Saturday, February 8, 2014

Free Candy! Plus Other Stuff


Well, the Home Show was...chaotic? Noisy? Yes. And yes. First thing that happened was we ran into a couple we've known for thirty years, haven't seen in a long time and oddly, were just talking about the other day. We stood there and talked to them for a few minutes, blocking all the traffic of people making their rounds from one booth to another to pick up business cards, brochures, hear little sales-pitches, gather up the free magnets and cups and scratch pads and pens and candy, to fondle roofing materials and check out the demonstrations of cookware and vacuum cleaners. It was a crazy thing.
But we caught up with those folks a little. Talked about grandkids. That's all any of my contemporaries seem to discuss these days. At least the women.

I saw another guy I knew across the crowd and we made our way towards each other. I've known this man and his wife since we were all having our babies at home. They were good friends with my midwife and we hugged hard and I said, "How're your kids?" and he said, "Same as yours, all grown up." And we laughed. He and his wife have been married since they were about sixteen and eloped. They've lived in Tallahassee since the dawn of the ice age but still carry their New York accents, have that style about them. "What do you think of this?" he asked. My eyes got wide and I gestured towards that toilet filled with candy you see above there.
"Not handling it too well, I said."
We discussed grandchildren. He has several. One more due in a few weeks.

We checked out all the booths that had anything we thought might be interesting, didn't really learn shit, came home with a bag of junk and cards that we'll probably never look at again.

Ran into yet another couple we know. The woman of this couple started the Birth Center where I used to work in Tallahassee about thirty years ago and we caught up on...grandchildren. And aging parents. Her mother is in the same assisted living my mother used to be in but seems to be handling it better than my mother did. We talked about the Birth Center which she does not own any more and about the local hospital's new innovative policy of promoting breast-feeding and agreed that change is good, even if it does take forfuckingever. I told her about Lily's home birth and she told me that one of her daughters is about to have a baby with the same midwife Lily used. We agreed that she's an awesome midwife, cool and comforting, laid back and very competent.

I am always astounded all over again by how tall my husband is when we are out in crowds like the one we were in today. People just gawk. And make comments. All of which he (and I) have heard a million times but he's very gracious about it. He loves being tall. He is a beautiful man.

We finally got the fuck out of there and went and had barbecue for lunch. I had the chicken, Mr. Moon the pork. I ate too much and I know it. Fried okra. Fried okra. It was so good.

We came home and although I slept about ten hours last night, I crawled into the bed and read a few pages of the book I'm reading and then set it down beside me, closed my eyes and slept for a little while. Now I have pizza dough rising and plum tomatoes slowly roasting in the oven. Here's my pizza dough recipe. It is a good one and easier than going to the store to buy the pre-made crap they buy there.


Can you read it? I make mine with half whole-wheat and it is a good crust. I do make it in the food processor but it would be plenty easy to make it by hand. It's just a very fine, dependable recipe. That's an old Weight Watcher cook-book and I use that recipe for one good-sized pie. I pile the vegetables on it. Tonight's will have spinach and onions and artichoke hearts and pineapple and the roasted tomatoes and peppers and...what else? Oh. Olives, pineapple, a little Canadian bacon. What the fuck IS Canadian bacon? I do not know but it tastes like ham and hasn't got much fat in it. A salty little hammy piece of meat. My grandfather used to eat it for breakfast quite often with his hard-boiled eggs that he peeled and smashed with a fork and sprinkled liberally with salt and pepper and had raisin toast too. 

So it'll be a good supper although I do not feel as if I've earned a supper tonight, having done nothing whatsoever except walk around the lower level of the Civic Center, the same space I took my nursing exams in so very long ago, pregnant with Lily, and just wanting to get the whole damn thing over with. The exam, not the pregnancy. I attended the FSU graduation ceremony in that same building, saw Bruce Springsteen there once, also Crosby, Stills, and Nash. James Taylor, the Kinks. Ray Charles. The Police who did not play "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" which pissed me off. Bob Dylan twice, once an incredible concert, once a mysterious haze of not-damn-much. Mr. B.B. King, my daddy. That was a wonderful concert. Mr. Moon and I took Hank and May with us and we somehow had second-row seats, center. I have no idea how that happened but we danced and we danced and we danced. I wore a red dress and we got to shake Mr. King's hand when the concert had ended. I remember we were sitting behind some VIP types, I guess, white folks who barely could move themselves to tap their feet while the rest of us were in full-on-dancing worship. I worried for those straight-backed folks' immortal souls, then figured maybe they didn't have any souls to worry themselves with. They had probably been poked out their heads by the sticks up their asses. 
I remember all of that. I thought about it today as we walked around looking at stuff while people looked at my husband. 

Ah well. Some days you earn your pizza and some days you just get it as a gift. 

Did you see this?



Made me laugh. Hope it does the same for you.

Much love...Ms. Moon


9 comments:

  1. Well, you've managed to make a visit to a home show wildly interesting with your woven memories and astute observations. I'd say you're a bit like the Jane Austen of Lloyd and Tallahassee!

    And that video was great. Who'd a thunk something like that would have been broadcast worldwide?

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  2. Elizabeth- It was as weird as I thought it would be. The Reese's peanut butter cup I scored was delicious, though. I did not pluck it from a toilet.
    That video is fucking awesome. That's what I think, anyway.

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  3. Nothing could prompt me to take a piece of candy out of that toilet. Not because it is a toilet but the other 500 hands that have scooped candy out of there that had not been washed after using the toilet. (All be it a different toilet.)

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  4. Oh, and I don't know why Canadian bacon is considered Canadian.

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  5. Ah but did the Police play "Roxanne?" That song haunts me wherever I go. Seriously.
    I was going to mention the people you'd see at the home show because I knew you'd see some.

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  6. Ha -- Dave showed me that same video. It's cool that you can attend a large event like a home show and know so many people! You are quite a fixture in your community. :)

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  7. been a long time since I've been to a home show. in fact probably the last time was the one we had a booth space in. didn't get a single job out of that experience and we didn't repeat it. love the little video.

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  8. Birdie- Aw, I don't worry about germs as much as I should. I don't know about the Canadian Bacon thing either nor am I curious enough to even look it up.

    heartinhand- I can't remember! Probably they did play Roxanne. And seeing people is not something I generally look forward to but in this case, it was fine.

    Steve Reed- EVERYONE knew Glen. I am not kidding you. I am not a fixture here but I have been here for about forty million years.

    Ellen Abbott- I didn't feel like those folks were going to get much business out of the whole deal either. I'm glad you liked the film!

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  9. LOL on the soul being poked out of people by the stick stuck up their ass and out their heads. Love it. Perhaps they had cephalorectal inversion. It is another terrible disease of the soulless.

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