Jesus. Could I Be Any More Random?

Another purely perfect day here in the 'hood and blue skies are smilin' at me and I sort of want to upchuck at the perfection of it all because I am not in the world's best mood but am sort of wishing I was on my way somewhere. The destination would not even matter but it sure would be nice if it involved really, really blue water and people who speak a language I don't understand.

So last night I finished reading The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson and I pretty much ripped through that book. A page-turner for sure in that it was not unlike a car wreck in its ability to capture and keep my attention and damn, it was different and it was well-written and I have to say that the Fang parents were perhaps the worst parents I have ever met in a book. Maybe. I don't know. Here. Let me sum up my critique: That was some crazy shit, there, y'all.
And we wonder why I have never gotten a job reviewing books.
Huh.
Elizabeth, I know you were reading it. Did you finish it? Did you like it?
I thought it was going to be a bit Wes Andersonish and yes, it was. Which is a good thing. Speaking of Wes Anderson- when in hell is Moonrise Kingdom going to be released? I am seriously jonesin' for some Bill Murray.

Okay, on to my next random observation. Let me think. What would that be?
Uh...it's a beautiful day.
No, no, I already said that.
Okay, here's one: When you boil shrimp and crab legs, don't put too much salt in the water. Mr. Moon and I practically floated to bed. We both drank about forty-two glasses of water and/or juice after dinner. The seafood was delicious. It didn't TASTE that salty but I guess it was.
(This problem may have been compounded in that we both ate more than enough to satisfy an entire shipload of starving ancient mariners.)

So Mr. Moon noted, while cleaning up dog poop the other day, that one of the dogs at least, had worms. Great, right? First tenacious, untreatable fleas, now worms. We both wondered if perhaps that would be reason to get them put down but decided that no, probably not. So Mr. Moon bought worm pills when he was out buying an egg incubator. We gave the dogs the worm pills. Now we are waiting for the resulting vomiting and bloody stools.
The fun never ends around here.

It seems to me that back when I was a child, my best friend's mother, Mrs. Ferger, incubated chicken eggs with a cardboard box, a lightbulb, and some straw. Things are different now. (Mrs. Ferger may have used dog wormer on her kids. I would not be surprised. It was simpler times back then and god knows we all got worms every spring.) Mr. Moon bought an incubator and an egg turner yesterday and spent hours on the internet trying to figure out how to incubate eggs.
Good Lord. Way too complicated for me. There are humidity and temperature to consider. Also, of course, the turning of the eggs. You have to turn the eggs for eighteen days and then stop. But is that eighteen days after the hen has laid the egg or eighteen days after you have begun the incubation process?
Who knows? Not us.
Also- I just took a picture of the eggs being incubated in the device and then went to put the cord on the camera to transfer the picture to here and dammit, the little cord won't connect and I looked in there to the connection place and it looks fucked up! What happened? I successfully transferred about fifty pictures yesterday via the cord.
Okay. I just used the card to transfer. This sucks. This is going to mess my life up bad.
Anyway, here's the picture:


Looks like a prop in a bad old science fiction movie, doesn't it?
Poor little orphan eggs in there. Why won't my hens set? I don't know. They are terrible mothers. They lay eggs and then just abandon them to go out drinking with the girls and have wild sex with the rooster.
I keep thinking that if any of these eggs do, by some miracle hatch, the resulting chicks are going to be wandering around like that poor little bird in Are You My Mother looking endlessly for a mother-figure. The dog is not my mother. The cow is not my mother. The plane and the boat and the Snort are not my mother. Etc.
My luck they'll think I'm their mother.
Well, that wouldn't be so bad.

I suppose I have wasted enough time here. I have to take a walk and then make that baby quilt. When a baby is coming due, you feel like there must be some magic required to bring it on. Like we have these powerful powers to get the labor started. At the moment, I feel like the baby is waiting for the quilt to be finished. This of course is ridiculous but still- one must do all one can. Lily says she's been bouncing on the giant yoga ball. Owen enjoys watching that. I remember once, when my mother was overdue with a baby, she literally jumped off the kitchen table. Women become desperate at such times. (Note- do not try that at home. It is not recommended to jump off a table to induce labor. Plus, it didn't really work. No. You should let the medical people induce your labor with the special drugs they have including one that is put up your vagina which was originally designed to prevent the formation of nonsteroidal anti-inflamatory drug ulcers, which has been known to cause uterine rupture and amniotic fluid embolism. Yes. Really.) I myself once drank an inappropriate amount of black and blue cohosh tea and then went jogging to get a labor started. This did not really work too well either. Anyway, I want to get that quilt finished and that's all there is to it.

So I will stop here even though I am sure I could just ramble on all day long, talking about diverse and interesting things up to and including Rush Limbaugh but I refuse to talk about him and am hoping that he will just disappear off the face of the earth. I doubt that will work and I doubt that finishing the baby's quilt will work in essence of it making Lily go into labor if I do but one must do what one must do, logic be damned.

Happy Monday, y'all!

Love...Ms. Moon

It has been a day of: planting a few things, working with fabric and scissors, cooking.
It has been a day of hearing about the visit to Dog Island via the internet and the iPhone and the magic thereof.
It has been a day of hugging people whom I love without reservation.
It has been a day of holding my Lis to me tightly and sharing...everything.
It has been a day of feeding people with venison and vegetables and now I am about to feed Mr. Moon and me with crab legs, shrimp, cornbread with corn and onions, and cole slaw.

It has been a day of bright sunlight and cool temperatures.

A day as beautiful as any I've ever seen in my entire life.

I just accidentally snorted some curry powder.

I sort of like the results, even if I have sneezed more than once.

My brain is set afire with India and North Florida and I like it.

Amen.

It rained all night long but when I got up this morning the sky looked like the thought of a cloud had never crossed its mind.

Just unbelievable. And cool. And lovely.

Here are some pictures.

Wisteria making fuzzy buds.


Dogwood's blossoms, just coming green. They will open and grow bigger and turn as pure white as an angel's soul.


A fig leaf. That's for you, Rebecca.


Just because glass and light and color combine so magically.

I can't remember a prettier day and it's all because of the rain which overnight turned everything green. Our grass would be green if we had grass. As it is, the weeds which pretend to be grass are green which is good enough for me. I remember when we first moved in here and the old man from down the road stopped to chat with me and pointed out that if I did something about all the leaves in our front yard, the grass might grow. It had never occurred to me to want grass out there. I like the leaves fine. There's not enough sun to grow grass anyway and I am not one to try and force any sort of a plant to grow where it can't manage on its own without much help from me.
Let us just say that Weed'n'Feed is not part of MY vocabulary.

Okay. I could go on and on and on but I won't. I'll just relate the fact that it's a fine Sunday and we had our pancakes outside and the only sound you could hear was the chewing of bacon and the occasional bird call and the breeze having its way with the leaves of the magnolia beside us.
Mr. Moon said, "I prefer thin-cut bacon. It's crispier."
I said, "I know. But I like thick-cut."
He said, "I know you do."
I said, "And I brought home the bacon."

This is what passes for great humor around here. We are easily entertained.

To wit:

Mr. Moon found five banty eggs laid by the chickens from next door (who roam freely and do not recognize boundaries such as fences and property lines) in the garage and he is going to buy an incubator today. We have no idea if they are fertilized and we have no idea what we are doing but damn, the rooster who would most likely be the daddy sure is one pretty bird and wouldn't it be fun to raise tiny chicks?

Well, we shall see.

There are so many things I could and should do today and I better get started here. I still haven't made that baby a quilt and I just talked to Lily and she's getting a bit crampy and Braxton-Hicky and it's just TIME. Or almost time at least.

I can't imagine a better time to have a baby than right now when the very earth itself is giving birth and rebirth over and over again. It is the correct and proper season for every sort of new life beginning and I look out from my back porch and I know this is true and every day we get closer to fruition of proof of life, of the complete and utter proof of love.

Mystery

When I was in the garden today I uncovered the strangest looking little toad or frog I have ever seen. It had a face almost human-like. I swear. And it's little feetlings were...oh, I can't describe it. And I am SO mad at myself for being so lazy and not getting the camera to take its picture. I stared at it for a long time and then I covered it back up in the loose, humus-y soil.

There is so much, even in this tiny world of mine which I do not know.

Can't Fight The Weather

Oh my, y'all. You're so sweet. I'm not especially sad today at all although I suppose it is a logical assumption to make from my talk of tears.
I think I just have the willy-nillys, the shiver-shakeys, the loony-toonies, the bozo-ramas.

Or something. Medical terms can be tricky and diagnosis even more so.

It's actually been a good day so far. We got a lot done here at La Casa Luna (do you sort of hate it when I call it that? I do but sometimes I just have to, so sorry- I do promise never to use the word "hearty" unless in an ironic fashion, okay?)

I planted potatoes and onions and cucumber seeds and Mr. Moon planted peppers and tomatoes and squash and peas which is all sort of mixed up. The potatoes and peas should have been in last month, the tomatoes and peppers, etc. mostly don't go in until late March, if then. But here we are with spring making its presence known not just by the the leaves and blossoms but by the fact that the ants are making their summer homes up above the surface of the ground and every fucking time I stand still long enough to slap a mosquito (which we also have already) the ants swarm up my feet and bite their way along as if their mouths were some sort of mountain climbing equipment like Jaw Crampons. Isn't crampon just the silliest word?

But we got all of that in the garden before the rains came and then the rains sort of slacked and Mr. Moon put out all of the potted plants which had been spending the winter in Chez Mud Room and I put all the front porch plants back in their proper positions and am washing the sheets I used to cover them for frosts this year. I swept the porch and it looks so nice, although the plants are somewhat the worse for winter's wear.

I also planted a few things I'd had rooting all winter. A split-leaf philodendron, some firespike. Then I transplanted some baby phlox shootlings to various places and as soon as I was done with all of that, the rain came pouring down as if in response to a call for watering and it is still raining nicely, such a beautiful sound, sleepy-making and slap-happy as it hits the ground.

There is more to do but it's good to have the rain tell me to come in and wash off and take a rest, not that I've really been busting my ass or anything. It's been real gentle work. Maybe we'll find some old movie on the TV and watch it, me and Mr. Moon. If there's not some sporting event already on in which case I'll just go read and probably fall asleep even though I slept for about ten hours last night. I did get up in the middle of the night and went to the guest room and read for about an hour, telling myself that no, I did not have insomnia, it was just the pause between my first and second sleeps and it was very lovely.

Ah. It is a beautiful afternoon and this rain is everything we need. It smells good, it is making a coolness which we already appreciate. It is a sustaining rain and a nurturing rain. The chickens don't even seem to notice it. I think if anything, they like it.

But then again, I just looked at the weather and we may be about to get a storm with fifty or sixty mph winds.

What?

That would not be so slap happy. That would pick up a chicken and sling her into tomorrow.

I'll let you know if I see any chickens being slung. I surely will.

Stay tuned.

Crazy-Making

There's storms coming and the wind is making little tiny dirt devils with the dried oak leaves and the sky is so heavy with unshed rain and Mr. Moon and I are planting things in the garden and I begged him, "Please don't say anything about how crooked my potato rows are," and I was almost crying.

Then Lis called and all I did was talk about myself, myself, my own selfish, stupid self and then I cried.

I guess it's this weather.
Either that or I'm just nuts.

Another Friday Night

So Hank and his friends are on Dog Island which is SO primitive that when a sea fog rolls in (which it has) you can't see shit and he can't find the house and no, we are not surprised because we've been there. We've done that.

A tiny island with about forty-something houses and two roads and yet, given the right circumstances, or the WRONG circumstances, you can't find your own damn house.

I swear to god.

Meanwhile, back here at the ranch. it's Friday-night martinis and I've cried over the fact that one day we will be leaving this house but not in a bad way. In a life-is-full-of-changes-and-I-am-with-you-on-that-one way.

Mr. Moon is on the phone with Hank, the green beans are being sauteed with garlic and sliced almonds and the deer meat and vegetables are simmering in the pot.

You know what I think? I think that by midnight Hank will have found the house and they will all have unloaded and started drinking rum or whatever their beverage of choice is.

Life is so funny. I really hope that I can remember that no matter what happens.

Watch out for the sea-fog, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

No Marijuana Required

I think I baked my first cake when I was in about the third grade. I am quite certain that by the time I was in the fifth grade, I had taken over all of the birthday-cake baking duties. And these were not from box mixes, no, they were from "scratch," as we said then.

I took to cooking and baking like nobody's business which was a good thing as (a) I loved to eat, and (b) my mother wasn't always very interested in cooking although she did it because back in those olden days, there really wasn't much of a choice for the woman of the house.
But me? I loved to cook and bake. It felt so real. Unlike the rest of my life which was mainly about secrets and pain and, okay, terror, the making of food was so prosaic and so dependable. You followed a recipe and the resulting product was something reliably delicious and wholesome (in a sense of the word) and it was like something that would happen in a real family.
You know?

My mother came to her first marriage, I suppose, with a cookbook just like this one:

That's what I started cooking from and to this day, I still consult it. The best gift my mother ever gave me was a copy of it that she found and it is my pride and joy.

1938 it was printed and there are terrific pictures in it of world long-gone but if you need to know how to make a white sauce or a baked potato or scrambled eggs or fudge or a rabbit casserole or salmon bisque, it's all there. Plus, instructions on how to can and preserve. Need to carve a ham?

"You cannot learn too soon. Carving by the host- old or young- is a gracious, hospitable gesture. There are rules for carving. (page 108). With ham or leg of lamb, have the fleshy side up, plant the fork firmly. Begin at the center, slice toward the bone. Sit or stand. Be comfortable."

Now hell yeah!

So it was from the pages of this book that I learned the basics. It wasn't until I was at a primitive encampment on a mountain-side in North Carolina though when I was probably about fifteen, that I had the epiphany that I really do love to cook. I was boiling vegetables in a pot over a fire for a stew and it just hit me like a bolt from the blue that this was one of the things I was put on earth to do. To cook. And cooking has always served me well. People like to eat and you can quote me on that.

When I was a young hippie those skills really paid off. We smoked a lot of dope in those days. And the smoking of marijuana will, without a doubt, lead to the munchies. And so inevitably there would be a roomful of people, stoned out of their gourds, wishing that they had something to eat and pizza delivery was still mighty iffy and a drive down to the Krispy Kreme was about as imaginable as a trek up Mount Everest. I, however, could slip unnoticed into the kitchen and in what seemed like no time at all to the assembled stoners (but to me, in the kitchen, seemed like oh, maybe a few eons) I could come back out with something for everyone to eat.
I could make something good out of almost nothing. And I did, over and over again.
One of the things I liked to make was an apple cake because the ingredients for it were in almost everyone's kitchen, and especially mine. I was probably basing this recipe on the one in that cookbook for applesauce cake which I had made a lot as a young girl.


I found that instead of shortening, though, I could use a little vegetable oil and instead of the applesauce, I could use chopped apples. Easy to mix up, fast to bake, delicious. Measuring the ingredients wasn't really necessary. I could (and do) "eye" things and use my palm as a measuring device for salt and soda and spices, etc.
This cake satisfied a lot of the hippie-cooking requirements in that I could use whole wheat flour and add wheat germ if I wanted, substitute honey for sugar, and it still came out lovely. Especially if I put some powdered-sugar on the top when it came out of the oven and no one was complaining about refined sugar by that point in the evening.

And this is basically the cake I made the other night and I baked it in one of my iron skillets, which is how I like to do it, and it was as good and moist and satisfying as I remembered it.

Mr. Moon always wishes for whipped cream for the top or better yet- ice cream- but I didn't have either and in my opinion, the cake doesn't need it. It keeps well, too, if you are not feeding a pack of hungry stoned people who in five minutes time will inhale (haha!) every last molecule of carbohydrate goodness.


That's what's left of mine this morning. It makes a good breakfast food, too, by the way.

So that's my Southern Hippie Grandma Cake is. It's southern because I cook it in the skillet and because I am southern. It's hippie because I made it so often when I was a young hippie. It's grandma because I am a grandmother. Oh hell, let's face it- I am a Southern Hippie Grandma. And now you can make it too, using that recipe. You can use the applesauce AND a chopped apple. Chop the apple pretty fine. You can use shortening or butter or do what I do and use Canola oil. You can use brown sugar or you can fool around with that too. When I made my cake the other night, I used a bit of brown sugar, a bit of honey, and a bit of cane syrup. I like to use molasses in it but I didn't have any. I also added some fresh-grated nutmeg and lemon peel and ginger and vanilla. I put a little milk in there too. Hell, you can even add smushed-up banana in it if you want.

Are you confused yet? As long as you have the bones of the recipe- the shortening, the flour, the baking soda, the egg, you can flesh it out however you want. I promise you. I mean, I used to make this cake so stoned I barely knew my name. Which didn't matter because when I would come out of the kitchen with that cake I was frequently called, "Goddess."

Which is another reason to cook.

I will never be a fancy baker or a chef and my presentation generally sucks but that is not the sort of cooking I was put here on earth to do and I know it. And personally, given the choice between a cake that looks like it was spun from sugar in heaven and which is served on fine china with a silver fork and a linen napkin, or that cake right there in that old black skillet, cut and served on a paper towel to eat with fingers (or toothpick- your choice), I'll take the damn apple cake any time.

But that's just me and I have to admit that I adore grocery-store bakery cakes with that Crisco (or is it lard?) and powdered-sugar icing too so maybe I'm not really the person to judge.

I'm just a southern hippie grandma who learned to cook and bake out of a cookbook printed in 1938.

Okay. Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

This Is Something I Recently Learned

I have never known whether the moon was in wax or wane and I have always felt inferior as a human resident of this planet not to know that.
I finally learned how to tell in a way which I remember and I think it may have come from Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna. Maybe.
Anyway, it is thus:

If the moon's belly makes a D shape, it is waxing. D stands for Dios or God.

If the moon's belly makes a C shape, the curve to the left, it is waning. The C stands for Christo, Christ, who is always and perpetually dying.

Pobre Christo.

And so you can see that right now we are in a waxing moon which may explain a lot. Or may explain nothing but there it is, whichever.

A Confusion

I think it's the weather but I'm not sure but then again, neither is the weather. One minute it is gun-metal gray, flat and ominous overhead, every bird call an Alfred Hitchcockian/Poe shrill raven cry of forewarning and foreboding. An hour later, the sun is flat-blasting the earth and the earth steams from all the rain and wet and it's so humid the walls of the house cry sacred tears of moisture like some Mary in a church- oh! it's a miracle, no it's not, it means nothing but more mold, that's the only meaning in that and the birds gather and cackle and chip and chirp but still they sound concerned- a snake in a nest?

Every cliche is coming to mind and spring cleaning and spring fever, foremost among them at this second. I open a window, long winter-shut, and the space between screen and sill is black with Lloyd dirt, I could (should) spend days with bucket and rags, mops and brooms. I should (do) throw open windows and doors, I should (do not) pick out paint colors, scrub mildew off walls.

My brain is as addled as the weather. I swear- I cannot focus it on one thing but feel a desperate need to rush and hurry and do and yet, do not want to do any of it, not one damn thing. Oh. I do not know.

When Owen is here I can't keep my hands off that head, I want to stroke his hair, I want to touch his cheeks, I want to run my finger over the rim of a perfect ear and when he says, "MerMer no wash dishes. Play chess with Owen!" I want to die and yet, I stand at the sink like some mean old scrinch-faced harridan, and I say, "No, Owen, I have to wash these dishes!" and I don't even know why. No one HAS to wash the dishes. And when he leaves he says, "MerMer come Owen's house?" and part of me wants to just jump in the car and go with him because I can't bear to let him go and part of me can't wait for a moment to myself, oh, please...a moment. To myself. For myself.
I am so selfish with these moments. They seem to be so few and far between that I cannot decide on what it is I want or need to do with them and they leak out of my hands like sand, like puffs of air, spring air that tinkles the windchimes, that lifts the yellow pollen and carries it away.

And then- I see my mother and where she is and how she is and I think, oh god, she is only twenty-seven years older than I am, and do you know how quickly twenty-seven years can go by? Like that, like that puff of air, take in a breath, let it out, there you go. Gone. And then, if I am still alive, my moments will stretch like eternity and my mind, my body won't let me do a damn thing with those moments and that makes me feel crazier, more frantic to use whatever time I have in the best way possible and in what way? How?

Shhh, shhh, shhh.

I am doing it, I am spring-fever time-tripping, I am back when it smelled and felt this way thirty years ago, ten years ago, last year. This is what change-of-season does. It wipes away everything but pure visceral remembering. These bird calls, this air-feel, this light-slant, this dirt-smell, this exact temperature and humidity, this sound of tiller, windchime song, this sight of sky from gray to blue, these blossoms, this yearning, longing, reaching, waiting.

Wondering.

And yet, this is now, or, is it? I do not understand time nor how it works and I don't think anyone does except perhaps those few with brains that fire completely and correctly who can hold concepts of vibrating strands of connectivity throughout the universe while the rest of us are stuck here with air-on-skin, with eyes-to-sky, with body filled with this season's red blood, pulsed through by this one life-to-death beating heart and I almost feel the need of some old remedy, a bleeding, perhaps, by leaches or barber's sharp razor, but this is not a treatment we espouse any more and so we are left with all of this blood, frothed to high volume with spring, perhaps, until we don't know whether to dance or collapse, to sing or to sob, to cradle to us or to push away from us.

It is a confusing time of year, of life, of everything. For me, at least.

I am just being honest and should go plant something or clean something or perhaps just sit silently and weep at either the beauty of life happening again and again or of the certain dark inevitability of death, I do not know and am not sure it matters, call it what you will.

And you? Do you feel this way?

Here we are, we puny humans, we tiny unknowable, entirely predictable creatures and the birds are either singing of hunger or life or danger or all of it. I think we can call it love and leave it at that.

What We're Doing Today

Owen eats Southern Hippie Grandma Cake. With apples and raisins.
Using a toothpick.
Which charms his old southern hippie grandma to pieces.

Tired

I am so tired. I am not sure why because I didn't do that much today but it seemed like I was always doing something and even lunch, which was big fun, was active in that we ate outside so that Owen could run, and run he did over the grounds at the cafe of a beautiful old place in Tallahassee called Goodwood.
At one point, to coax him to eat, I made him a picnic by putting his plates on the ground and he liked that a lot. I'd give you a picture but I'm too tired to transfer it from the phone and sorry but take my word for it- it was lovely.

This is such a time of wondering for us all. What will the new baby be like and how will Owen take to him or her? Will he be jealous, will he be fascinated, will he decide that in order to get his fair share of attention he'll have to act out and be crazy, crazy?
Probably all of the above.
Bless his heart.
But mostly bless Lily's heart. She is SO pregnant and yet there she is at work and she doesn't complain. She is so much stronger than I could ever be. I am so proud of her.
I think of how tired she must be and I am humbled.

Tomorrow I go back to the Assisted Living, as does Mr. Moon and as will our social worker and we will all be there to observe as Mother gets yet one more cognitive test, this one from someone the insurance company is sending over. This is just so far past the point of ridiculousness that I can't even begin to find any humor in it or meaning, either. Hoop after hoop after hoop must be jumped and here we are, jumping them like dyed-pink poodles, kissing the hand of the company to which Mother paid so much money in good faith.
Well.
Perhaps the thought of that is making me so tired. Why this country fights single-payer universal health care is so far beyond my ability to understand that I can't even tell you. The money we would save in not having to do the paper/office work of all of the insurance companies has to be enough to pay for it all. Or at least close. And the only losers would be...the insurance companies and who doesn't hate them?
They must have some powerful lobbyists and I'm sure that's true. I am SO tired of political bullshit. So very, very tired of it all. But I tell you this- the next time I hear ANYONE say that we have the greatest health care in the world, I am going to personally smack that person into the next week.
Sure. It's the greatest if you have enough money to buy a medium-sized country or drive several Cadillacs and several Range Rovers and have four or five mansions and many off-shore bank accounts. Yeah. It's probably a really great health care system then.
Otherwise- fucking forget it.

All right. I am just tired. And as soon as is decently possible, I am going to go to bed and then I'll get up and go to Mother's and then go pick up Owen and bring him here and maybe he can help me in the garden. I'm trying to get that potato plot ready to plant. He can wear his overalls and I can wear mine and we can get filthy and then he can take a bath, which he loves to do here, and then I'll wrap him up in a big towel and hold him to me and he'll say, "Shake, MerMer!" and I'll shake the baby (but not the kind of shaking where you give them head injuries) and then I'll try to get a diaper on him and he'll run like the wind and hide and laugh. I know that boy.

Oh yes. I know that boy. That Kung-Fu, Hai-Yai-ing boy, that running, hiding boy, that laughing, naked boy. That "no way!" boy, that "hold on!" boy, that boy who is growing like a yard-long bean on the fence. That bend-down-and-crunch-collard-greens-from-the-garden boy, that boy I tell the Mr. Peep story to, that boy who plays so hard and then falls asleep as I softly rub his back and croon a story to about an old turkey and all of the animals he plays with. That boy who chases chickens and who tells his mama, "Owen love you, Mama!" and hugs her hard, hard, hard before she goes to work.

He is the essence of all the love I've felt for all of my babies and here I am, drowning in all of it again and am about to jump into love with another who will be so very different and whom I will love with all that same fierce and unbelievable joy.

Yes. I get tired. Who wouldn't? And would I trade it for anything?
You know the answer to that one.

Get some rest, y'all. And especially you, Lily.

So much love...MerMer

Is It Just Me

Or are any of you also getting e-mails from people who offer to do you the favor of writing a guest post on your blog in exchange for putting a link to their websites on them?
Jesus.
And they're all like worded the same, even though the websites are seemingly valid and all different.

Then today I got an e-mail from a woman who survived a terrible illness and wanted to guest post on my blog to "reach out" to people whom she could help and inspire.
What?
Again, she seems to have a valid website and appears to be real but what is going on?

I think anyone who reads here would understand that NOT HAVING ENOUGH TO SAY ON MY OWN is not my problem. And it's not like I have thousands and thousands of readers.
I have just the perfect number of them and we are a family here or at least a community and NO, I DO NOT WANT TO LINK YOUR WEBSITE, I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH GOOD YOU ARE DOING IN THIS WORLD AND IF I DO, I'LL LET YOU KNOW.

Okay. Thanks. That's all.

The Founding Fathers and Jimmy Buffet

Dang! I slept late! I changed out the clock in my room because mine was so old and so lightweight that it kept falling off the bedside table at three a.m. so I put one in that I found upstairs but you can't see the numbers on it (or at least I can't) so I have no idea what time it is all night. I COULD switch it out again for the clock in the Panther Room but that thing is so bright (even on the lowest setting) and the numbers so big that you could see what time it was from Mars and I hate having light in the room when I sleep. You could read from the light cast from that thing. Truly. I have done just that before.

So anyway, I woke up (and thank god!) from a dream wherein I was about to have to speak about the Fifth Amendment at some Official Gathering and I don't know SQUAT about the Fifth Amendment, not really, and besides that there was a boat ride and sexy times with my husband and then all of these school children kept getting on the boat...oh well. Let me just say it was a relief to wake up but then I discovered I was late and I have to get to town to take care of my boy and so forth and man! I missed the Jimmy Buffet concert last night and don't laugh. I mean it. I LOVE Jimmy Buffet. He saved my life one summer. Well, him and the beach. Hey! I told you- DON'T LAUGH! Okay, go ahead and laugh but it's true. And last night I found this picture on the Facebook:

Which is Billy and some mermaids and HE was at the Jimmy Buffet concert with his wife and as Hank said in a comment to Billy under this picture: Man, how'd you take a picture of your dream?

Well, I'm sure that Jimmy put some healing on the faithful of Tallahassee last night but I wasn't there.

I'm not at the beach either. I'm in Lloyd and it's foggy as hell and I need to get my ass in gear and get to town. Hank- I have a cooler for you. And the keys. Hank IS going to the beach this weekend, Dog Island to be exact, and I'm taking him the necessaries for that trip, specifically the cooler and the keys and I'm glad he's going. I think Billy is too but I'm not sure. I hope so.

So that's me. Running late. Feeling like I have some alien on my face because new glasses will do that to you. I felt like an old woman this morning, going out to feed the cats, let out the chickens and get the newspaper. Like a little old woman who wants to wear the same glasses for forty years because she hates change.

Well, I do hate change mostly but life is all about it so if I can't embrace it, I might as well at least try to go with the flow or some other sort of bullshit thing.

I'd like to end this with some profound Buffet-ism but all I can think of at this second is "Let's get drunk and screw," which is probably not appropriate but hell, when did I begin to think I should be appropriate?

And one more thing. Mr. Moon fixed my table! He even put casters (castors?) on the legs so that it will roll and be the proper height. He is my hero!


In the past few days he's also brought me roses and driven all the way to Monticello to buy potatoes to plant.
No wonder I was having dream-time sexy-time with him.

I love that man.

Hey Honey- why don't we get drunk and...?

You know.

I love you. And you know that too.

I think the Fifth Amendment may cover some of this post. I sure hope so.

Love...Ms. Moon

In Which I Go To Church And Get New Glasses. Plus, Other Things

Man. It turned out to be quite a day.
So yeah, I took my walk and I took my phone with me so I could take pictures if I wanted and I did want to and here's a church:

It's a small, local church, just a few blocks from my house and yeah, no big deal except...
Here's the exterior:

How precious is that? See that building in the background? That used to be the church and then it was remade as a duplex and even though I saw the whole project from start to finish, I'm still not sure how it was done but anyway, they built a tiny replica of the old church and that's it. I had no idea the inside was fitted out with pews and an altar. It blew my mind.

Here's the door. I love the door.

And those teeny-tiny steps.
It's a church for faithful fairies! And they even have steps! And a bell!
Lloyd. I am constantly surprised.

So anyway, after the walk Kathleen came by for a short visit and then Freddy called and I met him in town for coffee and he caught me up on all of his BIG doin's and I just so enjoyed that. He's doing really, really well and working his tail off and I'm as proud of him as I could be.

I was right across the road from where I'd ordered my glasses and so I called, just to see if they were in and yes! they were! so I went and got them and I think I can see pretty well out of them. I'm not sure how in love I am with the way they look but hell, it's a change.
And they're red.

I think they're maybe too big on my face but what the hell? My old ones were too small. Life will go on.

And by the time I'd gone to the library and the grocery store and gotten home it was almost time to cook dinner and then I did and we ate it and now I'm in a rousing game of Words With Friends with Lily and I saw her today and she looks fabulous and her due date is less than two weeks away and every day we all grow more excited. We're going to meet this new baby soon! A brand new person will be here on this earth and we are going to love that baby so much. Golly. I'm just as stunned to believe this as I was when it was Owen we were expecting. I guess that's what you call a miracle or something.

Tomorrow I'll go to town to take care of Owen and he and I are going to lunch with Uncle Hank and that'll be lovely. My boys! Perhaps we can even talk Bop into joining us. We'll see.

And to top it all off- the sun came out today! It finally cleared, late this afternoon and I could feel my heart beating to a little bit of a more cheerful rhythm and although I am SO VERY grateful for all the sweet rain we've gotten, I am glad to know that the sun is still there.

Now. If you've gotten this far and haven't read the post right below this, please go there and click on the link and vote for the inclusion of the All American Redheads, the nation's first professional women's basketball team, into the Basketball Hall of Fame. And watch the video.
Please?
Thank-you.

I mean it.

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. In case you feel that this is all just too damn cheerful and sort of makes you want to barf, consider this: My dogs are still alive.
That is all I am going to say about that but believe me- that fact balances out some of the sparkle, shine, and apple-red joy of everything else. Sort of.

Vote!

My sister-in-law, Brenda Davis, was one of the All American Redheads back in the sixties and seventies and if you don't know what the All American Redheads were, just watch this video, which I have posted before but hell, it's worth watching more than once.




That's Brenda, right there, first girl doing awesome basketball things.

These women traveled around the country in a station wagon, y'all. A STATION WAGON! The entire team, the coach, and his wife. Who may have actually been one of the Redheads and they played events like the Harlem Globetrotters did, back before, oh, you know, women and African Americans could play on the "real" teams.

Anyway, The Basketball Hall of Fame is asking people to vote on who should go into the Hall of Fame and the Redheads are up for inclusion and I'm going to ask you, if you wouldn't mind, to go and vote for those women.

The link is right HERE.

It'll take like one second. And then go watch the video again. It makes me cry, watching those gorgeous, tall young women back in the day when girls weren't supposed to be athletes, running and jumping and throwing and doing things with basketballs that totally confused and frustrated the men they were playing against, all the while looking completely fantastic.

Thanks, y'all. I mean it. And the Redheads deserve it.

Just A Day

Of course the downside of not being in a play is that my life has once again returned to completely and utterly boring instead of just mostly and seriously boring.
Haha!
Ask me if I care.

Let's see. The train is going by. I just filled up the chicken-waterer. The chickens were making so much noise in that hen house that I figured someone had laid either a golden egg or one weighing in excess of a pound but when I went to check, I found no eggs at all.
Girls, girls! Let's lay off the drama and get back to work!
Elvis obviously prefers Miss Ozzie to all of the other hens. Her back is looking a bit raggedy where he catches on to her and then perches while he...has his way with her. Now what is it about Ozzie that makes her his favorite sister wife? She's such an odd looking bird. More bird than chicken, really, with that long neck of hers. And she's drab. Just plain old drab.
Well, I do not have rooster goggles so it makes no sense to me.

So back to the train- they're talking about bringing the Amtrak back to Tallahassee and wouldn't that be awesome? I could stand in my back yard, surrounded by my chickens wearing an apron and sun bonnet and wave in a friendly manner at the folks in the passenger cars when they went by. Or, I could wear that slip, drink gin and curse at them when they went by. It could be like performance art that I do everyday. Wouldn't that be AWESOME?
People would say, "Did you SEE that?" And then someone would nod and say, "Wow. Like stepping back in time."

Well, it is painfully apparent that I have no actual thoughts today, nothing of importance to pass on. No babies have been born, no dogs have died. I'm fine with that. I think I'll take a walk and maybe go to the library and then get in the dirt and transplant some stuff and then, oh, you know, make supper and go to bed.

It's a day where I don't feel any reservoirs of anger or sadness or sense of hopelessness. More just a day of feeling that this is life. And now I've just gone and read our dear Gradydoctor's post today about her mother's sixty-fifth birthday and I'm crying a little bit for more than one reason and just damn glad to have this day, to have this life and there's nothing more I need to say about it.

It's just the truth and that may be boring but it's more than good enough for me.

Owen Meets Fabio

When we walked into the office, he saw the six-foot tall cut-out and had a moment of extreme...shyness? I think. He doesn't really look afraid. Slightly amused. But shy.


He figured out pretty quickly that Fabio is a lightweight.

And then he got on a chair to explore the upper regions. Went right for the nipple.
Yeah, me too. That thing looks REAL.

It was a hoot. What Owen mostly wanted to do was to stick a tack into Fabio. Wherever he could. I would not let him. Hell no! That's MerMer's Fabio!

Owen and I had a good day. We got a lot of playing done. Fed the chickens and got the eggs. Fed the mule next door with some Cheerios. Found a marble in the yard that the rain had revealed. I always love to find new old treasures in this yard. I wondered about the child who might have owned that marble, the games he or she might have played. The kid probably fed chickens, too.

I doubt he or she touched Fabio's nipple though. However, one cannot assume anything.
Anything at all can happen in this big world.

Anything we can imagine and a hell of a lot that we can't.

And Then There's This

I'm in a it's-raining-and-never-going-to-quit-mood and Owen is washing his hands a lot for fun and I don't know. I didn't mean to be mean about Ms. Jolie. Hell, I think she's one of the most gorgeous women in this world.
I'm just thinking she's got some problems.
And of course there's no reason for us to speculate or theorize about movie stars. I think it's just something we do because we feel powerless in the face of the big things like war and cruelty and poverty and ill health and injustice and, and, and....
It's like, well bread and circuses.
Although some of the circus people could use a little bread.
But really? Bottom line? It ain't my business, not really. Which makes it so easy to talk about.

More Oscar Commentary And Trash

Well, I stayed up until eleven-thirty and I wish I hadn't.
Argh.
Oh well.
It's been drizzling here for about four months. Okay. A few days. Hard to get excited about spring when it's chilly and raining and I think the azaleas are not going to bloom at all due to that hard freeze we got when they were budding up.
Oh, who cares?
Do you? No.
My poor chickens. They're standing in the coop wondering what in hell?
I need to take the trash and recycle. I'm not going to do it in the rain. No way. Owen will be here soon. This is exciting, isn't it?
No. It is not. It is not exciting. It is raining and gray and chilly and the trash overfloweth.

Okay. Let me ask you this. What in hell is going on with Angelina?

She kept sticking that leg out of her dress last night which I am wondering if she did in order to distract us from the stick-form shapes of her arms. Bless her heart! BABY! Eat something! All joking aside, she looked very, very unhealthy to me. I'm just gonna say it- I think she's on drugs. Something ain't right there. And I am NOT judging. Who in this world can maintain that sort of career, that many children (even with all the nannies in the world) and a marriage AND keep her sanity? Boy, I sure couldn't. Not even WITH drugs. Hell, I can't keep my sanity for more than an hour or two at a time. But I sure don't forget to eat.



That's my Oscar commentary. Okay, that and...was there some sort of secret competition to see who could mention Martin Scorsese the most often? Every fifteen seconds someone was mentioning him and then quick! shot to the audience!

To Martin! Who has inspired EVERYONE!

Well, they're movie stars and I'm not. Their minds work in ways that mine never will.
Don't we love them? Did I actually see someone say that her dress was made from cruelty-free silk spun from humanely treated silkworms?

I think so. God. Now I should worry that silk worms are being treated inhumanely?
And I thought it was enough that I don't hit my dogs.

Okay. Enough.

I have to take that trash, raining or not.

And eat.

Happy Monday.
Love...Ms. Moon

This is me in the Panther Room (see the lamp?) with my martini, watching the pre-show for the Academy Awards. I'm sitting on the guest bed which is also known as the place where I change Owen's diapers.
I love this room.
I love having a house which winds and wends for about one and one-half miles through rooms built fifty years or a hundred years after the house was originally made.
Oh god. I do love this house. I've lived here for almost eight years which is the second-longest I've ever lived in any house in my life and it's gone like....whooooossssshhhhht. That fast.
Anyway, I'm here in the Panther Room because there's a TV in here which we crank up about once every six months when Mr. Moon and I both want to watch something on TV and they're not the same thing.
He's watching some game on the TV in the Glen Den which is where the Big TV is and, inspired by Ms. Radish King who wears red sequins and buys fancy cheeses to eat while watching the Academy Awards, I am allowing myself the tacky glory (sorry, Madame King!) of watching Hollywood's royalty walk the red carpet and being asked, "Who are you wearing?"

I wish someone would ask me. I am wearing a red Gap long-sleeved t-shirt and Old Navy overalls with Gap short hoodie. Hoody? God, I have no idea. I got the overalls at an antique store (I am not kidding you) in Thomasville, Georgia and the hoody and shirt may have actually come from the Gap. Or hell, they may have all come from Goodwill. I can't remember shit these days.

Anyway, it's been such a good day. Mr. Moon went with me to the set tear-down and it went real fast and it's been chilly and drizzly all day so I've just puttered about, doing laundry (washing my costumes/clothing) and making soup. Oh. This soup. I sauteed some chunks of deer with garlic in olive oil and added chopped collard and turnip greens from the garden and then canned tomatoes and onions and celery and carrots and left-over black-eyed peas and rice and some deer sausage and potatoes and green beans and potatoes. I added a tiny bit of brown sugar, inspired by Tearful at Plate and Fork although only a few tablespoons, not a cup of it. And yes, ketchup. A little bit. It's still simmering and I can't wait to have a bowl, held in my lap here in the Panther Room.

I've also ironed some flannel soon to be hopefully made into a quilt for the coming-baby (no, I did not get that done before I left for Cozumel) and watered the inside plants.

Antonio and Melanie are on the red carpet right now. Are they like yesterday's Brad and Angelina? Melanie is wearing Yves St. Laurent. Antonio is wearing Georgio Armani.

Oh whoa! J-Low is wearing...hold on...okay, I did not catch that. But she's a goddess. Although I'm not wild about how her breasts are being presented in that dress.

Mr. Moon keeps popping in to see if I need anything.
I tell him, "No, baby, I don't need a thing."

It's one of those days where it's all about the tiny, teeny things. The check-out magazine rack silliness of E! Entertainment network pre-Oscar commentaries. The hair-dos! The Harry Winston jewels! Kelly Osbourne with her dyed gray hair swept over her shoulder. Guiliana What-Ever-Her-Name-Is-Who-Just-Had-A-Double-Mastectomy and that reminds me of a subject I've been meaning to write about about which is breasts and breast cancer and that is NOT a teeny-tiny thing and oh god, NO PUNS INTENDED, FUCK, REALLY, NO! Guiliana looks amazing and more Hollywood glamor than anyone else I've seen on the red carpet and well, it's just been a good day.

Soup. I need soup.

It's been a really good day.

Viola Davis is wearing her real hair and god, I love her for that. I have no idea what it's like being an African American woman and having to deal with all of the cultural stuff that goes along with hair but I swear to god- there is nothing more beautiful than a black woman with her own, real hair.
Talk about goddess.

Okay. Time for the show.

See you tomorrow! I swear you will.

Comment My Husband Made About Me Today

"That woman does love to sweep."

The Play Has Ended And Fabio Has Come Home

Well, I have to say that if we did that play for about fifty more times, it would really have gotten good. There would have been very little resemblance between what we were doing onstage and what was written in the script, but that could only have been for the better.
We had fun with it last night.
We threw ourselves boldly into places we'd never thrown ourselves before. We improvised, we added bits, we became whores-for-laughter.
Why the hell not?
It was so GREAT to come offstage, change my costume and throw my previous one in a wad in a bag to take home instead of hanging everything up carefully for the next performance.
I think I'm just too old for this. I don't know. But I know I gave it my best shot and Jon and I went over lines before the last performance and dang, if that's not trying, I don't know what is.

And so now I shall resume my life, the one I was leading before the play or The Play as it looms in my mind and that tattered and torn script is history and as I said to someone last night who said, "How in the world did you learn all those lines?"
My brain is already consciously working on forgetting every one of them.

It really is a more profound transition than you would think. I will no longer ease myself back into sleep by going over scenes in my head. I had thought after Steel Magnolias that I would never, ever forget those lines but of course I have. The lines from this play were never set in stone in my head, more like set in Jello, so there you go- the task will be easier but it's still a change. I can read a damn book or magazine without feeling guilty that I'm not running lines.

But you know, it was good. It was good in that I got out of the house, I did things with people whom I enjoy doing things with, I was forced to learn new things. I had to change my routine. I adapted. At my age, that's a good thing.

And now what? Oh well, that baby's coming soon. And speaking of birth, there's a video of a birth on youtube which is absolutely the most amazing birth-video I've ever seen and I've never seen quite as joyful a birth in real life, either although I have seen (and had) some joyful births.
Here's the link if you want to go there.
It is quite graphic in that yes, you see a baby coming out of a vagina, and watching it might actually change your perspective about women's bodies and joy and life and childbirth and oh, I don't know. You know, almost everything. But only watch it if you're prepared for all of that.

So yes, Lily's baby is due in about two weeks and I just want to rip everything out of the garden and have Mr. Moon till it all up and replant it all and I want to tend it like a mother tends a baby and I don't now what else I will be doing. Watching Owen. Watching him grow, watching him eat yogurt, watching him practice his Kung Fu moves, watching him completely and joyfully destroy my house, watching him become a big brother. I hope I'll be watching him learn to use the potty before too long. Seriously.

I guess I'll be cooking healthy meals (after the one I've already cooked this morning which involved biscuits and bacon) exercising more and I'll be remembering what it's like to change a newborn's diaper and maybe I'll write that novel. Having Fabio in the office with that stern expression on his face could help me with that. "Do it!" he will be saying with a German/Austrian accent. He is actually holding a chain and in my imagination I can pretend that he is about to hit me with it if I don't get my butt in the seat and write.
I honestly can't tell you why but it just tickles me to pieces to have that life-sized cardboard cut-out of a man wearing fringed pants and boots in my office. Tickles me to death. I wonder what Owen will say when he sees him? This could be hysterical.

But mostly what I'll be doing is just what I always do which is to despair and rejoice and to wonder and to wander and to cut and chop and weed and get dirty and gather eggs and clean nests and kiss the ones I love and then to fall in love with a new tiny person- rapture, in short.
When that baby gets born, it'll be rapture and I'll be raptured and enraptured and all of us will fall in love with all of us even more.

That's my plan.

And I'm sticking to it.

And of course I'll be writing about all of it and about the wisteria as it swells and blooms and about the signs of life seen from here in Lloyd because writing about all of it here is my joy and my thrill and my way of trying to make sense of it all.

All right! Happy Sunday! Day to go tear down that set, to see everyone again but this time with the pressure off and the overalls on and then...
Well.
Who knows? Not me.

Yours truly from the Church of the Batshit Crazy where one never truly knows what will happen next.

Love...Ms. Moon

Last Call

I am made-up. I am bejeweled. I am going to the Opera House as soon as my red bush tea is done and put in the thermos.
Hitting that road, yes, it is gray, it is chilly, it is not a night to want to go out, my hair is clean, I think I may have forgotten my deodorant which is a bad idea seeing how it gets to be about five thousand degrees (Fahrenheit) on that stage and I will say those lines (or a reasonable facsimile) one more time, one more time, one more time and then I'll be done with that, it'll be over and Lord, Lord, when I get my free beer tonight, I am going to enjoy it like nobody's business and it will be the most celebratory beer of my life.

Amen.

That was a prayer. Or at least what passes for a prayer around this neck of the woods.

This Explains So Much

Check it out.

Thanks, Hank.

This Makes NO Sense But Go Ahead And Dance

I thought I'd slept until ten-thirty this morning which would have been a world record but in fact, it was only nine-thirty. I'd set the clock wrong in the guest room when I went in there at six-thirty when I woke up after a measly five hours of sleep, determined to get MORE sleep, DAMMIT, and yet, try not to wake up my husband with my efforts to try and find a more comfortable position.

I know, earth-shattering. Need-to-know stuff here at blessourhearts.

Hey. You can't get world news, earth-shaking political insights, and deep philosophy every day. The damn brain just needs some time off sometimes.

And sleep.

Which I got.

There's so much I COULD talk about today. One of them being fasting for Lent. I talked about that last year, though so fuck it. But I will reiterate that a god who wants you to give up any of his (or her) great gifts to us, to blind ourselves to anything that is part of the great, creamy mess of creation and brings joy and, uh, sustenance, is suspicious to me.
Yes. I have fasted before.
I was insane and had a borderline eating disorder.

Okay, moving on and in the same spirit, I am about to make a hell of a lot of chocolate chip cookies. I am going to take them to my cast and crew mates tonight. There's a line in the play where our Lulabelle says, "There's nothing like a good homemade chocolate chip cookie," and there you go. Now, my reply to her in the play is this: "But what about sex? Have you never had to fake it?"
And quite frankly, I will be so happy never to say this line again after tonight but in the meantime, I do believe that a nice homemade chocolate chip cookie truly is one of the finest things around and I have four sticks of butter softening as we speak and two bags of Ghirardelli chocolate chips (one semi-sweet and one bitter-sweet) awaiting their destiny on the counter.

Mr. Moon is in fix-it mode and that makes a wife happy. Right now he is tackling our dining room table which is a very old round oak thing that has been in my life since about 1979. I can't even imagine how many meals have been eaten on it. It got me and my girlfriends through nursing school because we gathered around it to study (well, that table and the band Four-In-Legion and most specifically their song There's A Party In My Pants And You're Invited).

Okay, whoa. I just went to youtube to find the video of that and yes, I've totally posted it before but just watching a few minutes of it has sent be straight back to 1982 or some year like that and...table? What table? Shit. If you want to see what propelled me in my darkest hours and got me through the Valley of the shadow of death and yea, were my rod and my staff which did comfort me back when I was a single mother in nursing school, well, check it out.



Good God!

Now there was a band. There was a guitar player. There was a shitty video.
But still.
Lord, Lord, Lord. We used to dance.

Where was I?
I have no idea.

Oh. Table.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

I've always wondered about that line. Who in the world wants to sit down and eat in front of one's enemies? Even metaphorically, that would be some bitter dining.

But hey- let's tie it all together here- Mr. Moon (and also, our neighbor) is preparing my table. Or REPAIRING my table and I am very happy about that because I love that table and it is more than a table, it is a souvenir of a different time in my life when I danced with my girlfriends wildly and with abandon and we feared NO EVIL and let us not fear chocolate chip cookies, either.

How's that?

My cup runneth over.

Yes, yes it does. With coffee right now and this is probably the most random, craptastic post I've ever written.

Who cares? Not me.

Dance, babies. There's a party in someone's pants. Invite your own damn self. Lie down in green pastures or in the tumbled bed. Eat a chocolate chip cookie. Don't eat in the presence of one's enemies because to do so is to invite jealousy and indigestion. Get some sleep.

Annointest your head with oil at your own discretion.

Love...Ms. Moon

Hey- Nobody IS Perfect

One more performance down, one more to go.

I think we were all on automatic pilot tonight and every now and then we'd wake up and insert something weird and funny and see where that took us.
Hysterical.
The crowd was not a crowd. Tiny group. Okay, not a group. Our audience was slim. In numbers. There was a table of Red Hat Ladies. Do you know these women? One woman was wearing a purple boa that had lights in it. I am not kidding you. I thought these women would LOVE the play. They may have but it didn't sound so much like it. The bar made about five bucks. That says it all right there. The Red Hat Ladies did love our Grampi. They all wanted their pictures made with him. Also, Fabio. Yes. They all posed with Grampi and Fabio and many snapshots were taken.

Well, that's how it goes sometimes.

Now I'm home and the owls are hooting off in the distance. I had to throw a stick in the general direction of that hawk today. He (or she) was on the clothesline support, just waiting for the chickens to go to roost.

He (or she) would not move off his (or her) perch until I threw that stick at him. Or her. I didn't aim for the hit, just for the scare-off. It worked in that the hawk flew about ten feet and re-perched in a tree.
Mr. Moon and I are wondering if maybe the hawk just wants to join the flock. Maybe that hawk wants to be...wait for it... A CHICKEN HAWK!

All right. I'll stop now. I'm going to eat some sort of Bombay Potatoes with Garbanzos I bought at the Costco. They're in these heavy-duty pouches that you can boil or microwave. I have leftover black-eyed peas in the refrigerator but for some reason, I just want some Bombay Potatoes.
Not really.
I just want something I didn't cook. Something that I haven't eaten as leftovers three or four times. So, Bombay Potatoes it will be. And hey! They're

*All natural
*Gluten-free
*No MSG
*No preservatives
and
*Kosher!

Mr. Moon suggested I should add some cheese to them. I think maybe an egg would be a fine addition too.

So sweet dreams. I can sleep tomorrow morning as late as I want to. As late as I can. It should be good sleeping as it's getting cool again. It was eighty degrees today and muggy as hell. It's about forty-eight now and crisping up at the edges.

Spring in Florida. You cain't beat it.
With a stick.
But you can throw a stick at a hawk if you don't hit it. That's illegal.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

Parenthood, Personhood

This is one of those days...
Haven't had one of these days in quite some time. Gray as the gunmetal sky, have to put one foot in front of the other, do and do and do until it's done. That's all there is to it.
I've already given the hens fresh straw in their nests and let them out although that damn hawk has been perching around the hen house and I've probably let them out to their deaths.
I'll feel bad if that happens but it makes me feel awful to keep those birds penned up when they want so desperately to be out.
I don't know what that hawk is thinking. There are fifty birds next door, open and available to all sky-entrance. Including small chickens. More easily lifted ones. Plus, there are squirrels running around everywhere. Why would the hawk want one of my few fat hens?
I don't know.

Listen: Most of life doesn't make sense about 99% of the time.
As far as I can tell.

Which is probably why we have religion. To try and explain that 99% of the time that nothing makes sense using the 1% of the time that it does in order to back up the theories.
And that makes no more sense than anything, what I just said there.

I better get to it. Lines to study, things to purchase, a grandson to tend, a performance to get ready for. Things to worry endlessly and fruitlessly about. You know.

But here- here's this- one of my favorite parts of one of my favorite movies. They got this shit RIGHT. And I'm not posting this in response to any fathers I am thinking of at this particular moment. It's just a little Zen Moment of Truth. As far as I can see.


Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Clarification

When Mother said "that daughter of yours" she couldn't remember Lily's name. That's all. It wasn't an insult. She truly does care about Lily and this coming baby and adores Owen.
I wanted to make that very clear.
It's just names...she has a hard time with them.
As do I a lot of the time...

Bless All Our Damn Hearts

God, it's been a frustrating day. One of those days where I should have just stayed in bed and wept at the vast hole of uselessness my life appears to be on these days.

I walked into Mother's room at the Assisted Living Place and she was obviously not doing well and she looked at me and said, "What are YOU doing here?" which was a damn good question. She seems to have given up on some levels and I don't blame her. It was probably nothing more than sheer will and determination keeping her going when she was living at home and now she doesn't need those things as much because there are others who are there to make her meals and do her cleaning and laundry and it's like she's lost her grit.
Again- I understand.
She's left with nothing to focus on but her pain and her dizziness and the things that piss her off and those are myriad. Just knowing, as she does, that the more she slips into helplessness, the better off financially she'll be, is enough to let her give up whatever fight there was in her although I know it wasn't possible to leave her at home where she could have burned the place up or taken all the wrong pills or gotten lost somewhere a few blocks from home or fallen and not had anyone to find her, or given all her money to a scammer (she gave SOME money to some scammers so this is not completely impossible), or, or, or.
But really- would that have been worse than what she's going through now?
I don't know. I really don't. That is not a rhetorical question. It is a true questioning question.

She is, yes, confused. And pissed. Not as pissed as the lady I saw down in the clinic who had drawn her eyebrows on with red lipstick (hey! I think that may have been a conscious choice) but pissed, nonetheless. She was pissed because they make you do everything there when you don't even want to. Or at least, she's pretty sure they do. They make you go to breakfast and if you don't want to go to breakfast, you don't get any breakfast! Which is not true. They bring her breakfast if she doesn't feel like going to the dining room but when I pointed that out, she said, "But then I spill things!"
She doesn't want to go to PT but they make her go to PT for her knees and it hurts!
I told her that she doesn't have to go to PT if she doesn't want to and she agreed that is probably true but...
But what?
Oh. I don't know.
She hates one of the women who sits at her table in the dining room. Frankly, I'd hate her too. She's a self-absorbed, prejudiced, snobby, snotty old bitch who finds great pleasure in putting Mother down. So I told Mother she doesn't have to sit there. She can sit at another table.
"Oh no I can't!" she said. "You can't move from one table to another."
This is entirely not true. Those sweet ladies up there who serve the tables would not care one iota.
But again...but...

So back down to the clinic where we all sat around (Mr. Moon, the doctor, the social worker, me) talking about the ways to make her qualify for the insurance which of course was all about her deficits. This just sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks.
GENWORTH. DO NOT BUY GENWORTH INSURANCE!
There. I just said it.

Then they set up an appointment for her to see the Orthopedist who was supposed to come in that afternoon so I was going to come back for that. I went and picked up my glasses prescription and went to the place where they supposedly make your glasses in an hour. This is true if you don't have the type of prescription I do, which if you do, it'll take 7-10 working days.
Oh well.
The nicest, nicest lady helped me. She was patient and she was sweet and she laughed at my snarky jokes. I found some red frames I liked. They are kind of funky but don't have any blingy, cheap-looking crap on them which even some of the most expensive ones do.


She didn't try to sell me every add-on they had. She honestly told me what she thought I needed and what I did not need. I agreed with her. I didn't walk out of there feeling like I'd been railroaded into anything.
Bless her heart.

I picked up a sandwich and went to Lily's to eat it. Owen has a cold but he's feeling okay. When I left, he said, "No leave me, Mermer!" which I thought was so sweet. I'll see him again tomorrow. I went back to the ALP to find that the doctor wasn't coming. The next time he IS coming is near the end of March. I called Mother's current ortho guy's office to make an appointment but they can't see her until April, so what the hey?
She said, "It doesn't matter. I've been in pain for so long that it just doesn't matter."

I sat and talked to her for awhile and she told me about the mean woman at the table again and we talked about some other things and then I left and came home, feeling like I'd been nothing of any use to her at all and feeling guilty and feeling, oh, fuck.
Just fucking useless.
Nothing got accomplished except that I ordered overpriced red glasses.
My mother is still in pain and will still BE in pain. I haven't tended anything today or created anything or even cooked anything. I have felt sorry for myself and I have felt resentful.
I feel like a worm or maybe worm shit.
Cold worm shit.

Mr. Moon is at a VERY exciting basketball game in town. FSU vs Duke and I know he's excited. I swear- that man deserves some real enjoyment. There he is with all of Mother's forms and everything is on his back and he's the one dealing with the insurance, he's the one being sweet to her, he's the one she calls when she needs anything. Anything at all.
And he's there for her.

Lickity split. He calms her, he humors her, he makes her laugh.

And then he listens to me whine and moan. He holds me up when I feel that I am going down. He doesn't judge. He is on my team. He fills the bin with dog food. He brings home the chicken feed. He comes home early to play with the grandson. He helps build the sets for the plays I'm in. He tells me every night how much he enjoys whatever it was I cooked. He washes dishes. He makes it possible for me to live this life I live and he seems to love me. He is there for the children, no matter what it is they need. He is just pure good. Or as pure-good as a spirit wrapped up in a human body can be.

All right. I've written myself into a puddle of maudlin tears. I believe I need to go paint myself some eyebrows on with red lipstick now and put on a nylon slip and make a drink of straight gin and sit on the porch and hope for small children or a stray dog to pass by to give me an excuse to yell obscenities into the darkening twilight and then weep into my dirty, tangled hair.

Hey! I'm an old southern woman! We get to do these things if we want to!
I'll wear my great-grandmother's diamond necklace while I do them. It will add to the charm of my insanity.

Or maybe I'll just go heat up some of those chicken and bean enchiladas and go to bed and wake up tomorrow when I have plenty of other things I need to do and accomplish and give it all another shot.

I'll tell you this, though, I am NOT giving my personal Rhett Butler a chance to tell me that he doesn't give a damn.
I hope.

And for my own personal Rhett Butler's sake, I hope that FSU wins tonight.

And in 7-10 business days, I will be wearing red eyeglasses which are just as good as red-lipsticked eyebrows as far as I'm concerned. And maybe the new baby will be here by then and I'll be crying sweet tears of joy.

"Let me know how...that daughter of yours....is doing with the baby," my mother said.

I will. I will let her know when her next great-grandchild is born. I'll even take her to see him or her.

I do all I can and on some days it is pathetically apparent how little that is. This being one of them.

And yet the planet still orbits the sun. Go figure.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

Better Vision Needed

Well the chickens survived the night and so did we, not that a predator was threatening us, as far as I know which reminds me of that sweet little childhood prayer we all used to pray.

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

What???!!!!

Now, to be honest, my mother amended it for us. We said, Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep and let me wake up happy and healthy in the morning.

Which was better but I KNEW the other prayer and it rhymed and so my head said THAT one while my pious little mouth said the other one.
Phew.

Okay. Today I have to get through the next hurdle of the next cognitive test with Mother and then tomorrow we have the play again and Saturday we have the play again and Sunday we tear down the set and then, done, done, oh Lord, done.

After I go to Mother's today I have to go get a prescription for new glasses from that eye doctor clinic where I did the pretesting for the possible lasix surgery. Those suckers were supposed to call me but never did. They just sent me home with those contacts and never checked back in and that is no way to run a business. But I was trying to watch The King's Speech on the TV last night and I just can't focus on that screen and that's all there is to it and it's miserable. I need new glasses if I'm not going to get my eyes miraculously mono-visioned. Which I am not going to do.

New glasses. Always a daunting adventure. I think I look like a Mrs. Beasley doll in my current glasses.

Kindly, round, and completely harmless.
This is not a bad look for a grandmother, I suppose but somehow it's not the look this grandmother wants. I do like rick-rack, though.

I remember my first pair of glasses. Blue cat's eyes and boy, did I love them! Since then I've had everything from red frames to wire frames to green frames to brown frames to...
I don't know. I just know that it's mighty hard to pick new frames. Do I want to look serious, studious, ironic, hip, bejeweled, trendy or mysterious?
I should take someone with me to pick out frames. Who? May is always working. Lily would go and she's honest. Hank always gets those Military Birth Control frames. I think they come with one arm taped up with white tape. Jessie of course is in Asheville. I suppose on the new phone I could send pictures to all the kids and they could send me their input. I wish I could get Lis to come with me but she's in Gator Bone and that's too far a jaunt just to come and help me pick out some glasses frames even if I threw in lunch. Mr. Moon mostly wants whatever will do. Gah. Who cares? At my age? Who the fuck cares?

Well, I guess I must.
But not that much.

Okay. Time to move on. I'm glad to see that Virginia has decided not to force women to get a vaginal wand ultrasound before getting an abortion. Who came up with that idea in the first place? I love what Senator Janet Howell (a Democrat, of course) did which was to offer an amendment to the bill that would require men seeking a prescription for Viagra to get a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before a doctor could give it to them.

I could go on. I won't.

Gotta go to town.

Here's my tiny little life with my tiny little plans and my tiny little worries and you can be assured that I am aware of how tiny they are for which I am grateful.

Yours truly....Ms. Moon