Hot Mess

I'm really getting tired of nights that are almost as active as my days.
Last night I woke up when the electricity went off at two. No big deal. It's rained recently and great branches get sodden and break and fall on lines and power goes. I guess. Anyway, we were thrust into sudden complete silence except for the chirping of the battery back-up power strip in the next room over. No fans to shield us from that chirp-interrupted silence. We are not used to that. The room suddenly black as velvet, no LED lights or clock numbers glowing. Just...darkness.

Before I could get used to that, Dolly the dog started yipping the yip that means she's stuck somewhere. So I got up and blindmanded my way through the house, and yes, she was in the Glen Den behind a shut door. I let her out. Found my phone and activated the flashlight app. Do you have the flashlight app? It might be my favorite. On my way back to our room, I found and flipped the switch for the battery-backed up power strip.

Deeper silence and then back to bed and to sleep and then Dolly began yipping again. This time Mr. Moon got up and he used his miner-light to find his way across the approximately forty miles of house from our room to wherever Dolly was. He came back eventually to report that she'd been on the porch, just barking, and so he'd taken her to her bed and settled her in and then cleaned up three dog poops.

Back to sleep again and the next thing I know, the fans are on again and and Mr. Moon is setting his clock. His clock was purchased at Big Lots about ten years ago and I swear, it's bigger and more complex than the console of a 747. I've never figured out how to use it. This took awhile. It was 4 a.m. by this point.

And cold. Cold, I tell you. In April. In North Florida.

I finally really and actually fell asleep after that and although Mr. Moon got up at six to go to the gym, I slept until eight-thirty, got up feeling guilty as hell, and here I am. Another beautiful day in Lloyd, Florida, crisp and blue and I'm slowly working my way through my morning despair and anxiety.

Jason has a day off so Lily doesn't need me today and I miss those boys. Here's a picture that Lily sent me last night of Gibson after his bath.

She sent me a picture of Owen too and I'd put that here but it shows his pee-pee and well, you know, I am a thoughtful and tasteful Grandmother Blogger.

I need to go to the library, I guess, and the branch library on MY side of town isn't open on Mondays so that means I'm going to have to go all the way through town but it must be done. I finally finished listening to The Nineteenth Wife and it was sad to hear it end. I saw a thing on Huffpost last night about a female Episcopal priest who visited a Mormon temple before it had been sanctified or something and she talked about how she'd felt the presence of God in this room:

That cracked me up so much. God hangs out in a room decorated like a forties dream of interior design? It's called The Celestial Room and sitting in it is supposed to be like a foretaste of heaven.
Do you see any books in that room?
No?
Well forget it then. If heaven is about sitting on uncomfortable-looking couches and staring at the chandelier with an empty cut-glass candy dish on a table then count me the fuck out.

They did give her a "chewy snickerdoodle" at the end of the tour.


I've said it before and I'll say it again- there's a god gene and I don't have it.

I'm not sure I have the sanity gene, either, but that's another story.

I need to get busy. I need to do laundry. I need to let the chickens out and I need to go to town. I need to take a walk, I need to lose twenty-five pounds. I need to call the dog groomer. I need to put on some damn long pants. I need to get my hands on some little boys I know.

I need to get a good night's sleep, go to the beach, get that garden weeded, figure out what to do with the two gallons of not-so-fresh-anymore soup in the refrigerator, force my husband to take me on a small and intimate vacation, write a novel, a screenplay, a stage play, a poem, figure out what to do about that United Nations of Eggs that Flopsy is attempting to hatch out.

I need to buy more coffee, find a purpose in life, have a drink with Keith Richards.

Yeah. That should do it.

Happy Monday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon