Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for December 20, 2021

….But there is to my massage.

Mine too

Begs the question: Why so pessimistic on your 15th anniversary …? REMEMBER THE POSTCARDS …!!!

A lack of happy endings can be very frustrating.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Swan song?

When I go visit my parents’ and grandparents’ graves this time of year it’s a dismal experience: bare trees, dormant grass, last summer’s flowers wilting in elaborate urns. The gray sky above is the same color as the cold stones below. Depressing, yes, but then I remember — I’m still here. For now. And as long as there is life, there is hope.

“I’ll never get out of this world alive.” Hank Williams. “There’s no life after birth.”—Me.

Happy endings are for sappy Hallmark movies and seedy massage parlors. Maybe set your sights a liiitle higher. Bringing levity and kindness to others is often a good place to start, and you do that here, everyday.

Happy Birthday Frog Applause! We Love You!

We’ll all be forsaken and never know why.

Happy 15th Birthday, FA!

And Happy Holidays, Teresa!

That’s a great Swan Tenders recipe!

Have I really been applauding frogs for almost 15 years?(I don’t think I discovered the strip until some 8 months after it’s premiere.)

Flippers don’t fail me now!

Old wounds never fade away, they just die.

Happly ever after is for fairy tale creations.

I hope domestic abuse would not enter except in fairy tales. A real cliff hanger the a powerful climax and then the good guys win.

As the story ends, so it ends.

Except for the Never-ending Story. It doesn’t end. But, then, that’s fiction. So maybe it does end.

What I would not venture to do at this locus on the space-time continuum is to assume I knew already the “end” which has not yet been written. The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on. Or anyway so says Omar Khayyam. But he was rather optimistic, methinks….

All’s well that never ends.

A swan song?

…this Frog Applause reminds of the movie, ‘Electra Glide In Blue’…

…or, the short story, ‘The Jilting of Granny Weatherall’…

…or Van Gogh, for that matter…

…OK, maybe even ,‘Rogue One’…

…I’m gonna fool them all…

…in my last hours of life…

…whether through violent means or not…

…I’m going happily…

…screw ‘em…

…I’ll least have that…[ Bert to Ernie on a very special episode of Sesame Street]…

Birtha don’t you give me any more crap today…

Long as you’re still here it’s too soon to tell. But in the end no one has a happy ending.

A round of popsicles frog pie .

So, stay in the middle of your story.

Spend the spinning planet with gusto because it is a musto.

Superstition, positive thinking, and a glass of wine.

And they didn’t live happily ever after.

Today is Shorts Day … put on your Happy Shorts …!

Fingers medium size man in cracker or in deep hot fat. Recipe for plumage.

Since you are thinking aloud again, yes. That is correct. The story is not over. This time it is not a direct threat to Froglandia. It is a scheme by people around here, including your Mr. Ossifin, to capture and kill one of the most rare creatures on the face of the Earth, and at a scale that would certainly render them extinct. That would be the Froglandian Gigantic Farting Frog, or Amphibius Flatus Gigantus. As you know, this very boggy zone at the Froglandia border is the only place that they thrive. The unique flora and fauna, especially the insects and the comix brush, are essential to their existence. The intention is to market them as unique and rare in various ways. They have already captured several, and experimented with utilizing everything but the squeal. They believe that they have a lucrative market awaiting them, and a costly rarity with which to fill it.

And the beat goes on. Thus endeth Day 2….

Seeking happiness at the end of the story is following a will-o’-the-wisp. So many people think they will be happy after the next promotion, after the next graduation, after the next move, after the next job, after the next relationship, after the next car, after the next therapist, and then they get bitter and angry because that happiness seems always to elude them. The proof of this is that people can be at peace and fulfilled in the most wildly varying situations: wealth, poverty, health, sickness, companionship, loneliness, or a combination of any of them. Happiness comes from a sense of alignment with what is, and doing one’s very best with whatever tools are on the table in front of us, in the present moment, because life is a the most capricious game of chutes and ladders ever invented.

I’m reminded of the famous quote [not by John Lennon, it’s still unsourced]: “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

What you have today, what you are doing today, may be gone tomorrow. What you are is your choice in every moment.

I have written this to myself, so I remember.

Mmmm… Swan tenders!! With barbecue dipping sauce, please!! (Happy birthday, FA!!)

…don’t listen to the swan song…

…swans are nasty beasts known to attack people whom they get bothered by…

… seductive…

…I’d rather trust a snake in the grass…

…and I don’t trust ‘them’ at all…

…live life accordingly…

Damn, this is dark.

King Henry VIII had black swans on the grounds. When he held feasts, he ordered the swans to be cooked and served. Once a sadistic bastard, always a sadistic bastard!

Bah! Don’t resent the future – remember what Gogol said, “…the last line of every story was: “And nothing would ever be the same again.”