Holiday Howdies

I wonder if you use grammatical rules of plurals on things like howdy. It looks right to me, so I am going to remain true to Professor Grammatical.

I know it appears that Neglect is my newest personality trait. Also, I know no one really cares WHY I’m neglecting Snappshots. And it’s entirely possible that no one even cares that I am neglecting the site, period. But I don’t consider Neglect a personality trait and it isn’t going to become the norm. I have been as tired this week as I was in the first three months of every newborn I’ve ever reared. I was not nursing a baby, but a chapter. And chapters, as it turns out, are very demanding feeders. Don’t even get me started about the burping. The gas was just awful.

A person who has nothing to say should not talk.

And yet, it is difficult to stop myself at this point.

Thing is, I DO have things to say. I just can’t say them all yet. People that have secrets are so annoying. Really. I mean that. I hate it when someone lets on that they have stuff to tell you, but they can’t. Then why’d you open your Pie Ingester in the first place?

Still working on a creative project that may or may not become an at-home job for me. I am hopeful. I am also tired, but we discussed this already.

Still trying to lose 15 pounds, but gained three. Good. Really good. I’m waiting for a letter from Loseit.com that might go something like this:

Dear Missy:

You really stink at this whole process. In fact, we are going to ask you to leave our site on your own volition so that you don’t continue to drive our averages the wrong direction. This is not a weight gain site (sorry, Wade). Therefore, you have the following options:

• Lose 3 pounds in the next week and get yourself together. You are on probation from this point forward.
• Remove  yourself and be quiet about this.
• Allow us to send a representative to your door who will follow you around and confiscate the Cheetos bag (we’ve done research on you…) when you inevitably get a hankering for orange fingerprints.
• If none of the above occur, we will delete your profile and you will be dead to us.

Enjoy your muffin top, Loser. (But not the right kind of Loser, if you understand our implication.)

Sincerely yours,

Loseit.com

Now, to all reading this, please don’t send me pity mail. I’m not depressed. I am simply waffling (interesting choice of verbs here. I wonder if this could be half my problem…always thinking about cheetos and waffles.) between the camp of deciding to just forgo the other half of the closet and the camp of deciding to hit it hard and forgo the occasional trip to CiCi’s Pizza with the family. Yes, I just got back from there.  I’ll let you know what I choose. Or you can just check my muffin top and you’ll know. Ha.

Friday I spent the day at Silver Springs with my son, my friend’s son, our buddy that practically lives in our house, and the entire 3rd grade. I thought I was in for a bad run when I got stuck in the back of the charter bus with a kid with really tall hair (not that I have any room to talk about big hair, mind you) who wanted to chat about video gaming. At one point, he looked me square in the eyes and said, “If you could have just one super power, what would it be?”

“Mmmm, maybe teleporting?” I answered.

“I’d choose stretchy.” Ah, good to know, little fluffy fella. Then his teacher moved him to the front of the bus (maybe he wasn’t supposed to be mingling?), another kid traded across with me, and suddenly I had the best seat in the house.

Silver Springs was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve done in almost a year. I loved it and highly recommend it as an interesting, yet mellow, place to see in central FL. I loved being with AG and his buddies. I loved seeing the Kodiak Bear that they must be trying to kill off. How does a Kodiak bear survive in Florida? I loved the ancient, could-break-and-kill-you-at-any-given-moment rides. I loved walking and walking and walking. Seeing panthers. Seeing tarantulas (from a distance). Seeing the injured alligator who was grumpy and looking for a free snack.

In the above picture, the white spot on the left back leg is a leg blown out by a boat motor. That’s tissue. But don’t pity him too much. He’d still eat you without remorse.

My favorite moments of the day were the glass bottom boat rides. There is just something amazing about being able to peer down 90 feet and see things that have not been altered in hundreds of years. Silver Springs was where they filmed the black and white dorky Tarzan movies. It’s also where SeaHunt (Lloyd Bridges) was filmed. Actually there were about 60 things shot there that you would have heard of. None of them seem worth a rent, but I might rent them, just for sentimental reasons.

The slanted tree in the right section of the following picture is the tree Tarzan always ran out on and jumped from. Really dorky stuff, but a cool tree.

I even loved Chief Micanopy, who narrated our first boat ride in language that I did not understand a word of. I take that back. I heard him say fish. The rest of what he said, all 1500 words of it, completely unintelligible.

And I love these guys.

Happy Memorial Day.

m