Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

Tiny dinosaur known as Miss Eggy Tina II

So. In chicken news I am convinced that I have at least two roosters in the four that are remaining of Darla's hatch. Not only is Elvis, Jr. a rooster, but I am now almost certain that Elvira is too. Did you know that Elvis Presley was born a twin? His older brother was stillborn and he was given the name Jesse Garon to go, I suppose, with the living brother's name of Elvis Aron. The spelling was at some point changed to Aaron. 

I guess I could name Elvira Garon but that seems a bit disrespectful, don't you think? Although, I could name them Aron and Garon. I kind of like that. We shall see. 

Guess what? I'm an idiot. No, no, seriously. I am. The barstools I found yesterday? They price tag did not say $80.00 for the set of three, it said $180.00. Big difference. 

Oh well. 

At least Mr. Moon and I got a breakfast date out of the deal. We went to a place called The Brick House Eatery in Monticello and they have an amazing breakfast. Have you ever had hash brown casserole? I hadn't until this morning. They were out of hash browns and substituted the casserole. We got portions the size of bricks, speaking of brick houses. No way I could finish the whole plate of food but it sure was good. 

That was the view from our table. They definitely have it going on at the Brick House. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The servers are pros. The menu has everything from fried pickles to blackened grouper sandwiches and filet mignon. Three beer taps. Excellent iced tea. Right across the street from Wag the Dog. 

Looks like Dorian has just been teasing us and is going to head up north without slamming Florida. Of course, it could change its mind any minute. And I really do fear for the Bahamas. And wherever it does decide to land. 

The Rolling Stones played the last concert of this year's US tour in Miami last night and they decided at the last minute to change the date from the 31st to the 30th due to the uncertainty of Dorian's path. According to reports the house was full despite the change and Jagger started the show with "Jumping Jack Flash" whose opening line is, "I was born in a crossfire hurricane," and then when they played, as an encore, "Gimme Shelter" whose first two lines are "Oh, a storm is threatening/My very life today," in a moment that I've read had to be seen to be believed, the heavens opened up and rain poured down while Mick and back-up vocalist Sasha Allen danced their way down the catwalk stage (Sasha in high heels, of course) to do their powerful duet, rain be damned. 

And when the last song had been played Mick said, "See you next time."

Bless those old boys. 

And bless this young boy. 

He and his parents and his brother are probably pulling up to their pretty little house in Tallahassee right this second after a long day of driving. And tomorrow I am having them out for pancakes and then Levon and August are going to hang out with us while Mama and Daddy get things unpacked and situated and maybe get to take a breath. 

You have no idea how happy I am about this even though August does want to break up Mr. Moon's and my relationship so that he can have Boppy all to himself. I see this as more of an indication of his love and intelligence than I do as a threat. 

Well. That's what's happening in my neck of the woods. 

And you?

Love...Ms. Moon

A Bit Of Melancholy On A Beautiful Day

When I woke up this morning it was notably cooler and the air was drier. A taste of fall. A false taste, of course, but still- a little lick of the delicious promise of what's to come. I took a walk. I washed the sheets and did other laundry and hung it all on the line. Maurice, as if she was delighting in the luxuriousness of the cooler and drier air as much as I was, lounged beneath the clothesline, stretching and relaxing in the shadows and light.

The sun has given my cat an extra tail. Can you see it? 

I had two books to return to the library in Monticello so I made a solo trip which felt strange. I always go with little ones and their mommies for toddler story hour. It was quiet and uneventful and Terez was not there. I returned my books and found another to check out. I noticed that someone had left a big box of sand pears at the door for whoever wanted them. I thought about getting a bag out of the car and taking some but I didn't. Maybe someone else will need them. 

And then I went "downtown" and did a little shopping which again felt strange and although not lonely, it was definitely different being alone. I went to Wag the Dog and found no treasures and to a vintage shop and there was nothing that that pleased me. The scent of potpourri was overwhelming and there was a little dog on a couch with the owner who said that every time the door opens the dog tries to escape and I thought, "So would I. So would I."

And then on to an antique store where I've been shopping for years and I swear- they have the same things they had a decade ago. At least in some cases. I did find three bar stool chairs that I think Mr. Moon will go buy tomorrow in the truck. The ones we have are partially woven raffia and are unraveling and the children and the cats have been helping that process along but these are oak and sturdy. 

They will probably outlive me and cost eighty dollars for the three of them. They are not antiques but they are what I've been looking for. 

I get overwhelmed by antique stores these days. Just so much stuff. And so much of it weird and unattractive and impractical and no one in their right mind would want it. Old tools that are special only in that they're probably over thirty years old and are rusty. Pictures that someone's aunt painted and which should have been thrown out fifty years ago. Skillets that were not good skillets when they were new and which are definitely not worth cooking in now. Ugly glassware, junky jewelry, pieces of quilts made of what appear to be the remains of polyester pants suits in lurid colors. Of course there are pieces I'd love to own. Beautiful old sofas and tables and desks and dressers but I have all of those things I need. It's odd to be sixty-five years old. I have things that are not perfect in any way but they do. They do. And I doubt I'll ever replace them at this stage of my life. And I have some beautiful things as well and I appreciate them but I don't need more. 

Sometimes, oddly enough, I have a wild urge to just move and leave everything behind. All of it. Find a place where the spaces are bare and simple and the lines are clean. Where I could make a new life within new walls, walk on new floors. But there are things I would miss too much. The old boards of the floors of this house. The walls that have sheltered so many for a hundred and sixty years. Its porches and hiding places for spiders and for grandchildren. 

Ah, let's face it- I'll never do that until they put me in the home and hopefully by then I won't know enough to give a shit. 

I went to the farmer's market where big sturdy women carry around crates and boxes of fruit and vegetables, where they have refrigerators with shelled field peas and smoked local bacon and sausage and basil and yard eggs. Three dollars and ninety-nine cents a dozen! My hens are worth a fortune! I got some green peanuts and some squash. I came home and boiled the peanuts in water as salty as the Dead Sea for my husband and maybe for Jessie, too, who will be home tomorrow and who loves them. 

And the storm? Ah, it grows stronger and it goes slower, sucking up the heat and power of the Atlantic. They are still not settled on a determined path and so it goes minute by minute, hour by hour, update by update. The latest projections show it possibly going up the east coast of Florida instead of crossing the state but no one knows for sure yet. It looks like it's definitely going to smash into the Bahamas and that is frightening. You can't totally evacuate an island. My cousin's daughter lives there with her two children and I think of how her mother must be worrying. How SHE must be worrying. One of the old men in the antique store today is certain that it's going to cut right across Florida, recharge in the Gulf and hit the state at Destin. I hope not. That whole area of the panhandle is still not nearly recovered from Hurricane Michael and with Trump diverting funds from FEMA to his imaginary wall, it never will recover. Or at least not any time soon. 

I have to go make supper. 

I hope you're having a decent Friday. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Ms. Cranky McCranky Pants Swears A Lot

Well, today had its ups and its downs, especially if you were Magnolia June. By the way, she's posing in front of her very own Magnolia tree. I believe it was planted over her placenta because that's the way we do things 'round these here parts. In that picture she was very happy. She was wearing her new dance clothes which she picked out herself and which are actually gymnastic clothes but for the class she's going to the kids can wear whatever they want as long as they have the right shoes. So she was happy, as noted, and excited and then it was time to start class and the world turned upside down. Turns out that these days parents can't actually observe the class first-hand, they sit in a lobby of sorts where there are video screens which show the classes via camera. There were only four children in the class- three little girls and one little boy and the teacher was wearing a pair of gym shorts and a Dr. Seuss T-shirt and had bare feet and you could see where her eyebrow piercing jewelry had been taken out and all of this was a bit new for old me who remembers when dance teachers, even for the very young, wore the classic tights and leotards and ballet shoes, etc., etc. I suppose all of that balletness was to give the children a picture of the ethereal being that ballerinas are as a sort of motivation. Or something.
This is not a criticism of the teacher of this class or of this school in general. It was just a bit unnerving for me.
So Maggie was being a bit shy but she went into the studio and she did stand on her spot for the first half of the class wherein they wore tap shoes and did little tappy things and when I say "they" I mean the teacher and one little girl who had taken dance over the summer. Maggie and the other little girl just stood there looking shocked and shy and the little boy stood in the corner looking vaguely amused. Or something. I'm not sure. It's difficult to see over the nanny-cam.
As soon as the tap shoes portion of the class was over and the children came back out to put on their ballet slippers, Maggie lost it. She wailed. She cried. She clung to her mommy. She did not want to hear anything about how nice the teacher was or how after class she could get a cookie at Publix or ANYTHING! Eventually, when class resumed Lily took her back in the class and stood beside her by the door and finally she slipped out of the door which brought on fresh new tears and wails and finally, the teacher opened the door and let her out.
Ooh boy.
Not a great beginning.
But you know- some of us just have a hard time at first with new experiences.
Before we left she did thank the teacher which took quite a bit of bravery on her part.

Since we had about an hour before it was time to pick up Hank for lunch, we decided to go by Costco where, we discovered, everyone in Tallahassee was shopping for hurricane supplies and filling up their cars with gas. I mean, people were lined up to the road waiting for gas.
Okay. First of all- the storm isn't even supposed to hit Florida (if it does hit Florida which it probably will but really, who knows?) until Sunday. Three days away.
Secondly- people were buying flats of water. In plastic bottles. Of course. Now, I'm not sure that people who are on what I call "city water" ever lose their water during hurricanes. The city has that covered. Okay? And why in HELL can't people fucking save containers and fill them up with tap water if they feel the need to have extra water on hand? You ever hear of a bathtub? You can fill that sucker up and use the water to flush your toilet for days. It's ridiculous. And sure enough, it was announced that Costco had run out of water before we finished our shopping.
This whole thing just sickens me. Do people not realize that the water they're paying out the butt for in planet-destroying plastic bottles comes from municipal water supplies for the most part? I talked to a woman later on in the day about this and she said that she generally keeps four cases of bottled water on hand because that's what her family drinks and she had been down to only two cases so she bought five more to have in case the hurricane gets here and she has two little children and they need to stay hydrated in this heat.
WTF?WTF?WTF?
I have no hope for this planet. None at all.
And guess what? We don't deserve to live here. We're too fucking stupid.

Okay. Calm down. I'll step off my soapbox for a second.
Take a breath.

We went to lunch at Maria, Maria's and it was as great as it was the first time and there were lots of customers. Good for them! The food actually reminds me of Mexico. Now don't get me wrong- I love Tex-Mex as much as the next gringo but to eat food that takes me back to the streets of Cozumel is a pure pleasure. It was good to see Hank and Rachel. By this time Maggie had completely gotten over her trauma and calmly and steadily ate her way through a goodly portion of chicken fingers and french fries and no, they're not Mexican, they are Childrican.

They still don't know what this storm is going to do. Right now the National Hurricane Center is giving a forecast that looks like this.

As you can see, the entire state of Florida is in the aptly named "cone of uncertainty." If you want to read a truly scholarly and fully fact-filled opinion about what's going on you can go HERE. 

I feel certain you do not so just go ahead and watch the weather channel and see people go into histrionics about it all. One thing that most of the forecasting models do agree on is that the storm is going to be a Category 4 when it hits land and that, my friends, is a strong fucking storm. Winds of 130 to 156 mph and nobody wants to be in that kind of crazy. Did you ever see a full-grown tree bend in half? I doubt we'll see winds like that here in the Panhandle of Florida and we may get almost nothing at all. Or hell, it could cross the state, hang out in the Gulf and gather strength for awhile, head north and knock the shit out of us. 

You just never know. 

And there's nothing we can do about it except to buy lots of bottled water and make sure our cars have gas in them because nothing says fucking stupid like getting in a car in a hurricane to evacuate at the last minute. 

This has not been a very Zen-like post. I would apologize for that but I've never claimed to be a Zen-like person. I'm a cranky old woman who swears like a dirty sailor who has already seen enough hurricanes to last her the rest of her life. 

Catch you tomorrow!

Love...Ms. Moon

Maggie Day

Magnolia's mama dropped her off this morning about nine-thirty and we had a splendid time, that girl and I. She did everything. And she brought her dog.
(Sidenote: Jack does not like dogs. Especially in his house.)
The first thing she did when she got here was ask, "Do you have any toys?"
Hahahahahahahaha!
She immediately went and got her baby and the new carriage and wheeled her around for a bit and then put the baby's blanket on Sammy whom she claimed was cold. Sammy was walking around when he was covered and the blanket did not stay on very long.
After her mama left she played a little piano, talked on the phone, took care of her business obligations. I love that sometimes when she is having these pretend conversations with pretend people she sounds annoyed. Like Hank said, as if she's saying, "Look Karen. I don't have time for this shit. Okay?"
She wanted to play with the cocktail glass mermaids and monkeys and other assorted animals and so I made her a beach with a bath towel and bowls of water and everyone went swimming. This is something that Gibson still loves to do. So much to pretend about there.

We went and let the chickens out and gathered eggs and she wanted me to cook her one and so I did. She ate all of it and a piece of toast. And grape juice. She loves grape juice.
Then it was on to the Glen Den where we decided to make a button necklace. This turned out to be a really fun project. I threaded a big needle for her with pink embroidery thread and she carefully sewed in and out of the buttonholes to hold the buttons in place. I was most impressed with her diligence and focus and she did not poke her finger once.

After the necklace was finished she played with toys. 

She had a few conversations with Hank on the Fisher Price phone and informed me that he wanted her to come to his house. 

"That's nice," I said. She nodded somberly. 

Then she wanted to go out and swing on the porch. So we went out and sat on the swing but she decided that she wanted to go sit on the other porch. Why not?

We chatted about spiders and spider plants. I offered to give her one of the baby spider plants in a pot but she graciously declined. 

"No, please," is what she says. I love that. 

By this time it was lunch time and I heated up some eggplant parmesan and spaghetti and she ate a little of that. Then she wanted a fruit popsicle and we sat on the back steps and she ate it while we watched the chickens eat the rest of the eggplant that we couldn't finish and then we gave them some cornbread. 

"I like cornbread too," she told me. 

"So do I," I said. 

So do chickens but then again, they like everything. 

Despite having just eaten lunch, Maggie decided that a tea party was in order. And so we got out the tea set and had water-tea with pretend cream and sugar, and our cookies were honey-nut cheerios. 

And THEN, we decided to play a little matching game and that was fun. She won the first round and by the time we were halfway through the second round her mama came to get her. She was very happy to see her mother although after some hugs and kisses she said that she could leave again. Sammy was even happier to see Lily. She is his human. You can tell that he's not had a permanent home for his entire life but that he's pinned his hopes on Lily. He jumps up and barks and wants her to pick him up and cuddle him which she does, of course. He's polite around everyone else but it's Lily that he loves. 

Before they left I got the girl to pose with her new necklace on. I think it is very fetching. 

She wanted me to take one with her holding her baby. And so I did.

It was truly a fun day and Maggie was most amenable. Of course, I did everything she asked me to do and she had my full attention which is not always the case. She told me she loved me several times and that filled my heart so sweetly. 

Tomorrow I'm going to go watch her first dance class and then we're meeting up with Rachel and Hank at Maria, Maria for lunch and I am looking forward to that. 

And to top everything off, Jessie called and they are coming back Saturday. 

Be still my heart. 

Just in time for the hurricane! Which is probably not going to hit us directly but may hit my beloved Roseland or, it may miss Florida entirely and curve up the coast of the US. I am so damn glad that Puerto Rico didn't get it. 

I Facebook Messaged my friend whom we rent the magical pool house on the Sebastian River from and told him I was thinking about him and to be safe. He responded with, "Ugh."

Yeah. 

It cannot be just my imagination that these yearly storms are getting more frequent and stronger. 

They just are. 

And the worst of hurricane season has only truly just begun and does not end until November 30. 

Well. What can one do? 

Have tea parties and make button necklaces and play with mermaids and baby dolls, I guess. 

By the way- our chanterelles were delicious and we did not die. 

Can't ask for more than that. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Telling Day Will Be Here Soon

The beauty berries are starting to show their mauvey, glossy glory and the golden orb weavers are claiming their territories for their final days and egg laying.

This pretty little thing has one boyfriend. He's up there at the very top. Not the dangling one you see behind her. I believe that one is deceased. This is what was going on when I watered the front porch plants and I rudely broke her web so that I could pass by with the hose. She will rebuild. 

Last night our power went out from nine until about eleven thirty. There was hardly any rain and not much wind going on. I'm not sure what the power outage source was. We laughed and joked about how it's time to get the generator ready and I bitched about having to go to bed without the fan blowing on me. I am addicted to that fan. After a few hours the air conditioned house begins to heat up and get humid and it all reminded me of hurricanes and how it feels during and after when the power is gone and we are stumbling about in the semi-darkness as this house was built to trap and hold coolness, not for bright light in all of the rooms. We go about with miner's lamps and move camp lanterns from room to room and that is what we did last night. I fell asleep but woke up just a few minutes later, my husband rambling about the house doing something until I realized that the power was back on and he was turning out lights and setting clocks. 

I woke up this morning, unsettled. I hate this season of storms and listening to experts about possible hurricane formations and paths and forecasts. They are looking at this one now. 

Dorian. Tropical Storm Dorian. Oh, Dorian- what chu gonna do? Are you going to dance with the wind above that hot summer ocean and spin and turn until you make of yourselves a baby hurricane? And if you do how fast will that baby grow and where will that baby go? 

My favorite local meteorologist always cautions about too-early predictions. 

"I'd rather be right than first," he always says. And he hates that "cone of uncertainty." He says that with this one, Thursday will be "the telling day."

The power went out again this afternoon. Only for an hour and a half. "Caused by equip. damage. Approx 675 customers impacted," Duke Energy informed me via text when the power came back on. 

This all feels too much like the warm-up exercises for the real thing. 

I got nothing done today. A short walk. A little laundry. Just as I was about to lay out the pattern for Magnolia's dress, the electricity flickered and flickered and flickered and stopped. I said fuck it and laid down on the bed with Jack and read in the semi-darkness as rain came down outside. 

But then it came back on and I got up after a nap and here are Darla and Dottie in the jungle of my kitchen bed. You can see that the pinecone lilies have emerged and in the next few weeks they will turn as scarlet as a cardinal. 

I have finally named the four youngest birds. The one I think is a rooster I am going to call EJ for Elvis, Junior. May he live up to that holy name. The hen (this is all yet to be completely proven) who looks like him will be Elvira which was what we named Elvis when we thought he was a girl. And the two goldens are Sissy and Sally. 

And it's all silly because no one will actually know or care but me. 

Yesterday Lily texted to ask if I'd like some Chanterelle mushrooms that they found in their yard. I've never cooked wild mushrooms if you want to know the truth. Well, maybe once I cooked some that Vergil brought over but I'm not sure about that. But I told Lily that I would like them and so tonight I am going to make a mushroom sauce to go over a venison roast that I'm cooking. 

Mr. Moon is a bit afraid that I'm going to kill him. I told him that if he dies, I will too. 

I am sure that he finds this comforting. 

As we speak he is working on the generator. I suppose we need to get our act together regarding batteries and flashlights. As to food- I am not worried in case of a storm. For one thing, Publix always opens back up almost immediately after storms pass. They all have generators. Besides, we can keep our refrigerator going with our own much smaller generator. It will run that and a few lights and most importantly- my fan. I have a gas stove. We are on "city water" instead of a well with a pump and they always manage to keep that going. 

One supposes that a trip to Costco to buy extra vodka and beer is in order though. 

I'll think about that on Thursday, the telling day. 

And tomorrow my granddaughter is coming over for a little visit. Lily and Lauren have appointments with our darling Melissa and I have offered to keep the girl so that they can do that and have a leisurely lunch after. I need some time with that golden haired woman-baby. 

It is drizzling. It is the very end of August. Here we are again. It seems like time and the seasons pass in a breath, in a dream, in a dance, in a kiss, in the slap of cold river water as we dive under the surface with our eyes open to see in a blurry haze another world, right there, all the time even as we go on about our business pretending and forgetting that it is there at all. 

Life is so mysterious even when we keep our eyes open. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Little More Memory

That's an Eastern black swallowtail butterfly, I do believe. I spied it just now walking back from the hen house where I collected three eggs, one so fresh that the protective coating hadn't hardened yet and it was not warm, it was hot. Anyway, the butterfly is on a magnolia leaf, perhaps drying out her wings as we just got a nice little downpour. Or just hatched as far as I know. I am ignorant in the ways of butterflies.

So when I got to Tallahassee all of my troubles did not magically disappear even though I felt a deep sense of being far more at home than I ever did in Denver. I had arrived in a state of deep depression and looking back now, I see that I was already suffering from some anxiety which made it hard for me to ever feel as if I fit in completely, even with the people I met who were, for the most part, so dear. I think that on that first afternoon I not only met Herb but also a woman flautist who was going to FSU's music school with the sweet boy, and also Bill Wharton.
Lisa, the flautist, was from Miami and was brusk and tough as a woman could be. Or so she presented herself at least. She did not suffer fools gladly. She had a voice like Janis Joplin's, rough and her laugh was a cackle. She loved reefer. She was diabetic and that wasn't stopping her for a second. She was fierce and determined and forthright in all ways.
She scared the shit out of me.
Bill was another story. He dropped by the house to show the sweet boy the guitar he'd just gotten. An Ovation and I can remember like it was yesterday, him sitting on a chair and showing us how easy it was for that rounded-back of an instrument to slide from his lap but he cuddled it up and he played a little bit and told us he'd just gotten a job as a roofer.
"A reefer roofer," he said.
I think he worked that job for about a week. Bill's a musician and that's that.
And that was the beginning of meeting D's network of friends. They were all kind to me but it was hard for me to accept being accepted. In Denver I'd been the southern girl. I was literally asked if it was true that southerners like watermelon and fried chicken. Not black people, specifically, just southerners in general. My accent got made fun of. I had very limited experience with drugs or alcohol and the preponderance of students there from NYC were, to say the least, quite experienced. They'd all gone to prep schools (and believe it or not I didn't even know what a prep school was) and mostly chose DU because they loved to ski.
Well, I could water ski but I sure wasn't going to bring that up.
Anyway, I felt like a true alien among them. I did make a few good friends but I am not in touch with one of them and haven't been for many decades.
So here I was in Tallahassee meeting a whole new group of people, mostly musicians, some artists, hippies all, and who was I?
A college drop-out with no goals, no achievements, no desire to go back to school, no purpose, suffering from depression but trying to pretend that all was well and I was cool- what did I have to offer?
I had no idea.
And then to make things even worse, D. decided in about twenty-four hours that me living with him was not a good idea and that's when I completely lost my shit. I'd driven more than halfway across the country on the premise that I'd have a place to live and a man to love and, well...not so much.
As I've said before, I am certain that he never thought I'd take him up on his offer for me to come to Tallahassee and live with him. And he was busy. Music school was no joke. He had hours of rehearsals and classes. And he didn't want or need to be tied down. Not in the least. And I understand that now but my god, I was so lost then.
D. let me stay in his house for awhile and I did everything I knew to do to try and get him to change his mind. I cooked. I domesticated until I couldn't domesticate anymore. I listened to Mahler and Pink Floyd, neither of which I really enjoyed. I got stoned. Finally I moved into an apartment that a friend of D's in the music school needed a roommate for. I didn't know her very well, didn't like her very much, and we had nothing in common. I cried. I cried and I cried and I cried. I slept a lot.
I got an ulcer.
But slowly I made friends with other people and slowly I began to make a life for myself and slowly, the light began to come back into that life.
It took a long time and there are many stories that are part of how I began to make my way back.
Back from where, I am not sure. I think I'd been depressed and anxious since early childhood. But I scrabbled up that rocky cliff one handhold at a time and was graced with the love of a few people and all of it led to where I am now.

I want to tell some of those stories. How one hippie, broken girl managed to hold on when it was unbearably hard. And how over the decades she found, if not complete healing, at least a way to live with the past.

Here's a picture I stole from a post Lily put up on Facebook today.

Maggie and Sammy on the red dirt road in front of their house. That's where this life has led me. 

And this picture of Levon that Jessie sent yesterday after a long, arduous hike up a mountain. 

I wish, oh how I wish, that I could have whispered in that hippie girl's ear and told her that it would all be okay. To try and not worry quite as much. To even, dare I say it? Enjoy herself a little more. 

Because it is okay. And all of that has resulted in this. 

Fresh eggs and butterflies on magnolia leaves and grandchildren whom I adore more than words can describe and a man I've loved for thirty-six years and so much more than I could ever have imagined. 

I'm not really a fan of the Greatful Dead. They never played the music that made my soul dance but when they coined the phrase, "What a long strange trip it's been," they nailed it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Such A Bless Our Hearts Post

Maurice has been having a hard time of it, mostly because of Jack. We weighed Jack the other day and he weighs eighteen pounds. I know this is not record-breaking when it comes to cat weights but I doubt that Maurice weighs eight pounds. Hell, she might weigh less than five pounds. She's tiny. And so Jack has finally established himself as the King Of All He Surveys which is mostly the house.

Jack enjoying the new Kantha cloth throw I so thoughtfully purchased for his napping pleasure. 

He only goes outside to pee and poop and occasionally relieve the boredom of napping on our bed by napping on the table in the back yard. Or to make sure that Maurice isn't trying to nap on the table on the porch. I have to pick the big boy up to make our bed in the morning and he does not like that. He hangs on to the sheets with his toe scimitars and it's a struggle every day. Meanwhile Maurice does come in to eat and sometimes she even snuggles up in Mr. Moon's lap when he's in his chair although yesterday when she was trying to do that he had the audacity to pet her and she...wait for it!...clawed the crap out of him. She's so touchy.
But in the garden she can come and go as she pleases and hang out in the shade and watch me pull weeds and when she asks to be petted, I can safely indulge her, wearing my gardening gloves as I do. I wear them as protection against the fire ants but they work pretty good for cat claws as well.

This is African basil. I think. It's about the only thing still thriving in the garden besides all of the volunteer sweet potatoes. There's a lot of the basil though and I use it in salads and in cooking and should make up some pesto and freeze it in ice cube trays for the winter. That works very well. I'm slowly getting the garden cleared out and ready for the fall planting. For whatever reason, I am pretty excited about that this year. I think I might do some research to find some more interesting greens and lettuces to plant although of course I will plant the old favorites- the collards and mustards, the mesclun, the arugula. Perhaps I'll go insane and try some broccoli and cabbage again this year although I've never been able to very successfully grow those. I do not know why. One year we did get a few giant cabbages but that was obviously some sort of glitch in the universe or something. 

I just finished listening to a beautiful production of a gorgeous book. 

A very finely told tale and I would read it with my eyes but the narration is perfect. So- if you listen to audio books, I definitely recommend this one. I was so sad when it ended. It restored my faith in publishers sometimes getting it right and honoring good writing. 

So. Did you see Barack and Michelle's summer play list? The songs they've been enjoying lately? 

First of all- we used to have a president who listened to music. 

Can you believe that? Wonder what Trumpsteak listens to? Nazi martial music, I would imagine. 

Okay, okay, let's let that one go. No need to waste air space on it as a friend of mine said recently. We all know how we feel about that. 

But see #34 there? "Happy" by the Rolling Stones? 

You have no idea how happy that makes me. That's a Keith song. It's one he wrote and one he always performs at concerts while Mick goes backstage and catches his breath or does forty push-ups or whatever it is that Mick does while Keith takes the stage. I'm pretty sure I've posted a video of the song before but hey! It's Sunday. Time for a hymn.

This was filmed thirteen years ago and it's quintessential Keith Richards. Watch the first few seconds of it at least to see him do his blessing. It's a fine rockin' song and I'm glad that President and Mrs. Obama have enjoyed it. 

All right. That's about all I have to say tonight.

Gold rings on ya and all your babies too.

Love...Ms. Moon

Pondering Death And Life- You Know- The Little Things

We went to a funeral today. My brother's father-in-law died last Saturday and although Mr. Moon and I were not close to him, he had made a huge difference in the lives of my brother and his family. He loved them dearly and took them on wonderful vacations. A month ago, in fact, they all went to North Carolina together and a good time was had by all. He was my niece's and nephew's only grandparent after my mother died and they adored "Papa."
And so of course we had to go. Family. The service was held in a funeral home and was short and sweet. His daughters and a few of his siblings spoke as well as his best friend. It was decidedly non-religious. The holy name of the father was only mentioned once, heaven a few times, hell not at all. Mostly the stories were about funny things he'd done, how caring he'd been as a father, a brother, a husband.
It was good to see my brother and his wife and Kian and Riley, so almost-grown now. We saw them at Easter but I swear they've grown since then. Kian is driving now, Riley is about to get her license. I think they were all glad we showed up. We were glad we went.

I think of how we never pulled a funeral together for my mother. Part of me is ashamed of that. Part of me is not. I know that her church friends might have wished that we had. Her minister called me at least three times before he finally gave up, inquiring as to what sort of service we might want. We're not a religious family in any sense. One of my brothers lives in the Pacific Northwest and he wasn't going to come, believing rightly that seeing Mother while she was alive was far more important than attending a funeral. And my other two brothers and I were going through confusing times due to several issues and...well, it just didn't happen.
Ironically, the last time I saw Tom, my brother's father-in-law was right after Mother died. Chuck and his wife and their kids and Tom came over and we ate some ham and hung out, mostly on the porch. And that was that.

I wonder what will happen when I die. Humans can't help but contemplate that situation for themselves. I don't mean where will I go when I die? What sort of form my soul will take? Not that. No one knows and if anyone tells you that they do, don't believe them. I'm thinking eternally gone. Done. And as much as I love to sleep, that's fine with me.
No. I'm talking about what my kids and husband will do. (I better go before him.) I really don't care. I mean, I'll be dead. We joke about it sometimes.
"Play Thunder Road."
I think that's the main directive I've given. That's not much to go on, is it?
I imagine that there will be drinking involved. As there should be. Dancing, I hope.
I remember after my beloved friend Lynn died and how, at the end of a long day of celebrating her life, Shayla and I danced in my hallway to Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Iz Kamakawiwo'Ole. I had danced in so many hallways and kitchens with Lynn and that dance felt sacred. Lynn would have loved that more than anything. Sometimes it is best, I think, to let these things arise organically rather than to plan a sterile service with no room for improvisational hallway dancing.

Well, I really did not mean to discuss after-death plans. I rarely have any idea what I'm going to write about when I sit down.
Talk about arising organically...
But the topic of my death doesn't depress me. I've lived. I'll die. Whatever happens after will be what it is. Now the thought of other people's deaths is another thing entirely. That I can't even discuss.

It's pouring rain and the sun is shining. There is no doubt a rainbow involved somewhere. It smells of the funk of wet dirt and the sharpness of ozone. The best perfume in the world. All over the world and right in my family there are people mourning the loss of loved ones. Every one of us has lost someone. Some of those losses are almost unbearable. Some of them are more confusing than painful. There are no rules about these things. Not about death or how we should feel about it or what we should do afterwards.
But I do like to think of the people I've loved who have died and how much they would have loved this or hated that. I miss them and selfishly, I miss the parts of me that went with them because we share different parts of ourselves with different people. We have entrusted those people with these parts of ourselves and they have loved us despite them or because of them. That's what love is, I think. Or some of it.

Ah well. I think I'll go make some curried squash and sweet potato and cashew soup. You know why? Because I can. And I want to. And I'm alive.

Love...Ms. Moon

Back On The MacBook

I was hanging sheets on the line today when I got a call from from the Computer Doctor place to tell me that my MacBook was ready to be picked up.
"OH!" I trilled. "You just made my day!"
"Uh, well, okay," said the guy.

I already had an errand planned for just a few blocks away from the repair place and I had thought how wonderful it would be if I could combine that errand with picking up my s-typing beloved almost-like-a-child-to-me laptop but had had little hope that this is how it would go and so when that's exactly how it turned out, I felt like a child promised a trip to Disney World by a rich uncle she'd never heard of. Or something like that.

And so I ran my errands and went to Joanne's Fabrics to get some material for Maggie a dress
and then I saw this:

I was forced by the universe to purchase three yards of it. What I am going to do with it I do not know but how could I leave it in the store? 

Maggie's material looks like this-

Purple! Butterflies! Sparkles! 

Ooh boy. And if August wants a dress of it, I'll make him one too. 

Speaking of the boy, Lis got to visit with Jessie and the boys today.

She and Lon are in North Carolina right now, playing festivals and a wedding and enjoying the relative coolness. I'm so glad she got to see her fairy goddaughter and the boys. I know that Jessie was thrilled about that. I so wish I could have been there too. 

But instead I was driving around Tallahassee, buying stuff. I've said this before but I'll say it again- I am not bipolar but on a rare day I find myself in a very fine mood wanting to shop. So besides the fabric I also went next door to Tuesday Morning and got a wooden recorder for the children to play and a new Kantha cloth to put on my bed because it's just so pretty. While I was shopping there I heard a woman wearing a big old honking cross around her neck say, "Oh, shit!" 

That made me smile. 

So it's Friday. The stock market is tanking. Trumpsteak has commanded everyone to stop doing business with China. The Amazon is on fire. RBG has a tumor on her pancreas. We can probably survive all of that except the fire in the Amazon. 

But here in Lloyd, Florida there will be clean sheets on the bed tonight and an eggplant parmesan made from our own eggplants. Mr. Moon is about to make us martinis and NASA has announced that they have named a rock on Mars after the Rolling Stones. 

I don't even know what to say about any of it so I'll just say this-

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

There’s Darla waiting on Dottie to lay her egg and make the nest available. This is what the hens do. They pick out a nest and deem it “the one” for awhile, meanwhile leaving five others empty. There is absolutely no reason in the world that I can see for Darla to not lay her egg in that nest she’s standing in. It’s clean and ready. 

I say “that I can see” because I am sure there is good reason for hens to lay in the same nest and I think it may be so that if one hen goes broody, she’ll be sitting on the eggs of other hens- thus ensuring a stronger and more varied flock. It’s extremely hard on a hen to sit on eggs for three weeks with hardly any breaks for food and water and it’s far more efficient for one hen to do the work rather than the entire flock. And that way, the other hens continue to lay which the broody hen does not. She uses every bit of her energy to sit and incubate and then to raise the chicks. 

I think this is all fascinating unlike my day which was pretty dang boring. On one level, at least. 

I read a story in the New Yorker today (“The Loop” by J. Robert Lennon) and although it wasn’t my favorite short story I’ve ever read, it gave me a little something to chew on. In the story a sort of “Groundhog Day” thing occurs and the protagonist is doomed to find herself repeating the same Saturday over and over with no ability to change one detail. She decides that perhaps the only way to escape this loop is to observe and notice something she was supposed to see “...before she would be freed to finish her life, to experience newness every second until death. That’s what had been taken from her- the absolute pristine uniqueness of each boring moment of existence.”

Like a person who has just smoked his or her first joint and is suddenly thinking about the very cosmos in new and different ways, sometimes our minds can get a little blown by nothing more than a changed perspective and that is what those two lines gave me today. 

No matter how routine a day may be, each and every moment is absolutely new and unique. 

So I’m tucking that into my pocket and pondering it. Even though everything I did today is something I’ve done a thousand or more times, there are infinite ways that each act was different from all of the rest. And I suppose that if we pay attention, despite the seeming repitition of those acts it will lead to a sort of mindfulness. 

And whether or not that has any benefit at all is not for me to determine. I ain’t no Marianne Williamson or David Avocado Wolfe.

I’m just me. 

Typing away on my little phone. 

Okay. Well, there’s your nugget of the glaringly obvious for today. 

Time to go make supper. 

Love...Ms. Moon

This Feels Sorta Like...Happiness

That’s my pathetic little harvest tonight. There are a few more eggplant growing that I’m going to leave on the vine to give them the chance to swell a bit. The greens are arugula and basil that are going into tonight’s salad. The eggs are- well- you know. And the zinnias are for joy, the little pepper for spice. 

I’ve had a good day today. Lily and Maggie and I met for lunch and it’s so different being with Maggie without the boys. I have to say (and please forgive me) that she’s a bit more civilized. It’s probably mostly a matter of when she’s with her brothers she has to constantly make sure that she is getting everything they’re getting whether that be French fries or attention. I feel a definite vibe of being three ladies when it’s just Lily and Maggie and me. 

We also went to Big Lots and that was fun, especially playing with all the light-up, action Halloween things. Halloween decorations have definitely gotten way more exciting since I was a child. I sort of love these skeleton hands coming out of typewriters to type, and howling wolves, and creepy children on rocking horses who sing eerie versions of Ring Around The Rosy which is a creepy song on its own. 

All of that was good and I went to Costco and then came home and ironed and watched some more of the docu-series “The Family” and cursed them as I blasted wrinkles with steam and heat. 

But aside from having a government infiltrated with a secret Christian society which has tentacles around the world and a president who thinks he can buy Greenland, I am surprisingly content and feeling almost, sometimes, sort of happy. 

Man. It’s fucking weird. 

But I like it. 

Here’s a text that Mr. Moon and I got from Jessie last night:

Glen and I laughed and laughed. 

I told my husband that if that happened I’d probably still be expected to show up every day and cook and do laundry. And Mr. Moon added, “And read stories and change diapers.” 

And this evening I actually talked to the boy on the phone where he somewhat redeemed himself by telling me that he loves me as “big as Boppy.”

Well, that’s pretty big. 

And it’s obvious that Boppy has achieved almost mythological status in the eyes of his grandchildren. Which is at it should be. 

I’m still without my MacBook so I’m neither commenting on blogs or answering comments on mine but please know that I am reading. I do love my phone but it’s not the best for all things. 

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal. However, like happiness, it’s sometimes the small things that matter. 

Life on earth as a human being. It’s huge and it’s so microscopic as to be laughably meaningless. 

In other words- confusing as hell. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Exhausting

Mr. Moon had two appointments today, one with the neurologist and one with the neurologist’s NP. The first one was scheduled for 12:30, the second for 2:30. I figured it would be a lengthy affair but when we  finally left the office it was 4:30. 

It astounds me that doctors can get away with over-scheduling patients like that. It’s like airlines over-booking flights. Do they think that with any luck a few people will just DIE?

Oh well. That’s over and now we are getting a referral to Mayo Clinic. There’s a branch (franchise?) in Jacksonville. 

And the good news is that my husband is in excellent health in all regards except for whatever it is that’s going on with his legs and feet and the neurologist has absolutely no clue about what that is and thus, the referral. 

After the appointments I still had to run by Publix and so my whole day is off-kilter. I’m such a creature of habit that things like this throw me off terribly. I have become way too inflexible and I know it. I’m the sort of person who has to have the pages in my browser window arranged just so. I suppose there’s no real problem with this. I don’t think I have any sort of obsessive/compulsive disorder although I’m sure that these ritual orders of chores and schedule and pages are my way of controlling my world as best I can and they offer a sense of security. 

They also serve to keep my anxiety in control. 

And as such, they have value. 

It is horribly hot and muggy again. The air is just thick with humidity. Walking across a parking lot feels like walking underwater, limbs slowed by the outside forces. It’s enough to make a saint cranky and I am no saint. 

This is a pretty worthless blog post. I’m sure I’ve written worse. A few more hours of being up and busy and then it will be time to crawl into my cool sheets with my fan blowing on me to read for a little while and then to tumble into my dreams. I hope they are not horrible tonight. 

Let’s all sleep in peace. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Well, back to writing on the phone and it’s really not so terribly bad. I may not do of my memory posts until my MacBook is fixed but then again, I may. 

The day has been as full as I thought it would be. Hank and Rachel came out to bury their beloved cat-child, Johnny Karate. Johnny died last night after a short lifetime of only six years. When Hank adopted the tiny black kitten whom we came to know as Johnny, he had already survived an umbilical hernia surgery. The little dude had come from a sort of cat-hoarding situation and he may have been inbred and it is doubtful that any of the cats there had decent food or healthcare and Johnny had one problem after another from uncontrollable diarrhea to neurological problems after he had a terrible fever. 

He was special. 

But Hank figured out that the cat was allergic to gluten and bought the special food and the diarrhea problem was solved and as for the neurological problems- well. They both figured out how to live with them and if there was ever a more loved and gently tended cat in the world I don’t know who it could have been. 

And then Hank met Rachel and Johnny and Rachel fell in love and he was Rachel’s very first pet. 

Despite all of his problems, Johnny remained sweet and funny and he had a good life but a few weeks ago he started getting sick and by last night there was nothing more that could be done. His heart had become (or always was) enlarged and he couldn’t walk and was probably in pain and Hank and Rachel let him go in grace. 

So. Because this yard in Lloyd has become the official pet cemetery, they brought him out here today and his final resting place was dug by his humans in a place of honor right beside our old boxer Pearl’s grave. We picked zinnias for him and laid a fallen log over the grave to mark the spot. He will become part of the earth. 

Hank read what is written on this gravestone:

It was perfect and we all cried. 

Mr. Moon survived the MRI and I have decided I like him on Valium. He is quite, as he said, mellow. He may or may not have fixed my car. We shall see. 

I took my laptop to the Computer Doctor and had a most pleasant exchange with a tall, bearded guy with long hair who wore a hair elastic on his wrist. They have run diagnostics and need to replace the keyboard and have to order the part and that’s going to take some time.

I’ll live. 

The thing I like about this place is that although I feel quite certain that the guys who work there think that I should probably be at home baking cookies and are silently laughing at my AOL email account, they never let those feelings show and do not condescend. 

So that’s been it for today. I cleaned out the hen house and gave the girls fresh straw to lay in and watered the porch plants. I am counting down the days until Jessie and Vergil return with those wild boys. 

While we were sitting in the waiting area of the radiology place today, an older man who was also waiting got up and started passing out cards for his church. I glanced up from my book and just said, “No,” but a woman behind us got quite irate. 

“Why do you think I need this?” she asked. 

“I’m a Christian,” said the old man. “This is how you get to heaven. Through Jesus. I’m just trying to help.”

“I know that Jesus is the way to get to heaven,” said the lady. “But I have my own church.” And she gave him back his card. The man took it and went back to his seat. 

Once again I wondered why in hell it’s socially acceptable for Christians to go around foisting off their beliefs onto others in any situation. 

I guess they think they’re doing the right thing. 

I thought about going and sitting down by the old man and telling him all about the Church of the Batshit Crazy and explaining the Miracle of Keith Richards or telling about the cat who provided comfort in hours of loneliness or pain. 

But I didn’t. 

Too bad for him, right?

Love...Ms. Moon

And then the “s” key quit working again and the reboot trick doesn’t work so...off to the professionals it will go tomorrow. 

Dammit. 

But in the grand scheme of things- not so much. 

So this is being thumb-typed on my phone. 

Tomorrow’s going to be a big day. The battery on my seven year old Prius finally seems to have hit its limit. When Lily and Maggie and I were in Monticello last Thursday my sturdy, trusty little car refused to start until I did something tricky with the key and the locks. We got home fine but when I tried to start it for us to go to the river yesterday the same thing happened and The Car Guy (aka Mr. Moon) diagnosed the battery needing replacing so he’s got to get me a new one of those AND go into work and get some things done and then come back and get me so that we can go to his MRI appointment. I am not going to let him do that by himself. He hates being enclosed in small spaces. 

He’s such a good guy. Today he and another man went over to a mutual friend’s place to fix the leaks in the roof WHILE IT WAS POURING RAIN! This is the friend who’s been having serious medical problems. I made him a pot of soup but making soup in a cozy kitchen is hardly a chore. I kept some back for us and that’s what we’re having for our supper with a pan of cornbread that I’ll make. 

I spent some time watching “The Family” on Netflix today and like Rebecca said- watch it with the lights on. I can’t tell you how strong my aversion to most forms of religion has become. This series only serves to make me feel even more strongly about it. While I watched I tried to do some embroidery on a pair of May’s old corduroy overalls that will fit August this winter and what I have discovered is that my left wrist, the one I broke in high school, will no longer allow me to do much needlework. It just purely hurts. This breaks my heart and makes my stubborn soul determined to find some work-around. 

We shall see. 

We shall also see how long it takes for me to be able to comment on blogs again. I suppose I could just leave a blank space for the esses. This may not work. I mean- “e  e “?

Oh well. At least my roof isn’t leaking and it’s not as hot as the burning surface of the sun. 

I give a Sunday Church of the Batshit Crazy AMEN for those blessings and the frogs and crickets are singing a fine response. 

At least in my mind that’s what they’re doing. 

In The Holy Name Of Babies, Soup, and Rock and Roll...

Love...Ms. Moon

Herb

I do not remember a great deal about my drive from Denver to Tallahassee. I recall staying mostly in Howard Johnson Motor Lodges. I do not know why. I also don't remember how I found the sweet boy's house when I got to Tallahassee but I did. It was very near campus and was on the corner of two major Tallahassee streets, Call and McComb, and it was, to be quite blunt, what had probably been a tenement shack and there were two or three others, right in a row on Call Street. All of those houses are gone now but one of them, the one the sweet boy rented, had a bit of history in that Carlisle Floyd who composed the opera "Susana" had lived in it when he was writing his most famous piece of music. Florida State University has preserved and moved the house to another location and I'm not quite sure what they're doing with it. Here's a picture I found of the house and Floyd.

The house had a front porch, two main rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom, all very, very basic. I loved that house and it was haunted. I felt at home in it in a way I can't describe. 

But when I found the house, parked, and knocked on the front door, no one answered but a guy who saw me from the little cabin next door came over and said, "Are you Mary? Are you looking for D.?He's probably at the music school. Come on, I'll take you over there."

And that was how I met Herb. 

Herb did take me to the music school and we did find D. and Herb and I became very good friends and he was one of the kindest, funniest, craziest men I'd ever met. He was going to FSU art school at that time but he'd spent some time before that in prison. He'd been charged with possession of weed. He'd also been in Viet Nam if my memory serves. 

He was always happy. I've mentioned that I was in a major depression then and I was and although I may not have even understood what depression was and certainly didn't talk about it, Herb sensed that all was not well with me. That I was, in fact, broken. And he became my buddy, my pal. Looking back I see that Herb was part of my healing because he accepted me the way I was and gave me nothing but respect and love. 

I remember one night a bunch of us were very stoned and as stoned people will do, we got hungry. I excused myself, went into the kitchen and baked what I now call my hippie apple cake with whatever ingredients I had on hand which was not much. Herb took one bite of that warm cake when it came out of the oven and he looked at me and he said, "Lady, you are a goddess."

And I have never forgotten that. 

He was big and he was burly and he was bearded and long-haired and he'd wallpapered his little cottage in aluminum foil and egg cartons for some reason (an art project?) and he'd painted an old Electrolux canister vacuum to look like a penis and he always had some crazy project going on. 

At one point, he got an opportunity to go to Mexico to teach via some bizarre art-school contact but he couldn't go because he was still on parole so we came up with the good idea to write the judge who'd sentenced him a letter explaining the situation so that he could leave the country. We walked to the convenience store right across the street and bought a stationery pad, the only writing paper they had, which was printed on every page with one of those completely inane and ridiculous "Love Is" cartoons from the seventies. Because yes, this was the seventies. 

Like this.

And then I proceeded to write the letter for Herb on this stationery and in the letter I pointed out that Herb had served his time and served his country and had gotten this amazing opportunity and so please, would the judge release him from his parol? 

The letter was sent. 

The judge released him. 

I don't think that Herb ended up going to Mexico but eventually, he did leave for somewhere. 

Right about the time he left, our good friend Bill Wharton, now known as the Sauce Boss who was then and is now a musician, woke up one morning to find an old National Steel guitar leaning up against the wall of his house on his front porch. No note. No nothing. Just that guitar. 

And that guitar- well- it changed Bill's life. It changed his music, it changed his mind, it changed everything. And for years he was afraid that whoever had left that guitar was going to come back and claim it until finally once, Herb came back to town and touched base with all of us and he asked Bill, "Hey man, you still got that guitar?"

Herb had gotten it in one of his crazy barter-trades and knew he'd never play it but had a notion that Bill would. 

Bill's played that guitar all over the world and up and down and back and across the US many times. He's still playing it. 

And that was Herb. 

Last time I saw him he'd been down in South America working on some sort of gold recovery scheme from mines and he told me that he was going back and he was going to make a million dollars and that was all there was to it. And then he got into his little airplane and flew away. 

Haven't heard from him since but I sure hope he made that million. 

So that's my story about Herb and I'm enjoying writing these pages from the book of my story. They make me think about the past and about the people and places that have truly made me who I am. Tallahassee was and is filled with those people and of course those places. 

Today we went to the river, my husband and I, and we met up with Hank and Rachel and Lily and the kids and some friends of Hank's and Rachel's and Kelly and Wiley Cash and then our beloved John and Melissa showed up and it rained but it didn't lightening or thunder and we got river wet and rain wet and snacked under the beautiful new wooden shelter that looks like a chapel. 

Eventually everyone left but us. It was perfect.

Wiley and Maggie played in their own little river as well as the big one. 

This morning I got to spend a long time on the phone with my best friend since 1966 and just now I've gotten off the phone with May. We made each other laugh so hard. 

And now I'm going to go make some pizza. The dough is ready to roll out on the pizza stone and I have spinach to cook for it and wild hog sausage to put on it and I can hardly think of anything better. 

Thanks for coming along with me on these memory dances. 

Love...Ms. Moon