Have I shown you this? It’s an idea I was fooling around with back at the turn of the century. You know, you used to hear that phrase used a lot before the century actually turned but not so much since. I guess all that century turning could get confusing. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah… this was going to be a fanciful strip about these kids who lived in the low country, sort of like son Gene’s family now. I dug this particular one out of some old stuff a few days ago, and it’s been lying around on my desk since. So, I thought I’d show it to you. The boys’ names are Skeeter and Nat. Get it? Skeeter and Nat!! Ha Ha! There are several more of these prototypical strips around somewhere, and if I find them, I’ll show them to you, too.
Saturday in the studio
By Jimmy Johnson
Recent Posts
Ghost of Christmas Past
This holiday Arlo & Janis comic strip from 2022 is similar in concept to the new strip that ran yesterday. I thought the latter ...
Spearhead
I have produced a number of comic strips related to Veteran’s Day. Especially in latter years, I have tried to emphasize the universal experience ...
Dark Passage
Remember: it’s that weekend. The return to standard time can be a bit of a shock in the late afternoon, but I rather enjoy ...
What’s old is old, again
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to build a web site, but there are similarities. Everything needs to be just right, or ...
Back to the ol’ drawing board
I don’t have a lot of time this morning. I wasn’t going to post anything, but I’m tired of looking at that old photograph ...
Thursday’s Child
On Sunday, I teased you with the suggestion there are more changes coming here. There are. They will appear soon, and I think you’ll ...
194 responses to “Saturday in the studio”
Jerry, I think you have made the right decision. You can’t force the other person to change. All you can do is protect yourself from their bad decisions by not being part of them. Good luck to you and your wife, and may the granddaughter pleasantly surprise all of you by changing for the better.
Jerry, the only thing you can do. My wife has a cousin that is the same way. The cousin stole repeatedly from their grandmother until GMA went into the nursing home with Alzheimer’s. Cousin’s children did the same to his mother. Eventually cousin, wife, and one kid went to jail. You’re doing the best you can.
Today’s BlogSpot is titled ‘The garden of Amida’, apparently ref. to a Buddhist sect that envisions a paradise like what is pictured here. Maybe this is a stiff that’s gone to heaven.
http://thatispriceless.blogspot.com/
Jerry – My location and my line of work gives me ample opportunity to interact with addicts and dealers. You are definitely making the correct call. Nothing will change until extraordinary measures are put into place.
Just read this morning’s posts above mine. They put my ‘problems’ in perspective. No advice to give other than the wise counsel given. Peace, emb
Thank you for your comments.
Jerry, Mark in TTown said it well:. “You can’t force the other person to change. All you can do is protect yourself from their bad decisions by not being part of them.” Good to be reminded of that from time to time. A caring person will try to help. If you can truly make a difference in their lives, wonderfu!. But when they have proven repeatedly that they won’t let you, then choose to walk away.
Jerry, one last word on that from me. My mom spent a lot of money and love on a relative of ours who did show up at her funeral sober, off drugs and looking remarkably cleaned up. But before that he was using, manufacturing and dealing, along with his mother. His dad had thrown him out of house and repeatedly bailed him out, including out of prison time. I told them all that tough love was needed but that is hard to give.
Since I have been here in Village, his dad died in a suspicious lonely road rollover accident while driving the son’s (actually dad’s) truck and I am sure taking it away from the boy. Do I suspect the drug cartel the boy had gotten involved with? Of course I do.
Everyone was stoned at dad’s funeral, the boy and his sisters threatened to kill me, created enormous scenes at all services. Dad had girl friend who has since committed suicide, son ended up in prison. We are still trying to disengage our family and property from the mess created.
Maybe prison cleaned him up. He asked my forgiveness at mom’s funeral and was on totally good behavior. I hope so and told him so.
Everyone is right, only someone motivated to change can do so. Protect yourself and your wife because the family needs protection. I watched my own mother being used and taken for her assets by more than one addicted relative and those doing it see no wrong in it, believe they “deserve” what others have.
Love you, Jackie
Gary, I found out I had diabetes in a hospital emergency room with blood sugars near 500 and a doctor asking me why I wasn’t taking my medications. What?
So I started on oral meds and about 15 years later was still fighting too high readings but they weren’t constantly dramatic, but enough years of 200 doesn’t do much good! I fought going on insulin until I was on Medicare but I knew my bad insurance or worse, no insurance would bankrupt me with insulin pens. I already had drug costs running into thousands per month.
Here I am fighting low sugars now but I think we can adjust that easily. I over test now because I am fearful of the dramatic lows. Try readings in 40’s?
The best results I have attained after I got sent to an endocrinologist who also studied autoimmune diseases seriously because they go hand in hand.
Love, Jackie
And yes, I am getting ready to start making appointment calls for myself as soon as I feed the dogs their breakfasts. And feral cats. Birds can wait for help later, there is still food out for them.
By the way, advice from LuAnn comic today: “Senor, sometimes NO is the bravest thing to say.”
Love, Jackie
emb, could not make the connection between the painting and Amida. Looked up the painting and found it listed as Garden of Armida. Here is what the painting/title refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armida
Jerry… hang tough!
Jerry, I agree with everyone else that you are doing the right thing. It might get hard to stand your ground, but ultimately better for you and your wife.
After most of a week of temps in the teens and 20s today it’s mid-forties and rainy. I’m looking out the kitchen window and all I can see are clouds down to the ground (remember, I’m on a mountain here) and ghost trees, and if I go outside it is very quiet. It’s sort of an “only person in the world” feeling.
I don’t so much hate spiders, but it has taken me most of my life not to be terrified of them, merely afraid. When I was about six or seven years old I was playing tag with my friends and ran between two trees that had a big web and several of those big black and yellow spiders on it. My mom said I went into hysterics and she had to take my shorts and shirt off me and shake them out to prove there weren’t spiders on them. And no, I don’t like snakes, either.
One of my weirder collecting of materials efforts is tied to Spanish moss. Girls and I were doing a floral show somewhere and we passed some trees loaded with Spanish moss, so for some reason I stopped and gathered a lot of it. Think I had forgotten to bring moss with me?
Anyway, not too far down the road we discovered these crawling bugs that we thought were small spiders. Nope, they were ticks! So, we immediately stopped and ditched the trash bag full of Spanish moss and tried to get ticks off us but they had infested the truck or van we were in.
Unhappy end to story is we ended up doing repeated tick searches of body and I had to set off a fumigant bomb inside van to kill them all.
Can one of our resident authorities tell me why I got thousands of ticks in that moss?
Love, Jackie
Jerry, you are right to stand firm. If she visits too often (and even once can be too often!) you run the risk of losing your home over allegations that illicit materials have been stored, created, or sold there.
Remind me again why some people characterize illicit drug use as “a victimless crime”. I imagine there are, among others, countless medical professionals, social workers and cops who would have a different take on that.
Family members who act as enablers, intentionally or otherwise, are not helpful, either. “None are so blind as those who will not see.”
Jackie, re Nutrisystem…
I looked into it and talked to some people who had used it before I settled on WW, and I decided it was “Weight Watchers for Dummies”. Not to mention unnecessarily expensive for the prepared meals they ship you. To me, choosing and eating the foods I like (and preparing them myself) is the way to go. If I wanted to eat MRE’s, I’d join the Army.
Also, I suspect that the effectiveness of a diet plan may be inversely proportional to the number of women in bikinis they use in their ads.
Jackie: My totally unscientific answer to your ticks in the moss question is that the moss you picked up happened to be in a place with a lot of ticks. It reminds me of a time when Bob and I were hiking (more like walking casually) on a section of the Florida Trail and suddenly noticed that we had ticks crawling up our shoes and falling onto our arms; we later read that the area was notorious for its tick population. Growing up we were always warned about red bugs in moss, but here’s some info disputing that – http://www.caes.uga.edu/applications/gafaces/?public=viewStory&pk_id=4426
Really, Jean dear? Ghost trees? 🙂
I remember early one morning, some years ago, driving a motor home down out of the clouds from an RV park on top of a mountain (it was to me, anyway) outside of Fort Payne AL. Very much like making a low-ceiling instrument approach to an airport in a light twin.
One good thing about a hard freeze or two around here is that it thins out the tick and flea population for the coming spring.
Just got back to a computer.
emb:
All I got to was PS 132 on Amsterdam Ave before moving to NJ
MN land area is 14X state of CT – CT smaller than water area of MN (Land of 10,000 Lakes)
All of New England would fit in MN with room for a couple more states.
sandcastler:
Stereotypes are never typical – but some of MN stereotypes are pretty close.
Then Norwegian jokes are Caricatures not stereotypes. My son says “Hittites” – there are not many of those around to get offended.
Debbe:
How It’s Made did a thing on pheasant egg incubation.
Jackie:
Talking to yourself is OK – answering yourself is OK – but losing an argument to yourself?
You MAY have issues.
Today we went to exercise class and met with the cabinet man at the new house. My extreme gratitude to everyone for your kind comments. We have all heard that it is easier to talk to a stranger and this group certainly fits that description. Seriously my wife and I are on the same page and in complete agreement on this issue. As some of your comments have noted we all have things going on and no matter how great a life may look we have things that we wouldn’t want to stand up in church and talk about. I am fortunate to have the Village. See you around town later.
If you are going in tall grass or woods – lots of DEET on shoes and pant legs. The “experts”
say ticks climb not fall on to you – personally I don’t take that for granted.
Gary, many of the drugs that treat diabetes cause weight gain. (Naturally, I’m not on any of them, although I was when I was on that clinical trial.) Most of the time, it’s only water weight, and there’s not much you can do about it unless your doctor gives you a diuretic to compensate.
Jerry:
Are you telling us that we are strange? Wow, you haven’t even met me and you are spot on! lol
All I can do is offer prayer and humor. Too many people have been affected by these drug “terrorists” That seems to be the best word to describe drug abuse. That and Satan.
Take care.