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My friends, When we were young and newly hatched—also young and in love—my husband and I lived with our four young children on the Space Coast of Florida. The massive propulsion of rocket and shuttle launches from Cape Kennedy often rocked the windows and doors of our little love cottage. We were always properly respectful and impressed by the reach of mankind’s achievements. It was a point of pride to stop whatever we were doing (dishes, dinner, dancing, sleeping, fist fighting, etc.) to watch the eastern horizon—hands on hearts, tears in eyes—as the United States of America raced into the frontier of space. One deep, dark morning (about 2:00 am) I shook my husband awake to watch yet another triumph of human advancement. “Get up,” I mumbled to Sherwood, “the shuttle’s going up. We gotta’ watch.” Sherwood moaned, “The garbage is out all ready. Let me die.” He did not open his eyes. “Come on. We should watch. Night launches are amazing.” He dragged himself upright and clung to the window ledge behind our bed. We knelt, with our chins braced on the ledge, our bleary eyes fixed on a blazing light in the eastern sky. We watched. The light did not appear to move. We stared some more. The light remain fixed. We struggled to focus. The light blazed away. We waited for the light to fade into the blackness of space. It did not. We watched and watched and watched. The light stubbornly refused to move. At last, collapsing back into my pillow I said, “Honey, go back to sleep.” Sounding confused, miffed, and a little whiney Sherwood asked, “Why?” “Because for the last eight to ten minutes we’ve been staring at our next door neighbor’s bug zapper.” He went back to sleep. And I lived to worship at the altar of space exploration another day. This story pretty much sums up who we are, and how we got this way—excessive staring at bug zappers. And this is my blog, a space-age way of recording one’s thoughts, ideas, embarrassments, and foibles for the entire known world. Once upon a time, I would have made this record on papyrus, rolled it up, stuffed it into a ceramic jar, and asked to have the whole thing buried with me in my sarcophagus. I still might. Disclaimer: Some of the stuff you will read here is true. Some of it is not. Some of it is the result of wishful thinking. Some of it is the result of too much thinking, and some of it is the result of too little thinking. But all of it will be written with joy and laughter, because the alternative is despair and weeping, and isn’t there more than enough of that stuff out there? Thank you for your support, Linda (Zippity the Zapped) Zern |
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#142. Goat Grief!
#141. Book of Zern - Chapter Umpteenth
#140. Sugar Plums Dancing on my Gray Matter: A Christmas Story
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#138. Knees Like Knuckles
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#135. The Droopy Truth
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#133. Stink Bug Acid Attack!
#132. BUTTER: It's My School Project
#131. Halfway to Techno Dead
#130. Hubris (In the Third Person--Mostly)
#129. Caution! Lumpy Land Bumps
#128. Amnesia Anyone?
#127. The Accident Monger
#126. Life Lived in Silhouette
#125. Death by Owner's Manual
#124. Ease Dropping vs. Eaves Dropping
#123. The Neighbor Dog Blues
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#121. She Speaks With Calloused Tongue
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#113. Raise the Roof
#112. EMP
#111. Bomb Shelter
#110. The Tale of the Faux Toupee
#109. Bucolic Bird Brain
#108. On My Own, Pretending Todd Gives a Crap
#107. To Tell the Truth With Your Elbows
#106. Operation Enduring Rat Trap
#105. A Less Than Serious Look at Zeitgeist--Also Broccoli
#104. Random Rat Facts Learned the Hard Way
#103. Operation Rat Fink
#102. Death By Spit
#101. Reminder Potato Race
#100. Serious Alert (Big words, deep thoughts, possible poetry)
#99. College Age - Follow the Leader
#98. What An Animal!
#97. Bundle My Babe in New York City
#96. Hamster Infestation
#95. Water Moose Crossing
#94. Fire in the Hole
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#92. A Drive By Frogging
#91. Word Rabies
#90. He Ain't Heavy, He's My Effigy
#89. A Thank You To Mrs. Teemant's Students
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#83. Travel Fast, Travel Naked
#82. Monkey Chic
#81. One Man's Anomaly
#80. There's Brave, and then there's Getting Flu Shots
#79. A Good Guy in a Jam
#78. My Annual, Semi-Yearly, Bicentennial Disclaimer
#77. To Hunker
#76. Barnacle Babe
#75. Cool I Am Not
#74. Hacked Off
#73. Bonsai Baby
#72. Double Bubble Trouble
#71. Rules for the Rest of Us
#70. Road Kill, Ahoy
#69. Beneath the Ellipsis
#68. The Fires of Mount Doom, Saint Cloud
#67. My Husband is a Corporate Hooker (A Classic ZippityZern)
#66. A Fondness for Butter
#65. Worm Wars
#64. That's a Shame!
#63. Looking for Love Under the Merge Sign
#62. Worser and Worser
#61. A Pet Called Peeve
#60. Moonstruck: A Very Short Autobiography
#59. Tub Half Full
#58. Low Hanging Fruit
#57. In the Land of Hamletonia
#56. Can You Hear Me Talking to Myself Now?
#55. It's My Funeral and You're Invited
#54. Still Licking the Flap
#53. It's Good to be the Ya-Ya
#52. A Burning in the Finger Bones
#51. Drink Up
#50. Sherwood's Olympic Struggles
#49. Sophisticated Marshmallow Smuggling (A Classic Zippityzern)
#48. Scary Girl Stuff
#47. Cabin Fever Fling
#46. The Naked Truth About Boys (A Classic ZippityZern Essay) |
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