A pithy comic strip about life, love, lust and puthy cats.

Est. 1985

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Confront Zone

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
Here’s an old A&J Sunday from the more recent past, 2004. I’ll get back to the truly older material soon, as I’ve really enjoyed going through it with you, but I don’t have much time today. In case you’re wondering, the newer material is stored digitally and much easier to access. The older cartoons must be scanned and edited anew, by me.

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57 responses to “Confront Zone”

  1. Lilyblack Avatar

    Sounds like you are having fun, Jackie. Me, I spend my time in the vegetable and herb garden when I have outside time, weeding is pretty intensive this time of year. We do have some plantings around the hose, but the rose garden on the western side has all the pretty-pretties. The Man In My Life does all the pruning and spraying, though he does dragoon The Boy In My Life into doing weeding. The rest are all elephant ears and the smaller ones, whatever they are called. Caladiums, that’s it. As far as I’m concerned, if you can’t eat it, why bother? Not that i don’t pitch in on the weeding and spraying if offered suitable inducement. 😀

  2. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Not surprised at all by that finding, sand. Also, in the same way that armies are seen to always be preparing for the last war, I suspect security types are always planning to counter the last threat. And by their very nature, bureaucracies are often slow to adjust and adapt.

  3. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    The vegetable garden in back yard is actually beautiful because the pole green beans did exactly what I knew they would do and are forming a solid vining mass across tops of trellis.

    It is simple, I put a green plastic heavy construction mesh from soil to top of trellis and then from trellis to trellis there is a mesh that forms top. It is very versatile because if you didn’t have a vine covering you can use shade cloth to protect lower ground level plants from burning up or even from a sudden freeze with fabric drapes.

    It is attractive enough that people slow down when they reach visual line with yard, then speed up when they get to end of yard.
    Or else they are casing the boat barn for future break-in?

    I say “I” but helper did labor, I can’t climb ladders or even a small step anymore. But she says I get credit for designing it.

    I love herbs and plant a lot but use large pots to contain herbs and keep down weeds. I can’t kneel either!

    Love, Jackie

  4. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Bureaucracies adjust? Surely you jest, sir!

  5. Lilyblack Avatar

    Heh, I got a pair of kneeler pads for last Christmas. I suspect they were meant for gag gifts but I have used the heck out of them. I don’t like to put herbs in pots cause in August you have to water them so much except for the huge pot with three varieties of Basil (sweet, lemon, and regular) on the back porch under the overhang. There is a nice window with a counter inside facing east and I have tried to raise chives on it, but they always die. Chives hate me. Our herb garden is shaped like a wagon wheel made of landscape timbers radiating out from a center circular area that has a bay tree in in it. The main thing I have to do is keep the darned mint from covering everything. I have no idea why we grow this as the only thing The Man In My Life uses mint for is a sprig to decorate lamb – he hates mint jelly and so do I. Now when it is cooling off and there is a bit of a breeze, I like to go down there right after the sun gets behind the trees on the west fence line and sip an iced tea on the old concrete bench. The thyme, rosemary, and sage make a heavenly scent.

  6. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    That was the most frustrating blow I’ve seen. Small jets on and off for at least 10 min., onlookers standing around in the wet, looked as though repeating small jets would release all the pressure, several folks left, finally erupted to about average height for several min.

    OF next predicted to erupt at 6:45pm ± 10 minutes CDT.

  7. sandcastlerâ„¢ Avatar
    sandcastlerâ„¢

    CDC reports someone who arrived in US from Liberia on September 19, was hospitalized in Dallas on September 28, now has confirmed case of Ebola. Scary Halloween, early. Is this what Frankly Anon was referring too?

  8. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I suppose one could make the case that Ebola is now an airborne virus, as it arrived in the US via an airliner. But that’s not what I meant.

  9. Granny Carol Avatar
    Granny Carol

    That is not good news sandcastler, but I am not surprised. I am on my way from visiting my grandbabies and am now catching up on the posts here. My daughters and I did not talk about the Ebola crisis, but we are concerned about the enterovirus 68 now making the rounds, including here in NC. One of my grandchildren and a great nephew are prone to asthma complications when they get respiratory infections, but it is a scary infection for all children. Adding to that are the nine children in Colorado who developed polio like symptoms after having the enterovirus 68 recently. I pray that this does not continue to spread. On a happier note, I sure enjoyed my time with my sweeties, and Pa-Pa and I got to stop at a favorite meat ‘n’ three on the way home!

  10. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    I didn’t mention it, but I knew about the Ebola case. Having just gone through serious isolation with both Mike and his mom in hospital, I don’t think our strict isolation could handle an outbreak of much severity of any disease. There were few rooms that could be quarantined although St. Johns is a good hospital.

    On note of Old Faithful eruption, my stone mason’s helper brought up the Yellowstone caldera and the potential for eradication of American civilization by it imploding. Now I have visited Yellowstone a number of times and know this is true, I know it is all a massive volcanic caldera and it is active.

    What say our geyser experts? I have seen Haleakala and Kilauea
    at very close range and was present the day Kilauea began to spew lava again back in the 60’s. I feel so sorry for those killed this week in Japan and their families.

    Anyway, my part time helper lived around Yellowstone for quite a while and he thinks we are in more danger from it than Ebola or terrorists. I watch prof’s web cam off and on and enjoy it but I may view it differently?

    Love, Jackie

  11. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Granny Carol, keep us posted on the fall foliage in NC this year.
    We are going to try to make it there again this October but Mike may not hold up for all the traveling or my mom. She began to have chest pain for the first time today walking. At 93 she has never had any heart symptoms! Wish I could say the same.

    Where is the great meat and three? Name?

    Love, Jackie

  12. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Debbe, its healing. followup visit on friday morning. hope to know more after.

    here is an interesting site i found. the tutorials and xray galleries are free to look at.
    http://radiologymasterclass.co.uk/index.html

  13. Granny Carol Avatar
    Granny Carol

    Jackie, it is the Dixie III Restaurant in Asheboro, NC. We first discovered it 12-14 years ago as we traveled through while taking our daughter to college.

  14. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    Yay! My son is home for a while from world travels and we are going to surprise my mother tomorrow. I’ve been thinking about things that I wanted to keep, like my army uniforms and I’m beginning to turn loose some of those things because it’s stuff that I will hang on to until I die and then it will get thrown away because it won’t mean anything to anyone else. I regret throwing away my father’s WWII navy uniforms, but that’s what a lot of us do and it’s what my children and stepchildren would do. I was making some preparations for The Big One and then I realized that, like a lot of us, I wouldn’t live long or want to without medication so that’s that.

  15. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    Re the caldera. There’s a now extinct one somewhere in the NM/CA,NV area that blew in the Miocene; its ash buried a herd of horses hundreds of miles northeast back in the Miocene or Pliocene, 10 to 4 MYA. I’d have dig for the data.

    I think I’ve mentioned here before that the USGS is on the YSNP area caldera, keeps close seismograph tabs on what’s going on in YSNP’s basement, and the feds will get the area evacuated as best they can well in advance of danger. We may know months or even years in advance. Whether the nation will voluntarily or by legal action mobilize in time to minimize loss of life and property, and also minimize economic and social repercussions is another question. We did pretty well after Pearl Harbor, but this has become a very different nation#, and may well continue to become even more different. As I’ve noted before, I do not envy my three grandkids.

    #I remember some photos in TIME, perhaps, of unpleasant bumper stickers [they were not from around here], when there was an OPEC embargo on oil shipments in ’73, and we were concerned / sufficient heating oil in the winter: “Let the b*st**ds freeze in the dark.”

  16. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    Jerry: When I realized I would probably never use my USAF uniforms again and that they seemed to be shrinking as years passed, I gave them + insignia to the drama dept. at the college. I neglected to take a tax deduction, but I don’t obsess about that.

  17. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Heck, my Mom still has my Cub Scout and Boy Scout uniforms.

    More than I can say for my USAF uniforms, except for one fatigue shirt, my field jacket, and a pair of combat boots.

  18. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    If you have memorabilia of significant historic interest it might be of interest to a military museum or a museum with military exhibits. There are both of course.

    Love, Jackie

  19. sandcastlerâ„¢ Avatar
    sandcastlerâ„¢

    GR6, have my dress greens, field jacket, and the last fatigue shirt I wore in Nam.

  20. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I tried on the field jacket a couple of months ago. It fit. No one was more surprised than I.

  21. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I didn’t bother to try on either of the Scout shirts, though. 🙂

  22. sandcastlerâ„¢ Avatar
    sandcastlerâ„¢

    I know without even trying that the Nam shirt is too small; gained eighteen pounds in the first three months back. Two years in the field makes one lean and hungry. 😉

  23. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Sometimes fiction hits too close to home. Just watched NCIS New Orleans with Mike, who is bigger fan even than I.

    Plot involved bubonic plague infection carried out by an American civilian doctor for financial gain.

    All of concern for Ebola infection kept making me think about 50 years ago when I worked in that REALLY bad and primitive Louisiana charity hospital as a lab tech. Our contamination containment was nonexistent to say the least.

    Think we had one room where we could quarantine people, more or less. I came to work to find out we had a merchant seaman with a strange disease in there. It turned out to be bubonic plague of some form, picked up in Africa if I remember correctly.

    We were all going “Plague? do they still have that? Hasn’t it been eradicated?” He died of course but I don’t remember anyone running around in Hazmat suits which we didn’t have of course, nor any of us being tested or vaccinated or the hospital being decontaminated.

    When we did get exposed to bad diseases, which we did of course through blood and body fluids, no one especially tested us, just said tell if we started showing symptoms!

    It may be 50 years later but I doubt disease control is much better in most small towns or rural facilities. I think disease or plagues could be spread easily and rapidly.

    Incidentally, residents LOVED training at that hospital for all the bad stuff they saw. It was challenging to them I think.

    Love, Jackie

  24. TruckerRon Avatar

    This here in this part of Utah, the fruit that came in great abundance were the apricots. Those with trees pursued those of us without trees with great fervor, seeking to unload their bounty. Receiving the first few sacks of fruit was okay, but if you didn’t have the means to put it up properly you ended up wasting an uncomfortable amount of apricots.

    Some of my more paranoid neighbors are wondering if you could possibly track the children coming illegally from third world countries as well as the enterovirus 68, would there be an obvious, positive correlation? I leave that question up to more knowledgeable folks.