Anthony asks Liz for a Date (Sort of)
In today’s For Better or For Worse, we are starting to move to the payoff of Liz and Anthony giving their depositions together, i.e. seeing the couple spend some time together. I will have to admit that the interaction between Liz and Paul, when they were in Mtigwaki never made it seem like they were very comfortable with each other. I think Lynn is trying very hard to make it look like Liz, at least, is very relaxed around Anthony; which is actually a stark contrast to her reaction when she ran into him at Mayes Midtown Motors to buy her car. We are supposed to see her loosen up and start to bond with Anthony, using the Howard Bunt trial as a common point of interest to unite them. Liz was still pretty tense when Anthony came to talk to her after getting the subpoena, but this sequence of strips has a much friendlier Liz, particularly in the way Lynn has drawn her facial expressions around Anthony.
If it were just Liz, we would be doing well, but Lynn feels the need to let us know again and again that Anthony wants Liz. She is playing coy with Liz’s feelings about Anthony, which she has been doing almost constantly since Anthony got married. It’s hard to say when it comes to Liz and emotions, because she didn’t say she loved Constable Paul Wright until after she left him. The last time, Liz told a man she loved him to his face was Eric Chamberlain 5 years ago. In tomorrow’s strip, Liz starts to get a little playful with Anthony, and Anthony mercifully lets go of the sleaze factor. No Francoise, but the element of little Francie is brought to the forefront. My hope is that by Saturday, we are going to see a thought balloon out of Liz to see what the effect of this visit has been. However, Lynn keeps Liz’s feelings pretty closely guarded, so the reader will be left in suspense as to which man she will chose. I doubt we will know any more by Saturday. More likely it will be another Anthony thought bubble. I suspect Monday will be back to the stroke story, and reintroducing Uncle Phil back to the strip and then the week after that is the lead-in to the Gym Jam (or Becky finally gets hers).
By the way, tomorrow evening, I will be off with the Boy Scouts for the weekend. Have fun without me!
If it were just Liz, we would be doing well, but Lynn feels the need to let us know again and again that Anthony wants Liz. She is playing coy with Liz’s feelings about Anthony, which she has been doing almost constantly since Anthony got married. It’s hard to say when it comes to Liz and emotions, because she didn’t say she loved Constable Paul Wright until after she left him. The last time, Liz told a man she loved him to his face was Eric Chamberlain 5 years ago. In tomorrow’s strip, Liz starts to get a little playful with Anthony, and Anthony mercifully lets go of the sleaze factor. No Francoise, but the element of little Francie is brought to the forefront. My hope is that by Saturday, we are going to see a thought balloon out of Liz to see what the effect of this visit has been. However, Lynn keeps Liz’s feelings pretty closely guarded, so the reader will be left in suspense as to which man she will chose. I doubt we will know any more by Saturday. More likely it will be another Anthony thought bubble. I suspect Monday will be back to the stroke story, and reintroducing Uncle Phil back to the strip and then the week after that is the lead-in to the Gym Jam (or Becky finally gets hers).
By the way, tomorrow evening, I will be off with the Boy Scouts for the weekend. Have fun without me!
posted by howard at 10:35 PM
5 Comments:
Re: childproofing:
I reread my first post and realized I made a mistake. Originally, I was going to detail the things that bugged me about Paul's list. Then I felt it was too long, and I deleted that. But that took away any sense that I think reasonable childproofing is a very good idea. Oops.
As I look at it now, I realize what bugs me is the coffee cup thing. I feel like the way it is stated in Paul's post, he is calling any parent who has a coffee cup in the same room as their child is a "bad parent." I feel that is obvious b.s. I agree that most breakables should be kept in a place where it's unlikely a kid could get at them, especially if they are small and attractive to kids. But most people I know have lamps, and they strike me as being a very low risk to the kid if lamp cords are dealt with. Yet there are light bulbs inside of lamps--breakables! It is never going to be possible to put all lamps and lighting where a child could never ever get at them. There is always going to be some chance. Same thing with a coffee cup--even if you are sitting next to it, there is always going to be a chance the kid could get at it.
I think it's silly that by Paul's standards, a parent sitting in a room with a lamp in it, drinking a cup of coffee and watching their kid play Legos is a "bad parent" who "didn't babyproof." I think that's ridiculous. I also think it's ridiculous that parents with unfenced yards who supervise their young children and teach older children not to play in or near the street are "bad parents" who "didn't childproof" because they don't have an impenetrable fence with an absolutely childproof locked gate (and those things don't really exist anyway, so I guess everyone's an offender).
The other thing that bugs are "sharp corners." Most of the things people call "sharp corners on furniture" are not any more likely to maim or kill a child then they are an adult. I mean, yeah, kids can have freak one-in-a-million accidents where they fall, whack their head on the corner of a heavy end table, and hit it just right and die. But that happens to adults too. It's such a fluke thing when it happens that it is just a risk we accept in life, IMHO. I mean, a kid in a perfect car seat perfectly installed is in much more peril. By the same token, adults go through life banging into the corners of counters and squishing fingers in drawers and so forth. I don't see that commeasurate injuries on a child are anything other than an acceptable matter of course. I realize some parents will wrap every piece of furniture in the house in foam rubber until darling little Kkyllaiugh goes off to college, but I don't know any who go the foam rubber route at all, except on items in the house that are tagged as "repeat injurers."
Anyway, it was Paul's absolutist tone that really ticked me off. Most of the other things he said are things that I think are obvious and reasonable.
I feel like the way it is stated in Paul's post, he is calling any parent who has a coffee cup in the same room as their child is a "bad parent."
Paul’s phrase is “breakables like coffee cups out of reach.” Perhaps our disagreement is a misunderstanding over interpreting the phrase, “out of reach.” I mean it to mean, "If it's not under your control, put it where the child can't get it."
Lamps. There are a whole host of child safety things that can be done with them, that address the points you raise.
Unfenced yards. The safety issue is less to with the kids than with people who snatch kids. I used to live in Texas, the land of Amber Hagerman, and people are really sensitive to it there. In Texas, they like the big, ugly privacy fences where you can’t see into the yard. The website I used as a reference did not say what the reason for the fence was, and it could have meant to keep an unattended child from wandering.
Sharp corners. Both adults and kids can hurt themselves falling on furniture. Kids however, have a softer head because their heads are still growing. The same head injury that would just hurt an adult could kill a young child. This seems to be a hot button issue with you, and I can’t tell from your comment if you disagree with your friends who use bumpers on items in the house that are tagged as "repeat injurers."
Anyway, it was Paul's absolutist tone that really ticked me off. Most of the other things he said are things that I think are obvious and reasonable.
As for Paul’s absolutist tone, it was not intended to tick you off personally, but more to develop the idea that the more time Liz spends with Anthony and praises him, the more he is going to be defensive in response to the praise, particularly when something would not sit with his police training. I fully expect to see him get upset when the Howard Bunt trial finally occurs, and Lynn Johnston rolls out the legal inaccuracies by the truckful. This way, when December rolls around and assuming Paul is settled in with Susan Dokis by then as I predict, then it will seem like a natural development, and not like a sudden change in his character.
QN, if it makes you feel any better, when I saw that Jeremy was starting a post with "I know it's a Liz week, but," and I thought he was about to ask why April couldn't discuss other things in the daily entry, I was ready to have April go off on him about how she doesn't have that much time in the morning to post before going to school and she's not feeling so well anyhow today, so back off. But then he didn't go there, so neither did she. ;)
Katje, you know, I've been meaning to apologize to you for not writing a Liz summary at night this week. I have been slammed at work and I come home exhausted. Even if I'm still awake late, I'm not feeling very creative.
BTW, I think it's hilarious the way you handle the "I can only tell this story one bit at a time" format we're forced into. :)
Thanks for the compliment, QN! Re. Liz not writing late-night dispatches, I figured it was something like that--no worries! :)
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