No Title

Maurice when I got out of bed this morning. She looked so serene and regal, didn't she? 

So you know how some people, when asked how they're doing say, "Well, any day I wake up and I'm still here is a good day"?
That answer has never really impressed me. It's like asking someone how they'd feel if their mother had had an abortion when she was pregnant with them. 
Wouldn't really be much of a worry, would it? Same thing for being dead. If I don't wake up and I'm not breathing, I doubt it's going to trouble me in the least. I'll just be a little ol' electron of energy or something and I won't be worrying about what to make for supper. 
These are rather depressing thoughts and my day has not really been bad enough to warrant such morbid thinking but, as the woman I used to work with might say, it has kindly sucked.
Only she would not have said "sucked" because like Auntie Em, she was a good Christian woman. But I did love the way she used the word "kindly" instead of "kind of" as I would say. Or, "sorta like."
But yes. Kindly sucky. 
For a few days now the kidney stone has been threatening me with bad behavior and I am almost embarrassed to say this because it always seems to happen when Glen's about to go out of town and I do admit that I could be having psychosomatic pain but I've been having other symptoms which I know well by now which would be fairly difficult to manifest with my mind although I think of people who have experienced the stigmata and I realize the human mind is capable of anything. Well, not bending spoons or stuff like that.

Back to my day. Due to the stone's activity I have just not felt well. When these fuckers move they create an insult to the body, as they say, and many different systems seem to want to get involved and play along. Urinary, of course, gastric, the internal lady parts, etc. And I just ache. And am tired. I'm fairly used to all of this by now but there is always the lingering PTSD of the pain I suffered (and that is the word) some years ago when a different stone got into the wrong place and had to be lasered into grit. This is just the way it is and today has been one of those days. 
And adding to that, Mr. Moon wanted to go up to the lake house to retrieve his truck which has been stuck there for at least a month due to its own ill health. He thought he'd figured out what was wrong with it and took two batteries and twenty fuses with him today. We drove up together and I was to drive the car back after the truck had been fixed. I really didn't want to go but he was dead set on getting up there and bringing his truck back home and if I hadn't done it, he was determined to get a friend of his to drive up with him but this friend has some sort of dementia and not just the kind where you can't remember what you came into a room for but the kind where maybe you're not sure what that room is for. 
I do not mean to make light of this. I fear dementia more than anything, I believe. I recognize signs of it in myself and my mother and my grandmother had it but our friend's situation is undeniable and I was NOT going to let him have any part in this operation. 
Thus- I agreed to go even though I feel like I have so much to do before I leave on Thursday to pick up my darling Ms. T. Joy at the airport and drive us to St. George island. 
Of course I'm probably way over-estimating what I think I need to do but I was not in the best mood on the drive up. I was not ugly in word or deed but I did not say much, just working on patching a pair of overalls. 

The long and the short of it (which now that I think about it would be a terrific title for a book about Glen and me) is that although he got the truck running beautifully, not more than fifteen minutes after we left the driveway, he in the truck, me in the car we'd driven up in, I saw two big puffs of black smoke coming from the truck's tailpipe and after pulling over and a little bit more effort on Glen's part to remedy the situation, it became apparent that the truck was going nowhere under its own speed and so it was left on the side of the road, a tow-truck called, a note put on the wind shield to explain it was being dealt with, and we drove home. 

Sigh.

Bless that man's heart. He does not give up until there really is no other option available to him. 

Here are two pictures I took in the cabin.

NO. That thing must go along with the duck key thingee and whatever that other thing on the wall is. The fire extinguisher should probably stay although not necessarily right there. The table and chairs which I did not get in the picture also will never ever have either a place in my heart or a place in any house I associated with.

Here's what the kitchen looks like right now. Do you dig the big wooden towel ring and the big carved fork on the wall by the sink? 
I don't. We shall not discuss the cabinets. I'm sure I have already. 

At least the horrible kitchen island is gone and there is that stove with the beautiful blue oven. And a very nice dishwasher in which to wash my beautiful set of differently colored Fiesta Ware. 

Obviously we are home now. I have field peas cooking. I am going to make a salad with greens I picked before dark. The tow truck has the situation in hand and shall be here soon. Mr. Moon, our our way home said, "It may be time for a new truck."

I kindly agree with him. 

Pottery tomorrow unless I'm writhing on a floor somewhere, begging for morphine. Which makes me think of a Rolling Stones' song entitled Sister Morphine which is rather appropriate considering my own personal stones. If you want to know how truly morbid I can be, I'll tell you that as I attended my mother as she died, this was the song in my head. 

Morphine eased her out as kindly and as painlessly as is possible. 

Also, I think it is an eerily beautiful song and a testament to two men who experienced what would be its evil power, managed to escape, and then wrote this song about it. 

Mick is 82 now, Keith will be 82 next month. 

The old boys. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Not My Most Exciting Post

Can you guess what that picture is? Up until a minute ago it was the only picture I'd taken all day and in a little while I'll show you THAT picture which will explain what you're looking at. Now don't cheat! Don't scroll ahead.
Hahahahahahahaha! Scroll all you want. 

I got up this morning around 8:15 by the clock and when I went to kiss my husband good morning I said, "I'm adapting to this new time change pretty well, I think!" 
My life is dedicated to making Mr. Moon laugh. And he makes me laugh too. 

The day wasn't spent in what I felt was a very productive way but sometimes that just happens. Glen and I both needed to go to town and we needed to go one place together to get some bank business done, so we met there first. What we'd thought would be a simple, relatively swift situation turned out to take quite awhile and we finally decided to come back later when possibly some documents I needed to sign had come back in. The lady helping us was so very, very good at what she did as well as being kind and tolerant of our old person ways and at one point when she was talking to someone else, I realized that she had a doctor's appointment and needed to get out of there and get to it. She protested, saying, "No, I'm here to take care of you. I can reschedule," but I wasn't having that. She seemed pretty excited about this appointment and she mentioned the doctor's name when she was talking to the other person and I recognized it and had a feeling I knew what she was seeing the doctor about, especially when she mentioned she was getting some results back. 

So off Glen and I went for a quick lunch and then he went to take care of a title and license or something-something involving Owen's car and so forth because he IS the Car Guy, you know, and YES! Owen has his license now for real so understandably he would like to be able to drive his car. 
I went to Publix and stopped into the liquor store to see my Lily at work and then went back to the bank. Glen didn't need to go because I was the only one who needed to sign the documents. Our lady got back just as I got there too and she took me right to her desk and of course because I am the nosiest person in the world, I asked her if she was okay. I could tell she wasn't the same excited woman she'd been when she left. 
"Not for now," she said and I expressed my sympathy and then, even though I knew she was definitely not in the mood, she got right back to trying to get what I needed to do done, typing in this and in that in her computer, on the phone, doing all the technologic things that banking (and everything else) requires today and despite all, it could not be done today. I will get documents in the mail to sign and then take them back to her. I don't care. It's not an emergency situation. 
But then we started talking. Like...two women talking. And she needed to talk. I could tell. And so I mostly listened. She didn't talk about her doctor's appointment but about other things and one of the subjects we discussed was tall men. She'd had a rather tall boyfriend at one time and all of his friends were in the six-to-seven-foot range. By the time we'd exhausted that subject and a few more too, she was smiling, she was laughing and I was so glad. 
It's not JUST Mr. Moon I love to make laugh, you know. 

But Lord, by then it was late-ish and I drove quick-quick to Costco to get gas and buy avocados and sliced almonds but they didn't have the almonds so I just got the avocados. Finally I was on the road home. I am going to make a Chile Verde tonight with some of the leftover pork shoulder that Glen cooked. It was perfection! So I need to roast peppers and tomatillos and garlic and do all that other stuff. 

I am sorry about the absolute beigeness of this post. "And then I went to a bank and then I went to a store and then I..."

Ugh. Well. That is the way it is today. 

Here's the big reveal of what you see in that picture above.

It was a very close photo of the roots of a Swiss Cheese plant sprouting in that green bottle of water. This morning the sun was shining in the window and it got my attention. You can barely see the viney Swiss Cheese plant's leaves, tucked as they are behind the philodendron which continues to grow in a miraculous manner from a very, very small hanging pot that I only remember to water about once every week and a half. The pink blossom is from the arrangement Mr. Moon got me for...what was it? I can't remember now. Just because?  And you can see the little toy menagerie of plastic animals I've found in this yard. The colorful necklace is one Maggie made me several years ago and the other bottles are just bottles I like. Luke Skywalker is in there too, as is a small red car. Can you see them?

Off to go husk tomatillos which is something I have never done in my life. I imagine I'll figure it out though.

Love...Ms. Moon

And What Did You Do With Your Extra Hour?

Here we have a sort of Day of the Dead flower situation although not really. I do call that old vanity my hallway altar. I used to be far more into making altars than I am now. I guess the last vestiges of any spiritual practice have slowly dissolved from my soul. 
Although. 
I will admit that my tortoise shells and seashells and Virgin of Guadalupe and pictures of my babies do bring me comfort so maybe not entirely. 

I will not lie to you- I did enjoy waking up this morning and discovering that it was still quite early according to the change in the time calculation device continuum. I felt indeed as if I had gained an hour. I made us a Sunday breakfast which, by the time we ate it, was closer to noon than eleven, at least by yesterday's time. It gets so confusing. I felt like it took me forever to get it all going. For one thing, I was out of self-rising flour for the biscuits and my baking powder has passed its best-by date. At one point as I struggled to get the biscuit dough made up and cut and in the little skillet I cook them in, I wondered if I was dreaming because one of the main characteristics in many of my dreams is that I have a shit-ton of people to feed and do not have the proper ingredients and I have no idea where the bowls and spoons and knives and cutting boards are kept. This frequently happens on Thanksgiving morning in these dreams as I realize with panic that I have bought neither a turkey or anything else to make the feast and people are already gathering. 
But no, this morning I was not dreaming and eventually I got my biscuits made, along with the sausage and grits and eggs and although I'd worried the biscuits would not rise properly, they did a fine job of jumping to attention in the oven. 

So that was all fine. I did a crossword and some laundry and then I set myself to the task of cleaning out a large drawer in my bathroom which I realized, when I was getting ready for our trip, had a good amount of roach shit in a bottom corner and yes, that is gross, but when you live in Florida...
And if roach shit was going to kill us, we'd all have been dead decades ago.
That's the drawer where I keep my travel toiletry bag and other bags and pouches in which I put jewelry when I travel, most of which I never wear but somehow it doesn't feel like vacation unless I take a few sparkles. I discovered that I have approximately ten of these bags and pouches, all of them dear to me for different reasons and most of them I had forgotten I even owned. There were also four pairs of old glasses which I don't even think the Lion's Club would want. I girded my loins, kept the two most recent pairs and threw out the two oldest. 
That drawer is also where I toss the little bags the dentist office gives to me every six months when I go in for a cleaning. I consolidated all of the tiny toothpastes that were as yet unopened, along with the dental floss. I now realize I will not need to buy toothpaste or dental floss for at least a year. I tidied the band-aids, the Neosporin, and the Hydrocortisone ointment after I dumped out the roach shit and cleaned the drawer, and let it dry. And now that is done.

I swept and did a desultory dusting of things in the bedroom, the laundry room, the guest room, the hallway, and the kitchen. And then, to top it all off, I did a relatively decent cleaning of the newel post at the bottom of the stairs which I have not touched with a rag in years. I got out the Fabuloso and vinegar and I sprayed and wiped and even scrubbed with a toothbrush. 

Someone had illusions/delusions of grandeur when they put that thing in. It's way too fancy for this sort of house. It really needs painting so it doesn't look as good as it should, but hey! it looks better than it did! As an added bonus- the smell of the Fabuloso and white vinegar filled the air for awhile, making me feel doubly virtuous. 

And...that was about it. All-in-all, it probably took me that one gained hour to accomplish all of this and I felt quite satisfied with even that little bit of housekeeping. Somehow my day filled up with other, less productive things and here it is, dark as- well- night, at 6:30. 

Mr. Moon hung about all day, doing this and that but mostly smoking a pork shoulder which requires a great deal of attention. (It's hard to keep those papers lit! Haha. Old stoner joke.) He does love to cook meat outside although it does not happen that often. I've got some sweet potatoes and apples that I'm going to bake together and some broccoli to steam. It'll all be good. 

I haven't talked a great deal lately about the Zepbound adventure but it continues. Despite eating different foods than I normally would in Roseland, there was no weight gain and I felt quite satisfied and happy with what I ate. This all still seems miraculous to me. I get around so much more easily and often even allow myself to look in a mirror! Amazing! It's been years. Sometimes when I look at my face I realize that yes, the lines are more visible, the skin in the neck is even more ridiculous, but for some reason, I do not care. All of that is part of growing older. It is as natural as getting gray hair. 
There is a saying which is supposedly French which is that after a certain age, a woman can have either an ass or a face but not both. This would be without surgery, I am sure. 
And although there is probably truth in that, I have neither ass nor face that would qualify as looking like anything but what they are- parts of a seventy-one year old woman. 
But I no longer have to worry about getting up off the ground while I am weeding and that alone is just about enough to make this whole journey worthwhile. And I will admit that feeling better in my clothes has given me some happiness. There are even overalls that I loved for years that had gotten too tight and which are roomy and comfortable again, and I love that. It's not like I'm fashion-plating all over the place. I just want the clothes I feel comfortable in to feel comfortable. 

Does that make sense? 

It does to me and that's what counts. 

The roses are really putting on a show. Remember that tiny Fiesta Ware pitcher I found at the dump? There you go. 

Soon...camellias. 
Sigh.

Love...Ms. Moon

Another Day In Which, Once Again, I Had Far More To Talk About Than I Thought I Did

I woke up this morning to an empty house save for Maurice. I'd had a horrible dream and was just shaking with taste of it still in my mouth. I did not have one bad dream in Roseland or if I did, I can't remember. But this dream- oh god. I was angry, I was hurt, I was anxious, I was afraid, I was devastated, I was rocked by real events from my past which had morphed into nightmare proportions and no, for once, the stepfather was not a part of any of it. 
I have felt the dream's effect all day long, making me sad for myself, that I have hung on to some of the things that have happened to me that I feel I should have gotten over years and years ago but obviously, I have not, and I think it is that realization which affected me more than the dream itself. These are things not nearly as traumatic as childhood abuse but the older I get, the more I realize that some things are deeply, deeply painful and can settle into one's psyche like some sort of vile parasite, impossible to get rid of. 

The house was empty because Mr. Moon had gone to help Vergil get a deer out of the woods that he'd shot. Vergil was raised vegetarian but now eats meat and he prefers that the meat he and his family eat is mainly venison that he or Glen bring in and process themselves. And so it's a big deal when Vergil gets his deer and I respect the hell out of him for learning how to do that. Glen has been his mentor and he loves to help Vergil with the heavy work. 
So I figured out that my husband was in the woods and so that was okay- he had not abandoned me. The two men got in from the woods and did all the things required to do after a deer is taken and which I mostly pretend is NOT happening because like most of the "civilized" world, I would prefer to think that meat doesn't really involve the death of a fellow creature but that it magically appears on plates in restaurants and on neatly wrapped trays in the grocery store. 

While they were out there doing the things, I made them a sort of egg pie with vegetables and ham, which was nicely sliced and wrapped from the deli section, and cheese. When they had finished their work they came in and ate that along with toast and butter and last year's peach preserves. They were hungry and I was glad to be able to feed them. 

I spent about an hour in the garden this afternoon, weeding my rows of greens and lettuces. Well, I guess lettuces are greens, aren't they? Salad greens and cooking greens, I suppose I should say although the line gets crossed there frequently, especially when it comes to salads and things like spicy mustard greens which are delicious cooked or raw, and kale, because it too can be used either way. 

The marigolds are STILL blooming profusely.

And the volunteer zinnias continue to offer some beautiful color. 

Maurice came out and asked for some garden love while at the same time, making sure I was doing the weeding properly. 

Can you see the African basil still as brilliant green and purple and full of bloom as ever behind her? I have to remember to cut some of that to root for next year's summer garden. 

Lily had a little Halloween gathering last night and I got this picture.

Jessie and Vergil dressed up as Gomez and Morticia Addams. I think they look so incredibly fabulous.

Vergil actually grew that mustache and so still had it this morning which prompted Glen to say, "I better get back out and help Gomez," this morning when he came back to the house to kiss me. 

I'm digging the Grim Reaper's shoes there. 

I have no idea who the character in this costume is except that it is Disney related. 

I do think, however, that we know who is IN the costume. 

I haven't seen the grands in well over a week and I have a feeling they've all grown at least an inch or so in that time. 

I am hoping that all of us have good dreams tonight with no hauntings from the past. We get an extra hour of sleep, should we want it, and that sounds lovely to me although I will NOT enjoy it getting dark so early. Jessie is working a night shift tonight and so instead of twelve hours, she'll be there thirteen hours. Somehow this does not seem fair. It's so odd to me how we humans have decided that we can change the clocks and thus, throw off our entire body clocks simply because WE CAN! 

And I know I have not been speaking about our government lately but I will assure you that I hate that orange piece of demented shit more with every passing day and I did not even know that was possible. 
A Gatsby party at Mar-A-Lago while people are trying to figure out how to put food on the table and keep their health insurance? 
The cruelty to and complete disregard of the citizens he made so many promises to in order to get elected is staggering. 

Rome burns while Nero fiddles. And oh, I could say so much more but I'd rather just go make some cornbread. 

Be kind to yourself.

Love...Ms. Moon