It's A Good Thing We Have Children When We're Young

Lily and the boys and Hank and my friend Liz Sparks and I had lunch today at Fanny's (the Greek salad is to die for) and sat outside so that Owen and Gibson could run around like two wild men, which they did, under the trees and around the daffodils and only came to the table to eat their grilled cheese. Well, Owen ate his grilled cheese. Gibson ate most of the fried okra and deviled eggs and black olives. He's in an appetizer phase, I guess.

Anyway, after lunch we went to Costco and that's where that little play house was and the boys had to check it out. I think they could have played in it for hours if we'd let them, which we did not. After Costco we went to PUBLIX and Owen wailed and said, "Can someone just stay in the car with me?" But no, Lily and I both had to go in and I bought an inordinate amount of not-very-healthy food. I blame being exhausted. Here's Owen in a monkey disguise.

He ended up having a good time. Gibson, who is going to turn two in twenty days must have read an article about the Terrible Twos because he is suddenly Mr. Negativo. Which is shocking in that he's always been the most delightfully tempered child ever born.
"No, no, no, no, NO!" is what he is mostly saying these days. But he really doesn't want his picture taken. He's like Alec Baldwin with the paparazzi. I fear for my life or a law suit if I try to get a picture of him smiling.

Anyway, I had to come home and go to bed after all that fun. I talk about sleep a lot, don't I? Well, too bad. I love to sleep and do it as frequently as possible.

Now I'm up and Mr. Moon is going out to start the coals to cook us some damn red meat. Don't worry. There will be vegetables. I'm thinking of a nice arugula salad with grapefruit, strawberries, goat cheese and a blueberry-balsamic vinaigrette. So that's vegetables AND fruit. Right? Maybe with pine nuts. Or pecans. Damn but I'm going to miss my arugula when it all dies back. It's already bolting.

Friday night in Lloyd and I'm happy to be here with my husband. When Owen was telling Lily and me jokes today in the car and every one of them had the word "poop" in it, I said to her, "I'm pretty glad I've already done this and that it's your turn."
And I was.
But I'll tell you something else- Owen spontaneously ran up and tackled me today and hugged me and said, "I love you, Mer," and I'm pretty darn delighted to be a grandmother, too.

I hate the expression, "It's all good," because that's a bullshit lie but I think that in this case, it is pretty accurate.

Friday night in Lloyd and it's all good.

See you tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon

Questions

Have y'all been having really long and involved dreams or is it just me and the Celexa?

Have you read The Hunger Games? I know this was a big deal and that there are movies but I've been totally out of that loop and I always get that and Game Of Thrones confused (just as I frequently confuse Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson) and I haven't read that one either. So anyway, at the library the other day, I picked up The Hunger Games on audio and should I be ashamed to admit that I'm really enjoying it? Hey! A good story is a good story and a good story in the ears is a fine thing while shoveling shit.

Do you find it just plain fucking weird that the warning for the newest movie about Jesus, Son Of God contains the phrase, "Bloody violence, disturbing images"? Do you, like me, wonder why in hell so many Christians just love to watch the crucifixion in such blood-dripping detail?

Are you as excited as I am that the new season of Flipping Out with Jeff Lewis is about to begin on Bravo again?
Yeah. Probably not.

Do you have "secret shame" blogs that you read simply because they're so crazy that you can't NOT read them? (Is mine one of them?)

Do you really like vegetables as much as you say you do?
Even Brussels sprouts? I mean, wouldn't you really rather eat a pork chop? Especially if a pig didn't have to die to provide it?

Are you going to go see this movie the second it gets to a theater near you?



Do you ever secretly wonder if some types of "modern art" are just bullshit? And that if an art "expert" had to determine whether some pictures were painted by a "master" or by a three-year old or by an elephant, really wouldn't be able to tell the difference? Have they ever set up a test like that?

How old were you the first time you were ever in church or Sunday school when the preacher (or priest or rabbi- whatever) or teacher said something that made you think, "What the FUCK?"

In a related question- can anyone really explain what the Holy Ghost is?

You know how they always tell you not to salt your beans when you're cooking them until they're almost done because if you do, they'll be tough? That's crap.

Do you ever wonder how often Brad Pitt and Angelina Joliet make love or is that just me?

Should I go take a walk before I go to town to meet up with Lily and the boys and Hank?

Probably.

Do you know I'm wishing you a happy Friday?

I hope so.

Do you know I'm curious as to what you're wondering about today?

Love...Ms. Moon

I'm Not The Little Red Rooster But I'm Okay

I posted my first Facebook update status today in perhaps months or, hell, maybe ever, that wasn't a link to an article or to a blog post.
Here's what it said:
"I am still capable of shoveling horse shit. Somehow this is incredibly reassuring to me."
I thought that was appropriate for Facebook.
And to be honest, I didn't shovel that much horse shit. Just enough to work into the soil for three good rows of potatoes and then I turned it with a shovel and then I planted my potatoes.
There. Done. In the ground.
I feel much relieved.
And before I did the gardening, I took a good and fast walk.
So of course I've had to take a nap but so what?
I took the trash and did four loads of laundry and I didn't kill the dogs nor did I wash them nor did I wash anything else but dishes. I didn't dust, I didn't clean. I swept the topsoil from the kitchen.
And I am happy enough with all of that.

Tomorrow will make two weeks I have been on the antidepressant.

Can it really have been two weeks? I feel like a completely different person. I am not hanging on for dear life. I still have worries and concerns and I beat myself up for perceived inadequacies but that's just me. I will never not be a worrier. I will never think I am good enough. If I suddenly woke up and felt none of that, I would not have the slightest idea who I was. I think this is important to remember about antidepressants. They do not change who we are, essentially. They just make it easier for us to be that person when we are, as an old neighbor of ours used to say, "Reaching up to touch bottom."
I am still me. Still Mary Moon who loves her family, to dig in the dirt, her chickens, her house.

Ms. A who comments here sometimes, sent me a link today with some great chicken-related stuff on it. Here's one picture that I think is mighty fine.

Here's another one that tickles me.

And oh yeah, I still love the Rolling Stones and here's another thing I snatched off that chicken page.




A website with chickens AND The Rolling Stones?

That makes Mary Moon happy.

And I can still shovel horse shit, albeit slowly. Which I do actually find incredibly reassuring.

Crazy But Okay, Really

Feeling overwhelmed and as if everything around me is completely beyond my control. Every part of this house needs intense cleaning, dead flies litter the window sills and the windows? Oh god. I've never cleaned the windows. Ten years. I've never washed them.

The potatoes are nowhere near being in the ground, there's a truck full of horse shit that needs to be shoveled and now it's been rained on. Have you ever shoveled wet horse shit? It's one thing when you're in your twenties, your thirties, your forties, even your young fifties. It's an entirely different thing when you're a few seconds away from sixty. Shovel that shit onto the garden or into the garden cart and then move it and dump it and rake it to where you need it. I don't even know if I'm capable of shoveling horse shit anymore and yay and verily I tell you- it was when my then-boyfriend saw me shoveling horse shit off the back of his truck that he fell in love with me, knew that he wanted me to be his wife, the mother of his children. Well, that and the biscuits. And...you know.
Thank god I can still make biscuits or he'd probably have grounds for divorce.
And what to make for dinner?
Okay, don't laugh- I've run out of ideas. Run the fuck slap out of ideas. I'm tired of coming up with ideas for meals that are healthy and taste like something you'd want to eat.
The dogs are filthy and so in need of grooming that I'm ashamed and embarrassed and I have to at least wash them before I can take them in and I keep thinking they'll die but they won't, they don't, they stumble into walls and fall off the steps and you have to place treats directly into their mouths or they can't find them. They stink so bad that yesterday Owen told Buster to get away from him. And Dolly smells about ten thousand times worse than Buster.
And, and, and...it's time for me to renew my CEU's for my nursing license and dear god, what a joke. I couldn't function in a medical setting if my very life depended on it and yet, I can't seem to let that go. I mean...what if my life DID depend upon it?

Wah-wah-wah.

How can I be this overwhelmed on such a beautiful day? Because it is a beautiful day. The clouds are drifting away, the birds are singing and although it's chilly and going to get cold tonight, it is still springlike and thus, my soul should be happy and it is, oh, it is, I am not anxious. Perhaps crazy, but not anxious.

And Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona vetoed that stupid, stupid bill that would have allowed people with sincere religious beliefs to deny service to gay couples and the Texas gay marriage ban has been struck down as unconstitutional by a Federal judge and so slowly, slowly, the last dying sparks of homophobic, bigoted laws are being snuffed out although there is still so far to go. But I hold those two things close to my heart with hope like two perfect buds of flowers, the possibility of equality for all humans to love and marry the person of their choice a reality.

So. One step at a time, as with everything.

I need to take a walk, I need to take the trash, I need to do the laundry, I need to try and shovel some shit, I need to try and create some order within my house, my mind, my garden, my soul. I need to know that I cannot do it all today. As the anxiety clears, I am left with the reality of it all, the need to come back to life, this life which is a good one, such a good one, even if there are dead flies on the windowsills.

I made my husband an egg sandwich this morning for him to eat on his way to work because he got up and drove to Monticello to pick up the deer sausage at the processor's and so he was running late and as he left, I said, "I love you, my precious."
"I love you too," he said. And I knew he meant it.

That's what's important.

And I need to remember, even as my brain feels crazy (but a different sort of crazy) that it truly is one step at a time, all of it, whether in the realm of human rights or of the shoveling of horse shit.

I'm not sure any of this has made any sense at all but good morning.
I am doing my best and I know you are too.

Love...Ms. Moon

Evening

The temperature is dropping and it is still dripping and tomorrow night we're going to get another freeze, according to the powers who prognosticate such things.
Oh well. I expected it would happen before spring really showed up for good.

I'm making another one of my absurd soups, again trying to clear out the refrigerator. I made bread too, and I always feel that if I make bread to go with, anything is edible.
Almost anything.

The boys were here and I was tired and Gibson was even more tired and he fussed and fussed and FUSSED. He wanted me to hold him but nothing I tried to do with him or for him produced anything from him but "No, no, no!"
Oh, it was frustrating. And he would NOT lay down with me.
"No, no, NO!"
Then, like the Super Hero he is, Boppy came home.
Sigh.
All was well and Gibson got a second wind.

Wii games were played. I even participated in the bowling. I beat Mr. Moon which is ridiculous. In a real bowling alley I am the worst. You know that six-year old they let bowl who walks up to the line and puts the ball between her legs and then pushes it a little and it takes about five minutes to get to the pins? She's better than I am.
But I can rock the alley in Wii bowling.
We discovered today that Owen is a natural at Wii cycling. Which actually takes quite a bit of skill and balance. He was delighted. So were we. We were also amazed. He wasn't. He knew he could do it.

He wanted a fort again today. Around here, a fort is the card table placed in the hallway with a sheet over it. He loves to carry the card table because he can and I always praise him for being so strong. Today after he carried it into the hall and I told him how strong he is, he said, "Am I so strong that it makes you want to marry me?"
"Yes!" I said. "If I weren't already married and you weren't my grandson, I would definitely want to marry you!"
I mean, who wouldn't want to marry Owen?

So that's how this day has gone and it's almost dark and I think I'll add some noodles to that soup and see if I can make it a little more exciting although that will only mean there's more of it which, as you know, means more leftover leftovers.

I am still waiting on my Mediterranean Diet cookbook for inspiration but maybe it will be here tomorrow.

It sounds like someone is shoveling gravel on the railroad tracks. Jeez. I hope it's an actual railroad employee.

Lloyd can be a strange place.

Which is why I love it so much. And fit in so well.

Y'all be good.

Love...Ms. Moon

Birds At The Feeder In The Rain

Raining, soft patter, falling sweetly. Spring rain, the kind that has plenty of time to soak in and nourish all that grows. I cannot complain about that. It is a blessing.

The chickens have not yet come out of their hen house and Elvis is quiet but the wild birds are out and feeding. The redbud's shocking pink stands glory against gray sky.

How fortunate I am to live here, to have this back porch to sit on, to be able to observe the out, even as I am in. Porches are magical places of transition. 

The boys are coming over today. They slept in bunk beds last night. The same bunk beds their father and his brother slept in as children. Lily sent me a picture this morning.

Then she called to tell me about the near-death experience which had just happened. The boys slept fine all night in their new beds. Owen woke up early and must have woken up Gibson because all of a sudden, Lily heard Owen call out, "Mom! Some help here!" 

She ran into the bedroom to find Owen holding his brother by one leg, upside down on the ladder. I guess Gibson decided to explore his brother's bunk. By himself. 

Owen is such a good big brother. 

How any of our children survive is beyond me. 

Ah well. It is morning in Lloyd. I haven't had my smoothie yet and wish that instead of good yogurt and fruit I was going to eat eggs and bacon and fried potatoes. With all of my heart. Strange, isn't it, that the heart wants what is so bad for it sometimes?

Well, Elvis is finally crowing. I guess I better go free those beloved chickens of mine. 

Good morning. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Grace And Miracles

This has been a good day. Such a very, very good day.
Weather-wise, perfect and everything is either blooming or about to bloom and and it's been warm and skyblue and redbud pink and air soft and the green energy of spring is pouring forth.
Yes. All of that.
But the sweetest thing for me was that I went back to the dentist and it's been what? Six weeks or so since I got that tooth pulled? Longer than that since I went into that office the first time, trembling with anxiety and fear and worry, not only about the abscess (in the bone, they said!) but about all of the medical stuff I hadn't taken care of in forever and knowing that it was all before me, I had to do it, and they took that first X-Ray, the one that the machine travels around your head so that you feel as if you're in some sort of Futurama space movie and the doctor/dentist prodded and shook his head and laid out the story and I was in no shape for life at that point.
That sounds so dramatic but it's true.
Already wracked with the anxiety, this only made things so much worse.
The weeks of antibiotics before they could do the extraction, the dread, the fear of the actual procedure and then the tooth was pulled and the graft set in place and the sweetness of the drugs and better than that, the sweetness of the assistants in that office. No matter how many times I called and said, "I think something is wrong," they were always patient and always saw me and reassured me that all was healing as it should.
And I went to my nurse practitioner and I submitted to the tests I had to get, even the damn stupid mammogram which may have been worthless but I had been so afraid that I had breast cancer because, well, that was part of my insanity. And that came out all right too.
And then today I went back in to that dentist's office and once again I was quite certain that things were not healing well. There is tenderness, there is a pokey-out place, but all of it I had just kept mostly to myself, thinking that I could not, would not take myself back in there before my scheduled appointment because, well, I just couldn't.
And they did another Futurama X-Ray and the sweet, sweet darling girl who has worked with me most often said, "Excellent. The healing is perfect."
And she showed me the X-Ray and how the bone graft has filled in exactly as it should and explained that the pokey-out place was just a little overgrowth of the graft and that it is fine, normal, covered with tissue just as it should be.
And I didn't even have to see the doctor although I do not fear him any more and I felt, as I left that office into this beautiful spring day that I had been reborn in a way, all of that behind me now.
All of it behind me now.
For now, at least.
And I've been on the antidepressant for about a week and a half and it has already changed everything and the crazy-thoughts are so much quieter and when they do arise, I can mostly think them away and when I got home, I ate some lunch and then I laid down and I slept a sleep of such peace and got up and went and weeded in the garden and I'm having a midweek beer, my celebratory offering to myself because all of this has been so very, very hard for me, as mundane and simply human-experience as it's been and I did it.
Two months ago I couldn't even imagine or remember what life could feel like when not under the ten thousand pound weight of panic. I KNEW that what I was feeling was not based on reality. I KNEW that what I was feeling was a misfiring brain. I KNEW that my life was essentially so very, very good but none of that helped.
You might as well have told a person who was in agony because they had broken a leg that the agony was simply a symptom of the broken leg. It was (can be/is) that real.

Impossible to convey that feeling to someone who has never experienced it. Immediately recognizable to anyone who has.

And so today, when I left that office, I told that sweet, sweet girl that I was truly going to miss her. Somehow, that office is a symbol now of surviving that which I did not think I could survive but did. And there was grace.
Grace in their patience, grace in their understanding. Grace in their grace towards me and if that sounds ridiculous- what part of this isn't?

But it is the way it is and all though this, I have been writing it out here, most of it some of it, at least, and I have gotten such support. Such amazing support and I am not sure I could have made it without the assurances that some of you go through the same things, that you understand, that I am not alone.
Grace.

And there is a small part of me which is proud of myself for just fucking making the appointments, for going to them, for asking for help, for saying my fears out loud, for doing the damn laundry and cooking the meals and taking the walks and putting it all aside long enough to take good care of my grandsons, for being constantly aware of the goodness in my life and all of it around me whether that is the love of my family or the shape of an egg or the slant of the light, or a good book to read, or the swelling of the buds on the trees or the cluster of birds at the feeder.
Able and aware, even if none of it felt real for a second.

I know I still have much to work on. My diet, more exercise. I have lost weight. Not a great deal, but some. Combine a tooth extraction with anxiety and there will be some resulting weight loss. Enough to remind me of my bones. My good and my strong (hopefully) bones.

Maybe now I can start to reach out again, to plan again, to anticipate with at least a little excitement again.

I remember talking to my sweet Lis on New Year's Eve, I think it was, and we were talking about her birthday, which is in April, and our possible plans to be together for that day and I said something like, "My goal at this point is to just be okay by then." It sounded so pathetic.
And frankly- I couldn't imagine it.

But now I can.

And we have very concrete plans to be together for her birthday, she and I and our sweet husbands and maybe, just maybe, I can now even begin to actually imagine going to Cozumel in May.

Miracles. Miracles.
And pure, sweet grace and Jessie will be coming home to visit in a few weeks and oh god, how I miss her, and the peas will come up and the potatoes too if I ever get them in the ground and the frogs cry for love and they boys are coming tomorrow and I can go forward.
And when that place where the tooth was pulled feels tender, I can feel tender towards it, knowing that all is well. And feel tender towards myself.

And maybe that's what I'm mostly feeling tonight- tenderness towards the entire world, this crazy-fucked-up world where miracles do happen.

All love...Ms. Moon

With All Due Respect

You, Al Melvin, are a bigoted, ignorant ass hat.





Go have another drink.

Love...Ms. Moon

This Is Life

I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired. It seems like that's all I ever say. Either that or I'm exhausted. 
What the hell makes me so tired?
Being me, I guess.

I took that walk. I went to town. I bought some shoes. Lily says they're too cute to garden in but they were the right price and I'd never wear them anywhere else anyway. They're pink. Pink as Pepto Bismal. Pink as an Easter egg dyed to match bubble gum. I went to Goodwill. I bought two cashmere sweaters. Ten bucks well spent. Sure, winter is almost over but I'm playing the odds that I'll still be alive next winter too. I'll have completely forgotten I have them by then.

God, I need to get rid of some clothes.

I went to the library where I got really pissed off because they've instituted a new parking system and instead of free parking for one hour, it's only free parking for half an hour. Fuck that! And then it's a dollar! Who can get in and out of the library in half an hour? I can't pick out my audio books in half an hour, much less those AND my real books.
I am bitchy today. I know it.

I took myself to lunch. I had a salad bar. It was fine. I ate a lot of beans on it. Garbanzos and edamame, mostly. I'm cooking black-eyed peas for dinner. Fiber, man. Fiber's where it's at.
Or something.

I went to the grocery store. Can't pass the grocery store without stopping in. I was so happy to see Lily working. Here's one of the things that makes me happiest in this world: when Lily is working and can take my groceries out to the car for me. I never let anyone help me out with my groceries although at Publix, they ALWAYS ask. But Lily taking me out- that's different. We can chat for a few seconds. And hug.

I came home and did laundry and put groceries away and picked greens from the garden and washed them and washed them and cut them up with tomatoes and onions and now they're cooking as are the black-eyed peas.

I also made up some stuff I'm going to probably bake in patties in the oven. They're sort of vegetable and crab patties. A hell of a lot more vegetable than crab. I had a little bit of snow crab clusters leftover from Friday night. I am trying to be a good wife and use up all the leftovers. Squash that was getting a little brown, wilty, limp celery. A green pepper beginning to wrinkle on one side. An onion that had nothing wrong with it. I chopped all that shit up and cleaned the crab from the shells and mixed it all up with spices and some cracker crumbs and an egg. We'll see.
It's going to be an odd meal.

I'm tired. Not exhausted. That's a different level. It's good to be tired though because it means, hopefully, that I'll sleep better. Not that I usually have any problem sleeping. One of the blessings of my life. One of the many and one I never take for granted.
Here are some more things I don't take for granted (in no particular order):
Running water. Hot and cold.
The most comfortable bed in the world.
The library even if the parking is a rip-off now.
My hens' eggs which are objects of beauty, the perfect shape in a world of perfect shapes, and yet, they are food, too.
My kids and the fact that they love me.
My grandkids and the fact that they seem to love me.
Goodwill cashmere.
The internet.
Blooming camellias.
Being able to get out there and walk, still.
My husband. More and more, every day of my life.

Etc.

I could go on for days.

Oh wait. I do go on for days. Every day. Usually twice.

You. I don't take you for granted. Your comments here or your words on your own blogs. Not for one second do I take those for granted.

I'm going to go make up some crabby patties as Sponge Bob might say. God knows we don't want to miss Jeopardy.

I take Jeopardy for granted but so what?

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

Not Feeling Particularly Industrious Today

Ah. Monday morning and it's gray and quiet in Lloyd. But not raining and so I need to take a walk and then I'm not sure but I do desperately need a pair of shoes I can work in the garden in and that sounds absurd but the shoes I used to wear in the garden literally fell apart and I'm thinking PayLess might have some fake Converse or something. Go support the Chinese slave trade. Right?

Oh golly, I don't know. I've got chill in my bones and lazy in my soul and I could easily go back to bed and snuggle down and read but that is not me. Maybe once in a while on a rainy Sunday but not on a gray Monday, I've got too much of my mother's father in me, the man probably never once slept past seven a.m. in his entire life. I always say I have my two grandfathers fighting within me, the one a happy, rich drunk attorney and wanna-be musician, the other a stern and disciplined man whose idea of leisure was to drink a small ginger-ale while watching a sunset after a long day of work.

And so it goes and so it is and here I am and I better get moving.
The chickens want out to begin their day of work and there is much that could be done and not much excuse not to do it.

From The Mundane To Something Else

My god but I've been lazy today and it's been lovely. The rain has been falling gently all day long and I haven't felt a shred of anxious, a molecule of guilty. Whether it's the drug or the rain or a special blessing from the goddess Ixchel, I do not know and I do not care.
I did actually get out the grout cleaner I bought a few weeks ago and although it didn't do much for the grout, it did in fact, get Mr. Moon's tub cleaner than it's been in at least a decade and I know that for a fact because we moved in here almost ten years ago. It's an old tub and I've tried like hell to clean the stain off of it and never succeeded. It's not entirely glistening white but it's about 90% better. The name of this magic (and probably extremely toxic) product? Here.

It really didn't even smell bad at all. 

Too bad the damn grout still has mildew in it. I've tried bleach and everything else on that grout and it's just absorbed the mildew into its very bones and that's all there is to it. At least that's what I'm telling myself. 

Have y'all watched any True Detective? The HBO series starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey? (And no matter how many times I write his name, I have to look that fucker up to see how to spell it.) We've been watching it and quite frankly, I am bit behind on what is actually happening but I will say that it's fascinating watching. I've never seen an actor able to make his eyes as dead as McConaughey can make his. I saw him on that crazy Inside The Actor's Studio the other night and he was talking about the role he plays in that series. He said that the scripts are so well written, the dialogue so full that he has had to scale himself back tremendously and I can see exactly what he means. Harrelson is fine in his role but McConaughey absolutely blows him out of the water. I feel guilty about saying that because I have loved Woody Harrelson with all my heart since he showed up on Cheers but it's just the truth.

I am not sure I will ever act again in my life. I seem to have absolutely no call to it right now. There is just no part of me that yearns to do it. Even last night when I took Owen upstairs at the Opera House and showed him the stage and the dressing rooms where I've had so many wonderful, amazing times- it brought no rush of desire to do it again. And I can't call myself an actor in any way, shape or form but I do believe that I know good acting when I see it and it's like good writing- you don't see it happening. It seems effortless. It seems real. 

That's how McConaughey is in this role. He is scary good, at least in my opinion.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention that. I'd be interested to hear if any of y'all are watching it and if so, your thoughts. I realize that Mr. Moon and I are the only people on the planet who still watch what's on TV when it's shown instead of Netflixing everything, either with discs or with streaming. 

We're whacky like that. One of these days maybe we'll join the 21st century when it comes to our viewing habits. 

Okay. Here's something that made my heart happy:

A girl at the airport in Tokyo, awaiting the arrival of the Stones who are set to play there. How cool is that? I know, I KNOW, I'm crazy. I can't help it. Like that girl holding up the sign, I heart Keith too.

There's the man himself, getting off the plane. 

When I wrote all that stuff about aging the other day, I thought a lot about the Stones and how they aren't allowing age to stop them from doing what they do better than anyone in the world. I think that the secret to that is the obvious passion they have for what they do. Even old Sir Mick, whom I could probably be convinced still does it because he likes money, because no one in this world could manage to stay in the sort of shape he keeps himself in simply for the bucks. Well, maybe they could, but I doubt he's hurting for cash. So if there's anything at all that keeps us alive in the truest sense of the world, perhaps it is passion. I think about older people who seem so very vital and they all have one thing in common- that passionate attitude about something. Good causes, their art, civil rights, the environment, hell, it could be the law or the grandkids or growing roses. These people often work tirelessly well into their seventies, eighties, even beyond, and could retire and live a genteel life of ease in the knowledge that they have done their job but the fact of the matter is- they do their jobs because they love them and they give meaning and joy to their lives. 

I need to ponder that. And be grateful for it. I'll never forget watching Eubie Blake perform on some show a long, long time ago and he was introduced by the very talented, handsome and much mourned Gregory Hines. Eubie was in his eighties, at least, by then, and yet the way he played piano with those gnarled, beautiful fingers was a thing to wonder at. His love for his music was so obvious. It was like- why die when he could still do such a thing? He lived to be 96 years old. Yoko Ono just turned 81. Have you SEEN the woman lately? She stood and danced throughout the entire Grammys a few weeks ago in obvious delight. 

Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, still doing their good works at the age of 86. 

Passion. 

Which equates to beauty in my eyes and perhaps, the secret to a long and vital life. 

In some cases at least. 

How in the HELL did I get from grout cleaner to that?

Fuck if I know.

Sunday night. It's been a good and lazy day. 

True Detective is on tonight. I'm a little bit excited. Maybe not passionate, but definitely happily anticipatory. 

And speaking of passion, the frogs are deafening me again with their cries of it. "Love me!" they scream and their voices pierce the night as well as my ears. And what is passion if it is not love? 

So to you I say on this Sunday night:

Love...Ms. Moon

Fun And Games

A drizzly Sunday and the boys have just left. All of us are sleepy and a bit at loose ends, I think. Owen was lobbying to be taken to see Frozen when they left but I think his mommy mostly wants a nap.

We had a good time with the boys. I slept with Owen which is like sleeping with a large, dense stuffed animal. You know he's there but he's not bothering you. Gibson, on the other hand, wanted to sleep with his Boppy and so he did and he kept one foot in Boppy's side all night which does not make for restful sleep. They woke up early for them and by the time nine o'clock had rolled around, there had already been picture-making and pancakes. By the time their parents got here, there was a fort and various Wii games being played. Gibson is completely back to loving his Boppy above all others and he wasn't out of the man's lap for longer than a minute or two at a time.

And so here we are and it's quiet again. As we walked back into the house after the ritual hugging-and-kissing good-bye, Mr. Moon said, "It's gonna take a couple of days to recover."
"It always does," I said.

Here's a picture I took last night when there was a post-bath viewing of Pete's Dragon. 

It wasn't too long after that that Owen told me we had to turn the movie off and that I needed to go away so he could fall asleep. We turned the movie off and everyone left the room and he fell asleep. He's a big boy. 

It might be time to fall asleep again. 

Rainy Sundays. Why fight it?

Scenes From A Wedding

The stairway at the Opera House where the wedding was. Can you see me?

Gibson playing with his Boppy.

Owen eating groom's cake.

No. It was not an armadillo cake. It was a Batman cake.

The wedding was lovely. Short, sweet, and to the point. My son Hank officiated. Lily was a bridesmaid. When it was time for the bride and groom to kiss, Owen said, "I can't watch this," and he hid his eyes behind his hands. 

There was delicious barbecue. I could have eaten about ten pounds of that meat. I only ate about 1/2 pound. So that's good, right?

We left right after the cake-cutting. Owen had taken me into the hallway where it was quiet and asked if he and Gibson could spend the night with us. 

"Yes," I told him. "You can."

It was a fine afternoon. I got to show Owen the stage where I've been in a lot of plays, where Jessie has played her mandolin. He climbed up the stairs to the stage and stood front and center. It was sort of beautiful. "Maybe someday you can be in a play here," Hank told him.

He considered that, Owen did, although I'm not sure he understands what a play is. He liked the dressing rooms. He asked where the spotlights were onstage. I showed him. 

It was pretty cool.

I hear that Jason danced to Billy Jean at the wedding reception and we missed it. Damn. I wish we'd stayed long enough to see that. I'm sure it's getting pretty wild there by now. And it's time to settle down here at Mer and Boppy's house. 

The old people and the very young. It's almost bath time. 

There will probably be pancakes tomorrow morning. 

See you then.

Love...Ms. Moon

Aging

I read a piece on Huffpost the other day that I can't get off my mind. The title of it was "19 Reasons Getting Older Is The Best Thing That Will Ever Happen To You. "

Man, I am calling bullshit on this one.

Here's the picture that goes with the piece. Of course.

Because that's what happens when we get older, right? We spend all our time laying together sideways in a hammock facing the most perfect beach in the world. 

Okay. Let's go from there.

1. Two words. Senior Discounts.

Are you kidding me? Just because you can get a buck off at the movies or coffee at McDonald's isn't really going to expand your horizons financially. The grocery store doesn't offer me a senior discount. The airlines certainly don't. Mexican hotels don't give a shit if you're old when it comes to what they charge. Etc. 

There is that great Senior Discount at the Goodwill so there is that. On Tuesday. I think. 20% off. Ooh boy. Now there's a savings!

2. Not worrying about how things will turn out.

What? Just because I'm almost sixty I've quit worrying about my kids and their lives? Now that I have grandchildren I'm less worried than I was before about how things will turn out? I'm less concerned with things like environmental disaster and racism and homophobia in a world that my grandkids are going to grow up in? Because I'm older and seeing all the changes in my body I'm less concerned with how my OWN life is going to turn out? I no longer care if I die suddenly from a cardiac event or linger for decades in a nursing home with dementia?

I don't think so.

"I'm confident I've faced the worst of my problems," the author's 65-year-old-plus father said. Dream on, Grandpa.

3. More mature relationships. Hopefully.

This one is true. However, the longer you love someone, and the older you grow together, the sharper the focus on how one day one of you is going to have to live without the other. This may add an element of appreciation and consciousness about your love you couldn't experience when you were younger but it's not exactly comforting.

4. You've carved out a career.

Because job security is such a guaranteed thing in our society today. You ever try to look for a job when you're in your fifties, sixties or seventies? Trust me- you don't want to.

5. Looks aren't everything.

And quite frankly, they shouldn't be no matter what your age. People over the age of 55 still really do give a shit what they look like. We may not look like we do but we do. Would the plastic surgery and cosmetic industry be what they are if we didn't? 

6. There's nothing wrong with a 9:30 bedtime.

This one I absolutely agree on. Amen and hallelujah. 

7. You stop caring what others think.

In what universe? I may not care as much but I sure as shit still care. Otherwise I'd never wear a bra. 

8. Fewer major life decisions to make.

Whoa nelly! Really? I look at around me at plenty of folks my age who are making major MAJOR life decisions. That are going to affect them unto death. Because after a certain age, you don't have the luxury of time to wiggle your way out of decisions that may not have been the best. 

9. Being considered a sage by default. 

Oh yeah. Because the elderly in our culture are so respected for their wisdom and life experience. Right.

10. It's okay to be an old soul. 

Uh- what choice do I have? 

11. Dressing for comfort, first and foremost.

Semi-true. But if it were entirely true, I'd wear overalls everywhere. Which hasn't happened. Yet. 

12. More stable relationships.

Fuck that. People are as crazy at seventy as they are at thirty and our relationships change and morph just as much as they ever did. Also? Your beloved friends start to get sick and DIE! How stable is that? 

13. Having children.

I really don't understand this one. Go read what the author says and get back to me. Something about how once we've lived to a certain age we've done and seen everything but can view the world anew through the eyes of our children as they discover the world? 

Maybe I haven't seen and done enough to understand this one.

14. Retirement. 

Which we will spend laying sideways on a hammock together facing the most beautiful beach in the world. Instead of trying to live on a fixed income, going to an increasing number of doctors' appointments, worrying about our children and grandchildren, and dining out at the Early Bird Special every night where we will get that Senior Discount. 

15. To be done paying off my student loans.

God, I would hope so.

16. To stop having to keep up with technology.

Oh yeah. Go hook up the horse to the buggy, Grandpa. We don't need no stinking technology. The world can just go blasting forward, technology-wise without us needing to know anything about it. Leaving us isolated and getting our news from the newspaper and Fox on our good ol' TeeVee. 

17. It's perfectly acceptable to sit at concerts.

It's also perfectly acceptable not to go to concerts so, sure.

18. Moving less frequently.

From one level of assisted-living care to another until you're finally on the total-care floor. Yep. True.

19. Buh-bye PMS. 

Hello menopause! and the horror of what happens when your body quits making hormones. Oh yeah- it's all good after those periods stop showing up every month. Every fucking second of the day is just a picnic and a party and we're finally, all of us, emotionally stable for the first time in our lives!

Excuse me while I go take my antidepressant. 

I'm betting that the person who wrote this piece was nowhere near the age of qualifying for the Senior Discount. And I will agree that there are some advantages to getting older and of course- the alternative is that you die young so there is that. But honestly, in the real world, for me at least, getting older hasn't provided any slow-down of life changes or choices to be made or lessening of problems. And I think that believing it will is a dangerous lie. We may gain some perspective as we age but the things we lose can be devastating- our health, our cognitive abilities, our friends, our spouses. Some of these things we do have some control over but some of these things we simply do not. 

Anyway, those are my thoughts on a stupid fluff-piece and honestly, I'm not disagreeing entirely. I'm just saying that it's as ridiculous to think that older age is truly the best thing that is ever going to happen to us as it is to say that youth is the best time of our lives. There are too many factors involved to designate a "best of" label to any part of life. 

Life is all about taking what we have and trying to do the best we can with it no matter where we are in the process. To be aware and to celebrate and enjoy what each age brings us for as long as we can. 

It's a beautiful Saturday here in Lloyd, everything washed clean by yesterday's storms. We are going to a wedding today and there we'll be, holding hands as we watch a young couple begin a new stage of their lives, even as we begin, over and over, different stages of our own life together and as individuals. Because this is the way it is. 

There are always hopes and there are always dreams and there are always regrets and there are always fears and there are always some comforts to be taken, milestones to be celebrated, compromises to be made, realities to be faced. 

And you can lay sideways in a hammock with your love at any stage of life but let me tell you something- getting out of that hammock with any grace whatsoever is going to be harder with every passing year. 

Happy Saturday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Just...Love

I went into town to Lily's and picked her up and we went and had our nails done. Seriously- I have deep blood-red finger and toe-nails now. I figure if you're going to get your nails painted, GET 'EM PAINTED!

But before we left her house, I spent a little time cuddling with Gibson on the bed. He was watching Robin Hood, his favorite movie. The Disney version. Do not ask me why he loves that movie but he does. When the part came on where Robin and Maid Marian are drifting through the forest arm-in-arm, he got so happy.
"Do they love each other?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said.
And he pulled me closer and tucked my arm securely underneath him the way he likes to do.

Just as no one tells you how much you will fall in love with your babies, no one tells you how much you will fall in love with your grand babies.

I'm here to tell you.

Love...Ms. Moon

This Storm Will Pass

That picture doesn't do justice to the rain pouring down right now. Thunder is rumbling and lightening flashing off in the distance and the frogs are crying out warning! warning! warning!
There will be no walk today.

I don't know what I'm doing with this day. I feel unsettled, a bit anxious, it is Friday and I wish I had those potatoes in the ground but you know that didn't happen. The deep exhaustion came over me yesterday afternoon and all I managed to do was to take a nap that I had to force myself to rouse from and then I did a little trimming of a few roses, picked up a few fallen branches. Made supper.
Feeling like I'm not worth a damn right now.

And that's about all I have to say. I am flat and useless, chilly and dark.

The thunder rumbles and my body aches and no words are coming to me and this is the way it is for me right now and the streetlight shines a night-like reflection in the puddles and the driveway is a river and the rain slows and the birds return to the feeder and what have I done with my life and what will I do with my life and I make a cup of tea and feel the universe a whirl of chaos around me.

Simply Priceless Information

I should have had my peas and the potatoes in the ground yesterfuckingday. As sweet Lis would say. I just don't know about gardening any more. We don't get enough sun to make it worthwhile for the effort or at least that's what I tell myself. And the bottom line truth is- it's not as easy for me to get down in the dirt as it used to be. We really should have raised beds but we've not done that and I wish we had because it would make things so much easier. And the garden would probably be way more productive. Honestly, we're not very serious gardeners. We're dilettantes and haphazard about it all and it shows.

And yet, just as Jack said to Enis in Brokeback Mountain, "I wish I knew how to quit you." There's something in my blood that just compels me to plant stuff when spring rolls around. It's in my DNA. They'll find a gene for it. Trust me.

But hell, although I've been gardening for over thirty-five years I've not figured out one damn thing except that you need a lot of sun and plenty of water and the right dirt. How's that? And don't ask me what the right dirt is, either.

Maybe I should change my motto from "I don't know shit" to "Fuck if I know," although I guess they're about equal in meaning. But hey- it's good to change things up now and then, isn't it?

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking about on this beautiful morning in Lloyd. It's supposed to get up to 80 degrees here today and then rain tomorrow which would make it a perfect day to plant. Do I have my seeds? No I do not. I do have some potatoes to plant. I could hustle in to town and buy my peas and maybe some onion sets.
Hustle?
Have I ever even SAID that word before?
What the hell?

In a completely unrelated topic, I think I have finally figured out how to make a good pie crust. After almost fifty years of baking I am now able to make pastry without weeping. I started using the recipe in my ancient "Young America Cooks" cookbook and by golly, it's a good recipe and it rolls out without tearing and is just a lovely thing.

And to further the not-connected-to-anything-else conversational segue, I decided last night that the best way to pick out a face cream is by smell because ain't none of 'em, no matter how much you pay, really going to do shit when it comes to wrinkles, either in prevention or elimination. So just pick the one that smells the best to you and be happy with that.

All right. I'm going to take my wrinkled up old face and crippled up old hips out for a walk in this glorious day. And then...well, fuck if I know.

Love...Ms. Moon

99% Pictures

There. A little bit of the day.

One more:

Mr. Moon's Valentine's Day Promised Cherry Pie.

A friend asked me today how the Mediterranean Diet was going. My answer: "Fuck if I know."

Love...Ms. Moon

Addendum/Confession

I wandered into my bathroom with thoughts of cleaning and the light was pouring through the windows and my madonnas and mermaids and Fridas were all shining down on me with smiles and I thought, "Fuck it."
And I took a bath.

First time in forever I have felt comfortable enough in my own skin to take off my clothes and lay down in a tub full of water.

It was grace.

This

That beautiful this morning. The Japanese magnolia shining ruby in the sun, its blooms opening slowly, shaded as they are by the live oaks.
I am so very, very fortunate to live where I live with the air so pure and and the light so pouring-down in the mornings, blessing everything I see in its glory, shining away the night's mists so that it rises up to the clear blue sky, drifts away above the moss-draped branches of the oaks.

I feel calm this morning. I feel okay.

This, like the light, like the air, like the beginning blossoms of spring, feels like a miracle.

My husband took me out for dinner last night. I was so tired when he got home. I had had a nap but it did nothing to dent my exhaustion. I think my body is going to take some time to heal from the self-produced chemicals which have been flooding it for months. I had picked some arugula, was going to make a salad. "Let's go out," he said.
"Okay," I said.
And we did.
It wasn't a great dinner but it was fine and when we got home he decided to cut his hair. He's been growing it out for some time now and growing it out was a thing he'd wanted to do for a long time. He's always had this fantasy of himself as an older man with long white hair and so it's been months since he cut it but it was bugging him and him talking about it was bugging me, to be frank.
And so last night he took the clippers into his bathroom and cut it all off. I helped him with the last parts which I hate doing because I suck at it and I always sing the same whiny song which goes like this: "I do not understand why you won't just go and pay someone to do this properly," and he sings back, "I don't know."
But I know- he hates to pay someone to do something he can do himself and I didn't fuck up my part too badly and now he looks more like his old self although he did ask me if I could knit him a hat real quick because his head was going to be cold.

Here he was last Saturday night when we ate dinner down at Spring Creek.

Here he was last night, relaxing in his chair after an hour with the clippers.

He took some selfies of before and after but frankly, they make him look like a serial killer.

He is so handsome, short hair or long.

Owen told me yesterday that my hair is too long and that I should cut it. Too bad, little man. Not going to happen right now. He's such a funny little guy. While his mama was trying on things at Ross, he and I spent some time in the shoe section. He kept pulling down outrageous shoes for me to try on. Shoes with heels. Shoes with zippers up the back. Shoes with heels AND zippers up the back. Hooker shoes, to be quite frank.
"What do you think?" I'd ask him, tottering on the heels.
"You should buy them!" he'd say. "They look good! You want them for your birthday?"
Needless to say, I did not buy any, nor do I want them for my birthday but it was fun, trying on shoes that my four-year old grandson deemed worthy of consideration.

Well, speaking of boys, they are coming early this afternoon and I have got to do a little organizing and cleaning. I can't think of the entire picture, but must start small. Perhaps my bathroom which is a chaotic mess which makes me unhappy every time I walk in there.

It is a beautiful day in Lloyd and I am feeling okay and I am one of the luckiest women in the world and I know it and I can feel it, even as I can feel my brain rewiring itself, even as I can feel my body relax a little, even as I can feel the sun on my head as I go to let the chickens out, even as I can feel the warming of the earth, the rightness of the seasons turning, the days lengthening, ever-changing, ever-the-same, and it is good.

Ruining The Child's Happiness

As promised, a cat video.

I'm glad I have the video because I'm too exhausted to write. I've had very little anxiety today but the lack of adrenalin which so strongly and uncomfortably accompanies it is also missing which is wonderful but leaves me flat-out done.
And that is fine.

I had a good time with my boys and Lily today although Owen is going through some willful times. When he doesn't get his way he says things like, "You are ruining my happiness!" which makes Lily and me laugh and which only makes his happiness more ruined but what can you do?
He also said today, when we were discussing how kittens sometimes scratch you, "You're damn right it hurts!" which made us want to roar with laughter but we couldn't, of course, and he was told that he can't say "damn" but I am still giggling.

And so it goes. I am glad to be the grandmother and not the mother, I will tell you that, because it's hard to try and be consistent in not giving in to a child's demands. Hardest thing in the world.
And I always took comfort in something I heard once when I was a young mother which was that the only thing you really, without fail, must be consistent at is love.
And that I could do and so do Owen's parents.

Good night, y'all.

See you tomorrow.

But don't be expecting porn. I'm just too tired for that mess.

Love...Ms. Moon

No Cats, No Porn. Jeez. No Wonder I'm Not Famous

Just...well. Here we are.
Gray this morning and I did not sleep well and I'm feeling rocky and a little rough and I need to get out and walk because I'm going to town to help Lily get a little shopping done and so I'll get to see my boys. And I'll meet Parker, the new grandcat. They named him Parker for Peter Parker which is the name of Spider Man when he's not being Spider Man which is what Owen wanted to name him so they compromised on Parker.
I think it would have been funny if they had named him Spider Man.
"Here Spider Man! Here kitty, kitty!"
Right?

Well, I obviously have nothing to write about this morning. Nothing at all to say. I'm just trying to hang in and keep some sort of center of balance while this drug finds its way around my neural cortexes or whatever it does. I've checked out the cat pictures on Facebook and watched a little bit of a video made by the Pentecostal preacher about why he would never go to a doctor for a serpent bite and of course he's dead now. Also checked out the inspirational messages that people post which mostly make me want to gag. I have no idea why I ever look at Facebook although some folks do post links to articles I would have otherwise missed.
Hank says the internet was invented for two things- cat videos and porn.
I think he may be right but if he is, I am certainly not doing my part.

Maybe I'll take a little video of Parker today and post it. You can bet your bottom dollar I won't be posting anything porny although never say never, right?

Good morning, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Confusion, Anxiety, The Comfort Of A Man Who Has Lots Of Shit Dangling From His Hair

Eh, god, the anxiety hit me over the head like a fucking rockslide this afternoon. Probably my own damn fault. Not only did I go out into public but I also had a cup of coffee and what the hell was I thinking?

Took a beautiful walk this morning, had a nice chat with Ms. Liola who waved me down from the steps of her house as I was passing. Sometimes I sigh inside when this happens. Oh! The cardiac! Oh! The time! Then I think about it- she's older, her kids live far away, I don't even think she drives anywhere and she lives in a single-wide trailer. She's lonely. Hell- what kind of a person would I be not to stop and trade a little talk with her about the weather, who's had the flu and the colds, the grandkids, both hers and mine, our yards, the possibility of her getting some chickens, whether or not its been good weather to hang the clothes outside, etc.
And she's not one of those people who talk your head off or prattle on about silly gossip. She just wants to pass the time with another human and there I am and I know that feeling too so I stop and take my headphones out of my ears and we always have things to say, both of us living in Lloyd and being grandmas and liking to work in our yards and stuff.
I showed her a picture of Elvis on my phone today. She declared him a prize-winning rooster. I agreed.

So I felt okay after my walk and washed dishes and hung my clothes on the line and got dressed and went to town, thinking I'd find me a Mediterranean Diet cookbook. I started out at the nice Goodwill Bookstore which is more on the Lloyd side of Tallahassee and they did not have one. Not a one. They had a thousand cookbooks and yet, none about the Mediterranean Diet. So I thought, "What the hell?" and drove on down the road some miles to the Books a Million and fuck me if the Mediterranean Diet hasn't been replaced by the Paleo diet. Jesus. Everyone in the damn world has written a cookbook about the Paleo diet. I went through all the new cookbooks and all the bargain cookbooks and found exactly three Mediterranean Diet cookbooks and not one of them seemed worth the price although the pictures in them were just fucking lovely and I bought that lethal cup of coffee there. I browsed for at least forty-five minutes, my anxiety creeping and creeping to the point where I knew I had to get out of there but couldn't quite manage it until finally I made a break for it and I still had to go to Publix which I did where I couldn't even think about what to buy but I did buy some things and came home and put all the groceries away and felt frantic the whole time. I suddenly saw how filthy my house is and so I swept some and I tried to Magic Eraser some of the stains off of walls and doors but that's like trying to take down Mt. Everest with a dull teaspoon. I got the clothes off the line and folded them and put them away and made Mr. Moon's supper because he was leaving early to go to a basketball game in town and now he's fed and gone.
"We're going to be eating more vegetables," I told him as I served him some organic chicken breasts cut up in a sauce with tomatoes and onions and peppers and garlic and squash and green beans and carrots and what's probably the last of the kale from the garden over whole-grain pasta.
He said that was all right with him. He's so easy to please.

It all just feels like too much today. Too many books in the bookstore, too many choices in the grocery store. Too many cars on the road. Too much mold and dirt in my house. Too much, too much, too much, and mostly too much crazy illogical catastrophizing of every little thing.

Well. So it goes. The frogs are making enough noise to deafen me, their calls in the super-sonic range and the sun has set. Dinner's ready whenever I am. I am so defeated as to what to eat right now that I'd just as soon rather not. Maybe I should just try the Paleo Diet although I see that legumes are not included in the modern version of what cavemen ate and I can't live without eating beans so fuck that. I'm not a caveman and quite frankly, the fruits and vegetables that are grown today have very little to do with the fruits and vegetables gathered by the Paleos and that's the facts, Jack. Grass fed meats? I could do that, since my husband is a hunter but no cereal grains? No brown rice, no quinoa, no salt or potatoes? That doesn't sound right to me.

I always think about the Masai people who are some of the most beautiful people in the world whose diet traditionally was based mostly on raw meat, milk, and the blood of their cattle. They do not get cavities. But let's face it- I am not genetically closely related to the Masai although I haven't done DNA testing and so who knows? Not me.
So I guess I'll go eat some vegetables. And guess what? I am not going to live forever no matter what and neither is anyone else.

But speaking of people who live forever, or at least in junky years, I've been craving more Keith Richards in my life the last few days. Is this a sign of illness or of healing? I do not know but I think it is mostly a reminder that there are survivors in a sea of people who do not survive.




And I am grateful to have survived and that thought brings me some comfort.
Hey. I know y'all aren't going to watch these videos I'm posting tonight. That is all right. I have watched them. They have helped but your totems are probably not mine.
And this song is going through my mind and it soothes me.




Wild, wild horses. We'll ride them some day.

Maybe tomorrow I'll discuss Kim Kardashian's side boob.

Don't hold your breath.

Love...Ms. Moon

Flo and Ming, rescued from the duck-weed covered frog pond. Finally.

Sun shining full-on again, Mr. Moon home because banks close for everything and today is President's Day which quite frankly, I have no clue about. Did President Obama wake up this morning and think, "Maybe I'll have pancakes this morning. It is, after all, my day."?

I have no medical appointments this week. Do you hear that? None. Every time I feel a wave of anxiety I remember that fact and take a deep breath. Of course, even as I take that breath, my crazy-brain just hops over that short wall to another well-worn track of something to worry about and races on. But it's not so bad today. Not so bad at all on this cloudless, blue-sky day where I have no medical appointments and can take a walk and do whatever it is I need or want to do. 

It could be a good day to try out that grout-cleaner! 

Oh please. 

The mulberry tree is putting out tiny leaves, the fig trees are swelling at the tips. The Buck-Eye is leafing out. 

Elvis poses by the thrusting-up Trillium under the oak tree.

It is Monday and it is the beginning of a new week and spring is a train which has left the station and here we are and my brain is being rewired and it is time to go take a walk and we have had our oatmeal and I ain't complaining. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Daring Young Man And Other Stuff

Ah. If only all days could be like yesterday in which I felt reborn into the light, quite literally, holy-holy-holy, amen with the relief of finally having asked for help, with almost-psychedelic waves replacing the anxiety red fear.
Well, they can't and speaking of waves, these things all go in them, just as does water, sound, love, the powerful contractions of birth, our very breath.

But it wasn't a bad day today, considering. Flat ginger ale compared to yesterday's shooting stars of champagne and fuck it- better flat ginger ale than wormwood and bitters.

I faded as the day passed, even though the boys were here and it was fun, watching them try out some of the new elements of the play yard. Owen loved the trapeze. He hung from his knees for the first time ever. Something that I have never done in my life along with never having done a cartwheel.
Am I the only human being who ever lived who never did either of these two things?

Well. Here's the boy.

I am so proud of him. He was scared at first to have his mama let go of his legs but then he told her to and she did and he wanted to do it over and over again. And he flew, too. The daring young man. 

Gibson liked the swing. A lot. 

I think he would have let me push him gently all afternoon long if I hadn't finally said, "That's enough, little man. That is enough." 

He fell asleep right before his daddy got here, cuddled up on my chest. He was looking at the pictures on my phone- one of his favorite things to do since he is in about 3/4's of them. 

"Nap," he said, and snuggled in more comfortably and I felt the weight of sleep come upon him. 

Faded. I feel as if I have faded. Mr. Moon and I sat down to a game of cards after the boys left and three hands in and I was done. 

"You'll have to be patient with me," I told my poor, long-suffering husband. I'm trying to get adjusted to this drug." 

And he is. He is so patient with me. 

Yesterday I was just so full of love for him and for everything. My life. This good life. Not that I'm NOT in love with it all today. It's just...different. But yesterday I couldn't imagine why I'm ever not joyful with all of it. With the reality of it in the present, with the possibility of it all until it is no more. 

Waves. And I need to be patient with myself and with the process as the waves rise and recede upon the shores of life and breath. 

Gonna go heat up that seafood. Gonna go make a salad, mix up some cocktail sauce, slice some limes. 

Going to be grateful for this day. For waves. 

In some sort of beautiful synchronicity, a friend of mine just sent me this picture from Little Gasparilla Island, south of here but on the same Gulf so near to here. 

Waves. They can be beautiful. They are necessary. Let us remember this.