Comics

Stan and Silver send the kids comics twice a month which are devoured. Eitan prefers "Denise The Menace" while Madeleine loves "The Knight Life" and "Dagwood" which, I tell her, reminds me of Roger. I think it is because of Dagwood's Sunday naps on the coach, which Roger and I used to do in the living room of his flat in San Francisco by Golden Gate Park on a week-end after a run with the sun shining through the window. Nothing to worry about accept a Chinese and some video or a movie. How did life get so complicated? My favorite comics BTW are "Doonsbury" and "Dilbert" which is sheer genius for capturing the sadistic, absurd, repetitive and meaningless nature of a corporate existence. And then makes it uproarious (Madeleine is upset with me as I blog since I promised her "a wish" for the above photo but, when she asks for a goldfish, I balk. She now stomps by me sending laser beams of hate). I read them every day in the IHT which is a highlight of the newspaper (am I the last to take this medium?).

Back in the day, when I was a paper boy for the now defunct Berkeley Gazette (this would be 6th grade), at the end of my route I treated myself to a Marathon Bar and the comics, which I read under a shady tree on some cement steps leading to nearby Hillside Park in the North Berkeley Hills. Usually there was a game of "prison ball" or touch football going on; or we were climbing one of the Redwoods for a spectacular view of the Bay from way up high. The older kids were getting stoned. Ah, yes, I indulge. A number of the comics from then remain with us now: "Sally Worth," "For Better Or For Worse," and the worst comic of all time: "Garfield." I guess the lasagna loving cat makes people smile somehow. It certainly is not the humour.

Madeleine argues for a pet fish after I tell her we have goldfish in the pond and tadpoles in the kitchen:
"Number one: I want one in my room.
Number two: I will clean it as much as Tommy.
Number three: Tadpoles are not a fish, they are a bug.
Number four: if you give me £12 I will pay for it.
Number five: "I loved Bubbles, Flipper, Gill and Speedo" (all deceased, three buried in the backyard while Speedo flushed down the toilet).