I don’t have a lot of time this morning, but I did want to post something, as service here has been spotty lately. I’m not sure my subconscious wasn’t at work when I chose today’s classic A&J. I’ve been fighting with my computer lately, plus the mockingbirds have begun their seasonal concert. Except, in reality, they sing about 3 a.m. For hours. I actually have gone downstairs in the middle of the night to flush one from the camellia bush below my bedroom window. I didn’t kill him, but I did scare the bejeebers out of him. Is that a sin?

The Mockingbird’s Shrill
By Jimmy Johnson
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413 responses to “The Mockingbird’s Shrill”
TruckerRon, I’m no mechanic, but when you have oil troubles, see a mechanic before you have engine troubles. I speak from the experience of one whose wife let her Camry die from a prolonged oil leak!
Jerry in FL, one of our church members could be a stand-in for Jethro from NCIS.
Ya’ll are welcome for the Ian Anderson links. People who only search for Jethro Tull can miss his solo work. And as of 2014 he is performing only under his own name. I hope you liked the David Gilmour too. It is pretty different from Pink Floyd, and had Crosby and Nash on vocals too!
The truth is we’re in the middle of lowering our mortgage interest (refi with our credit union, dropping from 8% to under 5%), after which we’re planning to replace the car. Sadly, we discussed it while in the car… this might be its reaction.
TruckerRon, Funny how that works. I hope that you can get it fixed cheaply or it can hold on for a while longer.
Here’s one to go with JJ’s retro strip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kr_YVjevPM
Because Mike and Michele didn’t do service on the Honda as they drove it, I ended up with $1800 in things damaged by lack of service, plus $800 in new tires. Not just wives who let cars crash. I was afraid I was going to end up with worse than that before I got to Monroe and put it in shop, on the side of the road and begging Allstate to come tow me. With the motor irreparably damaged.
Ok, I am ready to find something to sleep in and give it up I think unless I revive with some insulin and V-8!! Long day of errands and exercise.
How neat is this? http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150401/us-3d-printed-hand-8eafc4726a.html
To answer your question, JJ, I don’t know if what you did was a sin or not, but I do know that if it was a sin, at least it wasn’t a cardinal sin.
And a Blessed Easter morning to all Villagers….
I look forward to reading BC on Easter….and read the comments, Wiley’s poem was brought up….so I ‘dug’ a little and I think I found it:
http://www.kairos2.com/johnny-hart.htm
I’ve always liked Wiley’s poems….
Last night’s games….slept through both of them, woke up in the recliner around 10ish, and went to bed……oh, well.
Going into work, ‘Skittles’ will be working with me…..all that will be done today is get the colored, plastic eggs in. The colored, plastic eggs get placed in the back on the egg belts. When they come in the packing room, I have pulled in that day’s egg quota. Going to buy new ones when they go on sale at Dollar General…
And my sister in town is having Easter at her house. Going there after work and get my belly full
Looking forward to seeing my great nephews, one is going on two, and the other is 10 months old.
Later……………
Just popping in to wish you each a Happy Easter spent in the way you like best!
He’ll be back.
Been avoiding asking, lest everyone discover I am a word nerd. So, in the headline for the retro, “The mockingbird’s shrill”, is the apostrophe possessive or a contraction? Either is possible and both have potential merit. What say you?
Happy Easter everyone! My husband’s family has Russian Orthodox roots and on Easter morning everyone greets you with “Christ is risen!” and you reply “Indeed He is risen!” except we say it in Russian – sorry I don’t know that spelling! David, I took the headline to be possessive, never thought about the other possibility.
Happy Easter, Village!
I, too, assumed that the headline was possessive. Hmmmm… wonder if JJ was giving us a test? If so, David is the only one who passed it!
Sideburns: Clever!
Joyeuse Pâques
Back in Bayou Bend, just jet lagging.
http://rhymeswithorange.com/comics/april-5-2015/
See the Monday night game will be a red on blue event. Go Badgers!
For Granny Carol: ??????? ???????. ? ????? ????, ?? ???????.
Non Cyrillic version: Khristos voskres. V samom dele, on voskres.
Quietly and slowly raining here, still dark when I got up and I didn’t notice until light broke. Birds of all sorts out there outside my window. Need to feed animals, I’ve eaten breakfast (or sorts) which nowadays doesn’t involve much effort. Still listening to Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson until I get bored and move to another form. I just like the medieval sound of it, a mystical swirling of the music and voices, unworldly somewhat.
Mark, I suspect you have far better taste in music and more eclectic than does Bill Gates.
David, absolutely nothing wrong with being a word nerd. I didn’t acquire a decent vocabulary from my exposure to the Mississippi Delta culture and voices of my birth. I love words and I used to read dictionaries like some do cookbooks, just for the words and what they meant. Books gave me the bones and skeletons to flesh out with my own imagination and the words.
Sorry, rain makes me think, as does the Village.
I had assumed possessive also. But Jimmy is a word master. Often without equal.
To explain today’s real-time strip: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis
David: “The mockingbird’s shrill.” I suspect = “The m. is shrill”, since shrill, at least in my Oxford American D., is not a noun or gerund. There is a noun, shrillness. Mostly, shrill is an adjective [“piercing and high pitched”, OAD], applicable to some moms, el-hi teachers, cheerleaders, and such. Oh, and birds.
Which reminds me, robins are back. Some have probably been around in the last week or 2, but I saw one F, and several yesterday. These are probably transients, en route to Canada; Peterson maps them at least N to tree line. Juncos were eating seeds on the ground below the feeder. Their summer and winter ranges overlap in N MN, but this was the first winter I’d seen them all winter. The ones around now will probably nest hundreds of miles N. Seems to me I said yesterday I’d seen a tridec on the lawn. Oh, and the bird of the month was a female Cooper’s hawk that lit in the flowering crab just N of my dining nook window. Pardon if I went through all of this on an earlier page. Maybe I emailed a blind-copy bio group.
Peace, emb
Guys, I am so sad right now. I lost my pet whisperer last night, she died at almost exact time I was sitting out in her yard trying to get her to answer me. She made herself sick working for me and worrying about my animals. I will miss her so much, as will my pets who adored her, one of the best, most loving and kind people who ever came into my life.
She was who I drove thousands of miles for to rescue the cats. It was so little I could do for her that she would accept. She saw others who took advantage of me and she refused to be one, would never charge me enough for what she did. I have lost another part of my life and family.
So sorry, Jackie. I lost a good friend to cancer yesterday, too.
And thank you, Sand. The first part looks familiar, but the reply looks a little different from the way we say it – perhaps a different version.
Found it, Sand! Our reply is “Voistinu voskres!”
Jackie, hang tough. This life is only a test, the scores are given at the exit.
Granny, blame Google translate. I was freelancing, Loon was still asleep when I was ppsting.