Plotting the Future

by Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
This old Sunday from 1995 is another example of what we were talking about yesterday, the marriage of word and image. This one has a punch line that stands alone, as does yesterday’s classic comic strip, but the reader also is visually treated (I like to think.) to young Gene’s visible histrionics. I have learned over the years that if an idea I’m developing is overly weighted with verbiage, I can offset that by having the character’s move their arms or make exaggerated faces, as a stage actor might do.

Fall has not disappointed around these parts. The first full day of autumn yesterday was beautiful, and today has dawned the same. A pessimist might begin to worry that this portends an early and harsh winter. Just thought I’d mention that.

40 responses to “Plotting the Future”

  1. Lilyblack Avatar

    emb: This felonious whitlow was deep, deep in the pad of the forefinger. She is a dog groomer, so maybe she got it that way? Anyway, The Boss Of My Life put the whole finger to sleep with a digital block and cut almost to the bone. After she cleaned it out and packed it, I put a tubegauze bandage on it. She did put the poor woman on antibiotics, Keflex. I asked her about clindamycin or cipro and she said she reserved them for personal enemies.

  2. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Doctor Fingerbinder, Doctor Owie Fingerbinder. Report to the Dinged Digit Clinic. Doctor Fingerbinder to the DDC.

  3. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I can take anything but tetracycline without problems. And if I had to go and get myself an MRSA infection, I’m OK with clindamycin or whatever it’s sensitive to.

    Tonight, for the first time in a week, I can actually touch my fingertip without it feeling it’s being caressed with an electric cattle prod.

  4. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    We fought continuous MRSA infections with my recently deceased mother in law, over and over and over. And some others I am too tired to remember the names/initials of. So many that I had begun to suspect she was infecting herself. Munchhausen syndrome is more common than one would think, an attention seeking disorder that is often for compensation but sometimes just for the attention.

    I am not saying we are doing that here, I’d say we are often accident prone or work in situations that lend themselves to having accidents. Or expose us to germs we’d prefer to avoid!

    My classic Munchhausen case was a warehouse worker who stubbed her toe on a military base in Alaska and by the time she made it into my division’s jurisdiction had so many surgeries from her toe to her neck and all the bones and body parts in between, cost the government millions literally. Sad part is you cannot legally force them to accept the psychiatric help they need.

    Anyway, we moved mom in law to assisted living and the infections abated due to constant attention and excellent medical care from hospital staff. But they are hard to control in any medical facility, so I avoid hospitals all I can!

    Lecture over! More than anyone wanted to know!

    Love and good night,

    Jackie Monies

  5. TruckerRon Avatar

    Jerry in Fl:
    I had a henway when I was in grade school, but my little brother broke it.

    All:
    One of my paternal aunts married a guy named Whitlow. I never thought about the name having any special meaning…

    And one of my college roommates had the doctors guffawing over his self-inflicted abscess under a fingernail… he got it by trying to scrape a dried macaroni noodle from a pot. He was upset by their laughter, but still ended up as a pediatrician at an Air Force base in Alaska.

  6. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I once knew a physician who closed his practice and took a job as the medical director at a (male) private prison. If the inmates knew he was an OB-GYN, I suspect I know what they called him.

  7. Mindy from Indy Avatar
    Mindy from Indy

    Morning! Today is going to be a day. Someone is FINALLY coming to rewire the store, today is order day, I get the joyous task of overhauling my schedule to accommodate everyine’so new life changes, my furnace guy is coming tonight, and hopefully I get the good news someone is coming to tackle our wood spider infestation. Now just keep your fingers crossed the electrician gets there after I finish with books, but finishes before I have to be home for the furnace guy.

  8. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Mindy, I am so glad you posted your schedule for today! Now no matter what happens in mine, it cannot possibly be worse than yours, as that is a formidable list.

    While running a flower shop next door and a gift shop on other side of a convenience store I got to know a lot about the one in the middle and decided there WERE things worse than a flower shop.

    Did I mention the time a driver went through the front wall and kept accelerating, taking my friend and the front counter all the way through store and out the back wall with my friend hanging onto the windshield? No serious injuries except half the convenience store swept along, so they got some remodeling much needed anyway.

    Hang onto the hood and windshield and don’t turn loose! You are one formidable lady, as are many here. Or hit them with a broom if they don’t get cracking!

    Which makes me think of another indomitable lady, Debbe. Good morning and cockledoodoodledoo too. That cannot be right!

    Love, Jackie

  9. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    JJ, ‘Bed Check’ is a classic!

  10. Lilyblack Avatar

    Good morning, all. No surgery today and I have to run into town to get some supplies. I love doing that, it makes me feel I am playing hooky. I am driving my MG so that will just add to the holiday air. Have a great day!

  11. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Lily, you are like a heroine in a Nancy Drew novel with her roadster car, perky attitude and hair flying. Except the tequila.
    Nancy Drew did NOT do tequila.

    But maybe that fantasy instead of playing a guitar in the gutters of New Orleans which would NOT meet your sanitation requirements. Do you actually play a guitar?

    Car fantasy better. I used to love doing that.

    Love, Jackie

  12. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    Gilbert used ‘bereft’ in a song in ‘The Gondoliers,’ but I cannot find it. We don’t know which of two republican [small ‘r’] gondolier brothers is actually the long lost king of Barateria, so they both are crowned. Being opposed to royalty [but now with misgivings], they sing a duet that includes the phrase ‘two kings of undue pride bereft’, but I don’t find it in my complete G&S book. Later.

  13. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I’m not entirely sure Lily has enough hair to “fly”.

    Ah, living an action-packed life is the cat’s pajamas, is it not, Lady Mindy? Not.

  14. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Ghost, one of my cousins says his most vivid memories of childhood involve riding with me in a red convertible while my hair whipped him in the face. He said it stung (whipping hair does do that) but he said it was so cool he has never forgotten what it felt like.

    Maybe Lily could borrow a Dolly Parton wig or Beyoncé or someone more current hairstyle?

    Love, Jackie

  15. Lilyblack Avatar

    I am back! Drove up with a boot ( as we MG drivers call it) full of syringes, bandages, and various grocery items for the break fridge. It was such a great, cool morning, that I am afraid that I exceeded the speed limit a few times. My hair is too short to fly, but it sure can whip around like thunder.
    Jackie, no tequila? I knew there was a reason I liked Cherry Ames, Student Nurse better than Nancy Drew. 😛