Hello, Lovers of the Wilderness!
Don’t forget to breathe.
Moon and Mars eavesdrop
on gossiping great-horned owls
deep in the dark woods
Life has been a little complicated lately, and I need a day to regroup. I’m hoping these owls from this comic I first published in the fall bring me good luck!
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
P.S. For anyone interested, here is a personal update. My father-in-law seems to have stabilized. The doctors think he had a series of strokes. If all goes well, he will be transferred to an inpatient rehab center later this week.
One of the tires on our van went completely flat while I was on the way home from taking the kids to school yesterday. Fortunately, I was almost at our house. I got the spare on, which I discovered had a slow leak, and took the tire into the shop. The tire was worn down to the belt and not repairable. I was scolded for not rotating the tires. (The tire wasn’t that old, and I thought something else was at work.) Upon, further investigation, our entire front end is a mess and needs a few thousand dollars of repairs. The van is 16 years old and has 190,000 miles on it. So, we bought a couple of cheap tires for now while we try and figure out what to do about the van.
Becky has been on disability from work for six of the past nine months and has only been making 2/3 of her usual salary. Plus, her hospital kicked us off the health insurance in the middle of a medical leave since her protected leave (FMLA), as mandated by the government, ran out.
The good news is that Becky is the healthiest she’s been in a year and is going back to work later this month. She just got her drain, and PICC line pulled last week, right before her dad had the first stroke. Because of the national nursing shortage, and because she’s a kickass pediatric nurse, Becky still has a job at her hospital and our health insurance will be restored on June 1st.
However, the nurses union is in negotiations with the hospital as their contract has expired and negotiations are going poorly. That means she may end up going on strike soon after returning to work.
Life is complicated. But we press on and make art because what else is there to do?
Thank you for all of your good vibes, positive thoughts, and prayers. They mean the world to me and my family.
I will be back tomorrow with a new comic, essay, and no complaining.
Wishing you and your family the absolute best of what you need.
Sending you and your family good vibes and love and all the best. 💙