Exoskeleton and Conundrums

I found this cicada exoskeleton valiantly clinging to a wall this weekend.
Apparently it's been hanging on for dear life, so to speak, all winter. Otherwise it would mean that a cicada has emerged from the ground three to four months early and molted in March. All of which are inconceivable, except in Gilder*.
Still, I wonder. I've looked at this wall quite often over the winter, MK's neighbor Carl decorates part of it for different holidays. His wreaths are really stunning and some of his floral arrangement display a lot of flare. You can see the influences that Martha Stewart has had on him, even if he does use plastic flowers from the clearance bin at Big Lots. But that's along side the point. The point is: I haven't seen this exoskeleton before, which leads me to believe that it was recently shed there.
It's timeless mysteries such as these that lead me to the wine in a box...
*Hopefully not too obscure of a Princess Bride reference

The View From Cheney's Bunker

Like all great men of action (Hitler, Stalin, the Penguin) United States second in command, Dick Cheney, has a bunker. I was fortunate enough to be invited to tour Vice President Cheney's hidden lair along with such tv notables as; Martha Stewart and Henrietta Pussycat (King Friday was summarily snubbed for his lack of support for the war in Iraq) .
Here's what happened once our blindfolds and chain shackles were removed and we were led inside the reinforced stronghold:

Henrietta Pussycat: Meow meow has a furball!

Cheney: Watch it Pussycat, or I'll release the ferrets.

HP: Meow is terrified of ferrets, meow meow.

Martha Stewart: Oh Dick, your sense of humor is still as expansive as a bulging blocked artery and as incisive as a scalpel used to perform triple by-pass surgery on a Grinchesque heart.

C: Heh, heh, heh glad you appreciate my dark genius, Martha.

JfromP: Is that a gold toilet seat? Who paid for all of this?

C: I'm not taking questions today.

MS: I see that you coordinated from the Martha Stewart palette of colors, originally marketed through discount chain K-Mart but now available in a wider array of meticulously crafted designer colors and sold exclusively through home improvement behemoth, Lowes.

C: Pussycat! That Chippendale escritoire is not a scratching post! Damn. Lynn thought that it would be a good PR move for me to host some notable females and a nobody in my elusive crisis command center, but I see now that I should've stuck by the advice I received from the Nixon portrait and just met Barbara Walters and Miss Piggy at Outback for a late lunch.

At this point Cheney pushed a black button on the otherwise fioli yew wall (even I could appreciate that it clashed, and Martha visibly cringed while sneaking a nip of Grey Goose from a vintage sterling silver flask engraved with the initials ZF) and the Secret Service descended upon us like frat boys on free pizza.

So, for thirty seconds we three were allowed a rare glimpse inside the inner world of Vice President Dick Cheney. What did I take away from the experience? A commemorative decorative bicentennial ashtray with a snake dangling from an apple tree that read, 'Go Fuck Yourself'. It may not have been a bicentennial momento, but I slipped it in my pocket the second we got there nonetheless. I didn't figure Cheney'd be able to bear up under Henrietta's 'meows meows' for long. And I was right.