Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for May 20, 2009

Muffin is going to become a Kamikaze.

Honey, I already told you. I am trying to get some loft.

flight school.

Poor muffin looks resigned.

If God had wanted dogs to fly, he would have given them feathers.

Poor Muffin. But I like her ribbon!

“Football practice.”

The trombone is an unusual instrument in that it is uniquely, essentially one big tuning slide. Bone players are thus always able to more easily adjust their pitch while playing. That is not to say that it’s easy, because it is not easy.

Oops! Cleo can get too enthusiastic when it comes to JAZZ. I like the heels, just right for a serious musician.

Muffin, on the other hand, has no enthusiasm for Arnold’s latest aeronautics project. She has been through it before, and she knows the results.

Cleo is lucky that her ear didn’t get caught in that slide. Looks like it would whip her head around faster than you can say Jack Russellson.

As an afterthought, Muffin’s body is much too dense for the size of those wings. She wouldn’t even make a good lifting body.

Oooo, I hope Claude didn’t get hurt too much. He still hasn’t bought that bag of kibble.

Hello, all!

It’s a great night to be posting Cleo and Company comments here….

cos the May 20th  2019 strip is all new!

(unless, of course, I’m wrong again… sigh… but I don’t think so….)

Take a look… it’s on Sherpa

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cscwy

Cleo has put so much into this….

it looks like the culmination of months or years of trombone lessons…. maybe this is her big recital.

Or, maybe she just watched a couple of YouTube videos.

In any case, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her all dressed up, demurely, in heels and a long dress, suitable for the concert stage.

Not a flamboyant movie costume, but something elegant, that shows she takes her musicianship seriously.

So what went wrong?

Well, first, it is Cleo, we’re talking about.

Somehow, calamity follows her.

And there’s her strength.

I don’t mean her lungs… her embouchure looks good, but I don’t hear a sound.

It’s just that, unlike most bassets, she can move heavy artillery, drive a big truck….

and probably power that slide right off the trombone without even trying.

But when it comes right down to it…. I think it’s because she’s…. well, you know… a cartoon character.

Let’s see… what else…

well there’s poor little Muffin…

I don’t think the length of her wings matters as much as the fact that they’re held on with a few strips of tape.

And even Gorilla Tape won’t work on curly fur.

Luckily, I don’t think Arnold would really hurt her.

Probably, he’s just taking a few practice lobs at the Miller’s cat.

Oh…. and thank you, Plumbob Wilson… for joining us on Cleo…

and for actually coming back and reading my reply to your question…

And following the directions!

That’s rare enough that I sometimes want to give up on answering people.

If anybody else has been wanting to know about posting pictures….

you might want to read our exchange, in the replies to my long post yesterday.

And you can also see the picture of Plumbob’s dog.

BTW, Plumbob…

I know I told you to pick the simplest link…. but I kind of goofed.

There’s a second one, just one a teeny bit longer, on Postimage,

that actually makes the picture appear in the forum for those who use Neil Wick’s bookmarks.

I thought it said "Direct link "…. but I have to upload another picture to make sure… then I’ll post it here….

and also the link to Neil’s page..

Too late right now.

Thinking about Muffin…. makes me want to go the bakery..

Shall we all meet at my bakery today for a sandwich and something sweet?

We’ve got 11 varieties of muffins, I think 10 of bagels (even though to me, bagels are meant to be plain…. ) and all sorts of bread and rolls.

We serve various sandwiches, coffee, tea, cookies, cakes…

and Cleo comments.

I played trombone in high school and this happened to me. After the big Homecoming half time show we tucked our instruments under our arms and swung them side to side as we marched off the field to the rhythms of the drum line. I forgot to hook a finger under the front slide brace and my slide flew off to who knows where. Fortunately I spotted it in a place along our path and I scooped it up without being too far out of line.

Before there was Fly Kitty there was Fly Doggy. Early experiments didn’t work out so well.

With a name like Muffin, he’ll want to fly away, baby.

Thunderous applause followed by thunderous cursing.

And that deserves a big OOOOPPPPPSSSSS!

(and yes, our Cleo looks great all dressed up)

more installments of ‘Cleo plays an instrument’ to follow