AdPock

Since Mother's Day, I've been drawing and redrawing the above image. I was initially trying to think of a card to create for my most fierce and loving of mothers — as I've done mama-duck-and-duckling and mama-bear-and-cub cards in the past. In trying to dream up a new mother/baby animal image, I first and foremost recalled the incredible display of mothering I witnessed a few weeks back in the  Dolphin Reef  movie on Disney+ (which is about so much more than dolphins).  In particular, there's a scene where a mama humpback whale and her calf are attacked by a pod of orcas in the open ocean. To stave off the assailants from eating her calf, Mama throws her baby on her back as she battles multiple attackers, all while crying out across the depths of the ocean for help. Eventually help comes, as her new boyfriend/champion leads a pod of male humpbacks to her side, and the orcas are forcefully compelled to swim away. And both mama and calf live to tell the tale...

Mike actively convinced himself of his own happiness.

Passover is not nearly as much fun in isolation. I heard people are doing virtual seders, but honestly, I'm just barely hanging onto being a Jew when it's convenient, so that seems like a big ask. No, we'll just skip it this year I guess, and look forward to going over to our lovely, generous friends Kerri and John's place, like we always do, as was this year's initial plan; indeed, the matzoh ball soup above was meant to be the evite art for the affair. Yes, our friends put on quite the fiesta... for a seder. We say a few prayers, tell old stories, and celebrate life with a ton of delicious food and amazing wines — at least four glasses worth, as the good book commands. Really though, without friends and family, the story's kind of stale, and its lessons seem pretty damn harsh. And the prayers are all nebulously connected to this God character I don't have a great relationship with at the moment. Okay, it was fading long ago, but still, my gentil...

Look closely, and you can see the feint makings of a heartline on that there wolf above, howling away at the cycles of the moon.  I'd forgotten all about the decorative lines adorning the Zuni fetishes that populated every corner of my mom's Southwestern art gallery, and thus our home; until my nephew and buddy both told me that the wolf is their favorite animal, when I prodded for birthday drawing inspiration.  So I drew this guy, and as I started blowing him out in post, it just dawned on me: he may not be a fetish per se, but he definitely need's that arrow.  Though I could surprisingly remember what the inlaid line was called, the heartline, I couldn't even vaguely recall why it adorned the Native American stone-carved animal amulets that I loved so much. I just knew it was important, particularly to the Zuni tribe. So I googled... heartline fetish, and found this at  Antique American Indian Art, llc , a gallery that's apparently been aroun...

This is Oscar, he gets a lot of crap from octopuses for being part ostrich, and a lot of crap from ostriches for being part octopus.  But Oscar doesn't listen to 'em, because he has no ears.

Gene and Gertrude reflected, on this wacky thing called life; Acted as if rejected, though truth ejected strife; When the most that they could want for, was one or two peanuts more.