I Am Trying So Hard

 First off, let me straighten something out. I did not come up with the idea of using a bowl as a form for another bowl. And, I got the name wrong. It's not a "slab bowl," it's a "slump bowl." If you use the outside of the bowl as a form it is called a "hump bowl." 
Makes sense, right? 
There is such a thing as slab building in pottery and in a sense, I guess the slump and hump bowls fall under that category as you start out with a slab of clay that you flatten and then use to build what you want. 

I did not invent the wheel. 
Oh. I guess I made a pottery joke. 

I picked those oakleaf hydrangea in the yard of the log house. We went over there today. We hadn't even picked up the key from the lock box yet since Mr. Moon took off for Tennessee the day after we signed on the house. Before we went to Lake Seminole, though, we drove to Cairo, Georgia where we had to visit the power company to start an account and get the power turned on. Cairo is sort of on the way to the lake but it ain't no shortcut. Still, it's a pleasant drive through fields and pecan groves and solar farms and past mansions and shacks, the way it is here in the deep south, and although the power company's lobby closed at noon, which we did not know, and we got there after noon, the lady in the drive-through figured out how to make it all work and she did and by the time we'd had lunch and driven to the cabin, the power was on. 

I had only been to the house once and I suppose that my memories of what it looks like have been falsely influenced by the realty pictures that were online. Those pictures made all the spaces look so much bigger than they really are and so I was shocked at how much smaller in real life the place is. Don't get me wrong- it's still more room than we need but less than I thought there was. 

The sellers left a few pieces of furniture behind. A china cabinet for one which absolutely must go unless Mr. Moon decides to put some of his treasures in it. The dining room table and its chairs were also left behind. 

Do I love that table and chairs? No I do not. 
Could we use them?
Yes. Of course. 
You can see the china cabinet too. 

They left many dressers. I mean a bunch. Some of them are fairly old and one I do really like. The rest are traditional sixties wood furniture that everyone had at the time. Not horrible. They'll hold clothes and stuff. Whatever. They're not pressboard, at least. 

So we do not have to worry about dressers in the immediate future. 

The bedside tables and lamps in the master bedroom were left behind for very good reason.

Oh hell no. 
Still, there they are until we get something else and while we're at it, we should get a few beds. 

There's a grandfather clock in the living area which is flimsy and probably non-operable. It looks like it may have been bought at the same time as the china cabinet. They left the two red recliners. 

Here's a picture from the open loft upstairs looking down. 

You can see the grandfather clock right beside the door. That door leads to the back porch and once again, I sat out there on the porch swing and I'll tell you the truth- it is an amazing space and as soon as I sit down and look out at the yard and the water and hear the birds, I calm down. 
I calm way the fuck down. 

If only I could live on that porch, I would. I will be getting a table for myself and I will be spending many, many hours of my time there. That I am looking forward to. 

There are things that absolutely must be dealt with and Mr. Moon is offering to do so much to make the house more to my liking. He is truly, truly trying. There's a room off the back of the house which has been a sort of office and catch-all. 

Dig that brown and beige shag carpet, y'all. 

But Glen's offered to make that into the kitchen so that I won't have to be in the main living area when I cook. That whole open plan kitchen/dining room/living room thing is not for me. I believe I have said this before but I have no desire at all to listen to or see out of my peripheral vision, drag racing, sport fishing, or series with Billy Bob Thorton in them, not to mention basketball games, football games, baseball games, or golf while I am cooking. Nor do I want an audience when I cook. 
But I really, really don't want Glen to have to rip out the entire kitchen to build a new one, PLUS the bedroom and bathroom he's talking about adding on. 
I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. 
The only real problem with the kitchen is the island where the three burner stove is located. The oven is a wall oven. But here's how close the refrigerator's freezer door is to the island when you open it.

Nope. 

Same deal with the refrigerator doors. Olive Oyl would perhaps be comfortable but not me. 

There are tons of cabinets in the kitchen, some with sliding drawers. They are fine. The only problem is...and well, it's not REALLY a problem, but they're all just so fucking brown. Everything is brown. Or beige. Or beige and brown.
And what are my two least favorite colors? Brown and beige.

That's the bar and the bar stools which face the kitchen. Again with the "early American" style bar stools. 
Again, they will do for now, anyway. 

So changes need to happen in the kitchen and also, the carpet has to come up and we have to figure out what to do about flooring. Please do not suggest ideas unless they are totally unique and something I truly may not have considered which eliminates anything having to do with wood, wood laminate, stone, vinyl, tile, and painted concrete. 

Thank you. 

And I keep thinking about the house on Dog Island which had nasty shag carpet the entire time we lived there, a completely inadequate kitchen with linoleum peeling up in sheets, beds that were at least forty years old, only one bathroom whose shower worked, no running water you could drink, sofas and chairs that were past their sell-by date by at least twenty years, and actual clothes in the closet that had belonged to the last owner who was dead. We sometimes wore them. 

And I did fine there. I made great meals and because there was no TV we played cards on the back porch for hours at a time. We watched sunsets and dealt with scorpions and raccoons and storms and there were bad times but there were times that were perfect. Hell, there was even a poltergeist and I am not kidding you. 

So why don't I feel as if I can be happy and content with this house the way I was with that one? 
I don't know. 
For one thing, it's much darker. For another, there is so much less water to look out on. There will be water birds and other wild birds and there will be mullet jumping sometimes and there will be sweet rainstorms to watch from the porch but there will be no dolphins, lazily rolling by with their babies, quite possibly no osprey diving for fish, no sunset.

But we just could not manage Dog Island any more and Mr. Moon feels as if we can far more easily deal with this house. 

Here's some water pictures.

View from the dock.

View from the dock of the dock. 

And there are lots of oakleaf hydrangea growing.

And one more truly beautiful thing. When we pulled into the driveway today, our neighbor from next door walked over with a wrapped loaf of banana bread and a card, welcoming us. She had also put up a sign by the door that said, "Welcome to the lake!" 
But here's the funny thing- she and I could be sisters. Or at least cousins. We have the same white hair, she was wearing overalls (as was I) and her eyebrows looked so much like mine. She is a full time resident there with her father and has been a sort of caretaker for the cabin for quite awhile. I can tell that she is kind and intelligent and caring. And that is good.

Martinis made. Sheets in the dryer, ready to go on the bed.

I will get back to answering comments. I know I have been remiss but there just has not been time. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

First Of May, First Of May

 It's Jessie's birthday. She is thirty-six years old. As I said yesterday, I have no idea how this can be. As I told Billy in a text today, she will always be nineteen to me, dancing around and being happy, breaking hearts and becoming a nurse. Or else, maybe two years old, riding around in a sling on my chest. 
One of those, possibly, but not thirty-six. 
And yet, here she is, beautiful and shining, thirty-six indeed, mother of two of my grandchildren, a real-life nurse, a giggler, a darling girl, and also, my friend. 
How lucky I am. 
I was incredibly humbled and thrilled that that she wanted to spend the day with me. We did indeed decide to go to Wakulla Springs which is one of the very best things in North Florida. I have no idea how many times I've written about the springs and the lodge there, and how they made Tarzan movies and Creature From the Black Lagoon movies there, and the incredible springs that put forth 300 million gallons of water per day from Florida's upper aquifer, and the fact that giant mastodon  bones have been found in the spring's cavern, and every type of Florida wildlife that I know of lives in or around the springs, including the 12 foot alligator that Jessie saw today. 
And so much more. 
It is my favorite place to take visitors to show them what Florida was and still is in very rare places. If you have ever visited me and I have taken you on one of the jungle boat rides at Wakulla Springs, you know I love you. 

There's a lodge at the springs that a very wealthy man named Ed Ball built in 1935 which still stands and still offers accommodations and has a dining room and a smaller place to eat which used to be the old soda fountain. There's a gift shop in that room now too. 

The entire place, lodge, springs, and surrounding unspoiled acres of forest and wetlands are now a state park and I am very proud that my tax dollars go to help fund it. Here are a few pictures I took today.

Old Joe. Alligator in a glass box. Murdered in 1966.

Part of the lodge that faces the springs. Weddings and other events are held here.

The ceiling in the lobby.

Beautiful iron work.

The lobby.

The entrance to the lodge. 

Jessie and I had a lovely lunch of salads, as ladies-who-lunch are wont to do, and she had a most delicious slice of ginger cheesecake with bourbon flavoring. 

I had a bite. So. Damn. Good.

We talked, talked, talked about everything. Jessie is so kind to let me go on about my memories, many of them about her and her brother and sisters when they were young. And when we were through eating, we decided to go take a dip in the springs, that holy fount of cold, pure water, bubbling up from so far beneath the earth. In summer the swimming area gets crazy with kids, yelling and splashing and whooping and hollering and being kids. Today was not crowded at all. A few groups of what looked to be college-aged students, some parents with very young children or babies, a few families on vacation, I presume. 

We went and stood in the water for quite awhile, cooling off, before we did the plunge. Just like the Wacissa. Jess swam over to that dock to the right and you can see her, actually, leaning over and looking at the water. That's where she saw the gigantic alligator who snapped his jaws so loudly that she couldn't believe it. 
Generally, the gators stay out of the roped off swimming area and the only person I've ever heard of who was attacked, made the dire and fatal mistake of ignoring the warnings and swimming down the river. 
He died. 
But no one died today and we drove back to Tallahassee. I, at least, felt so much more relaxed and at peace than I had before we got there. My skin still feels cool. 

Tonight Jessie and Vergil and the boys are going to go to a nice restaurant on the nearby park where the boys can play while their mom and dad take advantage of the peace for a little time together. 

Saturday some of the ladies in our family are going out for pedicures and then all of us who can will meet at a Mexican restaurant because you know us. 

I found an account of Jessie's birth that I wrote SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO on her nineteenth birthday. You can find that HERE. Honestly, I didn't realize I've been blessing hearts that long. Just as I can't believe my children have achieved the number of years they have, I feel much the same about my blog. 
Thanks, Hank.

Mr. Moon will be home in about an hour. I would say that I guess he's ready to see his wife but we cannot discount the possibility he is just so ready to go open the door of his brand new old log cabin. 
Meanwhile, I need to go fix some supper. It's always strange when he comes home at first. There's a transition I have to go through before I feel settled again. We are both aware of this and we joke about it, but it's a real thing. Going from having no one to take care of but myself, to having a very, very tall man in the house who needs and deserves consideration is not nothing. 

But I always do. 

Maurice will be glad to see him too, I am sure, although she will display her unhappiness at the fact that he left by ignoring him for a little while. 
Or maybe not. You never know.

Meanwhile, it is Jessie's birthday. My darling baby girl. That fourth child that I was so sure I did not need. 
And the universe laughed and laughed. 

And oh! One more thing, and you KNOW I had to say this today because I always say this on the first of May. 

First of May, first of May.

Outdoor fucking begins today. 

I could make a rude joke about May poles but I will not. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Lagniappe:

My first real true boyfriend. That man in a loin cloth? 
Well. 

Yes.

Another No Title

I woke up last night to the sound of a cat vomiting. Jack used to vomit a lot. Maurice hardly ever does. But of course it was Maurice who was suffering gastric distress. She's been a very faithful bed companion since Glen's been gone, generally showing up to greet me from the bed when I get out of the shower. She looks at me with those sleepy cat eyes, blinking the way sleepy cat eyes do, and I am grateful for her company. Last night she came up beside my head for a moment, which she rarely does. 
"Kiss?" I asked her. She darted her little head forward and although our lips did not touch, they got pretty close. Three more times I asked for kisses and three more times she responded. Jack used to do that too. Then she settled down near my knees and we went to sleep until, as I said, she started horking something out and I was too sleepy to even try and determine where she was leaving the contents of her stomach and knew it would still be there when I woke up. 
And it was. 
Right on Mr. Moon's side of the bed, luckily on the quilt which I don't even pull down on his side when he's gone. It was still rather dark when I got up but I quickly realized that whatever Maurice had vomited had been killed and eaten not long before it came back up. 
Another obvious case of TOO MUCH NATURE! 
I dealt with it before I even put my glasses on. No need to see that mess clearly. And I threw the quilt in the washer.
And I was just feeling so grateful she hasn't brought me any fresh game since Mr. Moon's been gone, which she generally does. I guess she actually did, she just delivered it in a different manner.
Sigh.

Pottery again today and once again I came away feeling inadequate and unteachable. I did make what is called a "slab" bowl by rolling out clay and fitting it inside an already made bowl, using that as a form. My teacher was a little aghast at the fact that I put nothing in the bowl to prevent the clay from sticking to the form. Of course, I'd gotten this idea and the basic instructions online and neither of the two potters I saw making bowls used anything to prevent sticking and I told Gail this. 
"Yes, but they don't show when the potter ends up tossing the broken mess in the trash!" 
True. They did not.

However, after leaving the bowl in the bowl outside in the sun for awhile, the clay bowl did come out beautifully. I mean, came out of the other bowl, not "came out" as in looking great or anything. 

 Yes, yes, it is very thick but I haven't trimmed the rim of it yet and it's not quite as thick as it looks. I'll do that next week. It will then be fired, but since it's the last class, I'll have to go by and pick it up after the initial bisque fire and bring it home to take back to glaze when I go back to classes. 
This is the plan. 
At least the bowl is relatively round. 

Here are the pottery daughters, working on their things. 

That's our teacher up there behind Lily. She's a hoot. 

After class we of course went to lunch and today, Hank joined us. We ate at the local seafood place and it was good, as always. 
I stopped by Publix on my way home to get the things from my list I'd forgotten on Monday, none of which were emergencies. Things like oatmeal and brown sugar. I saw Tom on my way in. He is still alive, still moving, although agonizingly slowly. Anybody else in this entire world who could afford it would have gotten a motorized wheelchair or at least a walker by now but not our Tom. And we don't even bring it up with him. He does use a cane. We spoke for a few minutes and he was carrying his cloth bags, doing his bit for the environment, even now. You gotta respect that. 

When I got home, there was absolutely nothing I felt motivated to do. I suppose I'm tired. There was no way in hell I was going to go work outside. It was all I could do to take out the compost and pick a few arugula leaves. So all I did was sit here and read things about Trump's first one hundred days in office and I became so quietly enraged and sorrowful that whatever leavening had been in my soul fell flat and nothing that I could think of doing felt as if it had any meaning or purpose at all. 

This is dangerous thinking because if left unchecked, it can lead to feeling as if my entire life has no meaning or purpose and then the self-recrimination builds and blah, blah, blah, wah, wah, wah. 
It ain't good. 

Tomorrow is Jessie's birthday and she and I may do something together although at this point, neither of us has any firm ideas on what that should be. I could tell that she had the blues today and I often feel that way too on my children's birthdays. I think that's because I remember the days they were born so clearly, those experiences absolutely part of my blood and bones, and they were the most intense and joyful days of my life and yet, I grieve for those days long past now. For those perfect babies, our shared long hours of birthing and being born now over, holding them, studying their faces in wonder, watching them studying me. 
Hello there. Here you are. Finally. I have always known you, I think, and now here you are. 
And also- this is love. 

And nothing is ever the same again. 

Tomorrow I will probably retell the story of Jessie's birth which was truly just about the ultimate in what a home birth can be, or, I'll post a link to when I told it before. 

Rainbows and magnolias were involved. 
No. Really. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

Summer Does Not Knock Politely Around Here

Here we have two magnolia blossoms growing on trees across the road from the church next door. They're pretty high up which is why the picture isn't great. Eventually, they will begin putting out blooms lower down which is when I will occasionally snatch one although I always feel incredibly (and uselessly) guilty when I do. The guy whose trees they are lives way back on that lot and I doubt he ever sees them. I couldn't pick the man out of a line-up of two. 

I took a little walk today. I actually got out of the house before noon but it was still already hot as hell. Our spring has passed and summer is rudely pushing its way through the door and all the windows. 
But I wanted to get some more things done outside so I got the walk out of the way and then I hung some laundry and then I took the compost out along with coffee grounds and eggshells. Those I sprinkled around tomatoes in the garden. I was quite shocked to find a few things out there which I had completely missed yesterday. 

Isn't that just the prettiest little bell pepper? 

And the squashes are all having babies at the same time. I am so hoping that this year, with them planted in the growing bags, we won't have such a problem with the squash vine borer but only time will tell. I'm pretty sure that we will get a few, at least. 

Now this next picture is of something I was not surprised to see. 

I have been waiting for it to show up. It's the first open blossom on the rattlesnake beans. 

The potatoes are looking so good that I have the urge to dig around under them to see if we've got any potatoes yet but Glen should have that honor. He's the one who's done all the work on them this year. And the tomatoes really are putting out fruit. Just lovely green globes of shiny little tomatoes. May their promise not be false.

I spent a little time out there amongst the vegetables spreading another bag of oak leaves for mulch. The leaves smell like a sort of tea when they've been baking in the bags they were brought home in and I find that a most pleasant scent. 

And then I had to come in and rest and cool off which I did but I really wanted to go clear some more in that old kitchen bed and eventually I went back out but I just couldn't handle it for more than an hour. I cut back some of the lower branches on the Japanese Magnolia while I was out there. The poor tree needs some serious attention and some of the trimming is going to require a chain saw. I used my loppers on what I could but that wasn't nearly enough. 

Oh! I made a movie! 
About bamboo and how a stalk of it can escape attention until it's big enough to be part of trans-Pacific sailing vessel. 

And that is the Japanese magnolia that it's growing through and above. 

I didn't get nearly as much done in that little kitchen yard as I wanted but when I've done all I can do, I know it and I had. I also discovered that yes, I do have powdery mildew on my phlox, verified by my Plant Snap app and I think I need to pull all of that too which is almost as daunting an idea as the idea of pulling up all the crocosmia. It's growing everywhere and yes, I did plant that and no, I never minded it spreading and was actually happy to see it happen but I did not realize that I was creating a vector for plant disease. Why can't the plants I detest get a fungus? Or a pest? 
Sigh.

Well, anyway. I'm tired but it's a good tired and I'm pressing tofu for my supper. Last night I had salmon and asparagus and it was so damn good. Tonight will be a tofu and asparagus and other-vegetables stir fry. 
Tomorrow is pottery, and on Thursday, my baby is having a birthday. Jessie will be thirty-six and this is unimaginable to me. Somehow, I can be more accepting of the fact that I am swiftly aging into my dotage than it is to believe that my children are not, well, children any more. Even though I know they are not. And I love them as adults. 
Still, our babies will always be our babies, I guess, and that is the way of it. 

Here's a picture of a handsome man who says he loves me. 

I should probably say a handsome, happy man. 

I love him too. 

Stay hydrated, y'all. Know your limits and respect them. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Small Things And Large, All Important

So this morning while I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth and girding my loins for another day of life on the planet, I missed a call from the urologist concerning my CT scan. He left me a voicemail though. 

Was this transcription useful or not useful? 
Well, that's a good question. I am so mad I missed the call because he did not mention the large stone that the last scan showed and I would like to see what that's doing. Also? Small stones in BOTH kidneys? 
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. 

I knew that was a possibility but hellfire. 
So yes, I suppose I just wait for one of those small stones to make it's way to the nearest tube and try to go through it, whereupon AGONY will be the first symptom, at which time I will make my way to a facility where they serve morphine to kidney stone passers and Dr. Vera will be notified. 

I could call the doctor back and might do that but the message seems pretty clear and besides that, as most of you know, getting to speak to the actual doctor is like getting to speak to god which, theoretically is possible but in reality is difficult as you have to go through many, many steps and hurdles to get to Himself. 

Ay-yi-yi.

Moving on, here's a very nice thing that happened today. 

Hank's new best old friend came home to him. 
Here's how he explained it on Facebook.

"When I was a kid, I had a bear named Archie. He was my buddy and I slept with him well into adulthood. In my 20s, I lost him while escaping a very bad situation.

My Mama just got me my bear again. He's not my exact Archie (mine had to have his tongue replaced after a toddler biting incident) but he's my Archie now. Thank you, Mama!"

Did I already write about this? If so, there's the picture. If not...there's the picture. Archie arrived at the Lloyd PO this morning and since I was already planning a trip to town I took him with me and delivered him to his new best old friend. This makes me so happy. 
In a text after I'd handed over custody, Hank said, "It's so funny. I missed him."

Zippy and I understand. 

I swear- eBay should start using the slogan, "Reuniting childhood friends since 1995."

I did other things in town today too but nothing interesting enough to talk about. Well, except for the fact that I forgot to take my list which was so distressing. I was going to just buy one of everything in Publix but decided against that. I ended up getting the things I needed most and Lord knows I'll be back at Publix again soon.

It is just sad when you absolutely have to make a list to grocery shop because you can't remember shit and then you forget to take the list to the grocery store because you can't remember shit. 

Sigh.

But I did remember to get tofu and salmon so all is well. 

Haven't talked to Mr. Moon today except via text. I hope that means he's having fun. I bet it does. 

Meanwhile, Maurice and I are holding down the fort just fine. She and I are good. 

We send our best. We're both on the back porch, enjoying a rare late afternoon breeze, looking up to see what's going on when it rattles the magnolia leaves which are falling daily as new leaves push them off the branches. Undressing, dressing, the magnolia tree is getting ready for its the huge, waxy, lemon-scented blossoms which are like corsages on the deep green gown the grandiflora wears this time of year, every year. 

And she is always the belle of the ball. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Duck Decoys, Deer Heads, John Lennon, And Clothespin Bags. What Do These Things Have In Common?

I promised yesterday to try and do something interesting today. That picture may be a clue to you that I did not. However, Maurice has recently started lounging like that, holding her own paw, as it were, and although I think it's darling, I also find it a little bizarre. Do all cats do this? Is she so hungry for affection that she holds her own hand? If so, why won't she let us love on her a little without stabbing us with tooth or claw? 

I'm not even going to try and pretend anything with any element of excitement happened in my immediate vicinity today. Nor did I go out and create any. I just stayed here and did regular boring stuff and it felt like a very nice day. Mr. Moon and I made each other laugh when he called this morning. First off, I said to him, "Do you know where the loppers are?"
And he answered, "I seem to remember seeing them on the porch."

So I looked straight ahead of me at the end of the porch I face when I'm on my laptop and was staring right at them. And I'd put them there, too. 
So we two old people just laughed and laughed. Because that's how it goes these days in our old people lives. 
Then we got to talking about the log cabin (every time I say "log cabin" I think of Lincoln Logs so it's okay if you do too) and I suggested something I thought of the other day which was that he could move some of his many collectible (to him and him only) treasures he has squished into the shelves on either side of the fireplace in the Glen Den to the shelves in the loft over at the fish camp. These are things like beer glasses he got when he was playing ball overseas and antique fishing lures and all kinds of stuff that I never, ever clean because it's HIS stuff and I'm not messing with that sort of fussy, dusty stuff. 
I fear I may be destroying my reputation as the best wife in the world here. Oh well. I have other attributes. 
So he agreed that it might be a good idea to take some of those things over there and then he said, "What I'm really interested in right now is duck decoys." 
And I started laughing. At first I didn't want him to know how hysterical I found the idea of him collecting duck decoys and displaying them in his own personal log cabin was so I tried to hide it but then the idea of that whole situation overcame me and I couldn't hide my laughter any more and I said, "Honey. Just how much do you NOT want me to come stay there with you?" And he started laughing too.

How in the world did the two of us ever, ever get together, much less stay married for forty years and if not always in utter and complete bliss, at least in a kind and loving and often romantic way? 
I do not know, I do not know. I don't know shit. 

Yet here we are. 

Good Lord. I haven't even talked about my yard work yet! 
I had to wait until it was over 90 degrees to get out there and work because that is the shortest way for me to satisfy my need to suffer. I mean, if I did yard work when it was cool, it would mostly just be a joy and that's not suffering. 
I can't believe I wasn't raised Catholic. 
So if sweating does rid the body of toxins, I have a very, very pure body right now. 
By the way, it doesn't. 
I found bamboo. I kicked bamboo, I dug bamboo, I lopped bamboo. 
I found a culm that was too big around for me to do anything with so it remains where it is, shooting up to the sky as if it wanted to poke it in the eye. 
And when I'd done that and hauled a bunch of bamboo to Burn Pile #2, not to be confused with Burn Pile #1, I started doing a little clearing of the old kitchen garden area which is so bad I am too ashamed to even take a picture of it to show you. There is every type of invasive plant in there that we have in this yard with the possible exception of crocosmia and why that hasn't happened yet, I do not know. There is also a whole bunch of phlox that I planted but it all looks funky right now, probably with something like powdery mildew although I've looked that up and it doesn't seem to be an exact match for what's going on. The (literally) stinking Glory Bower is celebrating its obvious victory over me and my puny attempts to eradicate it. Virginia Creeper is much in evidence along with dewberries and other plants that I have no idea as to identity and don't care. I really should have Glen help me just clear that area and make a lovely little herb and flower bed there. 
Dang, I need some goats. 
And when I had worked some on that and had soaked through my underwear, shirt, and hat, I lopped off all the yellow fronds of a sago palm by the camellia bed and swore a silent promise to that bed to get in there soon and clear some things out and trim some things up. 

So that's been my big day. 
Oh. Here's something. 

One of the aloe vera is in bloom and if you can make out the blurry stuff going on behind that bloom, you might see about a hundred more aloe vera along with some dewberry vines. 
One day I am going to dig that whole area up and I will probably need a medic to stitch me up when I'm done. Both the aloe vera and the dewberry have vicious, vicious thorns, the aloe vera especially. Its edges are as sharp and serrated as a shark's teeth while my skin is as thin and easily pierced as tissue paper. 

Since I have so few pictures today, I took some of the art on the east side of my laundry room. I have posted many pictures of the other end of the room. It has plants and wood and fabric fish and a beautiful picture that Lily made me and a beautiful girl in a shell that Linda Sue made me and all of that is on or over the folding table. 
However, a new display has been developing over the washing machine and it brings me much joy. 

The whole thing started when Linda Sue sent me that darling little clothespin bag made to look like a child's outfit. 

I hung it where you now see John Lennon which my darling friends Beth and John got me in NYC. 

I am definitely not a matchy-matchy person when it comes to colors in my decor. (Haha!) However, the shades of blue and red in both of those things were too good not to show in proximity to each other. And then I remembered the apron.

Well. That certainly had to go in there somewhere. 
And finally, the hand stitched hankies or whatever they are that Liz Sparks gave me long ago absolutely had to be included.

Please enlarge them and look at what incredible folk art they are. Of course I had to frame them. And again- all the right colors. 

This little corner gives me so much pleasure every day because as you can imagine, I not only spend a lot of time IN the laundry room, I also walk through it many, many times a day. To get to our bedroom and my bathroom from the kitchen or dining room or Glen Den or library, you have to pass through it. 

Honestly, I probably should not be laughing at Mr. Moon for wanting to collect duck decoys to decorate his new house with. We love what we love. 

Ms. Moon

Sometimes You're Just Tired

The confederate jasmine is having its way with our olfactory receptors right now. I wonder if there's a new, more PC (or dare I say...woke?) name for this plant, which, when it flowers is nothing less than an assault on our noses. The blossoms have a deeply sweet and somehow pungent scent that travels for yards and yards, especially when the sun is warming them. They are lovely little white pinwheels, interesting in design. 

But they can become overwhelming, both in scent and in their growth. And yes, they are one more plant which grows completely out of control here if not pruned regularly. The vine can pull over chain link fences. 

Mr. Moon kissed me goodbye this morning sometime before six. I know he was excited to get on the road and head on up to Nashville which is where he grew up. I told him what I always tell him when he goes on these trips- "Be safe, be careful, come home to me, I love you."

That says it all. 
And then I add, "Let me know when you get there." And off he goes into the inky darkness, his cookies and roasted peanuts by his side, his thermos of coffee, hot and sugared in the cup holder. 
And I fall back asleep. 
I slept so hard this morning that I didn't wake up until 10:00. I have no idea how that happened. Maurice was right there with me, looking mildly annoyed when I got up and flung the covers back as if I could regain some of today's time that I'd spent dreaming away. And boy, did I have a dream! Sometimes I'm almost proud of my brain for coming up with the epic stories it spins while I'm asleep. This one had almost all the cliches of my life I generally dream about except that for once, I was not responsible for a child or a pet or any other being. Instead, I was the one seeking help. I was at FSU, where I did attend nursing school, and I was supposed to be taking classes with my old friends with whom I truly had been very close to but in this dream I decided that really, I was too old to start anything new and so I tried to leave campus but I could not find my way out. I somehow got myself into buildings whose hallways and stairs and rooms went on forever and I could not find the exits to the outside. There were so many characters in this dream who tried to help me. This was a completely different element in my dream world. But no one really seemed to be able to help and when I did finally get outside, I couldn't find where I'd parked my car and no one could help me there either, although many tried. And of course I lost my purse which had my phone in it. 
It is possible that the shooting which happened there week before last influenced this dream. I do not deny that possibility. 

When I finally woke up I was so grateful. Usually when I have dreams like this, I realize I'm dreaming and that fact incorporates into the dream and it helps but in this case, I had no clue that I wasn't actually living the experience so I was also exhausted and bewildered. I found that I'd missed a call from Glen who likes to call and check on me when he knows I'll be up although of course I wasn't up this morning. He ended up texting Jessie so she was worried too and I'm surprised they didn't arrange a wellness check on me. 

Good Lord! 

And I did absolutely nothing for most of the day except feed myself and Maurice and turn the water on in the garden. I read some of a New Yorker and watched far too many reels on FaceBook and read all the blogs I read and commented on those. I did a crossword online. I think perhaps I was just detoxing from from the past week. There has been some unusual stress and strain and busy-ness too. Later on in the afternoon, I decided to check off one of the things I wanted to do while Glen was gone and I did. I cleaned my bathroom and his and dusted the furniture in the bedroom and swept those three rooms, even taking up the big rug in my bathroom and washing it. Did I mop? Come on. I am not insane. 
I really hate housecleaning. The only joy I get from it is the satisfaction I feel when it's done. 

And now I don't have to think about any of that for a little while. 

When I was shaking out rugs I saw this in the front yard.

Do you see it? No one has kicked bamboo since the kids did it last Sunday and it's not done with its annual attempt to take over the world. I kicked that one over and a few others but I really need to do a real search and destroy tomorrow. 

When I went out to turn the sprinklers off in the garden, I could not help but do a little walk-around. Ask anyone who loves to do a vegetable garden and they will tell you that there is a real satisfaction in taking at least one daily stroll around it to see what is coming along, changing, blooming, growing. I am proud of the arugula I planted a few weeks ago. It's ready for me to start using bits of in salad. 

The bare spot is where fire ants came to live after I planted. Those fucking fuckers. They've moved on now, probably to the okra. While weeding yesterday I came across quite a few. And they are called fire ants for a reason.

Glen has made it to Nashville and I believe he is a very happy guy. I'm glad he has these friends. It says a lot when someone can sustain relationships for half a century or more. 

I'll try to do something interesting tomorrow. 

Love...Ms. Moon