No Title Except That It's Keithmas Once Again

Well, don't say I didn't decorate this year because obviously I have. I even had to buy AA batteries to fuel the lights on the tree and I went out of my way to get the lights themselves at the Walgreens which had them on sale for $3.50 a string. 

Ho-motherfucking-ho. 

Today was almost as good as yesterday was bad. First off, Owen got out of school early because of exams and he offered to pick up his mama to go to lunch and asked her to invite anyone who could come. That turned out to be Jessie and me and we had such a good time. Well, Jessie and Lily and I did. Owen probably not as much. The poor kid had to listen to us cackling like hens over our Pho as we discussed various things that sixteen-year old boys do not necessarily want to hear but he's used to it. We are not your typical family. He's such a good boy to tolerate us. 
Here are the after pictures. 

That Moon gene is a powerful thing, isn't it? 

Lily likes to get pictures of Owen and me because I make him look so very tall. As if he actually wasn't. 
I just love to smoosh up next to Owen. He makes me feel so loved. 

I went to Costco after that to get Maggie's Christmas present and at this point, I have almost finished the gift shopping except that I have nothing yet for Glen. What in the world do you give a man who literally buys everything he might want himself? A new paint roller? A box of shotgun shells? Hearing aids?

Oh yeah. We already got those. 
I'll probably do what I always do which is to go to Bass Pro Shop and get him some things that he can take back and exchange for the things he really wants. 

But I feel so very good, having gotten the children's and grandchildren's gifts taken care of although there is still the wrapping to do and I am just the worst wrapper. I take no joy or pride in it. Are you shocked? I actually paid two dollars apiece to the WhirleyPop company to have those things wrapped. I guess Glen's getting the one I bought for us as a present. Does that count? Sure. He's the one who eats all the popcorn. 

After Costco...off to the bank. Ms. Cynthia helped me and she got 'er done. At least in theory. I believe her. It was so confusing but she just powered through it all, telling those people on the other end of the phone line what was what and she knew all the right words and codes and EVERYTHING! Of course I felt like an ass, not even being able to find my credit union's app on my own phone. I needed that for purposes I do not need to mention here but she found the app on my own phone and then I went to open it and of course I had no idea what my password is and then I found it but by that time, we were way past that and TA-DAH! it was done. 
I thanked her fifty times and wished her the happiest, merriest, most love-filled, holy Christmas ever and got in my car and drove away. 
Here are the hives I developed as I sat on the other side of her desk, not being able to find an app on my own phone.

Eh. I get those all the time. These disappeared quickly. 

And now I'm home and I am going to cook some tofu although I'm not sure what I'm going to cook with it. Cabbage, I think, because I have some of that. I'm pretty excited. 

But of course, the big news of today is that it is Keith Richards 82nd birthday and as I said, the other day, the 42nd anniversary of his marriage to Patti Hansen. 

For any of you who have no idea why I am so enamored with Keith Richards, I won't even try to explain. I have written so many posts about this strange and true obsession but here, I think, is the very beginning of how it happened. It all started fifteen years ago when I bought Keith's memoir, Life, and although perhaps the embers have cooled a tiny bit, the fire is still strong within me. 
Go ahead, roll those eyes. I do not care. 
There are days when the most positive thing I can think of is that Keith Richards is still alive and still playing guitar and is still there for his wife, his children, his grandchildren and that he has never given up. 
No matter how bad it got for him, he held on to his guitar, his music, his band, his mates. 
And there has never been another like him and there never will be. 

There are rumors going around on the internet about Keith's health but I am not going to address them. Partially because rumors are just that- rumors, and partially because the man has defied death too many times to count, and mostly because as I told Lily once when she asked me how I'd be if he died, I will not be okay. 

He just played at a benefit to raise funds for research on Frontotemporal Degeneration and that is reassuring. 

Anyway, here's a video the Stones posted at least eleven years ago on Keith's birthday and I'll never not love it. 

Happy birthday, Keith Richards. 

Gold rings on ya. And whatever combination of genes and love and music and magic you have used to stay here with us, keep on using it as long as you can. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Technology Will Be The Death Of Me Yet Which Is Fine Because I Won't Have To Deal With Technology

Another picture of Maurice? 
Ho-hum.

The reason I am posting it is because it's the only picture I took today besides a picture of a shower insert and I KNOW you do not need to see that.

Today has been the suck. And I can't believe I am complaining about my day when parts of Washington state are crumbling in the unceasing rain they're getting, and there are wars going on, and people are dealing with real horrors but you know me- none of that ever stopped me from having a good bitch fest. 

I woke up to find Mr. Moon already deep into answering questions on a form as thick as a small novel which is intended to help us begin to set up trusts for the children in the extremely minuscule possibility that we'll die at some point. I have the hardest time in the world filling out forms like that. Not because I really think I'll never die but because (a) I know I will, and (b) I want our wishes to be so completely covered in all ways so that no one is hurt, there are no unfairnesses, and the children will have the least amount of trouble dealing with all that shit. 
Also, (c), I don't know the answers to half those questions. 
And to be faced with that before I've had one sip of coffee at a moment when my morning angst is registering an eight out of ten, AND I know this is the day I have set aside to deal with the bank situation, the insurance situation, and THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT situation, is really too much to ask of me. 

I recoiled in horror. 

Glen assured me that I didn't have to fill out the form today and advised me that I was going to just have to do some research and neither of those things comforted me in the least. Please understand that not once in our relationship of over forty-two years, has this man lain in bed and complained about having to get up. Not when he was working, not when he goes hunting or fishing, not when he has to be at the airport so early that dawn is a hardly believable rumor. 
So I guess it's a bit difficult to grasp the way a normal person might struggle with coming to an understanding with the universe about how to live another day. 

I got the health insurance thing covered. All I needed was a new card because I probably threw the one they sent me away and it's just about the end of the year and god forbid I have a kidney stone event or break my leg when I don't have a current card. But this was not so difficult although of course I did have to deal with the phone bots and "Tell me how we can help you today!" shit. 

The bank thing? Holy fuck. I'm trying to do something which should be so simple but up until now, seems to be a major problem with the bank I'm dealing with. Mr. Moon had to go through the same process but in his case, the guy who helped him get a new card was able to do it all in a day whereas I've been back to the bank three times now and have been told that I need to download the mobile app and get this situation solved there or call the number on the back of my card for help. 
I have downloaded the fucking mobile app. Do I find anywhere on that site where my actual problem is addressed? No, I do not. And the bots absolutely do not understand what I'm asking about and getting through to a human was a task that strained the very last ounce of reasonable human response I had. Finally, I did. This occurred just when the refrigerator repair guy (oh yeah- that too) was trying to tell me that there is no reason my refrigerator seems to be leaking very small amounts of water onto my floor which is going to create even more rot around here. 
"I'm sorry," I said to him. "I need to talk to this person. I finally got a human!" 
He understood. 
The human seemed to grasp the situation but she told me that no, I could not deal with the problem via the mobile app but had to go to the website or she could send me a form to fill out- ANOTHER FORM- which I know I have already filled out. 
I told her to go ahead and send the form and then I went to the web site and I THINK I may have gotten it almost straightened out but then I glitched because I'd signed "AGREE" to a fifty page document which of course I did not read but which may have included giving over my eldest grandson to Beelzebub who will then train him in the ways of Crypto. 
I have no idea what I'm talking about. 
ANYWAY I shall be going back to the bank. Again. 

I did order the yearly Virgin of Guadalupe calendars and three stainless steel WhirleyPops. One for us and two for the families who preferred those over the Tupperware Heritage collection. No worries about the kids reading this. They know. 
I am slowly getting there and as always, I have waited until the last damn moment because it stresses me out to an unbelievably inappropriate degree to deal with any sort of Christmas stuff. 

I just texted with Lily who is also stressing out (and who the hell isn't and if you aren't, please just don't talk about it here) and I said, "Oh Lord, can't we be Muslim?" and she texted back, "Or JW's," meaning Johova’s Witnesses. 
"Well yes, there you go!" I said to her. "Although would we have to go witness and shit? We could just SAY we're JW's." 
I'd apologize for being such a heretic but I refuse. And anyone who comes here to visit for more than a week knows what my beliefs about religion are. 

And so it goes. Mr. Moon is over there at Lake Seminole, putting up something in the bathroom which involves cutting boards. He is about to eat some of the oyster stew I made for him to take. Say what you will about my attitude towards the cabin, I make sure the man will eat and generally, something I've made. I know he loves that and I love him. 

Tomorrow I plan to go back to the bank, pick up a present for Maggie at Costco, and...I don't know. I have no idea. Oh yeah! Go to the library! No pottery tomorrow because we're between sessions. I look at my fish spoon rests and they make me want to get back in that studio and enjoy more playtime. Soon. 

As to Keithmas, which happens tomorrow, I tried for like forty-five minutes to find one of my favorite videos of the ovation Keith got in Argentina when they played there on their last South American tour. In it, Keith gets so overcome by emotion when the massive crowd sings the Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole song to him for so long that the the entire concert is paused and Ronnie Wood has to comfort him. 
I know there's a good clip somewhere but damn if I can find it. 
So I'll just give you this one which someone in the crowd obviously took and it's not very good in that it does not have the old boy in focus on the Jumbotron or whatever that is. 
Still. It's what I have. I would advise starting around 1:11. 

He is beloved all over the world. 

Even in Lloyd. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Worth The Frostbite

May and Jessie and I went to get our toes painted and our feet made beautiful today. May only has Sundays and Mondays off and many nail salons are not open on Sundays so today was the day. And it was SO cold that the prospect of wearing flip flops in order not to ruin the polish was daunting but those two would not let me wimp out and so off to town I went. 
It really was fun and worth every bit of having cold feet for awhile. I'd never been to this salon before and it was nice. I had a unique experience there today and I will not soon forget it. Except of course, that I probably will because you know- memory loss. But for now the memory is firmly lodged in the drawer left slightly open in my mind closet for easy access. 
Both Jessie and May had older men salon techs and I had an older woman. And when I say "older" I do not mean as old as me. They just weren't spring chickens. There was a woman there who sat across from us with her shoes on the floor beside her, lying in a massage chair, looking at her phone. She had a towel draped over her because yes, it was, as I said, it was cold. For us. I had no idea who this lady was but she was Asian, seemed to work there, and was absolutely beautiful. She appeared to be in her late twenties, if that, but later May told us that she is the boss lady which explains her lounging about while keeping an eye on things. So she may have been fifty, who knows? Whatever, she was truly beautiful. 

Nail salon techs can vary from the extremely talkative to the almost silent. I am sure a lot of the variation comes with degrees in confidence of speaking English. My lady did not talk much at all but I absolutely understood that she called me "Mama." This is a thing I've noticed about people from some Asian backgrounds- as I've aged, they have become so respectful and almost tender towards me. I remember the nurse I had when I was in the hospital to get my kidney stone lasered. I believe she was from the Philippines and she could not have been more attentive and honestly, really loving towards me in her care. I know I must have reminded her of her grandmother and in that situation, I took it as a huge compliment. 
And perhaps today's lady also saw me as a grandmother, as of course I am. So she called me "Mama" but as I said, did not say much else except to ask me questions about what she was doing, if the water was too hot, if I liked the color of the nail polish, and so forth. When she was rubbing my calves, she looked up at me and I mouthed, "Thank you," and she smiled.
So my girls and I chatted and laughed and talked about husbands and all the secret things that women chat about at times (or, at least husbands think we do and which yeah, we do) and it was a pleasant experience and we all loved the way our feet looked at the end of the pedicure. I paid for all of us because that's what mamas do, right? When I put the tips on to the bill, the lady who had done my care looked at me as if I'd tipped each of them a hundred dollars (uh, nope) and seemed so, so happy, at which point, she opened her arms to me, brought me in for a hug, and said, "Thank you, Mama! I love you!" and what could I say but, "Thank YOU! I love you too."
And at that moment, I certainly did. I mean...I live for hugs and she gave me a good one. 
Boss Lady, from her chair, said, "Thank you, Mama!" and then there was a chorus of "Merry Christmas!" from seemingly all the employees. 
Dang. 

After that sweetness, we went to our favorite Mediterranean restaurant and my veggie platter was so damn pretty I had to take a picture of it. 

Pita, falafel, hummus, dolmades, Greek salad and some other thing hiding under the pita which I forget the name of. At least 2/3's of it is now in my refrigerator. No way I could eat all that food. 
And while we ate we talked some more, and it was wonderful to have May there too. She works so hard and so many hours that we don't get to spend a lot of time with her which means that when we do, it's a joy. Well, it would be a joy anyway but it's even more special. 

I had completely forgotten to take a picture of us so Jessie took a selfie in the parking lot which, I mean- uh, yeah! We were freezing! Can you tell? The temperature was not that low but it was so breezy that the cold air rushed through our clothes and flip-flops. There were hugs and more hugs, kisses and more kisses. 
You know- the way we do it. 

Oh my way home I passed by a yard which for well over a year now has had giant Trump signs. Not just his profane name but also things like, "Hispanics for Trump!" and other signs proclaiming big lies about what he was going to do for the economy and so on and so forth but guess what? 
They are gone. 
Gone without a trace. For the first time in forever I passed that part of the road without having to display a middle finger which I generally do not do because (I know this sounds funny), I consider that gesture so profane that only the very worst of the worst inspires me to do it. 

One wonders...

I have so much more I could say about how that man has responded to tragedies in the last few days but you already know. He is beneath contempt. I suppose we could blame it all on the ever-encroaching final states of dementia but my god, my god. 

The way Trump spoke on his fucking Truth Social account about the incredibly senseless and horrible deaths of the students at Brown University, and of Carl Reiner and his wife are, for me, reason enough to have Congress invoke the 25th Amendment, Section 4. 

Yeah, yeah. I know. J.D. Vance. 
Well, one down, more to go. 

For today's Keith Richard tribute, I advise you to go and read this article from 2016. 

And then, for a bit of a bite of what rock and roll was at one time, I give you this which I have probably posted at least five times. Possibly more. 

This is from 1981. A crazed fan had rushed the stage and before security had subdued him, dear Keith took care of the problem. 
He has said that when he strapped the guitar back on, it was still in tune. He has also said that although he bailed the guy out of jail, he'd do it again. No one was going to get to HIS lead singer. 

There you go. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Sweet Boys, Books, And Old Boys

The requisite pancakes picture. Of course. I swear, it takes me an hour to make that breakfast and it takes them five minutes (if that) to eat it. 
Levon asked for "two and two," meaning two pancakes, and two pieces of bacon.

August asked for five and five. 
"Ha-ha!" I said. "We'll start with three and three."

They seriously eat so fast that by the time Mr. Moon had every thing on his plate fixed to his satisfaction and specifications as involves buttering, cutting up the pancakes, salting and peppering, and putting salsa on his eggs, Levon had finished his two and one and a half, and August was close behind. 

They were starving. I didn't get breakfast on very early at all. And true to their word to their grandfather, they got up at 7:06 a.m. which is what time they'd all agreed on last night. And indeed, it was 7:06 a.m. when August came into our room and whispered to Boppy that it was time.
"Go ahead and start watching TV," he said. "I'll be there in a minute." And he slept for another ten minutes and then got up but I'm sure he went back to sleep in his chair. I had no idea that August had been there and I woke up and got up at the civilized hour of 8:30. 

We really did have a good time with the guys. They were so sweet and so loving and so kind to their old grands. And no, they did not run around like little heathens after their baths and I sort of missed that. We read some more books when they'd been tucked into bed. One of the things I really didn't know about grandchildren is how nostalgic they can be. All of the grandkids have shown an interest in listening to me reread certain books over and over again, even as they get older. I read them the books and we talk about all the illustrations the way we always have and we take delight in making the same observations we always have. And when the books are like "The Relatives Came" by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Stephen Gammell, we happily revisit the family in the book. We are visiting them, just as they are visiting each other. 

There is so much going on that we never get tired of it and we always see something we've missed before. 

The other book we read was "Let's Eat!" by Ana Zamarano and lovingly and beautifully illustrated by Julie Vivas.

Did those of us who love to read first become enchanted by the words in books or the illustrations or, was it as I suspect, both.

I won't drag on forever tonight. Here are a few more pictures. 

The boys helping their Boppy clean up after breakfast. When he started explaining how to load the dishwasher they said, "We know. We've done it a thousand times."

My flower bowl! Jessie went by the pottery studio to get the things we'd left to be fired. There are some things I love about it very much and of course, there are things I want to get much better at. But I will tell you that I truly am excited about pottery class now in a way that I was not before and that's plenty of reason to keep going in my opinion. 

Quick update on the hearing aids. 
I am growing used to them being in my ears. I am not noticing a great deal of difference in my hearing although I do believe there is some improvement, especially when talking with my grandchildren. We go back on Friday to get things readjusted and to get questions answered. So that is fine. We are not talking miracles here but as I keep saying- it's a process. We shall be patient. 

And...four days until Keith turns 82 and his marriage turns 42. 
Here's another picture of him and his daughters, this one including his daughter Angela whose mother was Anita Pallenberg. Look her up. 

You know what? I wish I'd had a daddy like Keith Richards.

But to cut the sweetness here, I give you this video of Keith in the studio making a recording of Lou Reed's song, "I'm Waiting For The Man," for a tribute album to Lou. This was released in 2024, I believe and I love it more than I can say.

The old boy, singing about something he knew very well when he was young. The man was the dope dealer. Lou Reed was also a well-known junkie but who was able to remain sober with the help of a Buddhist practice for the last decades of his life. 

I love Keith's old face far more than I did his young rock star face. I didn't even really have an opinion of him when I was young. Mick Jagger was it, you know? 
And then I read "Life", Keith's memoir, and, well, that was it. 
My spirit totem animal. 
My reminder that we can survive, we can persevere, that music can heal, save, and connect us to whatever magical process it is by which some can capture the essential vibrations of the universe. 

Phew. Didn't know I had THAT in me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

August And Levon Sleep Over

Here we have the wild boys worshipping at the Pot of Chicken which will soon, under the grandmother alchemy which I practice, become chicken and dumplings. I have NO doubt at all that when I have been dead and buried for years, my grandchildren will remember Mermer's chicken and dumplings. 

Those boys aren't really wild at all. I did ask them a little while ago if they still get crazy after their baths and they said not so much anymore. I guess my days of having little squeaky clean, naked children running about the house are either very soon to be over or are already. We shall see tonight. 

I've spent the entire day at home. Glen, as I said, was out fishing and he is just now on his way to Lloyd. 
The boys asked me again to read them books earlier (be still my heart) and we read an old favorite, "No Hugs Until Saturday" and a Babar book about that rascal, Cousin Arthur. I could not have been happier if Wes Anderson had asked me to be a lead in one of his movies. Now they are watching some TV while I write this and then I'll make the dumplings and set them to simmer away with the vegetables and chicken and broth in the pot. I always use the widest pot I have so that I can fit as many dumplings in as I can. 

Before the kiddos got here I covered up the plants again. It may freeze tonight and it will almost certainly freeze for the next few nights. I took the trash, went to the post office, did the smallest amount of yard tidying, mostly cutting a few dead things and piling them up with fallen branches I gathered. 
I have no idea what's going on but my camellias are not blooming at all. By this time of year I am usually in the midst of enjoying their beauty. Is it because of the drought we had? Last year's freeze? I can't really pin it on those things because I see other camellias blooming away. I did a very thorough check of the bushes this afternoon and all I found was this one very small sasanqua camellia blossom. 

Generally the sasanqua varieties are blooming their pretty little heads off by Thanksgiving. 
It is depressing and sad and worrisome. 
I posted this picture a year ago yesterday. 

I am seeing plenty of buds, just no signs of them opening. I will not give up hope. 

I believe I better go make those dumplings. The boys have not eaten for hours and therefore are at risk for grave nutritional deficits which could cause them to faint and keel over. We would not want that to happen. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Her Smile

The beautiful Brenda with the mermaid eyes. And she did have mermaid eyes today but you can't really see them in that picture where she is smiling so big. I was studying them as we talked though, and I want to see if I could possibly replicate what she was doing there. She had on a sort of sparkly aqua/turquoise eye shadow on her lids with a blue liner underneath, just about the same color as her shirt. It was like she'd used a palette of the colors of the sea in the Caribbean ocean. 
I have a feeling that only Brenda can pull that off however. Plus, she's a master at the art of eye make-up and I am not.

It was just so good to see her. She gives hugs whole-heartedly and they make you feel so loved. I asked her if I could take her picture for the blog and she said, Yes, of course," and I told her that readers have been asking after her and wanting a picture. 

I was in town because I had many errands to run and if I'd gone to the library, there would have been one more. I did not get to the library but I am nowhere near panic level when it comes to unread books beside my bed so that was fine. I picked up a prescription for Rachel and I went to Costco, obviously, for a few things like frozen wild blueberries and Cheerios which Mr. Moon eats for breakfast almost every day. Cheerios with wild blueberries on them. He loves the blueberry milk that results from the thawed blueberries, the Cheerios swimming in their little pale, cyanotic lake which buoys them like tiny life-saving rings. I got another pair of men's Levis because I have decided that the ones I got a couple of weeks ago there are my favorites and fit me best. However, you cannot count on Costco having the same thing two weeks in a row and that's the way it is. They had another style of the men's jeans and I bought a pair and tried them on when I got home and I have to say, absolutely not. 
Oh well. 

Not even close to a big deal. 
I had to go by the bank which we use for our credit cards. That's a whole story in itself which I definitely do not need to go into. I didn't get my problem resolved but was offered solutions (a number to call or setting up the mobile app and trying to do it that way). And if neither of those work, I'm to go back and meet with the woman who set the account up in the first place. 
So that did not feel successful. 
The Costco run went as described although there were five million, seven hundred and eighty-eight thousand people there today, all of them requiring a parking space. Somehow I managed all of that without any sort of a meltdown, probably due to Brenda's good juju, some of which she passed on to me in our hugs. 
Then on to Publix. I got things. You know- food things. Your shelves and refrigerator and freezer may be full but if you are out of cottage cheese and it is cottage cheese you need and want, you are shit out of luck. Plus, August and Levon are spending the night tomorrow night and I had to buy root beer, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream. Am I right?
Of course I am. 

I also bought sandwich materials for Mr. Moon who has already gone to the coast for the first Gulf fishing trip of the season and he was vibrating with excitement. I think that deep sea fishing may be his favorite above hunting. But I don't know. It would be impossible for him to pick, I think. I mean, can a mother pick a favorite child? And of course I do very much love to cook and eat the fish he brings home. 
Apropos to nothing- were you aware of the fact that it is bad luck to bring a banana on board a boat? 
Well it is. I have it from good authority. 

I was thinking I'd write about the realization I had recently about why I feel such a need to have plenty of food in the house at all times. I will write about it but not tonight. Tonight I am going to go cook some salmon and baby peas and I want to make a martini. Yes, the clean sheets are on the bed, the rest of the laundry folded and put away, Maurice has had her afternoon treats, and for a sweet, peaceful moment, all feels to be as it should. 
I probably shouldn't even say things like that because you know- I don't want to jinx anything. But I don't believe in that shit. 
(She knocks wood.)

All right. I do not mean to alarm you but we are only six days away from my spirit totem animal's 82nd birthday and I just need to know that you are ready if indeed you celebrate. Yes, yes, I know that it's only nine days to the Solstice and that is a very important celebration day, meaningful in ways that even our oldest ancestors recognized and honored. 
Still and yet I believe we can celebrate both the solstice and Keith.

I may post a picture of the man or something with the man in it for the next six days. 

Here we have possibly the sexiest picture of Keith Richards ever.

It had to have been taken in the early to mid 80's because that's when he met and married Patti Hansen in 1983. He was forty, she was twenty-seven and he had never looked better or healthier in his life. In my opinion. They will celebrate their 42nd anniversary on Keith's birthday, which is the day they got married. 
That period of time in Keith's life was a time of restored energy and confidence, of progress and of making babies. 

He kicked heroin before he met Patti. The two of them have two daughters and along with Keith's first two children, born to him by Anita Pallenberg, they have many grandchildren and what appears to be a very, very loving and close family. 

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

From Brenda to Keith Richards. Somehow it all makes sense to me. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Wakulla County

That's what the sky looked like from my backyard fifteen minutes ago. Already, the pink has been replaced by what I might call Sheaffer's blue-black ink. Remember Sheaffer's pens and their ink cartridges? When I was a child, back when writing had just been invented, we were allowed to get a Sheaffer's cartridge pen in the fourth grade to write with. 
Be still my heart. 
I have always loved pens and ink and paper, too. And real, true fountain pens make me almost inappropriately thrilled. I have a few, and use them. I even have a Mont Blanc that Glen got me many, many years ago but ironically, it is far from my favorite. It has a sort of lip at the end of it right above the nib that is sharper than it has any right to be, thus making writing with it not so comfortable. 
But I didn't come here tonight to talk about fountain pens or ink, either one. As usual, I didn't come here to specifically talk about anything but I did get out today and do some things so I have pictures and we shall balance the words on top of those. 

Glen and I discussed "doing something" today, meaning taking a little car ride to someplace near, yet not here. We decided to head down to Wakulla County to have some lunch and take a look at the bay and perhaps to get some oysters to bring home. And that's what we did. 
We got a late start so by the time we got to Panacea, which is where both the bay and the seafood store we like are, we were both very hungry for our lunches and we stopped at a funky-looking place that we've passed a million times.
And it was funky. I might call the decor "Florescent Light". This is not a fancy on-the-water joint but we needed sustenance. 
We were ushered to a table in what looked like a conference room and a large group of people who had obviously just finished their office  Christmas party celebratory lunch, had been seated at one very long table created by putting many longish tables together. The decor in this room was still highly florescent but there was a bit of charm. 

As you can see. Our server, a woman who could easily run the world with one hand tied behind her back told us that the tree stays up all the time and soon, it will be decorated with hearts for Valentine's Day. 
Good to know. 

The menu was a pretty perfect example of every restaurant in Wakulla and surrounding counties, heavy on the seafood. Glen ordered a fried mullet dinner which came with cheese grits, hushpuppies, and a salad. I got a salad with grilled shrimp on it. 
We were not disappointed. 

For some reason, mullet has the reputation of being a poor man's fish but honest to god, if it's fresh and cooked right, you can hardly find a finer fish. Whoever cooked that fish knew their way around a mullet in the kitchen. They are a delicacy when smoked, and a fish dip made of the smoked meat is worth the trip to the coast. Mullet are abundant and used to be even more so. I have no doubt that for the indigenous people who lived in this area, mullet played a huge role in their diet and survival. Being able to smoke the fish meant they could keep it for relatively long periods of time and I'm sure they did. 

After lunch we drove the very short distance to our favorite seafood retail outlet. 

Can you believe that sky? It was so blue it almost hurt. Glen bought oysters and also shrimp for the freezer. He's about to build a fire to grill a few of the oysters for supper tonight. He'll be taking the rest down to the coast tomorrow night for the guys to eat before they go out fishing on Saturday and if there are any left after that, oyster stew will be made. 

We drove down the few blocks to the bay to have a look around and we discovered there was a very cool park which must have been recently built. Part of it was a dock that went out over Dickerson Bay and we walked down it. It absolutely could not have been a more beautiful day on the water. 

The tide was out so the fisherpeople we saw reported that nothing was biting but as one man said, who was sitting at the end of the pier, he was happy just being out on the water on a day like this. 
Amen. 

On the way home I wanted us to stop at one more place in Panacea. 

I actually took that picture four years ago when I first stopped there to see what it was all about and to wander around. I wrote about it then and if you want to read that, you can go HERE. That post is one I wrote after an earlier trip to the beach with my nursing school friends and rereading it has brought back so many memories and so many thoughts. I took pictures today but the ones I took which are on that post are better than those. Still, here they are. 

Those red berries are Yaupon Holly which is one of the only two plant sources of caffeine in North America. Aren't they beautiful? I wonder if birds eat them for the buzz.

And now we're home and I'm going to go sit with my sweetie by the fire. It's chilly here and that will feel good. 

I am still feeling the sort of eerie mood I had walking about the mineral springs area which is a place now devoid of people but with concrete (literally) reminders that people once walked those very same grounds and came to take the sulphur smelling water in hopes of...well, a panacea. 

It was a sort of concentrated silence with only the swishing of the palmettos in the breeze and the distant call of a tiny bird to break it. 

See you tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon