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 lift 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 

READER'S WRITE!

Read the full review at Goodreads'

www.goodreads.com/book/show/19065670-mooncalf

ANOTHER FIVE STAR REVIEW!!!!!!!

"I received this book through a giveaway in exchange for a fair review. Thank you so much!

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book in the beginning, but I can honestly say that it was one of the best books I've read in a while. It should be on schools' reading lists. The ending left me shocked, but I think it was perfect. Thanks again!"  (Thanks Mallory and Goodreads for ANOTHER five star review.)

THANK YOU!

  

"I received this book through First Reads on Goodreads in exchange for an honest review. I cannot say enough good things about this book-it is absolutely fantastic! I will say that people should behave more like Leah & Olympia-in their eyes, love knew no color barrier; in my opinion, that's the way the world should be. Beautiful story. It had me in tears at the end."  (Elaine - Goodreads Review)

THANK YOU ELAINE  FOR THE WONDERFUL REVIEW, AND THANK YOU GOODREADS FOR HELPING US FIND EACH OTHER!


"A very good book! I would recommend it to everybody!Look forward to reading other books by this author!I won it through Goodreads! Thanks!" (Carl - Goodread's Review)

Thank you, Carl!

NOTICE

EMAIL UPDATE: My husband changed our . . . something. It messed up my email for a week. Emails I'm pretty sure I missed during the week of the email blackout include: notice of my first place win @ humorpress.com; notification that I've been selling 100 books per day because friends, family, and strangers have been talking up MOONCALF; fan mail from Ray Bradbury (even though he's dead.)

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 

MOONCALF by Linda L. Zern

Doing what I can to end the hate . . .

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, but 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, because being curious and interested in others is my favorite social strategy.

“Maybe you should pay for your own college?” 

“Are you nuts?” he spluttered.

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! 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 a 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 

The Thousander Club: Reflections: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Humbled to be included . . .







The Thousander Club: Reflections: Their Eyes Were Watching God: For the most part, I have very positive feelings toward Southern Literature.  Books like To Kill a Mockingbird and Mooncalf are some of my...

CLASSIC ZIPPITY: 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 

There are not many books we read as a family; there are even fewer books we read as a family over and over. The Long-Promised Song is a book my kids love and asks for the most. It is a simply touching story, or as Phoenix puts it, "sometimes, in the end all you need is a friend who believes in you". I have read this book no less than 50 times, and every time it's like the first time. Thank you Linda Carter Zern. (Ms. P. Hart)

www.zippityzerns.com

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 

Barnyard Ballerinas

Swans . . .

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