Home for a While

I made it home on Friday night just in time for sushi with my dad. By “just in time” I mean he waited until I arrived since I sat in traffic on the 5 for about an hour. That sucked.
Now I am at my mum’s and tomorrow I will drive into the city to see 3 of my friends from Dartmouth for breakfast. I will then take two of them to the airport to pick up another friend from Dartmouth. We will then begin our Google adventure, which is to last for the next 3 days. Because I am uncertain that I am going to have the ability to post until Thursday or Friday I am posting now.
While home I decided to have a quick look at the books on my shelf to see if I had any nice illustrations squirreled away. Unsurprisingly, my search came up short. However, I did come across an album sent to me by the family I stayed with while in Japan in the 8th grade. It was filled with pictures of me burning sparklers with them, visiting a temple as well as the supermarket. Here is a picture of me with Ruri and two of her school friends. Japan was a lot of fun and most people don’t know that I used to be able to speak rudimentary Japanese. Now I only remember how to ask where the bathroom is, how much something costs, and tell you my name and that I like ________ (things).

I also came across 3 books by Bill Peet. I might have written about Bill Peet while I was blogging in the winter, but I can’t remember. Well Bill Peet worked as a storyboard artist for Disney then went on to write and illustrate children’s books. I loved these books as a kid. I don’t really remember the stories but I certainly remember the drawings. Just goes to show that picture stories are good for children, or it just shows that I have a poor memory.
I have included 3 of the drawings from Big Bad Bruce. The story is about a mean bear, Bruce, who has a tendency to throw rocks at little woodland creatures and make pretty goofy faces. Like this one:

Then a witch, who looks a lot like the witch from Sword in the Stone (this isn’t really surprising since Bill Peet worked on Sword in the Stone), decides to teach Bruce a lesson by feeding him a pie with some sort of shrinking potion in it.

Finding that Bruce has shrunken to miniscule proportions, the woodland creatures turn the tables and torture him. The witch and her cat find small Bruce and take him into their home after he had learned his lesson.

That’s a pretty cute drawing. On the last page of the story small Bruce begins throwing rocks at insects. Lesson not learned after all. A wonderful story for children.
Since I have been back I also watched some cartoons with my mum. Some Oswald the Rabbit and Tex Avery. Cartoons are obviously not just for kids since my mum was laughing and told me they are pretty funny. They are pretty funny and I appreciate that it is not the cheap kind of humor found so often in modern animation. Rather, the Oswalds are full of physical humor: ears turning into question marks, bodies and limbs stretching all over the place. They are just wonderful.