The Color of Clouds

This doesn't even look real, does it?
Another Dog Island sunset. That was last night's, by the way. Mr. Moon and I took a walk right before sunset and we got caught in the rain. Although that sounds about as romantic as it gets, it really wasn't. The wind was blowing so hard that the drops of rain were being driven into us like small projectiles but it wasn't a very heavy rain and we got back inside before we were soaked, not that being soaked is a real problem at the end of July in North Florida.
And by the time we'd made a drink and changed out of our damp clothes, it had almost stopped raining entirely, just a few gentle drops splashing into the tidal pools as the sun was setting.
That's the thing about an island- the weather comes and the weather goes.
The emotional weather in me came and went but I realize I've got to get some help and so I will.
It's so strange. Ever since I've started this blog, I've loved writing in it with all my heart.
And right now, I barely can.
Enough evidence right there to get me to do something.
And I will.
Not that the world needs Bless Our Hearts.
But Ms. Moon does.
I'm home.

Sunset At Low Tide

Day Into Night, Night Into Day

It seems entirely unfair to have developed a new mental illness at this age, and yet, it would seem to me that this is what I have done.
The anxiety that started cropping up in the past few months seems to have found a home in my soul and for the past few days, has been constant.
I can tell you this- you won't die of it.
But as far as I can tell, that's the only good news.
I'm still on the island and Mr. Moon is with me, and bless him, bless him, bless him.
Not sure how long we'll be staying. Not sure of anything right now.
But I have faith that time will pass and one way or another, things will seem lighter, anxiety will slip away from time to time and perhaps eventually forget his way back to me.
That's my hope.
Meanwhile, here I am, there you are.
I hope all is well in your hearts.

Drifting

I took this picture this morning on my walk on the Gulf. I really couldn't see what I was taking a picture of because of the light and the way the camera works, but I clicked on faith and this is what came of it. Big piece of driftwood, sand, water, sky.
And that's about it from here today. I don't feel as if I have anything of any importance or depth or originality to report. I'm just sort of hanging. I'm feeling like that piece of driftwood, stuck in the sand, worn away by time and wind, water and sun, not going anywhere.

Flat Water, Not Much Breeze

Do you like that picture? I hope so as it took approximately four hours to upload (or is it download?) because here on Dog Island we don't need no stinkin' wireless.

Well, actually we do need it but I can't see that happening in the near future. Dog Island is like a third world country only without the corner tienda or the availability of cable or el policia.

Oh, you can get the law over here, but it takes awhile. The same is probably true of satellite but we're not here enough to need satellite and hopefully I won't be needing the police, either.
There is crime on the island sometimes and let's not pretend otherwise! I would say that approximately 80% of the people driving on the island could not pass a sobriety test, and if you can reach the gas pedal and see over the steering wheel, you can drive, sober or not. The newsletter we get from the Dog Island board always cautions folks not to let their children drive if they don't know how but they seem to be a lot more het-up about the crime of letting your dog go unleashed.

Speaking of dogs, I did not bring one. It's sad to think that I have four dogs and yet, not one of them pleases me enough that I'd want to spend a week alone with him or her. I need say no more about that.

The picture you see is one I took in the house here on the island. That's most of the living room, looking through to the kitchen and also the hallway. The only things you can't see are the bedrooms and the bathrooms which are off the hallway. Note the lovely shaggish carpet. I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to put carpet in a beach house but I'd say, judging from the vintageness of the carpet that he or she is dead by now. We plan to eventually replace this carpet but I think that really my husband and our partner in the house are afraid to tear the carpet up because of what they might find underneath it. It's one of those situations where if you really started to work on the house, it would never end until the entire house had been rebuilt from the bottom up and why? It's sort of a shack, albeit a lovely and light-filled shack, and one with air conditioning that works so what the fuck? It is completely adequate to our needs, which is to have a place to stay while on the island, to cook in, to relax in, to sleep in. What more do we need? Well, running water that you could drink would be nice, but there again, we're like a third world country.

It's not quite noon and I have been up for quite awhile and I have taken a good walk on the Gulf where the water was flat and a bit murky. I saw one other human and she was digging for bait. We waved but did not speak. A small plane passed over and waggled his wings, which made me smile. I walked on the bay some, too, and there is not much to report today. I saw some dead fish but that was about it. Even the birds seem to be lazy today. I have heard the osprey, but not seen it. I do, however, have neighbors, which I was not expecting. The house next door, which is almost always empty, is filled with a group of people who are doing a lot of beachy things and also making use of their boat. I can hear them quite clearly and it's a bit disconcerting but not annoying. It will become annoying if they decide to party as the day rolls into evening, which frequently happens at the beach.

I am not sure what I will be doing next. This is a funny thing about coming to the island- one feels as if one should "accomplish" something, if one is me, but really, what is there to accomplish? I suppose I could wash my cereal bowl. It takes a few days to relax into the Zen of it all, to truly realize that the hours of the day may be spent in any way one wishes and it also takes a few days to figure out what exactly it is one wishes. I suppose this is true of any vacation that doesn't involve tour groups and an itinerary. If I had an itinerary it would go something like this:

Get up, drink coffee, check out the water.
Eat breakfast while sitting on the back porch with a book while checking out the water.
Go for a walk beside the water. Check it out.
Come home, drink a lot of water.
Check the e-mail and the blogs I read. This can take awhile with the dial-up connection. While you're waiting for things to download, wander about and check out the water. Also, the sky.
Post a picture and write something.
Eat lunch on the back porch while reading and checking out the water and sky.
Contemplate a nap.
And so on.

I know I need to make some bread today because somehow I forgot to bring the loaf of five-grain sourdough I bought at Publix. This is not a tragedy in that I do love to make bread and
I have plenty of time to do it.

Eventually, it will be time to watch the sunset and have a drink. That is the highpoint of the day.

And so it goes, here on Dog Island. I have had no epiphanies, I have not died of loneliness, and if I feel a bit melancholy, well, I think I would be feeling that way at home, too.
I tend to have a melancholy heart but I know that there is always the possibility for contentment and peace and even happiness and I will be watching out for all of those as I watch the water, as I watch the sky.

Dog Island, Post One

I am here. On the island.
Ten trips up the rickety stairs with Rubbermaid bins and ice chests filled with all the stuff I think I'll need or want for this week by myself and everything put away and a storm passing to the west of me and trying to remember grace and hoping I packed a sense of humor along with the eight books, four magazines, new picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe, salmon, vegetables, chocolate, cake, rum, beer, water, pillows, and extra pair of flip flops.
The tide is rising.
I am hoping for enlightenment, or at least a bit of lightening.
Not too much. Just enough to enlighten the sky, excite my heart, bring on the rain.

Grace

Just because I don't believe in Big Daddy God up in the sky, doesn't mean I don't believe in anything and if I do believe in anything, I think I would have to label it grace.
And I'm not even sure what grace is although I think it has something to do with unexpected gifts that fall to us even when we may not have earned them or asked for them or even known we wanted or needed them.
Blessings that just fall from the sky like the sudden shower of droplets that fell on me from the leaves of the tree I was walking under this morning where they had lain in wait since last night's rain for just that moment, just that breeze, to complete their fall to earth. It was at once an illustration of grace and an actual grace, to see all those shining drops and to look up at the leaves bathed in sunlight, tossing the water off of themselves. It startled me at first, and then it delighted me and I think grace is like that, so unexpected that it's like a tiny miracle and one we have to keep our eyes open to see, our hearts open to feel, our souls open to receive.
I feel like that today. Like my heart is opening a little bit and able to receive grace. I wonder what sort of blessings I would receive if my heart were open all the way, if I did not keep my soul and eyes shut out of fear or ignorance or habit.
It's something to think about.
And it's what I'm thinking about.
I just thought I'd offer that one up and maybe say that I'm grateful, I'm ever so grateful, for any grace that falls on me, in whatever form it takes and I'm going to try and pay attention because it just seems wrong to miss these gifts, in whatever shining form they take.

Because I Have No Xanax

Well, here I am in hour I-don't-even-know of one of the worst anxiety phases of my entire life and it's so bad that I am rethinking my trip to the island. Listen- I can't even bring myself to call the guy to set up the ride for the bay-crossing!
However, I am proceeding as if I were going; I am trying to fake this until I make this and then hope that the magic of an island cures me.
In the meantime, I am going to write out the recipe for angel biscuits because what in the world is as soothing as contemplating biscuits?
These biscuits are fussier than my normal biscuits. However, they are the very best biscuits I have ever personally made or eaten. The recipe was given to me by my husband's Aunt Ann who is a good Christian Southern woman and who died once at church on an Easter morning and was revived and risen and is living to this day in Nashville where I feel certain she is still making these biscuits.
Need I say more?
I don't think so.
Except for this- if there is someone you have set your hat for and they seem not to be sure of their feelings for you, make them these biscuits.
Things will soon be going your way and love will abound.

Angel Biscuits

4 cups self-rising flour
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 Tsp. soda
1 cup Crisco (I like butter flavored)
1 cup self-rising flour (this is not a typo)
2 cups buttermilk
1 pkg. dry yeast dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water

Sift flour, sugar, and soda. Cut in shortening until texture of cornmeal. Mix the 1 cup of flour, 2 cups of milk and yeast in the water in a separate bowl. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well. Place in a greased, covered bowl. Keep in refrigerator for use as needed. You may keep this for up to a week and use only as much at a time as you want.
Roll out the dough on a floured counter to desired thickness and cut biscuits with a glass of desired biscuit-size that has been dipped in flour. If you want layers, roll them fairly thin, sprinkle with a little flour, fold dough over and roll again. This may be repeated several times. Bake on a greased baking sheet at 425 degrees for approximately 20 minutes or until brown and lovely.

Serve with love, butter, and honey. Or, fig preserves. Recipe follows.

Fig Preserves

4 pounds of fresh figs
1 lemon
4 cups of sugar
1 cup of water

Wash figs, slice lemon extremely thin and remove all seeds. Combine sugar, water, and lemon in a large pan and bring to a boil and cook for five minutes. Add figs and cook rapidly until the figs are clear. You will know what I mean.
Seal in clean, hot jars with canning lids and bands. Process in boiling water bath for about ten-fifteen minutes. Remove jars and listen for the "pop" which means they have sealed.
Makes 3 pints.

Ruby Speaks

Seems to me that the hottest new thing in blogging (and I could be years behind- who can keep up with this stuff?) is to have a guest blogger. Or to be a guest blogger. And the status is to be found in who is doing the asking or the guesting.

Like this- the highest of the high would be if Dooce asked you to sit in and do a guest blog for her. I can't even imagine the circumstance where Dooce would sit in and do a guest blog for YOU so let's forget that. It would be like trying to look at God with your own eyes and we all know where that leads.

But Black Hockey Jesus has gone on vacay and he's gotten some BIG NAMES IN BLOGGING (don't click that, it's not a link) to sit in and do guest blogs for him.

He also has a new link on his site where you can just directly go to PayPal and send him money and I really sort of love that idea. Two of my kids went to a high school that had the same idea, sort of, in that they didn't do stupid fund raisers like car washes or candy sales, they just asked the parents to send them fifty dollars a year and be done with it, which is brilliant and it worked and the parents loved it.

But of course, that was a school and they used the money for things like landscaping and computers and trips for kids who couldn't afford them.

I don't know what Black Hockey Jesus is using his money for. Perhaps to pay the BIG NAMES IN BLOGGING to guest blog for him while he's on vacation.

I'm not sure why I'm bringing all of this up except for the fact that some days Ms. Moon just doesn't have a good blog in her and a guest blogger would be nice to have on those days. And then it occurred to me that it would be pretty funny if Ruby could sit in and do a guest blog every now and then because Ruby can say things that Ms. Moon never would.
Let's pretend:

So Ms. Moon asked me to sit in and do a guest blog for her. No, she's not on vacation. Unless you call checking out of reality and checking into Chez Loony Bin is a vacation and perhaps for her it is.
You know that woman. She can find the darkness in a jar of fucking sunshine and angel glitter and she will.
She will.
That's just her way though and Lord knows I love her, even if I don't understand her.
Now me? I'm the sort of woman who can look into the darkest inky night sky and find a cell phone tower, blinking, blinking, blinking, it's little white and red light like a small beacon in the blackness, like a tiny ray of hope in the darkest heart.
"Honey," I tell Ms. Moon when she gets like this, "Quit your bellyaching and put on a bra! Okay? And some lipstick! And let's go have a drink, maybe meet up with a few cute fellas, maybe play the jukebox, have a little dance-"
And then she'll be like, "No, Ruby. I don't even feel like getting out of bed, much less putting on a bra. And I lost my lipstick at the Legion Hall. Go away. Leave me alone."
And I'll sigh and sit on the edge of the bed and rub her sweaty little head and say, "Okay darlin', tell Ruby what's wrong," and she'll start to cry, which is exactly what she needs to do and then she'll suck the tears right back up into her head where they aren't gonna do anybody on this earth one bit of good and are probably going to give her a headache and she won't say a word.
She'll just turn her head so I can't get to the good part to stroke and stare at the wall with those blue watery eyes until I hit on the right thing to say to get her to crying.
"Is it your birthday?" I'll ask her.
"No," she'll say, gray and cold and heavy like a stone would say if a stone could talk.
"Are you missing Sue?" I'll ask her, because I know this is right around Sue's birthday and she sometimes starts in to missing Sue right about now although it's been fourteen years or something since the poor girl died.
"No," Ms. Moon will say. But then I'll probably hear a sniff.
"Are you worried that you're gettin' old and you haven't done a damn thing with your life and you're thinking that maybe your husband only sticks around out of habit and that you've forgotten all your dreams and half the recipes you ever knew and that it's all downhill from here? Are you thinking about the skin on your neck and the way your arms do that flappy thing no matter how many weights you lift? Are you in mourning for your lost youth, your old dead drunk daddy, your joy, your spark, your tits and your ability to go out in public without having an anxiety attack?"
And that'll do it.
Call me cruel but I know the woman and I know she just needs a good cry and so I'll sit there on the bed while she's sobbing her poor, pathetic guts out and after about ten minutes of that, I'll get up and go make me a drink and put on some lipstick and sit on the porch and swing my legs and sip my drink and wait. Eventually, she'll get up and go splash some cold water on her face and make a cup of coffee and come and join me.
"I'm old," she'll say.
"Honey, we're all old. Let's go make some biscuits and put some of those fig preserves on 'em and enjoy this weather."
"It's hot," she'll say. "And I'm having a hot flash."
"Well why in hell are you drinking coffee then? Make you a drink and make me another while you're at it. Get those catalogs off the counter and let's find us something new and pretty to wear."
"Why?" she'll ask and I have to tell you that my patience will be wearing thin.
"Because we're girls and girls like pretty things to wear," I will say.
"I don't go anywhere so I don't need anything pretty," she'll say. "I don't wear the clothes I have."
"Well maybe if you'd put something pretty on now and then someone might ask you to go somewhere," I'll say, pointing out the obvious. "All you ever wear are those ugly-ass man pants that I wouldn't take you to watch a dog fight in."
And then maybe, with any luck, she'll start laughing and we'll have that drink and eventually she'll make some biscuits and we'll eat them with plenty of butter and some fig preserves and I might even get her to put on some lipstick and a bra.

Okay. Stop. Get the fuck off my blog, Ruby. What planet do you live on and what color is the sky there because you're not helping, you're not making any sense and the people who read my blog are not interested in this sort of made-up trash. I am not going to put on lipstick, I am not making biscuits and you know as well as I do that I don't sit on the porch and have a drink on a Tuesday afternoon.

In fact, Ruby, you are never guest blogging for me again and don't even bother coming around unless you've got Maxine with you and y'all have a plan and some good looking men to take us out somewhere pretty-clothes-and-bra-worthy.

In the meantime, I suppose I will just resign myself to writing all my own blogs.

Check here tomorrow. Maybe you'll find a recipe.

And a link to PayPal.

Like Howard, I Am Going To An Island

My birthday approaches. It is one week from today and I have written way too much about the angst my birthday causes me and this is not going to be about that.
I promise.
Because I have a plan in place and that is to quietly slip away without fanfare on Friday and get my almost fifty-four year old ass to Dog Island for a week by myself where I will celebrate my own damn birthday in my own damn way and I have no idea what that means but it might involve skinny-dipping and it might involve sobbing into my pillow and making frantic phone calls to my husband, begging him to come and get me and to PLEASE BRING A CAKE, MY GOD IT'S MY BIRTHDAY AND THERE'S NO CAKE!
I hope not.
I have spent a week on Dog Island by myself before and as I've said, it was glorious except for one night when I had some sort of horrible anxiety attack and felt more alone than I've ever felt in my life and it was just this side of madness. But, I'm sure I'll be fine and I truly, really want to go.
I think. I'm pretty sure.
See- wouldn't you assume that by the time a person reaches the age of fifty-four she'd know her own mind? Especially if she's a self-actualized, inner-searching person who takes her psychic temperature at least fifty times a day?
Yeah. Perhaps that's my problem.
That and the fact that I'll be going over all by myself via hired boat ride, meaning there will be no Mr. Moon to carry my stuff and get the car running if it's somehow quit doing that while sitting up on that sand dune where it lives and he won't be there to fix toilets (and I swear, every time we go out there he has to rebuild a toilet) and he won't be there to make sure the poltergeist doesn't get really evil and try to kill me instead of just moving all my stuff around and turning on random appliances at random times and also, here we are in the middle of hurricane season and WHAT IF A HURRICANE COMES UP SUDDENLY AND NO ONE WARNS ME?
See? I'm crazy.
But I just reread my Howard Sprague post that I wrote on the island last March and that made me feel a lot better.
I may be old but dammit, I CAN haul all my stuff by myself and I will get that car started and there are two toilets and one of them is bound to work and I will have a radio and the internet and I'm going to have a fabulous time.
I'm going to get all my stuff unloaded and put away and it'll be completely peaceful and the water will be beautiful and I'm going to take such good care of myself and write and read and walk and do yoga and if I have an anxiety attack-well, I'll just have one.
And I won't turn into Howard Sprague, either.
I'll just be me, celebrating myself.
Which right this second sounds like heaven because the little room where I write is being painted by my son-in-law with a power sprayer that sounds as if every mosquito in the state of Florida is trying to burst into my brain, and the train just went by and I could use a little peace and tranquility and there's a heap of that to be found on Dog Island where you can sometimes go for days without seeing another human being or even a dog, for that matter.
There will be birds, though, and the tide rising and falling and clouds building and moving and cicadas singing and humming and maybe I'll see dolphins.
Maybe.
But right now I have a thousand things to do and I need to go take a friend to get a mammogram and get to the store and it's so nice to think of this time next week when all I'll have to do is...
Whatever I want.
And I can bake my own damn cake.

What Summer Feels Like

This is what the weatherman says:
Temperature tomorrow will be 94 degrees with a feel-like temperature of one hundred
and eleven.

And I say
Oh, give it a rest.

And I say
Temperature tomorrow will be July
With a feel-like pleasure of
The knife slipping so easily between the sweet fruit of the ripest peach
And it's baby-skin peel.

And I say
That the temperature tomorrow will be full-on summer
With a feel-like heat you can not imagine,
Sweat washing eyes with stinging salt
During the walk, while pulling the spent squash vines,
While picking the tomatoes, their perfect round
Weight as they fall
Like fate
Into my palm.

And I say
That the temperature tomorrow will be
Full moon hot and
Have a feel-like temperature of
Heaven when I drink that glass of cold ice water
While looking out at the summer phlox
Blooming pink in clusters as big
As a small child's head,
The mango plant reaching far
Beyond its pot
And what am I to do with it?
I will wonder again.

And I say that the temperature tomorrow will be Figs Are Ripe! and
Will have a feel-like
Knowledge
That when I boil them in sugar syrup with lemon
They will grow translucent with sugar and with heat
And that the hot, sterile jars waiting on the counter
Will receive them and that after I process them
In boiling (feels-like...boiling) water
The lids will snap down and pop
And I will mark them on their lids with the month and year,
My hair curling up around my skull in the heat and I know
We will eat those figs sometime in the winter
And then no matter the temperature,
It will feel-like
Summer
Again.

The Secret Message of Wallpaper

There's an old abandoned shack on my walking route that I pass every day.
It's a small place, more cabin than house, and the ceilings can't be more than six and a half feet high, as if built for a smaller people but probably constructed that way more out of economy than for the comfort of a race of short-statured people.
The place is almost hidden in the summer woods, more apparent in the less-leafy winter growth, and even though it's only steps from the road, I imagine hundreds of people drive by it every day on Highway 59 without even noticing it. I never did until I began walking that particular route.
There's something about an old, abandoned house that draws us to it and yet at the same time, is somehow forbidding. Too many horror movies perhaps, and also the possibility that something is alive in the house, whether critter or crackhead.
But I have found this little shack impossible not to explore a little bit. I don't trust the floors so it's mostly been a matter of sticking my head in the door and through open windows and what I've seen is completely unremarkable and yet has touched my heart.
It is, as I've said, small with low ceilings. It was made all of wood and some of the rooms are falling in on themselves and there's nothing left in the house at all beyond what animals have dragged in to nest with.
The one remarkable fact of the cabin is that someone, some woman, no doubt, took the time to put wallpaper up on those wooden walls a long, long time ago. Almost every room that I can see has tattered and peeling floral wallpaper, and I can't help but think of the woman who put it up in those rooms. No bathroom, no electricity in there, ever, I am sure, just wood floors and wood walls of rough planks, and yet some woman, some wife, some mother found the money and the time and the energy to put that wallpaper up, so many years ago.
That wallpaper just breaks my heart.
I pass another old place on my walk. It's a trailer in an eyesore of a trailer park right across from the post office. It's at the exact opposite end of the street where the little falling-in cabin with wallpaper is and people are actually living in that trailer.
I don't know what those people's story is but they don't seem to go to work and they don't seem interested in picking up their trash and they don't seem to ever take their clothes off the line as if the very act of hanging them up there a few months ago completely wore out their capability of having anything more to do with that particular activity.
I shouldn't judge but of course I'm human and I do, and I think to myself when I pass by, Jesus God, couldn't they at least pick up the beer bottles in their yard? I've never seen inside the trailer nor do I want to, but I have a strong feeling that no one's put wallpaper up in there and it would be a complete waste of time for anyone to do that anyway; put up wallpaper on the walls of that nasty trailer which probably can't cost more than two-hundred dollars a month to rent, and the landlord's getting away with murder if he gets that.
I lived in a trailer very similar to that one once, but it was my trailer and I had a deep affection for it and I kept it swept and put up pictures and shelves and kept children and cats and potted plants in it with a good degree of comfort and coziness.
I never put up wallpaper though. I never even thought of it.
But some woman who lived in that little cabin fifty years or so ago did.
And I wonder so many things about her. Was she black? Was she white? Did she have children? What did her husband do and where did he work? Did she sew quilts of scraps by the light of a kerosene lamp at night? Did she have a shelf of books? Did she have a wood stove to cook on? Did she have a garden, did she plant flowers? Where did she get her water from and did she set a vase of flowers on the wooden table where she rolled out her biscuits?
Where did she go when she left?
I walk by the little place almost every day and some days I don't even register its presence, but it's there, whether I notice it or not. It's just sitting there, its bones of wood falling back to the earth, abandoned by the people who lived in it, by the woman who made its walls beautiful with flowers that didn't wilt or fade and which still, to this day, give testament to someone who cared, someone who needed beauty, even in a tiny cabin on a patch of ground in Lloyd, Florida a long time ago.

Do We Love Her Or Do We Hate Her?

All right. There are those of you who might say, "Uh, Ms. Moon, why are writing about celebrities these days? Have you no life of your own?"

And I would point out that I have only RARELY written about celebrities and that post about Angelina Jolie hardly counted at all because let's face it, it was really about the whole totemic zeitgeist of motherhood and goddess worship and stuff like that. It wasn't really about Angelina.
You got that, right?

So yes, one of my many, many despicable traits is that I sometimes check out a few things online that might not strictly have anything to do with anything that matters in this entire universe but sometimes, ya hit gold.

You see that woman in that picture? You know who that is? That is Helen Mirren and she is almost 63-years old and supposedly, that is her real and actual body that she got not through surgery or through Photoshop or even a head transplant! No! She got it through working out at a gym! Or, as the article says, "with the only work to transform her toned body having been carried out during gruelling hours in the gym."

Okay. So they spelled "grueling" wrong. Big deal. If that's Helen Mirren's real body, I am completely and utterly in awe.

I am also sort of pissed because what if she DID achieve that enviable muscle tone, those beautiful abs by dint of nothing but hard work and diet? Doesn't this mean that anyone can achieve the same?

Damn.

Of course, Ms. Mirren has never had a child which I suspect has more than a little to do with that perfect belly of hers. No stretch marks, no...okay. I just don't even want to talk about the ravages of pregnancy today. Really. I don't.

And I'm not going to.

But I will say that honestly, on the one hand I am just so proud that a human of my species can have such a fine looking body at the age of 63 and on the other hand, I am wailing with despair because really- how HIGH can this bar be pushed? It's comforting to realize that after a certain age no one expects you to show up in a bikini looking like....
That.

Until now.

I suppose my ambivalence here can be summed up best by saying Helen Mirren is awe-full.

And I mean that in the very, very most loving and respectful way.

Having Strange Dreams While Awake

I feel strange today. Just floating on some sort of non-feeling wisp of a cloud. I have read, I have walked, I have done yoga, I have washed my car.
I never wash my car.
I seem to want to do mindless things. I've been listening to NPR most of the day, same as usual, but it isn't touching me. It's just words. Banks, stocks, ethanol, McCain saying he knows how to end wars.
So what?
The truth is the truth and whatever is happening in this world is happening, no matter what anyone says.
I loaded up some bags of recycle stuff to take down the road to Wacissa. Our trash place here in Lloyd is no longer accepting recycle, only household trash, so we're just stacking the bags of paper and glass and plastic and cans in the garage and I thought I'd make a dent in them today and then go on down to the end of the road and pick blueberries.
At the empty store on the corner, half a block from my house, the parking lot was filled with DOT cars. Filled. And people were walking around, talking on phones, measuring things. I didn't even ask them what they were doing, I just made the turn and drove on.
I got to the recycle place to find that they don't accept glass. Only plastic, paper, cardboard and cans.
Oh well. I threw the glass in the trash after sorting the cans and the plastic, throwing the papers and cardboard in the correct containers while the attendant leaned on his truck and watched me. Then I got in my car and drove down to find the blueberry place closed.
I didn't really care. Driving home mindlessly was pleasant, although part of me wondered if I should really be driving.
I wonder what in the world is going on with me? Am I losing my mind? Am I burnt out and shutting down? Is this really just a dream?
I am writing this. I have split peas simmering on the stove for soup. I have washed the car.
I am still here.
I feel strange.

Ruby And Maxine Are Ready For Their Big Date

It was a glorious weekend with as much music and frivolity as I had imagined it would be.
Mr. and Ms. Moon did not go to bed until after midnight THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW!
I'm sure the very foundations of the earth are being shifted as we speak.
If you can feel the ground trembling beneath your feet you may blame it on me and my wild, wild weekend.
Last night the four of us, Mr. Moon, Mr. Williamson, Lis and I, all gussied up and piled into the 1972 Cutlass for its (re)maiden voyage to the coast for dinner. With the top down. With the wind washing over us in great waves of joy and abandon.
Down around Sopchoppy, it began to rain so we pulled over and the fellows put the top up which made it much quieter and cozier (sort of like being in a tent, except hurtling down the highway at sixty miles an hour) while outside the lightening flashed as the mighty American car carried us to Panacea where we ate dinner at Angelo's.
It was over eleven years ago that the four of us made this same trip in the same car to celebrate a special birthday of Lis's. It was a night we'd never forgotten. Mr. W. gave his wife black pearls. We were all happy and beautiful and we could not quit smiling.
And last night, we got to recapture that night and it was all we'd hoped for. The Cutlass ran like a dream. We got to eat outside over the water at Angelo's. Lis and I renamed ourselves- Ruby and Maxine- and the men had their own secret names.
After we'd eaten so much we could not eat even one more sweet scallop, we drove home through the piney woods down the very dark back roads from Panacea to Lloyd and when we got home we ate key lime pie and agreed that it had just been the very best night.
I think we get a few of these special nights in our lifetimes and we keep them like individual pearls, strung on silk, that we can put on and wear in our memories. We fondle them and cherish them. We put them away in a velvet pouch in our hearts. They are there forever.
And we can add to them, one lustrous, shining pearl at a time, each one more valuable than the last because as we get older, we know how precious, how few they really are and they shine brighter and more fiercely because they are so rare.
Look and Ruby and Maxine.
They know.
Such a simple thing. Four friends, dressed up and driving through the night in a 1972 Cutlass to the coast where they will eat and toast to the friendship, to the love, to the night, to the beauty of being together again as the water flows beneath them and the lightening flashes in the not-so distant sky and the eyes gleam and the smiles never quit and not for one moment does any one take any of it for granted.
The joy must never be taken for granted.
Just ask Maxine and Ruby. They'll tell you.

Educating Our Young

The youngest daughter, Jessie, and I were hanging out with the cake-baker/sanity-maker (and let's just call her Lis because, well, that's her name) while she was getting ready for a full day of rehearsals and gigs and we were watching her pick out her jewels because Lis is that sort of woman. She wears jewels. The more sparkly the better. Red jewels are her particular favorite, I think, although she is sure to spread out her jewel-love to all the jewels in her treasure box of jewels in order to prevent feelings of insecurity and divisiveness amongst the jewels.
She loves her jewels and they love her.
Lis is what I'd call a girly-girl. She wears petticoats and she wears skirts and she doesn't sweat. I have mentioned all of this before, but it's worth repeating. The girl does not sweat. I've seen her playing on a stage outside in August wearing the petticoat and the skirt and the pretty crocheted sweater, singing and playing guitar and NOT SWEATING. I'll be just sitting there watching her, drinking iced tea and wearing a sleeveless linen dress with sweat pouring from my body and that's before I have a hot flash.
It's like Lis has discovered some secret of girliness that I have yet to learn. Perhaps it's the jewels. I don't know.
Anyway, Lis said a sentence with the word "hell" in it while she was getting ready and she apologized because Jessie was in the room. We laughed and I said, "Jesus, Lis, our DOGS say hell."
It's funny. When my oldest kids were young, I tried to pretend around them that I did not curse mainly because I really did not want to hear my two-year olds saying things like, "What the fuck?" if they spilled their milk or broke a crayon.
Some people think such language from a baby is cute but I tend to think it's just tacky.
Just my opinion.
But by the time Jessie, my fourth child, was in high school, I gave up any semblance of pretense and just started letting it all fly, including the f-word and she thinks it's funny and sometimes she curses too.
Which brings us back to Lis and the apology for saying hell.
Because Lis loves to curse too. This girly-girl woman with the petticoats and sparkly jewelry who does not sweat can throw around the salty language as well as anyone I know, which is one of the many, many reasons I adore her.
So the three of us were laughing at the silliness of Lis apologizing for such an innocent word and I said, "Jessie is already a member of the Women Who Curse Club."
Lis said, "We should have an initiation dinner. Wouldn't that be fun?"
And I said, "Yeah. We would say things like, 'Hey? Where's that fucking bitch waitress? Hey bitch, bring me some more motherfuckin' tea.' And so forth."
We thought that was pretty funny but of course we'd have to tell the waitress what was going on and invite her to curse with us and then leave her a really good tip because we're that kind of women. We may use profanity but we are considerate. We're southern women, for goodness sake!
I think it's important for the older women to pass on their wise ways to the younger ones. Don't you? Things like how to wear make fig preserves, biscuits and martinis, how to breastfeed and crochet, how to wear jewels and petticoats, and of course how to use the word fuck in all its many permutations and glorious forms.
And, like most things we hand down to our children, it is best to learn from example.
So Lis and I are just doing our fucking job the best we fucking can and it makes us proud, watching Jessie grow up and being beautiful and smart and funny and such a great dancer and mandolin player who can make fresh peach sorbet from scratch and who is becoming a Woman Who Can Curse.
It makes me a little sad that my older children have had to learn to use profanity from the streets, which is the way I learned it too, because really, I think it's best for children to learn from the positive and loving role models they may be fortunate enough to have in their lives.
Like their mamas and women who wear sparkly jewelry and petticoats.
Jessie is so lucky to have us.
She fucking knows it, too.

Weekend Weather Report

So some days life is not a bowl of cherries but instead a wooden bowl of succulent, home-grown, really ripe tomatoes.
It's amazing what good friends, a clean house, and a weekend full of the promise of music and mascara can do for a girl's spirit.
Let's all dance.

Random, Unimportant Bits. Brown Paper Bag Day, For Sure

I find it funny that so many men bloggers use the dark (often black) background for their blogs. It reminds me of perusing the videos in the olden days at the video store. If a film had a dark-colored case, as apposed to a light one, it was most definitely a man movie.

I think John McCain is too old to be president. I myself, at the advanced age of almost 54, know for sure that my brain is NOT what it used to be. It would be okay if McCain USED to be Einstein, but I don't think he was.

Some days crazy just ain't funny at all.

Even yoga teachers sometimes need back surgery.

Sometimes yoga teachers need back surgery and are thus out of commission when their students need them most.

It's difficult to make myself do yoga on my own. But not impossible.

I think that if asked, one should tell one's doctor that one has an allergy to Codeine because in my opinion, Codeine is an inferior drug and if you need pain relief and say you're allergic to Codeine, you'll get something better.
I say this even though I haven't had an opportunity to get pain meds in years and years and years.
I still think it's true.

The writing in "men's" magazines is so far superior to that in "women's" magazines that it's astounding as well as embarrassing. And it makes me pissed off.
My theory is that men save all their energy for writing by never changing out the empty roll of toilet paper for the full one which is one foot away.

The writing in the Oxford American Magazine (which works equally well for men as for women) is just plain astounding. Mostly.

Getting a subscription for a magazine is one of the best-values, money-wise, in the entire world.

Beware of establishments where they can take a photograph of your aura and sell you products which will help your chi be less obstructed. Seriously. If you must frequent them for some reason, get your business done and get out as soon as possible to avoid any aura or chi-related damage.

I'm thinking my chi may be obstructed.

And that if you took a picture of my aura you wouldn't want to look at it.

Mop your house with this: water, a little bit of white vinegar, and a dash of Murphy's Oil soap.
You won't be sorry. Besides making your house smell lovely and clean, I think it may have chi-unobstruction properties.

I'd get a tattoo but I can't get drunk enough to do it without passing out.

It's not fear of pain, either. It's fear of regret.

Click on the picture of the paper bag above and you can read about who painted it.
Yes! Painted it!

If I could paint really well, I doubt I'd paint pictures of paper bags.

We'll never know, though, will we?

The thing I'm best at in yoga?
Tree pose. Without a doubt. I can stand in tree pose for days. I'm pretty sure.

I need to get busy.

You probably do too.

Namaste, y'all, and feel free to offer me whatever you've got in your brown paper bag today. It could be like a swap meet.

Or swamp meat.

I don't know.

Whatever. Whichever.

It's all cool unless you let that chi get kinked up because man, if you do, you've got a hell of a mess on your hands. So be careful. Drink lots of water. I think that can help.

And It Would Be So Nice To See You There

For you local folks, please note that the cake-baker/sanity-maker is also an insanely good musician and she and her insanely good musician husband will be playing at the Warehouse on Saturday night.
Come on out and let's dance.

The Closet Where The House Cleaning Fairy Does NOT Live

As I have confessed before, I hate house cleaning. And as I have pointed out before, this is not a great thing if you're a housewife, which I am.
I realize that almost no one really enjoys house cleaning, although I have heard it said that Virgos do. I wonder if this is true. I also wonder if people still dabble in the ancient astrological arts the way we used to. I was never a good hippie when it came to astrology. I mean, I knew my "sign" (Leo) although a friend of mine who really believes that stuff did my chart once and pointed out that really, I'm far more Cancer than I am Leo because of my moons and stuff. See- I never got that. What house is your moon in? Well, my Moon is right here in the house in Lloyd.
But if people don't do astrology anymore, what has taken the place of "What's your sign?" as the very worst and lamest pick-up line in bars? Since I'm old and never go to bars anymore (and dammit, I miss bars) I haven't heard any good pick-up lines lately. Well, Mr. Moon might try one out on me now and then, but we're usually in the kitchen, not a bar, and he knows my sign so his lines are more along the lines of "Can I make you a martini?" which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, depending on who washes the dishes.
And whether or not I've been doing housework.
Because nothing, NOTHING in this world makes me as crazy and uninterested in romance as house cleaning.
Oh, I love a clean house. Who doesn't? And if there were a house-cleaning fairy, I'd hunt that bitch down and force her (him?) to come live in the little closet under my stairway. I'm pretty sure that something's living there already because the wrapping paper I keep stored in there gets shredded up and there is suspicious poop-looking material on the floor sometimes, but I'd clean it up and put in a cot for a house-cleaning fairy.
You bet!
Because I just hate cleaning.
It's not the work as much as the fact that every person in this house plus the four dogs contribute to the dirt, mess, dust, disorder and nastiness and yet, I'm the only person who regularly does anything about any of it.
I will say that yesterday one of my living-here-daughters cleaned a bathroom and the other living-here-daughter actually put in a lot of hours doing things like dusting and organizing and even scrubbing a rug and cleaning the stair risers with MAGIC ERASER (and as I have also said before, that shit is MAGIC!) and they look about ten thousand times better than they have since we've moved in here over four years ago.
But back to my bitching.
I worked yesterday for approximately twelve hours and all I got cleaned was my room and two bathrooms. Of course "my" room is also my husband's room (we're not THAT old) and I spent hours of that time cleaning out my closet.
And my bathroom, which is my favorite room in the house, takes hours on its own because it has wood furniture in it, as well as a tub AND a shower.
So it took me a long time and of course I didn't have the air conditioning on and I kept having nuclear melt-down hot flashes and I was also doing laundry and by the time I was through with the scrubbing, sweeping, dusting, wood-polishing, mopping and laundry, I was not only exhausted, but in a very, very bad mood.
When the man got home I was still in the middle of it and I took one look at him and said, "What are you doing home?"
He said, "I could leave."
I said, "So could I."
See what I mean about house cleaning and romance?
The reason I'm doing all this crazy cleaning is that the cake-baker/sanity-maker and her husband are coming to visit this week and it's richly ironic that I'm cleaning for her because we fell in love with each other, me and the cake-baker/sanity-maker, one night when a mutual friend called us both "sluts of housekeepers." Yep, that's what she said. Standing in my house.
The cake-baker/sanity-maker and I looked at each other and the birds began singing and the stars started shining and that was it. We knew we were destined for forever-love.
And the mutual friend, realizing her incredible social blunder said, "But you're both great cooks!" and a romance was born and we no longer speak to the mutual friend.
And when we visit each other we always say things like, "Now I better not get one whiff of Fabuloso when I walk in that door," and so forth, but we always clean our houses when the other is visiting.
And put flowers by the bed. I'm sort of surprised we don't throw rose petals on the sheets.
And THEN we make each other fantastic feasts and bake crazy good cakes and the men shake up martinis and we dine by candle-light.
In our beautiful, clean houses.
And we frequently make a toast to the mutual friend whom we don't talk to anymore for bringing us together.
And that's what we'll be doing this weekend, my friend the Taurus and me the Leo, and our husbands, of course, and there will be no Virgos involved unless the house cleaning fairy which does not live in my house is one.
Right here. Where the Moons are in Lloyd and the sun is in July and the house will be clean.