Poop, Kissing, And Marriage Advice

This is what I see from my back porch.
Doesn't suck, does it?

No. It does not.

Just a slow regular day here in Lloyd. Got sheets in the washing machine and the chickens are out pecking around. I need to clean out the hen house. I'll tell you one thing I know: nine chickens poop a lot more than four chickens do.
Which is fine. I use their poop in the garden.

Speaking of poop, Lily just called to tell me that Owen pooped on the potty today all by himself. She and Jason were lazing around and Owen came in and demanded a lolly-pop and they said, "No," but then they discovered that he'd pooped and that's his reward so did he poop on the potty and then remember that he was qualified to get a lolly-pop or did he want a lolly-pop and so pooped on the potty in order to get one?

Who knows? Not me.

I hope he got a lolly-pop though.

It's my anniversary and I am discussing poop. Well, that's the way it goes. I remember the day we got married, Mr. Moon and I. It was a day as beautiful as this one. I wore dotted swiss, he wore a tux and brand new Nikes. I think they were Nikes.

We kissed before the notary said we could.

Then we kissed again when she gave us permission.

Been a whole lot of kissing going on ever since.

Life is all about kissing and poop, too. Funny how they don't really mention poop in the wedding ceremony. They probably should.
There's a lot they don't mention in the ceremony that they probably should but it would last too long and you'd never get to the kissing part.

Well. Here we are. I'm going to go out into this beautiful day and hang the sheets on the line, take a walk, start some venison in the crock pot, go to town and maybe find a little something to give to my husband of twenty-seven years.

Twenty-seven years.

I wish I had some advice on how to make a marriage last but I really don't. I guess if I did it would be something like treat the other person the way you want to be treated, pride doesn't have much place in a marriage and ego doesn't either. Also, remember that there's going to be some poop and don't forget to kiss.

Love...Ms. Moon

Your Usual Sunday Ramble From The Church Of The Batshit Crazy

Do you see that tiny frog in froggy jail? He's not really incarcerated. He's hiding under the dish drainer. If I were you I would click on that picture because he's such a cute frog.

Actually, he's not there any more. Mr. Moon came and removed him for me and put him outside where he belongs. I do love my tiny frogs but I do not want to touch them.
This is one of my many phobias.
I was at the tail-end of making breakfast when I discovered the little guy. Or girl. Who knows? Anyway, Mr. Moon rescued him and then we sat down and had apple/banana/pecan pancakes with maple syrup and yes, bacon.
Oh, it was a fine breakfast.
I talk about food a lot, don't I?
Food and weather. Every human on earth is affected by these two topics. You betcha!

Now I'd like to talk about gay marriage. So New York has legalized it and boy-oh-boy, better late than never. Here's what I am wondering- why hasn't the Supreme Court taken up the issue of the fact that if you are straight and get married in New York, you are still married by law and by god in Florida. Done. You don't have to apply for reciprocity to make your union legal in Florida just because you got that license in New York.
So how come if you're gay and you get legally wed in New York but you move to Florida, you ain't married?
Don't even give me that shit about this being a state issue. It's not for us breeders. Just for those gay people who should be delighted and happy and thrilled that they were given the right to marry in the first place and let's keep them all in the crazy places that have legalized gay marriage such as New York and oh, yes, Iowa, that known bastion of insane liberals and the gay lifestyle.

I mean, come on people! Don't believe in gay marriage? Don't marry someone of your same sex. Simple, easy, get on with your damn life.

I know it's going to take these small steps to get people to come around to the fact that homosexuals have the same rights as heterosexuals and I suppose we should celebrate the small steps but it's just absurd to me that you would have to say, "Yes, we are married in Iowa but not here." I'm still shaking my head in disbelief at the Prop 8 thing in California where people were swayed by the Mormons (Mormons!) to vote against such a basic human right.
California is NOT Florida or Alabama or Louisiana. It is California!
And Mormons didn't quit believing that in order to get to heaven if you were a man you had to have at least three wives (or something like that) until 1890, which, yes, was a long time ago but not THAT long. I won't even go into some of the other things that Mormons still believe because when you get right down to it, they're no more ridiculous than a lot of the things that other more-familiar-to-most-of-us religions believe such as the virgin birth and eating a wafer and having it turn into flesh in your body and drinking wine and having it turn into blood. Cannibalism, pure and simple and it's one of the basic tenets of a lot of religions no matter how you look at it and it's going on right now as we speak in about a hundred churches in this tiny county of rural Florida alone.

How did I get from a frog to religion?

I am not sure but I think that pancakes were involved.

Well, let me just say that food and the weather are not the only things which affect all of us. So is love and the ability to express it as we see fit if it is between consenting adults and marriage is basically a public announcement and pledge of that love and a lot of people want to get married because they want to start a family, both gay and straight, and a lot do not, both gay and straight, and some people are attracted to members of the opposite sex in the sexual and loving sense and some people are attracted to members of the same sex in the sexual and loving sense and there are more complicated situations too but hell- we're still working on the basic two attractions here in the United States of America where it would seem that we're not really that united at all so let's not even try to muddy the waters with those other complications because we're a simple people and can't begin to wrap our minds around anything which is more difficult than one plus one equals two or maybe sometimes three or four or, if you're a Dugger, about a thousand.

Okay, it's Sunday. Let's try to mind our own business and make it legal for everyone else to do the same. My marriage is my marriage and it's complicated enough. Yours probably is too if you have one. I happen to think I have a good marriage and when I get annoyed or he gets annoyed we always remember that at the base of all of this there is love and dammit, that has nothing to do with the fact that he's a man and I'm a woman. It just is.
And I feel comfortable enough in my relationship to not feel threatened if the guys down the street get married and I wish they could because I've never seen a couple of any sexual inclinations who love and support and take care of each other so tenderly and they inspire me in my marriage and my relationships with others and by god, they should be allowed to have a wedding and have it be legal!

Frogs should be free to roam and eat flies and people should be free to marry whomever their hearts desire (if they are consenting adults!) and if pancakes are occasionally involved than so much the better although scrambled eggs and toast are good too.

Happy Sunday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

This Friday

I sit and drink my yogurt/fruit/flax/prunes smoothie. I am sweating. I took a walk. I thought I might puke before it was done- I was that hot. I have taken the trash to the trash place. I am washing sheets, towels, rugs, clothes. I have my dogs locked out of the house because I cannot deal with them any more or their shit or their pee.

No. I am not a good dog mother, not at all.

The phone rings. It's Lis and we talk and giggle and chat and I glance out the front door to see a flock of vultures descend upon my front yard. There's a dead armadillo out there, stinking up the neighborhood and now THIS!
Can I just say that it's disconcerting for a flock of vultures to descend in your yard? Well. It is.
After I get off the phone with Lis I go outside with my camera because of course that's what I do. All of the giant black birds take off and I did not know this but when they flap those heavy wings of theirs they make a sound like the gates of hell opening and they do not sing, vultures. No, they grunt like pigs. When one flew over me, I actually made a little scream sound and ducked.
But I did get a picture of one brave black bird standing by the deceased.


Poor armadillo. Lucky bird.
Because I am here to tell you that I am NOT going to go out there with a shovel and a bag to get rid of that animal. THAT IS NOT MY JOB!
I can clean poopy diapers 'til the cows come home. I handle most of the trash around here and I can muck out a chicken coop without blinking an eye. I clean toilets with no problem and wonder why people wear gloves when they do it. I can kill and dispose of roaches. Even the ones so big you have to repeatedly hit them with sledge hammers to crack them into death.
Yesterday I sat and watched in fascinated awe as my massive banana spider sucked the living juices out of a beetle bigger than a strawberry with her mouth at one end as her man mated her at the other. This did not disgust me in the least.

But I will not and can not go scoop up a dead armadillo.

And so, I guess I'll just have to put up with vultures in my front yard, won't I?

Well, that's life and Mr. Moon is just going to have to deal with this when he gets home.

And that's me on a Friday in August of 2010. Owen was here until eleven last night and he gave both me and Mr. Moon more hugs and kisses than you can imagine. His Pop-Pop took care of him while I went to a rehearsal and then we fed him his supper. Well, he shared ours. He ate okra, cooked carrots, broccoli, and field peas and rice. With GUSTO! Then Pop-Pop got in the bath with him and they played duckies and I came in to wash the boy up and tuck him into his towel and dress him in his jammies and then Mr. Moon and I sat in the living room and fell into semi-comas as the boy ran around the room laughing hysterically and playing peek-a-boo behind the curtains.
And he'll be back in an hour.
And I need to do more laundry and take a shower and feed the chickens and try to get something going for dinner and hell, I don't know what all.

But I AM NOT DOING ANYTHING ABOUT THAT ARMADILLO! As god is my witness, I am not.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. I am so fucking proud of that judge in California that I could cry. FREEDOM FOR ALL, DAMMIT! FREEDOM FOR ALL!

Another Reason He's The Boss

Check it out.

I'm Sad. And Pissed.

Maine did not vote to allow gay marriage.

Why are we people so damn crazy about this issue?

I've written many words about what I think and if you have the slightest need to read any of them, just do a blog search with the words "gay rights" and/or "gay marriage in them."

Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here fuming, tapping my fingers and waiting for us, as a nation, to grow up and quit hiding behind fear and religion to rationalize the rights of every citizen to be legally married to the person they love.

Miracles and Madness

Done wallerin'. Yep. I think I am. For now, at least. I could keep on with it, believe me. But I'm CHOOSING not to. Some days you can do this. Some days, as Lopo pointed out, you just can't.

It rained here and when I mean rain, I mean it poured and continued to pour for over sixteen hours. I think this is the most rain we've had in the least amount of time since the last hurricane. My "rain gauge" is my Rubbermaid wheelbarrow and I can't remember the last time the entire bottom was covered in water after a rain. This morning, the whole damn thing was filled up and had overflowed!

Folks, this is huge. There's water in the creek and water in the ponds and water in the ground and I'm can almost hear the oak trees sucking it up through the roots.

And we're supposed to get even more rain tonight.

Bring it on!

Now I'd like to discuss, just the teensiest bit, some of the ways religion has been intersecting with our lives here in America and specifically Tallahassee. Yes, I have been reading that "atheist" book, god Is Not Great but I'm not talking about proof of God or proof of not-god or anything like that. I just want to mention that there was a display at FSU a few days ago which compared abortion to genocide with pictures of fetuses as well as pictures from real, honest-to-God genocide and although I could talk about this for days, Kati Shardl did a real good job of it in yesterday's Democrat and that column can be read here.

I remember when abortion in this country was illegal and I remember the battle that it took to give women the right to make their own decisions about their own bodies and every time something like this happens or another pro-life, Christian Values judge gets appointed to the Supreme Court, my blood runs cold because this slippery slope is steep and getting slipperier.

When these anti-abortion people start showing real concern about fetuses that have graduated to the point of being actual humans who need things like food, shelter, health care, education, and a loving family in a supportive community, I'll start giving their cause more credence. Until then, please shut the fuck up.

On another issue, we here in Florida will be able to vote on November 4th on whether or not to make it a part of our constitution that marriage will be defined as being a union between one man and one woman. I wrote about this when they were still collecting signatures on petitions to get this on the ballot and I predicted then they'd get enough signatures and yes, they did. So. It will soon be possible to ensure that all our now-human-being fetuses are raised in happy little man-woman households where all children should be raised because that's worked out so well for society. I don't understand why it is, but these same people seem to be the biggest anti-abortion folks too when you'd think that they'd allow women who are not in secure and happy little man-woman marriages to abort their unborn children seeing as how they are not going to be raised properly, but I guess what they'd really like is for any sort of sexual behavior to be limited to the lucky people in those man-woman LEGAL marriages and that every one else should abstain and then there would be no unwanted pregnancies.

God would like that and so would they. And to prove this, they don't like the idea of anyone using contraceptives, either.

Why God would give people the desire to have sex when they didn't want that sex to result in babies (or even, God forbid) that sex was between two people of the same sex making it impossible to result in babies is something not addressed in the Bible as far as I know, but we do know that God doesn't like it, even though He did somehow screw up and let it happen. I suppose this is where Satan comes in.

I'm just sick and tired of people who believe in a God I don't being given the power to tell others what to do with their lives, their bodies, and their families and defining for all of us what love is, what families are, and who should and should not be having sex.

Thank-you for listening.

Now let's all quit wallowing, be grateful for the miracle of the rain, and get out and vote.

Dearly Beloved

Have you gotten your computerized call asking if you'd like to sign a petition to get a state constitutional amendment declaring that marriage is something that can only be entered into between a man and a woman in order to protect the sanctity of marriage?

I have.

Scary shit there.

I've never understood why a marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman threatens my own marriage. I mean, no matter how hard I try, I just can't see any correlation between gay marriage and the downfall of straight marriage. I guess that if two married gay guys moved in next door and they looked like they were having so much fun that my husband decided to divorce me and find a man of his own, it might threaten me, but I don't think it would really be the fault of the guys next door.

Frankly, it would seem to me that straight people are doing a fine job of screwing up the sacred sacrament of marriage all on their own.


Another one of the arguments these nimrods use against gay marriage is that God created marriage between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation. But we all know plenty of straight couples who enter into marriage with no intention whatsoever of having children. Are we going to tell that darling 84-year old gent and his 80-year old sweetheart who met in the nursing home that they can't be married because they can't have children? What about the couple who just knows in their hearts that they don't want kids? On the other hand, there are plenty of gay couples who desperately want children and who will (and do) make terrific parents, no matter how the babies come their way. So that argument surely doesn't work for me.

Another reason cited frequently for denying gay marriage is that if we let gay people marry each other, then the next thing you know, polygamy will be legal and then, oh, I don't know, so will marrying sheep or your cousin or your brother or something on that order. One thing will lead to another, as we know.

Which all sounds a bit daunting, at first thought, but then the more I think about it, the less I care who marries whom. Frankly, if all parties are consenting adults (and I do mean consenting and I DO mean adults) then why should I care? If some lucky guy can find eight women who want to marry him and he can be an adequate husband and father to the women and all the children he produces, who am I to stand in his way?
And although it sounds...icky...and on a really deep emotional level...wrong, if a brother and a sister want to be married, and if they get genetic counseling before they breed, again- why should I care?

Now as to the sheep thing- I don't think a sheep can be consenting nor can a German Shepherd or a chimpanzee, no matter how intelligent. So forget the whole animal thing.

Really.

So yeah, if legalizing gay marriage leads to other alternative types of marriage, I guess I don't really care. Again, I don't think it's going to affect my own marriage.
I've had people ask me to officiate at weddings and I have always been honored to do so. I have married maybe a dozen couples, some straight and therefore legally, some gay and therefore illegally, but my criteria has always been more about love than the law. I respect anyone who chooses to get up in front of friends and family and vow to make a life together out of love. It's such a universally human desire to be married and I think it's a human right. I don't know if I'd perform a marriage for a man and his sister or a woman and two men, but maybe, if I knew the folks and they seemed sincerely in love and sincerely dedicated to each other, I might.

Yeah, I'm weird.

But God's honest truth is, is that my marriage is not like yours, even if you are a woman married to a man. Every marriage is as different as the people in it and every couple (or whatever) finds their own way to share their hearts and their lives together. How your marriage works is none of my business and how mine works is none of yours. That marriage works at all is a miracle and I don't think the gender of the participants is a huge factor.

So, no, I don't care to sign that petition. But thanks for asking.