My Wrinkles Are Just Perfect, Thank You

There's a woman who does a food column for the local paper who leans towards the healthy side of things. She frequently discusses "cleanses" and today's column was about that very subject. One of the questions she asked to determine if perhaps a cleanse is something we could benefit from was, "Do you have more wrinkles than you would like?"
I almost spit my coffee.
"Oh, no." I wanted so desperately to tell her. "I have exactly the number of wrinkles that I really, truly want. Thank-you, though. Thank you so much for asking."
Phew. Because I sure don't want to go twenty-one days (the prescribed amount of time) without sugar, alcohol, dairy, meat, or processed foods. I mean, I'm sure it would be good for me but to be realistic, no, it is not going to happen.

Absurdity seems to abound. Lily and I went out shopping today for Owen's birthday and we found ourselves in Costco, of course, because it is now written into the Constitution that you cannot have a party of any sort without visiting Costco and buying flats of ginormous boxes of things. I mean, it just can't be done. And of course, Christmas is already in evidence there in the Costco, the lights, the Nativities, and yes, in Target too where I spied a very pink pig dressed in a Christmasy outfit which you can buy as a holiday decoration and when I say "you" I mean, anyone in the world but me and what the fuck is up with that? Have I missed some important cultural holiday icon-creation? Is there now a Christmas pig to go along with elves and fucking shelf fairies or whatever those fucking things are and gingerbread houses and nutcrackers and snow men and all that other shit that some Christians are pretty certain are in dire danger of being eliminated because CHRISTMAS IS UNDER ATTACK and if I had a gun, it might be.

Anyway, Lily and I had a good time of it and we got lots of fun party stuff and I bought that damn Pip Poppin' game and some other stuff and we went to the Indian buffet for lunch and it was awesome and we did not eat an absurd amount. I had recovered by then from my exposure to the Awkward Family Photos card selection in Target which made me laugh so hard that tears literally squirted from my eyes and Lily said, "I have to remove myself from you now," and she did, pushing the cart away from me, as eager as any fourteen-year old to prevent anyone at all thinking that we were related because I was peeing in my pants (okay, not really, it must have been a good day for bladder control) and shrieking and so forth. I actually bought Vergil one of these cards because I simply had to.
I know you've been to that web site, right? Awkward Family Photos? The link to the Hall of Famers is HERE, just in case you haven't visited for awhile and honestly, you should visit there now because there is nothing in the world as important as laughing so hard you cry.

These are just a few of my favorites and at least one of them has been posted here before (the evil little girl squishing her brother's head) but some things just bear repeating.

Well, all of this throw-back-Thursday family absurdity has put me in the mood to make a tuna casserole and I think I'll go make one. It won't involve any Campbell's Cream Of Anything soup and it won't involve American cheese but hopefully, it will still be fit to eat. If I stir a little bit of sherry in it and figure out how to slip a little sugar in it, it will break all of the cleanse rules in one big ol' Pyrex dish which is fine because I think I'd actually like to have a few more wrinkles. Hell, maybe I'll just toss back a few shots of vodka from a sugar-rimmed glass while I'm making it and call it a day.

Here's wishing you a very nice evening and if you have stumbled upon any absurdities today which you would like to share, I would be most happy to hear about them.

Awkwardly Yours...Ms. Moon

The Gift Of Tears

All of a sudden it's chilly and it's gray and my spirits have plummeted and if the black dog isn't smothering me, the black pup is nipping at my heels and thus, it is always so this time of year.

I have been feeling all morning, after a night of snippets and fragments of anxiety dreams of every sort and too-strange reality, that if I could just cry, let the heat in my eyes out in tears, it would be better, I would be better.

I took the  trash, I stopped at the post office. "Gus and Me" had arrived. I brought it home, I opened it up. I read the first page.

I read it out loud to myself and the walls of my kitchen, my voice breaking with my sore heart rising in my throat with the sweetness of the words, the whimsy and love in the pictures which Keith's daughter, Theodora, drew. 

The whole little book, the story of a little boy and his grandfather who took him on walks and who gave him his first guitar. And the tears came. 

Then there was this.

"Keith later began playing with a group of friends, including Mick Jagger...they still make music together today."

I needed to cry. I was given the gift of tears. Sometimes you get what you want. Sometimes you get what you need. 

Sometimes, you get both.

Sometimes that means weeping, as strange as that may be.

And bed it was and magazines and tea and a peanut butter sandwich and then I heard something, was it Elvis, come through the dog door onto the porch? but no, it was Gibson, and then I heard Owen and then Lily say, "Ssshhhh. She might be sleeping," and I called to them and they came into my room, three beauties, Owen carrying flowers, Gibson a balloon and Lily had pineapple nectar and food treats ranging from a chicken pot pie to a little bar of Halvah, my favorite candy, perhaps, in the world.
Oh, their faces!
They did my heart so good and it was so sweet and I was so grateful.
They didn't stay long, just long enough for hugs (but no kisses!) and I swear, Owen is bigger and older-looking than he was yesterday, and he caught me a love-bug duo and gave it to me, "For love," he said, and I was charmed beyond belief.
After they left I slept for awhile and had the acting dream- going onstage in an hour and having no idea what my lines were and nothing was blocked and it was simply a nightmare and I couldn't even find a highlighter to mark my lines and costumes? Were there any?
Yes well.
I woke up from that and tried to be a little productive. I made a dough for bread of flour and oat bran and corn meal and molasses and left-over mashed potatoes and an egg and yeast and it is rising and the pinto beans I started yesterday are simmering. I washed the dishes and swept a floor and had to lay down again and now I'm up again to check the beans and rising bread and make more tea.
It is cool. I am wearing a shirt with sleeves. All day the wind has blown, or at least a good, rustley breeze, there are lilies and roses on my hallway altar and twenty-nine years ago today I was two days away from giving birth to Lillian Rose Moon, moving as slowly as I have today, full and ready and yearning to hold this baby outside of my belly and five years ago today, Lily was the same with Owen, except only one day away from holding him and it's good to be able to think on things like that today, quiet in my house as I lay on my bed and felt the energy of it all bathe and enter me with the breeze and the cool air and if you have to be sick, this is the sick to have, this is the way to be.
And I feel so loved.

If You've Got It, Shake It. If You Don't, Oh Well.

Ugh.
I'm sick today. I think it's just a cold but I don't feel like doing a damn thing and I don't think I will.
See- this is what comes of going out in public. I don't know how many people I heard sneezing when I was out last Friday. I was blessing people all over the retail world.
Sneeze.
Bless you!
Some out loud, some only in my mind. Depending, you know.

This is what Elvis looks like today.

One pathetic tail-feather, blowing in the breeze. 

That's sort of how I feel with the exception of maybe not even having one tail feather to shake. 

Oh! Good news! Lily called me this morning and said, "Guess who walked out to the playground this morning with a big old smile on his face and said, "Bye, Mom!"?

Owen, we are so proud of you. And oh, the heartache you put your mama through!

Well, I'm going to go lay down. I'm just not sure where yet. Bed? Or couch? 

Decisions, decisions. 

WHY IS LIFE SO DIFFICULT?

(The agony.)

Love...Ms. Moon

It's Like He Knows Me. You Too

Someone was burning something today. Smelled tree-related. As I rounded my last half mile the smoke drifted through the oaks, lit by the sun.
I had to stop and take that picture.

It's Bruce Springsteen's 65th birthday today. He's another person I am certainly glad to share this planet with. He is like no one else.

From This

To This

To This

And Now To This

He's always been the one the men want to be and the ladies want to...

Well, I heard him tell Terry Gross that the message of every rock song is ultimately, "Will you take your panties off?"

And surely the answer is always yes. 

I'm not even going to post a video. There are a million. You have your favorites, I have mine. 

Happy Birthday, Bruce. Live to be a thousand. Thanks for saving my life. Thanks for writing all those songs about Mary. 

Love...Ms. Moon

As Always, It Is Love

This is, I think, a stick bug on Owen's head. I am no entomologist. That would be Kathleen. Anyway, we found the insect in the kitchen and we took him outside, as we do. First though, he climbed onto Owen's sleeve and Owen was wearing the red velvet shirt and both the sleeve and the bug shone with iridescence. What had looked to be a dull brown bug proved in the sun to be a shining pewter, wearing a tiny suit of armor. I tried to get a shot of that but the poor bug had its own ideas and climbed the sleeve to the head. The chickens were clustered about so I carried it a ways off and put it on the wisteria vine. I do not know if chickens eat stick bugs (if indeed it was a stick bug) but I was taking no chances as we had already anthropomorphized this creature into an almost-pet.

We did the things we do and Owen was Tarzan and we played the game where I pretend I can feel someone watching me but I don't know who it is and then finally, I discover that it is Tarzan, up in the tower on the play set. Tarzan gave me a clue today, dropping his gum so that I would see it.
"Where did this gum come from?" I asked, gazing big-eyed into the sky. "I know someone is watching me."
Where he came up with this scenario is beyond me but it is one of his favorites.

I dragged their cardboard box house out onto the porch and cut new windows in it and they played in that for a good while.

Of course they took the pieces of cardboard I'd cut out and proceeded to do battle with them. They had hot chocolate and orange juice and edamame beans and grapes and Gibson painted and we read books and they got to see Boppy when he came home to get ready to leave for auction. They spilled juice and Owen fell off the trapeze and pretended he had a head injury, letting his eyes drift back and forth but I knew he was faking. We wiped the dirt off and all was well. We dug up a beautiful bottle from the driveway, old enough to have had a cork stopper rather than a screw top but unfortunately it was cracked, the bottom coming up in a separate piece. Gibson took a thirty-minute shower, playing in the water and when I finally forced him out and wrapped him in a towel, his eyelashes, so improbably long were beaded with water and his little bow mouth was so pink and I said, "Why are you so beautiful?" and he just laughed.  

They are so loving. They are so beautiful. And they are such boys. 

Owen swatted my butt when I leaned over to pick up Gibson once and then he joked that he was going to whip my "axe." "Really?" I asked. You're going to whip my axe?"

"Yes!" he said, and giggled his way into the house. 

He told me that Miss Deena, his teacher, calls him O-Dub. He informed me with great delight that because Friday is his birthday, he is going to "skip school" and they are going to Wild Adventures and they are going to spend the night in a motel! And did I want to come? 

"Oh, I think I'll let your parents take you," I told him. "I will come to your party." 

And of course I will. That is on Saturday which is also Lily's birthday. 

They are gone now, gone home with their papa and I have tidied up the house and have brown rice cooking for my supper. I will cook spinach and poached eggs. Before they left, as we were doing the ritual good-byes with them in their car seats, Owen shouted, "One more!" and pursed his lips and I leaned in for one more and we hugged with great affection. 

"I love you!" I yelled at Gibson. 

"I love you too!" he shouted back. 

"Thank you for raising such loving boys," I told Jason. He wears a button-down shirt and a tie to work now and he looks so handsome. "That doesn't happen by accident," I said. 

And it doesn't. 

No matter what melancholy may fall upon me, no matter what despair I may feel, there is always this- my grandchildren are being raised in love and with love and the phrase, "Whip your axe," is a thing to joke about because it has never happened and probably never will.

My husband just texted me to tell me that he made it to Orlando safely. And that he loves me. 

I replied that I love him too, and that I never forget that our love for each other has much to do with how loving our grandsons are. Love begets love. His parents' love for each other was always apparent and real and that is why he can love the way he does. 

And so it goes. 

I still have doors and windows open. The chickens are all put up. Although Missy spent most of the day off the nest, she was settled back in there again at dusk and I carried her to the hen house and she is so very, very soft and she trills and sings so sweetly in my arms. I put her gently onto the hay nest and bent and kissed her little black head. 

"Good night," I told them all. Trixie, Ozzie, Miss Bob, Mabel, Sharon, Elvis, Chi-Chi, Cha-Cha, Nicey, Butterscoth, Lucille, Eggy Tina and Missy too. 

Time to cook the spinach, time to poach the eggs. 

Despite all and because of, it has been a very, very good day. 

Who I Am

This is how I am- I get a text from my husband while I'm on my walk. It says, "Are you at home or still walking?"
I text him back, "Walking." Then a few minutes later I text again, "Do you need to talk to me?"
He doesn't answer.
Now I KNOW that Monday mornings are insane for him at work. I don't know about the government stats but his business has taken a definite upswing lately and it feels as if the economy is slowly healing. So he's been crazy busy at work. It's a one-man operation and he is the man. And so, the fact that he doesn't answer me right away really isn't surprising and shouldn't be disturbing. BUT, my mind, well.
I can't help going every place I can go which is scary and negative. Things he may need to discuss with me range from his health to the possibility that he's met some Georgia woman who loves to hunt and so he is leaving me.
I have to forcibly prevent myself from texting "Are you okay?" which is probably what half of my texts to him say.
I get home, I take off my headphones, my hat, I get a glass of water, I call him.
It's about a business thing. A possible renter for our little plaza. It is not life or death, it is not even really that big a deal. It's a decision that needs to be made. It will not make or break us.
I am so fucking relieved I can't even say. And once again, I chastise myself for being insane. For always going straight to the sky-is-falling scenario.
This is why I hate the phone. It rings. I think, "Oh, someone is in the hospital. Someone has been in a wreck. Someone is in jail. Someone is dying."
Every. Single. Time.

And every time that fear rises up in me, even after I realize it was all (once again!) for naught, I am left with a residue of it. Of anxiety. (It could have been bad. It could have been.)

I know I am not the only one.

The medication I'm on makes it bearable. I don't know what I'd do without my walks in the fields and in the woods, without my chickens, my dirt to dig in, these trees to shelter me, to give me perspective, without my husband, my children.

This is how I am.
I see from doing some reading that the fall equinox can be a trigger for certain people who are inclined towards bipolar disease, towards depression. I take some comfort in that.

Here's another thing- I HATE the term "mental illness."
If so many of us suffer from these things, how can it be an illness? Why isn't it just perceived as something which is fairly normal, albeit something which addressing, which does not need to be ignored? They always bring up the whole "well, diabetics need insulin and people with mental illness need treatment" metaphor.
Yes. Of course. Like that.
I don't know what I'm talking about. Diabetes is an illness. I suppose depression/anxiety/bi-polor are too. I just despise always thinking of myself as "ill." This is just the way my brain works. I wish it didn't. But am I ill? Because I don't like crowds, I don't see the point of random shopping and socializing? Because things are difficult for me which probably should not be?
An illness suggests that there may be a "cure."
Oh, there are a million cures.
Medication of course. And exercise and proper diet and therapy (all sorts of therapies ranging from the proper ingestion of certain psycho-active mushrooms to talk therapy to hypnosis to, oh fuck, I don't even know) and practicing gratitude and giving it all to god and just FUCKING GETTING OVER IT, ASSHOLE!

"I choose happiness!" say one million and ten goddam internet memes, all with golden sunsets or fields of flowers or the sun sparkling on a peaceful body of water.
Which implies that those of us who are depressed or, yes, I suppose what we might call mentally ill, CHOOSE NOT TO BE HAPPY!

Those things make me want to vomit.

It's almost (not quite) like, if you're gay, being told you have a choice not to be.
Oh, how I wish I could just choose happiness. Not that I think that any human being is happy all of the time nor should we. That's not realistic. That's not life.

But when the darkness comes, when the panic rises, wouldn't it be wonderful, wouldn't it be fantastic, would it be the very best thing of all to just...choose...happiness?

What simplistic bullshit claptrap.

I am aware that I can choose to try, every day, doing every thing that helps to keep me moving, to keep me from falling way down to that place from which there feels no escape. And trust me- I do those things.

So do you.

My chickens are so beautiful today in this cool light. A while ago, Elvis stood next to the red blooms of the firespike and the hurricane lilies, his red comb looking like another sort of bloom. It was as if he was asking me to come and take his portrait. "I'm ready for my close-up, Chicken Mama," he seemed to be saying.
The fields are full of beautiful fall blooms. I think about that- how spring blooms are one thing but oh, how glorious the fall flowers are. I would like to think that's a metaphor for human life. For my life being far past the time of spring bloom.

The sky is that blue which only comes this time of year. So blue it puts all the other blues to shame and makes them jealous. The trees rise up into the blue sky, anchored as they are by their invisible roots, deep, deep into the earth. I notice this, it bring tears to my eyes.

Maurice walks through the backyard, strolling from shade to puddles of light. She is orange, she is golden.

I notice all of these things and so much more.

I do not think I am ill. I think I am this way. I think if I could choose happiness, I would.
I cannot but I can choose to pay attention, to accept that this is who I am.

And today it is not so bad at all.

Fuck Me. I Was Wrong Once Again

It is a proven fact that I don't know shit.
And no, today is NOT the solstice. It is the fall equinox.

Once again, I fail at science, religion, and truth.

Please. I beg your forgiveness.

But I know when the Hurricane Lilies are about to bloom. I know when my chickens moult. I know when it is time to plant the collards.

Still. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I am not nearly as embarrassed as I probably should be.

The Solstice

So it's the Solstice, eh? I swear to you, it's like the weather here got an alert notice and brought it on for us. It could hardly be more beautiful.
Still, I spent most of the day inside. I watched that film again, yes I did, and then I watched all the bonus features and although I am sure none of you will ever do this, if for some reason you ever decide to, schedule an entire day. Damn. There's a lot of bonus in that bonus.

Mr. Moon is home, washing off the equipment he took with him, his clothes are in the laundry. I am feeling very glad to have him home. Oh, and I finally asked him what it is he plants for the deer and it is a mixture of wheat, oats, two sorts of peas I've never heard of, turnips and radishes. A veritable salad bar of delight. My beloved hunter-farmer.

My twelve hens laid me seven eggs today and since none of those eggs was either Eggy Tina's or Missy's, I have to assume that two of the old hens have gifted me. Missy is spending more and more time off the nest and I am glad of that. I feel so sorry for her, sitting so still with her feathers spread over her imaginary eggs for so many hours every day, neither eating or drinking or socializing or taking dirt baths. Hormones. Whether in chickens or in humans, they are powerful things.

I see that over three hundred thousand people turned out to march for climate change in NYC and I am glad of that. I am also glad to hear that world leaders are coming together on Tuesday for a United Nations climate summit.
May it all not be too little, too late. Lord have mercy but if we stupid humans could just get together for the saving of our planet instead of waging war, it could be the saving of all of us in more ways than one. I do not have any faith that that could truly happen but one never knows. Perhaps a Messiah will show up and lead the way. It would take a damn Messiah. I don't really believe in Messiahs.
Sigh.

I really have nothing more to say. I have had a beautiful, slow, easy day of it in Lloyd and the falling sun is doing that crazy beautiful light thing once again. Our planet is so fucking incredible and here I am, living this tiny life and as such, am able to spend much time observing and noting the small details of the seasons and their passing in my my minuscule part of the world. It is a small life, but for me, a rich one.

I may not believe in Messiahs but I do believe in glory and some days are just damn steeped in the light of it.

Sunday Morning At The Church Of The Batshit Crazy

That's the giant tree that split apart last year, its gashes and huge splinters a stark reminder of the event. The part of the tree which is left though, still stands strong and true, it's branches still a beautiful part of the moss-draped canopy in my back yard.

It is an almost perfect day here in Lloyd. I slept wonderfully well with no air conditioning, Maurice curled up, resting against me all night long. I say I slept well and I did except for the part where I woke up and realized that the vague feelings of stomach upset I'd had all day, increasing into the evening had come to fruition. Let me just say that I am now ready for my colonoscopy and there was no vomiting. 

I think I may have the very lightest form of whatever bug Lily had. Of course, it could just be the six hours I spent in the garden but I don't think so. I never felt fatigued or got exhausted. Tired, yes, hot and sweaty- oh my. But not heat-strokey by any means.

Well, la-di-dah, whatever it was or is, I plan on taking it pretty easy today. One thing I want to do is to watch that film, "Stones in Exile" again. It was a beautiful little film and the director, Stephen Kijack, was obviously making a love letter. It is the story of how the Stones made their album, Exile on Mainstreet, after being virtually kicked out of England. Due to manager rip-offs, incredibly high (93%) taxes by the English government, and of course, the continual harassment and arrests by the British police, the Stones were indeed exiled to France, desperately needing to make a new album. 

They ended up making that album, not in a studio, but in the basement of the house which Keith and Anita Pallenberg, the mother of his son Marlon, rented, a 19th-century Cote d' Azur mansion called Nellcote. 

Ah, I won't go into all of it but let us just say that it was an amazing time for all involved and Keith goes into a lot of detail in his autobiography. Everyone was doing drugs, all of the drugs. And yet, as an article in the Guardian from 2002 says, "In places, Exile on Mainstreet does indeed sound, in the best possible way, like an album made by a bunch of drunks and junkies who were somehow firing on all engines."

The film did not really delve too deeply into the dank basement of grit although those things weren't completely glossed over, either. And speaking of dank basements, well...here.

Upstairs may have been beautiful and huge and stately

but the basement was hot and so humid that guitars constantly went out of tune and it must have been almost unbearable at times. As Keith said, "Upstairs it was fantastic- Like Versailles- But downstairs, it was like Dante's inferno."

(Bobby Keys who still plays with the Stones.)

Something that really struck me about the film was how much it reminded me of certain aspects of the music scene in Tallahassee at about the same time. Of course, on a much less intense scale, but I remember musicians whose houses were the center of operation, where people came and went and yes, did drugs but  let me be clear- to this day I've never seen heroin in my life- and there were kids running around everywhere and food being made and eaten all the time and at the very center and core and heart of it all, was the music. Always. It was a tribal time. An incredibly creative time. Songs were being written, musicians sat in large or small circles playing, children danced in fancy costumes of their own making, I was often in the kitchen, cooking and baking, we all did our part somehow. 

One of the things about the film which was highly disappointing to me was the very absence of Gram Parsons who played a huge role in Keith Richards' life and in the songs that were written and recorded at Nellcote. I'm not sure why this omission occurs unless it is because Mick Jagger had a lot to do with the film. Keith, in his autobiography, says flat plain out that Mick was jealous of the bond between Keith and Gram which was a most intense one.

They shared everything from a deep love of similar music to heroin. Quite frankly, to me, the songs on Exile on Mainstreet sound far more Richards and Parsons than they do Jagger. 

Here's one called "Loving Cup."

If you know the music of Gram Parsons, I think you'll agree.

I love that video and also this one which is of a song called "Happy" which Richards definitely wrote.



The contrast between Mick's preening made-up face, his tight little swinging, swishing ass and Keith's missing teeth says it all.

At one part in the film, Keith says something like, "I just wanted to raise my family and make music." I think the whole fame part confused and baffled and frustrated him except for the way it made it possible for him to play the sort of music he wanted with the people he wanted.

From the Guardian article:

"Mick needs to know what he's going to do tomorrow," says Richards, his voice slurring into a laugh. "Me, I'm just happy to wake up and see who's hanging around. Mick's rock, I'm roll."

Well, that's enough. I realize I'm a freaking Richards disciple. Oh well. It could be worse. I could be one of those people who is obsessed with Sarah Palin or FSU football or the Nazis.
But no, I'm just a woman who lives in Lloyd, Florida and who has grandchildren and who has always loved music which has, at times, literally saved her life and for whom Keith Richards is some sort of totem who represents survival via music and love despite all odds.

Here's another picture from my yard this morning.

Beauty Berry. 

I guess this has been my Sunday devotional. 

Amen, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. All black and white photos of the Stones and Nellcote by Dominique Tarle whose photos from that time period are amazing. You should check them out.

P.P.S. Don't get me wrong. I love Mick Jagger too. 

Saturday Night And All Is Quite Well

Fall has been flirting with us for a few weeks now and today I think she may have actually hooked her fingertips into the elastic of her panties and is getting ready to slip them off. Or least let her bra straps drift downwards. We have a little bit more of a true idea what she's been offering.

I've worked almost all afternoon in the garden and whenever the sun went behind clouds, the chickens joined me to happily peck at bugs and seeds. Today I learned for the first time that chickens really do not like to scratch in direct sunlight, a fact which only makes me believe more in their intelligence. We got one fast hard rain shower which lasted less than twenty minutes but cooled things off a little more. I took a break to be nosy at one point, wondering what in hell was being cut next door with a chain saw. There is still no one living there and I had a huge fear that they might be taking down a live oak but no, it was two guys who were cutting up a tree which had fallen on the fence. I'd heard it fall last week but couldn't find anything down in my yard and didn't investigate further. Turns out the tree was, legally in my yard though, at the edge of the bamboo jungle. I think it was a small water oak. I asked the guys if they knew who owns the house now.
"A bank," one of them said. "Otherwise we wouldn't be here." I guess they work for banks doing just this sort of thing on foreclosed homes. They had no idea which bank though and we all agreed that it was sad that it was empty. And on my way home, I noticed that the honeysuckle vine which was cut entirely back is sprouting forth again from its thick stems. That made me happy.

Finally, just as it was time for Prairie Home to come on, I finished the weeding. Here's what I sent Mr. Moon.

Here's the full picture.

Honest to god, I feel as if I have truly accomplished something and I am at peace about that. I had a goal, I accomplished it. Now to have the man till it and I'll plant it and then mulch the fuck out of it. Collards, turnips, mustards, maybe even some kale to massage and bruise or whatever the fuck you do with that shit. Also mesclun and perhaps the best of all- arugula. Oh, how I crave that bitter green and the crap you get in the store is but a pale imitation of how it tastes when I go out, pick it, and bring it in to wash and eat.

It is a beautiful gloaming tonight. As the sun sank, it did things like this in my backyard.

And Maurice even caught gentle fire in the light.

I am indeed watching bits and pieces of "Prairie Home Companion" as I write this.

It's been a sweet reminder of what it was like to do our "radio shows" on the stage in Monticello. The sound effects guy, the foley, has a work table which looks very much like what Kathleen and I used in our shows, covered with telephones, cans, shoes, and all sorts of unlikely looking stuff. We used to have such a good time, doing those shows, knitting and crocheting in between our bits, making everything as visually funny as we could manage, passing a flask back and forth which we pretended to doctor our coffee with. The coffee in the thermos and the liquor in the flask were both actually red bush tea and the flavor of that tea still brings back those memories.
It all feels very sweet.
I believe I don't care to expend the energy to try and recreate a curry tonight but instead will simply cook a frozen spinach pizza. I surely hope I can figure out how to watch the Stones DVD. Mr. Moon is usually the tech guy around here and I am lazy and let him do it. I think I can.

Golly, Sue Scott is pretty and Garrison's eyebrows are two of the seven wonders of the world. I don't even want to discuss his hair. Still, I love him.

It is cool this evening, my doors are all open, no AC on. I may leave it off tonight entirely. It's supposed to get down to sixty-four tonight. Sounds downright comfy. I appreciate this fan dance fall is doing for us, flashing that blue lacy underwear, sending air kisses with her cool, dry, red lips.

The garden is weeded, the chickens are doing their final scratching of the night before they begin to drift into the hen house to fly up to the roost. My back is a bit sore but mostly I feel none the worse for my day in the garden. I've had a shower, the night is falling, Howard Levy is playing Bach on a harmonica and somehow, it's all pretty perfect. I miss my man but I'm glad he's doing what he loves to do and it'll be good when he comes home.

How the hell did I get so lucky?

I hear it's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone. It's quiet here in Lloyd, too where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children climb bamboo and feed the chickens.

Love...Ms. Moon

Addendum

Thanks, Rock Gods!

Chicken News And Other Stuff

Elvis is down to three tail feathers, poor old rooster. This happens every late summer. He seems to know that his magnificence has dimmed, or perhaps he truly is just getting old. One of the reasons I was so happy to have Drogo was that I know in my heart that one of these days Elvis just isn't going to be able to do his roosterly duties for the sister wives and I don't just mean sex but I mean protection, as well. I had such hopes for Drogo and I am so sorry he's gone.
Well, next spring we shall introduce a new rooster into the flock and take it from there.

It's gray here today and the sky is a bit ponderous. It's not too hot though and that is good. I am moving slowly today, perhaps because my martini hit me hard last night which is probably because I had eaten nothing all day long except for a smoothie and Jessie's leftover curry from the night before which was so good that I decided that this weekend my goal would be to learn how to truly make it but of course it requires ingredients that, if they are available in Tallahassee, I do not know where. I bought some green curry paste though and will perhaps try to make a fake version.

I got this picture from Mr. Moon this morning.

He is up in Georgia, tilling the field to plant his food plot. Now I know nothing about hunting but I do know that you can't actually shoot the deer when they are in the food plot and that some people disdain this sort of hunting but I look at it like this- he's feeding a lot of deer. Probably fifty deer get fed for every one deer that ends up feeding us so it's a pretty good deal for the deer. Not to mention birds and bears.

I asked him if he was a hunter or a farmer and he replied, "Both," and he loves being on that old tractor and plowing the red dirt. Having been once married to a man who spent his time away from home in far less wholesome activities, I am quite content with seeing my man go off to plow and plant and eventually hunt. I certainly never envisioned myself as being married to a hunter but then again, I never envisioned myself as being married to a man who was closer to seven feet tall than I am to six feet tall. 

One never knows, is what I'm saying here and isn't that truly a fine thing? 

I just got an e-mail informing me that I can live-stream and WATCH Prairie Home Companion tonight via the computer. Well. Now I have a plan if my Rolling Stones DVD doesn't get here. That's quite a contrast- Garrison Keillor and his news from Lake Woebegon live or Keith Richards in the most junky Mcjunked-out phase of his life. 

Or both if I am lucky and the DVD gets here.

I think I will walk down to the post office and see if the Gods of Rock have smiled on me and then it is time to get in the garden. 

More hurricane lilies are popping up and blooming everywhere and a hawk is making his bold yet mournful cry and Missy is still on the empty nest and Eggy Tina is either not laying either or is laying somewhere I cannot find and my husband is in Georgia and I am here and we are both farmers but he is a hunter and I am not. I am a gatherer though. Owen called me a little while ago to tell me that the next time he comes over he is going to swing from the rope onto the branches of the tree and thus, he will be just like Tarzan "who never grew up."

I hope he wears the red velvet shirt when he does this. 

I am finding dead banana spiders everywhere but their eggs are wrapped in silk and there will be more next summer.

Fall is coming. It feels a bit forlorn with this gray sky, with that piercing hawk call. 

Some days it is like that.

Love...Ms. Moon

Whoo-Hoo! It's A Wild Friday Night!

Uh. Not really.
I spent about forty-two hours in town today. At least that's what it seemed like. I went to Trader Joe's where I bought sweet potatoes and a red pepper and to TJ Maxx (which is not where the purse was, sorry, it was at Marshall's) and bought nothing there, and then to Steinmart where I bought Lily a birthday present and finally found a kitchen rug. See above.

I sent a picture of it to a friend. "Too much chicken?" I asked her.
"Mmmm. Yes." she answered.
Oh well. I bought it anyway. It is the right size, it will be easy to wash, it is colorful and it was cheap.

Let's see. Then I went to the liquor store where I saw a guy I've known forever and ever. I performed the wedding ceremony for him and his wife almost ten years ago at Wakulla Springs and they are still quite happily hitched and it was so good to see him.

After that I went to the library. And then to Marshall's with a fierce determination in my heart to just buy that fucking purse! Buy it! Fuck it! (Well, not literally.) Be crazy! Be wild! Do it!
The purse was gone. I am not kidding you.
All I could do was laugh.

I ducked into Michael's because I have this crazy notion of knitting a blanket and letting my wrist be numb and not even worrying about it. The potpourri almost knocked me out. I swear to god when the potpourri thing started happening about twenty years ago I thought that surely it would last a season or two.
Nope. Still happening.
I'd rather smell horseshit than potpourri. It gives me a headache and makes me want to break things.
Also? Michael's didn't have any decent yarn.
I got out of that place fast. To me, Michael's is like hell exploded and they made a store out of it. They have Christmas shit up already. Right alongside plaster Frankenstein heads you can buy and paint yourself for Halloween fun and frolic. Fuck them.
All right. While we're talking about this kind of thing, let me bring up the subject of pumpkin. All over the internets I read about how women (always women) are orgasming at Starbucks because the pumpkin latte is back. And there's pumpkin beer. And pumpkin-scented candles. And pumpkin I-don't-even-know-what and you know what? Pumpkin is fine in pumpkin pie. Pumpkin smells lovely when you carve a real one and stick a candle in it. Beyond that- NO! Jesus god. I thought of the first lines of a novel (which I will not write- feel free) which goes something like this:
Thomas stretched his legs out as he leaned back in the rocking chair on the wide front porch of his family's antebellum home, took a deep and appreciative sip of the bourbon in the thick, leaded crystal glass he held in his long, aristocratic fingers, flicked a piece of non-existent lint off the front of his pink cotton Polo shirt and said to his daddy, "Fall. The time of year when even Addison's farts smell like pumpkin."

Moving on. Jessie got the job. Are we surprised?
Three weeks. Three weeks and she and Vergil will be moving in. This is rather unbelievable. Oh, how I hope she and Vergil will be happy here. Vergil is leaving his home and loved ones, friends and childhood memories to come to Tallahassee and I so want him to be happy. We love him so.

Lily is still feeling like shit. I called her and her voice sounded so puny I thought it was Owen. Please may she feel better tomorrow.

When I was kissing Mr. Moon good-bye today I said, "You have a good time."
"You have a good time too," he said.
"Oh. I will. I'm going to buy tofu AND salmon," and we laughed and kissed a little more.
"Thank-you," he said, "for letting me be who I am."
"Thank-you," I answered, "for letting me be who I am."

I have salmon marinating in a soy-ginger sauce right now. The chickens have been put to bed, Missy carried in my arms like a baby from her nest, Butterscotch back on the roost with her sisters. The church next door is leaking gospel music from all the windows and doors, my air conditioner is rattling, my movie did not appear in my post office box, I am feeling less like someone who is cool and all sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll and more like someone who might read in bed for hours and hours.

I spent forty-two or six hours in town today and I do not have to go back for days.

Agoraphobic? Nah, not really.
Love your house and yard so much you rarely feel the need to leave?
Most likely.

This is my life.

Love to all...Ms. Moon

More Clips No One Will Watch

All right. Mr. Moon has gone to the hunt camp. Jessie has driven off for home. Maurice and I are here to hold the fort, light the lanterns, feed the chickens, and...well, we're going to do it up, y'all. Yep. That cat and I are going to celebrate a rock and roll weekend. That's the plan.
And when I say a rock and roll weekend I mean we're going to party like rock stars.

With a bit of luck, my Netflix pick of the documentary, Stones In Exile, will be in my P.O. box today or tomorrow.



Yes, we get the actual disc. Yes. We are lame. Yes. We know it. Yes. We are old. So the fuck what?

I see that the Stones are going to be starting out their next bout of touring on October 25 in Adelaide, Australia next month and that just happens to be Mr. Moon's and my 30th anniversary of marriage. And the Stones have been playing together for twenty longer years than that.




Wouldn't it be fabulous, wouldn't it be amazing if we got on a plane and flew to Australia to see the concert?

Oh. Like that's going to happen. I mean, if I really wanted it to, it would. But just the idea of flying to Australia is enough to make me want to roll into a fetal ball of helpless panic. Let's not even mention the thought of being in a crowd of thousands of people trying to see the stage from wherever it is we would be sitting. Oh god! The humanity!
(Wouldn't it be fabulous, though?)

Nah. I'd rather watch concert footage on my TV in my own living room. That is how old I am.

And of course, I'd simply love to have Keith over for drinks and a good shepherd's pie. I'll see if I can work that one out.

Meanwhile, here I am in Lloyd with my chickens and the cat and dishes and laundry to do and trash to take and plenty of time to weed and tidy and read in bed way, way too late into the night. But I tell you what- if that movie gets here, Katy bar the door and Maurice hide your eyes 'cause Mama's gonna break out the whiskey. (Not really. I hate whiskey.)

Stay tuned for any and all reports.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Thank you Ms. Saturdaysgarden for the awesome picture which you knew I would love.

P.P.S. Perhaps it would be a good idea to go to town and purchase one of those Life Alert button things so that if I fall down while dancing and CAN'T GET UP, Mr. Moon won't find my cat-chewed corpse on the floor of the den when he gets home. What do you think?

Purloined Flowers

While I was walking this morning, Lily called me and she sounded horrible and she felt horrible. Up vomiting all night and running a pretty stiff fever, chills, aching. I finished my walk and went in and picked her up some ginger-ale and crackers and Emetrol and dropped those off, scooped up my Gibson and we went and retrieved Owen from school.
I got to meet Clare and she is a very pretty girl with huge eyes and lovely. She hid behind her mama's knee but she peeped around and smiled.
We drove to Lloyd and I said, "We're home," and Owen said, "This isn't my home. It's my grandparent's home."
I said, "That makes it your grandhome."
And it does, I think.

While I was fixing their lunch, Owen went out and picked me all of the hurricane lilies and I'm afraid I gave him sort of mixed messages on the gift, being a bit horrified at first and then knowing that he had no idea that would be any sort of problem at all and so I tried to cover up my shock and thanked him and put them in a vase and there they are in that picture with some of the last zinnias of the season.
How can you fuss at a boy for bringing you flowers?
When I was in high school I had a boyfriend who would do a sort of guerilla thieving of all of the roses he could find in dark yards at night and cut them and bring them to me in giant, huge bundles and bouquets. He was crazy, I was crazy in love with him, I've never seen that many roses, he bought me my first lobster dinner, he built me a tiny house in the woods with lumber and bricks he'd probably stolen from construction sites, oh, how beautiful he made me feel. How cherished. How protected and that was exactly what I needed, what I craved, what I yearned for.
As crazy as he turned out to be, I know now why I loved him and I do not chasten myself for that.
And oh, how he broke my heart later and I thought I would never, ever get over that.
I did.
But I still remember those roses, that tiny hidden house in the woods.

How in the world did I get from Owen and hurricane lilies to that boy and the roses and my broken heart? A short and crooked path, I suppose.

I showed Owen the shirt I bought at the Goodwill this week and he fell in love with it, the softness of it, the crimson velvet sheen. He wanted to wear it and I let him and I told him he looked like a pirate, like someone from Harry Potter, like Keith Richards. He wore it to swing on the rope from, he wore it to climb in the fig tree in. He was gorgeous.

Gibson wanted to feed the dogs some dog biscuits (we still have part of a bag of them which I will send home with Jessie for Greta) and I explained to him again that Buster and Dolly are not here anymore, that they are gone. He went to look for them anyway and when he couldn't find them, he munched some of the dog bones himself. He also shared two muffins with the chickens but he didn't feed Maurice anything. He rode his tricycle around in a circle from porch to hallway to dining room, to bedroom, back to porch, over and over again. We played on the bed, kissing games and feet games and silly games and I read him the Hand, Hand, Finger Thumb book for the one millionth time and part of another book that when I do the sad voices he pulls my face towards him and says, "Stop crying, Mer," and I say, "I'm not crying," in my most cheerful voice and then I go back to doing the voices and he has to tell me again. He has been carrying a little metal airplane around for about a week now and Lily says that when he wakes up at night he says, "Where my plane?" and she has to find it for him before he'll go back to sleep. I told Owen the other day that I was surprised Gibson hadn't scratched him with that plane yet and tonight, after they went home, Owen called to inform me that now Gibson HAS scratched him with it but he sounded fairly cheerful about it. He just wanted to tell me.

Jessie thinks she got the job and she is off having supper with friends and will be leaving either tomorrow or Saturday and Mr. Moon is heading up to Georgia to the hunt camp tomorrow for the weekend and I wrote a friend today that I feel like the unmoving center of a universe that swirls around me and she wrote me back that yes, I probably am and that it's okay and a beautiful thing and I should accept that and it made me get a bit teary. 

We're all swirling, no matter what, in the planetary sense, at least. It is a fine thing to be a center. Someone has to maintain the grandhome. Someone has to be here for when the comets and stars and suns and moons need a place to rest. 

I do not mind being that. Sometimes I think I have held myself back so much and sometimes I think that yes, this is who I am and I have always wanted not much more than a home and flowers and someone to love me and for me to love and that is exactly what I have with the addition of so much more and Miss Butterscotch is sleeping out again tonight and may she be safe and well, and all of us too. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Stream Of Almost-Consciousness

They're doing something to the railroad tracks and machinery is going back and forth behind my house, beep-beep-beep, grind, grind, beep. Miss Butterscotch was so traumatized by the possum the other night that she isn't sleeping in the hen house but somewhere else and she shows up in the morning, safe and sound, and don't tell me chickens don't think, don't tell me cats don't think, don't tell me babies don't think, even trees think, most likely.
Jessie's off to meet the painter, then to get her fingerprints taken to get her Florida nursing license and then an interview this afternoon, and this is really happening, really, truly and Owen was so happy yesterday when she showed up with his mama to pick him up from school that he said his brain was going to explode and both of those boys were wild yesterday, just wild, and then Gibson had a needing-a-nap-so-bad meltdown and he cried and cried and Owen got mad because we wouldn't buy him something he wanted because his birthday is about to be here and he's going to get a buttload of toys and he told his mother and me both that we are not invited to his birthday party and then he felt bad and oh, to be almost-five and not afraid to speak your feelings and to be loved entirely and completely even though.
I went back and looked at the purse, ready to buy, but it didn't thrill me as much. Shit. A hundred bucks. That's enough money for...a trip to the grocery, a lot of potting soil, I don't know. The red it was lined with didn't please me as much. So what? Purses. Fah. And hell yes, I can walk on stilettos, don't ask me why. To the end of the aisle and back at Pay Less, at least, but seriously, why would you do that? Although I used to have a pair of pink "reptile" skin heels that I wore when I used to go out with my nursing school friends, although I kicked them off when it came time to dance, and then I got married in them. What happened to those shoes? Where did they go? And that beautiful hippie dress that I loved and adored and that I didn't wear any underwear with and also that gorgeous Indian print dress that I wore when I was pregnant with Hank and with May, it flowed like a queen's gown, it made me feel majestic. Where do these things go?
And where do the babies go when the adults appear and where did I go, oh wait, here I am, sitting here, all the ages I've ever been inside of me and why does this make me weepy and what are they DOING on the railroad tracks?
I got to see both Billy and Togi yesterday and got hugs, hugs, hugs, such good, hard hugs, and why is it that some people, even if we don't see them very often, make us cry when we do see them because we love them so much and are so glad that they are on the planet the same time as we are, and why do I feel things so sharply, so fully that things like this happen to me? Shouldn't my edges be rounded by now? Instead I reach over and hold my husband's hand in the bed at night and say, "Why do I love you so much? I think I love you too much," and it gets worse every day, this loving-too-much, this caring too much, instead of the edges being rounded by this river of life, the protective coating is the thing which has been dissolved, and I want all of my children to be so happy, so safe, so loved, I want my grandsons never to feel the need to cry but of course that's not even reasonable but the thought of any being being in pain hurts my heart, even Butterscotch, her frightened heart forcing her to roost by herself somewhere alone, away from her sisters, and maybe all of this is why reading the news is just too painful, maybe it's why I can't begin to worry about what happens after this life, why would anyone take on that worry when there's so much here and now and also love and joy and every season the changes and the light and the music of the wind and the crickets and the voices of our loved ones and even the evil sometimes seems to me more of a cry for help and release than sign of the devil, and we all, all of us, yearn for the light and the love and the safety and the peace and the cool, clear water and all of us know, somehow, even from the moment of birth that we deserve those things and they can only be proffered through love and it's so easy to move people through anger, to propel them into action, that combined with the promise of a future life after death of ease and virgins, I don't know, I've never understood the promise of heavenly things, for me, if there is simply rest, it will be enough.

How fucked up WERE those railroad tracks?
I need to go take a walk.

What Grandmothers Do

Take pictures of their grandsons in Marshall's, lying on the furniture.

Take pictures of themselves trying on camo-print stilettos with zippers up the back at Pay Less while their daughter buys their grandsons new flip-flops. 

And then send them to their husband. 

It's been a good day. 

Country Living At It's Finest

Jessie got in just in time for supper and when Mr. Moon went to shut the chickens up there was a damn possum in the henhouse and some of the hens were missing and he killed the possum and we rounded up chickens in the dark.
This is my life.

It is gorgeous here today.
Rained again last night.

Jewels on the elephant ears.

Jewel on the back porch. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Dental Procedures And Leather Purses

So I went to see my dentist and whenever I go see him, I think about the time he met me at his office two nights before Christmas Eve to put my crown on and I love him for that. Just love him. We discussed the bridge vs implant thing. He said, "Look- the bridge is a Mercedes. The implant is a Maserati."
For the cost difference, I think I'll go for the damn Maserati. He said, "It'll last at least twenty years."
I said, "I'm sixty. That'll do me for sure."
Which is sort of awesome. Hell, I have enough make-up to last for the rest of my life. This is comforting somehow. I mean, I'm still buying green bananas but there are some things I can buy now which I will never have to buy again.
Obviously not a kitchen rug.
After I went to the dentist I did a little more rug shopping. Either (a) I am the pickiest person in the world, or (b) I am not going to the right places, or (c) they make sucky rugs.
I ended up at a Goodwill. No kitchen rugs but I did buy a Ralph Lauren red silk velvet shirt for six bucks.

I also found a purse. Not at Goodwill. At the TJ Maxx. For those of you who do not know, I have a serious purse addiction. It's been quite in check for a good long time and I haven't bought a new one in a year. I shop. I touch. I pinch. I sniff the fine leather. I moan a little, very quietly so as not to draw attention to myself. But nothing has really tempted me in quite a while until...today.
Shit. That purse made me weak in the knees. It made my nether parts tingle. It was very plain leather, a little hippie, a lot Italian, the perfect size, lined in RED, and it was marked down to...one hundred and five bucks. 
After careful examination (some might call it fondling) I realized that the zipper on the side pocket was missing the pull thing. Which is no doubt why it was marked down. I told myself- You see! It is imperfect! and I forced my hand to place it back on the hook.
Sob. Sob. Sob.

And obviously, I am still thinking about it.
I believe I have a womb thing. I love bags, baskets, and bowls. And pockets. Things you can carry other things in. Things that hold things. Herbs, dough, eggs, babies, wallets, pens, fruit. Always have. Probably always will.

And dammit, that purse, like the implant, would last me the rest of my life.

Ten years ago, I would have bought that thing. I don't know why I am so loathe to spend money now. Another one of my neurotic behaviors. One I wish my husband would appreciate a little tiny bit more. (Says the woman who's about to get a dental procedure that costs more than some people pay for cars.)

Oh well.

Jessie will be here in less than two hours. I finally got the kitchen mopped. I just told Mr. Moon about the implant decision. I don't think he's thrilled. I should probably not bring up the purse, right?

It's been raining. It's nice. Clean sheets tonight, my baby will be home.

Life is fine. I am fine. Dinner will be fine if I get off my ass and make it.

I hope you're fine too. I truly do.