearms bedecked and bedazzled with a variety of animals.

At its root face painting is a momentary escape from the day-to-day. And while the word drudgery likely doesn't suit any of the boys or girls at our house Saturday, the work done by Allison Westin granted each participant a mask of sorts. In other words, an escape.

Face painting and Chicago real estate? What's the parallel, you may wonder. At its root, much of sales is about presenting something in a manner that creates separation from the present moment and portrays it in a fantastic or dreamier way. And much in the same way that painting a kids face allows the kid to become something other and different, possibly a roaring tiger or cawing bird, so too does a staged home portray a previously empty home as a warmly lived in residence. Or a home shot by a profession photographer become perfectly frozen to spur a buyer to action.

At the end of the day Saturday can be checked off as a success as our prayers, oaths and epithets successfully held off the rain clouds and resulted in sheer exuberance and joy of the assembled gathering.  As far as the staged homes go, several have gone under contract recently while the team at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago continues fighting the good fight toward success as we market a Sauganash home for rent, a model Andersonville condo for sale and a pair of Logan Square condos available for purchase.

I wonder if a sooty faced cave dweller with a primitive French accent accompanying showings will help the cause? Probably not.