tomversation

Boredom is setting in

I’m having tea these days, rather than coffee. Green tea.

One issue I’m having is that I forget to put the teabag in the cup! I get the water boiling and add honey and lemon to the cup, but I then pour the water in and there is no tea! Not sure why that is, but I think I am starting to get stir crazy.

At the beginning of the pandemic I thought it wasn’t a problem being self quarantined. I felt that it was my usual schedule. But I guess it’s not. I miss my family and friends, I miss travel, I miss going places and doing things. I tend to go to the same restaurant if I want take out because I feel I can trust them for safety. I don’t get delivery. I have started going to the supermarket after a couple of months of getting Instacart deliveries.

But it’s time to get out and about again, only the covid numbers keep going up. I’m not sure why people can’t be safe. I see so many people without masks. I read that if everyone wore a mask when they are in public, the virus would be gone in a couple of months because it would have nowhere to go.

Let’s hope for change soon. Who would have thought 2020 would have been like this? One whole year – a strange year – 2020. Not 2019 or 2018 – unlucky 2020!

I love when people persevere

My friend Josh, a tv producer, is now the Key Lime Pie King around here. So from behind the camera to in front of it – he was featured on GMA yesterday. I remember one day he told me he wanted to get a cart to sell his pies around town. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but a week later he sent me a picture of his pink and green monster – he already had the cart and was selling pies from it around town.

Josh is a tv producer (you probably know so many of his shows) – who loves making and selling the best key lime pies! The grass is always greener, how many would rather be a tv producer (and cameraman), he filmed this whole thing himself since GMA was unable to send a crew out!

What I love about this story is the success of it. So many people are out of work due to the pandemic and this is the time to realize our dreams. It’s a time of change. And rather than sit around and mope, Josh started doing something he loves – baking!

Whenever I see one of these success stories on tv, I literally get up and touch the person on the tv. Seriously! If it’s a mom who started a million dollar business from her kitchen table, or a guy who saved the family farm or whatever, I am very interested in that. I thrive on that. I touch them so I can get a piece of them – a piece of their energy. I do that for people who also have come back from a bad illness or accident, too. And to know someone like Josh, who I would touch through the tv, is even better – especially since I can touch him in person!

josh-tom — Josh (right) and me selling pies last Sunday.

I voted by mail for the first time

vote I voted by mail, I sent in the ballot for the August primaries. I’ve never voted by mail before, but I don’t feel comfortable going to a polling station during the pandemic.

I was always hesitant about voting by mail. I thought there would be too much fraud, but I looked it up, did my research and it seems that there is really no fraud, or nothing to really worry about.

I read on the NPR website:

Amber McReynolds, a former Colorado election official and now the CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, and Charles Stewart, director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, recently put the numbers in context in an op-ed in The Hill titled “Let’s put the vote-by-mail ‘fraud’ myth to rest.

Over the past 20 years, more than 250 million ballots have been cast by mail nationwide, while there have been just 143 criminal convictions for election fraud related to mail ballots. That averages out to about one case per state every six or seven years, or a fraud rate of 0.00006%.

That is one case per state every six or seven years! I’m sure there are more mistakes made at a polling station by the workers on the premises.

I see many people are against it. I’m not sure why. I guess they don’t want certain votes to count, I doubt it’s the other way around – having votes lost or not counted. Since this was a primary I tried it out. There is a website you go to which lets you know that your vote arrived.

To be honest, our local post office is bad, if my vote doesn’t make it, I would assume it is there ineptness, not the voting process. I would normally snail mail important things from another post office in the area, but this primary vote really was just a party thing where you vote for people in your own party to go up against others in the fall. So I was willing to risk it.

I’m sure I will vote at the actual polls in November. I want to be sure my vote is done on the premises.

It brings back weird memories

asp I have a friend who can’t read or write. He doesn’t know that I know, but I found out one day after showing him this, today’s comic. Lots of my comics are old comics that were never published before. This asp/snake one is one of those.

About 10 years ago or so I showed him this comic and he didn’t laugh. I said, “Don’t you get it?” And he said, “No,” with a straight face. I asked, “How can you not get it?” I was a bit upset, feeling that my comic was worthless. And we had a minor argument. It didn’t last but when I found out he couldn’t read months later, I felt awful.

Every time I see this comic I think of that. I haven’t seen him for awhile, but other than the literacy or lack of it, he is one of the most intelligent people I know. He can fix almost anything, he knows something about everything, but he has that one flaw which is a shame.

He owned a small business in town. For so long I tried to get him to take credit cards so he would get more sales. He lost so many when he told people he didn’t take credit cards. I told him about Square and how easy it is to use for vendors. But now I know it is because his lack of reading was probably a hindrance in him understanding how to operate the credit card processing system once it was set up. I guess there is some reading involved when people hand your their card. I’m assuming his wife handled the other business things – like the books and paying bills. She didn’t work with him, but I guess whenever she could she handled that stuff.

Anyway, I love this cartoon, but it always has that weird memory for me when I see it, even though it’s been redrawn and redone, it still has that affect on me.

These pesky resistance bands

tom-bands I got the idea for today’s comic from my own experience with these resistance bands. I haven’t been to the gym since we’ve been self quarantining and I really miss it. I live in a condo, so I’m not keen on using heavy free weights that will drop and bang loudly on the floor. So I decided to buy these bands.

bands They are ok, not great, so I may not use them, but I will give them more of a try, I may grow to like them. I’ve been experimenting and watching a few videos online to see some of the techniques on how to attach them to a door and use them.

But I do miss the free weights. Even if the gyms were open now, I’m not even sure if they are or not, I’m hesitant about going at this point in time.

The North Fork

I was watching a show called TasteMakers yesterday and it featured an escargot farm in the North Fork of Long Island, NY. One of my favorite places – the North Fork, not the farm, although I love that, too. You can watch that episode here. Notice the scenery of the area – the farms, the Long Island sound, the villages.

The North Fork of Long Island is closer to New England in feel and location than it is to the rest of New York. It’s closer to Connecticut and Rhode Island than it is to NYC and the North Fork has a New England flavor. There are a lot of farms and wineries and old villages; the South Fork is where The Hamptons are and it’s more beachy.

Most people prefer The Hamptons, especially in the summer, but where I live in Miami it’s like The Hamptons, 365 days a year – so I prefer the New England-y feel of the North Fork, which is different than my normal life.

Long Island is shaped like a fish and the tail, the east end, has “two forks” – North and South. You can see here how close it is to New England, rather than NYC. That inlet just above the North Fork, in Connecticut, is New London to the left (west) of the inlet and Mystic to the right (east). Also, one of my favorite areas. The Cross Sound Ferry, is a car ferry which takes you over the Long Island Sound, from New London which goes to Orient Point, the tip of the North Fork on Long Island. It saves driving all the way around, through Manhattan, The Bronx, and Queens and the rest of Long Island to get to the eastern end.

Anyway, there’s a place that was shown on TasteMakers regarding the farm called the Peconic Land Trust. The conserve and protect land on Long Island – 13,000 acres, which are farmed and protected from development. 23 acres are shared by farmers who are new to farming and want a place to get started, so they may be given an acre each to do their thing and try their hand at farming. The Trust encourages and helps working farms and farmers.

If it wasn’t for the cruel winters out there, I would love to live on the North Fork of Long Island. I’ve written about Riverhead before, one of my favorite towns on the north fork.

Related story: 48 Hours on the North Fork of Long Island

A little zoo confusion

There was a little confusion regarding yesterday’s cartoon. While I love people having different interpretations of a specific comic. The idea here was never to throw the boy to the lions. But let me assure you that no children were harmed in the creation of yesterday’s cartoon.

To alleviate the concern, I changed it up a little and posted both versions yesterday. Now it’s about the ice cream, I guess.

They aren’t hungry. It’s just a gag on the usual, “Please don’t feed the animals.”

The animals are regularly fed at this zoo. Those two lions looking over the wall are just being curious, they aren’t hungry, especially for the boy. His dad and he are just visiting the zoo and they come upon the sign and the zookeeper is explaining the sign.

I noticed that in the comments on Facebook and Instagram, people are getting the wrong impression!

I got the idea from watching all those Zoo shows I like on Animal Planet.

A few people felt that the animals should be set free, but I don’t think we want wild animals roaming the streets and I learned from these zoo shows that most zoos these days are there to protect and breed endangered animals. And most of the animals live in natural sort of habitats that are recreated at the zoos.

When did culture start?

Culture sign isolated on white Every day it seems that another event is canceled – art shows, parades, Broadway and recently I read that Art Basel may be canceled. I’m still waiting to find out the fate of New York Comic Con, which is in early October.

The ~~good news~~ great news is that NYC has no new covid cases since March. None. I’m so proud of New York. Here in Florida, we are the opposite. If there is a Comic Con, how will they let people in? New York is safe now, do they want us grubby infected jerks in their state or city now?

But right now, things are boring. There is nothing to go to, nothing to attend anymore. It got me thinking, when did things start? When did culture start? I mean I’m sure the world was boring many years ago. There is the Coliseum in Rome, so we know that in 80 AD there were events going on. And I guess in ancient times before that there were things happening like chariot races, but when did opera start or plays on stage? When did someone say, “Let’s put up a stage here and perform?” When did someone say, “Let’s put up some clothes lines and hang art?”

When did art move from cave walls to something more portable? When did someone set up the first museum or have the first concert?

It’s something to think about. Before then there were dark ages, and I don’t mean the time before the Renaissance, I mean like caveman times.

No need for a vacation

I was mentioning going to the beach every day in a previous story. I did do that for many years. I need to get back to that. I live right near the beach but I’ve neglected to go. But again, for many years I would be there daily.

Living in Miami, I had many choices and I would be all over. I would go to Miami Beach or Key Biscayne or Matheson Hammock – wherever the mood struck me. Sometimes I would go for an hour to just have lunch and then I’d get back to work. Other times I would spend the day. The first time I ever had sushi was at Matheson Hammock, I got it at a local store and ate it at a picnic table. It was the first time I put the whole ball of wasabi in my mouth, too, not knowing what that putty-like green ball was!

There was a period of time, maybe about three years of my life, where I didn’t travel anywhere, and I was an avid traveler, so this was odd for me, but I don’t think I noticed it. My mother and one of my cousins thought it was because I was afraid to fly. But it wasn’t. My life was perfect, I felt no need to go anywhere “to get away.” And it was true.

I was a printing broker, so my life consisted of working a few hours in the morning – that was it, by 11 am I was free for the day! I would have lunch and then head to one of the beaches. I would come home, shower and many days go to happy hour with friends, then head home and repeat the next day. This was my life. I didn’t need a vacation from vacationing.

Since the pandemic and all the changes we are going through, I feel that that part of my life may return. I’m doing a lot of cartooning now and I could easily fit the beach in around that.

Which reminds me. There was one period where I would go to the beach, I would have a rule – I couldn’t leave the beach until I came up with two cartoon ideas. And I managed to come up with two a day that way! I sold a lot of comics to newspapers and magazines back then – I guess the ideas I got on the beach where pretty good; good enough to be published!

Kayaking, beaching and cycling

board-comic Today’s comic came to me when I was watching a couple of paddle boarders the other day. I live on the bay and am always seeing some action on the water. Since the self quarantining, there has been a lot of activity during this period. I guess people are getting bored sheltering in place so they are hitting the water, and that’s an easy way to be out and about and still shelter in place.

I see more boaters, kayakers, and jet skiers and paddle boarders – more than ever. Which reminded me that I haven’t done any of this lately. I’m not sure why. I used to bicycle a lot and roller blade, too, but don’t do that much either anymore.

For so many years I went to the beach daily, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for five hours, but it was almost a daily thing. I would go to different beaches, some to swim, some to layout, some to just eat lunch at a picnic table and then get back to work and so on. For many years I met my friends on the boardwalk on Miami Beach late in the afternoon after work and we would run – then go to happy hour – not a great combination, but that was our life!

Sometimes I would go alone and hang out on the boardwalk until it got dark. I used to love the tranquility and the twilight hour being at the beach. Then I would head home and do it all again the next day.