I started to write, “I haven’t forgotten about Weird Wednesday,” but I realized it would have been a lie. I did forget about Weird Wednesday! It was fun that one time, though, and I will do that again soon. It’s kind of like going back over my own work and putting a silly caption over the original—probably making it funnier in the process. Today, however, is another two-fer as we continue rearranging the furniture. It’s Friday, and I must finish churning out new Arlo & Janis fare. I’ll try to post something over the weekend. Maybe “Silly Saturday.”
Rearranged Marriage, cont.
By Jimmy Johnson
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140 responses to “Rearranged Marriage, cont.”
When the public library wasn’t open, as a child I was fortunate to have access to those of parents’ friends and neighbors. In one I found a then-complete collection of Hardy Boys; their son was still buying them and leaving them at his parents’ house well into adulthood. Our next-door neighbor belonged to one of those mail-order book clubs so the selection there was usually more the adult best seller variety. One exception was War and Peace; I was in high school, I think, when I asked to borrow it and was told that I could on condition that I never bring it back.
A few years ago my college roommate commented that one of her fondest memories of my parents was that both of them always had a stack of things to read next to their chairs in the living room. That was such a normal part of my life that I hadn’t really noticed it until she mentioned it.
Yes, I was very lucky.
Yeah, well, OK…my life-long habit of reading anything that doesn’t read me first developed at an early age.
Today’s (2-22-15) cartoon, along with the wintertime weather over large parts of the US, inspired me to dust off and recycle my “Eulogy for the Sundress”.
The sundress is gone, with its intriguing bodice,
But something comes to mind that gives me great solace:
As time progresses into colder weather,
The tighter the jeans and the snugger the sweater.
Of course, that assumes the lady in question does not pull a Janis and bury the snug-wear under five other layers of garments.
Nutria are almost as plentiful as Cajuns in LA. The only thing that keeps their population down, besides Cajuns, is alligators. I have had the distinct pleasure of having had a run in with a 15 foot alligator at Rockefeller Refuge back in the early 90’s. It was exciting, to say the least. Note of interest: To tell the length of an alligator, the measurement in inches from the nostrils to the eyes, is equal to their length in feet. Of course, they have to be restrained to measure the distance from the nostrils to the eyes! Even when restrained, a large alligator can really cause some damage with the tail.
Another note on nutria. In our former neighborhood, there was a wooded area nearby. One day a nutria wandered under my heighbor’s carport. I was called on to humanely capture the creature, which I did with a hog holder. I transported the nutria to a local river or large creek nearby and released it. Just before the scared creature entered the water, it turned and sort of saluted me as if to say, “Thanks for setting me free.” It gave me very good feeling. I’m probably one of the only male veterinarians around who has never been hunting.
Wildlife lesson is over for today.
Pogo was one of my favorites also, as was Bugs, Donald & family & Mickey & Minnie & friends.
God bless us every one.
GR6, the sundress and other summer wear is out on South Texas. In fact, Loon is out doing spring planting in her garden. Noticed yesterda, one winter over tomato plant has set blossoms.
And I am off to Key Largo, Florida again and also to Mississippi Gulf coast where the weather in the Keys right now is upper 70’s and lows of 60. I imagine they are wearing less than sundresses right now but I probably won’t make it to that state of undress until perhaps next winter? If I keep on the “program” and remember why I am doing this?
Still shooting for Sunday brunch at La Provence and making it to Tampa/St. Pete by Thursday, so not nonstop driving this trip, that allows for a few stops and museums and meals along the way. Have secured a small trailer at Bay Cove, the finish line for the Everglades Challenge for most of week following which puts me at the finish for some of the real “action” when people make it to finish, a feeling of elation I have been told. Also right next door walking distance to Mrs. Mac’s Kitchen, the best food in Key Largo.
John Pennekamp is right down the road of course and the rest of the Keys are down A1A including Key West and Hemingway’s cats and the chickens.
Have to make two dozen little bags of ashes for each of the monohull entries to take along, all hopefully will make the finish this year and Mike can finish two dozen times. Next year I will enter a boat but not me sailing it!
Love, Jackie
OMG, it is snowing outside my office window! You all have sent it to OK. Sorry, Florida and Keys is looking better and better, I don’t care if the rest of America has already gotten there.
I gave cabin fever otherwise known as boat fever, I have found an interesting sailboat in NC coast and I am going to look at it in April, if it is still on market!
Have, not gave! Although I may do that too?
Reading material as a kid was anything as well. My grandparents each had books/magazines/newspapers by each chair. My mother loved cheesy romance novels, no favorite of mine. Grandpa liked Erle Stanley Gardner, so I met Perry Mason early on, I guess I was eight or so. Lots of Reader’s Digests, National Geographics, and my grandma’s favorite – tabloids. 🙂 And I fell for the funny pages early. I used to cut out my favorites and paste them in old ledger books grandpa used to bring home for scrap paper from International Harvester. The only book he ever took away and forbid from reading before middle school was The Dirty Dozen. (Come to think of it, I never have.) The local school system and downtown library were not so lenient. They recognized my advanced reading ability, but kept trying to steer me away from “adult themes.” The cheat to that was to just squirrel away in a corner and read in-house: the librarians were generally too busy with their duties to monitor what I was looking at if I wasn’t actually checking out. 🙂
National Geographic took me to far away places, detective mysteries were my earliest loves, along with historical novels about sailing ships, sea captains, knights and castles and swash buckling swordsmen. Romance novels and tabloids didn’t seem to exist but I had the Miami Herald which offered lots of investigative reporting and good writing, which got me addicted to both comics and journalists.
No one seemed aware of what I read mostly, I developed a love of scripts from Broadway shows and plays, gave me instant love of the theater and actors. They used to publish the scripts in collected volumes each year. Same with music, recordings gave me a love of classical music so that when I could finally see live performances, I already loved it.
It just seems natural to me that all of us seem to share similar interests and backgrounds.
Love, Jackie
Debbe, “emergency at hen house”? Uh-oh.
Today’s real-time hit close to home. I’ve been putting on layers in the morning lately to go throw peanuts for the squirrels in the backyard. Usually, I just go out in nightgown, robe, and slippers, even when it’s in the high single-digits.
Nothing major at work….but, did get in some extra hours….only to find out, after a nephew-om-law requested “Have you ever seen Lorainne”….and only to discover….my ‘sound’ card has bit the ‘dust’……………so…..
I am silent, I am mute, and I am depressed…dang the bad luck…..BUT…we shall over come, don’t know when, but we will 🙂
Zero tonight…..haahahh, yee awhh, and my husband took my last pair of panty hose ( they have to be over ten years old and unused…so he put ‘them’ in place… I’ve got panty hose attached to my dryer ‘duct’ work blowing into my house…got humidity and heat..
But no sound card….
Want to know ‘how blonde’ I am….I thought…great!!!! I have CD player in my tower!!!
Meanwhile…a few minutes later………..’flippin’ reality set it 🙂
I too have always been a voracious reader. I recall that once, when I was about in the 3rd grade, my dad said he was going to take away my books and make me study more. My teacher talked him out of that one! That must have been the time I received a “C” grade in penmanship. But he didn’t censor my reading. He loved paperback Westerns and read every one when he was through with them. But I read everything – anything I could get my hands on. Quite a eclectic reading education!
Yes, it DOES seem that like-minded people have come together in this Village!
*”I” read every one*
Dang! We DO need an edit button!
The joke about me of course was that for lack of anything else, I would read a cereal box. I used to climb pecan trees and get up in a fork high above the ground to read in peace and hidden out on farm, read in bed with miserable lighting until someone forced me to go to sleep. If the rest of you were like me you did not have a “reading list” that anyone enforced, you just read and some was good and some was very, very bad!
Denise, how did you know I was just going to suggest we have a contest for Village “Pokies Queen”? You may have already won it. 😉
http://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2008/01/12
The Devil made me do that. 🙂
Trying to decide if I should mention or not that I went out to retrieve a carton of Diet Cokes from minivan wearing a short sleeve teeshirt top and pj bottoms? There is no one out there except a lot of birds having a huge mixed party at the feeders and about six inches of snow. Since I have no “permanent” neighbors I never bother to dress around here!
I did edit that, it originally came out “abut six inches of snow”. Ashes the cat has moved back into house seeking love on my desk.
Love, Jackie (who is supposed to be writing about sailing lessons)
Relief, the Diet Cokes didn’t freeze out there.
Mindy, yes, Perry Mason and Della Street are old friends! I think I read them before I discovered Sherlock Holmes.
I will also admit to reading any number of Harlequin romances when my kids were little. They were easy to put down and pick back up at some later moment without having to re-read anything. {the books, that is-not the kids. 🙂 }
Mom and Dad would take the six of us to the public library and we would walk out with a stack or books and records over 3 foot high, and do that every two weeks. I would read anything and everything I could get my hands on. Science fiction was top of the list for a long time though. The biggest change in my reading habits had to be the Kindle as a gift from my Lady Christmas before last. My two biggest sources of books and music for that are Amazon and Gutenberg.org, a good source of free public domain books. I used to read to my kids, Christmas Eve was always the Christmas story out of the Bible, and The Littlest Angel.
OF due SOON 1745-1805 CST.
emb
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
i LOVE THIS THREAD!
Always loved to read! As the youngest of four children whose next sibling was seven years older, I often played alone. Once I learned to read, I also read everything that came along, including magazines and, of course, the comics. In the summer, my mother would take me to the library and I would check out a dozen books or so and was ready for another dozen the next week. Loved mysteries and still do, but not the graphic, gory kind. Funny thing is, except for my mother, I am the only one who loved reading. I had an aunt who lived with us a few years, my mother’s sister, who also loved to read (Erle Stanley Gardner!). Even my Daddy would read the newspaper and business publications in the evenings when he had time. My brothers don’t read and I don’t think my older sister has read a book since she got out of college, and, sadly, she is much worse off for it. I always read to my girls and I am thankful that they both enjoying reading and are passing that love along to their children.
Don’t know how I forgot Carl Hiaasen. Great plots, full of humor, and a strong Florida protection message too. And the Parker series by Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake). If you like both mysteries and fantasy you should try the Garrett series by Glen Cook. They are hard to describe but easy to like and he’s been writing them since the late 1980’s so there are plenty out there. He took a tip from the Travis McGee series in the titling. But he uses metals instead of colors to make the titles stand out from each other.
Oh geez, Ghost, I DO sometimes get the newspaper when I go out to peanut the squirrels!