now I need a Scooby snack

We've had a weird situation where @bonenado and I have practically been accusing each other of having Alzheimer's all week. Not our first, some might remember the lost video camera and stuff, but this was zucchini. Normally zucchini mystery comes from wondering who left it on your porch, but everyone knows we know it's our next door neighbor because he has a guilt thing about throwing monster woody squash out, so he gifts it instead. When we ask him not to, he says it's for our chickens. When we remind him (we're next door) we haven't had chickens in well over a year now, he just walks off and leaves us wondering what to do with it, so we fling it off the back deck and watch it smash delightfully on the trees, and then we get deer and groundhogs coming up out of Mirkwood to eat it.  He doesn't like to feed the wildlife so he gives it to us.

Ok, that wasn't where I was going with this. The neighbor finally stopped sharing his produce with us because after ten years of inedible mystery monster veggies showing up in piles on our deck, we finally just put both our feet down and said We don't want anything from your garden and then had a ridiculous convo about just trying to be neighborly and here I go again. THIS zucchini was from a grocery store. Just know that, and we still don't know how it got here. I know, I keep talking like this. It's very mysterious.

I was unloading the groceries from the cart in Walmart while I was out with @bonenado last week, and I was irked to see he'd secretly smuggled in a couple of zucchini. I rolled my eyes and didn't say anything. He's a weirdo and I just roll. Got home, was putting the groceries away and rolled my eyes again when I noticed the one yellow squash hadn't been bagged in its own little veggie bag after I handed it to him, but the zucchini obviously had, so I just rolled the yellow squash up in the walmart bag and stuck it in the fridge and never said anything.

Days later, after one of the zucchini had been consumed and I need to get the rest of that squash cooked up, I finally asked why he didn't bag up the yellow squash but he did the zucchini. Skip a couple of really weird hours where we both thought the other really had cracked this time. Turns out we never bought that zucchini. Neither one of us put it into the cart, AND we were never charged for it. We dug out the receipts, it's true. But I remember getting them out of the cart...

Explain that one. It's almost like a double homicide without the death. A healthycide? I can understand someone else possibly getting the wrong cart or playing a weird joke (or @bonenado still having Alzheimer's), but not to be charged on top of it really creeped us out.

My Batman has been sick with some kind of weird germ going around the Gulf Coast. I don't think it's Zika, but it sucketh, and now the Batmom and Batdad have it, many feels for them on the Fourth. Meanwhile, Bunny rules the world from her vaca at a water park hotel. I zoomed in on the wave. She's way up there and it kinda freaks me out. Hang on, Edge has got Jawn in a headlock. This clicks to the ridiculous help advice in case you have the same problemo. #appwars

Wound up having to reboot over complete lock up,

and then got this trying to resize. I had to go around it by saving with a new title.

THAT is Microsoft wrestling control away from Chrome. Windows 10 insists on converting to their own photo app thingy, but it just doesn't work when I'm actually working in a Chrome browser. Big fail there, Microsoft. We must learn to share our toys.

Ok, back to Bunny. I cropped it and then zoomed, she is really high up there.

This kid was made for owning the world. She's not quite 3 and she's already at home with #allthethings. It's cracking us up comparing vaca pix to our own kids (their parents) at the exact same ages- noncompliance, crying, terrified of Bugs Bunny...

Maybe our kids are just doing it better than we did.

Our neighbors have already made sure it sounds like we're in a war zone every night for the last week solid, and I'm sure will continue through the rest of this week and possibly even month, so we're naturally not even interested in anything fireworky. We just want to sleep. I can't even imagine the pets and wildlife within our 2 mile radius. The mountain lion was real, here's proof we have them, the studies predicting their return (includes maps), and a list of confirmed sightings (I'm right next to Taney County), so yeah. Let's pull out our favorite Pumaman song! First, the original scene as seen on MST3K.



We always wondered why the most indigenous looking person didn't don the Puma Man belt, since he's a better fighter... @LisaMarieBowman briefly mentioned Pumaman in one of her reviews a couple of years ago. I think she'd have enjoyed it more with the song in it.

I've had the privilege over the last month of getting to see further into myself than ever before, more aspienado waking up kind of thing, and I just wanna say thanx again to everyone who has ever put up with me. I know I'm difficult. I can't say more because I don't have the words yet. They need time to percolate through me until they spill out. It's a kind of timeline thing, the before and after, and the paradox of the unaware traveling alongside the unaware in a new awareness of being unaware.


:edit:

Btw, wanna mention that this archive post that I linked on twitter this weekend got me into a "Great Writers" list. I know lists are a dime a dozen, but the account that did it is a very serious book marketing firm in Germany. I looked them up. I'm used to being put on writer lists and being followed by authors and marketing accounts trying to network, but this was different. I was simply very quietly put into a list.

The root of all this very deep thought about being public comes from this convo, the heft of which I was the silent heart of the debate over technicalities. No one knew back then that Oct 6 and 8 are extremely important dates to me for personal reasons, and that my absence had nothing to do with sitting out the debate.

I take being a public person very seriously.

The Puking Dead

I am really good at being puny because I threw up more than any other kid I knew growing up. As soon as the stomach cramping started this morning I started rescheduling my day and rounding up my camping equipment. Phone charger, headphones, extra trash sacks, roll of paper towels & disinfecting spray cleaner, soothing washcloth on the sink, extra pack of toilet paper, couple of Christmas catalogs. Tied my hair back, got burrito's juice out (I'm diabetic so I never keep my own juice or pop on hand). Jar of vaseline... I'm all set.

My bathroom is a little cozier than this. I like cozy. If I had a bathroom this big I'd just move a bed and television in. And maybe the fridge. Click to see more awesome bathrooms.

Burrito and her mama went through this last week, got to hear a little puking on the phone. That's what being connected is all about, right? It's actually sweeping through the whole land, I'm seeing news article links about 2014 norovirus on twitter, and looks like a buncha people are tweeting about the stomach bug. An especially huge deal is being made about Blake Griffin playing through a stomach bug. It's tempting to count the tweets saying "Blake Griffin has a stomach bug" but don't use him as an example to power through it yourself at work because your coworkers won't appreciate it.

Don't forget to replace your fluids as you go so you don't wind up getting a needle in your arm to replace them the hard way. Warm chicken stock, hot jello, juice... More pleasant than needles. Even if you don't feel like it, keep sipping. I've heard bananas, rice, and applesauce help, too, if you are up to nibbling. Click this next pic for great advice.

One thing many people don't realize is that you continue to shed the virus up to 3 days after you stop feeling sick. The CDC recommends that people who have been sick with the stomach bug don't prepare food for other people for a couple of days after you think you're well. Why? Because most of us don't stringently wash our hands. Think about all the places you get food while the stomach bug is sweeping your land. Think of all those people powering through it at work. Think of how many people don't take hand washing seriously. You can wipe your shopping cart handle all you want, but the problem starts with YOU not washing your own hands and then putting your hands to your mouth. Are you a lip picker? Something in your teeth? Eating fast food with your hands? There you go. "We're all infected" - The Puking Dead. (I just made that up.) Click this guy for a cute slideshow.

While you're out running around you might want to pick up a few things to make camping out in your bathroom more enjoyable, because you know it's coming. Very few of us escape. Here you go, have a coupon *click that*. That's an old pic, but keep an eye on it because *winter cold and flu season*, right?

That's enough about throwing up, how about a nice distracting throw down.

Happy Pinkyween

You know you're brainless when you assume you've had your second cup of coffee because your cup isn't where you thought you left it, but then you can't find it anywhere to rinse out, and you finally run into it in the microwave.

There's a Pink-O-Ween board on pinterest. You get cool effects when you click their pic.

I finally got my jackolantern done last night. Ok, Scott got the drill out and plowed out some marks I made. Kids see one face coming up the steps and another face turning away from my door. And yes, there is a wad of pink Christmas lights in there.

Halloween is my fave holiday. I tell everyone that. Most people have no idea why. Thank goodness that has radically changed and Halloween is getting fun again.

For years I watched the Ghost Hunters Halloween specials and wore my TAPS tee, so Halloweens feel a bit empty since they stopped doing that.

Then last year there was a really fun Snarkalec Radio Halloween show.

No idea what the plan is this year. I'll probably tweet or fall asleep while @bonenado watches TV and hands candy out.

I need to get myself pulled together, we've got a burrito kitty showing up in about 7 hours or so to get some goodies, and then we must stand vigil for the yearly protection racket which has been nearly stamped out the last few years by a super religious family on our street that throws street blocking praise parties that terrify all the little kids in normal Halloween masks, so we drum our fingers for the tiny batches of looters that manage to make it through the blockade every half hour or so.

This one already has the bonenado family genetically enhanced indomitable spirit. Fear for the future.