Thursday, August 15, 2013

And Suddenly, I Am So Homesick I Could Cry

Mr. Moon and I were planning on going to the island today but the weather report calls for a possible 6-10 inches of rain this weekend and you know, I just don't think so. Although it is lovely indeed to sit on the back porch of the shack on the bay and watch the rain, after about 24 hours of that I start to go a little insane. I probably wouldn't if there weren't things about the little house that drive me crazy but there are and that's just the way it is. The crumbling flooring in the kitchen, the sink falling from the wall in one of the bathrooms, the deck pulling away from the side of the house...
Oh, silly me. Why should any of this bother me?
Well. It just does.
And one can only lie on the bed/couch reading for so long before one begins to ache and I woke up this morning already aching, my hips feeling as if nasty demons had spent the entire night banging away at me with hammers and great oaken clubs. I know what would happen if we went and it would involve boredom-eating and boredom-drinking and, well, wait. I may be changing my mind.

No. Just kidding.

Sort of.

So to combat my aching hips, I decided to take a walk. Of course! Now I can barely walk at all. This can't be good. This can't be right. Perhaps this is only the result of the storms coming in. The barometer dropping. The sun's magnetic field flipping or whateverthefuck that whole thing's about.
Or maybe I'm just old and worn out.

Anyway, I've taken Ibuprofen and all will be well. I sort of wish we WERE going somewhere. But not somewhere which involves a gut-clinching, wave-tossed boat ride across a bay as the rain pelts down and lightening and thunder crash around us. Oh hell, I don't know....

Here's some pictures from my walk.




Clitoria in pine trees. Discuss.


A large frickking caterpillar which was humping it's way across the road. I have no idea what that thing is despite spending way too much time looking at Google images for Large Caterpillars of Florida. Here's another shot with a Double A battery for size-perspective.


What? You don't walk with Double A batteries in your cargo shorts pockets? 
Anyone know what this critter will eventually end up being? 

Here's something else I've never noticed despite walking this same route for approximately eight years. 


These are the tiniest and most delicate of orchid-like blossoms and in fact, I may have noticed them before and may even have posted pictures of them but my memory- oh, she is shot and no better than my hips. But aren't they lovely?
Anyone know what they are? 

So here I am and boy, do I need a shower and maybe a trip to town to the library at least because I just finished listening to the worst book I've possibly ever listened to which I only hung in to the end with because it was set in Cozumel but that didn't make it all right and in fact, it made it sort of worse because the narrator mispronounced name-places and knowing the island as I do, I could not make the geography of anything work in my mind and besides that, it had so many sentences that were so trite and poorly written that the whole book could have been a handbook in how not to write and yet, of course, it was written by one of our more popular authors who I am not going to even mention but no, it was not Danielle Steele. It probably would have been better if it had been. It did have lots of sex in it but it did nothing at all to inspire my libido and we'll just leave it at that. 
I might even go to the Goodwill because I'm in the mood for something new (and that's a bit oxymoron-ish, isn't it?). There's a brand new huge Goodwill way, way out the other side of Tallahassee but Jeez...

Okay. I just spent about twenty minutes looking at pictures of a B&B in Cozumel you can stay in for $35 a night. Are you fucking kidding me? $45 during the high season. We all know where it is I want to go. And this rain we're about to get is being blown up from the Gulf off the coast of the Yucatan and when it gets here I am going to suck the smell of it up so hard that I will perhaps be able to smell the heat and the lime and the garlic and the sea and the blooms and the corn and the very essence of Ixchel as it dissolves into my ground here. 

Okay. I'm crying.

Later, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon






20 comments:

  1. Okay I have to know who the author is, if only to save me from reading that book too! Come on - spill it!

    Sorry you're homesick :(

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  2. Say the word, and I'll meet you there.

    I'm dead serious.

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  3. I think that thing looks like the larvae that become June Bugs. Do you have June Bugs in Florida?

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  4. The Bug- No. I will not mention the author's name. I have my standards. Well. Supposedly. And if you picked up this book by accident and started reading and didn't put it down- well, then the book would necessarily be one you're enjoying. It's NOT Great Art. Believe me.

    Elizabeth- Do not tempt me.

    Kelly M- Maybe you're right! Let me check that out.

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  5. Kelly M- Definitely! Ha! Thanks!

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  6. If it wasn't Danielle Steele my Bernie's Nora Roberts.

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  7. I don't give a damn about the rotten author but I beg, implore you to reveal the name of that B & B in Cozumel. Please.

    And, Mary, your mood today reminds me of my cat when she can't make up her mind if she wants in or out. Sorry. Feel better.

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  8. Mary, I just opened up a banana with a red worm in it and I about flipped having the feeling as I do that I'm being attacked by the insect world at large TO WHOM I'VE NEVER KNOWINGLY DONE HARM except for the ant hill I spray painted lime green when I was six. And I thought immediately of your peanut butter and the ants therein. Hello there. I would gladly join you and Elizabeth. Anyplace but my house would be perfect.
    love,
    Rebecca

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  9. I'm glad you took me on your walk. That is a beetle larvae, I think it's an ox beetle, which is magnificent. Can't help you with the orchid name, I'm more of a bug nerd. And google tells me almost everything.

    Sorry you listened to a crappy book and your hips hurt and you wish to be in Cozumel. Hope your tears are dry and you're doing ok.
    xo

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  10. ps. Just to be clear I meant any place other than my house.

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  11. O how I wish it would rain?
    I applaud you for walking in this...weather.
    Nothing like these Fl skies is there?
    love,
    yo

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  12. I just took some Advil. Cheers. Next round in Cozumel

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  13. Lily- And you win the PRIZE! God, it sucked.

    Lo- No! I've been in a terrific mood today! Here's the link to the blog where I read about the B&B:
    http://mexcelia.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/gettin-cozy-in-cozumel-alicias-bed-breakfast/

    Madame King- I knew what you meant, of course. I am sorry a worm got in your banana. If Elizabeth and I do go to Cozumel, we will coordinate with you.

    Mel- I don't even know a caterpillar from a larva. Dang, it was a big larva though.
    And I have felt very well today.

    Yobobe- You may get rain down there. Wait and see. I hope so. I know you must be craving it.

    Denise- Your lips to god's ear.

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  14. I thought this might give you pause:
    http://www.realmonstrosities.com/2012/03/what-is-biggest-insect-in-world.html
    I like insects but the idea of that big freaking larva makes me kind of want to scratch.

    I have Cozumel on my list of places to go because of you.

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  15. I think the clitoria is the coolest flower I have EVER seen, even including the passion flower.

    They used to grow in my yard (the clitoria) but they don't anymore and I MISS them! The name says it all!!!

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  16. I see others have beaten me to it! Yes, that is a beetle larva. This page suggests it is from the Ox Beetle, but I looked up June Bug larvae and they seem to look pretty much the same, so it's anyone's guess.

    http://www.lemonbayconservancy.org/dunson_floridacreatures.htm

    I've never read a Nora Roberts book. I don't think she would be my thing. I read a couple of Danielle Steele books YEARS ago when I was in the Peace Corps and I had nothing else handy to read. They were TERRIBLE. I was amazed that woman could even get published.

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  17. Dear Mary, I sometimes think we have been here before in different bodies in different places. How else to explain the pull of certain locales and certain souls that we have no other explanation for. If this is true, and who the heck knows what's true, then for sure you had a divine life in Mexico before and it is in your cell memory. Or something. Okay, I know this is all woo woo to you, and maybe I am a little woo woo too, but Cozumel is your place. I think you should go, soon, even for a long weekend. Soon. Hugs, sweet friend.

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  19. Syd- Okay. Yeah, thanks for that site. Holy cow! There are some CREATURES on this earth, aren't there? I am almost afraid for you to to go Cozumel because what if you hate it? What if all you see is tourists and tourist-shit and the magic of it doesn't make itself apparent to you? That would be awful! And you would hate me forever.
    So maybe you shouldn't go.
    (But maybe you should.)

    lulumarie- You need to find some more clitoria and plant it in your yard! It's such a delightful little flower, isn't it?

    Steve Reed- I am no bug expert, obviously, having confused a larva with a caterpillar. Whatever it is going to grow up to become, it's going to be huge. Do not ever read a Nora Roberts book. She is no better of a writer than Danielle Steele is and how either one of them ever got published is a hateful mystery.

    Angella- Nope. I don't think that's too woo-woo at all. I am completely smart enough to know that some things just cannot be explained with the "facts" as I know them. All I know is that it has never failed that as we fly into sight of the Yucatan peninsula my body begins to shake and huge sobs begin to come forth. It's embarrassing but it's something very primal and real. And every time I talk about it-now for instance- my eyes well up with tears. And my feet seem to know the paths of that island as if I'd lived there my entire life. And those- those are facts I simply know.

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  20. We have always called them grub worms in SE GA. Never really knew what they grew up to be though so I looked em up. Sure nuff! A May or June bug. They sure are ugly.

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