I Know I'm Doing My Best But...

Woke up this morning from the worst dream. It pretty much hit every deep and horrible fear and concern I have at the moment or at least, did a good job of trying.
No. I will not relate it. I am not willing to share some parts of me and that's just the way it is.
But.
The anxiety produced from the dream caught me like a cat's paws, held me tight and painfully at the points of the grasp. I knew that both Owen and Gibson, who are on the same flag-football team, had a game in town at 10:30 and I knew for sure that what I needed to do was to get there and try to regain a sense of normalcy and although I was late, I made it. Although both boys fit into the same age category to play on the same team, the difference is obvious. Gibson hates it when someone grabs his flags and actually lays down and cries sometime and when he wasn't on the field, he would come over and climb into my lap and curl up and want to be comforted while  Owen is so tall and in control that Lily overheard the other team's coach say something to our' coach like, "Well, obviously your center drove himself here today," which was fucking rude if you ask me but what are you going to do?

I sat on a blanket with Lily and Maggie

and unlike T-ball, flag football appears to be barely contained chaos and I cheered twice for the other team because of beautiful runs, little bitty kids running like the wind, their legs pumping, the ball held firmly in their hands, their eyes straight ahead to the goal.

Here are the boys posing under a sign which I approve of heartily.

We went to lunch afterwards. Owen chose the demonic China First buffet where I made bad, bad choices and basically ate General Tso's chicken and some delicious greasy green beans and fried zucchini and other made-up Chinese fried food and I haven't died yet. Then Owen and I went to Costco where he ate every sample offered despite having just eaten his weight in noodles and chicken-on-a-stick and we bought a few things for his party which is tomorrow. We discussed stuff on the ride there and to his house like the imagination and how wonderful it can be and how horrible. He told me that this was the very worst thing you could imagine:
Someone comes and takes you from your bed and throws you into a volcano.
I told him that that was indeed a pretty bad thing and kept silent about the dream I'd had in which I would have been so relieved to be thrown into a volcano rather than to suffer the consequences of my dream-actions.
We talked about stories from my childhood and he is fascinated by those. He actually prompts me to tell them so I told him about how our dog, Snoopy, when I was a child was not restricted to leash or yard as that was the way things were in those days and how Snoopy would travel regularly a prescribed path from house to friendly house where he was welcomed and given treats and also, we discussed Chester, the feral man who had lived in Roseland with his dog and who lived on whatever he could hunt, fish, grow or glean and whatever he could earn from doing small jobs around the community and Owen said, "The olden days were the best!" and I agreed that some of the things about them were indeed awesome but then I told him about the kid I knew in the third grade who got sprayed by a skunk and whose mother would not allow him into the house until he didn't reek of skunk any more and Owen said, "Did he have to sleep outside?" and I said that yes, he probably did, and that added a different perspective. He decided that he has the best of all worlds, living with his family in the country as he does, being able to see wild animals in his own yard and I told him he was right.
We also discussed the names of the new chickens and he wants to name one of them "Nicey" after our dear, departed Nicey, and I said that was fine. He said a little prayer to Nicey in heaven, telling her he was sorry and I told him that if Nicey could hear him, she'd probably be happy just to know that he hadn't forgotten her.
So I guess they're Nicey, Darla, and Dottie although Dottie could be Dewayne. As always, we shall have to see. I saw Otis trying to mount little miss Violet today and she was having NONE OF IT and ran away, squawking and I know those banties are laying somewhere but hell if I can find their cache.

Owen and I delivered the party food to his house and then I collected all three kids and we drove to Lloyd and y'all- it's been a long time since I've had all three of those young'uns at once under my care and after about five hours I had to send their daddy a text to say that I was about worn out and could he reach a stopping point and come and get them? He was trying to get the yard and house cleaned up for the party tomorrow because Lily had to work and he himself has to work tomorrow from the crack of dawn or before so that he can get off early enough to get home for the party itself. I felt guilty but I did what I could and that was about all I could do.

We did puzzles and played cards (Owen can shuffle now and when I asked him where he learned he said, "By watching you!") and we ate Pirate Booty and apples and they had hot cocoa and we all played with Maggie and I changed her diaper and Lord, those children are going to turn the bathwater black tonight. I spread out some big pieces of wrapping paper and traced Owen and Gibson and let them color themselves in and that was fun for a few minutes but Maggie kept trying to get in on the action and they're so sweet with her, so patient, but it was a problem. It's like the minute they walk in the house the dust comes out of the corners to greet them and toys get spread everywhere and my name is invoked over and over again and every glass in the house is used and it was chaos, although not very controlled. Maggie did love me kissing her neck over and over again and would turn her head to the other side so I could kiss that part which was the sweetest and best thing ever and Gibson asked me to scratch his back and he found an old cane and pretended to be an old man and kept calling all of us "sonny" and Owen chased a poodle that had found its way into our yard but never could catch it. They played horse and watched some TV and they are the sweetest, best children but after awhile, old Mer just couldn't do anymore. 

So. There you go and here I am. Tomorrow is Owen's seventh birthday party and he comes up to the top of my bosom and I love my grandchildren more than I love my life itself.

And tomorrow Owen will have his party and I wonder if he even begins to know the sacrifices and work that his parents have put into this event to make it a day that he'll enjoy and remember. Do you remember your seventh birthday party? I don't. And even though Owen's an incredibly aware and sensitive child, I doubt he will either. But it doesn't matter. He won't have to remember the details to know, without a doubt, that he was always loved and cherished and protected and celebrated and even respected. By his parents, his siblings, his aunts and uncles and friends and teachers and grandparents. He'll never get taken from his bed at night and thrown into a volcano and he'll never be refused entry into his house should be be sprayed by a skunk. 

It's been a long day. Mermer is going to eat some leftover rice and vegetable casserole and get into her bed and spend her last full night alone for this specific hunting trip. I can't even believe that tomorrow night, late, late, a big sweet man will crawl into bed beside her, to kiss her and hold her. The man who, if she hadn't loved him so much, if he hadn't loved her so much, there would never have been an Owen. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Mary Moon- THIS Is Your Life!

Here I am with my grandson, the Citizen of the week, the line leader!
So proud. He and his other grandma and I ate our lunches together and it was a lovely lunch indeed. Turkey roll-ups, Doritos, grapes, and Oreos. You just can't beat that.
Our grandson made us both badges to wear- you can see mine. When he gave them to us he handed his other grandma hers which was gold. "Gold for God," he said. She talks about God a lot. Then he handed me mine and said, "Blue for the ocean."
Nothing could have made me happier.
He knows me so well. And I even put on makeup and my bracelets to go have lunch with that boy! This may have been the first time I've put on mascara since I got back from Cuba which is sad, but true. And it was worth it.
I do have to tell you that when we were chatting over lunch, I said that when I was in elementary school, I'd sometimes ridden the bus.
"There were busses when you were a kid?" he asked me, his eyes huge with shock.
"Yes," I said. "But they were pulled by dinosaurs."

After lunch, I got a text from Billy whom I haven't seen in dog's years. We met up and both of us did some birthday shopping. We talked and talked and talked and he hadn't eaten lunch so we went to a sandwich shop and I helped him eat his sandwich and drank iced tea and we talked and talked some more. We had catching up to do. While we were talking, a lady walked by and then sort of stopped and turned around and stared at us. I thought, "What the fuck?"
And then I realized that Billy's big burly beard is Smurf blue right now and his mustache is hot pink.
Haha!
Lord.
I didn't even take a picture of him. Which I am sorry for now.
But it was so good to see him. I've known him since he was a child and now here he is, all grown up with a six-year old son and a wife and, well...I just love him.

Then I went and did a little more shopping and came home and now I'm fixing supper for Hank and a photographer friend. They came out to do a photo shoot because my house is all funky and shit. And also probably because I would be coerced into making venison meat loaf.
Here's the photographer's web site. Excellent work.
Hank sure does keep my life interesting.
Not that it really needs much help in that direction- I mean, what with my chickens and grandchildren and stuff- but he puts the extra shine on it for sure.

The only other news I have is that this morning I went out and literally took those little chickens out of the baby coop and set them down in the big coop and closed the lid on the little coop where they've been hiding for the most part for a week and a half so they couldn't get back in. I have decided to name them Dottie, Darla, and something else that starts with a D that I can't remember at this second.

Oh, how I love getting old.

One more thing. Billy just sent me this.

It is, without a doubt, my favorite meme ever. And perhaps, the truest.
So when you're feeling down and discouraged, just remember those words.
Penis in the vagina. 
And you'll feel comforted and inspired. I promise. Or laugh. Which is even better.

Love...Ms. Moon

Good Words

Last night I cracked open a tiny new book (literally-it's a tiny book) of short stories by Alexander McCall Smith. In the author's note, I found these words:

Love transforms the people in these stories, as it may transform any of us. In some cases it will not be reciprocated as fully as it might be, but if that happens, we could do worse than to remember the advice of the poet W.H. Auden, who tells us that "If equal affection cannot be, then let the more loving one be me." I have always thought that those lines can be read in such a way as somehow to express an entire philosophy of life, a guide to all of us on our journey.

Alexander McCall Smith. 

The book is "Chance Developments."
This is the message I am going to try to carry in my heart today.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Life Is What Happens...

Got some stuff on my mind tonight, my heart too.
I have a friend who's about to embark on a journey she knows all too well and that I know, from a removed distance, too damn well too.
This is life.

I did my adulting stuff today. It went fine although my birthday shopping was far from successful. But I got new library books and the turkey wraps and tomorrow I will be at Owen's school for the grandparent's lunch. Owen still remembers that last year the grandparents of his best friend Chase brought Oreos and that's what he has requested that his other grandmother bring.
It should be a delicious and delightful luncheon in the cafetorium of Owen's school and I am sorry that Mr. Moon won't be there. He is too. I talked to him yesterday and he is having a wonderful time although he hasn't shot anything. I imagine him wandering fields of Canadian flowers, spying on large animals, admiring them as he keeps his gun tucked beneath his arm.
I'll be mighty glad to have him back. Here's a funny thing- it's been over a week since I washed the sheets on the bed but because I sleep on such a small portion of them, I am loathe to bother to launder them. I suppose I could sleep on Mr. Moon's side of the bed for a few nights but my fan and my light and my phone charger are on MY side while my books are piled on his side and there you go. And I am always very clean when I get in the bed and I barely move around enough to wrinkle the sheets so really, there's no need to go through the entire hassle.

The picture above is of Mick and Trixie. They sleep together every night in just that spot. She is the oldest hen and yet, he seems to prefer her above all the others. Her comb and wattle are so pale right now but I think that's because it's molting season, and not an indication of illness.
Or at least, that is what I hope. I have seen this before and am not too worried.

Should I be ashamed to admit that the news about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is actually making me sad?
Well, I don't care. It is making me sad.
I had hoped that they would be the fairytale couple who made it work forever with their love of each other, their family, their work and art, their good deeds.
But what's really breaking my heart is the thought of the children.
Six children.
No matter who you are or how much money you have, when Mommy and Daddy don't love each other any more it is the breaking apart, not just of a marriage and a family, but of a reality.
Sometimes I truly believe that divorce is the very best thing that can happen for all concerned but it's never easy.

What in life is?

Let's love each other while we can. In sickness and in health, in youth and in older age, and then in old age too, should we be so fucking lucky as to have the opportunity.

Here's to Mick and Trixie and here's to all of us.

Love...Ms. Moon

Change

Today is the equinox.
I think.
I get solstices and equinoxes confused and I admit it. But I'm pretty sure that today is the fall equinox and it's certainly beautiful here. It's like ALL of the flowers are giving it their last, best shot and the butterflies are hovering and there are caterpillars in the stalks of blooming blossoms and the breeze is making all of these things dance and the light dapples and changes and it's a bit softer today, a bit cooler.
Unfortunately, the mosquitoes are just as bad as they were and I was fine on my walk as long as I kept walking but if I stopped to take a picture or- god forbid- go off the trail into the woods to pee, I was bombarded, attacked, and otherwise tortured. I see no end to this until first frost and we are a long way from that.
Jason just came by with the Glorious Gibson and the Magnificent Magnolia to pick up some yard-work stuff and it was so nice to see the children. Gibson ate a chicken leg and a chocolate and Maggie had some apple and now they are on their way home to eat real lunch.
And I'm heading to town for birthday shopping and library book getting and I need to pick up some turkey wraps at the Costco to take to Grandparent's Day lunch at Owen's school tomorrow because he loves them and I love him.

It's a good life today and I am grateful for it and I am still trying to wrap my head around the things going on in my country. These thoughts are simmering in my soul and here I am, a woman who was born into so much privilege and I don't forget that for a second, aware with every fiber of my being that in fact, I could and can forget exactly because of that privilege.

So strange. It is all so strange and today at Chichen Itza, the sun will make the great snake at the Northern corner of El Castillo appear to slither slowly from top to bottom.
I like to think about that.
For some reason, it gives me hope and a sort of peace.

Holding much in my heart.

Love...Ms. Moon

I'm Done. Now What?

I've hit a wall when it comes to tolerating the bullshit which keeps spraying at us when it comes to the murder of our black citizens.
I'm done.
Here's what Jessie wrote on Facebook today and I couldn't possibly have said better myself and I am so damn proud of her:

"When my husband and I found out we were having a boy, one of our first thoughts was how lucky this boy will be to live in a world where he is discriminated against the least. A white man. Wow. 
I am lucky, as a mother, because I don't have to spend my nights worrying about the greater chance of him being taken to jail or shot by police. Sure, he's human, so there's plenty for me to fret and worry about, but my life, my husband's life, and now my son's life is privileged because of the color of our skin. 
My heart is heavy for all the mamas that worry about their beautiful black men and boys every day. I really can't imagine having that stress on me, day and night. 
So, when I see white people (and some of these people are good people that I'm friends with on Facebook) say things like "All Live Matter" or "Blue Lives Matter" or "Colin Kaepernick needs to be kicked off the team", I get so mad. You people don't know what you're talking about. Just stop it. Please. Listen and learn some things. Your life is privileged due to the color of your skin. Be grateful and listen to your black brothers and sisters. They are hurting and they need us. Talking about race can be really uncomfortable, and honestly, I hate making anyone feel uncomfortable so I don't always bring up controversial topics. But it's sooo important. 
I am not colorblind. No one really is. Don't pretend you are.#blacklivesmatter"

Look- my family is white. We're like the poster children for white people. But you know what? That doesn't mean that we're not smart enough to figure out that what's going on in our country today is nothing short of murder. Murder after murder where the white murderer walks away, Scott free. And to tell you the truth, Jessie isn't someone who spends a lot of time just talking about stuff so when she wrote that today, especially the lines, "You people don't know what you're talking about. Just stop it." I was gobsmacked. 

She called it out. She said it true. 

Speak the truth and fear no man. 

Isn't that what we all have to do? 

Yeah. It is. 

I'm having a hard time tonight, trying to say exactly what I want to say. I'm not sure why this is. But I think what I really want to say is this- if you're going to spout racist bullshit at me in the guise of, well, FUCKING ANYTHING! I'm going to call you out. I don't care if you're my neighbor, my relative, my Facebook "friend." I am going to call that shit out and I am going to tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about and to just stop it. 

Shine a light, people. Shine a fucking light into the darkest corners of the darkest deeds. 

This isn't a carefully considered essay about racism and I'm sorry for that. But I'm too damn mad to write one of those tonight. This is just one white woman's words about the horrific things going on today. I am a woman, I am a mother, I am a grandmother. I am a human being with the capacity for empathy and also for righteous anger and for the ability to see that which is evil and to point it out if I'm just not too afraid to do it.  

Shine a goddamn light, y'all. 

Amen. 

Ms. Moon

It's Okay

All of a sudden the young chicks have decided that they can come out of their huddle. I actually saw them a few minutes ago on top of the tractor coop.
Baby steps.

I have cleaned out my refrigerator of leftovers, some of them still fit to eat.
Too bad.
I don't want them any more.
The chickens will eat them.

This is all of the good news I can muster right now.

Do you see the way the light is shining in that picture? I stopped and noticed it.
And that is as real as anything and far more real than much of what is going on in my head.

Interesting how I can know that and yet still be so dark in my soul.

When Mermaids Had Wings

This day has been a day best forgotten. And it will be. I feel sure.
I feel like the tree which has fallen in the forest with no one to hear it. Forget the question of whether or not it fell- was the tree ever even really there in the first place?

"She's come undone," said Wally Lamb and that is how I feel. Undone and drifting, arms like a marionette's, strings cut and dangling, mouth left clattering and voiceless, a trip to the trash depot almost more than I could bear, a stop by the post office where I got a magazine and in the space of one block, forgot it and left it in the car, not enough interest to go out and retrieve it.

I spent a good part of today rereading something I started writing years ago. Many, many pages and some of it- I swear- good enough to eat. I laughed out loud at some of the things I'd written. Did I write those things? How? What has happened to me? What happened to that woman who could sit and imagine worlds and people and weave together words to make it all almost real?

Ay-yi, and la-di-dah.

Tomorrow I'll be going to town to meet up with a friend after she has a "procedure."
And I don't mean getting botox.

Advice for the day: Fly while you fucking can.

Love...Ms. Moon

Still Here

I can't.
I'm not.
It's all too much.

Why the hell can't I stay off the internet?
I dreamed last night that there was some sort of apocalyptic event and people were dying and it was really okay because we just got really small and it was peaceful and people were playing music and being kind to each other as we all waited to die.

I am obviously not right when I start dreaming that the answer to it all is universal death of the species.

Also? Too many soybeans can be eaten.

Here's another thing- tomorrow it will have been a week since I got those chickens and they are still huddled up in the back of the baby coop and won't come out. To get them out, I'd have to get in there with them and physically take hold of them and that would only traumatize them more. They do come out to eat the treats I leave them when I'm not around but they won't leave the little coop. I feel so bad for them.
Maybe they know something I don't.

Maybe I need this guy to come home.

He sent me flowers last night.

I think I'll go eat some yogurt.

Love...Ms. Moon

I Got Out Of Bed. I Put On My Boots

Sometimes, when I am feeling scared and afraid, I put on anger like a teenager or like a pair of steel-toed boots that are really too big for me so that when I walk on the earth I will at least sound like I am strong, like I know exactly where these booted feet need to go. Which probably fools no one, least of all me. But it's a coping mechanism and as we all know, coping mechanisms are hardly ever perfect but at times necessary.
I did that today.
I went and got Lily and Maggie and we drove to a store where I bought Owen's birthday present- some sort of Nintendo thing that's probably going to cause all sorts of problems but it's what he wants and his mom and dad say it's okay so I did. Then I had Lily text all the kids to see if they wanted to meet up for lunch because as I told her, I needed Mexican comfort food, and beyond that, I needed to be with my family. I just needed it.
So we went to El Patron, with its crazy less-than-six-dollars lunch specials and Hank had already planned on eating there with our darling friend Jo-Jo so it was good. We ate on the deck and it was fucking hot and it was fucking humid. For a moment a tiny rain came and the way the light was and the way the rain was falling, we could actually see it, each tiny needle of it defined and it was beautiful but then it stopped and steam rose up from the nearby asphalt and from the jungle of trees beside the deck and poor little August, who'd been napping in his car seat, woke up soaked in sweat. His mama took off his onesie but neither he nor Maggie ever looked very happy although they were content enough, and took turns on Hank's belly and ate guacamole and chicken and beans and rice and Maggie grabbed a handful of sour cream and gave herself a mustache.

"Where are you going, Maggie Girl?"

Before we picked up Gibson and after we'd gotten Owen's present, Lily and I went by the Dollar Tree to get a few birthday party things. When we were at the check-out, there was a woman in front of us wearing a long, heavy burlapy-type dress and a rope belt and she was wearing a cloth on her head like a nun but not really like a nun and for some reason, I almost lost my mind. I figured her to be part of some stupid-ass religious cult and standing there in my metaphorical steel-toed boots, I did everything but glare at her. When we left the store, I asked Lily, "So- what the fuck about that woman?"

"She was a nun," said Lily.

"No she wasn't. Nuns don't dress like that anymore."

"Yeah. She was."

"No, she wasn't," I insisted, and I was still ranting about it when we got to the restaurant and finally someone said, "Maybe she's a reenactor at San Luis," and suddenly, I felt better. I don't know why the sight of this woman in those clothes just made me want to scream. Maybe it's because I'm reading a book now about a kid who was raised by a woman who was obsessed with Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to the point where she moved to the utopian community which was formed around him and his teachings about Transcendental Meditation in Fairfield, Iowa. (I have no idea why I am currently reading books about utopian communities but whatever...) and I'm just at a really low ebb when it comes to tolerating such bullshit, whether the religion is TM or strange cults or the Catholic church or any organization which charges people for spiritual enlightenment. This kid whose book I'm reading talks about how her mother, who was so broke that a new coat for her daughter about busted the bank, spent thousands of dollars on training to learn how to "fly" or levitate as taught by the TM masters.

Here's a video of some guys flying. 

Yeah. I'm convinced.
I'm also convinced that Mother Teresa was a saint and performed miracles.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

But. Back to my story. So, I felt so much better when I thought that the woman was probably an employee or volunteer at the local San Luis Mission museum in Tallahassee. I really did. She wasn't some poor sap who was wearing that heavy dress and freaking rope belt for some inane religious purpose. She was just a reenactor!
Until I realized a few minutes ago that San Luis is closed on Mondays so there you go.
Whatever. Knock yourself out, lady. And even if, as Lily insists, she is a nun, the Catholic church is just a cult that's mainstream and accepted despite the horrors they've propagated throughout the ages.

I actually knew a guy from high school who was a hard partier, a rough guy who became a merchant marine and who then, for some bizarre reason because a member of the Unification Church founded by Sun Myong Moon. (No relation, although my husband's father used to introduce Mr. Moon as "young sun Moon" as a joke.) He was actually married in one of those giant mass wedding ceremonies arranged by the church. Remember this?

Charles could well have been one of the happy grooms that very day. That could be his wedding portrait!

Anyway, about ten years ago, I was on my way home from St. Augustine and I stopped at a Wendy's and who did I see in there but Charles. His brilliant Irish red hair had faded a bit and his face, like my own, had settled into older age, but it was him, without a doubt. He was with an Asian wife and three sons and he looked tired and pissed off and worried.
I did not speak to him. I just...couldn't. How did this redheaded, brash, smart guy who wasn't afraid of anything fall for a religion that took in street kids and put them in virtual slavery, selling flowers by intersections? I think he actually became a minister in the church.
I hope he's happy. I really do. I'll never forget in high school how he bought a joint from a guy for a dollar and then, when he didn't get stoned from smoking it, threatened the guy that he'd beat him up if he didn't give his money back. And he got his money back.

Ah well. Obviously, I still have my boots on and that's just the way it is.

I sure was happy to have lunch with my kids and tomorrow I'm going to have Owen and Gibson and Maggie for a little while and that's a good thing. This house is getting as bored with me as I am although I've been doing little things to make it shine some. I even took everything off the hallway altar and cleaned and oiled and dusted and polished all of my treasures. I ran my Cozumel beach glass through the dishwasher

and oh! how it sparkles!

For tonight's hunting widow supper I am having one of my favorites- a big bowl of this:

I started cooking the soybeans and rice last night and am about to whip up the sauce although instead of "soy salad dressing" I will be using Duke's Mayonnaise as a base.
Hippie comfort food for me.
This recipe is to be found in a 1975 edition of The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook. 

My copy doesn't even have a front cover any more. It's done wore off, as say around here. It's actually a vegan cookbook but I don't think the word "vegan" had been invented at that point. 

Was The Farm a cult? Was it a religion? Was Stephen a guru? 

Hell if I know. But I do know they had some very good recipes. 

Talk to you tomorrow at which point I hope not to be wearing those big, honking, incredibly uncomfortable boots. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Why Get Out Of Bed?

Here's the scary, horrible, terrifying thing:
Trump's supporters do not care one bit that he is a liar, a cheat, a scumbag, a racist, a serial cheater, a misogynist, a homophobe, a possible child-rapist. They do not care that he speaks at a fourth-grade level. They do not care that he has been sued a billion times. They do not care that his shit is made in China. They do not care that he knows he can't build that wall and make Mexico pay for it. They do not care that he won't release his tax returns. They don't care that his wife posed nude. They don't care that his kids are fucked-up little lying twats. They don't care that he thinks Putin is a swell guy. They don't care that his lies are so transparently false that they are disproven before his lips stop moving. They don't care that he treats women like dirt beneath his feet. They don't care that he hasn't got one clue about foreign policy. Or domestic policy. They don't care that his businesses were built on the backs of people he cheated. They don't care that he never did one thing in the realm of public service before he decided that it would be swell to run for president. They don't care that his "fortune" was born of inheritance and tax breaks.
Do you understand?
They do not care.

And that is why this election is so horrifying. It's not that Trump thinks and says these things. It's that he does and there are so many people who simply cheer him on.

Comparisons to Hitler are not over dramatic.

And besides all of that, I'm feeling anxious and depressed and worried and like the biggest faux adult in the world.

How are you today?

Feel Free To Make Up Your Own Story

My words have gotten to be so boring. 

So here are some pictures. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Peace Is Tangible

I finished "Arcadia" last night and it is a beautiful, beautiful book. I am still confused as to why Ms. Groff felt the need to so thinly disguise The Farm that it was barely disguised at all. Her imagination is obviously in no need of help in such regard. Perhaps as a tribute? I do not know.
Still.
I am glad I read it and I would recommend it. It gets into the deep darkness of the hard stuff and yet it celebrates the great glory light which can still surround us as well as the small, quiet moments of life which are, in the end, perhaps the most important of all.

Yeah.

So I turned out my light after I closed my book and Maurice was on the bed, but on the edge of it, on Mr. Moon's side, facing out into the room and she stayed there all night long except for one time when she came over and tried to get me interested in petting her which I ignored because her teeth were involved and it was late in the wee, wee hours and I was more invested in sleep than in cat-petting. She went back to her perch on the edge of the bed and that's where she was this morning when I woke up. She is doing her job because I slept safely and sweetly all night long.

It's quiet this morning, this Sunday morning in Lloyd, and I'm going to go into town soon to hang out with Jessie and do whatever she wants me to do or needs me to do. I hear that Vergil is steady-on with some house-hold chores, soldering wires for a sound system or something that men like Vergil enjoy. The only thing I really have planned for myself today is that I want to tidy up the back porch. This is not much of a goal.

So strange, so strange, this being by myself. I like it. I don't get lonely. Probably because I know that in a week my husband will be home with all of the woods and the stories and the dirty laundry with him and my "real" life will crank up again.

Until then, I'm pretty darn content to be here, quiet with such a small amount of cooking and washing to do that it isn't even worth thinking about. I started knitting last night after my supper, watching "Frida" and although I've seen it before, I was enchanted by it again.

Perhaps underneath it all, I am the thing I claim to loathe the most- a narcissist. I like having the house to myself, being able to choose what I want to eat without consideration of anyone else's needs. I like reading in bed with a cat to keep watch, for as long as my eyes can stay open.
Or perhaps I am just a woman who spent a good many years raising children and going against her natural grain to be out in the community, doing things for and with others, and now I am simply nestled into the comfort of being alone. And overall, I know that this alone-time is limited and that if I get bored or restless, there are children and babies to go and do with.
I gave birth and raised my own best friends. How lovely is that?

Meanwhile, best not to try and beat life into a dead horse. It is what it is and I am who I am and I know for a fact that the only times I ever truly felt safe as a child was when I was alone and so there is that to consider and acknowledge.

I think I'll go cut up some grapes for the baby chicks and then slowly get myself ready to go to town.
Jack has taken over guard duty and lies on the porch floor, watching the goings-on in the backyard.

I have left the garden gate open in hopes that my chickens will spend some time in there today, scratching the dirt and eating weed seeds and pooping.

Such a small, small life.

And for now, right this second, perfect for me.

Love...Ms. Moon