Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Following tradition (my tradition of getting as many fireworks as I can whenever it’s legal to launch them, not to the celebration of the birthday of a former monarch that is arguably irrelevant to my life), although not quite in quantity, we have lots of fireworks to launch… I have quite a few big finisher-type fireworks, as well as cherry bombs, strobes, dragon eggs, and other little amusements. Anyway, I’m totally looking forward to sunset. You’re welcome to stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

We got all that stuff at a big party store which was mostly ultra-packed narrow aisles with mountains of mostly discount costumes and masks and the like — a kid’s dream store and even though it took a long time to pick out all the fireworks and pack everything up, she could have stayed much longer poking around. For the oversized hat, “we can use this to play Harry Potter!” (ie. the sorting hat if it’s not obvious), and for the other, there was no explanation but it looked quite spooky.

I hadn’t planned to go to this particular place — my original plan was much sloppier, in which I was just going to pick up a couple packs of fireworks from a convenience store, but Caitlin wanted to head out to IKEA to grab some new fabric for her most recent sewing project. I took a break and sat and read on my Kindle as Caitlin and Nefarious took the long meandering path through the store. I met them at the other end as I caught Nefarious out of the corner of my eye climbing around on a bank of self-checkout units trying to figure out how to log in to the admin functions.

I have to keep an even closer eye on her on her computer these days, because she’s been keenly watching me, trying to figure out how I order things online, and I have the worry that one day soon I am going to get a particularly large and expensive delivery of toys.

I got another new cane this past week, one that was custom made for me. Sorry it’s not a very good picture, but below you can sort-of see three canes. The first one, on the left, I’ve had for years. Jon and Nefarious walked down to the local Shopper’s Drugmart and got it for me after my very first leg surgery. The middle one is my Cold Steel fighting cane with the skull top on it, and the one on the right, which I just got, is a Ross Taylor cane that I had custom made for me (so it’s exactly the right height). It’s made from “the reproductive organ of an American Buffalo”.

Picking Nefarious up from school recently, I overheard one of her friends whispering to her, “it doesn’t look like a wiener…”

In any case, my apologies to the well-hung buffalo from whom I demanded the ultimate sacrifice.