tomversation

This cartoon is for the birds

This recent “Moderately Confused” cartoon by Jeff Stahler had me laughing because it really hit home.

Most of Jeff’s cartoons hit home and make me think because he seems to think like me. So many times I’ll see one of his cartoons and think, “I think that!” or “That happened to me!”

With this bird cartoon, it reminded me of a neighbor, who the other day said to me, “Do you hear those loud birds in the middle of the night? I can’t sleep!”

It’s more like 6 am or so when loud birds start tweeting outside our windows every morning. I am up early, but they still annoy me. They sound like they are right in the house.

I knew exactly what my neighbor meant, and so did Jeff Stahler!

I sent this cartoon to my neighbor. He’s out of town and he replied, “Thank God I am out of town. I can sleep now!”

We have a rooster down the block who crows a lot, but he is not as loud as these birds. I think they are black crows. And peacocks roam the streets – if you ever heard them screech, you would remember that.

Speaking of birds. Lately I’ve been visited by a dove. Almost daily. He/she is quiet, and doesn’t tweet or anything, but I am visited for a few minutes daily.

I believe doves are someone trying to send a message. Maybe I’m crazy, but I believe that.

This guy, or girl, has been visiting me all week.

For a long time, a dove would be overhead on a telephone line whenever I would go to a friend’s house. One time I had a white dove outside my window for literally 12 hours. He didn’t move. I thought he was stuck to the railing!

When my father passed away, I said, “Dad, if you can hear me, can you come visit as a dove with Mom and Joey (my brother who had passed). And I don’t remember if it was the same day or the next, but three doves appeared on my balcony railing.

At first I saw only two, who were together, then off to the side, there was a third dove. It was them!

This is the father I saw in NYC last summer

Last July, I saw a white feather on the sidewalk in New York City. I remember it was on Lexington Avenue, near 44th Street. They say a white feather is a sign from above. I have only see the one white feather. But I’ am always seeing doves.

Till next time . . .

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Lincoln, the lighthouse and the Smurfs

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The judge, Geneva and PetSmart

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Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.

Painters, construction and street work, oh my . . .

I saw this old 1954 cartoon by A.E. Beard recently, and I didn’t get it at first, then I realized – that’s one of my past neighbors. Every time it was time to paint the building, he would say, “Why do we need to paint the building? The only people who will see it are the people in the water.”

We live on the bay, so he meant the people out in their boats, boards and kayaks would see the building and we wouldn’t since we are looking out at them, not at the building.

I explained to him it was to protect the building, not to show it off, although I guess it should look nice by being painted ever few years.

I think we have the building painted every seven years. We had it done recently.

My neighbor passed away last year, so he had no say in the job being done. We are also changing all the pavers out in the parking area, which he has been opposed to since I have known him. For over 20 years he stopped that job. Now it will be done. Some areas are sinking. It needs to be done!

We have had a lot of work done around here recently – lots of workers around. The painters were here for a couple of months, they even washed my car for me a few times. Before that, we had structural work done, due to the 40 year recertification rule, a Florida thing – they were here before the painters for a couple of months.

And now, for many months, the streets are being “repaired.” They are putting new drainage pipes in the streets, raising the streets and raising the sidewalks. Our cul-de-sac has been taken over since November and it is supposed to go on until June!

There is all sorts of big construction equipment blocking our paths daily. It’s a chore going in and out. But the workers try to be accommodating.

One of my neighbors said I was in and out too much. He said, “Why don’t you try and stay home during the day, like I do.” I should have told him I have things to do and people to see, but I just ignored him.

A funny thing about the whole street job is that I was gone a few weeks in the summer, and one of my neighbors was gone for almost two months. We both thought we were beating the system, by being gone while all the work was being done. Unfortunately, they started the job months later.

I do have to say that the guys doing the construction work about the building, the painters and these guys working on the streets are and were all polite and friendly. Overly friendly.

Just the other day, a cement truck sat by for a half hour or so just waiting to get by, while a neighbor down the street had his car washing company block the road with his big trailer set-up. I honked and made the car washers move. The cement truck guys just sat and waited patiently.

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.

Why I’ll avoid that Coral Gables road in the future

There’s a section of Coral Gables that is the worst. For driving.

There’s a stretch of road, about a mile long, that has torn-up streets and potholes every few feet. No exaggeration.

As I drive down this street – Sunset Drive – I dodge the pitfalls. But the other day, I hit a huge pothole as I was driving home from Whole Foods and my tire exploded! Literally.

I believe the damage to the streets is done by construction equipment – dump trucks, cement trucks and more. The street is not some back alley, it’s lined with multi-million dollar mansions and houses, but it’s under constant renovation and construction. I’m really not sure how these well healed residents don’t complain to the city leaders, who seem to not give a damn.

They don’t have to redo the whole street, but someone to fill in potholes on a fulltime basis would be nice. The total Miami-Dade County is full of potholes, but this one street is one of the worst.

Luckily cars now have no-flat tires. They are airless tires. They eliminate punctures unless your tire explodes, like mine did. But the good part is that I was able to drive on it. You can drive up to about 50 miles on no-flat tires.

There are no spares and no jacks in the car. The first time I had a flat, I went into the trunk to look for the spare, and there was none. The space in the trunk is still there, but it’s empty! I freaked out at first, thinking they left the spare and jack out when I purchased the car! Then I learned about no-flat tires.

The tire gage will go down to zero, to alert you something is up. But the bumpy ride and explosion sound alerted me.

I ended up bring my car to get a new tire, and I was able to drive there without being towed. And that’s the end of that adventure. I won’t be taking Sunset Drive to Whole Foods anymore. I’ll take an alternate route. One that is outside Coral Gables and pothole-free.

I’m laughing about writing about potholes. I remember way back, when I wrote the daily news of our village, I would write about potholes sometimes and people outside the village thought I was crazy writing about a pothole, but it was a big thing, literally and figuratively, for the village. I guess not so much for much larger Coral Gables.

Anyway, $330.00 later, I am back on the road – only not that road, I actually took an alternate route to Whole Foods yesterday.

Till next time . . .

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Turning green, Flintstones, Password Manager

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Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.

Paper or plastic?

I was Whole Foods the other day getting dark chocolate covered almonds- a superfood – both the dark chocolate and the almonds combined. Here’s my bag of almonds.

Next to me was a lady getting some sort of nuts.

The way it’s set up, the items are all in bins and you take what you want in a paper bag, write down the code number and use the code number to pay when you check out. It’s charged by the pound or the ounce, or the miniscule ounce, according to the lady.

Here are the bins, you take one of the paper bags and do your thing. But this lady was struggling with one of those green plastic bags used for fruits and vegetables, which are not rigid, once you figure out how to get them open – and don’t really work well for the candy and nuts dropping from the bins.

I said to the lady, “Here are the paper bags, it’s easier to use these.”

Her reply had everyone in the vicinity who heard the conversation, stop in their tracks. She said, “The plastic bags are lighter.”

I stood there for a minute and said, “What do they save you, a tenth of a penny?” People laughed and the lady huffed off.

I know times are tough and things are expensive, but I would assume anyone shopping in Whole Foods could afford the extra tenth of a penny that might be the difference in the bag weights.

It got me thinking – are we paying for the bags when we weigh the candy and nuts? And then I slapped myself out of it, the lady almost had me thinking like her, “How could I save a tenth of a penny by avoiding all bags?”

Anyway, I just found the whole incident funny. I wasn’t trying to make fun of the lady. But she was a Karen if ever I saw one. A silent Karen because I’m the one who started talking to her, she was quiet and doing her own thing.

Oh right, she said as she huffed off, “It’s easier to eat from the plastic bags than the paper ones.”

Whatever.

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.

A visit to the 16th Century

Every year about this time, a bunch of us go to he Florida Renaissance Festival up in Deerfield Beach. It’s a trip back in time to the 16th century.

There’s so much to do, I think my favorite has always been the horse jousting. They are right there doing their thing, a few feet in front of you! Real life 1500s!

There is a lot of food and drink a lot of my family drink their way through the festival – and there are plenty of marketplace items with jewelry, clothing, wooden toys, blown glass and so much more.

On Friday, it poured in South Florida – torrential rain, and it was supposed to rain all day Saturday, but it was bright and sunny all day – and very, very hot.

It’s a great way to spend the day – in another time and place. So many shows are going on throughout the venue, you can spend all day doing that, but of course we like to eat and drink. While there are turkey legs, the food is of this century – gyros, pizza, Chinese food, etc. And so are the drinks – IPA’s and other beers.

And of course they take credit, Apple Pay and all the 21st Century payment methods, especially cash. Many vendors require cash. But I did see a sign that said, “We accept Master Card and Lady Visa,” so there’s that.

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.

Talking trash, Van Gogh and a 2000 year old traffic ticket

Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.

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How far we’ve come

I saw this old “Lefty” Wright comic strip in “Stripper’s Guide” blog recently and noticed this strip from 1937 used the phrase “Be Cool.” So it’s interesting to see that some of the expressions we use today, were around so many years ago.

I would have assumed “Be Cool” came from the 1950s or 1960s, but I guess not.

Now if you never heard of the “Lefty Wright” comic strip, that’s understandable, according to Stripper’s Guide, it was short lived – it ran from April 8 to May 27, 1937.

As for “Stripper’s Guide,” – no, it’s not about anything naked, you know, “Strippers” and “stripping.”

Strippers are people who work in the newspaper business, or I should say worked in the newspaper business. They put everything together back in the dark room so many years ago before computers. I know a guy named Richard to this day, who used to work at a newspaper I worked at years ago, and he was a stripper.

They took the articles and headlines and photos, mostly the photos and “stripped them” together on the negatives, where plates were then made and put on the press and printed.

We used to put big red boxes in place of the photos, including the comics and anything that was an image, that red came out as clear on the page negative and then the photos and images were then “stripped” into the blank spaces. It was a process.

I remember so many years ago, our boss, the owner of the newspaper we worked for, told us about “pagination.” It was a process coming up in the future where the whole page would come out as one piece, instead of stripping everything in one piece at a time. We were in awe when he told us that. Imagine that, one whole piece of paper or negative, that would be all put together and ready for print.

I remember when computers first came out, I asked one of my brothers who worked in IT if it would be possible to have different fonts on the computer, so that when we typeset, we could bounce back and forth from one font to another and make it different sizes at that.

He thought it over and said it probably could be done by being programmed some way, but we never did figure out that way at the time.

Amazing how far things have come from stripping to font creation and beyond

Reminds me of a segment I saw on CBS Sunday Morning – about the creation of the iPhone, which was flabbergasting to everyone at the time. Flabbergasting. Is that a word? The article and video are here, “Apple: The First 50 Years.”

Till next time . . .

Subscribe via email to my blog and cartoons here – the cartoons will arrive each Friday plus occasional short blog posts are sent during the week.