I don’t remember everything that was said when I first visited my sister Linda at the hospital (she was heavily medicated, so I doubt she can remember much more), but I do recall one of the first things we talked about was how best to tell our parents and the rest of the family about her condition. Not an easy thing, let me tell you, and I can completely understand my sister’s apprehension. Not so much angst about them being “mad” (though that’s how she put it, initially) but more that they’ll be in a state of shock and grief at the news. Funny how Linda would even be concerned with such things after undergoing such major surgery.

Also wanted to send out a huge thanks to the unprecedented outpouring of support and encouragement for my sister after Monday’s strip went live. I’ve received so many positive comments, emails and Tweets wishing Linda well, that I haven’t been able to respond to them all, so a big THANK YOU from the Schuetze Family. All these awesome vibes are sure to help her on the road to recovery!

And a reminder to my L.A. peeps that I’ll be at the Comikaze Expo this weekend (November 5-6) at the L.A. Convention Center, so come by the JEFbot booth (#3601) and say hi! Linda/Xinda will be there with Mombot and Popbot on Sunday, with possible appearances by my other sister, Lor/Laura and brother-in-law, Coolhand/Mike. I know the Cornfather will be at the convention throughout the weekend, too! See my blog post for details about it, here.

Considering the vast amounts of time my mom has spent alternating between Bejeweled 2, Peggle and Solitaire, and understanding that I just recently finished Grand Theft Auto IV, a game that came out in April, I think it’s entirely truthful at this point to say my mom spends more time playing videogames than I do. No joke, she takes her high scores more seriously in those games than I do my Gamerscore on XBOX Live. I’m actually not ashamed of this, but am in fact, proud.

Luckily, my mom doesn’t forward many emails but she does get a lot of crazy stuff sent to her on a daily basis. Last week I showed her the magic of Snopes.com, which I pretty much check out whenever I get any story emailed to me, even if it’s from a family member or friend and even if I know it to be true.

Although my mom is much, much better at the Brain Age brain training games than my webcomic would suggest, she’s an absolute wiz at Tetris and Bejeweled. Challenge her. I dare you.

If you missed her first attempt at Brain Age, check it out here.

My mom’s birthday was yesterday, March 4, so I’m commemorating the occasion with a comic strip that details an incident that occurred between her and I, a few month’s back. So the timeline’s a bit different, but other than that, I would consider this a true snapshot of the event in comic form. Really, when I hang out with my family, these strips just write themselves.

Happy Birthday, mom.

Oh, and the “YAWN” lettering is very much inspired by the lettering in Dave Sim’s Cerebus comic. I hope to do more hand-lettered stuff in the future, but for now it’ll be 99.9% digital lettering cuz it’s faster and easier.

The Christmas Bat has been a real tradition in my family for several years now. It was birthed out of necessity when my mom wanted my brother-in-law and I to put tinsel on the tree strand by strand, which might have taken hours. Instead, we pretty much grabbed handfuls of tinsel from the bag, threw it all on the tree, found a rubber bat left out from Halloween, stuck it in one of the clumps and called it a day. The Christmas Bat tradition was born.

To make your own Christmas Bat, dump a bag of tinsel on a branch (preferably high on the tree for a good lookout spot), get a rubber bat (or real one, if you have access), color in the right eye with a black Sharpie, color in the left eye with a red Sharpie, stick him in the tinsel nest facing out and make sure you get to bed at a decent hour and don’t get up too early.