An Afternoon Of Rest

As you can see from the calender above, my February has been and is quite filled up.

Yes. Owen is my social secretary. So, okay, yesterday he saw me write something on the calender and then he pulled up a step stool and proceeded to fill in the rest of it for me. He pointed out that there were letters and numbers. And then he asked me to draw things in there too. A moon, a star, some fishes. Can you tell which ones are sharks?
No, you cannot.
I drew him a picture of a bull one day that was so bad that when Mr. Moon saw it he said, "Thank god we don't have to live on what we could make from selling bulls drawn by Mermer." He wasn't joking, either. I can't draw anything. I can't draw convincing stick figures. But what the hell? I don't have to. Good thing, too.

But it really has been a busy month and a good one, or at least good enough. For a February, it's been spectacular, I guess, although I'll feel a hell of a lot better about it if I get some peas and potatoes planted.

Besides filling up my calender for me yesterday, Owen also took all his clothes off. I have found that this is something that children just do and it never ceases to charm me. My own kids were naked from dawn to dusk whenever the weather allowed when we lived out in Lloyd when the older ones were young and we lived even farther out in the country. So when Owen stripped and wanted to run around outside yesterday, I just told him that he had to wear his shoes and he was so happy.

Wouldn't YOU be? There was also naked tractor-playing and naked-gardening. By Owen. I had my clothes on. Believe me.

It was mighty fun but I was exhausted by the time his mama came and got him. And then of course I had things to do around here and then rehearsal and I was just so exhausted by the time it was over last night and then I woke up at approximately 4:53 again this morning and couldn't get back to sleep but when I finished doing everything I needed to do in town today, I came home and laid down and slept for two hours and it was as luscious and gorgeous and pink as this:

I'm sorry to keep posting pictures of those camellias but it can't be but a good thing for the universe. I mean, LOOK at that! I don't even know what I'd call that color. Or those colors. But the word "luscious" sure keeps coming to mind. And sleep CAN be pink. Or at least I think so. If we can dream in color, why can't we sleep in color?

I got up reluctantly from the nap and it was dripping rain and no wonder I'd slept so well. Then I was talking to Judy on the phone and I noticed something on the fence out back. "Good Lord!" I said to Judy. "I think that's a hawk out there."
And it was. I took some pictures of it and this is the best one I got.

That hawk was waiting for my chickens to come by for their evening promenade. I know he was. The chickens did not take that promenade but the hawk continued to watch them and even flew up into a tree by the coop when they went inside. They're closed up safe now but look at that beak. What a magnificent bird but I still don't want him snatching one of my hens. It would upset Elvis so much.

Speaking of chickens, when I took the trash yesterday, there was a little goldy hen pecking around the trash place. I asked the guy there about her and he said she's been there for about five or six weeks. "She laying?" I asked. "Just started," he said. She lays in the little portable building where he hangs out watching a discarded but perfectly good TV when he isn't doing his trash-smashing duties. The little hen looked happy as could be and he said he was building her a pen at home and was going to take her there when he got it finished.

Lloyd.

When I went out to take the picture of the hawk, I saw Ballsy, The World's Fattest Feral Cat. He was posing perfectly so I took his picture, too. He only has one eye but he has a full set of...balls. They're huge. They don't show up here.


I feed him and I doubt I'm the only one. I hear him at night sometimes, wrastlin' and yowlin' out in the darkness with another cat. I pity the poor fool who takes him on. He'll let us pet him sometimes so he's not that wild. Unless you're another tom cat out in the darkness.

Well, it's just about dark. I don't have rehearsal and I'm going to make some sort of chicken and bean enchilada casserole for our supper. I got to see Lily and Owen today and we planted a few things I'd dug up in my yard and took over there. Owen mostly stood on the picnic table and practiced his Kung Fu moves with a bamboo pole. Hai-YA! is his favorite phrase these days. Then we met Bop for lunch at the Chinese buffet and so it was a good day.

Lily had a midwife appointment and all is well. She's 37 weeks now and that baby will be coming soon.

Yes. It has been a full month and will continue to be so. Friday and Saturday are our last performances, Sunday is tear-down. Tomorrow I will go to the Assisted Living Place to be with Mother when she gets yet ANOTHER cognitive test. I have more insurance forms to fill out.

But I tell you what- it's been a nice day and I am so grateful for the sleep I got with the gentle rain coming down, the beautiful bird I saw sitting on my fence, my hens, my rooster, my husband. I better go make him some supper.

Love from Lloyd, y'all.

Ms. Moon

My Heart Just Exploded

Elizabeth sent me a link this morning and I went to it and I am sitting here with the biggest smile on my face and I am crying, too.

So okay, watch this and then let me tell you- I love this president. I damn well love this beautiful president.
And now I've seen him sing the blues with my daddy.

I swear. I just feel all tore up inside. In such a very, very good way and I can't seem to stop crying.




And on Monday night we can watch the whole gorgeous thing. Link for that information at

In Performance at The White House Red White and Blues

Last Rehearsal

Harriet's office.

My Friend Harvey Sent Me This.

Thank-you, Harvey.

Come Here, Bozo. I Need To Smack You

It's five-thirty a.m. I am up, waiting for Owen. Mr. Moon got up too. I have no idea why. We'll all be going back to bed after Owen eats his cheese toast.
I had one of those nights where I was awake every ten minutes, worrying about ridiculous stuff. When I was asleep I was dreaming about ridiculous stuff.

I hate those nights so much.

I want to punch them in the nose.

Tennessee Mama's China

Mr. Moon is home and that bruise on his ass/hip is so bad that I was horrified. HORRIFIED! I told him he should go to the doctor to see if he has a blood disorder but he won't and I wouldn't either. That's the way we are.
He fell on it full-force, not having time to brace his fall and I guess that's what happens but shitfire. He says it doesn't hurt and I believe him but...still.

His sister is planning on selling her house and so she sent some things home with Mr. Moon. Three boxes filled with their grandmother's china, for one thing. Golly, that's some sweet china. Their grandmother, from what I hear, was a force of nature. She put wallpaper on her ceilings with a broom. She quilted endlessly. She cut hair, sewed clothing, crocheted bedspreads and tablecloths, doctored the poor, ran a broom-making business, raised three kids on her own, built her own quilting frame and baked so much at Christmas that she toted cake batter in buckets to her son and daughter-in-law's house (Mr. Moon's mama and daddy) to bake in their oven. This was a little ol' Tennessee mama who probably didn't get educated past the sixth grade but we've still got things in our house she made and now we've got her china.

At least one set of it. I hear that she loved china and had many sets.

We've put it away in a closet to save for Apalachicola. Seems like we're putting a lot of things off for Apalachicola. But, I guess that's okay. It's good to have something to look forward to. Change is inevitable and I'd just as soon buy my own ticket and be waiting at the proper gate than to be taken by surprise, although let's face it- that's going to happen too.

Another thing Mr. Moon brought home was a box of books and magazines. The books were all about Florida birds and butterflies and trees and gardening and there was a big stack of Florida Gardening magazines. I was flipping through them and saw a little article on Spanish patio gardening- gardening up and down the walls, as it were- and again, I thought of Apalachicola. Our lot down there is skinny and long and it goes into the marshlands and we're not going to be able to have a proper garden so I've already resigned myself to growing tomatoes and herbs and peppers and lettuces in pots on the decks. It was nice to garner a few ideas about growing things in window boxes too. Flowers and yes, herbs. Those will be fine, growing in containers.

It's going to be okay. I swear, it's going to be beautiful, moving to Apalach in three or four years. There are going to be changes and I don't know what the hell I'm going to do without my chickens. I need to research the city ordinances down there to see if I can maybe keep a few banty hens, at least. I can't even imagine living without chickens now. But it sure will be nice to have a grocery store within walking distance and a bookstore, too. To live right on the Apalachicola Bay and be able to watch pelicans fly by when I have my morning coffee. To watch the water, the sky, the shrimp boats heading out to the Gulf.

We have to build the house first, of course. A brand new house? Wow. That I can hardly imagine but it'll help if I can open a cabinet and find the dishes that Glen's grandmother used in Tennessee.

It's odd to think of all of this. It's weird. But I guess it's going to happen. And I'm trying very hard to bend my thoughts to it all.

We've stored the china upstairs and it's sitting there, just waiting for us. I think of all the meals which have been served on it. I am cooking black-eyed peas and collard greens and cornbread right now. I cook like an old country woman and always have. I'll be honored and happy to eat off the china of an old Tennessee mama. There will probably be more meals with seafood, but there will still be black-eyed peas, there will be greens. There WILL be cornbread.

Lord, life is strange. You just never know.

Well, that's it for tonight. I think the cornbread's about done. I need to put out the honey.

My man is home. He's fine and safe, despite the bruise on his hip. I got everything I need and so much more. And whatever else comes? Well, that'll be okay, too. Maybe it'll be glorious.

The bread's done.

Talk to you later.

Ms. Moon

There's Shit And Then There's SHIT

I'm so mind-boggled over the Republican candidates for president and how absolutely ridiculous they all are that I don't even think they're worth talking about. Which of course is not going to stop me.

The world as we know it is in flux and change and countries, entire COUNTRIES are going down the tubes and we here in the US are having problems that are so deep and to the bone that it's going to take years to straighten them out if that's even possible and yet, all the Republican candidates seem to be focusing on is how fucking truly, deeply, severely conservative they are and how their religion is the right one, the true one.

Bite my ass.

Meanwhile, women are being told what they can and cannot do with their uteri BY MEN and everyone's just like, uh...let's not piss off the Catholic Church.
When that bishop or whoever he was said that trash about how NEVER in history has the government forced people to pay for something they did not morally believe in, all I could think about was- how about all of us folks who don't believe in warfare? Do our taxes get put in a separate account to only pay for roads and education?
Fuck no.

People are sheep. People are stupid.
There. I said it.

Probably me too. But at least I try to think through things. Which is painful.

I just don't get it, I don't want to get it, I don't think it's possible to get it. I think the only explanation for what's going on politically here in the US is that yes, I repeat, people are stupid and people are sheep.

Meanwhile, I forgot that Valentine's Day was the day to plant peas and potatoes.
FAIL!

Peas and potatoes are real. So is chicken shit and also chicken eggs.

So is the fact that people who have penises shouldn't be able to tell the people who have a uterus what they can and cannot do with that uterus or the contents thereof. Hell, I HAVE a uterus and I am under no delusions about the fact that anyone else's is not my business. I know what it takes to bear and raise a child. I would never force anyone to do that who didn't really want to. In fact, I'd encourage anyone who isn't really sure they want to have children not to have them.

Here's the thing- we seem to think, in this country, that if you have a shit-pile of money or can collect a shit-pile of money, then you deserve to be president and tell other people what to do.
That's just the fact, Jack.
You can be a raging asshole who doesn't know a damn thing except what the Bible says (or what you interpret the Bible to say) but if you can afford to run for office and buy really nice suits and have hair that can be combed into a helmet-like configuration, you're GOLD. You're qualified, you're taken seriously.

Seriously?

Well, fuck it. Fuck THEM, the Santorums, the Gingriches, the Romneys. Fuck them and their white-men hair and their penises and their money and their PACS and their Bibles (or Books of Mormon) and their holy proclamations and their adoring wives (with their own helmet hair) and their sheep-like stupid followers who wouldn't know logic if it bit them in the ass and who are supporting the very people who care about them and their families the very least.

I give up.

I need to plant peas and potatoes. I need to clean up chicken shit. I don't have time for the great steaming piles of horseshit (and I apologize to horses here) the Republicans are dumping all over the country in their bids for president.

God. It's a beautiful day here in Lloyd. My husband is coming home. I am going to go take a walk. I'm going to ignore this whole stupid political game of fuckery and vote for Obama on election day. And mind my own business which I am barely capable of taking care of. Which I freely admit.

Why anyone would want to run for president is beyond me anyway. Well, except for the fact that if you're president you probably don't have to scrub your own toilet.

Which is also something I need to do.

Is there a shit-theme here? I believe there may be. Which reminds me of a product Lily and I saw at the CVS last week. It was called something like Ick Stick and you put it up to your nose when you know that a bad smell has been produced and you are trying to prevent it from reaching your olfactory sense.

I'll just leave you with that one and I won't say anything crude like how it would save a lot of time if they just stuck a few thousand of those things up certain helmet-haired men's asses. And a few million in their mouths.

Happy Monday, y'all!

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. There are some shit-filled Democrats too. I am not denying that. It's just that the Republicans are so good right now at pissing me off that I'm concentrating on them. Their big old helmet-heads are taking up all the room in the picture.
Plus- I have huge crushes on Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
I may be a sheep but at least I may be a black sheep.
Okay. That's all.
Yours truly. I mean it.

Yes. Bill Clinton has helmet hair but he hangs out with cool people who do not.

Although Mr. Moon is still not home, I am finally making a real meal.

I have a chicken beast in the oven in an iron skillet, the iron skillet I bought in Denver, Colorado in 1973. God, that skillet is older now than most of the people on earth and I use it almost every day. And here's the funny thing- I have an even older iron skillet that I use at least once a week.
You can't go wrong with an iron skillet.

Anyway, I put that chicken breast in there with slices of fresh pineapple and onions and cinnamon and some salt and brown sugar and put a lid on it. I usually do this on top of the stove, but I wanted a baked potato, so I am cooking the chicken in the oven with the potatoes. I am cooking two potatoes so that I can have one tomorrow if I want. Big oven, might as well use the heat, the space to make enough for more.

I picked salad greens from the garden today after I weeded and mulched. I gave them two sink-washings and then laid them on a dishtowel and wrapped them in it like a baby, like a burrito, like a handful of wet emeralds. I have peeled and sliced an orange, toasted walnuts, thawed wild blueberries. This will be my salad.

Hell, I might heat up some baby peas and then there will be more green to go with yellow pineapple, orange orange, emerald greens, blue blueberries.

I talked to Lily on the phone today and Owen came on to talk to me too. He told me that he'd gone to eat with his Uncle Chris and his Aunt Loren. He'd had a cheeseburger and french fries. He asked me if I like french fries.
How did he get so verbal? When did this happen?
I assured him that I love french fries. Especially with ketchup. I was telling him the truth. I do. I will always tell that boy the truth. He told me the other day that he goes to church with his other grandmother. He asked if I go to church. I said, "No, MerMer does not like church."
Again- the truth.

I talked to Mr. Moon. He tripped on a bush's root on Friday and fell hard on his ass. The resulting bruise is too shocking for words but he swears it does not hurt. He sent me pictures of it and I asked if I could post one and he said, "That's so weird," and I am not going to, although it's like an act of god, that bruise, it's so black, it's so big.

He has a nice ass, that man. I tell you he does.
Trust me.

I tidied up my office today and swept it. I took my computer out there and the intense responsibility of having the time and space to write completely undid me. I could not. It was like being in a five-hundred dollar-a-night hotel room with a lover. Things are expected to happen. There are expectations which may not be achieved under such pressure. The dogs had followed me in and settled down but I closed the laptop and said, "Come on, dogs," and they did. I am too intimidated to write any more. I have used up all of my ideas and wonderful first lines on books that are written but that I will never send out. I think of the old days when I snatched time here and there to write on yellow legal tablets. I think of furtive, quick love in broom closets, no pressure at all, just pure lust.

Listen: Do not ever look at an old person and think that they have never done this or that. You have no idea. Whatever you have thought of, whatever you have done, they probably have too. Humans are humans. Where there is a will, there is a way. Wherever there is a need, it will be met. Wherever there is a thrill, it will be sought after.

My chicken and onions and pineapple and cinnamon smell like something I might want to eat. I'm going to go make a salad dressing for those greens, that fruit, those nuts.

I am going to go to bed before midnight tonight.

This is what I have done today. This is what I have thought about.

I twist my rings on my fingers. I expect to find more evidence of spring tomorrow.
This is what it is like to be a fifty-seven-year-0ld woman on earth.

I kid you not.

Another Sunday In Lloyd, Florida

Well the storm did come and I went to sleep with the sound of rain pouring down and I didn't wake up at all as far as I know. Well, I did wake up this morning, of course. This is not the ghost of me writing this.

It has been recently pointed out to me that my world is very, very small. This was supposed to be either an insult or an example of how pathetic I am but whatever was meant, it's just the damn truth.

I do have a small world, albeit one without fucking dolls singing about it, dressed in The Costumes Of Peoples All Over The World.

(Fairly unrelated segue- why did Disney World eliminate Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and yet keep It's A Small World? That decision alone says more about Disney World than just about anything I could imagine.)

So I went out this morning, into my small world, which has been washed clean and left with a bountiful plenty of water and yet, very little damage that I can see. A GOOD storm indeed! Here's my rain gauge:


If you click on it, you'll see a reflection of some more of my small world. Also, bits of straw that I cleaned from the hen house. There's probably some chicken shit in there too.
An entire world in a Rubbermaid garden cart! Okay, okay, it's not an entire world. I admit it.

The wisteria is starting to get fuzzy at the ends. Sure sign of coming-attractions. Boy-oh-boy, I can't wait for the wisteria to bloom. I feel slightly intoxicated, just thinking about that.

And now this, I cannot believe.

That's a pecan, y'all! Do you know what that means? Well, if Old Wives and Aged Gardeners are to be trusted, that means we won't get another freeze. I have NEVER seen the pecans start to swell with leaf in February.
Should I be putting out my tomatoes and peppers already? Hell, I just got the cabbages in!

And here's Miss Trixie on the nest.


Now that's a face which does not invite under-body inspection for eggs. Nah. I'm going to just let her be. But I have to tell you- her barky-face is worse than her nip.

So that's my Sunday offering of images of a small world. I can't even believe it was only one week ago that Jessie and Vergil were here and we spent Sunday working outside and it was chilly but the sun felt so good on us and I made soup and Lily and Owen came over and we all gathered in the dining room and Owen ate about half a loaf of bread. It's been a busy week. For me. A rehearsal, two performances, Owen here two days, our Valentine's adventure to Spring Creek for supper, Mr. Moon off to Bradenton, some garden work, pruning of the rose bushes, shopping with Lily for the new baby and a visit to Costco AND the grocery store.
Wow.
For me that's huge. HUGE I tell you.

I think I better take a walk today. I think I better eat a salad. If y'all came by I'd have an excuse to cook a ham with brown sugar and pineapple slices; also potato salad and biscuits.
It's still mighty windy out there and if you DID come over for Sunday, we'd all have to hold our hats on to our heads with one hand while eating potato salad with the other. Our skirts would blow and ruffle and bits of bark and perhaps even bugs would land in the butter and we'd laugh and chatter and maybe take turns talking about the infinite and the tiny and what all that means or doesn't mean.
We could trade recipes and run after babies while the great beards of the Spanish Moss in the oak trees would blow over our heads like those of old men as they wagged their chins and talked about things they have seen and done and pass the rum, do you remember? and all the while the wisteria would be swelling silently, the pecans too and we could watch the Jesus bugs striding over the water in the little algae-filled pond, everywhere we looked a damn miracle under the blue sky of the dome of heaven and Elvis would crow our sermon and it would sound like, "I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive!"

You Try And Title This Stuff

Back when I used to write fiction, I remember how I would write something and then within months, something very like whatever I had written would happen in real life. It almost got scary. It's one thing to understand that we write from past experience, it's another entirely to wonder if we write from future experience.

Anyway, I am thinking of that tonight as the air is sucked still of everything and it seems as if the planet, or at least this very small part of it, is holding its breath. There is a feeling of something impending and indeed, the radar shows a gnarly front heading this way right now, this second, and I wonder how long I'll have power.

Let it be a good storm, not a bad one. As I wrote this morning, there is a difference.

Tonight was just good. Damn fun. A packed house. We did skip great chunks of lines and scenes but then we always went back and found them, more a fancy embroidering back of the piece into the whole than a picking up of dropped stitches. I found it thrilling, I found it satisfying, I found the resulting quilt a more colorful and beautiful and us-created thing.

Our youngest cast member, our Dee-Dee, had her family there and I met her mama and her three siblings. They are all beautiful. Her six-year old sister was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous little girl I've seen in forever and a day. She wanted to meet me after the play and I wanted to catch her up to me, her sparkly silver shoes shining, her face like some perfect example of what the human race can look like if given the chance. I swear to you- she was a vision, and dressed up in a long dress and with a big shell necklace and those sparkly silver shoes, her hair pulled back and her face not hidden one bit. I remembered what it was like to be the mother of a six-year-old girl and I remembered how amazing it was. Six-year-old girls may be the most enchanting and magical creatures on this earth. I do not know for sure, but they are something. Women-to-be, already possessed of powers and beauty that will take this world by storm. As has our Dee-Dee, only fourteen and in her first role, creating and supporting and knowing and making us laugh so hard and slipping into her role as if she were born for it, slipping also into our hearts and bringing us something vital we so sadly lose as we grow up.

Kathleen, who runs the lights and sound, got a sudden attack of vertigo and luckily, Rich was there to serve tables and he took over. No, it wasn't perfect but for having had about fifteen minutes of instruction, it was perfectly wonderful. Kathleen went home and I have to think it was this storm front coming in that made her dizzy, that had her drunk on the pressure change. I will call her tomorrow morning and see how she is.

And before the play started, Jack told me this: "I am so glad I know you."
He didn't have to say that. It made me cry although I stood there all butchy and dumb-struck. "Man, don't make me cry. Stop that shit!" But he'll never know how much those words meant to me.

Ah...the wind is beginning to make the wind chimes sing, the leaves of the magnolia brush like a woman's green satin skirt in a fancy dance. A dog in the distance is barking. Beyond that, there is silence except for these typing sounds, my whisper-voice as I say what I type as I type it.

I need to eat. Without Mr. Moon here, I eat this and I eat that, none of what you would call good for me. None of it what you would call a meal. It is so late but I might cook some pasta, heat up some jarred sauce, have a bowl of that and call it done. The wind chimes sing a minor-scaled tune of warning. They say a storm is heading this way. That dog continues to bark. The night is as deep ink-black as the devil's own heart. My own dogs are nervous and keep looking at me as if for guidance or reassurance. I would not be surprised to have a snake charmer appear suddenly in my hallway, a cobra in a basket rising to his eerie flute. I wish I had a braid down to my hips and could wrap my hair around me, my lover so far away, it would be comfort in this approaching storm air.

Yeah. It's been that kind of night.

I wonder what sort of morning it will be. We shall see. We shall see. We shall see when it arrives.

Backstage

Letting Peace In

Drizzly day and it's almost as if it's forgotten how to really rain here. We get this water from the sky in slow, patient amounts and it's soothing, it's lovely really but I miss a good storm coming in. Not a bad storm, a good one. There is a difference. But this is fine, this constant pat-patting of the earth by the water, like Mama is patting the baby's butt, sweetly, softly; she is easing the infant spring into life. It is a gentle birth. A water birth. It is somehow perfect.

That's my buckeye up there, fixing to open up a red blossom. I thought it had died back a few years ago when we had a tropical storm that sent branches crashing down everywhere, including one on that spindling thing and it was broken, but it was not killed. It's a native plant and that always means a strength and a hardiness which generally comes through. I am not making a metaphor. I am speaking a gardening truth.

Last night was going so well. We had such a fine audience. One lady actually kept dialoguing with the actors. She was talking to us! And it was awesome. It cracked us all up. We were having fun! We get dressed for this event in the offices of a lovely woman who has an acupuncture and wellness business in the downstairs part of the Opera House and she needled me before the performance to calm me down because I was a little nervous. It helped, three needles, one in my forehead, one in my wrist, one on my foot. Sitting still for five minutes with the needles in me didn't hurt anything either.
Oh yes. It was fun.
And then I made the stupid mistake of checking my e-mail before the second act.
Bad mistake.
My brother had sent me one of his hurtful e-mails, short, nasty, to the bone hurtful. One of those where-did-this-come-from things? I immediately teared up and Jon hugged me and we went on but it was all altered for me. Like sand had been thrown in my gears and I lagged and I skipped and I lost my way and thank god my castmates had my back and it was okay, it was and when the kiss came at the end, the dialoguing woman shouted, "Thank-you!" which cracked me up again but when we went offstage, I cried again.

I felt like I'd let everyone down. I felt like a stupid shit.

I still feel that way because why do I let these things bother me? The things he accused me of being are not true. Or no more true than they would be for anyone. I think that most of all, I know that deep inside, he is hurting and has been hurting for a long, long time. That's the bottom line and just as I wrote yesterday, our sorrows connect us and in this case, the sorrows are so deep in our shared-blood hearts that I can't help but cry, not just for the hurt but mostly for his pain from which the hurtfulness springs.

But. Still.

I came home and ate some supper and washed dishes and went to bed and read for a good long while. I'm reading a completely mindless and sweet book which is exactly what I need right now.

And I have now this whole day, complete and open before me. No one needs me until tonight when we perform again and the rain has, for the moment, ceased, and I think I'll go out with clippers and gloves and trim up some of winter's debris, get dirty and muddy and take a shower and hopefully a nap before I have to be in Monticello. I have the chicken waterer soaking with bleach and dish soap and Elvis has been mounting the hens, fancy-dancing around them, then taking his pleasure with them. Chicken sex is not especially pretty but it is honest. And brief, which I am sure pleases the hens. They are walking around the garden right now, trying to figure out how to get in. They spent half a day in there last week and pulled up every one of my baby brussels sprouts. Oh well. I don't like brussels sprouts that much anyway. And what's with that "s" at the end of "brussel"? Do we really need all those esses?

No. Yes. I don't know.

Do we need pain and do we need sorrow and do we need rain and do we need storms that lash and crash the branches to the ground and do we need the sweet peace that follows, those moments after the storm when the earth seems to pause and take stock of the damage? To survey itself for injury and for change?

Yes. We do. Of course we do. It is all a part of the whole messy way of it. And I feel so grateful right now for that- for the way the peace does come, especially, that I feel I could light candles all over this house, this temple of my life. The Virgin candles, the soy candles, the rose, the pine, the lavender. Go from room to room and light them all, let their tiny flames flicker and let their scents fill the air inside and maybe light some incense too, just fill it all up with pleasing musk. And then go outside where the smell of dirt and wet wood fill me and then come back in to that sweet musk and light and be at peace and let it all go and wash the dirt from my hands and wait for the rain to come again, knowing it will, and that it is all part of the messy, unseeable, unpredictable pattern of life as we know it here on this earth in this time in this place where I live, where I am so blessed, as I so often say, to live.

Well, I've been over this script ONE more time and as Jon says, there is a difference in knowing something and remembering it because I damn well know it but I sure don't always remember it when I'm onstage.
Oh well. I'll do my best.

The make-up's on, the hair is clean. Hell, I even shaved my legs and I have no idea why- not like anyone is going to be able to tell. But that's what you do when you're a lady, right? You shave your legs before you go onstage.

How would I know? I ain't no more an actor than I am a chicken-farmer. I just play at it. I play at the the play. Or something like that.

And my legs needed shaving anyway.

All right. Time to hit the road. We'll all meet up backstage and we'll get our props organized and put on our costumes (or, as I rightly call mine- my CLOTHES) and we'll go over lines and we'll wish we'd eaten more or eaten less and we'll pee one last time and then, maybe do that again before the lights go down. If there is one thing I DO know about acting, it's that you should pee before the play starts.

We humans with our little bladders we carry tucked inside of us where pee is stored. It's funny when you think about it, isn't it? Tom Robbins said in Another Roadside Attraction that human beings are merely an invention by water to transport it from one place to another.

That makes about as much sense as anything else does to me. And so here I go to transport water from Lloyd to Monticello.

Talk to you later.

I Understand Shadenfreude But Come On

Man oh man. I went over to Dooce last night because I used to be in love with her when I found her which was when she was just a young thing writing about sex and stuff and I discovered that she and her husband have separated.
Whoa Nelly!

I am not surprised. What did surprise me though, was how hateful a lot of people are about the fact that this has occurred. I mean, people are like THRILLED that she has gotten her comeuppance and it shamed me for the human race. She and her husband may have made a fortune (or probably not really) and bought a big house and hired nannies and office workers and so forth but still, they are people and it hurts when love gets fucked up and besides that, they have two children.

Two children who, no matter how the separation is handled, are going to suffer. A lot.
And so are the adults. This is just the truth of it. And why in the world would we want to see any family suffer?
Are we so filled with shadenfreude that we are tickled pink when the mighty are laid low?

And let's face it- Heather Armstrong didn't just lay on a chaise lounge and have the bon-bons of good fortune fall into her lap. The woman has worked hard. She seems to know no other way but to work hard and I think that's the deal. When she was just a lowly office worker blogging about her coworkers and her boss, we could all relate. Same when she first got married and they had to live in her parent's basement. But she didn't just stop there. She and her husband pulled it all together and struggled through hard times and severe depression and Salt Lake City winters and she wrote books and she got help and she talked about it and she ran a marathon and oh hell, I don't know. I haven't followed that closely. But I do know she is not a lie-about. Say what you will about her but she surely isn't lazy. She has worked harder at it than most of us are willing to do.

I say I was not surprised to see that they have separated. It has seemed to me for quite a while that Jon, the husband, has felt redundant in the situation. The empire which they founded was quite frankly the Dooce Empire. He may have worked as hard as she did but the glory was hers even if the benefits came to both and let's face it-it is hard to stand in the reflected light of someone else's glory for a long time. Real hard whether you are a man or a woman. And he got called terrible names. Sexist names. Let's not even talk about how hard it is to live with and love someone who suffers from depression. And we will never know exactly all of what happened behind the doors they have kept closed to the world. Nor should we. Ain't our business.

It also seemed to me that they couldn't get enough of the "stuff." New bathrooms, new furniture, new this and that and then a house. And Dooce was suddenly every where. HGTV? What happened with that? And I was like, why would they pay her to talk about decorating when that's not her job? Cooking? She admits she can't boil noodles. It seemed that instead of sticking to what she was so good at which was writing about everyday life, she was suddenly living a very NOT everyday life and so in success, she lost her focus, her very reason for being who she was.

And everyone (or a lot of people, anyway) have applauded that. Because she reached too far and fell from the ladder? What kind of crap is that? She writes a blog, for god's sake and she has been tremendously successful at it and hell, we're always saying you should reach for the stars. Is it that if someone actually catches one or two we then are allowed to hate them?

Hey. I'm not defending Heather Armstrong and I'm certainly not saying that her relationship is any more important than anyone else's on this planet but I AM saying that it sure shows a meanness of spirit to be glad of her problems.
At least she, unlike another famous blogger whom I will not name (but who has also built an empire and she sells cookbooks and her husband is famous for his butt in jeans and chaps) hasn't pretended for one moment that she is untroubled or perfect and yes, she does take too many pictures of her dogs for my taste but at least they're not beagles. And she hasn't been afraid to discuss religion and politics and sex and sadness and she hasn't pretended that she lives in a perfect world made up of photoshopped vistas of cowboy kids and herds of cattle as far as the eye can see under a perfect sky.

Wait. Hold on. I'm doing it too. I admit it. I begrudge Pioneer Woman's (whoops!) every bit of fame and fortune. I have no idea why. But I do.

But would I be happy if she and her husband broke up?
I really don't think so. Every bit of unhappiness and sorrow in this world makes this world a less than beautiful place.
Suffering sucks, no matter how famous, how rich, the person doing it is.
And all of the fine furniture and book contracts in the world aren't going to change that.

Well, that's what I'm thinking about this morning. That we are all, at the very least, connected by our sorrows. That to celebrate the sorrows of another shows smallness of spirit and lack of compassion.

Owen will be here soon. It is time to close up this computer and become MerMer and then to get ready and drive to Monticello and become Harriet Copeland, feminist romance novel book publisher (haha!) and all of that takes all of the energy I have. I am so grateful for this life. I, too, have gone through separation and divorce. I, too, have been a single mother. And here I am now and it's because of the sorrows I've gone through that I can be so grateful for the sweetness now.

And I ain't gonna be happy for anyone else having to go through it but I know that it's human to want more and to suffer and to feel as if the world is crashing in on oneself and that eventually, things get worked out and we go on.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Grandmother Discusses Sex A Little More

Good, good day. Owen was just a fine boy. Full of loving kisses and he even brushed my hair! What heaven! Okay, it was pretty brief brushing, but still...

It rained for a good part of the day but we did go outside for awhile to let the chickens out and Owen wanted to jump in the mud puddles and so of course I let him. Hell, I let him do almost anything. For instance- this is what he ate at my house today: The cheese toast he brought with him, two pieces of dark chocolate, a little bit of Chex Mix and about a pint of cherry tomatoes. Yes, I believe in a balanced diet. I'm just not sure what the time frame for that balancing is. A meal? A day? A week? A lifetime?
Shit. It all works out in the end.
I guess.

So today, just like every day when I know that Mr. Moon is going to be out of town, I think that I'll probably get down to it and write the Great American Novel while he's gone. I was going to get a good chunk of that done between the time Owen left (about 3:30 this afternoon) and bedtime, but I am now thinking that might not happen.

Oops! I didn't do it AGAIN! to misquote Brittney Spears. Or however you spell her name.

I did, however, talk to some people on the phone, including my elderly neighbor who is quite worried about what is going to happen with the corner store which has been closed and up for sale for some time now. She is deathly afraid that someone is going to buy that property for the tax money and then do something there which will NOT be good for the community.

Frankly, unless someone were to put up a Crack Boutique, I don't know what could be so bad.

Right now it's just a very, very ugly falling-in piece of crap concrete building. I would welcome a branch library or a coffee shop or a nice little juke joint or even a church for that matter, but there are already more churches within a five-mile radius of here than there are house cats and I am not kidding you.

I, of course, have fantasies of opening a lovely little funky place that sells produce, fresh eggs, milk/beer/ice, coffee, yummy sandwiches, take-home-and-bake casseroles, used books, cookies, muffins, Kathleen's homemade soaps and my homemade soups, sweet potato pies, pecan pies and black-bottom pies. Also a line of fine writing instruments and stationery, not to mention tomato and pepper plants, onion sets, herbs to grow, organic composted chicken manure, as well as camellias and native azaleas in pots. Maybe a nice little selection of kitschy handmade aprons and Apple computers. And okay, yes, fresh seafood in season and beautiful jewelry and maybe homemade fudge and pralines. And of course, locally brewed microbeers and artisan breads. And plenty of fresh chevre. Uh-huh. Can't beat a good fresh chevre and it would be so popular here in Lloyd.

But you know- who DOESN'T have that same fantasy?

Mr. Lawrence, the man whom we all loved who used to run the store there, kept a shotgun behind the counter and everyone knew it. He was the gentlest gentleman you'll ever meet but he just got burned out. He probably lost his life income there and I could do the same. We'd make dollars and dollars and lose tens of thousands.

But anyway, back to the phone calls. I told our neighbor that I really didn't think I could do anything about the situation and that's just the truth. I don't have time for such fantasies and neither does anyone else I know. I talked to Judy about a few things and then Miss Beverly came by to see if she could use the phone because she couldn't find an address she was looking for and then I took the trash and went to the post office and collected the eggs and watered the plants and finished some laundry and cleaned up the kitchen and well...there's your Great American Novel right there.

I have thought a lot about the sex thing. Okay, not The Sex thing but you know. And I want to assure everyone that if I did write about sex, it would not be about what I personally do or do not do in bed. Believe me. Although- why would I even say that? Is that not part of it?
Not on this blog, most likely. (Or, you can bet your damn boots, to be more accurate.)

And maybe I should just write the damn Great American Novel and have lots of sex in it and there you go.

In the meantime, do not expect this space to become Call Me Madam, The Penthouse Forum or even Nurse Mary's Good Sex Advice Column. Okay? I do think it's funny though that I am fearless when it comes to discussing religion and politics but that I am hesitant to address sex.
Just goes to show that maybe there's a need for this sort of thing.

Just like there's a need for a place to buy fresh chevre in Lloyd, Florida.

I crack me up.

I think I'll go make supper, y'all. And then eat it, clean up and go to bed. Owen's coming back tomorrow and I have a performance tomorrow night.

But maybe I'll find time to start that Great American Novel in there somewhere. It could happen. In the sense that Keith Richards could drop by to have a drink and play me some blues.

In the meantime, love from Lloyd.

Yours truly...Nurse Mary Who Knows Good Sex When She Has It

(And just saying that makes me feel so reckless and bold.)

Partial Explanation

Okay. That new word verification thing which we already all hate? Here's a partial explanation that you can read if you click on the damn ? button to the left of it.

Helping the World One Word at a Time

By entering the words in the box, you are also helping to digitize texts that were written before the computer age. The words that you see were taken directly from old texts that are being scanned and stored in digital format in order to preserve them and make them more accessible to the world. Since some of the words in these texts are difficult for computers to process, we are using the results of your efforts to help decipher them.

I had heard about this before, this verification thing which was a way to help decipher old texts and I think it's sort of cool, really. Which does not mean I am thrilled about it. I am thinking (THINKING) of going to blog-owner approval but I like my commenter's words to be available immediately.

What are you thinking?

Hey! I Didn't Get Enough Sleep! Okay?

I woke up at 4:53 a.m. and thought maybe I'd had a stroke because for some reason, those clock numbers meant nothing to me. Hard to explain. But then I made myself mentally draw a round clock face and put in the hands at 4:53 and I could do it and by then I'd figured it all out again and then I smiled in the darkness, not because I was happy but because if you've had a stroke, you can't smile on both sides of your face but it seemed as if my face was responding appropriately on all sides to the smile command.

Getting old is weird.

I could not get back to sleep. I laid there with a pain in my shoulder that seems to represent every molecule of negativity in my life and it just bugs the shit out of me. I lay there and I thought about things. For some reason, when I wake up and can't sleep, I decide that yes, I am going to start blogging about sex. Why not? I ask myself. I study the pluses and minuses of this equation. People need to talk about sex. Also- it might be fun. We could laugh at ourselves. We could say, "Is this normal?" "Am I normal?" "What the fuck is normal?" We could say, "Do you do this?" "Do you feel like this?" "What do you do about this?"
Etc.
I decide I will do it.
Then I think about the people who read this blog who might be...what? Shocked? Offended? Threatened? Pissed off? (My husband, for example.) I think my kids could roll with it. Would my brother tell my mother about it? He tends to read my blog and then tell my mother on the phone what's going on in my life. Saves me some time, I guess. And hell, my mother talks about sex quite frequently. Mostly about how she does not want another man in her life ever again.
As Lulabelle says in the play I'm in, "Fiddledee-damn-well-dee to men!"
Which cracks me up every time.
She says, "Men, who needs them?"
And my character says, "Well, actually I do."

And I guess I do too. Or at least one. That one I'm married to. You know- Mr. Moon.

Well, back to the ins and outs of writing about sex.

Haha!

See- I can't really do it. And why not? I am a tart-tongued woman who, in real life, can actually manage to talk about it sometimes. Although I think I am shyer than I seem when it comes to the topic.

Why are we so close-mouthed about our sex lives? We all have one in one form or another. Mostly. I think. Even those of us who live alone. As a character in a book I am listening to said, (or something like this, anyway) "Man, woman, beast, he's gettin' it somewhere. Does he keep goats?"

I tend to believe that too. Oh sure, there are people who probably don't have MUCH of a sex life in any form, just as there are people who are content to eat the same boring thing every day of their lives and for whom food is nothing but necessary fuel, but it's right up there in old Maslow's hierarchy of needs right after breathing, food, and water and BEFORE sleep although I disagree with him on that one. But maybe that's just me. I'd rather sleep than just about anything and that includes eating most of the time. And I'd make a joke here and say, well, Maslow was a man, after all, but are there really that many differences in the sexual needs of men versus women?
Yes. There are.
You can quote me on that.
I think that testosterone really is a powerful drug and that's all there is to it.

So is it all hormones? No, of course not.

Ah-lah. Speaking of sleep, I think I might go back to bed. Mr. Moon has left Lloyd to go down south to work on his sister's house for the weekend and Owen is coming at nine-thirty and I really did only get about five hours of sleep which is NOT enough for me and I guess I don't have the balls (or ovaries either) to really discuss sex which is too bad.

You, however, can if you want and some of you do and I admire that more than I can say. Feel free to just say whatever you want in the comments (as always) if you want to MAKE a comment and dammit- what's with the new comment verifications? FUCK THAT! I might try and go barebacked as to comment verification again but I just hate the spam. I know, Syd, I could do the approval thing. Again- life is too short for such folderol. Maybe. I don't know.

Here's what I do know: I love to eat, I love to sleep, I am certainly grateful to breathe, and sex can be fun. And complex. And complicated. And the best, best, best, and the weirdest, too.

And flowers are the sex organs of plants and shoes might have something to do with all of it although I am not exactly sure what.

Yours in truth and shyness...Ms. Moon

The Review Is Out!

Oh my god. I finally got a good review out of Ray, the quirky reviewer! He loved the play. He loved the actors. The casting was "perfect!" He loved me! I think. But I am quite certain he really loved my shoes. "Moon wears an assortment of outfits including a pair of knock-out high heeled wedgies."

Please be assured that there was more to the outfit than the shoes. Please.

This was printed in the Monticello News which comes out, I think, twice weekly. It costs 50 cents and as plainly stated under the masthead, that is 46 cents + 4 cents and no, I do not know exactly what that means but I suppose it means tax is included in the 50 cents.

Under the masthead for the Letters To The Editor it says, "Letters to the editor are typed word for word, comma for comma, as sent to this newspaper."
Love it!
And the letter they printed in the edition with our review in it was titled, "Thank God For Answered Prayers," and it was about the House's vote to not take away the Jefferson Correctional Institute and included these words: I always told kids when getting ready to leave high school, go into Corrections, that is a job you will always have. There will always be inmates, so there will always be Institutions!!!! Never dreamed back then I may have to eat those words. Until we get the final word just keep on Praying for a Miracle on Big Joe Road, and JCI remains open. GOD IS SO GOOD

I am not even kidding you.

Why wouldn't we pray for a cessation of crime and thus, criminals? Well, where would the jobs go if there were no inmates? There would be no INSTITUTIONS!!!!

Duh.

Well, it looks like we are actually going to keep our prison so YAY! for us.

This is where I live. And you know, I do love it. Where else could I get to be in a play and be reviewed as to my shoes? Which I purchased at Goodwill for four bucks.

And so it goes. I think we're sold out for Saturday night, which is pretty cool.

It's about time for bed so I'm signing off.

Yours truly...Moon With The Knockout High Heeled Wedgies, aka, You Dirty Old Woman

Just A Bloggie Blog Post

Spring's interruption has been corrected and it is warm again and sunny although it rained and was chilly yesterday. The birds are singing again, the sky is blue like old Levi's and I got five eggs yesterday. Five from seven hens which I think is pretty fine.
Kathleen and I talked about getting more chicks this spring and we probably will.
We had a nice long time to sit and chat in the waiting room of the Thomasville oncology center and that was nice. It was chilly and gray outside but cozy inside and everyone is so nice there. Dr. McCutiePie fussed sweetly at Kathleen for losing weight, for not drinking enough water, and then he showed us pictures of his children. I told him that he had to see a picture of my grandson, too, to be fair, and he admired the picture of Owen and Bop that I showed him.
He's not only Dr. McCutiePie, he's also Dr. McSweetiePie and dang, his kids are cute.

Mr. Moon surprised me with a bracelet I had admired in Cozumel and wasn't that darling of him? I think so. I gave him huge bath towels (or, bath sheets as they are rightly called) and the idea for them had come in Mexico because Hotel B used some like them and he had enjoyed having a towel whose size did justice to his. We gave each other cards and chocolate and then drove to the coast and ate WAY too much supper. What's with me and the food? Jesus. It was delicious but by the time we got home, I was feeling way too queasy to romp which is sort of sad when you think about it. But damn, it was good. I think what we got were mate's platters. Ahoy there, Matey! Here's your grease! Tasty grease. Even though I got my shrimp and oysters broiled, they used so much...what IS that tasty grease?...that I might as well have gone on and gotten 'em fried. And of course the mullet had to be fried. You CAIN'T broil no damn mullet. Everyone knows that. And the crabcake was rich as sin and the hushpuppies were fried, of course. And I ate it all. Every bit. And my delicious iceberg salad with plenty of croutons and bacon bits.
I don't eat that way usually. And honey, it tasted good but I did myself no favors at all.

None.

Well, that's what's happening here in the World of Moon. I'm taking Lily to lunch today- just the two of us (and I swear- I am eating a salad WITHOUT CROUTONS OR BACON BITS)- while Bop babysits the boy. He is WILD in restaurants and this will be the first time Lily has gone out to eat without him in some time. We're also going to shop for birthing supplies and maybe a few things for the baby. I swear- it's so hard to shop for a baby whose sex you don't know. I'm thrilled that we don't know but everything is either WAY boy or WAY girl. Us old people remember when NO ONE knew the sex of the baby and baby clothes came in yellow and green and could go either way. It's a baby for god's sake. Anyway, it'll be nice to have Lily all to myself and we'll get out of Target without having purchased any bribe toys although guilt toys may be bought. Lily feels guilty if she leaves Owen for ten minutes when she's not at work. She's such a good mama, that girl.

So I need to get myself together and get to town. Does it seem like I've been way busier than usual? It does to me. I've got a rehearsal tonight, then Owen will come tomorrow and Friday and then I have performances on Friday and Saturday. One more weekend after that and Nobody's Perfect will be part of my history and I can move on to gardens and new babies and eating right again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of these days I'll get my shit together.

Okay. Elvis is out there dancing for the ladies and they want OUT and wait a minute! What happened to my Levis sky? It's gray as Grandma Mose's hair out there now. Shitfire.

Well, things change. Constantly.

Have a good day, y'all. I mean it.

On Our Way

If The Ruby Ring Didn't Fit, Here's Another Valentine

Oh wait! This one's for me! I'm so silly.

Our beloved Sarcastic Bastard sent it to me today. I think it's about my favorite picture in the world. That doesn't have a personal family member in it.
So here it is.
A library. With Keith Richards. Playing guitar. In bare feet.
I know you've missed him. So here he is.

Just for you. Okay, really for me. But we can all share. I'm nice like that.

Food, Etc.

I ate too much last night. I thought I'd die. I had to go lay down and read Vanity Fair magazine.

I hate it when that happens.

Which is every night. Almost. Not the Vanity Fair magazine part. Sometimes I read books. I should fix my plate every night and then take half of it off and put it back. I swear.

Anyway, enough about that stuff. So it's Valentine's Day. Whoo-hoo! I sort of hate Valentine's Day. I actually got Mr. Moon something for Valentine's this year. At the Costco. It wasn't hummus though. I hope he's not reading this but he might be so I won't say what I got him.

I was reading Tearful's blog post over at Plate and Fork (Eat What You Want And Die Like A Man!) and he put up his menu for the Valentine's meal he was making for his love. It was swoony-food, and that's for sure. I made that big supper I talked about on my post last night and now I think I might not eat again for the rest of my life.
Well. That's a lie.

Have you tried this shit?

Not the Cholulu, although that's good too. No. I mean the grilled vegetables.
I swear to you, I could live on those things on bread. Yeah, real good for you since they're packed in straight olive oil. Maybe I'd need a slice of cheese every now and then to go with the vegetables and bread.

I think for our Valentines, we might actually drive to the coast and have supper. Well, sort of the coast. Spring Creek. (Check out that link. You can see a little slide show of their delicious foods.) That's what we're thinking about doing. Spring Creek Restaurant has been in business for a long, long time. The menu hardly ever varies, except as to which seafoods are available or in season. The first thing you get, always, is a big bowl of iceberg lettuce. I am not kidding you. It has a few cherry tomatoes in it, a few green onions and a few chopped up cucumbers. They bring you a wine bottle filled with their delicious salad dressing and a mason jar with croutons and a mason jar with bacon bits.
Seriously.
This is fine dining.
They like to fry their seafood. Fried mullet is always good. So is fried shrimp. Also, fried oysters. Their fried hushpuppies can't be beat. Also, they have cheese grits. Of course. They make a lovely fried bacon-wrapped/crab-stuffed shrimp. I mean, if you're going to die like a man, you might as well die like a fat man.

I don't know why I'm talking about this. I already still feel sick from last night's supper.

Anyway, that's where we might go. It's a long drive but that's nice too. And after supper you can walk down to the water and feed your leftovers (if you have any) to one of the seemingly thousands of feral cats who wander around and weave themselves between your legs.

I think I may be sick now.

I'm going to go to Thomasville with Kathleen today to see Dr. McCutyPie. We are talking about having lunch after the appointment.

Because I need more food.

Happy Valentine's Day y'all. Did you get the ruby rings I sent you? I hope so.

I love you.

Ms. Moon

How To Be

I am cooking chicken piccata or some bastardized version of it with mushrooms and baby vidallia onions (vidallia onions make big babies) and some broccoli with pine nuts and brown rice and wild rice and a salad and my famous (haha!) pineapple angel food cake with mixed berries.

I am trying to cook myself into a state of contentment. I am trying to soothe myself with chopping and sauteing and toasting and so forth.

It's funny. I just told Mr. Moon that I am sad, not depressed.
There is a difference.

And I'll tell you the truth- I would rather be sad for forty days and forty nights than depressed for five days. I ain't kiddin' you.

Costco was not bad today. A merry-looking man tried hummus for the first time while I was watching. He was round and smiling and he tried the hummus on a pita chip and he said, "I'd have to drink a bottle of wine with this to enjoy it."

The server-person said, "Well, there you go. Two rows over." And she pointed at the vast acre of wine waiting to be bought.

I doubt he bought hummus. I bet he bought wine.

I am thinking of that now. And that man's fabulous smile, his complete openness to the universe at that moment and it makes me a little bit less sad.

And What Dwarf Are You Today? (I'm Sorry If The Word "Dwarf" Is Politically Incorrect. I Can't Keep Up With This Shit)

Jessie and Vergil and Ceelo left and I did cry. It didn't help.
Vergil said he was feeling grouchy today. I said, "Well, I'm Pissy, you're Grouchy, all we need is five more dwarfs."
Jessie said she could be Sleepy and Sneezy. We're almost there.

Ceelo can be Wary.

All I want to do today is stay in bed and I just washed the sheets so I could conceivably put them back on the bed and crawl in but no, no, no, I am going to go to the grocery store because we're out of things like yogurt which is something we do not grow or kill here and don't even talk about keeping a cow or a goat and milking it and making my own.
Not unless someone pays me. Even then, I doubt it.

No. Crying didn't help. Now my eyes just feel fucked up and I have a little crying headache.

Well, here's some camellias.

I guess that helps.
Maybe.

Taking Care Of Our Own

I think that's a Carolina Wren. Syd? Kathleen? Whatever. It's the tiny bird that comes back to make a nest wedged in that old tarpon hanging over the door on the porch every year. The coldest damn day of the year and a couple is working on a nest. Where they born there or are they the parents?
What I don't know would fill an internet.

God, it's cold. It's nasty cold. Okay, I'm sorry, but for us southerners, it gets down into the twenties and we're pissed. As a newt.

I'm sort of pissed anyway. I don't know why. I just am. It's cold and I hate it. Jessie and Vergil are leaving today. I hate that too. I know they have to go and I'm just so grateful they came and Lord knows I don't want my kids to all come home and live with me again but something happens in my soul when they come and then go. It's not based on logic and what the hell is?

I couldn't sleep between four-something and six-something. I just laid there and did not sleep. I thought I should get up and drink coffee and just do something but it was too cold. I couldn't get out of the warm cave of the bed. That pissed me off.

I'm pissed because I didn't see Bruce Springsteen or Bonnie Raitt at the Grammy's. All I saw was the fucking Foo Fighters. I no more give a shit about the Foo Fighters than Honey Badger would. I'm sorry. They may be the greatest band in the world but I don't care. Foo Fighters. What kind of a name is that?

I'm pissed because we're talking about building our house in Apalachicola and although part of me looks forward to living there with all of my heart, part of me is just filled with dread at the idea of moving from this house, moving from Lloyd. Vergil and I were weeding in the garden yesterday and I said, "Wouldn't it be awesome if I could get paid to maintain this historical house and garden? To take care of these chickens and collards?"
Yeah. That would be sweet. To get paid to do what I love.
This is a theme in my life. I am so blessed to be able to do what I love- to live here, to work in this yard, to take care of my chickens and my grandson and my husband. To be in plays. But none of what I do is paid-work. None. Usually this is okay but for some reason, sometimes it just pisses me off.

I wonder what it is that I'm really pissed about? I honestly do not know. It's been a wonderful weekend. Yesterday was terrific. I finished the soup and made the bread. It rose with magnificent gases and gluten.

Owen and Lily came for supper. Owen ate about half a loaf of bread but he despised even looking at the soup and demanded that the bowl of it I'd put at his place be removed. He got apples and cheese instead. And bread. Lots and lots of bread.

We worked in the garden and planted the cabbages and the robins flocked in and took cold showers when we turned on the sprinkler.


There was a giant egg.

And there was kissing.

And of course the play this weekend was pretty much fun.

So why am I pissed?

I don't know. It's cold. The babies are leaving me. I missed Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt. I couldn't sleep. I am not writing books. I am not doing yoga. I am fifty-seven years old and I don't get paid for anything. I had stupid dreams that started out delightfully and ended up miserably. We'll be leaving this house one day. Yes, we'll be moving to a place on the water where there is a bookstore and restaurants and a cool-as-hell coffee shop within walking distance but I'll have to give up this house. And I can't even keep up with this house as it is but maybe that pisses me off too.

It pisses me off that I won't get to be the grandmother to all of my grandchildren that I have been to Owen.

Hell. Maybe it's all just hormones. And cold. And getting old. Er. Older.

Maybe it's none of these things. Maybe it's all of these things.

Maybe I should shut up and just do like those tiny birds and go on with what I need to do and ignore the cold and ignore the aging and ignore the fact that I don't get paid for anything and accept the fact that in so many ways, I am the richest woman alive.

Which I am. And I know it.

I can't figure out how to end this and things keep beeping in my house- the dryer and now the coffee pot and EVERYTHING ENDS and maybe that's why I'm pissed off or maybe I'm just sad. I often get those two things confused, it's a problem I have.

So I'll just say that I'm overwhelmedfilled again and let it go at that, go feed the chickens, let them out to scratch and run, finish the laundry, sweep something, wash some dishes, wait for Jessie and Vergil to get back from visiting Granny and then hug them good-bye and I'll cry then and I probably won't be pissed anymore, just sad.

I really wish I'd seen Bruce Springsteen.

Well, here's the song he did. We Take Care Of Our Own.

Yes. Well. We try. Some of us do.

I think Bruce is pissed too. And a little bit sad.





It's Monday, y'all. It's okay to be confused, I guess. We've got all week to figure it out.

Addendum

My kids kill me. This morning I actually opened the program that they'd written notes on and found plenty more. Also, the picture of Fabio, tarted up by May, most likely, to reflect the cross-dressing theme of the evening.
Here are more quotes:

"He's actually very good at physical comedy. The trying to sound naked killed me."

"Yeah. That was great."

"Lulabelle shops at Cross Dress 4 Less."

"I love that dress. I want it. The turban too. I would totally rock that shit."
"Like a slutty dolphin."
"Sometimes dolphins are not just slutty. they are stone cold bitches, too."
"Did you hear about the time in the 70's when Susan Sarandon and Tim Leary were swimming with 2 dolphins and Susan was petting the male and the female got jealous and bit her?"

"Well, I give it 2 thumbs up and a slutty dolphin fin."
"Me too. But I think the only way out is to kill Lulabelle."

The whole dolphin thing had segued from a line in the play about newts. "Frail as a kitten, pissed as a newt."
My kids seemed to have taken this concept and gone with it whole-heartedly.

"They get drunk and fall asleep in the kitchen sink. That would be so cute! I want a kitchen sink full of drunken newts!"
And so forth.

Anyway, it's Sunday. Not as cold as they said it would be. Beautiful. Gorgeous. I am going to make pancakes with tons of fruit in them. Blackberries, apples, bananas, blueberries. Etc. And bacon.

After that- who knows? I may sleep for the rest of the day. But I doubt it.

Did I tell you how beautiful Lily looked last night? She was wearing a peacock-colored dress that showed her beautiful belly and she was glowing.

Ah-lah. It's Sunday.

Good morning. Good morning.

I feel frail as a kitten. Who knows? I may get pissed as a newt. And slutty as a dolphin. Whatever, I'm going to enjoy it all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Another Gratefulness Post

My family all came to the play tonight. It was the first night of our performances that my hands shook when I got onstage.
I just really want to be my best for them.
It's so odd- I didn't do anything like this when they were growing up. I didn't act from the time I was in high school until Jessie was in high school. And when I did go and audition for a play, I made her go with me and so we were in a play together. It was wonderful. Not the play. It sucked. But the experience was terrific. And that's when I met my Opera House family.

So it was an okay night. We weren't quite as on the mark as we were last night and hell, I fucked up a lot more than I did last night but I made up some stuff that got laughs. I "invented" a few things that weren't bad.

When we did a play at the Opera House a few years ago which was so absurd that no one in the world could have believed it, I found a program on which my kids had written notes to each other and passed around the table as the play progressed. It cracked me up so much that I told them to do the same tonight. So they did.
My favorite things they wrote which I can, with any sort of conscience, put out to the public are these:

"I have to pee. Coffee was a bad plan."
"Go now while no one is in there."
"No, I'll wait. Most of the people here are old. I can duck and weave between them like a ferret and get to the bathroom first."

"Drag time? YES!"
"A man dressed like a woman is funny. A woman dressed like a man just looks like a dyke."

"Also, he actually looks pretty good."

I sometimes feel as if I have inherited whatever gifts I have, not from my forebears ( I know, that doesn't look right, but the dictionary assures me it is) but from my descendants. My babies. Could that be true?
Could it be that having children opened some cosmic gateway of abilities?

Hell. I don't know. But I do think it's possible.

At intermission, Jon went online and discovered that Whitney Houston had died.
Shit.
I'll tell you what- being rich and famous is obviously not all it's cracked up to be.
And there was NO pun intended in that.
Humans are frail and needy creatures. I don't care how many golden awards you have on your wall and that's just the damn truth.
I'm sorry for her death. She was something with that piece of heaven in her throat that, mixed with heart and breath, made startling music.
She surely was amazing.

I hope she's at peace now, whatever that means.

Gonna get cold here tonight. Real cold. Lower twenties. It may have felt like spring yesterday but tomorrow morning is going to bring us a lot of brown, mushy blossoms. I knew the pecan trees were telling the truth with their closed-tight skeleton limbs. The gaudy things- the azaleas and Japanese Magnolias? They were pushing it.

Sometimes beautiful things die before their time. Not much we can do about it, no matter how much we wish we could.

My family all came to the play tonight. I know. I already said that.
Bears repeating.

God. I am lucky.

I ain't famous and I ain't dead.

And the camellias of today are all over my house in vases, saved from the freeze and beautiful in my house.

Good night, y'all. Good night.

If The Other Two Kids Had Been Here It Would Have Been Better Than Christmas

Busy day around here. Got up at nine and now it's a little after one and all of this has transpired:

Paul E. came over and took out the stump with his big equipment thingy.

Owen got here just in time to watch.

And man- how cool is that? And Paul E.? Cowboy AND big equipment thingy operator? It's like the trifecta of fantastickness. Oh wait. There should be three things in there. Well, I'm sure there is. Somehow.

Oh yeah! Cigar-smokin'! Not to mention sartorial.

On to breakfast. Mer whipped up eggs and deer sausage and biscuits. Owen finally decided he liked eggs. "Love 'em eggs!" he said. And then he said, "More!"

Whenever we gather eggs he always thanks the hens. "Thanks, chickens!" he says. "Thank-you!"
God, I love that child.

Then there was tractor riding with Bop to clear the stump away.


And playing with the visiting grand-cat, Ceelo. I'm not exactly sure how you spell that but that's my guess.

Ceelo is staying upstairs with Jessie and Vergil.

Here's Owen and Jessie coming down the stairs.

Upstairs is a magical place. Especially when Jessie and Vergil are here. With Ceelo.

Then of course there was some dish-washing.


And now pay attention- this picture is important.

You see that doggie? That genuine purebred Yorkshire Terrior? That's Zeke and Zeke would love a new home. Oh yes, he would. Do you want him? He's a fine little yorkie. Okay, he has some skin issues but besides that, he's...a DOG! Purebred! Free! To you! Today!
(I am serious as a heart-attack here. Not kidding. Really mean it. I'll bring him to you. And a year's worth of food. He's a good snuggler. And kisser. Please?)

Random pictures:

The Most Handsome Rooster In The World! Or at least my yard. Check out how the wind is blowing his tail feathers. Now that's one good-looking rooster. He is not up for adoption. Sorry.

This sort of sums up the Moon family, doesn't it? Yeah. I think it does.

And this one too:

Hey Bethany- that's the tiny vase you gave me with the white violets in it. Thanks, sugar!

All right. Lily and Owen have gone home. Mr. Moon and Jessie and Vergil have gone to an FSU basketball game and I'm doing laundry and am about to go over lines again.

It's been just about the perfect day so far. Like I said, if May and Hank had been here too, it would have been better than Christmas.
Wait a minute. Almost ANYTHING is better than Christmas. For me.
It would have been better than Christmas is SUPPOSED to be.

As Owen would say, "Woo-hoo!"

Happy Saturday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon