You Can't Make This Stuff Up (But Sometimes You Can Grow It In Your Garden)

Veggie porn is a cheap gardener's trick. We go out to see what's there and mother nature has had a chuckle with us in the night. We pick it, bring it in, take its picture and say, "Thanks! Mother Nature!"
Or something like that.
It's still fairly early and I have hay fever and the air is visible with mist and humidity (they are not one and the same, though one would think they are) and the roosters to the west of me crow and my chickens are pecking and clucking in their pen.
The trifecta which always seems to occur in things-that-happen, happened to me in the last few days. I lost power, water, and then wireless.
Luckily they all came back on or got fixed quite quickly and I hope that was that- small inconveniences that only served to make me more grateful for what I have.

I have been thinking about this South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford and his fall from grace, his family-values politics all shown to be what they really are- hot air and people-pleasing rhetoric while he has come close to "crossing the ultimate line" with more than one woman and fallen hard in love with another. What line was that? I wonder. Did that mean he didn't put his butternut in those other women's squashes? Does it mean he did put it in but he didn't fall in love? Until now, that is.

What?

But who cares? Not me. This whole family-values-politician-who-fucked-around-and-got-busted thing is getting so common that I can't even sum up a good case of schadenfreude.
But the man won't shut up. He's got some issues, this guy. Obviously. And he seems to want to talk about them. Over and over again.

And from my perspective, that perspective being that of a long-married woman with four children, I have to say that if I were his wife, I would kick his butt so hard they'd have to use the jaws of life to get my foot out of his worthless ass. Really. Maybe he's ready to try and fall back in love with his wife (his words) but what in the world makes him think she'd let him?

"I owe it too much to my boys and to the last 20 years with Jenny to not try this larger walk of faith," he said.

Yeah, see, if I were Jenny Sanford, I don't think this sort of talk would do anything to woo my heart back. It sounds like he's decided to voluntarily put himself back into his cell on death row. For the sake of his children, of course. For the sake of his faith, you see. For the sake of the twenty years he has had with his wife. For the sake of all of that he's willing to give up what he himself has called his "soul mate."

Dude.

"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

Speaking as a wife, speaking as a mother, if my husband were saying shit like this I'd not be inclined to ever share a house or a bed with him again. Much less a life. I mean please- trust has not only been broken, he's taken every bit of the delicate crystal of the vessel of his marriage and ground it into a fine deadly powder which will never, no matter how carefully they try, be removed from their sheets, their clothes, their floors, the air they breathe.

Again I have to say-
Dude.
Be a man. Own up to your passions (if that's what they are) and go be with your love, your soul mate. Make a new life which includes time with your sons. Throw off the chains that bind and fly down to Argentina and don't come back. You had a life being a husband, father and governor and now you don't.
And let your wife have a life, too, while you're at it. Not some harrowing existence where she's always aware that you're thinking of a girl named Maria instead of her.
Why in the world would you think that after what you've done you can fix things up with the help of Jesus so that your family is healthy and whole again? Babe. That train has left the station.

And here's the thing- I think Mark Sanford knows this. I think he's just saying all this shit so that his wife will really leave him.
Talk about your self-sabotage.

It's not the men who cheat and get busted who freak me out. Mother Nature will have her chuckle. It's the women who stand by their men, trying to hold their heads up and look like they're not completely crushed and vowing to take their men back and forgive them.
And Jenny Sanford has not done this. She's not talking to the press very much, she's not visible, she's removed herself from the picture. She is not following the rules!
And good for her.
She can have a life if she chooses to. A life that does not include living with a man who is obviously not in love with her. A life that doesn't make her bleed to death from a thousand tiny cuts every moment of her days and nights.

And I hope that's what she decides to do. Kick the boy loose. Let him go. See if Maria will enfold him in her luscious Latina arms.

Jenny and her sons will be the better off for it. And so will South Carolina.

I don't know about Mark. I don't know if he'll be better off or not but guess what? I don't care.
And I hope Jenny can get to the place where she doesn't either because she's too busy having a better life of her own.

So well, that's what I'm thinking about today.
That and pickles.
And going to Mexico in three weeks where I'll be Maria Luna who is (and believe me when I say this) a completely different woman than plain old Mary Moon. Maria Luna will be dancing with her soul mate. Uh-huh. The one Mary Moon is making pickles for.

I'm not waiting for my well to run dry to know how important my water is. I already know.

I think Mark Sanford thinks he's found another well. A better well. With sweeter water and an endless supply of it. He should go there, where that water is, and not resign himself and his wife and his sons to some bitter tainted small stream of murky slop out of a weird sense of responsibility. He's the one who mucked that water up in the first place and now he should do everyone a favor and get his shit out of there. Let his wife and kids try to clear things up without him.

Well, that's what I think. And so does Maria Luna.
What about you?