Happy Birthday, Graham Harrop!

What’s on my mind? One of the definitions of “brilliance” is “exceptional talent or intelligence.” My definition is unequivocal: Canadian cartoonist Graham Harrop. 

Photo © The North Shore News, March 10, 2017 

Graham’s celebrating a Big Birthday, today. Although I live quite far from him and won’t be seeing him, I plan to jump up and down to congratulate him, anyway. I’ve had the pleasure and the privilege of knowing this fine young man more than 20 years, which is why I can say without hesitation or exaggeration that Graham is gifted in a way most people are not. 

Without violating his privacy - Graham’s a shy and modest person - I think of Graham Harrop as an angel walking this earth. You can’t say that about most people. As one of the kindest, most ethical, and most thoughtful people I know, Graham Harrop is incredibly special. 

He and Annie, the love of his life, are a perfect match. She’s special, too. Because Graham is so modest and shy, I’m constrained from saying how I formed and kept that opinion over the years, but trust me, he is and she is. 

Graham’s cartoons appear on the editorial page of The Vancouver Sun every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The Sun is a newspaper that for decades has been known for the excellence of its cartoonists. Graham’s often-political work is crafted with kindness. It may be pointed, but rarely stings. Every day, Graham also pens the online comic strip Ten Cats, at https://www.gocomics.com/ten-cats. It’s a hoot! Graham sometimes manages to squeeze Annie into the strip, too, and has turned the strip into a number of books. Example?

https://books.google.ca/books?id=IzwzAgAAQBAJ&source=gbs_book_similarbooks.

Prediction: One day, Nicole may just learn how to do links. Both work, though ...

More important prediction: One day, this charmingly original comic strip just has to be a movie. 

As if all that output weren’t enough, Graham also illustrates books (including my co-written Never Say Diet!) as well as cartooning numerous corporate projects. 

Rather than yada-yada-yada about that, the simplest thing to do is present a few recent examples of his work. He’ll moi-duh me for drawing that much attention to him, but too bad, Harrop! So Happy Birthday, Graham Harrop! You’re a treasure, my friend.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Cartoon © Graham Harrop, 2019

Tourists: Leave While You Still Can

What’s on my mind? Small towns, of which there are many. 

We live in a village that pretends to be a town. We moved here from the Big City long enough ago that we’re no longer seen as “city folk,” probably because we passed the “tourist test” almost as soon as we arrived.

Oh, sure, we smile and offer directions, but mostly, we tolerate tourists in the knowledge that they’re “good for the economy,” as the locals reluctantly admit. That’s the “tourist test.” Acknowledge the positives of tourism while eagerly awaiting Autumn. 

Disguised in T-shirts, Bermuda shorts, flip-flops, and cameras, tourists lack all hope of blending in with the locals. They flock here every summer, jamming the roads, shops, parks, and campgrounds before - ZAP! They’re gone, off to Arizona for the winter. Which is a good thing. If they stayed any longer, they’d want to live here, and that just wouldn’t do. 

Our village’s dirty little secret is that we’re eager to see them go, which they’ll do when the first leaf drops and twilight starts one minute too soon for their liking. 

It’s then, when they depart en masse and the beaches and the roads clear out - then, and only then - we can resume our everyday pursuits such as puttering in our gardens, jigsaw-puzzling, and wondering why our neighbors Mr. Harris and Mrs. H haven’t invited us to see the new used car they bought on eBay (We’ve heard dark rumors about brakes, transmissions, and rusty frames. What can you expect for 350 bucks?).

The appeal of our village isn’t just its beaches (though they are nice, I must admit). The place has other charms. Like having only one traffic light. One. And free parking everywhere, of course.

The hardware store sells blueberries, figs, plums, and pears. Eggs, too. The seed store sells live chicks in the Spring. And the weekend markets sell live ducks. The bank stocks dog biscuits, for all who drop by. Dogs, I mean. No checking account required.

We’re off to the country fair, this weekend. My favorite event? The zucchini races. A bunch of zucchinis whoosh down a slide and ... Too complicated to explain to you Noo Yawkers and other pseudo-sophisticates. The chicken, duck, turkey, and goose races are pretty straightforward, as is the ladies' nail-driving contest. Would these things happen in the Big City? No-o-ope.

The bucks stop here. So do the doe-see-does and their fawns. And rabbits, raccoons, mink, foxes, marten, elk, and cougars. Bears, too. Mustn’t forget the bears! 

Maybe we should plaster posters on lamp-posts: UNWANTED: COUGARS AND BEARS. WE HAVE TOO MANY. I reckon that would move the tourists along, pretty fast.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

The Cult of Marilyn

What’s on my mind? She died 57 years ago today. What if she’d lived? Imagine her now, at 93! Would she have been a recluse, as Zsa Zsa Gabor was? Would she have been ugly, loud, and xenophobic, like the still-living Brigitte Bardot? Surely not! 

There was a sweetness about Marilyn Monroe - a sweetness even her mother’s mental instability and the multiple foster homes of her childhood and all the men she loved couldn’t knock out of her.  

Maybe she wasn’t such a stable type. Maybe not. Her first marriage lasted four years. Her second, a year. Her third, five years. One year later, she was dead at 36. Candle in the wind, long gone, yet still a money-maker through the posters, magazines, T-shirts, photos, books, fridge magnets, and movies from which she stares out at the world - in death, larger than life.

The adulation! No one would have thought it possible the glorification of her image would continue to this day. It is the sort of reverence one might bestow upon Nobel prize winners whose actions and words have touched and saved and inspired millions - if only we could remember the Nobel winners’ names.

Everyone remembers her name: “There’s Marilyn!” someone calls. And sure enough, there she is - mouth slightly open, eyes confronting the camera, dyed blond ’50s curls tumbling down, as in the Carole King song: 

I feel the earth move under my feet

I feel the sky tumbling down, a’tumbling down,

A’tumbling down, a’tumbling down, a’tumbling down, a’tumbling down, tumbling down!

That was Marilyn, for sure. A’tumbling down, whether painted into a skin-tight dress, wiggling and whisper-singing  “Happy Birthday, Mister President,” or a’tumbling down that lonely night she died at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood, Los Angeles; naked in bed, one hand on the telephone receiver, an overdose of barbiturates swirling in her system.

. 

Google “Marilyn” and the fascination of people around the world is evident: “How much did Marilyn Monroe’s weight?” asks one of many. That single word brings up her quotes, movies, birth date and name, height, age, dress, and ex-husbands’ names. Google her first and last name to access a treasure trove of minutiae. 

In the weeks after her death, Andy Warhol completed a famous diptych of her memorable face. I saw it once, in London. Everyone wanted to see it. It was a shine; a way of being in her presence; of feeling close to her. A Warhol painting called “Orange Marilyn” recently fetched more than $17 million. Marilyn Monroe: Our Mona Lisa, but with a definable price tag.

Her movies endure. Of those who saw Some Like It Hot, for instance, it’s a safe bet more movie lovers under 40 have forgotten her co-stars - Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon - than her. No one can forget Marilyn, just as no one can forget Elvis. Had he lived, he would now be 84 - perhaps revered; perhaps a parody of himself.

Marilyn and Elvis inhabit their own Universe. He also died in August, naked, 15 years after she did. In death, he is also larger than life. Each earns more now than during their brief stay on this earth.

Nighty-night, Norma Jeane. Nighty-night, Elvis Aaron. 

Sleep tight … Don’t let those damned bed bugs bite.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Secrets of the Stainless Steel Test Kitchens ...

What’s on my mind? Dreams are like spark plugs. They can move you from Eh? to Be. Do you dream in color, and along story lines? I do. 

Last night, Himself prepared one of my favorite dinners: Grandpa’s Secret Macaroni and Cheese: 

https://nicoleparton.blogspot.com/2011/12/grandpas-secret-macaroni.html

He invented this terrific recipe, but lately, the cheese has seemed a little runny. Too much cheese? Too much milk? He wasn’t sure. Next time, he said, he wouldn’t guess, but would measure the cheese precisely.

Dull-witted gum-snapper that I am, I didn’t give this much thought. Hey! As long as someone’s willing to make and serve me dinner, I’m not about to complain. 

(Chug-chug-chug … Sound of brain processing cheese problem overnight.)

Voilà! I sprang from bed at 5:45. The answer had come in a dream! We would … 

• Grate two portions of cheese, one weighing slightly more than the other.
• Place each quantity of cheese in an identical plastic container.
• Build two side-by-side chutes, the same length and width, with a gate not far from the inside of each, rodeo-style. 
• Duct-tape the containers of cheese onto the backs of two mice of identical weight and age. 
• Place one mouse in each chute (the smell of cheese on their backs driving them into a frenzy). 
• Fire a gun (BLAM!) as we simultaneously raise the gates so each mouse can race to the bottom of its chute. The first to arrive will have the correct quantity of cheese on its back for Himself to use in his recipe. (Bonus: It’s already grated! All Himself has to do is un-duct the winning mouse and use the cheese in his recipe.)

So that we wouldn’t have to bend over too far, we wouldn’t conduct this scientific experiment on the floor, but on the kitchen counter. 

My first thought on waking was: Where does Himself keep the duct tape? My second was: RATS! We don’t have any mice. My third was: The best-laid plans of mice and men aft gang agley …

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Cliché of the Day

What’s on my mind? Words. I wrote about words a couple of days ago, but they’re still on my mind. In an astonishing coincidence, I’m using them now!

When I was a fetching lass in crinolines and lace, tending my goat herd while singing: “The hills are alive …!” (Oh, dear ... That was someone else), I referred to stuff that was cool as “Mint!” Fifty years later, “mint” is dead and “cool” (pronounced “Kew-wel!”) is hot.

Words change - often very fast. I once heard a senator say “move the goal posts” when those words were newly crafted. I thought she was a genius. She is, but not because of those three words, which (I’m always the last to know) were already a cliché. In the same breath, she said: “level playing field.” 

“Wo-o-w!” I thought. Once again, I’m always the last to know.

It turned out the entire English-speaking world was saying “level playing field” - including people on the prairies and the plains, where every field is flatter than my Uncle Stanley’s jokes. The expression is now out of vogue, but tuck it into the back of your linguistic closet because - like that tatty old fur coat you used to wear, it may come back. 

I’m immediately suspicious when someone says: “To be honest ...” Was s/he lying before? Or was s/he relying on a cliché? 

When we aren’t falling into clichés, we’re messing with their spelling: “Yet doe I feare thy Nature. It is too full o’ th’ Milke of humane kindnesse.” 

That’s Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, kvetching that the Laird’s a softie. Today, she’d say: “Get with the program!”  Ooops! That was in the ’70s and ’80s. 

It’s comforting to know “the milk of human kindness” remains in the language 412 years later. That’s one thing about Shakespeare ... His work was loaded with clichés. 

As one writer to another ... If your work comes trippingly to the brain, take a break. You may be writing in clichés. I offer that advice without self-aggrandizement, but through the milk of human kindness.

© Nicole Parton, 2019 

Knock-Knock! Booze There?

What’s on my mind? Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. 

I’ll call him Anonymous, though he’s a real guy and this hard-to-believe story is true in every detail. For one thing, he’s still traumatized by what happened when he worked for me. For another, if I told you his name, he’d probably sue me.

Anonymous is a carpenter - an honest Jacques-of-all trades who rescued me from the incompetents and crooks I’d originally hired to renovate the small, but beautiful, apartment I once called home.

I’ll begin at the beginning. The whole thing started because I thought Anonymous was dead. In fact, I was so sure he’d flat-lined that I called the police to arrange for the coroner to remove his body ... but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

My daughter owns a Big City loft apartment. I’m afraid of heights and don’t like the idea that she scaled a 10-foot ladder to climb into bed, because I think that’s scary and I felt sure she’d break her neck.

My daughter and Anonymous are old friends, so she lent him her apartment while he renovated mine and she visited friends in New York. Anonymous is steady and reliable, but he enjoys the occasional tipple. A triple tipple, perhaps. During the time that steady, reliable Anonymous worked for me and stayed at her place, he suddenly went AWOL. 

One day passed ... then two. I called Anonymous at my daughter’s place. No answer. I called his cell phone. No answer there, either. His message box was full. Anonymous had vanished.

I began to think dark thoughts. In my mind’s eye, I saw a boozy, woozy Anonymous miss a rung of the ladder up to my daughter’s loft-bed, only to crash to his death. If not that, then perhaps Anonymous rolled over in his sleep and - WHAMMO! Either way, I figured he was a goner. 

But what if Anonymous weren’t dead? What if the fall had broken his neck, or left him paralyzed on the floor, unable to call for help? I banged on the door of my daughter’s apartment. Silence!

It’s amazing how fast the police will swarm a place when a woman reports a dead guy (“I’m pretty sure he's dead, but you’re more experienced than I am at that sort of thing”) in her daughter’s apartment (“You’ve got it all wrong ... It’s my daughter’s apartment ... I didn’t kill him ...”).  

I wondered if the officers might know of any good carpenters, but didn’t think it was a good time, given that the officers were pondering a homicide, suicide, or (Whoopsie!) death by ladder.

The officers ham-fisted my daughter’s door, yelling for Anonymous to “Open up!” He didn’t. The apartment was quiet as ... well, quiet as a tomb. 

Anonymous was the only person who had my daughter’s spare key, so the police started talking about a battering ram. I thought I’d better give my daughter a heads-up in New York to let her know she’d soon be the lucky recipient of free air-conditioning.

“Call a locksmith!” she screamed. I didn’t know a telephone could sound that loud over long distance.

The police agreed to hold off until the locksmith arrived. He showed up at the building’s front entrance at the very moment that Anonymous - in the flesh - sauntered through the building’s back entrance. 

With so much happening at once and everyone appearing at once and with my being half-crazy with worry, I pointed to Anonymous and screamed: “That’s him! That’s the man!”

Acting on instinct, two police officers sailed through the air like balletic footballers, landing squarely on Anonymous, who - with a muffled scream - went down like a sack of potatoes. 

It took a few minutes to straighten things out. The police went on their way once Anonymous explained he’d indeed had a drink, and another, and another. He’d slept it off and lost track of the time, until a couple of days - okay, call it four - slid past. 

I red-facedly paid the locksmith $110 for services no longer required. 

Anonymous wasn’t keen to work for me after that, and I had to hire someone else. Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen him since.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Metaphysicality (or Something Like That)

What’s on my mind? Words. 

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 1872.

Words are the building blocks of language. Most of us use many. Some, we speak. Some, we write - whether in anger or meant as a joke or muttered while we’re asleep. We throw words around like medicine balls, hoping they’ll “teach someone a thing or two” or we’ll learn something when the balls bounce back.

As a writer, I look up many words a week - quite often, words I already know. Why do that? For the same reason every writer or wannabe writer does - to check the word’s alternate spellings, its translation to or from another language, and its shaded meanings. 

To “run” suggests speed, but not distance; to “sprint” suggests a burst of speed, with a distance implied as short. From running and sprinting, the jump to synonyms (related words with the same or shaded meanings) is quick and fun, just as meandering into the thicket of antonyms (words that mean the opposite of “run”) can also be fun.

I bury my nose in a dictionary several times a day, and thank Mr., Ms., and Dr. Dictionary Writers for the work they do.

One of the countless words I don’t know well enough is “metaphysical.” I think it means “abstract,” but then I’d need to look up “abstract” for its precise definition. No point guessing ... I turned to an online dictionary to check. 

“Metaphysical”: 

met·a·phys·i·cal

/ˌmedəˈfizək(ə)l/

Learn to pronounce

(A good start ... )

adjective

1. 1. 

   
   

   relating to metaphysics.

   
   

   “the essentially metaphysical question of the nature of the mind”

   • 
     

     
     

     
     
   • 
     

     
     

     
     
2. 2. 

   of or characteristic of the metaphysical poets.

noun

1. 1. 

   Metaphysical; plural noun: Metaphysicals; plural noun: the Metaphysicals

   
   

   ERK!
   

   
   Now that everyone knows how to define this word, let’s move on to synonyms and antonyms, shall we?
   Let’s also find whichever Mr., Ms., or Dr. Lunkhead penned this so-called “definition” and toss the word right back, like a medicine ball.

   
   PS: “Metaphysicality” (the word in my headline) is a made-up word.
   
   © Nicole Parton, 2019

Tell It to the Giraffe

Yesterday started well enough, but by the time it ended, I felt like the town fool. I was the town fool. Before I tell you what happened, I’ll preface this story by saying that I had surgery for a brain tumor, a few years ago.

In case you were wondering, I survived. But I now take the Arnold Schwarzenegger of brain medications to keep myself ticking.

The afternoon found me stuffing mushrooms (Tra-lee, Tra-la!) for a party to which we’d been invited. Happily in mushroom-mode, I realized my recipe needed walnuts, and took some from the Highly Organized Chockful o’ Nuts box I keep in the freezer.

What did I also find in the box? Two large chocolate macaroons, sitting by their lonesome, next to the chockful o’ nuts.

“Gee,” I said to myself, “When did I make these? 1952? 1983? Last month?” I’d forgotten I had.

Carrying them into the kitchen, I took a bite. It was spectacular! So I took more bites until I’d eaten the whole thing. “I must find that recipe,” I thought. I eyed the second macaroon. “Mmmm …”

But then, being the generous type, I decided to share this unexpected largesse with Himself, all the while secretly hoping he’d pass, so I could eat the second macaroon, too.

“Look what I found in the freezer!” I said, holding out the macaroon.

He looked at it and screamed: “Where’s the other one?”

(“Ahhhhh, this must be his secret stash!” I thought.)

“I ate it,” I beamed.

“No-o-o-o!” he screamed again. “They’re $6 each!”

(So I *hadn’t* made them?) “That’s a lot to pay for macaroons,” I thought.

“They’re CANNABIS!”

“Wha-a-a?” I’ve never used cannabis or any other drug in my life. Except for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daily medication.

“You ate the whole thing?” he screamed again.

“Yeth,” I said.

“You’re going to get high!”

I blinked. “As in … drugs??? I am! I can feel it! My head’s starting to hurt!”

“Not yet! It’s going to take awhile!”

“Oh,” I said, instantly feeling better.

Himself explained these macaroons were medicinal, but nonetheless contained THC or BBC or whatever it is that gives them their impotence. He said he uses the stuff to offset the headaches he still gets following an accident in which some idiot threw him 5 ft. (metric-schemtric!) off his bike three years ago.

(The driver claimed she couldn’t see him. No wonder … He was wearing a fluorescent vest, a helmet, had front and rear blinking lights on his bike, was in a marked crosswalk and had made eye contact with her. Perhaps she’d overdosed on macaroons.)

I returned to my mushroom-stuffing, fortunately finishing the job before … WHAMMO!

I was instantly 3/4s (or maybe 5/6ths) out of my mind. I can’t bear to think what would have happened if I’d eaten both macaroons. I’d probably have run downtown naked.

This would have fazed no one (except, maybe, our neighbor Mr. Harris, who tends to be the excitable kind. That’s what Mrs. H says, anyway. Mr. Harris is easily excited).

Half our neighbors are growing cannabis in their front yards, bold as brass. Mrs. H even braids it in her hair. She looks like Zeus. Mr. Harris brews cannabis tea. No one wants to drink it because they’re afraid of becoming addicts. Even Mr. Harris won’t drink it. He just wants the neighbors to think he’s “cool.”

For awhile, I couldn’t even talk after eating that macaroon. All I could do was make clicking sounds as I smacked into walls and fell down. I remember thinking to myself: “You shouldn’t sign any contracts right now …”

Said Himself: “It’s impossible to hallucinate on what you’ve just had.”

I told him to tell it to the giraffe. I’d morphed into one and was nibbling leaves at the top of a very tall tree.

I saw and heard things I tried to remember but immediately forgot. I fell asleep for what seemed hours, only to see the clock had advanced just two minutes.

I didn’t make it to the party. Himself did, as I - using some weird new Morse code I’d invented - clicked him to do exactly that.

It took three hours for my head to clear. Even then, when it was time for my evening dose of brain medication, I regressed - looking, behaving, and feeling like a total idiot. I was pretty much okay until I took this morning’s medication, when my mind slowed and my memory slipped.

Clever detective that I am, I realized that anyone on meds as strong as mine should never, ever eat chocolate macaroons.

Even now … I was trying to remember something a minute ago but have already forgotten what I tried to remember.

Worst of all, I was having a Crisis Hair Day. I lassoed an invisible stranger to put an invisible bowl over my head and snip-snip-snip. I now look like Little Lulu, buzzed on macaroons.

© Nicole Parton, 2019