Friday Night

My insides today have totally matched the outside in color, consistency and temperature.
Gray, thick, chilled. Sort of like ashes pudding. Yeah. Like that.

It's been the drabbest day and drizzling now and then and getting colder every moment.
That's outside.
Inside me has been about the same, the Black Dog is not on my porch, maybe just a gray, wet mutt who growls softly every time I pass the door.

Not crippling depression, just plain old melancholia with a touch of bitterness thrown in for good measure.

No one has needed me one bit today to take care of them. I haven't even gotten a phone call asking me what to do about something.
Oh wait. I did. But it was someone asking for romance advice and that's not like someone calling to ask me if they should take their baby to the doctor or how to cook collard greens.
By the way- if you call and ask me if you should take your baby to the doctor, I'm probably going to say yes. If you are worried enough to call me, then you really want to anyway.
This is true for most advice questions. People know what they want or need to do. They just need someone to second that emotion.

Except maybe for collards.

It is, as I have pointed out earlier, a Friday and I am actually going out tonight. These two beloveds are playing in Tallahassee:

Ah Lis! I miss you so. I sort of want to make out with you in the purest, girliest way. And Lon- I sure wish your quiet feet would be walking the boards of my old house tonight but no, dammit, they're doing a hit-n-run, as they say, coming in and doing the gig and leaving town tonight.
Shit.
I sure could use some of their sweet energy, our silliness when we're all together, our love. I would love to get up in the morning and make them eggs and sausage and grits and biscuits. Nothing would make me happier.

Well, I'll have to be content with sitting in the audience, being one of the hungering, adoring throng. I hope Lis asks to borrow my lipstick. I hope she needs my mirror.

The Menfolk (Mr. Moon and Jason) are in the woods, and at least Mr. Moon will be joining me and Jessie and Lily and Owen at the restaurant later. I have to say that hunting season surely has lasted a long time this year. The Womenfolk are starting to get a little peevish. Our freezers are almost full. We are trying to be patient and grateful for the good men we have who are, after all, obsessed with going out to the woods to hunt creatures with hooves instead of going to bars to hunt creatures with high heels.

We are lucky. We know that. And we hope that they know they are lucky too, these men.

Well, I've taken my shower. I have washed my hair. I have shaved my legs. I have drunk my espresso. Now it is time to get dressed and put on make-up and also find out where the smell of dog shit is coming from. Jessie is driving all the way out to Lloyd to get her old mother so that she doesn't have to drive herself in the dark, and even more importantly, so that her old mother can have drinks.

Bless Jessie.

She is such a good and beautiful little egg.
I am so lucky.
And I know that, even if I do have the melancholia.

Ah lah. Ashes pudding. Gray, wet mutts.
Time to dump out the nasty pudding, time to kick the mutt off the porch. Time to go paint my face. Time to pull up the shades drawn on my heart to let some light in.
Time to go listen to music, look into Lis's face and try to give her some of the beauty back that she shines on me.

Yeah. That all sounds good.

And I'll get to see and hold Owen too. Bonus points upon bonus points. Cherries on top of cowgirls. Stars upon tops of moons.

Love upon tops of love.

Now where the FUCK is that dogshit?

The Stranger

It is an odd morning here in Lloyd. When I went out to feed the cat and open the door to the run for the chickens, I heard a man's voice from somewhere nearby but didn't worry about it overly much. My neighbors keep a radio on all the time for their animals and it plays country music and I guess I just thought that the voices came from that.

When I went to get the paper I saw that someone had set up camp at the unused church next door under the roof of the dinner-on-the-grounds place in the church's side yard. There was a bike and some stuff, maybe even a tent. I did not want to be rude and walk over to the fence and stare, but just got my paper and then the next thing I knew, a yellow streak of dog was racing towards me and a man was yelling that she's friendly, friendly, really, really friendly.

I wasn't worried. My instincts didn't rise up and warn me against her and you know those instincts are usually true. But here she came, maybe a bulldog/lab mix and if there are any two friendlier breeds, I don't know what they are so here she came, this friendly dog and she jumped up on me and the man was heading this way and there I was in my brand "new" corduroy wild print pajama bottoms from the Goodwill and my cashmere, no bra, of course, and we here in Lloyd hold to the idea that if you are in your yard or on your porch you are "invisible" if you're not properly dressed and so this was a rude breaking-through of that glass wall, this man, this dog.

The dog raced off to the cat food, then up to my kitchen porch and the man asked politely, while yelling at the dog, if he could enter my yard to get her, and I said, "Of course," and my instincts there were not as kindly about him as they had been about his animal.

My dogs were going insane and he was bellowing, "Amy! Get over here right now!" in this very, very deep voice and although his manner and voice to me had been as polite as humanly possible, his voice when he was calling his dog was too deep and there were notes in it that did not ring right in my viscera.
He looked like someone who might have walked here from the interstate- you know- funky teeth, unshaven. But there was the bike. Does Amy follow him on foot as he bikes? I can't imagine and for all I know, he's some eccentric dot com billionaire following an urge to see the deep south. Who knows? Not me.

He got the dog back and was apologetic and I said, "Is she going to be loose later? I have chickens that run."

He assured me that she's very good with chickens and all sorts of poultry and I imagine she is- she looks like she could snap Elvis in two with one playful bite but I don't think that's what he meant. As he took leave of the yard he namasted me several times, the yoga hands under the chin and everything, but that voice he had used when he called the dog was still ringing in my ears. So loud, so deep. I am used to men whose voices are never raised, hardly ever and I just realized that.

I actually thought about calling the police but that just seems so rude. He is trespassing on the church property but I don't care much about that sort of thing. And surely someone with vile intent would hardly set up camp right where anyone passing by could see him.

I don't know.
He may even be gone as I write this. I'll check before I let the chickens out. I am not risking my hens and fine rooster on his word. I saw that dog. She may be sweet but she's not exactly trained.

Isn't it funny how we react to "the other"? That which we do not recognize as "us"?
Our first instincts are so often fear and suspicion, just as our ape cousins are if a stranger approaches the tribe.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh use this fact to their great advantage and I certainly do not want to be anything like them and so I am not calling the police, I am just keeping an eye out, I am just making sure the dog is not loose when I open the door to the hen house.

Mostly I am just fascinated at how quickly the ape-woman in me kicked in during this very, very short encounter. Far more quickly than I could actually "think" I had registered so many things. The fact that the dog appeared well fed, certainly wasn't cowed or acted as if she had been raised with fear, had a kerchief around her neck, that there was a bicycle, that the man was dressed appropriately if not well- all of these observations made before I could barely register the fact of what was happening in the midst of the chaos of my dogs barking and his dog racing around my yard. Our brains are so much better at accessing situations than we know and that despite years of domestication, they probably always will be, adding up the facts and the clues, both visible and unseen and coming up with a judgment before we know we're even in that process. In this case it was, "Probably okay, but be wary."

Good morning, y'all. It's Friday.
Let's all keep our wits about us.

Love...Ms. Moon

No Title

I am old and cranky tonight and my bones hurt, even in my feet and when I got up off the floor after I ate dinner there at the low table, I hurt so bad that for a second I wished I could send that pain to my husband, not because I wanted him to hurt, but because he was the only person there and I wanted to see if he would scream with that pain or barely notice it because sometimes, even though I am used to it, I wonder if that's good, and sometimes I wonder if I am making it up.

Well.

Whatever.

It is what it is and always shall be and don't let anyone tell you that "It's all good," because (a) they are lying, and (b) they are idiots.

And on that note, I suppose I shall go to bed.

I miss reading that book by Keith. I really do. I miss a lot of things but right now, this very second, that's the main one. Well, that's probably a lie. But it's a a sturdy one.

Honestly?

No one should look this good at 7:30 a.m.

How Does Something So Old Stay So Fresh?

Another early morning and the moon, she is still up but wreathed in a bridal veil of cloud. I saw her in a different sky-room this morning when I went out to feed the cat, get the paper. She looked as ancient and as fresh as she did last night while I am most definitely only older.

I have slippers in the dryer and they make a dys-rhythmic percussion as they tumble and the heater purrs and the dog scratches and the rooster crows to be let out and another day is begun, begun, and I will get in the car and drive to Lily's house to see that boy, fresh from sleep like a perfect new loaf of bread, while I am like a casserole left in the oven overnight.
How does this happen? All these mornings, added up, one burnt noodle or pea after another.

Well, good-morning, good-morning, and whatever the rhythm of your day is, I hope it is pleasing, I hope all is well.

I'll Put On Some Silver

Oh man. She is knocking me out.
The wait was worth it.

Put Up The Flash

In Steel Magnolias, one of Truvy's lines is, "Sammy's so confused he doesn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt."

Well, move over, Sammy. Me too.

Ah-yah.

It's been a day.

One part of it was ecstatic and I shall write about it here:

I was at Lily and Jason's house to take care of the boy for just a few hours. Sometimes, if they only need me for a little while, I go there so that they don't have to make the long, long drive to Lloyd which really, is only about a fifteen minute drive but still- when you're working and there's a tiny man involved, fifteen minutes is a pretty long time and since I do have to go to Tallahassee now and then to visit the grocery store, I'll just go there and today was one of those days.

Owen's daddy was trying to get him down for a nap when I got there at one but of course when I arrived, that plan went out the window and we shared the lunch I'd brought and he put black olive rings on his fingers and we fed Elmo and I love how he makes pretend eating sounds for Elmo. He clucks his tongue and I know I taught him that and he makes the same sound when we go out to feed the chickens. A hardly audible tcck, tcck, tcck, but it's so darn cute. Anyway, before too long he was beside himself with needing a nap and he would not take a bottle from me and went ballistic when I tried to lay down with him on the bed and so I picked him up and remembered what his Bop always does to get him to go to sleep which is to tickle his neck with his mustache and his beard.
I don't have a beard and not that much of a mustache and so today I pulled out the pin holding up my hair and tickled the little boy's neck and face with the ends of my hair and he fell asleep in my arms with a smile on his face.
I am not kidding.
The boy did that.
I felt like the Queen of the Universe.

My god. It was the most beautiful and satisfying thing I think I've ever done, short of giving birth.

So anyway, I went to the library today too and I am most likely the only woman in the USA who has not read Eat, Pray, Love and I got it on CD to listen to in the car and it is narrated by the author who has one of the most beautiful voices you'll ever hear, professional or non- and I was listening to it and it starts out with how she started praying and she was crying out from her soul in her bathroom because she didn't want to be married any more and she didn't want to have a baby and she addressed god directly and then she heard a voice from within her say, "Go back to bed, Liz." And that's when she knew God was Real.

O....kay.

I'm going to have problems with this book, aren't I?

Shit. I should probably just not listen to another moment because I'm going to be bitching for weeks. Here's another thing Truvy says: "I don't understand those people...but they sometimes seem to have a sense of peace about things that I've never had. Maybe I'm just jealous."
Bless Truvy. She's sweeter than I am.

Because when you start out a book like that and then in the next few pages go on to tell about the completely horrible and devastating divorce you went through and then the even worse horrible and devastating break-up with another man you went through, I just don't get where god comes in. My own damn body tells me to go to bed every night and I listen to it and that has worked out well for me.

But wait. Maybe god was the one who told her to study Italian which lead to...Eat, Pray, Love which has obviously made the author a fabulously wealthy woman and I should indeed withhold judgment until I get to the part about India.

Well. I do not know.

All I know is that the second I held my first baby in my arms my spiritual journey was signed, sealed, delivered, and I didn't even have to put on a sari. Now listen closely- I am not saying that having children is the path to god that most people need to follow. Not at all. I am just saying that this is how it worked for me. Of course there have been many, many different journeys I've taken which have illuminated and instructed me, but not very many of them have involved actual travel unless you count the steps from the kitchen to the garden and back to the stove.

Or to the bed.

Which all reminds me that I have clean sheets to put on my bed and greens from the garden waiting to be made into supper and a grandson to take care of in the early morning while his mama goes to get her tooth fixed.

Maybe if I wrote a memoir it would be called Love, Grow, Cook, Eat, Sleep.

Maybe it would be called, Make Pizza And Drink Martinis.

Maybe it would be called, What The Fuck?

And maybe it would be called, Tickle My Neck Until I Fall Asleep, Grandmother.

And who knows? Maybe it would be called, The Wisdom of Truvy.

I don't know but I do know that Mr. Moon is in town playing poker and I should just go eat my arugula salad with avocado and go to bed. I'm tired and the moon is full and I want to take her picture but she's still somewhere in the wings, putting on her make-up and her silver Cha-Cha shoes.

I'll report in tomorrow when I can. You know I will.

Love...Ms. Moon Who Is Not Fabulously Famous And That Is All Right With Her Because She Is Afraid To Go To India Anyway

I Suck But It's Still A Miracle

That is not a metaphor for anything, that picture. Well, it might be but not here, not today. It's merely a picture of a moss-covered pecan limb in the grayness which is my backyard this morning. I have a feeling the limb is moss-covered because it's rotten which means it shall fall one of these days and I hope I'm not standing under it when it does. I don't think it would kill me but it there would be blood and a headache which lasted for days.

But it's sort of pretty, isn't it, and the moss looks like green velvet. The sort you'd make a dress of if you were a princess of old and wouldn't you be fine in that velvet? Wouldn't the men from kingdoms surrounding come to sit at your dainty feet and just wait for you to take a deep breath so that the tiny bosoms beneath the velvet would swell and the room would grow quiet until you resumed normal breathing and eventually, the wolfhounds would settle back down by the fire and the men would burn, burn, burn in their waiting for your next deep breath?

Okay.
I think I need a vacation.

Or at least a massage.

So I got to the Opera House last night and there was something going on in the downstairs part. Some sort of revival. There was a woman with a microphone and she was going ON about Jesus, praise his holy name and bring on the holy spirit and I don't even know but she just about wore out the name of Jesus and there was a BAND and although there seemed to be no real audience, there were people dressed in camo and I am not kidding.
Killers for Christ?
Whatever.
It was loud. Like, Jesus had already been deafened and this was a last ditch attempt to reach him through auditory means.

I went upstairs and the praising went on and it got louder and louder and louder and I am serious- you could feel it through the floor boards of the theater and we tried to do Act 1 but there was no way and I felt like my brain was going to explode. My god, it was awful.
So Jack suggested we call it a night but then we decided to go to Pat's house and just run lines and so we did although Pat told us that she hadn't dusted lately and I almost fell over laughing because a dustball wouldn't have a chance in hell in Pat's house and I was right. My house has never once been as clean and tidy as Pat's house is and likely never will be. There is probably more dirt and dust under one of my beds than in Pat's entire house.

So we ran through lines and I suck. Lines I know like the back of my hand fall out of my head as if that branch HAD fallen on it and left a hole right in the lines-keeping portion of my brain and they slip out and fall to the floor and scuttle under a bed somewhere and hide.

I'm in a major "I suck" mood this morning. In case you couldn't tell.
I suck in every way except, okay, I'm a good cook. Not a great cook, a good one, or at least decent. That I'll give you.
But today I can't even think of what to make for supper and I haven't even had my breakfast yet although it's sitting there in the blender just waiting for me with its protein, it's fiber, it's fruit.
Yeah.

There are cardinals on the feeder actually feeding each other and I'd take a picture but if I move from this chair to grab the camera they will fly off so just imagine that- two red birds, one dark, one dun, sharing seeds beak-to-beak and even if I suck, I got to see that and so maybe Jesus does love me even if I take his holy name in vain all the fucking time. At least I don't shout his name over a microphone and make the boards of the Opera House quake and chase would-be thespians out of the building.

I suck but I feed my mate and he feeds me too and even if I do suck, he is there for some reason and he's kind to me and I love him and he lives with me in this place where velvet coats the branches and even if I wear overalls he sometimes tells me I am pretty and so I am lucky and there is also the public library where they let you come and check out books for free and if that's not a miracle in this day and time I don't know what is and there are the tiny hands of my grandson who grabs me around the leg and wants to be picked up and the hens are laying again, beautiful fine eggs and I do not need someone with a microphone entreating me to praise the Lord because I am sitting here quietly, even as I feel that I suck, knowing that just being here to witness all these miracles on this gray day is a sort of worship, a sort of praise, and a sort of proof of something I am not even smart enough to figure out.

Late Afternoon

The blackbirds are trilling and thrilling and shilling the latest plot to their latest plays and novels and screenplays and poems to the agents of the sky and the sun is finally out and maybe it's almost seventy and the boy has come and now gone home.

Quick, quick, I straightened up and washed dishes and put toys on shelves and brooms back on hooks and made a cheater's chili (canned this, canned that) and put it in the crockpot and I want so badly to go lay down but I should go over my lines.

You know what? I'm going to go lay down. I will drink coffee and go over my lines when I wake up and the blackbirds will still be singing, the sun may or may not be shining but, but, but...
These bones are tired and so is my mind and that boy and I picked up sticks and he rode in the wheelbarrow and in the stroller too, only down Main Street instead of just in the yard and we bounced the ball and we read the books and we cleaned the poop and we ate apples and almonds and we did so much more and I'm thirsty, I'm tired, I'm going to rehearsal tonight.

Isn't he beautiful?

My god, I think so.

Asking For Help

Oh, from a cuddle in the bed to making oatmeal to letting the chickens out to taking Kathleen home and now to town to get That Boy because his mama has a terrible tooth. She is going to the dentist this afternoon but she needs to rest and she's in pain and he needs to run around outside and I can let him do that.
I miss that boy and so it'll be good to have him here with me today.

It seems to me that asking for and accepting help is an issue we're all dealing with right now in one way or another.

May wrote about it here.
Beautifully.
And if asking for help or even acknowledging you might need some is something you're struggling with, I recommend you go read that.
I recommend you go read it regardless of that issue but especially if you are.

Helping someone you love is a joy, even if it is difficult and it's rarely as difficult as the person we love thinks it is.

And really- that's all I have to say right now.

Time to go get Owen. Time to begin this part of my day.
It is gray but not raining, chilly but not cold.
I am so grateful to be needed. I am so grateful to love and be loved.

Pizza Pie

Last Wednesday we had the no-chemo-pizza party and tonight we are having the Chemo Pizza Party and Kathleen said today, "Aren't you getting tired of making pizza?" and I said, "Good God, no. I love to make pizza."

And Mr. Moon is home tonight so it's just the three of us, Kathleen and me and Mr. Moon and we're about to eat pizza and go to bed because chemo can take it out of you, even if you're not the one sitting there with a line going into a surgically implanted port dripping toxic chemicals into your bloodstream.

I want Kathleen to live forever and whether that happens or not, if she wants pizza, I am so happy to make it for her.

And hell, we all love pizza.

And I do love to make it.

Bread, vegetables, cheese and venison sausage.

Perfect.

I woke up this morning to the sound of those little gray cat paws tap, tap, tapping on the tin roof over my bathroom and thought, "Now who said it could RAIN?"
Once again no one asked MY permission, no they did not, and it's raining and my bones ache and well, too bad.

It's the day we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday and as with all Famous People's Birthday Celebrations it has mostly come down to the fact that the banks and libraries are closed which is sad but what are you going to do? If we all just took a second, or maybe thirty of them, and thought about what this particular Famous Person's life has meant to all of us, it would be a good thing.
Our country is far better off for the fact that he was born and lived and worked so hard to just get a little justice, a little dignity.
He changed the world. Yes he did.

I am not changing the world today. You can count on that.
I'm just going to take Kathleen up to Thomasville and hopefully wait while she gets her chemo. Bring her home and make whatever she wants to eat and tuck her up in the Panther Room where the sheets are clean and cozy.

Rain, rain, rain, and usually I love it but today I could live without it, those wet gray paws, tap, tap, tapping. Selfishly, I could.

Well, some things you cannot change and the rain is most definitely one of them.
The birds, undeterred, eat at the feeder, life goes on, soggy and damp though it may be and we may not dance through it today or fly, either, but slog and sometimes slogging is what we must do.
All we can do.

And light the lights inside and be gentle to ourselves and let the rain outside fall as it must and accept it for what it is because that is all we can do, maybe not change the world but tomorrow, maybe we will.

Women

It was good to get out of the house and go to the Opera House.

It was an amazing rehearsal.

I have to tell you something. I can't believe they let me be in this play.

We rehearsed Act 2 this afternoon and we're going to have to start holding back because we're already in full-blown tears on the stage. All of us. And the woman who is making us cry is a tiny little thing who has five children at home and hasn't acted since she was in college and she's pulling things out of her gut that put me fully in the moment, even on the sort-of bare stage. And the woman who plays her daughter is perfect and so is our Annelle. These are our "new" people and we "old" people are reaching up to touch the ceiling of the best we can do.

This is really going to be a fine production.

It's all women, as I have pointed out, and somehow, that changes things. We all have our hands in each others' hair and I'm doing a nice little hand massage on Shelby during a manicure scene and we're hugging and patting and swatting and laughing and crying and... shitfire.

I love women.

I have often offered as proof that sexual orientation is what you're born with by the fact that I am not a lesbian. If I could have CHOSEN, I would chosen women. I love the way women's bodies look and they way they feel when you hug them and I love their hard-working hands but mostly I love the way women can leak hearts.

Whether it's a woman you've known forever and whom you finally tell her your deepest, darkest secret to, or a woman you've never seen before but with whom you are washing your hands in a public bathroom and you both walk out of there knowing something about each other that you could never have imagined knowing or sharing- women leak hearts.

And here we are, women playing women who come together in this so-very-female place, a beauty salon, who have known each other forever and there are no secrets there and they go through marriage and birth and death together. And they cry and they laugh and they love each other even when what they do is mystifying or crazy or weird.

And they get their hair done.

They relax and let another woman touch them and make them more beautiful and they leak their hearts and they gain strength from each other as well as hope and comfort.

Oh god. I am so lucky to be part of this. I cannot even believe it. I want so badly to be the best Truvy I can possibly be. I want to be the beauty-shop mama, the woman whose children are growing up and moving out, the woman who doesn't always understand but always leads with her heart.
The woman who loves romance. The woman who says, "I have a strict policy. No one cries in my presence alone."

I want to make people forget for a few hours that what we're doing up there is fake believe. I want them to come into the beauty shop with us and know exactly what we're feeling, exactly what our lives are like. I want to make them laugh and I want to cry with them because really, I'm with Truvy- no one cries in my presence alone.

Well. Another Sunday. It has been fine, despite the trashyness which I have witnessed and the ignorance too.

Mr. Moon is on the mend and tomorrow I'll be going back up to Thomasville with Kathleen and I hope to god that her platelets are fine and she can get her chemotherapy.
There will be clean sheets on the bed here and tomorrow, while we are together, we will leak hearts.

That's what women do. In real life and in this play.

I am so lucky. And I do not doubt that for a moment.

Amen.

Taking A Walk Can Be So Soothing

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Batshit Crazy But No Sunday Sermon

Weird times in the hen house here in Lloyd.
I finally get an egg and it looks more like a torpedo.
When I let the chickens out this morning, Elvis started doing his fancy two-step right next to Mabel which in the summer would mean lay down and assume the position but in the winter seems to mean nothing and I could just hear her saying Oh fer christ sake, ya horny old rooster, leave me alone there's fresh corn on the ground.

I think I might be going crazy and am not even aware of it. Okay, maybe I'm a little aware of it. Maybe I shouldn't have read that book by Keith Richards, maybe I shouldn't have moved into a house built before the Civil War, maybe I shouldn't have been raised by loonies, I don't know. What are you going to do? Put on your damn overalls and get a load of laundry going and make the husband some toast and give him a banana because his stomach is still messed up and hey- does that BRAT diet mean that you have to eat a banana, some rice, some applesauce AND some toast all at once?
I don't think so but I'm not sure.
I hope not. I haven't bought a jar of applesauce since Jesus was circumcised and I only have one apple and that would yield a pitiful amount to go to the trouble to make and the only rice I have is brown and that is probably not as easy on the tummy as white rice.
Had to cancel the brunch with the boys because Mr. Moon's tummy took a turn for the worse last night after I poisoned him with chicken soup. Jessie and I both ate some without any ill results but I should have known better than to let him try and eat some.
So I've given him a banana, like I said, and two pieces of toast, and would it be rude for me to fry up some bacon? I'm hungry.
Plus, I should do something to counteract the entire pot of coffee I seem to be determined to drink this morning as I can feel the needle on the speed-o-meter moving closer and closer to the HEART EXPLOSION! WARNING! WARNING! range of the device.

So. Back to crazy.
How do you know sometimes if you're crazy or just more of your regular self? And is there a difference? Who the fuck knows? Not me.
I dreamed I went to a counselor but I only had three sessions with her and I knew for a fact that wasn't going to take care of MY problems. "Just give me the damn prescription!" I told her and then I was driving around Winter Haven, Florida, looking for a place to eat with my ex-husband.

God. I really sort of want some bacon.

It's probably a damn good thing I have a rehearsal this afternoon. Otherwise I might just die of mold or something here in Lloyd. I'll get in my car and drive to Monticello and get out at the Opera House and go upstairs and try to act like a normal human being who is acting.

Maybe I'll even take a walk this morning if I can find my walking shoes. They're probably filled with dog kibble which I think Zeke hides in them. Did I tell you there's a tiny bird flying around my porch? She can't seem to figure out how to get out. I'd take a picture but


but nothing, go get the camera.

After I took her picture I opened the screen door and she flew out. Poor little thing. Her heart is probably beating faster than mine and that's saying something.

All right. Well, that's about it from me.
I have an egg, I have bacon. I have toast and bananas.

I do not have a sermon and as to hymns, I can't think of anything that would be fitting this morning unless it would be something by David Bowie or Frank Zappa and no, we will not be singing any of those.

I'm crazy, I'm hungry. How are you?

Sunrise, Sunset

Is that sunrise in a vase or what?
That pink camellia and the yellow pansy. Owen brought them both in on Thursday for his Aunt May-May. I had never really thought of pink and yellow going together but of course they do.
We do have flowers now, they are just not the gaudy ones of spring but instead are the more delicate ones of winter, which is odd, when you think about it.

I swear- 99% of what I have done today is let the dogs in and out. Pearl and Buster want in right now. Here I go.

Done.

I also washed the Poodle Mutts today as well as the Yorkie and boy, did they need it. They are gorgeous now, all fluffy and sweet and Buster's ass is free of poop. I have no idea why but that dog always has poop on his butt. I had to cut it out of the butt hair and really, I do not love him that much.

I also made some chicken soup, milder than the type I usually make, for Mr. Moon. His tummy is still upset and he aches and I know he must have a flu thing even though I don't really bring that up because it would just upset him. "I'm okay," he keeps saying. But he's not moved from his chair all day except to the couch.
Jessie came over to watch an FSU basketball game with him and he loves having his baby here. She's talking about moving this summer to North Carolina, perhaps, if she and Vergil can both get jobs there and I cried a little when she told me but I know, as a mother, that my job is to raise babies to the point where they can fly out of the nest and it is not my job to keep them under my wings for my entire life.
I know that and I celebrate the fact that she's going to be adventurous and make her own nest and do new things and live in another place but I'm not going to lie- it's going to be different and it's going to be hard.
But it'll be okay.
I've gone through this before with her two oldest siblings and I survived.
And then they moved back to Tallahassee again and this week I have gotten to spend time with all of them and with my grandson, too, and I know how lucky I am to be able to have them at my fingertips, if I need them or they need me.
I know.

And so it's been a quiet day here in Lloyd at the Moon's. Soup and chickens- the things I wrote about this morning, and that news from Jessie and a few tears but also pride that this girl is doing so well, that she is making her life happen, that she is brave and growing up and hell, it's only eight hours to where she may be moving by car. Eight hours. I can do that.

I served soup to the not-really-sick guy and the baby girl about an hour ago and now I guess I'll get something for myself to eat. Either some of last night's leftovers or some of the chicken soup.
Go watch a movie with Jessie and maybe knit.

It's a quiet night and the darkness has pulled itself around my house like a shawl and it's getting colder but inside it's warm and light and there is a tiny sunrise on the little vanity in the hallway in a blue vase and Jessie is here.
The dogs are clean, they want in, they want out.

It's been a day. A quiet day. And I have waltzed quietly through it and will slip so easily down into sleep when it is over.

I will try to be funny tomorrow. I promise. Brunch with the neighborhood boys and oh- I better pull some sausage out of the freezer. I have sweet potatoes and berries and buttermilk for the pancakes and sometimes buttermilk in the refrigerator is all the promise you need for a sweeter day.

And yesterday I realized that sweet potatoes are one of the few foods that can be as delicious savory as sweet and I'll leave you with that one.
Don't forget the sweet potato. It is our friend.

And is the color of sunrise, orange and gold, all at once.

And delicious and full of fiber and Vitamin A.

Nature knows what she is doing, even if we don't.

Love...Ms. Moon

Spring Will Come But First We Must Wait

This is the craziest morning. I swear.
I've been up for quite awhile now and all I've done is one but-first after another but first let me start with last night.

Oh. I had such a good time getting ready.
I wore the skirt, the lace, the purple tights and red cowgirl boots. I put up my hair, I sparkled my eyes, I reddened my lips, it was wonderful.

Mr. Moon looked gorgeous and we had our martinis and we went to town and we had to wait quite a while at the restaurant to be able to sit at the bar where we like to sit because we can watch the chefs do their thing and we can wave and throw kisses (okay, I do that, not Mr. Moon) to the beautiful dishwasher who has the blackest skin and the broadest smile of anyone I think I ever knew. He is deaf and always puts his hand on his heart when he sees us.
Ah-lah.

And everyone was so nice to us and a friend of May's works there and he brought us an appetizer of hummus and other delicious things and we had fried oysters and cheese grits and our salads and by the time we got our dinners we were, quite frankly, full. So we had a few bites of those and then got them boxed for home and shared most of a dessert which May's friend presented to us so beautifully that the people sitting next to us said, "Do you come here often?"
We felt loved, I tell you.

We ran into some sort-of neighbors and I invited them over for Sunday pancake and venison sausage brunch and I am looking forward to that.

And we came home and there was a hang-up on the answering machine but I recognized the name and I told Mr. Moon he should call it and it was just as we had feared- an old, old friend of his had died last year and his wife was the one who had called and so he had a long, tearful conversation with her and our evening ended with sadness.

I took this picture of Pearl before we went to bed.

I had put an old towel on her to keep her warm, tucked it around her and there was the word Life on her butt.
It seemed, at the moment, appropriate somehow.

We slept fairly late and I got out of bed after Mr. Moon and when I got up, he told me that his stomach had been bothering him all night long and still was and I felt so bad that I hadn't known but had slept so well. He blamed it on eating such rich food but my stomach is fine and I think he is actually a bit sick with a tummy bug but you know Mr. Moon- he does not get sick and so he is not.

So I have been trying to tend gently to him this morning. I made oatmeal and he had some of that and a cup of peach tea and I brought him his warm hunting socks and offered the hot water bottle and more blankets and other home remedies for the tummy but he is content to recline in his chair and watch fishing shows.
Poor baby.

And I've talked to Kathleen who sounds wonderful and we talked about everything from chickens to dogs to death to life and that's how Kathleen and I talk. Whatever's in the heart, in the mind, in the air. We talk about it. We make each other laugh.

And I've been out to the chicken coop about four times. Those chickens are not doing well. I mean, they look great, but they're hardly laying and some of the eggs they DO lay have practically no shell and this morning Daffodil is in the nest but not laying and Mabel is just standing there looking at her, either waiting her turn for the preferred nest or...I have no idea.
I talked to our neighbor guys about chickens last night as they have some too and although they have fifteen laying hens, none of them are laying and they had to buy eggs, which we chicken-owners are loath to do. Kathleen's hens are not laying either so I guess it is the cold, the poor dears.

Here's a picture I took this morning after I threw their scratch.

The cardinals were eating with the chickens and that's nice, I think. The wild birds and the domesticated ones and looking out the window just now I saw Daffodil, so she's off the nest and walking around the yard. It looks like she's looking for the rest of the crew.

Winter is hard on all of us, I think.

One sickness or another is always going around, we here in Florida always keep a chill in our bones no matter where we set the heat or what sort of socks we have on. The chickens don't lay well and the wild birds depend, at least partly, for their sustenance on what we give them. The plants and trees are so bare and brown.

Here is my wisteria trellis and it's hard to keep hope that in just a few months those spindly brown vines will be sending out green buds but I know they will. And then the purple flowers will appear in their grape-like clusters and it will all be glory again in the yard and the bees will be intoxicated as will we, and the voice of the mating bullfrog will be heard in the land.

It will look like that.
It will be wonderful.

But you know, probably more than half the glory of it is the waiting part. It wouldn't be a miracle if the wisteria bloomed all year long now, would it?
I don't think so.

So we wait and while we wait we take care of each other and make sure we have hot tea and warm socks and that the chickens have fresh water and the wild birds have seeds to eat and that Pearl gets covered up at night and that we love each other, even (and especially) during the cold days and long nights of winter.
Sometimes we even put on purple tights and red boots and go out and sparkle a little, and it's good, even though sometimes you come home to find out that someone you loved has died.

As my friend K. says, "We drop like birds from the sky."

We do. All of us eventually, but until then, we wait for spring the best way we can, keeping hope alive in our hearts and the image of purple flowers, bursting with sweet nectar and we soar and fly and soar again while we are able.

We go to sleep covered up and Life is on our butts, in our bones, in our blood as it travels around and around the sleeping universe of our bodies, human, dog, bird, chicken, even wisteria I imagine, slowly maybe, too slowly to see but there nonetheless, green and thick and waiting for warmth.

Which will come.

Friday Night Date

Well, we're really going out.
Here we are, preparing.
Oh. I am excited.

We May Be Grandparents But...

I find it hysterical that if anyone wanted to go through my search history on YouTube they would find a whole bunch of Elmo and a whole bunch of Cocksucker Blues.

My generation may not be the greatest generation but I think we're pretty funny.

Sweetness

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