Category Archives: humor

The Corkscrew & The New Manager

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I haven’t had much time to cartoon since I became a manager of the Drift Inn in January, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had lots of laughs. Sometimes I feel as though I’m in the middle of a sitcom and Candid Cameras must be lurking somewhere. Take this exchange from the other evening:

“We need more corkscrews,” Tamara, one of our servers said to me during a dinner rush.

“How many do we have?” I asked.

“One.”

“Shouldn’t a restaurant that has a storeroom filled floor to ceiling with wine bottles have more than one corkscrew?” I asked. Continue reading →

2017 in Review

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December 2017, Waldport, Oregon

Dear Friends and Family,

10:16 am August 21st was one of the highlights of my year, the moment the moon totally blotted out the sun in my backyard. The lead up to the eclipse was pretty amazing too. “What about the dead bodies?” a local asked. “They’re expecting millions here. Statistically, the number of people who die per million every day must outnumber the number of refrigerators the morgue has.” In the end, only a few thousand came to our county of 45,000. None died that I know of. I think people were scared off by expectations of Highway 101 turning into a parking lot and a 50% chance of clouds. I’m decorating my Christmas tree with Eclipse Glasses. Continue reading →

Mad Marshmallow Disease & Other Fireside Stories

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“What do you really do at the hotel?” is one of the questions I was asked most often this summer at the Overleaf Lodge.

“This is it,” I’d say. “Giving a nature walk and then watching the sunset and whales while tending a camp fire and passing out the fixings for s’mores. Those are my only jobs at the hotel.” Continue reading →

Waldport Solar Eclipse Report

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When I woke this morning and saw gray out my window I thought, “Rats. Should have joined the masses who drove east.” August 21st mornings in Waldport, Oregon historically have been cloudy 50% of the time.

Sammy, not understanding my malaise, wanted his usual morning romp, so like most other mornings I poured a cup of coffee into a travel mug and walked the half-mile to the Alsea Bay. When I got there it was so foggy I couldn’t see the bridge. Double rats.

I turned around and could see something shining through the clouds and snapped a picture. Continue reading →

The Pole Vaulting Whale

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A Modern Fable

Once upon a time a whale qualified for the United States Olympics Pole Vaulting Team. The Russians objected and accused the U.S. of exploiting a dumb fish for capitalistic purposes.

The whale said in song that he wasn’t a fish, that he was a mammal, and that he wasn’t dumb. To prove the latter he sang Hamlet’s soliloquy. A judging panel of Shakespearian scholars gave him a score of 2 saying it wasn’t the worst recitation they’d ever heard, but it was flawed due to improper inflection. Continue reading →

I Hate Computer Updates

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Sometime in the late 1960s or early ‘70s when I was at East Lansing High School we learned how to use a slide ruler and—no joke—went on a field trip to see a computer.

When I was a freshman at the University of Michigan in 1974 I was one of only a handful of students who had a calculator in my introductory physics class. It was a Texas Instrument SR-10, a graduation gift from my parents that could add, subtract, multiply and divide. Such calculating power! And it only cost a little over $100, about a quarter of what U of M then charged instate students per semester. Continue reading →

My Day at the Oregon Insane Asylum

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Sometime this winter I will get my fifteen minutes of fame—well, after editing, probably three minutes of fame leaving me 12 minutes for some later date. Last month I got a call from Mark Kachelries, a producer with the Travel Channel’s TV series, Mysteries at the Museum. In each show Don Wildman, putting on his best Indiana Jones persona, tells stories and interspersed through out are historic reenactments and comments from experts. Mark wondered if they could interview me.

Mysteries at The Museum

I’m an expert on something? I know what you’re thinking. “She’s obviously lost it. Do they still send out men in white to cart people to the insane asylum?” Continue reading →

New Yorker Rejects

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The New Yorker Has Stopped Sending Me Rejection Slips … Sort Of

“Of course I draw for the New Yorker” is the reply I give to the question I’m most often asked as a cartoonist, “but they’ve never bought anything of mine.”

When I started cartooning professionally in 1981 I submitted a batch of cartoons  to the New Yorker every week for a few years. At the time I thought they were great, but now I can see that most were terrible. I stopped submitting to them when I started only drawing commissioned work.

Last month for the first time in decades I drew a batch of ‘toons for my own amusement, bought 200 large envelopes, and hired a monk scribe. Monk scribes are cheaper than ink cartridges because you need only keep them in wine. Any kind of wine will do: even my friend’s unpalatable but potent home brew. Continue reading →