Lazy Days of Summer 09/02/22

Well Monday is it. Labor Day, end of summer, back to work (for our younger readers who still work), and even more horrifying, back to the office and back to commuting. In our Labor Day comic, Al and Marv ponder all this and, as a smile forms on their lips, realize they no longer have to put up with any of it. I was reminded of a time 6 years ago, November, when my time as an ad guy came screeching to a halt (not my decision). It was the first free, non-vacation weekend I had in 40 years. I was taking a walk with my wife on this beautiful natural trail through the woods called the Old Croton Aqueduct. Yep, that’s right, it used to be an aqueduct carrying water from Croton-Harmon in Westchester all the way down to NY City. And then man discovered pipes, and so no more aqueduct. All that was left was this beautiful, wooded trail that stretches for 26 miles, about the length of a marathon. But I digress (is it really digressing when it’s something you do all the time?) Anyway, it was a Saturday afternoon and I realized I had forgotten to go grocery shopping. Saturday afternoon was my time to go shopping, because I commuted and worked Monday through Friday. I said to my wife, “Damn, we’ve got to cut this walk short. I forgot to go to Whole Foods (yeah, call me a yuppie but that’s where I go). She turned to look at me and said, “Why don’t you just go Monday?” It took a second for this new reality to sink in, and as it did, I felt my shoulders drop as I relaxed, and realized this was going to be my new reality. Free time, bike rides on Tuesdays, golf on Wednesdays, movies on a Monday when everyone else was working. Woo hoo! We imagined that’s how Al and Marv might feel as they pondered their own futures.

Our next comic was about grandparenting. How can you get the most joy from the least work? If you’re not yet a grandparent, believe us, there’s a lot of work. And a lot of joy. If you can figure out how to cut down on the work and up the joy, you’ve got yourself a winning combo. And bingo, we had our comic. Al just attached an inner tube to a rope tied to a remote-controlled boat, and the kid was being towed all over the pool without Al having to once get off his lazy butt. We all have shortcuts we use from time to time. Some, like putting the kids in front of Sesame Street while you get ready for work, are considered helpful. While others, like putting the kids in front of cartoon shows while you get ready for work, are considered lazy.

So how would you consider Al’s shortcut of watching his granddaughter in the swimming pool. Ingenious? Or lazy? Or a bit of both? Obviously Joanne, Al’s wife, opted for lazy.

Enjoy the last weekend of your lazy Summer as we retired folks transition to our lazy Fall. See you next week with two new ones. See, we’re not that lazy. Or at least John isn’t.

Andy and John

Frozen Foods and Forgotten Birthdays 5/20/22

Okay, I’ll admit it. After 37 years of marriage I could not remember my wife’s birthday. Was it April 22nd or the 23rd? I’ve always known this like I know the back of my hand, but now, when preparing to make a birthday dinner reservation for her and our kids, I could not, for the life of me, place it. This was particularly disturbing in retrospect since the 23rd is an enormously important date in our family. Her birthday is April 23rd, our son’s is May 23rd, and one of her brothers’ is March 23rd. But I couldn’t remember the 23rd. I thought, should I ask the kids? But then decided no, they would really worry about me if I admitted I couldn’t remember the day. I called my wife who was out of town on business and said, “Should I make the dinner reservation for Friday night or Saturday,” and she said, “Of course, make it Saturday on my birthday.” And then I knew. Being the sometimes moron that I am, at dinner on the night of the 23rd I admitted before her and my daughter that I had a momentary lapse of memory and could not recall whether or not her birthday was the 22nd or 23rd (it doesn’t escape me that I just admitted it also to the couple thousand people who read our blog). I had gotten away scot free, but I had to get it off my chest. My daughter, ever on alert to make peace, reminded me that I had just gotten over Covid that week (true) and that memory loss was part and parcel of that experience. Still, it freaked me out (and I think it freaked my wife out a little as well). This past weekend was my birthday, which she had no trouble remembering, and as I turned 69, I wondered if I was losing my mind. The other thing I wondered is that when I hit 70 next year, can I still write the New 60. My much younger comic partner John, said yes. And if you combine our ages and take an average, it only comes out to 66 1/2. So there. The other thing I thought about is that this would make a good comic. And John agreed.

Our other effort this week is a version of something that was inspired by a friend of John’s, Tony DiBernardo.. As the Dan Fogelberg song “Same Auld Lang Syne” goes, “I stole behind her in the frozen foods and I touched her on the sleeve.” Well John’s pal saw his wife up ahead and used a cheesy pick-up line from a Steve Martin movie But we came up with a new twist and something even cheesier. Al says, “You’re way too hot to be standing in the frozen food aisle,” And then the twist.. Whoops. Happens to the best of us. At least in the comics, where we can make anything happen that we want. And to that end, we’re making up two new ones for next week. See you then and have a great weekend. Just don’t get caught in the frozen food aisle all by yourself.

Andy and John

Are You Guys Still Talking About Retirement? Yes! 4/29/22S

So here’s the thing. We thought about Marv’s retirement and found we could do 5 comics on it. First the retirement party at work where everyone says how much they love you and loved (note the use of the past tense here) working with you. Then you get to the first days at home. If Marv bears any resemblance to me, it’s that his wife Rachel (in the wake of the pandemic) works at home and was used to having the place to herself between, say 8:30 am and 7:00 pm. And she is very self-sufficient. So when Marv starts hanging around the house wanting to “help” or accompany her to the grocery store, thereby turning a 45-minute trip into a 2-hour ordeal—”Hey what’s that brand of fabric softener you wanted me to find? And what aisle again?”—he ends up driving his poor wife crazy (not that I or John, who works from home, would ever do that). Soon Marv will find the joys of a mid-week afternoon baseball game (no crowds, just you and busloads of camp kids) or the occasional mid-week afternoon bike ride, golf game or movie theater. Sometimes, yeah sometimes, you have to bite the bullet and go yourself, where you will encounter other like-minded individuals in similar circumstances and hopefully nobody you know.

So as Marv expands his world, we expand right along with him, making new friends along the way. With every new phase in life John and I discover, we will have our characters discovering right along with us. I will speak for myself here and not my very busy partner, but after 40 years of working, how much do I miss it? Not one little bit at all. Except for meeting and working with people you like everyday. And now that more and more people are working from home, you don’t even get the “working with people you like” part anymore. But you know what, I like that “working from home” title so much, I am officially unretiring. From now on, I’m working from home, even if I’m taking a nap.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

On Retirement. Now What? 4/22/22

I remember my first day of retirement as if it were yesterday. For anybody counting, it was in November of 2016. And to be truthful, it wasn’t exactly retirement, but you get the point. So many of my friends have stopped working and their collective thought is, what am I going to do with all that time??? You’ll figure it out. So let’s get back to my first weekend as a free man. As I often did, I went for a hike with my wife. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost 4 pm and grew worried. She asked, “What’s wrong,” and I replied, “It’s almost 4 and I haven’t gone to the grocery store yet.” She said, “Why not go Monday?” What she was saying without saying is you’re free to do whatever you want now. For me, I was so used to having to fit everything (like groceries) into a tight window on weekends so it didn’t interfere with my work week. But now? What the hell. I instantly felt my shoulders relax. That fall and the ensuing spring were filled with Tuesday bike rides, Wednesday golf games, mid-week afternoon Mets games and in the winter, the occasional afternoon movie (remember when we went to movies), or even a theater matinee. And grocery shopping on a Tuesday. In the morning. With no one there. Now we’re not claiming it’s going to be all roses for Marv moving forward, because, well, he’s Marv, but we are going to examine how his presence (just as mine did 5 years ago) turns the house upside down. Everyone was used to him NOT being there Monday through Friday, from 8:30 in the morning until around 7 at night. We will follow Marv from his retirement party through his first awkward days at home, to his venturing out into the brave new world, sometimes on his own.

Our next comic dealt with, oh yeah, retirement. More on that next week, and if you’re retired, you’ll have more than enough time to see what happens. If you’re still working, you can see what you have to look forward to. And if you retired folks need an idea for what to do, you could, I don’t know…start a comic. Just don’t call it The New 60.

Enjoy the weekend,

Andy and John

On second thought... 06/12/2020

John and I often talk and wonder what the hell are we going to write about, now that everything is reduced to Covid-19. But here’s the thing. Stuff just keeps happening, and since it’s different stuff than we’re used to, it often makes its way into comics. A little while ago, we did a comic about what happens at the checkout line when you have to take your gloves off to get your phone to work. The big trouble with latex gloves is trying to put them back on. I was thinking of this when last week, I found an extra latex glove in my car turned inside out. I mushed the fingers back in the right way and blew it up like a balloon. Just like the clowns do at birthday parties to make the kids laugh. When I got upstairs I brought the glove up with me and proudly blew it up for my wife. I said, “Look, I figured out a fool-proof way to get the gloves to stop turning inside out.” And I blew them up. John had the exact same reaction as Joanie when I told him the story. They both responded by saying some form of “You put your mouth around that thing??!!” SInce this is a family-oriented site, I can’t repeat exactly what they said, but trust me, it was similar. John and I worked hard on crafting the language until we came up with “covid-covered latex surface,” and then John threw in the bit about saving 49 cents. Not 50 mind you, 49. And voila, we had our first comic. I mean, is it really that bad to blow the thing up? On second thought…

The next comic standing is about another idea that seemed good at the time. The logic was impeccable. If you grow your own veggies and herbs, you can not only pick your own salad at night, you can save extra trips to the supermarket. Except when you get to the nursery you find it is packed with people having the exact same idea. It’s packed more tightly than the rows of tomato plants. It’s packed more…you get the idea. In order to avoid one crowd at the grocery store, you are faced with an even bigger crowd at the nursery. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But on second thought…

Have a great weekend, stay safe and we will see you next Friday with two new ones hot off our computers.

Andy and John

The New Reality 05/29/2020

Have you experienced this at the grocery store? You get ready to go, put on your latex gloves (we haven’t used this much latex since college, but that’s another story), slip on your mask, take along your disinfectant wipes and off you go. First anomaly is you get the cart and THEN they have wipes at the front entrance after you’ve already touched the cart. Now okay, we can deal with the one way signs down each aisle and the obvious impossibility of maintaining 6-feet when the person in front of you, mask around his or her chin, is pondering which of 36 varieties of paleo granola to pick. But, then you finally lose your patience and pass them. BUT, and we do mean BUT, the real challenge occurs at the checkout line. Do you think those taped x’s are really 6 feet apart? And is that guy in back of you edging just a little too close? Even that is fine. The real kicker is what we turned into a comic. Andy read that you can pick up the virus when the cashier swipes your credit card through the machine, so he uses his phone and pays in that way. Only problen is A) the phone’s facial recognition feature doesn’t recognize you wearing a mask, requiring him to be one of those aforementioned jerks who proceeds to pull his mask around his chin and B) if the facial recognition still won’t work he now can’t punch in his passcode without first pulling off the damned latex gloves. But you gotta eat, so….

Our second one came from a near mystical experience in Coney Island. Andy decided on his birthday a couple weeks ago to drive down to Brooklyn and walk along the boardwalk. It was a beautiful spring day and he couldn’t pass Stillwell Ave, without getting off the boardwalk and going to Nathan’s. He got the requisite dog and fries and came back to the boardwalk to find a bench facing the ocean, with no one else sitting on it. He carefully pulled out a lysol wipe and wiped the bench down. He unwrapped what is considered the world’s greatest hot dog, and took a bite. It was so good, he closed his eyes and listened to the gentle surf hitting the shore and the sounds of the seagulls. Heaven. Until suddenly some guy comes bounding down the boardwalk blaring rap music from, get this, a boombox! No kidding. Some ear-splitting hip hop dittie about peace, love and understanding. Not really. Anyway, Andy recounted this to John and he said, I got it. Boom boxes and zoom boxes. One thing remains constant. We hate them as much today as we did 30 years ago.

So that’s it for this week. Next week are two goodies about how it feels to get yet another year older and we return to Al’s pizzeria as he considers reopening.

Have a wonderful weekend and if we pass each other, let’s make sure we pull our masks up, okay?

Andy and John

Food Fight 05/22/2020

Now, more than ever, our lives revolve around food. With everyone sheltering in place, we are more likely to talk about food, think about food, shop for food and yes, fight about food. This week’s two comics take their lead from that. The first one comes from the insight that when you wear a mask, 1) most people don’t know who you are and 2) most people can’t hear what you say. Andy goes on a lot of hikes and when he passes somebody not wearing a mask, he mutters into his mask, “wear a f^*%king mask.” When he sees a mask worn under someone’s chin, he is reminded of Bill Maher’s comment, “wearing a mask around your chin is like wearing a condom around your balls. It doesn’t work!!!”

When Andy related his habit of muttering mean stuff under his mask to John, it inspired John to think about point #1, “under that mask, you can do just about anything you want, because nobody knows who you are.” Despite being married to women, Andy and John both love Broadway show tunes, so our initial thought was to have Marv belt one out. But then John wanted the theme from Oklahoma and Andy wanted “Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes,” so we scrapped that and came up with “What’s New Pussycat?” which is not a show tune at all so you might as well forget the previous two sentences. And don’t suggest we delete them, it’s not in our contract.

The second comic strip today is also concerned with food. If you’re like either of us, you want to minimize trips to the grocery store. That being said, you probably eye what’s in the fridge and plan your next meal accordingly. What if you saw some cheddar cheese and had two slices of bread? You might ponder a grilled cheese sandwich. What about if you had two slices of bacon left and wanted to limit your dairy? Well then let’s make it a BLT. What if you wanted to cut out meat? We didn’t get that far and it messes up the idea (eg: one impossible burger left, not so funny), so we landed on a BLT. What if you inadvertently ate the one thing your spouse had their eye on? Or what if he or she unwittingly did that to you? How far would you go to replace what they longed for? Apparently, not that far.

That’s it for this week. Andy is off to watch Game 3 of the 1986 World Series, and please, don’t tell him who won. He’s pretending he doesn’t remember so the game still seems exciting to him (don’t ask). We will be back next week with two new ones that reflect our new reality. Gosh that sounded dire, but like the comics hopefully show, you can still have a bit of fun, even in a pandemic.

Andy and John

Relations in the time of Corona 5/15/2020

So you’ve run through 6 seasons of Breaking Bad, 3 seasons of Ozark, the NFL Channel’s Best SuperBowls of all time, The NBA channel’s Best Game 7’s, Covid extravaganzas with stars singing from home, Homeland, Better Call Saul, Marriage Story, and let’s not forget a replay of Linsanity for you Knick fans longing for 2012, and the question is…now what?

With less to occupy people’s time, some folks take to reading recipes. Inventive recipes with, shall we say, exotic ingredients. Said exotic ingredients are easy to copy down from a recipe onto a shopping list, but they prevent an altogether different challenge for the person who does the grocery shopping. What on earth is tamarind paste (found in a recent recipe for bbq ribs)? Do you find it in the ethnic foods shelf? Or is it in produce? Can you use a tamarind instead, and what the hell does one even look like? Who do you bother to ask, “Uhh excuse me, do you know where to find the tamarind paste?” The guy stocking the shelves? The person at the information counter? Dilemmas like these formed the basis for our first comic. And just so you know, Andy went through all this only to discover he doesn’t much care for the taste of tamarind.

The second comic in your scroll comes directly from the first paragraph of this blog. After watching every single show your friends have recommended, now what? Board games? When’s the last time you played one? And which ones do you even have anymore? And you mistakenly left Monopoly at the beach house you rented last summer, didn’t you? John instantly recalled the “Hungry, Hungry Hippos” game and the incredibly silly commercial featuring animated, rhumba-dancing hippos and we had our second comic.

We will be back again next week with two new ones that explore our rapidly decreasing worlds. I mean, how many comics can you come up with about staying at home, grocery shopping, binge-watching or a trip to the drug store? Stay tuned and we’ll let you know.

Have a great and safe weekend.

Andy and John