Flat Friday

I've taken no pictures today because really, I haven't done much today. Didn't see any grandchildren, didn't work in the garden. I did take the trash but y'all don't want to see that place although the man who was tending it was so sweet and his smile was so beautiful that if I'd been braver I would have asked if I could take his picture. 

I talked to a friend this morning and when she asked how I was doing I said, "I'm just tired." And I have been. I guess it's been a fairly busy week and I don't do busy these days. Not very well, at least. So I've just sort of rested today and been a little blue. I thought it was going to rain all day and I had been looking forward to that, thinking how that would make staying in and being lazy more acceptable but the weather widget sure didn't get that one right. We've had mostly blue skies all day long. 

It sounds funny to say that I'm disappointed at blue skies instead of rain but I have been. 

I shelled some peas and watched a few episodes of "30 Rock" which I have not watched all of. That could be my new project, right? Such a well-written show, such good characters. 

The other main thing I've done today is fret over how to make a type of enchiladas I want to make. I was inspired by a recipe that Rebecca gave as well as by my friend who popped by the other day who talked about making spinach and poblano enchiladas. I've been looking at recipes and I have finally roasted the poblanos that I got at Publix earlier in the week and I've blended those up with raw spinach but I don't really know what I'm doing so I'm just taking a bit here and a bit there from different recipes and we'll see how they turn out. With enough cheese, anything can work, I suppose. I'm not sure I'm even in the mood for them now but I had nothing else planned for supper so...

And I guess it's just been one of those days, neither here nor there, just...a day. Isn't it funny how we only get a limited number of days and yet, we spend so much time simply passing the time? I think that most of us do try to make good use of the time we have but all of us, or at least most of us, waste a goodly amount of it. 

Ah, I can't even get motivated to philosophize so you know I'm in a flat place. Not a bad place, just a flat one. Perhaps Friday martinis will make everything seem a bit bouncier. 
We shall see. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

It's Still Summer Here

 

Yesterday when Owen and I were talking, he mentioned a "lygor" and I said, "Have you ever seen "Napoleon Dynamite"? 

He had not. And so we remedied that last night. I don't know if I've ever spoken of my love for that movie here before but it truly is one of my favorites. Because it's such a low-budget film, it had to be creative and charming and clever and self-aware and self-ironic and funny and heart-touching and, well- just all of the stuff I like in a movie. The dialogue knocks me out. I think it's got some of the best lines of any movie I've ever seen. I personally love the acting. I love the characters. I love the way it gently pokes fun at stereotypes and I love the way it captures the absurdity of high school right along with the impossible tenderness of first love. 
It was probably more fun for me to watch it for the who-knows-how-many-times than it was for Owen to watch it the first time but I think he liked it. At least he stayed awake until the very end. I always forget that after ALL of the credits run, possibly the best part of the movie is still to be seen. If any of you have not seen it, I will not ruin that ending for you but I will just say that one of my favorite movie lines of all times is there. 
"Sorry I'm late. I tamed this honeymoon stallion for you."
And rather unbelievably, there is not one cuss in it. 

The pizza I made was pretty darn fantastic. I finally made the thin and crispy crust that Mr. Moon loves and the Alfredo sauce was spectacular. I made two pizzas, one with just the sauce, chicken, a few banana peppers, and some onion, and the other had spinach mixed in with the sauce and was topped with all the things the first one had plus artichoke hearts and mushrooms. 
Yeah. It was good.

After dinner and a movie, Owen took his shower and got into his very clean bed and I said, "I guess you don't need me to read 'The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza' do you?" and he said, "No. I'm tired."
I said, "I am too." and I was. But I did kiss him good-night and tuck him in. 
He is such a fine boy. 

There were pancakes this morning as there always seems to be on spend-the-night morning-afters. And after Boppy took the boy home I decided to get a little more clearing done in the garden. I swear- I am as bad at pulling the spent plants as I am pulling seedlings to thin new rows. But damn! The peppers, despite falling over and looking extremely weary are still giving forth and the peas are still making pods, plump with their sweet little morsels of protein heaven. And the zinnias!

That is the last handful of okra I'm getting. I can say this with certainty as the plants have mostly died back to sticks and those I have pulled. I think I'll cook the few I picked today with some tomatoes and onion for our supper. And I suppose I must make one more batch of pepper jam. 

But I did do some weeding and I did pull some beans and a few eggplants. It wasn't SO hot but the humidity is right around 80% and quite frankly, I'm miserable out there working in it. Mr. Moon's been pushing gravel around for hours on the little tractor-thingee he rented after he dropped off Owen. I don't know if it's a skid steer or not. I just know it has a something-something in the front and another something-something in the back. 
My observational skills are obviously lacking. But it does appear to be doing a pretty good job of moving that gravel. 
I think the man and I will sleep pretty well tonight. 

And now, not to be grim or anything, have you seen the report that at this point, one out of five-hundred Americans have died of Covid so far? And that is not counting those who died before testing was established or those who weren't, for whatever reason, counted as Covid deaths. 

My point here is not to depress anyone but in fact, to remind us all that masks are very much still necessary for all of us. And that if you have not been vaccinated, just please stay home. I found out today that my niece got the damn virus at school but thankfully, she has been vaccinated and her symptoms are no worse than those of a bad cold. Her mother who is a nurse, is furious with DeathSantis who refuses to make kids mask. As I've said before, our superintendent of schools has gone against the governor and is requiring masks for children in schools up to the age of twelve but not beyond, hoping, I suppose, that the children over twelve will have gotten their vaccinations. 
But all of them have not. Obviously. 

Here's the new Florida motto:

Be safe. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Day Full Of Fellas

And that is what Owen looks like with his Boppy today. He's grown quite a bit, I'd say since the picture I posted yesterday of him. And he's such a great kid. He's only been here for about forty-five minutes and we've already discussed school, slavery, Native Americans, extinct tigers, "Napoleon Dynamite," pizza, and college history classes. Plus other stuff.

It's been a full day around here. Jessie brought out August and Levon. She's helping August do his virtual schooling and Levon's been having a bit of a hard time with that. He doesn't quite understand that his mother has to give her attention to August when that's going on. So while August and Jessie did schooling in the Glen Den, Levon did other things with us. 

First he and Boppy spread a little gravel around and then they decided to rent some sort of machine to make this job easier. So they spent about half an hour, researching the different options they had. This was the most fascinating thing Levon could have imagined. 

I'm not kidding. 
They decided on something and we all had leftover lunch and then Boppy went into town to pick up the machine and Levon and I read some books. I painted his nails, too. He likes his nails painted. His are now the same red as my toenails are. I noticed that Owen has black painted fingernails. Nail polish is definitely not just for girls anymore and why should it be? Our friend Billy who has a beard that goes halfway down his chest always sports polished nails and he is a great inspiration to us all. 
Anyway, Levon and I read a bunch of books while August learned some Spanish and studied a little social studies (in kindergarten!) and did some other things. So all of that was fun, at least for Levon and me and then they went home and Boppy got back without any machines because the one he'd wanted had a dent in it and they couldn't rent it like that. 
Sigh.

I picked a few more peas this morning. 

While I was waiting for Boppy to get back with Owen, I shelled a few while listening to my current audio book. I also picked more peppers and by golly I think there might be more jars of pepper jelly in my future. 

I also washed the quilt and the sheets on the bed where Owen will be sleeping tonight. Jack has used that bed recently for his naps and I want the bed to be comfy and cat-hair free. 

So that's been life around here today. It's rained a little bit and although it never got too hot, the damn humidity was so bad that it has still felt like a special sort of sticky hell. 

And now it's time to go make the pizzas. Owen has clarified that he does want a white sauce on his pizza with the chicken and Mr. Moon says that sounds good to him. The dough is rising as you can see in that picture above. I feel lucky and fortunate to be able to hang out with my grandchildren. They are all so very different in so many different ways which is absolutely the best. I told Levon today that he surely was a fine and smart little man (he had just told me that he and Boppy were thinking about renting a skid steer which until Levon got interested in heavy machinery, I had never even heard of) and he agreed that he was. Children are not apt to hide their lights under bushels and I love that about them. 

Chopping, slicing, and alfredo sauce-making shall now commence. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Time Humbles and Tumbles Us With Its Mysterious Passing

And this is what the hurricane lily looked like this morning. They are rather magical plants, I think. Their lives are ridiculously short. One day you'll see the stalk sprouting up, the next day a bud forms, and then it opens to bask in sunlight and glory for a few more days, at most. The rest of the year they are the earth's little secret, hidden entirely from view, gathering up the energy required for such a fleeting, flaming and delicate existence. 
How I love them! 

I should probably just end this here as the rest of the day was not much. I mailed a package, I did some laundry, I swept some floors, I went to Publix. And that was NOT much of a pleasure today, I have to admit. I kept seeing people that I did not want to talk to and I suppose they had no desire to talk to me either as we pretended we did not know each other although of course fate did throw us into the same aisle over and over again. I bought way more stuff than I needed for no reason except that some things were BOGO that we do use and as my mother always said, "They'll keep just as good on my shelf as theirs." Or something to that effect. And I also couldn't remember if I had enough of certain things and so I just bought more. Flour, for instance. I had meant to check the flour supply before I left but did not. So now I have plenty of flour. 

Owen is coming to spend the night tomorrow as they are off of school on Thursday and Friday. I'm excited about that. I've asked him about three times what he'd like to eat, via text, and his answers have been slow in coming and fairly incomplete. I finally asked him if he'd like homemade pizza and did get a definitive answer on that. 
"omg. Yes."
So then I proceeded to ask him what his favorite toppings were and whether he likes thin crust or thick. He answered, "Chicken."
Okay. We'll go from there. 

When I was in the store I started thinking about how Owen used to stand on the kitchen step-stool and help me make pizza by smushing the dough with his little fingers and carefully placing the toppings on the pie. He was barely older than a baby and it seems so impossible to me that that happened so very long ago and that now he's almost as tall as I am and could probably make his own pizza if he wanted to. As I said in a comment the other day, people always tell parents how fast the years fly by, how quickly their babies grow up but no one seems to warn the grandparents. I guess it's assumed that grandparents by very definition know how fast children can grow as we are the parents of their parents but there's also the crazy way that times goes faster and faster every year as each year becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of our lives which means that they grow up even faster and that's just hard. 
I look back at pictures of all the children when they were babies, toddlers, and my heart just yearns to be able to hug them and hold them the way I did then when they were so small. 

Do you remember Owen when he was this little guy? 

Ever since Owen was a baby, when he'd leave my house with his mama or daddy, I would always whisper to him, "You're my little prince," when I kissed him goodbye. 
I still do. Don't tell him I told you that. 
And I just told Lily on the phone that I sort of feel like royalty is coming to visit when Owen's planning a sleepover here. He IS my little prince although he's not little anymore. But he was my first grandchild. He gave me my grandmother name which is the perfect grandmother name for me.

It's only supposed to get up to eighty-one degrees tomorrow. I can barely believe that. I guess the hurricane lilies know what they're talking about as they always come up when summer and fall are at their cusp. 

Another season is about to be done and another one is about to start. 
Again. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

We Keep On Keeping On

That's not a very impressive picture of the first hurricane lily I've seen in the yard this year. It's on a stalk that's at least a foot tall but it hasn't opened yet. I had been thinking that I would soon begin to see them and here they are. Where one is, more will follow.

I finally got up off my increasingly fat ass today and took a walk but only after I'd procrastinated all that I could by having to finish a crossword  and taking the trash and going by the post office. I feel fine when I'm walking but then for the rest of the day everything hurts. Legs, back, feet. Just...man, getting older sucks. In the early afternoon an old friend of mine stopped by. I hadn't seen her in ages and it was really good to catch up a bit. She's been having a hard time, health-wise, and recently had a shoulder replacement. She told me that the pain afterwards was unbelievable- exquisite- she said but that it's getting better. We joked/didn't joke about how aging is affecting us and how now we're those old people whom we swore we would never be, seemingly unable to talk about anything but our health problems. 
"Well," I said, "Pain changes our lenses."
And that's true and also fairly profound. 
But we ended up by laughing at our human frailties and foibles and wishing each other well, both of us knowing that neither one of us is anywhere ready to give up yet.  

On my walk this morning, I saw the blooming confederate rose that grows in my next door neighbor's yard. Talk about exquisite. 

The one I have growing at the corner of my front porch isn't blooming yet and I hope it's just a matter of not getting as much light as my neighbor's does and not because Mr. Moon trimmed it back to nubs this spring. It needed trimming badly because it was so spindly. 

The ditches that line the road where I walked are filled with Bidens Alba, or what we call beggerticks or Spanish needles. 

The pollinators love them and I saw bees galore along with butterflies. They are supposedly well-known for their medicinal properties but I've never dabbled in their particular form of healing. They're sort of a pain because if you brush against them, you will come away with tiny black needles that are almost impossible to remove from your clothes. Thus, their common names which are truly descriptive. 

I did not see No Man Lord today nor any of his compadres. In fact, I didn't see a soul except for people driving by. A little odd. When I got home, I noticed for the first time that the firespike I've rooted and planted by the front gate is blooming. 

This pleases me a great deal because over the years I have managed to root and plant quite a bit of it. The hummingbirds love it. It seems to me that it's a plant who throws its leaves and flowers out like arms as if to say "Welcome, fall! Come in, come in! We are ready for you."

I cleaned out the hen house this afternoon and that was a true pain in that red ants have invaded two of the nest boxes. I got stung repeatedly before I even realized they were there. This did not improve my disposition at all which has been a bit sour today anyway. 
And as always, for no apparent reason. Just the way it is. 
But sometimes, when things here overwhelm me, whether it's all of the work that needs to be done to the house and all of the work that needs to be done in the yard, or TOO MUCH NATURE or just the inevitable movement towards aging, I wonder if perhaps we should try to find a place in town that would be easier to maintain, closer to some of the children. 

And then I sit here on my back porch when the sun begins its dip into the west and the cardinals come in to feed and the chickens do their last rounds of the yard for the day and head slowly towards the coop to put themselves to bed, and the light shines through the magnolia leaves, the wisteria leaves, and I think about how much pleasure I get, gardening in the fall and winter and spring, pulling weeds in the cool air, picking greens to make the most amazing salads with, and I think about this old house that so gracefully and graciously shelters us and offers us its tree-spirited protection and I know I'm not ready to go anywhere yet. 

Well, that's about it from Lloyd this evening. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Date Night Sure Doesn't Mean What It Used To

 Brudders

When the boys took their baths last night, they decided to use a brush on each other to gently scratch backs and then they proceeded to arms. They sighed with the delight of it all. 
I always say that we have no idea how itchy our backs are until someone scratches them for us. And are we not primates? Do we not love to have someone brush our hair? And is that not grooming? 
We should all groom each other more. Society would be a much more friendly and relaxed place if we did. It's so funny how we humans are always so delighted and amazed when great apes or other animals learn to do something that humans do whether it's use sign language or wash dishes but I think it would be great if we could learn to adopt some of their habits. I mean- just think how much better life would be if we tried a few of the Bonobo's methods of mediating arguments and diffusing tension. (Note: They are known as the erotic apes. For a reason.) 

But we could just start with scratching backs and rubbing shoulders. But only with permission! Okay? Not appropriate to approach a stranger or coworker and suddenly begin any sort of tactile connection, no matter how well-intended! 
Actually, it's not even appropriate with family members unless there is a well-established custom of this. 
Meanwhile, we pay for massages and for getting our hair shampooed, for pedicures and manicures. We call it all "pampering" and in the case of massages we call them "therapeutic" but they can all be therapeutic in their ways. 
Touch. Touch is good. IF APPROPRIATE! 

So yes, we had a good date night with our grandsons. Jessie told me that before they came out yesterday Levon said, "You're going to leave, right? You're really going to leave?" 
They do love to spend the night with Mer and Bop. This morning I asked August if he missed his parents. 
"Not really," he said in his serious August way. 
Those boys.

We spoiled them. They got the choice of pie or purple cows but they wanted both so we gave them a little bit of both. They were so happy. 

And they made me proud, the way they ate their chicken and dumplings. They weren't even too crazy or wild at bath time and got out when I asked them to. Pajamas were not fought nor was teeth-brushing. And then we read stories. When I told them it was time to get in bed, they did. And I kissed them good-night and turned out the light and I'm sure they were asleep within two minutes. 

Unfortunately, Levon woke up at his regular time which is about six a.m. 
Oh Lord. 
"Is it time to get up?" he whispered to me. 
"No!" I said. "It's still dark. Come get in bed with me." 
And so he did and I cuddled him up. "Are you cozy?" I asked him. 

"Yes," he said. 
"Are you comfy?" 
"Yes." 

And he tried so hard not to wiggle or wriggle or talk or anything and I tried so hard to go back to sleep but it just really didn't work out too well. I'd drift down, down, down, and then he'd move a limb or change his snuggle position and I'd come back up from the depths. Boppy finally got up and went to his chair. He'd been up until quarter of one, watching an FSU football game and was not happy to be bumped and jiggled by a wiggling boy. But Levon and I stuck it out until August woke up about 7:30 at which point I told them they could go see Boppy which they knew meant he would let them watch TV while he slept a little more and I went back to sleep and slept so late that I am too embarrassed to tell you when I got up. 
Boppy had just gotten them a snack of crackers and peanut butter and juice so they had not perished from hunger and I got busy making pancakes and soon we were all back at the table again. Levon had decided the night before that he wanted to sit at the big table, not in the high chair, and at breakfast he did. Which mostly breaks my heart.

And oh well, here's his brother, who, when I took Levon's picture said, "Why didn't you take a picture of me?"

"Hold on there, big boy," I said. And then I did. 

While we ate breakfast, they wanted to play a game which is related to "Animal, Mineral, or Vegetable" that they call "Dead or Alive". 

It was hysterical. 
My favorite parts were when Levon was certain that an answer was "a crab" and asked "Is it a crab?!" about four times, and, when I was thinking of a deck of cards and had given the hint that what I was thinking of had pictures, August said, "A cave!" which is so cool because some caves do have pictures in them. 
Smart boys. 

After breakfast they got to help Boppy work on the never-to-be-finished model car a little bit. 

Books were read, and toys were played with. 

Then Mama and Daddy came and Mr. Moon and Vergil went back out into the woods and Jessie took those boys home. Mr. Moon is still not back and I have a little venison roast in the oven with some carrots and onions and potatoes and lots of garlic. My kitchen should smell wonderful but mostly it smells like tea tree oil and rosemary and something else indefinable to me because I had to use the Biorganic spray for ants. We've got the little black ants coming in one place to swarm right beside the stove. Here's a picture of my spoon rest which obviously did not get cleaned well after breakfast. 

Yes. My spoon rests are ancient pieces of whelk shells that I found on the beach and they work beautifully and are dishwasher safe. This one obviously should have gone in the dishwasher. 

Sigh. 

Little fuckers. 
The only place I'm seeing them is right there beside the stove and I think they're coming up between it and the tiny piece of counter beside it. 

And now I see that my dishwasher (speaking of dishwashers) has an error message and the water hasn't drained and that probably means that just trying to clear it out by hand isn't going to have to work and Mr. Moon is going to have to bring in that thing he hooks up to the drain line and does something with which makes it go, "Blllllpppp" and then drain. 

Sigh and sigh again. I know he's going to be thrilled about that when he finally makes it in from the woods, soaked with sweat, exhausted, and hungry. 

It's not easy being him but no one else has volunteered for the job so I guess he's stuck with it. 
I sure am glad he is. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Kiss From Your Lips. An Eye For An Eye

 

It's been a different sort of day. The Weatherfords came out and Mr. Moon and Vergil and August and Levon took off for the woods to set up the deer feeders and hang trail cams and I don't know what all while Jessie and I, with free time on our hands that we hardly knew what to do with, decided to watch something on the TV that was neither child nor man approved. And so we did! 
We went through the menus for awhile and settled on something completely ridiculous and absolutely fun. 
Magic Mike, XXL.

We had seen the original movie years ago when it was in the theater. We went with our dear Liz (not to be confused with Lis) and some other lady friends and somehow the only seats available were on the front row and it was just a hoot. Jessie thinks she'd seen the XXL version too but wasn't sure. I knew I hadn't. So what the hell? 
AND, to make it purely heavenly, she gave me a pedicure while we watched. 
Am I the luckiest woman in the world or what? 
So the feet you're seeing up there may look ant-bit and old and Lloyd-dirt-stained (and they are) but they look brand new compared to what they looked like before she started. 
We got to watch all but the last twenty minutes of the movie and it was just terrible. But in a good way. At one point I said, "It's like they ad-libbed this entire movie." 
And not very well, either. 
But hey! Pretty bodies. Pret-ty, pret-ty bodies. 
And then Jessie got a call from Vergil and he needed her to meet them at Lily's house with a battery (don't ask me) and so she's gone and I've started tonight's supper which is chicken and dumplings because that's what August said he wanted as they are spending the night. They were pretty excited about that. Levon told me, "I can't wait to have a date night!" 
So yes, we're having a date night with August and Levon with chicken and dumplings and either purple cows or coconut cream pie according to their desires and wishes. 

And hopefully, Jessie and Vergil will have a date night too. I'm sure they need one. We haven't had the boys spend the night since we were in North Carolina. 

And yes, today is the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 as we all know. And yes, I remember exactly where I was and so do you.
So do you.

There's so much one could say about that day and the aftermath but I think this song says more than I ever could. 

We will never not be haunted. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Roux Rushing (Don't Do That)

And the lede tonight is that Gibson won student of the week! For, and I quote- "Great effort, Role Model, helpful, great grades!"

We are so proud of him! And isn't he handsome? 

I am so behind on my usual schedule tonight. It's ridiculous the way I schedule my post writing every evening. I have a timeline that I feel I must adhere to which is ridiculous but it's what I've come to here in my older life. I don't even know what to say about that except that as Popeye, the famous mariner philosopher and eater of canned spinach, always said, "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam."

So what happened was that I worked out in the garden some and got way too hot even though it is cooler today be a degree or so and then I came in and then Mr. Moon mentioned that I had talked about making him a coconut cream pie recently and he sure was thinking about that and I said, "Well, I'll make it this afternoon because I sure don't want to go back outside to work," and so I made the pie which of course took awhile because I had to make the pastry and bake it and make the custard and make the meringue and top it with coconut and bake that and THEN I started making gumbo because I'll be damned if I'm going to let the last of my lovely okra pods go to waste and Lily and Lauren came over and sat in the kitchen and talked to me while I stirred roux and made broth with shrimp shells and chopped celery and onions and peppers and garlic and sliced up my okra and so on and so forth which also took quite awhile. Every time I make gumbo now I am amazed at how easy it really is but it does take some time and patience because you cannot rush a roux. 
That would make a good title for a poem, wouldn't it? 
"You Cannot Rush a Roux." 

So it's much later than it usually is when I write this and it's Friday and my sheets are still not back on the bed although they are lovely-clean and line-dried and my kitchen looks like a tropical disturbance came through, although not a tropical storm. It's not that bad. 

I have been listening to a novel titled "Ginny Moon" by Benjamin Ludwig and somehow the author has created a fourteen-year old girl who has autism whose mother severely neglected and abused her, made her the protagonist of a book and somehow gotten into her mind and heart and made me love her and hang on to my seat to see how things turn out even as I am so afraid for her. I see that the author took in a teenaged foster child with special needs and his ability to translate that experience into this book is amazing. 
There's so much more I could say about it but I'm not finished with it yet and quite frankly, I'm not sure I'll be finished with it for quite some time, even when I've read (with my ears) the last page. 
And listening to it, I am reminded that we all (or at least me) share traits with people with autism. 
Ginny Moon must have nine grapes with her breakfast every morning and I must start answering comments on the previous day's blog post at 5:00 p.m. 

I can, of course, deviate from my schedule but I surely do not like to. But hell, I did get some work done in the garden, I did hang the laundry outside, I did make a gumbo and I did make a coconut cream pie for my sweetheart. 

My kitchen may be a mess but it smells heavenly and even though I was running so very late on my self-imposed schedule, I did not rush the roux. 

I'll try to get to the comments I haven't answered later or tomorrow. 

Meanwhile...

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

The Disgusting And The Domestic

August made our bed this morning and I have not touched it to straighten it out. It looks perfect to me. Jack thinks it's fine too. That's him up there, that dark gray lump. That cat sleeps all day. And night. I suppose most cats do even though they are supposedly nocturnal. If mine get up and hunt in the wee hours, I sure don't know about it. 

We had some weather last night. A "tropical disturbance" formed one minute in the Gulf and hit the coast here the next minute. I mean, I'd never heard of Mindy, which was the name of this disturbance. No one had. It was weird. "My" weatherman, Rob Nucatola, did a video telling people to calm down. It was basically just going to be a rainy night with a little wind. Which is what it was. I guess that's why we got rain all day yesterday. I think it rained most of the night too. I know we lost power at some point because my fan cut off but then...wait for it...THE GENERATOR KICKED IN and my fan came back on. 
Just crazy. I still don't believe this. 
But I laid awake for awhile, waiting to see if it was really going to work and also, to see if it was going to burn the house down. It did work and the house is still here so hurray! 
Mr. Moon slept through it. 

He had to get up early to get blood drawn so I had privacy in which to do my Cologuard thing. I have to give that company credit in that they definitely have their shit together. 
Get it?

Haha! I'm hysterical, right?

But no, seriously. That is one compact package of equipment and instructions and those instructions are detailed, complete, clear, and graphically illustrated. They do tend to go a little overboard with warnings like how you're not supposed to drink the preservative and so forth. 
But I'm sure they have their reasons.
Sigh.

They try to make it all as simple and easy as possible but there's nothing in the world they can do to make it less disgusting. I mean, it's impossible. But I did it and got it all packed up properly and then Jessie got in touch about coming out with the boys and when I said that they could hang out and play while she did her shopping, she offered to drop the box off for me at UPS which was about the sweetest thing ever. I gladly took her up on that offer. 

And out came the boys who are still snotty and a little cough-y but in good spirits. Bop had come back from town but was across the street where our neighbor was welding a part of the frame of the go-kart which is now running. The boys were pretty excited to hear both of those pieces of news and we read some books while we waited. When he got back they went outside to help him bolt the seats back into the go-kart although August soon tired of that and came in and built a house with Lincoln Logs and then he and I looked for more online because we only have enough to build one small cabin and we ordered them. He's pretty excited. I am always happy to buy things like Lincoln Logs that the kids can use to create things with their own brains and hands. And then we started the Noah's Ark puzzle that we love that we find new things in every time we do it. Mama came back about that time and ate her Publix sub, sharing it with August even though he'd already eaten about five different things. That kid doesn't have a tapeworm, he IS a tapeworm. 

And then it was time to ride the go-kart! 

Oh boy. So, so exciting. Jessie had brought their helmets just for this purpose. 

I think that Boppy was possibly more excited than the grands although they were pretty thrilled. They took turns going around the property and agreed it was even more fun than the four-wheeler because it goes faster. I'm not sure that's true but they did indeed look like they were all enjoying it. As they were riding around the yard I looked at Jessie and said, "How many vehicles can one man own?"
"I don't know," she said. 
A lot, it would appear. 
I am almost certain that Mr. Moon is living the dream as pertains to what he has always wanted to do in retirement- have time to fix up old cars and miscellaneous other wheeled vehicles and enjoy them with his grandchildren. Of course there's hunting and fishing and all of that other stuff too. He's feeling better today although he hit a wall after the go-Kart rides and had to go sit back in his chair and shell some field peas. 

I don't guess that there is such a thing as retirement for housewives. I mean- we just keep doing all the stuff we always did, which is fine with me. I never did clean that much anyway although I will say that I was better about it when I was younger. And I like to cook. And sometimes a grandchild will make the bed for us. 

Tonight we're having one of my favorite meals which is pinto beans cooked with pig. I found a ham bone in the freezer last week that I guess is the sacred remains of the Easter ham. I can't even remember Easter. Did we have a ham? We must have. So I took it out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator last night to thaw and soaked my beans. I started the dough for a loaf of sourdough before I went to bed, which is just about ready to go in the oven. The beans are in their cooking-without-a-lid stage to make their gravy. I'll make us a nice little salad and that'll be about the best thing ever. 
See? Food. It's my life. 

I have GOT to get that garden ready to plant soon. It's time for different food. And I can't wait. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

If Talk Of Body Things Offends You, Skip This One

It has rained all day today and is currently only 77 degrees on our porch. A dear and welcome relief for which I am grateful. 
I feel like I was actually productive today in that I did an adult thing. We got a letter the other day from the company that does our Medicare supplement insurance telling me that I could get my prescriptions either free or much cheaper AND get them in three-month dosages AND have them delivered by mail. 
Well, even I could see the benefit in this. 
So first I tried to do it online via the website address they gave me but it kept giving me an error message when I tried to register although I KNOW I was putting in the correct information. So I called the number they also offered and got a nice man who sounded as if he might be working from home unless children are running around the office where he works. 
Which I doubt.
But he hooked me up and was very polite and very patient and very clear in his questions and instructions and I should be getting my meds in a few days. Then he handed me over to the IT person to get the website registration issue taken care of and I think that's done too. 
When I called they asked if I would mind doing a survey after the call and I said that I wouldn't mind and so after I talked with the IT lady, I did take it. It was so funny because they wanted me to rate every question on a scale of zero to ten, zero being not at all and ten being the best. 
Yes. I am familiar with how this works. 
BUT, they had to explain the scale for every question. Every. Single. One. 
Carefully and slowly. I guess we're all old people. 
After all of those questions, they said that after the tone I could give any additional input on how I felt the service had been and I got a tone and I started to talk but before five entire seconds had passed, a voice said, "Thank you. Good-bye!" 
Haha!

Well. That was that. 

Then I went to get my teeth cleaned which was fine. I have a rather strange relationship with my dental hygienist. In some ways we are very similar. We're about the same age, we've both been married twice, we have children and grandchildren whom we adore and worry about and would do anything for. She makes jewelry and I make...well, a blog, I guess. She gardens. I garden. 
However, she is quite on the Christian side of things whereas I most definitely am not. We do not stray into those areas during my appointments. Or politics either which I have a feeling we are as far apart on as are our spiritual beliefs. 
Still, I have to say that I do really enjoy visiting with her. 
Life is mysterious, isn't it? 

And then I went to Publix and Costco and then I came home and unloaded and put everything away and THEN I actually opened the box holding the Cologuard test that I got some time back which I placed immediately in my bathroom and tried to forget about. 
Have you ever done one of these things? 
They can be done in lieu of a colonoscopy if one is not at risk for colon cancer and I have done one of each. I can safely say that doing the Cologuard test is slightly less horrendous than getting the colonoscopy although the colonoscopy does include some pretty good drugs. 
If you like being passed out. 
But dammit- the day before the colonoscopy is the most boring day of your life in that you cannot eat for an entire day. I don't mind drinking the colon-cleansing stuff and spending the day in the bathroom. I mean- whatever. People pay good money for colon cleansing. It's just that no-eating thing. I have to admit that food is about 78% of my life. Not eating it, specifically, but growing it, picking it, preserving it, cooking it, and yes- eating it. Also planning what to plant and what to cook. One would think that taking a day off of the eating part, at least, would not be such a horrible thing but somehow it is. And it's not even the hunger. It's just the lack of the most exciting activity in my daily life that puts me off. 
But back to the Cologuard test. It is truly disgusting and horrendous to poop into a container and then... well, if you know, you know. If you don't, don't worry about it. 
And then, and THEN,  you have to take the box which is all so cleverly designed to hold poop in a stable and hopefully odor-free way and drop it off at the UPS place and they KNOW it's your poop in that box. Or someone's, anyway. 
And for some reason, that's just really, really weird. 
Perhaps it would be better just not to eat all day, go to the colonoscopy factory, get 'er done, and float around in La-La Land for hours. 

Aren't you glad you're reading this now? 
Sorry. 

And so I feel as if I have accomplished so much adulting today simply because I made a phone call, I got my teeth cleaned, and I OPENED THE COLOGUARD BOX AND READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! Which I probably would not have done if I hadn't gotten a rather stern text this morning saying, "Collect your sample in the next five days and return promptly." No beating around the bush, no nicey-nice, just DO IT! 
Okay, okay. 

It's still raining. Mr. Moon had a rough night and morning as it appears that his body is indeed reacting to the booster shot but he is feeling better this evening. I am going to make him what we call "Samurai Soup" with ginger and garlic and greens and rice noodles and dumplings. Perhaps we'll have an early night of it although he does love to practice sleeping in his chair before bed for quite awhile. 

If you're still reading at this point, thank you for being so faithful. I appreciate you. Know that for certain. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

Teeth And Other Things

I had a dentist appointment at eleven this morning but got a call about nine from the receptionist at the office. My dental hygienist was not feeling well and could I reschedule for tomorrow? 
Of course. 
Now going to the dentist is about one billionth as anxiety-producing to me as going to the regular doctor but still- that brief reprieve flooded me with joy and suddenly, the world looked three times as bright. 

I got on it and did three loads of laundry, hung them on the line, attacked the stairs, hallway, kitchen and Glen Den with the broom, and picked a few more peppers, okra, field peas, and zinnias. I decided I had enough peppers to do another batch of pepper jam and so I did. I haven't tasted this one yet but I hope it's good. Here's what the peppers look like cooking down with the sugar and vinegar. 

Doesn't really look that appealing, does it? 

There are at least four or five varieties of peppers in it and I quit testing them for heat after I tried a tiny bite of one and it lit my mouth on fire. From what I was cautiously tasting as I was cooking, it's not that spicy though. 

I got eight more pints and that feels good. I'm going to have to rearrange the pantry as the space I'd allocated to my canned foods is full. A good problem to have. 

This morning I took pictures of all but one of Darla's babies. I am 99% certain that I only have one hen. 
Here you go. 

These two are definitely roosters. They don't even sleep in the hen house at night. 

This one, too. He has taken to sleeping with the other bachelors in the outdoor quarters. He is an interesting roo in my opinion. 

Fancy Pants, Jr. I've seen him bow up to some of the other roosters. 

I THINK that this one is a hen. I'm not sure how I missed one because there definitely are six. I'll try to get a picture of the missing one tomorrow when I go let them out. 

They are all definitely no longer under their mother's wing anymore. They are in a sort of subset of the flock now, sticking together mostly in their own little group. Darla goes about mostly with her sister, as she has always done unless she's raising babies. 

And that's about that. Mr. Moon got two loads of gravel delivered today to spread out on the clay that he bought. This is all being spread around the front of the Garage Mahal where the dirt was being washed out. He also went to Monticello and got his booster shot today. Hurray! 

Oh! The big news! 

Ms. Magnolia June has lost her second tooth! 
I have no idea how this has happened because obviously I am not nearly old enough to be the grandmother of a child who is losing her baby teeth. Much less the grandmother of a child in middle school. 
Nope. Not possible. 
And yet, it would appear that I am. I guess that August will be losing his teeth soon. 

September is our big birthday month here and Owen, August, Lily, and Vergil all have birthdays between the 26th and the 29th. 
Owen will be twelve. August will be six. 
Talk about not possible. 

Off to cook snapper! 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Regular Woman

 Not a pretty picture but basically what I looked at for a few hours today. I was working in the garden, again trying to get it ready for the fall garden by pulling spent plants and weeds, taking out tomato cages and hauling the detritus to the burn pile. The GeeDee trumpet vines are overtaking the entire garden and I am in despair about that. I've read a few articles on the web about how to take control of them but they really don't offer much hope. One I read advises that vinegar or boiling water may be used to get rid of them but then goes on to say:

Dig Up All Of The Roots 

If you want to kill the plant, you’ll need to remove the roots completely. This may be an impossible task.

I have to say that I think it is an impossible task. The roots are thick and go deep and are connected to all of the other roots. I have never yet successfully dug a root and followed it to another plant which one can do with things like dollar weed and betony. My palms are red and swollen from hitting my trowel, trying to push it deeper into the ground. 

And so even as I clear bigger and bigger swatches of the garden, I can easily visualize the living and thriving network of the vine's roots, pushing its way through the dirt to reemerge with more and more plants. 
Why is it that the invasive things are always the most determined to live? The strongest and most persistent? 
There are many metaphors to be found here. 

I think we could dig the entire garden down deep enough to put in a swimming pool and eventually, the fucking tulip vines would be pushing their way through the cement of the pool, thriving and jiving in the chlorinated waters where we swim, reaching out to catch our ankles, our wrists, drowning us with their enthusiastic life. 

Ah well. 
So let me ask you this- if we do not really NEED a garden, if it is just a happy folly of ours to keep us busy and give us food that we could actually buy at the store, are things like trumpet vines a first world problem? If they overtook a family's garden in, oh, well, a third world country where they depended on what they grew for their very sustenance, that would definitely be a third world problem. 
There is no way around it. Here in Lloyd in the Moon's yard, a garden being overtaken by an invasive plant is a first world problem if for no other reason than that we live in a a first world. 
Tell that to No Man Lord. 
But that's another story, another conundrum, another shame on our society. 

I think it is quite obvious that I don't really have much to talk about today. It has been a regular day in a regular life. I have worked in a regular garden, cursing at regular weeds and delighting in the sight of so many regular earthworms, while regular chickens came and checked in on me regularly, hoping that I might throw them some delicious grubs or beans. 

I am not complaining in the least. 
And now I will go make some regular spaghetti for my darling love. 

There is nothing mundane about him, I assure you. As evidence I present to you the fact that he has put up with me and loved me sweetly since 1983. 

And I am still amazed and in wonderment about that fact. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Florida That I Love

The other day Jessie was having a rough day and I told her, "You guys need a beach day."
Even as I said it, I knew we did too. 

This morning she texted that they were indeed going to head over to Mashes Sands which is on the Ochlocknee Bay to the place they found a while back where you have to cross under a board on a half-destroyed dock to get to. It's such a cool little spot. Not really the beach because it's not on the Gulf but there's water and there's sand and there are birds and fishes and today there were lots and lots of hermit crabs in the tannin-stained, tea-colored water.  

It was so fun. Mr. Moon and I stopped on the way down at a huge convenience store and got sandwiches and chips to take with us. Aside from the fact that we were the only people there wearing masks, it was a pleasant experience. Even the cops who'd stopped in to get their own lunches weren't wearing masks.
Sigh.
It's like everyone has decided that there is no more covid. Done. 
Meanwhile, of course, Florida is leading the nation in cases and deaths. Or close to it anyway. We are now calling our governor Doctor DeathSantis. 

But hey! Moving on, we got down to the meeting place and discovered that the channel which "our" little island had sat in had all filled in with sand since we'd last been there, changing the landscape a bit but not too much. It actually made crossing to the area we wanted to go easier so that was fun. But it was odd. And a reminder that the coastline is ever-changing, ever mutating- a living thing.

Mr. Moon did a little bit of fishing and Vergil and the boys joined him in that but mostly we just lazed in the water and observed hermit crabs. They are so interesting. Here are a few being held by water-wrinkled child fingers. 

I don't know why we saw so many today. We conjectured that perhaps they wanted to get across the sand and back to the bay, rather than in the little inlet. Some of them did appear to be attempting the climb but they were not capable of such a trek. Their passage way used to be so much easier because at high tide, the little island simply disappeared and so their access was uninhibited. We also wondered if perhaps they were lining up for a shell-house trade. I know I have posted video of that phenomena before but I will post another one because it is absolutely fascinating. And cool. 

Those hermit crabs must live somewhere other than North Florida as our little hermies live in far more drab and utilitarian-appearing cast-off shells than the ones found wherever that was filmed. Some of the shells our native crabs lived in looked as if they had been used for generations- covered with barnacles. We wondered if that would be a help or a hindrance to a hermit crab. The house would be far more secure but it would also be so much heavier to drag around. I called one of those shells an "historic home." It reminded me of our own house, old and barnacled in its own way, built from heavy heart pine, sturdier than new houses. We saw some of the crabs approaching other crabs and definitely interacting, crawling on top of each other. Were they fighting? Mating? Measuring their shells for possible future occupation?
So many questions! I need to do a little studying on them. 

To add to the mysteries and wonders, we watched as a few small blue crabs came along to hunt the hermits. 

They would approach the smaller crabs and reach out to hold them in their legs or claws, almost as if measuring them with calipers. If they found one they liked, they would take it a few feet into the water to feed on. 
It's a crab-eat-crab world, y'all. 

And so it was a fine day and my despair has slid along and joined all of the other days of my despair in the ether, I suppose, where they wail and moan and speak of their ghostly regrets, building up one case after another against me. 
And it's not so much the body's changings that yanged their horrid voices yesterday; it was so much more about the things I have not done, or did do, that I wish I could go back and rethink and try to make right but never can.

But getting out of my house, out of Lloyd, out of my constant tape-loop of thoughts, helped tremendously. To be near and in the water with those grand-boys, our daughter, her very fine husband- it was exactly what I needed. I think we all needed it. 

And we will all sleep well tonight. 

Love...Ms. Moon