It Is The Season Of Purple And Yellow Flowers

I made myself take a rather short, slow walk this morning and I am glad I did. I saw so many beautiful things. This wild turkey hen being one of them.

Not a great shot but I love how the sun shines through her wattle. She was seemingly not scared of me at all and stood stock-still in the middle of the road until I got quite close at which point she slowly made her way to the other side. I sent this picture to Mr. Moon and the following text thread occurred:

This is all a joke based on how I may have, at one point or another, pointed out a soaring bird and said, "Look! A hawk!" when in fact, the bird in question was a buzzard. My identification abilities are sometimes lacking but Mr. Moon has indeed assured me that yes, I took a picture of a female wild turkey today. And by the way- the Ivory Billed Woodpecker is most likely extinct which is also part of the joke. 

But not for the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. 

Sigh.

I also saw a doe and her fawn, leaping across the road as silent as a prayer. 

The wildflowers and butterflies are just wonderful this year. Here are few of the flowers I stopped to take pictures of. 

Does this look like a fairy bouquet of orchids?

The only one I know the name of is the last one and I have posted pictures of its kinfolk before. It is bee balm, or horsemint, depending on who you ask. Both names are charming. From a distance of ten feet, you would never know how incredibly complex and gorgeous that flower is. 

The baking heat continues. It rained for just a few minutes this afternoon which only led to a sauna-like feeling when it had quit. Steamy, sultry, and actually quite unbearable. The WTF Forecast app on my phone says it is "Swamp Ass Level 10." 

I cannot disagree. 

Which leads me to a comment that Peace Thyme left on yesterday's post about me wanting to go on vacation where it's even hotter and more humid than it is here. 

I can only offer this as explanation.

Can you see all of the colors of that water? From the lightest aquamarine to actual purple. And that picture was taken from the hotel where we are booked now and will be staying. It was hard to go ahead and pull that trigger but I just could not find a place I'd rather stay, not to mention that most places on the water are already booked for December. There are some places available in a huge resort/condo area which is gated and has many pools and you can rent a jet ski and the condos themselves look just like any condo you could rent in Panama City Beach and that is not what I want. Not at all. 

I would gladly pay extra for no jet skis which I consider to be the devil's own aqua transportation device. 

I started on August's dress today. Just saying that makes me giggle. I should be able to finish it up tomorrow if something does not arise which requires my attention. Here's what the fabric looks like. 

Quite masculine, don't you think? 

Foxes on bikes. And trees. Or fancy arrows. Who knows? 

Foxes are hot right now and I know that August likes them. 

One more picture.

Liberace's tail feathers. 

Isn't their symmetry lovely? He is a big rooster, y'all. I saw him today chasing tiny Miss Violet and she ran like the wind. He appeared not to have enough interest to chase after her. It's odd how neither he nor Ringo seemed to have the overwhelming lust that Elvis and Mick had. 

Maybe it's just too hot for them to really give a damn.

Yeah. That's probably it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

From Grandchildren To Blood Sacrifice. Yeah. That Makes Sense

When Maggie got here this morning she went straight for her baby dolls. This is just who the child is. And she loves pretending to be a mommy. She has never been "encouraged" in this sort of play but seems to come by it completely naturally and loves to pretend to put the babies to bed and to wake them up and she gives them lots and lots of kisses so of course she is patterning herself on what she sees around her and how her mommy takes care of her and I think it's beautiful. Owen did the same thing with his stuffed animals although he often pretended they were his wives.
One at a time.
He wasn't a Mormon.
She asked me for some pancakes and eggs when she got here and I told her I wasn't making pancakes this morning but would happily cook her an egg, which I did. She fed some to her baby and ate some herself and I think mostly she was just happy to have me do her bidding. Her hair was especially curly today, with pretty little ringlets and wildness abounding. I decided to text Jessie with an invitation to come out and play with us and she said that sounded like a good idea. I told Maggie that August was coming and she was very, very excited.
"And Levon?"
"Yes. And Levon."
"And Aunt Jessie?"
"Yes. And Aunt Jessie?"
"And Uncle Hank?"
"No, Uncle Hank isn't coming today."
"And Rachel?"
"No, Rachel isn't coming either. But you'll have fun with August and Levon."
"Okay!"

And so she did. I think all of the children had fun.

Maggie loves Levon so much. She wants to squish him with her love the way she used to squish August in big hugs. She is a bit more polite about that sort of thing now but she will never not be a hugger. Today she asked August for a hug and she held her arms out to him. He did not answer her but crammed half a banana into his mouth and stared into space, chewing, acting for all the world as if he did not hear her. Jessie and I cracked up. But Levon is a real live baby doll and she can hug him and she does and if I am holding him, she wants me to hold her too and I have no problem with that at all. 

Here are some more pictures. 

Levon, like all of my grandchildren, love that rocking horse. It makes him laugh and he can bounce it himself, always with a protecting hand right behind him. I am so glad that we bought that horse when Owen was a little guy.

Maggie and August playing with the cocktail mermaids and animals that yes, I DID finally buy off Amazon. Monkeys and donkeys and giraffes and so many mermaids. They make a gorgeous bowl of shiny fun.

Lunch. Oh, my beautiful babies! August's hair was quite curly today too and I am not sure I will ever get over the shock of having two grandchildren so close in age with such blond, curly hair. 

When Lily finished with her massage and came to get the girl, she did not want to go. Who could blame her? We had had so much fun. But all good things must come to an end eventually and so she kissed us all good-bye and went home and August got to stay a little longer and I read him some books and answered the question "why" about fifty times. I love it when he asks "why" at the end of a page and the next page answers the question for him. That helps a great deal. 

And that was how it was and he left with his mother and his brother I kissed him good-bye and told him what I'd told Maggie which was something along the lines of "Thank you for coming to see me and letting me play with you," and I kissed the top of his head before he could complain. Same with Levon. And off they went and there I was, alone again and not unhappy about that either. I slowly made my way through the house, tidying up this and that. Books and the puzzle we'd done and toys and mermaids and animals which can cleverly be hooked to the side of a rum drink glass if one uses them for that purpose and tricycles and snacks and all of the detritus of what taking care of little ones requires. 

At one point today I asked Jessie, "Why would anyone in the world want to open a day-care?" 

Neither of us could figure that one out. 

But a little bit of a Mer Mer daycare is quite all right and soon the house was set to rights and I laid down for a little while and read and had a tiny nap and then got up and started what is going to hopefully be something like a venison pozole or posole, depending on what recipe you're looking at. I pressure cooked the stew meat which is by definition tough and now it is simmering in a sauce made of onions and garlic and tomatoes and salsa verde and chilies and chili powder and cumin and oh yes, one strip of bacon. It has no tripe in it and I am going to put both hominy and fresh corn in it so it is no more traditional than Taco Bell but hopefully, it will be good with some chopped cabbage and avocado and lots of cilantro and lime. It's too hot for soups or stews but at this point, sweating is our default setting so maybe we'll just get rid of more toxins although I have no faith in that toxin-ridding school of thought. If it were true, I'd be as clean and as free of them as a new-born babe and I'm pretty sure that is not the case. 

So far, however, sweating has not killed me. 

I think we have our rooms for Cozumel. We might have to leave for one night that they are already booked for but Mr. Moon has suggested that we take the ferry over to the mainland that day and rent a car and drive to Chichen Itza to stay at the Mayaland Hotel and Bungalows Resort where we stayed one night before, many years ago and which was absolutely one of the most magical and amazing places you can imagine. The hotel is built among and in sight of the ruins themselves as well as beautiful gardens and flat-out jungle and staying there was the closest I've ever come to time travel in my life. I love my husband so for thinking of this, for making this suggestion. 

It is a place where you could encounter Indiana Jones in a pith helmet or a Mayan ballplayer wearing a jaguar skin or a Mayan priest placing the bloody heart of an enemy in the receiving basin of Chac Mool.  

I wrote a poem once about this particular statue of this particular god. I did not hate the poem. Perhaps I shall try to find it. 

All right. That's enough of me tonight. I will be interested to see where my dreams lead. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Just A Day

I really don't have much to say today. I didn't walk because I wasn't in the mood to die on the side of a road. I did go into town and met Jessie and Levon at Costco. August stayed at home with his daddy because there was a crew there taking down a pine tree and that was just too exciting to miss. It wasn't a very exciting Costco trip. The only sample was of smoked salmon and it was good but pitifully small. Oh wait. They had some packaged Indian food too but Levon ate all of mine. I don't think that Jessie appreciated the fact that I let him eat it with his fingers and he got potatoes and lentils all over himself but she was too kind to say, "WHAT THE HELL, MOM?"

Then they went home and I went to Publix and when I was checking out it was thundering so loud that it was echoing in the store and I could hear the drumming of the rain on the roof and sure enough, when I got outside it was pouring rain and the lightening was cracking right there and the thunder was just tremendously loud and so I stood under the overhang and ate the grocery store sushi I'd bought and watched the wind blow the rain sideways and the umbrellas of the brave being turned inside out. It was an extremely fierce storm. By the time I finished my sushi, I decided to just go for it and got as soaked as I would have gotten jumping into a river. I'm serious- when I got home I discovered that the boxes which held the pasta I'd bought were so wet that I had to transfer the noodles into jars and baggies. The temperature also dropped about ten degrees and that was beautiful.
When I got to Lloyd I found that we hadn't had a drop of rain although it did shower a bit just a little while ago and it's cooler here too.

Looks like Kavanaugh might have his goose cooked by a very, very brave woman but hell, I thought for sure that after Trump said what he said about grabbing women by the pussy that he was done, over, and dead but of course, his base just said, "Who cares?" and we all know how that turned out. I have no delusions that even if he does get voted down, the next nominee won't be just as horrid. Those in power want what they want which is total world domination by right-wing rich people and they aren't going to nominate anyone who might have one ounce of moral decency.
Still. I'd be glad not to see his tiny-eyed, helmet-hair-topped, white squinchy face in the media for the rest of my life.

Tomorrow morning Ms. Magnolia is coming over for a visit while her mama collects her Mother's Day gift of a massage and I'm all in for that. Maybe we can have a tea-party and then go out and hunt snakes. With that girl the full spectrum of activity is possible.
Actually, please know that we will not be hunting snakes.

Spirits are a bit low here this evening. My husband is the depressed one right now which is, as far as I'm concerned, a true upending of the natural order of things and I don't handle this well. I'm the one who's supposed to be depressed. I've trotted out my entire skimpy bag of tricks to cheer him up but nothing is working. I suppose I need to realize that he needs to be able to feel what he's feeling and not take it personally although I can't help but do so.
Perhaps this would be a good time to try the Saran Wrap thing. At the very least he would have to laugh.
But then again, as Maggie would say, "Ummmm....no."
Instead I'll make some pineapple chicken and know that life will go on.

Love...Ms. Moon

Can't Complain/Pretty Good

Last night while I was dreaming it would appear that someone came and injected me with a drug perhaps called "NeverWake" or at least that's how I felt this morning when I did, in fact wake but I could not shake myself into the realm of actual wakefulness even though I pretended I was awake and I guess that's good enough.

I slogged through the morning while Mr. Moon went over to Lily's to do some target-shooting with the bow with Owen and got myself ready to go into town for yet another awesome family luncheon, this one with every one of us except for Jason who had to work and we missed him.

May and Michael have Michael's beautiful mother Chris visiting them and May suggested that we all go out together so that we could hang out with Chris and no one would have to cook and that was an excellent idea and of course we went to El Patron because not only do we like the food but they know us and they do most of their business at night so our ten adults and five children or whatever we were did not overstrain the staff.

We looked something like this. 

And this. 

Levon was overwhelmed. So was his grandmother. 

Gibson sat next to Chris and engaged her in conversation, as he does, and at one point announced that he and she would be Christmas friends FOREVER! I am not sure how this statement came about but it was reported to me by two reliable witnesses, one of them Chris herself. Gibson is just about the most social person I've ever met. The word "stranger" is not in his vocabulary. 

Oh, my family! I would look around and listen and catch the flying bits of so many different conversations, 

(Pretty sure this one was about the best methods of cooking and eating hotdogs.)

serious and non-, laughter, catching-up, helping children, sharing food, passing hot sauce, ordering of drinks, and on and on and on. Levon was passed about, Maggie visited first one of us and then the other and by the time it was all over, she and August were running around and had to be corralled and taken outside to the empty deck where Vergil played freeze-tag with all of the kids who can run which is everyone but Levon, of course. There's an old cash register on that deck and the children love to play restaurant there. At one point, Gibson was the bartender and cashier and Owen was the chef. The prices were a bit high- I believe that Vergil was told that his Pina Colada would be sixty-thousand dollars, but the food and drinks were delicious. 

Even Maggie and August got into the act and I got this little video which I adore and cherish because once again, here we are watching those two cousins interact and this time, make-believe is being tossed into the mix which is the very foundation for intelligent thinking and a lifetime of original thought to my way of thinking. My favorite part is the last ten seconds or so where August tries to tell Maggie how to do her job and she stares off into the distance and says, "Ummmm....no." 

That's my girl!
Do it the way you want to, Magnolia June!
Of course later on she got mad because Gibson wouldn't let her run the cash register and tried to bite him on the back but that's another story. Plus- no blood, no foul so all was well and Gibson remained cheerful in his task.

Eventually, we all kissed and hugged and kissed and hugged and said good-bye and I spent about half the rest of the afternoon on the bed, reading and dozing.
"It is a resting day," I announced and pronounced.
And so it was. My husband even joined me for awhile which was very sweet.

Sundays can generally bite my ass but this one was not so bad and getting that video was priceless for me. El Patron was as kind and tolerant of us as they always are and I have a feeling that when these children grow up, they are going to remember eating there with deep fondness.

It's still crazy hot. I got four eggs today. I am going to make a casserole with the leftover snapper from last night and it will involve noodles.

I asked August yesterday how his marble was doing.
"Pretty good," he said.
And that's an accurate description of this Sunday in September in North Florida, 2018.

Love...Ms. Moon

Mysterious Waters

Jessie sent out a group text this morning apologizing for it being last-minute but inviting everyone to join her and Vergil and the kids down at Wakulla Springs. I told Mr. Moon about it and he reckoned that that might be fun and I thought so too so we packed up some sandwiches and put on our bathing costumes and grabbed some towels and hit the road for one of my very favorite places in Florida. Or, anywhere, for that matter. I've written about Wakulla Springs many times and how much I love it. I always take visitors there because it's just so dang Florida. The spring itself is the world's largest and deepest freshwater spring in the world, according to this webpage. Wikipedia has a very decent entry on the springs as well. It discusses the biology, the flow rate, the history, and the very serious problems the springs face right now due to humans.
Of course.

We had a perfectly wonderful time at the springs today. Mr. Moon and I were the only ones to join the Weatherfords as everyone else had previous plans made. Jessie and Vergil got there before we did and had set up camp in a lovely shaded spot right by the water near the diving tower.

And no, I have never jumped off it and never will. Vergil jumped several times today though, to the great and vast delight of his son. As scary as that tower looks (and it's even more impressive when you're up there at the top), this is what the old tower looked like.

Oh hell no. 

It was right beneath the tower where they found an entire mastodon skeleton back when the icy waters were far clearer than they are now. 

Just magic in all regards. There are manatee and fish, and gators lounge on the opposite bank and there are the jungle boat rides which take you down the river and back. They show you where Creature From The Black Lagoon was filmed and also, some of Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan movies. 

(My first real crush. I still am very much in love with Johnny's Tarzan as many of you know.) 

And then you float over the springhead from which millions of gallons of water pour forth daily. 

It is dizzying. It is magnificent. It is a miracle on this earth and when we get a year of good rain, part of my joy in it is knowing that the aquifer upon which we depend here is filling and then spilling from that deep, deep spring which has engendered and nurtured so much life for eons. 

There's my sweet family, smiling and waving from the floating dock. 

Every sort of person ends up at Wakulla Springs. Grannies like me and Grandpas like Mr. Moon and tattooed hipsters and tattooed rednecks (I felt very tattoo-deficient there today) and tourists from other countries and lots of young teenagers there to show off their bodies and blow-off some steam and talk some trash and young families with children and today there seemed to be a choir of some sort who stood in the water and sang under the bright blue sky as the holy water washed them clean. 

We all swam and got cool and sat in the shade and ate our sandwiches and boiled peanuts and pretzels and grapes and tangerines and Levon showed off his new skills of hand-clapping and standing on his own. He doesn't realize he's doing this yet, but he is. After awhile August wanted ice cream and his parents told him that if he would poop in the potty, he could have some and he did and so everyone but me went up to the lodge and visited the snack bar there and got ice-cream cones. I stayed behind to watch our stuff and also, ice cream is not one of my vices. 

So it was just a beautiful day and I'm grateful we got to go and hang out with the kids and watch the people and swim in the cold waters and relax in the shade of the cypress trees. 

Okay. I admit. I made those two pose for that picture. But they were seriously interested in something in my New Yorker. I swear. 

When we got home I cleaned out the hen house and Liberace got in one of the nest boxes in the clean straw and wallowed out a new nest. I wonder if the hens will pay attention and start laying there. I hope so. I only found two eggs today and I despair at the thought of all of the lovely eggs being laid somewhere secret and hidden. 

I can wonder and marvel at some things which are secret and hidden such as the bones of ancient creatures at the bottom of the very deep and mysterious Wakulla Springs but some things deserve to be brought to light. 

Like eggs, dammit!

Maybe if I promise them ice cream...

Yeah. 

No. 

Be well, y'all. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Love...Ms. Moon

For all my discussion of the heat yesterday I still got out and walked this morning, stubborn to the core that goddammit, I was going to get ten miles in this week or know the reason why. So I had three miles to walk and no big deal. And oh, y'all. It IS so beautiful to be out under those massive oaks, to see all of the wildflowers and the butterflies which are just bountiful, dipping and sipping, the small ones, the large ones, swooping and darting and floating about, almost a storm of them in some places, like jewel-colored falling leaves, like a dream.
But when I got home I could barely move. I'd gotten so hot and the day ended up being made of not much, just very slow things done here and there. The sheets and the clothes did get hung on the line and the kitchen all cleaned up and tidy and some floors swept but by two-thirty I just took a shower and then laid down on my bed in front of the fan and couldn't even keep my eyes open.
And yes, I've drunk plenty of water today.
Probably quarts.
So I've been lazy but I don't care and I think that from now until this heat breaks I am only going to go out in the early morning and after that I am not going to do a damn thing outside that takes more than fifteen minutes at the most.

Jessie sent me a video last night of Levon who is learning to clap his hands and who thinks that this is absolutely the most hysterical thing in the world.



And August makes a cameo appearance.

That boy called me this afternoon. He was so excited. He'd found a marble in the yard. I have some marbles that I keep in a bowl which I found in this yard and he loves to play with them.

So he was very proud that he now has his own marble. He has it wrapped in cloth and tied with a rubber band so that Levon can't swallow it. And he asked me if I'd made his dress yet. I told him that no, but I will start on it tomorrow. He said, "Why?"
I told him about being hot and lazy and he seemed satisfied with that explanation.

And so it goes and here we are and a martini is being drunk and please don't bother to tell me that alcohol is not an approved hydration fluid. I was a nurse. I know that.

In Lloyd news, yesterday my county commissioner called me to update me on the situation I had alerted her to about a trashed-out trailer parked in the old parking lot of a no-longer-there gas station by the interstate and I loved that she did that. She apologized about how long it's taking them to do anything about it. It turns out that someone from Georgia pulled that thing down here and dumped it. It would cost the city a ton of money to haul it off and Jefferson County has no money but they're trying to figure it out.
"I think they should just pull it to the middle of the parking lot and set it on fire," she said.
"I've thought the same thing," I told her. "But I doubt that's legal."
We both laughed.

This morning I ran into our old post mistress at the...wait for it...post office, and as we stood there and discussed stuff she tried to fan me with her mail because I'd just finished my walk and no doubt looked like I was about to die of heat stroke. This is the woman who came by my house once with some of her sister Jehovah's Witnesses and when I tried, as gently as possible, to tell them that I had no interest at all, said, "Oh, Mary! You have such a good heart!"
This is also the woman who goes to her mother-in-law's house right down the road four times a day (FOUR TIMES A DAY!) to cook and do a little house keeping for her.
Talk about hearts.

And finally, the little store at the corner which has been empty for years has been sold to a couple who live in Tallahassee and they plan to fix it up and the wife is going to sell arts and crafts out of it which I think is about the funniest thing I've ever heard. First of all, that building needs to be knocked down as it's falling in on top of itself and secondly- arts and crafts in Lloyd?
Maybe she'll have a sideline in ballet slippers.
Oh well. God love the people with dreams.
We all have them. And who am I to say this one can't come true?

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

There Is No Deodorant In The World Adequate At This Point

When I gave Maggie and August their Mer-made farm animals clothes today, Maggie took it in stride as she's gotten so many dresses that I've made that it's almost a joke by now. August liked his shorts okay but honestly, he wanted that dress. He gently took it from Maggie and held it to himself and I said, "August, do you really want Mer to make you a dress?"

"Yes," he said.
And I'm going to get started on it right away.

The little cousins and I went into the restroom to change into their new clothes and when I held August up to the mirror so that he could see his shorts he said, "I love you," which just about killed me. We were in the Indian buffet restaurant and both of those children kept sharing their food with me. I couldn't eat all of the food on my own plate because they were so sweetly giving me orange sections and naan and butter chicken. It was a festival day at Persis Grill and they had a small altar set up with Ganesh and a candle and incense and special foods, all of which were on the buffet line as well. So we ate like a Hindu god and it was good.

Here's Levon being happy about it all. 

He's so funny. After we ate, Jessie and I went to Big Lots and Levon is fascinated and thrilled by hanging signs and actually, anything hanging from the ceiling. He laughs and laughs at all of them. Jessie says he's going to be the kind of kid who jumps up and slaps everything above him. 

She may be right. He thought the giant blow-up ghost and goblin they had at the front of the store were the funniest things he'd ever seen. He was full-on losing it, laughing at those things which of course makes all of us laugh and by the time we left Big Lots, I was in a good mood. 

How could I not be?

And besides all of that, I got to lap cuddle with both boys. I was holding Levon, and August wanted to join us. I think he was having a little Mer jealousy today. He did the same when I was holding Maggie in the restaurant. I can hold two babies at once. No problem. 

And then Levon crawled down and I asked August if I could hold him like a baby. He laughed and said I could and then I told him the story of how I'd held him right after he was born and rocked him and told him a story.

I told him about how I'd held him, fresher and newer than anything on earth, about how his mama and daddy met and fell in love and decided to get married and have a baby and how that was August, and about all of the people who were so very happy he was born and who loved him so very much. 

He liked hearing about that story today. He asked for it again. 

So once again my children and my grands helped me get my head out of my ass and I took a walk this morning too, which helped a lot.

I am SO over summer. This heat is killing me and I just went out and picked a few okra, the ones that aren't a foot long and woody as a canoe, and got ant bit and mosquito bit and I am just tired of this shit. I'm not just tired of it. I am sick of it. I think about people who work outside and I honestly don't know how they do it. How can they possibly drink enough to stay hydrated? How can oral intake equal sweat output? 

And I say all of this in full knowledge that the Carolinas and possibly Virginia and Georgia are about to be blown off the map and that I should be down on my knees thanking whatever gods have control of this sort of situation (Ganesh?) that we're not in the path of that storm here. 

Do you know they are talking about expected rainfall not in the inches but in the FEET? That there are eighty-foot waves off the coast already? EIGHTY! 

Yes. We've always had heat. 

Yes. We've always had these storms. 

But storms of this size used to come a couple of times a century, not a couple of times a year. And the heat had broken a bit by this time in September. 

Yeah, well. 

My air conditioner is rattling on and I am a big fucking hypocrite, adding my own First World poisons to the atmosphere of this planet. 

What am I going to be leaving to these precious grandchildren of mine? If I think THIS is hell...

Damn. 

And here I go to the kitchen where I'll turn on the fan so that cooking won't be such a hot chore even with the AC on and I'll take my clothes out of the dryer because I'm a lazy woman who didn't take the time to hang her clothes on the line and if any of my grandchildren ever read this when they are grown and the planet is sizzling and roiling and quaking and the oceans are boiling and filled with garbage and a fresh mullet is something only dreamed about, much less a grouper or a snapper or a nice can of tuna, I can only say, "I'm sorry." 

I am so sorry. 

Hey! I drive a Prius! 

Oh Ganesh. Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. 

Here. Have some incense. And a sweet dumpling. 

Are we forgiven? 

Yeah. I didn't think so. 

Keep loving, y'all. Keep on loving. Let's try not to give up hope and doing what we can. 

Love...Ms. Moon