Thursday night

I was glad to see the comment from Mystic about Tintin which inspired tonight's post. I just love comic books. I grew up reading a host of different ones and still love to purchase and read them to relax.

From the time I was about three, I would look at the Tintin albums of my brothers, mys sis was not that interested in them, and look at the pictures and tell myself my own story about what the pictures might mean. Also since my sibs would read them to me, I had a good idea of what was going on anyway, but sometimes I would deviate from that storyline and make my own. Those were precious moments to me, particularly because Tintin went all over the world and met with folks from all kinds of lands. I just fantasized about going there. It was great.

Since then, I have diversified my interest to include several other authors, and this summer while in Switzerland, I purchased four new albums. When I lived in Berkeley, I would visit the one store on University (I forget their name) that carries a lot of my old time favorites. And everytime I go home to Montreal, I am sure to pick up a few. Among my favorites authors or series are: of course Asterix, Le genie des Alpages (about a flock of sheep in the alps) the Daltons, Achile Talon, anything by Gotlieb, Rubrique-a-brac, Fluide Glacial, Cellulite, Philemon and Gaston La Gaffe (Goofy Gaston). There are many more, but these are some of the best. If you need to relax and get some good laugh, I recommend any of them. And this summer, at the library where I made some purchases, the kind woman who helped me recommended the "cat" serie. I really love it too. The recurring gag is that of the old proverb of "if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day; but if you teach him how to fish, he can eat his whole life." One of the variant they offer is: "If you give a man a fish he will eat for a day, but if you give him the picture of a fish, he can look at it all of his life!"

Another part of the Tintin legacy, or maybe it is just the product of growing up in a fairly diverse environment, is that I love to learn languages. English is a second language to me, as I grew up speaking french. Then I lived in Portugal for a year and became quite fluent, and here I have acquired a good grasp of Spanish, although I am not fluent yet. Now I am learning Czech, just because it is very intriguing and different. I see how far I get with that. Hopefully it keeps my brain working, and my energy occupied.

We had the accreditors at work today and it seemed to go fairly well.

I close with a picture that I took in New Zealand last January. One of Spinsterwitch's picture on her post reminded me of it. Blow it up full size for the full effect, it was the breathtaking view from our hotel balcony.