Well, the bad news is, I do owe Vanderbilt $570. The good news is, they’ll take it on installment, so I’ll be paying it off in increments of no less than $50 a month. How nice of them.
I’m essentially healed from the week’s earlier small maladies, and that’s good. I’m ready for whatever the weekend brings. Matt’s birthday is Sunday. I’m picking up his present today, and I’ll have to reveal what that is at a later time, because while he’s a sporadic reader, this would inevitably be the one time he peeked in unprompted. He doesn’t mean to spoil surprises, but he just can’t help it.
We’ve had a fun week watching the Tour de France. Matt set up my bike on the trainer so I could get used to riding without the threat of hitting pavement. I like to pretend I’m climbing the Alps, but in fact, the small seat on the bike makes my large seat hurt after a very short time. OK, I know, I know – it’s called a saddle. Whatever.
We’re hitting the Scratch and Dent Sale at REI tomorrow – I keep hoping for some sandals. I miss my Birkenstocks. Given that my little reddish orange ones are the only sandals I have left, I spend an inordinate amount of time manipulating my weekend wardrobe to accommodate them. Can you blame me? I have hard-to-fit hooves, so finding a sweet pair of kicks is critical. The bad news is, they don’t sell Birkenstocks at REI anymore.
Nothing more to say, I guess.
Actually, I do have something to say. Dammit.
OK, so as you may know, I am something of a comic strip fiend. I actively follow about a dozen strips, and I know more of the backstory for Funky Winkerbean than I should probably admit.
So, on Monday, one of my regulars, which, actually is a spinoff of the aforementioned Winkerbean, took an unexpected turn. The strip is Crankshaft, and it follows the life of a cranky elderly school bus driver.
Last week, he was on an ice cream truck, taking a route for the summer. Then on Monday, he was slumped over in a wheelchair, connected to oxygen, sitting in a nursing home. An aide is getting him ready to attend a ballgame. The entire week is interspersed with flashbacks of him as a young man playing Minor League ball, then taking his kids to games, and finally now in real time, he's at the Little League game watching a kid play:
Now, we haven't seen the full face, but the clothes, nose and hair indicate that the guy is Crankshaft. I believe the kid to be the son of one of his old bus riders - a teen mother named Angel who he looked after a little and she named her kid after him.
But, Tom Batuik is kind of known for pulling these asshole sucker punches where he gets you worked up and drops you on your ass. Actually, he used to write intelligent, moving plots - now he's just into emotional fuckstickery.
So, it's not that I want the old man to be incapacitated. Although, to be fair - he was a WWII vet, so let's assume that he's well into his 80's unless we're doing some sort of timewarpy thing.
Either way, I'll be watching and I'm invested, so I guess Batuik is getting what he wants.
I’m essentially healed from the week’s earlier small maladies, and that’s good. I’m ready for whatever the weekend brings. Matt’s birthday is Sunday. I’m picking up his present today, and I’ll have to reveal what that is at a later time, because while he’s a sporadic reader, this would inevitably be the one time he peeked in unprompted. He doesn’t mean to spoil surprises, but he just can’t help it.
We’ve had a fun week watching the Tour de France. Matt set up my bike on the trainer so I could get used to riding without the threat of hitting pavement. I like to pretend I’m climbing the Alps, but in fact, the small seat on the bike makes my large seat hurt after a very short time. OK, I know, I know – it’s called a saddle. Whatever.
We’re hitting the Scratch and Dent Sale at REI tomorrow – I keep hoping for some sandals. I miss my Birkenstocks. Given that my little reddish orange ones are the only sandals I have left, I spend an inordinate amount of time manipulating my weekend wardrobe to accommodate them. Can you blame me? I have hard-to-fit hooves, so finding a sweet pair of kicks is critical. The bad news is, they don’t sell Birkenstocks at REI anymore.
Nothing more to say, I guess.
Actually, I do have something to say. Dammit.
OK, so as you may know, I am something of a comic strip fiend. I actively follow about a dozen strips, and I know more of the backstory for Funky Winkerbean than I should probably admit.
So, on Monday, one of my regulars, which, actually is a spinoff of the aforementioned Winkerbean, took an unexpected turn. The strip is Crankshaft, and it follows the life of a cranky elderly school bus driver.
Last week, he was on an ice cream truck, taking a route for the summer. Then on Monday, he was slumped over in a wheelchair, connected to oxygen, sitting in a nursing home. An aide is getting him ready to attend a ballgame. The entire week is interspersed with flashbacks of him as a young man playing Minor League ball, then taking his kids to games, and finally now in real time, he's at the Little League game watching a kid play:
Now, we haven't seen the full face, but the clothes, nose and hair indicate that the guy is Crankshaft. I believe the kid to be the son of one of his old bus riders - a teen mother named Angel who he looked after a little and she named her kid after him.
But, Tom Batuik is kind of known for pulling these asshole sucker punches where he gets you worked up and drops you on your ass. Actually, he used to write intelligent, moving plots - now he's just into emotional fuckstickery.
So, it's not that I want the old man to be incapacitated. Although, to be fair - he was a WWII vet, so let's assume that he's well into his 80's unless we're doing some sort of timewarpy thing.
Either way, I'll be watching and I'm invested, so I guess Batuik is getting what he wants.
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