Beware Attack Ants

I try not to wear maxi skirts; they tend to make me look like I belong to a cult of hippy dwarfs. No disrespect to hippies or Snow White’s buds or cults. Long skirts also tend to wrap around my ankles, hooking my heels in an aggressive and hostile manner.

Long skirts are just this side of death traps, in my opinion.

So if you see me wandering about in a long, heel-hooking skirt, it’s because I’m hiding something.

Two weeks ago, last Sunday I had to wear a maxi skirt to church. I was hiding fire ant pus bites that covered my leg flesh from my ankles to my knees.

Ant pus bites that I received while standing in a ditch next to our street, Kissimmee Park Road. I was standing in the ditch putting a halter on Rosie the Pony that was having a high old time snacking on the bucket of feed I use to trap equine jail breakers.

A bucket of feed that I had set in an enormous fire ant hill, because I was distracted by the wailing of the fire engine that went roaring down our country lane at the exact time of Rosie the Pony’s escape attempt.

A fire ant hill that poured forth enough fire breathing ants to fill the bucket and leap onto Rosie the Pony’s nose and cause her to snort fire ant laden nostril snot onto my person, while their angry ant co-drones raced up my shins to gnaw on my age spots.

Age spots that were soon covered with fire ant pus bites, while Sarah, my daughter-in-law, directed traffic: the fire engine, assorted pickup trucks, the neighbor—come to help, possibly a goat pulling a cart.

Sarah, my daughter-in-law, who hearing my howling yelps for assistance grabbed the bucket filled with fire ants and handed it to Emma, the granddaughter, who thought that Rosie the Pony had been trotting over to say, “Hi, Emma,” when Emma was holding the front gate open for the family van.

Rosie the Pony who had not been trotting over to say, “Hi, Emma,” but to say, more along the lines of,  “Wow, you people are morons,” as she bolted for the sweet, sweet grass of the ditch.

Sweet, sweet grass that hid a gigantic fire ant hill filled to the brim with fire ant pus makers, whose attack required me to have to wear a frumpy skirt to church.

Or as Emma wailed, “Hey, Mom, this bucket is full of fire ants.”

Country Living Lessons Learned:

**Ponies trotting toward an open gate may have ulterior motives.

**The grass is always greener in the ditch.

**Maxi skirts make good cloaking devices in a pinch.

Linda (Beware Attack Ants) Zern

 

    

NESTING

The Hopeful and Curious Places my Chickens Try or Have Tried to Raise a Family! 
Occasionally, I'll find an egg in the middle of the yard, as if the hen was shocked that something had fallen out of her bottom. It's like a barnyard version of "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant."

The Feed Pail

Top of the Cabinets

The Honey Dew Wagon

A Chair

Okay, Maybe Not

The Lawn Mower

A Random Shelf

The Little Red Wagon

Pros and Emoti-Cons

I evolved sarcasm as a protection, the way roses evolved thorns and for basically the same reason—to keep from being devoured by goats.

As a kid, I was puny. I was slow. I was knobby. I never did climb that dopey rope. I got sick of being bitten by my kid brother, made fun of by my elementary school peers, and belittled by the marauders of Rose Marie Drive, also known as the neighbor’s kids.

“Those are some big-time words coming out of your knobby mouth, puny, little girl.”

When I failed to grow a spiked dinosaur tail so that I could crush human bones, I honed the venom of the cutting remark. Turns out, I had a knack. I raised sarcasm to a high and lofty weapon. What I lacked in brawn, I made up for in perfectly delivered snidery.

My brother later complained that I always “made him feel stupid.”

My mother complained that it wasn’t what I said but “how I said it” that made it difficult to be related to me.

My sister cried. A lot. But that could have been baby-of-the-family issues.

Eventually, I rendered several people unconscious with the savage efficiency of my sarcasm.

“Back away, little man, or I will kill you, cook you, eat you, and pick my teeth with your bones.” And they bought it. It’s all in the delivery: tone, inflection, facial ticks, sneering lip curl, dismissive eyebrow flip.

Which makes this social media/facebooking experience beyond frustrating, but we prone-to-evolving creatures must learn to adapt or die, mustn’t we? Those little faces made out of punctuation marks, while darling, seem so inadequate when trying to convey the depth of my _________________(fill in the blank.) Extra points awarded for originality and the ability to guess what I’m thinking at this very second in time (i.e. mind reading.)

I’m working on a Snark-Code to go with the one emoticon I feel confident typing.

I might write something like:

That idea of yours is close to being what we, in the south, like to call ‘mealy-mouthed.’

Followed by:

(Imagine me saying this while using a comical southern accent and an adorable wink, thus diluting the sharpness of the insult.)

Or . . .

Yes, absolutely, everyone is entitled to ride a unicorn to pick up their happy cash from the big money dump truck of joy provided by all the wickedly rich, rich, rich people in Hollywood and Martha’s Vineyard. (Please envision me rolling my eyes so hard up in my head that I go blind.)

And finally . . .

Wow! (When you hear me saying this single word in your head, draw it way, way out and turn it into a ten or eleven syllables that can mean either cool, fool, yikes, you cannot possible think that’s good/smart/funny/truthful!)

So be warned. I have thorns.

But it’s not all my fault that I’m sharp-thorned harpy, and I’m not really bad.

I evolved this way.

Linda (Spike-Tail) Zern

     

         

Circa 1958

My Regular, Annual, Semi-Official Ghost Written Disclaimer

My name is from the 1950’s.  My age spots are from the wear-no-sunscreen ‘60s. My stretch marks are from the baby making ‘80s and my attitude is the culmination of fifty-three years of paying attention to the big words coming out of the mouths of politicians, professors, popcorn venders, and pompous pontificators that said one thing, did another, and did not or do not deserve a second chance. Lovely rhetoric is lovely, but I’m more into stone, cold results.

Color me skeptical.

I was blogging before it was called blogging. It was called chatting over the back fence. I’ve been chatting over the back fence, once a week, for over thirteen years.

Here’s stuff that I’ve figured out—also my philosophy:

Sorting the silverware into individual slots for the convenience of fork users is weird. Throw it all in a drawer and let the moochers sort it out for themselves.

Folding sheets into tiny, tidy squares is a lot of effort for not much. Lump the silly things up and shove them in a laundry basket.

All the knobs on your kitchen cabinets DO NOT HAVE TO MATCH! I know. I know; radical, revolutionary talk fated to drive my son-in-law mad.

“They” are the worst possible source of information. “They” are probably the idiots that came up with the matching kitchen cabinet knob rule.

Chocolate covered raisins are the smartest food on earth.

Babylon is alive and well and trying to sell you something on Amazon—matching kitchen cabinet knobs.

Anarchy is like a two-year old on a binky binge with a diaper full of pucky. Anarchy is for the birds. No. Even birds have more self-discipline than those self-proclaimed anarchists, crying for their binkies and flinging their own poo.

Being a selfish twit (i.e. wicked) makes you insecure and insecurity makes you fearful and being fearful makes you mean and mean people are selfish twits. Knock it off (i.e. repent).

The best cure for insult or reproach is to be able to 1) laugh at yourself 2) laugh at the people who make fun of your mismatched kitchen knobs and libertarian values 3) recognize “them” for the “they” that “they” be and 4) keep your knives sharp and your wit sharper.

Note:  The management is not responsible for the opinions expressed in this blog by Linda L. Zern with her 1950’s name and her stretch marks, because the management is probably obsessing over getting the sheets folded into squares the size of postage stamps. Silly management.

Lin(duh) Zern (circa 1958)

    

 

Grouping

Special Interest Groups

or 

Groups With Interests that are Special

or 

Special Groups With Interests

or 

Interests that Specialize in Groups

or

GROUPS

(Grownups Raging Over Underwear Poop Stuff))

Today, according to “Wikipedia” (which is a special interest group dedicated to fake information that is unusable in college term papers) Special Interest Groups (SIG’s) are organizations focused on mutual interests. For example: JALT, the Japan Association of Language Teachers, is a SIG where folks try to come up with ways to get their students to speak better and more Japanese.

Actually, I have no idea what this group dreams about. It’s possible this group just sits around and drinks fermented rice juice.

A jaunty assembly of clever letters is often involved in organizing a special interest group—also T-shirts with informational messages like Join JALT—but only if you teach better and more Japanese.

I love SIG’s. They’re so tribal. Historically a tribe was a Special Interest Group dedicated to the “mutual interest” of kicking some other tribe’s butt and burning down all their stuff. Like the Special Interest Group the VISIGOTHS whose “mutual interest” was raping and burning its way across the Special Interest Group EUROPE.

Today, Special Interest Groups tend to be much more narrow in their “mutual interests.”

For example, the special interest group AWGA, Australian Worm Growers Association, is a group that wants to teach more and better Japanese to worm farmers.

Not true. Actually, it’s a fan club for earthworms and the folks that grow ‘em in Australia.

Scary stuff, if you belong to the special interest group FFCNCST (Folks Frightened by Creepy Night Crawling Squishy Things.)

Special Interests Groups include: Labor and Trade Unions, Associations, Groups, Clubs, Chorus Lines, Steel Drum Bands, and Clown Cars.

The “Von” Zern Family singers and clog dancers are a special interest group that has been drawn together by the mutual interests of extreme opinion making, the free exchange of potty training tips and tricks, and ritual mooching.

The most fascinating special interest group that I have learned of recently is associated with my college and describes itself thusly,  “The Safe Zone Ally Program [hopes] to increase awareness and solidarity with our diverse gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, pansexual and intersex (LGBTQQIP) community.

I was excited when I read pansexual because I thought it meant sex with pandas, and while I wouldn’t want to marry a panda, I’d love to snuggle a panda. FYI – that’s not what pansexual means. See? It’s working already; my awareness has increased.

And that’s why special interest groups are good; they’re fun; they’re educational; they’re insulating; they’re all for us and us for us.

Linda (Raw Milk Drinkers for Freedom) Zern

ZERN TERM # 27: "The Mountain"

Definition: "The Mountain" is a dump load of sand plopped in our backyard.

Used in a sentence:  You crazy kids go outside and play on "the mountain."

Used in a question: "Do you crazy kids have to dump your boots full of mountain on the kitchen floor?"

Used in an exclamation: "Don't throw handfuls of mountain at each other, you crazy kids!"

GRANDPARENTING TIP # 62-1: Dollar for dollar, pound for pound "the mountain" beats video games or electronics every time.

A Day at the Mountain

Conner on the occasion of his birthday party!

Digging, running, jumping, playing - OUTSIDE is always best!