He Is Home

I should really close my closet doors but no one sees our bedroom except for me and (sometimes, when he's home) Mr. Moon and Maurice. 
Oh, Dorothy Anne and she doesn't care. Neither do I or Maurice and if Mr. Moon does, he hasn't said anything. He keeps his closet doors shut. He's a fairly tidy person and I do appreciate that in a husband. 

I was pretty happy this morning when I got up and realized there was nothing I HAD to do. I spent a good deal of time this morning picking up packages that a certain poet sent me because it's our birthday month. Oh my god. She is so kind and so thoughtful. 

Thank you, darling woman. 

Then I decided it was the day to get those sagos trimmed so I did that. I probably worked about forty-five minutes doing one side of the line of them in front of the porch and by then I was soaked through and knew I needed to come in and cool off so I did and I ate my lunch and then I went out and finished up. 

I took off every frond that had any yellow on it, damage from last winter's freezes. As the sweat dripped off me I thought about the snow we got last winter and how long it stuck around and that just seemed like a dream. An impossible dream. But it happened. We had snow! 

Of course I hauled all the fronds to the burn pile along with a few crocosmia I pulled up. Futile damn effort. 
Remember last year when I spent days and days pulling the motherfuckers out of the bed by the driveway? Of course you don't. Why would you? I'm always bitching about crocosmia. 

Well, here's all the good that work did. 

Do you see why vinegar or cardboard or any other "natural" answer to this problem JUST WOULD NOT WORK? 
It really does need to just be dug out with a front-loader. And honey, that ain't the only part of the yard that's choked with it. Same-same behind the fence too. 

Anyway, lopping the sago fronds was pretty good exercise and as I always say, if sweating really did work as a detox for our bodies, I would have no toxins at all within me but it's not so I do. 
You understand. 

Just as I was walking in from the garden where I'd just spent a few minutes pulling up a few, I promise! weeds and got stabbed by a rose thorn that made me so mad I thought about lopping that whole thing to the ground, Mr. Moon pulled up with his new boat. 
Hurray! 
It is a very good looking boat and it looks brand new. I believe that right after the guy in Texas bought it, he and his wife had a baby and then another one and well...you know how that goes. The wife finally said, "Get this boat out of the garage. I want to park my car in here," and obviously being a good husband, the man did. 

Plenty of room in our garage where no cars have ever been parked except for project cars. 

So there I was, sweat-drenched, red as the wild hibiscus, dirty, and bleeding, to greet my husband. 
So romantic. And I was happy to see him although those were just tomatoes in my pocket. 

I showered and he got the boat put away and when he came in he needed a shower because he'd been working in the garage for half an hour and then he started a load of his clothes, which was thoughtful but when I went into the laundry room to fold a load in the dryer that I'd washed earlier, the washing machine was not running and had an error message on it. 

Ooh boy. 

Well, I won't bore you with the details but it looks like we might need a new pump and you that what I mean is, Glen spent at least an hour or more trying to figure out the cause of the machine not working and the grinding sound it was making and had to pull the washer out from the wall (man it was gross back there) and do all that stuff that you have to do (don't ask me) and watch a bunch of videos on what might be wrong with the washer and how to fix it. 

Welcome home, honey! 

And it's finally really happened. While he was gone I basically ate the same thing every night and didn't care but today I had to figure out what to thaw to make for our supper tonight and it was not easy. 
I still don't really have a menu set in stone. I have made some extremely fiber-rich focaccia to eat with salad (surprise!) and I thawed chicken thighs so those things will be part of the dining experience. 

Poor Glen. 

Hey- did you see that it rained on the concentration camp in the Everglades and the place flooded? Not like washed-away flooded but like, water all over the floors. And that was just summer rain. I hear they do have an evacuation plan but I seriously doubt it. This administration has no problem at all with lying out their lying asses and I'm not going to talk about what happened in the House today.

As Lis would say, I'm trying to find my lotus flower. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I Can't Begin To Title This

It took me almost an hour to answer comments this evening. I wasn't even going to do it. I was going to beg off due to feeling so flattened, and in so much despair. As deep as my despair has gone in the moments and days and months and years of Trump's presidencies, it has now deepened to previously unknown and unimagined depths.  

I know that all of us who have read about the horrors of what Hitler and the Nazis brought to this earth have reassured ourselves that this could never possibly happen again. 

Guess what? 
Guess again. 
And if we wondered how it could have happened, I think we are getting a very quick education on that issue. 

I've got to step away from all of this. I have to. And yet, right now I cannot seem to. 

Okay. Here I go. I'm going to show you pictures and talk about a few nice things, not in an effort to distract myself or you, not to pretend that none of this is happening, but as a reminder that there is another life, other lives, happening even as the evil gains more hold on us every day. 

First off. Hank sent a group text this morning with part of an email that Cornell University sent to him. For an explanation about why Cornell would be sending Hank an email please go to the the post HERE. 

The email Cornell sent him contained a link to a page in their Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at their library. Please go visit it. 
HERE.

I am so proud I could bust wide open. 

That is my child. That is my son who was absolutely part of the Queer Evolution and Revolution, or at least as far as I understand it. I could write volumes on Hank and how he was not only furthering communication with communities who were all fighting so hard to establish their places in this movement, but who also enlightened and educated me and his family in ways that I can't even begin to describe. 

He was so patient with us, mostly his parents of whom he had four. His siblings just got it and understood it and we all accepted that he knew exactly who he was and what he needed and what he was about. 

But none of this is about us. It is about Hank Thigpen who is now and forever more a part of the Cornell Library. 

Damn. Okay. I really don't know how I could write anything after that which would have any real meaning at all. 

But here's some of the other stuff. 

The new boat hooked up to Glen's 4Runner. I talked to him just a little while ago and I was so happy to be able to do that. He was approaching Mobile, Alabama and had decided that although he was only five hours away from home, he was tired, his butt was tired, and he was going to get a room and get some sleep. I had to tell him a story which I don't think I'd ever told him which was about the time I drove from Denver to Tallahassee when I was 19 in my Capri with my parakeets and rocking chair. When I was approaching Mobile I decided to go ahead and smoke the very large joint that a sweet man in Denver had given me for the trip, before I made my way through the heavy traffic of the city. Which I did. And it was one of the most fun drives I ever had. 
Truth. 
Boy, things have changed. I wouldn't smoke a joint before I tried to wash the dishes these days. 

Pottery was depressing for me. I do not suck one bit less than I did a year ago. I am not kidding. I did get my hump bowl (or was it a slump bowl?) glazed. But I loved being with Lily and it was very nice to talk to the other ladies. While I was there, I perused the shelf where fired pottery is placed before it is glazed and fired again. 

Would you look at this?

I mean...I mean...how beautiful is that? 

Maggie decided that she would rather wait to come spend the night when Boppy is here. And truly- what is a visit to Mer and Bop's without Boppy? 

And on top of all of this, I got to have a long and very good conversation with Owen today. It means so much to me that he seems to enjoy these talks we have together. I love watching him as he figures out the world he is becoming part of as much as I loved watching him figure out how to walk and to talk and to learn to pretend. 
What a joy to be part of all of that.

I will be so happy to see my husband tomorrow. 

Love...Ms. Moon

What The Fucking Fuck Can We Do To End This Madness?

Blossom number two after a rain. I found a grasshopper on it this morning. It had already gnawed a whole in one petal and had its way with the edge of the one next to it. I flicked the dang bug off but the picture above was taken just a few minutes ago and I see no more signs of insect damage. What I did see, however, was a cardinal swoop in on the plant this morning and I think he may have been going after another grasshopper. Now wouldn't it be perfect if the reddest bird saved the reddest flower from the mandibles of grasshoppers? 

I've had a good day except for the horrible news of Trump's bill and then of course...the concentration camp in the Everglades. I'm not sure which one makes me sicker. Perhaps I feel equally sick about both, just in different ways. 
The bill is going to kill people and the camp is going to kill precious natural resources and well, yes, people will die there. There is no way around it. 

How have we let this man and his puppet-masters get this far? Is there not one Republican law maker who has not only balls but a heart? They do not care about people, they do not care about our planet, they do not care about safety or arts or education or science. They only care about Dear Leader and I have no idea why because after a few years of living under this new bill, a whole lot of people are not going to be feeling that positive about their Republican representatives. 

It all makes my stomach roil and my brain feel like it's exploding. 

I had thought for one second that perhaps the ridiculous wedding of Jeff Bezos and his plastic Barbie bride might be such an example of how billionaires have so much money to waste that they can take over Venice and put on an incredibly insane and tacky production that has nothing to do with a marriage or love or affection but everything to do with a gross and sickening display of wealth, would upset enough people to give them some perspective on why billionaires do not need tax cuts.  
Every fucking guest who attended that vulgar display of wealth should damn well be publicly shamed and condemned. I'm not kidding. I believe that. 
I doubt there has ever been a larger gathering of humans proudly presenting fake body parts, including breasts, asses, and surgically created faces in the history of the universe. All, of course, draped in obscenely expensive clothing, designed to show off the work of the surgeons. 
And I am sure that many of the guests did not support Trump but that didn't stop them from stepping into those gondolas and gliding to the wedding of one of Trump's biggest supporters, money-wise, at least. 
How the hell do they sleep at night? 
On satin sheets with the aid of designer sleep aids prescribed by their Beverly Hills doctors, I would imagine, dreaming of the tax relief they're about to get. 

I wonder what the odds are in Vegas for this marriage to last as long as five years. 

All of this shit is a travesty and a horror and the Republican party has become the party of the inhumane, the soulless, the evil. There is no way around it. 

So yeah, like I said, it's been a good day except for all of that. 

I went to the dump and I washed rugs and I went to town and I saw Brenda and hugged her hard. 
I came home and made pickles and Lis came by and we commiserated about the terrors. We talked about other things, too. It is such a goodness having her right down the road, able to stop by. 

Glen called me when he was about four hours away from where he was picking up the boat. I know there's a time difference but he may or may not have done the deal already. And then he will turn around and come home. 
I will be so glad when he's back, safe and sound. 

I was feeling so low last night that I brought Dorothy Anne out of her sleeping place beneath my vanity and brought her to bed with me. I am not kidding you. Unlike Maurice, she allows me to hug her to me and does not complain if I turn over and I can't imagine her ever drawing blood. 
We all do stupid shit. I do a lot of it. But at least sleeping with a very old and very well-worn doll is not harmful in any way. And over her heart, someone has written, "I love you."
I needed that.

******************

The web that the golden orb weaver wove overnight. The rain and the light made it visible. 

Tiny new leaves growing on a plant Ellen sent me that I just stuck into the dirt a few days ago. 

Dorothy Anne, just in case I need her again tonight. Don't you laugh at my baby. She is sensitive and older than all of us and as such, deserves respect.

But laugh at me if you want. I really do not care. 

Love...Ms. Moon