@bwarbiany and others, it's over... i think... i hope.
i always jump to some sort of nefarious actions by someone somewhere when these strange things happen- especially after things were rolling so smoothly for so long.
i did implement http2 on the server, and i'm trying like hell to get a good cache system up and running... but that wasn't the issue... i only know this after spending hours searching through it- literal hours.
amazon is an advertiser/affiliate here- and they feed to the site without my screening too much. they didn't hurt us... exactly, anyway.. also we have affiliate ads from a service- all that junk on the left column... well, i don't worry about them too much either being reputable... but what i didn't anticipate was both of them using the same script at the same time and causing all grades of mayhem...
that, and ftbobs site is poorly written to today's standards- was fine years ago but not today, as it has all kinds of depreciated commands... and they cause some serious issues. yesterday, someone was using a brute force effort to bust in, and i had to unplug his site until i can get it rewritten, which ay be a job for the off season...
anyway, things seem to be under control now... i'll be watching it closely to make sure.