Speaking of comments, I’ve noticed that this site has one thing in common with most other sites that attract regular visitors. Several posters will drop in early to comment directly on the day’s material or to make a new observation. This continues, but the discussion eventually evolves into a running conversation among regulars. This isn’t to imply criticism. That’s just the way it goes, and I’m ok with that. One thing that is different about this site, and I’m not the first one to make this observation, is that repeat posters, as a rule, come to josh and visit, not to argue and insult one another. I appreciate that and hope everyone enjoys the time they spend here, regardless of how much that is.
Unreal Estate
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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
272 responses to “Unreal Estate”
This may or may not serve as a parrot related laugh, Jackie, but it sure burst my sides when it happened.
About 30 years ago I lived with a woman who had a parrot of some sort (I don’t know – pretty, lots of colors, wicked bite when it wanted to). It pretty much had free reign of our house, as did our cats, but the bird roosted in a round cage that was raised about 2 feet from the floor, the top sat at about six feet. It was 2.5 -3 foot in diameter.
I have no idea who owned this bird before my girlfriend but it really only “said” two things: “Help me! Help me!” and it would whimper like a hurt puppy. Rather disturbing!
One day the parrot was making even more than it’s usual ruckus, yelling “help me” over and over again. I went to the den to see the bird hanging on the outside of it’s cage with one cat atop the cage and two others sitting below it. The bird was in absolutely no danger because the cats had all gotten their tails bitten or been snapped by the wings and had learned to keep a safe distance. The scene was, nonetheless, still hysterical.
A few months later the woman up and decides to run off to Jamaica or some such and, just before she left she freed the bird. Just shoved it out the door to fend for itself. I know it survived for at least a few months because the cops kept getting reports of someone in the neighborhood yelling for help but they could never find anyone in trouble. I doubt they ever thought to look to the tops of the pine trees.
Be well, Jackie.
I just realized I can relate to today’s retro – my wife and I are going to Vegas for a week beginning next Wed., partly for some meetings and classes, partly just to get away from town. We rented a time-share property for the entire week for about $250. Basically a small apartment at a resort and well away from the Strip. Way better than any hotel, or at least any we could afford. Our first vacation since my battles with cancer and pulmonary embolisms and we are both really looking forward to it even if it will be 100F in the shade.
Loni? Here’s an article about her from just last year:
http://mix1065fm.cbslocal.com/2013/08/06/what-loni-anderson-looks-like-now-photos/
My crazy boating friends leave this week to sail the 200 miles of the Texas coast in their little sandbox boats, raising money for Livestrong and ending cancer. They made it over their goal of $10,000 and I just got a couple checks sent to me to contribute to the Texas 200 Ducks, so that will put it a little bit higher.
The Texas 200 group has a facebook page and are in their ninth year of doing this. It is an endurance race and has often been called a Texas rodeo on the water, for want of a better description. The goal is to make it to the end. Some years that is harder to do than others.
These are not your yacht club types. My favorite line was my own: “Axe? What axe? Nobody carries an axe on a sailboat!”
Love, Jackie Monies
That is Jennifer Marlowe!
OK, gotta tell my favorite parrot joke…
One night a burglar broke into a house after seeing its occupants leave. As he was walking through the house in the dark, he heard what sounded like the voice of a very old woman saying, “Shame on you! I see you, and Jesus sees you!”
Startled, the burglar shines his flashlight all around until he sees a large cage with a parrot in it. Relieved, the burglar starts toward the stairs but then sees an enormous Doberman with bared teeth waiting at the top.
Just then the parrot screams, “Attack, Jesus!”
The university in Melbourne FL had peacocks running wild. Interesting birds, but raucous. I saw them more than once on trips through the area.
My step-grandma’s parrots yelled out “Pap-pa! Close the door! It’s cold in here!” No one actually taught them that one on purpose.
One of our neighbors in Venezuela had a large macaw that sang opera in what I assume was Italian.
Is there a Jimmy Buffet parrot song? I know we are all called Parrotheads.
Love, Jackie Monies
sandcastler™ – That was a few years ago. I got formula, coupons, the whole lot. I don’t know what kind of purchases I could have made that would have triggered either.
Ghost, I have seen that one before but it is still worth a chuckle
My next door neighbor is a bird rehab specialist, she get pet birds that have been abused or turned into shelters, that sort of thing. Before she got her own above ground tornado shelter I would have her use mine, since I usually wasn’t here.
One storm I was here with my assorted dogs and cats and she ran over with her small dogs in cage and a baby green parrot she was raising on bottle or whatever they eat. She kept it in a baby sling on her chest for warmth.
Well, the tornado sirens went on forever and I looked over just before my “Big Dog” Newfoundland inhaled what he thought was a green taco.
She has rehabilitated some pitiful birds and takes loving care of them. We had planned to rehab my mom’s parrots but she finally killed them before we got the chance.
Because I have a small stream running through my property and trees my yard is often like a bird sanctuary anyway.
Love, Jackie Monies
Jackie – My cousin is a vet and is one of three (I believe) vets in Indiana qualified to perform surgery on avian patients. Her home and surrounding property really IS a bird sanctuary. Her place is the closest I’ve ever been to a live bald eagle. Her daughters were home-schooled, probably for the best, besides being ridiculously smart (they were excited to learn advanced calculus in “middle school”!), their stories about freezers of dead rats, and bat-house building lessons would have had the public schools in a tizzy!
When my cousin (and her niece) got married in Austin, the bulk of the wedding attendees went bar-hopping. My aunt and I joined the vet and her family downtown to go bat watching. We actually went under the bridge to watch. The ammonia stench on the return trip to the hotel was intense, but totally worth it. And *I* was the lucky party to receive a direct hit of bat guano; mercifully I was wearing a two-piece top.
I love all animals except snakes. Bugs, I don’t consider animals and spiders I consider bugs 😛
When we first came to N. MN in ’58, bald eagles and ospreys were rare. Among other courses, I taught Ornithology on and off from then until retiring in ’94. Eagle and osprey recovery progressed noticeably once DDT was banned. Locally, eagles seem to be the more common of the two. The closest I’ve been to a bald eagle outside of the Bronx Zoo, maybe even closer than that, was while I was driving north on nearby paved 2-lane roads. One flew up out of a right side road ditch; presumably it had been working on a roadkill. Another simply looked at the car from a similar ditch as I drove by, on a different trip. It is common for both ospreys and eagle to nest within sight of roads around here.
BTW, the osprey, Pandion haliaetus, may be the most widespread sp. of bird (not counting exotics introduced by people, such as house sparrows, Passer domesticus, none of which falls “without your Father”*). All continents, probably excepting Antarctica, wherever there is suitable fresh or salt water and people permit them. Locally, I’ve seen them catch fish, carry sizable fish overland to their nests, and get relieved of their catch by parasitic bald eagles, Haliaeetus leucocephalus. *The wording is different in different translations.
“Bugs, I don’t consider animals and spiders I consider bugs.” “Creeping things”, I presume, which arrived, along with cattle and humans (male and female, no rib bit), on day 6, in the first but newer creation story, Gen. 1:1-2:4a.
Would you ride this? I sure would!
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/worlds-tallest-roller-coaster-coming-to-orlando/26340970
On one of my husband’s forays into the Everglades with his intrepid partner from Oregon, Andrew ran the boat into a piling or something wooden that an osprey had built her nest on. She got really mad, even though they apologized and left hurriedly. Mike swears that this osprey was waiting for them when they departed the next mornings, having recognized the boat and Andrew and followed him squawking and making menacing dives toward the boat.
She did not do this to any other boat.
This same Andrew opened a can of tuna on one of these trips, only to be attacked by a flock of sea gulls like something from the “Birds”.
The kind of boating we do in small beachable skiffs and dinghies allows close contact with wildlife, especially birds.
Love, Jackie Monies
Trucker: No. emb
Trucker: Also no. NK
Putin’s not too popular with French feminists. This one pulled a “Buffy” and “staked” Putin’s wax double…
http://www.thelocal.fr/20140605/femen-stab-beat-putin-wax-statute-in-france
TruckerRon, only blindfolded and on tranquilizers!
Blindfolded, completely unconscious and in a straitjacket.
Love, Jackie Monies
Where are the adrenaline junkies amongst us?
When I get a desire to ride a roller coaster, I get into an aerobatic airplane and do stalls, spins, loops and rolls until the desire passes. Some how seems the safer thing to do.
Trucker, in a heartbeat!