The Kitchen Is My Holy Heart. I Guess.

Instead of doing anything actually productive about Christmas such as sending cards or buying presents or wrapping presents, I've been baking cookies.
More and more cookies.
Which goes against every grain of my soul. I don't know anyone with the exception of possibly two people in my life who actually need any of the sugar and fat in cookies. Cookies are...well...just little sugar and fat bombs. That's all they are.
So yesterday I made pecan puffs and peanut butter blossoms and the day before that I made mint chocolate chip cookies and then there was last week's sugar-cookie fiesta wherein I rolled out and baked and decorated an acre of the little things. Trees, angels, gingerbread men and women, candy canes, stars.
Ridiculous.
I don't even know what I'm going to do with these cookies. I have a vague plan about giving them to friends and neighbors or, well, I don't know. This would be fine except that would mean I have to take them to people and taking cookies to people involves putting on a bra and putting the cookies on a plate with maybe a bow or something and, oh god. I might as well just go to the mall.

But. I have been fairly cheerful!

And today I have to go to town. No two ways around it. I am babysitting for the boys for a few hours this afternoon and there are a few things I must go to the mall for because there is nowhere else in town I can get these things and oh boy. I just can't wait.
Why do we DO this?
Mr. Moon is stressing out like nobody's business about the one gift he has to find and purchase which is for me and why can't I just tell him, "Oh honey, here, order me this..."?
I'll tell you why- I don't need or want anything.

It's been such a comfort in the kitchen. Creaming butter and sugar together, adding vanilla (and I'm almost out of my Mexican vanilla and dammit! I hate that), cracking the beautiful eggs my hens have been so lovingly giving me, measuring the flour, mixing it all up and rolling up little balls of fat and sugar bombs and baking them in straight little rows on cookie sheets and rolling the baked little fat and sugar bombs in more and more sugar and lining THOSE up in straight little rows on wax paper and I realize- I've reverted back to my nine-year old self who baked because it was comforting and a neat little hat trick (you made these yourself?) but dammit, it's not amazing when a fifty-eight year old woman makes cookies. I mean, it's just not.
It's sort of pathetic.

Well, Christmas brings out the best in all of us, doesn't it?
No. It does not. Not for me, anyway, and so I comfort myself with the oldest kitchen ritual I know while the news gets weirder and the funerals continue and the speculation as to how and why reaches a frantic pitch and the religious among us try to rationalize what god was doing when babies were being slaughtered and preach to us that we've kicked god out so why should we expect him to be there when we need him and the NRA finds itself in a cold, dark place where their arguments freeze and fall and crack on the floor and Facebook is full of "Let's all pray for the children and brave teachers" and meanwhile, the people of Newtown are pleading with reporters to leave us alone, just please, back off and give us some space here, and the stores are filled with crappy crap that even I find myself reaching for because, well, I don't know what to buy and the Muzak (oh god, oh god, oh god! the Muzak) is telling us that it's the MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR! and the days tick down and all I want to do is to be in the kitchen, rolling out dough and planning a Christmas Eve dinner and I keep holding on to that image- the Christmas Eve dinner.
I want all my babies to be here and I want to make the foods that make them happy and I want to see their smiles and pass Gibson around and I want to see Owen beside himself with excitement and I just want to love on my family and see their eyes shining, to feel what is true and what is real without the lacquered layer of artificial gloss applied.

No wonder I don't want to leave the kitchen where the miracles of butter and sugar and flour and heat are real and tangible, where attention must be paid but where nothing I do can truly end in disaster.

Good morning, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

I Declare This To Be A Holiday

I had one of the oddest nights of my life last night.
I have a little cold and so am a bit achy but I went to bed thinking that I would just sleep lovely and since Mr. Moon is out of town, I chose to sleep on the Magically Delicious guest room bed and the sheets were clean and I read for a little while and then drowsiness overtook me and I put my book down and turned off the light and slept like the dead for about three hours and then woke up.

My legs and hips and back were aching.
I had heartburn.
My left hand was somehow both numb and paining me. A lot. More than usual.

I struggled and struggled to get comfortable and finally got up and found my wrist brace and took some Alka Seltzer. I went back to bed.
No good.
I got up again. I took a Pepcid and read for awhile in the kitchen and then moved back to the bed which by this point, had become more a bed of nails than anything remotely Magically Delicious. I read some more. Turned out the light and finally went back to sleep and then, and THEN, I dreamed I was in hospice and dying!
This was a new one for me. It was very much like the dreams I have wherein I'm in labor, or trying to be in labor and nothing's happening.
I was in hospice and there were all these people there, just sitting around and waiting for me to die and I needed them to go away and where in god's name was the hospice nurse with the damn MORPHINE?!

Well, anyway, I didn't really die and my wrist still hurts and my hand is still a little bit numb and I'm still a bit achy but I have to say it's a beautiful day here in Lloyd. At least it is now that I've cleaned up four dog shits and a dog pee.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. No. What I wanted to talk about is that it is Keith Richards' birthday and the old man turns sixty-nine years old today and bless his heart!

That picture is two years old but it's a nice one. 

I wish I'd dreamed about him last night instead of being in hospice but I didn't. I did have another dream with a lot of musicians in it but they were actual musicians that I know in real life and I find that interesting. When I woke up from that one I tried to figure out what all of those different people from my life were doing in one dream and then I realized their common thread- all musicians, every one. 

Music, as I have said repeatedly, has saved my life on more than one occasion. And I will always be in awe and be grateful for those who make it. Some of them play guitar, some of them play fiddles, some of them play piano, some of them sing. Some of them do it all. Whether they have played blues or bluegrass, Beethoven or the Beatles, I am grateful for all of them. 

So. Happy birthday to Keith Richards who continues to do what he does. He does it like no one but himself and he is still alive and I hope he wakes up this morning, completely happy to be so. According to Wikipedia, today is also the twenty-ninth anniversary of his marriage to the beautiful Patti Hansen. 

That alone, in the world of rock and roll, has to be some sort of record. 

What a life.

I hope he keeps on living it.

And I wish for all of us that when our time does finally come, that nurse shows up with the morphine.

Good morning from Lloyd and thank you for allowing me to indulge my obsession with Keith Richards, my Totem Spirit Animal and where I have so much to do that I am paralyzed with it all. It is one week before Christmas, 2012, and here we all are. 

Isn't that amazing?

I think so.

Love...Ms. Moon

He Can Turn The World On With His Smile

Here's the short story, the one which is the important one for me today:

I spent the day with those two people.

It was lovely.

I am so goddamn lucky.

Anything else I could say would simply be ridiculous.

Another Day

I have a bit of a sore throat and I'm not feeling that well and it's gray again and Christmas is a week from tomorrow.
I'm supposed to go shopping with Lily and Gibson today and Hank just called and could I please bring him some Mucinex DM if I'm coming to town? and I just re-watched Obama's speech from last night and I feel sort of paralyzed which is how I've felt mostly since the reports started coming in about the tragedy in Newtown and I think we probably all feel this way. Still so stunned and saddened and sickened, too.

Well. What do you do?

You take care of your babies as best you can. You love each other.

You support the politicians who are going to try, despite the complexity of the situation, to do something to prevent more of these slaughters.

You try to ignore the ignorant assholes who claim that the answer is (a) More guns, and (b) More god.
Because if you don't you might start screaming and never stop.

You take back the library books and you bake Christmas cookies and you hold your babies so tightly and you tell the people you love how much you love them and you wash the dishes and you do the laundry and you realize that this moment is all we have.

Or something like that.

I love you.

Mary

I'm sure that within a few moments, Obama's speech at Newtown will be all over the internet.
If you didn't see it, just find it and do it.

I am fifty-eight years old and I have never seen a politician or a world leader give a speech this profoundly genuine.

Change is going to come. That man is so angry and I think that at this moment, he is determined that no matter what else he given to him to deal with, this one issue- the murder of children by crazy people with guns- is going to be the one which will ultimately define his presidency.

And perhaps be his mission on this earth.

I can't tell you how much I want him to succeed. How grateful I am that he is our president.

So This

Good Lord. I've just finished listening to the audio version of the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and it feels as if I've been listening to it my entire life. And then maybe a few former lifetimes, too.
I enjoyed it. Not the writing so much. Pretty straightforward and journalistic but hey- it was biography, not an epic poem.
And as generally uninterested in technology as I am, I found a great deal of the book completely fascinating because Steve Jobs was a fascinating man. A difficult man to live with, to work for, but fascinating and yes, of course, a genius.
One of the things I've found most interesting about him is how he combined different elements of genius which don't generally go together. He was an artist for sure, and a designer and the term 'perfectionist" doesn't even begin to cover him but he was also an amazing CEO and business man. When he came back to Apple he grabbed that company by the tail and slung it around and threw it into the cosmos and it became what some say is the most valuable company in the entire world. There are a lot of things I could say about him, about how, with his mind, he changed our world, (and certainly mine) but the thing that sticks with me the most is how (and I may have already said this) he would come up with an idea for a product and he'd relate it to his engineers and designers and they would say, "Oh, Steve, that's not possible. We can't DO that," and he'd look at them with his steely glare and say, "I think you can."
And they did.
Almost always, they figured it out.

That just kills me. Makes me wonder what could be accomplished in this world if there were more people like Steve Jobs to come up with the crazy, impossible ideas and who also have the ability to find and inspire the people who can make them real.

I spent all afternoon outside, trimming up the Confederate jasmine which gets so out of control that it threatens to bring down the chain link fence it's growing on. And then I moved on to trimming up the dead brown things, winter's detritus. My overalls ended up being satisfactorily filthy, my pile of trimmings satisfactorily tall. Mr. Moon has spent all day in the garage working on his Cutlass which it seems to me that he has spent decades either tearing apart or putting back together. A quiet Sunday, a pleasant enough one.

We're going to eat pizza tonight. I made two gorgeous pies last night and we didn't manage to get through even one of them and I'm excited all over again. I am not and will never be a Steve Jobs or a Keith Richards or a Louisa May Alcott but I sure can make a pizza.

One of Steve Job's lifelong quirks was diet. From the time he was a teenager he would restrict his diet to only fruit or organic veganism or he would go through periods of time where he only ate carrot salad or something else equally inadequate and he was quick to advise others to adopt whatever strange eating habits he was practicing at the time. One of my favorite parts of the book was where he was having a meal with an overweight man who was consuming a meal with meat and butter with great relish and Jobs looked at him and said, "Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol?"
That man replied, "Look, if you promise not to comment on my diet, I'll promise not to comment on your personality."
And in the end, Jobs' obsession with restrictive diets did not serve him well. When he was quite literally dying and needed desperately to gain weight and eat more high quality protein, he could hardly bring himself to eat even eggs which his doctors pleaded with him to eat.
I would have happily made him a pizza.
But I doubt he would have eaten it.
Or given him some of my beautiful eggs which my hens are once again reliably laying.

Well. Moot point.

I'm going to go heat up those pizzas and call Mr. Moon in from the garage. He's worked on that car long enough today and it's time for him to clean up and sit in his chair and relax a little. It's been a good weekend for us with a fine balance of grandsons and Rock And Roll and getting-a-few-things-done around here.

Be well, y'all. Be at peace. Think different.

Love...Ms. Moon

Old Hippie Girl Danced A Lot

I just really got inappropriately and inordinately excited about that concert last night and then continued to become even more so.
I mean, I was ridiculous.
When I wasn't dancing I was sitting on the floor about six inches from the TV like a child watching Roy Rogers in front of the twelve-inch black and white on Saturday morning back in the early sixties.

It was like I got two hours of time off from aging and sorrow and worry and anxiety and pain.
Okay, the tequila and drugs didn't hurt either.
Hahaha!

No, seriously. Those old boys just kicked some serious rock and roll ass and they made me happy. I don't know what sort of a pact that Jagger has signed with the devil but he's getting his money's worth. I kept looking at Mr. Moon with an expression on my face like, "Are you fucking kidding me?" as the old man strutted and sang and didn't even break a sweat and then when Lady Gaga came on I realized that yes, I guess she's pretty awesome which I had never realized and after her duet with Mick the camera kept going to her in front of the stage, dancing like the panting fan she obviously is.

Here's the thing about Mick Jagger- he's a dancer. Check this out. If you feel like it.






And Charlie Watts- well, Lord. That beautiful old man sat back there and kept it all going and I kept thinking about what Keith Richards said in his autobiography about him which is that Charlie is the mattress upon the bed on which he lies.

Ronnie Wood looked like maybe he'd been dead for a few decades and then they dug him up and dyed his hair and strapped his guitar on him but fuck if he didn't sound incredible.

But. You know. Keith Richards.

Oh Keith.

It was very apparent to me that I am not the only one who adores this man. The crowd overflowed with love for him. He has become beloved, an almost Zen-like figure driving that train with his guitar. There were no histrionics or fancy pants moves. That was never his job. His job always was and continues to be to play his guitar and that's exactly what he did. I think he was onstage for every song and he seemed happiest when he was playing with other guitar players. That's when the joy broke through and he smiled that grizzly old smile. It was like the sun coming up in  Monument Valley or something. It was flat-out beautiful. The man has survived so much- not just the usual rockstar shit like heroin and multiple arrests and too-early success but also the death of a child, and yes, hitting his head on a tree and having brain surgery. And throughout it all, what kept him alive, what kept him going was the music.
The music.

And that's what it was for me last night. It was just the plain simple fact that these guys have been playing music together for one million years and they still are and you can judge them on any scale you want and they are still the world's greatest rock and roll band and for a few hours last night, we were presented with that fact and there was never one second that I felt like, "Oh, fellas. Time to pack it up."
It seemed, in fact, like they started out with incredible energy and by the end of the show when they did their encores of Satisfaction and You Can't Always Get What You Want (with full choir) that they were truly just warmed up and when Mick said, "Hope to see you again soon," that was not only nice to hear, it seemed like a good possibility.

Why not?

I read that Jagger said something recently about how great it's been to be back onstage with the Stones. How he realized that this really is what they're supposed to be doing- playing music- and what the hell else should they be doing? This IS their life.
Which is what Richards said about fifty thousand times in his book. If you're part of the world's greatest rock and roll band (okay, he may not have used those exact words) why in the world wouldn't you want to keep playing together? What could be better?

Oh. Sigh.
Well.

It's Sunday morning. Reality intrudes again. There is still such sorrow in this world and always will be. There is pain and yes, I am most definitely aging. But for a few hours last night, there was a sort of joy and sure, it was an incredibly commercially produced event and yes, we paid good money for it and okay, okay, I'm a grandmother and I'm sure all those guys onstage are grandpas and Mick joked about that, too, and then he twirled and whirled and flew across the stage and danced like no one in the world dances but him and he blistered the walls with his harmonica solo and Ron Wood kept his eye on Keith  and handled his guitar as if it were an extension of his skinny body and Charlie Watts never blinked once and sat up straight and thin as a wire and kept the beat and Keith Richards played guitar, he played guitar, he played guitar and he sang some too and although he's never been regarded as any sort of vocalist, he sang better than he sang fifty years ago so there you go and even Bruce Springsteen had to give up his title as The Boss for an evening and he didn't look upset about that at all but in fact, joyful and happy to do so.

Church services were held early last for the Church of the Batshit Crazy and Ms. Moon, old hippie girl,  rock and roll grandmother, danced and was made whole again. Danced and was grateful to be dancing to the music of the greatest rock and roll band in the history of the world, still doing it better than anyone else and as impossible as that seems, it is just the truth.

Happy Sunday.

Love...Ms. Moon

And If This Is The End Of The World

So be it.

I Am So Happy

And dancing.

Going On

I was having a lot of anxiety today. It was creeping up into the red zone, the way it does sometimes. I kept on doing stuff, trying to keep it at bay. I did laundry and started pinning together what we call a name blanket around here for Owen.
But every second I was having to tamp it all down.
And then Lily brought the boys out and within minutes there was chaos everywhere and mess and joy and Owen was showing me his toys and Gibson was leaning his face in for kisses and we were feeding goats and walking Buster around the back yard on a leash ("He needs to poop," Owen insisted) and eating cookies and feeding crackers to chickens and doing all the things we do when the boys are here while Lily went through photos and designed and ordered a holiday card and then Boppy got home and the fun really got started. He and Owen went out and played on the boat in the garage and Gibson crawled around and then crawled into my arms and we sat on the side porch and swung in the swing that all the babies love and we watched Lloyd as nothing happened.
Nothing happened at all except for the trees respiring in their tree-way and the occasional car going by and Gibson and I practiced clapping and neck-zorberting and it was so, so fine.

I talked to May on the phone and Lily put baby things in the room upstairs where things are being stored and went through Owen's old clothes up there which Gibson can now wear. It was just one of those days. All of us together but doing separate things and then coming together to look at pictures, to change the baby, to make him laugh, to help Owen with something. Just...being together.

Boppy and Owen started making plans for a backyard campout here. The menu was discussed- hotdogs and marshmallows cooked over a fire- and Owen determined that he would sleep in his blue sleeping bag. Thus, the future was ensured.
Or at least, as far as the future can be ensured by us mere mortals.

There. That. This.
I say those words a lot. They all have that sound of definitiveness about them, don't they?
And we, as humans, have to hang by them.
There is where we shall put our tent and that will be so fun and this is the life we are living and the life we hope to keep on living. At least until we can't. At least until we don't.

Last night Mr. Moon spent about half an hour on the phone with a child, I suppose, from Dish Network who didn't know who the Rolling Stones were or what this PPV concert was all about but instead of getting angry or being all up in her face about it, he was so funny and gentle and kind with her that she got it all figured out and supposedly, at nine tonight, we'll watch that concert. I am very excited about that.

Do you want to hear something crazy? When John Lennon got shot, I'd just read some piece of crap book about Keith Richards and it was filled with lies and myths and so I thought I knew something about him and I said these words, "Why? Why did John Lennon have to die?  Why couldn't it have been Keith Richards? He's been trying to kill himself for years!"

I remember that. It was me, then, trying to make sense of something completely senseless.

I don't do that as much any more. I am far more aware that some things just are without sense or reason or anything at all having to do with what we perceive as fair.

And I can't control shit, for the most part. But I sure can be grateful for the gifts that come my way, the small ones and the great ones. I sure can.

The kisses of my grandsons, the voice of a daughter on the phone, our laughter together. A husband who will spend half an hour with someone on the phone so that I can watch the Rolling Stones live. The trees that breathe invisible breath, the home that allows chaos to come and go without interfering with its beauty or integrity, the dough rising on the stove, the tomatoes and onions roasting sweetly in the oven.

All of this. And the dissipation, for now, of anxiety.

A day. One day. In this life of mine.

Love...Ms. Moon

So. Now What?

It's the morning after and I still don't have words. I sort of want to rage against God but you know, that's out for us who don't actually believe so forget that.

And I don't really think it's my place to ruminate and speculate. The information about the shooter and the victims and the scenario dribble in and then is replaced with new, more correct information and so what good is it to try and figure it out? There is no figuring it out as far as I'm concerned. And quite frankly, I don't think it does one bit of good for me to say that my thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost children or the families who didn't lose children but lost other things too precious to contemplate, mainly any sense of innocence or rightness about this world, any sense that they'll ever be safe again, any way to go back to the way it was before.

My thoughts are useless to them and I don't pray.

But there remains a feeling of needing to do something. Of needing to try and understand why and that, too, is an illusion, I think. I can't do one damn thing. I can't understand.

So. What to do?

Go about my life. Same as you. Realize that life is a completely unpredictable thing. That we need to love each other while we can and as best we can. Try not to take anything for granted. Perhaps, as we did after 9/11, feel free to redefine what is important and what is not through the lens of this new reality.
Because this is a new reality. There's no doubt about that. A line has been crossed, a situation has occurred which was, until yesterday, blessedly unthinkable.
Maybe do something to encourage our lawmakers to enact some fucking gun control laws.

And then...give those people some privacy. Privacy is a concept which is quickly losing value in our Twittering, Facebooking, blogging, 24-hour news-on-every-device-in-our-homes-and-pockets world but really- it's the only respectful response. If the people of Newtown want to share, that's their right but if they want to go into their homes and churches and temples and hold each other and cry and curse or whatever the hell it is they need to do, we need to back off and let them do that.

Because we may say that this is a tragedy for all of us but that's another illusion. I, like you, have the option of changing the channel, going to a different website or putting on my shoes and going for a walk and thinking about something else. I can hug my kids and my grandkids. Of course I care about those families, that community. But I do not need to see every tear-stained face. I do not need to hear voices wracked with unimaginable pain. We talk a lot about how we live in a global community and in some ways that's a good thing but in other ways, it's ridiculous and illusory and engenders fear and paranoia which is artificially based. In a way, it has allowed us all to become the neighborhood busy-body and gossip monger.

I guess what I'm saying here in my clumsy way is that as much as I wish I could do something to help, I can't.

So I'm saying good morning, let's love each other. Let's do the best we can. And let's allow the people whose lives were truly altered in such a horrific way their space and their privacy.

Amen.

There. That's what the fucking moon looks like tonight from my backyard.

A grinning scythe moon.

I have felt sick all day, crazy-sick but quiet sick. And I got no words. Anyone who has words, well, go ahead and say 'em. All I got is...nothing.

Okay. I have one question- how can any person on this planet who is not in total isolation get to that point of insanity without anyone realizing it? This goes beyond gun control because anyone crazy enough to kill babies like that wouldn't let the lack of a gun stop him in his slaughter. I'm not saying that I don't think we ought to ban assault weapons and handguns. I most definitely do.
I'm just saying this situation is so...I have no words...fucked up beyond belief that...I don't know.

I do not know.

And neither do you.

Fucked-up crazy motherfucking fucked-up shit for which there are no words.

Babies. Babies. No words.

Couldn't Keith Just Come For Supper And Bring His Guitar?

Oh dear god, will this grayness never end? Come on, weather, either fucking rain or cheer the fuck up! There aren't enough Christmas lights in the world to dent this pewter sky.
And it's cold.
Or at least what we here in Florida think of as cold.

Anyway, blah, blah, blah.

I have a problem. Okay, I have a lot of problems but the one on my mind right now is HOW DO I GET THE PAY PER VIEW ROLLING STONES CONCERT ON SATURDAY NIGHT? Yes. I desperately want to party down with the old geezers on Saturday night. Desperately.

As some of you may be aware, I developed a huge crush on Keith Richards, not when I was eighteen when it would have made a little logical sense, but about two years ago when I read his autobiography.

The first time.

The book is about ten thousand pages long (hey! he's old and has led a very exciting life) and I not only read it with my eyes, I have listened to the audio version at least three times. I'm not especially proud of this but it's just the way it is and with all my heart I want to see the old man play the intro to Brown Sugar on Saturday night and also Satisfaction and whatever the hell else they want to play. And Mr. Moon and I do not have the slightest clue about how to get PPV and we don't know how to DVR or any other fancy thing and we barely know how to use the remote and sometimes have to call Jessie in Asheville, NC just to have her help us get the screen resized properly. 

I THINK we have Dish Network. 

I guess I'm going to have to call those people (on my landline!) and admit my complete ignorance. And isn't this just the damn funniest thing you ever heard? Only a Rolling Stones fan would be so old that they don't know how to operate modern TV technology. Lord. It's humiliating and embarrassing.

Mr. Moon and I were discussing this last night on our way home from the Christmas dinner at the Assisted Living. I was feeling pretty young and spunky after spending several hours with people over the age of eighty but the realization that I have no idea how to order a pay per view event sort of undid that momentary illusion. Mr. Moon offered to go out and buy a brand new huge flatscreen TV and I, in my complete dedication to watching this event, said, "Yes! Go do it!" And I'm not at all sure how that would help the situation but in the slim chance that we can figure it out, I could watch the Stones (whose average age is now older than the Supreme Court justices) in incredible Flat Screen glory. 

This is definitely a First World Problem, or as I sometimes say, a rich white girl problem, although I think that if I were really rich, no matter my skin-shade, I could just tell the dadgummed butler to get this problem taken care of. Right? Or my personal assistant. Or better yet, I'd just be sitting in a VIP box at the actual concert after having partied backstage with the Stones themselves. Whatever. But no, here I am in Lloyd, Florida where you can't get pizza delivered and you can't get cable and you can't get cell phone reception in your house but by golly, you CAN get excellent high speed internet and for that I am so grateful. Hell, I can make my own pizza but I can't make internet. 

Well, we'll either figure this out or we won't. 

Meanwhile, I better get busy around here and figure out even more important stuff like what to get anyone for Christmas. Like wishing myself thin, this complete denial of Christmas approaching like a freight train isn't really working. And baking cookies isn't helping either situation. 

I better go take a walk and think about this.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

In Which We All Got Dressed Up and Partied Like Rock Stars

We had a lot of fun tonight. Owen seemed to think though, that it was going to require some serious drinking to get through the evening. I have no idea how many glasses of alcohol-removed (really- they can do that) champagne he drank. I have to say the boy can hold his NA wine like a champ. Really.

Before the dinner I tried to take a few pictures for Lily and Jason which they can use as their holiday picture. Here's one that's probably not going to make the cut. Too bad.

All right. Here are two pictures of Owen miraculously sitting on Santa's lap voluntarily and even happily. 

The first one:

The second one:

That lady totally photo-bombed that shot! We have no idea who she is. 

There was a prayer before dinner and I almost went into that hysterical, completely inappropriate laughter thing that happens sometimes, always at the worst of times, usually in church. The man giving the blessing suddenly and unexpectedly jumped into the song, Let There Be Peace On Earth And Let It Begin With Me. My immediate reaction was that horrible, giddy, dreadful feeling of oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-start-laughing-and-I'm-not-going-to-be-able-to-stop-until-blood-bubbles-come-out-of-my-nose. Just as I thought I was going to explode, he quit singing and amen-ed. Phew. That was so close.

There was some singing, some piano playing and the meal. Santa came around and posed for pictures with everyone. He's an awesome Santa. I know him in real life. And then, as soon as everyone had finished their cake and coffee, the activities director announced that the program was finished and thanked everyone for coming. 

"Time for Jeopardy," Hank pointed out. 

And the dining room cleared and we all went home. 

But here. Here's the reason we went and I think she really, really enjoyed herself. 

That lady on the left. 

And especially when this happened.

Yes. It was a good evening. 

Okay. One more picture. Because he's just so darn cute.

I just hope Owen doesn't have a hangover tomorrow. 

I'll keep you informed. 

We're All Feeling Better Now

I got to the Assisted Living place and Mother was pitiful. Yes, she was. But she'd eaten some and I found out that last night she'd even gone to the dining room for some soup and she's been drinking plenty of fluids and I started showing her pictures of the boys and telling her stories about them and before I knew it, she was laughing and then the doctor came up and then we were all laughing and I told her she better get herself together because she has nine people coming for dinner and that's that.
So.
She asked me to find her an outfit, which I did, and I got her a bowl of soup and some crackers and she said she'd eat that and then take a nap and she allowed as how she might not eat anything at the dinner but that would be okay and I said that yes, it would because I had a feeling that someone at our table would manage to eat whatever she didn't and she laughed about that, too. I think she was feeling somewhat cheerful when I left.

And then I went and had a near-perfect experience of happiness, at least ten minutes of it. I bought a pre-packaged Cuban sandwich from Publix and I sat in my car in the parking lot and ate it and read part of the New Yorker I'd just gotten and for that amount of time, I was completely and utterly content. I was as happy as any cow in any pasture on a sunny day, up to her knees in the lushest grass on the planet.

It's funny how that works, isn't it? A three dollar and fifty-cent cold sandwich, a magazine, and solitude. The whole world spun on without me and it was grand.

Just...Listen

It was a listening night last night and it was a beautiful night of music and I was so glad I went. I got sparkled up and velveted up and we had a nice supper and I saw old friends and it was just good. How strange to go out on a Wednesday night, but how nice to kiss and hug and be kissed and hugged, how fine to feel filled up with the music, Lis's voice, the sweetness of it all.

And it's still gray today and tonight's the night we're supposed to go to the big holiday dinner at the assisted living where Mother lives but I just talked to her and she sounds awful. She's nauseated, has been for three days, she says, and so I'm going up there now. She's going to see the doctor around noon and I need to be there. She sounds awful, just awful and I hate that. I hate that she feels so bad. She told me that no one had brought her anything to eat or drink but of course they have. I've spoken to the nurse and to the aid and she has bananas and crackers and ginger ale but she feels so alone and in a way, she is and so I need to go up there.

I have always felt helpless in the face of my mother's needs. From the time I was a small child. And here I am again, and again, I feel like a small child dressing up as an adult, trying to fix something unfixable, my hands empty, my heart tiny and shrunken, compressed by the knowledge that I cannot really do anything at all, this life-long sense of failure dragging behind me like a stone, so dense that science alone cannot explain it.

Or perhaps I am just being dramatic and self-centered and that would not surprise me and all I really need to do is listen.

Well You Can't Say I'm Not Fucking Trying Here

I just sent Lily that picture in a text and she wrote back, "Who are you and what have you done with my mother?"

Thank You Elizabeth

Why did I think the Mayan prophecy thing declared that today is the day everything comes to a grinding halt?
Jeez.
I don't know.
Trying to rush it?
You're right, Elizabeth. It's not until the 21st.
Sigh.

Season Of Light

Something came over me last night like a dense gray blanket and it was a horrible night of waking up over and over with numb hands and the light from next door shining in my window. They could do surgery over there with those lights. All. Night. Long.
Yes. No. I haven't put up curtains or blinds. I want the air that flows in the window. I've been having hot flashes for fifteen years or so (yes, I am one of the lucky ones for whom menopause symptoms never end) and I need the cold air. That window is open all winter long and now I have to block it?

Well. I'm a curmudgeon of an old woman and guess what? Some day you will be too and those kids next door, they will be too and things that never occurred to them as a bother will make them crazy and yes, you too, and you can look back and say, "Ms. Moon warned me."

It's gray and chilly and we have two things to do this week which will require going out at night and I should be looking forward to them. Tonight we're going out to hear Lon and Lis play and when I called for a reservation they only had bar stools (god, I hope they're at the actual bar and not just sitting there in space) and although the music starts at seven, they could only get us in at 6:30 and how does that work? Do they think we're going to leave when the music starts?

It's raining now and Elvis is screaming for me to come and let him and the hens out and tomorrow night we're supposed to go to the Assisted Living place for the Big Christmas Dinner and all the kids are going and the boys too and it should be lovely. It was last year. Delicious dinner and NA wine which (a) I don't drink wine, and (b) What is the point of non-alcoholic wine? Wouldn't grape juice just taste better? Santa will be there and there will be entertainment and thank god the boys will be there, my grandsons. There will be old men in suits way too big for them now singing with wavery voices and old women wearing festive Christmas sweaters and sturdy black shoes singing with even more-wavery voices and if you could put together the stories of all the lives which have been lived, represented in that room you would die of it, the heartbreak. The meals prepared and the babies born and the children tended and the jobs gone to every day for a lifetime and the wars fought and the bills paid and the illnesses and the deaths and the hopes and the dreams all represented there in the tiny bent bodies, the faces wrinkled like road maps of the years. The tears and the laughter and anger and fear and joy all represented with lines and creases and yes, one day it'll be me. But not in a place that nice. Believe me. And the nurse at the Assisted Living just called and Mother is nauseous today and they're giving her ginger ale and crackers and bananas and I feel like I should do SOMETHING.
What?

Pouring rain and I should be grateful and I am, I am, I truly am but oh, it's so gray and it's the season of light and I'll get through this, this mood, whatever it is.

It's 12-12-12 and no, I don't think the world is going to end. The Mayans have calendars reaching forward for octillion years and I didn't even octillion was a number or maybe it's not, just another bullshit thing I've read but I don't believe in numerology either and this day is going to be like any other which is gray and cold and will last forever at least until tomorrow and then it may all be different and most likely, yes, it will be.

The Holiday Tradition Which Truly Warms My Heart

Click HERE to go the link. 

You'll be so glad you did. 

Thanks, Darling Ms. Beloved Bastard. You've made my holiday a happy one once again.