a little association

Some of you might have never seen this plant...or this movie, but damn, when I see the plant I always think of the movie!

 is really

(you kill triffids with salt water, so if you're not by the ocean, best visit the morton girl!!)

What doesn't kill me makes me cough!

It's still allergy season.  Fortunately, there's been a bit of rain lately to knock down some of the yellow ick floating around.  Still, I'm all sniffly and watery eyed.  It seemed a bit worse this weekend than normal, but my allergies can get really severe, so I really didn't think much about it.  My brother was in town, so I was pretty excited about that.  We went out to eat, saw a movie, and then had breakfast the following morning before he left.  It was a really good time!  Good enough that I really wasn't paying attention to what was going on with myself.  I was getting a sinus infection.

I get them at least once a year and always in the peak of allergy season.  Every time I get one, I think that it's just a "bad day" for my allergies....that goes on for a week.  I have all the usual symptoms of nasty allergies but it just never seems to end! 

Runny nose? Check! 
Sneezes? Check!
Watery Eye?  Check!! (yes, it's just one eye, oddly enough..the left one)
River of snot down the back of my throat? Check!

Now, several days later, I'm almost well.  I still feel kinda yick and tired, my left eye is actually chapped from so much wateryness, and I have my usual "post upper respiratory cough."  It's the cough that always seems to hit me and linger on for weeks on end.  I stopped going to my family doctor about it because....well, he's a piece of shit doctor!  I've been seeing him since I was a kid for this same problem and he always acts like it's nothing and it ALWAYS turns into a nightmare to get rid of.  Thank goodness for the nurse practitioners provided by my employer.  They at least listen and actually read my chart.  They're able to put "this happened last year...and the year before..and in the fall..and in the spring" into the realization of how this little show is going to progress.

The good side of it is that it's the spring infection.  It's never quite as bad where the cough is concerned because it's so humid in my part of the country.  Humidity is a cougher's friend!  Just a few days of sucking down the southeastern usa's swamp-like humid air and I'll be soothed back to my normal snuffly-sneezy goodness!

Huzzah!!  *hackcoughyak*

Zombie attack part finish

Good news! I'm going to write out the last part of my zombie dream!

Bad news!  I can't remember too much now and what I do remember is depressing.  I never made it home.  Now I'll get tons of email and real mail and letters by messenger pigeon letting me know that everyone hates my cliffhanger non-ending.  Too bad!  You can blame the alarm clock.  It hates me and always cuts off the best dreams.

So I was on my way home to hopefully nab the wife, institute my survival plan (I really do have one), and then I dunno what.  Getting home was going to be the issue first.  Motivating the wife to actually do all the work on the survival plan was going to be equally difficult. I really couldn't be bothered to think past that point.  One thing I realized quickly at this point is that I was dreaming.  The zombies weren't the clue, though.  It kept getting dark and then daybreak again.  Very confusing stuff, if you've ever been walking safely and suddenly it turned dark.

I had gotten about half way home when I met up with a young mom who was trying to get her two kids to keep moving.  I'm not sure where they were going, but I offered to help them out for a while since we were traveling the same direction.  The little boy had been bitten, but I didn't mention to mom what was inevitably going to happen.  I figured we'd deal with that later.  We traveled about a mile when we came to a roadblock of wrecked and burning cars.  Since zombies don't feel any pain, they had actually burned themselves up trying to get at people stuck in the burning cars!  Stupid zombies.  I was still cautious though.  Piles of cars make for good screens for zombies to hide behind..or rather for them to be hidden by.  Zombies don't really have the brain power to actually hide.  Luckily, the only zombie around by this point was the little boy.  He had stopped at some point and while mom was trying to get him to move, he attacked lil sis and bit her arm and then bit mom as she tried to pull him off.  Mom had him by the back of his jacket and was holding him at arm's length but it was too late.  I had to give mom a whack in the back of the head with the handicap sign and then the little girl.....and then zombie bro. 

You might think that it would have upset me.  By this point in the story it seems like I'm fairly well turning into a serial killer with no real remorse.  That's true.  My family actually had a discussion about "making the hard choices at the end of the world" at dinner once.  It was agreed on that I would have no real issues by my parents, sister, and wife.  I blame my upbringing for my sociopathic tendencies!  You can only watch that red shirted ensign die so many times before you say to yourself, "Someone had to go.  You can't run the show without Kirk."

That's about it.  I already warned you that I never made it home.  What I can tell you is that in the dream I had an awesome sense of awesomeness.  I was in the end of days and doing just fine, thank you!  My paranoia and obsession with survival were paying off and I was on top of my game.  It reminds me of a picture:

The end.

....it just goes on and on my friend....

I love super long posts!


that will be all.  you are dismissed!

Poor poopy Popcorn

Today I was going to post the second part of my zombie dream from the other day, but I decided to post about something I care more about.  I'll get to that zombie dream tomorrow.

My dog, Popcorn, has been sick all day yesterday and all last night.  Poor little guy!  Apparently he got into my trash and ate a bunch of "fun-dip" that the wife had leftover and some various papers and tissues.  Now that I know what he got into, I'm not quite as worried as I was before but still....I'm fairly worried about my little guy.  Popcorn is a 9 year old bichon-frise my wife got around the time we started dating.  Since then, I've been taking care of him; helping her to train him and pay vet bills.  He has a tendency to get ear infections, so we're constantly fighting that battle.  Fortunately we found a great vet that Pop likes and actually listens to us!!  You'd be amazed how many vets just do the same thing they always do regardless of pet history or owner information.  I spent over $800 one winter on ear infections because of this!  The vet kept doing the same antibiotic ear wash with sedation over and over.  Each time, he'd assure me that it was the best thing to do and would work.  Each time, I'd take Pop home and the next day his poor ears would start oozing and bothering him again.  I'd go back and let the vet know that antibiotic washes had never worked in the past (as recorded in his chart) and that he usually needed an oral antibiotic as well as an ear drop to clear things up.  After the 5th time he said he wanted to do an ear wash, I told him he was an idiot and only out to take my money.  I may have accused him of not giving a shit about animals as long as he could milk their illnesses for their owners money.  I have no regrets.  He was an asshole and worse, he was arrogant to the point of prolonging my pets misery. 

So anyhow, Pop's been throwing up and having some really REALLY nasty diarrhea.  Despite my obvious manliness, I have a hard time with poop.  Some days I could swim in it and some days my own poop is about enough to make me puke....or just thinking about it.  My wife is a trooper though and has always been awesome about cleaning that up when I can't handle it.  I do all the ear cleaning and bathing and dog wrestling in return.  It's unfair, but easier for her to clean up his poop or whatever instead of cleaning up his and my puke! ......Honestly though? I'm a professional puker.  Been doing it a lot since I was a kid and I never miss the toilet.  I should start training or something.  "Supercleanpukes.com" will be my next website!!

After throwing up and crapping in the bedroom a couple times last night, the wife put Pop in the garage for the night.  I can't say it's cruel because it was my idea.  With some towels, water, and me checking on him as soon as I got home, he was just fine.  We did some laps around the house to work out whatever it was he ate and get things moving on down the line.  It worked.  I puked.  All good, right?  NO!  A couple hours after I went to sleep with Pop curled up on his daddy for comfort and lovins, he got up and crapped on the floor again.  The wife found it and cleaned it up.  Yay wife!

Back into the garage for Pop.  He seemed super happy to see me when I got up this afternoon and even brought me a present he found God only knows where in there.  It was a neatly wrapped 2oz block of baker's chocolate!  Fortunately for us, Popcorn really only enjoys a good treat if there are people around, so I think he'd been saving it all day until I got up to let him out.  I threw it out, of course and we went back outside.  When we were done, I finished getting dressed for work.  Popcorn decided that he knew where the rest of the chocolate was in the garage so he helped himself to another block.  Again, he brought it to me to show me what an awesome treat he found!  Again, I disappointed him by taking it away.  This time, I went to the garage to take it ALL away.  He looked at me with those sad sad puppy eyes but I'm a married guy.  Puppy eyes don't work on me anymore.  All married guys build up a tolerance level to puppy eyes.  Otherwise, our backbones shrivel up and dissolve when our wive's have at us!

I had to leave him in the garage again just in case.  Since then, all I can think about is my little man on that concrete floor.  We left towels and such for him to lay on, but I know Pop.  He won't pay them any attention at all.  Hopefully he'll be feeling better when I get home.  I don't sleep well without Popcorn to keep the zombies away while I'm sleeping.

Zombie attack part 1

I met a girl a few years ago at work who confessed that her greatest fear in life was zombies. I would have guessed spiders, snakes, a rufee in the shape of a lollipop, or maybe even a sorority of evil demons bent on sacrificing pledges to the netherworld. Zombies, though? As the thing you're most afraid of in real life? Ridiculous, you might say! I certainly did. Then, today happened.

I got off work at the usual 7:08am and after clocking out, I headed to the front door. Even after a 12 hour shift on the job, I always feel awesome when I get off work. I think it's knowing that my "day" is done (I work nightshift, so that's a figurative day) and I can get home to do whatever I want to. The only person who can bother me with responsibilities at home is the wife and she's usually gone to work by the time I get home. Popcorn, my dog, will often pester me about my daily "feed the dog" responsibility but he's usually pretty forgiving if I'm a bit late and will make himself happy sniffing my compost pile, looking for the not-too-rotten vegetables that he seems to love.

So I was free for the day! Huzzah and all that. I strolled out of the building and over to the parking garage to being my drive home. My little Honda civic was waiting patiently for me as I passed the security guard station that stops inappropriate use of handicap spots and looked for the lady who usually waves and wishes me a good day but it seemed she was out giving someone a ticket. Damn right! They probably deserved it. If I can't park super close to the building then nobody else should be allowed to either. Construction at the bottom of the ramp seemed to have a big line backed up to get out of the garage, but I didn't much care. I'd simply wait in my car and listen to the cd player until things got moving. Except they never got moving. After waiting about 15 minutes or so and not seeing any cars move, I got out to see what the deal was. At the bottom of the ramp there was a nasty wreck involving a couple cars and a man who was laying in a big sloppy mess of squishiness half under a car and half all over the front of the car. It was pretty gross, but nothing much could get me down. Freedom! Off the clock! Huzzah and all that.

It's only a few miles from my house to my job. Being more than somewhat lazy, it's not something I care to walk ever, let alone occasionally, but it seemed like the wreck and sloppily squished man weren't going anywhere anytime soon. I decided to hoof it on home. With any luck I could get there inside of an hour and be relaxing in my recliner catching up on TV via the DVR. I pulled on my backpack full of miscellaneous work junk and got under way.

It was super quiet. That was the first thing I noticed after making it a couple blocks. Most people would have noticed that right off, but again; I work night shift and to me, things are always super quiet. At 2:00am, the world usually seems fairly deserted. There aren't many automobile noises or people noises. That's how things were now. All I heard were a lot of birds letting everyone know that whatever tree was theirs and if you came over there, you'd best be ready for a smack down of birdlike proportions b/c they had the best spot in all the town so come on over ladies and have a birdy good time. I figured there wasn't much traffic because it was still early in the morning. I was wrong.

There were tons of people walking. I hadn't head anything about any disasters or terrorist attacks at work so I didn't really know what was going on. "Mind your own business" is the motto my family has always used right after "Never trust the government" so I wasn't about to ask my fellow pedestrians why they were walking and not driving. I just steered clear of the people that were just standing around looking confused. At times I walked in the road since it was so deserted. Occasionally a car would come zooming down the road and I'd have to dart to one side to keep from getting hit, but things were pretty easy going. As I got more into town, there were even more people walking or standing around. Apparently power was out from several car accidents and people were milling outside buildings like confused cattle wondering what to do. Ridiculous! Go to work. Go back to bed. Get out of the damn way!

It was then that I saw what appeared to be one of the car wreck victims. He was staggering toward a crowd standing outside an office building and was obviously looking pretty beaten up. His hair and face were bloody from a nasty scalp laceration and it looked like blood had just pooled on his shirt and jacket for a while since they were almost black from dried blood. I wondered if something ridiculously far removed from reality was about to happen. It did. He wandered into the office workers and grabbed an obese man and simply began to gnaw on his head and neck. Though part of my brain shut down, the part raised on sci-fi and government conspiracies immediately shouted to the rest of my brain, "ZOMBIES!!"

It's time for a little background. I was raised by normal parents. They didn't beat me or abuse me or psychologically stunt my growth. My parents were always encouraging and, despite being small for my size, told me I could do whatever I wanted if I tried hard enough. Sadly, all I wanted to do was watch cartoons and TV. My parents also were avid sci-fi and b-movie fans. Every Saturday was devoted to first Transformers, GI Joe, and Robotech to be followed by whatever alien, giant animal, killer swarm, or government cover-up movie was on. I wasn't allowed to be fingerprinted at school for fear the government would use the information to "track me down." When I was old enough to understand that was strange, I asked my mother about it. "Matthew,” she said in an exasperated tone,” it's my job as your mother to give you every advantage I can. If ever you need to run from the government or police, you'll have a head start. Never let yourself be fingerprinted and they won't know who you are until later." It seemed to make perfect sense, though a part of me wondered just why I would need to run from the government. Was she expecting me to murder someone? Was I part of some kind of experiment I didn't know about? Why was I on the run again, and from whom, exactly?  To this day, I'm not sure why I needed the head start, but it was this kind of thinking that saved my life.

Zombies! They were real. I'd read survival handbooks both real and imagined in the off chance I should ever need my mother's head start. I never though I'd honestly need to use any of that, though. It was just a hobby of mine. Even what I thought was a silly guide book; "The Zombie Survival Guide" was still crammed into the conspiracy file in my brain. I knew what to do.

First, I emptied my backpack. My empty lunchbox and ink pens weren't going to be any use. I kept my headphones and power cable as well as the kite string leftover from a camping trip that never happened. As I said before, I'm a bit of a lazy guy. I rarely fully unpack anything after a trip. My arms went into both straps and I tucked the loose strap material behind the bag so it wasn't flapping around. Carrying a bag in a zombie attack gives them one more thing to hold onto, but it can also hold valuable things to help you out. It was a risk I would take. Still, I made sure I could slip loose if something grabbed me. Your fellow man can be just as dangerous in a panic situation. With a bit of work, I managed to pull up a handicap parking sign. It gave me a four foot lightweight aluminum pole and after a bit of scratching on the sidewalk, a somewhat sharp edge on the actual sign. It was daylight, so the reflective nature of the sign wasn't an issue. What I cared about at this point was getting home to see if the wife was ok. Her schedule changes around and I was hoping today was a "late" day for her and that she was still in bed. Zombies are attracted to motion and heat, so if she was inside and in bed, they wouldn't have reason to go in the house.

If there's a lone zombie that can be "dealt with" while not endangering you overly, deal with it immediately. Zombies don't get tired, though given enough time their bodies will start to decompose. Still, you're going to stop before they do. That's why I made my way to the office workers who were either running or standing at a distance watching the zombie attempt to eat their coworker. In situations like this, someone has to take charge and that's what I did. Using my sign, I pushed and shoved people out of the way until I could see. I don't know why zombies get hungry or when, if ever, they feel full. This one seemed pretty damned starved though. It barely paid me any attention until I started pushing it back away from the man using my pole on its neck. There wasn't room for swinging the sign like a scythe, so I pushed its neck against the building until the sharpened sign began to push through its neck. Zombies are squishy from their tissues beginning to break down. My sign didn't go through like a hot knife through butter, but slowly it made progress until the head was severed. By this time, people were screaming at me and the zombie. Nobody wanted to do what had to be done even if they suspected. Not everyone is prepared to make hard decisions. The next one was even harder to swallow for them. I used the sign like a straight edge garden hoe or ice pick to hack the chewed up and dead, coworker's head.

It was time to get on my way. If that scene was typical at all of what was going on, there were going to be a lot more zombies to deal with before the end of the day. Undead + dumb = epidemic.

(To be continued)

It came from beneath the grass straw!!

Today brings in the 1% part of my blog.  Here's what happened:


I was sitting around playing world of warcraft as usual at the end of the night.  I'm a night shift worker, so when I say end of the night, I don't mean "before I went to bed."  I actually mean the very end of the night.  The sun had just barely started to come up.  You can always tell because the sky is still dark but it's different.  It's the difference between navy blue pants and black pants in a dark room.  You can tell one is different but it's subtle.  Anyhow, this isn't about the sky at sunup.  It's about the beast on my back porch.

So there I was watching "Defying Gravity" on dvd so that I could talk about it with a coworker when I got to work tonight when the dog burst in the room to let me know that the wife was up.  She always lets him out of the bedroom and he always comes up to my computer room immediately so that I'll take him outside.  Outside is where I found it, of course.

I grabbed the dog and the trash can figuring it's trash day so a good time to clean off the back patio of all the old crap back there.  I'd simply toss it in the trash and then take the trash out for pickup.  Viola!  No more trash and I don't have to worry about trash buildup in the can.  Perfection!

So there I was picking up trash and empty potting containers and such when it burst out of some grass beside the patio.  I'm telling you that lizard had to be at least 30 feet long and stood about 10 feet high.  It looked like something from out of the old B movies.  Maybe it was leftover from Captain Nemo's "Mysterious Island."  My dog, Popcorn, was no help.  No barking or anything like that.  He just sat at the back of the yard happily sniffing my compost pile hoping there was something edible in it.  I don't think he even saw me nearly get eaten!  If he did, he definitely wasn't going to take the chance there was a not-quite-rotten tomato on the pile that he missed.  That little dog is nothing if not thorough! 

So I squealed like a little girl when the dirt and debris burst up around me and the beast appeared.  The dog just sat sniffing happily at the compost pile for edible trash.  The wife was in the shower and honestly, she was cranky this morning so I wouldn't have bothered her anyhow.  The last thing a guy being attacked by a 30 ft lizard needs is his wife attacking him from the other side.  So I ran!  I ran to the corner of the house, dragging the trash like a dutiful husband, but I could still hear the monster approaching.  Luckily, some of the trash I threw out was an old fireplace set we were using on our fire bowl.  When the lizard poked his head around the corner I jabbed it's throat and ran off.  No, I'm sure I didn't kill it.  Watch out!  It just wandered off so there's not telling who's yard it went to next.  I explored it's lair later on with some hair spray and a lighter made into a torch and my scimitar, but it was gone.  I was already pretty sure it was gone having seen it's tracks lead out of the yard.  That's the only reason I explored.  Sadly there were no piles of gold around either.  Oh well.  It never looked like a dragon, anyhow.

Fifteen minutes later the dog came around to the garage all happy and wanting fed.  Then the wife informed me that it was time to go and she didn't see the lunch I was supposed to have packed.  Nobody cared about the lizard or the giant lizard hole I'd filled in.  Oh well! Such is the life of the adventurer!!