Thursday This n That

The other day I was out walking when a neighbor I'd only met once before drove past me, giving me two thumbs up and mouthing 'Good job'.  I was totally confused.  It's not like the one time I met her we discussed my activity regime or my hope to lose weight or anything.  Then I got to wondering, in a playful and jocular way, if I'm so fat she felt the need to give me encouragement.  Did I look like I was losing steam and needed a boost?  I mean, I was stopped on the side of the road.  I always stop and wait for cars to go by - because I don't want to get hit from behind and would like a chance to jump out of the way should someone lose control of their vehicle.  It wasn't even a particularly hard walk that day - coolish with a slight breeze.  I wasn't even sweating like a pig, which I often do, or huffing like a freight train, which I used to do before I started walking all the time. She should've seen me 6 years ago.  Man, I was out of shape and 14 pounds heavier then.  Then a 1.6 mile hard-target walk would've done me in.  :shrug:

I don't understand why people ride motorcycles.  Sure, I've never been on one.  But I've been on a four-wheeler and on a snowmobile.  Pretty much the same thing, I'd imagine - flying down the road, wearing a helmet and no other form of protection around you.  The four-wheeler was fun, but I was young and stupid and we could've easily been killed.  I screamed myself mute during the snowmobile ride and it wasn't from fun.  Sheer terror.  It was dark and snowing and I was riding behind a guy who didn't even have his driver's license yet.  Getting pelted in the face with ice.  Loads of fun.  Substitute bugs for snow and that's how I imagine riding a motorcycle would be.  I'll keep my car, where I can sit in air-conditioned or heated comfort, listening to my tunes and feeling pretty secure that if someone hits me, my crumpled body will not be thrown 30 feet or have its skin scraped off by asphalt.  Someone once told me there are no open casket funerals after motorcycle accidents.  Yeah, sounds like fun to me.

Monday I was scrolling through my blogroll and noticed a post on swearing in fiction.  The poor guy had a reader actually take him to task for swearing in his violent epic fantasy novel.  He, of course, schooled her good.  And he pointed out that while she had a problem with his use of curse words, she apparently didn't have a problem with the violence and had even laughed about a reference to a minotaur harming a prostitute.  (Apparently she was reading it in some form of posting a story wherein readers can immediately comment as the story goes along.)  What a world, eh?  I may have to actually pick up this guy's book at some point because it sounded awesome.

I found the above guy through a fantasy novel competition I've been stalking for potential good things to read.  I've wishlisted a couple that I'll buy as soon as the budget frees up a little.  I'd enter one of my books but apparently this thing is so popular, the spaces fill up almost as soon as he announces it's open for entries.  Right now they're in the middle of a cycle, so I don't even have to think about it until next year.  

Yesterday, I went fishing.  Nothing spectacular about that.  Caught a few little pumpkinseeds and a keeper redear sunfish.  After I put the sunfish on the stringer, I went back to fishing, occasionally glancing over to check on Burt.  (Yes, I name the fish I catch.)  The last time I glanced over, I noticed a kind of longish stick in the water I hadn't seen there before.  And then I noted how the stick was jutting out from the water.  And THEN I noticed it wasn't a stick.  I was a big honking snake.  Unsure at the time whether it was a water snake or a copperhead, I sprang into action.  To save my fish.  My fish had taken refuge under a rock.  I needed to reach out past the fallen limb I'd attached the stringer to to nudge him loose, but the snake was in the vicinity.  In fact, the snake had swum to the side of the rock where Burt was hiding.  After I pulled Burt in, I tossed a small rock into the water.  Snake didn't even twitch.  I grabbed a larger rock and tossed it closer to, but not AT, the snake.  When the water cleared, the snake was lying on the bottom with the bigger rock next to it.  'Oh, crap, I hit him in the head.'  My aim was never that good, you know.  But then the snake rose up from the bottom and stuck his head back out of the water again.  No damage done, but he still looked intent on Burt.  I grabbed a longish stick and swung it near the snake's face.  It opened its mouth as if to strike.  So I tapped it on the top of the head with the stick.  Poof!  It disappeared.  Okay, it actually moved away so fast, I missed exactly where it went.  Which meant I wasn't sure if this potential copperhead was going to visit me again.  I packed up my stuff and scurried up the ledges to get the hell out of there.  I researched it when I got home and it was a water snake, which are non-venomous but exceptionally bitey. 

Burt and I made it home with no snake bites.  And now Burt is in my freezer for future dining pleasure.

Okay, I think I've bored y'all enough this morning.  Have an awesome day.  I might go fishing again, so if you leave a comment and it doesn't show up right away, I'll approve it when I get home.