road: Browse The Strips

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Whenever someone or something goes missing, we are programmed to think the worst. Maybe it's the news or the stuff we see on television that makes us panic, but we find ourselves preparing for the most awful of outcomes - just in case! When Farley disappeared I wondered if he had been stolen - but someone loading his dirty, hairy, odiferous butt into their vehicle was pretty hard to imagine!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Lynn's Comments: The trip we took by train from Winnipeg to Vancouver was worth recording. Even without a daily chronicle, I would have written this stuff down. It began with telling the kids - far too soon - we were going on holiday. Things became even more "exciting" as we prepared to be en route.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Once again, I sort of threw a shot at Rod. I often made remarks suggesting that he was less than supportive, when in reality he encouraged me to do what I wanted to do. I ran a small business, had my own income and made my own decisions, but I wanted Elly to be more like the person I might have been. I loaded her with some of the baggage that I might have carried and made her a bit pathetic, sometimes. Maybe it was an effort to separate her from me - or maybe there was something I was trying to hide. I don't know, but that's the way it was!

Friday, September 9, 2011

Lynn's Comments: I did not feel guilty for leaving Aaron at the Dundas daycare centre. Not until he was sick! Nothing makes you feel negligent and helpless like a call from the daycare to say your child is sick and calling for you. I was lucky to have an understanding boss. Looking at my reflection in the rear view mirror, I remember thinking- "To heck with all the powers they come up with in the comic books- a REAL superhero would be someone who could be in two places at once!"

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Here is where my imagination took me for a ride. Running out of gas on the way to the hospital appealed to me. Typically, I had no idea what the outcome of my contrived situations would be, so this was like living through the real incident: "What happens now?"

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My first ex husband always wanted a Porsche. Although we never bought one (a house came first) we went often to look at them. It occurred to me at the time that this was not the kind of vehicle in which one could fit groceries, nor would I fit if I were 9 months pregnant. I was being practical... and Porsche and practical aren't usually found in the same sentence!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Lynn's Comments: We didn't get a Porsche, but we did buy a second hand Volkswagen. This is an image reminiscent of a time when we crammed three chums in the back seat and went for a drive. Needless to say, it was a short one.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Aaron did ask why we didn't have another baby and my explanation was that we had sold the crib. In a way it's true. If you have even the slightest positive thought about having another, you store the stuff. With this in mind, however, I have friends who kept everything "just in case" and are now offering cribs and jolly jumpers to their married, adult children!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Lynn's Comments: The truth is- I felt no guilt in taking Katie and Aaron to day care. They both thrived on the company of other children and enjoyed the change of scene. I too, needed a break - which, in turn, made me a happier mom. Happy moms make happy kids. For us, it was all good.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Lynn's Comments: This offense took place on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg. I had been driving in a small, northern town for so long--where there were few cars and no traffic lights--that I had actually forgotten how to drive in city traffic.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Lynn's Comments: Two prominent features of the prairies are the endless flat spaces and long, straight roads. A city person might wonder why cars and trucks cruise these roads at a snail's pace, but it's all part of the job. Farmers like to drive slowly and do their "crop-watching," while searching the horizon for rain. It often seemed that crop watching was more important than getting to where you were actually planning to go!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Lynn's Comments: Because this storyline took place in late October, I had to make up something that would cover both the houseware party and Halloween. Imagining that John had picked up a costume for Michael created an opportunity to have some fun.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Lynn's Comments: Whenever we kids went into dad's shop, we were told "Look, but don't touch." He'd also say, "You can't break something by looking at it." One day, I was looking at the corrugated board my mother used for stringing pearls. One of the services our business provided was the cleaning and restringing of quality bead necklaces--and Mom was an expert at this. I couldn't help myself, I had to run my fingers down a row of pearls just to see what they felt like. The row of pearls rolled off the groove of the board onto the floor with a wild tinkling clatter. Dad spun around when he heard them fall and ran towards me. "Honest! ... I was just LOOKING!" I told him. We both got down on the floor--desperate to find each and every one before Mom could see what had happened. Unfortunately, she returned before we finished picking up the pearls, and as her eyes fell on me, with his usual comic timing, Dad looked up at her and cried, "Honest ... I was just LOOKING!"

Monday, December 17, 2012

Lynn's Comments: One of the things I loved about my dad was that he took things in stride. He didn't get too upset when something got broken. Stuff, after all, was just stuff, and what couldn't be repaired could be replaced. As long as it hadn't been maliciously done, occasional breakage was not a big deal. We did, after all, have a gift shop, and china got broken in transit all the time.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Lynn's Comments: These cartoons were done after we moved from Lynn Lake to North Bay, Ontario. After being part of a regularly scheduled exercise group in a space I could walk to, I was now 20 minutes away from a gym and had no friends to work out with. In an effort to guilt myself into exercising again, I drew these and published them knowing full well I was doing nothing at all!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Lynn's Comments: This scenario wasn't part of our family history. I took this idea from another mom whose household was constantly augmented by other people's pets--as well as the occasional school mascot needing a temporary roost. Sallie and Frank had two dogs, a cat , and a parakeet, so folks needing kennel space often asked these kind folks to take in another jowl to feed.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Lynn's Comments: The creation of "the dollar store" has been a boon to the party-organizing moms of North America. If there's more in a package than we need, the cost is minimal. Besides, you can always use the leftovers later. On more than one occasion, I have served adult guests using Sesame Street paper plates!

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Lynn's Comments: It was so hard to let Aaron get onto that plane alone. We worried about him all day. He had to change planes three times, and even though he was being monitored by friends and friendly airline staff, we couldn't sit still until he had safely arrived.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Lynn's Comments: Guilt is a wonderful thing--It makes us honest, it makes us humble. It makes us apologize. In my opinion, in this world, there just isn't enough of it!

Monday, November 3, 2014

Lynn's Comments: The malapropisms kids use while learning the language are so much fun. Words like "awfuls" for "waffles" and "Anointed Stakes of America" made me laugh out loud. My mother told me she once wrote an essay on the copulation of Canada and how it grew bigger after the first world war. I never thought I'd get away with using that one, but I did.