And Somehow, A Miracle Occurs

Last night Levon butt-dialed his grandfather and somehow, that small accident led to every one of the immediate family getting together for lunch less than twelve hours later. Do you have any idea what a miracle this is? Despite the fact that it seems as if we all get together for every birthday and all the holidays, there's always someone who can't make it for one reason or another. 
We plan, we scheme, we schedule and reschedule but somehow, someone is always missing. Visits to North Carolina, illness, having to work, etc., etc. 
But it all came together today and there we are, the whole group of us at Pepper's Mexican restaurant where they always manage to take such good care of us, have a nice patio where we're usually the only ones, and also...they allow dogs to hang out. 

Remember Xena, Princess Warrior, aka Large Marge? She's a year old now and topping the scales at a hundred pounds and she has calmed down a lot in the last few months. She was a very, very good girl today. 

The kids were out of school due to a teacher planning day which I believe is probably how the county dealt with the delicate problem of the celebration of Columbus Day versus the celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day. 
You know where our family falls on this controversy. 
Lily was working but was able to take her break just at the right time and even Jason made it, as did Vergil, along with Michael and May who are almost always working when these things happen. 
I was quite late getting to the restaurant and when I walked in and saw all those people sitting there I thought as I always do, "And this is what unprotected sex can lead to."
A whole lotta joy. That's what it can lead to. 
We were almost giddy today, feeling as if we'd gotten away with something somehow. 
But obviously, it was just meant to be. 

More pictures. 

Dang it! I did not get a picture of me with Owen. Trust me. We hugged several times. 
Those are some good-looking kids. I had to tell Gibson how handsome he is. Isn't he though? He is looking more and more like his dad's Italian side of the family. WITH the Moon gene for height. And Maggie looks a great deal like her other grandmother but also with the height. 

So that was a whole lot of fun and the food was fine although of course, that's hardly relevant. 
After lunch some of the group had to scoot but Hank and Rachel and Jessie and May and Michael and I stood in the parking lot and probably talked for forty-five minutes. August and Levon were in the car waiting with the AC on but after about half an hour, they came out and joined us. They were very sweet about it though. 
I'm so glad we got to do that. So glad we were all able to be together before Mr. Moon left to go up to the frozen North. Well, not frozen yet. He's hoping for some really cold weather. It's so disappointing to him when he travels all the way to Canada and it ends up being warmer there than it is here due to some glitch in the universal weather system. 

Before I leave I must share something which on the surface is absolutely no big deal at all but for here in the rural county in which we live, it's pretty damn awesome. 
We don't get the local Monticello paper but Tom did and Glen goes over to his house to collect his mail regularly and we do enjoy looking over what is considered news in this county. Lots of church news and lots of Christian (heavy on the Baptist variety) columns and lots of news of various crimes which generally involve speeding or drugs although there always seems to be some official who is being fired, tried and found guilty for crimes generally involving misappropriation of funds or, sometimes, something far more horrific.
Recently a huge legal marijuana growing facility was found to be guilty of illegal handling of their run-off water and was ordered to come up with a better plan and fined $80,000. 
There is news of kids' sports teams, beauty queens and there are obituaries as well as pictures and reports from various clubs. 
Monticello is big on clubs. 
But just a little while ago, Glen came out to the porch and said, "I'm so glad we live in such a liberal county!"
Excuse me. What?
He was holding the most recent paper he'd retrieved from Tom's and showed me a picture. Here it is. 

I gave it a quick glance and said, "Yeah?" 
He then pointed out the description printed under the picture. In case you can't read it, here's what it says.

"The Brock family was honored as the 2026 Jefferson County Farm Bureau Farm Family of the Year during the organization's annual banquet, recognizing the family's generations of farming, commitment to conservation and continued involvement in Jefferson County agriculture. Pictured from left are Kirk Brock; his daughter, Emily Brock; son, Jamen Brock; and Jamen's husband, Alex."  

As I said, this should be no big thing but here, it is. There is an entire special section of the paper devoted to this award and the celebration banquet. There are ads from agriculturally oriented companies honoring the Brock family. 
I am somewhat amazed. And so very, very pleased. 
Rock on, Jefferson County! I am proud of you. 

It's been a good day and tomorrow, my sweetheart will be flying out of Tallahassee at 8:30 in the morning. Will I be getting up at five to get him to the airport by 6:30?
No. I will not. 
But I will kiss him goodbye, tell him I love him, to have a wonderful time, and to please come home safely to me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Dog, Tree, Grandchild, This Is My Life

May sent that picture on our group text this morning. She found it when she was going through pictures on her phone. I remember that picture of Baby August and I do believe it's one of the most darling baby pictures I've ever seen. That little bald-headed boy, flirting with his mama, being all joyful and impossibly adorable. He was a little guy for quite awhile, as was his mother. I carried that girl in a sling until she was way older than I could have carried any of the others. 
And now she's just this shy of six feet tall. Goes to show you. 

Today has been sunny and the temperature has been about what it was yesterday, somewhere in the mid-eighties, but the humidity has gone down from 89% to 52% and around here, that feels absolutely crisp. 
And did I do any work outside? 
No. I did not. And I can't even blame being sore because I really haven't been. So I'm not sure why.
Laziness. That and of course the Lord commanding us to remember the Sabbath Day and to keep it holy. In the light of that, I just watched the "Paint it Black" video again and it gave me as much pleasure today as it did yesterday. I did a tiny bit of research and Keith and Mick wrote the song in 1966 when they were around twenty-three years old. 
It has held up quite well, I think. 
Definitely one of the favorite hymns here at the Church of the Batshit Crazy. 

I worked on the jigsaw puzzle today I've had up in the dining room on my very, very cool puzzle board for about six months or more. It always takes me a long time to do a thousand piece puzzle but this one has been ridiculous. I fear that my age is having something to do with it. Well, not my age specifically, but my brain which, as I age, is becoming less and less capable of many things and I believe that doing jigsaw puzzles is one of them. Not that I've ever been very good at them. 
Still, I made some progress. 

My next door neighbor texted to ask if I could possibly do another drop-by at her house to let her sweet dogs out for awhile and then feed them. Of course I said yes, not unhappy at all to go visit with them again. Mr. Moon went with me and got to meet them. They were as loving to him as they are to me. 

I believe someone's in love. 
Now. Whether I'm talking about Mr. Moon or Rukie is up for debate. I have to say though, that Rukie only has eyes for him so...

While we were there I asked Mr. Moon to go and stand by the oak tree I took a picture of on Friday to see if we could get a little more perspective on it. 

Now his arm span is probably around six and a half feet so one of you geometry geniuses can go ahead and try to make an estimate on it's circumference and thus, diameter. I used to be able to do things like that but I can't any more and I'm not blaming that on age but on pretty much forgetting everything I ever learned in geometry by the time I was twenty-five. 

Let's see. What else? 
I haven't done a report on A. recently. Mr. Moon hasn't been down to Gainesville where he still is in a week. I think he realized he needed to take a step back and I'm glad he did. I could see my husband's neurons frying as he tried to come to grips with what was really going on with his friend. He's still having a lot of trouble with that one, but not being in the ICU with him for days and nights has allowed more light into his soul. He's sleeping better, he's less anxious. I can tell. 
There has been no improvement in A. as far as Glen can see. I'm not sure if I mentioned this but he was moved from Neuro ICU to Trauma ICU, mainly because the neurology docs are saying they've done everything they can at this point. He still needs constant skilled care and thus- ICU. Talk of him coming back to Tallahassee has been paused due to the fact that complications relating to the things that can happen when a person is in the state that A. is in have occurred. Some requiring surgery and exploratory procedures. 
I cannot possibly imagine what his wife is going through. Her daughter has come to relieve her for a few days and that's good. 

And of course, Mr. Moon has been quite cheerful, getting ready for his trip. Here's what the guest room looks like at this stage of the preparation. I believe this picture sort of sums up how different he and I are from each other. And yet, somehow it all works. 

It cracks me up. That's a whole lotta camo going on there. He has lists and more lists. 

I've thawed out the creamy, cashew, Seminole squash, sweet potato soup and will add the coconut milk soon. My naan dough is rising nicely. I've told Mr. Moon that while he's gone I'm going to eat nothing but steak and shrimp and lobster and salmon and roasted cauliflower. 
He said, "Okay." 
He knows that only part of that is true. Also, there will be tofu as we know, along with Le Sueur baby peas.
My time with him today has been so very sweet. I probably look at him the same way Rukie does. But I'm pretty sure he looks at me the way he looks at Rukie. 

Yesterday Jessie went by the pottery studio and grabbed my fish for me. This is good because it is the only thing I actually produced last session. 

She is fancy, is she not? Also, I do believe she is dressed to party. You go girl! 

Good Lord. That's enough. 

Love...Ms. Moon

This Is How I Hold On Some Days

The house next door where the dogs I fed yesterday live is a nice house but to my mind, the very best thing about it is the oak tree in the yard. It is literally and technically one of the largest lives oaks in Jefferson County. That picture is not a great picture of the tree for several reasons, one being the shed and one being the trailer there. However, when I tell you that the tree is bigger around than the shed by far, believe me. This is a tree that makes the one in my front yard which is no small tree, look like a miniature version of itself. It is a tree to be worshipped. It is a tree to stand under and be struck dumb by.

It is a tree whose branches extend out to cover and amaze all of those beneath it. 

It is a tree that Ross's admonition for us all to "look up" is a holy reminder. I am sure it's at least a few hundred years old. 
I'm sorry about the gray skies but that's what the sky looked like yesterday when the storm was approaching all those miles to the west. 

I was really surprised that we got all the rain and some fairly strong winds from a storm that far away. I believe we got at least four inches of rain and there was a lot of what I'm calling limb litter left behind. This was to be expected. But all in all, we survived nicely. It was still coming down hard when I went to bed but even with the window open above my head I slept through it all. I generally do sleep through these things. Glen didn't sleep well at all because we opened windows instead of leaving on the AC and that man is just incredibly sensitive to temperature, especially when it comes to sleep time. And it never really did get that cool but what made it most difficult for him, I'm sure, was the humidity which is still up in the 80-something percentile. And it warmed back up to the upper eighties again today. 
I was sort of hoping it would still be raining today, giving me an excellent excuse not to get outside and start cleaning up the yard but it did not. It was somewhat overcast but it wasn't raining. 
Sigh.
So I put on my big-girl overalls and pulled the garden cart out to the front yard and picked up everything from twigs to biggish branches. Nothing huge though. Not one huge branch. In the front yard, at least. And while I was out there, I decided to do a little trimming up and weed pulling and so I probably spent about two and a half hours out there and it does look nicer. I only got one minor wound and that came from a palm frond I cut. I'm not sure what sort of palm it is but I think it was originally supposed to be a house plant. The stem of the frond is sawlike. As so many of these things are. Little sharks' teeth line each side of those stems. Evil, evil baby shark teeth. 
Glen gathered and picked up a lot of downed limbs from the back yard and hauled them to the burn pile where I'd dumped my garden cart contents. That is one hell of a burn pile now. We're going to have to wait for things to dry up at least a little bit before it can be used for its purpose, even with the amount of accelerant that Mr. Moon uses on those piles. That word, accelerant, cracks me up. 
I don't think it's pure gasoline but it could be. I have no idea. 
I do have an idea that I am going to be sore as hell tomorrow. That was a lot of bending and pulling and hauling and so forth and I have been such a slug recently. So it was very good for me to get out and do a little physical labor and all that stuff that makes me feel worthy as a human being on this planet. 
It's been a good day when my overalls are filthy and drenched with sweat at the end of it. A little bloody wound only adds to my strange masochistic joy. 

I shall quickly address the pork chop recipe I made last night in just a few words: Not worth it. 
I probably screwed up a few things, taking suggestions from the comments, and I know I overcooked the poor things but the flavors just did not make me happy. Glen wasn't thrilled either. So next time it's either back to the Shake and Bake or I'll use another NYT's recipe for pork chops with onion gravy. Glen loves that one. I like it fine myself. It's a no-recipe recipe and calls for sautéing "an enormous number of sliced onions." 
Gotta love that. 

Tonight I'm keeping it pretty simple though, with yet another recipe from the same source, this one for scallops. "Seared Scallop Pasta With Burst Tomatoes and Herbs." 
This one is tried and it is true. I remember after I broke some ribs that it was the first meal I cooked when I felt I was up to that sort of thing again. So you know I like it. 

I do believe that's all I have to talk about tonight. However, because I have had this eerie song in my head for a few days even to the point where I find myself whistling the notes of it as I stand over my cutting board with a knife and a vegetable, and because it's a fantastic video in all ways with the old boys showing how it's done, especially Keith and Mick and Charley, and because I am the boss of this blog, I am going to post it. 
As I always say, don't watch it if you don't want to. I'll never know and besides that, I do realize that the Rolling Stones are not as strong a force for sanity in these times of complete insanity for everyone as they are for me. 
Public execution by firing squad? 

Paint it black.

Love...Ms. Moon

Even Just Being Hurricane Adjacent Can Be Intense

In preparation for Mr. Moon's trip to Canada, I have made an army of the life-sustaining cookies he loves so much. I just use the recipe for Quaker Oat's Vanishing Oatmeal cookies, add a huge amount of chocolate chips along with the raisins, and then for good measure a few handfuls of pecans. 
We were watching a series on Apple TV this afternoon called "Small Prophets" that Pottery Lizzie had told me about. She has watched it three times. In other words, she feels the same way about it as I feel about "Reservation Dogs" and so I wanted to give it a shot. We've only watched two episodes but I do like it. The humor in it is quite English, quite dry and there is alchemy and magic. 
I was working on a sewing project, replacing the waistband elastic in a skirt which over the years has degraded to a slack, useless gray material. And all of a sudden, Mr. Moon said something about how he guessed he's waited too late to ask me to make his cookies. 
Well. I had completely forgotten about the need for life-sustaining cookies but he had not. "You're not leaving until Tuesday, are you?" I asked him.
"Yes. But the Gun Dog express is leaving tomorrow and I'd like to give those guys some to take with them." 
The Gun Dog express is the vehicle which two of the guys drive to Canada with yes, the dogs and guns in it. Glen has frequently been one of the drivers for this operation but he's flying up this year, letting some of the other guys take that job. I think he may be driving back with them though. I should get all of these details figured out, shouldn't I?

Anyway, we finished watching the episode we were watching and I got up and made the cookies which I can do in my sleep and they came out very nicely as this recipe always does. 

They are ready for their close up. 

I am so glad we decided to reschedule our trip to St. George. Even though the storm is hundreds of miles from here, we are getting rain and rain and rain and a whole lot of little wind gusts. We've had a few branches drop and this is the sort of rain that brings down trees due to the sudden soddenness of the earth. Old trees often just let go or perhaps the oldest parts of them simply fall away. 
From the footage I've seen of Dog Island which is just a few miles east of St. George, the tides are already very high and the wind and rain is not insignificant. We are getting some weather for sure. I feel so sorry and worried for the area in which Isaias is going to make landfall tonight. It has become a Cat Three storm and that is serious. The kind of serious that can cause incredible damage. As in- beach houses will be ripped apart, roads will be flooded, and cars will be floating down them. Trees will be downed, roofs will be lifted and blown away, and even houses on stilts will flood and the owners will lose everything. Power will be out for who-knows-how-long. There will be no flushing of toilets and no water at all when the tap is turned on. Food will spoil in freezers, emergency services will be blocked by water and downed trees, hospitals will be operating at very reduced abilities.
And anyone who has chosen to stay with their homes is going to be having a lot of second thoughts about that decision. 
This is what happens and it is never good. 

So. Yes. I am incredibly grateful that not only are we not on St. George right now, I am also incredibly grateful that we are not in the direct path although thoughts like that always make me feel guilty but I will not lie about it- I thank the Lord it's not us this time. 

So we've had a cozy day and I didn't even try to get much done. The main thing on my list of to-do's was to go and feed the dogs next door as their owners, our neighbors, have gone out of town for the weekend. They have someone coming to take care of them for the rest of the weekend but there was that one small gap this morning. 
We are not close with these neighbors but when the woman texted to ask if I could do this favor, of course I agreed. I've never personally met these doggos until today but have only seen them in the yard occasionally. They are a bit wolf-like and they never bark and I've never quite known what to think about them. I did ask her if there was a chance they'd kill me. My neighbor assured me that they are the most gentle and loving of dogs and I would have no problem with them. 
Hmmm. 
Okay. So this morning I followed the instructions as to how to get into their yard and open the back door to let them out to perform their morning ablutions, and I have to say that my neighbor did not lie. As I approached the kitchen door they were at the window in it, not barking but absolutely smiling as dogs are sometimes wont to do. 
I opened the door and instead of jetting out, they greeted me and sniffed me and gave me a little snout-up-the-crotch inspection. They rubbed their heads against me and I scratched them and petted them and talked baby talk to them. And then they went on outside to take care of business.

The boy dog spent some time doing a perimeter patrol of the front fence while the female was more interested in getting head scratches and hearing me tell her what a beauty she was, what a sweetie, what a very, very good dog. 
I fell in love. 

When I felt they'd had enough outdoor time, I called them in and they came immediately, back into the house where they showed me exactly where their food is kept and where their bowls were. 
I gave them each a good scoop of their kibbles, told them again what excellent and beautiful babies they were, locked up and came home. 

Boy. It's really raining now. I mean...REALLY raining. Down-pouring. Shit. If it's like this here, what's it like in the area around Destin and Pensacola and Navarre Beach? 

I'm going to cut this short. I want to make a recipe tonight that I've never made before. It's a NYT's app recipe for Skillet Pork Chops and Apples With Miso Caramel. 
The reviews are beyond beyond. 
I generally just do Shake'n'Bake pork chops in the air fryer and those are plenty delectable enough. So we shall see what these are like. 
Sweet potatoes will be involved. 

We're in for a crazy night. I'm so glad Glen hasn't left for Canada yet and that he'll be right here in our bed with the clean sheets if I need to reach out for him. This is something that I am becoming more and more grateful for with every passing day. And hopefully, while he is gone, there will be no new storms. Perhaps I shall play some piano. We shall see. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon 

Adventures In Faxing

I forgot to post this picture of Sophie, one of my granddogs. This one comes from Jessie. Sophie is a golden doodle? One of those doodles. Whichever one is the sweetest. She just loves being loved. And she's smart. She knows words. She knows people. She knows how to get up close for a good chat and some pets and snuggles. She's sort of an ideal dog in my opinion.
I still have no interest in getting one of my own though. Maurice is plenty of pet for me. 

Today was a different sort of day. It turned out to be quite unusual. And, to be honest, something of a clusterfuck. 
I love that word. It's so perfectly descriptive, isn't it? 
So I woke up still feeling sad and guilty and angry at myself. Even Rob Nucatola, the weather guy who refuses to make predictions unless he has good and dependable data, was saying that Isaias's path would most likely have it make landfall quite west of here. He cautioned that there would be resulting bands of wind and rain but his overall feeling was that this was not going to be a huge storm and it was not going to be that much of a threat to our area. 
So. Again, I felt foolish to have steered our little group into choosing to cancel the trip. And I carried all of these feelings until a few hours later when I read that Franklin County, where St. George Island is, had issued a mandatory evacuation of both St. George and Dog islands.  This is probably not entirely necessary and I doubt that any of the actual residents of those islands will be leaving as this is not their first rodeo and they can read a tracking chart and besides that, they're stubborn motherfuckers. 
BUT, officially, we should not be on the island. 
And so I felt as if I had made the right call. 
Oh, and also, Isaias has reached Category 2 storm criteria which means there are winds of up to 100 mph near the core and if you've never experienced winds like that be very, very grateful. 

Mr. Moon and I were having a very late lunch in Tallahassee at a place I'd read about as being sort of classy and having good food and so on when I read that about the evacuations. We were in town because Glen needed to fax a Tom's estate-related document to someone. He asked if I'd like to go with him and have lunch. At first I was not that interested but then I said, "I'd really like to check out that new Oak Tree Treasures on North Monroe," and he said we could do that too. So I got dressed and pulled my hair into a knot that I stabbed in place with a blue hair pin, put on my good flip-flops, got into the oh so very brown Suburu, and off we went. 
The first place he tried to get his document faxed was a Staples. This did not go well because they were having some sort of electrical problem, possibly related to the weirdness that happened a few days ago when an underground electrical fire blew up some roads near the Capitol building. 
Or not. Who knows? They didn't. 
So. On we went to a Goodwill right down the road that I haven't visited in years and years. I used to love that Goodwill. They had very nice quality merchandise and I even got a few very cool costumes for characters I was playing when I was doing the theater thing in Monticello. I wondered if they still had the good stuff and turns out that yes. Yes they did. 
I didn't spend a great deal of time looking but even in my abbreviated hunt for treasure, I found a lovely black cotton lightweight sweater-like shirt that will go with anything. Banana Republic. 
Look- I hate to admit this but thrifters are big brand snobs. Let's face it- it's far more thrilling to pay $6.97 for a shirt that originally sold for somewhere near a hundred bucks than it is to pay $6.97 for a shirt originally sold at Walmart for $10.97. 
So that was good. 
And then I found a print of a Frida Kahlo portrait done by some artist named Stephanie Corfee. 

There was a little blurb about her pasted to the back of the picture. 
I wavered. Did I want this? Where would I put it? Wall space in this house is already quite limited with all of my questionable art and generally interesting things that end up hanging on those walls. But then I thought about yesterday when I'd just been thinking about how the wall over my dryer in the laundry room, right next to the folding table Mr. Moon made me which has a sort of plant nursery area and also a sort of art area above it, needed some help. A change. 
Anything. 
Ta-da! Of course! Here was the answer to my problem.

So I bought it, I brought it home, got out the stepladder and here it is with a few other objects that bring me pleasure to look at. 

What that wall needs more than anything is painting but at least now there is a lot of color and although it's not Frida by Frida, it's interesting. The little paper mache dolls may have to go but they are Mexican. 
It's all just thumbtacked art. Perhaps that is what I should call my decor. Thumbtack Art.

We did go to the new Oak Tree Treasures. I was not impressed. The one in Moon Plaza is much smaller but much classier. That's my assessment. 

I don't remember exactly in what order we kept trying to get that document faxed. I do know that an Office Depot, a UPS place, and a FedEx place were involved. 
Nope, nope, and nope. Also, at the last place we went to, Glen realized there was a page missing in the stack of pages which rendered the whole thing invalid anyway. 
See what I mean about the clusterfuck? 

And also, at some point in there, we found ourselves very hungry so we tried the rather fancy place I'd mentioned and it wasn't bad at all. I was so hungry I might even have eaten a Brussels sprout but thankfully, I did not have to. I did not, however, like the way the server tossed around the word "we" so much. As in, "Would we like any starters before we order?" "Do we want straws?" "What would we like to drink?" 
Give we a fucking break. Please. 
The funny thing was that both the hostess and the server asked if we were celebrating anything and I told the hostess that yes, we were celebrating waking up and being alive again but beyond that, no. Turns out that if you ARE celebrating something you get FREE STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE! which is like my favorite dessert. We should have made something up but we are people of honor. 
We. Glen and I. Don't know about the hostess or server. 

By the time we finally got home, it was after four and so that was a whole day. It really wasn't that bad. At least I got to spend the day with my husband who will soon be leaving for the great Canadian wilderness. Or something Canadian. 
And I had some delicious salmon. 

Neither one of us is very hungry this evening so we'll be having soup leftover from last night and focaccia leftover from last night and a very, very green salad that I will make tonight because we ate all of the one I made last night. We eat it on the focaccia and it's just about one of the best things I make. 
Arugula and fresh basil. Goat cheese, garlic, red onion, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. 

I think I'm starting to feel a little peckish, actually. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I Really Do Not Even Know How To Pronounce "Isaias"

I have been a huge mess all day, starting at about 7:30 this morning when I began texting the Ladies about our trip. I had checked Rob Nucatola's latest report and he was saying that it looked like the storm would follow the path you see above but it was still just too early to make an accurate prediction. He did say it will intensify into a hurricane by tomorrow, most likely. At this point though, it does not appear that the necessary ingredients it takes to make a monster storm are there which is great. It's moving quickly which means it's not having time to just sit around and suck up water and energy from the Gulf. 

But I, with all of my anxieties and illogical worries, was not exactly thrilled to hear any of this. And I wrote the Ladies that perhaps we should rethink our plans. As I said, the storm could not do a damn thing to affect us, OR, we could end up getting a direct hit. Or, anything in between. My biggest fear is not of the storm itself, although I don't especially enjoy being in a hurricane, but the thought of being stuck on the island without power which does not sound like a good time to me. 
So at this point, we are talking about rescheduling for March and that's fine except for the fact that now I feel so very guilty because it really doesn't look like Isiaias is going to have much of an affect even on St. George. Oh, there will be wind and there will be rain but-eh. Probably not so much. 
What I feel most guilty about is the fact that my stupid anxieties are having so much more of an affect on the whole plan than I want them to. Probably far more than is warranted. And please, please, do not tell me that I always have a good time, that I always have the BEST time, that the weather won't matter very much, and so on and so forth in a logical vein because as I always say, logic has nothing to do with this shit. Do you think I would act and feel this way if I really had a choice? 
I take two different medications for depression and anxiety and they do very much help. I've not been in a real anxiety/panic crisis in a long time. I have not felt like I was dying. Not really. Maybe just a little. 
But I do still have physical reactions to anxiety-producing situations, one of them being that I break out in hives that itch so much I sometimes scratch myself bloody without even realizing I'm doing it. I'm just so used to it. There are other things but I don't want to talk about them because...that makes me anxious. And so mad at myself. 
Keep calm and carry on. 
That is what we're supposed to do. But how can you keep calm if you are not calm in the least to begin with? 
So today I have been so angry. I feel so bad for anyone who had to be in my presence. I beg Jessie's forgiveness because so much of my wrath came out in her presence. Some at pottery. I didn't get angry at either Jessie or anyone at pottery but my attitude was bitter and I was probably very sharp in many of my comments about things not having to do with pottery or them at all. Just...in general. 
And the thing is, of course, is that I am so angry at myself for being this emotional weakling who cannot manage to do the most simple things, things that should bring pleasure, things that other humans see as terrific experiences. I feel angry at myself because I know my husband would love to travel more and travel with me, his wife, the person who always agreed with him when we said we'd travel when we got older and the kids were grown and now, here we are, and this little spot of time in our lives where we can still manage to go, is getting shorter and shorter and I know that and still, the very thought of it makes me want to chain myself to my house where I feel safest and where I live with my routines and ways every day. The ways and routines that help me feel as if I am in control. 
I am angry at myself and I am so sad at the same time. 
And sometimes that anger, especially, comes out in ways that do not make me the empathetic human being I want to be. I become horribly judgmental and hateful although I will say that the targets of these things are never the people whom I know are doing the best they can with whom I come in contact.
But. I become the person I do not want to be because I feel like I am the person I do not want to be. 

It's a mess. 

Anyway, pottery was a total loss for me today except that I did enjoy visiting with everyone. It was our last class of the session and I had imagined that I'd do a little touch-up work on my magnolia leaves platter and my silly bird, getting it ready to fire. It looked pretty okay when I took it off the shelf where it had been sitting wrapped in plastic since last Wednesday with only one of the little round feet having become separated. But as soon as I started trying to fix that problem, one of the leaf sections came apart from the other sections and then...well, the bird, she came off too. 
My teacher said I could get it all stuck back together with "super slip" which I dutifully made up with clay, water, vinegar, and torn bits of toilet paper. 
Forget it. 
Things were too heavy, I had cut too deeply while tracing the veins in the leaves. And so forth. 
I have brought it home in pieces where I shall give it a private burial. 
Probably in the woods by the railroad track. 
And when that was resolved in my mind, I tried to make another bird, this one much smaller with less weight and no matter what I did, the poor thing did not take on any life of its own. So I basically spent two and a half hours smushing and shaping and re-smushing and reshaping. My hands felt completely disconnected from my task. My mind felt completely disconnected from where I was and what I was doing. I have brought the little almost-like-a-bird figure home with me to perhaps work on in the next two weeks. We'll see. 

So that's been today. 

Jessie and I did have a good lunch at an Indian buffet we like. She is really enjoying her new position as a lactation consultant and I am so thrilled to hear that. It took courage to leap from one job to another. And I am quite certain that she will be able to help many women with the most mystical, magical, and mammalian thing a new mother can do. 

All right. Here's a really sweet thing that happened at pottery today. Lizzie asked me if I would like one of her whippets. She has whippets and she loves them almost as much as she loves her children and grandchildren. I am not sure how they compare in her affections with Gentleman Caller™ but that's none of my business. 
So when she asked me if I would like one of those sweet whippets she makes I was so happy to say yes. 

I had thought to put Whippet somewhere on the hallway table where I keep so many precious things but it is tiny and would have gotten lost there so I placed it on the mantel in my bedroom which I have recently cleared off. 

She has my beautiful parakeet to keep her company and watch over her as well as some Seminole ladies. I will notice and admire her many times a day as I walk by. 

Bedtime cannot come too soon for me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

What?

Here we have a picture inside the little restaurant where I so often take myself to lunch. Habana's Boardwalk Cuban restaurant. I generally get there later than the lunch rush and I've often noticed that other ladies of a certain age take themselves to lunch there as well. I wonder if this is because the place is just so comfortable. I had my favorite server today- Jesse- and as always she was efficient and serious and very professional. I had a cuban coffee with sugar which is one of my favorite treats in the world and a cup of black bean soup AND a tamal of some sort which I can't remember the name of although I've had it twice now and it does have grilled onions. 
Perfect lunch. Just perfect. 

Costco was almost empty if you compare it to the usual packed-to-capacity situation. I got to see BRENDA! She was my check-out lady. She is so beautiful and so sweet. 

And then- best of all, I got to visit with Lily at her Publix. We managed a little chatting between her customers and then a couple of very good hugs. "Let me give you a little kiss," I said when I was leaving and she leaned over and I kissed her cheek. 

When I got home, I made a pot of my creamy curried cashew butternut, etc., etc. soup to take to St. George this weekend. I had texted my ladies and asked if I could bring a soup because it looks to be rainy, as I said two days ago, I think. I named off a few different types of soup I could make and they all agreed the creamy curried cashew, etc., etc, sounded the best. 
Of course my soup has no butternut squash in it but it does have two Seminole pumpkins and a sweet potato. The Seminole pumpkin's flesh is sweet and delicious and I believe the soup will be too. I cooked it and pureed it and will freeze it to take with me and add the coconut milk when I thaw and heat it on the island. I also plan to make the dough for naan bread and freeze that too. According to the recipe, the dough freezes quite well. 
I wanted to do this because of course I want to bring a gift of love and as we all know, food is love in my heart. Also, let's face it- I need to know for my own peace of mind that we will have food. 
Which is ridiculous. I think it's a primal thing though and primal things do not always realize that there's a very adequate although very small grocery store less than four miles away. If that. You may recall this store. It is called The Little Pig because it is a miniature version of a Piggly Wiggly and this delights me to no end. 

So I'm relieved that soup is made because tomorrow is pottery and somehow that takes all day long. I'm sure I'll have time to make the naan dough, however. 

And...well. There is a small situation occurring in the Gulf of Mexico which is what they call a disturbance. 
I just checked Rob Nucatola's last FB post and here's what he has to say:

It’s Tropical Depression NINE.

Small changes is movement early mean big changes in direction later. So let’s not fixate on any points of potential landfall for Friday just yet.

I promise a full breakdown tomorrow on the News and even more on The Morning NUC.

And I’ll have a full battery of graphics and a text explanation here around 11am Wednesday.

You may recall, or you may not, Rob is my go-to weatherman. He is slow to make predictions, waiting until he feels he has the proper information, and I trust him implicitly. But the point is, there is a chance, however small, that a storm may be headed our way. Or, alternatively, that we'll just get a bunch of rain and maybe a little wind. Or...perhaps nothing at all! And by the way, it is STILL raining here.

So we pay attention.

And to top off this entire day, there was what is being called an underground electrical explosion with a resulting fire early this morning near the state capitol building in downtown Tallahassee that blew manhole covers off and blasted roads.

Traffic was understandably messed up, there were electrical outages as well as internet outages, and state and county businesses were affected, of course.

As Rachel said, "I need an advanced astrology gay to tell me if the planets are doing something or if Mercury is in gatorade or whatever."

What the fucking fuck?

I'm going to go make a spinach and rice casserole. I am roasting a chicken. I may poach some pears. What else can I do? I can post this which seems rather frighteningly prescient.

Big Love And Hang In There, Y'all...Ms. Moon

The Rain Is Making Slow Love To The Earth

It is still raining here. It's been coming down slowly and steadily which seems like the easiest way for the earth to accept and absorb it. Everything green seems so grateful but I can anthropomorphize anything. Animals, plants, trees, the oceans and rivers, my Macbook, and of course my old dolls and certain beloved stuffed animals.
Not Mitch McConnell though. I'm pretty certain he is not sentient at this point. 

Those plants in the pots in the photo at the top of the page are ones I put there in the little bed beside the kitchen after repotting most of them a month or so ago. They have grown remarkably since then, some of them almost scarily so. And do you see the chenille plant sending out its shoots to try and take over the entire area? 
It is a constant battle. 
I really should have moved that sprinkler before I took the picture. It's not exactly an attractive visual element, is it? 
Ah lah. I will never be a real photographer. 

I've been much like the rain today. Slow and steady. I've done some little things around here that have needed doing for awhile. I attended to the porch plants which I do every week, of course. Even they are looking vastly relieved at the change in the amount of water in the air, I guess. 
And then, I did something that I should have taken care of a very long time ago. 
I didn't really realize how long it's been since I last did it but boy, did I find out today. 
Such a simple little task. 
I have a dorm-sized refrigerator beside my regular refrigerator and that's where I store a lot of my grains and my beans and some things like nuts and a few spices. I've got my grits, my different rices, my couscous, my quinoa, my lentils, pecans, sunflower seeds, ground flax seed, oat bran, corn meal, whole wheat and almond flours...you know. That sort of thing. 
I like being able to do this. I hate wasting food when I keep it so long that it becomes rancid and this is such a simple solution to the problem. I can buy more in bulk of the things I use a lot of and be reassured that it will be fine even if it takes me awhile to use it. Same with things that I don't use very often like sesame seeds or pine nuts which are quite expensive and I use sparingly. 
And generally, this works out well but sometimes...okay, there is a limit as to how long one can store certain things, especially if they somehow become damp. Today I learned this in such a visceral way that I will never, ever forget it. 
I found, behind some lentils and stuff, a lump of...WHO THE FUCK KNOWS?
It was so degraded that I could not begin to read what the packaging said and the packaging was mostly dissolved anyway because it was so moldy, so nasty, so...
No. Just no. 
And then...when I bravely went to take hold of it in order to remove it and throw it away, my fingers felt something that felt like (oh god, I really should not tell you this but let's look upon it as a warning for all of us)...mucous. 
There was mucosity involved. 
Never in my life have I come across something this disgusting and gross and nausea-inducing. And I have been a nurse and a mother to four. 
I made a noise which I am fairly sure I've never made before, even when coming across one of Maurice's bloody gifts and I immediately jerked my hand back and got a paper towel with which I grabbed it with my eyes shut and threw it into a plastic bag which went into the trash. 
It may or may not have been an alien life form. I wasn't taking any chances. 
But now, the little refrigerator is all clean and sparkly. All of the iffy things are in the compost and I have a much better idea of the inventory there. 

On the one hand, I feel so much better, knowing that all is tidy and usable and easy to find and on the other hand, I feel a great sense of horror that such a thing could have happened on my watch. 

The other main thing I did was to finish wrapping up the breakable items I'd winnowed from my kitchen when I bought the beautiful lady tray and new martini glasses which instigated an entire space-creating situation in which I went through everything in that area and made my life a whole lot easier and neater by deciding on what I really wanted to keep and what I really did not care about and which none of the children wanted.

The things I was ready to get rid of have been sitting in the hallway on small tables which came from Tom's and I do believe that Mr. Moon had come to believe they were part of my decor. 
And honestly, there is no reason for him to have believed otherwise. 
But today I got all those things wrapped and in a box ready to go to Oak Tree Treasures and I also did a quick try-on of several things in my closet which I was feeling iffy about and Oak Tree will be getting some fairly lovely garments soon. 
As I keep saying about everything I do these days- little by little. 

Here's a picture Mr. Moon took last week of two of our crows in the side yard where they were dining on something tasty that had arisen after he mowed.

 

That's the view over the herb/flower/whatever bed beside the kitchen. His view from there is completely different than mine. I wonder why. 
The cool thing about this picture is how the bird's head and what looks like a bird's tail are in the foreground, reflecting the birds in the yard. 
This is where those came from. 

Two sets of wind chimes. 

And do you see the squirrel in the picture Glen took? 

Unfortunately we have no squirrel wind chimes. 

Roses and tea olive. 
I can't believe I even debated for one minute about whether to buy that vase in the thrift store in North Carolina this summer. It has been in use at least 85% of the time I've had it. And it cost what? Four dollars? Maybe? 

Go ahead and buy the things that make your heart happy, and then make room for them by getting rid of things that your heart is not that excited about. 
These are my words of wisdom for the day. 

But you know what I always say- don't ask me. I don't know shit. 

Love...Ms. Moon 

Plants And People. Beaches And Boats. Fishes And A Pretty Fine Day

When I was out with Lily and Lauren for lunch last Wednesday, I said, "Y'all- I gotta get a picture."
Lauren said, "For the blog?"
"Yes!" I said. "I need to post some pictures that aren't..."
"Of a plant?" she asked. 
"YES!" 
Not that there's anything wrong with plant pictures but let's face it. In the grand scheme of things, pictures of humans are generally the most interesting, pictures of animals, including pets come after that, and then we have...plants. 
So there's yet one more picture of the Seminole pumpkin ripening on the fence with a bloom on the same vine which is making another pumpkin. I really thought they were all done. At the moment I have six pumpkins that will be ready to pick soon. I think this will be all the pumpkins I need to satisfy all of our pumpkin needs. 

I have more plant pictures. Here's one of a flower you get to see at least twice a year because they bloom twice a year. and I always consider that blog-worthy.

One of my very favorite tiny buds in the world. Not only are they minuscule which makes them adorable, they also have one of the most delicious scents in the entire world and I always smell them before I see them. I've been smelling them on the back porch for a day or two but it took me this long to figure it out. 

The tea olive. And yes, my thumb is indeed the thumb of a person who digs in the dirt without gloves on. I try, y'all but I'm sure I could try harder. Honestly, I feel like my hands are clean enough for cooking and so forth and there's only so much scrubbing I care to do. Now that I'm looking at that picture, my fingers look alarmingly like something that may or may not belong on a human hand. 
Oh well. 

We got rain most of the night, I think, and have gotten more on and off all day. The weather widget says we have 100% chance of getting more tomorrow and Tuesday and then although the odds are lower, even more the rest of the week. The temperatures have come down a little bit but the humidity is 89% so it ain't exactly fall-like. I've checked the forecast for St. George for next weekend's gathering and unless things change dramatically, we'll be getting a lot of rain there too. This will seem odd as I can't recall it ever raining while we were there before. We've had incredibly beautiful blue skies and cooler temps but I believe we've always gone a little later in the year. Terry and I are always the only ones who jump into the Gulf and she handles it far better than I do, as she lives in Denver where cold is really cold. 
I'm always so glad I did do a plunge though and often come out saying, "That was magnificent!" And it always is. 

In fact, I have a picture of Terry standing on the beach, looking at the water from last year. 

And for the hell of it and to post another picture of the human variety, here's this one, also from last year. 

Do you remember this? 
We are older, we are battle scarred, we are beautiful. 

Okay. What was I talking about? 
No idea. 
Pictures. I think pictures shall be the theme here this evening. Don't worry. I don't have many more. 

So it's been a good and laid back day. I actually worked on the jigsaw puzzle I've had in progress in the dining room for what seems like an eternity while I listened to an audio book, of course. Mr. Moon got up early and went dove hunting which was exactly what he needed to do. I did not ask for a report on the poor doves. Sometimes I just do not need to know. But it was such a good break from the routine he's been keeping lately due to ICU fatigue, worry, stress, and all that other stuff which is not really conducive to an enjoyable life. I made us a nice breakfast when he got back and we've had a very nice cuddle and we've had some very sweet chats and life, at this moment, seems ridiculously good. 

And now I'm going to go cook some of the beautiful hog-snapper filets his dove-hunting buddy gave him. 
Did you have any idea how many types of snapper fish there are? Hog snappers are the kind of fish we have eaten with such appreciation and enjoyment in Cozumel on the "other side" of the island which is still very much in a natural state with only a few beach bars and restaurants. 
Another picture!

Don't you even tell me that you could not possibly eat a fish that looked like that. 
I can and I did and I would love to eat far more of it than I have and even as a woman from Florida who has been fortunate enough to eat some of the most amazing seafood available in the world, I can say that hog snapper was probably the most delicious fish I ever ate in my life. 
I hope to do these filets justice and honor. 

Ooh. I just realized I have some pickled red onions that Jessie made and brought to the Taco Bar Birthday Bash. Also- avocados. But let's face it. There is nothing in the world I could do with this fish to equal how a hog snapper tastes at Chen Rio in Cozumel.

From those boats to that table. 

Oh. Sigh. 

Love...Ms. Moon

True And Eternal Love

I think perhaps I woke up this morning with an emotion hangover. I don't know. It was like my heart had been too overcome in the last few days, few weeks, and it couldn't hold any more. Add to that, my dreams have been very full of the upcoming trip to St. George Island with my girls. 
My girls. The women with whom I struggled through nursing school, studying, surviving our clinicals, especially the ones we took one summer semester to the Chattahoochee State Hospital which is where we did our psych rotation on locked wards with people who ranged from probably suffering nothing more than having been in an institution their entire lives to at least one woman who had, according to her, uh, killed another patient in a different state hospital. She told us this while we were in a sort of isolated kitchen area making chocolate chip cookies with our patients. 
That was an experience I'll never forget. 
That one and many, many more.
We bonded over all of it and we bonded over going out on Friday nights and dancing to rock and roll bands where we all had our favorite musicians and we let off steam and we sometimes fell in love and we all knew every detail of everyone's love affairs and love encounters and, well, all that stuff, and we got dressed together before we went out and Vicky, our Accessory Expert, would advise us as to belts. "Create a waist," we used to tell each other. 
We got through it all. By the time we graduated, I'd remarried and was expecting my third child- Lily Rose Moon. And by the way, I just found a picture of the day she was born. 

Glen did not have a gray hair that day. 
It was not long after, though, that he began to grow many gray hairs. And yes, I had a perm (it was the 80's) and Hank and May were nine and seven and I was deliriously happy and I think my husband of one year and one month was too. 

But the picture I was looking for is this one. 

1985. 
And yes, they made maternity nursing uniforms. 
The woman on the right there was part of our holy/unholy support coven but she has fallen away from us. Long story. Not the time to tell it. 
But Vicky, the woman next to me, and Terry, the woman next to her, and I, plus another woman who has been Vicky's ride or die forever, are the four who get together on St. George to celebrate ourselves, our seemingly (by now) eternal friendship, our bond formed by such hard work, many tears, so many laughs, and a whole lotta love. 
And every time we meet it's always the same. 
We click right back to where we were. I'm the old one, Terry's the baby, Vicky's a year older than Terry is. I think.
And it's the most wonderful thing in the world while at the same time, it is terrifying for me. 
Here's the question I always ask myself- will they still love me? I am the cynic, the cranky one, the anxious one, the most outspoken one on a whole lot of subjects.
But honestly, that's not the most terrifying thing. 
That would be that one of us has had a diagnosis of cancer for several years now. A serious cancer. And you know it's not me. It's one of my other darling girls and I am terrified that each time we meet, it will be the last time although I have seen no real changes in her, energy or health-wise. She has always been the strongest among us in many ways, and if there has ever been a survivor, it is she. She is an eternally powerful force on this planet for good and for love. And she has much to live for. All of it love.
So there's a whole lot of emotion going into this weekend. Powerful, powerful emotions. I know that we will no doubt cry and we will no doubt roar with laughter and we will no doubt tell each other secrets we don't trust with anyone else. But somehow, just thinking about all of it in the days before we meet up, I become overwhelmed.

It's okay. This is the way I am. 

But I woke up this morning with one of those dreams barely faded and add that to everything that's been going on and it's been one of those days. I do not want to be this way right now. Mr. Moon does not need one more thing to add to his list of shitty stuff he can't control or fix. It's okay, though. I told him a few hours ago that as we know, this will pass. He agreed that I'd taught him that and I think he knows he's not responsible for my damn moods. 

So I just did little things today. I used my new basket to try and organize my yarns and needlework tools. It's a beautiful basket. 

The one on the left. 
There was sorting and untangling involved along with weeding out bits and bobs of yarn I knew were never going to be made into anything and weren't worthy of the space they took up. Let's face it- most of what I have won't be made into anything. I am a lousy needleworker. But I am a fool for beautiful yarns and when I find a stash at a thrift store, I have to bring it home. 
So I managed to cut down on the number of other baskets and bags although I now have two nice, empty baskets I don't need for any purpose I can think of. The bags will join the shopping bags in the trunk of my car. 
And that was something. There is great satisfaction in tidying. 

Here's another thing I did. 

Don't know if you remember but quite possibly at least a year ago, I bought those two lamps in Monticello, ostensibly for the cabin. I finally decided that they were not serving any purpose, stashed away as they have been and who knows when they might make their way to Lake Seminole, so I put them on the old vanity in the hallway where I keep the treasures. 
Not sure I'm really happy about them but it's a change. 

We've gotten a lot of rain today which is a beautiful thing. It has come and it has gone and then it has come again. The temperature has dropped a little. 
Gratefulness is in abundance. 
Oh god. That sounds so new age or something. 
I'll just say I'm happier than hell about it. We're supposed to get more tomorrow. 
Perhaps I'll do a little bit of knitting. Or crocheting. 
We shall see. 

Love...Ms. Moon