Quite A Day

I woke up today wishing that there was a nearby cliff I could possibly jump off of. I'm not even kidding. The kind of day where I resent my children because I love them too much to even consider jumping off a cliff. I was feeling scared and depressed and angry and anxious and hopeless and futile and about every other negative way a sixty-seven year old woman can feel about herself, her existence, her life. 

I crept around here and wondered why I even bother to read the news because it's all always horrible or attempt to clean anything because nothing will ever really, truly be clean around here or do laundry because that's certainly never done or- well, you get it. 
I had the morning blues for sure. 

And then I don't even know what happened. I forced myself to do the chores I needed to do and started a loaf of sourdough even though my starter hadn't been fed in a week and the next thing I knew I was taking care of a miniature rose bush in a pot that I've been trying to ignore for about a year and then I did a few things with the porch plants and watered them and I decided to bring in my tiny little Christmas tree that I bought at Publix last year and which I did actually transplant some months ago into a pot. It looked like this when I bought it. 

You can't tell much about the size of it but trust me- it was, as I described it last year, elfin. This is the second Publix Christmas tree that I've bought over the years in this house, I think. The first one got too big to be a porch plant and I planted it in the actual ground at some point this year and it's still alive which is both surprising and thrilling. 

Anyway, I brought the newer one in today and set it in the hallway and oh- by the way- I never took the ornaments it came with off- and I put two of the tiny strings of lights on it and TA-DA! My Christmas decorating is complete! 
I sent a picture of it to the kids with just that message. 

Within minutes, Hank sent back the picture you see at the top with the message, "The White House tree is truly lovely this year!" and I laughed and I laughed and I laughed. 

And I've felt cheerful ever since. 

I washed the rooster flannel, dried it, ironed it, laid it out and pinned the pattern to it, and cut it out. Everything was going so smoothly that I KNEW that something was going to go wrong. I mean- please. I did almost cut one piece upside down but I noticed my mistake and rectified it, repinning the pattern. I marked the fabric where it needed to be marked and then I opened up the old, old Singer case. I knew my machine needed oiling so I got out the little handbook with the illustrations of where the oiling points are along with the oil and I plugged in the machine and to my great amazement, it started running by itself as if the ghost of some old woman wearing shit-kicking brogans had her foot on the pedal! 
WHAT? WHAT? 
Dammit. 
I unplugged it and decided to go ahead and oil it anyway, which I did, but that did not magically fix anything so I looked at the pedal itself and sure enough- where the cord exits the device, it was frayed with bare wires showing. 
I sent a picture to my husband who was in the garage. 

Bad picture but you get the gist. 
He texted back that he'd look at it when he came in and he did and he took it all apart and cut the wire and resplit it and taped it up and put it all back together and now it works as it should. 
Phew! 

I am so grateful. 
It was a little late to start actually sewing when he finished but everything is ready to go tomorrow. The pattern pieces are all folded and waiting, the machine is oiled, my scissors and pins and measuring tape are all set out. 
My bread is in the oven. It rose just as well as if I'd fed the starter yesterday. And what's up with that? Once again I feel as if the "rules" of sourdough baking are all pretty much bullshit. 
And best of all, I am still cheerful. In fact, I feel better physically and emotionally than I have in weeks. Now this is not to say that I won't wake up tomorrow and once again wonder about the availability of cliffs but for now, all is well. I'm even contemplating bringing out my tiny nativity and setting it up, just for the joy of putting Buddha behind the manger. 
Now don't get me wrong- one pop star's ear-splitting, voice gargling rendition of O! Holy Night and I could snap and start throwing Christmas china from one end of TJ Maxx to the other but perhaps if I stay out of places with Christmas muzak no one will get hurt. 

Here's the one Christmas song that's been going through my head that doesn't make me want to eat candy canes for the pure pleasure of puking them up. 

Thanks, Bill. Thanks, George. Thanks to Mac Rice who wrote the song and to Albert King who released this version in 1974. 

And thanks to Hank, whose job, as he has noted, is to know things and be funny. 

Keep it funky, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

HO-HO-Fuckin' HO, Once Again

I went to town today and not only did I go to Costco and Publix, I also went to Tuesday Morning and to Joann's Fabrics. 
I got nothing at Tuesday Morning. I was going to buy a pot for a plant but the line was about five people long and there was one checker-outer and she was being very friendly and making sure that each of her customers felt as if she was giving them all of her attention because she was and while that's fine, I could not see waiting for however long it was going to take to buy one pot, even if I was made to feel special for a minute or two. 
So. That was a bust.
At Joann's I somehow managed to spend about a thousand dollars on three tiny strings of battery powered lights and a pattern and the material to make Maggie a flannel nightgown. And the lights were 60% off! 
Okay. It was not a thousand dollars but let's just say that this may well be the most expensive sleepwear that Maggie ever owns unless she buys her honeymoon trousseau at a couture house in Paris.
Of course I had to look at flannel for about half an hour and that's no joke. Despite the large selection, I could not find anything that I thought she would just love so I ended up getting her rooster printed cloth. 

Nothing says Christmas Cheer to a little girl quite like roosters, does it?

It is very soft. 

I better get started on that tomorrow. 

In Costco I realized that I could not find any fruitcakes. Do you understand what this means? It means that for me, any tiny shred or wisp or hope or sugarplum fairy of a dream of having a decent Christmas just flew out the window. If there are no Costco fruitcakes. 
I give up. 

I suppose I could make one. I mean, I have before. 
Sigh.

By the time I got my lunch this afternoon, it was almost four o'clock and I sat in my car in the parking lot of a sporting goods store next to Publix and ate a sandwich and realized that they were tearing up and tearing down a small piece of woods that separates the parking lot from a road. 

In the time it took me to eat a sandwich, the lot had been over halfway denuded. It was so depressing watching those giant T-Rex machines crunching their way through the trees, pulling and snapping giant pines as if they were blades of grass. I swear, the trees screamed as they left the dirt. I have no idea what they're going to build there but I'm sure it will be ugly. I have absolutely no right to complain because just a little way down the street is Moon Plaza which we built and which had also once been a patch of woods. It now houses a Dunkin' Donuts and a few other businesses. I'm as big a hypocrite as anyone on this earth and I know it. 

I swear to you- I never meant to live in Tallahassee. I moved here by accident, in a way, in 1974 and I've never gotten any farther away than Lloyd which is not very damn far. And Tallahassee may have had its charms forty-seven years ago but it's growing less charming every day. 

I'm so bitchy today. Also, tired. 

Well, here's a picture that Jessie just sent. They got their little living tree up and put up lights. It's a cheerful sight, for sure.

The wolf cubs seem happy with it. 

I'll try to be more cheerful tomorrow, y'all but I can't promise anything. 

Meanwhile...

Love...Ms. Moon

Gotta Love Her, She's The Mama

Well, it is December 12th, and you know what that means! 
No, no. It's not Keith Richards' birthday. Hold your horses. Slow your roll. Simmer down, now. 
It is, however, the feast day of our Lady of Guadalupe, aka La Reina de Mexico, aka Virgin of Guadalupe. The picture above is a sort of mash-up of the Virgin's image and an image of the Aztec goddess Tonantzan which many believe the Spanish Catholics appropriated and merged into a more acceptable sort of goddess for their particular brand of religion. They have a very lovely story involving a guy named Juan Diego and roses blooming in winter and a priest and the Lady's appearance and all of that kind of Catholic magic. 
I should not make light of this. I have very little doubt that Le Reina is far more popular and gets far more candles and prayers than her boy Jesus in Mexico. Everywhere you go in Mexico she is represented and in Mexico City the cathedral has its own feminine Shroud of Turin in the form of Juan Diego's cloak with her image imprinted on it where millions of people line up to gawk and worship and pray every year. 

I prefer the folk art renditions myself but that's just me. 

Lately I've been having serious thoughts about getting rid of some of the images of the Madonna around here. I have many, not just of our dear Lady of Guadalupe, but other versions of the so-called Virgin too. Some of which were given to me, some of which I've bought, some which I inherited when my darling Sue died. She did love a Holy Mother. I'm quite torn about the whole Madonna thing. On the one hand, there is not one damn thing wrong with having an affection for a loving mother image but on the other hand- that whole idea of her being a Virgin is so based in the fucking patriarchy that it makes me furious. 

And I can rationalize it by saying that to me, she represents not some holy virgin but a goddess, a woman, a mother, a representative of the spiritual and physical aspects of the divine female. 
Or something like that. 

It's funny how many posts I've written, not only about the Virgin of Guadalupe but about my many and various madonna images as well. So, so many. 

There's one here, if you'd like to read it, written seven years ago on this very date. 

Anyway, it's been a real bitch of a Sunday, filled with the angst of approaching Christmas, the fear that I'm living my life as if I'm just waiting to die, and wondering what, if any, meaning this life holds. 

You know- the usual. 

I need to go make supper so I'll end here. 

And happy birthday, or feast day, or whatever you Catholic people call it, to a little lady who has the heart of millions of fans throughout the world. I hear that even the Pope loves you! 

And hey- happy birthday, Tonantzan! You came first. Love you, Mama. 

Love to you all, too....Ms. Moon

We Had Visitors!

 Last night I finally had to go out to the garage to collect my husband for martini purposes. I am quite capable of making my own but I don't like to get started without him so I closed the chickens up, walked over to the garage, opened the door, walked through three bays and finally found him sitting in the engine well of one of the Camaros, fiddling with wires.
I laughed. 
"What are you doing?" I asked him. 
"Trying to figure out this damn wiring," he said. 
Well. Obviously.
He had no idea what time it was and in fact, had thought I was still asleep because when he'd left the house HOURS EARLIER I'd been taking a nap. 
"Lord, honey," I said. "I wasn't that tired."

Today was a good day. Jessie, August, and Levon came out to visit and since Jessie had told them in no uncertain terms that they would not be watching TV while they were here, not to even bother to ask, they asked immediately if we could read books. 
"You bet!" I said. 
But first they found the bag of fireball jawbreakers that their grandfather had bought on his journey back from Tennessee. Do not ask me why. Of course they HAD to try them, despite Jessie and I warning them. At first they shared one. 

Pretty soon the messiness of that operation overwhelmed us all and Levon got his own. Of course a few minutes after that, the real heat of the fireballs kicked in and they demanded water and soon after that they were easily persuaded to abandon the entire project. They were, however, delighted by their red tongues. 

And then there was some book reading and then some lunch and then we played cards. Also, August made his mother and me laugh a lot by demonstrating various varieties of snorting and inhaling. He can inhale so hard that his nostrils close, making him look somewhat like a snake. I did not, unfortunately, get a picture of that. 

All-in-all, it was completely delightful and I have missed seeing those guys so very much. They are funny and smart and they do love their Boppy and Mer and only part of that is because we spoil them to pieces. Well, not really. Just sort of. They know how much we love them and they respond to that. Same with Owen and Gibson and Maggie. I know I talk about this all the time but there truly is a special sort of bond between grandparents and grandchildren and it is a very grand thing. The knowledge children have that their grandparents just adore them has to make their hearts happy. 

It sure makes our hearts happy. 

Here's August's school picture. 

I love it so much! He chose that background himself. Little dude has a sense of style. 

In a way, school pictures are the greatest scam ever known. What kind of a parent doesn't buy school pictures of their precious babies? And who among us does not look back at those pictures and think, "Jesus Christ. Did I really look like that?"
Yes. Yes we did. 

And it's good to be reminded. It's good to remember how we looked and felt and were when we were so young. If we can. And in remembering, it makes our hearts so much more open and softer for our grandchildren, knowing what they have to go through, realizing that they too have deep thoughts and worries and dreams, even at that age because we did too. 

Well. As I so often say, that's enough of that. 

It's still warm, it's still humid, and I am still getting peppers galore. 

I am not complaining. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Quiet Life

This little one is a green tree frog. The color did not really come out very well and I do not know why. He's not nearly as brown as he looks there. He is clinging to the clothesline and I never in a million years would have seen him if I hadn't been hanging the laundry out today. They are native to this area and not rare but it's always lovely to see one. I love their little faces, their big eyes. There is a page HERE where you can listen to short snippets of their calls. 
Or, if you'd like, you can watch a Rated R very short film of what might be happening when you hear them calling. 

 

Sexy times with an intruder sneaking in for the prize. Poor little wooer guy. He sang his heart out and then... well, you watch if you want. Get out your hankie. 

Mr. Moon got in last night around 8:45. I was eating my supper and he walked into the Glen Den and I yipped and jumped up to hug him. He was home! He didn't shoot a Tennessee deer or a Tennessee anything but he did stock up on some Tennessee barbecue which is great because no one needs to clean it or cut it. It's done done, as we might say. And it is delicious. 
The cats were happy to see him, Jack presenting himself to be petted by the man and Maurice strolling by and pretending not to be interested in the fact that he was back. I think she is very glad he's home though. 
I know I am. 

Here's the other alpha male around here. Liberace. 
The lovely feathers you see on the back of him in front of his tail feathers are called saddle feathers. Makes sense. They refer to a "waterfall" of the saddle feathers. And the feathers around his neck are called hackle feathers. And there you go- yet one more expression we use based on chickens and/or their behavior. We all know what happens when Mama raises her hackles. When roosters are angry and in attack mode, they raise those feathers high, making themselves look bigger and fiercer. Liberace is not a really fancy rooster but I think his golden feathers are pretty and when the sun shines on them, they glow and glisten as if they'd been oiled. He's still growing his feathers out after his last molt and the tail feathers will get longer. He's a fine rooster, an excellent and very attentive watch guard for his flock, and always on the lookout, not only for potential threats but also for food. When he finds some, he makes his tid-bit call to tell the ladies that he's found treats and they run to see what he's got. And best of all- he's not a mean rooster. He's never so much as raised one hackle around us and he seems to treat the hens with loving care. 

A good rooster, like a good man, is a fine and mostly gentle thing. 

Well. This has turned into a nature lesson, has it not? I suppose that's because I really don't have much else to write about. I'm still not feeling so very well and took a nap this afternoon. I've left clothes on the line for overnight and that is something I never do. But they're not going anywhere. 

I hear the drummer at the church next door getting into his beat, car doors slamming, children calling out. Here we are on our own little plot of dirt, Friday night, maybe a martini won't kill me. It's warm and muggy, December in north Florida, frogs tuning up in the marsh down from the railroad tracks. I can almost feel the camellia buds swelling and opening in the dark, their leaves as green and glossy as the magnolia grandiflora. The ashe magnolias look like sticks now but they are as alive as anything could be, just taking their rest time as are the Japanese magnolias with their bare branches. Before I know it, they will be putting out their lavender-mauve buds, one of our heralds of spring. 
I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself there. But time flies so quickly. A blink, a nap, the season has moved on. 

This is the way it is. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

He'll Be Here Soon!

Here are the colors carpeting my back yard right now. Reds and yellows, oranges and golds. As much as I wish those trees were not there, I can't help but appreciate the beauty of their leaves when they fall. 

I am, as we speak, waiting for my husband to get home. He left Nashville this morning and should be pulling up pretty soon. And you know what? I'm a little nervous. 
After all these years together, all of these years and months and weeks and days and minutes...
There is still part of me that worries desperately that after being away for awhile he'll see me and think, "Nope. That's enough."

I am pretty sure that won't happen and yet, I am never one hundred percent sure that it won't. 
I sigh and chalk that up to my deep fear of abandonment, my equally deep fear that if someone really knows me, they cannot possibly love me. 

I'm going to go finish making the shrimp salad I picked the greens for earlier. I have no doubt that my cooking is worth sticking around for. Well, mostly. 

Talk to you tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon

From Here To There

This nice little brown anole posed so patiently for me this morning. I have a windowsill and nook where I have small plants transitioning from rootlings to growing in dirt which I think of as a nursery and almost every time I pass it I actually take the time to look at it, to check on the green babies to see how they're doing and today's little visitor made me happy. I would rather have seen a green anole but we are seeing fewer and fewer of those lately. Here's a good article about why. 

Sigh. 
It is absolutely inevitable that the invasive Burmese Pythons which are creating such havoc in the Florida Everglades will eventually be moving north and the day I see one of those motherfuckers in the wild is the day I...
I just don't even know. Scream? Move? You know a Burmese Python can eat a chicken. Hell, they can eat DEER! 

I did go shopping with Lily today. We went to Target. Since I was there last (and I have no idea when that was but I know I've only been once since covid started), they've redone the whole place. I was already completely disoriented and having a good old fashioned panic attack and that did not help. Poor Lily. She's having a difficult go of it right now and there she was in Target with her mother melting down like the bad witch from the west after having had a bucket of water thrown on her. I wasn't helping, to put it mildly. I did my best to pull up my big girl panties and get along with things and we managed to get the kids some presents despite the fact that the toy selection has already been been cut by what looked like half. The store wasn't packed but there were several traffic jams in that particular section. 
After we checked out we went to Welcome to Moe's! otherwise known as just Moe's. It was quite obvious that the staffing shortage has hit them hard. Things were NOT running smoothly and one of the burrito makers had a slight melt-down of her own while we were there. Still, every now and then a nice Moe's burrito is a fine thing. 

It has rained here off and on since yesterday and it actually got into the eighties today. I am NOT happy about the heat. I am also not very happy about the fact that I am still feeling unwell. I should not be surprised, I suppose, seeing how the kids have kept their colds, or whatever they are, for weeks now. I feel a little achy again today and tired, my sinuses seem to be unhappy. August is still coughing but has indeed now had a chest x-ray and he does not have pneumonia. I think I may go to bed early tonight. I'm getting close to finishing the book I'm reading ("Harlem Shuffle" by Colson Whitehead- very much recommend) and can't imagine anything much better than settling down with it and a cat. 
I talked to Mr. Moon last night and he asked me if Maurice was still alive. I sent him this picture this morning and said, "Here's your kitty."

She's been sleeping with me the past few nights. Unlike Jack who seems to want to merge his cat body with my hip, Maurice is quite happy to merely sleep on the pillow next to me which is absolutely representative of our relationship. She sort of wants to be near me but she doesn't really want to get into any of that mushy stuff. A little kiss on the lips now and then, a little ear-scratching, she's good. 

And as we all know, she makes her boundaries clear. 

Oh. Today is not only the date which marks the day I married my first husband 46 years ago, it is also the 41st anniversary of John Lennon's death. If the body remembers (and I am convinced that it does), it is no real wonder that I have struggled today. Both of those things affected my life in ways that will of course never end. I think back on the woman who experienced both a marriage at the age of 21 and the death of a beloved icon at the age of 26 and I barely recognize her from this distance but she is still inside of me, just as all of the ages of Mary are. Just as all of us hold all of the ages we've ever been inside of us. 

Well. 
I just felt like listening to this. Maybe you will too. 
As always on December 8th, I think of Yoko. And Sean, that beautiful boy. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Same-Same-Same As Almost Always

The house next door is coming up for sale and I wonder how that's going to turn out. The last people who lived there before the current owner, went upside down on their loan which they'd gotten during that horrible time when companies were begging for your business whether you had any money for a mortgage or not and they tried and tried to sell. Never could. I think they just ended up handing it over to the bank or whoever owned the mortgage by then, and moving on. 
It stayed empty for a very long time and it made me so sad because it's a fine house, not too big, not too small. The guy who ended up buying it started out so very gung-ho about living in Lloyd. He had many plans for the yard and possibly the house. I'm not sure. He did a lot of restoration with his father, I gather. He had ideas about getting rid of invasive plants and doing aquaculture and all kinds of other things on his small lot and these projects did see the light of day but I don't think any of them ever made it to fruition. 

I hear that now his girlfriend doesn't want to live so far from where she works in town so I guess it's their turn to move on. I'm sure he views me as the cranky old woman who lives next door and I don't blame him. After I welcomed him to the neighborhood, I proceeded to give him a rousing verbal beating for taking out one of my favorite camellias ever. He protested that: 
A. He wanted to concentrate on native plants in his yard, and
B. His mother actually cut it down. 

Harumph. Obviously I am still not over that. 

The other thing I did that no doubt pushed him over the edge when it came to me was when I went over one day and beat on his door when his band was practicing to ask him to please turn it down because I couldn't even think on my back porch because it was so loud. Or to at least shut the windows on the side of the house where they were practicing. 
I hated doing that. I've been around musicians practicing my entire adult life and I know how important it is and I hate beyond reason being such a bitch about such a cliched old-person complaint but I'd tolerated it as long as I could and then some before I walked over there and made my plea. 
He thanked me for not calling the police which shamed me terribly. I would NEVER do that as a first action when it comes to loud music. 
Anyway, he's actually been a good neighbor and I just wonder what the next neighbor will be like. 
Lis has always wanted that house. I think she's possibly wanted it since before we bought this one. What I wouldn't give to have her and Lon living there! But I don't think they'd leave Gatorbone in reality. Lis has come up with some grand schemes for us to buy it and turn it into an AirBnB but that sounds like way too much work for me. And do people really want to stay in a tiny village with no place to eat except for a Subway down near the interstate and a train track that goes through the backyard? 
Well, actually it goes through our backyard which is behind that backyard because our property is an oddly shaped T with arms that stretch behind that house and the church next door on the other side. 
Whatever. 
I cannot see running any sort of lodging establishment in my future. 

Anyway, that's the big news here. I got the hen house cleaned out and some weeding and more thinning done and then...it began to rain! 
Glory, glory. 

I'm beginning to wonder if my husband is ever coming home. I suppose he is. He hasn't come up with a return-date yet. I hope it's this year. I miss him. I mean, everything's fine. And I really want him to enjoy that part of his life- the being-outside-with-other-guys part of his life that he loves so much, that brings so much joy to him. 

Well, here's a loaf of bread I'm baking. 

And three nice eggs in a nest. 

And lastly, a hen in a tree. 

I know. Terrible picture. Hard to see. But that's my dear Bella, the only hen in that last clutch of hatched eggs. She still refuses to go to bed in the roost with the rest of the chickens. I don't think she ever will feel comfortable enough to sleep with them. 

Which makes me very sad. 

Stay tuned for my possible report tomorrow evening. I MAY be going Christmas shopping with Lily. 

Hoo-boy. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Tiny Trip Out Into The World

I took that photo this morning when I went to let the chickens out of the coop. The light was filtering through the air so beautifully that I had to at least try to catch it and I'm not displeased with how it came out. 

It's been a good day but I am filled with a certain sense of melancholy here at the end of it. I very much enjoyed my lunch with Liz, and Jessie got to come and join us. Both Jessie and my daughter May have lived with Liz at different points in their lives. She is beloved by all of my children. She was even with me when I had Jessie. There is no one like her. She's been all over the place in the last year. Her mother is from England- was a war bride- and Liz took her over last summer and helped her in her garden and her cottage. Before that, she'd nursed and tended her after a broken hip. As she was relating adventures with Mom Care, I turned to Jessie and said, "Are you taking notes?"
Ooh boy. 
The Tom Kha Gai soup was absolutely delicious and I drank every molecule of it. I also got a salad and it was good too but nothing compared to the soup. I have got to start making my own. I should start growing lemongrass again which I did in the yard of the last house we lived in before this one. The only problem with it was that it got huge! It became far more of a dramatic ornamental plant than an herb. But it was growing in direct sun which it definitely would not be here in Lloyd. 

After lunch I went to Publix and then stopped into Costco briefly where I couldn't find the things I wanted and didn't feel like wandering the aisles aimlessly so I took my grape tomatoes and checked out and left and drove home. I was tired by that time. And, as I said, a bit melancholy. I think perhaps that I am becoming a little too used to being alone which is not really good for me. I noticed at lunch and while shopping that I was doing some dissociation and had to work hard to keep my mind in my head and connecting with what was being said and was going on. I think I was a little quiet. Maybe not. And it's ridiculous to be that stressed out, eating lunch with one of my oldest friends and with my daughter. It's a strange thing, a strange experience. The more I silently advise myself to "be normal," "pay attention," the more I think about the fact that I am not being normal or paying enough attention. Which only makes things worse and I begin to feel like an alien in human skin. But I knew that it was okay, that Liz and Jessie do love me, even if I have lost every social skill I ever had which were never abundant to begin with. 

Shopping was the same. Feeling as if I was up somewhere near the ceiling, unsure of what in hell I was doing there, but I clutched my list and my pen and checked things off as I went in Publix, and in Costco, I just could not concentrate but that's okay. I know it really is. We will live without maple syrup or pecans in the pantry to replace the ones we are about to run out of. 

A little while ago the setting sun painted the sky to the west that intense red-gold pink that somehow the iPhone camera just cannot pick up but now it's dark. The chickens are in the roost and it is very quiet. A few frogs are chirping behind the railroad tracks, begging for rain, I am sure. We are in need of it. 

And please know that I am not lonely. I am quite content. This is just all part of who I am and I am way past the point of worrying about it overmuch. Tomorrow I need to clean out the chicken coop, take the trash, stop by the post office, and do a little more weeding if I feel like that. I have an incredible life and soon my husband will be home. Despite having to haul my mind back to reality the way one would tug on the string of a balloon, I had a wonderful time at lunch. 

All is well here in Lloyd for me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Simplicity

This, my darlings, is a sea-foam camellia. It doesn't even look exactly real, does it? I think it looks as if it were made of meringue. As if it might melt on your tongue. I have a few other white camellias and they are lovely but none compare to the sea-foam. 

Here's another beauty. 

After doing a guided search, I think this one may be a Shirotama-Hoshu variety. Can you see the differences? 
Of course you can. 

I had another day of staying home. I felt when I woke up as though I'd been living an entire other life so I was content to be back within the walls of daytime reality. Such a dream it had been! I would be too embarrassed to relate it although it really wasn't very wicked. In some ways it was rather sweet and every time I've thought about it today, it's made me smile. So that was amusing. 

I did some more mending on my overalls and watched some more TV. Because the overalls are white, I have thrown them in bleach loads forever and now I wish I hadn't because in a few places the fabric has become weakened to the point of tearing like paper. But I'm doing my best to fix them up and as I sewed today I finished watching a rather distressing movie that I started last night. "The Closer" with Julia Roberts and Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen. 

Natalie Portman plays a stripper, Julia Roberts plays a photographer who cries a lot, everyone plays people who cheat and lie, tell the truth, and fall in and out of love (and not in a comedic way but in a tragic way) except for Natalie, the stripper, who is the most honest and forthright about her actions. 
It was...interesting. To a degree. 

Here are some more pictures I took while having a yard walk-around. 

The Japanese maple continues to enchant me. Soon, it will be naught but a carpet of scarlet on the ground. 

The Bradford pears are coloring up nicely and have grown so large that they over-droop the roof. 
Dammit.
Every year we promise ourselves that this is the winter we shall cut them down. Seventeen years later, the job has only become far more difficult. If we did cut them down (and they are an invasive, non-native species and no, we did not plant them) we could possibly grow some dang citrus trees back there. 

Mr. Moon and I will be discussing this more when he gets home. He seems to be very happy in Tennessee. That is his Roseland as he was raised near Nashville. It's strange in that my parents were both from Tennessee, although I was born in El Paso. My mother and father were raised on Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga. I believe the story goes that they met in first grade and my father vowed then he would marry my mother and although this sounds like a charming story, it probably would have been best for all concerned if he'd completely ignored her for the 12 years of their education. No, I would never have been born but then again- so what? It's not like I would have known, much less cared.  

But that's another story and it's been told before. The point is, is that my husband is enjoying his time where he grew up with people that he knew in high school and I am happy for that. I know how important it is to visit the places where we were rootlings, where we were born and cradled, and learned most of what we know, whether we are aware of that or not. 

I have plans tomorrow to actually leave Lloyd and go meet Liz of the West for Tom Kha Gai soup which is one of my very favorite foods on earth and if that magical soup and getting to visit and be with magical Liz doesn't heal me, there is no hope for me. It will have been a week since I've left the house to go farther than the dump which is about a block away. 

Tonight's menu is leftover spicy mustard shrimp with rice with yet another salad from the garden. The one I made last night was absolutely one of the best things I've ever eaten. The mixed greens including mustards and arugula with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic and grated parmesan is something I imagine I will remember fondly on my death bed. It was that good. 

I wish I could make that salad for all of you. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Home Alone

(Although this makes it look as if I am mending the overalls I am wearing, I am not. I have two identical pairs of them. I am wearing one and patching the other.)

This is what most of my day looked like. This virus sucks donkey dicks. I felt worse today than the previous days. And it is apparently never-ending as all of the children who have had it are still producing snot in award-winning amounts. I joined their ranks today, finding the one box of Kleenex in the house and using sheets and sheets of it. 

August is doing a little bit better. He did not end up at a doctor's office today or an ER but instead his mama took him to the campsite where they had planned to be for the weekend and where Vergil and Levon are, along with some other friends. This is what he looked like this morning. 

Poor little guy. He was being cheerful about it all though, playing Uno with his mama. 
If anyone had asked me to play Uno I would have wept. I just haven't felt like doing a damn thing. I did watch a movie on Netflix that's been getting buzz as they say. Jane Campion's latest, "The Power of the Dog." It's set in Montana circa 1920's but was filmed in New Zealand where Campion is from. The set reminded me of "The Dressmaker" which was filmed in Australia and as much as I tried to make those mountains look like Montana, they just did not. Still, it was a pretty amazing movie. If the the lead actors in the film don't get some pretty serious Oscar nods I'll be surprised. Campion, too. And honestly, I'd watch it again. It's the kind of movie where, as the credits roll, you're asking yourself what just happened there?
Lots of intense subtlety. 
(And this is why I don't review films.)

So. What else? 
Oh yeah- this morning I woke myself up by biting my damn tongue. I think I've mentioned that I do this sometimes. And this time it was as if Satan had thrust a flame thrower into my mouth. I mean...DAMN! And it's bothered me all day. I guess I'll start wearing my oh-so-sexy-and-attractive teeth guard again along with my even-more-so-sexy-and-attractive wrist brace because my left wrist, the one that's not been right since I fell of a roof and broke it when I was seventeen, has been waking me up too. Weeding and sewing are two of the things that aggravate it the most and those are the only two things I've been doing for the most part. I'm not even sure the brace helps but it makes me feel as if I'm trying, at least. 

Too bad Mr. Moon isn't around to enjoy the hotness that is his old lady. 

In technical news I am pleased to report that I figured out how to get the assistance for the blind function off one of our remotes. We have two remotes. The short one and the long one. That's all I can tell you about that. I use the long one for Netflix and the short one for everything else but somehow, some way, it had acquired a monotone voice explaining everything that was going on. First I tried to get rid of it by using the mic function button and saying, "Get rid of the weird, creepy voice."
"Thinking, thinking," the little twirling circle said. 
Rather unbelievably, that did not work. 
And then I figured it out ON MY OWN and I felt like Steve Jobs or something. So no more creepy voice but now something else is going on with the short remote so I'm just not using it. There's plenty to watch on Netflix. Right?

Yeah. That's enough of that. 

I guess I'll go make some supper. I'm not even that hungry but it'll be something to do. I haven't completely lost my appetite with this annoying bug. Of course. 
Because I'm not dying. Merely a bit pitiful. But not deserving of pity, trust me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Could Someone Bring Me Some Of Kool Beanz Fried Oysters And Cheese Grits? Please?

Well, whether due to Blogger issues or my own internet connection, I cannot seem to post pictures tonight. 
Not a big deal- trust me on that one. You've seen pictures of my sheets hanging on the line and my cat Maurice sitting on my lap more times than I'm sure you'd care to count. 

It's been a slow day. After yesterday's feeling of escaping the bulk of the bug it has resettled in my body, making itself at home and filling in the spaces. My skin hurts again, I am chilly. My knees are not having it. This is one strange virus. Maggie is still snuffling and truthfully, the others are all still snotty and coughing. August may be going to the ER tomorrow to see if he has pneumonia. He is constantly coughing and no, it is neither covid nor the flu. The child's had more tests than Keith Richards has guitars. Jessie took him to the doctor today and they gave him a breathing treatment and a four-day course of steroids and he is still coughing and now appears to be running a little fever again. 

Sigh. 
My poor little man. 
My own bout appears to be mostly up in my head and it's really not bad but I certainly did not feel like mopping a damn thing today. Instead I hung my sheets on the line and did a little weeding which is not a strenuous activity. I mean, all I'm doing is crawling around and kneeling, plucking the tiniest of weeds and doing some thinning. Not nearly enough of that, of course. And I didn't even get through all the rows before I struggled to my feet and said, "Fuck this," and came back inside. 

I'm not even sure what I've done today but very little of anything. There are clean sheets on the bed that smell of sun. That is a good thing. 

Trying to wrack my brain to find anything interesting to talk about, write about, but nothing springs to mind. It's one of those days. My brain has gone into hiding, perhaps lying down and resting on whatever passes for sun-dried, clean sheets in the soul. The folks at the church next door are gathering for their Friday night service. I can hear the distant traffic on the interstate, almost a lulling river. The chickens have been shut up in their roost, I think about all of the Friday nights that Mr. Moon and I went out together, dressed up and fancy with sparkly eyes and mischief in mind, my silver bracelets singing their own tinkling, metallic song as I moved. I sort of want to think about that and I sort of don't. So many of the people we'd see on those Friday nights are gone now and some merely disappeared, no doubt stay-at-homers like we are in our older age, too comfortable in the peace and quiet of wherever it is they live and sleep and dream to want to step out into the lights and noise. Even the lure of my favorite restaurant where we used to sit at the bar watching the chefs do their flaming magic on Friday nights is not enough to drag me out. I can't possibly deal with that many people in that close a space. 
But oh- their food. And of course it's open for lunch but somehow it's not quite the same, is it? 

But what is? I am quite happy to let another couple, a younger couple, sit in our seats at that bar and revel in the sights and sounds and smells and heavenly tastes. And tonight, alone, I will make myself a good supper and enjoy it and when I fall asleep and dream I may dream as I so often do, of those I have loved and will never see again. 
I dreamed the other night of my friend, Kathleen, gone now for almost seven years (can that be?) and as always, she was not dead in the least, but alive and living a rather different life and because I could always say anything to Kathleen, I said, "But darling. I know you died. I remember. How can you be here now? Where have you been?"
She sort of sighed and shrugged and I could tell that she didn't want to talk about it. 
So we didn't. 

And so it goes. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Taking My Time While I Have It

Another perfectly beautiful day here in North Florida, a little warmer but nowhere near hot. Mr. Moon kissed me good-bye around seven and I went back to sleep for awhile, Jack keeping watch by my feet. I lazed around after I got up, drinking coffee and catching up on news and doing the crossword.

I do not want to discuss what's going on with the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade. 
I do not. I probably will eventually but now is not the time. 

Aside from that, all has been well today. Surprisingly, I have felt much better. Whereas yesterday my skin and joints all hurt and ached, I have not been much bothered by any of that today. I have an occasional cough that tells me that something is still going on but it's really not bad. In fact, I got a lot done today, slowly, and happily. 
Last night I noticed that my shower floor was really overdue for some bleaching and scrubbing. So I did my tile-cleaning trick and coated it all with Clorox toilet cleaner which somehow seems so wrong but it works nicely and it's a thick gel so it stays where you put it for the most part. I let that sit for a few hours and then I scrubbed it with an old broom, rinsed it off and I won't say it's spotless because it isn't but it's better. 
Now. Speaking of brooms. I am almost ashamed to admit this but after a lifetime of being a staunch advocate of traditional wood-handled and broomstraw brooms, the heavier the better, I have quietly and happily relinquished them all to an O-Cedar Power Corner angle broom. 
Not only is it lightweight but it just does a better job. 
It is certainly a less environmentally friendly product and for that I feel somewhat guilty. But I'm using it and I love it and that's that. 

I finally got the kitchen and the bathroom off of it swept and mopped. Twice for each of those. One mopping would have done nothing but spread the dirt around. It was a sin. And I still wouldn't eat off of it (who eats off a kitchen floor?) but it's a lot better. It felt good to toss out the last of Thanksgiving's feast-making and foot-traffic with the mop water. And of course now my kitchen smells like Fabuloso and white vinegar which is next to godly in a way, representing cleanliness as they do. I watered my porch plants and I washed some of the throw rugs. 

It all feels good although of course I haven't even begun to touch all of the true housecleaning that needs to go on here but I've honored the old house a little bit and I think I will enjoy my time alone even more having attended to it even in this small way. 

I was thinking today about the only time, I suppose, I lived alone. I was nineteen, twenty? I had moved to Tallahassee and was living in an old house near FSU (long since torn down) with my dear, darling friend Paula and a precious guy named Bruce and then they graduated and were moving so I had to find a new place to live. 
I had started a relationship with the guy who was to become my first husband but he lived over two hundred miles away and I generally only saw him on the occasional weekend when one of us would make the trip and so there it was- the prospect and opportunity of living on my own. 
I was scared and excited, both. 
I found an apartment next door to my friends, the Whartons, in an old, old house that had been turned into three separate apartments. It was spit-close to the railroad track (although probably not quite as close as I am now) and it was shaded and enshrouded with pecan trees and old oaks, moss hanging off them like Rip Van Winkle's beard. There was a huge front porch that I shared with my apartment-next-door neighbor, a very odd woman that I still think of frequently. It would take a tome to describe her and her eccentricities, her strange and weird ways. But she was fine as a neighbor except for the times when I'd wake up to find her in my kitchen, which was about two feet from where my bed was, drinking my coffee. 
Well. Those were hippie days and we had our hippie ways. 
The apartment was a true shotgun arrangement with the living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom all in a line from front to back. No hallways, just doorways. 
A flautist lived upstairs with her beautiful and very good boyfriend, a man named Tommy who played the trumpet. Lisa was flamboyant and brash in the manner of Janis Joplin, Tommy was soft-spoken and sweet. Their cat used to jump through my bathroom window and shit in my shower. 
One time I found a snake curled up on my stove. My landlord had no problem walking in my front door whenever he felt like it. I don't remember any closets. And yet, I look back on that time, that place with such fondness. It's like looking back on a dream with edges blurred. I can remember lying in my bed, looking out the windows at the sky through the oak and pecan trees, wondering where I would be going from there. To what? And with whom? I was so desperate for love but now, in retrospect, in hindsight, I realize that my best moments there were the ones when I was single, alone on my own for the very first, and mostly last, time. 

My then-boyfriend eventually moved to Tallahassee and moved in with me and began playing in a band with Bill Wharton. We are all still friends. That old house with three apartments burned down and a different apartment house is there now. A brick one, I believe. It's still set under the trees, still right next to the railroad track. When I drive past it, I can feel a shiver, a sliver of a ghost of the me who was still so unformed, so young and so malleable. 

Well. There you go. But just as then, I still live in a very old house with a very nice front porch. I am still surrounded and sheltered by oaks and pecans, and when a train goes by my house shakes, just as that one did. I never wake up to find anyone sitting in my kitchen drinking coffee and I do have love and a whole tribe of my own. I am so much older now and I'd like to think wiser but who knows?
Not me. 
Here are a few pictures. 

One of my aloes is blooming. 

Isn't she a glory? 

This little girl is very worried about her daddy human being gone. I tried to tell her that he'll be coming back but she meowed piteously through my attempt to reassure her as if to say that words are meaningless and she is not happy. His lap and his chair are where she loves to be, safe and protected. 
I understand. 
But we'll be okay on our own for a few days. I promised her that. I wish she could believe me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Exciting Life In Lloyd

 Well, Day 2 of the cold or whatever it is. I keep vaguely wondering if I should go get tested for Covid which I have never done once but let's face it- I have what both Jessie's and Lily's family had/has. And they have been tested and it's not covid.

Here's a text exchange between Hank and me from today.

It has occurred to me that this will not be the first time I've gotten sick right before Mr. Moon has left to go off hunting in a far-away land. I know it's happened at least once or twice. Never VERY sick, just a little bit sick. Enough to make me want to stay home and hunker down under the duck. I am well aware that this may have a bit of a psychosomatic element to it. But I don't think it's because I don't want him to go. I think it's just that I want to stay home and have a decent excuse not to go out into the world.
Or, I could be overthinking once again and it's simply that my body finally fell prey to the cold bug that I've been exposed to repeatedly over the past few weeks. I wouldn't doubt that my husband is coming down with it too but he'll just deal with it and go to Tennessee anyway. That's the sort of guy he is. Me? I'm like, "Nope, can't go to lunch. I'm sick."

Here's another text of a text screenshot that Lily sent to us all yesterday.

It's from Gibson's teacher to Lily. We are all so proud of our boy! He's always been a very good speller and since he learned the sounds that letters make, he's tried to figure out the spelling of words. I'll tell you something about Gibson- that boy is smart. I don't think we realize the depths of his intelligence yet but one day, we will. 

Despite my so-called illness, I managed to make the cookies and bread for Mr. Moon to take with him. I have figured out a way to proof my sourdough in winter. 

We keep the house pretty cool- around 65 degrees- and so dough-rising is a sluggish affair. BUT, if you turn a heating pad on warm, wrap it in a towel, and then wrap all of that around your dough bowl, it works a treat. 
Follow me for more household tips.  

So that's been the day. Did a little mending, did a little laundry, did a little baking, did a little self-pitying. Dottie came back to the porch again but she didn't stay very long. She didn't have time to chat today, I guess. It's sad when your hen has a busier social life than you do. Then again, the social life of chickens appears to be never-ending and I could not deal with that. 

Stay warm, stay well, stay sane. 
Love...Ms. Moon