Time, Space, Crows, And Human Life On Earth

Eventually the crows are going to let me get close enough to take a decent picture. I think this one is the one I call The Scout. He's the largest and always seems to be the one who does the reconnaissance missions. I could be wrong. It's not really that easy to identify crows. Or at least for me. 
They fly about over the tree stumps where I put their mealworms every morning and if that doesn't work, they caw at me, or as I say,  yell at me. They may even land and search around to see if by any chance I have fed them and they've just missed it. 
I go out with my little container of mealworms and whistle the same whistle that I used to use on my cats. Maurice doesn't need that whistle. She's generally either in the house, on the back porch, or right outside, defending her territory from her doppelgänger and the pretty black cat that shows up now and then.
By the time I've put food on all six of the Bradford Pear Tree stump tables, they're on the branches nearest the cafe and urging me to hurry up and get back in the house so they can eat in peace. I still have not received one tiny shiny thing, not so much as a shred of aluminum foil, and I may never get anything at all. 
It's cool. I just like looking at them. They're so interesting. 

It's rained most of the day which has been lovely. It cooled way down and after I got caught in the rain while I was in the garden and stayed there until I'd finished what I was doing, thus getting rather wet, I was actually cold and had to put a sweater on. I've still got it on. But hey! It's 87 degrees on the back porch where I am. 
Brrr...
I love it. 

I've been mostly lazy and yes, giving myself grace about it. I finished up a few French knots on a patch I'd sewn on a linen shirt that I've been patching and doing visible mending on for probably three years. On and off. 
Mostly off. 
And I realized- I was done! 

I got this shirt years and years ago at a Goodwill and it was my faithful companion until the fabric on the yoke became as thin as a spider web. I mostly used it as a bathing suit cover-up or something to put on when the temperatures dip into the high 80's. Like now. 
So it's in the wash and will be ready to go back into service. 
After I finished that, I started back to hemming my cheesecloth rags. I've been ignoring that project for awhile and we are in dire need of more of them. 
DIRE, I tell you! 
While I did these things, I watched more of The Bear, of course. I am falling in love with some of the characters, as one does as they develop. I remember texting Hank once when I was watching Reservation Dogs to tell him that I loved Willie Jack so much it made my heart hurt. 
He understood. 
Actually, all of those characters made my heart hurt with love but Willie Jack the most. 
The main character of The Bear is played by Jeremy Allen White and he has the kind of beauty that can only be seen after awhile. Do you know what I mean? If you just saw the guy buying a bag of potato chips and a six-pack of beer, you'd think, "He's rather odd-looking." He is not what we would call traditionally handsome. He's no Brad Pitt. He's no George Clooney, but he has...something. 
Many woman are like this too. You have to really shed your notions of beauty and see that there is far more to it than what we see on the surface. 
Beauty is NOT skin deep and Brad Pitt will never be as beautiful as Keith Richards is at the age of 82. 

That is not what I planned to write about. As usual. 

Glen spent a lot of the day being annoyed with himself for spending too much time in his chair. "It's killing me!" he says. 
"Hmmmm..." I say. 
I think a day of rest may be a damn good thing for him but I understand. Neither one of us is really made for sitting all day long. 
He got out of his chair though to work on the lamp he brought home the other day. 

Now that is a good-looking man. Beautiful in all the ways. 

We need to get some new glass shades as two of the ones on it were broken. They are easily found although right now we are throwing around the idea of getting green ones or pink ones. 
We shall see.

Here she is, naked and unadorned. 

The Weatherfords are on their way home. They didn't leave North Carolina until around noon so it's going to be a very long day and part of a night. I can't believe they'll be back in Florida. That must be such a difficult transition. The North Carolina mountains to North Florida. From living in a small camper to living in a regular sized house. From having the mountains as your backyard to having a...backyard...as your backyard. From having a mother/grandmother, sister/aunt, brother-in-law/uncle, and cousins as your only neighbors to having people who, although they may be very nice people, are not related to you at all for neighbors. 
Well. In some ways, it's pretty darn cool to be exposed to both worlds, to get to know all the different family members so well. 

And school will soon begin again. August (and Maggie) will be in their last year of elementary school. I cannot believe this and yet, it is true. Levon, the baby of the family (haha!) will be in third grade. Owen is a Junior in high school? I think. And Gibson is a freshman in high school, marching in the band. 
How did all of this happen? 

It's life. Just life. Why we are so amazed at how fast the years fly by is a mystery to me, just as why we are so mystified and shocked when death occurs. Or when we know we're getting near that inevitable portal into such a change of energy. Change or exchange? 
We just don't know, do we? 

It's all pretty much a fancy dance. Just as you learn the steps to one phase of the dance, the music changes and there we are. 
Or here we are. 
As Karen said, we are wisest to just roll with whatever is happening. Kids growing up, us growing older and then old. 
Life. There is no stopping it. Until it stops. 
That's pretty much it, I think, summed up in a few short words. 
Meanwhile, the planet keeps on circling the sun, the galaxies and stars keep on moving and whirling and traveling and dancing their own fancy dances. 
Isn't it amazing? 
I think so.

Love...Ms. Moon 

Just A Little Bit

 

I only took one photo today and it's not exactly artistic or pretty or funny or anything like that so I decided to go check out my blog post from a year ago and I discovered I'd taken a picture of another over-the-top crazy lamp. I had been shopping at an absurd antique mall and that was one of the absurd antique items they had for sale there. 
It's rather amusing to me that exactly a year ago I posted a picture of another lamp made in some time frame where too much was just enough. 
I did not make up that phrase. Bill Wharton, aka The Sauce Boss, did. Do a blog search for him if you want to know more. 
Anyway, it must be the season of the lamp. 

I don't have anything of importance to discuss this evening, or get off my chest or just generally write about in order to get some clarity on how I feel about something. I was going to make a quick-quick run to Publix and come back to get some more yard work done or something in the productive vein but I guess I did all I needed to of that yesterday. I did go to Publix but it took me awhile. I needed more than I thought I did or actually, once I got there I thought I needed more than I had written down on my list. 

When I got home and had put all the groceries away I sat my ass down on the couch with a basketful of field peas and made myself happy by shelling them and watching another episode and a half of "The Bear." The more I watch this show, the more I like it and I am already suffering from pre-grief about how I will feel when I've watched it all. Knowing me, I may just watch it again. How many times did I watch "Reservation Dogs?" And the one picture I took today? 

I used this along with some smoked turkey when I cooked my pinto beans today. 
It was righteous. So were the okra and tomatoes. The cornbread too. 

Happy Friday, ya'll. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Taking Care Of Business

The star hibiscus has another bloom and I worship at its feet. 
I mean, you know- metaphorically. There are some things that are simply so stunning and so lovely that it's impossible to ever truly take them for granted. This flower is one of them. 
Another pragmatic miracle as I like to call these things. 

I've had such a great day. When I woke up I told Mr. Moon that I was going to make a list of things I wanted to do today, simply for the pleasure of crossing them all off as I did them. 
"Just for fun," I said. 
Somehow I knew that today was going to be productive. I think this feeling is part of my sudden and unexplainable good attitude. 
Of course, this being me, I do have a dark fear that having discovered this weird feeling of happiness, I will soon be diagnosed with a terminal illness and I'll feel even worse than I would have because I JUST STARTED BEING HAPPY! 
So unfair. 
Well, that could happen. 
Meanwhile, I did make my list and I did check off everything on it. 

And honestly, I just like to make lists with a fountain pen. 

So yes, I cleared and cleaned off my back porch table where I live and washed the tablecloth and towels and other laundry. I put a clean tablecloth back on the table and threw away a bunch of clutter that had been taking up space. I also got rid of a bunch of spiderwebs under the table. For some reason this year, we have a lot of very, very almost fluffy spider webs. I don't know how else to describe them. They are nothing like the webs the golden orb weavers make. I haven't even seen the spiders. They're almost invisible and they seem to like to live under tables and chairs and the webs feel mysterious and annoying when you brush up against them with a leg or a foot. So I made a concerted effort there and swept under the table and around it. 

I took the trash to the trash place, I stopped at the post office, and I took all of the paper and cardboard that we stash in the pantry out to the burn pile. I had thought that Mr. Moon and I had an agreement wherein I would deal with the household trash and he would deal with the burn pile stuff. 
I seem to have thought wrong. 
At our age we appear to have what I might call "selective memory" issues. He has no problems dealing with all of these legal issues that Tom left behind but when it comes to remembering that he's supposed to take out the paper and cardboard, he simply cannot. 
Ah well. Not a big deal. 
I poured clog destroying chemicals down my shower drain because it has become more than a puddle in there when I shower. It's like a shallow pool for my feet. Every night when I take my shower I vow to remember to do that the next day and it's been about a week now that I've forgotten every day until I get in the shower the next night. And you can't just pour that shit in and leave it. You have to flush it with hot water after about fifteen minutes so that requires some attention. 
But things are flowing nicely in there again. 
And lastly but not leastly, I watered my front porch plants. Such an easy thing to do but I don't enjoy wrestling with the hose situation. 
Good Lord. That's not even worthy of being a first world problem. 

What I really wanted to do after checking all the things off my list was to do more clearing of the chenille plant and other invasives by the side of the house where I was working the other day. However, that area was in the sun by the time I got around to it so I decided to tackle the bed to the right of the driveway, aka dirt entrance to the property, which I spent so many hours working on last year to what was obviously no avail because this is what it looks like. 

The crocosmia is worse than ever but my determination is strong. As you can see, there are other weeds growing in there and I got out my shovel and dug some of the larger ones up and then got on my knees with my trowel to once again battle the roots and bulbs of the crocosmia. I was quite surprised and delighted to find that for some mysterious and unexplained reason, the dirt in there is now soft and so easy to pull roots from. Is this because of all the rain we've had or is it because of the work I did on it last year? 
Who knows? 
Not me. 
But I got this much done in just a few hours. 

It would have all been an absolute pleasure (you know how much I love to weed) if it hadn't been 95 degrees in the shade. I had sweat rolling off my face and everything I was wearing was soaked but I still managed to enjoy myself. I also discovered some crepe myrtle plants which had come up from the root system of the one I planted on the other side of the fence. I had no idea that crepe myrtles spread like this and guess what? This can result in dense thickets if left unattended, according to what I'm reading online. 
Oh great. Now the crepe myrtles are going to become invasive. 
Well, I need to keep an eye on them, obviously and I will try not to leave them unattended. 
And I also have this. 

It's hard to tell but that's a loblolly pine, also known by about ten other names including "southern pine." I've been watching it for over a year now. It is totally a volunteer, quite possibly planted there by a winged seed from a nearby adult. It was just a tiny sprig when I first sighted it and I have carefully weeded around it, mostly just to see what would happen. It's gone through drought and being choked by the crocosmia and yet, has survived and is growing. Yay, little pine! Keep on living! It's probably a little over a foot tall now. 

And that's the story of me today. Mr. Moon and Jim worked from 8:30 to 5:30 on Tom's stuff. A conference call with an attorney was involved as was more delving into the depths of some of the items in the many sheds and so forth on Tom's property which is hot, nasty work. 
Jim has hit the road home to St. Augustine after spending the week here. I am amazed at how both men are still managing to retain their sense of humor about the whole situation. You just have to. 

Here's a lamp Glen brought home, thinking I might like it. 

Cleaned, rewired, and with the shades replaced as several of them are broken, it might be worth keeping and as we all know, I need more lamps. 
It's heavy enough to be used in an Alfred Hitchcock type murder if one has the strength to heft and swing it at someone's head. I'm serious. It must weigh twenty pounds. At least.

Oh, Tom. 

Wild and invasive morning glories. 
At least they bloom. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

Mostly Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Last night when I was making our supper, Glen kept saying things like, "You shouldn't have to make your own birthday dinner," and I kept reassuring him that I was enjoying myself so much. And I was! I steamed the spinach for the casserole in a skillet and then used the skillet to cook the salmon in. I already had leftover rice which I mixed up with the spinach and an egg and a little evaporated milk I had leftover from the scallop thing I had made the night before with salt and pepper and a little parmesan. I baked it in the pretty green casserole dish, perfectly sized for a two-person casserole that I recently thrifted. I baked it in the toaster oven/air-fryer so the kitchen didn't get heated up from using the big oven. 
I cooked the salmon in a little olive oil with salt and pepper, lemon juice and dill like May taught me. That was it. 
And the corn on the cob was simply boiled for a minute or two. 
It was sort of a very perfect dinner and it was pretty and I got a great deal of pleasure from making it and eating it too. So did Mr. Moon. The eating part, I mean. I am grateful to be able to cook good things for us and I am grateful we have the means to be able to grow some of the things we eat and to afford those we don't grow. For me, cooking is for nourishment and pleasure. And some nights, it is just a joy. 
Of course the man cleaned up the kitchen afterwards and I have to say my slice of Publix carrot cake was every bit as delicious as I had hoped it would be. 
It was such a good birthday. 

And today was special too! I picked up Hank and we went to lunch together and we sat and we talked and we talked and it was just so much fun. That darling boy of mine is a wonder. All of my children are so different and I find each and every one of them so enjoyable to be around, to talk to, to hang out with. We are at ease with each other. It is a blessing indeed and I do not take that for granted. 
We stopped in to the two little thrift stores in the same plaza and although we did not buy anything, we had such a good time looking. Hank found an old copy of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew which was a favorite of mine and a favorite of his. Oh my Lord, what a silly and dated book it is and we loved it so much. I just looked it up and it was published in 1881! There was an entire series written about the poor Peppers and their saintly mother, all written by Margaret Sidney. It was fun, admiring and criticizing and waxing nostalgic about so many of the items. And laughing so hard about others. Hank and I pretty much raised each other, along with May, and we have so many shared memories. 

And that was my beautiful afternoon. 

Mr. Moon is still dealing with Tom things and probably will be for quite awhile. 
Sigh. 
As he said yesterday, "This is not what I had bargained for." But back when Tom asked him to be the trustee of his estate, he was in fine health and relatively young and the whole idea of what that might eventually entail was just a shimmer of a possible future reality. 
And yet, here we are. I admire him and Tom's friend Jim who is helping Glen with all of this so much. It's a huge task, both on the legal side and on the possessions side. 
Especially that one. 

But right now Glen's in the Glen Den, shelling the peas I picked today. I didn't even go out to the garden yesterday at all which I believe may have been a first for me in many, many months. We're still getting some nice things.

I started a new bottle of pepper vinegar today and discovered I was out of white vinegar. Why I did not put that on my list I do not know but I used the apple cider vinegar, along with balsamic and wine vinegars. Now that should be interesting! 
I need to pickle my jalapeños. I doubt I have enough to fill up a quart jar but still, I use them in cooking and there's no need for them to go to waste. 

Here's what the Seminole pumpkin is doing today. 

And here's a new baby, growing on the vine which is covering the east side fence. 

I am fascinated by this vegetable. I think I am going to start calling it The Seminole Hulk Pumpkin Vine. 

While we're at it, here are two zinnia pictures I took. The ones in the garden are just about spent. Done and dusted for the most part. 
Sigh. 
But the garden by the kitchen still has a few beauties that look pretty healthy. 

This one is a tiny bit past its expiration date but the colors are still fantastic. 

And now a picture that I meant to post yesterday, but due to my narcissistic birthday ramblings, I forgot. 

That was in the Tallahassee Democrat, the local newspaper and it is of our Gibson out on the field practicing with his new high school's marching band. 
Do you have any idea how freaking hot it is out there? 
So freaking hot. 
We are very, very proud of that sweetest of the sweet boys. 

It has rained here which yes, did give me a delicious scent of petrichor but which now seems to have released the scent of something dead. It's not horrible, but here on the back porch, it's definitely smellable. It could be the corpse of the fucking giant Georgia Thumper that Mr. Moon smashed with a whelk shell because it was the only thing he could find at the moment, on the back porch steps and then tossed to the side of the steps. 
I would really rather not have seen that. 
But what I'm saying is, is that the grasshopper was so large that it's inevitable decay could be the cause of the death smell. 

Life in Lloyd! Too much nature. Etc.

Love...Ms. Moon

It's Been Mighty Fine

 

Me on my 72nd birthday, ready to go to town. I did put on shoes before I left. 

It has been a funny day and not much birthday-related stuff went on except for the fact that I got so many sweet birthday texts and some calls, including one by Lis and Lon, doing their traditional birthday greeting which involves them singing Happy Birthday, accompanied by one of them playing along on an instrument. Daisy, their dog, used to sing along with them but she has passed. Still, we all miss her voice. Lon played ukulele on this year's arrangement and I have to say it may have been my favorite ever except for the absence of Dear Daisy. 

I took my time around here this morning and then got dressed (see above) and went to town to try and get my iPhone Air stuff transferred back to my iPhone 13 Pro because I just can't deal with this stupid camera anymore. I gave it every chance, I figured out how to do work-arounds, I managed to get a few good pictures. And then I said, "What the fucking fuck? Get the phone you want."
The iPhone Air is a fine little phone, no complaints, it's just that the camera will not do. So yes, I had the fantasy that I could just give it back and they would do their magic and I could walk out of Costco which is where we got our new phone plan with my old phone in my pocket. 
Boy. What a dimwit I was.
I could go into a fifty page description of all that went on there with the very sweet man and woman who helped me but I won't. To sum up- no. Not under the plan we have. Nor any plan as far as I can tell. And this means that to get the camera I want, I'm going to have to get a completely different, more updated phone which is so not what I want but sometimes you simply cannot get what you want. 
Carrying on the theme, you can though, if you try sometime, say it with me, get what you need. 
So my problem was not completely resolved but it probably will be soon and the phone will be ten thousand times more capable of probably controlling the universe than I need it to be, but it will have a camera that will take decent pictures, especially macros, that I don't have to spend ten minutes and two hands doing the work-arounds that the one I have now takes. 

Glen had met me by the time that whole situation was dealt with and supposedly I will get a call from...someone? within a week and things will go on from there. A solution will be found! 

We went to lunch, as it was already 2:30 and that was not an extremely groovy experience but needs must, right? And by that time, our needs exceeded our patience in finding the perfect restaurant and I wanted to get home so we could go to the river. 

Before that, though, I had to stop by Publix for a few things and a Lily hug.

I gotta tell you, I love Publix carrot cake. It has lots of spices and raisins and you can depend on it for all of your carrot cake needs. And it was on sale! 

I also bought some salmon and a few other things and then hightailed it back to Lloyd where Mr. Moon was already waiting. We got the groceries put away and put on our bathing costumes, and drove to the river. 

There were far more people there than I expected but the Wacissa is a mysterious place and one never knows what they'll encounter. It was beautiful, though, and the water was as cold and clear as ever. It took me even longer today to fully immerse than usual and I am blaming it on the fact that I am 72 now. But I did it and over an hour later I still feel calmer, cooler, and more at peace than I did before. 

The mother cypress standing watch over us all. 

Look up! 
I did indeed. 

And now we're home and having birthday martinis and I'm going to go cook that salmon and then we're going to eat some Publix carrot cake. 

Maurice giving me birthday love.

That's a damn lie. She wants her evening treat. 

I am happy again. Good Lord! 

And thank all of you for your beautiful birthday messages and good thoughts. I cherish each and every one of them. 

Big 72-year old love...Ms. Moon

This Life I Love

Those peppers are what I used to make a stuffed pepper casserole last night. I had no peppers big enough to stuff with rice and ground beef and tomatoes and onions and all those good things so I made up that combination, steamed the peppers you see there in a little water in one of my skillets, put those in the bottom of the baking dish and added the rice mixture on top. Then cheese. Then I baked it. 
It was pretty awesome. My first real use of the clown peppers although I have used some of the bell peppers. Extremely tasty. I may make a pizza with those peppers on it soon. They are very mild but with a nice flavor. 

So I've been thinking a lot about my birthday, which is tomorrow. I'm about to be seventy-two so today was my last day of being seventy-one which is a pretty obvious fact. I've been thinking, and even saying, that I'm seventy-two for quite awhile now so I don't think it's going to be a big shock. Some numbers of my life years feel more correct than others. Definitely true in the example of seventy-one/seventy two. Seventy-one didn't feel true. Seventy-two did. And now it will be. True, that is.

As I said to someone today, I am fairly amazed at the fact that I've reached what the Bible tells us is a person's lifespan- three score and ten, and then a little bit more. I never expected to live this long. And I am a bit surprised at how relatively healthy I am and how I really don't feel that old. I sort of simply feel like...myself. 
(I just knocked wood.)
I don't LOOK like I used to and there is no doubt about that. But what seventy-two year old person looks like they did when they were decades younger? I don't care how much botox and fillers and surgery you get done, there is just no substitute for youth. Let us not kid ourselves. I don't even try. I absolutely know I feel so much better in my brain and my body after having lost weight even though I no longer have bosoms and my skin is so wrinkled that the grandchildren are fascinated by it which is pretty funny.  

I spent some outside today, perhaps to prove to myself that I can still do it, that I can still work outside in this intolerable heat and humidity but what mainly motivated me was the fact that I could not stand what my little kitchen garden looked like. Probably no one but me would notice the difference but I did what I did for me and let's not kid ourselves. 

It's still wild but the weeds have been a little bit tamed. And then because I'm insane, I did a more weed pulling/bed clearing by the side of the house. 
By the time I quit I didn't even feel up to driving to the river. 
Perhaps that's what I'll do tomorrow. Drive to the river. Sit in a chair under the cypress tree and read my new book. 

We shall see. 

Glen has been asking me for weeks what I want to do on my birthday and I've been saying, "This." 
By which I mean living another day in this very life I live. 
He and Jim, Tom's friend from St. Augustine, spent all day long going through hoarder shit in 108 degree heat and that's their plan for tomorrow too. They want to just get it done, get it over with. 

I know without a doubt that if I had told Glen last week that I would really love to go to Paris or to Florence or, hell, to Las Vegas, he would have figured it out and taken me there. But that is not what I want. 
Like I said, I just want more of this. 

Looks like a thunderstorm is rolling in. Sounds and smells like that too. What a lovely birthday present that would be. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Lagniappe

 

Husband and wife hallway dancing has commenced. 

It's All About Mick Today

Was there ever a prettier frontman? 
Well, perhaps Little Richard. 
But was there ever a more iconic rock and roll singer? 
I don't think so. 
Today is Mick Jagger's eighty-third birthday and as I said on a Rolling Stones post on Facebook- he has set the bar way too high for us mere mortals. 
I can barely remember a time in my life when the Rolling Stones weren't there. Here. Everywhere. 
I have written so much about this band and I don't feel the need to repeat myself but I do feel the need to acknowledge Mick, one of the old boys, as I call them, who is not only still here, but who has just recorded a new album which I believe I may have noted shows that his voice is not only as good as ever, but it may be better than ever. 
Is the key to having a long and very healthy life being born with a physical education teacher as your daddy? 
Perhaps. 
And perhaps we should get back to Keith on that BUT, when the Stones were doing their 2024 tour, Mick was still ruling the stage, dancing, running, skipping, wiggling his (still very cute little) ass, and singing that (still very cute little) ass off. 

I really have nothing to talk about today so I'm just going to give you a few more pictures of the man who, along with Keith Richards and Charlie Watts, have given me so many hours of dancing delight and so much permission to be a woman who owns my own body, my own sexuality, my own joy in the evil celebration of what rock and roll can be. 

Mick Jagger. The man whom women lusted after and made men secretly doubt their sexual identities, who wore eyeliner and eye shadow and pants that showed off his assets and who, with Keith Richards, wrote some of the best damn songs ever written. 
You can argue with me on that but I bet you almost anything that if you hear the first four chords of Start Me Up, you know what it is. Of course, that's Keith's riff but when it comes to their music, they are indeed the Glitter Twins. 

And here's Mick a year ago with his youngest child, Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger who is eight years old. His partner is Melanie Hamrick, a former ballerina. 

You should see Deveraux dance. 

So yeah, happy birthday, Mick. Don't stop dancing. Don't stop singing. Don't stop doing what you do which is something no one else on earth can nor ever has. And certainly not for this long. 

Love...Ms. Moon