Saturday, October 14, 2017

Memories, Observations, Factual Report


I have had about the most boring day in history although I wasn't bored. I spent most of it sewing and I have to say that at this point, King Richard's quilt looks like a color-blind circus costumer made it but I'm sure that by the time I embroider some on it, it'll be awesome!
Right?
I did get off my ass for about half an hour and went outside and picked up some windfallen branches and pulled a few spent rooster-tail lilies (why did I ever plant those damn things?) and sweated like a trouper, as my granny used to say, and came in and wondered if I am somehow damaged by old age or something and will never be able to work outside in the heat again.
That would be sad.
Speaking of working outside, I realize that after approximately fifty years of gardening I planted my seeds in a completely shitty way and although some of them are coming up relatively normal, some of them obviously got rain-washed by the gully busters we had last week.
So I feel pretty darn useless.

That's a confederate rose up there in that picture and I'm sorry but that's its name. We could call it by its formal name which is hibiscus mutabilis or it's other common name which is the dixie rosemallow.
Jeez. Not much way to win with this one.
Whatever you call it, it's one of my favorites, so fancy and pink, almost tacky in its exuberant girlyness. It really does remind me of the flowers that my best friend Lucille Ferger and I used to make with Kleenex and bobby pins. I just googled "making flowers with Kleenex" and that's still a thing. I wonder if Lucille is still alive. I can't find her via Google or FB although I think I did find her twin sister but only the fact that she is, or was at least, a physical therapist.
Of the other three siblings I can find no trace.
How odd. My life between 1960 and 1965 was so very wrapped up in the lives of the Fergers who lived at the other end of the street which I lived on in Roseland- the only paved road in Roseland proper then and the only paved road in Roseland proper now. When I go back to Roseland I can't believe how small it was. The house is still very much there although the garage where Mrs. Ferger washed the clothes in an old wringer washer and the chicken coop are gone. Five kids and the daddy was a barber. In those days, a barber, even in a very small town, could support a family of seven although it was always tough, making ends meet. I could tell even then. My family still calls soda crackers with peanut butter on them Ferger snacks. But Roseland was a poor place and the Fergers had enough to eat even if it was plain and simple and a car, even if it was old and rusty, and they had a record player which we listened to Mitch Miller records on. (Watch the bouncing ball!) They were Catholic which was an oddity in Roseland but not really that remarkable.
I'll never forget watching Lucille's brother cut the head off one of their chickens and indeed, it did run around for awhile, headless and bleeding. I'll also never forget camping in the yard with Lucille, our tent made of a blanket stretched between garage and chicken coop and fastened with clothespins. We burned Pic mosquito repellent coils and we got up in the very deepest part of the night and looked up at the sky and the number of stars above us was so unfathomable that I would say that that was my first religious experience and my first inkling of the concept of infinity.

Ah, lah.

Childhood.

I just went out and shut the chickens up and tonight, Joe Cocker is sleeping by himself and Mick is The Man. Would you look at this?


Mick has his wing over Miss Dora and if there is an explanation for this behavior, I do not know what it is. It's certainly not cool enough for them to want to share body heat. I just googled that (what in the world did we do before Google?) and it would seem that Ameracaunas are a snuggly breed and Mick is an Ameracauna. Ameracaunas are the ones who lay the colored eggs and frankly, I think they are a superior breed. Or at least a very sweet one. That's little Violet and Lucy behind them and I know that it's Lucy and not Owl because the egg I got today was the pale green one, not the blue one. 

All right. This is what happens when I don't talk to another soul all day long. 
Thank you for letting me talk to you. 

Love...Ms. Moon










14 comments:

  1. Thank you for talking to me. I kept checking in all day to see if you'd posted and was thrilled to find just now that you had. You are part of my everyday, and it's pure joy. I love those boring days on which we are not bored. The best.

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    1. Oh Lord, Angella. Thank you. You are part of my everyday too, in that I think of you multiple times a day, even if you don't post.
      But you know that, right?
      I love you.

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    2. I love those words. You are both part of my everyday too. I love you both so much.

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  2. Did your Lucille Ferger live in Indian River? I looked her up on Ancestry and it shows a woman by that name marrying in 1973. And another woman with the same name, in the same community, marrying in 1982. There’s more info and it’s public information but I will just say that. Delete this comment. :-)

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    1. Those Mormons know everything! I'd love a picture of her if you can access one. You have my email, right?
      mmerluna@aol.com

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    2. And yes, definitely Indian River county.

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  3. I actually never use the Mormon site because they believe in baptism by proxy. And they are pretty fucking weird. Ancestry is just for geneology fans. Do you know what year she would have married? I didn’t see a picture which means she is likely still living. I will email you what I have.

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    1. I thought that all of Ancestory.com was Mormon. And yeah- that baptism by proxy is weird and fucked up as shit. I think that those dates are probably totally on track for Lucille. Married, divorced, married. Been there. Done that.

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  4. Awww, snuggly chickens! I love your stories about the Fergers and your childhood hometown. We had a family living down the street from us who figured similarly in my own childhood.

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  5. my confederate rose is just now putting on buds. it's a new one, this is it's first year.

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  6. I haven't spoken to anyone for two days and though it is lovely sometimes to be silent, I will likely talk my husband's ear off when I finally get back across the country. And I'll listen to you anytime.

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  7. Mick with his wing over Miss Dora is just the bit of sweetness I needed. Thanks for writing about it. The Ferger story reminds me of a childhood friend who sometimes had a mayonnaise sandwich for lunch.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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  8. Keep the words coming. They are food. Of some kind.

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  9. Snuggly chickens. Well, who knew?

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.