Linda L. Zern's Blog, page 30
July 15, 2014
Zern Family Policy on Kidnapping and Other Acts of Pirarcy
In a great big modern world where travel is supersonic and tweets are faster than lightning that is greased, it’s important to be savvy about the kidnap policies of modern Barbary Pirates, the ransom demands of Somali warlords, and the acceptable amount of time that the terribly young and wildly attractive widow should wait before cashing the life insurance checks.
What!?
Listen, the Malaysian government lost an entire, complete, gigantic 747 airliner. My husband has been known to fly on these planes. Big plane goes bye, bye. Husband goes bye, bye. We have to have a ransom/kidnapping/disappeared-off-the-face-of-the-earth policy!
In the days of Queen Victoria pirates sailed around looking for loot and according to a guy named Wiki: The main purpose of their [pirates called Barbary] attacks was to capture Christian slaves for the Ottoman slave trade as well as the general Muslim market in North Africa and the Middle East.
Today, pirates are still looking for loot and cash and slaves, but those are mostly for sex. Ransom is big. Kidnapping is a career choice. And when my husband flies off to the ends of the earth to help foreign companies figure out their software knots and tangles, I occasionally contemplate the pirate possibilities.
So here’s the discussion behind the policy:
“So the Malaysians lost a whole airplane,” I observed. “Don’t you fly on that jetliner loosing Malasian airline?”
“Yep.” My husband said. He never complicates our conversations with excessive word use.
“So, what’s the policy? How long should I wait before I cash the life insurance check?”
He looked up from his laptop. He was intrigued. I could tell.
“Okay, here’s the deal. All the desk dwellers are probably going to dither around if they can’t find any floating seat cushions or Skymall catalogs, but Oracle is still going to have to pay me until they declare me dead. CASH THE CHECKS FAST.”
“Got it.”
We both went back to tap, tap, tapping on assorted keyboards.
“Okay, so what if you’re taken captive by angry maroons posing as pirates looking for the pin number to our checking account? What’s our policy? To negotiate or not to negotiate.”
“No negotiations.”
“What if they grab you, torture you, record it, and send me the hideous Youtube video.”
“No negotiations and no second mortgages.”
“Okay, but you have to promise me that you’ll be so obnoxious they’ll kill you all the way dead right off, so I won’t have to worry about you wasting away in a flea infested hut.”
“Got it.”
“But what if they sell you as a sex slave?”
He pondered. “I’ll do my best to make my escape.” He re-pondered. “Or not.”
“And who should I sue?”
“Everyone.”
“Got it.”
So that’s our policy. Cash the checks fast. No negotiations. No second mortgages. And sue everyone.
When I tell people our family policy on kidnapping they tend to be shocked by our cavalier attitude toward tragedy and piracy in general. Then I tell them how rich I’ll be when I cash the checks, and they’re mollified—also a little jealous.
Because money fixes everything, just ask a Barbary pirate.
Linda (Can’t Buy Me Love) Zern
What!?
Listen, the Malaysian government lost an entire, complete, gigantic 747 airliner. My husband has been known to fly on these planes. Big plane goes bye, bye. Husband goes bye, bye. We have to have a ransom/kidnapping/disappeared-off-the-face-of-the-earth policy!
In the days of Queen Victoria pirates sailed around looking for loot and according to a guy named Wiki: The main purpose of their [pirates called Barbary] attacks was to capture Christian slaves for the Ottoman slave trade as well as the general Muslim market in North Africa and the Middle East.
Today, pirates are still looking for loot and cash and slaves, but those are mostly for sex. Ransom is big. Kidnapping is a career choice. And when my husband flies off to the ends of the earth to help foreign companies figure out their software knots and tangles, I occasionally contemplate the pirate possibilities.
So here’s the discussion behind the policy:
“So the Malaysians lost a whole airplane,” I observed. “Don’t you fly on that jetliner loosing Malasian airline?”
“Yep.” My husband said. He never complicates our conversations with excessive word use.
“So, what’s the policy? How long should I wait before I cash the life insurance check?”
He looked up from his laptop. He was intrigued. I could tell.
“Okay, here’s the deal. All the desk dwellers are probably going to dither around if they can’t find any floating seat cushions or Skymall catalogs, but Oracle is still going to have to pay me until they declare me dead. CASH THE CHECKS FAST.”
“Got it.”
We both went back to tap, tap, tapping on assorted keyboards.
“Okay, so what if you’re taken captive by angry maroons posing as pirates looking for the pin number to our checking account? What’s our policy? To negotiate or not to negotiate.”
“No negotiations.”
“What if they grab you, torture you, record it, and send me the hideous Youtube video.”
“No negotiations and no second mortgages.”
“Okay, but you have to promise me that you’ll be so obnoxious they’ll kill you all the way dead right off, so I won’t have to worry about you wasting away in a flea infested hut.”
“Got it.”
“But what if they sell you as a sex slave?”
He pondered. “I’ll do my best to make my escape.” He re-pondered. “Or not.”
“And who should I sue?”
“Everyone.”
“Got it.”
So that’s our policy. Cash the checks fast. No negotiations. No second mortgages. And sue everyone.
When I tell people our family policy on kidnapping they tend to be shocked by our cavalier attitude toward tragedy and piracy in general. Then I tell them how rich I’ll be when I cash the checks, and they’re mollified—also a little jealous.
Because money fixes everything, just ask a Barbary pirate.
Linda (Can’t Buy Me Love) Zern
July 9, 2014
A CLASSIC ZIPPITYZERN: A Dog's Tail
When you hear yourself screaming, “Sherwood, grab the hose; the dog is on fire!” you know that you are—once again—the butt of some giant cosmic joke, not to mention the dog.
We are country folk. We sit outside a lot. We make fires. We own dogs. We sit outside around fires with our dogs. It’s a lifestyle. You have to respect it. (If we sat outside naked, beating tom-toms while reciting cowboy poetry with our dogs you’d have to respect that too—if it’s a lifestyle. That’s what I have learned in college.)
I am a lazy fire pit builder. I like to hearken back to my Native American heritage by slapping a random length of wood onto the fire, letting the ends hang over the sides. When the log burns in half, you shove the ends in. Easy, peasy. Others in my family would rather court hernias by slapping logs against trees, whacking branches on the ground, or slamming hunks of solid wood over their knees to try to produce the “correct” size. Mostly, they just look like learning-disabled Sasquatches. It’s fun to watch.
The downside to my method of fire building is that blazing hunks of junk sometimes fall out of the fire pit, raining down like space junk reentering the atmosphere.
Sometimes blazing hunks of junk fall into the dog’s tail. No, not sometimes—once, it happened once.
What I learned when the dog’s tail caught on fire: I have the reaction time of a Navy SEAL, Sarah, my daughter-in-law who is very pregnant, does not have the reaction time of a Navy SEAL, and my husband is . . . a learning-disabled Sasquatch.
CoCo, my very hairy collie/retriever mix, had cuddled up to the fire pit when a blazing bit of junk fell out of the fire into her very hairy tail bits. Her tail fluff began to smoke. She was oblivious. I leapt out of my chair and screamed, “The dog is on fire!”
Sarah screamed and tried not to wet her pants. Sherwood continued playing Angry Birds on his machine. The dog’s tail blazed up.
Reacting like a ninja taking vitamin B-12, I started kicking sand onto the dog’s tail. I continued screaming, “Sherwood, get the hose—the dog is on fire!”
CoCo remained oblivious. She may have been playing Angry Birds in her head.
A smell straight from Dante’s Inferno rolled over me. Coughing bitter coughs, I started to stomp on the dog’s tail. She lifted her head, confused.
Sarah continued screaming and doing Kegel exercises.
I stomped on the dog until a giant chunk of frizzled, singed tail fuzz fell out of her tail. She got up, walked to the opposite side of the fire pit, flopped into the sand, and fell asleep—probably wondering when I’d had my stroke.
Sherwood looked up from his machine, annoyed that I was yelling at him.
“What did you want me to do about it?” he said.
I thought about becoming an angry bird and pecking him to death. I threw more wood into the fire pit instead. CoCo snored. Sarah tried to catch her breath. Our lifestyle continued.
And you have to respect that or be labeled a judgmental, diversity-hating, cowboy poetry bigot.
Linda (Fire Retardant) Zern
We are country folk. We sit outside a lot. We make fires. We own dogs. We sit outside around fires with our dogs. It’s a lifestyle. You have to respect it. (If we sat outside naked, beating tom-toms while reciting cowboy poetry with our dogs you’d have to respect that too—if it’s a lifestyle. That’s what I have learned in college.)
I am a lazy fire pit builder. I like to hearken back to my Native American heritage by slapping a random length of wood onto the fire, letting the ends hang over the sides. When the log burns in half, you shove the ends in. Easy, peasy. Others in my family would rather court hernias by slapping logs against trees, whacking branches on the ground, or slamming hunks of solid wood over their knees to try to produce the “correct” size. Mostly, they just look like learning-disabled Sasquatches. It’s fun to watch.
The downside to my method of fire building is that blazing hunks of junk sometimes fall out of the fire pit, raining down like space junk reentering the atmosphere.
Sometimes blazing hunks of junk fall into the dog’s tail. No, not sometimes—once, it happened once.
What I learned when the dog’s tail caught on fire: I have the reaction time of a Navy SEAL, Sarah, my daughter-in-law who is very pregnant, does not have the reaction time of a Navy SEAL, and my husband is . . . a learning-disabled Sasquatch.
CoCo, my very hairy collie/retriever mix, had cuddled up to the fire pit when a blazing bit of junk fell out of the fire into her very hairy tail bits. Her tail fluff began to smoke. She was oblivious. I leapt out of my chair and screamed, “The dog is on fire!”
Sarah screamed and tried not to wet her pants. Sherwood continued playing Angry Birds on his machine. The dog’s tail blazed up.
Reacting like a ninja taking vitamin B-12, I started kicking sand onto the dog’s tail. I continued screaming, “Sherwood, get the hose—the dog is on fire!”
CoCo remained oblivious. She may have been playing Angry Birds in her head.
A smell straight from Dante’s Inferno rolled over me. Coughing bitter coughs, I started to stomp on the dog’s tail. She lifted her head, confused.
Sarah continued screaming and doing Kegel exercises.
I stomped on the dog until a giant chunk of frizzled, singed tail fuzz fell out of her tail. She got up, walked to the opposite side of the fire pit, flopped into the sand, and fell asleep—probably wondering when I’d had my stroke.
Sherwood looked up from his machine, annoyed that I was yelling at him.
“What did you want me to do about it?” he said.
I thought about becoming an angry bird and pecking him to death. I threw more wood into the fire pit instead. CoCo snored. Sarah tried to catch her breath. Our lifestyle continued.
And you have to respect that or be labeled a judgmental, diversity-hating, cowboy poetry bigot.
Linda (Fire Retardant) Zern
June 30, 2014
The Spray Tan Chronicles
Born in a more primitive time, I grew up too white. Literally too white. Madison Avenue had decided in the rocking, rolling sixties that tan was sexy and young and healthy. They advertised Coppertone suntan lotion (SPF -12) on huge billboards, with a picture of a darling baby with a fabulous tan. You could tell because a dog was pulling down the baby’s swimsuit bottom, exposing its excessively white baby butt.
Now, no one wants to be the color of a white butt, even if it is cute and belongs to a baby.
So we cooked ourselves in the noonday sun like mad dogs and Englishmen. Forty years later our dermatologists rejoice and buy vacation homes in the Caribbean where they use gallons of sunscreen.
I have since learned the importance of sunscreen. However, I still want to be tan, because, no matter what I do, I am the color of a butt.
But this is the 21st century, and now it’s possible before vacationing in the Caribbean to be sprayed, by a giant robot sprayer machine. It sprays a fine mist of SOMETHING over you until you are the color of a newborn starfish. I can finally look sexy, young, and healthy—for a starfish. What follows are my Spray Tan Chronicles:
SPRAY TAN, DAY ONE: I was so orange people thought I actually was a starfish and kept trying to throw me back into the ocean.
SPRAY TAN, DAY TWO: Tan has settled down a bit, although Triggerfish occasionally try to nibble on me.
SPRAY TAN, DAY THREE: I just want my top half (that looks like it was raised in an Easy Bake Oven) to match my bottom half (that looks like it was raised by reindeer—reindeers live in the snow, snow is white, so . . .) Is that too much to ask?
SPRAY TAN, DAY FOUR (In defense of fake tans): Excessive whiteness, truly a first world problem . . . the girls and I went to get a spray tan because we can. Because it's fun. Because we're not fleeing across miles and miles of God forsaken land to escape the brutal corruption and wickedness of failing nations and states and politicians—yet. For fun, that’s why, and because we still can--for now.
SPRAY TAN, DAY FIVE: Too relaxed to lift my head to check on condition of tan. Will attempt to life head tomorrow. I call this the Caribbean vacation vortex or fake tan conundrum—get tan for vacation, then vacation causes you to cease to care if you have arms or legs or skin.
And so the tan fades.
Oh don’t worry, I’m pretty sure that fake tans and Caribbean sun will be the least of our worries very, very soon, what with all the sensible policies proffered by our dear leaders in Washington, leading to a new era of vacationing dignitaries as they visit their dachas by the sea.
Linda (Color Me Burned) Zern
Now, no one wants to be the color of a white butt, even if it is cute and belongs to a baby.
So we cooked ourselves in the noonday sun like mad dogs and Englishmen. Forty years later our dermatologists rejoice and buy vacation homes in the Caribbean where they use gallons of sunscreen.
I have since learned the importance of sunscreen. However, I still want to be tan, because, no matter what I do, I am the color of a butt.
But this is the 21st century, and now it’s possible before vacationing in the Caribbean to be sprayed, by a giant robot sprayer machine. It sprays a fine mist of SOMETHING over you until you are the color of a newborn starfish. I can finally look sexy, young, and healthy—for a starfish. What follows are my Spray Tan Chronicles:
SPRAY TAN, DAY ONE: I was so orange people thought I actually was a starfish and kept trying to throw me back into the ocean.
SPRAY TAN, DAY TWO: Tan has settled down a bit, although Triggerfish occasionally try to nibble on me.
SPRAY TAN, DAY THREE: I just want my top half (that looks like it was raised in an Easy Bake Oven) to match my bottom half (that looks like it was raised by reindeer—reindeers live in the snow, snow is white, so . . .) Is that too much to ask?
SPRAY TAN, DAY FOUR (In defense of fake tans): Excessive whiteness, truly a first world problem . . . the girls and I went to get a spray tan because we can. Because it's fun. Because we're not fleeing across miles and miles of God forsaken land to escape the brutal corruption and wickedness of failing nations and states and politicians—yet. For fun, that’s why, and because we still can--for now.
SPRAY TAN, DAY FIVE: Too relaxed to lift my head to check on condition of tan. Will attempt to life head tomorrow. I call this the Caribbean vacation vortex or fake tan conundrum—get tan for vacation, then vacation causes you to cease to care if you have arms or legs or skin.
And so the tan fades.
Oh don’t worry, I’m pretty sure that fake tans and Caribbean sun will be the least of our worries very, very soon, what with all the sensible policies proffered by our dear leaders in Washington, leading to a new era of vacationing dignitaries as they visit their dachas by the sea.
Linda (Color Me Burned) Zern
June 22, 2014
A Brief History of Florida
Florida is hot. Florida is humid. Florida is buggy. Florida is where I was born.
Florida got its name from an invading, European, Spanish dude looking for a fountain that would Botox his whole body. He never found it; heat, humidity, and bugs, those he found, oh, and flowers.
That’s what the word Florida means. “Wow, check out all the flowers and the Native Americans that are not European or Spanish hiding behind the flowers. Let’s get ‘em.”
Thus we learn that the first bad guys in the story of Florida were Spanish.
After that, no one came to Florida unless they were running away from still more Spanish people, followed by French people, and then the sons of English snobs and, eventually, Big Gov.
Florida became a kind of no man’s land guarded by bugs. No. Seriously. BUGS.
A couple of brave descendents of those first jerky Europeans, who owned or had stolen some cattle, tried to settle Florida. Mosquitoes killed them—the cows. True story, and not from biting them to death like you might think. Nope.
Early settlers who tried to rape and pillage Florida like the Spanish reported that there were so many mosquitoes that their cattle died—FROM SUFFICATION because of CLOUDS of bugs, actual CLOUDS. It’s true. The bugs, reproducing like rabbits in the heat and humidity, were so plentiful they flew up the invading cow’s noses and smothered them. Their owners turned around and went back to winter, spring, summer, and fall and started a war between the states.
Then the Timeshare vacation club was invented by the children of Europeans,, and a guy named Flagler built a railroad. This was after the mosquito cloud survivors had returned north and reported, “It’s a nice place to visit but you don’t want to live there.”
Then President Kennedy, the child of Irish white people, gave an awesome speech about kicking the Russians butts and racing them to the moon, so my father, a West Virginian child of white Irish people and a Black Foot Indian woman, moved to the Space Coast, after marrying my mother because her dad owned a bar that her family called “The Tavern.”
And I was born in Florida.
I believe in two seasons, hot and hotter.
I consider bug spray a gift from God.
I don’t drink water; I breathe it.
My muscles are wiry and strong, because the air in Florida is heavier than normal air.
My blood is thin.
When the space shuttle stopped flying, a little piece of me died.
Mosquitoes don’t bite me anymore. My blood is nasty. The word is out.
Sunshine can make me high.
The smell of rot and swamp brings me comfort.
Oh, and I LOVE flowers.
Linda (Child of Vikings and Black Foot Savages, so look out!) Zern
Florida got its name from an invading, European, Spanish dude looking for a fountain that would Botox his whole body. He never found it; heat, humidity, and bugs, those he found, oh, and flowers.
That’s what the word Florida means. “Wow, check out all the flowers and the Native Americans that are not European or Spanish hiding behind the flowers. Let’s get ‘em.”
Thus we learn that the first bad guys in the story of Florida were Spanish.
After that, no one came to Florida unless they were running away from still more Spanish people, followed by French people, and then the sons of English snobs and, eventually, Big Gov.
Florida became a kind of no man’s land guarded by bugs. No. Seriously. BUGS.
A couple of brave descendents of those first jerky Europeans, who owned or had stolen some cattle, tried to settle Florida. Mosquitoes killed them—the cows. True story, and not from biting them to death like you might think. Nope.
Early settlers who tried to rape and pillage Florida like the Spanish reported that there were so many mosquitoes that their cattle died—FROM SUFFICATION because of CLOUDS of bugs, actual CLOUDS. It’s true. The bugs, reproducing like rabbits in the heat and humidity, were so plentiful they flew up the invading cow’s noses and smothered them. Their owners turned around and went back to winter, spring, summer, and fall and started a war between the states.
Then the Timeshare vacation club was invented by the children of Europeans,, and a guy named Flagler built a railroad. This was after the mosquito cloud survivors had returned north and reported, “It’s a nice place to visit but you don’t want to live there.”
Then President Kennedy, the child of Irish white people, gave an awesome speech about kicking the Russians butts and racing them to the moon, so my father, a West Virginian child of white Irish people and a Black Foot Indian woman, moved to the Space Coast, after marrying my mother because her dad owned a bar that her family called “The Tavern.”
And I was born in Florida.
I believe in two seasons, hot and hotter.
I consider bug spray a gift from God.
I don’t drink water; I breathe it.
My muscles are wiry and strong, because the air in Florida is heavier than normal air.
My blood is thin.
When the space shuttle stopped flying, a little piece of me died.
Mosquitoes don’t bite me anymore. My blood is nasty. The word is out.
Sunshine can make me high.
The smell of rot and swamp brings me comfort.
Oh, and I LOVE flowers.
Linda (Child of Vikings and Black Foot Savages, so look out!) Zern
June 20, 2014
See the Socialization?
When I realized that my third and second graders could not read, write, or compute basic mathematics, I took them out of public school and began homeschooling. No one seemed worried that they were growing up to be illiterate dunces. A lot of people were very concerned that they would not be “socialized” properly or get to go to the prom. As their mother, I was more concerned about phonics than cummerbunds.
Over the years, I have found the socialization arguments . . . well . . . muddled. What exactly is socialization? And will I recognize it when I see it?
“I hate my family,” the young college student said, flipping a trendy fringe of hair out of his eyes. “But they’re paying for my college so I’ve got to go home for Thanksgiving. What a pisser.”
Wanting to be social, I tried to figure out how to respond. Be curious about others, that’s my favorite social strategy.
“Maybe you should pay for your own college?”
“Are you nuts?”
I thought it might be possible.
In a moment of companionable socialization, I shared with some of my classmates that college algebra was giving me hives and panic attacks.
A highly social young man offered to help. He whipped out his cell phone.
“Just put this,” he said, holding up his phone, “in your sock and then I’ll show you how to get the answers for the test by texting.”
“You’re assuming I can text,” I said.
“Are you nuts?” he said.
No, I thought, just arthritic—and honest.
Recently, before class, I was chatting socially with a few of my young college classmates. One highly social young man (I know he was social because he NEVER stopped talking about himself) began regaling us with tales of his high school cheating years.
“Yeah, so I had the answers written on my arm, from my wrist to my juggler vein.” He laughed. “When the teacher got wise to it, I smeared the answers off, destroying the evidence.”
Everyone joined in his clever, social laughing.
“Don’t you feel bad about cheating your way through high school?” I asked.
“Are you nuts?”
Apparently.
When my wildly educated professors use the “F” word in class or hilariously cop to having smoked dope once, twice, or always, I realize that they’re just trying to be hip and social and one with the organism known as “the group.” I get it. I was social creature once.
Now, I’m just nuts, because I don’t care what the group thinks about my being a drug free, sober, religious, monogamous, honest chick. It’s not social. I know. But it does allow me to sleep better at night.
Besides, I’m the one those people try to cheat off of . . . the jerks.
Linda (Eyes On Your Own Paper) Zern
Over the years, I have found the socialization arguments . . . well . . . muddled. What exactly is socialization? And will I recognize it when I see it?
“I hate my family,” the young college student said, flipping a trendy fringe of hair out of his eyes. “But they’re paying for my college so I’ve got to go home for Thanksgiving. What a pisser.”
Wanting to be social, I tried to figure out how to respond. Be curious about others, that’s my favorite social strategy.
“Maybe you should pay for your own college?”
“Are you nuts?”
I thought it might be possible.
In a moment of companionable socialization, I shared with some of my classmates that college algebra was giving me hives and panic attacks.
A highly social young man offered to help. He whipped out his cell phone.
“Just put this,” he said, holding up his phone, “in your sock and then I’ll show you how to get the answers for the test by texting.”
“You’re assuming I can text,” I said.
“Are you nuts?” he said.
No, I thought, just arthritic—and honest.
Recently, before class, I was chatting socially with a few of my young college classmates. One highly social young man (I know he was social because he NEVER stopped talking about himself) began regaling us with tales of his high school cheating years.
“Yeah, so I had the answers written on my arm, from my wrist to my juggler vein.” He laughed. “When the teacher got wise to it, I smeared the answers off, destroying the evidence.”
Everyone joined in his clever, social laughing.
“Don’t you feel bad about cheating your way through high school?” I asked.
“Are you nuts?”
Apparently.
When my wildly educated professors use the “F” word in class or hilariously cop to having smoked dope once, twice, or always, I realize that they’re just trying to be hip and social and one with the organism known as “the group.” I get it. I was social creature once.
Now, I’m just nuts, because I don’t care what the group thinks about my being a drug free, sober, religious, monogamous, honest chick. It’s not social. I know. But it does allow me to sleep better at night.
Besides, I’m the one those people try to cheat off of . . . the jerks.
Linda (Eyes On Your Own Paper) Zern
June 16, 2014
A Burning in the Finger Bones
“Take American Sign Language,” my oldest daughter was happy to suggest. Easy for her to say, her fingers didn’t look like curly cheese puffs.
“I can’t. I fear my window of opportunity on that form of communication has passed.”
I held up my curly cheese puff shaped fingers as evidence.
“My fingers are all used up because of arthritis! See! My knuckles are on fire, my fingers look like they’re tired of being part of my hand, and I’m afraid I’ll get counted down for a poorly formed alphabet.”
“How about Spanish?” She suggested as a default language to satisfy my college foreign language requirements.
“I tried that, and apparently you have to be able to speak Spanish to study Spanish.”
On the first day of attempting to “take” college Spanish, the teacher looked right into my Irish freckles and at my knobby arthritic knuckles and busted into Spanish. I couldn’t even find the page in the book she was referencing, because I DON’T SPEAK SPANISH.
It was distressing to the point of making my knucklebones ache, and I dropped the class as fast as my throbbing fingers could punch the computer keys.
The entire dilemma made me so mad, I wanted to make an obscene gesture by extending my index finger at the computer screen and, in the colloquial, “shoot a bird.” However, I did not “shoot a bird” for the following reasons:
A) I am a lady. Not only am I a lady, I am a southern lady and a southern lady does not make obscene gestures with her hands, feet, or other physical extremities. A southern lady expresses her anger through polite sarcasm and by writing lengthy novels about fictional towns where all the inhabitants are bat stone crazy.
B) My hand looks less than attractive when I extend my index finger in the classic symbol of sexual disdain and/or invitation. I know, because I’ve practiced the middle finger gesture in the mirror, and it’s just not flattering to my hand, probably because of my enlarged knuckles due to arthritis.
C) I have never felt comfortable with the actual meaning of the gesture in question. What does it mean? Is it an order, threat, or an invitation? And if it’s an invitation, how comfortable do I feel extending that invitation to someone I am frothing at the mouth mad at?
I have never in my life made such an unladylike, ugly, ambiguous gesture—not in my entire complete life—and, I’m not prepared to start now.
Which still leaves me with a quandary; what language of foreign clime should I choose to study to satisfy my college requirement so that I can become a well-rounded human being?
I’m thinking Italian. I understand it’s a language and culture that requires the enthusiastic and repeated use of one’s hands.
Linda (Look into my Eye) Zern
“I can’t. I fear my window of opportunity on that form of communication has passed.”
I held up my curly cheese puff shaped fingers as evidence.
“My fingers are all used up because of arthritis! See! My knuckles are on fire, my fingers look like they’re tired of being part of my hand, and I’m afraid I’ll get counted down for a poorly formed alphabet.”
“How about Spanish?” She suggested as a default language to satisfy my college foreign language requirements.
“I tried that, and apparently you have to be able to speak Spanish to study Spanish.”
On the first day of attempting to “take” college Spanish, the teacher looked right into my Irish freckles and at my knobby arthritic knuckles and busted into Spanish. I couldn’t even find the page in the book she was referencing, because I DON’T SPEAK SPANISH.
It was distressing to the point of making my knucklebones ache, and I dropped the class as fast as my throbbing fingers could punch the computer keys.
The entire dilemma made me so mad, I wanted to make an obscene gesture by extending my index finger at the computer screen and, in the colloquial, “shoot a bird.” However, I did not “shoot a bird” for the following reasons:
A) I am a lady. Not only am I a lady, I am a southern lady and a southern lady does not make obscene gestures with her hands, feet, or other physical extremities. A southern lady expresses her anger through polite sarcasm and by writing lengthy novels about fictional towns where all the inhabitants are bat stone crazy.
B) My hand looks less than attractive when I extend my index finger in the classic symbol of sexual disdain and/or invitation. I know, because I’ve practiced the middle finger gesture in the mirror, and it’s just not flattering to my hand, probably because of my enlarged knuckles due to arthritis.
C) I have never felt comfortable with the actual meaning of the gesture in question. What does it mean? Is it an order, threat, or an invitation? And if it’s an invitation, how comfortable do I feel extending that invitation to someone I am frothing at the mouth mad at?
I have never in my life made such an unladylike, ugly, ambiguous gesture—not in my entire complete life—and, I’m not prepared to start now.
Which still leaves me with a quandary; what language of foreign clime should I choose to study to satisfy my college requirement so that I can become a well-rounded human being?
I’m thinking Italian. I understand it’s a language and culture that requires the enthusiastic and repeated use of one’s hands.
Linda (Look into my Eye) Zern
June 10, 2014
STING
It’s the season of recitals: baton twirling, piano playing, dance swirling, tambourine thumping, unicycle riding . . . The land resounds with the sound of mommies and daddies applauding their children’s performances—both accomplished and halting.
Children sweat. Parents yearn. Tiger Moms insist. Grandparents endure and encourage, happy to be off the parental hook for a change. It’s a lot of fun.
Recitals are the cherry on the yearly parenting cake, representing thousands of miles driven over hard roads through nightmare clouds of whining. I know.
I did that—drove kids thousands of tiger mom miles: dance, tumbling, synchronized swimming, Boy Scouts, Little League, church activities, school trips, library runs . . .
And once through an actual DEA/FBI/CIA take down . . .
No, really. An. Actual. Police. Sting.
Schlepping a van full of teenager types back from a library run, I had to slam on my brakes. My Dodge Caravan fishtailed to a stop. It was that or T-bone a white Corolla that had shot out of a hedge of azaleas to our right. The car full of young men bounced across highway 426 close enough to my front bumper to be able to wash it. Teens jounced, bounced, and slammed inside their seatbelts.
Everyone screamed.
Mid-scream, I took a breath and thought about hitting the gas to proceed. I didn’t.
A black windowless van shot from the azalea hedge after the Corolla. The side door gapped open as three (possibly thirty) men wearing BLACK hoods—WITH GUNS—braced themselves in the opening.
Everyone screamed.
I took a breath and tried to get the heck out of there.
The white Corolla crisscrossed back in front of my Caravan. I pumped the brakes.
Everyone screamed.
I hit the gas.
The black van crossed the highway behind us, bouncing after the Corolla. I saw the driver in my rearview mirror waving me on, out of the way of an armed police pursuit. His BLACK hood looked stuffy and hot.
Screaming, I hit the gas.
The Corolla cut me off again. I slammed on my brakes. Rubber burned. All the young men inside the car screamed soundlessly. The black van, bristling with hooded men, jounced after them in close pursuit.
The men in the black van were not screaming, that I could tell.
The screaming inside my Dodge Caravan was now continuous.
I hit the gas and managed to get as far as the Gas-N-Go at the corner.
Throat raw from screaming, I sailed past the sight of hooded men pouring out of the black van in the Gas-N-Go parking lot, guns drawn, descending on the white Corolla like one of the Biblical plagues of Egypt: boils, lice, flies. Take your pick.
Everyone screamed.
And home we went.
The library books were due on the fifteenth.
Linda (Take-Down) Zern
Children sweat. Parents yearn. Tiger Moms insist. Grandparents endure and encourage, happy to be off the parental hook for a change. It’s a lot of fun.
Recitals are the cherry on the yearly parenting cake, representing thousands of miles driven over hard roads through nightmare clouds of whining. I know.
I did that—drove kids thousands of tiger mom miles: dance, tumbling, synchronized swimming, Boy Scouts, Little League, church activities, school trips, library runs . . .
And once through an actual DEA/FBI/CIA take down . . .
No, really. An. Actual. Police. Sting.
Schlepping a van full of teenager types back from a library run, I had to slam on my brakes. My Dodge Caravan fishtailed to a stop. It was that or T-bone a white Corolla that had shot out of a hedge of azaleas to our right. The car full of young men bounced across highway 426 close enough to my front bumper to be able to wash it. Teens jounced, bounced, and slammed inside their seatbelts.
Everyone screamed.
Mid-scream, I took a breath and thought about hitting the gas to proceed. I didn’t.
A black windowless van shot from the azalea hedge after the Corolla. The side door gapped open as three (possibly thirty) men wearing BLACK hoods—WITH GUNS—braced themselves in the opening.
Everyone screamed.
I took a breath and tried to get the heck out of there.
The white Corolla crisscrossed back in front of my Caravan. I pumped the brakes.
Everyone screamed.
I hit the gas.
The black van crossed the highway behind us, bouncing after the Corolla. I saw the driver in my rearview mirror waving me on, out of the way of an armed police pursuit. His BLACK hood looked stuffy and hot.
Screaming, I hit the gas.
The Corolla cut me off again. I slammed on my brakes. Rubber burned. All the young men inside the car screamed soundlessly. The black van, bristling with hooded men, jounced after them in close pursuit.
The men in the black van were not screaming, that I could tell.
The screaming inside my Dodge Caravan was now continuous.
I hit the gas and managed to get as far as the Gas-N-Go at the corner.
Throat raw from screaming, I sailed past the sight of hooded men pouring out of the black van in the Gas-N-Go parking lot, guns drawn, descending on the white Corolla like one of the Biblical plagues of Egypt: boils, lice, flies. Take your pick.
Everyone screamed.
And home we went.
The library books were due on the fifteenth.
Linda (Take-Down) Zern
June 5, 2014
Double Negative Land
There isn’t much that three-year olds aren’t excited about. And that’s a double negative. So, what I’m really saying is that three-year old humans are excited about pretty much . . . well . . . everything.
Learning to jump with two feet is a huge deal.
Finally being tall enough to reach the soap dispenser in the church bathroom is an occasion.
Knowing all the words to Twinkle, Twinkle is cause for celebration and often a little dancing.
Or as one little girl told me Sunday, “Sissa [Sister] Zern I can turn the sink water on now ‘cuz I’m on my way to being an adult.”
“That’s true, Raelyn, that’s true,” I said.
She skipped out of the bathroom, the hem of her dress neatly tucked into the back of her princess panties.
There isn’t much three-year olds don’t want to do by themselves. I can “do it” they often say: like go into a bathroom stall, lock the door, completely undress, climb onto the potty, and then decide they “need help.”
When my grandson, Conner, was three it was my job to escort him to the bathroom during our church meeting.
“I can do it,” he would say.
“Are you sure?”
“I do it.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But don’t lock the door, just in case, okay? Please. Please. YaYa looks pretty stupid crawling around on the bathroom floor.”
“I do it.”
Then he’d enter the bathroom stall and CLICK, lock the door, completely undress, climb on the potty, and . . .
“YaYa?”
The sound of my head banging against the LOCKED stall door reverberated.
“Yes, Conner.”
“I need help.”
There isn’t much that I can’t stand more than the floor of a public bathroom. And that’s a tortured double negative, meaning that I hate crawling under bathroom stall doors in a skirt, heels, and panty hose. But I’m the YaYa and Conner was in luck. I’m pretty small. I fit. And I did crawl.
The best part of this story is that a friend of mine heard me warning my Sunday school class not to lock the doors so that I wouldn’t have to crawl under their doors to rescue them. She let me in on the big secret.
“You can open the doors from the outside.”
“What??????”
“Sure, see that slot in the door. Just get a quarter and twist.” She ripped a paper towel free and dried her hands.
“Do you have any idea how long . . .” I paused. “Never mind.”
There isn’t much that I don’t like learning. Especially, a better way to rescue three-year olds from behind locked bathroom stall doors.
I am a Sunday school teacher. I teach three-year olds the right way to live and be happy. A lot of the time they teach me the same thing.
Linda (Rescue Me) Zern
Learning to jump with two feet is a huge deal.
Finally being tall enough to reach the soap dispenser in the church bathroom is an occasion.
Knowing all the words to Twinkle, Twinkle is cause for celebration and often a little dancing.
Or as one little girl told me Sunday, “Sissa [Sister] Zern I can turn the sink water on now ‘cuz I’m on my way to being an adult.”
“That’s true, Raelyn, that’s true,” I said.
She skipped out of the bathroom, the hem of her dress neatly tucked into the back of her princess panties.
There isn’t much three-year olds don’t want to do by themselves. I can “do it” they often say: like go into a bathroom stall, lock the door, completely undress, climb onto the potty, and then decide they “need help.”
When my grandson, Conner, was three it was my job to escort him to the bathroom during our church meeting.
“I can do it,” he would say.
“Are you sure?”
“I do it.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But don’t lock the door, just in case, okay? Please. Please. YaYa looks pretty stupid crawling around on the bathroom floor.”
“I do it.”
Then he’d enter the bathroom stall and CLICK, lock the door, completely undress, climb on the potty, and . . .
“YaYa?”
The sound of my head banging against the LOCKED stall door reverberated.
“Yes, Conner.”
“I need help.”
There isn’t much that I can’t stand more than the floor of a public bathroom. And that’s a tortured double negative, meaning that I hate crawling under bathroom stall doors in a skirt, heels, and panty hose. But I’m the YaYa and Conner was in luck. I’m pretty small. I fit. And I did crawl.
The best part of this story is that a friend of mine heard me warning my Sunday school class not to lock the doors so that I wouldn’t have to crawl under their doors to rescue them. She let me in on the big secret.
“You can open the doors from the outside.”
“What??????”
“Sure, see that slot in the door. Just get a quarter and twist.” She ripped a paper towel free and dried her hands.
“Do you have any idea how long . . .” I paused. “Never mind.”
There isn’t much that I don’t like learning. Especially, a better way to rescue three-year olds from behind locked bathroom stall doors.
I am a Sunday school teacher. I teach three-year olds the right way to live and be happy. A lot of the time they teach me the same thing.
Linda (Rescue Me) Zern
June 2, 2014
'Gator Up
A full-grown American alligator raced across the road, right in front of the car in front of us, a taxicab full of tourists. I was driving my husband to the Orlando International Airport at the time, and I was fairly certain the taxi carried tourists. There were a lot of open mouthed screaming faces when they saw the ‘gator.
“Hey, wasn’t that an alligator running across the road?” I asked my husband.
“Yep,” he said.
“Can you imagine riding in a taxi on your first trip to Florida and seeing an alligator run across the road?”
“Yep.”
My husband doesn’t let a whole bunch excite him.
Which is a good quality, because when our boys were young it was nothing for us to have to make strange alligator related rules.
One such rule went something like—Aric, you are the big brother and you are not allowed to ask Adam, the smaller and younger brother, to jump on the back of alligators that you catch on fishing poles. Or—Adam, you are never, ever to do anything that your big brother tells you to do—EVER.
Occasionally, before nodding off to sleep, I would ask my husband, “Do you think Aric is trying to kill Adam via an alligator related hunting accident?”
He would say, “Yep.”
Alligators are a real conservation success story. On the verge of disappearing into the endless kiosk of designer handbags and boots, they’ve come back to threaten the safety of every poodle in the state of Florida. Or as we like to say, “You can hardly spit around here without an alligator crawling into the damp spot. They’re everywhere.”
In Florida if there’s water, eventually, an alligator is going to crawl into it or through it on its way to a better damp spot looking for a date. We lived on a small lake which forced us to develop the Zern Family ‘Gator Capture and Relocation Program. The program worked liked this:
1) Adam would mimic the grunt of a baby alligator (no one can grunt like my Adam.) Adam’s ‘gator grunt attracted adult alligators the way farting the alphabet attracts Cub Scouts.
2) Alligators would glide in like heat seeking missiles to the sound of Adam grunting.
3) Aric would then flip a bit of a chicken’s inside parts, on a hook, in front of the cruising reptile (no one can fish with chicken gizzards like my Aric.) Worked every time or just about and he’d reel the ‘gator to the shore.
4) And then Aric would yell. “Adam, jump on the alligator’s back.”
After that they’d tape the ‘gator’s mouth shut, heft it in their arms, and bring it into our bedroom to show Mom and Dad. We would be napping at the time.
Another Zern family rule stated, “Never, ever bring alligators in to wake up Mommy and Daddy from their nap, because Mommy hates to wet the bed. (It’s so important to explain rules to children, don’t you think?)
At this point Sherwood would roll out of bed, muttering things. “It’s like living in an episode of . . . flipping . . . wild . . . flipping . . . kingdom.”
Making the boys toss the alligator in the back of our truck, he’d then help them take it down the road to release it in someone else’s pond. I would remain at home stripping sheets off the bed.
Let me shatter some alligator myths for my friends around the global water cooler. Alligators are not ambitious. If you fall into their mouths, they might take advantage of the situation. But they don’t plot.
Alligators are not like us; they are cold-blooded and the reason that they’re hanging out in the parking lot of the Winn Dixie is to get warm, not stalk you or your groceries.
Alligators are not mean. I once saw a baby alligator riding through the swamp on the nose of a gigantic Mommy alligator. How heart warming is that?
Of course, when the Mommy alligator started swimming toward us the park ranger screamed, “Run!”
Alligators are not clever. Adam and Aric outwitted them on a regular basis with a fake ‘gator call and some chicken livers.
When my husband flew to Detroit, Michigan for work, he took taxi cabs from the airport to his hotel.
I asked him, “What would run across the road in front of your taxicab in Detroit?”
He said, “An out-of-work auto worker.”
Scary.
Linda (‘Gator Bait) Zern
“Hey, wasn’t that an alligator running across the road?” I asked my husband.
“Yep,” he said.
“Can you imagine riding in a taxi on your first trip to Florida and seeing an alligator run across the road?”
“Yep.”
My husband doesn’t let a whole bunch excite him.
Which is a good quality, because when our boys were young it was nothing for us to have to make strange alligator related rules.
One such rule went something like—Aric, you are the big brother and you are not allowed to ask Adam, the smaller and younger brother, to jump on the back of alligators that you catch on fishing poles. Or—Adam, you are never, ever to do anything that your big brother tells you to do—EVER.
Occasionally, before nodding off to sleep, I would ask my husband, “Do you think Aric is trying to kill Adam via an alligator related hunting accident?”
He would say, “Yep.”
Alligators are a real conservation success story. On the verge of disappearing into the endless kiosk of designer handbags and boots, they’ve come back to threaten the safety of every poodle in the state of Florida. Or as we like to say, “You can hardly spit around here without an alligator crawling into the damp spot. They’re everywhere.”
In Florida if there’s water, eventually, an alligator is going to crawl into it or through it on its way to a better damp spot looking for a date. We lived on a small lake which forced us to develop the Zern Family ‘Gator Capture and Relocation Program. The program worked liked this:
1) Adam would mimic the grunt of a baby alligator (no one can grunt like my Adam.) Adam’s ‘gator grunt attracted adult alligators the way farting the alphabet attracts Cub Scouts.
2) Alligators would glide in like heat seeking missiles to the sound of Adam grunting.
3) Aric would then flip a bit of a chicken’s inside parts, on a hook, in front of the cruising reptile (no one can fish with chicken gizzards like my Aric.) Worked every time or just about and he’d reel the ‘gator to the shore.
4) And then Aric would yell. “Adam, jump on the alligator’s back.”
After that they’d tape the ‘gator’s mouth shut, heft it in their arms, and bring it into our bedroom to show Mom and Dad. We would be napping at the time.
Another Zern family rule stated, “Never, ever bring alligators in to wake up Mommy and Daddy from their nap, because Mommy hates to wet the bed. (It’s so important to explain rules to children, don’t you think?)
At this point Sherwood would roll out of bed, muttering things. “It’s like living in an episode of . . . flipping . . . wild . . . flipping . . . kingdom.”
Making the boys toss the alligator in the back of our truck, he’d then help them take it down the road to release it in someone else’s pond. I would remain at home stripping sheets off the bed.
Let me shatter some alligator myths for my friends around the global water cooler. Alligators are not ambitious. If you fall into their mouths, they might take advantage of the situation. But they don’t plot.
Alligators are not like us; they are cold-blooded and the reason that they’re hanging out in the parking lot of the Winn Dixie is to get warm, not stalk you or your groceries.
Alligators are not mean. I once saw a baby alligator riding through the swamp on the nose of a gigantic Mommy alligator. How heart warming is that?
Of course, when the Mommy alligator started swimming toward us the park ranger screamed, “Run!”
Alligators are not clever. Adam and Aric outwitted them on a regular basis with a fake ‘gator call and some chicken livers.
When my husband flew to Detroit, Michigan for work, he took taxi cabs from the airport to his hotel.
I asked him, “What would run across the road in front of your taxicab in Detroit?”
He said, “An out-of-work auto worker.”
Scary.
Linda (‘Gator Bait) Zern
May 28, 2014
Realistic Fantasy
My husband is an engineer. He likes the solid reality of computer languages and Internet access.
I enjoy the idea that trolls live in the knothole of our live oak tree in the backyard.
When Robin knocked on the giant metal island with his fist in that one Batman movie and joked, “Holy rusted metal, Batman,” my husband snorted through his nose and declared, loudly, “Oh, that’s so unbelievable.”
Astounded, I looked at him and said, “Which part of this movie did you find believable? The bat suit with the rubber man nipples?”
Movie watchers sitting near us in the theater were happy to tell us to shut up.
Fantasy is not my husband’s thing.
I love Godzilla and Mothra and horse riding wizards.
Sherwood loves jock straps.
Sigh.
After watching the latest incarnation of the great Godzilla franchise, I waxed enthusiastic.
“Godzilla as he was meant to be. Big. Tough. Ticked off. Loved it. Loved the train full of atomic bombs, conveniently lined up for radiation eating monsters—to eat! Loved it!”
I never told my husband to go see Godzilla. Never. Why would I? He is NOT a true fan. He is an engineer, forced to see the world as a giant Sudoku puzzle—poor linear man.
He went to see Godzilla . . .
And found it wildly flawed.
Then he went to see X-Men with our son, the same kid that used to wear fish shaped oven mitts on his feet and stomp around my kitchen pretending to crush some guy named Tokyo. After the movie, my husband, the computer engineer, came home on a tear.
“So how was the movie?” I asked.
“Ugh! It was so ridiculous. All the creatures are so fantastic.”
“Sure. Sure. Fantasy tends to be kind of fantastic.”
“But why? Why can’t there be realistic fantasy?”
“It’s called the suspension of disbelief or pulling the stick out of one’s bottom for a bit and having fun with monsters. That’s all. You have to want to believe.”
“But I can’t.”
“I know, honey. I know. It’s okay. You don’t have to believe. Just sit here next to me. I’ll believe for both of us. See there,” I said, pointing. “In that big old oak tree over there, I think I see a troll peeking out of that knothole. Just squint your eyes up a bit.”
He never did squint.
Linda (Run, Tokyo, Run) Zern
I enjoy the idea that trolls live in the knothole of our live oak tree in the backyard.
When Robin knocked on the giant metal island with his fist in that one Batman movie and joked, “Holy rusted metal, Batman,” my husband snorted through his nose and declared, loudly, “Oh, that’s so unbelievable.”
Astounded, I looked at him and said, “Which part of this movie did you find believable? The bat suit with the rubber man nipples?”
Movie watchers sitting near us in the theater were happy to tell us to shut up.
Fantasy is not my husband’s thing.
I love Godzilla and Mothra and horse riding wizards.
Sherwood loves jock straps.
Sigh.
After watching the latest incarnation of the great Godzilla franchise, I waxed enthusiastic.
“Godzilla as he was meant to be. Big. Tough. Ticked off. Loved it. Loved the train full of atomic bombs, conveniently lined up for radiation eating monsters—to eat! Loved it!”
I never told my husband to go see Godzilla. Never. Why would I? He is NOT a true fan. He is an engineer, forced to see the world as a giant Sudoku puzzle—poor linear man.
He went to see Godzilla . . .
And found it wildly flawed.
Then he went to see X-Men with our son, the same kid that used to wear fish shaped oven mitts on his feet and stomp around my kitchen pretending to crush some guy named Tokyo. After the movie, my husband, the computer engineer, came home on a tear.
“So how was the movie?” I asked.
“Ugh! It was so ridiculous. All the creatures are so fantastic.”
“Sure. Sure. Fantasy tends to be kind of fantastic.”
“But why? Why can’t there be realistic fantasy?”
“It’s called the suspension of disbelief or pulling the stick out of one’s bottom for a bit and having fun with monsters. That’s all. You have to want to believe.”
“But I can’t.”
“I know, honey. I know. It’s okay. You don’t have to believe. Just sit here next to me. I’ll believe for both of us. See there,” I said, pointing. “In that big old oak tree over there, I think I see a troll peeking out of that knothole. Just squint your eyes up a bit.”
He never did squint.
Linda (Run, Tokyo, Run) Zern
