Airport Scenes III

More scenes from airports -- this time an evening of long delays at Newark-Liberty, just before Xmas 2008:

Time travel & thoughtful pigs

Advice for time-traveling guinea pigs: always make nice with the locals.

(On a side note, don't ever mention that bad BBC adventure series, Primaeval. Even to say you didn't like it. Many dinosaurs found its premise flimsy, the acting substandard, and the story deeply insulting. And you never want to be in a position to calm down ten tons of Triceratops.)



On a more serious note, here's a thoughtful portrait of Wesley, our third pig. He's a pretty dignified little guy.

Making Lunch (& others)

Lyra-pigs love PB&J...



Pigs just don't go for those Ponzi schemes.



The secret nocturnal life of Lyra-pig.

Portraiture

Okay, I've finally gotten back to the scanner for some uploading. Here's a portrait of the Lyra-pig ready for bedtime...

In Memoriam Chumley, aged 3

I am very sorry about the long delay since my last cartoon. As soon as I got back from break, we had to deal with a pretty serious illness in our oldest pig, Chumley. He developed a bladder stone, which was causing him a lot of discomfort and keeping him from eating. We tried everything we could to keep him fed and hydrated, feeding him with a syringe four times a day (a grueling process that must have been very distressing for the boy). Unfortunately, the stone descended into his urethra and blocked it. We consulted a veterinary surgeon to find out our options. Rather than forcing him to endure a painful surgery that may have only made it worse or just pushed the stone back up into his bladder to start all over again, Lyra and I decided to put him to sleep.

We held him until the very end and he died peacefully in his Mommy's arms yesterday afternoon. We buried him, wrapped in a towel that smelled like home, under a tree at Lyra's parents' house. He will be missed, and I guess that's one of the most important consolations about this -- how lucky could a little animal be out of the millions and millions of them in the world, to be so loved and well-cared for? He meant something to us and we were able to make his life better. That makes me feel good at least.

That, and his crazy brothers.

(the cartoon above is several years old, done when Chumley was almost one. Media is Adobe Photoshop, drawn freehand with a pen mouse.)