Recent Comments

1. about 22 hours ago on Cul de Sac

   We ate a lot of raisins as kids also. My guess is that parents like them because they’re sweet enough for kids to eat them, but they’re less perishable than other fruit, and they’re not candy.

   Now, I won’t pick them out of salads or rice pilaf-type dishes, but I won’t buy them or eat them on purpose. My big issue is people who put them in cookies or other desserts. When you think you’re getting chocolate chip, and it turns out to be raisin, that feels like an April Fool’s joke gone too far.

2. about 22 hours ago on Crabgrass

   Sorry I misunderstood you.

3. 2 days ago on Crabgrass

   I don’t think Drbarb meant that coming from a family whose first language isn’t English is abuse. But it can be harder for kids learning English in, say, middle school to keep up with substantive subjects. And it’s harder for those parents to help their kids with homework. Not every child of immigrants or other language speakers has problems in school, but it can be a disadvantage. Similarly, kids who are abused at home or other places can have difficulties at school.

   We’ve started embracing holistic medicine. I think we need to start looking at education that way also.

   Kevin is a class clown/daredevil. We’ll see if he suddenly becomes a model student because he’s getting extra reading help. Given his personality, I doubt it. Also, given that his mom is a single working mother of four, how much time she’s going to be able to devote to his new lessons is questionable. But she is a medical professional, so she probably will understand more than a lot of parents would. IRL, at least, it seems like his grades would get better and he would hate school less, but it won’t give him a personality transplant.

4. 2 days ago on Curses

   The only downside is that I have to buy the book (usually hard cover) each month. Otherwise I would get it from the library. But I understand that the authors probably aren’t going to line up to do the interviews and Q&A if there isn’t a guarantee of selling a certain number of books.

   Pre-Covid, my mother belonged to an in-person club, but they just discussed the book, no author involvement. Plus side, they chose the books they wanted to read.

5. 2 days ago on Cul de Sac

   He has opined on candy and raisins in the past. Candy corn is acceptable because it tastes of wax, so Waxy seems fine. He complained about the “unfoodieness” of raisins – but really, who wouldn’t?? – so you’re bang on, he’d be off the picky eater list if he ate The One With Raisins. (Note how nothing else about that item matters. Raisins cancel out anything good.)

6. 2 days ago on Curses

   I feel for you. Local, meet-in-person book clubs are hard to find. The one I joined is by internet. They mail me the book each month, and then they post an interview with the author. I think they have a chat room also where people can ‘meet’ virtually, but so far I haven’t done that.

7. 3 days ago on Cul de Sac

   Little Neuro is Thompson’s take on Little Nemo in Slumberland. He sometimes does (sorry, did, RIP) homages to the original. He talked about it in the commentary to one of the collections.

8. 3 days ago on Curses

   That’s impressive. I recently joined a book club, which forces me to finish a book every month. Before this, I would read about fifty pages of a book and then start another, and repeat until I have no idea what was happening in the first one and start over. Only occasionally does the cycle get broken completely and a book get finished.

9. 3 days ago on Curses

   Until I watched Ted Lasso, I was with Wilma. Then I was sorry I had never joined a sport. Then I remembered that television is not real life. Now I’m back with Wilma.

10. 8 days ago on Curses

    I do, and I think it’s pretty clever. But I’m old enough to remember Underdog also.