A Boy Is Promoted!

Explanation to follow.

Meanwhile- what a day! 

Owen was graduating (or being promoted as I think they called it) from the 8th grade. Next year he starts high school. Look y'all- it was ten minutes ago that he was graduating from Pre-K. 

So of course I went and I had a few errands to run before I met Lily to pick her up so that we could carpool. She checked Maggie and Gibson out of school so that they could come too and then it was time to line up to wait to get into the gym where the ceremony was to be held. They started letting people in at 2:30 and the whole shebang started at 3:00. 

We got good seats. Jason was there too, of course. Mr. Moon couldn't come because it was tiny home delivery day. 
The superintendent of schools was there along with another board of education member. So all three of them had to make speeches after the eight grade filed in and filled those seats and they were the usual incredibly boring, "You can't control what happens but you can control how you react to it," type of speeches full of trite advice about how to survive high school and do your best there and in life in general, and then one of the students made a speech and then another student made a speech and then two girls sang a song which was great and eventually, after about four segments of eternity, they got to the part where they called all the kids' names and they filed OUT of their seats and walked past all the people who needed to shake their hands and the students did indeed shake their hands and got their diplomas or certificates or whatever you get for graduating eighth grade and filed BACK into their seats while the last few words of advice were given. 
I was amazed at how good all of the children in the bleachers were. I didn't even hear one crying baby! And this went on a for a very long time. I honestly thought I was going to stand up and scream at a few points but that would have been entirely inappropriate. I did enjoy people watching, especially one darling little baby girl who was so happy, playing with her daddy's ears. She had such long curly hair and such a dear face that I decided she would look exactly the same when she was 47 years old as she does now. 

Here's what Owen looked like after he got his certificate.

Thrilled, no?

He was happy when it was over as was everyone in that gym, probably most of all the superintendent of schools who is going to attend 22 graduations and promotions this week. 
Why would anyone want that job? 

When we finally got outside I was so happy and of course pictures were taken. 

Proud family!

And when this happened, I about died. 

The it was time for all of us to pile into my car so I could take them home and come home myself but when I say "my car" I mean the car Glen usually drives because my Prius needs a new starting battery (have I already told you this?) so I was in his Camry. Everyone got in, buckled up, and I tried to start the car and...NOTHING.

Well, the dash lights came on. 

Other than that, click, click, click, dead, dead, dead. (See picture above.)

There's more to the story but needless to say I called Glen who was a bit unsettled and busy because the trailer hauling the tiny house onto Tom's property went over a berm and the rear end of the tiny house came off the trailer and the tiny house is now at an angle, leaning on a tree. 
I shit you not. 

But he came and jumped the Camry. Jason had taken Lily and the kiddos home and I drove his truck back to Lloyd and he took the Camry to Costco to get a battery to put in it. 

He is my knight in shining armor. He is my sweetheart. He did say, "You have to quit breaking our cars," but he didn't even curse. 

Driving his big old honkin' work truck was a trip. "Do you have a pillow for me to sit on?" I asked him. "No, but I have a sack of corn. I don't think you want to sit on it though."
Then I asked him if there were any special instructions I needed before I drove it. "Just don't hit anything," he said. 
I didn't and I felt sort of powerful, sitting up there in that cab, surrounded by tools and thermoses and the smell of petrol. I sort of wished I had a bulldog to hang his head out of the passenger side window with its ears blowing back in the wind. 

Here's one more picture and in it, you can see that the day was completely worth it for me, eternal graduation ceremony, dead battery and all. 

How I love that boy. 

I'll let y'all know how the situation with Tom's tiny house goes as things unfold. I do believe that professionals are going to be involved. Or at least that's what Glen says. And no, he was not driving the truck hauling the trailer. If he had been, that house would be sitting right where it's supposed to be. 

Tomorrow I go to the dermatologist for the first time in many years. I finally made an appointment. Wish me luck. I have a few extremely funky-looking growths that definitely need to be checked out. A life spent in Florida, mostly outside, can definitely lead to problems. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Sunday Sorta Blues

 This is the side view of the tiny house that Tom bought. Yes, it does sort of look like a trailer but it is of wood construction. Here's another view.

It even has a little front porch. 
If you do a google search for images of tiny house interiors, you may be shocked at how roomy they can seem inside. Tom will have a full kitchen, albeit a small one, as well as a bathroom with a walk-in shower and a washer and dryer. Some tiny houses have sleeping lofts with stairs leading up to them but that would not have worked for Tom with his mobility issues. 

These pictures were taken when Tom and Glen went to see it on the day Tom purchased it. Tomorrow it will be delivered, set on blocks, and leveled. Tie-down will have to be done by someone else. Probably Mr. Moon. Also water, septic tank, and power will have to be connected. 
He took the afternoon off today as everything is ready for the delivery. It has been nine days of solid work to get ready for this house and I hope, as I have said before, that Tom will come to enjoy living there. 

I am having a longing day. I don't even know what I'm longing for. Perhaps it's for a little cabin of our own in the woods somewhere, overlooking a spring or a river. Sometimes even Lloyd seems too busy, too noisy with traffic and booming bass in cars and sirens and lawn mowers and leaf blowers. 
Which is ridiculous. 
Okay, the train really is noisy. And I doubt that any of y'all quite grasp how close the tracks are to my house. 

Here's my backyard. You can see the portion of the fence that was still standing after one hurricane or another took the rest of it out via tree-fall. Do you see the dead pine tree there to the left behind some other trees and bamboo and bushes? Well, right behind that is the railroad tracks. The trains do shake the house but they haven't shaken it to the ground yet. The windows rattle though. We barely notice the train noise anymore unless one comes through with a very different whistle than we usually hear. There's a crossing just about what I'd think of as a quarter of a block away so we get that warning every time one comes through.

Anyway, back to the idea of the little cabin in the woods. This is a weird time in our lives. I know that in reality, we should be looking for a house in town closer to the kids so that when we really start to need some help, they'll be right there to come check on us or to change a lightbulb or whatever. But I don't want to live in town even though Tallahassee has some darling neighborhoods with older, charming houses and big trees and nice yards. There's a house for sale on Jessie's street as we speak that is darling. 

It's got tons of bookshelves and a nice backyard with a screened-in porch and a little in-ground pool and patio. 

Can't get much cuter than that. 

But I don't know. Town. 
I mean, if you're going to live in town, that's a fine place to do it. But there's part of me that can't imagine not living where I'm surrounded by all the nature I have now, where we have a semblance of privacy, where Glen can keep all the dang vehicles he wants in the yard. Where we can have our garden and he can have his giant garage and I can have my beloved old house that rambles and ranges through one room after another, built no doubt by families who needed more room for their big families, where the camellias and palms I've planted grow and thrive.
It's probably silly but if logic were humans' main driving force, it would be an entirely different world. So in a way, I'm not unlike Tom who will do almost anything to stay there on his piece of land surrounded by the things he's planted. 
And I would not be completely adverse to that little cabin in the woods where we could go and stay when the bright lights, big city aspect of Lloyd gets to be too much now and then. 

I guess what I'm wondering is, when you do you give up on dreams and make all of your decisions based on practical reality? 

I picked some more green beans today. I am one picking away from having enough to fire up the canning kettle again. While I was out there, soaking wet from sweat anyway, I decided to just take a shovel to the sweet potato vines coming up everywhere. Clear 'em out. Nip those long-ago planted potatoes in the bud. 
So to speak. 
Guess what? 

Too damn late. Even the smallest plants had potatoes growing. No wonder that the early Florida pioneers lived on sweet potatoes. You can't even stop them from growing if you want to. I'm going to let those cure for a little while and then I'm going to scrub them up and steam some and see what they taste like. If they're okay, I'll freeze them either pureed or cubed. Or hell, maybe I'll can them. I belong to a FB group called "Yes We Can, Darling," and by god those people can everything up to and including eggs. 
Do not ask me why. It doesn't always seem to me that the preserving certain foods makes much sense, either time-wise or money-wise. Are they preparing for the End Times or something? Are they prepping? 
But I do now know that I could can sweet potatoes if I really wanted to and they would be good for soups and breads and pies, I suppose.

Oh, Sundays. They can be fine or they can be days that bring out the worst in my soul. How I hated them as a child. Sundays were the days that I could count on the stepfather's unwanted attentions and then of course we went to church and after that, we often did things as a family. 
Oh yeah. That was fun. I remember specifically one Sunday when Mother and that man were still newlyweds and my mother was all over herself, being thrilled at doing those normal family things and we drove to the beach which was only about twenty miles from where we lived in Roseland and those were still the days when you could find a little pathway in the jungle to the beach from the road and have what seemed like the entire Atlantic coast to yourself. We parked and for whatever reason, had not changed into our swimsuits at home and had to take turns doing that in the car and he, that man, told me that now we were a family and families did things like not worry about being naked in front of each other. 
I may have only been about ten or eleven years old but I knew damn well that that was bullshit. I may not have understood a lot of the things going on but I was pretty sure about that. 

And there you go. Some Sundays just bring up these memories, letting them spring forth unexpectedly. Amazingly, many Sundays don't anymore. But now and then...

Here's something that I find pretty amazing which has nothing to do with any of that- Jon Batiste is going to be opening for the Rolling Stones on May 23 when they play at the MetLife Stadium in Rutherford, NJ. 
I am a bit gobsmacked. I have come to think of Jon Batiste as a possible Bodhisattva, a being of enlightenment and talent that cannot be measured. Do you know what I'm talking about? 

And he has agreed to open for the Rolling Stones? 
And even more mind-blowing- they're going to try and follow him? And you know I ask that as a hard-core believer in the fact that they are the best rock band in the history of the universe and in fact, invented the rock band as it came to be known AND the rock star as it came to be known. 

Well. All I can say is- this is going to be interesting and I have to say I wish I was going to be there. 

All right. Once again- that's enough.

Love...Ms. Moon

Today's Report

That is a very small king snake who found its way onto the back porch last night during the storm we had. I didn't even notice it but Glen did. So did Jack who was quite curious. King snakes are absolutely not harmful and are good for helping keep down vermin around the place but they wear the same colors as coral snakes which have a deadly venom. The patterns of the colors are different though. There's an old rhyme that goes, "Red touches yellow, kills a fellow/Red touches black, friend of Jack."
I can never remember that. So I have to look it up every time. And that is definitely a king snake. Glen picked it up with my yard grabber thing and put it back out in the storm. I'm sure it could have crawled under the house easily enough. 

It stormed hard last night but I've heard no reports of tornados or high winds. Lots of thunder and lightening and pelting rain though. Tom did not spend the night so I guess he just hunkered down in the part of his trailer that is still somewhat of a shelter. 
Mr. Moon was over there at dawn this morning to get to work again on clearing. Tom's decided that in order to disturb the fewest plants, he will get a new power pole to hook the tiny house up to. Which is fine except that he'll have to be on a wait list but he's okay with that. 
So Glen finished up what he needed to do over there for one day and it was raining pretty heavily by early afternoon so he came on home, washed off the little excavator, and took it back to where he'd rented it from. 
Here's the funniest thing- Glen absolutely LOVED working with that small piece of heavy machinery on the land. It made him so happy. That man needs a little piece of his own land where he can clear and build a hunting camp, maybe put in a cabin. He could not have been more cheerful when he got home. I have no idea how Tom felt but I sincerely doubt that "cheerful" would be anywhere on a list of descriptors.

So after Glen goes back over there tomorrow morning and does a little more work, all will be ready to bring in the tiny house and get it settled in. Or down. Or whatever you have to do with a tiny house. 

I actually did some dusting today. I am not sure if I still have a cleaner or not. I think I do but Candie hasn't been able to make it for several weeks. I got to the point where I could not look at the dust on my wood furniture any more and decided to do something about it myself. 

That's the vanity in my bedroom and it is a beautiful piece of furniture. When it gets really dusty, I feel so guilty because I am not honoring it the way I should. So I got out the wood treatment oil and some soft cloths and gave my furniture a little love. I mostly just hit the big pieces and I still haven't done the piano but it makes me happy to know that I've made a little bit of difference. 

I've thought a great deal today about the post I wrote yesterday and I love all the thoughtful comments I got. The whole subject of weight and the many, many related issues are at once so very intimate, personal, touchy, and misunderstood. Shame and science are of equal importance. There are so many myths about weight management and there is so much we do not know or understand yet. And I will be talking about this more. 

But right now I need to...go make our supper. 

We were watching Northern Exposure the other night (we are taking it so very slowly) and one of my very favorite scenes from the entire show came up. It involved Adam, an extremely bizarre and eccentric master chef who was working with a group of hopeful chefs-to-be. Trying to get to the very root of cooking, he asked the trainees why they thought he cooked. 
"WHY do I cook?" he kept asking. They stared at him blankly until one woman finally said...

"YES! YES!" he shouted. "Because I am hungry!" 

I relate to that so much. 

I guess I'm hungry and so I shall go cook. 

Love...Ms. Moon

TMI? BMI? Can We Talk?

That's the magnolia I found blooming on my tree today when I got back from getting my hair cut. It was low enough on the branch for me to be able to reach it, pull it down a bit, and take its picture. The petals are completely unblemished, huge, waxy, and perfect. I so wanted to snap it off the branch and bring it in but I could not do it. It is exactly where it should be. 

It was so good to see Melissa. They got their power back on this very morning. So it had been off a week. They were lucky and only had one tree come down and it mostly took out their screened porch and utility room. She told me that their entire neighborhood is so stacked with huge tree trunks and limbs on the sides of the roads that you couldn't fit another stick on one of them and no one can do a darn thing until the city comes and gets all of it. 
And then I ended up talking way too much. So much that when I was done and was sitting in the car again, I made a vow to myself to shut the fuck up and let other people talk more. I know it's because I see other people so rarely and the words just pour out of me but it's ridiculous and it's sad. And Melissa is so kind and so sweet that she just let me go on. She also cut off about eight inches of my hair. The main difference it makes to me is the number of times I twist it when I put it up in a bun. Instead of having to make about five twists, I'm now good with two. 

My car is not running. Something about the 12-volt starter battery in the Prius. And of course Mr. Moon does not have time to work on that right now. Luckily, we have about half a dozen vehicles that do run in the yard so I've been driving "his" Camry. I stopped by Costco on my way home to get gas and after waiting in line for about fifteen minutes, I pulled up to the pump to realize that I had no idea how to open the gas tank. Where the lever is to open mine is where the lever is to open the hood on Glen's car. So I pulled on out and parked and found the owner's manual and looked it up. 
It was a big "duh." 
Then I drove back and got in line again and finally was able to fill it up. 

The Tom saga continues. I won't go into any details except to say that Glen finally convinced him to let him rent a small excavator or some other heavy machinery type thing to get the spot cleared for the new house. Tom fought that like a beast. There are two palm trees on the spot they need to use due to proximity to power, water, and the septic tank, and Tom is obsessed with his palm trees. They're swallowed up at this point in azaleas which have gotten so huge that you can't even see the palms so that says a lot right there. Mr. Moon promised him he'd dig up the palms and not kill them and thus, an agreement was finally reached. 
This has all gone beyond impossible. 

So okay, I want to talk about obesity and the new drugs that are changing the way we treat it. I listened to a podcast (Armchair Expert) and the guest was Sanjay Gupta who has a documentary coming out about this subject soon. 
It was rather eye-opening. 
The way these drugs work, very simply, is that after we eat, we release a hormone that tells us that we are full and we don't really worry about food until we actually need to eat again. The thing is, many people don't seem to produce enough of this hormone to tell our bodies that they've been fed and the drugs help to increase that hormonal release. Evolutionarily, not producing too much of the hormone may have been a good thing. If someone a very long time ago had access to a lot of food at one time, it was probably a sound idea to eat all they could before the food spoiled, thus storing whatever the body didn't need for fuel at that time as fat. In fact, the ability to store energy as fat was probably a trait that got passed down due to the fact that people who had it lived long enough to produce more progeny who also had the trait. But we don't live in that world any more. Or at least most of us don't. We live in a world where densely caloric foods are available to us twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And many of these foods are cleverly designed to trigger our appetite with chemicals and sweeteners and flavors that no one a thousand years ago had access to and, appetite triggered, we feel that we must be hungry and we reach for those foods.
I could go on for days about this. 

But let's get back to obesity. Of course there are a huge number of reasons that people become overweight. Lack of exercise and eating too much is definitely one of them and for people to whom exercise comes naturally and who have a healthy amount of the hormone that causes us to shut off what they are now calling "food chatter," that seems like the simplest thing in the world. 
Move more and eat less, you fools!
I will never forget having a friend who was preternaturally thin. I mean- so thin you wondered where her internal organs were. And she ate whatever she wanted. At that time I was literally eating about 800 calories a day and was still not at the weight I wanted to be. Yes, I did have an eating disorder. Anyway, she suggested to me that instead of eating dessert, maybe I should just try eating half a grapefruit. 
As if I ever, ever ate dessert. 

When I was at what I thought was a reasonable weight, I had literally become obsessed with diet and exercise. Not quite an eating disorder but definitely an obsession. I worked for Weight Watchers which works and is a good plan and which is healthy and sensible. I would get up at 5:45 a.m. and walk for an hour every week day. I lifted weights. I measured out my portions. I cooked beautiful meals that had to be very creative in order to fit the criteria of the food plan. And eventually, I even adopted a way of eating that I called "all healthy and shit" which was basically incredibly high in fiber (fruits and vegetables and beans and nuts and whole grains), and incredibly low in sugars, fats, flour, dairy products and red meat. 
For years, my go-to snack was raw almonds and prunes. I kept bags of them in my car and in my purse.
And this worked. I didn't have to weigh my portions. I ate from the ground up. I made my own bread so dense with flax seed, oat bran, and whole wheat flour that occasionally Mr. Moon would ask me if I could please make some "fluffy" bread. We ate quinoa and brown rice only, hardly any pasta, virtually no cheese, no butter, no...
Well. No a lot of stuff. And when you don't allow yourself to eat the "fun foods" like cheese and crackers and chicken salad with mayonnaise in it, there's not nearly as much temptation to overeat. 

Then anxiety hit me hard and for months I could not eat. When your body is in fight or flight all the time, which is what mine was, eating is not a big priority. When I finally started getting better with medication and time, my appetite returned and I just wanted for once to eat what I wanted to eat. 
And white flour and white rice and pasta and cheese were re-introduced to my diet and within a few years, I was overweight. I still exercised, I still ate relatively healthy food, but I also ate things that I had not allowed myself to eat before. 

I hate being overweight. I just do. I don't judge others for being overweight. I know quite well the place we put food in our culture and society and I know that being slim is not always being healthy and isn't the standard for beauty. But for me, I feel a great amount of shame about my body which is a WHOLE other subject. One would think that at this stage of my life I just would not care but that's not true. And it's not just about appearance. I hate taking medicine for high cholesterol, I hate taking medicine for high blood pressure. I hate my mobility being challenged in ways that it would not be if I lost weight. 
I hate that I hate looking in a mirror and that I actively and deliberately avoid it as much as possible. 

But do I hate all of this enough to go back to my obsessive ways of eating and exercising? 
Honestly, I do not. I really don't think I could.
Would I consider taking a drug that helped me to eat less? 
You fucking bet I would. 

I have a lot more to say about this. Sanjay talked a lot about how we may need to view obesity as a disorder in and of itself and quit thinking of it as just the result of bad habits. How people used to feel that anti-depressants and anxiety medications were just ways to prevent people from pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and getting on with it. People who went to psychiatrists were often considered self-absorbed and absurd. And then it became accepted knowledge that depression and anxiety and other now-diagnosed mental illnesses were indeed illnesses. I know damn well how I've felt when people have told me that depression was a choice. That they just got up every morning and decided to be happy. I should try that! 
And now we have the same beliefs about obesity. Just get up every morning and go exercise and make a decision to not eat so much! That you're somehow "cheating" if you take one of these new drugs to lose weight, just as you're weak if you need to take drugs to simply get out of bed every morning and face the world. To decide to keep on living. 

I want to discuss this some more. And I will. 

But hey! It's Friday night! Not that my husband's home to make my martini. He rented the little excavator that he needs to clear that space and he's planning on using it until dark. And then he'll get up in the morning and go use it again. It's supposed to storm here tonight and maybe tomorrow. I talked to him on the phone and told him that if Tom wants to come spend the night, to bring him home. But. That if Tom says he'll be fine in his tree-busted trailer and that he doesn't want to come over, to just let him stay there but to promise me that he will not get up at 3:00 a.m. to go get him if storms do indeed occur. 
He promised me. 

There are clean sheets on the bed but I seriously doubt that Mr. Moon would notice if I hadn't washed those sheets in months and a muddy dog had rolled around in them. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Let's Discuss

Jessie, Liz Sparks, and I all met for lunch today at a Thai restaurant that I ate at once a million years ago, Jessie has never eaten at before, and Liz says she ate there once with a husband but she wasn't sure which. 
She's only had two but you know how these things sort of blur together. 

I love Tom Kha soup. I mean- it is one of my favorite things to eat in this whole world and by all rights I should grow some damn lemongrass. I grew some at the last house where we lived and it got big enough to be an ornamental. 
Or maybe I should just go to Thai restaurants more often. 

It was so good for me to crawl out of Lloyd and meet up with women. I feel like Jessie is a crone-in-training when she's with me and one of my friends. And of course, that would usually be either Liz or Lis. I think all of my kids used to enjoy hanging out with my friends when they came over. I know Hank did. He'd be as quiet as a mouse so that I wouldn't notice him and send him to bed. I'm sure he got quite an education. I did used to have a wide circle of extremely diverse friends. 

But now of course, Jessie isn't just a little child listening with big eyes to crazy grown-up talk, but a grown woman herself and when she talks about a problem with child behavior or how it feels to be a mother and a wife, I think, or at least I hope, that we can ease her mind a little. 
"Oh, I remember when my boys..."
Say's Liz. 
"Oh, I remember when you kids..."
I say. 

And look! We all survived! 
Quite possibly by the skin of our teeth in some instances but survive we did and so did our children.

So that was a splendid lunch and although the Tom Kha soup wasn't the best I'd ever had, it was still delicious and I enjoyed every drop of it. The restaurant is a small and barely noticeable place in a strip mall on one of Tallahassee's main thoroughfares. But as you can see from the picture, it's charming. I especially loved the chair drapes.

Liz showed us pictures and told us stories of people she knows whose houses were completely trashed by the tornados. It's still so unbelievable to me. I have not driven through the areas that were so hard hit and so to me, it's like a dream of a rumor. Something you'd see on TV. 
Liz said that one of her friends had something like three trees fall on her house who said that they just laid down very quietly. 
Whoa. Whenever a tree has fallen here, there are sounds associated with it that I am far more familiar with than I'd like to be. First there's a sound like a giant rip as the tree gives up a huge part of itself, and then a slight hesitation, followed by a swish and a crash and I have felt the ground shake. 
But I've never been in the same place as a tornado taking down trees and I hope I never am. 

After lunch I went to the library and then to Publix, and Mr. Moon came home from Tom's fairly soon after I got home. He had planned on going to the river and I was going to go with him but he'd gotten into some poison ivy and so wanted to take a good shower to see if he could wash off some of the oils before they could do their evil work. By the time he was done with that, he was ready to sit down in his chair and we'll go to the river another time. Soon, I hope. He also has gotten ticks and chiggers working over there and yet, he remains cheerful. He is by god going to get that tiny house on that property and get it tied down and hooked up. Every day brings new hurdles to overcome but as Mr. Moon's daddy used to say, "Ain't no hill too high for a stepper." 
Or something like that. 
He tells me stories about Tom's stubbornness that I cannot believe he can tolerate. And he just laughs. I'd be gone in five minutes. 
As I told Jessie today, in the past week I have realized two things about her daddy.
1. He is far more patient and persistent than I realized and, 
2. He loves a project more than I could ever have imagined. 
And this is a project with a purpose. It's not just fixing up an old car or making a folding table. He is doing something that will allow Tom to keep on living where he wants and in improved circumstances. 
I know I keep praising him but he has seriously gone far and above what probably 99% of us would do in these circumstances. 
He's not walking on water or turning water into wine yet. Trust me. But he's proving his mettle and that's for sure. 

So that's about it from Lloyd. Tomorrow I'm going to go get my hair trimmed by our darling Melissa. That woman is so popular that getting an appointment with her is on the same level of difficulty as getting an appointment with the Pope. I could have just gone to some regular hair-hacker but seeing Melissa is worth the wait. I am looking forward to that. She and her husband's house was hit hard and I know she'll have a lot to tell me while she's getting rid of at least eight inches of my hair which is ridiculously long. I'm pretty sure it's longer than it was during covid. 

I better go cook supper for that paragon of manhood and loyalty I'm married to. That's about the least I can do. And probably the most I will do as well. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Better

That's what sunset in Lloyd looked like last night. It was very dramatic. I first wrote, "It was very dreamatic," which is also appropriate.  Shouldn't "dreamatic" be a word?

I've felt somewhat lighter today. I talked to my husband this morning about some of the concerns I'm having about Tom and he gave me his take on why he's doing what he's doing to help him and it was so wise and so heartfelt that I feel more at peace now. Hank had a girlfriend once who, after meeting Mr. Moon called him "Zen Glen." 
She was absolutely right about that. But he's not just a Buddha, contemplating a lotus blossom and chuckling at the absurdities of life, he's the sort of person who makes things happen and takes care of business. 
I have more respect for him him than I've ever had, I think. And that's saying a lot. 

I picked beans this morning and I did laundry. I even pulled a hell of a lot of crocosmia from the bed in front of the front porch. This is how thick it is. 

The part on the left there is where I've cleared. 

I got this much done.

It's not that hard to pull from this bed because of the years of accumulation of oak leaves there which has made the soil so friable and soft. It is filled with earth worms. 
Now if we'd just pull those damn sago palms out and plant something else, it would be so much nicer. I cut them back hard a few months ago and I'm not seeing any new growth. Perhaps I have killed them. 
This would not much disturb me.

I'm listening to yet another Percival Everett book. This one is "Erasure." And it is completely different from the other three? four? novels of his I've read. So okay, in this book, an author/professor who has won all sorts of awards for his writing can't sell his books because the market won't support them. According to the publishers. His agent keeps telling him that he needs to write more "Black" which he can't understand because obviously he IS Black and he writes about his life so what's the problem? And then he gets into a situation where he desperately needs money. Around this time another Black author has published a book which is filled with every Black stereotype there can be from language to situation and she is making a shit ton of money on it. Movie rights, the whole deal. Everyone who knows anything about writing declares it to be a horribly written book but it somehow satisfies a market that wants their Black characters to speak and behave a certain way. So of course the author in the book decides to write his own moneymaker under a pseudonym. 
I'm reading this book and the book within the book and I'm hooked on both stories. I have no idea how it turns out. But I've just learned that a film was made from "Erasure" called "American Fiction" which has won many prizes and which I plan to watch as soon as I finish reading the book. 
Irony after irony, eh? 

So I'm enjoying that very much and I'm starting to think that if I could ever have lunch or even just coffee with Percival Everett, it would be one of the most interesting experiences of my life. 

Glen's just gotten home from spending all day long at Tom's, trying to get the site ready for the tiny home and the driveway cleared enough for it to be brought in. I know he's going to be hot and exhausted. I will be so glad when this is all done and Tom is settled. 
Oh wait- I just talked to him and he says he's fine and never even got that sweaty because he didn't get shit done. 
When I met Glen he barely ever cursed. Now he's almost as enthusiastic a cusser as I am. One more thing I love about him. 

Now if I could just as easily learn wisdom and the ability to get things done from him. 

As Tom so often says these days about every suggestion we make, "That's not going to happen."

Dammit. 

My helper girl. She came out when I was picking beans too, but after she'd hung around with me for a few minutes she settled in the shade under a bench, blinking those orange eyes, patiently waiting for me to finish so that she could escort me back to the house. 

I think that Glen is her primary human but she is also my familiar. It's a good arrangement. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Inertia

That beautiful little celestially decorated insect was on my kitchen counter this morning. It wasn't moving and I presume it was dead. I've tried to identify it but can't. Do any of y'all know? 

It's been a rough day here for me and I haven't had to do a damn thing which is good because I have felt as if I couldn't do a damn thing and even took a small nap which I never do but I just had to go lay down and once down, I fell asleep. 

Glen and Tom went to Live Oak, which is about sixty or so miles from here where they looked at and Tom bought, a tiny house. It has everything he needs in it, already in place, and can be moved onto his property but he is far from thrilled. That nasty old trailer was his home for forty-three years and I guess that he loved it in that it was his home, not just a shelter. 
This whole situation has gotten me deeply disturbed. For one thing, I am not nearly as good a person as my husband is. I would probably have just left Tom to sit in that wrecked trailer as the rain poured down until he realized that it was no longer an option to shelter in it and was compelled to do something. This situation is so disturbing in so many ways, not the least of which is that Tom absolutely should not be living alone, much less alone in the woods. We could get the proper authorities involved who would force him into some sort of care-home situation because that's exactly what he needs but he would hate that so much that I can't even begin to tell you. And he would hate us. Which at this point, wouldn't bother me. I've known Tom for fifty years and he's always been eccentric and stubborn but since his illnesses he's become even more so. And his limitations are vast at this point. From mobility to speech, he is not doing well. To put it ridiculously mildly. 

But. What can you do? We feel like if Tom wants to continue living independently in the woods, then he should be allowed to do that. He can get to the store and he can fix simple meals and he can shower and he can attend to his own hygiene needs. But one more stroke and I doubt any of that will still be true. And if he has another stroke and/or a serious fall while he's alone and not close to the phone and can't get to or use his cell phone, it could be days until someone (Glen) realizes he hasn't heard from him. And that would not be a good way to die. 

I suppose all of this is making me face aging and mortality in a way that is quite real and not pretty. No one wants their last bit of time on earth to look like this. And yet, people hang on so tightly to whatever bit of life and independence and control they can manage to gather. It isn't graceful, it isn't holy, it isn't anything but cruel. 
Now I have seen deaths that were graceful and holy, but I know that this is not the way it always is. Probably not the way it usually is. 

And so I'm trying to be as compassionate and understanding here as I can be but I am mostly failing. I can cook meals for Tom and try to make him as comfortable here as I can but beyond that, I'm not doing much. Not for Tom, not for Glen, not for me. There were a million and one things I could have done here today and I didn't do any of them. 

I did start a pot of beans this morning and they're simmering. I picked the last of the edible kale. The little tiny zebra caterpillars have turned all the rest of it to barely-there lace. 

I think I can get the few that are on this salad's worth picked off and before you go and get all grossed out, let me remind you that if there are bugs on your food plants, it means there are no poisons there. 
How's that for rationalizing? 

The men got home a few minutes ago and have gone back over to Tom's to talk to the man who is going to let the tiny home be transported down his fire lane. I do have a fervent wish that Tom gets at least some time to enjoy a new place if that's even possible (his enjoyment, I mean) after so much work and worry has been put into it. He will have hot water. He will have AC and heating. He will have floors that are not in danger of falling through. I doubt he will ever use the AC but that's all right. It's there if he wants it. I think there's even a tiny laundry room. 

All will unfold as it does. I used to say that all will unfold as it should but I don't really think that way any more. I suppose it all depends on what our definition of "should" is. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Water And The Memory Of Water And How Time Flows Like A River

Glen and I picked beans in the rain today. It began to rain early on and is supposed to rain far into tomorrow with possible storms this evening. This is not good news for the many people who got hit hard by one or more of the tornados last Friday. There are so many houses that still have trees on them, roofs leaking, with no power. Entire neighborhoods just devastated. And I feel like I'm in a different country entirely. A country where yes, it's raining, but my roof is tight and my power is on and if it should go out, we have that fabulous generator. I keep saying this and I may have already said it here but we did not lose so much as a branch in that storm. 
Tom's trailer is...well. Let's just say that all of his things are going to shit as we speak. A piano, a TV, books...all of it. There's too much damage to just throw a tarp over it all. And the part of the roof that's still intact isn't very intact and Glen's been worried that it's just going to fall in at any moment. 
Which it could. 

He's been focusing on helping Tom out of this predicament since Saturday morning. I think he may have found two different tiny houses or small trailers that could be moved onto the property fairly quickly. But until then, for the moment at least, Tom is here. I guess he finally realized that he cannot stay in that trailer another night. I will tell you honestly that this is not an ideal solution for any of us but for now, it is what it is. He absolutely cannot stay in that trailer and although he is not happy with the option of staying here, I guess it's the best one he's got for now. 

The rain is coming down pretty hard and because we've had so much of it in the last months (except for that week or so of none), it doesn't bring with it the feeling of blessed relief that it usually does. It has cooled things off but everything is cloaked in what might as well be a gray veil and the air feels heavy and thick. I'm glad we got those beans picked and that they're already in their jars, ready for next winter, and I'm glad that Tom's here, dry and safe. 

Billy sent me a picture today that was taken I don't know how many years ago. 

And when I say he sent me a picture, I mean he sent a photograph in the mail. That was taken in our house, in the dining room and those two beautiful older people (probably about the same age then that I am now) were Billy's beloved grandparents, Nell, and Billy, Sr. I loved them so much. They were the most loving people you can imagine, taking in anyone who was a friend of Billy's, loving them too. Nell asked me to do the honors at her funeral, and I did, when that time came. 
And that guy on the left? That's my baby brother Russell who used to come and stay with us sometimes, whom we loved and who loved us. And I haven't seen him since my mother died eleven years ago. 
I cried when I saw the picture. I cried because MawMaw and PawPaw are gone, those beautiful, sweet people, and because my brother might as well be. He does not want to see me and it all stems from my mother's will and as I texted Billy, "Fucked-up family shit."
The sins of the father...
And so forth. 
And selfishly, I also cried because of how much I have aged in the last decades. I wish I'd known how lovely I was then. Glen looks about the same to me, ever Mr. Moon, ever my handsome man. 

And so that is heavy on me today too and now the rain is slapping the earth as if punishing it and I need to get in the kitchen and make our supper. 

Pizza! I'm making pizza tonight! That's cheerful, right? 
Here's something else that's cheerful.

That's a pretty little plate that Jessie made in the pottery class she's been taking. She gave it to me for Mother's Day. It is SO Jessie. And I love it.

Let us feel sad when we feel sad and let us, at the same time, rejoice in that which is good. 
If we can. If we possibly can.

Love...Ms. Moon

A Mothers' Day, A Day Of Mothers

Yesterday when I was coming out of Publix, a man was waiting for his ride, I think, in an electric cart and the basket on the front of it was filled with hydrangeas just like those. 
"Now that's the kind of flowers to give!" I said. "Ones you can plant."
And a man came walking up to enter the store and said, "How many women do you got?"
I loved it. 

And Ms. Jessie brought me those today.

I am struggling with this post. I've written paragraphs about today and how lovely it was and how easy and relaxed and about the food and how the grandchildren play together so sweetly. 
And then I deleted that.

Then I wrote about deeper things- what it meant to me to become a mother, how I've always been maternal. What my children mean to me and what their children mean to me. I even wrote some about my mother and how my maternal inclinations played into my relationship with her as she looked at me, not as a child, but as someone who could help with her emotional needs and I tried as hard as I could. 

And then I deleted that. 

And now here I am, not sure at all what to write because honestly, I don't know how to feel. Or perhaps to be more accurately- I don't know how I do feel. I think that Mother's Day is hard for me as I am sure it is for so many. 
It's complicated. 

What a now-trite thing to say but oh, how accurate it is sometimes. 

When I think about being a mother and the daughter to a mother, my thoughts get so radically torn between scenarios but the one thing I know is that I have been so far from perfect in both of those roles. 

And perfection isn't even a good word to use because no one is perfect. That's not the standard. 
And "doing the best I can" sounds good but who really knows if they have indeed done their best? It seems meaningless to me. I know for sure I could have been better both as a daughter and a mother. 

I guess it's all about love in the end, isn't it? Do my children know they are loved? Yes. They do. 
But did I make my mother feel loved by me at the end of her life? 
No. I didn't. 

I don't feel especially guilty about that. I feel far more guilty about some of the things I did or did not do when I was raising my children. 

But my god I loved them and I love them now and if I have any purpose on this earth, I suppose it was to bring these spirits to life and nurture them as best I could. 

It was a lovely, easy Mother's Day today. I highly recommend the Publix platter app. The Costco key lime pie was edible indeed. 

The weather was cool and mostly bug-less. There were flowers both plantable and exquisitely lovely in vases, and a bottle of rum and my favorite espresso and cards. There was a jigsaw puzzle. There were cousins, children who are on this earth because I loved their grandfather.

Whose lives are made better even now because their grandfather loves them so very much. And whom I still love.

And yet, it is complicated. 
If I prayed, I would pray that my children will always feel as if my love for them never felt complicated because that is the absolute truth. My actions and abilities were often inadequate but my love was true. 

My love is true. 

And I guess that's all I can say tonight. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Lagniappe

After having posted, I see that the Youtube video I embedded is not showing up but does have a link to it on Youtube which seems to work for me. I hope it works for you, too, if you want to see it. 

This, That, And Everything Else

Well, what do I want to bitch about today? 
I really do not have a dang thing to complain about if you want to know the truth. This does not mean, of course, that I'm happy as a butterfly in a field of daisies because that's not how I'm wired. I've been thinking lately about how no matter what the situation, I immediately begin thinking of the very worst possible outcome there could be. Yes, I catastrophize. For a second I couldn't think of the word and my mind wanted to tell me it was "disasterphize" which actually works pretty well. 

I'm not really disaster- or catastro-phizing right now. Just the eternal background simmering that is always going on in my brain that pulses constantly saying, "watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out..."

I really do wonder what it's like not to have this sort of chatter in one's mind all the time. I remember after my friend Sue died and a few of her best friends and I were there with her as she slipped back into that other place from whence we come and where we go, and it was such a beautiful, calm, peaceful death that for quite awhile after I realized that I truly had nothing to fear. I thought that her passing might have healed me, even as it broke me, and I'm sure it did somewhat, but eventually, the little chattering monkeys came back to warn me of immediate and probable danger. 

At least I know I'm doing it when I do it. 

So tomorrow is Mother's Day. I have to tell you that after my mother died, Mother's Day got a lot easier for me. 
I'm just telling you all my secrets today, aren't I?
No. No I am not and besides that, I'm pretty sure I've made that statement before. It's just the truth. But let's not talk about that. My kids wanted to know last week what I wanted to do for Mother's Day and I gave the same answer I always give which is "nothing" because I know I love them and I think they love me and why make a fuss? 
But Hank, being the Family Organizer that he is, sort of insisted that we needed to get together and how it's played out is that anyone who wants to come out tomorrow for an early lunch nibble is invited and that includes grandchildren, of course. Rachel and Lily suggested that I order platters from Publix instead of making anything and although I'd never done that before, I did! Lily's going to pick them up when she takes Owen to work as sadly, he is scheduled when we'll be gathering. But I got small platters of little Cuban sandwiches and one of pinwheel sandwiches, one of vegetables, and one of fruit. And today I went to Costco and got some Tzatziki sauce because I love it and some smoked salmon and a shrimp cocktail platter and I don't know what all else. Not a whole lot more than that. 
I also got a Costco key lime pie that's about as big as a car tire and I sure hope it's good because there's a lot of it. 
So that will be so easy and so fun. 
I'm glad that Lily's coming because Lauren will be working and let's face it- Jason probably won't help the kids get anything together for her although he might. Who knows? And Jessie may come too. It would be nice to see all my babies together on Mother's Day but it's not like they all live in Wyoming or Hong Kong or something. As I always say, they are close enough for me to get my arms around anytime I need to. 

Mr. Moon is freaking out because he hasn't gotten me anything and I pleaded with him to please not worry because I DO NOT WANT ROSES FROM PUBLIX or anything like that. God. I have everything I need and so much more. 

Glen's been trying to help Tom find some options for a better living situation all day. This is a very low bar in that at this point, a large tent with good circulation would be better than that smashed up trailer. I really have no right to discuss Tom here. He is fiercely private and I respect that. But it's been our major topic of discussion and Glen's main objective for the past two days to try and come up with an idea that Tom would find acceptable. Glen's been hoping for several years to help get Tom out of that trailer without success and he really thought that the tree falling on it would push Tom to accept what most of us would call reality but it would seem that's not happening. 
Meanwhile, I am rather astounded at Mr. Moon's persistence and caring which are going way beyond the bounds of friendship. He's a better man than I, Gunga Din. 

Okay. Here's a thing that makes me happy. Not as happy as being married to such a good man, but still happy.

That's a three minute film that someone made of the Rolling Stones playing their last encore number, "Satisfaction," at their concert on May 7 in Glendale, Arizona. 
Watch it if you want, don't watch it if you don't. The sound is pretty lousy and the videography ain't great. BUT, it does show the incredible athleticism and seemingly ageless ability of Jagger to do what he does. He swivels, he jumps, he dances, he RUNS, he kneels, he leaps and he skips and he sings all the while. His voice sounds as good as it ever has. You can see Keith and Ronnie laughing in delight. It is beautiful and it is a reminder that miracles do still occur and by god, if Mick Jagger can do THAT, then hell yes, the Stones should still tour. Seems like their audience agrees with that as shows are sold out, and as Keith has said so many times, as long as people want to see them play and as long as they still can, they'll be doing it. What else are they going to do? 

Here's Maurice, hanging out with me on the back porch. 

And here's her doppelgänger in the yard over behind the church.

That one's tail is longer and thicker but besides that, they could be twins. They could well be related. I've noted one of the cats who lives at the dump looks a lot like both of them. 

And so it goes. Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are mothers and to all of you who have taken care of and loved children, whether you are aunts or uncles or siblings or teachers who have made a profound and positive difference in a child's life. 

You know who you are. 

I thank you. 

Love...Ms. Moon