Bundle Up

Marriage is about respect.  Marriage is about mutual respect and approbation. (Approbation is a fancy word meaning respect and is supposed to impress you with my big word brain—also my ability to use a thesaurus.)

Marriage is about laughing in all the right places—respectfully, of course.

My problem with the whole respect deal is my husband, Sherwood. He’s a nut. He’s a traveling nut, who might be mildly frightened by big city street vendors.

I called my husband in New York City, yesterday and was shocked when he answered his phone out-of-breath and gasping. He sounded like he was either running from panhandlers, in the middle of being mugged, or dodging Pedi-cabs.

“What is going on? Are you being mugged? Say ‘uncle’ if you are.”

“No.  I’ve . . .  (sounds of gasping) . . . just been . . . (tearing cough) running down Madison Avenue.”

“What? Is it the street vendors? I know how you hate those guys. Are they after you? Say ‘cheap crap’ if they are.”

“No, no . . . (sounds of fifty year old lungs trying to expand) . . . I just thought I knew where my work conference was being held—but it turns out I don’t, and it’s like a minus three degrees around here. No self-respecting mugger would come out in this weather."

He sounded a bit introspective.

"You know, after I left my hotel, I walked for a couple of blocks and thought, ‘Hey, this isn’t too bad. I’m okay.’ And then I thought, ‘Oh no! What happened to my ears?’”

“Honey, that means they fell off. Your ears are off. Check. Look around on the ground.”

He did not follow up on his ear status.

“Oh my gosh . . . people are freezing to death up there, while out walking their dogs to make yellow snow.” I knew it was entirely possible that my husband was wearing the equivalent of a windbreaker in single digit cold.  “You’re going to die. Do you have a hat?”

“No.”

“Gloves?”

“No.”

“A scarf?”

“I looked for a scarf before I left Florida. Does that count?”

"Have you found your ears? When you find your ears, we'll discuss the impact of good intentions on a blizzard."

I had a vague memory of Sherwood pawing through my underwear drawer looking for a blue scarf he had owned—TEN YEARS BEFORE in another state, possibly another universe. I remember telling him, “Honey, don’t you remember we used that scarf to tie a towel on a shepherd’s head for the Christmas pageant? That thing is long gone, probably one of those three kings absconded with it.”

He continued his tale of survival.

“And then,” he said, “I saw a woman with a scarf the size of a blanket wrapped around her head, and I thought seriously about snatching it and running for it. You know like on Seinfeld.”

“Babe, Jerry snatched a loaf of bread, not survival gear,” I said, firmly. “Now listen carefully, I want you to look for the steam coming up from the underground through the grates and head for those. You may need to roll some homeless folks around—homeless folks that, by the way, will probably be more appropriately dressed for the cold than you are.”

“I’m way ahead of you. I’ve been running from grate to grate; that’s why I’m breathing like this.”

I ignored him.

“And, you’re not going to want to hear this next bit, but you’re going to have to BUY yourself a hat and what not—to stay alive, which is the opposite of dying.”

He groaned. “But there’s no where around here to get anything, nothing, no where.”

My worry turned to confusion then to suspicion and finally to frustration.

“I thought you said you were in New York City. Madison Avenue—the pulsing heartbeat of the world’s pacemaker of commercialism, right? That Madison Avenue?”

“Un huh.”

“Buy yourself a scarf! Before you die! Find a street vendor! Find a guy that opens his trench coat and says, ‘Want to buy an electric blanket or maybe a blow torch?’”

I spent the rest of the day afraid to watch cable news for fear that I’d see my husband scuttling like a hermit crab along the streets of New York City. The news anchors would be pointing at him, mocking, and saying, “That guy is going to die.”

Respect in a marriage is a funny thing. I know it makes me laugh quite a bit.

I’m just wondering where Sherwood is going to prop his glasses, what with his ears falling off and all.

Linda (Bundle Up) Zern

Hamster Infestation

So many time saving, work reducing, stress minimizing gadgets—so little time to figure out how they work or how to fix them when they don’t work or how to rid them of hamster infestations. Troublesome, especially when you’ve become completely dependent and addicted to the use of afore mentioned gizmos.

Washers and dryers are real stress relievers—or they can be. When we were young, poor, newly married, and our clothes were often embarrassingly rumpled, someone gave us a FREE washing machine. It had a rat living in it. The rat left piles of rodent flotsam in and around the machine to make sure we understood who owned what.

We owned our rumpled clothes. The rat owned our washing machine. I found the situation stressful—not to mention frightening. What happened, or could happen, or might happen when adding that last pair of random biker shorts to the load, you discover that there’s a rat doing the sidestroke during the wash cycle? Those suckers can jump—the rat, not the biker shorts.

My newly wedded husband had to trap the washing machine rat and then bonk it on the head with a barbell. Afterwards, I thought I heard him shout, “Today, I am a man.”

Some years later, Brownie the “Knocked-Up” Hamster managed to escape her cage into our brand new squeaky-clean (never used) house. She re-located to the back of my brand new squeaky-clean (never used) stove. Driven by instinct and early labor, Brownie began to nest in the insulation of the stove. Occasionally, Brownie would stick her nose through the grating on the back of the stove, wiggle her whiskers at me, and giggle.

My phone call to the service center is legendary.

 

“You don’t understand. There’s a hamster nesting in the back of my new stove.”

“Serial number please.”

“No, no serial number. This is an emergency. Brownie the Hamster is pregnant. She may be crowning.” My voice became more strident with each word.

Brownie pressed one eye to the grating and watched my panicked pacing. A whisper of pink insulation drifted from the back of the stove to the kitchen floor. 

“I can’t find any record of an extended warranty for you Mrs. Zern.”

“What difference does that make? Does your fancy warranty cover hamster labor and delivery?”

“We can have a repairman out there Friday of next week.”

“NEXT WEEK!  By that time, I’ll have a flock of hamsters setting up a condominium association in my beautiful new glass top stove. Argggggh!”

I thought I heard Brownie the Hamster asking for an epidural. 

“Listen, let me ask you something, Wanda,” I said, trying another tack. “That’s right, isn’t it? Wanda? So Wanda, what might happen, I mean what might the possible ramifications be, if I turn the oven on full blast and set it to self-clean?”

It took hours to pry Brownie out of that time saving invention.

Finally, when a car repairman, while checking the engine of our family van called out, “Hey lady, did you know you have a rat living in your engine?” I knew enough to play it cool.

“Of course I know there’s a rat in my engine. She’s our hamster’s second cousin, twice removed. Visiting from Bithlo.”

There are days when I’d rather wash my clothes by beating them with rocks down by the river, cook my buffalo on a stick over a fire pit, and drag my kids around between two tree trunks lashed to a goat. There’d be less stress, less work, and a lot less time wasted—also less rodent drama.

Linda (Driving Miss Rat) Zern 

 

 

     

QUICKIES (Postings That Are Short and Sweet):

Five year old Emma has decided she does not want any brothers. Why? 
"Because a brother will just wrestle me up," she said. 
Seven year old Zoe's advice, Zoe with the three brothers.
"Just put a note on you bedroom door. 'NO BOYS ALLOWED.'"

Water Moose Crossing

"Look, everyone! There's a water moose with horns at Mr. Randy’s.”

Conner pointed to our next-door neighbor’s back pasture, and then went back to calmly digging in the sandbox. Conner is four.

The adult faction of my family sat on the back porch in the state of semi-stupor typical of our kind on the weekends. We watched Conner and the other grandchildren as they frolicked about the yard. We were hoping for a few moments of relative calm and possibly quiet—also no immediate need for moving any large muscles.

“What honey? What did you say?”

He pointed again and repeated himself. No one moved. No one twitched. No large muscles contracted. 

Here’s what we were hoping he said:  “Garble, larple!

There’s . . . some-wa-thing . . . garble with ha morns.”

What we were afraid he actually said:  “I need apple juice in a special sippy cup made of hammered gold, a snack that you’ll have to cook in a wok, my backpack that’s been lost for a month in Siberia, or the special bug jar from the attic.”

What we pretended he said: “How cute, he sees a bug.”

What we said (in a condescending adult way):  “What did you say Conner? Did you find a bug, honey?”

What Conner actually said, again: “I see it,” he said, pointing harder. “It’s a water moose with horns.” 

We looked at each other (parents, grandparents, and assorted relatives) and debated the possibilities, watching for signs that one of us was about to crack and get up off our big butts to go figure out if we were, in fact, being invaded by marauding water moose. 

“I think he’s seen a water bug.”

“He’s just pretending about something.”

“He’s playing.”

“He has sand in his mouth.”

“Maybe one of us should check it out?”

No one moved. No one twitched. Conner pointed and raised one eyebrow at us with the regal disdain of a four-year old.

“Oh for Heaven’s sake; I’ll go check.” I cracked and stood up. I’m always the first to crack and everyone knows it. They depend on it.

I walked up the gentle slope of the septic tank and looked for a water moose in our neighbor’s back pasture. Conner wandered over, standing next to me. Sure enough, a creature three parts gristle, six parts rawhide, and one part bovine had managed to jump a fence and wade through a designated wet lands area to forage and trespass. Chewing placidly, the old cow meandered around Mr. Randy’s property. Brown with a white blazed face, the old cow raised her head, displaying a hefty set of horns.

“You see?” Conner asked.

Conner looked up at me, trusting me to see the truth of it, knowing that I would. I gave him a quick nod. He smiled, winked and gave me a thumb’s up.

“Is there something there?” Some lazy grownup punk from the porch yelled.

“Sure. It’s a water moose with horns,” I called out.

“Yep.”  Conner nodded in companionship and agreement and then went back to the sandbox.

The water moose shook its horns at the sound of our voices and bolted. She waded back through the swamp hole and jumped the fence to become, nothing more or less, than a fat old cow with a sway back and tired udders.

My grandchildren never let ignorance of a thing hold them back. If they don’t know what to call something, they make it up. If they don’t understand, they ask. If they don’t have an answer, they do their best to figure one out.

“Zoe, why is the sky blue?” Conner wanted to know.

Stroking her little brother’s cheek, the way she had seen her mother do, Zoe gave it her best shot.

“Because Conner, blue is your favorite color, and Heavenly Father knows that it’s your favorite color, and so he made the sky blue—for you.”

And grownups think they have all the answers. I wouldn’t be too sure about that.

Linda (Water Moose Crossing Guard) Zern

A Water Moose By Any Other Name

Fire in the Hole

"You did what?"

My youngest son and I were in the checkout line at Kmart. He was confessing.

I was trying to look cool and unfazed, while choking on my own horror spit.

Youngest son was telling me that he and a couple of his buddies had been experimenting with an incendiary device of the low cost, high flammability variety—also illegal, probably, most likely . . . sweet Mother McCrea. I won’t bore you with the details, and that way you won’t have to testify at the trial.

“But don’t worry, Mom,” he assured me, “we couldn’t get it to blow up.”

Sweet Mother McCrea.

Beyond shocked, but still trying to play it cool, I looked to the gentleman behind the register and appealed to him for some kind of mature adult support. I was hoping he would roundly condemn the mercenary actions of my son and his gang of four.

The male cashier said, “Ah lady, that ain’t nothing. Me and my buddies burned down a bridge once, a big one.”

The elderly man behind us in line started to chuckle gently. The cashier joined in, giving us a conspiratorial wink and looking wistful.

“They still don’t know who did it, but that was in New York.”

Another man in line sighed—nostalgically.

I am ever puzzled by maleness.

I have never, ever had the overpowering desire to ignite, blowup, or dynamite anything. I do, occasionally, burn some lemon-scented candles when I soak in the tub—but not the same thing, I’m thinking. I have never heard my daughters chortle and exult with triumph because they can (and did) urinate on a fire. I have never had one of my female type friends confess a bridge, barn or hay wagon burning to me.

I have never heard any women of my association rejoice in their penchant for mayhem by saying, “Come on girls, let’s get some rags, a bottle and some gasoline, light it up and see what happens next.”

Let me think . . . nope . . . don’t remember any sleepovers like that.

Men are such a puzzle. If men aren’t from Mars then where are they from?

They’re from a place a lot farther away and hotter than Mars. That’s where. Burning down bridges, indeed, and if you don’t put that sharpened stick, chunk of rock, or spear down this minute, mister, you’re going to lose an eye, and then how are you going to see to light up all those Molotov cocktail fuses?

My tips on raising boys include setting up checkpoints for full body searches and always assuming that where there’s smoke, there is fire, or there’s going to be fire, or urine.  Always be ready to remind your boy child that burning down a bridge may sound like fun now, but does he really want to be working in the garden department at Kmart when he’s thirty-seven.

Pssssst . . . I have no idea how bridge burning and garden department cashiering are related, but that’s one of my strengths—verbal gymnastics and convoluted reasoning.

Linda (Fire Marshall) Zern      

Just Add Reading: For my son, Adam, because he asked.

Reader's Digest
Condensed
 Books  

In the beginning, I read because I had to figure out what those two crazy kids,      Dick and Jane, were up to with their dog, named Spot.

Then I read because the words were everywhere: cereal boxes, road signs, billboards, newspapers, and the instructions on the back of the Jiffy Pop popcorn. The words were every place I looked. And I could READ them. It may have been the magic of ordinary things, but it was magic.

After that, I realized that the Reader’s Digest people had filled our house with edited, condensed volumes of . . . well, everything from Michener to Buck. Those books were condensed—like soup—just add reading, so I did.

For a long time, I read to escape. Enough said.

For an even longer time after that, I kept right on reading because 1) it was one of the things I could do while I breastfed 2) it was cheaper than jet skiing 3) and it kept my mind from atrophying into tapioca.

In the time that followed, reading became a habit that enlarged my soul, filled my mind, dazzled my dreams, and acquainted me with the world as it might be, could be, should be, would never be, but wouldn’t it be cool if it was—in a sparkle unicorn kind of way? I kept right on reading, until I ran out of the kind of books that I thrilled to read.

Now I read to know what to write, always keeping in mind all the lonely little girls out there, in the dark places, who turn to books for comfort and company and who want to figure out what silliness Dick and Jane and their dog named Spot are going to get into next.

 

  

A Drive By Frogging

Yankee women are tough, according to one of my dear friends from the frozen intrepid north.

“We women of New England can give birth on an iceberg, swim back to the mainland across the North Sea, while carrying our newborns in our teeth—naked.”

“The mother is naked or the baby’s naked?”

“Both.”

New England women are tough. Right up until they come to semi-tropical Florida, that is. Give me one Yankee woman from Connecticut for a weekend, and I’ll show you a former Navy Lieutenant rolling around in someone’s St. Augustine grass shrieking “Is it on me? Is it on me?”

Two words. Tree frogs.

Tree frogs are sucker footed, car hopping, slime flinging, gooey-tongued attack animals. They are notorious stowaways and lurkers. It’s common knowledge here in the semi-tropics.

Tree frogs lurk in car doors and automobile air conditioning vents; they cling to windshield wiper blades and plot ways to leap through car windows so they can plaster themselves to northerners—also everybody else. Tree frogs are not Florida’s greatest ambassadors of good will, in my opinion.

“Let’s head over to the beach and experience the glory of a Florida horizon line,” I said to my Yankee friend, anxious that she had a positive semi-tropical visit. She’d already excreted enough sweat to fill a kid’s wading pool in the 150% humidity.

She was game—also gamey.

My son, Adam, decided to go along for the ride.

When Adam jumped into the backseat of the Grand Am, a tree frog followed. It jumped into the car in an elegant curving arc of slimy tree frog goop, landing with a plop on Adam’s leg. It’s little sucker feet attaching with efficient amphibian sucking action.

Let me be clear.

Adam jumped into the car. The frog jumped in. Adam jumped out—screaming. The tree frog stayed in—clinging wetly.

Panic spread like mildew. My friend was out of that car and sprinting for Maine before you could say “Kermit.”

I tried to appeal to my friend’s Puritan heritage and “can-do” Yankee spirit. 

“It’s just a little tree frog. The whole thing could fit on a nickel.” She continued to panic.  “You’re too big to swallow. Come back. What’s a little frog toe glue?”

I watched as she stopped, dropped, and rolled her way across a neatly manicured lawn in suburbia. Just in case, the attack frog had secreted itself about her person, I suppose. Adam shuddered and brushed at imaginary suction cup glue on his leg.

My head started to hurt from excessive snorting, howling, and guffawing—all glazed over with a dash of nasal drip.

I kept right on laughing until out of the corner of my sharply trained eye, I caught sight of the tree frog making another grand leap. It jumped over my car seat like a thoroughbred riding to the hounds and landed on my right anklebone. There was a wet sound when it hit and sucked on.

I was out of that car and screaming, “Find it. Find it. Find it,” before you could say sucker feet.

There in a quiet Florida cul de sac, two middle-aged women stood weeping and shuddering. We yelled—okay—I yelled at Adam to begin a perimeter search. My formerly intrepid friend didn’t yell. She just faded away into “no-can-do” whimpering.

“Adam, you have to find it, or I will not hesitate to wreck this car should it jump on me while I’m busy exceeding the speed limit.”

“No-can-do, Mom, I’m still in recovery.”

We looked toward the car. Nothing moved. We looked at each other—no one moved. Time passed. Still nothing. 

Without warning or explanation, the nickel sized tree frog jumped out and disappeared into the green, green grass of home. We had been the victims of a drive by frogging . . .

. . . and survived—not gracefully, or well, or even with our self respect in tact—but we had survived.

Bring on the icebergs.

Linda (Two Words) Zern