Fondue Attitude

by

December 4, 2003

I’ve got something a bit more current for you this morning, from 2003. The original of the above Arlo & Janis comic hangs in the guest bathroom of a friend’s house. I’ve noticed I have a lot of artwork hanging in bathrooms, but there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Actually, the above is part of a week-long series, which you can see by clicking on the date below the cartoon. I should mention this, because it just encourages you (You know who you are!), but this flashback from Arlo and Janis younger years was one of my sneaky attempts to depict Janis in a “diaphanous” blouse.

71 thoughts on “Fondue Attitude”

  1. A bathroom is a great place to display Art. Most people go there once or twice a day and when they do, they have time to appreciate it.

    There is a restaurant in the Norfolk VA area that displayed art of a more adult nature. I had no idea until a female colleague came back from the restroom and suggested that I needed to go. Since it had been about 50 years since a woman (my Mom) had suggested that I needed to go to the bathroom, I went. I made sure that I didn’t spend too much time in there.

  3. Well, you lured me down the rabbit hole with that link. The next series about Gene and the magazine is good too. And so were the next three months of strips.

  6. I was at a customer’s house in Santa Fe once. Nice middle size house in upscaled renovated area. I asked to go to bathroom and turned on light to find a Blue Dog ORIGINAL not a print. I nearly fainted.

    Politely asked and complimented my customer and yes, she paid about cost of house for her bathroom art. It was a BIG Blue Dog size of wall.

  7. Jerry T G reminds me of when our son was in elem. school he had a Crayfish (4-5 inches long)
    he went missing from the aquarium – we looked all over, no luck. Years later while replacing
    our mattress & box spring we found his exoskeleton behind the leg of the bed. How he got
    out of the aquarium and 30 + feet across the living room, down the hall and along the wall
    of the bedroom we have no idea.

    • Gulf Coat crawfish are both smart and agile. They probably know where they will end up if they aren’t. We’ve caught them hightailing it across the yard trying to escape the pot. You’d have to respect their spunk, if they weren’t such good eatin’. (Sort of reminds me of the joke about the pig with a wooden leg.)

    • We didn’t ever, to my knowledge, have our feet x-rayed. Maybe we poor Southerners didn’t go into the fancy stores that had it? OTOH, as a young adult I wore a Swiss self-winding watch with the glow in-the-dark dial… and two years ago I had a squamous cell cancer cut out of that wrist.

    • Me, too – 1940s and, maybe, 1950s in NYCity. I found the machine fascinating. In retrospect, once anyone had second thoughts – and the machine was already in place – it seems reasonable to think shielding could have (and would have) been installed all around except for the viewing ports.

      Inside the box was also a pointer so that the salesman could point out to the customer exactly where the shoe was, say, too tight.

      • Our culture has a poor record regarding radiation. We tend to embrace new scientific discoveries, start using or manufacturing products based on them, go into denial when the inevitable downsides and risks become apparent, grudgingly accept the fact that the dangers are real, then attack all facets of how the discovery is used as if they were all equally dangerous. That’s why nuclear power is totally condemned by so many when it’s ultimately safer and cleaner than most other power sources, as in the typical coal-burning power plant releasing more naturally occurring radioactive materials into our air than any nuclear power plant.

        My wife recently read Radium Girls : The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, and she highly recommends it. Maybe the movie based on the play based on the book is good?

        • Ron, I’ve been saying that about nuclear power since the 80’s. I also spent a lot of time explaining how a Chernobyl-type meltdown was impossible with U.S. powerplants. What kills me is that many people fail to understand that coal and oil are very limited and have more important uses than burning to create electricity. I lived and attended college within a few miles of the Arkansas Power and Light nuclear plant in Russellville. It’s been operating for 46 years and has another 14 years of licensed operation. The second unit there has 18 more years on its license. Though we joked that the girls from Russellville (my wife is one) have a certain glowing beauty, there’s never been a significant (measurable) release of radiation. There was one fatality from an industrial accident in a non-radiation area in 2013.

  11. Re 11-5-20 real-time cartoon: Two points (no pun intended)…
    One, the cartoon from some years ago, where she ran to catch the trash truck, was more interesting, due to her wearing a shortie nightgown rather than a longer and less “diaphanous” gown.
    Two, does Janis have her arms crossed simply to stay warm, or is she hiding something? (If I weren’t so high-minded, I’d suspect I’m seeing evidence of a pokie in the final panel.)

  12. I assumed she had on a robe with no fastener and she had her arms crossed to prevent it coming open from neck to ankles. I have done that. You flap one side over the other and clutch with one hand or fold arms across to anchor.

    Doing piles of sheets and comforters/ quilts accumulated from time in bed. Rarely any clothes

    Doing something so risky tomorrow. Going for pedicure and manicure. My old shop and tech for years. Sfill afraid

    • There are no drawn lines in any panel to indicate either a closure or an overlap in her outer garb, so I think she is holding her arms that way just to keep a bit warmer.

  14. Off to library today for more Harry Potter books. I can see why kids got hooked. I found myself moved by concern for nonhuman characters not to mention wizards. There is so much in there besides magic tricks.

    Appropriate reading at a time when our own world is torn by compulsive desires for power and dark days seem coming.

    • We have mentioned CPAP machines on this blog many times but I am definitely a better sleeper. I can wake up in the morning. I’m not usually cheerful until my shower, maybe, but what a difference. The added benefit is that the mask has made living in this pandemic world a bit easier. I am not as claustrophobic as many of my friends and family.

  17. Any villagers been getting phone calls from “Alexa”, supposedly connected with Amazon, asking if the call recipient ordered something [a phone?] costing $$$ to be delivered to Birmingham, AL? Message requests calling a certain number if recipient did not make such an order, but doing nothing if the order is OK.
    The number given by caller identification – likely to be fabricated – and the number to be called have, according to Google [which knows everything] no known connection to Amazon.
    My MBH does support Amazon quite generously, especially at this time of year, but she and I know something “Alexa” doesn’t. It gives the lie to the call.
    Of course, we don’t call the recommended number.
    There was also an earlier call of this kind with a different amount – $279 and change, if I recall – specified, and that one can be found on Google as a known scheme.

    • I’ve had emails supposedly from FedEx, UPS, DHL, and USPS, all saying something about delivery problems in the title. In every case, I had nothing on order to be delivered, and I had not been notified by any individuals they were sending me anything, so I never opened any of them, figuring they were full of malware. (Plus, most all of them ended up in my “spam bucket” anyway.) But I can see how some people would unthinkingly open them, especially if they were expecting anything, which a certain percentage would be.

      • I just watched an old Dick Van Dyke where Rob is trying to write a book on his vacation at home and Laura comes out in a sheer black nightgown. Rob gets mad at her because she is distracting him! Of course the standards in the mid-sixties made the outfit less than distracting, but knowing Mary Tyler Moore was underneath it made it very distracting to me!

  23. I get calls claiming Amazon activity in Ohio, Texas, and Alabama – “call xxx #”
    .
    I did call Amazon from their web site – telling them I do not have an account – they agreed and said there
    were unscrupulous people out there. DUH
    .
    Back on Candid Mic. (before Candid Camera) Alan Funt asked person had any “Scruples” – she said no –
    she thought her sister had but sold them. {^!^}

  24. In a ’20s volume of the Journal of Mammalogy [vol. 1 was fall 1919-all of 1920, I believe], a short article about 13-lined ground squirrels [now Ictidomys tridecemlineatus], their weight was given in scruples. Not sure I ever looked up how many scruples were in an oz.
    Peace,

  25. Scruple, unit of weight in the apothecaries’ system, equal to 20 grains, or one-third dram, and equivalent to 1.296 grams. It was sometimes mistakenly assigned to the avoirdupois system. [Wiki?]

  26. Today’s real-time cartoon (11-6-20) was TOTALLY one of those “peeking in our windows” for husband Jim and me!! He usually beats me up by about two hours–coffee, a book, and walk the dog. (In my defense, I walk the dog in the afternoon/evening.) Glad to hear you’re with me, Ghost–NON-morning people.

  27. I get up early only because I have to start work at 7am Mon-Fri. Using my weekend sleeping habits, I would probably sleep till 8 am or later if I had my own choice daily. Over my life span I have worked all kinds of shifts: days, evenings and overnights. Overnights were the worst.

  28. One of the few benefits of leaving trucking was getting control of my daily routine. I truly enjoyed the trucking life, but they have rules about having any condition that EVER causes syncope. The fact that the device in my chest makes a recurrence almost impossible doesn’t matter. OTOH, if I’d merely had a heart attack, I could still be driving!
     
    But as things stand, my morning starts in time to get to work M to F. On weekends, it’s set by family and/or church duties. And once I’m able to fully retire someday, those hours will shift to allow me much more time with the telescope on clear nights… and more time on cloudy nights to learn image processing for astrophotography.

  32. I’m having enough problems getting the things I “did” order lately. My computer mouse crashed and burned the first of the week. Not in love with the idea of going inside the nearest big box store, I ordered it online on Sunday. Delivery was promised Monday…it arrived Thursday. Our digital thermometer (something neither Jackie not I need to be
    without) stopped working. Ordered touchless (like clinics are using now) replacement on Monday, with promised delivery on Tuesday. As of today, it’s apparently not even been shipped, with no explanation.
    Of course, I don’t remember us complaining (back in “the old days”) about waiting for weeks for things we ordered from the Sears catalog to arrive. 🙂

  33. Went to library to order Harry Potter books and get new library card, put Ghost on my card to order or pickup books for me. Picked up Catcher in the Rye, one of my favorite books as young person. I went to New York alone age 13 and visited most of sites in book.

    I cannot read the print in book!

  34. Ah, memories. Back in the ’40s, my typical school notebook had an irregular B&W design all over the outer covers but also had a rectangular chart on the back in which all kinds of unit conversions were given. Even the obscure ones were given space, including “scruples”. I can recall exactly zero times that caused me to use scruples as a unit, but we WERE prepared (through 8th grade, anyway).
    .
    Apropos of nothing mentioned herein: Why do I detest the word “broth”? Unfortunately, my MBH loves to use it, possibly even when not quite correct. The sound of that word strikes me just as a too-suave, “oily”, person would.
    .
    Have found some family photos going well back into the 1800s. Busily making some available to others on Ancestry.com – others sharing descent from the most prominent pair in the photos. One or two or three are returning the favor with some pictures they have. Neat.

  35. Just wanted to mention to Jimmy that I thought the 3rd panel of today’s cartoon was great! You don’t usually draw Ludwig sitting up like that. A new look that I really liked!

  36. CXP do you mean used as

    “The political broth of slugs, worms and snakes continues to simmer in Washington:s cauldron despite efforts to stiffle the fire,”

    Reading too much J K. Rowling!!

  39. Re 11-7-20 real-time cartoon: “They always say imagine your audience nude.” And if one were speaking before a group at a nudist resort?
    Also, as I can tell you from experience, that doesn’t work very well when one is being interviewed on a live television show.

    • I was once the guest speaker at an evening meeting of the local Parents Without Partners chapter. (As you would guess, an organization for divorced parents.) I noticed they were getting antsy about five minutes into my talk. Turned out they always adjourned to the VFW for drinks and dancing as soon as the program was over.
      At least some of the ladies in the group were nice enough to invite me to join them.

  41. The current Monday strip burning leaves in the fire pit is exactly what I had planned to do Sunday and Monday!

    I have huge concrete patio in front of house where driveway and carport used to be. It is full of pine needles and leaves which I intended to have Ghost burn in my fire pits while sitting in deck chair!!

  42. Ghost is cooking pot roast for dinner with gravy and mashed potatoes. I asked for a vegetable and he replied, “in addition to all the ones in the recipe?”

    That’s OK- frozen green peas have uses besides putting on swollen body parts. They are edible too.

  43. The pot roast was slow to simmer so I ended up doing a fast ham bacon and onion quiche. Too salty, I kept asking myself if I had put in salt? I had. Still glod.

    Goodnight Ghost baby. See you in morning.

  44. Nostalgic cooking, I whipped up a lemon chess pie tonight using Bill Clinton’s favorite recipe. Used a roll of premade pie crust. They used to serve this pie at Williamsburg colonial restaurants as well. Somewhere I have been reading this week claims.pies with crusts were not baked until ovens came into use. I must research that.

    Anyone want recipe? Easy why it has survived hundreds of years.

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