Let Us Remove The Cork

So last night when I got in and the house was in darkness except for the light of a flashlight and a candle, I found that on the kitchen island.
A pretty little bottle of very interesting rum and a sweet note.
Some men bring roses, some men know what you really want.
Ha!
Roses have their place.
So does rum.
In my mouth.
Anyway, that was a sweet thing for Mr. Moon to do and I'm sure we'll crack that bottle this weekend. Lon and Lis are coming this afternoon. They'll be playing at the Mockingbird tomorrow night and if the Opera House doesn't need me to serve tables, I'll be there too. I know they need me there tonight so I'll go and pretend to be a waitress, which is always fun when you're not trying to pay your rent with it for real.
I hope Colin is tending bar.
Anyway, it's going to be a busy weekend and one I'm looking forward to. Good friends all around and perhaps music and a new kind of rum to sip and share.

I'm sort of tidying up here and making some stuffed peppers we can snack on this weekend and it's hot and I'm going to take a nap because I didn't sleep well last night and I need to be sharp in order to make sure I spill white wine on people at the Opera House instead of the red. This is about as much as can be asked of me as a server. I have my standards, you know, and so does the Opera House.
"Oh, you'll work for free?"
"Of course!"
"You're hired!"
And that applies to acting in plays and directing or stage managing them as well as waiting on tables. It's all fun.
Some people teach reading to adults, serve at soup kitchens, volunteer in the hospitals, build gardens for the community.
Me? I go to the Opera House to volunteer my time and I'm not even trying to fool myself into thinking I'm doing any good for any one. I still can't believe they let me hang out there.

And that's about it for me today. For right now, anyway. It's quiet in Lloyd if you discount the cicadas whirring and chirring in a tempo fast enough to keep up with the rising temperature. I need to go blanch peppers and brown venison and cut up onions and smash garlic. I need to fold clothes and make sure the Panther Room is ready.

I am grateful today for all of the richness in my life, this life I never imagined, this life I have stumbled upon with all of its imperfect perfection.
I feel that I am home in this life in a way I never thought I'd be.

Well. As Lynn would have said, "Whoop-eye-A!" or however you would spell it. And then she'd take a sip of rum, swallow it slowly with her eyes closed and say, "Yum rum."
And then she'd smile.

I am looking forward to having a similar moment like that tonight with Mr. Moon and Lon and Lis.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love....Ms. Moon

Haiku My Heart, Perspective

When this shot was made
I despaired, thinking only
That I looked so old

It is Haiku My Heart Friday again and here you have mine. Go to Rebecca's place to find more. And please- join us! Haiku makes you slow down and tease out the sweetest meat of the fruit of your thoughts.
Never a bad thing.

Can We Call It Friday Yet

Lord it was a busy, hot day. Lily and Jason had Waffle Thursday this morning and invited Billy and Shayla and Waylon and they invited me too and well, who could pass up a chance to go to Waffle Thursday when there would be babies and loved ones to hug?

Waylon and his mama. Suddenly he has popped out about five teeth, gotten about a foot longer, started to crawl and pull up. I mean, like, in one day. Way to go, Waylon Dude!



He was sitting on his daddy's lap and got one of Jason's drumsticks which was fine until

he got all Ninja with it and tried to cut off Billy's head with his flying Ninja Drumstick.

Owen worked on the new car his Aunt Brenda gave him. At one point both the boys were working on the car. It was like looking into a crystal ball. Owen and Waylon get along quite well for two such young guys. Of course they've known each other their entire lives. Lily and Shayla's pregnancies coinciding so closely was one of the most beautiful things ever and I have a feeling those boys are going to be BFF's and get into all sorts of great and terrible troubles.
I just hope their parents survive.

Lily and I ran errands, I got home and hustled up a supper and then went to the Opera House for rehearsal. Our Sylvia had to step down from the play due to legal matters involving a divorce (and I am sure there is a long story there but I don't know it) and Marcy called another girl she knew and let me tell you something- this girl. Oh my. This girl. She came, she read, Jan and I peed in our pants, we offered her the part and she wanted it.
There is going to be no directing in this play. Just sitting back in awe.
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.

I drove home in a good mood to discover that all the lights were out in Lloyd. I think the power company is getting us in shape to weather (haha!) a hurricane and the inevitably resulting power outages. No. Actually there was a huge dark wind that came through the county tonight, bruising the sky black and practically giving flight to the trees and little skitters of rain. Something fell on a line somewhere.

Mr. Moon greeted me with a flashlight and we played a rousing game of cards on the back porch. He won. But barely. And just as we were about to go find the battery-operated fan the lights flickered and then came back on.
So we have lights. We have internet. We have air conditioning.

I went outside to see if I could get a picture of the moon but it had gone behind a cloud to hide and so I got this one instead:

My kitchen door. With the porch light on.

I came in, turned out the porch light and locked the door.

Night, y'all. Sleep well, sleep comfy, sleep cool.

And if you haven't been here tonight, go immediately and just laugh your ass to sleep.

Love....Ms. Moon

Owen

All of a sudden Owen is on his feet for real and going everywhere. He hurls himself across the floor, stumbling and regaining his balance and losing it again and regaining it again. My kitchen floor is so tilty that when he walks across it, he looks at me as if I had either done something to gravity or put something in his bottle and he is not happy about it and he is bewildered.

He has bumps and scrapes everywhere. He is earning his title of BOY. He is running to catch up with the planet as it spins. He is throwing himself into my arms and laughing with the sheer delight of movement and walking upright.
He is throwing himself into my heart.
Over and over and over again.

Time For A Laugh

I got an e-mail this evening notifying me about a comment on one of my old blog posts I did back in November of last year. The post was entitled Holy Kisses and was accompanied by this picture:

(Excuse me while I go find a fan. I think I may be having a hot flash.)

The post was about Bruce and Clarence and music and love and friendship and oh, hell, a lot of stuff. And when I saw that someone had left a comment I thought it was probably a spammer. But no! It was not! And this is what it said:

Them kissing each other is a satanic pagan ritual for success. They have a pact to fulfill. You need to get out of the darkness and seek out what these kisses really mean. It's easy to find if you seek it.


And that just cracked me up so much. I mean- satanic ritual for success? Sign me THE FUCK UP! I get to kiss either of those men AND have success?
Baby. Get the smelling salts. Get me a breath mint. Get me a pen to sign that pact and if I need to sign in blood, get me a needle!
Or a razor blade!
Whatever!

And getting out of the darkness to see what those kisses really mean?
Yeah. I can do that. I promise.

Oh- and the person who left the comment? Well. You all know who it was. Our favorite commenter.
Anonymous.
Which makes it impossible for me to e-mail him or her to ask where I can find Satan's address. You would have thought he'd have contacted me himself already but no. He has not.

Dammit.

Those People To Whom The Alien's Talk? They're On To Something

I had a whole topic in mind today and I pondered it as I walked my hot, sweaty walk which was a very difficult one today for some reason. I don't know why and haven't figured out a pattern but some days gravity is just far more profound than other days and today was one of those days.
But my topic, the thing I was going to talk about was PTSD and how really it's just more proof of my ape-alien theory which is the theory (of mine, no one else's, I am sure) that we humans are an on-going genetic experiment by aliens who have taken their genes and the genes of the great apes of this planet and combined them somehow and voila! HUMANS!

It explains so much. It's not unlike String Theory in that the whole idea is fantastic and unbelievable but ties up a lot of loose ends.
I mean, it's possible, right?

Here we are, so obviously related to our dear cousins, the great apes and yet, we have these brains that just do not quit. We overthink our bodies and their functions all the damn time which leads to most of the insanity and thank-you for that very much, you ALIENS! and could you fix this?

For example- we have that great fight-or-flight response to threat just like most animals whether you're talking lizard or chimp but unlike those guys, when the threat is gone or we have escaped it or whatever, the flight-or-flight response is still switched on because we just keep thinking about how that damn bear could come back and get us while we sleep or have our backs turned or whatever and one thing leads to another and the next thing you know, we're tossing back Ativan and paying therapists out the WAZOO and trying to practice Mindfulness Meditation and all because we're too smart to think that there's no threat just because we can't see it and too dumb not to be able to realize that if we're on fight-or-flight mode all the time it'll kill us as thoroughly as the bear.

Phew. Okay. So on to PTSD. Something traumatic happens, right? REALLY traumatic. Life-threatening or something we perceive as life-threatening. Soldier in war-time battle, civilian in bomb attack, mother whose child is badly injured or becomes very ill, child who is abused, car accident victim. Something.
And after the initial incident is long over something comes along to trigger the memory of the traumatic incident in a very deep and non-logical and sensory way and we react as we did when the initial incident happened.

And I think this is what happens to me now when it's this time of year. The body remembers, even if the mind does not keep track and if you don't believe that, you have not been paying attention.
It was this time of year that I went absolutely insane, completely nuts with anxiety (which came from my stupid nervous system reacting in a way which was not appropriate to begin with) and I start to get all those feelings again and I start reacting the same exact way I did during the initial incident of insanity.

So I realized this today and it was helpful to me because knowing that I'm not necessarily going insane again but just reliving that time that I did is not as scary as thinking, "Oh shit. It's happening again."
Okay. This is not as profound as the war vet who dives under a table when he hears a car backfire but there are similarities and that's the truth.
So yeah- my alien brain tells me that I'm going insane and my ape brain goes into panic and I end up a fucking mess.

I'm glad we got that straightened out and that's what I was thinking about on my walk but when I got home, Kathleen was here, just about to leave. I was so glad I got home before she did leave because if she came by, that meant she wanted to see me and I always want to see her. We air-kissed because when I get back from my walk I am not someone you want to get close to. Or even be in the same room with, actually. But it was what it was and we came back into the house and she's shaken, that woman.
She's having to deal with an awful lot and it seems to get more awfully serious every day. She's sort of run out of jokes for the moment. And she's tired. And she's thinking about things like making her will and changing her bedroom for another room in the house that gets more light and that she can see out into her yard from. And losing her hair. And facing the unknown. And, and, and...

And there I was, listening to her and trying to be reassuring and yet, let her speak what's in her heart and not trying to tell her not to worry or that everything's going to be okay because what does that MEAN? Okay. Huh. Who knows? We don't know.
And trying to be calm and trying to let this be about her and not me (which is so hard for me and I'm not good at it) and it occurred to me that it's so damn easy to be the one without cancer. To be the one who can offer help and an ear and whatever is needed and that if the situation was reversed and I was the one who had cancer in my cervical spine, I would be completely and utterly flipping out and doing god knows what fucked-up things and I would be swallowing anti-anxiety drugs as if they were M&M's and drinking straight vodka my every waking moment and I would be crying and screaming and probably end up killing myself way before the cancer even had a chance.

I think. Knowing my track record. Knowing myself as I do. And I'm not judging myself for that. It's just the way I am.

But in a way, I feel like a hypocrite, standing in my kitchen talking to Kathleen, trying to be all calm and shit. Because I don't have cancer (that I know of) and so how can I even pretend to tell her that she should do this or not do that or feel this or not feel that?
I can't. I just fucking can't and shouldn't and will try not to. Because isn't that the most severe form of bullshit there is? I might as well be one of those people who tells other people in crisis that "god never gives us more than we can handle," which is such a patent lie. God gives people more than they can handle every day. Or, well, actually, I don't think that god does any such thing. Things just happen. And sometimes they are way too overwhelming, too big, and too painful for us to handle.
And yet, some people can. And do. Handle the unimaginable.

So I guess to try and tie all of this together (not unlike the String Theory which is something that Kathleen and I discussed today which is why I am thinking of it), I will say that there are times when you need to tell your alien brain to SHUT THE FUCK UP! and just let your ape brain take care of things. Give hugs. Offer food. Crack a joke if it's possible and grin like a fool. Just be there, hanging out in the savanna together, sharing prime gathering spots and shooting the shit and letting things happen as they will, always keeping in mind how far we're traveling from the rest of the tribe, remembering that it's a good thing to be back to the tall trees where you can make a nice, cozy sleeping nest before dark.

Every time Kathleen leaves, I want to give her something to take with her. The alien part of me wants so badly for that something to be a ration of peace or calmness or wisdom but really, that's not even possible. So the ape part wants to give her food or a soft blanket or books to read or a magazine or maybe my diamond necklace. I don't know. Whatever would help. But that's hard too, although not impossible. She's so gracious that she does usually leave with something in her hand. Today it was a few cherries. Sort of pathetic, really, for me to offer those but it was the only thing I had that she would even come close to accepting today.

This reminds me of a story Jane Goodall told about how when she was first getting to know the chimps and they her, she offered one of them some food and he took it, even though he didn't want it, and then quietly let it slide to the ground when he thought she wasn't looking. That's when she began to realize that we have far more in common with these cousins of ours than meets the eye.

We offer what we can and we do that from our ape-hearts and we receive those gifts even if we don't need them and sometimes it is far more of a gift to the giver than to the receiver. And the older I get, the more I want to trust my ape mind and heart more than my alien parts. The ape part is the part that takes what is given and doesn't overthink it and gets on with life the best it can.


And communicates not just with sound but with touch which is sometimes far more helpful than anything we can say out of our big old doody-head alien brains.

And that's how it seems to me although it's just a theory. Made up by my alien brain and confirmed by my ape heart and there you go.

And What Did YOU Learn Today?

What am I doing? Oh hell. I don't know.
I guess I'm going to co-direct this play. It's a production of Sylvia, a play written by AR Gurney, the same playwright who wrote the play Later Life which I was in a production of about a year and a half ago.
I think.
It was first performed in 1995 and Sarah Jessica Parker and Blythe Danner were in the cast.
So, okay, we couldn't talk SJP into performing at the Opera House or Blythe, either, but we shall persevere.
Kathleen, Judy and I recruited our Sylvia when we were at the hospital a few weeks ago for Kathleen's biopsies and scans. We were having so much fun, the three of us (in between Kathleen being poked and drained and scanned and wanded and finding out she had cancer and so forth), that the woman who manages the ultra sound department wanted to know just who the hell we were and started talking to us and it turns out she's from Monticello and when she heard about the Opera House and how much fun we have there, she said, "Oh. I want to do that!"
"Mmmmm," we said. "Dreams can come true. What's your e-mail address?"

We had our first read-through tonight and she is going to be fine, our Sylvia. She's cute as hell, adorable, really, and I think she really wants to do this. All she has to do is learn to throw herself into it and let herself become the character. Easy-peasy. If she can run an ultra-sound department, she can do this.
It's a great part. Sylvia is a dog who becomes the third person in a marriage. Marcy is playing the wife, Jack the husband who brings home Sylvia, and Jon is playing three other characters. AR Gurney loves to do that one-person-playing-a-bunch-of-roles thing. I think I played five or so in Later Life. Again, I can't remember.

I could call Kathleen but she's probably already in bed with all her kids. She had a call from the doctor at home tonight and he wants to start the chemo sooner than he had thought. He wants to hit this now and hit it hard. And it's going to be a very strong chemo and everyone at the Opera House knows that if I need to step out to take care of that girl, I will. Jan can do it by herself and right this second she's probably wishing she was. The first thing we did tonight was go through the play and cut out or replace all the fucks, shits, balls and so forth. Even the Jesus'es.
I think our Sylvia was pretty relieved about that but of course I was PISSED!
Jesus.
But I understand. We're doing this play in Monticello, not New York City.
Which doesn't mean that I didn't bitch about it. And inform Sylvia that I have a terrible potty mouth and in fact, plan my entire day around how I can fit the most obscenities in.
Ah. This poor child. She is going to learn SO much from me.

Of course I'm the one who's going to be learning. I don't know shit about directing a play. But the Opera House is a great place to learn the theater arts. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming and helpful and giving and forgiving and gracious. Well, except for me, of course. I'm just Ms. Potty-Mouth.

All kidding aside, I do want to learn. Why not? I never once thought about directing a play but when I think about it, I love to boss people around so why not? I can add the experience to my resume. If I ever try to write a resume up.

And Freddy the film maker called and I guess that I'll be doing a little bit of acting for him on Sunday. So there's that. I hope I don't make a fool of myself.
Because you know me- I hate to lose my dignity or anything like that.
Mostly I hope I don't fuck up his film and he has to figure out how to nicely ask me to leave and never come back.

But in all of this rambling what I'm really thinking about learning is how to take care of a friend getting chemo the very best I can. I've done it before but I didn't go a good job. I think I was too freaked out. I'm older now and Kathleen is such a different sort of person from anyone else I've ever met. I've made her promise that as the process goes along she will ask for what she needs and wants as things arise. She has said she will. I think she will.
And the very idea that she will trust me enough to ask for what she wants and needs, whether it's a pan to throw up in or a piece of toast or a bed with clean sheets or for me to do her laundry or, well, whatever, makes me feel good.
Not as good as it would make me feel if we were going to go somewhere incredibly fun together. But sometimes you don't get to pick your journey, you know?
But we get to pick, sometimes, who we go on those journeys with.

I'm learning a lot these days. None of it anything I ever thought about learning. But so what? We're alive, we learn, we take what we learn and use it, we go on, we learn more.

Yeah. I guess that's a good thing to think about. I guess that'll do for tonight.

Sweet dreams, y'all. I'm going to bed.

Heart Of Darkness

Got those summertime dark blues that I usually get this time of year. It's the blood-boiling heat, it's the unexpected sight of a snake slipping into the border grass, it's the way the light gives way as the day progresses and the storms build up and the cicadas sing either with joy or with the foreshadowing of doom.

It's my birthday. Soon. Fuck.
May just called and asked if it would stress me out too much if she asked what I wanted for my birthday.
I began to cry. Then babble-talk. Then make a funny noise.

My heart just feels dark today and people keep calling me to say, "Let's do this. Do you want to do that?" and I think, "No, no, no," just let me rot here in peace and misery and yet, I took a walk, I am going to town. I am going to the Opera House tonight for a read-through of a play that I've been asked to co-direct or maybe assistant-direct or maybe take notes for the director or maybe be the comic relief for since Colin isn't involved in this one. I am not sure.

I am either dying or else so stressed out that I hurt everywhere. I am either the busiest person on earth or the laziest. How can you tell when every fucking thing you do has results which are so transient that you can't tell they've been done?
I am either brilliant or a fool or somewhere inbetween and I am no more unique than one of the tadpoles in that dark body of water in my backyard which is going to be a pond one day.

I don't know but I know that I am soaked with sweat and need a shower and I am trying to accept my feelings of negative self-judgment without judgment. I am trying to accept my feelings of anxiety without any either.
I'm trying to work on world peace, too. I'll let you know how all of this works out.

It's just a day. Tomorrow will probably be fine. Or maybe even in an hour I'll be sitting in a restaurant with Jessie and I'll think, "See? This isn't so bad. Not so bad at all," and all will be well and oh yes, I'll be twenty pounds thinner and all of my clothes will fit.

That's me today. My heart is dark but I know there's a light switch nearby and the last thing I need to do is to sit and hide instead of getting up from my place where I'm curled up on the floor in the darkness and just reach out my hand to turn it on.

That's all. I know it.
Here I go. I am standing up. I am fumbling about in the dark. It's right here. I know it is. I'll find it.

The Magic Box

Dear Steve,
I love you.
Okay? Is that okay?
I remember when the word "computer" meant something with which to launch space ships, which meant something housed in a basement under strict temperature controls, which meant punch cards and scientists and geniuses who could figure out how to use such an insanely space-age device. Machine. Hal-Thing.
Whatever.

And then, Steve, you came along and you said, "No. A computer is something that people should be able to use in their house." And oh, I don't know. You incorporated the use of the mouse so that to do something on the computer you didn't have to do function 1w2, 4-8, XYZ12.
A mouse. Mmmmm...
And you called your company McIntosh and those of us who grew up in the olden days remembered Apple Records.
And how James Taylor was the first artist to release an album on Apple which was invented, incorporated, visualized by the Beatles.
Well.
Unless you grew up in the olden days you have no idea what the Beatles meant to a generation or to the world, either one. Let me just say that this video



was the first global television link and if you didn't grow up watching the Viet Nam war on TV and Richard Nixon sweating as he lied and unless you ate a mushroom growing out of a cow field in Central Florida or the chemical equivalent in the late sixties or early seventies, you have no idea the importance of all of this.

All we grew up with was war, war, war and fear, fear, fear.

Castro, Khrushchev, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy assassination, hide-under-the-desk, bomb-shelter, The Red Curtain, Commies, The Red Menace....
It never ended and it was horrible and there was the bomb and we were not the only ones who had it and then suddenly, for no reason, there was the Beatles.

Love Me Do. Eight Days A Week. She Loves You, Twist And Shout, and that first song, I Want To Hold Your Hand may have let us breathe a full breath for the first time ever in our lives that we could remember.
You can't imagine how long their hair was. You can't imagine how much the world was shocked. You can't imagine how joyful it was to hear their songs.. And so. When Steve Jobs came up with the McIntosh Computer he was a genius.
The Beatles had already changed the world and now, Steve Jobs was about to do it again and he was tying it in, somehow (maybe illegally) to John, Paul, George and Ringo.

And I am still waiting for Saint Ringo to be anointed Pope. We've already had John and Paul. George can't be far behind. And Ringo? Oh yes.

I remember when I got my first computer like it was yesterday. An Apple Performa. Oh, Lord. It was probably a piece of shit but I loved it. There was MacWorld and I had an e-mail address that was mgmoon@macworld.com.

Or something like that. And I got a printer and my world did a one-eighty. I learned to use that Performa in a heartbeat and I fell in love with the spinning beach ball and the dogcow
and learning to use the computer wasn't scary at all. It was fun. And I felt my mind expand and instead of being a Hal-Like device, my Mac was a friend, an ally, a direct link to the collective unconscious as I realized that the newly born internet was about to become.

I still use a Mac. I've written several novels on Macs and approximately 1,630 blog posts in the last three years and I have thousands of pictures on my iPhotos and I've watched Apple go from a disdained little computer company which had all of its best system features stolen by Microsoft to the company who came up with the iPod and the iPhone and now the iPad and well, creativity will tell and maybe all you need is love and a Mac.
Steve Jobs said recently that Bill Gates should have dropped some acid. Not that Bill's done too badly for himself. No. He has not. And he is doing great things for the world with his money but let's face it- Apple's products are cherry and Microsoft's are soft banana and the world needs both but I am SO glad I have a Mac.

Mr. Moon keeps asking me what I want for my birthday and I keep saying, Nothing! Just save our money for when I need a new computer because I'll be wanting a new Mac. I've had this one for over three years and although it works like a champ, a charm, a jewel, a glory, it's a machine. A magic machine, but a machine. And I'll need a new one sooner or later.

I started playing a Beatle's CD when I started writing this and in the time that I have been writing it I've gotten an e-mail from my daughter May about how her brother Hank needs a new computer and another one from an old friend who helped me learn about Macs in the very, very beginning.
Look. I do believe in magic. I believe that the forces gather together when need be to change the world. Galileo, Da Vinci, Gutenberg, Shakespeare, Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Alcott, Leary, Ram Dass, Ginsberg, King Arthur, Nelson Mandela, St. Francis, MLK, Jr., The Virgin of Guadalupe, Socrates, Hippocrates, George Washington Carver, Billy Holiday, B. B. King, Copernicus, Harriet Tubman, John Gorey, Sacajawea, John, Paul, George, Ringo, Jobs....

I have my list. You have yours. Mine is listed on a Mac which is not just a machine to me, but a conduit to my muse.

So Steve. I love you. Whether it's okay or not.
I do. And I don't just love you for your mind. I think you're really cute, too.
Always and forever....Ms. Moon


P.S. Kathleen's oncologist uses a Mac. A laptop, just like this one. This is one more thing which gives us hope. A doctor whom you want to cure your cancer better be an artist as well as a scientist. And a man who uses a Mac can be both. We believe that. We do.

I Am Getting MEAN In My Old Age

I just got a call which the Caller ID identified as The Research Center. I answered.
Mistake.
The girl on the other end of the line asked if she could speak to the head of the household.
"What the hell does that mean?" I asked.
"The person who is the head of the household," she answered.
"That is SO offensive to me," I told her. And then...I hung up.
Bless her heart.

Summer Fiction, Just For You

Want to read a great short story?
Go read what May wrote.
Be enchanted.

He Does Desperate So Well

This is Owen when he becomes bored or frustrated or tired or just wants to be picked up.
And since he has come to the conclusion that his place in life is on my hip, this is a sight I see many times a day when the boy is here.
Oh, he's happy to play with things by himself for awhile. Moments at a time!
But then, you know, he wants Grandmother to play with him.
And Grandmother does.
Yes. He's spoiled. So what?
He went with Kathleen and me today to the hospital so that we could meet Kathleen's radiation oncologist. Back-up babysitter Jessie is out of town and Pop-Pop had work and so he just came with us. It was fine. There were crackers in the waiting room. He was mostly good.
There was a moment though when a volunteer came through with a therapy dog. Yes. A therapy dog in the waiting room of the oncology radiation department. Frankly, no one seemed thrilled to see this dog, poor thing. No one. Well, a nurse did.
But the dog zoomed right over to us because Owen had dropped a few Cheerios and guess what the dog's favorite treat is?
Yes. Cheerios.
And then the dog wanted to get in the diaper bag to find the Mother Lode. And Owen was not sure about the dog. Owen likes dogs. The dogs he knows. And this was an unknown large, brown and black dog. A little intimidating and the handler just couldn't seem to understand that Owen didn't really want to interact with the nice doggie. Then the dog jumped up as if to get right in Owen's face and I went into Grandmother Lion mode and put my arm up and twisted Owen away and THAT WAS THAT FOR THERAPY DOG for us!
I'm not sure about that situation. I mean, it's one thing for someone to take a therapy dog around to patients' rooms and knock on doors and ask if they'd like to see and pat a dog. Those people are lonely and bored and in pain. A dog could be comforting and a reminder of the real world. The people in the waiting room of oncology radiation aren't imprisoned there for very long. Not so long that they've begun to yearn for the sight of a dog. Know what I mean?
So that was weird but we survived.

And Kathleen has written about the actual meeting of the doctor whom I am going to call Dr. Beautiful and Kind. I will say that she reminded me of Queen Latifah in her dignity and beauty and down-to-earth intelligence. I will say that I would trust her with my life. I would say that I could go shopping at Goodwill with her. Forget going to have a beer with her- I'd like to go shopping at Goodwill with her. It would be SO much fun.

Well, okay. I'm tired.

Since I started writing this, several days have gone by. Or hours. I'm not sure. I couldn't sleep last night until two or so and four hours is not enough sleep for this old broad. But since I started writing it, Owen has woken up, Pop-Pop has come and gone, and so has Lily and Owen is headed home with his mama. I am alone.
But before Lily got here and after Pop-Pop left, Owen and I went out in the yard and just followed the chickens around and the cat came up to us and between saying "Kitty,"(which he pronounces like ehkeh) and crowing like a rooster, he was about to explode with excitement. Really. I was a little bit worried there for a moment.
And when Lily was trying to leave, Elvis had gotten himself wedged under the wheel well with Carol and was lying on her backwards and making those cooing, amorous love-making sounds. Carol finally popped out but Elvis wouldn't budge even when Lily started the car and honked the horn. I finally grabbed him by the legs and pulled him out. He was in that trance. Look- chickens? Crazy.
But I love them.

Sort of like life. There's like 99% of I don't understand but hell, it only adds to the great mystery of it all.
And now I think I'm going to go lie down the new Vanity Fair and read about Angelina Jolie. Which is about as much heaven as I can take at four o'clock on a Monday afternoon after a day like this one which held mysteries and delights, fears and joys, annoyances and belly laughs and lots of baby-riding on my hip.

Light Waves

Frida, Frida, Frida. Could you quit looking at me so accusingly?
Ah. Probably not.
Well. It's Sunday evening and Mr. Moon just tried to retrieve more eggs from under the shed with his amazing SuckVacWand but we discovered that the snakes had beat us to it.
Damn.

As I suspected, the rest of our afternoon turned out to be fairly uneventful. Mr. Moon and Brenda and I went to Outback Steakhouse (I know! Really?) for lunch because it was easy and most of the local restaurants are closed on Sundays. Our waiter was Ian and I think he was somewhat disdainful of us and who could blame him? If I worked at Outback, I'd hate everyone who came in the door. I would. I'd hate the stupid uniform you have to wear and those giant knives you could butcher and cut up a sheep with and the serving of the ten million calorie blooming onions and the massive amounts of meat and fat and happy hour alcohol I'd have to serve. I'd hate using the restroom that said "Blokes" or "Sheilas" on it, depending on my sex.
But that's just me.

Anyway, I got a fabulous piece of salmon. Really. It was terrific. And I ate all of my steamed vegetable medley. I have a feeling it had so much tasty grease on it that it wasn't really very good for me, but I ate it. It was fun. I didn't have to cook or clean up and every now and then, that's worth keeping your bra on for. Can I get an amen?

While we were eating I asked Brenda a lot of questions about her years with the All American Redheads. She was on the team before they had the stretch limo to carry them around in and so there were seven women and the coach who traveled the country in a regular station-wagon with their meager baggage tied to the top. They played almost every night from September to May and in different towns every night.
And there were dating rules. And they got food allowances and their rooms and their uniforms and five hundred dollars a month which was not bad money in those days. Not bad at all. The coach was married to one of the players and that was helpful in a lot of ways. They all dyed their hair Clairol Flame Red and Brenda realized after a certain point that she had to quit the team and go on to doing something else because that couldn't be all there was to life.
And she did.
She learned about computers back when they were in their infancy and she met a tall, gentle, handsome man named Ron and she married him and they had two beautiful sons who grew up to play basketball and she and Ron were just getting to the part of their life where they could travel and do when he got ALS and he died two and a half years ago.


Listen, babies. Don't wait for what you want. Grab it and do it and make it happen.
You just never know.

So it's been a good day. I learned some things about my sister-in-law's life that I'd never known and it's a joy to ask questions and be given stories that make you laugh and think and learn new things.

I was thinking earlier tonight when Mr. Moon and I were playing cards in the dining room and Frida was looking at me with those eyes of hers how there are some people we sort of fall in love with immediately and there are some it takes a while to get to that point with and it all boils down to respect, of course, and trust and also some sort of chemical thing that I don't understand but it has to be there or the relationship will be flat somehow, no matter what.

I was thinking about this in the context of Brenda and how she's not a very talkative woman and how much time I've wasted really getting to know about her life and also how I'm going to go with Kathleen and Judy AND Owen tomorrow to meet our radiologist and how even though I would so much rather the four of us were just going to get Taquitos, it will all be okay. Kathleen and Judy and I are forming a bond and when we're together on this very serious mission of getting Kathleen all well we still manage to have not exactly fun, but, well, a not bad time.
We're goofy and honest and we try to take it all in and we each pay attention to different details and I have mental snapshots of moments that are wonderful, moments that are so hard, and moments that are just funny.
And if weren't for that certain chemistry, it would be horrid but because we have that chemistry, it's not.


I can't speak for Kathleen who is the one actually going through it or for Judy who is reliving her own cancer experience. I can only speak for myself and say that spending time with people I love and respect is incredibly rich time, whether it's spent in an Outback Steakhouse or the bowels of the hospital.
Rich.
Time.
Which makes me feel so wealthy. And grateful.

I think Frida would understand. I hope so. I hope that when she went through her hundreds of doctor visits and surgeries and treatments, she had someone there to hold her hand, to make her laugh. I wonder what her voice sounded like. Did it reflect the seriousness of her eyebrows or the softness of her parrots' feathers?

I don't know. But here we are and here we go and as I am learning from Kathleen, as I am learning from Brenda, life is not about what we are given, but what we make of what we are given and there is no one path, there is just the path we are on.

And it sure helps to have friends to accompany us, to say, "Hey! Here I am! My flashlight still has batteries. Come on. We'll walk together." And we do. We walk beneath the scary trees and we walk even when the path is not distinct and because we're together, we notice the moon above us, the stars, and our way is lit, even if dimly. And the cries of the owls and the shadows of the unknown are not as scary and we take turns whistling in the face of whatever we're afraid of and the sound of our laughter scares away the haints and soon Vicki, Kathleen's oldest friend, will be here too to join us too.

Well. It's been some weekend. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

I'm looking for the light. I'm finding it.
And that's all there is to it.

Basking in the light...Ms. Moon

Not Your Normal Sunday Although Pancakes Were Involved

It's only a little after one in the afternoon and I've already made a lovely pancake breakfast for the family AND...
Auditioned for a film maker.
(Yeah, that's me, blowing on my nails and polishing them on my bosom.)

Okay, okay. It happened like this:
Our dear Marcy who plays with us at the Opera House actually explores acting possibilities and she met and auditioned for a local film maker named FC Rabbath.
YouTube him, babes. Or just click on the picture above.

He does very short, no-budget-whatsoever films and uses the local talent. Some of it is actual real talent of actual real actors but I guess he's always looking for people who might possibly want to work in front of a camera for free. So Marcy sent us all the link and Kathleen and I loved the idea and I told her to call him and if she went, I'd go too, not thinking that she would call him that day and that we'd be auditioning today. Because this was like three days ago that we had the conversation.
And at first I was all, But I have to make pancakes and blah, blah, blah and then she's like, Look, I have CANCER! which she keeps doing. She's going to wear out that damn cancer card before she even gets a complete diagnosis. But. Whatever. Use what you have, etc.

So she woke up this morning pain-free and raring to go and came over and ate pancakes with us and then we left, airily saying, "Oh yes, me must go audition for a film maker," and left the dirty dishes behind.
Because. You know. That's important stuff.

And we had such a good time. I wasn't nervous at all because I had no expectations of any sort. We did a few scripted things and then some improv and my favorite part of that was when he asked me to be an older Southern Woman. What a stretch! Right?

And he said he'd call us tomorrow and could we be available to shoot next weekend?
So, maybe. Who knows?
It's just fun. He shoots fast and he works fast and it seems like it would be a hoot.

So now I'm already home and Brenda and Mr. Moon are doing something together having to do with a car on two different computers and here I am. I have no idea what we'll be doing today. Not much, I'm assuming. I was disappointed when I got home to find that Mr. O had already gone home. Dang. He had his first pancake breakfast at Grandmother's and he sat up in that highchair and ate pancakes and bananas and then we set him down and he walked his bandy-legged little drunk-walk around the dining room and my heart swelled up with the joy of him. I swear. He has me wrapped around his tiniest finger, crushed completely under his thumb, and I spoil the living crap out of him and I can't help it and that's all there is to it. I'm sorry I talk about him too much but I simply can't help it. It's like when you first fall in love and every conversation somehow ends up mentioning (at least) your new beloved no matter where the conversation started. It gets steered to the place where your love can be mentioned and just saying his or her name makes your arms ache for them, your heart yearn for them and it's torture and it's joy at the same time.

Okay. Okay. I'll shut up. But when YOU become a grandparent, you'll know what I'm talking about and you'll remember this and you'll think, "Shit. She was right."

If you want to see the video that Marcy was in, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/fcrabbath?blend=2&ob=1 and click on Modern Gods. She plays Hera.
And maybe someday I'll be on YouTube.
Although, when I think of how much the STILL camera hates me, I sort of get the willies and a real bad feeling when I think of what the video camera will feel about me.
This could be a REAL short career if it even begins.

Oh well. It was fun just to go play with Kathleen and some other folks I enjoyed meeting. A fine thing to do on a Sunday after you make and eat pancakes with the people you love.

I highly recommend it.

Aunt Brenda Is Here!

Mr. Moon's sister Brenda is visiting which is a rare treat and so we all went out tonight. Aunt Brenda had never met Owen and since Lily is like Brenda, Jr. in so many ways, I was excited to see the grand meeting between Brenda and Lily's son.

It was fun! We went to a local restaurant called Kitcho's where Mean Aunt Jessie works and everyone was there except May who had to work tonight. We missed her wicked bad.

But here are some pictures:


Daddy Jason and Uncle Hank.

Mean Aunt Jessie and Prince Owen, Ruler of the Universe.

Lily and her son, PO,ROTU.

Owen on Pop-Pop's shoulders which makes him the tallest thing in the world.


Owen kissing his grandmother with all his heart and soul.

Aunt Brenda, Owen, Jessie and Lily. See the family resemblance?

Owen checking out the presents Aunt Brenda brought him. He was duly impressed. Wait until he realizes there are things IN the boxes!

Charmed by his Great Aunt Brenda.

Now let me tell you something about Great Aunt Brenda. Back in the day, back before the WNBA, back when women were not supposed to be athletes, she was a member of the All American Redheads.

They were a pre-professional women's basketball team which toured around the country as an exhibition team, playing against men and beating the hell out of them. Now, I knew this and have always been mighty impressed but tonight, I found out there's a video on YouTube which Brenda's in.
She's the first person to pop up in it so go check it out and see what a woman could do with a basketball back in the day.



She's one of my heros, Brenda is. Not just because she was a woman athlete when that was unheard of, but for many other reasons as well. She's something, that woman. And she's proof to me that yes, I married and mated well.
Good genes in that family. I am glad I did my part to ensure their continuation.
I'm glad Brenda's here. And I'm glad that Owen got to meet her. She gave him his first basketball hoop which was just the cherry on top of the cowgirl of a real, real good night.
And who knows? Maybe he'll grow up to play basketball like his Pop-Pop and his Great Aunt Brenda.
It could happen. If I know one thing it's that darn near anything can happen.

And tonight as I looked around at my family I was reminded of that quite clearly.

Night, y'all. Sweet dreams.
Love...Ms. Moon

It's ART, Dammit

To all of you arachnophobes out there, all I can say is- I'm sorry!
But look- I had to do it.
Last night, on Mr. Moon's and my martini tour of the house and grounds (haha!) I discovered where one of my banana spiders had gone. She had gone to die on the breast of the mermaid hanging on that porch. It was so poignant. So startling. So...sad and yet, rather beautiful.
Mr. Moon said, "Well, at least she had something lovely to look at as she died."
There you go.

I will tell you that the one remaining spider on the porch is HUGE! She may become larger than Zeke, my smallest dog, soon. She has a husband and if I were him (he? help me out here, grammar gals and boys), I would be very, very afraid.

So there you have it. And if I get too much hate mail, I'll take the header picture down and substitute it with a LOL cat.
Bet the ranch on that one.
And the check is in the mail.

Love you!
Mean it!
Ms. Moon

Let's Be Silly As Billy, Let's Rhyme All The Time

I woke up this morning and Mr. Moon had been gone for hours to Georgia to look at this property he has sniffed out which he may hunt on next fall. Mr. Moon does not do things like most people. He does not find a "hunt club" and sign up and so forth. No. He does not.
Like when my AC broke in the car. Does he go and order a new whateverthefuck that thing was which was broken? Again. No. He does not. He finds one somewhere on the internet or through magical ways and he gets it and he fixes my AC.
When he built the chicken coop he found wood here and wire there and tin for the roof in yet another place and sometimes he found something and then changed his design to incorporate that and he is, shall we say, ingenious?
Well. He is. He looks at a problem or a project and he figures out how best to make it work and that way may not be the easiest way but it is generally the least expensive way and it sometimes drives me mad but in the end, he is the reason I am not living in a van down by the river or a box under the overpass and who am I to complain?
He left me a note by the coffee this morning. See photo above. And because it's nearing unto my birthday and I always fall apart this time of year (except for last year when I knew I was going to be in Cozumel for my birthday and THERE WAS NOT ONE MOLECULE OF FALLING APART THEN, NO THERE WAS NOT!), and because well, life just gets really sticky this time of year, I was feeling all weird this morning. The man had been so excited to go see this property. He was trying to downplay but it wasn't working. I have lived with him for twenty-six years. I know when he's so excited he's about to pee in his pants, even if he's acting all cool and stuff.
But anyway, back to this morning and I found that note and all I could think of was the "being who you are" part of it and WHO THE HELL AM I? and boy, that's romantic. Sweet but not so romantic. And he was so excited because he's planning his hunting life for this year and I wish that anything that I did or do made him that excited.
Do you know what I mean?
And after twenty-six years I realize that this is who this man is. He loves to hunt. It has nothing to do with me. Which may be the crux of my annoyance. But I love him, he loves to hunt, there you go. Hunt, baby.
If I can't love him for being who he is then I am not really loving him at all, just some fantasy of loving him and he, being Zen Glen, knows this in his heart and maybe he really does love me for being who I am. Really. And isn't that what we all want?

Okay. Where was I?

And then I remembered that I HUNG UP on a state trouper last night who called to no doubt ask me for money for FAST which I assume means Florida Association of State Troopers. I hung up on him. I didn't do what I usually do which is to wait until the initial greeting and plea have been made and then I explain that I don't respond to anything solicited on the phone and then I hang up. Nope. I just hung up.
Why waste anyone's time? I was cooking dinner.

So then, thinking about this, the phrase "click it or ticket" came to my mind. And then the phrase "use it or lose it" and then I just got silly. Well, my mind got silly. And I started thinking of lots of phrases and I felt like Steve Martin or someone so here you go. Here's some good advice from Ms. Moon on this Saturday morning and keep in mind that she is going slightly nuts. Feel free to go there with me.

Click it or ticket. In fact, click it or tick it.
Shake it and bake it.
Bake it and take it.
Use it or lose it. Lose it and don't use it.
Eat it or beat it, mop it or stop it. Pope it or dope it. Dope it or rope it. Rope it or mope it.
Fuck it up or muck it up. Fuck it and suck it. (Classic)
Piss it or miss it. Miss it or kiss it. Don't kiss it AND piss it (off).
Raise it and praise it. (Hell, kids, or vegetables.) Grow it and show it.
Love it, don't shove it. Dress it and bless it. Dance it and prance it. Cram it and ram it. TAKE IT AND SHAKE IT! Deal it and feel it. Drink it or think it. Whip it and sip it. Teach it, don't preach it. Eat peaches, NOT leeches.
Mate it and rate it. Rate it, then mate it. Jump it, then pump it. (Ooh, that's a good one!)
Dig out and wig out.
Make out and take out, shake out and rake out. Break out!
Sleep on it, creep on it. Sleep on it, then (bleep!) on it.
Yearn for it, turn for it.
Dangle it and spangle it (that's for you boys).
Spangle, don't tangle. Wrangle it AND tangle it.
Love it, don't leave it. Love it AND leave it. Come back and attack. Detect it, reject it.
Make it. Don't fake it. Or fake it 'til you make it. Shake it, don't break it. (And if you don't want my peaches don't you shake up on my tree.)
Stir and purr. Sit and shit. Lay and play. Play and stay. Walk it AND talk it.
Try it and buy it. Buy it and fly it. Fly, don't ask why.
Tickle your pickle, wiggle your waggle, bitch it and itch it, fold it and hold it, spend it and rend it, give it and live it, live it, THEN give it.
Tell it and sell it. Bail it then sail it. Fish it then dish it, plate it then rate it.

Read me, then feed me. Hold me, enfold me. Razzle me, dazzle me. Cry to me, lie to me. Meet with me, eat with me, tease me and please me, fly with me, ask why with me, cry with me.
Catch me and patch me. Feed me and breed me. Desire me and fire me (up).
Live with me, give with me. Lie with me, die with me. Wake with me, take with me. Grow with me, show with me.
Go slow with me.

Now you. Give me yours. Let's be silly. It's Saturday. Silliness is better than sadness and if you're making silly rhymes it's harder to travel to the land of crazy.

Spend a while with me, smile with me. Spend some time with me, rhyme with me. If you have the inclination for the situation.

(Oh god, I can't stop!)

Rap it and wrap it, tap it and slap it. Pop me and stop me!

Thank-you. Be who you are. I'll love you for it.

And remember:

Write it, I'll bite it. Don't fight me. All righty?

Ah Lah

Yeah well. See what happens when I don't go to town? Kathleen went to the doctor today because she was in so much pain she just had to. All by herself. Drove herself there and went in and apologized like crazy because she didn't call first. There's a big sign in the waiting room that says, "We do not accept walk-ins." I can't help but wonder about this. Do people walk into an oncology practice and say, "Hey! I think I might have cancer. Can I see a doctor?" I guess they do.
But they were very nice to her at the doctor's. They told her she is NOT a walk-in. She's a patient. And they saw her.

She stopped by on her way home for a quick hug and visit. She told me she feels like our friend Rich with his old Mercedes. Every time he takes it to the shop they find more stuff wrong with it.
Yeah. The found more stuff.
I'll let her tell you about it. I think she will.
But hell, it's not good stuff.
The lovely thing is, though, is that she can still crack jokes. She can still bemoan the fact that she has to take steroids. "Will I blow up and my hair turn black?"
"I have no idea," I said.
And I don't.
Must I say it again? Oh what the fuck? I might as well.

I don't know shit.

I know that this is going to be a long process, though. One we've probably just begun. She said that next they'll be finding cancer in her toenails. I said that she's probably right and she should just go ahead and get them removed now.
See? Jokes.
The best one was about the PET scan which people keep telling her she should have. She's wondering which of her pets she should bring in, and we very seriously discussed the pros and cons of each dog or cat or bunny to accompany her for a PET scan.

We talked and laughed for awhile and then she left, patting my cat Luna on her way out. She's gone home to be with her kids and eat pizza on a Friday night. If she eats. She's having to force herself to do eat. Maybe the steroids will help with that.

And now Mr. Moon is home and we're going to have a Friday night martini, walk around the yard. He's excited because he's going to Georgia tomorrow to check out a place to hunt for the fall. And his sister is coming tomorrow to pick up a car he got for her. I'm glad. I like his sister a lot. She's never met Owen before and it'll be a grand meeting.

And that's the Friday evening update. As if you needed one. You don't. But I needed to write one.

I needed to remind myself that life just keeps going on and we just need to pace ourselves for this adventure.

We surely do and we're going to get this show on the road as soon as possible and I'm cooking chicken for dinner.

How about you?

Chickens And Not Needing To Keep The World Spinning

It's one of those rare days when I have no place I need to go, no one I need to see. This seems to becoming a rare occurrence for me and as such, I hold it precious. I heard a woman yesterday in line to check out at TJ Maxx talking to another woman and I don't know what she was talking about, specifically, but she said, "It's good. It makes me get out of the house and I tend to just stay at home too much."

Hmmmm. I knew what she meant.

There's a dichotomy for some of us. We long to be at home but we know our lives are enriched and made more luscious and interesting if we get out, get away, do with and for others.
But today is just mine, although of course there is much here which needs my attention. I would love nothing more than to curl up with the book I'm reading right now and spend my day in bed with it, snoozing and reading as the day passes. A day like that will never happen unless I am too sick to get up, though. My grandfather's genes are too strong within me to allow myself that sort of rest, although in theory, I think it's a good idea and probably healthy too, now and then.

But that's not what I came here to talk about. No. I came to talk about chickens. For those of you who do not know me, I have one rooster and eight hens. There is another hen which hangs out with mine and she has a nest in my husband's garage and so she is sort of ours but she came over from the flock next door and so I do not really think of her as ours, although we take whatever eggs she gives us and we make sure she has food and water. I named her Carol because she used to be feral and would run from us when she saw us but now she runs toward us, wanting to be fed, and will even take food from my hand on occasion. Here she is:

She's a pretty little thing and lays nice big eggs and our rooster, knowing quality sister-wife material when he sees it, courts her assiduously. I have seen him push food away from one of his hens so that she can get it and she does seem to like to be by his side at times. Elvis is a courtly rooster, although violent in his mating.

My chickens live in a pretty little coop with an attached hen house which my husband built where they roost at night (Carol does not roost with the others- she roosts in a tree) and I try to keep it tidy and fairly clean. I put hay down so that when it comes time to clean it, I can rake up the hay and carry it off to the garden where it sits and composts and then I lay down fresh hay for them. I'm not obsessive about it, but I try to at least muck out the hen house regularly because they poop a lot and it's a small space and it is where they lay their eggs.

Most days I let my chickens run the yard and they love that and I love watching them as they do it. They are busy, those chickens with a comic sort of dignity, scratching and pecking and they have been good for the flower beds, despite my fears that they would tear them up. They have not. They have kept them weeded and fertilized and it is a constant delight to see them in a different part of the yard, scratching in this bed or that, beneath this tree or another. There is just something about my chickens which makes my soul happy. They all have names, of course, and we've raised them from babies and they are no more afraid of us than we are of them and they live quite peacefully with a cat and the squirrels and the birds although I think a large predator bird got one of my hens and I know that snakes visit the hen house and eat my eggs. I have found them there, although not lately. I did find the shed skin of one the other day, laying across a bale of hay at the back of the hen house.

Well. That's country life. And I am so grateful to live here in Jefferson County where no one thinks twice about a yard full of chickens.

My neighbors have chickens too, but theirs is another story. They not only have chickens but also goats and a donkey and a horse and guinea hens and a turkey and dogs and hell, I don't even know what all. They have a LOT of animals and in fact, most of their back yard is taken up in animal pens and I've always enjoyed the proximity of all these creatures and so do the children who come and visit and yes, the adults do too.
But in the past few months, it would seem that they have developed a sort of obsession with adding more and more chickens to their yard. I know they can't begin to eat all the eggs they get. I can't keep up with mine, even with the snakes' taking some. I think it's more of well, like I said, an obsession. They have begun collecting chickens, it would seem, and some of them are fancy breeds and some of them are not but there are suddenly just way too many chickens, in my opinion, in a very small space which unhappily borders my property.

To me, the joy of backyard chickens is that of seeing them running and doing all the funny chicken things they do and mostly, being happy. And okay, spoiled. I give my chickens their regular chicken feed and corn scratch and I crush their shells up and give them back to them and I give them fruit and kitchen scraps and whatever stale bread products we have and neighbors bring over their treats for them and Lily, my daughter, even gives me her stale food and too-gone produce to give to them. And they get that daily run-time and they can scratch and make dirt baths and nap under the shed and just do what chickens naturally do, rewarding me with their beautiful eggs of many colors and their clucks and crows and cackles and even, I think, a sort of affection. It's a beautiful thing.

It is the opposite of factory-farm raised chickens and if you've ever driven past one of those places you know how evil they are. The smell alone is wicked and I'm not one of those people who cries over the rights of farm animals but dammit- there's just something so very, very wrong about those places and that's all there is to it.

And it seems to me that my neighbor's chicken yard is growing a little too much like one of those nasty places. They don't put hay down for their chickens and so there is no way to scoop up the poop easily and we've gotten so much rain that the dirt they have to run in is always wet with rain water and thick with feces and there is no dry sand for them to bathe in (which is something healthy chickens need) and sometimes it seems as if there isn't enough food for them and the smell is growing more and more intense. Intensely awful. I never minded the smell of the animals over there before. It was just a nice, barnyard smell but there's nothing nice about it now.
I've seen dead chickens in the pen recently and that can't be a good sign.
I went over there today to take a picture (breathing through my mouth) and although I saw no dead chickens, it wasn't a happy sight.

That's just a few of them in a very small space.
They never get anything green to eat and if a bug made it into that pen, it would be gone in an eye-blink. And I don't think my neighbors are cruel or neglectful. Not really. I think they've just suddenly found themselves in the position of having more chickens than they literally know what to do with.

Mr. Moon and I have discussed this. Should we say anything? How do you do that? We don't have that many neighbors here and it's really not a good idea to alienate any of them. How do you say, "Your chicken pen stinks up my whole yard," without sounding, uh, bitchy? And critical. But it's getting extremely unpleasant and frankly, it makes me sad to see the chickens in these living conditions.

I don't know. The upside of living in a place like this is that you CAN have chickens but the downside is that no one checks to make sure that the animals people keep are healthy, much less happy. I don't think I could bring myself to report them to the local authorities. They would KNOW it's me and besides, the animals do get fed and watered and well, there's that old song, "Ain't nobody's business if I do," which is sort of the motto for people who live in rural areas.

Well, I guess it's like anything else. You take care of what you have the best you can and if someone asks for your opinion you can give it and you have to get along to get along and so forth.

But that's what I'm thinking about today as I go about my chores. I started cleaning out my chicken pen yesterday when a storm chased me in and lightening and thunder cracked the sky and my old house rattled and shook but I finished the job this morning and gave my beloveds some watermelon and cherries and corn and made sure that Carol got some too.
It makes me feel good to lay down that unpooped-upon hay and it makes me happy to see the chickens cluster around the melon, which is one of their favorite foods.

I'm doing laundry and a little housecleaning and I took a good walk and so I'm feeling as if I am taking care of business here on my side of the fence and all of that makes me feel good, to tell you the truth. It's a hot, slow day and I can be as slow as I want to; I can take a break and write this. I'll let the chickens out in a little while. I'm trying to get them to lay me their eggs where I can find them again and have already collected three today. They'd rather be outside but right now, they seem content with their fresh hay and treats and clean water.

I'm letting the world at large take care of its own business and I am taking care of mine and if you want to know the truth, that's plenty for me. For today, at least. The older I get, the more I realize that the world does not need me in order to keep spinning. And that is a beautiful thing.

Although it's good to get out of the house now and then. I know that too. And I wish my neighbors would at least enlarge the area their chickens have to live in. I do.

But it's not mine to deal with and I am remembering that. And I have a feeling that it will be resolved one way or another. Even without my interference, even without my help.

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