He Is Home

I should really close my closet doors but no one sees our bedroom except for me and (sometimes, when he's home) Mr. Moon and Maurice. 
Oh, Dorothy Anne and she doesn't care. Neither do I or Maurice and if Mr. Moon does, he hasn't said anything. He keeps his closet doors shut. He's a fairly tidy person and I do appreciate that in a husband. 

I was pretty happy this morning when I got up and realized there was nothing I HAD to do. I spent a good deal of time this morning picking up packages that a certain poet sent me because it's our birthday month. Oh my god. She is so kind and so thoughtful. 

Thank you, darling woman. 

Then I decided it was the day to get those sagos trimmed so I did that. I probably worked about forty-five minutes doing one side of the line of them in front of the porch and by then I was soaked through and knew I needed to come in and cool off so I did and I ate my lunch and then I went out and finished up. 

I took off every frond that had any yellow on it, damage from last winter's freezes. As the sweat dripped off me I thought about the snow we got last winter and how long it stuck around and that just seemed like a dream. An impossible dream. But it happened. We had snow! 

Of course I hauled all the fronds to the burn pile along with a few crocosmia I pulled up. Futile damn effort. 
Remember last year when I spent days and days pulling the motherfuckers out of the bed by the driveway? Of course you don't. Why would you? I'm always bitching about crocosmia. 

Well, here's all the good that work did. 

Do you see why vinegar or cardboard or any other "natural" answer to this problem JUST WOULD NOT WORK? 
It really does need to just be dug out with a front-loader. And honey, that ain't the only part of the yard that's choked with it. Same-same behind the fence too. 

Anyway, lopping the sago fronds was pretty good exercise and as I always say, if sweating really did work as a detox for our bodies, I would have no toxins at all within me but it's not so I do. 
You understand. 

Just as I was walking in from the garden where I'd just spent a few minutes pulling up a few, I promise! weeds and got stabbed by a rose thorn that made me so mad I thought about lopping that whole thing to the ground, Mr. Moon pulled up with his new boat. 
Hurray! 
It is a very good looking boat and it looks brand new. I believe that right after the guy in Texas bought it, he and his wife had a baby and then another one and well...you know how that goes. The wife finally said, "Get this boat out of the garage. I want to park my car in here," and obviously being a good husband, the man did. 

Plenty of room in our garage where no cars have ever been parked except for project cars. 

So there I was, sweat-drenched, red as the wild hibiscus, dirty, and bleeding, to greet my husband. 
So romantic. And I was happy to see him although those were just tomatoes in my pocket. 

I showered and he got the boat put away and when he came in he needed a shower because he'd been working in the garage for half an hour and then he started a load of his clothes, which was thoughtful but when I went into the laundry room to fold a load in the dryer that I'd washed earlier, the washing machine was not running and had an error message on it. 

Ooh boy. 

Well, I won't bore you with the details but it looks like we might need a new pump and you that what I mean is, Glen spent at least an hour or more trying to figure out the cause of the machine not working and the grinding sound it was making and had to pull the washer out from the wall (man it was gross back there) and do all that stuff that you have to do (don't ask me) and watch a bunch of videos on what might be wrong with the washer and how to fix it. 

Welcome home, honey! 

And it's finally really happened. While he was gone I basically ate the same thing every night and didn't care but today I had to figure out what to thaw to make for our supper tonight and it was not easy. 
I still don't really have a menu set in stone. I have made some extremely fiber-rich focaccia to eat with salad (surprise!) and I thawed chicken thighs so those things will be part of the dining experience. 

Poor Glen. 

Hey- did you see that it rained on the concentration camp in the Everglades and the place flooded? Not like washed-away flooded but like, water all over the floors. And that was just summer rain. I hear they do have an evacuation plan but I seriously doubt it. This administration has no problem at all with lying out their lying asses and I'm not going to talk about what happened in the House today.

As Lis would say, I'm trying to find my lotus flower. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I Can't Begin To Title This

It took me almost an hour to answer comments this evening. I wasn't even going to do it. I was going to beg off due to feeling so flattened, and in so much despair. As deep as my despair has gone in the moments and days and months and years of Trump's presidencies, it has now deepened to previously unknown and unimagined depths.  

I know that all of us who have read about the horrors of what Hitler and the Nazis brought to this earth have reassured ourselves that this could never possibly happen again. 

Guess what? 
Guess again. 
And if we wondered how it could have happened, I think we are getting a very quick education on that issue. 

I've got to step away from all of this. I have to. And yet, right now I cannot seem to. 

Okay. Here I go. I'm going to show you pictures and talk about a few nice things, not in an effort to distract myself or you, not to pretend that none of this is happening, but as a reminder that there is another life, other lives, happening even as the evil gains more hold on us every day. 

First off. Hank sent a group text this morning with part of an email that Cornell University sent to him. For an explanation about why Cornell would be sending Hank an email please go to the the post HERE. 

The email Cornell sent him contained a link to a page in their Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at their library. Please go visit it. 
HERE.

I am so proud I could bust wide open. 

That is my child. That is my son who was absolutely part of the Queer Evolution and Revolution, or at least as far as I understand it. I could write volumes on Hank and how he was not only furthering communication with communities who were all fighting so hard to establish their places in this movement, but who also enlightened and educated me and his family in ways that I can't even begin to describe. 

He was so patient with us, mostly his parents of whom he had four. His siblings just got it and understood it and we all accepted that he knew exactly who he was and what he needed and what he was about. 

But none of this is about us. It is about Hank Thigpen who is now and forever more a part of the Cornell Library. 

Damn. Okay. I really don't know how I could write anything after that which would have any real meaning at all. 

But here's some of the other stuff. 

The new boat hooked up to Glen's 4Runner. I talked to him just a little while ago and I was so happy to be able to do that. He was approaching Mobile, Alabama and had decided that although he was only five hours away from home, he was tired, his butt was tired, and he was going to get a room and get some sleep. I had to tell him a story which I don't think I'd ever told him which was about the time I drove from Denver to Tallahassee when I was 19 in my Capri with my parakeets and rocking chair. When I was approaching Mobile I decided to go ahead and smoke the very large joint that a sweet man in Denver had given me for the trip, before I made my way through the heavy traffic of the city. Which I did. And it was one of the most fun drives I ever had. 
Truth. 
Boy, things have changed. I wouldn't smoke a joint before I tried to wash the dishes these days. 

Pottery was depressing for me. I do not suck one bit less than I did a year ago. I am not kidding. I did get my hump bowl (or was it a slump bowl?) glazed. But I loved being with Lily and it was very nice to talk to the other ladies. While I was there, I perused the shelf where fired pottery is placed before it is glazed and fired again. 

Would you look at this?

I mean...I mean...how beautiful is that? 

Maggie decided that she would rather wait to come spend the night when Boppy is here. And truly- what is a visit to Mer and Bop's without Boppy? 

And on top of all of this, I got to have a long and very good conversation with Owen today. It means so much to me that he seems to enjoy these talks we have together. I love watching him as he figures out the world he is becoming part of as much as I loved watching him figure out how to walk and to talk and to learn to pretend. 
What a joy to be part of all of that.

I will be so happy to see my husband tomorrow. 

Love...Ms. Moon

What The Fucking Fuck Can We Do To End This Madness?

Blossom number two after a rain. I found a grasshopper on it this morning. It had already gnawed a whole in one petal and had its way with the edge of the one next to it. I flicked the dang bug off but the picture above was taken just a few minutes ago and I see no more signs of insect damage. What I did see, however, was a cardinal swoop in on the plant this morning and I think he may have been going after another grasshopper. Now wouldn't it be perfect if the reddest bird saved the reddest flower from the mandibles of grasshoppers? 

I've had a good day except for the horrible news of Trump's bill and then of course...the concentration camp in the Everglades. I'm not sure which one makes me sicker. Perhaps I feel equally sick about both, just in different ways. 
The bill is going to kill people and the camp is going to kill precious natural resources and well, yes, people will die there. There is no way around it. 

How have we let this man and his puppet-masters get this far? Is there not one Republican law maker who has not only balls but a heart? They do not care about people, they do not care about our planet, they do not care about safety or arts or education or science. They only care about Dear Leader and I have no idea why because after a few years of living under this new bill, a whole lot of people are not going to be feeling that positive about their Republican representatives. 

It all makes my stomach roil and my brain feel like it's exploding. 

I had thought for one second that perhaps the ridiculous wedding of Jeff Bezos and his plastic Barbie bride might be such an example of how billionaires have so much money to waste that they can take over Venice and put on an incredibly insane and tacky production that has nothing to do with a marriage or love or affection but everything to do with a gross and sickening display of wealth, would upset enough people to give them some perspective on why billionaires do not need tax cuts.  
Every fucking guest who attended that vulgar display of wealth should damn well be publicly shamed and condemned. I'm not kidding. I believe that. 
I doubt there has ever been a larger gathering of humans proudly presenting fake body parts, including breasts, asses, and surgically created faces in the history of the universe. All, of course, draped in obscenely expensive clothing, designed to show off the work of the surgeons. 
And I am sure that many of the guests did not support Trump but that didn't stop them from stepping into those gondolas and gliding to the wedding of one of Trump's biggest supporters, money-wise, at least. 
How the hell do they sleep at night? 
On satin sheets with the aid of designer sleep aids prescribed by their Beverly Hills doctors, I would imagine, dreaming of the tax relief they're about to get. 

I wonder what the odds are in Vegas for this marriage to last as long as five years. 

All of this shit is a travesty and a horror and the Republican party has become the party of the inhumane, the soulless, the evil. There is no way around it. 

So yeah, like I said, it's been a good day except for all of that. 

I went to the dump and I washed rugs and I went to town and I saw Brenda and hugged her hard. 
I came home and made pickles and Lis came by and we commiserated about the terrors. We talked about other things, too. It is such a goodness having her right down the road, able to stop by. 

Glen called me when he was about four hours away from where he was picking up the boat. I know there's a time difference but he may or may not have done the deal already. And then he will turn around and come home. 
I will be so glad when he's back, safe and sound. 

I was feeling so low last night that I brought Dorothy Anne out of her sleeping place beneath my vanity and brought her to bed with me. I am not kidding you. Unlike Maurice, she allows me to hug her to me and does not complain if I turn over and I can't imagine her ever drawing blood. 
We all do stupid shit. I do a lot of it. But at least sleeping with a very old and very well-worn doll is not harmful in any way. And over her heart, someone has written, "I love you."
I needed that.

******************

The web that the golden orb weaver wove overnight. The rain and the light made it visible. 

Tiny new leaves growing on a plant Ellen sent me that I just stuck into the dirt a few days ago. 

Dorothy Anne, just in case I need her again tonight. Don't you laugh at my baby. She is sensitive and older than all of us and as such, deserves respect.

But laugh at me if you want. I really do not care. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

There's Another Spider In Here. Also The Private Parts Of A Crepe Myrtle

Here we have another one of my pictures of the sky taken blind from my walk. 

I felt so blue after Mr. Moon merrily took off this morning with his sunflower seeds and pistachio nuts and nectarines and so, so many cookies. He's driving to Texas to buy a boat! 
And of course the family he's buying it from has already invited him for dinner when he gets there and he is taking them some snapper he caught and some beans we grew and next thing I know, he'll have even more people to care about because that's the way he does things. 
It has become quite obvious to me that Glen had such good success in a career that required good people skills because he really does care about people. He'd come home and tell me about this single mama buying a car for a child going off to college, or that recently widowed woman trying to navigate a system which can seem so bewildering, or a lesbian couple who were sick of being treated like ignoramuses at dealerships, or a teen-aged boy who'd been working and saving to buy his first car.
I'm not saying he was as happy to help some folks as others. There were jerks, of course, who always thought they knew how to get around an asking price with all the tricks in the book which was akin to a four year-old trying to get away with eating the cookies when Mama can plainly see the chocolate crumbs covering the child's face. 

He heard it all. But he helped so many people and he's still getting calls from folks he helped years ago, hoping that maybe he can help them again, even though he's not really in business. He still has his license. He keeps that current. And sometimes he is able to help someone. If he knows he can't, he'll tell them and I've heard him give away so much free advice and judgement calls on cars that he has nothing to do with, simply because he wants to help. 
And dear god he knows a lot about cars.

This is not what I was going to write about. Yesterday was his birthday tribute, not today. 

But as I said, I've been blue today and so I decided to take a walk which can't be a bad thing, no matter what unless you get struck by lightening or a rogue vehicle, I guess. 
Which I did not. 

It was hot but not hotter-than-holy-hell hot, although humid of course, as it always is as the clouds begin to gather for the late afternoon showers we're almost sure to get. We've had a good soaker already this afternoon and as I told a friend it smells like Grateful Earth if I had to put a name to it. It's cooler now, but the humidity is still over 75% and it's just sticky. That's all there is to it. Sticky. 

I'm not sure why Mr. Moon's leaving today affected me more strongly than it usually does. He has been gone a lot but I'm still fairly certain he loves me and I don't really get lonely. I suppose the walk helped but not in such a way that everything just felt better afterwards. Well, except for the air conditioning and a fan. 
I had plans to trim the rest of the sagos out front and I was about to go do that when I remembered that I had been planning to make pickles but that's a rather time-consuming operation and I realized I needed to pick the garden, which I did, and that took almost an hour and then it was raining so I couldn't trim the sagos so it was mostly a fuck it day. 

Who cares? Not me.

Maurice and I worked on the jigsaw puzzle. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll make pickles. I swear. On Wednesday, Lily and I are going to pottery open studio and then to lunch with all the kidlings and then I'll be bringing Ms. Magnolia June Hartmann home with me to spend the night. 

Wish me luck, y'all.
Nah. She'll be good. She's always good for me. Nary a hissy fit will she throw, not because she knows better than to do that around me, but because she's probably not entirely sure how I'd handle it and she does not want to risk it. She's so much like her mother was when she was a kid, testing limits to the point of parental insanity and yet, I never once had a teacher tell me that Lily was anything but sweet and well-behaved in class which I was grateful for, but also mystified as to how that could possibly be true. 
And here she is now, one of the strongest, kindest, most loving women I know who would walk five miles before saying something that would hurt or offend another person. 

I've got another bloom about to open on the native hibiscus Ellen sent me. I just went out and got a picture of it, flicked a grasshopper, and realized that a golden orb weaver has used one of the leaves near the opening bloom to anchor her web. 

Can you see that gossamer and yet powerfully strong line pulling the leaf to the top right of the bud in an unnatural way? 

Here she is, about a foot and a half away from the plant. I wonder if there's a chance in the world that some of the grasshoppers will get caught in her web. 
Probably not. 
But she's serious about the location. She already has a diminutive gentleman caller trying to court her, although I doubt she's mature enough to be interested in any advances he may make. 

And two more pictures. 

This is just a very few of the blossoms on a crepe myrtle growing in the yard of the former Woman's Club of Lloyd. It's an exceedingly tall crepe myrtle and when I went to take those lacy flowers, I saw this. 

Those are the stamens and pistols of the plant and in all of my years living around crepe myrtles, I have never once noticed this feature. But now I know. 

There is SO much I do not know, not entirely out of ignorance, but out of sheer inability to see what's right in front of me. 

I'm going to go make something with a garden eggplant and some red sauce and tomatoes and mozzarella and basil that I saw on a stupid reel video on Facebook. Did I get an actual recipe? Oh hell no. 

We shall see how it goes. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Very Good Man Has A Birthday

I took this picture in Cozumel on Christmas Eve in 2017. Eight years ago. And I swear to you- he has not changed one bit. 
Well, not in looks, anyway. He may be a little grouchier. Not much though. And if he is, it's probably because I'm not as sweet as I used to be. 

Good Lord. We've spent 41 birthdays together. We were just talking about how, when we got married at the age of thirty, we couldn't even begin to imagine that we'd still be celebrating birthdays with each other for 41 years. 
We would have laughed and laughed. 
And here's the thing- that forty-one years has flown by in the time it takes one of Ero's arrows to be pulled from a quiver and shot through a heart. 
Have a little life, make a little love, take a little nap, there you are. 
Could we please slow it down for the rest of our life together? Stretch out whatever time we have so that each and every moment is frozen, framed and made memorable? 
Can we learn to be here now? To quit thinking about how it's going to be when this happens or that is accomplished or things get more simple, less complicated...easier? 
Damn but we humans want to rush towards the future with all of the urgency of someone on the interstate who desperately has to pee, looking for the next exit with a gas station. Why do we do this? Why can't we be more mindful, more able to be here now, more cognizant of the fact that in truth and reality we can ONLY live in the present? 

Ah well. The cynic in me reminds me that no matter when or how or in whatever state of mind we reach that exit, it only means that all of our memories, our feelings, our thoughts, will become nothing more than some absolutely unexplainable bits of energy if we are lucky, and that no one is going to be able to access much of that. Or any of it. I mean, if our journals and diaries and blogs and books and songs and paintings and recipes and poems survive, parts of us will be left behind for others to ponder if they want to but let's face it- the living have their own lives to live and although the lives of those they loved may be vaguely interesting to them, they will not be of great importance unless we are Sir Isaac Newton or Linus Pauling or Frida Kahlo or Harriet Tubman or Bessie Smith. 
Or Keith Richards. 
Just checking to see if you're paying attention but, well, yeah. 

And so it goes. The universe does not care at all. What matters is that we do pay attention to that which forms and informs our days, our thoughts, our lives, our love. That we try to pass on the knowledge that we may have acquired in whatever years we are given. That we are aware, in these years and days and minutes, of what we have learned and been given. 

And that includes loving the ones we love. If there is a higher power that I believe in, it would be love. Not the "sending love" kind. Not the "oh I love that" kind of love. 
The kind of love that we feel might burst our hearts when we first hold our babies or when we realize we have found the person we want to spend our lives with or the kind where we watch a sunset and our hearts expand almost big enough to take in the whole universe or the kind where we can gaze at the milky way over the Gulf of Mexico and be knocked out by the knowledge of how small we are and yet, how we somehow must matter. 

I have no idea what I'm talking about but I think what I may be trying to say is that loving my husband is a kind of love that is deep enough to matter in the whole scheme of things, on both the molecular and universal levels. 

But honestly, I don't know shit. 

I do know, however, that I sure am glad Glen Moon was born seventy-one years ago and that he loves me. 

Happy birthday, my darling. You have changed the very structure of my heart, my soul, my life. 

Love (truly)...Your wife

The Crazy Is Deep Within This One

I think it was three years ago that Ellen sent me seeds from her Texas wild hibiscus because every time she posted pictures of them, I couldn't stop talking about how much I loved them. 
The first year I planted them and I don't think a one germinated. I dipped back into the box last year and several of them germinated but I got no blooms but they survived the winter and this year, patience being a virtue and its own reward, I have at least two more blooms coming after this one. 
However. 
I've been noticing that something's been nibbling on the leaves and damn if it hasn't already started on the flower which is probably particularly tasty and if you look carefully at that picture, you will see a green grasshopper wreaking havoc on a petal. 
I flicked him away but a few hours later I found a tinier version of that one also filling its minuscule belly. I flicked it too. I cannot stand guard over the scarlet beauty all day and night, finger and thumb in ready flicking position but I'll be flicking all I see. It's very difficult to see them on the leaves or stalks because their greens could not match more perfectly. 

I cannot begin to tell you how absolutely thrilled I was this morning to see that the bud had opened. The color is as beautiful a red as I can imagine. I grew up with hibiscus growing all around me, various colors and varieties, but I had never seen one like this. 
It makes me swoon. 
Thank you, Ellen. 

We went to Chow Time AGAIN today so that Lily and her kids and Hank could celebrate Mr. Moon, who's birthday is tomorrow as I am sure I've mentioned. 
It was fine although I got miso soup instead of hot and sour soup and it wasn't nearly as pleasing. 

So- the boat. Well, his old, very large boat just left the Garage Mahal, being towed by the guy who bought the boat. Well, he was in a truck. You know. He didn't tow it barehanded. This is all just in time for the new boat to make its appearance and settled into its new home. 

I don't know how to describe the new boat except that I know it is a very stable boat, meant for a lake or river, not so much for a Gulf of Mexico. The stability makes a lot of sense. Mr. Moon's balance is becoming more of a problem, albeit slowly. This is due to a neurological situation so please don't suggest he do yoga or have his inner ear checked. 
Thank you.
He's going to get up Monday morning and start the 12 hour drive. He has, of course, invited me to go with him and the very idea makes me want to hide myself away in a closet. This makes me feel very guilty and also ashamed and saddened that my anxieties have been able to affect me so much. 
The trip to North Carolina is coming up fairly soon and that I will be able to do because we have done it many times and it feels familiar. I am even looking for to it. So I am not completely useless. Only mostly. And perhaps, if I had had time to prepare myself, I would have been more open to the idea of road-tripping to Texas. But I didn't. And besides, I need to make pickles. 

I feel this post has been most inadequate. I would apologize but some days are like this. In my defense, I had a dream this morning that was so horrendous that I am not certain I ever want to sleep again. Far too horrendous to talk about. Not here, not anywhere. And I have not begun to shake it off. 
I doubt I ever will be able to. Not entirely. 

I hope that's not true. 

Love...Ms. Moon 

 

The Absolute Most First World Of All First World Problems

Glen and I met up with Lon and Lis in Monticello today at the Mexican restaurant. As Lis said, it feels like being retired neighbors who can just meet up whenever! And so it does. I think she should consider that house for sale on Main Street in Lloyd because then we really would be. 
I know she's never leaving Gatorbone. Her heart and soul are there and so are Lon's. 

We had good food, good conversation. The men do tend to talk about their stuff while Lis and I talk about our stuff but that's okay. We go back and forth between that and then all four of us together. I guess we have a pattern now, the four of us. It is so good to be with them. 

After lunch we decided to hit up Wag and I found my treasure right away. Six gorgeous wooden salad bowls for fifteen dollars. 
Come to mama, babies.

Are they beautiful or what? 
Here's a funny story. 

Back in 1978, and I am sure of that because it was right after May was born, I bought four salad bowls that I had been lusting after at the hardware store in Monticello. At that time, the hardware store doubled as an almost-everything-else store and you could buy toys, rocking chairs, pots, pans, cooking utensils, canning supplies- you name it, they probably had it. Including some wooden salad bowls. 
And I got four of them. Those salad bowls have been with me all these years, although the number has been pared down to two. The other two cracked and became unusable. But we still use the two that are left along with some other wooden salad bowls that I bought at the Methodist thrift store in Roseland. 

Here's one of the Monticello hardware store bowls. 

As you can see, that one has a crack in it but it still serves us well when we want a snack of peanuts in the shell or something like that. It does exactly what a bowl is meant to do- it holds things. 

And the thing is- that hardware store was in the exact same building that Wag the Dog is now in. The store took up the whole block front, whereas Wag only takes up about half of it, but still, same building, just many years later. 

And of course the hardware store is long gone and the tacky places that opened which caused it to close its doors are also gone, but those are not even a memory. 

I feel very, very pleased with my new bowls. Now-here's the question I am having, buying these new things that are supposedly for the cabin- do I take them to the cabin or do I keep them here and take things I already have to the lake? I mean, that would be fine but you know how emotionally attached I get to my things. I mean, I just spent many words talking about my forty-seven year old salad bowls and I had to restrain myself from talking about how much I love my Roseland thrift store salad bowls. I also love the wooden bowl I make my salads in and it has a crack in it but not so wide that the olive oil escapes. I need another wooden bowl to make my salads in at the lake and I just looked up large bowls by the same company that made the bowls I got today (David & Carey International) and they have one but it costs $79 and I think, eh, matchy-matchy, who cares? 

All right. But as you can see- the things I love are the things I love. I am not an unfaithful lover of either my husband or my salad bowls. Which makes it sound as if the decision should be easy- take the new bowls to the lake! But, but...they're so pretty! 

Oh god. I'm crazy. 

And then, THEN, Glen and I went to the antique store where I freed  Dorothy Anne from the dark, musty shelf where she was hidden away for so long. Glen likes this shop. They sell some car and farm related things he likes to look at. 

When we walked in, Glen noticed, before I did, a very large rug. He's been talking about how we're going to need rugs to bring color to the cabin. "What do you think about this rug?" he asked. 
"I like the one next to it better," I said. 
The one he'd noticed first was mainly blue and probably fairly old and thus valuable. I don't know squat about rugs but I did know that the other rug was a color that made me happy. 

I'm pretty sure it's a Chinese wool rug, not very old, certainly not antique, and it looks to be in excellent shape. 

Long story short, Glen asked the store guy how much they were asking for it and the number he gave us was so much lower than I had thought it would be that I actually said, "In dollars?" 
What did I think? It was going to be rupees? Or yen? 
I honestly thought that the number was going to have another zero on it. 
And so, as we looked around the store we discussed the rug and I finally said, "Look, we're not going to find anything nearly as nice to cover that much area for that price." 
And he agreed that was true and so, we have bought a rug. It's still at the store, but we'll be picking it up soon. 

This does feel like a start for me. It can either go in the bedroom or the living room and I think I'd like it in the bedroom. It can be MY rug. The rug that makes me happy. It is thick, and soft, and the colors please me very much. 

So that is that. 

I can go from here. 

Clean sheets, martinis, a supper of Mexican restaurant left-overs for him and a salad and leftover grouper for me. Too bad we don't have any of the okra and tomatoes from last night but we ate them all. I've always made my okra and tomatoes with canned tomatoes and making them with fresh cherry tomatoes was a revelation. So sweet, so fresh, so damn good. 

While I was picking beans this morning, I almost picked a very green anole by mistake. Luckily he was too fast for that nonsense. But it made me laugh. He did rather resemble a bean. 

We shall not at this moment discuss the boat Mr. Moon has bought which needs to be picked up in Texas. 
The man is living the dream. And hey! It's his birthday on Sunday and I definitely do not need to figure out what to get him this year. 

Sigh. 

Love...Ms. Moon