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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 |
| Mark Twain wrote a beautiful essay about “Two Ways to See a River.” He complained that by becoming an expert at something and while you gain knowledge, it’s at the sacrifice of wonder. It’s a beautiful piece of writing because it happens to be true. Becoming a writer with hundreds of thousands of words in your portfolio is like that. It gets harder and harder to read a book riddled with examples of author intrusion (See! What I’m telling you in this part of the story is that this is the bad guy because he eats kittens! I mean it!) or an excessive use of attributes and adverbs, she interjected snidely, moistly, and urgently. But it gets worse. You start hearing the flaws in the speechifying of regular people you’ve been married to for decades—namely spouse types. For example: My husband of thirty-eight years, the world-renowned computer analyst, has an expression he uses over and over again when he’s losing an argument with me. He likes to say, “Oh, get off it!” All I can think when he says this is that the subject ‘you’ is implied and vague. So vague that I assume he’s talking to himself and not me, and I imagine him saying it like this, “Oh, Sherwood, get off it!” Yeah, how about that, Sherwood? And the verb “get,” it’s extremely weak in this sentence. Get is one of the weakest of the verbs. My advice to my husband to jazz up his prickly command is to strengthen that puny verb by turning the word get into an action verb of the rip roaring kind. “Oh, Sherwood, drive off it!” “Oh, Sherwood, flip off it!” “Oh, Sherwood, soar off it!” “Oh, Sherwood, shove off it!” And what about that pronoun? It? What it? Whose it? Concrete nouns are the building blocks of a rude, sharp sentence, so I’d suggest replacing that pronoun with something sharp-edged and hard—something like a chunk of word cement. Maybe something like this: “Oh, Sherwood, shove off that Saguaro cactus.” Or “Oh, Sherwood shove off that red hot poker.” But this takes us into the land of adjectives and advanced description—and that’s a tightrope I’d rather not walk right now. So, like the Twain, I’ve lost the wonder and awe in my husband’s forceful, manly instructions to me during an argument, and I can only register the grammar funk of his dopey sentence. Thank you, Mr. Twain, for helping me understand the price of knowledge, and helping me appreciate the irony of loss and gain. “Since those days [as a riverboat captain] I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?” [Mark Twain, “Two Ways to See a River”] Ahhh . . . Mr. Twain . . . those poor doctors and, let's not forget, the computer systems analysts . . . Linda (Grammar Matron) Zern |
| The first time I heard the word “hunker” I was on a raccoon hunt. We were standing at the bottom of a massively tall oak tree where a couple of raccoons were hiding out. The ‘coon’ dogs stared up at the invisible raccoons. The hunters stared up at the invisible animals. I stared up at . . . nothing. Those raccoons had either discovered a black hole in the fork of that oak tree or they had perfected the art of hunkering. Hunter number one said, “Well!” He chewed and spat. “Those beasts are sure hunkered down.” For a long time, I thought hunkered meant, having an invisibility cloak. But no . . . It means: to squat or crouch down low, to take cover. Really? Do people know that? Are they really telling people to squat down in the face of a cat-4 hurricane, or are they telling folks to take cover in the hollow of an oak tree? I wouldn’t pick the tree option. It might be crowded in there, what with all those raccoons stuffed inside. What is it about hurricanes that make people use the word hunker? Don’t get me wrong. I love the word. I think it’s underused. I’d like to see it enjoy a renaissance of popularity. Don’t be afraid. I will hunker near you all night. Come! Let’s us hunker together. I would have been on time to work, but I was busy hunkering. I have hunkered long enough. I shall stop squatting now. No one can hunker down like Matt. To hunker is to squat—also crouch. Don’t tell that jerk where I’ve been hunkering down! Such a great word. So many possibilities. HURRICANE DRINKING GAME: Every time I hear the word hunker I take a drink—of Gatorade. I don’t drink that other stuff. Never needed to. Never wanted to be drunk. Saw too much of someone else who needed to be drunk—a lot—when I was a kid. I have hunkered down, however, and not just during hurricanes. Linda (Huntress) Zern |
| Many of you know that my husband and I live in a rural setting. Right now, the setting resembles an episode of Hillbilly Hand Fishing. (There is a lot of standing water, due to the semi-tropical weather with a name.) Folks sometimes come out to the country to visit us. They wear flip-flops and short-shorts. We recommend long pants and steel-toed boots—even for the babies. The country is no joke. There are snakes in the water, horse poop in piles, fire ants in heaps, and animals doing what animals do all over the place. Warning! Graphic! Farm related animal talk and scenarios featuring animals in their natural habitat. They will not be wearing clothes—of any kind—ever. They do not act like people, no matter how much we insist. On one side of our property is the “weekend” home of Mr. Abe. Mr. Abe likes to fill his fields with boy goats—lots and lots and lots of boy goats. He sells the goats to other Muslims to eat; these are goats considered clean, pure, and unsullied by hands, knives, or products that have touched or are pork. Try to understand: There are sixty or more horny boy goats next door to my house at any given time waiting for the knife of purity. It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah over there because boy goats will . . . um . . . er . . . oh forget it . . . they will hump anything that stands still long enough to let them try. They are not gay. They are just boy goats, sans girl goats. Picture it! Sixty to one thousand boy goats attempting to dominate, rut, hump, and get their freak on with sixty to one thousand other boy goats. It's like a game: King of the Mountain. I've forbidden myself from looking over at Mr. Abe's, afraid that I'll turn to salt. I once saw a boy donkey running away from a giant Nubian boy goat that was trying to declare his inter-species love, both of which were being chased by their owner—my neighbor who lives on the other side of me. Do not visit the country if you are unprepared to explain donkey/goat sex to your children. I mean it. Unless, of course, you want to go with the standard, “They’re just wrestling, dear.” Because that’s a lot of wrestling. And the wrestling dodge will not explain Porno Pete, the overly amorous donkey that used to stand on the other side of the fence, trying to appeal to our girl horses. His method of asking for a date was to display his . . . rather . . . ambitious . . . personal . . . oh forget it . . . he let it all hang out CONSTANTLY. It was gross. I finally had to forbid the grandchildren from looking over at Porno Pete, telling them that they would turn to salt if they did. Do not visit the country if you are unprepared to explain the anatomy of a boy donkey in love. “What is that thing, Mommy?” Go ahead, explain; I’ll hold your coat. And whatever you do, don’t visit after a smashing, good semi-tropical downpour. It’s a regular frog freak fest, closely resembling a frat party, resulting in about ten trillion tadpoles swimming across the front yard. It’s life, and it just goes on and on and on. Life! Messy, funny, dramatic, lusty life. On second thought, come on out, any old time, but just remember to wear long pants and boots and be prepared for a hefty dose of Mother Nature. Linda (Salt Pillar) Zern |
| Amazon.com is a marvel of virtual shopping. I love it. They love me. I type in my, sometimes strange, criteria—goat de-wormer, dog dandruff shampoo, owl pellets, size five kitten heels—and bam! Elves bring me my every heart’s desire—for free. I have a Prime account. The day that the grid finally does collapse, and my keyboard goes still and silent, will be a dark, dark shopping day indeed. People ask me, “Where did you get that Steampunk skull head walking stick?” “Amazon, of course,” I chirp. “ No shipping. I’m prime.” My husband, Sherwood the Stoic Shopper, does not often order online, but when he does . . . He buys shoe polish. That’s it. Or so I thought. In the jumble of boxes, packages, and envelopes, I noticed a small manila envelope that looked as if it had circumnavigated the globe in the wheel well of a UPS jet with engine trouble. I opened the envelope. Shoe polish wrapped in bubble wrap and . . . a rag . . . fell out. Weird. I tossed the garbage and kept the shoe polish. Sherwood the Stoic Shopper called me, from some foreign land—I think in this case it was Detroit, and asked, “Did my package come?” “Sure. Sure. Your exotic shoe polish from the Himalayas arrived.” “How about the rag?” The word garbage shot into my mind like a bullet. “Rag? What rag?” “The seven dollar buffing rag that came with the polish. I’ve been tracking it.” It’s in moments like this that knowing what nuttiness to address first can be a challenge. “You’ve been tracking a rag.” “Yeah, I’ve been pretty pumped about getting my buffing rag—seven dollars.” “Sherwood, did I know that you were waiting on a rag? A rag that not only looked like a rag but looked like a hunk of stuff someone had cut off of a moth eaten curtain? A hunk of stuff that you paid seven dollars for? Did I know?” “Linda, where’s my rag?” “You might want to start tracking the garbage.” His broken hearted moan echoed. “I was so looking forward to getting it,” he whispered. “Babe, it was a rag. I thought it was a junky kind of packing material. What the heck?” My husband is a computer systems senior analyst, meaning he speaks software. Human communication is not his best thing. He seemed to believe that I should have magically 1) known the rag was more than a rag 2) known he’d ordered a rag 3) known he’s paid more for the rag than the polish 4) known his heart was set on getting his ‘buffing rag . . . and so forth. PEOPLE! IT WAS A RAG! Don’t worry, he got his revenge; he hid my brand new travel blow dryer in the closet so that I would 1) think I was going crazy 2) unable to dry my hair, forcing me to wear it in a ridiculous ponytail for a work meeting 3) wandering around the house crying my eyes out 4) pretty sure the grandboys had stolen it to use for a “gun” . . . and so forth. There’s a great line in “Mad Max – Beyond Thunderdome.” At the end of the movie, Aunty says to Max, “Ain’t we a pair, Raggedy Man?” Yeah. What she said. I’m ordering myself a t-shirt with that line printed on it. From Amazon. No shipping. I’m prime. Linda (Thunderdome) Zern |
| Mother Nature is a girl with an agenda. She’s not a dancing hippo in a tutu. That’s a Disney cartoon with no actual connection or counterpart in the natural world where Mother Nature is queen. Let me repeat. Hippo’s do not wear clothes. They do not dance ballet. They do not twirl in tutu’s. Hippo’s are murderers. They kill more people in Africa than any other land mammal. I made the mistake of saying that hippo’s are the most dangerous animals in the world, and I was instantly challenged by the Google police. Me: Hippo’s are the most . . . Google Police: GOOGLE IT! Me: I meant land mammal in Africa. Google Police: NOT WHAT YOU SAID. Ah ha! The most dangerous animal in the world? THE MOSQUITO!!! Google busted . . . Someone (who was not me): Mosquitoes aren’t animals. Google Police: GOOGLE IT. Actually, mosquitoes are animals. Pigeons are animals. Hermit crabs are animals. Goats are animals. And animals do what animals do because Mother Nature is their queen, even if everyone in society decides to shave their dog’s butt and dress them in top hat and tails. Our male goat named Tramp is six feet tall when he stands on his hind legs. Mother Nature, his queen, dictates that he lives for two things: food and females. He happily obeys. When new girl goats show up in our next-door neighbor’s pastures, Tramp becomes a rank smelling, lip curling sex fiend. It’s in his DNA. He lives to make baby Tramps. When I say he’s rank . . . well . . . let’s “google” it: Billy goats -- or bucks, as goat fanciers correctly call them -- are intact male goats. ... Bucks stink with a strong musky odor, which comes from both their scent glands, located near their horns, and their urine, which they spray on their face, beards, front legs and chest. Let’s read this again slowly: Urine. Which. They. Spray. On. Their. Faces. Beards. Legs. And. Chest. Boy goats smell like old cheese cooked in the sun under a pile of moldy grass clippings. It’s a “perfume” girl goats cannot resist. Boy goats stink. They don’t have a choice. They stink because Mother Nature, their queen, says they must if they’re going to get sex and make baby Tramps. Animals live to eat and make more animals. It’s true. Back to mosquitoes, the most dangerous animal in the world, which live to eat and make more of themselves. The ones that bite are female. True story. They need the protein in blood for their eggs to develop. Google it. Humans are animals. That’s the word on the secular street. We live to eat and make more of ourselves and watch the Olympics and knit afghans and wear perfume and start charities and ride bicycles and drink smoothies and invent Google and vacuum the kid’s room and write novels and blog . . . about mosquitoes. True story. Linda (Skeeter) Zern |
| The Olympics are back, and my marriage is on the rocks. Oh, not in the traditional sense, where the husband is out and about looking for dates on the dark web or anything like that. No. Martial bliss is rough and rocky right now because the Olympics are a reminder that my husband always wanted to be an Olympian, and he’s not one. It’s my fault he never lived the dream. Why? Because, Dear Reader, instead of chasing his Olympic “dream” he started chasing me. I disavow any responsibility. “It’s your fault that I never went to the Olympics,” he said. “If you’d quit running away and let me catch you, I wouldn’t have been so distracted. And you always wore that ‘Sweet Honesty’ t-shirt.” “What’s that got to do with it?” I’m well known for not giving an inch in these discussions. “You insisted on wearing that shirt with those pink shorts and knee socks—pink, all pink.” “Are you trying to say that I owned and wore an Olympic dream smashing outfit—on purpose?” “Yep.” He huddled over various computer screens, trying to figure out how to live stream the 2016 Olympics. Smiling like Alice’s disappearing cat, I asked, “Have you tried the Dark Web, Dear?” When he does figure out how to watch the Olympics, it will be one long stream of expert couch coaching. Couch coaching is a symptom of a disease I have termed Coach-of-All-Sports Disorder. Often afflicting hobby athletes and former high school runners, it’s the steadfast belief that no matter the sport, the sufferer knows how to coach it. Synchronized swimming? Absolutely. Dressage? Of course. Women’s shot putting? You bet. “Oh man! He came out of his tuck way too early. That’ll cost him,” my husband shouted. He was sitting on the edge of the couch like a raccoon spying a box of Ritz Crackers, clutching the channel changer to his chest, while the light of Olympic glory flamed in his eye. “I wasn’t aware that you’ve done a lot of spring board diving,” I observed. “I’ve been to the YMCA.” His eyes never left the television screen. “That’s a hammy. She’s just blown her hammy. Didn’t warm up enough.” He shook his head in disdain. “Hammy? How do you know?” “Hamstring,” he said, waving vaguely to his backside. “Classic injury for long jumpers.” I tried to recall a time when I had seen him jump farther or higher than our dog when she’s sleeping in front of the fridge. Nope. I had nothing. And on it goes . . . on and on and on . . . for two long weeks. If only I’d never worn those pink shorts and derailed his dream. Hey! Wait a minute! It couldn’t have been much of a goal if all it took was a cute girl in a free Avon ‘Sweet Honesty’ t-shirt and a pair of pink shorts to goof it up. Right? Linda (Shorts) Zern |
| In a vaguely romanticized quote about some weird village in the wildly fictional hamlet of Me-First-Land, the world was informed that it takes a bunch of other people to raise a kid, your kid. I’m still looking for that abracadabra village, and I’ve got fourteen grandchildren. It is my studied opinion there is no such place. What there was: Me and my high school sweetheart and a few members of my crazy family and a lot of friends from church. But mostly me and that boy from high school that I married, who worked a full time job and went to school part time (sometimes full time) for TEN years to make sure our “village” didn’t go naked or starve. What there was not: Someone, who wasn’t me, disciplining the nutty kid who had a tendency to dance naked with Chapstick tucked between the cheeks of her butt crack, while playing the kazoo to annoy her siblings. I. CANNOT. MAKE. THIS. STUFF. UP. The disciplining was all on me, no village in sight. What I now know: The village cannot afford me. Believe it. What I learned: That no one tried to make sure my kids could read, write, or compute basic mathematics the way I made sure they could read, write, or compute basic mathematics. In fact, the lovely village representative, that my second-grade son gave a wreath to during Christmas, sent home a thank you note with the word wreath spelled REEF. “Thank you for the Christmas REEF.” True story. Still have the note. Biggest Payoff: The village kids at our house grew up and moved out; they became healthy, solidly middle class, and wise, and then they came home with fourteen new members for the Zern family village. Best Kept Secret: Another word for village is family. Linda (Village Elder) Zern |
| Met a long-lost relative of mine in the flesh this summer. It was truly wonderful and fun and informative. Thanks long-lost relative for finding me on Facebook and then finding me in Saint Cloud and then telling me stuff about my family. Up to the point that Susan found me, I was under the impression that I had no long-lost relatives. No aunts. No uncles. No cousins. No people. That was the narrative that my father repeated, many times. Apparently, that was . . . well . . . bogus . . . also not true. My lovely cousin and I had a great conversation and discovered so much in common that it was like unearthing a sparkling treasure. You have people. You are connected. And then she said, “So, do you want to know about your family?” I said, “You bet.” “Well, your dad was a member of the KKK and you come from a long line of witches.” Wow. And there it is. My heritage. I wrote my mom and shared these revelations with her. She shot back that, no, your father could not have been in the KKK, but your grandmother was a communist. She did not mention the witch DNA. It just gets better and better. I feel like joining a support group. “Hi, my name is Linda, my grandmother was a communist, my dad belonged to a racist group of terrorists, and I come from a long line of witches. That last part I like—a lot—and it explains a lot—every single day. So, when members of my church talk about their honored, storied heritage and pioneer families who may have crawled across the prairie dragging their children behind them in galvanized buckets, I think about my mother’s people who were Vikings. The word Viking means “just leave your gold, women, and valuables on the doorstep, and we’ll take care of burning down your house after we kill you.” Moral of this story: Our lives are our own, and we make them. I do not have to build a dragon ship and sail it down the Saint John’s burning vacation homes along the way. I can choose a different way—a better way—and I did. And then I turned around and handed a better way to my children and so it goes. But you’ll have to excuse me now, I have to go grind up some herbs and bark and things with warts . . . and . . . Linda (Pioneer Girl) Zern |
| The Learning Curve: Twist and Turns Ahead I paid CreateSpace the money, cash on the barrelhead. It was worth every dollar to me, not to have to arm wrestle with some ridiculous piece of formatting when publishing my novel last year (2015). Beyond the Strandline is a 100-thousand word novel—with lots of words. (Yes, I know I’m being redundant. It’s absurd, and that’s why that’s funny.) The serious part of this discussion is that, one year after publication, I wanted to 1) replace one word in three places (thank you smart reader types) 2) correct one spelling error (not bad for 100 thousand words) and 3) add a small sub-heading to Chapter One (mostly for my mother-in-law). What I learned on the learning curve of publishing: If you pay the CreateSpace team to format your manuscript they “lock” it. To make corrections you cannot submit changes on a self-service basis because it will send the system into a three-week, back and forth, telephone tagging, manager searching, frenzy of policy confusion. Yes you can. No you can’t. Call back on Monday. You will NOT be able to make teeny-tiny changes to the manuscript without their help. Their help will cost an additional $79.00. Good to know. Good to know. Now. I liked having someone else do the formatting. I did. I really did. What I did not like was having no control over the finished product. But now I know, as I speed my way through the learning curve of 21st century publishing—also POD, PDF, HTML, HTTP, and other Babylonian mysteries. Linda (Curves Ahead) Zern Amazon.com/author/lindazern www.zippityzerns.blogspot.com www.zippityzerns.com |
| My youngest son, Adam, brought me a picture he’d printed from the Internet. It showed the squashed flat faces of kittens crammed inside glass jars and bottles. His eyes sparked with tears as he said, “This is so terrible. We have to do something about this.” I took the picture and examined it. “What do you think this is, Sweetie?” Adam is my cat loving, tender-heart. “Can’t you see? They’re bonsai kittens. People grow kittens in jars so they grow deformed. It’s horrible. Bonsai kittens are just like those Japanese bushes.” I looked at my teenaged child and thought about how to approach the subject of gullibility. He was well and truly upset. He was also well and truly duped. I took it head-on. “Honey, think about this. How do you keep a little kitten alive inside a jar? Do you see feeding tubes? How about waste products? Or oxygen?” But he saw what he saw, and seeing was believing. “Look!” He shook the pictures at me. “Look, Mom, it’s real.” I tried again. “No. This is a hoax. Someone, somewhere, is laughing at your pain. Stop feeling and start thinking. You can’t grow a living kitten inside a jar into a jar shape. Think. How about a baby? Could you grow a baby inside a jar?” I saw him struggle as doubts, questions, and reality filled his face—and then came chagrin—and now we were in truly dangerous territory. Chagrin is the slightly less ugly stepsister of embarrassment, both of which are close incestuous cousins of pride. I tried to head off his wounded pride. “It’s really good photo-shopping. It is. It looks like bonsai kittens growing in weird shapes inside bottles. It does. But it’s not real.” “Well . . . it would be a terrible thing if it were true!” “Yes. Yes it would. But it’s not true.” He shrugged and picked up his giant lump of a cat named Charlie and left the room. For a long tortured minute, Adam was sure, and bonsai kittens were real—to him. WHAT I REALIZED: Reality is real. Perception is not reality, even when we are completely sure. Emotions are gut feelings, especially righteous indignation based on photo-shopped images of deformed kittens. Emotions can be full of the stuff that’s in our guts. Logic is a handy tool to have on speed-dial. Keep it real isn’t just a catchy slogan. Bonsai kittens are not real. Bonsai kittens are not real even if you are convinced they are real. Bonsai kittens are NOT real even if a MAJORITY of Americans think that they are real. So, in a week of swirling agendas, chasing the means that will justify the ends, I say, “Keep it real, my friends. Keep it real. And don’t let your wounded pride make ugly babies called embarrassment and chagrin.” Linda (Kitten Heel) Zern FYI: The word “Bon-sai” (often misspelled as bonzai or banzai) is a Japanese term which, literally translated, means “planted in a container”. This art form is derived from an ancient Chinese horticultural practice, part of which was then redeveloped under the influence of Japanese Zen Buddhism. |
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