Linda L. Zern's Blog, page 4

How to Review Stuff

 Authors and soap makers constantly need reviews and critiques. They need people to read their books or wash with their soap, and then they need those readers/washers to write down and post what they thought of the book or sudsy soap in a public place like Amazon.com. 

If a writer can get enough readers to rate and review their book on a single special day, the list maker fairies will sit up and take notice. 

“Hey,” the list maker fairies will shout, “Look here! Someone who knows how to post on Amazon has read this book. To the cool book list.” 

And then other people see the cool book list and say, “Hey, what’s happening here? I want to be cool too and read that book.”

I don’t know if it’s the same for soap people. I guess it is: soap, suds, rinse, repeat . . . write a review. 

It’s possible to review everything from coal tar soap to goat halters on Amazon.com. It can be a lot of fun to say stuff about goat halters.

In the interest of encouraging more reviewing of everything from goat halters to fire starters to gummy calcium chews to my newest book, The Apocalypse:
Triple Threat Plus One, soon to be launched and thrown into the happy winds of the book judging public, I’m writing this checklist, “How to Review Anything.” 

#1. Go with saying something nice if you can and be specific! Find one to three positive things to say about the soap: nice packaging, good heft, quick delivery. Or about a book: excellent title; snapping dialogue; I wet my pants over the ending. Or about the gummy calcium chews: tasty, gummy, fruity—not chalky at all. 

#2. Sometimes a quick description is helpful. Like: “The soap comes in a nice thick black bar and smells like coal tar, but it cleans like Windex for skin.”

#3. Constructive criticism is a fine art. Comparing a book to whale dung is neither helpful nor constructive. Extending the criticism to compare a book to the stuff under whale dung isn’t helpful, nor constructive, or enlightening. How does a writer improve from the stuff under whale dung to actual whale dung? There’s no path to a better way. 

#4. Be constructive. Try starting the beginning of a review with an upbeat observation. For example: “While I enjoyed the strong bones the calcium gummies might give me, the chalk-like texture and flavor which cause my tongue to cleave to the roof of my mouth prohibit me from giving this my highest rating.” 

#5. If you must be scathing and sometimes you must . . . be brief. All that should be said at times like those, “Yikes.” 

#6. Actually, it’s the rule of threes. Find three strengths or likeable aspects and comment then follow that with three areas that could be improved upon. It’s rarely that there isn’t something happy to say or suggest, although I’ll confess I’ve critiqued papers that I’ve struggled with a bit. Don’t underestimate the importance of creative writing.

I learned how to review some real stinkers as a mom with teenagers because there were days it was tough to find something—anything—positive to say about kids who rolled their eyes at me so hard I could heard it. I have been known to say to my grumpy, hostile teenaged offspring, “Hey, no one can breathe in or breathe out like you do, kiddo. I was just hoping you might take this pickaxe and clean that fungus bloom out from under your bed.”

If I were reviewing this posting I would start by saying to myself, “Nice use of the word yikes and chalk-like. The numbers are in the right order. I like the juxtaposition of soap, books, and goat halters.” 

And then I would add, “One) Name names: Which kids? What do eye rolls sound like? Any smells you’d like to include? Two) Is everything a joke with you? Get serious once in a while—or not. Three) Try using more dashes. I like them. 

And that’s how to review stuff.

Linda (Five Stars) Zern 

Pelican Pouch or Dewlap?

 I am getting older and no part of me is getting younger.

Just ask Conner. He is nine years old and my grandson. His skin is pristine and without wrinkle. His eyes are keen. His powers of observation are laser-like.

I have forbidden him to look at me—for the rest of my natural life.

This weekend I caught him staring. I always know when he’s going to comment on some unfortunate aspect of my advancing decrepitude. He shuts his mouth. And he quits blinking. 

Sure enough.

“YaYa,” he began. 

“What, Conner?” I said, girding up my wrinkled forehead.

“You know what you could be for Halloween?”

No good could come of this, but I asked anyway. “Oh good grief! What? What could I be for Halloween?”

He leaned over, pinched the fat under my chin and said, “You could be a frog or a lizard. You know, one of those lizards with that flapping thing under their chin.”

“A dewlap? Are you saying that I could be a lizard with a dewlap for Halloween?”

He smiled a cherubic smile. “Yes.”

I sighed. “I was thinking more of a pelican with a pouch.”

His smile widened; his dimples flashed; his eyes twinkled. I searched his profile for a hint of a gene-induced double chin. Nothing.

Getting old is making me crazy. I thought I would be better at it or not care so much! But wow! It’s the worst and not because it limits your Halloween costume choices.

Stuff is starting to break, hang, and quit outright, all over the place. 

And if Conner isn’t happily reminding me about my dewlap trouble, it’s the television telling me that my ears are shot. 

Tinnitus. Ringing in my ears. I have it. I don’t know when I got it, but now I have it. The television commercial said that I might get tinnitus, and then I got it, which means that I got it from the television . . . or from Conner, telling me that I should be a frog for Halloween. Either way, it stinks.

Linda (Croak-Croak) Zern 

Write On and On and On

When I proudly handed a copy of my first children’s chapter book to my sister-in-law, she took it, looked at it, and said, “That’s a lot of writing.”

She was not overly enthusiastic. 

When I started sending funny, little, quirky emails to friends and family sixteen years ago (before blogging, before vlogging, before posting) another close relative said, “And stop sending me those damn silly emails.”

He was less than encouraging.

Rejection comes in all flavors. Yet . . . I write on and on and on.

Sixteen hundred words a day or as much as my line editor can safely edit without losing her mind. Over the years, I have learned a couple of tricks and tips and techniques. Here are five.

1) For Women Only or Overly Meaty Men: Write braless: There is nothing worse than writing for sixteen hundred words worth and then realizing that your boobs have turned blue from lack of oxygenated blood. It’ll throw you off. Trust me.

2) Thesaurus – Yes or No: That’s a big yes. My professor said to throw the thesaurus out. Whatever. I’m pretty sure that no one knows all the synonyms for the word “heave.” Editors get testy when you use the same word for stuff over and over again. So, if you need another word for heaved in the following sentence, “Her bosom heaved,” with a thesaurus you could write: Her bosom surged. Her bosom billowed. Her bosom huffed. See? How handy is that? 

3) Snack With Caution: Writers live at their keyboards. Potato grease in sour cream & onion chip dust can make the computer keys slick. Bad things can happen when your fingers slide around. Words like shoot and shot can come out in the wrong spots. That’s my theory. Poorly executed grammar, creepy spelling errors, upside down word choices, and dazzling typos are ALL due to slippery chip grease fingertip trouble. True story. True chronicle. True fiction.

4) Handling Massive Rejection: Eat more chips. Type more words. Tell more stories. 

5) Why Write? Because one day your ten-year-old granddaughter will hand you a story she’s written just for you about pumpkin seed fairies, and she’ll say, “When I grow up, I want to be a writer just like you, YaYa.” 


What I like best about being a writer and dreaming of having a wildly successful book, novel, tome, or opus (thesaurus alert) is that there can never be too many good ones. 

Good books are like potato chips; you can never stop with just one.

Linda (Keyboard) Zern 

Best ER Visit - Ever!

Born in 1958 and raised under a billboard of the cute Coppertone girl getting her swimsuit pulled down by that cute puppy—which wasn’t at all pervy back then—my husband and I didn’t discover sunscreen until the mid-seventies.

The result of which is that Sherwood and I have more scars than professional pirates. We basically lived outside, in the sun, unprotected from the searing elements like nomadic warthog ranchers throughout our teen and young adult years.

Standing at the reception desk at our dermatologist, my chest covered with an enormous surgical bandage, I pointed at my husband. His ear was covered with an enormous surgical bandage. We looked like survivors of a “peaceful protest” in a big city.

“We were born in 1958. Can you tell?” I joked to the receptionist.

The receptionist, young and unscarred, did not laugh. I find many young people sluggish in their ability to understand irony or satire. Okay, they’re dolts.

Recently, my husband complained about yet another pre-funky spot on his ear. At our house, funk is skin cancer, so pre-funk . . . well . . . you get it.

I was thrilled when he came to me pointing at his ear. I’d been using frankincense, a natural oil, with a great deal of success on a few of my pre-funk spots. But you have to use a lot and often. I told him that. A lot and often.

“Lay down,” I commanded. I tipped the tiny bottle up to apply the miracle oil to his pre-funk ear spot. A tiny drop of oil trembled on the curve of his ear, then ran straight down inside, hit his eardrum, and killed him.

Okay . . . maybe it didn’t kill him, but he sure gave a great impression of someone dying. He writhed in pain. Writhed. Was writhing. Did writhe around.

Wrapped in a towel, fresh from my bath, I called my daughter and demanded, “Does Phillip have clothes on?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Your father is dying. I may need him to take your father to the hospital.” I hung up.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” I asked.

“No!” my husband said, while writing in pain.

“Get in the car. Put on a mask. We’re going to the hospital.” I pulled on a darling little dress and a coordinating Covid mask.

It was our finest trip to the ER. It was empty of Covid corpses or victims. It was clean to the point of gleaming. They triaged us in the parking lot. We waited five minutes in the sit-there seats, saw a PA, RN, and doctor in ten minutes. They flushed the man’s ear, diagnosed a hitherto unknown ear infection (thus the bizarre death pain) and gave me a stern, condescending glance.

“Let’s not do that again,” the doctor said, after I explained the frankincense treatment/accident.

I stuck my tongue out at him, but because I was wearing a Covid mask he had no idea.

Best emergency room visit EVER.

Linda (Skin Walker) Zern

A HORSE CALLED POMMEL

  

“Put a mask on,” I commanded my husband.

“I’m not wearing a mask to go to Home Depot. No one else does.”

“If everyone stripped naked and went jogging, would you do it too?”

He looked confounded. “I used to streak on motorcycles naked.” He had that been-there-done-that-nude look on his face. “But I always wore tennis shoes so that I didn’t hurt my feet when I shifted.”

He always includes this last bit of information about wearing shoes while naked when he reminisces about his wild and wooly teenage years. I don’t know why. But he does.

So the mask debate rages on. But not at our house. Truthfully, we’ve been on lock down for about a decade and so not a lot changed when the world went mad and started setting their hair on fire to kill possible infection.

Sigh. Besides, we’ve already survived the big, bad germ war.

My husband, the former naked motorcycle rider, works for an international computer titan, headquartered in the heart of California’s nerd land. Early this year, he traveled to the edge of our fine nation where herds of nerds like to hang out. There are nerds from every land and clime—gross wet-market countries included. So in January, my husband headed to Santa Clara county in California to hang out in the cafeteria and to touch lots of grubby surfaces, door handles, and computerly stuff.

He came home with one kick-butt cough.

I blamed dirty airplanes.

The cough was so bad he headed to the doctor to be told he had a virus. “Go home,” they said. He did. And promptly gave the unknown, creepy virus to me.

I got the weirdest cold of my life. “This is the weirdest cold of my life,” I said to anyone who would listen. No one did. “This is the weirdest cough of my life,” I said to no one. And no one noticed. After three weeks enduring a cough that left me in danger of passing out, I lived to tell the tale.

How do we keep our spirits up during lock down? We watch gymnastics on YouTube and pretend we understand the scoring system. I like to imagine my nerdly husband trying to hang from the high bar the men use to fling themselves around on. Since Sherwood can’t straighten his legs and point his toes AT THE SAME TIME without inviting muscle contorting foot cramps, the vision leaves me in hysterics.

“I would pay money to see you hang from that bar,” I gasp.

“It would kill me,” he admits.

“Better that, than the ‘Rona.” I pat his hand and reach for a bowl of boiled peanuts.

And so we wait and watch and wonder what happened to all the non-judgmental memes from the pre-pandemic days of live and let live. Now, it’s judgment 24-7 about everything from the number of micro-inches between my nasal passages and yours and whether or not that mask I’m wearing is cute enough to be scientifically effective.

“How’s the pandemic raging?” I ask my husband.

He slides the bowl of boiled peanuts my way. “Hard to know. The headlines are ripped straight from the front page of the National Inquirer. Outer Space Alien Toddler’s Eyeballs Explode From Skull – Covid Suspected,” he reports.

“Sounds like things are slowing down then.”

“Ready to watch the pommel horse competition from Rio?”

“Sure. I would pay money to see you flip over a horse called Pommel.”

“It would kill me,” he confesses.

We eat boiled peanuts and wait for the end of yellow journalism.

Linda (Happy Streaking) Zern

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scratch Resistant

The fourth and littlest brother in the grandkid gang was snotty, crying, dirty, and done. I pointed at it and told my daughter, “Take that one home, wash it, pat it, and put it to bed.”

The third brother in the gang felt that I had dissed his littlest brother. He began to mutter. His face closed like a fist.

I tried to interpret his three-year old muttering.

Nothing.

“Heather,” I said to my daughter, “what’s he saying?”

She listened for a while.

With more optimism and hope than knowledge she reported, “He’s saying, ‘I’ll love you forever.’”

Zac’s face now resembled angry granite. 

“Heather, look at his face. I don’t think he’s saying, ‘I’ll love you forever.’”

She sighed and then reported, “He’s saying, ‘I’ll scratch you all over.’”

Ah ha! That was more like it.

This incident typifies what I like to call the Wishful Thinking Syndrome. It was wishful thinking that Zac was waving a fond goodbye to his old YaYa with charming declarations of undying devotion. 

There’s a lot of Wishful Thinking Syndrome going around I’ve noticed.

It’s wishful thinking that professors who are busy trying to sell their books will be available to help you sell yours.

It’s wishful thinking that low self esteem, broken hearts, damaged egos, and sociopathic behavior can be fixed with quick cash. 

It’s wishful thinking that food without butter, salt, fat, and sugar is going to be as good as food with butter, salt, fat, and sugar.

It’s wishful thinking that bread and circuses are going to work forever. (See history of the Roman Empire)

It’s wishful thinking to believe that hot flashes will make you grow taller after age fifty or before age fifty.

It’s wishful . . . well, you get the picture.

Wishful thinking is a direct result of the modern notions that human beings deserve trophies for breathing, that buying a Wraptastic will change your life, and that everything billed as ‘based on a true story’ is true.

Get real. The three-year old kid is not telling you he’s going to love you forever—this time. This time he’s threatening to claw you with grubby fingernails. Sigh. It happens.

The news isn’t all bad, however. 

It is my hopeful wishful belief that for every busted thought-wish, there are those rare and dazzling moments when our wishful thoughts actually reflect reality and the kid is saying that he’s going to love you forever and the purchase of a Wraptastic does, in fact, change your life. But those moments are both rare and dazzling, which makes reality way better than wishful thinking—sort of like having a unicorn to ride to the free puppy store.

Linda (Scratch Resistant) Zern

Smuggling Marshmallows in Our Pants (A Classic)

The way a family spends its weekend is a real indicator of just how nuts a family is, no matter how not nuts they want people to believe they are.
My family is an excellent example of this working theory. We would like you to believe that we are sophisticated intellectual sorts who spend our leisure hours having deep philosophical discussions, frequenting places of stimulating cultural interest, and engaging in recreational activities. Here’s how the weekend really shakes out.
THE DEEP PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSION:
After watching The Lord of the Rings—again—we begin our post-movie, round table discussion by answering the following question, “What would you do if you had a ring that made you invisible?” Answers include . . .
Phillip (the son-in-law) - “I’d go around doing good for all mankind.”
Sherwood (my husband of forever) - “I’d sneak into women’s locker rooms.”
Phillip (when he heard Sherwood’s answer) -  “I’d sneak into women’s locker rooms with Sherwood.”
Me (the voice of reason and sanity) - “I’d sneak up behind Sherwood and Phillip sneaking around women’s locker rooms and bop them on the head.” But then I added, “Invisibility ring! I’m already invisible.  What I need is a VISISBILITY ring.”
 Adam (Please see my essay, Only A Nimrod Would Think that he could Tip Over a Whole Cow) – “I’d sneak up behind cows and tip them over.”
Maren (nineteen at the time) – “Men are dogs.”
 Heather (after twenty minutes of deep thought) – “Pants people?”
 THE FEATURED CULTURAL ACTIVITY:
Before Disney, before Universal, before civilization there was Gatorland. Gatorland is a semi-tropical ode to tacky tourist traps.  We love it.
Murky pools of fetid water swirl as Florida alligators and the occasional crocodile glide by the tourists. Reptiles, roughly the size of sofas, bask in the shimmering heat. We throw marshmallows at them. Visitors can buy hotdogs to toss to the gators, which bring them to a boiling frenzy, but why? For ninety-nine cents and the thrill of watching Adam smuggle a bag of Jet-puffed marshmallows in his pants you can bring these pre-historic handbags to the point of hysteria.
(Please note: It is wrong to do this and you should never, ever smuggle foodstuffs in your pants when visiting Gatorland—ever. I’ll tell.)
And before anyone complains that we’re probably causing cavities in the alligators with our contraband marshmallows, let me remind you that alligators use their teeth for grabbing you, not chewing you. Alligators eat you—after they death roll you, drown up, stuff you under a submerged log, and tenderize you. Then they snack on you. Believe me, those marshmallows never touched their teeth.
Culture is 150 alligators lined up and waiting—breathless—for the next Jet-puffed marshmallow. Our working theory is that they’re sick of eating hot-dogs, biting chunks out of each other, or jumping for dangling chickens. (Note:  Yes they do jump, no matter what Sherwood and Philip say. They don’t jump great, but they jump.)
RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY:
Once a month, we indulge in Sunday dinner with the Chevrier family.  Note: Sometimes the Chevrier’s temporarily adopt one or more of our children and raise them, like in the Middle Ages when you sent your kids to other people’s castles to check out the alligators in their moats. 
So we have dinner. We eat. We talk. We discuss deep philosophical issues like, “Will marshmallows give alligators high blood pressure?” And if we’re really in a wild and crazy mood we take our own temperatures with Carol’s way cool ear thermometer. Aren’t you glad I didn’t say rectal thermometer?
There’s crazy and then there’s weird.
There you have it, philosophy, culture, and recreation. One of the things I like best about our family is that we can really laugh at ourselves. I can’t think of people I’d rather be invisible with or get busted with while smuggling marshmallows in my pants.


Linda (Puffy Pants) Zern

Deliver This

Someone pointed out that the last “normal” day we enjoyed as a nation was a Friday the thirteenth. I don’t doubt it. The irony of it all is just so cosmic.It didn’t take much to convince me that I should stay home. It takes a bit to convince me to go out. I’ve had Amazon on speed dial for years and years, and I’ve been ready for the apocalypse for a long, long time. Ask my kids, they’ll tell you.“Why doesn’t YaYa go anywhere?” the grandchildren ask.“She’s a hermit,” their parents say, “waiting for the apocalypse.”“Mother, what’s a hermit?” they ask, big eyes blinking.“ A hermit is almost a troll, but not quite a pooka.” Their mothers tell them, sometimes winking, sometimes smiling.“Does YaYa live under the troll bridge in the garden next to the zinnias, Mother Dear?”No one answers that question.I don’t live under the troll bridge. No matter what anyone says while winking.That doesn’t mean all has sailed smoothly since the great germ lock-down began. The Amazon delivery man has gone and gotten himself a bit frazzled.Even in the good times, he brings me about a thousand boxes a week. Please note: I don’t buy a thousand pairs of shoes a week as some might imagine. But do the math, everything in your grocery cart shipped to your front door in a separate box. Yeah. Crazy. A box for dill seed and a box for a box of noodles and a box for vitamins and boxes inside of packages tucked in boxes.Recently, after delivering yet another gaggle of boxes to my garage, the delivery guy raced back to his van, flung himself behind the steering wheel, and hit the gas. Children scattered out of his way. He hadn’t bothered to shut the sliding, side door of the vehicle. That guy was in some kind of big time hurry, I can tell you. He whipped out of our yard. Packages and boxes flew out of the open door into the yard like a dumpy dinosaur shedding great, honking scales.Throwing myself into action, I screeched and ran and waved and yelled. The van disappeared in a fog of dust.“Hey, Mister, your package!” I wailed. Okay, it was one, only one package.It felt like more. An air fryer meant for some expectant woman in Kissimmee tumbled to a stop at my feet. It’s still in my garage, waiting for me to do the right thing. Sorry, I’ve been busy ordering more boxes from Amazon.Linda (Deliver This) Zern

Six Acres and a Mule

The problem with public parks? The “public” has no say.People who sit behind desks can shut public parks down, lock them up, and patrol them with low flying, whirling knife-bladed, spy drones. And a person can shake their grubby little fist at the sky only to have their picture taken and then placed on the wall of the un-desirables and trouble mongers who violate parks.You cannot touch the king’s grass or swing on the queen’s swing set, or feed the royal ducks.The answer? Everyone should own a big-a$$ed park, just like the Obamas in Martha’s Vineyard. Big cities, zero lot lines, sewage shooting past your head in the apartment wall next to your face cannot be good for human animals, in my opinion. Better to roam open spaces and breathe big air.So, that’s my proposal. A park for everyone.Give me a park or give me death. Six acres of park and a mule.We have a park, of sorts, but no mule. It’s six acres and a back-breaking amount of work, but our park is open.Activities include: Fence building under the blinding, sterilizing Florida sunshine, social distancing easily enforced; animal poop moving, equipment provided; spent bullet digging in the sandhill on the shooting range, keep what you find; branch, log, and stick dragging, cardio and strength building guaranteed.My husband often sits in the glow of a gently setting sun, sighs, and talks of life in a condo. I hush him and send him out to feed the chickens.He once tried to get me to sell everything, travel the world with him, and live in Marriot hotels.Stunned, I said, “Do you know how fast I’d be out pulling weeds in their tasteful landscaping?”“You could live on room service,” he countered.“But I need dirt.” I smiled around the grit of sand in my teeth.“I know,” he sighed.My son-in-law once described hobby farming. “Farming is buying animals that poop and then moving the poop around.”My response? “What’s your point?”Parks are a lot of work. It’s true. But it’s good honest, back-to-nature (real nature, not that crazy Disney crap that makes people think ducks wear pants or don’t eat the entrails out of other animals) work.Dirt . . . it does a body good.Dirt for everyone.Linda (Digger) Zern

How America Went Soft

In the middle of a once in a lifetime (from my lips to God’s ear) viral pandemic, my dryer tried to kill itself.As I scooped dog food out of the 600 lb. bag of dog kibble (I believe in being prepared) I noticed my left cheek burning with the heat of a thousand suns. The heat was radiating out from the side of my stacked dryer.“That ain’t right,” I whispered to no one. “Sherwood!” I howled. “The dryer is trying to burn the house down!!”We turned the dryer off. “That’ll fix it,” we said. And it did. Of course the heap of slowly souring laundry cried out for relief, and that’s when I re-discovered the clothesline, clothes pins, and the sweet smell of line-dried clothes.Things I’ve discovered from hanging laundry after a fifty year hiatus.1.)   The sky. The wind. The weather. Hanging clothes on a line will put you back in touch with real, unconditioned air. I am one with the elements.2.)   The smell is beyond science to replicate. I don’t care what chemically treated product you toss into that electric clothes shrinker, outside has a smell all its own: clean, fresh, light, pure.3.)   My clothes, hanging all in a line, is a task that satisfies my need to work and do and accomplish. I can see a pattern in my doing. It completes me.4.)   FYI: I want to be wrapped in line-dried sheets upon my death and buried in the back pasture.5.)   Towels dried in the sun become one part Brillo pad and one part sandpaper. Whatever germs are still creeping about on your body after washing with the highly scented, overly artificial soap of modern hygienic practices, a sun-dried towel will scrape those critters right off into the dustbin of history.6.)   Americans got soft the day clothesline-dried towels became electric dryer fluffed cotton balls warmed in the belly of a fossil fuel sucking, fire breathing, lint burner.7.)   Number six is just a theory.I pull a wet sheet from the basket, clip it to the line, watch it flap gently in the breeze, and breathe deeply. It smells like my great-grandmother and the sun and the earth and the peace of quiet things done well.The repairman will be here Monday. Sigh.Linda (Fresh Scent) Zern