Hot, Humid, And Frequently Humorous

It's Friday and you know what that means! Maurice did help me hang out the laundry but I didn't get her in that photo. 

The day started out oddly. I didn't wake up until almost 9:30 which is an hour after I usually get up. I had slept so hard that I don't think I changed position very much in the night and when I went to get out of bed, it took me three attempts to make it because all of my parts hurt when I unkinked them from their sleeping position. How weird! And of course I was sleep-coma-ed, feeling as if I were still in the dreams I'd been having. I felt like Rip Van Winkle waking up after his long years of sleep- what had I missed? I wondered, as I brushed my teeth. 
Turns out not a lot. 
I knew I needed to take a walk. That would be the best thing for mind and body I could do and eventually, I did put my walking costume on and headed down the sidewalk, promising myself that it would only be a teensy-tiny walk, just enough to get the joints loosened up. Of course that's what I always tell myself and compared to how far I used to walk, all of my walks ARE teensy-tiny but I managed to get in a few miles before I collapsed. It is so humid here now and the heat is getting worse. I swear it's like trying to walk underwater or in a dog's mouth. That's the image that kept coming to me- a panting dog's mouth. And every time I walked beside still-undrained water, I could feel the vapor of it, smell the wetness of it, and there is still a lot of undrained water.

But, I made it and when I got home it was already past lunch time. Mr. Moon offered to take me to the Hilltop and I was pleased to go. The lunch crowd had thinned out by the time we got there and we got our food relatively quickly. The two in-residence toddlers were playing in the store area, unstocking bags of chips while one of their mothers, I suppose, stood close by to make sure that they were safe. There seems to be a surfeit of babies at the Hilltop recently. I get the feeling it's mostly a family affair and if a daughter-worker has a baby, the baby comes to work too.

For those of you who may not know, that thing on the left there is a device that you can clamp to the top of a door frame and put the baby into. The springs at the top of the strap make it so that the child can jump and jump and jump on their cute little legs, springing into the air and returning to earth safely. I mean, it's only a few inches that the baby can jump up but some kids adore those things. 
The menu that you can see if you enlarge the photo is one of the three menus posted. There is another one of subs, salads, and sandwiches, and yet another of hot foods like hamburgers, fried pork chops, and hot wings. 

Both Mr. Moon and I got chicken salad today. He got his on a sub, I got mine as a salad. A chicken salad salad, as it were. Here's what it looked like. 

I always ask for it with ALL the vegetables and as you can see, their salad vegetables are the same as their sandwich and sub vegetables. So we're not talking any sort of baby frisée  and seaweed salad with essence of pomegranate and shaved parmesan here. But you know what? I love that chicken salad salad. It comes with crackers, as all salads should, and they even ask you if you want white or wheat crackers which I think is very kind of them and rather gourmet.

By the way- that's the one scoop salad. You can also get a two or three-scoop salad. If I were a roofer or a construction worker, I'd go for the three scoops but I am not so one was more than plenty. 

I really enjoyed our little lunch date. We sat outside at one of the picnic tables and it wasn't deadly hot and there were no bugs. We laugh at the silliest things, Mr. Moon and I. I swear- I cherish the moments I make him laugh more than anything. 

When we got home it was time to start making the supper. The man has been asking me to please cook some of his venison and I told him I would. I made a nice soup, despite the heat, with chunks of the meat and many, many vegetables. 

I've also got bread rising and it's martini time. Mr. Moon just got home from some things he had to attend to at Moon Plaza involving electricity. I swear- that man is working harder and longer now than he did when he was in full-tilt business mode. He wants to paint the trim in Lily's house before they move in and he called a few of his old painting buddies. He was a painter when I met him and in fact, that is how I met him. That's another story that I may retell again at some point because it's a good one. Anyway, turns out that all of his old painting buddies really are old now, just as we are. While we were eating our lunch, he got a call-back from one of the guys he'd tried to get in touch with. He's about to go get a second knee operation and as he said, "I wouldn't be much help to you."
"Damn," said my husband. "I need to make some younger friends."

Martinis are being sipped. I need to go preheat the oven for the bread. The clean sheets are on the bed and the rest of the laundry is folded and put away. I finished reading "James" last night and I am going to start at the beginning again tonight. I am excited about that prospect. I feel like I may have missed some things and if so, that needs to be remedied. 

For at least this evening, all is well. 

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Thinking of Kathleen

Today was a relax and refresh day. I did go to town but only to go eat lunch with Jessie, and Mr. Moon ended up joining us. Then Jessie wanted to go to Goodwill to look for shorts for the boys. I looked around briefly and the best things I saw there were some beautiful Indian clothes of purples and pinks and oranges and greens with all sorts of sparkles and embroidery. I thought about how happy a wardrobe lady for a theater company would be to add those to her collection of costumes. I remember with such pleasure shopping Goodwill to find my own costumes for the plays I used to be in. I never felt as if I could truly get into my character until I found her clothes. And shoes. Oh my golly, I used to find shoes that I would never wear in real life if my life depended on it but how I loved wearing the highest of sexy high heels as another woman. It's a miracle I never tripped and fell onstage. I was in one production where I played four or five distinctly different roles and each one had a different costume. I was an old lady and had to wear a short curly-haired white wig and I was a silly hippie woman who wore a flowing dress and I was a lesbian dressed for business. I could never have managed it without my friend Kathleen who set me up a changing area right behind the stage and had each costume ready for me to put on as soon as I took off the one I was wearing. She'd make sure my hair was right for that particular character and she gave me the proper shoes and whatever props I needed. Listen to this- there was one scene where I was sitting at a table, eating, and for every performance, that woman made me fresh chicken salad because she knew how much I loved chicken salad. 
Every performance.
I begged her not to. I could make do with something else just fine. But that was Kathleen's way. That woman never stopped moving, never stopped making and baking and creating and planting and chicken-tending and doing beautiful things for other people. And she had a full time job. Her outlook on life was so damn positive that sometimes I could not handle it. Even when she was diagnosed with the cancer that eventually took her away from us, she took it in stride and made a sort of celebration of everything that she could from knitting hats for other cancer patients, to bringing champagne to her beloved doctor when he was moving to Atlanta to work there. If she ever cried, I don't remember. She did get a little grumpy sometimes. Chemo and knowing that you have a terminal illness will do that to you. 
Despite the fact that she, unlike me, was no martyr, she used the cancer card every chance she got, delighting in the way she got free Godiva chocolates at the mall or free make-up samples from Sephora. The way Kathleen handled cancer was a testament to an enlightened human spirit.

I know that some of you remember Kathleen and those days. I just checked and her blog, Sittin On A Porch, is still here.  Her husband never took it down and I am glad. It shows her grace, her joy, and her love for life, all in her own words, except for the last post which I wrote after she died. She had asked me to do that and I did. She did so much for me and I have told those stories over the years. I'll never forget how, when I was in the deepest part of my anxiety and depression and could hardly get out of bed, she would come over and sit on MY porch and tell me stories of her life, some of them so fantastical that I never knew whether to believe them or not but I would just listen, knowing that she did not really expect me to be part of any conversation because I truly was not able and just her company, her light, was enough to comfort me, to keep me from sliding completely into the darkness. 

How I wish I had recordings of some of Kathleen's stories. Or had had the foresight to write them down. She lived in Key West for a long time and oh my god- the stories she told about that life. Some of them crazy good, some of them unbelievably tragic. She was the mayor for awhile of a little island off the west coast of Florida, south of here, called Bokeelia. She drove through hurricanes, she met B.B. King, John Belushi, and Dan Akroyd. She survived a gunfight in a street that she inadvertently got in the way of. She was a trained clown. She...
She never said no to life. 

I've lost touch with her husband and I feel fine about that. He was sweet and I think he loved Kathleen but he had his problems. He'd spent time in Iraq and came home none the better for it. He was an odd match for Kathleen but he gifted her with one of the last things on her bucket list which was to ride across the country on the back of a motorcycle one more time. For that, I will always think of him with a sort of gratitude. 

I've done very little today but it feels okay, especially having written this sort of tribute to one of the most glorious people I've ever known. I must have needed to for some reason. How lucky I was to know her. How sweet it is to remember her. 

See you tomorrow. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Need Your Palm Read?

I took another walk today. Yes! I am so proud of myself. 
Not really. Whatever pride I may feel is completely drowned by the shame I feel for being so lax with my physical activity lately. 

I wanted to walk down to Lloyd Creek road and see what was happening there. It was pretty intense. I've lived here a long time and I've never seen water this high for this long, even after hurricanes. I took that photo at the top from Highway 158, aka Old Lloyd Road, which is the road I live on. That's the railroad track that goes right behind my house. And I do mean right behind. As I was crossing the bridge there, I heard a train coming so I paused my walk to wait for it to get its picture. See how high the water is under the bridge? 

Lloyd Creek road dead ends into Highway 158 and directly after you turn on to that road there's a little area where people used to go to swim, or actually, mostly wade. The creek is generally just a very shallow thing, running gently down a carved out channel, fine for kids to play in and cool off. Here's what that area looks like today.

That whole area right there is where cars generally park. Actually, the property is now posted. I have no idea who owns it. 

The woods across the road are flooded too.

But, the roads are open and the trains are running. 

All that water made me long to get my body to the Wacissa. It's getting hot here. Mid-eighties which is not nearly as hot as it's going to get but oh, haven't we loved having highs in the seventies and lows in the forties and fifties? Yes we have. But we know what we're facing and there's nothing to do about it except turn on the AC and grimly accept our fate. By the time I got home today, I was soaked in sweat. Then again, I'm a profuse perspirer. 

Here's something else I saw on my walk today. I'd seen it before but hadn't taken its picture. It's in the window of the My Gypsy Soul Boutique. 

Well. 

I especially like the part about $25.00 a palm. 
I had no idea that palm and tarot readings were so expensive. I looked up the licensing rules on such activities and there are indeed rules. Pretty loose rules. I have no idea if whoever's reading palms and tarot cards in Lloyd is licensed in any way and I really don't care. If people want to be separated from their money in such a way, that's their affair. I remember there used to be a fortune teller in Tallahassee who lived on one of the main roads and she had a sign in her yard. Madame...Someone. I can't remember. Madame Ruth, maybe? Anyway, once I drove past the place with Lily to see that a huge tree had fallen in the yard, taking out part of the carport and Lily said, "You'd have thought she'd have seen that coming."
I'll never forget that and it still makes me laugh to remember. Lily is truly one of the funniest people I know. 

Anyway, I do want to give the My Gypsy Soul Boutique lady some credit- her Saturday farmer's markets seem to be doing far better than I ever imagined they would and that's a good thing for the venders and for Lloyd. 

I spent some time in the garden this afternoon, murdering (pulling) turnips, kale, and lettuce. The kale hasn't bolted yet and I only took out one row of that and trimmed back the row I left. That row has far more than enough kale left in it for us to use. The turnips we are not going to be able to eat and the lettuce is bolting and getting bitter. I left the flowering collards because the bees are still courting those blossoms like crazy. When we get our field peas and crowder peas to plant, I'll pull them too but why take them out when they're still attracting pollinators? 

My cucumbers came up nicely and now they're just sitting there as if waiting for some celestial even to happen to actually start growing. The tomatoes are all coming along and as Mr. Moon said the other day, "Hey! We could have a fried green cherry tomato for supper tonight!" Slowly, they are putting out flower and fruit. The pepper plants we bought must be bonsais, I'm thinking. They are making peppers but the plant are tiny and look weak and pathetic. I will point out that neither they nor the cucumbers were planted in Mr. Moon's magical bags but right into the ground which obviously does not have the best soil. 
The squash are looking very good and they are planted in the bags. 

Teeny baby acorn squash. 

Mr. Moon has also planted zinnias for me because I love them, and another row of a different variety of cucumbers. Thoughts and prayers, people. Thoughts and prayers. I want to make some damn pickles! 
Speaking of pickles, the green bean kind at least, my rattlesnake beans are climbing to the top of the fence already. Soon they will be putting out their tiny flowers and making us beans. 

The garden was in full sun and after I did the small amount of work in there I felt I could handle without dying of heat stroke, I moved back to the shady front yard where I pulled a few things and dug out a few things and snipped a few things. Few being the keyword here. But you know- a little here, a little there, and it all adds up to...a little. Which is better than none, I suppose. 

I've got a spaghetti sauce made up and on the stove for tonight's supper and I suppose I feel worthy to eat it after my day of suffering in the heat. Yes, I am a martyr and no, I have no idea why this is except that my mother also had a deep need to suffer and tell us all about it. Which is exactly what I am doing here. At least I recognize and admit this. 

The Carolina wren in the camellia bed is telling me "You're sweet, you're sweet, you're sweet!" and I can't believe that such a small bird can have such a loud voice. He must mean it, right? 
Oh, if he only really knew me...

Spaghetti for supper tonight. Life in Lloyd. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Road Reports And A Magnificent Magnolia

 It's been a big day here in Lloyd. When I got up this morning I went out to the little swing porch which my bathroom opens on to in order to toss out the hair from my brush for the birds to use in making nests (I know- some people say you shouldn't do this but whatever) and I discovered that the little ashe magnolia had finally bloomed. I've been checking on it every day, not wanting to miss it. That's what it looked like when I first got up. 

A few hours later, as I was getting ready to go to town, I checked on it again and it had opened, as I knew it would have.

Is that not beautiful? The blossom is as big around as a dinner plate and the petals, as you can see, are magnificently white. The stamens are impressive in size and arrangement and those little purple dots are like kisses by angels wearing lipstick. 
Sigh. 
But the best part is their fragrance which is almost as heavenly as the blossom of the magnolia grandiflora. Both are lemony and light and yet, still pervasive. 

Hello, ashe magnolia! And thank you for being here and sharing your glory. 

While I was outside, taking pictures, Maurice came over to say hello and see what my toes smelled like. 

Probably not as good as the magnolia. 

I got a text from my cleaner, Candie this morning. "Mom, I can't make it today." Turns out that she'd been hiking and walking on a local park's bike trails and FALLEN OFF A RAVINE and her whole left side is a very, very painful mess. She has been to the orthopedic clinic and they told her that she just had bad contusions but what she describes sounds like broken ribs to me. Add in the road rash-like scrubbing her skin got and she is miserable. 

I told her just to rest and please not to worry about us. We don't really make that much mess over here. 

I took another walk this morning and it went far easier for me. I walked up to the county line and back, passing Harvey's place both ways. I don't know what's going on with him but I have never seen his property in such disarray. He's always got something going on but it's just completely littered with scattered pieces of I don't even know what all. He's moved in another trailer, this one an ancient single-wide, instead of a RV, and perhaps he is renovating it. I do not know. But he gave me one of his big arm-reaching-out salutations and I yelled, "Good morning!" and he smiled which made me smile, of course. I crossed paths with another man whom I did not recognize. He was heading west and I asked him if he knew if the road was open yet. He said that it was although he had not gotten his truck out. I was not sure what he meant but when I drove home down that road later, I saw what I assume was his truck, stranded by the side of the road with the tires half sunk in mud and water. Bless his heart. It's a beautiful red truck. 

And so yes, I went to town to do some shopping. The worst part was that Mr. Moon wanted me to get some more zinnia seeds and how could I complain about that? I mean, he's planting flowers for me! He suggested that Walmart would probably have them which is right next to Costco where I was going anyway. 
I fucking hate that place. Walmart, not Costco. First off, I parked in front of the Garden Center because that's where I wanted to go. I walked up to the doors that say, "Welcome!" but they didn't open. So I walked down to the main entrance and of course I had to go look at the dresses and by golly, they had the same dress they've had for a few years now which is a practically perfect dress for me to wear at home. Soft T-shirt cotton, loose, generous pockets. So I had to grab one of those. And then I went to the Garden Center where I found the seeds and then walked around looking at the plants and had to buy one of those too. I had to! All right? 

I set it in the hollowed-out stump that Mr. Moon found me to put a plant in. Perfect! And look at those roses back there. 

We are rich in roses this year. 

But I wanted to add that I have no idea how Walmart is still making money with this self-check-out situation. It's so lame. No one was watching the people checking out and no one was checking receipts. I could have stolen a chain saw. Do they really think people are that honest? I mean, I'd never consciously cheat them but I almost felt stupid for not trying. 

I drove home the back way and indeed, the road was open although I saw this.

Terrible picture. Can you tell what it is? Two women on a float in the water right beside a four-way intersection on the road leading to the road I live on. 

Water, water everywhere...

You could probably drink it but I wouldn't recommend it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Covering Some New Ground Here Today

Anyone able to identify that white globelike object way, way up there in a magnolia tree? 
It's the first bloom of the year that I've seen. It will probably be open tomorrow. I know I say this about so many flowers but...perhaps the blossom of the Magnolia grandifora is my favorite of all of them. 
Until the camellias bloom, of course. And those maroon velvet roses are right up at the top of the most beautiful in my opinion. 

I took a little walk today. I am so out of shape that it's pathetic. I could write an entire book on this subject but I won't. I'll just say that I have abandoned any good exercise habits I've ever had and I used to have some very, very good ones. For most of my life, really. And look at me now. 
Actually, no, don't look at me. 

Anyway, I walked down to where Lloyd Creek crosses the highway right by my house and I swear to you- I have no idea how we got as much water as we did last week. There are still acres of lowland that are flooded. 

In the lower two photos you can see the tops of trees. There is SO much water. It just seems impossible that even if we did get eleven or twelve inches it would cause this much flooding. I will admit that I know very little about the subject so I have no answers. In this case, I don't think development had much to do with the unusual floods because there really is not a whole lot of development going on in this particular area. Some, but certainly not enough to blame for water levels like this. We here in North Florida live on limestone for the most part, under which is an aquifer. That's where we get our water from and why we have so many springs and rivers and also sink holes. I suppose that getting that much rain at one time overwhelmed the natural, normal system that allows the water to seep through the limestone and into the aquifer. 
I could be wrong. I frequently am. But I am not wrong about the amount of standing and running water we have around here right now. 

All right. I woke up this morning thinking about a friend of Mr. Moon's whose wife died a few months ago. I can't remember exactly when but it hasn't been that long. She had been very sick for over five years and although she went through every known medical treatment known to doctors, it was inevitable that she was not going to be cured of the disease that did indeed, finally take her. Mr. Moon told me yesterday that this friend of his was vacationing in Key West with a woman friend. And he said, before I could comment on this, "I don't blame him. He deserves some happiness." 
And in all honesty, I believe this too. 
But isn't this a tricky subject? 
I've often told Mr. Moon that if I died I know he'd be remarried within a year. And I truly think he would be. This is the way of it. He is a domestically inclined man and he is used to the comfort of a wife. And I guess I'm at peace with that, knowing he'd find another sweetheart very quickly, but of course there is a part of me that would like to think that after having me as a wife for all these years, he would not be satisfied with any other woman. 
And that, my friends, is pure ego and has nothing to do with reality. 

When Glen told me about his friend I said, "I wonder how his kids feel about that?" and he said, "Well, they're grown so they probably understand."
But do they? How would our kids feel if one of us died and the left-behind partner hooked up with someone in a short amount of time? I think they would be glad to know that their parent was happy but I also think it would be hard on them. 

I have experience with this situation, as does Glen because after Glen's mother died, his father and my mother began courting and were married within months. And how did Glen and I feel about this? 
Pretty fucking freaked out. His parents had had a long and happy marriage. Of course, that was an unusual situation. Neither of our parents had just married some rando they'd known at church or something. It felt...very, very weird. And I loved Glen's daddy with all my heart and he was the best thing that could ever have happened to my mother whose two former marriages had been vastly unhappy. 
And then, within a few months of their marriage, Glen's daddy was diagnosed with liver cancer and he died shortly thereafter and ended up being buried next to Glen's mother in a cemetery up in Tennessee where they had lived most of their life. He had offered my mother the plot next to him on the other side but she wanted to be cremated and wasn't really into the idea of spending eternity in a plural marriage, so to speak. But when I say that the funeral in Tennessee which was mostly attended by friends and family who had known Glen's parents as a couple for so many years was awkward, I am not kidding you at all. 
My mother did not lead an easy life. She really didn't. 

But back to the situation wherein my husband became my stepbrother- the jokes were endless. And as I told my therapist when I was describing all of this, "Will the incest NEVER end?" 
And yet, of course we wanted our parents to be happy and if that meant they married each other, well, so be it. 

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with all of this. Obviously, no where at this point. But I suppose I'm just pointing out that the dating and possible remarriage of someone who was married for a very long time can be a delicate minefield. Especially for the children of that long-time marriage, no matter how old they are. 

I'm sure some of you may want to know how I would feel about dating or remarriage if my husband preceded me in death and I have to say that statistically and practically, the chances of me meeting another man whom I felt I could love enough to marry in that situation would be practically nil. As for dating- forget it. Don't you have to go out on a date? Do I go out anywhere? 
Not so much. 

I guess I've belabored this topic plenty for one day but I will say that I hope with every fiber of my being that I die before my husband. Whether we're speaking romantically or practically I have no idea what I would do without him. 
Literally. 
And in a way, it does comfort me to know that if I go first, there will be women lined up at the door wearing lipstick and holding casseroles. 
Because I do love him and I do think he deserves to be happy. 

Also, I'll be dead so I won't know a thing about it, which in itself is a comfort. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Dumplings, Darlings, And Dangerous Plants

I took that picture yesterday evening during the golden hour. Glen and I tried to get the boys interested in the idea of going out to the front porch and sitting and chatting for a little bit about All The Important Things, especially this house and how old it is and how much life has been lived here and how they, too, are now part of that whole story. I made them "fancy drinks" of orange juice and ginger ale which tempted them to sit with us but after a few moments of hearing things like, "This house was here when Abraham Lincoln was the president!" they sucked their drinks down and wanted to go back inside to play Wii golf. 
Sigh. 
They need to get a little older to truly appreciate the golden hour porch sit. 

Here's what my dumplings looked like.

That was before they'd been turned over to expose that side of them to the simmering broth. Those might have been the best dumplings I ever made. All the fellas here agreed that they were very fine indeed.

After supper, Mr. Moon supervised bath time and I got started in the kitchen doing clean-up and before I knew it, two squeaky clean little boys were running wildly through the house as squeaky clean little children love to do. It's that last gasp of being tired and wired. They got into their pajamas and demanded (nicely) their root beer floats. I even had one! I can pass up a purple cow but a brown cow is a cow of a different color. 
Obviously.

Then off to bed! The reading material chosen was "Tarzana" (again) and "Professor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-a-Zoo."
There really must be something wrong with me because despite the fact that I have read that book at least two hundred times out loud to children, it still makes me happy. And it still makes me laugh. 

The pictures are charming. The plot is silly and wonderful. The characters are...mostly beasties. 

If there are young children in your life, I highly recommend it. 

And then I tucked those boys into bed, kissed them, and turned out the light and they were asleep. They were tired, tired boys. 

Mr. Moon got up with them this morning at 7:30 which is the time we told them that they had to stay in bed until, and they did. I got up an hour later and after I woke up with some coffee I began the pancake-making ritual. Today's pancakes were apple/blueberry/oat bran. The boys gave them a zillion thumbs up or something like that. 

They played in the Glen Den with Lincoln Logs for awhile after breakfast. 

That is August's self-proclaimed masterpiece. It even has room for Levon's stuffie. 

And then Mr. Moon mostly took over. He drove them to Walmart to get paint for model cars that they are thinking of making a project. Mr. Moon has had these cars in their original boxes since the sixties, most likely. They also went by Lily's to pick up August's meds which had been forgotten in the transfer yesterday. AND Boppy took them to eat pizza. So I lazed around and made beds and did laundry and tidied up. When the guys got back to the house, Levon told me that he wanted to go home and I assured him that Mama and Daddy would be here soon. Levon's such a tough little man but he does love his sweet parents. 

And then the anniversary love birds made it back and there were hugs and kisses and the rounding up of possessions to take home. 

All in all, it was a terrific visit and I am quite proud of those boys. They always take their plates to the kitchen when they're through eating and last night they thanked me repeatedly for a "healthy meal" and they're easy to have around. 

Here are a few pictures I've taken today and yesterday. 

An aloe in full bloom. 

A green anole hanging out on an aloe leaf. Do you see the spines on that aloe? Those things will rip your skin like piranha teeth. And do you see that other plant growing there? That's a dewberry and they have terrible-bad prickles. This is why I have not cleaned out the aloe bed. 

And here's a funny thing- I haven't used any aloe gel for any medicinal purposes in eons. 
I bet you there are at least a hundred aloe plants in that tiny area.

Another rose from the vines I did not prune. This is the most ethereal flower. 

And a few hours later after it had opened. 

Quite a weekend! 

And all is well. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Play Time

Ms. Magnolia June called me this morning to ask if she could come too for a little while when the boys came over from her house. I said that yes, she could, and within two minutes of being here, that was going on in the library. I will not say that Maggie is the boss of what they play but she is definitely the director. Which makes sense. She makes up pretend scenarios in her own head all the time and August and Levon are happy to play their parts. 

They all had a good time together. One of the things Maggie wanted to know when she walked in the door was if I was going to be making lunch. Of course! I told her. I took their orders and Levon wanted (as he always does) my gourmet peanut butter/honey/raisin sandwich. August wanted toasted cheese. And Maggie wanted a ham sandwich with lettuce, mayonnaise, and tomatoes. No cheese. 
So lunch was made and eaten and then we went outside to pick mulberries. There are not as many of them as I had thought there would be so it's taking a while to collect enough for the pie I've promised August. Today's haul did not get added to that bag of berries in the freezer, however, because the kids wanted to eat them. Can you blame them? 

Levon and Maggie divvied them up perfectly and we sat outside while they dyed their tongues and lips purple. 

Before we knew it, Lauren was here to pick up the girl. She'd just picked up Owen from work. As I have said before, August and Levon worship Owen. And he is so kind to them. 

Y'all. I am so very, very shocked at how big Owen is these days. Every time I see him, I overwhelmed at his growth. And it's not just his height. He's got shoulders like, well... a man! That boy appears to be 100% Moon. I swear. He and his mama are male and female versions of the same being. I really do wonder how tall he's going to be. 
Although August and Levon aren't showing their height potential yet, I have a strong feeling they're going to be at least as tall as Owen. Their father has aunts who are over six feet tall. So they're getting the giraffe gene from both the maternal and paternal sides of the family. Wouldn't it be funny if one of the grands was not much taller than I am? I guess it's possible. But not probable.

Back to Owen- I just want to say that he is the sweetest boy. He initiates hugs with both me and his Boppy. And not just one token hug, either. Gibson is like that too, but he wasn't here today. He stayed at home while Lauren did sibling pick-up. And Maggie can be as sweet as sugar. She hugs and kisses me and while she was here today she thanked me several times for letting her come over. I am such a lucky grandma. 

Now the little guys are watching the Masters Golf tournament on TV with Boppy. Is that what it is? The Masters? I think so. Those boys will watch anything if it's on TV. I have heard them clapping and cheering several times with their grandfather so I suppose they're taken on his favorite as their own. I've made the broth part for the chicken and dumplings and it's simmering away. It's got carrots from the garden in it along with mushrooms and green beans and celery and onions and garlic. Oh! And chicken. Now all I have to do is make the dumplings and add them in. Meal in a bowl! 

By all accounts, Jessie and Vergil are having a fine time on their anniversary trip. Here they are on the beach.

Yes. Floridians love to go to the beach! They're at the Atlantic ocean for this get-away. 

And Hank? Well, he went to the Worm Grunting Festival in Sopchoppy. 

Never heard of the Worm Grunting Festival in Sopchoppy, Florida? Well, you can check that out HERE. 

In all my years here, I've never been. Somehow just knowing that it's there is enough to make my heart happy. 

All right. One more thing. Willie Nelson and Orville Peck (look him up- a very interesting man) have released a video of them doing a collaboration of Ned Sublette's 1981 release of "Cowboys are Secretly, Frequently Fond of Each Other." 
Willie Nelson, along with Dolly Parton, is going to be in the VIP lounge when he gets to heaven where there will be golden bowls filled with pre-rolled joints of whatever his favorite weed is. Here's the video if you'd like to see it. 

Love...Ms. Moon