A Very Welcome Invitation

I came across this cartoon in an issue of the New Yorker yesterday and it absolutely and perfectly captures everything I hate about a doctor's office. Everything that gives me anxiety so profound that it goes into panic. I feel fairly certain that no one enjoys that twenty (or more) minutes waiting on the end of that exam table with either your front or your back exposed, the tissue paper that you've already torn just getting settled up there, looking at those horrible pictures of guts and bones and organs and knowing that there are really scary metal tools and lists and lists of things that could be wrong with you but for some of us, it's not just unpleasant, it's a complete nightmare and hell yes, our blood pressure is going to be high which will be the first thing wrong with us and god knows what else they'll find. 

I don't have a doctor's appointment coming up until the end of November but that is too soon for me and plenty soon enough for me to start freaking out and so when I saw the cartoon I had to take a picture of it. It sort of makes me anxious just to post the damn thing but it had really hit home and made me aware that I am not the only one who finds all of those things quite stressful. 

It really has no relation to anything I experienced today except for the fact that I think I did have a small panic attack or it could have been a small neurological event, hard to tell sometimes, but I feel pretty okay now. 
I wish I wasn't crazy. 

I was going to just work outside today as it's been cooler but Hank called and said that he and Rachel were going to go to Monticello for lunch and a look-around Wag The Dog and would I like to go? 
Well, surely I would like to go. And Glen was invited and he came too. And so did Jessie, August and Levon. They'd already been to Chess Club at the library and I was so glad they could fit us into their schedule. We decided to eat at the Mexican restaurant of course, and the place was packed but no problem! They set us up in the adjoining cantina which is a cool and colorful little room. 

No one else was in the room so we had the place to ourselves. The boys immediately decided they needed to watch the football game playing on the TV behind the bar and so they did. They joined us at the table when the food got there though. 

Oh, that Levon. 
August's hair was pretty wild today and we all told him we loved it. Which we did. 
The food was good, the company excellent. We love that place and are always happy to go back. 

Jessie had to get on back home so she could get some sleep before her shift tonight but Glen and Hank and Rachel and I went to Wag and did a look around to see if there were any treasures we needed. No one scored big today. Rachel got a tiny teddy bear and a spice organizer and I got a little, not very special bowl, and two small spools of ribbon because I like to use real ribbon to wrap presents with. And tie back curtains with. And so forth.

Our across-the-street neighbor is coming over in about half an hour to watch the FSU- Somebody-I-Don't-Know game on the TV and he's bringing grilled chicken thighs. Glen wanted to have vegetables to snack on and so we drove to the Winn Dixie in Monticello which we discovered was not open due to the fact that Aldi's has bought that Winn Dixie and it's in the middle of being remodeled. This means the only option for buying groceries in Monticello at the moment is the DG Market which is, I kid you not, Dollar General's attempt at providing a place to buy food in food deserts. 
It's not a very great attempt. They have exactly ONE cold area which is not very big at all with a small amount of produce. The entire rest of the coolers, freezers, and shelves are filled with processed products. Well, they do sell milk and orange juice, butter and other dairy products but those too are mostly processed. It was horrifying and a very clear illustration of why Americans are so often overweight and unhealthy. Anyone who has no idea why people would eat so much junk has probably not been to a small town in the South although I imagine it is much the same in many very small rural counties throughout the country. 

So many people just have no idea of the realities of poverty. Some of the people in Jefferson County can indeed afford to drive to Tallahassee to go to a Publix or Costco or Walmart for food and there are also so many people in the communities in our county who don't have a car to begin with or can't afford the gas to make the drive. And so they go to the GD DG Mart and buy frozen pizzas and hotdogs and sodas and white bread and chips and ice cream and perhaps a bag of baby carrots if they're feeling in need of a fresh vegetable. 

Let me just say that we do NOT live in the greatest country on earth and anyone who says we do is either ignorant, out of their minds, or blind. Or all three. And as we all know, things are only getting worse and are only going to get worse unless something major happens and happens soon. 

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The game has begun, our neighbor is here. The vegetables are all cut up, the baked beans are in the oven. Maurice is hanging out in the cradle with what I am sure she does not see as her friends although wouldn't it be enchanting if she did? 

But what do I know? 

Not sure what I'm going to be doing this evening but you can bet your bottom dollar it's not going to be watching a football game on TV. Maybe I'll work on my Florida jigsaw puzzle for awhile and then get in bed and read. I'm about a third of the way through an Elizabeth Strout book, "Tell Me Everything." 
I will admit that I am having a bit of trouble keeping up with the many characters and their own specific stories but I do enjoy Strout's very unadorned style of writing, the way she keeps everything close to the bone and doesn't do a lot of fancy stepping. I suppose this is appropriate for her characters who are mostly from Maine and tend to be direct in their words and their actions. Quite a contrast to the book I recently finished, Ian McEwan's "What We Can Know" which the NYT's described as ..."brash and busy, it comes at you like a bowling ball heading for a twisting strike." 
I do not disagree with that assessment. 

As always I am just eternally grateful that my childhood dream of always having enough books to read has come true in my adult life. There were never enough for my greedy self when I was a child and so I ended up reading anything I could get my hands on from the backs of cereal boxes to my mother's "Good Housekeeping" magazine to "The Reader's Digest" to "National Geographic" to the encyclopedia. 
I have a very strong feeling that many, if not most of you know exactly what I'm talking about. 

May all of us always have all the books we need to read and all the books we want to read. 

That's as good a wish for everyone that I know of right this second. 

Love...Ms. Moon