A DOG'S TAIL

When you hear yourself screaming, “Sherwood, grab the hose; the dog is on fire,” you know that you are—once again—the butt of some giant cosmic joke, not to mention the dog.

We are country folk. We sit outside a lot.  We make fires. We own dogs. We sit outside around fires with our dogs. It’s a lifestyle. You have to respect it.  (If we sat outside naked, beating tom-toms while reciting cowboy poetry with our dogs you’d have to respect that too—if it’s a lifestyle. That’s what I have learned in college.)

I am a lazy fire pit builder. I like to hearken back to my Native American heritage by slapping a random length of wood onto the fire, letting the ends hang over the sides. When the log burns in half, you shove the ends in. Easy. Peasy. Others in my family would rather court hernias by slapping logs against trees, whacking branches on the ground, or slamming hunks of solid wood over their knees to try to produce the “correct” size.  Mostly, they just look like learning disabled Sasquatches. It’s fun to watch.

The down side to my method of fire building is that blazing hunks of junk sometimes fall out of the fire pit, raining down like space junk re-entering the atmosphere.

Sometimes blazing hunks of junk fall into the dog’s tail. No, not sometimes—once, it happened once.

What I learned when the dog’s tail caught on fire: I have the reaction time of a Navy Seal, Sarah (my daughter-in-law) who is very pregnant does not have the reaction time of a Navy Seal, and my husband is . . . a learning disabled Sasquatch.

CoCo, my very hairy collie/retriever mix, had cuddled up to the fire pit when a blazing bit of junk fell out of the fire pit into her very hairy tail bits. Her tail fluff began to smoke. She was oblivious. I leapt out of my chair and screamed, “The dog is on fire.”

Sarah screamed and tried not to wet her pants. Sherwood continued playing ‘Angry Birds’ on his machine. The dog’s tail blazed up.

Reacting like a Ninja taking vitamin-B 12, I started to kick sand onto the dog’s tail.  I continued screaming, “Sherwood get the hose the dog is on fire.”

CoCo remained oblivious. She may have been playing ‘Angry Birds’ in her head.

A smell straight from Dante’s Inferno rolled over me. Coughing bitter coughs, I started to stomp on the dog’s tail.  She lifted her head, confused.

Sarah continued screaming and doing Kegel exercises.

I stomped on the dog until a giant chunk of frizzled and singed tail fuzz fell out of her tail. She got up, walked to the opposite side of the fire pit, flopped into the sand, and fell asleep—probably wondering when I’d had my stroke.

Sherwood looked up from his machine, annoyed that I was yelling at him.

“What did you want me to do about it?” he said.

I thought about becoming an angry bird and pecking him to death. I threw more wood into the fire pit instead. CoCo snored. Sarah tried to catch her breath. Our lifestyle continued.

And you have to respect that or be labeled a judgmental, diversity hating, cowboy poetry bigot.

Linda (Fire Retardant) Zern

 

   

Eye of the Bird

Sandhill Cranes are big, tall birds. Some of them are big enough to look me in the eye—almost. They have a wingspan of almost seven feet across. Having them hang out in one’s yard is close to being in an episode of “Animals are Better than People” on the National Geographic channel. (Note: There’s no such show on the National Geographic channel, so don’t look for it.)

In the spring Sandhill Cranes have a funky sex dance they do that resembles teenagers dancing at a high school homecoming. It’s delightful.

Sandhill Cranes are way cool. Except when they aren’t.

We had a family of cranes start dancing around our front yard; we were so thrilled we started throwing money into a ball cap for them. No, not really, actually we started throwing bits of bread into the grass. The Sandhill Cranes loved it.

We loved the Sandhill Cranes. Except when we didn’t.

Over time, feeding the cranes became something of a family tradition. The cranes grew used to finding bread littered across the ground, seemingly from Heaven. We grew used to providing manna to the cranes like creatures of heavenly love and mercy.

We laughed when the cranes met us at the car, trumpeting for bread. We chortled when they began to wait for us at the back door, expectant. We joked when they began to stalk the smaller members of our family: the children, the old people, me. There was uncomfortable giggling when the cranes began to surround the house at odd hours and holler for bread.

On the day that I ran out of Sandhill Crane bread and the birds threatened me with outstretched pterodactyl wings and nightmarish screams of rage, I ran back into the house. I began to search the pantry for something else to feed the gigantic birds. Birds whose knife sharp beaks lined up with my eye sockets perfectly. I found some stale coffee cake shoved behind a bag of powdered sugar. I grabbed it—the cake not the sugar.

Standing behind the screen door I threw the coffee cake at the demon cranes and made a run for the barn. They rejected the coffee cake, registered the bait and switch, and came after me like Navy Seals pursuing Somali pirates. I ran and screamed.

The birds hollered and ran. Throwing myself into the tack room I slammed the door shut just as the beasts careened up onto the stoop. Through the dusty glass of the door, I saw the cranes tipping their heads back and forth, their beady eyes glistening as they worked out a way to destroy me.

Sandhill Cranes like bread.  Except when it’s coffee cake.

So this is what I learned from the Sandhill Cranes:  free bread makes for mean cranes; handouts do not breed gratitude and patience; cake is no substitute for bread; getting Sandhill Cranes off the dole is dangerous. They tend to object. Strongly. I’m just glad we didn’t start throwing tuna fish to the bobcats in the back pasture.

Linda (Wild Kingdom) Zern

           

  

LIE MONGERS

Note:  This is a classic ZippityZern post. I felt inspired in this political season to re-post.

HAPPY ELECTION DAY!

According to a special documentary on “body language” over ninety percent of all human communication is non-verbal. (As I type this, my shoulders are very pinched and close to my ears.)

Everyone lies.  I am told that this is true, because people have seen it on a t-shirt and a fictional character on television repeats it a lot. (At this point, my lips are pursed, emphasizing the fine lines and fissures into which my lipstick tends to pour.)

Therefore, if everyone lies and ninety percent of communication is non-verbal then forget about what’s coming out of people’s lips and concentrate on what’s happening between their eyes. (A wrinkle shaped like a cavern just deepened near my left eye.)

I hate lying. I love liars. (My right eye is twitching so hard I can hear it.)

That is a lie. I don’t love liars. I try to love liars in the “love the sinner, hate the sin” way, but it’s hard, because liars tend to lie, and they can’t be trusted with your automobiles, wallet, lawn mower, good name, daughters, or your female cat, and she’s been spayed. I continue to try to love liars, but it’s a struggle.

No, it’s not a struggle; that’s a lie. It’s more like a wrestle—Greco/Roman style. 

Liars are exhausting, because you have to listen to them lying and “read” their body language all at the same time. Or if you’re not around when the liar is lying then you have to hire someone to watch the liar lie, and if you live in a particularly dishonest society, eventually you will run out of people, to watch the people, who are supposed to be watching the people—in case the people are lying or plagiarizing or faking important governmental reports. (See?  It’s exhausting.) So, if it’s true that everyone lies then we’re screwed.

My favorite story about liars is a story my husband likes to tell. (I use it here with permission—no, not really. I totally stole his story.)

At a father/son campout, my husband and others continually warned one young boy to cease and desist putting a sharp, pointy stick in the campfire, igniting the end of the sharp, pointy stick, and then wandering about the campground while waving the now flaming, sharp, pointy stick in the air. He agreed to stop—verbally. (The body language test results have been misplaced.) “Put that stick out,” they demanded. He put it out.

Sherwood retired to his tent, only to emerge later to see the young boy standing in the middle of the campground holding the flaming, sharp, pointy stick aloft—apparently in tribute to the pointy stick fire gods.

“Son!” My husband calls all boys son; it doesn’t necessarily mean a blood relation. “Son! Did you put that stick back in the fire?”

The young boy said, “Nope.”

We have boys. Sherwood knew what he was up against.

“Are you holding a stick?”

“Maybe.”

“Is your hand in a curved position around a former tree branch?”

The phrase “former tree branch” tripped the kid up.

“Yes,” the boy said.

“Is that stick on fire?”

“I don’t know.”  A shower of sparks made the boy flinch. His body language gave him away.

I know it’s old fashioned. I know it’s considered a simple fix for a simple mind, but I like the Ten Commandments. They were written on stone, thus saving paper. They’re short. They’re numbered. They’re to the point.

I especially like the one that read:  Thou shalt not force me to have to learn body language to be able to tell if you’re a big, fat liar when I ask, “Who busted the loveseat?” and you tell me, “I don’t know.” And then six months later, I find broken bits of loveseat hidden behind our wedding picture and all over the house—Sherwood Kevin Zern! And all the grandkids were in on it, including Reagan and she doesn’t have teeth. (I am now leaning toward the computer screen in a combative, aggressive posture.) 

Yep. That’s my favorite commandment. Nah, I’m lying.  Actually, I believe that there are really only two commandments and they’re my favorites.

Thou shalt love God and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself . . . because people who love their neighbors don’t lie to, steal from, lust for, cheat over, shoot at, curse up, or covet their neighbor’s good looking donkeys. Nice people only need two rules, in my opinion.

Linda (Read My Lips) Zern