I’d like to point out that the title refers to only the metaphorical biting of asses, not the literal sinking of teeth into tushes.
I’d like to point that out; but the embarrassing truth is that bum-biting was a ‘thing’ when I went to university. For some reason, both the biters and the bitees found the whole exercise hilarious.
It was actually harder than you might think. (It was also more difficult.) Back in the old days, the average university-student butt cheeks were young and firm; and tight jeans were in style then. It was tough to sink your teeth into the subject without said teeth slipping off and snapping together hard enough to rattle the remnants of brain bobbing around in a beer-infused cranium.
I had forgotten about the bum-biting fad until this week, when I commented on Jono’s blog and he reminded me that gloating invariably comes around to bite you in the ass.
How right he was.
Only a few short weeks ago, I posted photos of my flowers all happily pretending it was spring. I tried not to gloat over our warm and beautiful weather, but a tiny gloat (would that be ‘gloatlet’?) just might have slipped through.
I should have bent over and assumed the position right then and there.
Yep, my gloatlet just jumped up and bit me in the ass. It didn’t have to jump very high, since it was standing on the 18″ of snow we’ve gotten. And there’s more in the forecast.
Vancouver Island has basically shut down – schools and a lot of businesses have been closed since Monday, and we’ve hunkered down to wait it out since snowplows are few and far between here. The temperature is hovering around freezing and our power has stayed on (miracle of miracles) so the snow is really only an inconvenience; but it’s also a bit embarrassing after my overly-optimistic ‘It’s Spring!’ post.
But that’s okay. It’s still not as embarrassing as admitting that I might (or might not; I’m just sayin’) have bitten one or more person(s) on the buttock(s) in the far-distant past. That was long before cell phones with cameras, so there’s no actual evidence and I may or may not deny the whole thing.
But I can’t deny this:
That’s a full-size 4×4 slowly vanishing in the snow.
Flower garden? What flower garden?
The snow is beautiful and it probably won’t stay long (I hope), but that’s okay — go ahead and laugh. I set myself up for it, after all.
Just remember the dangers of gloating, and don’t forget to cover your ass. 😉
Book 14 update: It’s lean and mean and 11,000 words lighter after the latest round of edits! I had to sacrifice a few good scenes, but they’re safely tucked into my files for future use. And we have a title: “Friends In Spy Places”. Stay tuned for a cover reveal!
Blow Me Down!
I’ve always thought ‘blow me down’ was only an expression, but it almost turned out to be literal. The relaxing holiday I’d envisioned didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, on December 20 we got pounded with a vicious windstorm with gusts up to 140 km/hr, followed by five days without power.
We were incredibly lucky to have very little property damage and no personal injury; but the forest around our house looks as though it’s been bombed. Giant trees were completely uprooted leaving gaping craters in the ground, and many of the ones whose roots held ended up snapping.
These were hundred-foot-tall trees, yanked up by their roots. (The big crater in the foreground is a pond – the wind didn’t do that!)
The forest looks like shattered toothpicks.
This used to be solid forest but the wind cleared it just like a tunnel, and our house was right in its path. Some of the trees that went down were nearly three feet in diameter. We were SO lucky our house wasn’t damaged!
Two big trees somehow ended up on the ground under our front porch roof without damaging anything on their way down; and our utility trailer blew across the yard and wedged itself halfway under our deck, miraculously without causing any damage there, either. Other people weren’t so lucky.
Usually a storm like that is relatively short-lived, but this went on for hours. We were afraid our big front windows would shatter under the force of the wind, but somehow they held. At one point I heard a crash from outside and cracked the door open to see what had happened, but the wind was so strong it took all my strength to push the door shut again (and I’m no 98-pound weakling).
The wind ripped through every tiny aperture, making drifts of the drywall dust that had been under the bottom plates of the walls during construction.
Some news sources are calling it the worst storm on record for Vancouver Island; others say the worst in ten years. I’m hoping it was the all-time worst, because I don’t want to experience another one that bad! I grew up on the prairies with a constant threat of tornadoes, and I’m a total chickenshit when it comes to wind. Let’s just say I was NOT happy during this storm.
Fortunately we’d planned for power outages when we built the house, and we ran our generator enough to keep ourselves warm and our freezers cold. BC Hydro did a heroic job of restoring power to the 700,000 customers who were blacked out, although some spent more than a week without power. When I saw the snarled-up mess of wires down our road, I was truly impressed that they’d been able to get it working again as quickly as they did.
So I dunno; I’m beginning to think Vancouver Island doesn’t want us here. First it tried to freeze us out with record-breaking snow and cold in our first winter, and now it’s tried to blow us away with record-breaking wind. I’m just hoping it doesn’t attempt to shake us off with a giant earthquake next.
But at least we had a good test of our emergency preparations, and we’ll be doing some tweaking to make sure we’re ready (as much as we can be) for the next crisis.
Meanwhile, our island home is returning to its usual tranquility and we’re feeling thankful for our good fortune. It’s a nice way to start a new year: Healthy, happy, and grateful.
Happy New Year, everybody – wishing you all the best in 2019!
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Tagged as blogging, Diane Henders, gratitude, life, storms, Vancouver Island