Oh God. From A Cat Tale To Tupperware To The Sacred, Undisturbed Places Of Florida. Plus- Clean Sheets

Maurice is sticking close to us since we got back. I know she likes Mark a lot because he spoils her and also, although she probably wouldn't admit it, because he is an imminently likable person with gentle ways and a kind voice. 

She spent hours on Glen's lap last night while he sat in his chair in the Glen Den. The Father Human! Or however she thinks of him. And she slept with us, cuddled next to me last night. At around seven this morning though, she jumped off the bed and began scratching the under-mattress or whatever you call the thing the mattress sits on, with great enthusiasm while crying loud enough to wake the dead and since we weren't dead, we woke up. It wasn't even really light yet. 
We tried to tell her to stop that nonsense and get back in the bed but she wasn't having it. 
"What's wrong, Maurice?" I asked. "Is Timmy in the well?"
Glen and I both laughed and he got up which I was not well-pleased about, pointing out that he was doing a cat's bidding rather than staying in the warm bed with his wife. 
Oh well. He was ready to get up. I wasn't. 
I think Mark gets out of bed very early and when he's here, he spends some time with Maurice, sitting beside her as she eats the treat he fixes her. This is what I meant when I said he spoiled her. 

But the biggest thing that happened, and I can still hardly believe this, a few minutes ago she came and stood by my laptop as she often does and where she's often fooled me by asking for petting only to then slash and bite my wrist and/or hand. But that's not what just happened today. She bumped my hand with her head, as a cat will do, and I almost unconsciously began to stroke her head and back when suddenly I heard something I really don't think I've ever heard before- the sound of purring coming from that cat. 
No, seriously. She does not purr. 
But today she did. And she didn't bite or scratch me! The whole thing only lasted about half a minute but it was an amazing thirty seconds. 

I got out the Goodwill cashmere this morning. It was that chilly. Forty-something. Cashmere sweaters make winter bearable in my opinion. Can you imagine how poorly I would cope in a place where it really gets cold? But it is a shock to the system to be in a place one minute wearing a sleeveless dress and then the next in a place where cashmere and a jacket are required for outdoor comfort. 

I needed to go to town to get a few things at Costco and at Publix but first I needed to get a few things done around here before I left. Of course those few things took me about four hours due to the number of but firsts that were required to get the things accomplished. 

Jessie had to go to Costco too and so we met there and it was mighty fine to see my youngest. I felt like I hadn't seen her in a month. Neither one of us needed a lot of anything so it didn't take us long. I did linger awhile at a display of Tupperware that excited me a bit inappropriately. A set of 32 containers and lids ranging from a giant one that would hold a LOT of soup to smaller ones, perfect for that little bit of coleslaw you have leftover from supper. And they came in two color combinations. 

They weren't cheap but they weren't exorbitant, either. I could just envision throwing away all my cottage cheese, yogurt, and feta cheese containers and replacing them with these handsome lovelies! 

Oh my. 

I finally decided that I would ponder this situation. And I am. Pondering.

I really do not know which set I would buy because although the blues and the greens are my favorite colors, those two shades of mauve, or whatever they are, were pretty magnificent looking. The orange though? 
Eh.

We went our separate ways after Costco and I went to Publix to get the rest and I was so proud of myself for getting everything I needed and not anything I just casually desired until I got home and realized that I had not gotten cottage cheese which was the main reason I went to Publix to begin with. I even got the cut-up pineapple to go with it! Oh well. I had some plain yogurt with the pineapple this afternoon and that was fine too. That is my regular between lunch and supper snack although the fruit may vary. 

Came home, unloaded and put everything away, made up the bed with the sheets I'd washed and dried, folded the other laundry that was done and put those away. I still have a load to fold in the dryer but I'll get around to it. 

It always happens that after Mr. Moon and I go away together for any length of time, I feel a ripping apart when we get home and go about our separate ways as we live our lives. He had his errands to run, I had mine. This is always especially true after a trip to Mexico where we are together every minute of every day and night which I would think might drive us crazy but instead, makes us realize how much we enjoy each other's company when we have that sort of opportunity. 
This coming week, he will be leaving for Canada. Yes. Again. And the same day he leaves, which is Thursday, I will be leaving to go to St. George Island with my nursing school friends. We have not been able to get together for a few years and I can't wait to be with these women. We are part of each other's bones at this point in our lives, even if we don't see each other often and when we come back together, we immediately fall into our places, our spaces and it feels like a sort of miracle and is always a joy, even though of course I am anxious as hell about it. I know, however, that I will be fine and far more than fine and this weekend will be one of the most deeply emotional and wonderful weekends of my life. That's just the way it is. 
One of us has a very serious medical diagnosis and has had for years. As time progresses, she is learning to cherish that which is the most important, and to let go of that which is not. I feel so very honored that I am part of what she deems worthy of her time and effort. She is without a doubt, one of the dearest loves of my life. 

So. That's what's going on. I keep thinking about the last full day Glen and I spent in Roseland. We saw signs for a state park I'd never heard of but the name itself was intriguing. St. Sebastian River Preserve. The St. Sebastian is my river, the one I've taken so many pictures of while watching the sun go down. And since we had the time and nowhere we had to be, we went there. We mostly drove through it but I would love to go back and hike some of the trails and explore it all a little more. At the end of the road we stopped and got out of the car. No one else was there. It was so peaceful and was, to my south Florida girl eyes, so beautiful. 

When I talk about palmetto scrub, this is what I mean. So very, very different from what I am sure people envision when they think of Florida. But a part of Florida I feel at home around. And there are so many different parts of that one rather small park. 

"Pine flatwood are the focal point of the preserve, serving as a backdrop to over 23 different distinct natural communities. Cypress domes, Strand Swamps, scrub ridges and the other natural features are home to over 70 listed species of threatened flora and fauna."

These are the places where "The Yearling" took place. These are the places that the goddamn "planned communities" are being built, the pines, the palmettos, the muhly grass, and all the other native plants which protect our very planet, not to mention Florida's delicate eco-system and wildlife, are being completely destroyed along with the fossils of mastodon, the shards of pottery made by some of the earliest inhabitants of the area, and everything else that means a fucking thing. 

Well. At least there is this one place so that our grandchildren will be able to see what it used to look like. What it looked like when I was a kid. 

For now, at least. 

I'm going to go cook some fish and grits which is certainly a meal that the families in "The Yearling" would have recognized. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Back To This Reality

That was the picture I took this morning when I was leaving the sweet cabana house. I love that courtyard. I love everything about the way Glenn has mixed jungle and civilization and cherished the old in such a way that every turn, every step, is an experience of interesting lushness.

So yes, we are home. We drove home with a not insignificant coconut palm in the back seat. 

Glenn gave it to me. It's been babied from a coconut that sprouted some years ago down by the river where a huge coconut palm drops its coconuts. I am so thrilled to have it. I am going to baby it myself and it will become part of my very own, very small Roseland garden with mangos, the sea grapes, the traveler's palm. He also brought us a good chunk of cake his husband baked and I can't wait to taste it. 

But you know what the best thing Glenn gives me is? 

His hugs. I hug him so tightly and he he hugs me back just that hard. 

The drive home was fine. I had finished reading the book we'd started on our way up to NC last summer and had brought along "The Yearling," the book by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I have probably read this book at least ten times throughout my life and I know I've read it out loud to Glen once. But as soon as I started reading it, the beauty of MKR's writing enfolded both of us again. Her ability to describe Florida's wildlife along with the lives of the people who settled in some of the wildest parts of the state is absolutely unparalleled by anyone else. And the way she captures character and writes dialogue is a dream for someone who loves to read out loud.
I could go on for days but I will not. I'm tired. I'll just say that Glen loves the book too. 
Every time I read it, I am reminded once again of how I felt as a child growing up in a fairly wild part of Florida and how much that has influenced me throughout my life. That appreciation of nature, of the wildlife, of the people who, for some damn reason, decided that this wild, often-cruel land was where they wanted to be above all other places. 

Since I've been home I've of course felt I had to unpack everything, put everything in its place, start laundry, and make...a...soup.

Oh my lord. See- here I am, back again, judging myself on what I have done that was constructive. 
I do not like this Mary as much as I do the Mary I have been the past week, just taking each moment as it came, enjoying each of those moments for exactly what they were. 
And you know what? I did laundry there. I did cook meals there. I made the bed. I tidied up. I did dishes and even grocery shopping. But none of it seemed to be a burden. It was just...life. 

Here's what I was seeing out of the car window as we drove north on Highway 1. 

That is the Indian River which is part of the intracoastal waterway which was the other river I loved as a child. 
Two rivers, an ocean. Jungles. 

I think Maurice is glad we're home. I know we'll be glad to get into our big beautiful bed tonight. The duck will be involved. It's supposed to get down to 44 degrees tomorrow morning. 

Sigh. 

We're home. Or, we are at my other home to be more honest.

Love...Ms. Moon

Tuesday, Then Wednesday

Mr. Moon went on a fishing trip today with a guide on a lake in Fellsmere. I grew up hearing of Fellsmere but honestly, have had little knowledge of it. I just googled it however, and what an interesting town! It is supposedly known as the "most Mexican town in Florida" and is where the first woman in the deep south was legally allowed to cast a vote. Zena M. Dreier. 
It is also, I will have you know, the home of the Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival. 
Do not laugh. Frog legs provided many an early Florida settler with the protein to survive. 

Anyway, he got up so early the sun hadn't even thought of coming out yet and had, according to him, the very best day of bass fishing in his entire life. It was all catch and release and I have a feeling that if right this second after that day on the water, it wouldn't take a whole lot for me to convince the man that we needed a house here. River fishing, lake fishing, ocean fishing! 
Is it heaven or what?

So I thought I'd walk up to the Methodist Church thrift store but discovered they were closed on Tuesday and decided to just do a little ramble which I did. I walked down the road that linked my house to my best friend Lucille's house as a child which we would walk each other home on, sometimes three or four times before we tired of it. Back and forth. 

I wanted to stop by the house I lived in again. I wanted to see if I could make my way through the overgrown plants to peer into windows, to see if anything I remembered was still the same. 
Lord, the place is creepy. I swear to you, it's almost as if the evil that happened there has taken over a sweet little white stucco house and turned it into a brown-wood paneled, windows-boarded-over, vegetation-taken-over, dark place of dread. 

You know the little sea grape plants I started from seed I am so proud of? Those thick limbs and trunks are from a mature sea grape, grown tall and thick enough to block sight of the house. I saw NOTHING I recognized. Not a tree, not a hibiscus, not a window showing me a terrazzo floor, not a bright, airy screened in back porch, not the tree I climbed and read whatever book I could get my hands on. 
Gone. All gone. Different additions, Doors where there were none before, windows that are made of bubbly glass so that even though they weren't boarded over, you could not see in. 

You can barely see the house from the road. 

Somehow, though it didn't trigger me. Perhaps because it WAS so different. If it was still a pretty little house surrounded by hibiscus and surinam cherries and periwinkles it might have felt like too much of a wrongness.
On I walked. 

The road in the first photo is the same white-sand road we used to drive to the bowling alley in Sebastian. Ercildoun Bowling Alley where my mother was on a league sponsored by the Last Chance Grocery Store. 
I am not making this up. That bowling alley was about the coolest thing in a twenty mile radius. Now the road dead ends in the Kelso Medical Complex and that's a whole other story involving Dr. Kip Kelso, the man who was the only physician between Vero and Melbourne. 
I was terrified of him and if I am to be honest, I don't know why but my terror of all things medical may stem from something that happened involving him although I don't think it happened to me. 

As I walked, names came back to me of the people who had lived in the houses I passed. Why I can't remember the name of someone I met last week but can indeed remember the name of the people I knew as a child is beyond me but I know is a sign of old age brain. 

Rosa Garrett, Riene and Oliver, Helen and Ed Kretschmer, Joy and Ralph Holtzclaw, Betty Mockridge, the Volkers, Micky, Dicky, Lucille, Helen, and Paul Ferger and their mother, Josephine. Aunt Katy who was a thousand years old who sat on her porch and told us young'uns the story of how Roseland came to be named by her father. 

"Uncle Larry" the man who lured me and Lucille into his little sports car and touched our not-yet-breasts and whom we had trusted because he was a friend of Josephine's, and Lucille and I never, ever talked about that. 

Nelly Campbell, who was the post mistress for a long time. 
My brain easily gives up these names and if I do not drown in the memories, I am at least washed in them. 

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

Wednesday Night

I never finished last night's post but that was the sunset. I swear, it won't look like anything dramatic and then you look through the camera lens and you're seeing the damn Rapture. 

There is so much more I want to add to what I was writing about yesterday. And I will. I am filled with all of these things. 

Today has been one more perfectly beautiful day. This has been the sweetest get-away I can remember having with my husband. It has been the most laid-back week with no pressure from either of us to do anything. We have laughed so much, we have loved so much, we have been as childish as seven-year olds, we have been as tender as new sweethearts and as silly as seven-year olds. 

We have been sitting on the dock over my river every night. And every night I have been filled with gratefulness that my soul can be so incredibly overwhelmed with a sense of peace that nothing else can bring me. 

The river tonight was a mirror, there was no wind at all. And the stillness brings a different sort of beauty than the evenings when the breeze riffles and even white-caps the river. 

An osprey perches on a branch overlooking the shore every night and makes its whistling call. 

I think she is a juvenile and I wonder if she is calling for her mate or for a parent. I hear the anxiety in her voice, the worry. I know how that feels. I know she's fine. And yet...
I hate to leave the dock while she is still there. I want to know all is well with her. 

As much as I love my home in Lloyd, I hate leaving this place. 
I love it so much. 

And I love being alone in a world of our own with this man. 

Tomorrow we pack and drive home. 

Sigh. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Day Four

This is the bed Glen and I are sleeping on here at the Cabana House. I do believe it is a double bed and I realize that most couples used to sleep on double beds, mainly because that was the biggest mattress made, but I feel certain that given the choice, they might have opted for a Queen-sized. Or even King. 
That's really neither here nor there but the fact is, Glen Moon is absolutely too big for that bed and to make sure his legs and feet are entirely on the mattress, he needs to sleep in a sort of diagonal position and thank goodness that I can scootch over and somehow we are making it work. It's not torture, but we really will appreciate our bed at home all the more when we return. 

This is what the sky looked like this morning when we walked down to the house which may be for sale at some time in the near future. The possibility of that came up perhaps a year or so ago and we talked to the owners then. Our beloved landlord here (shall I start calling him by his name, which is Glenn?) told us about it as he knows the owners. 
But you know how life is and Roseland is at least a six hour drive from home for us and unless we spent half the year here, how could we justify such a purchase? 

And so much more. 

I have lusted after this house for my entire adulthood. I remember it well from when I was a child. It was "the Curtis house" and Mrs. Curtis lived there and it was the house catty-cornered across the street from Granddaddy and Granny's house, their property adjoining Mrs. Curtis's. It was a small-ish cottage, a cabin, a typical Florida home from when people were just really getting settled here on the river. 
So. You know. 

It is precious. 

There is also an addition to the left of what you see there which has two more bedrooms and a bathroom and a living area which are nice spaces, but nothing I'd get too excited about except for the fact that the family could come and stay. It's connected to the cottage by a screened-in porch/outdoor room/breezeway which is truly lovely. The place where I'd probablyspend most of my time if we lived there. 

Anyway, obviously we got to see it today. I texted the owners and told them we were in town and that if they hadn't sold the house we'd love to come and look at it. They were so very, very gracious and said, "Yes. Yes of course," and so we walked the perhaps a quarter of a mile down the white sand road from here. 

I was too shy to take any pictures but I did love it. Small- as houses were then for most people. One bedroom in the cottage, one bathroom, a tiny-ish kitchen, and a living area. There is a small pool which was sparkling and beautiful out back as well as a dock which needs a lot of work. It's quite close to the railroad bridge but not as close to the train tracks as the house we live in now.

Oh sigh. 

The owners are lovely people, wanting to move to Tallahassee, of all places, to be near family. They've lived in Roseland for many years and I know they will miss what they have here. 
They are obviously as liberal and left-leaning as we are. We didn't discuss politics but I could tell. And they are members of a Universal Unitarian Church and that says a lot. There were Jimmy Carter pictures on their refrigerator. And those solar panels? They power the charger for their electric vehicle. 

I saw an emerald green hummingbird in the firecracker plant you can see in the photo, and there are avocado trees, and a mango. 

Roseland. So very, very Roseland. 

On our walk home, we walked by the house that Granddaddy built for my mother and my brother in me around 1960 and it was horribly depressing. It is vacant and it was painted brown years ago, and the jungle has almost overtaken it. I knew no one was living there so I walked around to the back of the house and windows were boarded up and there was no way for me to see inside. I did not make my way through the jungle to part of the house where our bedrooms were. If there is one place in Roseland that feels malignant to me, that house is it. That's where we lived when the abuser came into our lives. 
I wondered if there had been meth making there. I thought about the terrazzo floors which I saw being made by men throwing small, colored stones into wet cement and then rolled over. I thought about the white stucco the house was coated in that seemed to have a glitter and a gleam to it. I thought about what it was like to be able to live in a brand new place with my mother and my brother and how many really terrible things happened while we were there. 
I do have some good memories of living in that house but I surely do have some hard ones. 

Here's a picture of the view from where we ate in Vero today on the shore of the Indian River. 

God, I do love a bridge. 

Brad the Beautiful came by to see us when we got home. 

I offered him some of the peanuts I'd bought on Glenn's recommendation for him. He seemed to have no interest. 

How can anything be this beautiful? 

About an hour later he was eating the peanuts after having pooped on the walkway in front of the cabana. 

Paradise. I am in paradise. 

The sky tonight. 

It is always magnificent. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Sunday As It Should Be Done

When I woke up this morning, the man was already fishing down at the dock. Now that he has discovered the joys of fishing with live shrimp, there is no end to his enthusiasm. 
And a rainbow can only make things better. 
Happy Sunday! 

He's now caught snook, pompano, red fish, catfish, and three stingrays. Maybe some other things. I was mistaken in thinking that he was keeping some of those fish because he wasn't. They weren't big enough to keep and in such things as the regulations governing fishing, he sticks to the rules. He understands why they are in place. 

Today was an easy, who cares? sort of day. 
We hung out right here at home for a long time. Eventually we took a drive to Sebastian in search of a late lunch. 
Unfortunately, we waited so long to eat that we settled for a sports bar/beach bar place on the river because we were that hungry. I wish I could describe our server. Well, I could but I will not. 
Okay, okay. She was youngish and had absolutely read the Waitressing For Tips 101 Manual. 
She was enthusiastic. Very, very enthusiastic. All of the servers had to wear some sort of sports team regalia and that included a few women who had more white hair than I do. 
Oh my Jesus. 
When she came to take our order she said, "Okay! Let's do this!"

There is more. So much more. It all ended with a "And you guys have a blessed day!" 
No. No, no, no. Stop it. Please. But we got food and neither of us has gotten sick yet and the cole slaw was amazing.

We drove down river roads, looking at houses that are so huge and mini-mansionist that I spit on them. Well, you know- metaphorically. And houses that were there when I was a child and which I would give two big toes and a pinky toe to own. We drove to Wabasso where Mr. Moon bought more live bait shrimp and then we came back to the house where I made us a pasta sauce and he went to the dock for more fishing. 

Pasta sauce on the pink stove with the teal tile backsplash.
Be still my heart.

I do believe that our landlord here is my brother from another mother. What else could explain all of this? 

There wasn't much of a sunset tonight but I sat on the dock as Glen fished. He caught TWO more stingrays. 

"Oh Ray-Ray," I said as he pulled them in. "What are you thinking?" And the fisherman unhooked them and let them go back to their families. 

It has rained on and off all day long. One moment pouring down, pock-marking the pool, satisfying the thirst of the bamboo, the palms, the mangos, and the next minute the sun 

shining, skies so blue you'd think rain hadn't yet been invented. 

It's pouring now with even a bit of thunder sounding off. 

I better go boil the pasta. 

I am very, very happy and content. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. The island you see in almost every picture I take of the river is named Goodrich Island and there is a history behind that directly connected to the property here where we're staying. 
As a child, I believe I thought of it as Tarzan/Dinosaur Island because I was fairly certain that both inhabited it. 
In looking it up, I found THIS LINK.

If you go to the very end, you will find that this blog is cited. I am thrilled. Once in awhile you remember why you keep writing, no matter what or why. 

MM

 

Forty-One Years In And I Think It's Just Getting Better All The Time

Our anniversary started out with a lizard. Not this one, but I did take that picture this morning. I have noticed an entirely new species of lizards from anything I've ever seen here or anywhere else in Florida. I believe I have identified it as a Peter's agama which is thriving here in south Florida and will probably be heading north soon, as these critters tend to do. They are native to Africa and were introduced by the release of pet agamas and that's how pythons and iguanas and many other invasive species have found their way here and you know that includes plant species too. 

But the lizard that I came here to talk about is one that somehow found its way into a dip net and could not get out. These guys are very scaly and he couldn't back out. So of course, Mr. Moon had to rescue it. 

He cut the poor thing free, ruining the net in the process and then the little fucker ran like crazy towards a plant pot at the edge of the pool and DID NOT EVEN SAY THANK YOU! 
What're you gonna do? 

We decided to go to Vero and have an anniversary lunch at the Ocean Grill and so we did. It was pretty perfect. We got seats at the bar where we could watch the ocean which was very rough with the waves coming in as rollers so strong the sand was being tossed up with them.  

That is not me in that picture. I was the one taking the picture. 
More photos of what the Atlantic looked like. 

Remember when I said that sometimes the water comes all the way up to the pilings? 
Yeah. Like that. 

The bartender lady remembered us from two or three years ago. I am not kidding. This restaurant has been in business for eighty years and they know what they're doing. I probably went there for the first time when I was about seven or eight which means that the place was only about fifteen or so years old which makes me feel ancient and honestly, it looks about the same now as it did in my memory on that first visit we took on a Mother's Day. 
Sigh.
Anyway, we got Bloody Mary's and I need to start making virgin Bloodies just for the taste. My god but they were delicious. We decided to just have lunch at the bar, which we did, and Glen had snapper and I had a crab cake and we shared some Maryland fried oysters which were some of the best fried oysters I've ever had and I have had a lot of very, very good fried oysters. 

Another Ocean Grill anniversary meal to remember. 

Before we left though, I took these pictures:

You see that table? It is made from ONE piece of mahogany. I feel so sorry for the tree that it was made from but that was a long time ago and there is nothing I can do about it now except be in awe and wonder. And those ladies were having a grand time. 

Me in the restroom, obviously. I wanted to take a picture with the doors in the background because they are so incredibly cool, paintings from the fifties which were painted directly on the stall doors at that time. 
I am so old I remember that. 
However, just as I was taking the picture, a lady came out of a stall 

behind me.

Oh well. You may note I was wearing eye make-up and had my hair down. I had done nothing, however, to my hair except to wash it and get on with my life. 
Which is fairly obvious.

And the rest of the day has been sweet too. Sunset wasn't great but Glen finally took my advice and bought some shrimp to use as bait. That's what my grandfather did and it worked then for catching all sorts of fish. Glen's been using these fancy lures all the years we've been coming down here together and has never caught a damn thing. 

Tonight he caught a snook and two little redfish. I know what we're having for supper tomorrow. Tonight it will be leftovers. 

The man I love doing what he loves in the place I love and we are together and loving each other. 
Gosh, he's handsome. 

I could not ask for a better anniversary. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Yesterday And Today

And if this isn't a fine place to have your morning coffee, I'd like to know what is. Flo(Mingo) is a presence in the lion pool and she cheerfully sails about, visiting one lion after another, gracing the turquoise water with her grace and cheerfulness. 

Oh wait. Perhaps there IS another place. The secret garden, as I call it, where the bamboo knocks and squeaks in the breeze and grows so far up into the sky that you have to crane your neck. 

 It has been a perfectly lovely day. 

We went to breakfast at our favorite place in Sebastian where the food is excellent, the people watching even better. People who, from their accents as they talk on their phones, are obviously not from HERE but who I suppose have retired here. Gussied-up ladies with major hair-dos and bright polyester tunics, men wearing golf duds, mothers with children and grandmothers along to help. We sat outside in an area that was all citrus groves when I was a child. 
No longer. But a restaurant with outdoor seating is not the worst thing that could happen there. 

Necklaces of white ibis in the back of the restaurant. 

After that, which was far more brunch than breakfast, we went to a thrift store where I've bought treasures before but it is so small, so filled with things, that just walking in creates an anxiety situation all on its own. I did manage to buy a beautiful (in my opinion) wooden salad bowl for $4.99 so the stress was worth it. 

And then we went to the Goodwill after we drove down the river road so I could take in the places that have changed, the places that have stayed the same. "Uugh," I say as we pass the mini mansions that are built on what used to be more groves and jungle. "You know those people aren't here for two weeks a year."

I hate them. I admit it. 

Meanwhile, the old fish houses, the bait shops are gone, no longer able to pay the taxes because of the insane gentrification. 
Well. 

We went to the Goodwill by Publix and it is the best Goodwill. There are plenty of rich people (at least one perk of their being here) who donate and so it is truly a pleasure to look through the shelves, the racks. I bought a basket, I bought four martini glasses, I bought four beautiful napkins, and I got a blouse. 
I will be returning.

We came back to the cabana house where we got into the pool but because we are such thin-blooded southerners, the water felt so cold to us that we did not spend much time in it. 
We're crazy. We know it. As I told Glen, if a Minnesotan had dipped a toe into the pool, they would have said, "This is warmer than my bath water." We, however, swam the length, huddled in the sunlit part, swam back, and got out. 
Good enough! 

And then there was a nap and then there was...

Goodwill martini glasses, ninety-nine cents apiece. A sunset in each one. Glen took that picture.

Now we've ordered take out from my favorite Thai restaurant and the man has gone to pick it up. 

New moon and a palm tree. 

Also...

Brad! The resident peacock. I gave him some grapes but what he really wanted was the food his dads give him. Unfortunately, they are out of town for the moment but I suppose they forgot to tell him as he went to their back door and pecked on the glass to get their attention. 
Poor bird. 

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

And that was yesterday. I never got around to publishing so I'll do that now. It is our real true anniversary and we have no plans. I believe the Ocean Grill will be involved and that means a trip to Vero. Whether he go for dinner tonight or lunch today, it is all good with me. The Ocean Grill is one place where I'll never turn down a cocktail at the bar overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, so close that sometimes it washes the sand right up to the pilings. And yet it has withstood a million hurricanes. 

All good from here.

Love...Ms. Moon

No Words

 Love...Ms. Moon Who Is Very Happy