Evening Song

Today has been the opposite of yesterday. It has been quiet and I have rested and I have renewed. I walked, I hung my laundry including the sheets which are now tucked tightly on my bed, waiting for me. I watered my porch plants, I gathered eggs, I took last night's trash and recycle down to the trash depot, I sent Mr. Moon off to Orlando, I worked in the yard.
It has been lovely, this day of rest and renewal.
In the quiet and peace I found treasures in my yard and I consider this one to be my Birth-Day present:

Doesn't look like much, does it?
Well. It is. For me. To me. It is the first bloom of the giant begonia I started from one leaf two summers ago. I was just wondering the other day if it would ever bloom. All the begonias I've ever had have had a bloom- where was the giant begonia's? And here it is. Tiny and unimpressive to the eye. It may grow larger. I do not know. But I am delighted at its appearance today.
Here's another present:

My Easter lily, or should I say, my "Easter" lily? Finally it has opened. I believe that Lily may have given me this lily. I've been watching it every day, patiently waiting for it to bloom. And today it did.

The thing I believe I have enjoyed most today was finally weeding and clearing out the place where I wanted to plant zinnias. I am so ashamed- I should have planted those tiny winged seeds two months ago. I hope they will forgive me and make something of themselves despite my tardiness in giving them to the dirt. The first seeds I ever planted were zinnia seeds that my grandmother had in a glass bottle and although I checked them every day, they never sprouted. I think they might have been many years old, those seeds.
But today I weeded and broke up the earth, the chickens very curious and coming to see what I was doing, and I spread a little composted chicken shit and then laid down leaves for mulch and brushed them aside to make a place to plant the seeds (a dark gash of earth) and I mixed the contents of three different types of zinnias from their packages into one and I so carefully placed them in the shallow indented row I made with my forefinger. Then I patted the dirt back over them and have set the sprinkler on and am hoping for the best. Summer will be with us for quite awhile and zinnias are summer plants and so I have hope.
I do.

I have been gardening for over thirty years and yet strangely, I feel like a novice; every year a new adventure, a different experiment in how to grow flowers and food. Isn't that odd? You would think I would know how to do it, what to do, and the best way to do it, wouldn't you? And yet, no.

There are so many different factors every year. The lateness of winter or the early arrival of spring. The bugs we have one year are different than the ones we have other years. So are the fungi and other plant diseases. One year the cucumbers may thrive while another they hardly do a thing. My peas this year have been a vast disappointment and the collards bolted so early, despite spring's long, unusual coolness. Why? I do not know. Half my garden right now is filled with bolted things- lettuces and the collards, mustards and even the radishes. I need to clear it out. And I will. It's just hard to let it go, for some reason. Hard to be ruthless with something still green, even if it's gone bitter and to seed.

But every year I hope to learn something new. Every year we hope to improve the dirt with composted shit and leaves for mulch. Every year is a new beginning. A new lesson. A brand, spanking new experience.

Sort of like raising children- just because you know how to raise one, doesn't mean shit when it comes to the next.

Believe me.

When I finished the last bit of the zinnia row and patted it like I'd pat a baby's bottom and turned on the sprinkler, I walked around with my camera for a bit.
Here are some different hydrangea, their blooms just beginning to turn color:

There are blue and pink and purple hydrangea, already showing like pieces of the sky in the different hours of the day in Lloyd, but mine are shaded and so are slow in coming. Shade makes many blossoms shy but what are you going to do? Cut down the oak trees? I don't think so.

Here's another. It's a fancier version. The tiny white blossoms dance around the inner blue ones. I'll show you what it looks like in a week or two. It will be different.

My chickens continue to delight and amaze me. Every day. They line up to be let out in the mornings and spend their day either in busy scratching or in rest under bushes or a shed. Jessie and I went out today and we didn't see them but when we went into the front yard, there they were, rushing us to see what we might bring them. They rarely go into the front yard so we were surprised to see them. We lured them back to their coop where Jessie had taken the rinds of the watermelon and cantaloupe and strawberry tops I'd cut up earlier. And Hank- that watermelon is TASTY! Elvis made his throat call after tasting the bounty to call the hens to treats. I never get tired of watching them, these social, intelligent creatures who give me such pretty eggs every day.

Miss Bob of whom I rarely speak. She is a quiet hen and just goes about her day but she is a pretty thing.

Daffodil and Luna The Cat, both wishing I would fill up the bowl with cat food. I had no idea that chickens and cats could co-exist so peacefully. Who knew? Not me. But now I do.

And now it's getting dark and those chickens have tucked themselves up into bed and I need to go out and shut their door against predators and turn off the sprinklers. I am filthy dirty and need a shower. There's an Amy's pizza in the freezer I am going to make for my supper. Why not? No one here but me. I'll cook some peppers and garlic and onions and chop up some tomatoes to put on it before I put it into the oven. It will be GOURMET frozen pizza.
I might watch some TV as I eat it.
I will not be watching the last episode of "24" which even my beloved NPR has been talking about today. I've never watched one minute of that show and so what would be the point? A show where they torture people? Oh, maybe there is more to it than that but I'm pretty sure it's not for me.

The crickets are singing and a distant dog is barking. Beside that, it is quiet.

Thirty-two years ago right now my baby May was just over twelve hours old. She was fussy that night. I remember. I stayed up with her and sang her songs and nursed her. I remember that well. I looked into her eyes and wondered who this soul was whom I had just given birth to. I wonder if the descendants of the crickets I hear now are the same ones who sang that night. They must be.

I had made a dinner the night she was born of peas and potatoes from our garden and chicken baked in the oven with barbeque sauce. I remember that.
There are potatoes in my garden right now and a few peas. A few.

I am alone with these memories and the knowing that I have had a good and peaceful day, the knowing that after all of these years I don't know squat about gardening and yet, was trusted with the lives of four children.

Amazing.

Grace.

Holy Moley, Mother of God

Okay. It was some party. And I think that we need a house with BIGGER ROOMS because (a) everyone ends up in the kitchen, and (b) thirteen adults, one small child and two babies are hard to fit into one dining room.

Uncle Hank, Waylon, Jason, Owen, Lily.
In the kitchen.

Owen discovers his first man-crush. He is in love with Harley.

Shayla smiles through the chaos. Waylon is a bit taken aback by it all. (Me too, Way-Way)

This is a fun picture of Billy and his boy but I wish I'd gotten one of Waylon trying to suck his daddy's head completely off his body.

A taste of the chaos in the dining room. And Owen was doing his Orca impression the entire time. That boy has a set of lungs on him. After supper we set him down on the floor where he used the entire dining room as an obstacle course and crawled in and out of chair legs and under tables (there were three) to suddenly appear standing up in a new location across the room.

May, Billy, Bio-Dad, Other-Mother, Hank. For some reason, the passing of the butter was of intense interest to all.

Bountiful goodness.

And picture at the top of the post? No description needed.

Happy birthday, my love. Happy birthday. I hope you slept well. I hope you have a gloriously peaceful day. I'll talk to you soon.

P.S. Kids- you did a GREAT job of cleaning up. Hurray!
P.P.S. Why is there not one picture of Jessie? What's up with that?
Oh yeah. Because before Lily left I said, "Let's get a sibling picture," and everyone said, "MOM! You got one at Mother's Day."

So here's one we took on Mother's Day which Jessie is in. And where Owen is crying. See? He does cry. And manages to look cute.

Wondering

I am thinking of something I wrote this morning about May's name being tattooed in my womb. It seems to me that it might be something I read on Maggie May's blog and my brain kept it and gave it back to me as mine.
If that is true- Maggie- forgive me.
If I did steal it, it was unintentional and it could only have happened because it struck me with such force.
But I would hate to think I did such a thing. If I did.

Walking Life Into Being

It's hot, y'all. And muggy. And I have a birthday party to make. Two key lime pies with gingersnap crust and whipped cream on top. Shish kabobs of shrimp and vegetables and venison. I need to squeeze limes, I need to marinate venison. I need to peel shrimp.
And I'm stuck in this heat, this almost underwater of a day, stuck back in time, thirty-two years ago, when I spent a day just like today walking purposefully in my yard, slowly, slowly, with the beginning pains of labor. The ones that make you think, "Oh yes. Thank-you. This baby is going to come soon." The ones that make you think, "I remember this. But I do believe it'll be easier this time." The ones that allow you to smile and talk and think and just be so damn grateful the train has left the station, finally and at last.
I had done everything to get that labor started because my water had broken the day before. I had run down the dirt road. I had worked hard. I had had hysterics when my son ran away while I was taking a nap and my then-husband got distracted and lost sight of him long enough for him to wander down the driveway, down the road, naked as a jaybird with the two bulldogs by his side having an adventure. I had drunk gallons of the nastiest tasting black cohosh tea on earth.
Finally, like a car being pushed uphill which has finally made it to the top of the rise, the tides of labor had begun and I walked.
Grateful, grateful, grateful.
Our little community was small then. People kept checking in on me all day. A neighbor friend brought a box of raspberry Danni Bars which were a delicious chocolate-covered frozen yogurt treat. Where did Danni Bars go?
Everyone was happy I was finally in labor. A new baby was coming. A friend had lent us a cradle. A friend had made a mobile to go over it. Midwife friends checked in on me throughout the day. My sister-friend Lynn had come to collect Hank- his first time away from me. I trusted no one but Lynn with my first baby child.

And we walked, that husband I had then, and I. I never have been able to sit or lie down when pain overcomes me. I try to walk away from it, which doesn't exactly work, but it helps me.

That's what I was doing all those years ago. Waiting for a baby whom I thought would surely be a boy but who turned out to be a girl who, even when she was a toddler, demanded to wear dresses and changed her outfit many times a day to be more appropriate for every activity of her day. Not a boy at all. A dark-haired girl baby who came scrunched up and wailing.
But that wasn't until the next day.
Her actual birth-day.
But thirty-two years ago today, I walked through the heat and stopped when my belly contracted and wondered who I was about to birth and wanted it to get harder and didn't want it to get harder but knew it would have to and surrendered to the process of getting this new life here as I breathed and I walked in the heat of a day much like this one and I am there in my mind so strongly that it's as if I'm really there. Some trick of time and space. Some illusion born of heat and memory.
And it's still so powerful that I am crying as I write this.
My May was about to be born and as I waited my body worked, I walked on the clay-red earth of the yard where I lived, a few miles down the road from right here and my heart still turns over in the heat of this day, remembering the heat of that day as I walked and I waited and tonight I will see that girl, that May Ellen girl and we will all of us- her sisters, her brother, her nephew, her daddies, her other-mother- we will celebrate her birth, her being-here, her beauty, her grace, her miraculous place in this world right here, right now, thirty-two years ago, all of it and my heart is breaking with remembering.
I love her so much, that girl. That sweet dancing girl who loves to walk now herself on her strong, fine legs, through the heat and the cold, through her life that began thirty-two years ago and my heart beats her name and my legs remember that walking as I go to the kitchen to squeeze limes, break eggs, crush cookies, make pies for that girl whose name is tattooed in my womb and whose light kept coming to me before I knew I was pregnant. I swear it did. A presence of light I would catch in the corner of my vision and that's how I knew I was pregnant- that light.
Her name is May and she came in light and she walks in light and that is who she is, who I held in my belly in that heat on that day and before I knew her name, before I knew her face, I knew her light and in this perfect world of heat today, it shines on me as brightly as it ever did and knowing her has been and will always be, as it has been with all of my children, the greatest miracle, the most profound lesson, the ultimate joy of my life.

The Best Part

I had another good long day ending with the people you see in the pictures. And thus- Wheel of Murder is DONE!
But the best part, the very best, best, BEST part is that Kathleen, the lady you see sitting on the far left in the picture above, felt better today than she has in ages. You have no idea how much I have been worrying about that girl. She is one of those people whom my life depends on.
And she has not been feeling well for quite some time. But today, she had energy. And she stayed for the entire performance and at the end of it, we gave her flowers. And when I left the Opera House, she was drinking champagne.
My heart is happy. The other people in the picture are Marcy, Angie and Rich. I have spoken of them before and you can be sure I will speak of them again.


Blind Boy Larry.


Sweet Caleb who found his character when he bought a tube of Brylcreem. At the Winn Dixie. Of course.


Glamorous, gorgeous Stephanie.


Her husband (in real life), Jon. One of the finest actors I would ever hope to work with. Jon and Stephanie are the parents of Little Colin who is a beautiful and fine young man who has allowed me to hold him during rehearsals.


Ron (who always says, "Mary is special!") and our dear Jack.

Danni and Judy. Danni played three roles: Maybelline the make-up girl, Terry the Tech Girl, and The Sexy Sign Girl. She is awesome. And Judy, the co-director who is fierce and funny. And also awesome.


Danni and Jan, who played Wilamennia Gummershlacker. I have no idea how to spell either of those names. Sorry. But believe me- there could never be a better Wilamennia Gummershacker in the world. No matter how you spelled it.


And some of the ladies in the kitchen with whom I had the very best time. Leslie, Georgia and Denise. Georgia I have spoken of and Denise is half of the team of Carrie Ann and Co. which does catering deluxe in Monticello and in the worlds surrounding us.
Leslie, on the left, works for Denise and Carrie Ann.
You couldn't have more fun than working with these ladies.

All right. I'm about to go to bed. And last night I went to bed with the tallest bartender in Florida. Tonight I will be going to bed with the tallest bartender in the world.
Jack said so. I believe it. And that's that.

Sweet dreams, y'all.

And Kathleen- please. Just keep feeling better.

Another Blogoversary

According to my Dashboard thingee this is my 1,493rd post.
It is also the third anniversary of this blog.
My first anniversary post was here.

My second was here.

And this is my third and if you click back on those links you'll see that the picture above is now my TRADITIONAL ANNIVERSARY PICTURE!
Tradition is important, don't you think?

Three years later and that picture still tickles my funny bone and I love having a reason to reuse it.

And I suppose I could get all nostalgic here and review my year and tell you what all this blog has meant and does mean to me but I'm not in the mood. Nope. I am not.
I think I write that daily anyway.

But here's what I think I will do. I'll give a little autobiography of myself for any of you who haven't been reading very long. Why not? Here goes.

I am a fifty-five (soon to be fifty-six) year old woman who lives in a village named Lloyd in North Florida. I have four children who are grown, one son, three daughters. I have a husband named Mr. Moon who is almost seven feet tall whom I have been married to for twenty-five and a half years and with any luck, I will be married to for another twenty-five and a half years. I have one grandchild, a boy named Owen. I am incredibly lucky in that I get to keep him a few days a week.

I live in a house which is one hundred and fifty one years old. That is old for North Florida. I love my house. It is my dream house. It has four porches. There are oak trees in my yard which are probably hundreds of years old. They are huge. If I had my way, when I die my body would be wrapped up in an old sheet and buried under one of them. Nothing would make me happier.

I love my life. It is my dream life.
I love my children and my grandchild so much that it is almost a sacrilege to discuss it. Same with my husband.

I do not love my four dogs but they are mine and some day they will die.

I have chickens. I love my chickens.
I have friends. I love my friends.
I am slightly agoraphobic. I have a hard time leaving Lloyd. I feel safe and protected and needed here on my tiny piece of land with my garden and my plants and my chickens and my husband. Sometimes, though, I leave to drive to Monticello which is the only real town in the county I live in and I go there to do things at the Opera House which brings me great joy. Sometimes I act in plays. Other times I serve dinners. Whatever. It's all lovely to me. The people at the Opera House whom I play with are some of the best people I have ever met in my life.

I have been having hot flashes for over ten years. I don't think they'll ever go away.
I was sexually abused as a child.
I am a registered nurse who doesn't work who has a neurosis against all things medical.
I wear overalls a lot.
I love to cook and I love to eat.
I love to use vulgar language. The word "fuck" in all of its forms enchants me.

I love Mexico and when Mr. Moon takes me there, I am not agoraphobic and I am not a fifty-five year old grandmother. I am a girl who sits on the back of a moped and weeps with happiness to be back as we travel the roads by the sea and I smell the salt and the masa and the garlic and I see the tiny Mayan children in their parents' arms.

I am anti-religious. I know who Jesus is so don't try to tell me about him and his plan for me. I wonder what he did all those years between when he was a boy telling the rabbis shit and when he became JESUS. I think he may have had Asperger's Syndrome. I suspect Asperger's Syndrome in many people I have known or who are historical figures. I do not know if he was married to Mary Magdalene or if they had children. I do not know if he was gay. I don't care. I don't think that god was trying very hard if he only had one begotten son.

I worship dirt and growing things and rain and love. I worship babies and light. I worship the oceans and the trees and yes, I have been known to hug a tree. So what?

My favorite form of prayer is dance.

I try to do my best which is so far from perfect I'd have to travel light years just to get a glimpse of it.

I believe in the rights of all people to love and marry whom they choose if those people are consenting adults. I hate self-righteous people who get elected to office and try to tell other people they must live their lives according to small-minded bullshit religious superstitions.

I was a hippie. I think I still am but I do shave my legs. I hate bras. With a mighty passion although I wore my favorite bra last night and it is tiger striped with bright turquoise lace trim and it makes me look like I have bosoms which occasionally is fun.

I love our president. I still love Bill Clinton, too. I'd flirt with him.

I believe that books are holy relics. So are the bones of animals and the shells on the beach and the things made by the hands of people I love.

I love bowls and bags and baskets. I recognize that this is a womb-thing and I feel comfortable admitting that.

I have been to births and I have been to deaths and in doing that, I have learned that there is some sense to this world and I have been humbled and taught not to be so afraid although that's just on a cosmic level. On a small, personal level there is much I am afraid of.

I believe in home birth and home death whenever possible because I believe that mostly these events are spiritual and not medical and I think that having handed these events over to doctors and hospitals has taken away our understanding of what it means to be human.

I love that I live on planet where the faces of the people are of many colors and I love that there are so many cultures and maybe in another lifetime I will be an anthropologist and study those cultures.
I would also like to be a stand-up comedian in another lifetime.

I don't really believe in reincarnation but who am I to say for sure?

I don't know shit.

I do know I love to write and that in the three years I have been writing this blog I have been stunned at the pleasure it has given me. I am stunned that people come here to read it. I have met new people from all over the world and I visit them where they write and I learn from them and I cry with them and I laugh with them and I hope to meet some of them (at least) in real life some day. Or maybe another lifetime. Who knows? Not me.

And now I am going to give my traditional blogoversary wish which is that if you come here to read but never comment I wish you would just, for this one time a year, make your presence known out loud to me in a comment. I cherish comments with all my heart. I think we all do.

All right. Here's to the mysteries and miracles of life which we are all exploring. Together. As we float down and swim down and chug down and sail down and plow down this river of words and pictures we call the blog world on the internet.

Thanks for dropping by. The Church of the Batshit Crazy is always open for business. There is no collection plate, there is no tithing. All are welcome. Come as you are. Come as you were. Come as you want to be.

Let's bless each other's hearts because what else can we do?

Love...Ms. Moon

It's Been A Good, Long Day

Owen in the bamboo. Lily wanted a picture of him for some contest that required him to be having "fun in the sun." She suggested that if I could get a chicken in the picture he would be a shoo-in to win. Well, I didn't. I'm sorry Lily. I can barely manage to get a good picture of Owen these days, he moves so fast. Let's not even try to get a decent chicken pose in there with him.

But oh- my baby-love boy in the bamboo.

He's not quite a baby anymore, is he? But we spent a lot of time on the porch swing, going back and forth to the rusty squeak of the chains and he got more and more relaxed, sitting beside me with my arm around him and one of his hands on mine. Finally, I took him into my lap and he slumped against me, asleep.
I never want to forget that moment. Never.

Here he is laughing at the chickens next door:

And I got lots of pictures at the Opera House but really, I should ask permission before I post them but I simply must post this one:

The two tallest bartenders in Florida. That's what Jack called them. I think he may be right.
They're just as darling as I thought they'd be.
"All the world's a stage, isn't it?" Colin said to me later on in the night.
"To you," I said, giving him that look. He was misbehaving as is his way.
Which is why we love our Colin.

And now it's time to go to bed with the tallest bartender in Florida.

It's been a very good day.

Nepotism

Missy May has a new place she writes. Click on the picture to take you there. You know there's always something tasty when May's had her fingers in it.

And if you've never been over to Hank's image blog, you should definitely check that out.


It's a treat for the eyes, a place of wonder and magic. And great captions.

Now here's Owen today:

He doesn't have a blog yet. Just cheeks.

What Is Life If Not A School Of Love?

What, what, what? Owen is coming in an hour and he'll be here all day and then tonight is the Opera House, making plates of food, serving plates of food, picking up plates cleaned of food, drying those plates and stacking them up.
More water? I'll ask. Can I take this? I'll ask.

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.

Mr. Moon is coming tonight as well and he will help Colin bar tend. Two tall men (one too-tall, almost) wearing white shirts and bow ties and I think I might pass out from the darlingness of that picture. I will take my camera.

But here's what I'm thinking of this morning before the baby boy gets here, before I even begin to think about what to wear tonight- I'm thinking of thirty-two years ago and May was in the process of being born. She was born on the 24th and I had labored all day on the 23rd and my water had broken on the 22nd but on the 21st, I knew she was near.
All those years ago and I have the image in my head of wet thighs, my own, the process already slowly begun and I was 23-years old myself and I thought I was grown up and I guess I was, having already had a baby and then a miscarriage and now, my body was about to deliver this one into the heat of late May and I remember that the flowers I'd planted had already started blooming. Zinnias, I think.
That day, thirty-two years ago today and I was ready, I was waiting. A lady-in-waiting, a mother already and to be again. We lived in a trailer whose dimensions were ten feet by fifty feet and there was red carpet on the floor and I wore hippie skirts and tended a garden and my belly was swollen with that girl and Hank was my world, he already had claimed my heart, captured my soul and I worried so that I wouldn't be able to love another the way I loved him but of course, I learned different when May was born. I learned about love that day.
The midwives were ready, my husband was ready, it was hot. Did I mention it was hot? Oh. It was hot.

Snap! Back to here and now and my grandchild is coming. I imagine his mother is getting ready for work and changing his diaper and picking out something for him to wear and saying, "You're going to see your crazy chicken grandmother now let me put your shirt on!"
Owen who taught me about love again.
Each of my children brought their own lesson of love to me and so has this grandson.
And my husbands, both of them, have taught me about love. The one I had and had to divorce, the one I have and who is my partner-in-love and we teach each other about love over and over and over again.
And those women who midwifed me taught me about love and my friends do too, they teach me every day about love and maybe, just maybe, this whole life has been a school of love.
A school of love. Think about that.
I can't even begin to verbalize what I think love is. There is this kind and there is that kind and all I can do is open my heart or, rather, let it be open, and even the frogs which are for some reason croaking right now, the little wren that flies back to her nest, the rooster crowing in the yard, the lilies opening by the pump house, the way the trees give the light meaning and reason as they catch it and shine, filtering it and layering it, the stillness of this day because it is going to be so hot- all of it has something to do with teaching me love.
All these teachers and yet, I am certain I do not know even the merest bit of what it all really means. I always say I believe in two things- love and light- and I am not sure even what that means.
But I believe it's true.

May was born to me just as it was getting light and I reached for her and held her to me and my heart burst again with love.

I don't think I can add much more to that.

Thank-you for being part of my school of love. Every one of you who comes here and every one of you who writes about your own life, showing me over and over and over again what love can be and how the light falls and does not fall for you.

Happy Friday, y'all.
Love....Ms. Moon

Decorating In 3-D

Dear Angie- Every time I check the time, I will think of you and your foremothers.
Thank-you.
Love...Ms. Moon

Summer-Time Meals

Sometimes I throw my hands up in despair about vegetables. I mean- there are only so many. And I don't like to do a lot of sauces because most of them involve things like cheese and cream and so forth and let's face it- using a vegetable as a fat-delivery system just isn't a great plan.
So once in a while I remember the old Finale's restaurant which had a lovely steamed veggie plate and I just throw all sorts of vegetables in a steamer and let 'er rip.
Tonight is one of those nights. There's some broccoli and carrots and corn and peas and potatoes. And the peas and the potatoes are from the garden. The first potatoes we've eaten for the year from our very own garden.


The ants and moles are already giving us a run for our money and are all in those potatoes but these are going to be lovely. When you cut a new potato from your garden, you just put the knife to it and it splits crisp and white and when you wash them, the peel almost dissolves in the running water.

They're almost ready. I'm going to go call Mr. Moon from the garage where he is working on some brakes to join me for the feast. I'm rounding out the meal with some field peas and brown rice and some oat bran muffins.

Wish you could join us. It's coming on summer and we're about to start eating like kings.

Another Good Reason To Exercise

And one that I've discussed before but it bears repeating:
It completely satisfies my daily need to suffer, leaving me much freer to actually enjoy my life.

Just think- if I'd been raised Catholic, I'd probably be an Iron Man athlete.

Boob Tube

So I was watching the TV tonight while I was eating my supper (spicy shrimp in mustard sauce with green beans and a sort of pilaf made with vegetables and quinoa in case you're interested) and that show United States Of Tara was on. Now, I got hooked into the show because this guy is on it:

And yes, we all love John Corbett. He is the boyfriend of us all. We all fell in love with him in Northern Exposure, and Sex And The City lost all cred with me when Carrie dumped his ass to go back to that shit, Mr. Big.

Anyway, so I'm watching USOT (and let me say that Toni Colette is pretty darn great) and in the show, Max, the guy that John Corbett plays NAILS ANOTHER WOMAN, NOT HIS WIFE, IN A BAR! So okay, the bar was closed. But it was just heart-breaking for me. Of course in the show he's had to deal with his wife fooling around with all sorts of other people when she's in one of her altered states of her multiple personalities and in fact, the woman Max had sex with was one of the women his wife had seduced when she was in the state of either a really butchy woman named Buck or maybe Buck is a dude. I haven't really been watching that long.
Does any of this make sense?
Hell no.
So why was I watching it?
You tell me.

Since I've been taking care of Owen I've gotten a bit more into the TV thing, mostly, as I've said, watching the infinitely entertaining (at least to me) Wife Swap which plays for three hours every weekday afternoon during a period of time when Owen is bound to want a bottle and a cuddle in the rocking chair.

At least I haven't started watching soap operas but then again, what else is a show like United States of Tara?

Now that show is on Showtime so there aren't any commercials but Wife Swap is on Lifetime and there are commercials about every two seconds. And you can learn a lot from commercials. Not one damn bit of it is of any use, but you can learn a lot.
Such as:
Did you know that one out of four women can misread a traditional pregnancy test? It's true! And whenever I see that commercial I always think to myself that four out of four women could misread a traditional pregnancy test under the right circumstances. Say- if they were drunk or stoned or really, really sleepy or had forgotten their glasses.
Am I right?
I think I am.

I've also learned that a firm named Binder and Binder will fight Social Security to get the money you are owned if you worked on the books and have been told by your doctor that you can no longer work! Binder and Binder has at least one ad on during every commercial block. And let me point out that these commercial blocks are long enough to start a load of laundry and get the dishes done.

And speaking (we were, briefly at least) of Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker looks REALLY WEIRD in her Garnier commercials.

Like something's really wrong with her. I usually find her fascinating but these ads sort of make me queasy. All I can think, every time I see one, is that I hope with all of my heart that she is doing these ads to pay for her kids' college educations because I can't think of any other reason she'd put herself through the agony of that. Have you seen the one where she says, "This is one way to defy gravity," and she puts her fingers up by her face and pulls, sort of, or actually acts like she's pulling to demonstrate how pulling your skin could conceivably make you look like you were defying gravity?
It's just so wrong somehow.
But her kids will go to good schools. And that's a relief.

I've also learned from watching daytime TV that women do not want to touch mops with their hands. And that eating a Special K cereal bar instead of a doughnut can make your entire day go better because one good choice leads to another. And that when your child's picky eating gets to the point where it interferes with good growth and nutrition, you can just give her a special drink that's sort of like eating fruits and vegetables. I think it's a drink. That commercial freaks me out so much I sort of block it. Wouldn't that be sort of like Ensure for kids?

And let's not forget Darrell (pronounced Dur-ell, like Purell) who is "Mr. Rollback" at Walmart who seems to take an incredible amount of pride and joy in his work, rolling back the prices for you and for me and thus enabling us to have an better way of American Life.

I also know that the Women of Wisteria Lane have a lot of sex. And drink a lot. And wear a lot of jewelry and high heels. That's because after three hours of Wife Swap comes three hours of Desperate Housewives and they advertise that fact furiously all through Wife Swap.

Well. I haven't let myself slip into the slough of watching that show. Yet. Never say never. And I've never yet bought one of those mops you don't have to touch to squeeze out (well, I did years ago but it was by mistake) and I haven't bought a pregnancy test (big surprise) and I haven't contacted Binder and Binder, either. Nor have I bought any nutritional drinks for picky eaters or a Special K cereal bar. And I'm not even going to try and fool myself about defying gravity plus I'm afraid that if I try I'll just look weird.

So I guess what I'm asking here is- does anyone watch commercials and think, "Jesus! I need to get me some of that!"?

I mean, sure, we watch shows with John Corbett and have that thought but there's no number to call, no store where we can go buy him.
Dammit.

And maybe it's just me but honestly, I don't think that commercials make any more sense to me than Max having his way with one of the women that his wife's alter had previously had HER way with on a table in an empty bar.

Oh well. It's just TV.

But I'll tell you something- if I met that perky fucking woman on the Progressive Insurance ads I'd be sorely tempted to rip her damn price gun out of her hand and smack the hell out of her with it. She ANNOYS me!




And I had to google her to find out which insurance company she represents so I don't think those commercials are doing a hell of a lot of good anyway.

All right. I'm done now. Go turn on the TV. Someone wants to sell you something.

What I've Gathered Today

It continues to be a beautiful day here today although the light is less ethereal as the day goes on and has become more pragmatic. Can light be pragmatic? I think it can. It is doing its sunny job now, making the tomatoes come into their ripeness, providing the chickens with what they need on their feathers as they settle into their dirt baths and scratch about the yard.

I went to yoga and it was fine. I could tell it had been awhile since I've been and although that's mostly been MY fault, my yoga teacher has been out of commission a bit too, due to yet another injury. She is frailer than I am, my yoga teacher, although she is also strong in some ways. She seems to be one of those people who are prone to back problems and I can sympathize but never having been there myself, except for one tiny back-spasm incident which only lasted a few weeks, I can't really empathize. I think she lives in a lot of pain and I know that many people do and although I have just enough in my hips and knees to remind me of my age, I know it is not the same as chronic unremitting pain and I am so grateful that I do not have to live with that.

When I came home, I did go out and take a walk. It was lovely and I didn't die of the heat and while I was walking I was thinking about how I used to walk so very, very regularly and how one of the things which was a factor in the slow decrease I've had in the last year or so was, quite oddly, going to a counselor.
It was when I was trying to get myself back together after my bout of insanity two years ago (was it only two?) and on the advice of several people, I went to see this woman.
She was beautiful. Possibly older than me but completely and utterly beautiful for any age. She had the body a twenty-five year old would be proud to have. And you could tell that appearance was very important to her. Her clothes and shoes and make-up were all perfect and I feel quite sure she does not find clothes or shoes like that in Tallahassee. I can see trips to Atlanta or New York for shopping. And she obviously works out a lot.
So anyway, she asked me about my exercise habits and I told her that I walked for about forty-five minutes at least four times a week and went to yoga three times a week and that I did some weight things at home and crunches- regular stuff you do on your living room floor. She was impressed but said that studies showed that for the type of anxiety I had been experiencing, regular aerobic exercise, six days a week, lasting at least an hour and fifteen minutes was most effective.
Well.
And I tried. But somehow, that extra half hour, those extra two days a week just wore me out. And of course I didn't slow down any to make that extra half hour any easier. And I started dreading my walks instead of them just being a part of my day. And when I didn't have an hour and fifteen minutes to walk, I just didn't go instead of just walking for as long as I had the time for.
And I eventually quit going to the counselor and my walks got fewer and fewer as I felt more and more guilty.
Which I think is a good lesson to remember- we do what we can and if we enjoy what we do, or at least if what we do is workable for us, we'll keep doing it.
Making unreasonable goals and trying to keep them is self-defeating.

I am going to remember that now. And take my forty-five minute walks, or half-hour ones if that's all I can do. I walk VERY fast and I get every minute's worth out of what I do. I do not lollygag around, believe me.

So I came home from that walk and on my way I picked a magnolia and then went to the chicken coop and found those four nice eggs, one of them obviously from Daffodil because it is such a lovely color of blue and she is the only one who lays me blue eggs, and I put the magnolia in a blue vase and the eggs in a white bowl and there you are- those are the things I have gathered today, along with a sense of some order being restored in my life which is, after all, my own life and ultimately, I am the one who needs to set my own goals, no matter what studies may show.

Morning Light

Weight-bearing exercise in a fifty-five year old woman is good and what she needs
But she needs to sleep too and last night I woke up so many times
And slept through the earliest part of the morning and woke up to see what you see in those pictures above
And thought
Yoga, yes today is for yoga
To stretch these muscles which ache
These joints which ache
This old body which has given me so much
Today is not for pounding it in the heat
Although after breathing and stretching
I think I will take a little walk, just enough
To bear my weight a mile or so
As the light pours down
Onto the steaming ground
From last night's rain still dripping from leaves
As pure as anything I've ever seen
That light, that mist, that illumination
Of it all.

Fitness Fest Or Torture Test?

I have been a mostly regular exerciser since I was in my mid-twenties. It's just always been a part of who I am, although it wasn't until I hit my forties that I discovered my inner jock girl and really let her take control. It was awesome! I think I realized at the beginning of my forties that really, it wasn't ever going to get any better than it was at that moment and I got things UNDER CONTROL with the help of Jock Girl. I even worked for Weight Watchers.
And actually, my forties were probably my best-looking decade. I'm serious. I actually, for the first and only time in my entire life, liked the way I looked.
And I didn't feel so bad either.

And then came my fifties. Ah-yah, as I say.
I got a bum knee and it took quite a while for that to heal although when I couldn't walk, I started bicycling. I hated it but I did it.
But I just wasn't as obsessed as I'd been before. Maybe because we moved here and I was just...happier. Who knows?
Then a few years ago I got a wake-up call in the form of a cholesterol test and I went back into obsessive mode. I exercised very regularly and I just ripped my diet up and reworked it. I ate GOOD. I followed Michael Pollen's advice before I'd ever heard it:
Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.
Honey chile- I gave up CHEESE!
And I got fairly happy with the way I looked and felt again.
And then...oh dear. I don't know what happened. I stopped paying so much attention. One tiny sin led to others. My foot got fucked up. I got stuck in traffic. The check got lost in the mail.
You know.
And actually, I believe that one of the things that happened was that as my fifties progressed, I realized that I'd hit a point where no matter what I did, my body was just not going to be what it had been. Every day brought new revelations of the pull of gravity, the weight of age.
It was discouraging.

And the weight has crept up and the arms have lost tone and the, well, really. I don't want to sit here and target all the things which disturb me so greatly about my body because hell's bells! I'm fifty-five years old and I'm just not as concerned with it all as I once was.

BUT, this is not to say I want to slip quietly into old-age spread. I love having muscles, even if they're hidden beneath drapey skin. I WANT to be able to wear clothes that, when wearing, I look and feel okay in. I'm never going to be Miss America and I'm never going to be Miss Body Builder USA and I'm never going to be Madonna either and I'm aware of that but there's nothing wrong with being the best that I can be, or at least not the WORST I can be. You know?

So I've dusted off the hand weights. I'm back to doing the crunches. I have actually walked fairly TWO DAYS IN A ROW! Ha-ha-ha! And I realized today that the main thing I'm going to have to do is get up earlier and not spend the first two hours of my day here on the internet and I'm going to have to make that walk my first priority every day because it's just too damn hot to wait until ten-thirty in the morning to get out there.
How hot is it?
Well, it's so hot that the only way I know I'm having a hot flash is that I have that horrible urge to pee.
TMI?
Well guess what, my little chickadees- I'm talking about YOUR future. Unless you're one of those blessed ladies who doesn't have the hot flashes. Ever.
Or a man. In which case you picked the wrong day to visit Blessourhearts.

So there I am in the woods, so hot I think I might explode or melt or just fall over, trying to figure out where to pee, so damn hot that if a bear suddenly burst through the trees I'd merely lay down and let him rip my guts out.
"Take 'em!" I'd tell him. "I'm too hot to run."

So. Must change my routine. Must change my life. AGAIN! Because dammit, every time in my life that I have thought for sure that I'd gotten this whole exercise and diet thing down, I've had to come back and ruefully admit that no, I had not.
Not forever. Not by a long fucking shot.

Sigh.
Well, as I told Jessie today, going for a walk in this heat is sort of a physical fitness test I can take daily. If I can do THAT, then surely, I am not about to die.
It's crude. It's unpleasant. But it's probably true.

And again I must say BUT. This is no way to run a life. After a walk like that I am mostly ready to lie down and pass out. Okay, not really. But two hours later? Oh boy. I sure am. When my core temperature approaches normal, I'm not good for shit. Which sort of defeats the purpose, don't you think?

All right. I'll let you know how this life-altering plan goes. I sure hope it works. Because honestly? Once again I am forced to admit- it's not going to get any better than this and if I don't work at it now, I'll be one of those people limping around a dead mall clinging to my walker with The Greatest Hits From World War II playing on my iPod. Wearing the ugliest polyester work-out clothes you've ever seen. Size Gazillion. Thinking to myself, "Really, Ms. Moon, it's not going to get any better than this."

And I can almost bet that I'll be having hot flashes and honey, you can't just squat and pee in the mall.
Well, you can. But they arrest you. And then put you in a nursing home. Where they make you do chair aerobics. Wearing Depends.

It's never going to end, is it?

Just Pictures, Mostly

I have GOT to get out there and walk before the temperature and humidity conspire to take me out like a cornflake in a cup of boiling milk. But here are a few pictures.

What? Every chicken coop doesn't have a hanging basket of periwinkles?


The oak-leaf hydrangea is just purely snowy this year. I want an entire forest of them.


My Mother's Day orchids and bromeliads continue to bloom and delight me. I set them outside on the table in the back yard where my eye lights on them a hundred times a day.

And then, perhaps the very most exciting thing for me of everything growing here in my yard- from this seemingly dead, dry husk of a last-year's frozen Australian Tree Fern

Is growing this:

And this:

Ah. Patience is its own reward.