It was the rat

I used to have a visitor from Madagascar, who has since disappeared. I was fine with that—people move on, interests change, all that—until I read this :

7.5 KILO JUMBO-SIZED RAT FOUND IN MADAGASCAR
A super-sized rat, about the size of a six-month baby, has been discovered in southern Madagascar, local media reported Thursday.

The 7.5-kilogram rattus norvegicus or brown rat was found in the Mandena nature reserve in the tropical south of the vast Indian Ocean island, L'Express newspaper said.

THE RAT WAS ABOUT THE SIZE OF A SIX-MONTH-OLD BABY???!!
Now, follow me on this people: Since the former The World According to Zed reader lives in Madagascar, and almost no one lives in Madagascar, and he or she is now missing, it doesn’t take much to put 2 and 2 together:

It was the rat. My condolences to the Madagascar reader’s family. So sad.

 ETA: Now THESE are rats:

Wii for Me

In a few minutes, I'm heading out to buy a Wii at Costco.

While I realize I'm behind the curve on this, at least the price has come down and I can get one for less than $200 now. Being cheap, er, tightfisted, I mean frugal and wise, this works for me--and I can't wait.

Once the Wii's installed, I'm going to play tennis, golf, bowl, and box (well, maybe not), and whatever other junk is on there. I'm going to become super-fit! ...

If you don't hear from me ever again, call the cops. I've had a stroke and can be found in a coma on the office floor.

Spam posts: 12,867; Zed posts: 349

When I arrived at my blog for the first time in three years, I had 12,867 posts containing nothing but spam.

Some of this spam was in Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish, and I think they were saying, "Coke. It's the real thing."

Some contained links to graphic images of naked women, foreign investment company sites and Phoenix restaurants, and a few endlessly hailed the benefits of Viagra.

A few spam posts referred to my blog as "Perfect!" and "Magnific!" (sp?)--and of course as far as I'm concerned it is in fact perfect and magnificent (how astute of the posters)--and one just kept saying "Please write anything else!" (well, I never).

Blogger's antispam filter thought that some of YOUR posts were spam, especially the posts made by Dale of The Passion of Dale. Dale's posts seemed innocent enough, but who knows what evil lurked within?

It took me six hours to manually remove all 12,000 pieces of spam. Why God, why? If there is some joy a person gains in sending my blog 8,000 posts saying "Perfect!", I cannot fathom what it could possibly be.

But was it worth it to get rid of all that junk and get back to posting? You betcha! So cathartic.

It's me. No, really. It's me. Zed.

My mother, Mama Zed, the Floridian about whom I wrote many a post because she drove me insane on her twice-yearly visits up north, the woman who was always cold even at 72 balmy degrees F., the woman whose first words on landing in the Tri-State were "You need a haircut!" died on September 20, 2010. I keep going to the phone to call her, even though logically I know she is gone.

The hospice doctor called me the morning of the 20th to say "I think today is the day." I rushed to hospice, and after about 30 minutes, I prayed with eyes closed, "Lord, please take her now. Please!" and when I looked up she took a breath in but nothing back came out. She was gone. Just like that. It was the best thing that could have happened to her. She is no longer in pain or suffering in her broken earthly body. I see her dancing with the angels in heaven.

Yes, I've been gone a long time. Never forgot any of you and visited all of your posts today just to make sure you all were still here. Some seem gone. I hope not. I also see a marriage occurred over at Some Guy's Blog (congrats to both of you!), and the wonderful Jen of Casual Slack has not lost her kind nature and posted as late as December 2009, wondering where I was. What a trooper! Thanks, Jen. I'm right here finally.

I can never thank you all enough for caring. I've been through a lot in the last 3 years (as I'm sure all of you have), and over time I will reveal some of what has happened. For right now, I will leave you with some Mama Zed posts. You found them hilarious then and I hope you still do.

http://theworldaccordingtozed.blogspot.com/2007/08/gone-but-not-forgotten.html
http://theworldaccordingtozed.blogspot.com/2007/08/towels-more-towels.html
http://theworldaccordingtozed.blogspot.com/2007/08/first-jab.html
http://theworldaccordingtozed.blogspot.com/2007/01/shes-old-but-she-loves-football.html
http://theworldaccordingtozed.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-warm-things-are-not-equal.html
http://theworldaccordingtozed.blogspot.com/2007/08/my-nerves.html?showComment=1193426220000

Dance, Mama Zed, dance.