I Hate Sundays

I'm in a self-hatred mood today due to the fact that I've done nothing of service to mankind or the family. Also, I haven't suffered enough.
I know, I know. This is a bit sick but it's the way I am and I'm not likely to be changing anytime soon. Here's a picture that I grew up with:

I know. Right? It was in my grandparent's dining room and when Grandddaddy and Granny died, I claimed it for my own. It hangs in my office now. As a child it sort of fascinated me but it was never disturbing. Still, death was a presence, even as we ate our raisin toast and dug the sweet, sour fruit from the halves of grapefruit with serrated spoons. I wish I had those too.

Anyway, I do understand there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking it easy on a Sunday. In fact, some of the more popular religions demands that very thing but I'd be a hypocrite if I used that as a rationalization for being a lazy ass. I mean, I did clean out the hen house but to be quite honest, that takes approximately two minutes. People who bitch about how hard it is to keep chickens are either:
(a) Lying, or
(b) Doing a far more intense job of it than I am.

Then I was going to weed and was already in the dirt and everything but it began to rain and then it began to pour down rain and so I meandered back to the house where I did some laundry and ate lunch and that included cake and I wish that cake wasn't here. The icing for German chocolate cake includes four egg yolks, a can of sweetened condensed milk, 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 and 1/2 cups of butter, an entire 7 oz. package of sweetened coconut and a cup and a half of pecans.
And that's JUST the frosting.
Sigh. I am a weak and pitiful being.

Mr. Moon had gone to town to run some errands and supposedly, was going to pick up Owen to go with him and maybe take him to lunch. Next thing I know, I'm getting pictures like this:

And more. Owen playing games with brightly colored balls, Owen in a bouncy thing, Owen EATING ICE CREAM!

I texted him back saying, "You are trying to bribe his love. Why don't you just buy him a puppy while you're at it?"

Yes. I am a jealous grandmother, just as God is a jealous God. I admit it. But hell's bells, Martha, how can hunting for eggs compete with an afternoon like that? Well, it cannot. Dammit.

Owen is developing an intense sense of smell. His mother had the same thing. It was a burden to her and made her life difficult. The funny thing is, is that when I was pregnant with Lily, I was so sensitive to odors that I could hardly stand it. I had to take about six showers a day because I couldn't stand the way I smelled. I didn't do that with any of the other kids, only Lily. I'll never forget when she was probably about Owen's age and walked into a room where incense had been burning. She stopped and wailed, "What is that HORRIBLE ODOR?"
And so, it's somewhat amusing that Owen is developing this same trait. I've been noticing it in him myself.
One day recently I was reaching across him to click his seatbelt and he said, "Mer, you armpit smell sort of bad."
I laughed and told him I'd taken a shower the night before and put on deodorant but that it had been a long, hot day.
Then a few days later, as I was helping him buckle his britches after he peed, he said, "Uh, Mer? Armpit?"

Lord. Not only do I not take him to fun crazy places to play and then to get ice cream, I also have stinky arm pits. Jesus. The kid is going to start hating me. There's still hope for Gibson, though.

So I'm almost finished reading a book that has me vaguely interested. It's called The Blood Of Flowers and was written by Anita Amirrezvani. It is not great literature but it doesn't suck and it's slightly erotic.  It's about a girl in 16th century Persia who is good at rug-making and who has an interesting life. Did you know that back in those days, a guy could offer a girl a three-month marriage contract? And he'd pay the family and the girl would be his "wife" for three months meaning that she had to have sex with him and maybe at the end of the three months he'd renew and maybe he wouldn't.
"Man, I'd really like to fuck that chick. I think I'll marry her for three months."
And the girl still lived with her family and everything so it truly was purely about the sex and the guy could have a "real" wife already or maybe a few, depending on his wealth and status.
So yeah, I spent a lot of time today reading that while my husband was taking our grandson out to Disney World. Okay, not really Disney World but as close to Disney World as Owen knows about.

Oh well. Mr. Moon is back and I spent about an hour picking up fallen branches and pulling a few million Mexican Hydrangea. I sweat like a pig because it's approximately 99.9% humidity out there but compared to Arizona right now, I guess it's heaven. And I've traded a few more pictures around and Mr. Moon has put up a bamboo screen on the back porch and I have to admit that I'm liking the changes around here. When I lie on the bed I feel protected by the magic of stuff I love and there's something very good and which feels very safe about having the window over my bed lead out onto a porch which then leads out onto the yard where the most beautiful ancient oak towers above us all. Here's what the view from my office yard looks like.

Sunday. What can you say?

Love...Ms. Moon

Devotion And Praise At The Church Of The Batshit Crazy

This Sunday's devotion just left me in tears.
I know. I'm a weepy little old thing. Can't help it.

My, my, but the hymns were fine in Glastonbury yesterday when the Stones took the stage for the first time ever at that sacred event. And if the sermon had a theme, I guess it would be that rock and roll will never die.

The old boys just got off a grueling tour and jetted over to play the festival and for Christ's sake, Jagger is going to be fucking SEVENTY YEARS OLD in less than a month and it's not just a miracle of the highest order that he can still move like that with his tiny snake body, his big boots, it's unbelievable that he can remember all the damn lyrics.
All of them. Charlie Watts. God. Maybe. Maybe he is.
And of course Keith whom I love with a sickness. Onstage he is joy personified. He is there, truly and really and I feel fairly certain that there is no place he'd rather be than there, playing with his mates, making people happy.
And Lord, they made the people happy. I loved the crowd shots. Kids and parents and grandparents and Mick is lying like a dog when he says he can't get no girl reaction and everyone knew all the words.

Okay. Well. I realize I'm obsessed and so what? You can judge me if you want to or you can just laugh and either way, I don't care. I laugh at myself regularly. And no one can judge me the way I do myself.

Here's the whole damn one hour, six minutes and fifty-five seconds if you have any inclination and I feel pretty certain that no one does but whatever. My favorite part is, of course, the end where all the band gets together onstage to hold each other. They've been holding each other for fifty years.




And by the way- this only about half of the entire concert. To give us all a little perspective on things.

All right. I gotta go clean out the hen house. The poop is piling up.
It's Sunday and I've been sanctified and thus must now go perform my earthly chores.

Love...Ms. Moon

Evolution

Goodness gracious but I hit the ground running hard today. And what a lovely day it was, raining on and off and so I spent most of the day in the house. Mr. Moon and I moved the big old desk out of what is now officially our bedroom and out into the office where it looks like this.

Nice, right? 

We moved the vanity from our old bedroom into the new one

 and then of course, I had to start bringing pictures in from the old room and putting them up and I kept thinking about something that Bailey White had a character say in one of her books which was something like, "You move around the doilies on an end table and next thing you know, you're replacing all of the window treatments in the house." That wasn't it exactly but still, you get the idea and it's true. I had to rearrange the office and clean it up and set up the printer in there. 

That picture over the vanity is one my Uncle Jimmy painted when he was a boy studying art under Frank Baisden and it was always over my grandmother's bed and it has been over the fireplace in our old bedroom for nine years but now it's in the new bedroom. After I moved the vanity I put the pack-n-play where it had been standing for whatever baby sleeping requirements there may be. 

I made a cake and washed the sheets on the bed and kissed my husband every time our paths crossed whether deliberately or unplanned and I even took a little nap. 

I got up and Mr. Moon and I went out and collected eggs and checked out the garden and then got ready to go to town for pizza. It stormed like crazy on our way in but by the time we got to the restaurant, the skies had cleared. Here's Hank and Owen. 

My two first boys. 

After our pizza, Owen stuck the candles in the cake and we lit 'er up and he helped his Boppy blow 'em out. "Make a wish!" I cried. People forget, you know. And it's wrong to pass up that annual opportunity to make that wish, whatever it may be. I do believe in magic, a little bit, and if there is such a thing, it's got to be strong on birthdays. 

After supper we went back outside and this time, Boppy helped Gibson walk down the whatever-you-call-that-thing.

That little boy is getting so big. He sat in his high chair and tried to stab pizza with his fork and said what he always says when he eats which is, "Mo-ah?" 

More.

That's what all my birthday wishes are. "More. Of this. Please." I look around at the faces and that's truly all I want. And that's what I wrote on my husband's card. That I just want mo-ah. I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't what Mr. Moon was thinking when he and Owen blew out the candles but knowing my husband, it could have been something else entirely. Perhaps he wished for a big gator during this September's hunt. And you know what? That would be fine too. 

So it was a good day and we celebrated the finest man I've ever personally known and whom I have the honor and joy to be married to and to share my life with and we moved things around in the house and I might just be a little inspired to change things up some now, a mantel here, a sideboard there. Rearrange treasures and hell, maybe even find some different ones. 

Little altars everywhere, as Rebecca Wells said. 

Here's my side of the bed in its current incarnation. Subject to change at any time. 

My Lizzie gave me that picture for a birthday years ago. One of my sweet madonnas. 

So here we are, Mr. Moon and I, still the same but slowly evolving, just as the Panther Room is evolving from the guest room into our room. Some things change but some things remain the same. 

Because some things are just too damn good to change and contain within them all the light and funk and magic you could want. 

Sleep well, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

When It's Your Birthday

You get eggs and bacon and biscuits and grits and peeled tomatoes.
And so it is for Mr. Moon this morning, this drippy morning here in Lloyd.

I woke up feeling so much better and actually cheerful. I debated about whether or not a martini would be a good thing or a bad thing last night and decided that it didn't matter. I was having one. Turned out to be a good thing and I made a supper which involved the first and only (most likely) fried green tomatoes of the season and we ate those things with great joy. I slept as if I'd been training for the Sleep Event my entire life and I had sweet, funny dreams and I'm sure that had a lot to do with how I feel this morning.

So I cooked this man, this birthday boy, crispy bacon from the store and eggs from our hens and a tomato from the garden and I whipped up those biscuits about as fast as my mother could have popped a can of them and we sat out on the back porch and ate and there were blackberry preserves. I don't know about him but so far, I'm having a great birthday day and I believe I will continue to do so. This year he wants a German Chocolate cake which is the same cake I made him our first year together when we were both just turning twenty-nine and were staying at the beach with his mama and daddy and sister and brother-in-law and their kids and mine. I was still way shy into the relationship and was a bit overwhelmed, surrounded as I was by his people but that was where his daddy put his arm around me and told me that they were so glad their son had met me because he was so happy. He was back to being his real, true self, and that had a lot to do with my perspective on the whole matter and here we are, thirty years later and German Chocolate cake has come back up on the wheel and I will enjoy making it. I think we might go get pizza tonight with the kids and I'll bring candles and the cake and Owen will help me decorate it.
Everyone is feeling better and glory hallelujah on that!

I am thinking back on that first birthday I spent with him and I wonder who those young people were, how they had the nerve to think they could buck the odds and get together and make something lasting, something true. Well, we did and we made two more babies while we were at it and now there's the two grandbabies and some things remain the same. He's still way too tall, I'm still shy to be around other people, he still likes German Chocolate cake and I still like to make it.
And we still love each other.

Happy birthday, my love. Let's try for another thirty years of beaches and babies and bacon and tomatoes and love. It's been an adventure so far and I don't know why it can't continue to be so, albeit a different sort of one which could be a good thing in that some of it's been hard, as life will tend to be. But you've always been there for me and me for you and we do our best to love each other the way we would want to be loved and I guess that's the secret if there is one.

And biscuits.

I'm so glad you were born.

I'm so glad you're my husband.

Always...Your wife, Mrs. Moon

Who Knows?

Just walked out to the back porch and three black crows drifted up into the tree from the bird feeder but a juvenile male cardinal stood his ground, continued to peck, now one of the crows is back and the young bird has moved off to the nearby camellia bush to sulk.

Went to the nurse practitioner's and of course the quick Strep came back negative. There is, as always, not one damn thing wrong with me except a little something. Fever and pain and all that stuff, could be anything. They are doing a culture though and she did give me a script for amoxicillin and by god if I'm not feeling a lot better by tomorrow I'm going to take it although I have not felt the need for an antibiotic in dog's age. And maybe there IS nothing wrong with me or maybe I have the Lyme Disease (did you read that article in the New Yorker about it?) and who knows and it's left me feeling mean like somehow the medical profession has failed me again and god knows, I'm a terrible patient. I resent the FUCK out of being sick and I resent the fuck out of you being sick too.
Anyway, Lily and the boys are good again and Lily texted me a little while ago, "My baby boy just ate an entire yogurt by himself without spilling."

He's growing up, our Gibson, that merry child with the black eyebrows whom I adore.

That makes me happy, thinking about Gibson wielding a spoon to get all of his yogurt by himself and also, Elizabeth's posts while she is on respite are making me happy. I am there breathing with her, or at least in my mind.

I took my own meanness and used it to clear out some crap in my bathroom. Clutter of makeup that I never use, fifty packs of elastic hair ties, stuff that no one in this world needs and I never use. Some of it thrown away, some of it put away, tidily, in case I ever do wear make-up again in this lifetime. I am not betting on that one although you never know.

Here's another thing that I'm glad for- a friend thought she was having a heart attack but she wasn't and she's home and fine. That's mighty good. The medical profession did well by her and I'm glad. They checked her out every which way so she can rest easy and so can her beloved.
This is a comfort.

And another good thing- Jessie interviewed for a job as a birth assistant with a midwife and got the job. She'll do that part time when they need her and I think of her kneeling by the bed of a laboring woman the way I used to do and honey, that just makes my heart so very, very glad because she's going to love it and she's going to be so good at it.

This is life in summer. The storms come in and they cool the thirst of the Earth and they knock down a big old pecan branch and if you're lucky, there aren't any chickens underneath it when it falls. Bacteria and viruses thrive and so do ticks and we live on the best planet possible and at the same time, it is perilous and sometimes I wonder if it's our native planet at all and I will probably go to my grave believing that we humans are some crazy experiment, some delicious clumsy vulnerable brilliant stupid result of ape-alien genes whose backs and knees are not really there yet, evolutionarily speaking, when it comes to walking upright in this gravity.

Well, that's enough for now. I'm alive and I doubt I'll be dying anytime soon because I am way too mean and you know it but again, a pecan branch, a bolt of lightening, a truck a train a tick- any of these could carry me off tomorrow. You too.

We might as well use our meanness to clean the bathroom. We might as well use our sweetness to be grateful for it all, including the teenaged cardinal, the three black crows, the soft rain almost quit falling now from the gray velvet sky.

I am not having a good day so far. I woke up at six-thirty, aching so much that I just got up and I'm waiting on the phone guy and I've called my nurse practitioner's office and I have to go in at two and of course going to see a MEDICAL PERSON makes me want to die and I'm already about half there so no, I'm not having a good day.

I feel useless and stupid and crazy and weepy. My husband's birthday is tomorrow and I haven't done one damn thing for him. Not one.

That's me today. Useless, stupid, crazy and weepy. I'm like the seven dwarfs only minus a few.

Housekeeping

Well, my throat is not sore. This is good. However, I still feel like shit.
Maybe that is just a residual of the weeding, the yard-working, the boy-tending, the worry. Or too much gluten. Who knows? Not me.

Lily has been texting me about Owen's refusal to take his medicine. She wishes that I had an idea about how to get him to do that but honest to god, I have nothing that she hasn't already thought of. My kids loved the pink medicine, probably because it was the sweetest treat they were ever allowed to have. Mmmm! Pink medicine! Tastes like yummy SOMETHING!
But it doesn't matter what it tastes like. Owen does not want to take medicine. Not liquid, not chewable caps. Maybe if they made it in the form of gummies.
I am wondering if he was either a Christian Scientist in his last lifetime or perhaps a mule. If Lily does manage to get some down his throat by bribe or milkshake or whatever, he gags it up. I told him that if he doesn't drink it, he's going to have to get a shot in the butt the way we used to do. He doesn't care. Shot in the butt. Bring it on. He told his mother that if she takes him to the museum he'll drink it there.
Right.

I've taken the trash. That's about as much as I plan to accomplish today which requires actual movement. I've also called our phone company because there's so much static on the line that we can't make actual conversation. We don't get cell phone reception in the house so a land line is a necessity. Plus, after the Zombie Apocalypse (or a hurricane) when all the cell towers are down, I'll still be able to talk on the phone. To whom, I am not sure. Some old lady in a nursing home with a land line, I guess. Whatever.
Anyway, I'd like to be a witness that CenturyLink has excellent customer service. Once you get to a real human, anyway. You get the feeling that if it were up to them, they'd take off their headsets, jump in their cars and come right over and fix the problem themselves. And probably bring some sandwiches, too, to make up for my inconvenience. They apologize all over the place for what, in this case at least, is not their fault. I'm sure some critter has chewed something. This is always what happens. Anyway, as long as my internet is working, I don't really care in that I hate the phone. Also, the fact that a tech could come by any time and will quite likely need to get in the house, gives me an excuse to stay home.
Win and win.

Moving on. I'm trying like hell to figure out the Feedly thing to replace my beloved Google Reader. I am trying so hard not to be all I-HATE-CHANGE about it. I remember how I fought the New Blogger thing and then when forced to use it, had no problems at all and couldn't remember the Old Blogger if I had to. But it's just not making sense to me. I want a list of my subscriptions and I want it in alphabetical order. Sorry, but I do. And it seems like I should be able to figure that shit out. But somehow, I can't and it would just be ridiculous to have to make Hank come all the way out here to physically sit down with me and show me how to do this shit. Plus, with his new schedule, he doesn't really get up until it's about time for me to go to bed so I'm not sure I'll ever see my son again. So what I'm going to do today is first go through and prune some of my subscriptions and see if I make it a little less daunting. I have subscriptions to blogs which haven't posted in approximately four years. If, by some chance, you happen to notice that I usually comment on your blog and then become silent, I may have accidentally removed you so let me know if that happens. And let me reiterate here that I can't comment on wordpress blogs for various reasons and no, I can't figure it out so if you're on wordpress and I love you and you know it but I never comment on your blog, it's not because I'm an asshole. It's because I'm technically challenged and it has to do with having an account with wordpress myself that I can't seem to cancel.
Anyway, back to Feedly. I went to the help section and it used terms like "transit time." WTF?
So I'll be working on that today.

And that is my boring world. I'm still very, very happy about the overturn of DOMA and honestly, I never thought I'd see such progress in my lifetime. I'm not naive. I know that this ruling is not going to eliminate discrimination or homophobia but it sure is going to make a difference in a lot of people's lives. People that I love, people whom I'll never meet.
I'm a bit appalled at some of the right-wing response, and especially that of the so-called Christians but what do we expect? What absolutely blows my mind is how these people can't understand that it's not about sex which is what their obviously obsessed minds can't seem to grasp. It's about equal rights, it's about love, it's about the family.

Well, I can't even grasp an RSS feed so there you go.

What are you thinking about and dealing with and trying to grasp today? I'd love to know.

Love...Ms. Moon

Really?

Okay. This may be it.
Lily has strep, Gibson has strep, Owen has strep.
That has been the illness.
Fucking strep.
And I'm not feeling so good myself.
I've had strep many times and you know what? I just don't want to do it again. It hurts. It's an illness which doesn't have one damn good thing about it. It hurts and it feels like razor blades in the throat and there's fever making the bones ache and YOU HAVE TO GET AN ANTIBIOTIC BECAUSE THAT SHIT CAN KILL YOU.
Believe me.

This year has just been most unkind and even the beautiful parts have added up to too much.
Too much, too much, too much and I feel like giving up and...what? What in the world can you do?
Not a damn thing but get on with it and do what must be done.

I'm just so glad that there ARE antibiotics and that my grandsons will not find out, years down the road, that their hearts or kidneys have been destroyed by bacteria which seemed to have disappeared but which found their way to a deep, dark place to hide and wreak havoc on. And that they will get all well, totally well, and be their crazy, wild-child boy selves again.

That's what I'm going to concentrate on.

I'm so tired.

Bless

And Here We Are

Lily's sick and so I'm in town tending boys. Who, for the most part, are feeling better. 

I wish that none of my babies ever got sick. 

World peace would be nice too. 

Night Is Falling

All afternoon and into the evening, every day for days now, it's rumbled and thundered all around us, off in the distance, sky going bruise dark and we get a spit here, a sprinkle there, and then nothing. Nothing at all.
It's almost a yearning that comes upon me when this happens. A yearning for the release and relief of that good, pure downpour. Which does not come but it will, maybe even tonight, who knows? The sky is complaining like hell off to the west, it surely is.

Owen and I went over to see the goats and yes, we saw them but we also saw three new baby chicks, following their banty mother around, peep-peeping behind her and we were so delighted we had to call Owen's mama to report. They are black and yellow, they are so tiny, like down-covered golf balls on speedy stick legs and I think of the hawk who comes in every night to spend the dark-coming hour with me. I do not have a great deal of hope for those peeps but who knows?

My husband will be home any moment and he will fill the house with his presence the way he does. I have pinto beans simmering and will make a cornbread and a tomato salad. I bought mozzarella today. It feels as if he's been gone for far longer than the short time he has been. He'll fill up the house and he'll fill up the laundry basket and he'll fill up my arms. It is his way, our way. He goes away, he comes home. I am waiting.

A train goes by, it splits the air with sound, you have no idea how much freight still gets hauled this way. I wonder if the sound scares the little chicks. "Take cover!" they might call, exactly as Owen does, and then dive under their mother.

A loud world and a scary one sometimes but a sweet one too.

I am waiting on my husband. He is coming home.

Thank You, Ellen Abbott

I knew one of you would know the name of that plant which is threatening to take over my yard, then Lloyd, then Florida, then the world.
Ellen Abbott figured it out. It's Cherodendrum Bungei, also known as Rose Glory Bower, Kashmir Bouquet and MEXICAN HYDRANGEA!
I put that in caps because I had a feeling the word "Mexican" might be in there. As much as I love the country and so much of what it has given to us and I have adopted some of the culture for myself and I  have a secret and desperate dream to live there part of the year, eventually, I have discovered that any plant which has the name "Mexican" in it is going to take over your yard and that's all there is to it and that is NOT a metaphor, not in any way, it's just an observance.

I once talked a couple into taking back a pot of Mexican bluebells they had purchased at Lowe's. They were in the parking lot, loading the pot into their car and I was Miss Don't Mind Your Own Business and convinced them that they were making a big mistake and they believed me and took it back.
That was my good deed for the day.

Thank you, Ellen.

Now I know. But what in hell am I going to do with them? Even goats won't eat them?
Pull and burn, I guess.
Pull and burn.
After they're finished blooming because dammit, they're mighty pretty.

What? What?

Well, Gibson does have what Owen had plus he has a little case of impetigo which he had to go to the doctor about yesterday and now Lily has a sore throat which is how Owen's illness started and Lord, this is one of those times, isn't it?
She called me this morning because Gibson threw up his antibiotic (and this is the first antibiotic that either of her boys have ever been on) and I was still asleep at the shamefully late time of 7:55 a.m. and I didn't know what to tell her but now I'm awake and we've discussed it all and she's called the doctor again and I'm going to go into town and pick up some crackers for that little baby boy because he needs to eat something before he takes his medicine and he doesn't want anything she has except breast milk and he has been nursing a lot.
Then I'm going to bring Owen out here so that Lily and Gibson can rest together. I don't have anything else I HAVE to do. I mean, I weeded the garden. That was pretty much enough of an accomplishment for me.

I hope I remember how to operate an automobile.

I talked to Mr. Moon this morning. He is READY to come home. It does seem like he's been gone about a month. It'll be a whole new life, having him back. He texted me and said he wants to come home and kiss his sweet wife's face. I felt like texting him back asking him if he has another wife because I'm not sweet. But I know what he means and I AM his wife and I CAN be sweet if necessary and it will be nice to have my face kissed.

Seems to me that the world, even my tiny small one, can tip and turn in the space of a night and I'm feeling a little bit of vertigo but things will balance back out and it's good to keep your seatbelt fastened because there can always be turbulence, unexpected and a little scary mixed with exhilarating and we go on, hoping that the pilot got a good night's sleep and a healthy breakfast with something from all the food groups and not just a doughnut.

Good morning.

Love...Ms. Moon

It's All Prayer, Baby

I'm a nutcase. We can be pretty sure this is true. As proof I offer the fact that I had three entire days mostly to myself and instead of doing any one of a myriad of amazing things (working on a novel, finishing a quilt for Owen that I started about eighteen months ago, plucking my eyebrows, figuring out a new reader for the blogs I love, learning Instagram- these all spring to mind) I weeded a patch of garden that was really not that huge but which took hours and hours and hours. Over the course of three days.
For no real apparent reason. So we can plant the okra? Okay. Whatever.
So now that patch is weeded and my body aches and my hands are about to fall off my wrists (those were some pretty big weeds) and so what? So WHAT? I don't even want to take a picture and show you because all it is now is a bare piece of earth and it's not like a quarter of an acre or anything and I feel sort of stupid.
But there you are and there you have it and I did it.
Maybe I just needed on some deep, spiritual level to get down on my knees in the dirt and I have done that and maybe that's all that needs to be said about it.

I did do a few other things. I took care of the boys yesterday and I picked those blackberries and I made this salad last night:

That was pretty much worth three days of weeding, not that the weeding had any direct relation to that tomato but that salad was worth three days of almost anything and if I'd had the mozzarella, it would have been worth ten days of anything so there is that.

Anyway, Mr. Moon will be home tomorrow and I'll be mighty glad to see him although I have to admit that I am ridiculously content to be by myself and that is no reflection on him, it's just the way I'm wired. I haven't left Lloyd since Friday and I don't know that I'll be leaving tomorrow either. I have coffee and bananas. What the fuck do I need to go to Tallahassee for? I not only have coffee and bananas, I have tomatoes and basil in the garden, and eggs galore and beans in the cabinet and venison in the freezer if I should start to feel a lack of protein, and flour and sourdough starter if I need bread.
I also have the bluebirds and the hawk which comes in every evening at sunset to fly around my backyard and my chickens to cluck around the house all day long keeping me company. I have the World Wide Web. I have a telephone and ice cubes and books to read with my eyes and with my ears. I have a turtle friend.

I'm good.

I'm sort of thinking I wish I had a kitten but I banish the desire with the knowledge that a kitten grows up to be a cat and cats kill birds if you let them go outside and if you don't, they require a litter box. Which I have no desire to deal with on any level so I probably don't need a kitten.

But it WILL be nice to have that giant man back. I did laundry for the first time today since he left and when I pulled his pants out of the dryer to fold I was amazed, once again, at how long his legs are. Thirty years together and he's still amazing me. That's a good thing.

All right. Enough. The evening is young. I could still end this time-to-myself in some crazy way such as burning incense and lighting candles and dancing in the hallway to this.








Whoo-hoo indeed, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

News And Opinions

I saw my turtle friend again on my walk this morning. It is always cheering for me to see him or her. I like to think of the creature as a grandmother turtle, trundling down the path on some grandturtle-related errand. Or it could be a cranky old man turtle, just off to better feeding grounds or for a dip in the pond. The duckweed appears to be glued permanently to its back.

I guess that Nelson Mandela is dying. His doctors claim to be doing "everything possible" for him. I wonder what that means. I wonder if it means they are trying to keep him alive or if it means that they are doing everything possible to try and keep him comfortable, to allow him to make an easy transition, which is what his daughter says she hopes for.
I hope it is the latter.
Ninety-four years old and he is no doubt, if there is really such a thing, a Bodhisattva. One of those beings who, upon reaching enlightenment, make a conscious decision to come back for another incarnation in order to help with the suffering of others. That's probably a very simplistic definition but it would explain a lot about certain people and their lives on this planet.
Anyway, I would wish him peace above all.

Bobby Blue Bland died.
Ah, Bobby Blue Bland. He was eighty-three so he had a pretty good ride too. I saw him once, opening for Mr. B.B. King (my daddy.) I'd never seen or heard anyone sing like Mr. Bland. And Bland was definitely a misnomer. That was a strange concert. I was in St. Petersburg and pregnant with Lily and B.B. had a lady back-up singer who seemed to be incredibly whacked out on some drug. Maybe heroin. I have no idea, but she swayed and danced on the front of the stage and it just was not like what you would normally see at a B.B. King concert at all, she was a wild card, out of control, and I wondered why Mr. King would tolerate that mess but he did and I figured maybe he was sleeping with her but who knows? Who the hell knows?
I do know that when B.B. King dies it's going to hit me hard. I know that for sure.

Here's another thing I've been pondering from the news: A bunch of conservative Christians who have banded together under the name "Freedom Federation" have stated that if the Supreme Court rules to allow gay marriage they will....
Well, that's the question.
Here's what part of their statement said:
"While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the true common good that this is a line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross."

So are they saying that NO MATTER WHAT THE LAW IS, THEY THEMSELVES WILL NOT GAY-MARRY? 
I don't know. 
How many wives did King David have? One man, one woman did not seem to be the order of the day back when he was a Biblical hotshot. I don't recall Jesus saying anything about what constituted marriage. Someone at some point redefined it. Also, what the hell was going on between David and his really, really good friend Jonathon? 
This is the problem with using the Bible to prove whatever bullshit you want to believe. Because you can find something in the Bible to support almost any notion. And if someone else with a different belief uses the same Bible to prove their notion, you can just claim misinterpretation.

Whatever. I'd rather just make up stories in my head about turtles. 

I think I'll go pull some more weeds. It would tickle me to pieces to have Mr. Moon come home and to be able to show him a nice, clean patch in the garden. 
I am a simple woman. I believe in simple things. Turtles and the blues, ripe tomatoes and chicken eggs. 
And mostly love.

Peace....Ms. Moon

I Don't Know. Looks Just Like A Regular Full Moon To Me

Various Pictures And Instructions

Is it just me or is that child getting prettier and prettier every day? 

Lord. 

I had a good time with my boys this afternoon. Owen's still not 100% well, but close. Gibson, however, feels very warm to me today. He wanted to snuggle a lot. Sometimes when he puts his head on my bosom and lays his body against me he says, "Baby." I love that he is still my baby. Our baby. He can say "chicken" but it comes out more like "Chichen" as in Chichen Itza. He still calls the dogs "kittehs." Owen's new word today was "adorable." I showed him a picture of me when I was a baby. "You were adorable," he said.

I had to pick my heart up off the floor and put it in the freezer for a little while. It had melted. 

I also showed Owen the video of his Great Aunt Brenda when she was in the All American Redheads. I've posted the video about three times already but if you've never seen it, it's worth your while. You can find it here.  

The incredibly darling woman the video opens with is Mr. Moon's sister, back when she played basketball with that group and they whipped guys' asses all over the Continental United States, the entire team and the manager riding from venue to venue in a station wagon. With all of their luggage, gear, and equipment. I was telling Owen about it and I got so damn choked-up I couldn't talk. There's just something about the sight of those women athletes back in the day when women weren't "supposed" to be athletes that gets me every time. I want to reach back in time and stand up and cheer them on. I want to tell them how strong and beautiful they are. How freaking damn amazing. 

Hell. I'm crying again.

Anyway, Owen thought it was a pretty swell video. 

We spent some time outside inbetween little rain showers. I checked on the progress of the fig crop. Looking good!

Madame King, this is for you:

Of course we won't get any actual figs to eat because the squirrels and birds will get them but if by some miracle we do, I'm going make some preserves and I swear, Rebecca, I am going to send you a jar. 

Dreams can come true. Maybe. 

Here's something else that's growing. 

That's where I dump my weeds and those flowering plants ARE those weeds which took off all by themselves and are now a complete jungle. Here's a closer picture.

Do any of y'all know what these are? They are obviously invasive as hell and although they have an impressive and cheery bloom, they stink so you can't cut them and bring them in. They smell like cat piss. I would really like to know their names. 

We patted the goats and looked for eggs. We shared popcorn with the chickens and while we were sitting on the back steps doing that, Elvis jumped on one of the hens and it is a brutal-looking act and Owen really doesn't understand it and I'm not ready to enlighten him about fucking. Not even chicken-fucking. I just know that one of these years he's going to figure it all out and he's going to be like, "Damn! Elvis was FUCKING those hens!"

In the meantime, he will just be puzzled by the sudden transformation of our normally gentlemanly and sweet rooster into a crazed neck-biting, back-spurring beast. Life is mysterious, baby. And sometimes painful.

Nap time. 

At one point, Owen crawled up onto my bed and said, "I so sleepy." And then he fell asleep. I was shocked. Gibson was sleepy too and I rubbed his back until he fell asleep and I just laid there beside them and read for awhile. He woke up a little and I put the book down and pulled him to me and cuddled him and he fell back asleep and I fell asleep too for a little bit, so I did get my nap. A holding-a-baby-nap, which is not just the best kind of nap but a holy experience, as well. 

So all-in-all, it's been a very, very fine day. Mr. Moon seems to be having a great time with his sister and I'm so glad of that. At the moment he's sending me pictures of the menu from where they're eating supper and I have to say I'm a little jealous.

No. Not really jealous. A bra would be required and I'm definitely not in the mood to be wearing one of those. But if they could somehow magically transport all of the above to me, I would not complain. 

But hell, I've got the best tomatoes in town and some decent olive oil and fresh basil so I could do a little something-something on that order. Wish I had some mozzarella but whatever. 

Yeah. It's been another really fine day. I did get more weeding done and I did get that tiny nap and I got to play with my boys and we danced some to the Rolling Stones, Owen and I slangin' hips and Gibson bouncing up and down and I was told that as a baby I was adorable. 

When they were leaving, Owen gave me my usual list of instructions which including not gathering the eggs until he comes back because one of the joys of his life is finding eggs in the nest and I'd already gathered them today. 

"Take care of you chickens!" he called. "Take care of you goats!" 

Then he thought about it for awhile. 

"And take care of you butt!" He laughed and laughed and I mentally edged his IQ up another ten points for his joke. 

"I will!" I called back. 

"And tell Boppy take care of his butt!" 

"I will!" I promised. 

And they rolled out of the driveway and I came in and cracked a beer and now I'm going to go shut up the chickens and go pick a little basil before it gets dark because for some reason, I'm in the mood for a little Caprese-minus-the-mozz-salad. 

"What are you going to do tomorrow?" Lily asked me before they left. 

I got a dreamy feeling down to my bones and I said, "Whatever I want."

Amen, y'all. May this giant moon shine down on all of us tonight, gathering us together in her light, wherever we may be and I sincerely mean it when I say...

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Take care of you butt. 

When Ya-Ya's Have Been Gotten Out

Lloyd is very peaceful today. Well, one train did go by. You know, even though I've been living by this train track for over nine years now, it still sometimes surprises me at how loud it is when the train passes. Last night I was back here on the porch and the train went by (and honestly, it's so close that if the train fell over it could very possibly crush my hen house) and I thought of Owen and how when he hears the train coming he yells, "Take cover! Take cover!" and he closes all the doors and it's funny and it's silly but I can understand it and sometimes I, too, feel that I should take cover, that great blast of the horn sounding way before it gets here and then the metal beast thundering down the tracks, the very glass in the windows of my house rattling.
It's wonderful and it's annoying at the same time.
And it doesn't wake me up at night which is the ODDEST thing to me. How can I become so used to it that it doesn't wake me up and yet, hot flashes do every time?
The human brain is a strange and mysterious organ.
As are so many of our organs but let's not discuss that this morning.
Organ. Ick. What a horrible word unless you're talking about Booker T. and the M.G.'s or Bach.

So I just watched two episodes of the Jerry Seinfeld internet series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. I am fascinated by these little pieces. The best one I watched this morning (and one of the best I've seen so far) was the one with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. You can watch it here. 
I highly recommend that you do and if you like it, check out the Alec Baldwin one as well. I don't know what it is about Alec Baldwin but he cracks me up. Those movie-star good looks and that wicked sense of humor. Forget IQ tests. In my opinion, the most intelligent people have the best senses of humor.
Which, of course, makes Mel Brooks a genius but we've discussed that before.

I just ate my breakfast which I cooked myself for myself. No pancakes today and despite the fact that I have three kinds of berries in my refrigerator AND cantaloupe already cut up AND peaches AND nectarines, I made and ate potatoes and onions and eggs and bacon and toast.
So sue me.
I just fed my chickens some corn scratch and crumbled up oat flour and whole-wheat rolls which have gone stale. It occurs to me that we anthropomorphize animals because what they do and how they sound reminds us so very much of what we do and how we sound. For a reason, I am sure. Because we're all related, not just us and the great apes, our cousins, but also us and the chickens. Elvis, upon discovering food that he deems fit to eat, makes a sound which, even without words, we would recognize as being a call to his hens to come and join him. "Ohww," he says, "come on, this is good, come eat." And then hens, when they find the food, make a sound which I am sure translates to, "This is good. This is so very, very good," and it's not a stretch to believe this. They vocalize just as we do. They express happiness and terror and pride and contentment and discovery.
Here's a picture I love of Elvis and Miss Sharon and Ozzie at nap time one day.

The two hens are cuddled up together, Elvis appears to be checking on them and Miss Ozzie (who does look a bit vulture-like, even I admit) has one of her greenish dinosaur legs stretched out like a posing lady on a fainting couch.

Or perhaps I am just being silly. Which is far better than being Sunday-blued, depressed and melancholy.

The boys will be out later and I think that now I'm going to go do some more weeding. Although it is such a beautiful, slow, sweet day that I could very well just get back in the bed and read and snooze and perhaps dream a little. I feel as if this time by myself has dispersed some demons, has calmed me and soothed me. 

Has settled me. 

Happy Sunday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

My Friend Liz Sparks And What She Does

And this is where I live. Liz didn't even tell me about this. My across-the-street-neighbor did. For more information, go HERE. 

Dang, Liz. You're amazing. 

Ghosts And Skinks And Bats And Blackberries. Another Day In My Life

Today I walked down to a nearby clearing with a cell phone tower in it which is bordered by blackberry bushes and I picked a good 3/4's of a gallon or so of fine, fat berries. I forgot my gloves and could have picked more if I'd been able to thrust my hands into the thickets. As it was, I was pricked some and bled, but who cares? I have blackberries.

I think that instead of making jam with these, I'll make Mr. Moon a lovely cobbler when he gets home. Maybe that will be our entire dinner one night. When the kids were little, I used to make strawberry shortcake for dinner about once a year when the berries first came into season. I'd make the big sugary biscuit-cakes and slice up the berries and put them over the split cakes and whip real cream with sugar and vanilla and put that on top. The children were delighted and scandalized at the same time. 

It was wonderful. Who the hell says that every meal must have a protein, some carbs and and some vegetables? Not me. As long as it all evens out in the end, I'm happy. 

It was such a pleasure to pick the berries. I was listening to a book on CD and the sun was hot but it was a little overcast and although I sweat right through my overalls it wasn't painful in the least. It felt good. I didn't see a snake but I did see something that was just as frightening. It was the gnarliest nest of ground bees I've ever seen and if I'd stepped in that, it would have been horrible and a sort of hell and could quite possibly have made me as dead as the bite of a rattlesnake. I saw it just in time, though, and backed up and moved on and was not stung at all. 

I am grateful for that.

I went out in the garden and pulled a cart-full of weeds and then took them and pitched them over the fence for the goats next door who don't ever get anything green. They were on those things like teenaged girls on Justin Bieber. Made me happy to see it. 

I picked in the garden and I gathered from the nests and I added to what I had picked and gathered yesterday. It looks like this. 

Do I feel lucky? You bet. 

I guess I'll go cut up some of those vegetables and maybe cook some quinoa and make my supper. It has been, for me, a practically perfect day and I have done exactly what I've wanted to do and tonight I think I'll get in bed and read for a good long while before I turn out the light. My shower will feel tremendous, and rivers of dirt will wash off of me although I got the topsoil off with the hose before I came in the house. 

I'm not sure when I became the woman I am right now. This woman who is most content and happy after spending all day sweating and avoiding death by ground bees, picking berries and pulling weeds and gathering eggs and picking tomatoes and peppers and onions and greens but here I am. Here I am. 

Here's a picture of Walter Lloyd Bond who had this house built in 1859. 

A little foppish, don't you think? He married his wife, Annie Laurie Lloyd Bond, when he was forty-three and she was twenty-nine and I'm thinking they must have been cousins and I don't know if they had any children or not but I'm thinking of them tonight and, as I so often do, of all the people who have lived here before me and who have grown vegetables in this yard and raised chickens and had babies and died, right here. 

I'll be happy to sleep with their ghosts tonight and today I saw a tremendously large skink in the hallway and I feel certain he's still here somewhere but that's okay. Plenty of room for all of us although if I see another bat, I'll be shrieking like a little girl. And then I'll go get a towel and capture it and put it outside. 

Maybe. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Love...Ms. Moon

She Just Busted Her Own Rice Bowl

Oh, Paula Deen. Oh, oh, oh.
The internet is eat-up (haha!) with different versions of her apologizing to what boils down to everyone in the world for making racist comments and, oh, I don't know. Hurting people?
I've never been a Paula Deen fan. In a way, I admired the way she took basic southern cooking and turned it into an empire. She's a character. I don't know if she's a great cook. By the time you get to her level in the food world, you're certainly not the one creating recipes any more than you're designing the furniture your company sells. (Furniture? Yes.) But she's a Southern woman, as am I, and so I've certainly been aware of her success if nothing else. I mostly knew that she'd invented a recipe for a hamburger which included a Krispy Kreme doughnut, bacon and a fried egg and that alone was enough for me to know that I wasn't going to be buying her cookbooks or watching her show.

I found it a bit skivey when it turned out that she had Type II diabetes and didn't talk about it until she'd secured a relationship to be the spokeswoman for a pharmaceutical company. It was certainly her right not to discuss her medical history or problems but it was somewhat suspect that she did begin to talk about it when she figured out a way to make money on the whole deal. I wasn't the only one who felt this way and she took a lot of flak for that one.

But you know- this is America and everyone has the right to make obscene amounts of money in any way they see fit for the most part. So Paula didn't bother me and I didn't bother her.
I know I'm not perfect and neither is Paula Deen and I never expected her to be and who cares what I expect anyway? BUT when I started reading about her words at a deposition in which she had to testify as part of a lawsuit claiming sexual and racial workplace discrimination in a restaurant owned by her brother and it started out like this:
Lawyer: Have you ever used the N-word yourself?
Deen: Yes of course.
that was just enough.

Of course? Of course she's used the N-word? What in hell does that even mean?
I am a southern woman. I'm a few years younger than Paula but that means she's had even more time to become enlightened to the fact that you don't use the N-word. You just don't do it.
Then there was this quote about jokes:

They usually target, though a group. Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don't know. I can't, myself, determine what offends another person.

Really, Paula? You can't determine what would offend another person?
I'm sorry. That's fucked up. And to even start to think about using black waiters dressed as slaves at a plantation themed wedding for your brother? Really? Because you admitted you did that. You discarded the idea which, hey! Points for you! But the fact that you even considered the idea makes me squirm.

I'm fucking upset. This sort of shit has got to stop. I watched an old video of Ms. Deen discussing racism in the south and she talked about how after the slaves were freed, her great, great grandfather shot himself because he couldn't run his farm without his black folks and I'm sure that's true. She also made the point that there may actually be less racism in the south because black folks (she kept using that phrase) are such an integral part of life.
For white people.
And THEN, she brought out an African-American man and introduced him as her "son by another father" and talked about how much she loved him and stated that "color ain't got nothing to do with it" but somehow, color had everyfucking thing to do with it and she was just using that man to prove her I'm-not-a-racist-point and it was demeaning to him and she didn't see that and I've been seeing this sort of shit my whole life and I'm tired of it.

Look. This shit goes on all the time. Hell, I don't even realize the extent to which it goes on but sometimes I get a little peek into those murky depths and when I do, I am shocked and sickened. Believe me, Paula Deen is not that much different from a lot of Southern women of her age and skin color and culture and that, THAT is the problem. It is not acceptable to use the N-word, I don't care how comfortable you are in the company of the people you're tossing the word around in. I don't care how much you love black folks. I don't care how famous you are or how much money you have. You can't do it. Because guess what? Slavery is dead. Oh, its poison is still part of the sickness of this country and always will be but slavery itself? Gone. And African Americans don't just take this crap lying down anymore. They hire lawyers! They bring lawsuits! They expose your racist ass. As they damn well should.

And to think that you can then make a video (or two, or three?) begging your "fans" for forgiveness and promising to "learn and grow" from this experience and to even begin to hope that you will be forgiven is ridiculous. If you're sixty-six years old and you haven't learned already that certain words are insulting and if you can't tell what will or will not offend other human beings, then the odds are pretty good that you're not going to now, either. And your fans may forgive you but guess what? The Food Network won't and you are going to be out of a job. Which is just fine with me because I'm fed-up (pun intended) with the way you perpetuate a certain stereotype which may, in fact, be used to judge me.
I'm white. I'm a woman. I'm southern. I cook beans and greens and biscuits. My great-something-grandfather ran a plantation too and yes, I'm sure he had slaves. I will carry the blood-guilt of that for my entire life and so will all of his descendants and there is no way to make reparations for it but I can treat my fellow humans with respect whether they are black or white or gay or straight or differently-abled and I can know that it's wrong to tell jokes which use any of these factors as source of humor. I live in a house that was probably built by slaves and every day of my life I remember and acknowledge that and send out a silent and useless (to them, at least) thank-you to those men who, with their backbreaking enforced labor cut by hand the beams of heart pine which still so solidly support the very walls of my existence.

And I would no more think about using the N-word than I would think it was appropriate to eat a damn hamburger on a Krispy Kreme doughnut and I have the sense to know they are both sickening, one to the body and one to the soul and the less of either in this world can only be an improvement.

I learned yesterday, via Facebook of course, that my Aunt Harriet died. This was my mother's brother Davis's wife. Both of Mother's brothers, Davis and Jimmy, died before Mother did and Jimmy's first wife died years ago. His second wife is still alive, I do believe. 

We are not a close family but it is sad to think of all of that generation being gone now. I have a picture of Jimmy and Davis and Mother when they were children, Mother actually just a baby. It's one of the few things I kept of Mother's. It was always on her dresser and when her mind started to lose some of its connections, she would show it to me every time I came to visit her.
"Have you ever seen this picture?" she would ask me. "I love it." And she would touch it with her fingertips.

My mother loved her childhood. She never wearied of telling me stories about growing up on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. Her brothers were the loves of her life. After her father, that is, who never, as long as she lived to tell, could do any wrong in her eyes. Except for one thing. He was too harsh by far with her brother Davis. That, she would admit. Davis was the middle child. His older brother, Jimmy, was by all accounts a golden boy. He had talent in art and excelled in school. He was well-behaved and everyone adored him. And Mother was the baby and the apple of her father's eye and the only girl so she never had to fight for attention. But Davis- well, tucked into the middle there where he was and with a wicked sense of humor which often found its target in pranks which got him into trouble, there was no way he could ever get the validation of his father the way the other two could. And he suffered for it and he got punished for trying (I am playing armchair psychologist here) to get his parents' attention any way he could. I'm sure that my grandfather believed in "spare the rod and spoil the child" and when it came to Davis, he did not spare that rod at all.

Even Mother admitted that. 

It's so odd. I remember when I was a child and we would all get together, my grandparents, my mother and my brother and me, her brothers and their wives and children. We would usually all meet up in Vero Beach, Florida at the Sea Cove Cottages, long since gone.  

We would play in the Atlantic and on the beach and in the pool, we would sleep sandy and close in the little bedrooms. And I, who had no father and whose mother was so unhappy, would look at my aunts and my uncles and their families and I would think how happy they looked. How perfect my cousins' lives appeared to me. No. That's a lie. Not perfect. Just normal. And normal seemed perfect to me then. 

Of course, as I've grown older, I've learned that my cousins' lives were far from perfect but I still think so fondly back to those vacations, to my aunts and uncles, to my cousins. Two of them are gone now too. One, my cousin Bruce, Harriet and Davis's son, who died years ago from cancer, and before he died, his sister, Maryanne, who was murdered.  

So much tragedy. How do we humans contain it all? I do not know. And then, we die. Not to be shallow or anything. But it is the way of it. 

Harriet actually visited in this house. She had come down to spend time with Mother not long after we moved here and she and Mother came out one Sunday morning for pancakes. I'm glad I got to see her. Despite all of the sorrow and horror she had had to face in her life along with some serious health problems, she was upbeat. She was cheerful. She loved my house. 

Family.

And speaking of, I spent a good part of the day today with Lily and Owen and Gibson. We went to Target. 

That's what Gibson looked like wearing a barbecue chef's hat, drinking an Icee. 

Owen was wearing his Power Rangers costume which looks like this.

Lily had taken that picture earlier when he was posing before doing his death-defying leap off of her headboard onto the bed which gives me a little heart-attack every time he does it. 

Besides Target we also went to the Big Library, which is what we call the main branch, lunch at Welcome-To-Moe's, and Publix. It was a long day and by the end of our time in Publix, Owen wanted to get out of there and get home. "I feel like I'm breaking," he said. 

"I do too," I told him. "Hang on. We're about done."

One of the things I realize about being a grandmother is that I have a lot in common with my grandsons. I don't really care what other people think and I like to wear whatever makes me happy. And when I hear music, I like to dance, no matter where I am. 

And I hope that my grandsons remember these things about me. I remember things about my own grandfather, born in 1888, that are as present to me as what I did yesterday. Perhaps this is a sign of older age. I don't know. I remember how when it was time to go to bed and I was six years old, he never kissed me, but would show all the affection he could show by brushing my face with his own bristly face. 

It wasn't perfect and I have no idea if it was normal, but it was him and he showed me the pictures in his National Geographic books and I remember that too, especially the picture of Early Man hunting the Wooly Mammoth. I will probably think about that picture on my deathbed. That, and my grandfather's bristly face. 

Family. Again and always. The way the DNA entwines and ladders itself forever and ever as long as the blood shall survive. 

Good night, y'all. 

Happy Friday. Be at peace, Aunt Harriet. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Not Going So No Pictures Will Be Forthcoming Of Enhanced Bosoms

It is time to finally unpack my suitcase from last weekend.
I am not going to Singer Island.
I just can't. I am so exhausted in the head that I'm trading a weekend with loved ones in a Marriott Resort at the beach for a weekend alone with the chickens outside and the frogs and bats inside a one-hundred-and-fifty-six year old house.
Is that sad?
Well, so be it.
Let us recap:
Starting in January, my mother died, I have attended four weddings, three of them out of town and one of them for my own daughter. I have attended a funeral for a thirty-three year old girl, also out of town. I have been to Dog Island for a weekend with my grandsons and their parents and my husband. I executored a will and then decided not to do that any more. I have cleaned out my mother's room and dealt with her personal effects. Mostly.
What else?
I popped my hip completely out of joint while dancing.
I have thrown one bridal shower and at least two birthday parties and one bereavement gathering.
I have been grandmother and I have been wife and I have been friend. I have been sister and sister-in-law and daughter. I have been mother. I have gone through a period of time where two of my brothers were not speaking to me. One of them, at least, is again.
Bless.
I have gardened and walked and written and cooked almost as many dinners as there has been days in the year. I have laughed and I have motherfucking cried. I have tended dogs and cats and chickens. Maybe not very well but they're all still alive.

I have not lost weight, taken up yoga again, written the Great American Novel or even very terrific blog posts. I have not done a whole lot of cleaning. I have not been the greatest wife, mother, or friend but by god, I've been a decent grandmother. And I have kept up with the laundry. I have not resorted to daytime drinking nor become a prescription pill addict.
Lately, however, I seem to be crying an awful lot.

And all of these things both done and undone have finally had their way with me to the point where no, I cannot pack and get in a car and drive for hours and be in a place where I have to put on a bra to go to breakfast nor decide what to do for fun, no matter how much I may regret it, especially thinking of this giant full moon which I'll miss seeing over the Atlantic ocean.
I will have to make do with watching it rise over the pecan trees and I will be fine with that.

Today is the Summer Solstice.
My phlox have just started blooming.

My husband just left and I cried and told him in every way I know how to come home safely.

I am going to stop crying. I am going to go to town and run errands with Lily and my grandsons. I am going to come home and I am going to spend the weekend watching the phlox unfurl, the birds as they feed and fly, the heavy bellied moon rise.

I am staying home and unpacking my suitcase and it is time.