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

Successful Firings!

Honestly, this is my favorite thing I've made in pottery. Such a happy fish spoon rest. It would have been better if I hadn't been so rushed when I glazed it but it's fine in a folk art sort of way I think, and the colors are great, unlike the colors on my bowl which are not quite what I had wanted and I would definitely have done some things differently if I'd had a clearer picture in my mind of what the glaze would look like after it had been fired but I do not hate it and again, COLOR!
I am not afraid of it. 

These two things were fun to do and I have finally got a little better idea of where I can go with all of this. 
As soon as I'd collected the bowl and the spoon rest from the done shelf, I began another fish spoon rest and then another flower bowl. I will, hopefully, branch out at some point but hey! the people who are good at the wheel just make one bowl or mug or vase after another and if I could do that, I probably would. I may never make another spoon rest or flower bowl after these, but I may. 

An excellent thing happened after class. Jessie and I usually go to lunch then, as you know. We are starved by that time. Starved, I tell you! Today Jessie had a parent-teacher conference call happening at 1:30 so we were in a little bit of a hurry. It's been too long since I've seen May so we decided to go the pizza place where she works which, coincidentally, is where my adventuresome friend in pottery goes to eat lunch almost every Wednesday. This week she was bringing her "suitor" or as I like to call him in my head, her "gentleman caller," and sure enough, as Jessie and I were eating our salads and chatting with May, in came the pottery friend who is perhaps even more enchanted with the word "Fuck" than I am if that is indeed possible. 
How could I not love her? 
I had seen her gentleman caller before but had never spoken to him so it was nice to get to know him a little today. They joined us at our table and I'm glad they did. He is charming and brilliant (no need to take my word for this, he just is and his job, which I will not mention here, is a job that only brilliant people could do) and I love his accent and he is adorable in a very handsome way. 
They make a beautiful couple. A darling couple. 

Oh! I forgot to mention! Michael was at the pizza place too! So we got to see and talk with him which is always a pleasure. I took what I think is a very fine picture before Jessie and I left. 

My packing for tomorrow has begun and of course I am totally stressed about that which is so ridiculous because there's a washing machine right there in the cabana house and there's also a Goodwill about a mile away if there's anything I absolutely need to have in the garment department and a CVS and a Publix and dear god, all will be well. Mr. Moon is stressed out because he spent all day in town helping a friend with a car situation and buying a new laptop and he knows I'm stressing out which stresses him out. He's unpacked his duffel from his trip to Canada and everything that was in it is now laid out neatly on the bed in the guest room and obviously he has to deal with that. And he'll need to pack his clothes and his fishing stuff. We're not taking the boat. The weather looks to be fairly iffy while we're there and oh yes, there is a storm brewing in the Atlantic, and Roseland is only miles away from the Atlantic and, well...

The only two days forecasted to have good weather are tomorrow, the day we're arriving, and next Wednesday, the day we're leaving. 

Ah well. We'll figure out things to do with our time, I'm sure. 

While we're gone, I may not be leaving comments on blogs and I may not even post a blog of my own everyday. 
We know how this goes. 

I'm just going to go with the flow. Feel free to slap the shit out of me for saying that, and please know that is not something I really say in real life. Rivers can go with the flow. I, however, cannot. 
We know this. 

Love...Ms. Moon

My Boyfriend's Home And So Far, No Trouble

First salad greens of the fall and winter garden, 2025.

Well of course I was right and the trip to the lake house was a day-long affair. I will admit that we didn't get out of here until a little after 11:30 so it's not like we got an early start but we didn't get home until a little after five and thank goodness I took our lunch with us. 

On the way over we stopped in Quincy so Glen could get a gallon of diesel for the truck and when he went to restart the vehicle we were in, it only clicked but he did not seem disturbed. We used to have a car out on Dog Island that did the same thing and there was a special, dedicated pipe in the car to hit...something...under the hood with, although I've forgotten what it was. And this seemed to be the same situation except today he used a good heavy wrench. It took awhile for him to get it going again and in the time that he was working on it, a long-haired, grizzly older guy came over and stuck his head under the hood too. Now he had no idea that Glen is The Car Guy and I was so proud of Glen because instead of telling the guy he didn't need him, he stepped back and let him have at it, and then suddenly there was another guy and this is the south. 
Before too long, the engine did indeed catch which is good because I would have been sorely pissed if we'd had TWO dead vehicles. And Glen handled it just right- that man was SO determined that he needed to help my husband and Glen let him. It was a sort of mitzvah, I think. 

We got up to the cabin and the sheetrock was indeed all put up, very neatly, seams smoothed over, all ready to paint. Everything in the house was covered in dust though, and I wiped down the kitchen and the table and the counter but that's all I did. 
Glen went to work on the truck after we had some lunch and I worked on my patch some more and I have no doubt that the entire jacket will shred into threads before that patch goes anywhere. It's a damn good patch. 
Turns out that the parts Mr. Moon brought to fix the truck with were either not what needed replacing or were the wrong size or...wait. I think it needs a new battery. So, I didn't have to drive the Four Runner home myself and I was relieved about that because I was so tired. I couldn't really sleep before the man got home last night and had just fallen asleep when suddenly, there he was! And then there was the greeting and he took a shower and got in bed and was softly, softly snoring before long and I laid there and fretted about not being able to sleep and did my usual sleep-inducing mental exercises along with some slow breathing and I finally fell back into slumber until I woke up and had to pee and then couldn't get back to sleep after that for a long time. 
Very unusual for me. 
I am good, however, at lying perfectly still for long periods of time. This is probably a strategy to fool my body into thinking it's asleep. Or something. Maurice decided it was a family bed last night, now that Dad was home, and she was right there with me but she didn't bother me in the least. 

So I was tired and when Glen said that he'd have to bring a battery for the truck, next time he goes up, I was not sad at all because I really did not want to drive. The way up there is already growing a bit tedious for me. I know all the houses I like and I look at them again and the cotton fields and the tomato fields and the solar farm fields are cool the first time you see them but after that it's sort of the same-same. There's the house with the hole in the roof and the sort-of pink church, and the tidy yards and the junky yards and the pine trees and so on and so forth but honestly, it has lost whatever luster it may have had back in May or whenever we bought that place. 

I took zero pictures up there today. I just didn't feel moved. 

And now here we are at home and we're both tired. I know Glen must be. His day started yesterday early, early before dawn and didn't end until midnight. And he's got more to do tomorrow. 

I've been thinking on and off all day about a comment I got an email notice for from a post I wrote many years ago and the comment was absolutely the most angry comment I've ever gotten. So much vitriol. And I'm not going to identify either the post or the the comment. Although what was being discussed happened 13 years ago, I remember that day, the incident, the person I was writing about quite distinctly. And when I read the comment and went to the post itself and reread it, it seemed to me that I had told only a story which had happened that very day, about a conversation I'd had that very day, and it must have horribly triggered this commenter.
I wrote an answer to it, mostly saying I was so sorry I'd triggered this response with my words but that truly, things had happened just the way I wrote. But then, a few minutes later, I started thinking about it and the comment was so unhinged, so disturbing that I realized this person was not all right and nothing I could say would make any of it all right. So I deleted my comment. But I left theirs up. 

So that happened. I'm not upset, I'm actually sort of surprised this has never happened before. And mostly, I am worried and afraid for the person who wrote the comment because after all these years they are still so incredibly angry and I really do not believe they are angry with me. But my post was a convenient place to unload some of that anger and I am fine with that. 

And that's about it for today. Tomorrow is pottery, packing, making sure the house is ready for Mark, hopefully finishing my patch although no one in the entire world would be able to look at is as it is right now and think, "Yo. She should have finished that patch."

As always...
Love...Ms. Moon

Rose In Bloom

The late-blooming roses are a delight right now. They really never do stop blooming entirely. It's hard to decide when to prune them for that very reason. Doesn't really seem to matter though. They always just start blooming again, almost immediately. 

I just wrote a long post and, as I sometimes do, I deleted it all. 
Sigh.
Nothing horrible or earthshaking or too personal. Just...who needs this? I suppose I needed to write it all down, get it all out and so I did. Mission accomplished.

Meanwhile, I got to town today after procrastinating for hours and hours but I did it and it was not easy but I needed to go to get foods and drinks that our friend Mark likes to have here when he housesits, which he is going to do for us while we're in Roseland. I appreciate and love him so much for taking care of things when we are gone and by god, if he wants mini Pepsi's, mini Pepsi's there will be! I got to see Lily. I sort of love it when we are talking while she's at work in the liquor store and a customer comes in and she says, "Let me know if I can help you. We're just chatting here. She's my mom," I well up with pride that I am the mother of this tall, beautiful, kind, helpful, gracious, smart woman. 

Mr. Moon will be getting in very late tonight and tomorrow I believe we are going up to Georgia so he can pay the sheet rock guy, check out the job his crew did, and finish fixing the truck so he can drive it home. Glen's pretty sure that he can do all of this before lunch and I'm pretty sure it will take all day. 
Sigh. 
Glen Time. It has nothing to do with real time but after all these years, he still doesn't believe me when I point this out. I've got a lot to do before we leave on Thursday so I may or may not be stressing out a little. And I have pottery on Wednesday and I am not missing that. My flower bowl and spoon rest should be out of the kiln. 

The marigolds are still giving it their all. I wonder if this is why marigolds are the flowers most used for Day of the Dead celebrations, altars, and cemetery decorating in Mexico. They are one of the few flowers still blooming in abundance at the end of October. 

Anyway, by the time we get back, I'm pretty sure we'll have enough salad greens to cover all of our salad needs. And then soon, there will be pots of collards, mustards, kale, and turnip greens.
A good time of year, indeed. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Right As Rain

I slept ten hours last night and woke up feeling as healed as someone who'd been slammed by a Pentecostal preacher who had the strength and healing power of vipers, Jesus, and the need to pay the rent. 
Praise the Lord! 

We finally got a little rain here today. It drizzled and dripped for at least three hours on and off and although it wasn't nearly enough, it wet the earth and made the plants open up their curling leaves and cleaned the air around us. It also gave me permission to stay in and be cozy and do what I wanted to do which was to have a very calm and very quiet day, entertaining myself with the endless jigsaw puzzle and my jacket patching. While I sewed, I watched a few more episodes of a series that one of you (who?) recommended called "Platonic." It, too, has Seth Rogan in it and it is vastly different than "The Studio" which I wrote about a few weeks ago. I'm enjoying it. The basis of the series is that a cis man and a cis woman can be platonic friends- thus the title. And I get that. I have had male friends whom I adored and shared so much of my life with and was cared for so much by them, just as I cared for them, but it is rare, I think, especially after marriages and children. And I think the series gets a lot of that right. The way the two friends can say anything to each other and not have it taken the wrong way and who are so close that they are absolutely there for each other, no matter what. The way a trust bond forms which is as strong and true as any bond can be. 
Well. Almost and until the day they can't and it isn't, which is how it has happened in my life. 
But that hasn't happened yet in the episodes of this series I've watched yet, if in fact it does happen. Or...will they realize they've always been in love? 
Uh. Just the thought of that in my own experience makes me feel a little nauseous but again-that's just how it has been for me. 

I just wrote an entire in-depth review of the series as I see it and you know what? Who the hell cares? I deleted it all. Watch it if you want to, don't if you don't. But let me say that Rose Byrne, the female lead, is a pretty dynamic actress who does not hold back. 

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The man who claims to be the president of the United States has responded to the massive protests which occurred yesterday, not only in the United States but all over the world, by posting videos with an AI version of himself wearing a crown, piloting a fighter jet with "King Trump" emblazoned on it, dumping shit on protestors in Times Square in NYC. And JD Vance posted one of an AI version of Trump putting on a crown, pulling a royal cloak around his shoulders, and brandishing a sword as people like Nancy Pelosi bow down to his royal AssHoliness. 
No. I am not posting links. 

If Congress doesn't implement the 25th amendment, Section 4, the entire history of the United States of America proves to be nothing but a fever dream in the minds of those we call our founding fathers. 

Mr. Moon will be home tomorrow night. Although I have not felt the need to bring Dorothy Anne to bed with me, I will be so glad to have him back. I have to give Maurice a lot of credit for keeping me company, keeping me feeling as if I am not alone in the least. 

She was following me outside when I watered the porch plants. She has slept with me every night although she hasn't always been waiting when I came to bed. She has come into the bedroom in the deepest dark hours and jumped up on the bed to find her place beside me, cuddled in and settled. I have slept all the sounder for her presence. 

Love...Ms. Moon