Ain't Nothing Wrong With That

Let me tell you something:
Sometimes, even if you have a beautiful home you love and there are no children about, you just have to get away with your lover.
Paul Simon said that there are fifty ways to leave your lover but I am saying there is one good way to leave WITH your lover and that is to pack your clothes and perfume, put on your jewelry and paint your eyes in mermaid colors and get in the car with him (or her) and go somewhere where you are not especially known where there will be a room with a bed for you to lay down in together and maybe a porch or two to sit on in the tree tops if your room is a second floor room and where there will be rain, perhaps, that you can smell as it comes down the coast, racing for you on that porch and maybe a nice bar tender who will make you a bloody mary so that you can sit and sip it while the rain comes racing in and then you can go back to your room and hold each other tightly and that is a good way to leave with your lover and I can hear the wind right now in the tree tops and the doves cooing out what sounds like Morse Code saying, "I love you, I love you, I love you."

An Excellent 24 Hours

We went and now we're back and I'm so glad I finally got my head out of my ass and let myself have what is commonly known as a good time.

From the moment I really made up my mind to go, it began to be fun. To the point where Mr. Moon said as we were getting ready, "Hello! Nice to see you again!"
Ahem.

The drive down to the coast is always a lovely thing. You go through woods and by the water and sometimes you see deer or even bear or wild boar. And of course raccoons and possums but they're usually lying very still. In the road. Where they are dead.
Cars and small animals do not mix well.

We stopped in Lanark where we bought an entire package of Cheese-It's. The orange AND yellow ones.

This is what it looks like behind the place we stopped, looking out across the bay to Dog Island. When we put the boat in to go to the island, this is where we do it. They not only sell Cheese-Its. They sell gas and beer and milk and ketchup and other stuff and have a boat ramp too.

I read some of a Larry McMurtry book out loud to Mr. Moon. It's a very old book, but one of my favorites. All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers. My copy is so old that the cover is soft and the pages are brittle. It contains one of my favorite lines in all of literature which is this: "If you're too drunk to walk you can borrow my car," she said.
I may have told you this before and I should probably not even tell you that ONE time, much less twice but the fact of the matter is that I find the line hysterical. And disclaimer: I WOULD NEVER, EVER SAY THIS IN REAL LIFE NOR DO I APPROVE OF ITS MESSAGE BUT FUCK THAT, IT'S FUNNY!
(I think I may have just channeled Ms. Bastard-Beloved.)

Mr. Moon had booked us a room at the Gibson in Apalachicola.

When we checked in, they told us there was a drink on the house for us when we were ready. What?
I asked Mr. Moon if he had told them some sort of story about us celebrating something. He claims he didn't but I'm not convinced. But what the hell? I will never look a gift drink in the mouth.

They gave us room 304 and I know we've stayed in that room before. More than once. It's a nice room. Here's a hallway at the Gibson.

The place started out back in the olden days when the rooms did not all have their own bathrooms so when they redid it in the eighties, they had to artfully rearrange things and the hallways wander around and exit doors end up on porches and you can sometimes get a little lost.
Oh. Maybe that's just me.

Here's a picture of Mr. Moon and me in another hallway.


God, that's a goofy picture. I look like Mrs. Dorkie D. McDork.
I sort of am but I really hate visual proof.

We went down to the bar and got our perfect on-the-house martinis.
I love the bar.

Now that is what a bar should look like if you ask me.

Here's the lobby where supposedly you can get wireless.

Haha! Supposedly you can get wireless in the rooms too.
Well, who cares about wireless when you've got all this charm? What I love about the Gibson is that they don't even seem to be disturbed when the wireless isn't working. "Oh, maybe it has something to do with the weather," they say, looking at their fingernails.
And maybe it does.

Well, so, we had oysters and we had dinner and we walked around some and it was all so lovely.

Here's Mr. Moon in the middle of a main road where a few minutes later we saw a bald eagle swoop and fly. I'm not even kidding you. Living in Apalachicola really wouldn't be that bad. Bookstore, library, restaurants, pretty bars, water all over the place, bald eagles downtown...
All within walking distance. And two parks on either side of where our house will be. With a dock. Which Mr. Moon can net fish right off of. And shrimp, maybe. And set out crab traps. And have his boat right nearby.
And the sky looks like this at sunset.

Not a bad place. Not a bad place at all.

Oh yes. It was very good and very loving and very sweet and we had a huge breakfast and there was bacon and a biscuit bigger than Zeke's head, and we sat by the river and the waitress who was old enough to be our daughter, maybe, kept saying things like, "More coffee, loves?" and she had tattoos and we never ran out of coffee or grape jelly either one and we left the Gibson in an excellent mood, renewed in spirit and in hearts and then we drove by our lot and it's right there, just waiting for us and so is the Gibson, so is all of it, right down the road and we came home and bought shrimp on the way to eat here in Lloyd and my favorite- cocktail crab claws, too- and it's raining, sort of, drip, drip, drizzle and the chickens are all still here and the dogs, too, of course, and sometimes, SOMETIMES, you just have to pack a bag and get in the car and go away with the one you love and come home loving him even more.