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 |  It's who we are. It's what we stare at in the middle of the night. It's a bug zapper. |
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My friends, When we were young and newly hatched—also young and in love—my husband and I lived with our four young children on the Space Coast of Florida. The massive propulsion of rocket and shuttle launches from Cape Kennedy often rocked the windows and doors of our little love cottage. We were always properly respectful and impressed by the reach of mankind’s achievements. It was a point of pride to stop whatever we were doing (dishes, dinner, dancing, sleeping, fist fighting, etc.) to watch the eastern horizon—hands on hearts, tears in eyes—as the United States of America raced into the frontier of space. One deep, dark morning (about 2:00 am) I shook my husband awake to watch yet another triumph of human advancement. “Get up,” I mumbled to Sherwood, “the shuttle’s going up. We gotta’ watch.” Sherwood moaned, “The garbage is out all ready. Let me die.” He did not open his eyes. “Come on. We should watch. Night launches are amazing.” He dragged himself upright and clung to the window ledge behind our bed. We knelt, with our chins braced on the ledge, our bleary eyes fixed on a blazing light in the eastern sky. We watched. The light did not appear to move. We stared some more. The light remain fixed. We struggled to focus. The light blazed away. We waited for the light to fade into the blackness of space. It did not. We watched and watched and watched. The light stubbornly refused to move. At last, collapsing back into my pillow I said, “Honey, go back to sleep.” Sounding confused, miffed, and a little whiney Sherwood asked, “Why?” “Because for the last eight to ten minutes we’ve been staring at our next door neighbor’s bug zapper.” He went back to sleep. And I lived to worship at the altar of space exploration another day. This story pretty much sums up who we are, and how we got this way—excessive staring at bug zappers. And this is my blog, a space-age way of recording one’s thoughts, ideas, embarrassments, and foibles for the entire known world. Once upon a time, I would have made this record on papyrus, rolled it up, stuffed it into a ceramic jar, and asked to have the whole thing buried with me in my sarcophagus. I still might. Disclaimer: Some of the stuff you will read here is true. Some of it is not. Some of it is the result of wishful thinking. Some of it is the result of too much thinking, and some of it is the result of too little thinking. But all of it will be written with joy and laughter, because the alternative is despair and weeping, and isn’t there more than enough of that stuff out there? Thank you for your support, Linda (Zippity the Zapped) Zern |
| The couch in the living room was purchased at Disney World’s version of a garage sale. It cost seventy-five bucks. The dining room table was a scratch and dent. Dead people gave us a lot of the rest of our furniture. Once, I bought a cheap version of a fancy chaise lounge and a grandkid promptly peed on it. It was “nice” for about a month. I cleaned it, but there’s a stain under the fringed brown throw. It’s still pretty, if you keep the pillows arranged just right. There’s a boarder of dirt handprints of varying heights throughout the house and a gouge in the floor where yet another grandkid busted my antique ceramic pitcher. I have magic markers the color of wood to scribble in the gouge marks. I don’t really have “nice things.” I have used, re-covered, thrown-up-on things. It’s not so bad, because I have other things I like better. I have grandchildren . . . Well, I have Zoe Baye (9) whose first word was “Wow,” when she noticed wind blowing in the tops of our trees. I hadn’t noticed the way the wind danced in the treetops for a long time, not until Zoe. I didn’t even realize I’d stop noticing until Zoe reminded me. Emma Sarah (8) came to us as an instant grandchild, funny, tender, and deeply intellectual. Just don’t ask her to drive the Fisher Price Dune Buggy, because she’ll drive it straight up the trunk of the big pine tree in front of the barn, gas pedal to the metal, until she flips the whole thing upside down on top of herself. She actually did this and looked like the Wicked Witch of the West when the house fell on her, tennis shoes sticking out, toes up. Emma didn’t hurt anything too badly except her future insurance premiums. Then there’s Conner Phillip (7), who can imitate a man having a heart attack and someone doing a Mexican hat dance. He’s also famous for his commentary, like when he told his Sunday School teacher, “Sista’ [C]Tassidy, you have big boobies.” She later confessed that she was so shocked by his comment, all she could think of to say was, “Why, thank you Conner.” He was four at the time. Kipling Sherwood (4) can drive that Fisher Price Dune Buggy with one foot on the gas pedal, one foot on the hood, while steering with one hand. It’s like watching the trick rider at the circus doing the Roman Ride, where the rider rides two horses, one foot on one horse and the other foot on the other horse. If Kip could get someone to drive one dune buggy and someone else to drive another, he’d give it a shot. He came fearless, which can be confused with crazy. Sadie JoLee (4) screeched herself through infancy and then became a queen, skipping the princess phase entirely. When her big sister, Emma, worried that monsters might be real, Sadie informed her, “Thems is real. I sees thems at night, but thems melt in the morning.” Sadie’s sister remains skeptical but cautious. He has the build, carriage, and voice of a thirty-five year old Olympic wrestler and can bench press a number ten can of hard red winter wheat and lives for farm chores. Zachary Jon (2) doesn’t get mad, he gets even, plotting revenge for hours, sometimes overnight. In a pinch, he bites. He can drive circles around Emma in a Fisher Price Dune Buggy. Reagan Baye-Love (2) refuses to listen, obey, bring, fetch, or come when called. She’s more disobedient than a cat. She’s also as unsinkable as the famous “Unsinkable Molly Brown” and has an irrepressible sense of joy and fun. In a pinch, she bites—mostly Zach. Griffin Henry (1) gives every indication of being a grouchy muppet with a permanent frown, except when he’s smiling and laughing at Zoe, or Conner, or Kip, or Emma, or Sadie or any combination thereof. Hero Everdeen (5 months) watches the world go by with big eyes and a gummy smile. She likes to be held, and talked to, and fed—a lot. Scout Harper (newborn) is a rose and gold promise, wrapped in a pink blanket. Inside that little body with the spidery arms is a spiritual being come to earth to have a physical experience, and we wait her growing up with delight and expectation. It’s true that I don’t have nice things. I have a nice life, filled with dazzling people and babies about to become dazzling people. They can throw up on my fancy, cheap stuff any time. Linda (Ten Little Indians) Zern |
| We are hobby farmers. Hobby farmers live in a relative rural setting, dabble in various kinds of “farming,” and have the knowing of a lot of fascinating farm facts. Or as my son-in-law observed, “ Farming means buying animals that poop and then moving the poop around.” True. Poop moving accounts for approximately seventy-three percent of time usage on the typical hobby farm, and clever, new uses for poop or the moving of poop is always exciting news, proving that hobby farmers are inquisitive people eager to know new stuff. Knowing new stuff is ninety three percent of why a person would take up farming for a hobby in the first place. Over the years I’ve learned a few important life lessons because of my hobby: EVERYTHING THAT GETS ITSELF BORN ENDS UP IN A NEATLY DUG BACKHOE HOLE IN THAT BIG PASTURE IN THE SKY—EVENTUALLY. Life is transient and precious, so kick up your heels when spring finally shows up and the sun finally shines down. MOTHER NATURE IS A B*TCH. When a mother rabbit gives birth to a deformed, three-legged baby, she will calmly carry it to a far corner of the cage and abandon it—or eat it. Mother nature does not waste time, energy, or resources on diversity. MOTHER NATURE IS A B*TCH. And we human beings are not animals. We may have hair, warm blood, and mammary glands, but we also have wheel chairs. EVERYTHING POOPS. So stop pretending that you don’t. ROOSTERS DO NOT LAY EGGS. Hopefully, this does not require an explanation. FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS. Except when you try to help your neighbor corral his rampaging steer by vaulting the communal gate, dislocate your knee, and wind up without important ligaments in your knee. Then fences are like Mother Nature. LIFE IS NOT ONE LITTLE BIT FAIR. Even after doing everything right, the pony still colic’s and dies, the coyotes still carry off newborn lambs, oranges still freeze back to the rootstock, and cutworms still invade like a Nazi panzer tank division cutting the tomato plants slap down to the well mulched ground. It’s possible that without divine help and assistance we are all dead men. AND SOMETIMES LIFE IS A 1ST PLACE RIBBON AT THE OSCEOLA COUNTY FAIR, because your Nubian milk goat has a “mammary capacity that cannot be denied. We have our grand champion!!” And that means that you own a goat with the biggest teats in twenty-three counties, and life is good. So let’s recap. Hobby farming gets us off the city streets, out of the rat race, and back into the fields where we belong. Otherwise, we run the risk of thinking that chicken eggs are created in Styrofoam egg cartons in the dairy section at Wal*Mart. Linda (Scooping Poop) Zern |
| Someone is always throwing up or urinating or defecating on or around our home each and every weekend. We have ten grandchildren. The oldest is nine. The whole bunch lives five minutes away from us. Do the math. A lot of people told my husband and I that we were too young to get and stay married. We didn’t listen. We just staggered to the edge of the cliff of life and jumped off. Our oldest child was born thirteen months later. One of my most vivid, blurry moments of those impossible early years is that of my young husband and new father—naked—stomping around the bedroom, gathering up our wailing first born, sinking (still naked) into the rocking chair, and shouting, “Back to the damn chair.” I know why he cussed, but I can’t remember why he was naked. That part is still fuzzy. Assorted stomping silliness, sans clothes, ensued for the next two decades. With the help of organized religion and sheer tenacity we managed to raise a United States combat soldier, a ballerina with a degree in dance education, a political science major, and a organizational communications major. So, if you need someone to shoot straight, dance angelically, or talk passionately about politics, we’re your people. I like to say that we didn’t raise our children to kiss us, as much as we raised them to kiss their children. And they do, because . . . Firstly: Our children actually had children or as my son-in-law declared to my daughter, while fleeing a public park with a possessed, head spinning, screeching toddler, “Our life is already crap. We might as well have more kids.” Secondly: They chose family over “fun.” A lot of young married folks like to say that they’ll have kids after they stop having “fun.” Come to our house; I’ll show you some fun. Or as great grandpa Zern said—as he watched Conner (7) get his loose tooth pulled by Uncle T. J., Sadie (4) sail by in a Fisher Price Dune Buggy, Zoe (9) dig a series of “honey badger” nests, and Kip (4) pee on some ants, “This is better than television. I should have brought my movie camera.” And Thirdly: Of children, it is said, “For of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” Then we must conclude that Heaven is a noisy, busy, joyous place. Or as Zoe said when she noticed the full moon for the first time as a tiny little girl, “Wow!” After one particularly rowdy family event my husband shook his head and said, “There was public urination, wrestling while nude, and sword fighting. It’s like being at a medieval bar.” Or a frat house on Saturday night where someone is always throwing up, urinating, or defecating in public. And that starts with ‘F’ and that begins the fun and that stands for family. Linda (Fun Stuff) Zern |
| The first time I contracted cabin fever I came very close to committing murder, and my husband of thirty plus years came whisker close to having his skull bashed in with a baseball bat. The two events were connected. My husband got me to move to a state with north in the title by telling me, that while it got brisk in the wintertime, it never snowed, or at last report, there had not been snow in North Carolina since the Civil War. I bought it. We moved. Our first winter arrived. There was a freak snowstorm that dumped two feet of snow across a sheet of glacier ice, which floated over a river of liquid sleet, piled on top of hell—which had, in fact, frozen over. The fine state of North Carolina was, to put it nicely, not ready. Our little band of strangers in a strange land was snowed in for two weeks. I was not ready. I contracted cabin fever on day two of our entrapment. Cabin fever is a malady that causes the sufferer to experience irrational irritations over seemingly minor annoyances magnified by a factor of about twelve, times the national debt, multiplied by 666. An infected person gets stinky mean. Until we were “snowed in” or as I liked to describe it “buried alive,” I had not really noticed that my darling husband had been saying exactly the same thing every single morning of every single day, for the entire span of our thirty years of marriage. HE HAS SAID THE EXACT SAME THING, EVERY SINGLE MORNING OF EVERY SINGLE DAY, FOR THIRTY YEARS –THE EXACT SAME THING—EVERY! SINGLE! DAY! Every morning he has sat straight up in bed and said, “Well, I guess I’ll go and get cleaned up now.” And it’s not JUST that he says the EXACT SAME THING. It’s WHAT he’s saying. He “guesses” he’s going to get cleaned up! What would the alternatives be? To get up but not get “cleaned up” and walk around with a Wooly Mammoth on his face all day, or to not get up at all, remain in bed in his own filth, and eventually have his skin grow into the mattress (and yes, that can happen, I saw it on TV!) By day five or six of being snowed in and with a cabin fever of about 212 degrees, I had not only picked up on this unfortunate verbal pattern, but I had started waiting for the inevitable, predictable, rhythmic cadence of his morning declaration like a cobra tracking the movements of a wounded mongoose. On day seven, I rolled towards him and with eyes narrowed to slits and with a reptilian hiss said, “Sherwood, Do you know that you say the exact same thing, every single day, and that if you say it tomorrow I can’t be held accountable. There is a baseball bat under this bed. It is for crushing the brains out of the heads of robbers, but I will use it--on you--if you repeat yourself ever again. I swear it.” He backed carefully away from his side of the bed, his eyes focused like laser beams on my face. “I mean it. I’ll do it.” By this time, I had quit brushing stuff (hair, teeth) . I was close to terminal. That day passed as snow drifted, settled, melted, and re-froze. I floated in our garden tub like a giant lily pad in water hot enough to blanche carrots. The night brought another ice storm and the sound of tree trunks blowing up. The water inside the trees froze, expanded, and then exploded, sending splinters of wood catapulting away into the night—also into the siding of the houses. Trees toppled. Expensive landscaping froze to death. Morning came. I waited under the blankets. Wrapped in knee socks, flannel pajamas, a bathrobe, and an overcoat, I lovingly stroked the baseball bat that I clutched to my chest hidden under the covers. Tension pulsated through my hands and fingers and hair, as I lay in wait, er . . . I mean . . . waiting for my husband to wake up. Sitting straight up in bed, he said, “I guess I’ll go and . . .” My hands tightened around the baseball bat. He paused and got strangely still, the way a rabbit goes still when it smells fangs. “I guess I’ll go and . . . get a shower.” Adrenalin oozed from between my fingers. I relaxed. He showered. The thaw came. Winter in Florida is a bit different. We have a few of those murky winter days that make going out an ugly business, so we put on a sweater and walk fast to the car. I haven’t had cabin fever as much as cabin canker sores. As I write this, Sherwood is in bed calling me on his cell phone. He is, literally, ten feet away from my desk, sending a signal into outer space, so that it can bounce off a satellite and ricochet back to earth. He’s propositioning me. Sometimes he calls me on his cell phone from the bathroom to ask me for toilet paper. Spring cannot come soon enough. Linda (Spring Fling) Zern |
| According to Mark Twain American humor is unique. The French and English tell stories that are funny. Americans tell stories in a funny way. That’s the gist of it—paraphrased, roughly, also badly. What it means is that Americans can find the humor in just about anything. It’s true or it’s roughly true. I’ve also read that humor is tragedy plus time. That’s quoted—badly. Whatever you believe about what is or is not funny, laughing beats the alternatives. I’d rather laugh than set myself on fire or lock myself in a basement, growing paranoia under a black light. So I write about the irony, the absurdity, the inconsistency, and the sheer unpredictability of being alive in a world where it’s possible to photo shop the head of a Victoria Secret model onto your own body. See what I did there? The idea of putting the head of a sexy model on the aging body of a five foot one inch freckled author is silly, and that’s why that’s funny. Humor 101. And so this is my annual disclaimer. MISSION STATEMENT: I make fun of me and mine and sometimes people who tick me off, but I disguise those folks so they can’t sue me. WARNING: Don’t read anything I write if you 1) can’t laugh at yourself 2) can’t laugh at me 3) can’t laugh at anything other than crotch kicking or 4) haven’t laughed since you became “enlightened.” MARRIAGE TIP: Never buy luggage! That way whoever threatens to leave has to haul their junk off in black garbage bags. It’s a real deterrent. FAVORITE SUBJECTS TO LAMPOON: Animal lovers who eat meat. Meat eaters who love animals. Animal owners that are eaten by their animal, and anyone who thinks that an eagle eating a duck constitutes cannibalism. Lampoon lovers. FAVORITE TV SHOWS: Anything but reality. Reality sucks. BEST COMFORT FOOD: Granny Bagget’s chicken-n-dumplings, but Granny Bagget’s been gone for thirty years or more, so I’m in the market for a new choice. BFF: My husband. PMLTDMC (Person Most Likely To Drive Me Crazy): My husband. PET PEEVE: Dead light bulbs. Because they scream “lazy,” and because I’m short and I have to get a stepladder to change the big tall light bulbs and getting someone tall to do it is a pain in the lampoon. BIGGEST WORRIES: Tongue tumors and the zombie apocalypse. POLITICAL AFFILIATION: Libertarian until you can prove to me that being “liberal” or “conservative” won’t turn us all into zombies with tongue tumors. WRITING PHILOSPHY: Anytime, anywhere, anything! And that’s the gist of it, for now. I can’t promise anything should I become an “overnight” sensation, sell butt loads of books, and become obscenely wealthy and riddled with guilt over my good fortune. Then I might become a real drag, like all those famous types who hide out in their compounds in South Florida. Linda (The Gist Monger) Zern |
| I believe in tests. I believe in the ability of tests to test things: knowledge; expertise; the amount of time spent cramming for tests. Heck, isn’t life the biggest test of all? All these amazing choices and you picked what? That? Quick! Here’s a test. Look at your walls. What’s hanging on them? That’s probably what you love. Oops, I just looked and realized that there are three ragged nail holes and some clipboards adorning my bedroom walls. I don’t love nail holes or clipboards. This particular test may need some fine-tuning. Still, tests are good, and husband tests are the best tests of all. I have been administering gorilla pop quizzes and tests on my husband for thirty plus years. Results have been mixed. While walking a Cocoa Beach boardwalk, my husband and I passed several svelte, nubile bikini clad girls. When I say ‘svelte’ I mean their outlines resembled all the curvy letters in the alphabet melted into an hourglass. Time for husband pop quiz # 34,789 . . . “Holy curvy girl, Batman, did you see those teenagers?” I asked, watching his face carefully for test anxiety. He was clueless. “Ummmm?” he said, in his best pre-test uncertainty. “Those girls.” I waved vaguely at their disappearing va-va-voomage. “I didn’t look like that when I was like that.” “That’s true,” he said. “You didn’t look like that.” “Really?” I stopped dead in my tracks. “That was a test and you failed and wouldn’t you rather wait for the multi-choice answers? For example, A) No, you did NOT look like those girls; you looked like a woman. My woman. Come here, woman! B) What girls? C) Those weren’t girls. They were bewitched Barbie dolls, or D) May my eyes explode if I ever look at another female in a bikini . . . and/or . . . clothes again.” “Ummm, all of the above?” “Good answer.” He sighed. “Don’t feel bad, Babe. There’s always extra credit.” He smiled. We walked on. Truthfully, I never did look like those girls. I looked like a boney boy or, maybe, a box with the words THIS END UP stenciled on my forehead. That’s how I know that my husband married me for reasons other than my girlish figure. I believe he married me for my ability to craft fascinating test questions, my penchant for wearing ‘Sweet Honesty’ perfume and pink t-shirts, and for having excellent calf muscles and skinny ankles. That’s true love that stands the test of time. Linda (Advanced Placement) Zern |
SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION or THIS IS ME, HIGH ON HUMOR AT HUMORPRESS.COM! Amnesia Anyone (Semi-Finalist), Hamster Infestation (Honorable Mention), He Ain’t Heavy; He’s My Effigy (Semi-Finalist), Racy Rooster Talk (Semi-Finalist), Coach-of-All-Sports (Semi-Finalist), A Word That is Safe (2nd Place Overall), Weirdo Magnet (Honorable Mention) Linda L. Zern www.zippityzerns.com http://zippityzerns.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/lzern zippityzern@comcast.net www.smashwords.com/profile/view/zippityzern |
| My grandparents worked six days a week, for thirty years, owning and running a bar. To the best of my knowledge they never went on a cruise, took a mental health day, or faked cholera to get out of work. For fun, my grandfather used to chain up his garbage cans to thwart thieves, and my grandmother used to crush empty beer cans with a mallet for recycling. My grandfather called her Crusher. It was a term of endearment. On Sundays they bought a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and hung out with their grandkids. Here’s the real shocker; they managed to live long productive, tax paying lives without a single vacation or having one part of their bodies massaged. It’s like reading about dinosaurs. Isn’t it? My husband is a workhorse. That’s probably why I married him. I recognized the type. Until a recent business trip to Thailand, he’s managed to work his way through college, support a family of six, and become a member of the Osceola County Volunteer Mounted Posse without receiving, getting, or wanting a single massage. I admired that. That’s all gone now. Thailand got him, and he did get massaged—his first ever. His confession was classic. “I got a massage,” he said as the cell phone made ominous click noises as the signal bounced from Thailand to the far side of the moon to a slip-shod cell phone tower somewhere near Kissimmee. I was horrified. “A NAKED massage with sexy Thai women?” He wasn’t surprised at my leaping, jumping, and bolting to conclusions. He’s lived with me for a long time. In fact, one of the kinks in his neck might be me. “No. Not naked. Just an upper body and foot massage. But it was fantastic. I may not come home.” He sighed, sounding weirdly mellow. “I can’t believe a woman that small can press that hard.” “Press what? Are you kidding me? Besides, I thought we were watching the money this month. What with the middle class not getting slammed with tax increases, right?” Sometime sarcasm is the glue that keeps my bad attitude in its upright and stationary position. “No worries. The whole thing cost me seven bucks.” He sounded dreamy. “Seven bucks. What kind of massage was this? How long did this ‘pressing’ business go on?” “An hour.” “AN HOUR! You paid seven bucks for an hour long foot massage!” “Yeah,” he said, contentment curled through the phone in a drowsy wave. “But I tipped her.” “How much?” “Three bucks.” “Three bucks! You didn’t get a foot massage; you bought a slave. Shame on you. Shame.” “No really, you should get one.” He sounded like a pot growing hippy with an extensive garden. “It would really relax you.” “Not on your life. I have to stay sharp. I am the point of the spear.” Or was it that I was the handle on the mallet? Whatever. I admit I was curious. Life threatening calf cramps in the middle of the night I understood. Relaxation through digital manipulation was as foreign to me as wearing a thong in public, so I asked, “What all did she do to you?” “I don’t know. They put me in an Lazy-Boy lounger, and I fell asleep.” “Well, that explains the enthusiasm. We’ve never owned an Lazy-Boy lounger in our lives.” Silence greeted my observation. I suspected he had fallen asleep and was dreaming of couches that transformed into hammocks. “Right?” I prompted. “Harrumph . . . gurgle . . . sure, right. No, I mean it. You should really try it.” That was enough of that. “Nope! I’m firmly convinced that it’s the knots, kinks, and muscle spasms that are the only things holding me together. I can’t risk it.” “Okay, how about when I get home you massage me?” One of my knots twisted into a kink. I know, because it made a grinding sound. “Snap out it. The only thing I’m going to massage when you get home is your wallet.” A snore greeted my tough girl talk. I thought about crushing some soda cans with a mallet or maybe chaining up my garbage to thwart thieves and relieve stress. It wasn’t like getting a deep tissue massage in Thailand, but it is family tradition. Linda (Crusher Too) Zern |
| Because I am so engrossing and we live in an era that celebrates the glory of accomplishing absolutely nothing, I’d like to share with my friends and family a day in my fascinating, engrossing life. 3:00am – I am awakened from a troubled sleep by a circus troop of raccoons assaulting the family trashcans. 3:13am – Motion sensor light comes on as the raccoons form “HUMAN” pyramid. That’s right; I said HUMAN. I imagine the raccoon heap now measures 4’ 11” inches in height and comes up to my chin. 3:20am – I race outside in my fluffy bathrobe with a broom to confront raccoon troop. Trip over garbage slung thirty feet in all directions. Realize raccoons have thrown invisibility cloak over themselves. 3:27am – Shake broom at nothing. Watch hair on my arms stand up when the coyotes start howling. 3:28am – Go back to bed. Attempt to sleep. 5:00am – QUIT trying to attempt to sleep. 6:00am – Say a simple prayer of thanks that every man-jack of us have lived to see another day. (Note: We will be the first to admit that our family may occasionally merit Biblical destruction.) 6:09am – Check out cable news. Feel vindicated that every prediction I’ve ever made is coming true. Turn up the volume when it’s reported that a woman in North Carolina was attacked in her sleep IN HER BED by a surly—also rabid—raccoon. 6:12am – Shuffle to the bathroom and because I’ve caught my great grandmother’s arthritis, I daydream about my granddaughter having to push me to the mailbox in a wheelchair every day. She will chatter happily as she pushes. Say a prayer of gratitude for such a wonderful granddaughter. 6:31am – Limbs and appendages begin to bend. Postpone nursing home reservation. 7:27am – Feed good animals (not garbage eating night marauders) stuff. 9:00am – Go to yoga and during meditation time, when I’m supposed to be emptying my mind of all stressful thoughts, I try to calculate the force necessary to kill a raccoon with a rock. 10:07am – Declare yoga a bust. Decide to try combat kick boxing next time. Noon – Eat macaroni or rice or beans. I’m not kidding. 12:00pm to When-I-run-out-of-steam-or-the-coyotes-howl: I scribble and scribble words on virtual paper. Words that no one may ever read, but I still feel compelled to write, in spite of the fact that it makes me look like an agoraphobic shut-in. Bedtime – When the sun sets and the chickens go to sleep, because I’m saving precious energy and resources for future generations—also I can work in bed while wearing pajamas. Don’t be jealous. Tomorrow – Rinse and Repeat Linda (Night Stalker) Zern |
| One of the mystifying parts of my job description as the Oracle of Saint Cloud is being expected to answer unanswerable questions. It ranks right up there with being asked to smell moldy cheese to determine “goodness.” It usually happened like this: While napping—and happy, some miscellaneous kid would shove a block of sharp cheddar under my nose and screech, “Smell this! Is it still good?” To which I would reply, without opening my eyes, “Sure. Sure. Just cut off the green stuff.” But that’s not really the oracle part of my job, that’s more the food and drug administration part of my job. The oracle part of my job consists of being asked stupid questions. Questions to which there are no rational answers. Questions that would stump people who think they know everything—like graduates of state universities. Questions like . . . “Why did the cat wee-wee on all the Christmas decorations?” “What is wrong with that crazy kid, and why won’t he quit sucking ink out the red magic markers?” “Why is that goat eating charcoal?” “When will this kid learn to speak recognizable English?” “What’s the best way to get bubble gum out of buttocks hair?” Oh wait. That last question is one that I asked, back when my husband sat on a wad of bubble gum that wicked children had spit out in the bathtub. That question actually has an answer, but you’ll need to email me for the information. And then there’s the ever-popular, “Why can’t anyone in the entire western hemisphere—except me—press the spring loaded toilet paper holder out, slip a new roll of toilet paper on, and pop the sucker back into the wall fixture?” Oh wait! That’s my question too. Hey, you know what I need? I need my own personal oracle, and then I could ask her the answers to all those other dopey questions. Linda (Crystal Ball) Zern |
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