Halloween In Lloyd

Well, it's Halloween night and Mr. Moon just left me for the hunting camp, making me a weekend hunting widow. We've had four Trick-or-Treaters here already which is four more than we've had in years. They were all of one family, and all of dubious costumage. I bought one small bag of microscopic Snickers bars to give out because I don't care that much for Snickers. I thought about the peanut allergy thing after I bought them but folks in Lloyd probably don't suffer much from peanut allergies. I don't know why I'd even say that but I have a feeling it's the truth.

I had a chat with my next-door neighbor this morning. She is the keeper of the goats and Mr. Peep, the famous aged turkey, and the mule and the donkey and about fifteen dogs. She was driving to the dump and I was on my walk and I stood in the street and talked to her for a good long while, mostly about chickens, while people had to drive around us. That, too, is Lloyd. She just heard about wolf urine which you can buy at the feed store to put around your coop to deter small predators like raccoons. She said, "Now I can get some more chickens!" Her inventory of hens is down too. We also talked about the barking dogs I can hear from the yard on the other side of her property. She says that they are hog dogs and she's spoken to the owner about them and their barking. Hog dogs, for those of you who may not know, are dogs who are kept to hunt wild hog. They are not pets. I do not truly approve of the keeping of dogs for such a purpose in a small enclosed area but this is the country and country folks do not need my approval. We all live out here because we don't want to live where there are rules and regulations that interfere with what we deem to be our own inalienable rights. For me that may mean nothing more than the fact that I mostly want to wear overalls and keep chickens and hang my clothes on the line when I want to and for some people it may mean they can keep hog dogs. For the guys down the road, it means they can fly their rainbow flag outside their double-wide. This is the way of it.
My neighbor and I have very little in common except for the fact that we both live in Lloyd and we both keep chickens and neither one of us much wears a bra. She's very Christian and very Republican and we don't talk a whole lot but when we do, we're friendly. She's tough, that woman. Tough as an old boot. I have seen her covered in mosquitoes and not even batting an eye, much less a hand to smack one. But I realized something today which I had never noticed before- she is beautiful. She's probably my age or a little older and her skin is like porcelain. She doesn't do one thing to "fix up" but honestly- she's gorgeous. How did I never notice that before? I am not sure, but I noticed it today.

I had a good time in town with my boys although Owen threw a fit in Target because he was so very sad that he couldn't have one of the same toys I got Waylon for his birthday. Lily and I tried to explain how it's Waylon's birthday, and so he's getting the present, and we told him that we know it's hard, and we talked about how Christmas is coming up and all that crap you say to a kid when he wants a toy that another child is getting. When Owen goes into these deep dramatics, it reminds me so much of his mother when she was a child and it gives me the same stomachache I used to get when Lily did it. I told Lily that and she said that it didn't affect her that way at all. She just talks to him reasonably and lets it go. That was another lesson for me today- that not everyone reacts the same way to situations that I do and I said, "Can you imagine if I'd gone into pediatric nursing?"
She laughed.
I can still remember doing my pediatric clinicals for nursing school and how horrible that was for me. I remember one patient I had, a tiny little thing who had Cystic Fibrosis and I will never, ever forget the way my heart tore in two when I read up on the disease, when I realized how short the child's lifespan might be, and especially when I was the only one in the room with the baby and the way he cried, his chest filled with mucus.
I was never really meant to be a nurse. I would have carried every patient's pain too much in my self. Working at the birth center for awhile was good. Childbirth involves pain, yes, which I understood all too well, but I also knew what the miraculous reward would be and so I was effective there. Ironically, if I HAD to work as a nurse again, I would want to work with the dying, I think, like my friend Terry, who is a hospice nurse and who writes about that HERE.
She helps midwife the dying and she is an angel to the families she serves. I can only imagine the sense of comfort she brings with her when she walks into a home where a beloved member is in that place of getting ready to change planes. It's a blessing to this earth that she does the work she does.

Well. It is Halloween. I remember Trick-or-Treating as a child, going around Roseland, sitting on the folded-down tailgate of my best friend, Lucille Ferger's mother's old brown station wagon. I was usually a gypsy and I can't remember what Lucille was but we bumped along the dirt roads until Mrs. Ferger would stop the car and let us scatter to the lighted doorways to hold out our paper bags and yell, "Trick or treat!" and we'd get whatever candy was offered and hop back on the tailgate and bump down another road. You'd get arrested for that now. We survived and no one had ever heard of peanut allergies.

Here are Owen and Gibson tonight in their costumes.

The Hulk and Scooby-Doo. Lily found the Scooby Do costume at the Goodwill last week. Score! Gibson is learning so fast these days. I've recently started doing something I've never done before and I don't know why because it's such a southern thing to do. I demand "sugar" from them and kiss their necks below their ears and make noises of great delicious appreciation. Owen barely tolerates this but Gibson loves it. 

"Guga," he says, offering me his neck. I kiss and smack it with great glee and then he offers the other side. "Guga!" I kiss him until I swoon from diabetic shock. 

Oh, sweetness. 

Owen has promised to share his candy with me and I appreciate that greatly. I told him that I'd take any Mounds bars he got but that since I'm a grown-up, I can buy my own candy if I want it. One of the great things about being an adult- being able to buy and eat all the candy you want. 

We've had no more Trick-or-Treaters but someone to the south of us set off fireworks. The hog dogs are quiet. I am alone. 

It's Halloween night in Lloyd. 

Eat all the candy you want. You're a grown-up. You're allowed.

Love...Ms. Moon 

Walking This Path Today

Blooming Firespike

Rooting Firespike

Yesterday when I said that I got up and thought that maybe I shouldn't blog anymore, I was in my morning membrane of despair and within that membrane, there are feelings of great inadequacy and despondency as well as despair. And my words about not blogging any more came from that place, and a feeling that everything I write lately is filled with ennui and is of no use to anyone.

It was truly what I was feeling, was thinking. 

But. I cannot give it up. It is my joy and whether or not it means anything to anyone but me, here it is.

One aging woman's message in a bottle, flung out to the universe, of no more importance than the footprints I leave on my walk. And yet, even as I walk down that dirt path, I do take note of what has walked there before me. The coon prints, the fox's dainty paw prints, the sharp, pointed, cleaved print of the doe, the thin, slithery trail of the snake. 

We are all walking together, aren't we? 

Here are my footprints. Here are yours. 

I am going to town to go to Target with my daughter and grandsons. We will buy Waylon a birthday present. It is Halloween. This is my trail today. Thank all of you who took the time to stop and tell me that you walk with me. There is no way to describe how that makes me feel. 

What Moral Authority?

I read through the comments I got on this morning's (pathetic) post and I cried. I fucking cried. 

It occurs to me that it is not the ground which is shallow, it is mostly a matter of digging my shovel deeper into it and it is easier to believe that sometimes than other times. And it is scarier to do that sometimes than other times and that's another truth we may all recognize.

The sun has set and the last of the hens are flapping their wings to get up to the nests where they roost every night and the orange and white cat which has been eating from our cat's food bowl is waiting patiently, she or he (I still don't know) is already aware of the times of day the bowl gets filled. 

I sent the boys home with feet black from dirt. Gibson's especially were dirty and they were going over to their other grandmother's house and if I'd known that, I'd probably have washed those little feet before they left. I do have some pride. Not much. When Lily called to tell me that Jason was on the way to pick Owen and Gibson up I said, "Thank god. We're playing Candy Land." 

Why in hell did I ever get that child Candy Land? Bad enough it's the most boring game in the universe but Gibson insists on sitting on my lap when we play and he wants a game piece too, and cards as well. "Blue," he repeats, as he folds and crumples a blue card. There are plenty of blue cards. Owen can't stand losing so before the game is over he'll say something like, "Pretend I'm all the way to the castle," and usually I just give in and say, "Sure, you win," but sometimes the four-year old in me comes out and I say, "No way. That is not how you play the game," which is probably not any more constructive than letting him win. I don't know and thank god that I'm not responsible for his moral upbringing. I'm not real good at moral upbringings although my own kids turned out to be pretty fair and square in that department. 

Owen stripped my avocado plant today. We'd been outside, feeding the chickens and I went in to get Gibson who had just woken up from a nap and Owen called to me to come and see what the chickens had done and there was my bare-naked avocado plant I'd grown from a seed and I almost cried. I mean, I have another one and it's just a plant but it was one of those moments. 

"Owen, the chickens did NOT do that. You did. Why did you do that?"And then I went into the story of how I grew the plant from a seed and how long it took and I'm sure it was all blah, blah, blah to him, but he finally said he was sorry and I'm sure he meant it because he hates the idea of me being mad at him. MerMer being mad at Owen is a true and complete disturbance of the universe and as I was giving Owen the speech about nurturing that plant from a seed, Gibson, who was sitting on my hip, patted me on the back as if to comfort me and I melted all over the porch and then we went inside and had muffins and chocolate milk and then we played Candy Land. 

Those boys. Having said all of that, I wish you could have seen how gently Owen helped Gibson down from a bench in the boat when they were playing. He was strong and sweet and the best big brother ever and I told him that, too. Let 'em know when they do right and let 'em know when they do wrong, I guess, and let the Candy Land shit slide. 

I don't know.

I don't know much. 

The soup is ready and Mr. Moon is home and it's time to eat supper. The heater is fixed and the avocado plant will grow back most likely and I don't even care if it doesn't. Hell's bells. 

I'll see you tomorrow. You can pretty much count on that one. 

Oh wait. I never did explain that picture, did I? That's because there is no explanation. Enjoy. 

Same-Same

I should be out walking but Heater Repair Guy showed up with the parts to fix the heater and he's still here and he's doing things like leveling the unit with a lever and a fulcrum and bricks and he just Shop Vac'ed the thing out and he keeps needing things like a Shop Vac and bricks and I am not kidding you, he just asked for a brush and some towels so he can scrub the unit and "bring it back to its original luster."
That's a quote.
Some people truly are in the right profession for them and this man may be one of them.

I am feeling particularly pathetic today. I woke up wondering if perhaps I should quit blogging. It has been a wonderful thing for me and I don't even know how I'd manage without this community but...WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?
Nothing. Saying the same things over and over again about the same things.
Did you hear that my firespike is blooming?
Yeah. I think you did hear that.
Etc.

Meanwhile, the world is going on at its usual frantic pace and here I sit, making my small and pathetic observations about the weather in Lloyd. I ran into a woman at Publix on Monday whom I vaguely know from back in the seventies and she said, "You really ought to come by the Arts Council."
She was speaking of the one in Monticello.
"Uh, yeah," I said, thinking, Are you kidding me? And do what? 
The idea of going to town to find Waylon a birthday present has me a little stressed out. Let's not even mention the fact that I desperately need new glasses and can't even bring myself to make an appointment to get my eyes examined. I'm almost to the point of wishing that Gibson would break my glasses so I'd be forced to do that.
NOT REALLY, UNIVERSE! IGNORE THAT! JUST THE RANTINGS OF A CRAZY, AGORAPHOBIC WOMAN!

Anyway, so I was thinking that, about the quitting blogging and then a friend e-mailed me and thanked me for my blog but he's just being sweet.

Heater Guy is now waiting for some other guys to show up to help him level the unit. This could take all day. I wonder if we're paying him by the hour. He just said, "It's pretty quiet out here, isn't it?"

See? I'm talking about a non-conversation with a heater repair man concerning how quiet it is in Lloyd.

The boys are coming out in a little while and so for at least five or six hours I will feel as if I am needed, as if my life has purpose, as if I am a little bit less pathetic.

I just found a spot on my hand. I wonder if it's skin cancer. It's definitely not a tick.

I think I'll go make soup.

Did I tell you that my firespike is blooming?
Man. I made some excellent pumpkin/banana oat bran muffins last night.
Sure is quiet out here in Lloyd today.

And so forth.

I Am A Traditionalist

My big boy paid me a surprise visit this afternoon when his dad came out to help Mr. Moon with something, uh, to do with a deer feeder? (Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, etc.)
While the men were out in the garage doing that (whatever it was) Owen helped me carve the pumpkin. Just as we were finished, it was time to take the feeder thing out to the woods and so I finished up and gave the seeds and guts to the chickens and have set the pumpkin out on the porch.
As always, when I carve a pumpkin, it looks like a four year-old carved it with a very dull, perhaps plastic, knife. In this case, a four year-old helped so I am going to pretend that's the reason it looks the way it does.
But to be honest, it looks exactly like all of my Jack O'Lanterns look except that Owen drew the eyes and so they are round instead of triangular.

I think it is a fine and merry pumpkin and I love it. 

Of Cabbages And Kings

I bought a new purse yesterday at the Costco. It was one of those items right inside the door as you walk in, a giant tower of them and of course, quite reasonably priced. I fondled one of them, I examined it and it felt...right. Not too big and with three pockets on the outside and a few on the inside and a good, strong strap and substantial hardware.
"I want this," I said to Lily.
"Well get it," she said.
And I threw the box in the cart. Why a purse has to come in a box I do not know but at Costco, purses come in boxes and are tied in with a plastic strip which I am sure is made of the same material they use to make disposable wrist-binders for the police these days. Not binders. What's the word? Those things they used to call handcuffs?
Whatever. It required a sharp knife to free it from its imprisoning box. So much waste in packaging. The sturdy cardboard box, the paper which had been wadded up and placed in the bag to give it such a nice fullness, a hint of its holding capacity. I like it. And trust me- I have paid far more for purses in the past. When I transferred all the contents of my old purse to the new one, Owen asked me if I was going to throw the old one away.
I was horrified. I never throw purses away. I have...well, far more purses than I should and at least two of my daughters and one of my friends carry purses which I have given them and I used to have a fairly serious and almost worrisome purse-addiction but this is the first purse I've bought in maybe over a year and I am happy with it.

Here's what it looks like.

I should have cropped that sucker. Oh well.

The pecan trees have lost most of their leaves which means that the sun shines almost too brightly into my back porch. It shows how badly I need to refinish or perhaps paint that table. I have always wanted to paint it a shiny, lacquered, Chinese Red but have never done so.
Perhaps one day. It is covered in ink stains and dark spots where mildew has taken hold and food coloring from Easter Egg dyeing and water colors from Owen's art sessions. Sometimes I keep a tablecloth on it and sometimes I do not. I probably use this table more than any piece of furniture in my house and it is one of those prosaic items which we are so familiar with we do not even give it a thought. I bemoan all the "stuff" in my life but the truth is, some of my stuff is beloved to me. This table is one of those things. Perhaps one day that purse will be too. One can never predict these things.

I've had a good morning so far. I exercised, I stretched, I walked. I made Mr. Moon eat salmon last night and so to make up for that, I have two venison backstraps in the crock pot with carrots and celery and onions and yes, a little bacon. I am also going to cook a purple cabbage tonight with apples and onions and dried cherries and golden raisins and a little brown sugar, a little vinegar, some caraway seeds, perhaps a tiny bit of real butter. I am looking forward to that a great deal. It seems like such a fall food, doesn't it? I feel like a housewife today. I am not going to town, I am staying right here, I am doing laundry, I am going to tidy and sweep and...oh yes...clean the rat shit out of the drawer in the bottom of the stove.
Sigh.
I would say that the cooler weather has brought the mice and their larger vermin kin into the house and that may be true but it only adds to the population which has been living here all through the summer. Should I be ashamed to admit that? Well, it's hardly a secret. I have spoken more than once about the critters that live in my walls and in my ceilings and I am not sure, short of arson, how I would rid myself of all of them. But when I start finding their poop, it is time to bring out the traps and Mr. Moon got something last night which he described as being a "large mouse".
Mmmm....
I may be a bit too sanguine about this whole situation. We all know that when one of the rodents takes up residence in my bedroom I do not rest until he or she is gone from this earth. Poor Mr. Moon. He is my designated executioner and he does not enjoy the job but I suppose it's part of our unwritten contract (and we all have them) that he kills the mice and rats and I clean up their poop. And so I shall do my job.
When I read Keith Richards' autobiography, I was a bit charmed to hear that he had kept a mouse as a pet, not in a cage, but in his pocket where he would take it with him everywhere, even to school. He said it was no trouble, and that its shit was hardly a bother and I take heart in that. I made the mistake this morning of watching "just a few" moments of the interview he did with Anthony DeCurtis at the New York Public Library three years ago today and even though I have watched the entire thing before, I was again taken in and had a hard time stopping the video and going about the business I needed to attend to. If I get everything done today that I want to get done, I will finish watching it again. With Lou Reed's death, I am reminded of how short and tenuous the lifespan of a rockstar is, especially one who pushed every limit every day of his or her young life and I am just so grateful that Keith is still among the living.

Yesterday, out of nowhere, Owen said at lunch that he hopes the Rolling Stones never die. He is aware that they are not spring chickens. I told him that I, too, wished they could live forever, but that they would not. That we all die.
He said, "I going to miss you so much when you die, Mer."
"That's why I try to spend so much time with you," I told him. "So that when I die, you will have lots and lots of memories of me."
He then progressed in this thought process to the fact that his mother would one day die and then, oh god! to the fact that he, too, would die someday.
"It's all right," we told him. "You aren't going to die for a very, very long time."
You know, the words you always tell a child when death first becomes something of a reality to them. When their own mortality dawns on them.
"It's okay," I told him. "Everything dies. Everything which is born will die."
He cried a little but then he cheered up.
He also announced yesterday that he doesn't need any parents at all any more which struck both me and Lily as hilarious. We discussed that theory and he did finally admit that yes, he needs his parents still. I said, "You know, sometimes your mommy even still needs me because I am her mother. Even now."
He considered this and agreed that it was true.

I am wandering here. From purses to tables to venison and cabbage to rodents, to Keith Richards, to mortality. I am sitting here at this table on my back porch with the sun pouring in and these are the things I am thinking. And of course, I am avoiding cleaning up rat shit.
But thank-you for coming along with me as I meander. It is a beautiful day and I am so glad you're here. I think of you as I write. It's so odd and so tender to me how I think of you as I sit in the puddle of golden light, luxuriating in a day in which I have time to meander. A day in which I can wear my overalls, my very blue shirt, directing my own schedule as I wish.

Hello. We will all die someday but until then, here we are and it's a beautiful fall day and Keith Richards is still alive and so am I and so are you. Some days, things like this are enough. I am glad that today is one of those days.

Hello.

They Were Proud Of Their Crab Claws

We never made it to Trader Joe's today. After a lunch and a quick swing through Whole Foods, both Lily and I, not to mention the boys, had had enough retailing and we still had to go to Costco.
Whole Foods simply overwhelmed me. I didn't even look at the prices except for what they were asking for their stone crab claws. Want to hear? For the colossals, they were asking (and I suppose getting) $49.99 a pound. A POUND, PEOPLE! No, I didn't buy any. What we did buy was two bunches of "living" basil (which I came home and planted in dirt- why the fuck not? it has roots) and a small pumpkin for Owen to have as his own. It was just overwhelming and once again, I was amazed at what we Americans think of as healthy food as I looked around at all of the packaged, processed goods. Look- just because something is made out of lentils instead of potatoes, if it's fried and salted, it's not going to be that good for you. Even the hot bar's sliced and grilled or baked or whatever-it-was squash was swimming in oil and I kept thinking of back in the day when I did Weight Watcher classes and how people would cry and moan because all they'd been eating were salads and yet, they weren't losing weight and when I asked them what constituted a salad in their world, would not be surprised at all to hear about the cheese, the croutons, the olives, the eggs, the beans, the half a cup of "lite" ranch dressing.
"Might as well get the hamburger and fries," I told them. "Less calories."
Somehow, just the very presence of lettuce (or these days, kale) makes one feel virtuous and that's crap and we know it.
Well, whatever. I will probably go back at some point and be stunned and amazed at the different brands of almond milk and hummus and so forth and I'm really looking forward to my virgin journey to Trader Joe's which everyone seems to love.

Costco was Costco and we made it through there without incident. Well, okay, there was a little more yogurt smoothie and hot chocolate on the floor after we left than before we got there but hey! No blood, no foul. Lily went to work and I stayed with the boys for awhile and it was a sweet time. While I was there, Billy and I did a little texting and you know how much I love Billy's texts. It's about to be Waylon's birthday and we were discussing his little party, among other things.

Oh, Billy.
If only he would start his own blog. My god. He would be famous in a month.

Well, it's one of those evenings where I am savoring the prospect of taking a shower and getting in the bed under my fifty-eight pounds of covers and reading for awhile. I am looking forward to that with almost obscene anticipation.

Not as obscene as someone paying fifty dollars a pound for crab claws, but that's a whole other world inhabited by entirely different human beings than I am personally familiar with and when Mr. Moon and I move to Apalachicola, should that day ever come, I will go out in the boat and pull crab traps with him and I will eat those crab claws with lusty glee.

Night, y'all.

Sweet dreams.

Fall Stuff

Morning in Lloyd and quiet and clear and chilly. Our heater is not working which doesn't bother me at night because I like sleeping in a cave made of covers and it's not really that bad this morning and of course, what we might call chilly here would barely be bracing where you live but what in this world is not relative? And it will get colder and so the heater guy must be called and we will not die of freezing, I feel certain.

I am being lazy this morning. It feels good, it feels okay. Last week Jessie and Vergil and Greta were here and now they're not and it's just me and my old sleeping dogs and Elvis out in the coop who is calling to be let out. I am going to town today. Lily and I are talking about taking a field trip to Tallahassee's newest stores which both opened a few weeks ago. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods and can you believe I haven't stepped foot in either one of them? And Costco. We need to go to Costco for something. I can't remember what. And Publix because I need toilet paper. Good Lord! Does Trader Joe's have toilet paper? Surely they must. Whole Foods probably does too but it's most likely made from recycled and repurposed angel wings or something and costs five dollars a roll. Of course Costco has flats and vats of toilet paper but it's all Charmin usually and I refuse to buy it because the Koch Brothers own that company and so fuck no.
Well. We shall see.

If we do ever move to Apalachicola, our food shopping choices will be narrowed down to the Piggly Wiggly and I am not even kidding you. I think the local residents affectionately refer to it as "The Pig". We have actually discussed buying a small interior lot simply to grow a garden on but I'm not so sure we'll be doing that. I can barely manage to keep up with my garden here and it's about twenty feet away from the kitchen. The lot where we'll build our house doesn't have a whole lot of room and I won't even be able to keep chickens which is a great sadness. We've discussed it but between the alligators and the snakes and the birds of prey and the raccoons, I think it would be one heartache after another, trying to keep hens alive.

Speaking of hens, Miss Ozzie is sitting on the nest so perhaps we shall get another egg today. Wonders never cease.

I really must get off my ass now and move into this beautiful day. There are adventures to be had and grandsons to be kissed and retail outlets to be explored. I just looked up Trader Joe's online and they think I'd like pumpkin butter. I think not. But I do want to buy a pumpkin because it's almost Halloween and there is something I do love about carving a pumpkin into a gap-toothed Jack O'Lantern. The smell of the pumpkin as I cut into it, the tactile sense of reaching in and pulling out the smooth seeds, the setting of the candle inside, the placing of him on the porch in the darkness, the stepping-back and seeing that grin in the night. Yes. I want to do that.

Here we go. Happy Monday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Best 29th Anniversary Of My Life

We drove home this morning through the piney woods beside the beautiful water, all the way back to Lloyd, sad to have left our beautiful "new hotel house" as we kept calling it because that's what Owen calls hotels but happy to be coming home. This weather is unbelievable and the golden rod and yellow black-eyed susans bloom along the roadsides and glow in the sun and the air is cool and there's not much not to love about it all.

We had such a good weekend. It was what we needed. Time together to relax and laugh and to love. We laughed a lot. Last evening my phone rang and it was Lily. She apologized for calling but said that Owen had something he had to tell me and of course, I wanted to hear it. He was almost screaming, he was so excited and as he spoke, his voice got louder and louder. One of the hens had laid an egg and he described where in the hen house he'd found it and that it didn't even break! and he was simply beside himself with the excitement of one of the hens finally, and at last, laying us a nice green egg.
"Tell Boppy!" he yelled. "Tell Boppy!"
"Do you want to tell him?" I asked.
"Yes!" he screamed.
So I handed Glen the phone and said, "It's Owen. I think he's drunk."
And I still can't stop laughing about that.
I'm not even sure why, but I just can't.

We got home and hit the ground running. Mr. Moon did something all afternoon with his four-wheeler and his deer feeder. Don't ask me. One of the other things that we laughed about all weekend was that I finally admitted out loud that when he talks about sports and hunting-related things I only hear blah-blah-blah-blah, like the voice of an adult on a Charley Brown special. I mean, it's just the truth. I TRY to listen but it all sounds like blah-blah to me. It's like trying to read the fine print on a contract. I am just incapable of any sort of true comprehension. So anyway, Mr. Moon did that and I unpacked and started laundry and so far I've done five loads including sheets and towels and our clothes from the weekend and I pulled some of the disastrously invasive potato vine and cleaned out the hen house and put in fresh straw in the nests and watered all the porch plants and then I got out the clippers and the Rubber Maid wheelbarrow and began my yearly cutting back of the Confederate Jasmine which grows on the chain link fence and it's not a hard job but it takes a long time and if I don't do it, the vine will no doubt take that fence down eventually. And the vine leaks where it has been cut, a nasty milky sap which sticks to my skin and my glasses and my overalls and I have to trundle it to the pile where we dump weeds and cuttings and I finally finished up and I am glad to have done it. Our sheets are clean on the bed and most of the laundry is done and I'm going to rustle us up some leftovers here in a little while.
I am so glad to have gone and I am so glad to be back. I am also so very glad to have more energy than I've had in forever and less pain, as well. So much for healthy living. All I did all weekend was eat outrageously delicious (and bad for me) foods and drink coffee and alcohol and fool around and sleep. The farthest I walked was a few blocks in Apalachicola, mostly to go eat more delicious and unhealthy food. Last night after our dinner, we came home and had a buffet of all the desserts we'd brought home with us over the weekend and there was pecan pie, a chocolate-caramel mousse thing, some ice cream AND key lime pie. I'm not even kidding you. It was awesome.
And that was AFTER eating scallops and fried soft-shell crab and potato salad which had to have been made with mostly sour cream and bacon.
Oh Jesus. I'm going to go to hell.

Oh well. They'll have to bring a fork lift to get me there.

The train is going by and the kids at the church next door are playing outside, their voices rising and falling and we're home. The firespike is still blooming and there was a beautiful mural on the wall in the entrance of the place we stayed and the artist had painted firespike with hummingbirds all over it and that made me so happy- I felt at home, every time I walked past it. If we do ever build our house in Apalachicola, I can take some of my firespike with us and also butterfly lily and the phlox, carrying all of them with me from this yard to that one as I have carried them here from other yards.
I do not think I will plant Confederate jasmine there though. No. I'm pretty sure I won't. But there will be bananas and a mulberry tree and perhaps a pear and a fig, hibiscus and roses and herbs in pots, perhaps. We shall see.
We shall see.

We went away, we came home. "That has been the best 29th anniversary I've ever had," my husband said as we were packing up this morning.
I agreed.
And right now I am thinking of the wish I always make whether on birthday candles or falling stars which is simply, "More, please."

More love and more time beside the water and even more laundry and more meals, both healthy and un-, more yardwork and eggs and phone conversations with my grandsons and more anniversaries, more of all of it, the crazy and chaotic dance of it all. That may be selfish but that's my wish.
Bring on the fork lift. There's lemon pie left in the refrigerator so yes, more of that too.

We're home.

Being Slow, Enjoying It All

It has been a slow and easy day here in Franklin County. Mr. Moon and I crossed the bridge over to Eastpoint this morning for breakfast and then we went on to St. George Island just to drive around and look at houses and mark the changes from twenty years ago. The island is such a different place now. But still beautiful and the oyster men were out in the bay, tonging oysters the way they've been doing for hundreds of years. 

We came back to Apalach and ate some of those oysters for our lunch, his raw and mine baked with cheese and bacon and jalapeños. We had a beer with our lunch and came back and had a nap and I woke up in a panic. Fifty feet away from River Lily, the best little shop in three counties, at least, and I hadn't so much as stepped in the door and I sprang up and got dressed and went over and bought a few little things and then talked to the woman working there for half an hour about her recent move from Long Island to Apalachicola which seems like an impossible journey but here she is and happy to be and now I'm sitting on the balcony, drinking coffee, happy myself to have journeyed here from Lloyd, if only for this weekend. 

Pictures. 

Some of the little garden where we are staying. 

Part of the living room. We want the house we are planning to build here to look a lot like this. The reclaimed wooden floors, light, perhaps pressed tin ceilings.

A view from here of the restaurant next door where we had our supper last night. Apalachicola has done a fantastic job of restoring old buildings and making them charming and lovely and right now the sun is getting lower in the sky and I can hear people chatting and laughing from the deck you can almost see, Saturday night beginning as the entire day has gone, in a slow and easy way and the doves are cooing and a nearby church just rang six bells and if I wasn't so lazy I could walk all the down the stairs and take a picture of the river on the other side of the building and there are dragonflies and tiny birds darting overhead in the blue, blue October sky. 

Okay. For you. Just for you. 

Love... Ms. Moon

What We Look Like Tonight

Sigh

This is the sweetest place. Charm out the yang. 

I'll get some pictures tomorrow but now I have to get ready for supper. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Best sheets I ever napped on. Also- here are the toiletries. They're going to have to kick me out of here. 

Did I mention there's a laundry room? Not that I'm going to use it but I could if I wanted. 

A Day For Sweethearts

Well, the babies have packed up and are on the road. I made them pose for this picture

But of course the one I snapped as they were leaving is much better.

Except that you can hardly see my sweet son-in-law. 

Mr. Moon has gone to town to wrap up a few ends (buy vodka) and I am doing laundry, need to make up the beds, shower and pack. We should get out of here eventually.

It's a beautiful day, just like the day we got married. The air is cool and feels like sweet water on the skin. The sky is clear and it is so quiet now that everyone has gone. Just the flanging of the overall straps in the dryer. My life's theme song. 

Hearts are so resilient and I am glad of that. Mine is breaking a little bit because Jessie and Vergil (and yes, even Greta who stole a little piece of it this week) have come and gone but I am looking forward to that beautiful drive down to the coast with my sweetheart, as Owen always refers to Mr. Moon when I talk to him on the phone when Owen is here. "Is it your sweetheart?" he asks. 

I need to try and make a reservation for our supper tonight. I am yearning to feel celebratory and romantic. It does not come so easily to me these days as I so quickly age, as the joints hurt, as the face falls, as the camera does not lie. It was two seconds ago that we were so young, so beautiful, standing there in the park surrounded by loved ones, sneaking in a kiss before the officiant told us we were given permission. We had no idea, no one ever does, of what was to come. The babies, the businesses, the work and fatigue and constant struggle to just keep it all together. The deaths of those we thought would never die. The high and low tides of marriage in and of itself. The beautiful trips we've taken together. The simplest meals eaten in our own home, side-by-side at the little table in the Glen Den watching Jeopardy like some cliche of an old married couple. The sunsets at Dog Island and those watched from a balcony in Cozumel. The middle-of-the-night phone calls and baby illnesses. The tears- oh, the tears! of gratefulness and joy and pain. So many tears. 

And so much laughter. 

The hanging-in of it all. Through the low-tides, through the exhaustion, the confusion, the insanities. 

Sometimes that's all you can do. Believe and hang in. 

And then comes the joy again. 

Time to get ready to go off with my sweetheart to celebrate the hanging-in and the rewards of doing so. I celebrate that man, I am so glad he asked me to dance in that bar. I am so glad I said yes. 

Keep saying yes, y'all. 

Happy Friday.

Love...Ms. Moon

Addendum

Jessie and Vergil's lemon meringue pie. Vergil decorated it for our anniversary.

Now you just can't beat that. 

I'm so glad Jessie married that boy. 

Anniversary Eve

Tired. That's what it feels like to be fifty-nine years old on the eve of your twenty-ninth anniversary when you've spent all day playing with your grandsons, even if their Mean Aunt Jessie did more playing than you did, even if you got a tiny nap, all together on the bed, curled up like puppies.
Boys and laundry and dishes and cooking and fixing and we made play dough and it came out beautiful and Owen enjoyed that so very, very much and he made many Hulks.

"Why don't you make Superman?" I asked him.

"I can't make humans," he answered sadly. 

Gibson helped his auntie play mandolin. 

He is a very good and rhythmic strummer. As one would imagine. 

And now there's a huge venison meatloaf in the oven and potatoes baking and Jessie and Vergil are making a lemon meringue pie and after supper they are going to town to do karaoke, starting at TEN P.M.!

Jesus. I'll be asleep by 10:15.

And tomorrow we'll say goodbye to Jessie and Vergil and Greta and pack up and drive to Apalachicola where I may sleep the entire weekend. Which may not sound very romantic to any of you young hot things who have only been in relationships for ten or twenty years but which sounds sort of incredibly perfect to me. No dogs, no chickens, no grandsons, no cooking, no laundry, no dishes....

Yeah.

We may do more than sleep. There might be some kissing. 

We'll see.

Stay warm, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Being Here Now

The girls played outside and sang and people sat and listened and and friends met up and Hank and May were there and it was like a dream in the chilling darkness and I remembered watching a lunar eclipse somewhere very nearby there, forty years ago. It was one of those times when time itself spins and it's difficult, if not impossible, to hold on to the present as the past is too much there.

Home to sleep under cave-covers, up to get ready for the boys to come. It will be a full day of them here and it's Jessie and Vergil's last day here and I'm not sure what they're doing but I'm fairly certain of what I'll be doing and it will involve snacks and stories and toys and dogs and chickens and watch this! and arms held up to me, hold me, and I'm not sure if it's a Power Ranger who will be here or a Hulk but a super hero for sure and his little brother, too, and I had no idea, twenty-nine years ago when I was one-day-before-married-to-that-very-tall man that here we'd be, grandsons, grown children, all the spinning life of it but instead was mostly worried about my dress, our vows (we had no idea what we were saying) the flowers, the cake, we had had four days to get ready for a spontaneous wedding, no idea that one day would lead into another, twenty-nine times three-hundred-and-sixty-five, today, this one, here we are and it's chilly and the boys are coming and the girls sang last night, sending sweet notes up to the skies to join all the other vibrations of sound, love, worry, joy, everything of humanity, good morning from Lloyd and we go on, the world spinning, sometimes we do too.

We do too and who could have known?

My boys have been the sweetest, kindest little boys today. When we fed apples to the mule, Owen stroked her face and said, "We always take care of you. We never hurt you."
I could have died.
They have played with Greta and Boppy who came home early and with me too. We've read some and talked a lot and danced some too. Owen discovered he could go in and out the window from my bedroom to the porch and so there was a lot of that.
It's been a beautiful day.
Right now Jason and Mr. Moon are cutting up some deer meat and Owen is watching them (hey- not my call and I guess if he's going to eat meat, he needs to know where it comes from) and Gibson is sitting on a chair on the porch entertaining himself with a Mardi Gras bead necklace. Don't worry. I'm watching him. I won't let him choke. That boy pooped on the potty today. Yes! Gibson! He told his mother he needed to, she took his clothes off and set him on it and he pooped.
He probably won't do it again for another six months but we're impressed.

Tonight Mr. Moon and I are going into town to get a little supper and then to watch Jessie play with the Cicada Ladies. It'll be a pre-anniversary date. On Friday we'll have been married for 29 years. TWENTY NINE YEARS!

We're going to go to Apalachicola for the weekend and that will be lovely and the place we're going to be staying is more than lovely and we've never stayed there before and just the fact that my husband made us a reservation there makes me feel loved. Cherished. And that is probably why we've been married for twenty-nine years.

Okay. Boys are gone. Time to shower and get to town to see our baby girl play mandolin.

Sigh. I am so grateful for a better day.

The Leaves Are Shushing The Air

Cooler, rain-washed, light moving with the breeze as the leaves take turns reflecting the light back.
Quiet.
I feel quiet and have the need for quiet in both mind and body.
So that's enough.

There Is No Script

Town was fine with my girls and my boys and I could only hang through the mall and then lunch which we ate at an Indian buffet, Gibson saying, "Picy!" meaning spicy but it didn't deter him and he and his brother were so happy to have both Jessie AND May-May, both of their beautiful beloved lady-aunts, and even Mama and MerMer too, and in Sephora, I touched up Owen's current tattoo which Hank gave him (a spider) with glittery waterproof eyeliner and if I ever go back to Cozumel, I am buying some of that eyeliner, it is the color of mermaids and the water of the Caribbean and I will wear it to dinner every night.

Meanwhile, here we are in Lloyd, tomorrow those boys are coming, tonight Freddy is filming a movie in my backyard in the drizzling darkness.
"Action," he says.
I am quiet, Greta is laying by my feet (Jessie has a rehearsal in town and Vergil is with her) and she is quiet too. She has become my shadow when her true humans are gone. She is a good shadow. I let her lay on the bed with me this afternoon and will probably go to hell because she is not allowed to do that but grandmothers, well...grandmothers. Next thing you know, I'll be baking her cookies.

It is a strange life sometimes. Fuck if I can figure it out.
Don't really even feel the need to try. Not tonight, anyway, with the dripping of the rain off of the leaves in the darkness.

Action.
Cut.

On to the next scene.

An Unnatural Being

It's drizzling and we need the rain. The temperatures are supposed to begin dropping today, going to be in the forties after tomorrow. "With temperatures like that, you might as well move to Asheville, Mom," says Jessie. She is wearing the cutest skirt ever and her legs are fourteen feet long. She is incandescent, she doesn't walk across the floor, she dances, she floats, she shimmer-shimmy shakes. Vergil's already been for a run with Greta. Mr. Moon has gone to work.
I'm sitting here in my black overalls and a black shirt and my hips feel like fire and I am wrapped in some stupid damn hell fuck membrane of despair and I don't even know why.

We're supposed to have a girly day today. Me and my daughters and who wouldn't want to do that? I am not sure what that means but it may include buying make-up and having manicures and pedicures. I can hardly even imagine such a thing. I feel as far from a girl as it's possible to be and still remain in a female-gendered body, still identify (sort of) as female.
I don't feel as if I have a gender. I am feeling neither male nor female. I am merely feeling old.

I woke up at two-thirty in the morning. I started to think about Christmas and I began to feel all those feelings that always come up and I thought, I can't go through this again. And then I thought, I don't have to think about this now.

I feel like an unnatural being. I do not love dogs, I am neither male nor female. I hate Christmas and dread the depression which that day brings me so much that it wakes me up in October, it haunts my sleep.

Well. I will take some Ibuprofen. I will wash my hair and shave my legs. I will see my daughters and my grandsons. I will apologize all damn day for being such a black hole of negativity. I will try to remember that this is my life and it is good and I am blessed beyond all measure. I will appreciate the rain as it falls.

The camellias are budding up. I will think about that, how in a few months when winter is at its bleakest, there will be color and beauty, reds and pinks and whites.
Pink Perfection. I will think of Pink Perfection.

I will kiss my grandsons, I will listen to my daughters as they shimmer-shimmy-shake-twitter-giggle like jeweled birds, their beautiful eyes flashing.

Good morning.

Dogs And Guilt

It has been a dog day. A day of dogs. I washed my own dogs, the guilt of not doing it for so long washing over me like the warm water I used on them in my own beautiful bathtub. I washed them first with diluted Dr. Bronner's almond soap and then with oatmeal shampoo for dogs. I washed them, I dried them, they were fluffy and invigorated. Greta got a treat with the other two after their baths.
Dolly climbed up on Greta's bed and started gnawing her giant bone and growled when Greta wanted to take possession of her own things.
Dogs.
Dogs.
Dogs.
I tried to lay down for a nap. I had just fallen into sweet sleep when...the dogs...woke me up. Barking. Not Greta. My own stupid yappers.
I got up, I made coffee, I went out to the garden to weed. Buster began to bark. Bark and  bark and bark. I came in the house. He was barking at Greta. "Stop it! Just stop it!"
He did.
I went back out to the garden.
This happened again.
And again.
And again.
Mr. Moon called and I told him I was going mad. "Put Buster in the Glen Den," he said.
I did. He barked from there and scratched at the door.
I let him back out.

I finished the weeding. I put the water on the mustards, the collards, the arugula, the just-coming-up cilantro. Don't ask me why I'm planting cilantro but I am.
I made dinner. The dogs followed me around the kitchen. Food, they want food. They want attention, they want love and scraps and discipline and instructions and mostly food.

My dogs are fourteen, fifteen years old. How much longer can they last? They are small and could last another five years and I never take them to the vet unless something horrible (and yet, somehow never terminal) strikes them. Remember when Buster's ear swelled up like a pillow and had to be operated on and he was sent him with a quilted ear? Twice? Our dog Pearl lived to the be oldest surviving boxer on the planet. Fifteen years. Unheard of. She wandered the house in a daze of dementia before we finally did the right thing and put her down. Because I want so badly for them to be gone, I have too much guilt to have them killed.
Does that make sense to you?
Nor to me either.

A friend of mine's black lab has a cancer and he's in an expensive experimental study for treatment. Another friend who has cancer herself was just gifted a new dog. I shake my head. I know that some people love dogs. I know that some dogs are worth loving. They are smart and do not bark at the leaves moving on the trees. I look at those ads on TV about the poor abandoned animals, the mistreated, the cruelly suffering animals who just need a little money. A little money- it's like LOVE! Just a few pennies a day.
Guilt, guilt, guilt. The camera pans on the faces of these poor, mistreated dogs. My heart is supposed to break for them. Here's my guilty secret: it does not.

I would pay more than pennies a day for someone to come and get my dogs and take loving good care of them for the rest of their lives. I cannot truly say they DESERVE that but maybe they do. I think that trees are sentient beings. I have no doubt that dogs are too.
My dogs deserve better than me, I'll tell you that.

Well. A dog day. A dog's day. A dog's life.

At least today my dogs are clean. I washed them. Gently and well.

It didn't wash away my guilt. The guilt I have for not loving my dogs.

Jesus. It's things like this which make me wonder whether it's me that's crazy or the world we live in.

Probably both.

At least they're clean. My dogs are clean. My conscience most decidedly, is not.

All Negativity Aside For A Moment

Go visit Angella HERE. 
Read her story. Watch the video.
Please.

Just Another Manic Monday

This morning, before I got out of bed, I decided to try some affirmations. You know- those things where you affirm what you WANT to feel/believe/experience?
Whatever.
So I laid there and thought to myself, "Today I am going to accept with gratefulness all of the love and goodness which comes to me."

I'm waiting.

Not for the love and goodness. I drown in those things. Just the part where I accept them. And I guess where they make me happy. Or something.

I'm realizing that I am not a sweet old woman. I am a curmudgeon and getting more curmudgeonly all the time. I think I am probably a real pain in the ass to live with. However, in my defense, let me say that I am like an iceberg in that probably nine tenths of how I truly feel I try to keep below the water line. If I released my true depths of negativity, the world might come to an end.
Well, not really. I'm not THAT much of a narcissist.

Anyway, la-di-dah and it's morning in Lloyd and I'm not sure what I'm doing today. I'm not sure what I'm doing in my life either but that's another topic. It's one of those days where I know that my mind is not functioning properly or perhaps it's my spirit although I'm not sure I believe in spirit today except of course I do. I think.

Okay. Change the subject. On the island I finished reading a book I'd been enjoying for awhile. It's called The Teleportation Accident and was written by Ned Beauman and it's hysterically funny (well, it was to me) and it's a little Richard Brautigan, a little Kurt Vonnegut, a little...oh, I don't know. I'm not a fucking book reviewer. But it'll take you places and drop you off and pick you up and swirl you on to the next place. It's got cocaine, Hitler, LA back in the early days, and of course a teleportation device as well as sex and lust and desire and monkey glands.

Obviously.
I am now determined to read the author's first book which is called Boxer, Beetle.
I am infuriated to read that Mr. Beauman is all of twenty-eight years old and thus, I sort of hate him.
I hate him in the way that I hate the designer Johnny Was who makes beautiful clothing which I can't afford but which other rich bitches can and I hate them too.

Well, that's enough negativity for now. Perhaps one needs to repeat affirmations more than once. Perhaps it is a situation not unlike taking the garbage (which I actually need to do) which one has to do ALL THE DAMN TIME. And with sincerity.
Oh please.

Happy Monday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

We Are Home And A Water Spout Video

Well, we are home.

Here's how a three night weekend to the island goes:
One day to get there, one day to recover from the getting-there, one day to enjoy ourselves immensely, and one day to get home and unpack.
The following day at home is devoted to laundry and more recovery.

I think if I were younger, like, in my thirties or forties, this would not be such a big deal but truly, I do not have the energy I used to have. That's just all there is damn to it.

Anyway, we got the house over there all tidied up and the beds all remade and the towels all washed and dried and folded and put away and the dishes all washed and put away and the garbage all taken and everything locked up. We crossed the bay without incident and and with one dolphin sighting which is always a thrill. Always. A thrill and a blessing.

Vergil and Jessie helped with everything so much today. They toted and packed and cleaned and Vergil drove the truck down to the ramp so Mr. Moon could get the boat on the trailer and truly, they cut our work in half.
Still. So tired.

But here we are, home again, and our house sitters were wonderful and amazing and they left everything here clean and tidy and although the dogs are still alive, I am so grateful to come home to a neat house. Buster and Dolly have finally stopped barking at Greta and so there is a little peace.

We are home. I get to sleep in my own bed tonight.
And may my dreams not be rotten but sweet.

Here's the little video Jessie took on my iPad of the water spout on Saturday. I hope it comes out okay because it was pretty cool.
Nature. Too much? Not enough? Just right?

Whatever, generally impressive when it occurs on Dog Island.

Sunday

It's cloudy and windy and the bay is talking about making waves and the pine trees are trying to shush it and it's chilly and I had rotten dreams and it's time to wash all the sheets/towels/everything and I'm in a terrible mood but Jessie and Vergil and Greta are scampering around like...puppies on the beach. 

It is the day to go home and why can't I just blink an eye and have us there?

Sigh. 

Time to crack some eggs. 

Saturday Night On The Island

Here are a few pictures of some of the spaces in the house here on the island. The top one is of the ancient lovely cocoa-colored range, the next of its partner in cooking, the wall oven, and the third is of our bedroom. 

All extremely serviceable and mostly functioning although the griddle on the range isn't working and one of the burners is dead and the top element of the oven works now and then and one really can't predict and the bed is...well, I'm spoiled to heavenly pieces by my bed at home. 

A storm did blow through this afternoon and we played cards in the house and then we went over to the Gulf and the men threw lines in the water and Jessie and Greta and I walked to the east and then cut through back to the bay road to home and we had to stop and pull sand spurs from Greta's paws and we talked about what it's like to get older and babies and stuff that mothers who are growing old and daughters who are still so young with everything in front of them talk about. 

When we got back I started up the grill with charcoal and now chicken is cooking there and potatoes and wild mushrooms gathered in Asheville are cooking in that old Sears wall oven and the wind is blowing and after awhile we'll all go to bed, me and Mr. Moon in our room, Jessie and Vergil in theirs. There is a football game on the radio and the water is still lapping the shore but now with a flat slap instead of a gulp. 

Dog Island. This is what it's like. Tonight at least. This is how it is. 

My Lord. We were having the most laid back, pancake breakfast, easy morning on the beach, laughing at videos time when we noticed some crazy stuff going on in the water. The wind was picking up and swirling the bay in one spot in front of the house and we realized we were watching the birth of a water spout. We watched it move across the water and send a column up into the clouds and were amazed. 

Mr. Moon checked the radar and it looked like this was the harbinger of a storm front coming. Lily has to go home today because she has to be at work at 6 a.m. tomorrow. Boppy was going to take them back across the bay a little later on this afternoon but the decision was made to get on over while the gettin' was good so everything was gathered, boys were dressed, shoes were found, jeep was loaded. Lily who is SUCH a Moon that I truly wonder if she has any of my DNA at all in her, proceeded calmly to accelerate the leaving process and reassure Owen, who was already stressed out about having to leave, that Boppy would keep them all safe. Jessie and Vergil are going with them to help with the crossing and unloading and Greta and I are staying here at the house to fret and worry and tidy up. 

My husband and our daughters have Viking blood in them and I have always known this while at the same time realizing that my forebearers were obviously some fearful coast-loving tribe who never once, in the history of humanity, ventured far enough offshore to lose sight of land. 

I do love an island with all my heart but damn! I panic when a storm comes through whether on Cozumel or Dog Island. It is my way and I am glad that I have blended my genes with a man who is cautious and yet fearless, both at the same time. 

Does that make sense?

Anyway, here we are and things can change on a dime, especially on an island where all of the weather comes and goes and my boys are headed home and Greta is whimpering, wondering where her personal gods have gone and the sky is growing more cloudy by the second but the water is still flat enough and an hour ago I watched what look like smoke arising from the shallow water and then begin to rise and turn, twist and reach up to the sky and scud across the bay which had turned yellow and green instead of silver and gray and we were all in wonder at what a planet this is, watery and mutable and powerful and beautiful and right now the bay is lapping the shore with gulping sounds and the air is still again. 

Sunset

Sunset

Why It's Called Dog Island

Good morning from Dog Island. Jessie and Vergil's dog, Greta, is as happy as she can be. She loves water and there are a million things to smell. 

This morning when Owen got up he peed off that boardwalk thing. 

"It okay for me to pee anywhere on Dog Island," he said. "That's what dogs do."

These are possibly two of the reasons that Dog Island is named Dog Island. 

Mr. Moon is fixing the drain under the sink. 

Last night we had hot dogs and vodka for dinner. Well, corn on the cob and beans and cole slaw were involved too. 

Maybe beer. 

This is life on Dog Island. 

Dogs and peeing anywhere and bugs and things that need fixing and questionable dietary choices and sting rays and water and sand. 

I checked my list of things we needed here from our last stay in May. The list began with canola oil and ended with "bathroom sink". I did bring canola oil. 

I should take a walk but I have Dog Island Ass which is a real and serious medical diagnosis. So I am sitting on the porch and watching Vergil and Owen throw things into the bay for Greta to retrieve. Owen is giving Greta instructions in his little boy voice. "Drop it!" "Stay!"

Greta mostly obeys him. Owen feels powerful. 

Is it nap time yet? Dogs take a lot of naps, right?

Yes. Yes they do. 

It okay.