Not at the bottom of the lake

Being as how this blog is so erratically updated, I'm not surprised that more of you (or, let's be frank, ANY of you) weren't clamoring around my inbox wondering if we'd made it back safely, like might have happened in the good ol' pre-social-media days.  Everybody knows what's going on with everyone else, practically, which is why I'm tamping down the disappointment at the whole 'lack of clamor' thing and just accepting that most of you who read here can go spy on my at almost anytime on the FaceSpace.

I do kind of miss the clamor though.  Remember way back then?  When if a 'regular' was gone for a while there was a fair amount of e-whispering and note passing and perhaps even a bold frontal approach via that quiant messaging system called email?  Forget texting - it hadn't been invented yet!  Messaging, maybe, but that's as far as it went.  Boy, 2008 sure was a different time, wasn't it?  Now I'm all nostalgic for way back then.  *sigh*

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Lake week, as always, was a good ol' time.  I won't bore you with details.  You've probably seen all the pictures before too, except in this year's iteration the kids are taller and (most of them) hairier than last year.  Teen boys, Lord have mercy.

Also, Thing 1 is a pretty dang good pontoon driver, nimble with the docking.  Also, nobody drowned.  So, SUCCESS!!

Oh, and the kids have to cook one dinner during vacation now.  This year they made something with the following ingredients, all in one dish: hot dogs, mac and cheese, bacon, and french fries.  I think there was something else in there not good for you, like a layer of crullers, but the details are sketchy at this point.  It sounded horrid, (to me) but tasted great!  Note to me - learn to trust their judgment.  Sheesh - this October Thing 1 is going to be 17, an age at which my grandparents were out working to support their families; the least I can do is have faith in his ability to plan and cook a meal!

For dessert that night we had fruit pizza.  You know, to balance out the bacon et al in dinner.  Just take 1 roll of sugar cookie dough, press it into a large round on a pizza pan, bake until done, cool slightly.  Mix cream cheese and sugar and vanilla, spread that over the crust, then top with cut fruit that's been marinated in a little thinned-down apricot jelly.  Honest, it's HEALTHY!!  At least that's what we kept telling ourselves while listening for the tell-tale 'thwip!' of blood vessels clogging shut.

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The horror!!

I was out front collecting the mail not long ago, and got dive bombed by a blundering cicada.  Holy heck what a noise!  It slammed into one of the porch posts, dropped to the ground on its back, buzzed around (angrily, I should imagine), fell down one step still on its back, then stopped.  Its little legs waived in the air for a few moments, then even that stopped.

Is it possible for cicadas to be suicidal, or become concussed?  Either way, I think that one's a goner, because even it if didn't kill itself in the accident (or WAS it?) the cats are now outside and I suspect that a nice juicy ol' cicada would make a tasty afternoon treat for the likes of them.

And no, I wasn't about to go 'rescue' it.  Have you SEEN a cicada?  They're one of the insects that fall into my 'do not touch' part of the arthropod Venn Diagram (which has only a very tiny overlapping portion of 'maybes' in the middle).  No touchy the buggy!  Except for that time when the Girl Scout Troop was camping eons ago, and it was a weekend of a major hatch so all the husks of the final instar (is too a word, look it up!) were lying around in heaps so we, of course, burned them in the campfire by the shovelful.  A jolly crackling sound, that was.  Note though, we're talking exoskeleton here, with no chance of surprise crawling about, at all. 

Not even going to be sorry about not trying to save that one bug.  It meant me harm, no doubt, and was besmote, but good.

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I'll end it there, as any post that includes a good cicada story should end with the cicada story, and simply wish you all well and a lovely weekend to all.

Tiff out.