Things I Do Not Know

So you know, some days I just feel like I need to enlighten the world about something. You know I do. It might be love or it might be politics or it might be religion or it might be gay rights or it might be chickens. Whatever.

And then some days, I just feel like I don't have the right to tell anyone anything because honestly, I don't know shit. Which is why I find it hysterical that I've been nominated for that award in the category of Blog You've Learned The Most From.
If there's one phrase I have used over and over here on this blog, it is I don't know shit.
So if I am teaching anyone anything, I think it would be about the vast black hole of stuff I don't know which seems if anything, a rather futile exercise for us all and today is one of those days.
For instance- see these?


Those are my blue potatoes. The ENTIRE crop. We are not impressed, are we? I think I got more ant bites than I did potatoes. Oh well. Live and learn. Perhaps blue potatoes are not meant to be grown in North Florida sandy soil or perhaps they are but not the way I tried to do it.
I don't know.
See what I mean?
But oh- they do remind me of an old, favorite joke. It goes like this:
Two peasant women are in a field, harvesting carrots. One of them pulls up a monster of a carrot and holds it up to show to the other woman.
"Dis reminds me (they are speaking in fake Russian accents, okay?) of my husband, God rest his soul."
"He vas dat big?" asks the other woman, impressed.
"No," says the first lady. "He vas dat dirty."

Did I make you laugh? I hope so.

Okay. On to the next thing I don't know. Check out this picture:


That is a picture of the fish which the fisherpeople caught this weekend. Nothing was won in terms of the tournament but I won because some of this fish will be in my freezer. But here's what I don't know- what kind of fish they are. That long skinny one in the middle is a King Mackerel. Some of them are red grouper, some are red snappers and some are something else. Gag grouper? GAG? Yes. I think so.
I do know who the fellas in the picture are. They are Jason, my son-in-law, Mr. Moon, and our neighbor Paul who went fishing too. I also know why they are smiling. It's because when I took the picture, I said what Kathleen always says when she takes a picture. She says, "Say tiny penis!" This always works. Even the people around you (if you are in a public place) will smile.
So see- you HAVE learned something today.

Next picture:


This is some of what I also picked from the garden yesterday. Everything you see is a tomato except for the white thing. What is it? I think it might be some sort of dwarf butternut squash. I suppose I'll have to cut it in order to find out.
Here's another thing I'm not sure of- what do I do with these tomatoes? Not enough to can but too many just to eat. I believe I may make bruschetta though, which is butt-easy and tasty? Oh my. I'll just whirl them in the food processor with some garlic, basil, salt and olive oil and top some crusty french bread slices. Sound good?
Sounds like something I could live on here in this heat. Eating sort of loses its appeal when it's this hot. You still get hungry but there's nothing on earth that sounds very good although right now, I think I could eat some bruschetta for sure.

And here's yet another thing I wonder about- why don't I get up every day at an early hour and get my ass out to walk before it gets hot? I did that today and I got some laundry done and even read part of the paper and took the trash and then went to yoga and it's not even noon yet and I feel GOOD, babies. Really, really good. I have to run to town to do some errands and I am DEFINITELY GOING TO THE NEW LEAF MARKET so I can see me some Billy because as he and I say to each other- I miss his guts. Mostly.
Sometimes he tells me he loves my guts.
I love his guts too.
And I need to pick up a few of those overpriced supplements which make me feel like I am being a healthy person (and I swear- the fish oil does seem to help with memory- I am not making this up although I could be and not even know it) anyway so oh boy, oh boy! I'm gonna go see Billy and bother him at work.

Another thing I am not sure of:


Is this bird a rooster? He is about twice as big as the other chick-chicks and he is so strong I was having a hard time controlling him while his picture was being taken. I am wondering if the reason these chickabidees smell so different than my other batch of chicks (and when I say different I mean- ick) is because some of the birds are males.
Okay, okay, that could be just a really wrong theory but do any of you know anything about this? They smell completely different than my sweet hens did.
I could look up the little birds' anal tubes or whatever they call those things down there in the chicken nether regions but I'm sorry. I can't do that.
I'll just wait and see.

And another question for today- of all the pictures I took last night with my phone (because of course I forgot the camera) of Jessie playing music and posing with her music friends, why is this the only one that came out?


The other beautiful girl in the picture is an old friend of Jessie's who has now left the bluegrass world to sing jazz and I just have to tell you that one of the very best weekends of my life was spent with those two girls and another friend of theirs (who also played last night). I took them over to St. Augustine to the Gamble Rogers festival and they kept me laughing and smiling the entire weekend with their music, their sweet young-girl wisdom and their joy.
Sigh.
I love those girls.
Jessie played last night with two other gals and together they were the Cicada Ladies and they were terrific. They started playing bluegrass music together when they were in high school and they still love to get together to play and they sound terrific.
It was so much fun to see them. Hank and May and Glen and I were there and we got to hear the high school's newest bluegrass band (and how awesome is it that instead of a marching band this school has a bluegrass band?) and what a joy that was. A darling girl the size of an elf played stand-up bass wearing a vintage dress and she could sing- oh, she could sing! Boys with long hair, girls with short hair, girls with wild hair, the teachers smiling as big as the kids, playing onstage with 'em.
Ah. It was a joy.
I do know that for sure.

And here's the last thing I do not know- why am I so damn lucky? Hell, I'm so lucky Ms. Lis is coming back to visit tonight. Maybe we'll smooch again! And Kathleen's coming over too! We'll have a ladies' porch visit!

No one knows the answer to why I'm this lucky. No one.
But if you know anything about that chicken smell, please let me know.

Love....Ms. Moon

Fathers and Daddies

Father's Day is going swimmingly over here at blessourhearts so far. The fisherpeople chose (quite rightly, I think) to come home last night rather than to spend another fiery hot night in the un-airconditioned house on the island. I know that those of you who do not live in this part of the world cannot imagine why I keep talking about the heat but as my son Hank said last night, "It really is impossible not to talk about it."
It's that hot.
Sure, we've had heat in these temperatures before. But it's so still. There is no breeze, just the bake of the sun on the earth and it's quite literally like opening the oven door when you open the the door to outside.
It's a force to reckoned with.
I let another baby chick die yesterday and I'm sure it was my fault. I've had the chicks outside in the bigger outside box and although I checked them frequently yesterday, I was gone for quite awhile and when I got home, one of them was dead, lying stretched out in the dirt, already stiff.
I will not be taking those chicks out today.
I buried the poor thing beside the canna lilies in one of my flower beds. It was the chick we'd named Elvira.
The other ones seem to be fine and they are growing at a phenomenal rate but I have decided that trying to raise baby chicks in any other season but early spring is not a good idea. There is a reason things happen when they do- that babies hatch in the spring and not in early summer.
At least here in Florida. Probably in most places.
I find it telling that my own babies were all born in either May or June except for the one I "planned" and that pregnancy was so different and so much more difficult than all the others that it makes me wonder about things.

But back to Father's Day.
I hadn't planned on cooking Father's Day breakfast this morning because I hadn't planned on Father being here but he was and he wanted eggs and sliced tomatoes and bacon and biscuits, of course. I found I didn't have either enough butter or ANY shortening to make the biscuits with but I had some cream cheese in the refrigerator and to tell you the truth- I don't know how long it had been there. But it smelled and looked fine and I used that in place of the shortening and I tell you what- those were some of the best biscuits I ever ate.
I peeled the tomatoes from the garden and sliced them up and scrambled eggs and put the biscuits in a shallow bowl with a green napkin to keep them warm and fried up the three pieces of bacon I had in the house and I think he was pretty happy with it.
Now he's out, cleaning the boat. When the fisherpeople got in last night they were exhausted, overheated, and wanting nothing more than a shower and to crawl into sheets that weren't dripping with humidity.
It was a fishing trip they'll never forget and I think it's one telling metaphor that they didn't see any dolphins the entire trip but saw a crazy number of sharks.

Why am I having such a hard time writing about Father's Day?
I just looked at the Father's Day post I wrote last year and I said the same thing.
But I said a good piece about the man who is the father of two of my kids and the Daddy of all of them. I don't think I can say it any better today so I'm sending you back there.

And because I do truly have a lot of love and affection for the other-father of two of my kids, I'd like to send you to a post I wrote about him here.

Look. I didn't have a good daddy. I didn't have a daddy at all. But perhaps because of that, I knew what I wanted and didn't want in a father for my own children and if that's so, it was worth it not to have a daddy of my own.

I think so. I do. And since I am the most blessed-beyond-belief woman in the world, how can I bitch about something that led me to here? I don't think I can.
I can only say I thank my lucky stars and every powerful force that I have what I have, that my children have the love of their fathers.
And I want to say Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there. The ones with kids here and the ones with kids coming (Jason! Billy! Xbox!).
Happy Father's Day, y'all. Thanks for loving the babies. Thanks for loving the mamas because when you love the mamas, you are loving the babies. Two-for-one. Thanks for being the men who make the children feel safe and loved. Nothing on earth can make up for lack of that. Believe me.
Nothing.

And the pictures I'm posting are from Lily's wedding. Her daddy is walking her down the aisle and my other kids' father is there celebrating with his beautiful wife, my kids' other mother.

You see what kind of life I have?

Tonight we're going into town to see Jessie play some bluegrass at the Legion Hall and that's going to be fun. She fished hard all weekend and tonight she'll dress up and play mandolin and I'll hold her daddy's hand and we'll be so proud of her.

And in a few months, we're going to greet our grandchild together and this is going to be one lucky child because Mr. Moon is going to be his or her granddaddy.
I still haven't gotten my mind around that one, but it makes me cry to think about it.

Well. My brains are baked. I can't figure out any ending but that's okay because really- there is no ending to this story of fathers.

I will say this- when my kids go to write about Father's Day sometime, they're going to have good stories to tell. Really, really good stories that make them laugh so hard and maybe make them cry, too. In a good way.
And that's my every wish come true.

Happy Father's Day, y'all. I mean it.


P.S. Roll Up The Rugs
I love you, baby.

Lisa-Lisa, Beautiful Red-Headed Lisa Whom We Adore

When I met Lisa I was thirty-eight years old and she was twenty-two.
Now she is thirty-eight and I am fifty-four.
When I met her I had a seventeen-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, an eight-year-old and a four-year-old.
Now Lisa has a four-year-old and a two-year-old.
That's her and her daughter Grace in the picture above.
They visited me today.

When I met Lisa it was love at first sight for both of us, I think. She is one of those people whom when you meet, your heart recognizes as if there were an empty chamber in it, just waiting for her to show up for it to open and let her in. And thus it was.

She was going to FSU at the time and we met through a mutual friend and boy, there she was and there I was and hell's bells, I fell in love. So did all my kids and Mr. Moon, too. We named her Lisa-Lisa, Beautiful Red-Headed Lisa Whom We Adore.
Really. That's what we called her.

She eventually graduated from FSU and moved back down to Tampa where she was from and she began a career and pretty soon, the next thing I knew, she had some high-powered job in the communications field and was traveling all over the country and she had started doing yoga quite seriously and we didn't get to see each other very often, but when we did, it was glorious.

We're the kind of friends who, no matter how long it's been since you've seen each other, just come back together like the two halves of a puzzle, like bacon and tomato, like sand and sea, like joy and delight.

When she decided to marry her honey-man, Jon, they asked me to perform the ceremony and that was one of the high points of my life. My god! but that was a beautiful wedding on the beach on Santa Maria Island and one of the happiest days of my life. And what an honor.

When she had her first baby, she asked me to come and be with her and I did. Another honor. Beyond belief.
That's the girl you see in the picture, Miss Grace.

And two years ago, she visited me with both her babies and we had a beautiful visit. You can read about it here.
She was in the very midst of children-and-babies and bless her! She was having to work so hard and she was drowning in the blessings and burdens of it all.
And since that visit, we've hardly spoken.
Why?
Who knows? She is so busy in her world of yoga teaching and being the director of a yoga studio and raising those babies and she's just one of those women who can't stop, can't stop, cannot stop.
I seem to be attracted to those women. I do.
Lizzie's like that and so is Kathleen. They all keep telling me that they need to slow down and concentrate on what's important and I've learned to nod and smile and say, "This is the way you like it, darlin'," instead of suggesting ways they can slow their lives down. They don't want slow lives and I celebrate that. I admire them and I love them and I watch them speed through the universe doing this good deed and that while I hang my clothes on the line and measure my days, as T.S. Eliot said, with coffee cups.

Anyway, this weekend, two years exactly since Lisa and I saw each other, she was in Tallahassee and came out this morning with Grace to visit.
They pulled up and she got out of her mommy-van and we hugged like we were trying to get inside each other's skins and we laughed at the joy of it.
It's always like that with Lisa. There is no moment of awkwardness, there are no moments of silence. We immediately begin a dialogue and we cry and we laugh and we are amazed at each other and we did that today and Grace was grace-full and let us talk and yet, she was herself and I took her out to the chicken coop and gave her a cupful of corn-scratch to feed the hens and I saw in her something like I will see in my grandchild. Because I have known her from birth, there is a part of us which is bonded, too, no matter what. And she seemed to recognize me and she trusted me.
What an honor to be trusted by a child. That may be the greatest honor of all. I don't know.

And Lisa and I told each other as much as we could in the hours we were together and we discovered that we'd both faced similar beasts and we'd both lost our minds and we'd both found them again too, or least some facsimile of them and we cried.

Ah yah. Lisa and I always cry.

She went with me to the tea party at my yoga teacher's house and Grace was the queen of the tea party and my yoga teacher had made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in case there was a young princess in attendance and Grace loved them. Lisa, as I said, is a yoga teacher too, and such a different sort from my Catholic yoga teacher and I could feel myself, pulled between the two of them, wishing I could go to Lisa's classes, knowing that here in Lloyd, I am lucky to have the teacher I do have, Catholic or not. And Lisa was so gracious, as was my yoga teacher, and I think in the few short moments we were all together, sipping tea and eating cucumber sandwiches, something was exchanged between them.

And then it was time for Lisa and Grace to leave and I sobbed. I am crying now.

How can it be that someone so very important to my heart is someone I so rarely see? This wise, incredible woman, this mother, this sister, this child of my heart, this wild-redheaded woman who lives five hours down the road?

I don't know. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to be. Perhaps if we lived closer, we would burn out like two meteors smacking together in space, turning into a fiery ball of flames.

I don't think so, but you never know.

And now it's hours later and I am holding the memories of her visit with her daughter in my hand and I am cherishing it and I am astounded by it.

That woman. Lisa-Lisa, Beautiful Red-Headed Lisa Whom We Adore.

She thinks that I am older and wiser and she thinks she learns from me.

Ha!

She is like a fire that warms my heart. She is like a cool blue lake who soothes my soul.

She is part of my life, my heart.

When she was leaving, already strapped into the mommy-van, and I was crying, I said to her, "You know, I am always there for you. No matter where or what or when or why. I am there."

And she said, "And you know the same is here for you."

I do.
She is like a treasure, that Lisa.
She is a sunrise and a sunset. She is a mother/sister/daughter.

She is my Lisa-Lisa, Beautiful Red-Headed Lisa Whom I Adore.

What a blessing to have her visit today, this solstice day.
I am at once changed and also reminded of who I am at my core.
I got to hold her daughter's hand and kiss her perfect cheeks.

I got to be, for a small moment in time, part of her life.

What an honor. What an incredible honor.
Again.

Solstice

Yesterday was a mean day for me. I didn't do shit. I went to yoga and did the laundry. I slept for two hours in the afternoon and had a dream that was so twisting and turning and so blatantly filled with every problem in my twisted, overheated psyche that I woke up panting and afraid, disturbed and demonized.
Thankfully, I had planned to go to the Opera House to watch a children's play that Kathleen and Herb were in and have been working on for months so I got up, scurried around and made iced espresso, got the clothes off the line, the baby chicks inside (they've been in the outdoor daytime chick box for the past few days), took a shower, put on a new skirt and an old shirt and went to Monticello.
The theater was filled with families and kids. There are something like forty-five kids in that play (no exaggeration) and if each and every child had two relatives there, it would explain the packed house. And the theater was not very cool. Okay, it was warmish. So add up crying babies, everyone fanning themselves, and the fact that the director of this play is someone I will not work with for personal reasons and for whom I have a rather un-Ms. Moon-like disdain, and I was not exactly sure what I was doing there.
But. Oh, but.
It's the Watermelon Festival weekend in Monticello which is the biggest weekend of the year. There's a parade and there's a Miss Watermelon Festival and there is music and there are all sorts of big doin's. Last year's Miss Watermelon Festival was at the play last night, wearing her beautiful crown, looking quite queenly and sweet, just as a Watermelon Queen should look. She didn't look stuck-up or unhappy that this was the last night of her reign. Although, come to think of it, that could have been the NEW queen. I don't keep up with these things but I thought to myself, THIS is my community, every color of person, every age, all of us here to see these children, these beautiful children.
The curtains opened and the magic began.
Listen- this woman for whom I have personally unhappy feelings towards is one hell of a director. She somehow managed to get all these children, from the ages of what looked like about four to nineteen in fantastic costumes, singing, dancing, prancing and playing and the set was lovely and the music was fabulous. And she had written the entire thing with the help of one of the kids and well, it was great. I love to watch children act. There is so little distance between their normal lives and acting a part.
"You are a cat," says the director and they are.
The magic set in, I forgot the heat and the crying babies and just got swallowed up in it all.
Kathleen was a grandmother cat and she was wonderful, sleeping as a cat would on a rocking chair in the center of the stage and Herb was a statue and was absolutely the best statue I've ever seen. He has the face for it, believe me.
It was lovely.
After the play I sat in the office of the Opera House director with Herb and Kathleen and the director and other folks I've acted (played) with and had a beer and some crackers and it was just so much fun. I miss the Opera House. I miss it so much.
I came home fairly early and ate some leftovers and went to bed and slept well all through the night and got up early. I have the sprinkler on the garden and I've given my hens some collard greens and I think a very dear old friend from Tampa is coming by this morning with her daughter and we might go pick blueberries and at two I'm supposed to go to a tea party (don't ask) given by my yoga teacher and then I'm off to my son-in-law's birthday celebration. He's back from the island and I hear he caught the biggest grouper.
And so it goes.
The heat continues, it's unrelenting, and we can sleep through it with heat-boiling dreams or we can move slowly through it, still open to magic and friendship, or we can fish through it or we can do all of that.
We can give credit where credit is due, we can take responsibility for our own days, we can give it all up to Jesus or Mary or the goddessess of the chicken coop. We can celebrate the summer solstice which begins at 1:45 am tonight and pick the fat tomatoes, bursting their skins and we can wade through the Georgia Thumper grasshoppers which are so big the chickens run from them, and wonder at snakes in holes and we can water the plants and we can hang our clothes on the line because they will be dry by the time you're back in the house, sweat pouring off your body, the prickly heat keeping you up half the night.
It's summer. There are blessings and there is magic and there is a reason to slow way down and watch where your feet go because the baby frogs are everywhere and the earth turns again and we do a little hop-step to catch up with the turning, in this case, a slow hop-step, a lazy tiny leap into the steam and the bake of the planet as she rolls, another ancient ritual celebrated, the moon slipping down, the sun slipping up, we are turning, even as we sleep. Even as we dream.
Even as we wake into this morning.

Looking Forward To That Cold Front On Tuesday

Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday
101° F | 74° F	101° F | 76° F	101° F | 74° F	97° F | 76° F	94° F | 74° F

I hear from the fisherpeople that the air conditioner on Dog Island is not working. It appears to have been hit by lightening. So they're out all day on the ocean, fishing hard under the blistering, unrelenting sun and then coming in at night to rest in the swelter of a small, un-airconditioned house which has been baking in the waves of heat coming up from the white sand and the water.

I can't even find the words to express how sorry I feel for them.

A Bigot Is A Bigot Is A Bigot (Even if he's a bishop)

I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show yesterday on NPR and she had, as a guest, Bishop Harry Jackson, senior pastor of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland. The topic was gay rights and President Obama's signing of a directive giving new benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Some are saying that our president's directive didn't go far enough. Some say that he went as far as he could under current federal law. But this pastor, Bishop Jackson, was arguing vehemently against the directive. He called it the beginning of the slippery slope of the national recognition and legalization of gay marriage, which he finds abhorrent.

Now you know, I have heard these Christian... (I am trembling with the need to call them dickwads but I am a polite southern lady, as you know) believers who think that gay marriage is proof positive of the end of times and I am used to that. But when I was listening to this particular Christian, I was struck by how much his arguments reminded me of the arguments during the sixties against integration and civil rights. He had nothing of any value to say except that he believed it was wrong and that it was wrong to force people to accept this wrongness. He even cited, as an example, photographers who would be FORCED to do wedding photography for gay marriages.
That photographers, if they were of the belief that gay marriage is immoral and wrong (as the bishop does), would somehow have THEIR civil rights violated if forced to take those pictures.
Now, as far as I know, no photographer in this entire country has ever been forced by law to take a wedding gig that he or she did not want.

Really. That was the level of argument this man was using. That those Americans who believe that it goes against god's word for people of the same sex to join legally in love and marriage are going to be forced to accept the evilness of the result of such marriages in their everyday lives.
He also used as an example a daycare that his church runs which, if gay marriage is recognized in Maryland, will be forced to take the children of gay couples and how that is just not the type of people whom they want around "their" children.

And all I could think about was how bigots spouted off the same exact words about what would happen if integration and equal rights for African Americans became the law of the land. If Negroes were allowed to eat dinner in the same restaurant as you, the next inevitable step would be that your sister would be forced to marry one.

It was just so blatant, the words pouring forth from this man's lips- his fear, his intolerance, his prejudice, his blindness, his use of his religion to rationalize his bigotry.
The Bible was used to rationalize slavery for hundreds of years, was it not?
What is the difference between that bullshit and the bullshit of using Leviticus to rationalize not giving equal rights to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people?
There is none.
Either we live in a country which provides equal rights for all or we do not.
I think we do not.

And I am tired of this.
Come on, people! Can we not grow up? Can we not see that we are all different and that there are so many variations of loving human behavior?

Who do we think we are to deny human rights to others because of differences?
And how do we get away with it?

How do people who hide behind religion to defend their bigotry against others of different colors or beliefs or born-gender preferences get away with being the ones who make our laws and defend them?
They should NOT be allowed to make the laws of our land. Not OUR land- the land where everyone, do you hear me? EVERYONE should be extended the equal rights guaranteed to all.

Those old sick arguments are not worth listening to anymore. They never were but it is 2009 and the voices of these sad people should be exposed for the vile ignorance they represent. And it's time to quit giving these people soap boxes to spout their vileness from.

Any two consenting adults who want to be married should be allowed to be married. And don't drag incest in here, either. I'm not talking about that.
And also, while we're at it, let's get rid of that ridiculous Don't Ask, Don't Tell law. There are too many problems and denials of basic human rights wrapped up that little package to even begin to go into here.

If Bishop Jackson doesn't believe in gay marriage, he should not marry a man. If a gay woman wants to join the Army she shouldn't have to pretend she's straight and fear that some disgruntled fellow soldier can force her out of the service.

We should all be allowed to say, "This is who I am." Because who else can say that?
No one.
No one else at all. And we should be allowed to say that without fear of repercussions or violence.

And I am tired of all of the time and energy we spend on trying to legislate and regulate such matters when children are hungry, when people die for lack of health care, when the world is teetering on the very brink of disaster as ice sheets melt and seas rise and we can't figure out how to replace the internal combustion engine with something that doesn't wound our planet.

We're better than this. Not just Americans, but humans.
I refuse to believe we're not.
If we could just shut up the nattering naybobs of hate and ignorance, maybe we could start to make the changes we have to make.
I think our president knows this and I think he is trying.

I think I'm on his side.
I know I'm on the side of love. Whatever that means, I'm on that side.
The side that says that all true love is good. That any love which can abide the light of love on its shoulders is one that we should encourage.

Bishop Jackson- read what Jesus said. And weep at what you're trying to defend.
Because right now you're sounding like George Wallace when he stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to prevent African-American students from entering.

We all need to vote for leaders who are not afraid to give equal rights to all.

This is America, goddammit. And I am an American. And this is my voice.

My heterosexual, love-believing voice which is just as important as Rush Limbaugh's or Bill O'Reilly's or Bishop Jackson's, even if I don't have as big a soap box as they do.
I'm just as important. And so are you. And so is every single person in this country.
This country where human rights are so highly valued. In theory if not in reality.

Please. It's time. Let's make it a reality.
Let's give everyone's love the chance to shine as brightly as everyone else's.

That's all I'm saying. Equal rights for all. Yesterfuckingday, as my friend Lis says.
And let's quit basing the laws of our land on ancient religions that have no place in today's society. Basing who gets to enjoy the rights they deserve as Americans on prejudice and ignorance and fear.
Let's let our children grow up knowing that whoever they are, they can marry whom they choose, legally and with all rights.

Okay? Is that so much to ask?

I don't think so. I really do not.

And on a somewhat related note, I see that Cher's child is bravely and publicly declaring a gender change. And Cher has announced that although she does not understand, she pledges to be "understanding" and that nothing will change the abiding love she has for her child.
She can't understand? Cher, the woman who has had almost every one of her body parts altered to conform to the vision she has of who she really is and wants to be?
Come on. Cher- you can do this. Just open the little gate and walk across the dewy grass and there you are on Chaz's front porch.
Open the door and hug your son.
Done.

It's Friday. I'm hot. And I feel heated.
Thanks for listening.

Snake Update

Well, there's your snake. Or mine, anyway.
Jessie was here and we made her daddy come and pull him out for us. He did not want to as he was in the final throes of getting the vast operation known as "going fishing" together. But he did it. With his bare hand.
What a man. What a man.
Our neighbor suggested that the snake must have crawled down in the hole and then something killed him. Ants or a wasp, probably. Maybe the wasp because he did not look to be very torn up. He sure was wedged in that hole, though, so I really don't know how he backed in like that.
It's still a mystery to me. And I still don't know what kind of snake it was. It's a pretty little snake.
But here's my theory- he was completely addled by the heat, whatever it was he was doing.

And everyone is gone now so I think I'll go lay down and have the vapors.

Heat Wave

Mr. Moon and I both got up rather early this morning. He's going to fish the annual Big Bend Saltwater Classic tournament this weekend and has a lot of things to get ready before they leave this afternoon. HoneyLuna, our youngest daughter, is going to fish with her daddy this year and I think that is just CHARMING! How many twenty-year old girls do you know who want to go fishing with their daddies? And this is hard fishing. Way, way out in the Gulf and it is so hot.

No. I am not going to stop talking about the heat. It's impossible.
Lily's husband Jason, is going too, and also two other folks. It's going to be a big crowd. Last night I made a casserole for them to take with eight different types of vegetables and lots of cheesy goodness to counteract the health of the vegetables. Also, a blackberry cobbler. I have done my job.

I got up early to go walk before the heat sets in. (Yep. Here we go.) Before the afternoon was over yesterday, I had to move the baby chicks back into the house because it was so hot on the porch that they were walking around with their little wings stretched out like old ladies having hot flashes, holding their blouses away from their bodies. I should have taken a picture but all I could think of was that they needed to get cool fast.

I am used to heat. I have lived in Florida for most of my life but this is just...well, it's another beast entirely. It's stupefying, this heat. It makes you feel altered, as if by drink or drug and thinking is clouded and every act feels gluey.
It's nine fifteen and it's already 83 degrees in the shade.

Ah well.

That magnolia you see above is blooming this morning on the tree in my yard. It's been a joy this year, having so many blossoms. I can smell them before I even see them. They smell much better than baby chickens. Yes, they do.

Here are the lady chickens (who smell just fine):


I worry about them in the heat but they seem to be tolerating it well. They nestle down in the cooler dirt in the shade when they get tired and they are napping a lot. Miss Suzie seemed to want to pose so I took her picture:


She's the alpha lady, I believe. Don't you like her nice, feathery legs?

The banana spiders have not started building their webs on the porch yet, but this one has taken up residence between the side mirror and the window on Mr. Moon's old Suburban:


There will be more about spiders here soon, I am sure. I sort of love my banana spiders. But that's a story to tell another day.

The wisteria has put out a few very late blooms and they are not nearly as magnificent as they were in the spring, but they are nice spots of bright purple in the green vines:

This next picture is quite mysterious. If anyone out there can explain it, please do:


I was coming back from my walk and this was right beside my driveway. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THIS PICTURE?
It looks like a snake and I'm not sure you can see it in the picture, although maybe if you click on it you can, but the poor dead little snakey is being feasted on by ants and a bee. That can't be right. Now. Did the ants drag the snake into their hole-home? Where is the rest of the snake? Buried in the dirt, the way it would appear? How did this happen? I have never seen such a thing. If I were a curious twelve-year old, I would probably jerk that snake out and see what's going on there.
But I am not.
I am a curious woman but not curious enough to reach down in the ants and pull on a dead snake.
If any of you have any answers, let me know.
And maybe later I'll get Mr. Moon to pull it out because he's brave like that.
Brave enough to go way, way offshore to try and catch the big fish. The last time we went to Cozumel I believe it was paid for by a fish he caught which won the King Mackerel award. I may have posted this picture before, but it's worth posting twice.


Don't you love the symmetry of that picture? The girl on the left is not a little girl. She was a grown woman, despite appearances. And she caught the fish she is holding and so forth.

Of course I am wishing Mr. Moon and HoneyLuna luck, but really, I just want them to come in safely. Fish and prizes are wonderful but in the grand scheme of things, it's my man's and my baby's safety that matter to me.
But then again- I'm a mama, not a fisherperson.

To end, let me say that my advice and hopes for everyone today would be something like this:
Stay cool, drink your water, move slowly and may all your seas be calm.
(And stay away from ant hills.)

Overblessed

Well. I did it. I booked 'em, Danno.
I booked the tickets and I booked the room.
I was so scared to do it but Mr. Moon was way too busy with other things and he told me to just go ahead and be a big girl (okay, he didn't say that but that's what he meant) and DO IT!
So I did.
I hate buying airline tickets. The prices change every fucking day and there are fifteen screens of information to fill out and those of you who are sophisticated travelers will be laughing at me but I'm little country mouse here and anything involving money and credit cards and nonrefundable tickets makes me the fuck nervous.
Oh well. It's done.
We decided to get the place with the king-sized bed and the little kitchen. The picture up there is supposedly taken from the balcony of the room. If this is true, how badly can it suck?
And now I feel completely and utterly over-blessed. Here I am with this beautiful home and this beautiful family and friends and a garden and chickens and this man. This man.
And I get to go to Mexico, too.
Yep. We're really going.
I'm going to spend my birthday in Mexico.
I don't think I'm going to hate my birthday this year.
I don't think I'm going to hate it at all.

Today's Pick

I Kissed A Girl (Bye-Bye, Sailor, So Long)

Here's me and Lis. We're sitting on the front steps of my house and we were posing for pictures using the MacBook's clever photobooth app. We were taking regular goofy pictures and then she said, "Let's smooch!" So we did. And there you go.

I was going to take her picture with the regular camera, posing in front of the impatiens but the regular camera was giving me grief. It had a message. I don't know what the message meant.
I don't know what my dreams mean lately, either, but they're interesting. I dreamed last night I'd bought a house in town and the yard was covered with old, crumbly linoleum. I kept walking around the yard, pulling up pieces of it, saying, "I can't believe I bought a house with a yard covered in linoleum." There was also the part about the soda fountain in the house where I fired everyone and told everyone to get out, it was my house now, but let's not get all Freudian, okay? It's too hot for that shit.

Ms. Lis said she had strange dreams, too, involving The Wolf so maybe it's something in the air here in Lloyd.

Lis was spending the night as she got to come for a short visit. She arrived yesterday afternoon and we took off to Goodwill and were there so long, looking at dresses and such that by the time Lis checked her watch it was ten minutes until seven and we'd left Lloyd around four. Seriously. I called Mr. Moon right before we left the house and he had just started his trip back from Orlando and he beat us home.
Phew!
But we got some good stuff and we had a lot of fun.

Well, it was fun until I had a real come-to-Jesus moment in the dressing room when I actually looked at my body in the full-length mirror. Sideways. I try to avoid situations like that whenever possible and have avoided it for a long time so it was incredibly shocking to discover that what I had thought was a minor blip in the old weight was staggeringly huge.

I do not get on a scale unless forced to by a medical person.

I mean, I knew my clothes were a little snug in certain places but holy mother of god this is out of hand. I almost wept, right there in the Goodwill dressing room, surrounded by clothes which did not fit me.

And I'm going to Cozumel?

Looking like THIS?

I've got some work to do.

And it's not like I've gone crazy and broken all my dietary habits. I haven't. But I do know my portion sizes have gotten bigger. So yes, I'm still eating the good healthy stuff but just too damn much of it. I mean, this is what's in my refrigerator right now: blackberries, cantaloupe, salad stuff, black beans cooked practically fat free, bread so healthy you need a chain saw to cut it, tofu, hummus, organic peanut butter (I buy crunchy because I don't like it nearly as much, thus insuring I don't eat the whole jar), fat-free yogurt and a bunch of condiments.

How can I be fat?

Well. La-di-dah and la-di-dah and la-di-fuckin'-dah.
Lis loves me anyway.
Mr. Moon does too but why hasn't he said anything? Oh yeah, because I'd kill him if he did. (Thanks, sweetie.)

And so it goes. I'm going to work at this and try to monitor myself more closely and make sure I get up and take my walks before the heat gets into the sunstroke zone. I can lose twenty pounds in five weeks, right?

Hahahahahahahahaha!

So no philosophy over here at Blessourhearts today. Just me and Lis, smooching on the front porch steps. Me feeling fat and hay-fevery.

And now Lis has left to go back to the east side of the state where she's going to babysit her grandson and I'm going to go to Publix. Not because I need food but because the damn cats do.

But first I have to eat my lunch. My tiny lunch.

And y'all- I apologize for this useless and time-wasting post but I'm telling you- the heat has cooked my brains.

And I'm fat. Did you know that? I am.

Love....Ms. Moon (who is fat)

Why We Go

This picture was taken almost three years ago in Cozumel and I love it for many reasons.
We're posing in front of what I call the Alux House which didn't used to have a fence in front of it but now it does because it's part of the state park. I have crawled inside that building before. It is tiny. A tiny little temple and one night, Sr. Santiago, the owner of a restaurant we used to go to, told me all about the Alux, who are the Mexican version of fairies and leprechaun's, I suppose. Isn't it funny how almost all cultures have these tiny creatures? Makes me wonder.
Same with mermaids, but that's another story.
Anyway, Sr. Santiago, who is an educated and cultured man told me quite seriously that the Alux are alive and well and did indeed build this tiny temple long ago. I have a hard time doubting him because I have been near that temple in the dark, under a moon, beside the water and I felt the presence of something so strongly that I could not move. I had planned to walk up to it while my husband and a man named Angel were fishing in the surf but I couldn't make myself do it. The moon shone brightly enough to illuminate the path and I knew it was a short walk, but this was the wild side of Cozumel where the ocean batters the shore and there is no electricity and we could have been the only three people on earth and I could not move. If an Alux had made himself visible to me, I would have died of fright. I swear it.
I retreated to the safety of where the men were and I have never forgotten that night.

But in the daytime, it is a different matter. You can see where it was once painted, you can see on the top where a conch shell had once been placed to catch the wind coming off the water (it overlooks the sea) to make a sort of music. You can feel the presence of, if not the Alux, at least someone who lived long ago and built it. It has withstood hurricanes with their winds and their rains. It has withstood the shifting of the dunes where it is built. It has stood there for centuries, guarding the shore where it sits.

There are no huge temples or ruins in Cozumel. Cozumel was sacred to Ixchel, the main Mayan Goddess and as such, it was appropriate that her temples laid close to the earth. She was female and the earth is female. And when I see this picture, I think of all the times I've been to worship her, that Mayan Goddess, in that place and on her island.

Another reason I love the pictures is because it's one of those pictures that when it has just been taken, you look at it and go, Aah, whatever. And then three years later you look at it and think, How gorgeous we were.
I do not think I am that gorgeous now. But I am as gorgeous as I am ever going to be, I suppose, from here on out.

When Mr. Moon and I are in Cozumel, I think we are the most beautiful.

We are relaxed, we are happy, we are not worrying about much of anything. And we are love-filled. There's something about being in another country- you are too far away from home to spend much time worrying about the things going on there, the things you worry about all the time. The business, the tomato hornworms, the children, the dogs, the economy. You know. My main concern every day is taking a nap and waking up in time to see the sunset. And where to eat our next meal. And we concentrate on each other because we can. I am always amazed that even after ten days of being together every moment, night and day, I have no desire to be separated from him for any period of time. We laugh so much. He writes me silly poetry. We are love-filled, indeed.
We are two children, set off to play. And play we do.

No, it's not "real life." Vacations are not supposed to be. But I tell you this- our trips to this island have made our real life so much better. Every time we go there, I fall more deeply in love with that man.
Real love for real life.

And maybe part of it is the magic that is there. The magic of Ixchel, the magic of the moon over the Caribbean, the magic of the smile of the Mayans, the magic of the ruins, the magic of the soft air, the sea which is seven colors of blue, the magic of love.

Sweetness, sweetness.
And it's waiting for us. I can feel it waiting.

Fever Dreams

Good god, y'all it's hot. I know I talk about the heat too much but listen- trying not to would be like trying not to mention the fact that your mouth is burning a bit after you popped an entire habanero pepper in your mouth and chomped down on it.
I think it was a hundred degrees today and I am not kidding.
Yesterday, after Lily got tired of blackberry picking, I stayed on and finally Mr. Moon came and fetched me with a glass of ice water and it's a good thing. I'd gone woozy in the heat and was picking berries in a stupor and had one last slug of water I was saving like some demented person crossing the desert. I'd determined I was going to pick every fucking berry I had room in my jug to pick. I didn't even hear his truck pull up which he is still remarking over but in my defense, besides the heat-coma I was in, there is a large and noisy AC unit (I think that's what it is) right next to where I was picking because there's a cell phone tower.
Whatever.
This heat will make you sag like an old hippie-woman's titties. It'll make you blind and deaf. It'll make you think you can stay out in it despite the fact that you've soaked through your overalls, tank-top and hat. It'll make you think you're the strongest person on earth until you keel over, panting like a woman in the throes of labor, hallucinating that you've fallen into hell and you can hear the flames frying your fat, stupid ass.
It can quite literally kill you.
And here I am, trying to figure out a vacation for the end of July and into August. Not a vacation in Switzerland or even North Carolina where the temperatures might be a little more...temperate. Nah, I'm planning a vacation in Cozumel, Mexico which is even closer to the equator that we are here.
Am I insane?
Yes. Yes I am. I am quite frankly insane.
But in a good way!
So I've spent most of today looking online for deals in Mexico. It's funny. Although we have stayed in Cozumel in at least six different places, we never know where to stay. There is the concern of the budget, of course. You can spend anywhere from hundreds and hundreds a night at an all-inclusive beachfront resort (which I wouldn't stay at if you paid me) to $35 a night in a humble downtown hotel. We have stayed in some lovely places and we have stayed in some funky ones. And frankly, I don't want to go to Mexico to feel like I'm in the USA. I don't need a damn water park or freaking entertainment or fiesta-buffet night.
I just want a room with a bathroom and an AC. Well, that and a balcony where I can watch the sunset over the Caribbean. That sunset is my highpoint of every day in Cozumel.
Last time we went, we stayed at a little place right downtown across the street from the water where we had stayed several times before. Reasonable rates, close to everything, etc. But, since the last time we'd been there, they'd built a GODDAM PIER FOR THE CRUISESHIPS right in front of the hotel. And can I just say that I hate cruise ships and I hate the pod people who get off them, clutching their approved maps in their hands, wearing matching his-and-her Corona beachwear, feeling really brave if they get a coca-cola at a restaurant.
STOP IT!
And the ships are so big they block the view of the sun, not to mention the sunset.
So. Forget precious little Vista del Mar.
And it's always something in Mexico. Don't get me wrong- I'm not bitching. I'm just saying. For instance- I have found a nice little place a bit north of town for a very reasonable rate with balconies, on the beach but...
(And there's always a but)
The only king-sized beds they have are not ocean view.
I would ask why but the answer would be the ubiquitous quien sabe? (who knows?) and that's that.
In all the other rooms, there are two double beds. Okay, not a problem except that Mr. Moon is six-foot, nine inches tall and a double bed is like six feet long. See the problem? He CAN sleep on one, but he has to sleep diagonally and that means that really, I have to sleep in the other bed unless I want to curl up like a pill bug in the corner he's not using.
Okay, okay, okay. We've been married for twenty-four years and eight months, but still- I would like to sleep with my husband when we go on a romantic vacation. Not two feet away but in the same bed.
Well.
And, perhaps even worse, there is no mini-fridge in these rooms! What? No mini-fridge? Where do you keep your beer? And your yogurt drinks (Mexico has a startling array of delicious yogurt drinks for sale in the supermarkets) and your jugo de pina? I really like my pineapple juice to be cold. And also, your leftovers from dinner? So yes, we could go down to the store and buy a cooler but that's all messy and you have to buy ice, too at the Mini-Super.
Okay, okay. I am making fun of myself. This is all so not important.
What's important is that we are actually going to go to Cozumel. And I still can't believe it.
Sure. It's a hassle to plan a vacation. Airfare is crazy. We can fly out of Tallahassee and get there in four hours for 582 dollars roundtrip apiece or we can spend a fourteen hour layover in Mexico City on our way back and spend about 300 dollars apiece.
Decisions, decisions.
And I don't have a bathing suit! And I need to lose ten pounds! Immediately!
And poor Mr. Moon is trying to do eighteen thousand other things at the moment and I call him and say, "We can stay at this place for $70 a night, tax included but it has double beds and no refrigerator, or this other place and spend $99 a night, not tax included but it has a KITCHEN (not that I plan to cook, my darlings) and if we leave out of Orlando the air-fare will be half as much but we'll have to leave at one-thirty in the morning to get there in time AND pay long-term parking," and he's like...
"AUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!"

So anyway, be prepared for some heat-addled crazy vacation-planning here at blessourhearts and I'll try to throw the chickens in there at some point for your amusement and edification.
And the bottom line is this: in just a few weeks, I'll be sitting at a table at Plaza Leza, ordering a tiny, deadly margarita and I'll be wearing a white dress and the ceiling fans will be spinning above me and the children of Cozumel will be walking by, looking like tiny adults and maybe the musicians will be out, men I've been listening to for twenty-one years, and I'll ask them to play the Cozumel song and they will probably inwardly groan and then play it as if they'd never played it before and I'll listen to the words about the beautiful island of Cozumel where I've left my heart. I will cry and then I'll order some chilis rellanos because that's what I always do my first night and Mr. Moon and I will walk around the plaza, hand-in-hand, noticing the changes, delighting at the things we recognize and the store vendors will try to get us into their shops and we'll say, "No, gracious."
And it will be hot. And the sea will be crashing into the sea wall and there will be a breeze because there is always a breeze in Cozumel and there will be so many smiles.
And wherever it is that we go to lay our heads, it will be fine. And however much it has cost us to get there and have a place to stay, it will have been worth it.
Because when I am in Cozumel, I am the Queen of Mr. Moon's heart. I am Maria Luna and he is Sr. Luna and he is as tall as the moon and the Mayans laugh at him softly behind their hands because he stretches up to the sky and they are small people, brown and beautiful and their ancestors invented zero and worshiped this island and they worship it too.
As do I.
I can't believe I'm going. I'm thinking this is all a fever-addled dream.
But Mr. Moon says we are, so I think we are. He never lies to me, that man.
I can't wait to hold his hand and walk through the night-time streets of Cozumel, wearing white and crying softly because I am there, really there, and I never thought I would be again.

That Which Springs Up To Surprise Us

At least half of my garden this year is covered in volunteer plants. For those of you who have never gardened, volunteer refers to plants which were not planted by the gardener, but which spring up from last year's plants gone to seed, or as in my case, mostly from using compost that had seeds in it which did not "cook" to the proper temperature, thus rendering the compost sterile.
I've never really gotten the compost thing down and so what I've spread on my garden this year has taken root, quite literally and now giant vines of squashes, melons, and I have-no-idea-what, are stretching their tendrils across what should be rows and they are blossoming and setting fruit and there are also marigolds which seeded from last year, and a couple of zinnias.
Now if I were a real gardener, which I am not, I would probably have pulled these mystery plants up when they sprouted but as it is, I am more of a player-in-the-dirt and so have let most of them go on living, creeping across the old collards (which I am not pulling up because no matter how tough and buggy they get, they are still the chicken's favorite food) and trying to strangle the peppers and eggplants I have actually planted this year.
I'm trying to weed around and under these plants and direct them to less occupied parts of the garden but beyond that, I am letting them go to see what I get. I know I have quite a few more butternuts and I am suspecting some cantaloupes and beyond that, I don't know. I'm waiting to see what those beautiful flowers are foretelling.
Life is like that, isn't it?
You try so very hard to make plans and keep things orderly. I know I do although I am old enough to know that sometimes you just have to take what you get and if you go with it, go with the unexpected, that can be good too.

Yesterday Lily came out to spend some time with the parental units and after she took a walk and ate some pancakes she said she'd go blackberry picking with me. We loaded up our cut-off milk jugs to pick into and our water and we drove to a spot which I knew was fairly thick with blackberry bushes but I missed my turn and a few hundred yards down the road, while I was looking for a spot to turn around on, we saw a woman, frantically waving her arms.
I stopped the car, rolled down and the window and she said, "Can you help me? My grandmother was in the hospital last night and I need to go check on her. Can you please, please give me a ride to Monticello?"
Well, Monticello was a good ten miles from where we were in the middle of nowhere, Jefferson County, Florida, and this woman was a complete stranger but what the hell? This isn't the mean streets of Chicago here, folks.
"Sure," I said. "Get in."
So we drove her to Monticello and when we got there she told us she was diabetic and hadn't eaten yet and if we could give her four or five dollars it would be so helpful.
Now I could have (should have?) said, "I'm sorry. I don't have any money on me at all," but I do believe what Bob Dylan said which was that if you live outside the law you must be honest.
Not that I really live outside the law anymore, but aren't we all outlaws in in some form or another?
So I told her the truth which was that all I had was a twenty and she said that they would give me change at the Dollar General, which they did. I gave her five bucks, she thanked me, and went on her way, supposedly to Burger King where she could get some tasty food to help her with her blood sugar, etc.
I know she didn't buy any alcohol because Jefferson County is dry like the desert on Sundays. Not that I would have cared if she had bought liquor because if I can drink, why can't she?
But anyway, after she got out of the car I asked Lily if she thought I'd been scammed and she allowed as how I probably had.
"Well," I said, "here's the bottom line- no matter why she wanted a ride into Monticello, we can be pretty sure that she does have a grandmother and she's probably in ill health so there you go."
And we went back to Lloyd and picked some blackberries and had a fine time sweating our guts out and scratching up our arms and getting sunburned and talking about labor and pregnancy and so forth.
It was a delightful morning, really.
And here's what I'm saying- you can lay your bean rows out in neat and tidy lines and you can hope they grow and you can weed them and water them and fertilize them and that's a nice part of the garden. A part you planned and a part you've concentrated on making successful.
And you can pull up all the volunteers and plant more beans or okra or more peppers or what-have-you where those volunteers sprang up or you can let some of them go and see what they become. You can let them go crazy and choke out what you have planted or you can try to achieve a balance, making room for both the expected and the unexpected in whatever patch of garden you cultivate.
You can decide to go blackberry picking and you can ignore the lady waving her arms in the middle of the road or you can say, "Sure, get in the car," and you can take thirty minutes out of your Sunday morning to drive a stranger into town and you can give her five bucks and then you have a story to tell and you can still pick blackberries.

It's good to have a framework, a basic plan and it's good to let spring up what springs up on its own. Isn't there an old Yiddish saying about if you want to make god laugh, make a plan?
And then there's John Lennon who said life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.
I feel grateful that I have one of those lives where I can have it both ways. I can be open to the unexpected and I can try to create some order and I can allow the seeds of last year to surprise and delight me too. And I'm also grateful, so very grateful, that I live in a place where I can have this garden of delight for me with both order and controlled chaos and where I can pick up a stranger and drive her to town without too much worry, just do it, no big deal, here you go.

I am allowed to have balance if I seek it and how many of us are lucky enough to say that?
I am feeling very lucky today, for these and many other things, not the least of which is Lily's baby growing inside her and moving around, dancing in his or her mother's womb, stretching and curling, tapping out messages of life from inside her. A baby planned but which will end up being, for all the planning involved, a complete and utter delightful mystery and surprise, like so much of life. And if we just go ahead and accept the fact that yes, we do have control over some things, but not much, and that's fine we'd all be a lot less frustrated and a lot more content. There is great joy in discovery of what life really has in store for us if we just nurture the surprises that spring up like squashes and melons, like babies and strangers. Sometimes we get fruit and sometimes we get life and sometimes we just get an interesting break in the plan of the day.

I try to remember to have faith in that and not to try so hard to focus on the plan I think I have for myself, my garden, my marriage, my yard, my kids. Because honestly, never in a million years could I have even begun to dream of, much less plan for, the incredible joyous surprises I've experienced so far.
Sure, not everything has been as sweet as a volunteer cantaloupe, as interesting as finding myself the owner of chickens.
But for the most part- and I think we'd all agree with this- it's been the things we never saw coming, the blessings we never thought to ask for that have been the best things in our lives.

True for me, anyway.
And I'm trying to learn to trust in that. I am.

For Your Enjoyment

I Can Has Bugz?

I slept until almost ten this morning which is some sort of record around here. I'd woken up at three-thirty with a severe hay fever attack, wanting to scratch my throat out and so there was nothing for it but to get up and take a Benadryl which is one powerful drug.
When I got back to sleep, still itchy in the throat, I slept like the dead until I forced myself to get up at such an ungodly and slothful hour.

We had such fun last night. I was so glad I went. Even the drive over to Hayvana was sweet and Mr. Moon said again he'd take me to Mexico and I started crying and he was all like, "What's wrong with you? It's okay," so when we got there I was in sort of a blissful state already and then the music was wonderful and when Lon and Lis sang Love Hurts, I thought I'd die from the sheer glory of it.
We didn't get home until after eleven and Lon and Lis came by for a quick stop on their way home. I made them coffee and gave them muffins. I pleaded with them to stay the night in the panther room but they had to get back to their dogs, Daisy and Buck, and I understood that.

And now it's the next day and Mr. Moon has gone to town with a list as long as his arm of things to get done.

I've already done most of what I wanted to do today, which is to clean out the chicks' cage and move it from where it's been sitting in the mud room to out here on the porch and here I am, writing my fifty-eighth blog post of the past 24 hours, listening to them chirp. I'm glad to have them out here because I can interact with them more. This batch of babies has been a different experience than our first. Probably because there are more of them, also poor Miss Precious died, and, well, they smell different.

Is that weird? I know nothing about chickens, let's face it, so I don't know about this smell thing. Maybe it's because there are more of them, the weather is hotter- whatever.
And I haven't interacted with them as often. We stand and admire them, pointing out this one's clever little wing feathers and that one's pretty little face but they aren't used to us as much as the other ones were and even if I just come up with the camera they go a little nuts. But they'll grow to know us more and we them. I have only named one of this batch so far, the little sister to Miss Precious and we are calling her Buttercup because she's so soft and yellow. They all seem very healthy now and eat tremendous amounts of food and drink lots of water and take naps and they also peck, peck, peck, looking for bugs in the straw and in the wood that lines their cage.

When we got our first, original six babies, we had no idea what we were doing. We knew to keep them fed and warm and we did.
But this time around Mr. Moon got an instruction sheet for keeping baby chickens alive from the feed store and it's full of scary advice and words like "EXACTLY 90 DEGREES! DO NOT GUESS!" and "REAR END PASTING UP."

Well, ignorance is bliss and I sort of wish I had never heard of butt pasting.

A few nights ago, Mr. Moon and I happened upon some TV show entitled "The History of the Chicken" or something like that and they did a piece on Mike, the Headless Rooster which made me sort of sick to my stomach and also some gooey, sugary thing wherein some retired pastor had written about a brave little chicken who protected her babies with her very life and all of this was re-enacted on film while the pastor read his story and that made me sort of sick to my stomach too, but in a different way. More like the way your stomach feels when you eat half a batch of Tollhouse Cookie dough before you get any into the oven.

I mean, hey. I love my chickens and I think that probably humans have developed a great sense of appreciation and even affection for the birds who cluck so nicely around the yard and have such pretty feathers and lay eggs and eat bugs but to keep a chicken with no head and make money on him and to imply that any mother in the world who would protect her babies with her life is proof of god sort of goes over the top to my mind.

I mean, mothers are god, in my book but that's just me.

And in more chicken news (and yes, I knew you wanted some) we have determined that every one of our original six are hens. Not one rooster in the bunch. So. Mabel, Suzie, Bob, Dolly P., Betty and Red are all fine gals but they need a man. So if one of these next nine isn't a boy, we're going to have to recruit. I ran into a very old friend of mine at the library the other day and she says she has some beautiful black roosters who love hens and she'd gladly give me one of those. I think I'll wait to see how this current baby batch turns out and wait until the hens are old enough to tolerate a grown-male's advances if you know what I'm saying. I don't want any old rooster messing with my girls until they're ready and willing. Or as willing as chickens get, which I hear is not very.

And there you go. The news from Lloyd on a Saturday in June. It's hot, the crickets are singing in waves that rise and fall, the chickens are chirping, and I'm happy.

The Voting Thing

Okay, okay. You see those little vote thingees over there on the sidebar? Well, they're there because I have been nominated for two different blog award things.
I don't know anything about this except that they look legitimate. Aunt Becky at MommyWantsVodka and Lady Lemon at Lady Lemon's Blog nominated me for these things.
So anyway, I put the Blogitzer thing up months and months ago and then I took it down because I figured it was over but now I realize it's not so I put it back up and dang! I have ten votes. You think maybe I'll beat Dooce? Boy, that would be sweet.
(Hysterical laughter.)
I hear it's rather hard to vote on that site but the Blogluxe thing is easy. You can even vote once a day on that one. Or so I hear from Aunt Becky.
So that's that. That's what that is. And part of me is so ashamed to be flogging the blog and another part of me is like, what the fuck?
At least I'd like to get as many votes as Getting Down With Jesus which is in the same category as I'm nominated for in the Blogluxe thing.
Really. I would.

Anoles and Wasps and Guests, Oh My!

Overblogging again. What the hell?

I had just gotten in from working in the garden and then watering my front porch plants and being stung by wasps when the phone rang. It was my Lizzie and she and Lon were about to pass by the Lloyd exit. Could they stop by?

I was half naked because when the wasps stung me I'd shucked my overalls and poured water down my back and I was filthy dirty and I told Lis that and she said, "Sounds like heaven!"
And it was, in a way. I've been in such a good mood all day and when wasps sting, it gives you that great shot of endorphins and adrenalin, you know. So I was sort of high, too.

I jumped in the shower and by the time they got here, I was at least clean.

I made them a pot of coffee and we did the chickens/garden/sago palm tour. I really do force people to look at these things. I don't just make this shit up. They were gratifyingly impressed by it all and then Lon said, "Look at that." He pointed to something on the sago palm I had never seen before, which was one of our little anole lizards shedding.

"Get that camera," Lizzie said. "That's a blog post."

So I did.

Those aren't very good pictures but if you click on them, I think you'll be able to see the little guy, busting out of his skin like a miniature Incredible Hulk. I think it looks like he's wearing a little white t-shirt.

So-like I said, I have never seen this phenomena in my life and to tell you the truth, I didn't even know they did shed, but of course they must. In fact, I just looked it up and they can shed as often as once a month! Why did I not know this?

Plus, they eat their shed skin. How cool is that?

So much I don't know in this world. So much I don't know even about the things in my very own yard.

Amazing.

Paper Bag Of Stuff

So it's Friday and what's going on in your life?

I'm about to go to yoga and I hope I'm not as rude today as I was on Wednesday. My teacher talks about "sweating out the toxins" when she walks and I asked her, "How did those toxins get in there?" I mean, the woman doesn't even drink coffee.
"Oh, that's just what I say. I retain water and it helps to sweat."
"Uh. Okay."
If sweating gets toxins out of the body, I should be toxin-free.
It's funny how we grab onto a concept or a phrase and use it without even thinking about what it really means. I know I do it.

So I'm listening to a book on tape and it's probably not the best book to be listening to right now but I'm almost finished with it. I listen while I walk or do housework or work in the garden. I go through Walkmans like some people go through batteries because I'm constantly flipping the tapes with my dirt-encrusted hands and eventually the dirt gets into the works and the player refuses to play.
Anyway, the book is Eva's Cousin and it's written by Sibylle Knauss and it's about Eva Braun's cousin and the time she spent with Eva right before WW II ended. Eva's real cousin gave the author extensive interviews to base the book on and it's rather chilling. The girls lived a completely protected (and guarded) existence with everything in the world at their command, living a life of complete privilege as the world collapsed around them. The thing I'm getting from the book is that women will submit themselves entirely for what they perceive as love. Eva, who wasn't even married to Hitler until right before they bit the cyanide, kept herself in complete denial about who and what her lover was. Supposedly. And I sort of believe it because otherwise, she would have been as evil as he and I don't think she was deep enough to be evil. Merely a shallow woman who was happy enough to wait for her lover to call her every other night, to wait for his occasional visits, to stand in the shadows during Hitler's public appearances. Everyone knew who she was, but because she wasn't married to him, she was not acknowledged in an official way.
Too weird, but I have known many women who did essentially the same thing, being the lovers of married men, never acknowledged publically but always in the shadows, in the background, trying to convince themselves that this was enough because they were in love.
Of course their lovers were not Evil Incarnate, but let's face it- if you're the lover of a married man, you're in love with someone who cheats on his wife and that is not a man who is treating either the wife or the lover with any respect. I had a very good friend who had a long-term affair with her married boss and he was kind to her, I'll admit. I don't think he was a bad man, at heart. But after years of telling her that eventually he'd leave his wife, he did, and then married another woman.
As if that wasn't tragic enough, he died in a plane crash and despite the fact he'd always reassured my friend that if he ever died, she would be "taken care of" and despite the fact that he was an attorney who did estate law, he died without having a will of his own. None.
And my friend? She wasn't even able to grieve publicly and I think it killed her. She died a few years after.
So anyway, I'm almost finished with this book and thank god for that. I figure it will get me through one more walk or four feet of garden weeding, whichever comes first.

So Mr. Moon cut his hair last night. This means that he almost shaved his hair off. And it looks so cute. When I met him, he had longish but not long hair. Sort of shaggy. And it was brown. Within months of meeting me, it had started turning gray and now it's all silver, sweet silver hairs that shine like a halo around his head up there in the sky.
"It feels so good," he said, palming his head, feeling the quarter-inch neat stubble.
"I'm jealous," I said, in the midst of my fiftieth hotflash of the day, my hair pulled up into an untidy knot, still wet from that morning's walk and the subsequent garden-work. I swear, it's a wonder my hair doesn't mildew.
"Will you shave mine for me?" I asked him.
"Sure," he said, but I knew he wouldn't. Well, if I really pleaded, he would.
49% of me wants to do a Sinead and 51% of me wants to grow my hair down to my waist and just wear it in two braids. This means that I get hair cuts now and then and right now my hair is neither very, very long nor short at all. I wear it up all the time so the difference between buzzing it and the way it is now would not be much. I read this little thing the other day where this woman in her fifties finally cut her hair short and her reasoning was the she didn't want her hair to promise fecundity that her body couldn't deliver.
I loved that.
But she'd gone to the trouble to get extensions and shit like that in order to have long hair. All I do is not get it cut.
Truthfully, 100% of me just doesn't give enough of a shit to worry about it very much, but sometimes I do yearn to have that very, very short hair, the kind that you can just use bar soap on and wear lots of eye-makeup and big earrings to balance it all out.
Meanwhile, I'll just revel in Mr. Moon's smooth head.

And I'm back from yoga now and I was not rude, although maybe I sort of was when I told my teacher not to touch me when I was doing a balancing pose. Arrgh. Why do I get so skunky-mean in yoga? My teacher is sweet and really, yoga should make ME sweet.
I think it would take more than yoga to do that on the days when I'm feeling meaner than snake piss. Is snake piss mean? Sounds mean, doesn't it?

And I just got the most delightful call from Mr. Moon. He wants to take me on a vacation. What? What? WHAT?
"To where?" I asked him.
"Anywhere," he said.
Of course my mind went racing to Cozumel and of course he said he would take me there but I know he'd like to go somewhere else. I with my deep, deep love of the place and my daily reading of the cozumelmycozumel website am ready to jump on a plane heading south of sanity and north of worry. I know the island (it's tiny), I know I love it and I feel as at home there as I do in Lloyd. Almost. Not much to do there except bask in the beauty of the island and the Mayans and love my husband. And swim. And snorkel. And eat. And drink. And sleep. And see the best sunsets in the world.
Yeah. I'd hate to go back there again.
Anyway, I just think this is further proof that Mr. Moon is the nicest man in the world and I am the luckiest woman in the world.

Okay. That's about it. I'm going to go weed some more and I think today is the day to pick that ginormous butternut squash. I should call Ms. Fleur and Harley to come help because it's Harley's squash. He started the seed. I hope I started a seed in him of loving to grow things. That sure would make me happy.

And oh! One more thing! If you're a local, Big Lou and Maxine (aka Lon and Lis Williamson) are going to be playing tonight in Havana (that's Florida and pronounced Hay-vana) at the Mockingbird Cafe where you can get your supper, your ambiance and your sweet angel music right there in one place. I'll be there. I struggled with the concept of putting on a bra and mascara to go out on a Friday night but then I thought to myself, "What in hell am I thinking? Lon and Lis are close enough to go see! Get off your ass, woman!"
And so I shall.

Happy Friday. I'm feeling better today and I hope you are too.
Remember: Don't be rude to your yoga teacher, don't wait around for some man to marry you and then take cyanide with him on your honeymoon, hair doesn't mildew, pick your squash before it gets too big, and last but not least, support your local musicians.