Poop And Trash, Sweetness And Light

It has been a good day. An antidote day to the craziness of the past week. A craziness which of course was wonderful in and of itself, but which was exhausting, nonetheless.
It was a day of small and simple tasks. Tidying up and putting away. Sweeping and cleaning out the roost-nests in the hen house.
Napping. I am a bit horrified at how much I can sleep these days. But I drink it in. I take it.
I took a walk this morning and the amount of trash on Main Street pissed me off to the point where after my nap I put on my overalls and drove down there in my car and pulled out black garbage bags and filled them up. I told the man who sits in his truck at the end of Main Street as a recreational activity what I was doing.
"People don't care," he said. And I thought to myself that no, they do not, him included although he certainly does keep the trash off of his part of Main Street. He works hard in his yard and it is a tidy yard and his bushes are trimmed and his leaves are raked and burned.
"County used to come and clean it up. They don't do that any more."
"Well," I said, "I guess the person it upsets the most had better clean it up then," and I proceeded to do so and for right this second, it looks good. Main Street looks good. The styrofoam plates and cups and candy bags and beer bottles and cans and water and soda bottles and Subway bags will return, but for now, this second, it looks fine.
I am not happy to do this chore. It seems to me that of course, "someone" else should do it although it would be far better if no one threw their trash out the window in the first place but they do and that is human nature. Trashy human nature.
Main Street in Lloyd is a great mixture of architecture and types of houses. There are a few of our old houses. Some are being lived in and taken care of, some are lying lonely. One old cabin is falling in completely, the old falling-down house as I call it, and one, owned by a local bastard according to lore, is just empty and not being taken care of. Supposedly this man has bought a lot of land here in Lloyd, hoping to parley it all into a Hardee's, taking advantage of the interstate exit. Who knows? It is a shame, though, to see that house falling prey to time and disregard.
Well. I don't care how small a place you live in, you will run across every sort of human, almost. Most of us are kind people and we do care and we do try to just, oh, you know, keep things tidy. No one is obsessive about it, just thoughtful. I try not to judge but of course I do. There is one modular home on Main Street which is lived in by the trashiest of the trashy and over a year ago, one of their dogs tore up a dog bed and the foam is still littering the yard and that is hardly the worst of it. They keep chickens and advertise Farm Fresh Eggs.
I would not buy anything to eat from those people. Who would?
On the other hand, the lowest-of-the-low of the old trailers is being rented by some people who obviously care. Their yard is litter-free and they have plants in pots and a basketball hoop and rabbits in cages which are always filled with clean hay and look sturdy.
One can live in a trailer and still take some sort of responsibility for one's immediate surroundings.

And I guess that's why I feel pretty okay today. I have taken responsibility for my own immediate surroundings. I did nothing to change the world but I cleaned up Main Street in Lloyd, Florida.

I also threw out the rug that has been in our front entry-way since we moved here. It was the sort of rug which cleverly disguised anything. Blood, puke, dog shit. Mostly dog shit in our situation. And I will never, ever step in dog shit again on that rug, not having seen it. I will never sweep that rug, only to realize I am sweeping dog shit.
You do not know how happy I am about that.
Such a simple thing. Take up the fucking rug. And if the dogs pee or poop there, I can clean it up properly, I will not step in it.

I feel lighter, even though my refrigerator is still packed and stacked with leftovers. I want very much to make turkey nachos tonight but I realize it would be more sensible to just have Thanksgiving Day Dinner all over again and see if we can't clear out some of that food.

We'll see. Mr. Moon and I will see what we feel like. We're going to play some Yahtzee now. We've spent all day here, together at some times and doing separate things at others. One of the things I love about my marriage is how sweet we almost always are to each other. We know the value of that. We do not take the other's feelings for granted.
We have been very sweet today.

Sweetness and light. In a, oh, you know, funky trash-cleaning, get-down-and-get-dirty sort of way.

Yes. A good day. Nothing wild, nothing crazy, except for the very fact of such holy prosaic-ness.

He wants to play Yahtzee now.
I'm ready.