Baby Toad Gallivants!

(*The first three snippets about Baby Toad are on my FB May, 3, 20, and 21 if you need to catch up.)

 

 Pulling "Zombie," my car, to the garage door last week, I discovered Wart, the baby toad, catching early evening air.  Yep, he had sneaked out the hole under the garage door and must have decided to party with the wild, yard rabbits, and catch a few bugs for his bedtime snack.

 

Wart did not hop to get through the opened garage door to safety when he saw me, so I directed my conversation to him, and snapped.

 

"Look, Buddy!  You are on your own.  I've tried putting you outside several times after you showed up in the garage in the late Spring, but you refuse to go hang out with your family.  I won't be looking for you every time I come in or out.  I have things to do.  Do you understand?"  

 

No ribbit response from Wart.  

 

I continued.  "Just so you know, two summers ago, I backed over one of the four toads in my garage.  Hop, Skip, and Jump's cousin croaked.  I left his body on the garage floor for a week to make sure Cousin was dead.  Don't let this be you!  You're safer outside!"

 

Wart smiled and ignored me as I slammed the garage door shut.  Evidently, he decided to pull an all-nighter.  Toads must have guts.

 

 

To: Uncontrollably-crazed Huggers

I am not a hugger. Never have been. Don’t need to hug. Don’t really want to hug. Find hugging gross. Yes, gross. 

 Bandwagon masses advocate hugging as a way to communicate. Even though I did not grow up hugging, I do like touching by cuddling, hand holding, patting on a shoulder, touching an arm, flirting, and intimacy. Hugging is a different story. 

 I do not want huggers pressing their hot, sweaty, oily, and stinky bodies on me. I do not want anyone to rub their deodorant, perfume, or cologne on me. I do not want someone unleashing their bad breath on me. I also do not want to smell a hugger’s personal, lingering body odors. Farts and vaginal odors are not welcome. Please do not, as a bear hugger, engulf and implant my face into a shoulder while cutting off my breath. I also do not need a hugger to imprint their saliva kisses or bed bugs on me. I do not like hugging.

Talk to me instead, Hugger. Use your words to communicate.  Words are beautiful. Write to me if you need to do so. Hugging does not increase your communication of care and support for me, so please do not hug me ... unless you're Javier Bardem, Tom Selleck, Harrison Ford, someone intelligent in my age group ... which is another story.

Dinosaur Ages

 

As I've entered the Dinosaur Ages, I notice medical/health people are nipping at my heels and barking.

What? I need a bone density test every two years? Oh? My colonoscopy is every five years instead of 10 because the doc removed a few, non-problematic polyps? My dentist wants my teeth cleaned and checked every six months? Crap. I need a mammogram every six months because I have calcium deposits? The endo doc wants to talk to me about parathyroid surgery? Again? More x-rays and ulta-sounds? Checking again on kidney stones? A pap test again? Labs? Lots of Labs? Eek!

I know these medical professionals are protecting me and keeping me safe. But all this biting and barking makes me want to turn into a cheetah instead of a dinosaur so I can run ... fast! 

 

 

Surname Concoction

The recent plethora of creating hyphenated/compound surnames makes me wonder how far this tradition might go.  Do people like adding extra surnames to be important and give themselves social status?  Do parents want their child to be reminded of both of them?  If there are no male descendants, will the surname become extinct unless it is automatically added to others’ surnames? 

If Linda Kemper marries Tony Rosato, does she decide to add her last name to his and become Linda Kemper-Rosato so she can be equal, or not forget her family history?  Or, should Linda and Tony save adding a name for their unborn children?  Therefore, if Linda and Tony have a child, Nicholas, does the child become Nicholas Kemper-Rosato?

What if the son, Nicholas Kemper-Rosato, meets Kinsey and they decide to marry?  Does Kinsey Worthington-Marshall now become Kinsey Worthington-Marshall-Kemper-Rosato?  Would her married name, instead, become Kinsey Kemper-Rosato after she throws out her maiden name to just have the traditional two hyphenated surnames, or does she drop one of each?  Which ones would she drop? 

What about Nicholas and Kinsey’s child, Natalie?   Does Natalie now have two or four surnames?  Does she receive one name from each parent’s side, and have a brand new surname, or does she simply take her father’s last name?  Is she Natalie Marshall-Rosato or Natalie Kemper-Rosato?  Or…. Is she Natalie Worthington-Marshall-Kemper-Rosato?  There seem to be no rules.

Personally, I would be confused by all the hyphenated names.  I’ve seen people looking for another person, yet the seeking person doesn’t realize the importance of using both names, or remember them.  When looking for Susan Brown-Johnson, no one will find Susan under “J.”   She’s alphabetized under “B,” not “J” now.

In addition to much mayhem, what happens when divorces are thrown into the surname mix?  Should some last names be discarded then, or confusingly changed into another new hyphenated name?

Why not let a newly married female keep her maiden name rather than change her name to her husband’s?  Why not let the children use their father’s last name?

I think a kid would rather write a name quickly, like Ginger Allen, rather than the poor, encumbered kid who has to write or sign, Alexis Reavely-Henderson, a zillion times. Heaven Forbid!  I could be Cynthia Bachmann-Todd-Beckert-Hartmeyer and that’s without the marriage/divorce crap, or middle names, thrown into the mix!   It sounds far less complicated to me to simply be Cindy Hartmeyer.

My New Car Makes Me Cuss!

My new car makes me cuss!  Yes, the CRV makes me cuss.  The CRV may only be a year old, but cuss and wilder words pop out of my mouth each time I’m behind the wheel.  The CRV simply smiles.

Loaded with modern electronic equipment, the CRV makes the driver’s language not easily controlled.  I’ve even had the dealer turn off most of the annoying electronic features, as possible, but cussing occasionally wafts the vehicle air. 

Soon after my purchase, an LOL (Little Old Lady) in front of my vehicle decided to turn right, and elongated her excruciatingly slow turn into 45 seconds on a 35 MPH street.  The CRV flashed “Brake” and then another "Brake" at me, before barking a beeping warning.  I yelled aloud to the car, “I don’t need you crabbing and flashing at me!”  He smiled again, and I directed my yelling to the LOL and her car in front of me.  “Get that piece of bleepity crap off the road, you stupid blanket-blankety Dumb Bleep! You don’t need a century to turn right!”  I probably should have been patient, and probably didn’t need to cuss, but I felt satisfied.  My car smirked.

Maybe other drivers are smiling, but try driving in the computerized CRV when a snow squall bombards the vehicle.  When this happened to me driving in front of Sam’s Club, lights and symbols illuminated the dashboard.  I refused to pull over, and finished driving myself home, muttering and cussing under my breath.  “Hades Fire!  This car is new, and it has problems?”  Once I pulled into the garage, I looked up weird car symbols in the driving manual, and then had to call the dealer.  According to him, when the radar sensor on the vehicle gets blasted by poor weather conditions, symbols and messages flash and turn on.  No wonder I cuss in the car.

Maybe some people think they already know the plethora of modern vehicles’ acronyms?  No, I’m not referring to the easy AWD or ABS, and if anyone thinks ACC refers to Air Conditioning, that is incorrect – ACC means Adaptive Cruise Control.  I love these newer acronyms – LKAS, BSI, LDW, ROM, LSF, SMS, CMBS, VSA, and TPMS.  Ha! Do I also need a new driving feature showing a coffee cup symbol so the steering wheel vibrates, beeps, and sends a message if driving lasts more than 30 minutes and the car thinks my attention is lacking? To reset this feature, the driver has to pull over, stop, unbelt, and open the car door.  Do I need a vehicle so complicated now that I can’t drive it without hassle, pain, and cussing?

I’ve named my CRV.  His name is “Zombie.”  On one occasion as I drove, I could have sworn the vehicle flashed “Brains” at me, like he might eat the brains of the car and/or driver in front of him.  I realized moments later that he flashed “Brakes” at me rather than “Brains,” but the vehicle made more sense with the misreading message.  Zombie and I both cuss now at the pissy drivers near us.  We should eat their brains, but Zombie and I are afraid we’d overeat.  In addition, we’re not sure many of the drivers and their vehicles have “flipping brains.” 

Driving down the “main drag” makes Zombie freak.  He often warns me the other drivers are bird “brains,” flashing “Brains, Brains, Brains.” Obviously, he makes me cuss.  Maybe it’s a good thing that no one can read our lips as Zombie and I travel.  “Don’t pull in front of us, you crazy Dirt Ball!”  “Stay in your freaking lane, Nut Case! Can’t you drive?”  “Get off your cell phone, bleepity Soccer Mom!” “Passing a line of cars on a double line, you flipping Punk?” #@&$%*...  Yes, my CRV, Zombie, smiles.

Salad, Salad, Salad

Perusing packaged salad and lettuce at the grocery today, I finally selected the “Drunk Bunny Salad,” commonly referred to as “Spring Salad Mix.”  A few weeks earlier, after my adult kids served me a new salad they made one night while visiting, I innocently asked, “What is this?” at the dinner table.

I should add that a number of years ago my son’s heart probably stopped beating momentarily when he realized I served iceberg lettuce as all my salads.  He explained then that the popular iceberg lettuce I had grown up with in the 50’s had little nutritional value.  It was mostly water, he explained. 

He determinedly tried again years later to upgrade me into choosing Romaine lettuce, and preferably, a Romaine blend.  I only half-hearttedly purchased Romaine then because I still liked iceberg lettuce.  I thought Romaine appeared too many times later with bad news updates about safety while being pulled from shelves and restaurants sporadically. 

After my original question,"What is this?" both my son and daughter-in-law explained that night what a healthy salad choice this new mixture in the salad was.  “The Spring Salad Mix contains spinach, arugula, chard, and other good things, plus it has nutritional value.  It’s balanced,” they explained.

After taking several bites, I commented on the salad.  “This looks like green stuff from my back yard that resembles the stems seen hanging out of drunk bunnies’ mouths as they drink dandelion wines, party, and cavort happily around my yard most nights.  This seems to be a drunk bunny salad.”

Thus, this salad mixture was appropriately named.  My kids now know it as such, and if someone does notice bunnies gallivanting around a yard with stems drooping from the sides of their mouths, or in people’s mouths, they will know the bunnies and humans are eating healthily.

Now, it seems my millenials are even more knowledgeable about better, more nutritional food choices.  That’s why today I actually picked up the spring salad mix at the grocery … defiantly, and brought it home.  I do try to adjust my dinosaur attitude into a more modern one … at times.  Maybe I should just have a little wine with my Drunk Bunny Salad and the stems that could hang out of my mouth as I eat  this week, eh?  Riesling, or Sauvignon Blanc, or Chardonnay, or ….

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

One morning my church's congregation took turns choosing Christmas hymns for everyone to sing.  As expected, one delusional music lover chose a song, considered popular, but it was simply a common song -- "Silent Night."  My hands started shaking and it felt like hives were under my skin's surface, soon to emit in allergic reaction to my intense dislike and the singing of the song.  Occasionally rebellious, and almost allergic, I sat quietly and "silently," and did not join everyone in the singing of "Silent Night."  I do not like "Silent Night." 

I cannot fathom why so many believe what so many others profess -- "It's the most beautiful song." No, it's not.  Even the lyrics don't mean much except there was silence, sleep, and a baby boy.  As a child, I always liked "The First Noel,"  "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," and "We Three Kings" as Christmas hymns.  They told stories, and their music sounds appealed to me.  I can't say the same for "Silent Night."  "Silent Night" was never on my list as "interesting."  The lyrics were written several years before being added to quickly written music with a guitar as the organ was broken.  The organ was the only thing silent.

Silent nights do not exist unless someone's deaf, or someone's using a headset.  "Silent" nights do not exist.  If you listen any evening outside, you will hear numerous, natural sounds -- an owl's cry, the wind whispering through the tree branches and leaves, the chirping of a night insect, water soothing and lapping, or even dripping, the rustling of grasses as something moves, and the thud of a nocturnal prey taken.

There was no "silent" night.  Mary was certainly not quiet or silent giving birth to her baby boy.  Labor is physical work, including moans and grunts.  I don't think Joseph would have been silent either.  Supportive words and murmurs would have helped.  Even Jesus would have made baby cries. 

Silent nights must be some frequently tired, sleep-deprived person's dream.  This music and some repeated lyrics seem so boring it might put other folks, including even a baby, to sleep.  Sure, that will bring peace and silence to folks as the slowly boring song puts them all to sleep.

As an adult, I do have to wonder why "O Little Town of Bethlehem" doesn't receive more adulation. What about "O Holy Night"?  Even "Hark the Angels Sing" and "Joy to the World" are far more energy-filled and interesting than "Silent Night" can ever dream it can be.

Please don't choose "Silent Night" when you have a choice.  Sing it in your shower if you must, and torture yourself.  I wish you all  a "silent" night.  Be bored, holy, and peaceful.  Enjoy your sleep.