Weak-End

 

I believe there is a quote from Downton Abbey where the actress who played Professor McGonagall asks "what is a weekend?" (I haven't seen the show but I've seen enough clips to get the main gist of it I think) and after reading something about back-end development vs front-end, I came up with this comic. 

Explanation: In software development, there's front-end and back-end (among many other things). The character in this comic is adding a third option, weekend, i.e. do you prefer not being at work. There is a misunderstanding since "week" and "weak" sound the same. 

Text:
A: Do you prefer front-end, back-end, or weekend? :)
B: What is weak-end?

Accounting Book

This came up because my sister-in-law gave an adorable book to my daughter, and Lucy loves to "read" it and I find it enjoyable to read to her. You can guess the title by the blurb mentioned in the comic :) It actually does a surprisingly good summary of the book in just 10 pages, using the numbers 1-10. Also, it only has the number and the item (i.e. six fingers) with the illustration on each page, so I'm able to read it at the pace my daughter flips the pages (not a feat achievable in most books). 

Explanation: "a counting book" is a common book for young readers which teaches them to count, usually from 1 to 10. "accounting book" would be something a college student studying accounting would have, and would not be appropriate reading for a toddler. The two, however, sound the same. 

Text:
M: She's reading a counting book from her aunt.
N: An accounting book?!? She's two!!!
L: Six fingers!

Pomegranate Pool

 

I heard this fact and thought this thing. The tip is intending you to just put the pomegranate in like a bowl of water, submerged while you break it apart. Then the fruit juices don't squirt all over the place, leaving red streaks across your cabinets and ceilings and such. Fun times cleaning all that up. But I guess opening the fruit in a pool would qualify, it would just leave a red streaky mess in the pool and yeah that might be worse. 

Text:
A: I like pomegranates, but opening them up makes such a mess.
B: Oh, you can break them open under water to limit the juice spray!
A: So like, in the pool?

Spicy Ice Cream

 

So I was at my in-laws and my mom-in-law like plain vanilla ice cream but most others would prefer some mix-ins like chocolate chips or similar. However, the question was phrased just like so, and therefore I had to suggest some spices. Savory ice cream is... probably a thing? Now I need to look it up. So technically yes, there are savory ice creams but I disagree with the list HERE because I don't think some of them like the PB&J one count as savory - grape is a fruit and PB is used in many desserts? But yeah roasted garlic would be savory and also does not sound enjoyable to me. 

Text:
N: Bleh, plain vanilla ice cream. Do we have anything to spice this up?
L: Paprika?
N: ?!?
L: ... smoked paprika?

Cross-Country Snowboarding

So often when I'm talking with people, work comes up and I use to work in an office and I like what I did. But a few years ago I had a major change so now I'm not an office working software engineer. And often, I miss my programming days. But then I find some of the comics, like this one, that I wrote during my office days and I realize I'm not missing those annoying parts. So it's good to remember both the good and the bad of the past so you don't idolize it all rosy-like.

Explanation: You cannot move across a flat surface with both feet strapped into your snowboard. Well, you can but it involves jumping/lunging and that's exhausting. So cross-country skiing is totally a thing which is a real workout, but cross-country snowboarding would just be super frustrating and might be entertaining to watch. UPDATE: I am at least the second party to think of this sport because here's a video about this "sport." 

Text:
A: How is your job going?
B: Like I'm cross-country snowboarding. 

Rooting and Tooting

 

That's parenthood sometimes. Especially when you have a baby and a toddler. I looked up the meaning of "rootin', tootin'" and it seems to just be a phrase for the Wild West? Totally unrelated to small children, which was expected. As in, I expected them to be unrelated. I realize that sentence could read either way. 

Explanation: There's a phrase about the Wild West, "rootin', tootin'". When a baby is hungry and looking for food, it's called "rooting". When a toddler is gassy, it's called "tooting". 

Text:
Cowboy: What's it like, having a baby and a toddler?
L: He's rootin', she's tootin'. 

Slow to Speak and Wrath

 

So I don't know how else to draw a doctor - that's just how all medical professionals are gonna look in my stick-figure gallery. The verse referenced (ha) here is James 1:19. Also, a reminder that all kids progress on their own schedules which loosely align across the board but it's not a competition or whatever and there is variance across all categories. Also a reminder not to take verses out of context to prove your point - "slow to speak" in context means that you think before you speak rather than just blurting out whatever comes to mind. 

When we took my daughter in for her last checkup, we had some questionnaires to fill out about developmental milestones and they asked about speech, hearing, dexterity, and such but nothing asked about her taste buds and that's probably because toddlers are just weird with food - my girl was dipping her goldfish crackers into the yellow mustard we had for our pretzels and was loving the combo. Is cheesy-mustard a thing? I wouldn't know - I'm lactose intolerant. 

Text:
D: Your daughter is slow to speak.
M: Well, that's Biblical!
D: She's not slow to wrath.
M: Well, that's just judgmental.
L: bababa

Trust Fails

Something I've noticed when I draw my comics on cards and give them to people, is that they tend to be misread. I'm not sure how to fix that since many of my comics depend on clever wordplay, and if you're "lazy reading" then you're going to fill in the expected word instead of the similar but incorrect and therefore humorous word that makes the joke work. So focus on my artwork please! Or rather the text in my artwork. 

My husband Someone beta-read my comic and responded "yep, we have those at my work."

Did you know there's a bonus to my digital comics that my pen-and-paper ones don't have, and that is the mouseover? You can put your cursor over the comic and see some bonus text, usually a continuation of the joke in the comic but sometimes just a random thought I had - it's a tossup as to what you'll get there. 

Text:
A: Alright, line up over here for the trust fails!
B: ...You mean trust falls, right?
C: I'm gonna skip this one.

And They Never Learned Each Other's Names

 

So I confess that there was a guy in my previous neighborhood who had a dog names Jasper (like one of the foundations of the New Jerusalem, per the owner) and every time I saw them walking I always remembered the dog's name but totally forgot the owner's name. For whatever reason, it can be easier to remember cute kid's and pet's names but adult's names just go in one ear and out the other. 

Text:
Title: And They Never Learned Each Other's Names
M: This is Zoey. (walking a dog)
L: Aw, this is Lucy! (holding hand of toddler)

Things I Am Not Bold Enough to Try Part 1

 

Will this be a new series, like my I Don't Know How to Respond in This Type of Situation series? Maybe, if I think of more ideas that I'm not bold enough to try. I believe I've mentioned Throckmorton in a previous comic, but the name is from a school textbook talking about "your cousin Throckmorton, a skateboarder." It's just a very bold name. I jokingly mentioned naming my son Throckmorton and my brother had the proper response of "he'll be skateboarding by six months." 

Explanation: I just want to know how someone would respond if I told them my kid's name was one of the ones I jokingly picked out (like Luigi or Vashti).

Text:
Title: Things I am not bold enough to try
A: Your son is so cute - what's his name?
L: Throckmorton. 

One Who Lives

 

Happy almost Birthday to my niece and Grandma!
Who else plays Wordle? Who else struggles when coming up with a word and thinks, that can't be a word, when it's clearly a basic word? The word was "anger" for me a few days ago - I thought "One who angs? What does that even mean???" But thinking of "liver" makes me think of "deliver" which reminds me of a joke where the nurse says they're going to deliver the baby but the parents say they want their baby to keep their liver. 

Explanation: sometimes when you stare at a word too long, it really doesn't seem like it's spelled correctly or is a real word. At least that's how it works with me. If a driver is one who drives, then a liver should be one who lives. But is a river one who rives? 

Text:
A: "Liver" - what kind of word is that?
B: One who lives.

Nameless Wife of Noah

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! And Happy Birthday to my niece!

Explanation: In the Biblical account about Noah, his sons' names are Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The phrase "such a ham" means someone who over-acts it seems? It's a weird phrase and now that I've looked into it I don't feel better about it. This comic is highlighting that parents tend to mix up their kids' names. I remember hearing a song a few years ago where the singer bemoaned that his mom would call him a string of all the kids' and pets' names. It's the classic kid-in-a-large-family experience but I guess I'll find out if just having two kids means I'll still mix up their names. 

Text:
NW: You are such a ham!
J: Mom, I'm Japheth.

Battleship with the Pimpernel, Part 2

 

Blog Update! Well, RSS Email update to be specific - if you have signed up to get my emails, so each time a new comic posts you get an email, you will see it coming from a new address. This is because I finally not only opened a specific ComicalTrueStory email account, but also fixed my MailChimp issue so now I can use the new account with the scheduled emails. So if you see something off with how the email is being sorted in your inbox, that could be the culprit. It's still me here! Just a new email address.

Happy Anniversary to my parents! When they came to visit recently, we watched this movie and I was inspired to write some comics. While the 1980's movie is great, my classic memory of The Scarlet Pimpernel is the Wishbone episode, which sadly isn't linked in the Wiki article so maybe I'll rectify that someday. 

Explanation: In the movie, the Scarlet Pimpernel's alter-ego Sir Percy likes to quote a poem about said Pimpernel: "They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenches seek him everywhere...."

Text:
Title: Battleship with the Pimpernel, Part 2

C: C2
P: They seek him here, they seek him there-
C: Just say miss!

Battleship with the Pimpernel, Part 1

 

So we watched this classic film a little bit ago and I've never read the book so I can't say if it's a good rendition of the novel but it is a good movie. There is a bit of violence since it is the French Revolution so people are getting beheaded quite a bit. The Battleship game was invented in the early 1900's per Wiki, so they would not have been playing it during the French Revolution, but the actors could have been playing it in the 1980's while filming the movie. 

Explanation: In the 1980's movie The Scarlet Pimpernel, the main actor's catchphrase is "Sink me" said with an accent. In the table top game Battleship, your goal is to sink your opponent's battleships, and when you land enough hits they have to tell you it's sunk. 

Text:
Title: Battleship with the Pimpernel, Part 1
C: B5
P: Sink meh!

Train Wreck on Horizon

 

So I get that it's helpful to know what's coming up, but please remember that parenting (at any level but especially an infant) is hard and you should let people enjoy where they are instead of bringing up how it's going to get worse. We know it's going to get worse - that's just how life works until we get to glory. Try to focus on how things will get better - help the sleep-deprived parents see the positive rather than the negative. 

Text:
L: I'm glad he's sleeping for four-hour stretches at night.
N: Well, just wait till - 
L: NO! I am enjoying this moment - do not draw my attention to the train wreck on the horizon.