The Christmas Song of Zern - 2021

 

1. The song of Zern, which is ours, did commence to be sung in the first month of this year and doth continue in the last month of this year of our Lord, two thousand and twenty-first, a year of unusual happenings and much speaking of the Lord. 

2. Let them kiss me with their kisses for I both keep the record of our folk and maketh the grass short enough for dodge ball to continueth unceasingly to be played by the children of our tribe. 

3. Our year did proceed thusly.

4. In the newness of the year, we did sicken of the plague which did cover the land, experiencing both mild and moderate and even worrisome symptoms. Then Sherwood our husband and father did spend but little time in the hospital close to our home, even Saint Cloud, there receiving both Ivermectin and steroids. Thusly, he walked forth from that place both healed and helped and blessed by those good doctors.

5. After much time going forth to battle against the Philistines, Aric, even Aric and his wife, Lauren, did proceed forth from the northern lands to the southern lands, even to come to rest in the village of Yulee. There to make an end of battle and to retire from the work of the Army. Silas and Ellie did delight much in the community pool and closeness of the endless moving of the waves found on their right hand.

6. Heather, the second of four, said moreover, the Lord hath delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, and hath preserved me as a mother in Zion. And Zoe, Conner, Kipling, Zachary, Griffin, and Ender did rise up and call her . . . to get them much to drink and eat. And Phillip said to Heather, Let not thy heart fail thee.

7. And the family of Maren and T. J., even Reagan and Hero and Leidy and Boone, abiding in the land of Texas, even Dallas, did rejoice much in the healing of their dearest sister and daughter, Reagan, from the darkness of childhood cancer. And they did go forth in the knowledge that their God doth hear and answereth the prayers of their hearts. And Hero did prophesy that God would work a mighty work because they are the Lorances and they don’t give up.

8. And the work of bringing forth the rising generation did continue forth in the home of one Adam, the youngest child brought forth in our home and his wife Sarah, in that Emma and Sadie and Scout and Ever Jane did play much of the piano, also their mother Sarah. While their father dideth work much to pay the cost. And they did prosper in the land.

9. And I did crieth to the Heavens for a kitten that might abide with us and she did come forth, living in the vent of the dryer, causing us to believe her to be a bat, but instead she came forth from the dryer vent to be held in the palm of our hands, needing but love and much food. 

10. And in this strange and most unusual year, the Lord did speak peace unto our hearts in the saddest moments and we didest hear the voice of angels whispering much of faith, of hope, and of charity when all seemed broken and lost. And we do continue in that pattern of love, measuring our lives by the times and seasons of our God, knowing that our days are numbered and known to our Father in Heaven. May Christmas be bright with hope in thy life and may it fill all thy days.           

The Laughter Starts Here

Need to laugh? Want to laugh? Feel free to laugh at me and mine. Find this collection of humorous essays and tales of hamster mayhem at amazon.com/author/lindazern 

 

ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO!

 

“Kip’s eating something,” my daughter yelled, pointing at her just turned one-year old. “I think it’s a dead frog.”

Swooping down from above, I pulled my grandson onto my lap and with a swish of my right pointer finger, I swiped his mouth and out popped a desiccated, mummified tree frog. Only later would I realize how practiced my actions had been—bend, reach, pull, swipe, empty oral cavity.

“Well?” my daughter wanted to know.

“Yep,” I said, “Dead frog.” I flipped the dead frog onto the coffee table in front of me.

“Ba-scussting,” observed the frog eater’s sister.

“No! Disgusting is the fact that the frog was almost re-animated into a zombie frog because of your brother’s magic baby spit.”

She stared at the now slimy dead frog looking for signs of zombie life. The one-year old howled for more dead frog.

Except ye . . . become as a little child.

My youngest son, Adam, waxed eloquent on the subject of Ayn Rand’s theories of the importance of individualism in opposition to the abstraction of the collective mentality by saying, “You know of course what Ayn Rand said about individualism in opposition to the abstraction of the collective mentality . . .”

My son had just raised his hand to punctuate a particularly salient point, when his four-year old stepdaughter turned away from her lunch plate to spit a chewed up noodle in a gooey wad at his feet.

He lost his train of thought. I lost my train of thought.

Then, with eyebrows raised and totally mystified, he asked the two questions we all want to ask everyone, “Why did you do that? Why would anyone want to do that?”

Suffer little children . . . and forbid them not.

“Grab that kid. He’s got no pants on,” someone shouted as a random two-year old streaked through the kitchen. Various people yelled. A few parental-types took off in hot pursuit.

Someone yelled, “Why won’t that kid keep his pants on?”

“Somebody find his pants,” someone else shouted.

The pants-less wonder jumped onto the couch and began a pants-less dance. Several people pointed and laughed—mostly kids and one grandfather. Eventually, the nudist was soon wrestled to the ground and re-pants.

Rumor has it that, of our two-year old grandson, a tiny girl from our church told her mother. “That’s Conner-Boy. He’s so funny. He takes his pants off in the nursery.”

. . . for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

My observations of the young and restless leads me to believe that heaven will be a very exciting place—full of fun and unexpected surprises. Then I watch Kip and Sadie learning to walk, and realize that no matter how many times they fall down—they ALWAYS get up--ALWAYS, and how full of hugs and kisses my grand daughters (Emma and Zoe) are, and how clearly Conner sees the world—mean people are bad and nice people are good. He sees no silly gray ambiguities the way we adults need to. My grandchildren teach me about tenacity, and kindness, and clarity—and heaven,

. . . and I do believe.

Linda (Cup Runneth Over) Zern

CATASTROPHISTS DON'T SPARKLE

Technically and typically a catastrophist is someone who thinks that rather than a gentle evolutionary slope of slow change over time, the world has been ripped and torn and shoved ahead by massive catastrophic events. The dinosaurs were killed by a meteor. Bam. Catastrophe. Bam. T-Rex buys it. Bam. Lemurs rule the world. 

On a more personal level, a catastrophist is someone who envisions all nightmare scenarios possible for any given equation. Teenager + new license + family car = kidnapped by Bermudian   bandits. I know. I know. There’s a lot of missing steps in that formula, but believe it when I say, I can get there in my own head.

I am a catastrophist.

You can’t tell me that bad things aren’t going to happen. I’ve been alive too long for that nonsense. And yes, I know that is a double negative, making the bad things an absolute certainty.

 
Nixon did lie.

Kennedy was a dog.

Pandemics do happen every 100 years.

Hitler did manage to turn a nation of God-fearing Christians into homicidal accomplices. 

And if you put a toddler next to the dog’s food bowl, that kid is going to eat that dog food. And if the dog food is next to the dog’s water, that kid is going to dunk the dog food in the dog’s water first and then eat the dog food. Guaranteed. 

It’s like being a prophet with no followers or a general with no army. Sigh.

Being a catastrophist isn’t pessimistic; it isn’t even negative. It’ just thinking ahead.

Okay, I will concede that not everything goes into the toilet. Sometimes people who are late for curfew have not been kidnapped and trafficked for sex work. Sometimes it’s just a flat tire . . . slashed by a serial killer, waiting in a thicket . . . I mean . . . sometimes . . . it’s just a couple of kids groping each other under the light of a full moon . . . and werewolves.

See? 

My combat soldier son, who knows a thing or two about real evil and true catastrophe, says there is medication that can help. Of course, the side effects run for a page and half and include things like blindness, scaly skin, and vampirism. 

And yes, Vlad the Impaler, a great catastrophist, did Shish Kabob a bunch of invaders looking to set up shop in the shadow of his creepy castle. In his country, they have statues of him and call him a national folk hero. In this country they turn him into a vampire and make him sparkle in the sunlight.

Catastrophe.

And yes, I am a writer.  Amazon.com/author/lindazern

Linda (The Sky IS Falling) Zern
   
 
        

In Defense of the Echo Chamber

Bah humbug! 

Growing up in the fifties and early sixties, on the Space Coast of Florida, was an exercise in Americana. All our fathers worked at Cape Canaveral, sometimes named and re-named after that dead president, Kennedy. Everyone came out of their houses to watch the moon rockets streak across the sky. And we all hated the Russians like poison.

When Sputnik sailed over our houses, the adults would come out into their yards and shake their fists at the blinking, floating satellite watching us from space—mostly they were shaking inside, worried. 

No one worried that we weren’t getting the other guy’s perspective or giving the Ruskies a fair shake. Screw the Russians; this was a race and we were going to win.

Because it was hard. That’s what President Kennedy said. We were going to the moon because it was hard and America rose to the challenge. Damn the Russians.

Our whole world was an echo chamber. My mother talked to Mrs. Christenson over the chain link fence between our row houses. They believed: in God, in their country, in public school, in being neighbors. Over the back fence, my mom talked to the Spooners, who were Catholic and had seven kids. They believed: in nice yards, sales at Piggly Wiggly, and church on Sundays.

To the left of us, lived the Dornbushes. We didn’t talk to them. They were thieves. Mrs. Dornbush would load up her mob of kids in the family VW bus, drive around town to construction sites and steal the newly planted landscaping. We weren’t allowed over there. Their garden was legendary. 

But honestly, our world hummed along quite nicely as an echo chamber until Vietnam, LSD, and the hideous failures of President Kennedy’s assassination and the shock of Kent State.

And now, that we’ve crawled out of the echo chamber to listen to . . . well not to put too fine a point on it . . . kooky talk. Sure. Sure. Boys are girls are boys are earthworms. God is dead and the Church of Satan is suing Texas over their religious ritual of abortions. All cultures are the same, even the ones who believe in digging up dead bodies and dancing with them. Drugs and alcohol are the quickest way to becoming the life of any party or a bleary eyed buffoon.

Bah humbug. 

It takes half a lifetime to figure out whether or not being an earthworm pans out in the long run. I don’t have that kind of time to . . . mull over . . . the value of earthworm culture. Thanks but I’ll stick to what I know works . . . works . . . works. 

And of course! I talk to myself. Sometimes I need expert advice.

Linda (True Believer) Zern

Ants vs. Grasshoppers

 My long-time friend and fellow doomsday conspirator called me during the swine flu dustup and said, “I found a deal on N95 masks. Are you in?”

“I’m in.”

And I was. I stocked up on N95 masks against a when-not-if pandemic eventuality. A few years later, I found myself pulling them off my shelf to donate to our local hospital during the long awaited pandemic of the moment. It was a situation that left me scratching my head.

Who am I to be giving protective gear to medical professionals? Nobody, that’s who.

Had everyone at doctor school been absent the day they discussed the repeating, one-hundred year cycle of plagues? Apparently.

Without expertise or training, was I better prepared than the smarty pants people at doctor school? Yep.

If they need a phone number for where they can buy N95 masks cheap they should let me know.

Preppers are more like ants than grasshoppers. They work and store and get ready. They plant while the sun shines. They are mocked and laughed at, until someone needs that case of toilet paper they’ve got tucked up under the guest bedroom nightstand.

For the ants who are prepared, it’s hard not to fell smug. Don’t. Grasshoppers going to grasshopper.

For the ants who take twenty bucks a month and turn it into a stockpile against a time of fear and want, keep your chin up and keep prepping against the coming of winter. 

The grasshoppers are going to need you.

Linda (Ants Be Ready) Zern   

 

  

   

The Covid Question - Do You Know Anyone Who Has Had Covid?

 

Yes. 

Me.

It was one of those strange, unscientific surveys on Facebook. It was a yes or no question. And I found that annoying. I wanted to fill in the blanks. I wanted to talk about my unsung, unheralded life and death experience. I wanted someone, anyone, to listen to my COVID story. 

The problem is that I had COVID before it was on anyone’s hysteria radar. 

My husband works for a huge, international corporation with the huge international headquarters located in the once lovely city of San Francisco. In January of 2020, my hardworking husband traveled on a Jet plane to the once lovely city of San Francisco. At the huge international headquarters of his company he talked, shook hands, chitted and chatted, and hung out in the huge international cafeteria. Note: International means people from all corners of the world travel back and forth, to and fro, in and out from all corners of China . . . er . . . um . . . I mean the world, including the North Pole. 

He came home—coughing—his guts out. I blamed the Jet plane. “Yuck, dirty, dirty airplanes. Go to the doctor.” He did. They gave him the standard protocol and said, “You have a virus. Go home.”

He did.

And promptly infected me.

Sick for three weeks, from January into February, I kept saying to anyone who would listen, “I’m dying. This is the weirdest cold.”

Ha. Ha. Ha. They all laughed. YaYa’s dying. They laughed some more.

“I feel like I’m drowning,” I cried out. No one answered.

Snot bubbled out of me like lava. When the coughing started, I coughed until I was light-headed and near fainting. “This is the weirdest cold I’ve ever had,” I cried to the empty air, which I could not get enough of into my body.

Three weeks and I was cured by Cuban chicken soup from a good friend. 

When I heard a woman on television describing her, finally acknowledged, pandemic symptoms, saying, “I felt like I was drowning.” 

“Yes!” I cried to a woman on television who could not hear me. “Yes. I had that too.”

No one answered me.

And then everyone went hysterical, but it was too late. I was better. Sigh.

And then we got COVID again, a year later in January, and if I get this stupid thing next January, vaccinated or not, I’m tapping out.

Linda (Breathless in Saint Cloud) Zern

SOONER OR LATER IT HAS TO BECOME A BOOK!

 

FREE IN KINDLE UNLIMITED: 150 funny (everyone says so), pithy (the word counts speak for themselves), well written (I've won prizes) essays in one hefty, meaty, plump box set for your viewing convenience. Enjoy. amazon.com/author/lindazern

The Moon and Me

 

MOTHER NATURE IS QUEEN

 Mother Nature is a girl with an agenda. She’s not a dancing hippo in a tutu. That’s a Disney cartoon with no actual connection or counterpart in the natural world where Mother Nature is queen. Let me repeat. Hippo’s do not wear clothes. They do not dance ballet. They do not twirl in tutu’s.

Hippo’s are murderers. They kill more people in Africa than any other land mammal. 

I made the mistake of saying that hippo’s are the most dangerous animal in the world, and I was instantly challenged by the Google police. 

Me: Hippo’s are the most . . .

Google Police: GOOGLE IT!

Me: I meant land mammal in Africa.

Google Police: NOT WHAT YOU SAID. Ah ha! The most dangerous animal in the world? THE MOSQUITO!!! Google busted . . .

Someone (who was not me): Mosquitoes aren’t animals.

Google Police: GOOGLE IT.

Actually, mosquitoes are animals. Pigeons are animals. Hermit crabs are animals. Goats are animals. And animals do what animals do because Mother Nature is their queen, even if everyone in society decides to shave their dog’s butt and dress them in top hat and tails. 

Our male goat named Tramp is six feet tall when he stands on his hind legs. Mother Nature, his queen, dictates that he lives for two things: food and females. He happily obeys. When new girl goats show up in our next-door neighbor’s pastures, Tramp becomes a rank smelling, lip curling sex fiend. It’s in his DNA. He lives to make baby Tramps. 

When I say he’s rank . . . well . . . let’s “google” it:

Billy goats -- or bucks, as goat fanciers correctly call them -- are intact male goats. ... Bucks stink with a strong musky odor, which comes from both their scent glands, located near their horns, and their urine, which they spray on their face, beards, front legs and chest.

Let’s read this again slowly: Urine. Which. They. Spray. On. Their. Faces. Beards. Legs. And. Chest.

Boy goats smell like old cheese cooked in the sun under a pile of moldy grass clippings. It’s a “perfume” girl goats cannot resist. Boy goats stink. They don’t have a choice. They stink because Mother Nature, their queen, says they must if they’re going to get sex and make baby Tramps.

Animals live to eat and make more animals. It’s true.

Back to mosquitoes, the most dangerous animal in the world, which live to eat and make more of themselves. The ones that bite are female. True story. They need the protein in blood for their eggs to develop. 

Google it.

Humans are animals. That’s the word on the secular street. We live to eat and make more of ourselves and watch the Olympics and knit afghans and wear perfume and start charities and ride bicycles and drink smoothies and invent Google and vacuum the kid’s room and write novels and blog . . . about mosquitoes. 

True story.

Linda (Skeeter) Zern 

SAY IT WITH YOUR LIFE

In Little League, there’s a saying the coaches would use when the players started trash talking each other. Like one kid would say, “You suck, you neanderthal,” and then another kid would come back with, “Your mother is a pony-faced dog soldier.” 

Then the coaches would peal the yapping kids apart and say, “Say it with your glove. Get back on that field.”

It was a great way to handle confrontation and trash talking. “Say it with you glove” meant to shut your mouth and play the game so well that any argument would be rendered moot. Be the better player. Win the game with your talent and skill. Play the game with your glove and not your mouth. Win or lose, do your best and leave it all on the field.

During one play-off game, Adam, our youngest son’s team proceeded to crush their opponent. On a close play, Adam slid into home and was called out. Because he was sure he was safe he had started to argue the call with the adult umpire before he had even gotten off the ground to dust off his uniform.

Now I am not one of those mothers who think their little darlings are never wrong. I was one of those mothers that was completely sure her kids were up to no good, and twice on Sunday.

Before Adam could call the umpire a neanderthal, dog-faced pony soldier, I was on my feet, fingers hooked in the backstop wire telling Adam, “Shut up. Get up. And go sit down. The umpire called you out.” He did.

It wasn’t ‘say it with your glove.’ It was more along the lines of don’t be a disrespectful poor winner or a whining loser and get up play the game like the gentleman I am raising you to be.

“Say it with your glove.” 

It’s a phrase that has come to mind on more than one occasion lately as I listen to people try to tell me the right way to live and be happy. So much trash talking, so much whining, so many unhappy little leaguers turned adults.

“Say it with your life.”

I wish more people would shut their mouths and get back on the field and ‘say it with your life.’

If your choices are right for you, then they should make you happy, regardless of what that other team thinks or believes. If your choices are making you miserable, mean, or prone to name calling, something seems wrong.

Your happiness is not the umpire’s responsibility. Live your life so well that there can be no argument about who is or isn’t a neanderthal. Live your life so well that anyone looking at your life will know you’ve played the best you could and you’ve left it all on the field. 

My husband and I made big choices (against conventional wisdom for the most part) and sacrificed all kinds of worldly “trophies” in the name of faith and family. And in the end, I truly mean it when I say, “May you find your way as pleasant.”

Linda (Right Fielder) Zern