Addendum

For supper we had a roasted chicken and jasmine rice and those green beans.
Mr. Moon says it was maybe the best supper I ever cooked. Because of the green beans.
Thank you, Rebecca.

Babies, Beans, And Indefensible Bargains

It has been quite a day here for me in my little world. First off- I got to spend some time with that girl. Is there a cuter baby in the world? I dare you to show me one you think can compare.
Well, unless it is your child or grandchild and then I am certain that that particular baby is just as cute (almost) as this one.
The little tongue. The rosebud mouth. The pink hair ribbon. The monkey-bunny. The eyes. Oh, those eyes, so big and thoughtful! At this point in my life you would think that I would be reasonably inured to such baby charms.
But oh, I am not. Nor will I ever be.
When I am on my deathbed, bring me a baby and plenty of morphine and I will go out the happiest woman who ever lived.

We had a good lunch, Hank, and Lily, and the boys and Maggie and I. Hank is planning on having Owen and Gibson over to spend the night next Friday and they were busy over lunch making plans, discussing what they would eat (pizza) and what they would watch on TV until late, late at night. Owen is beside himself with joy over the prospect and Gibson is highly intrigued.
After lunch I did some more shopping. Fuck that shit, I am done, done, done.
I went to Marshall's and got a shirt and some glittery, faux Birkenstocks. Then I finally bit the bullet and went to Old Navy where some sort of high-frequency sound was whistling and babies were crying and it was hell, Dante's hell, or at least some level of it, and I found the almost exact replica of that Sundance dress but in a fabric so cheap and weird that it may have had its origin as a plastic picnic table which had been made from recycled water bottles and another dress that was similar and I bought them despite their weirdness and the horrible, sure and certain knowledge that they were made by enslaved toddlers in a country I've never heard of and that I am personally destroying the planet and violating every human right known to humankind with my selfish, needless purchase.
I bought a T-shirt too and I'm not even going to discuss the linen overalls.
I am sure that the Cubans will be mightily impressed by my sartorial ways.
Or that, more likely, they will never even note my presence. I am, of course, an old woman and therefore, invisible.
Which is vaguely and yet truly reassuring.

Oh god. I finally got home and had a message from the guy in charge of the Havana trip and my e-mailed documents were unopenable and my real, for sure documents have not arrived in their envelope and so I've re-sent all of the e-mailed ones an assured him that the real ones would arrive tomorrow and then I went out and picked green beans which are apparently not nearly close to the death I had imagined them to be two weeks ago. A startling and miraculous recovery!

There are more there than it looks like and the mosquitoes swarmed me as I picked and I probably got one bite for every bean represented. Oh well.
Perhaps I will make this with them tonight.

which is to be found in this cookbook

which I received in the mail today from Rebecca and I swear to you- I want to make every recipe in that book.
Every. Recipe. In. That. Book.

So tonight I believe I will start out with the Green Bean Tagine (wouldn't that be a good band name?) with Manuka Raisins and Preserved Lemon.
I do not have any Manuka Raisins but I have some regular ones and I also have preserved Meyer lemons that Jessie and Vergil made last year and gave us for Christmas.

I wonder what I'll be eating for supper next Friday night?
Here is what the tentative itinerary says we'll be doing that specific night.

Friday June 24:

Morning: free
Afternoon: guided tour to the magnificent Cabaños Fort + sunset cocktail at the famed Hotel Nacional
Evening: dinner at private restaurant
F.A.C. with our musicians or any of the exciting clubs in Havana (optional)

I can't think about that right now or I'll pass out. No I won't. I've never passed out in my life.
I don't want to start now.

Good God, y'all! as James Brown might say were he still alive.
I'm glad I have a tiny life because I sure couldn't handle a big one.

Love...Ms. Moon

Stream Of Consciousness (Or, Writing Out The Anxiety)

The more I know, the less I know. This applies to going to Cuba as much as it does anything else on earth. The young chickens learned after three nights of us putting them to bed with the older chickens in the hen house that this is where they are to sleep. Three nights. Chickens are smarter than I am and you can pay the piper with that one.

I have goggle-imaged Casa Particular, Havana, because that is the sort of accommodation in which Lis and I will be staying. The range of such accommodations is huge. This could be awesome. I hear we need to take anything we might possibly need because we won't be buying it there unless it's a hat or wooden carvings. This does not sound quite accurate but whatever. Also? Toilet paper. Also? Wet wipes. I remember the toilet paper in Europe in the 70's. Sanicrepe. Crepe paper on a roll. Like you use to decorate for a birthday party when your child turns three, except not in colors. I was seventeen/eighteen then. What did I care?
I am almost 62 now.
I am almost 62 years old and what if Lis and I got to stay in a place with a courtyard?

This would be okay too.

There's a fan. Whoa! Also an AC. Wonder if it works?
I'll report back on all of this when I get back.
I'm going to lunch with Hank and Lily and the children. This is good. I need to get my head out of my ass in all senses of the word, including the need to take Wet Wipes.

I need to buy a sewing kit and perhaps some Pepto Bismal tablets. Or something like that.
I need to weed my garden and clean out the hen house. Seventeen chickens in one roost area creates a great deal of poop.

I seem to be writing about poop-related issues a lot here.

I'll stop now.

All love...Ms. Moon
P.S. Happy Friday, y'all.

Town

I think that one of the reasons I dislike going to town for anything besides lunch, buying groceries or going to the library is that if I have shopping to do, I can never find what I want. This is no doubt a fault of my own but one has hopes, you know?
Futile hopes, as it turned out today.
I have a dress in mind that I could wear every night in Cuba. I found one on the Sundance catalog site which looks perfect, but they only have it in X-Large and someone commented that the dress ran very large in its sizing and so forget that.

I want simple. Black. Sleeveless. I can wear a little something over it if need be. Something cool. It's going to be very hot in Cuba. I sweat. A lot. One would think this would not be impossible to find and yet, I am finding it impossible to find.
Of course, the stores I went to may have been the problem. All the finest shoppes!
Goodwill.
Ross.
The local hippie place.

No luck. No luck at all.

I went to Barnes and Noble to find a travel book on Havana. Again- no luck. They had three Cuban travel guidebooks and although they were lovely and I am sure just chock full of information, I am only going to be in Havana. I suppose I should content myself with internet searches.
Or hell. Maybe I should just go and see what I am lead to see, but one does like to have a little basis for thought, shouldn't one?

One of the reasons I am not feeling as much anxiety about this trip as I could be is that I will HAVE NO CONTROL OVER ANYTHING. I am going to go where I am taken, sleep where I am told to sleep, eat where I am told to eat, shop where I am told to shop, be where I am supposed to be when I am supposed to be there. There will be some choices to make, I'm sure, but didn't I sign a document saying that I'd just do whatever my approved group leader told me to do?
I'm trying not to overthink this. I just want to be a good little traveler (I'd say tourist but the document I signed also made me state that I would NOT be thinking of this trip as a vacation and I would NOT be thinking of myself as a tourist) and do what I am supposed to do and hold Lis's lipstick for when she needs it. And be amazed.

And so it went in town, driving from one place to another. I spent so much time in traffic at red lights that I almost gave myself an entire manicure. I keep an emory board in the car for just that purpose. Why waste time?

So that was my day and I did buy myself a new journal because there will be very little internet access in Havana and so I will be writing down my adventures and impressions by hand in ink on paper. I am more excited about this than I probably should be.

Now it is time to make the supper. I am suspended in a place between there and here at this point but I do need to attend to the needs of the present, both in time and space. Life goes on and laundry needs doing and food needs to be cooked and eaten. I am doing a lot of disassociating and very often I find myself taking a deep, gulping breath as a wave of...excitement? nervousness? anxiety?...washes over me and I can feel my feet and hands go a bit numb. I am moving through a different ocean of feelings and so forth but I need to remember to be mindful of where I am at the moment. It does no good whatsoever to trip off into future trips.
Sweet potatoes are grounding. So are corn muffins with blueberries.

At least I hope they will be.

Love...Ms. Moon

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE DOING?

My mind is all over the place and I can't focus on one damn thing for one damn minute and the phrase "lost her marbles" is a pertinent one as I keep imagining my head splitting open and marbles galore spilling onto the floor, rolling everywhere as I frantically try to pick them up and return them to where they belong.
Rattle, rattle, rattle.

Anyway, last night we went to a new restaurant which is, in fact, quite close to Lloyd via interstate, to celebrate Jason's birthday. I've been watching them get ready for months and was amazed to see that one of the first things they did was to plant a beautiful vegetable, herb, and flower garden in front of the building. Lis and I went there a few weeks ago and I took pictures but never got around to posting them. Last night after we ate (and the food is delicious and fresh and they do use the vegetables from the garden and from beds planted in back, as well), Owen and I took a stroll around the garden and we kept discovering new things. The owner came out to do his own evening stroll of the garden and he talked with us and we also got to talk to a guy who was actually working in the garden and who, I believe, had originally helped plant it. The pine logs use to delineate the beds came from his property in Sopchoppy. So many herbs and flowers as well as squashes and melons and greens and okra and beans and tomatoes and peppers and...well. It put my garden to shame. I was proud of Owen because he could identify a lot of the plants. That boy has been paying attention.

Happy bee.

Behind Owen in that picture there you can see a swamp or a marsh which, right now, is filled with water from our recent rains. It was just beautiful. We ate on a sort of porch with a view of the marsh and my only complaint was that it was so loud. I can't take that sort of distraction any more. But, still. Here's a beautiful picture of Boppy feeding a bottle to Maggie who was stunning in her little sailor suit. 

Oh! The name of the restaurant is Backwoods Crossing. Check it out if you live around here.

After supper and the garden tour, we met back up at Lily and Jason's house for delicious cake which Lily had made and ice cream.

I think Jason enjoyed his birthday. I sure did. After all of the supper and the drink and the cake, I could barely crawl to the car and when we got home, I couldn't even unload the dishwasher but fell into bed where I started reading a new book that I am loving. 

The Last Four Days Of Paddy Buckley. 

Don't read it if you can't deal with what happens in mortuaries and funeral homes. Not in a bad way, just in the regular way of what happens to our bodies after we die. But if you liked Six Feet Under, you'll be fine.

So. That's it from me today. I have this feeling that there are about a million things I should be doing because, oh yeah, did I mention that a week from today I'll be on my way to Cuba?

I might have. 

I have no idea what we're supposed to bring or not bring. Lis and I will not be staying in a hotel but in different rooming arrangements and I am throwing myself to the gods of mercy in that I sincerely doubt there will be air conditioning, not to mention the fan that I go NOWHERE without my little fan which runs beside my bed every night. Y'all- I am stepping so far out of my comfort zone that it's not even within my ken to imagine. 

Fuck it. 

Havana. 

I suppose I should at least get my suitcase back from May. I would love to find one dress that I can wear to the gigs that will be cool in the sense that I won't die of sweating in it and which also makes me feel at least a tiny bit pretty. Long. Lis will be wearing her petticoats and you can bet on that. 

I better get off my ass and get going, retrieving those spilled marbles as I go, as best I can. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Lis Is The Boss Of Me

I got an e-mail from Lis this morning instructing me to please call her as soon as I was awake and conscious. So I did, of course. Now, there's been a plan in the hopper for over a year for Lis to go to Cuba with a delegation of musicians whom she knows, one of whom has been there many times over the years. Speaks Spanish fluently, knows his way around, etc. 

And there's always been the possibility that there would be a place for me to travel with them. Just the thought of it has been making me anxious for that entire year and suddenly, there's an opening for sure and it's next week and I could go.

I can go.

After I spoke with Lis, my heart going, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no..." I took a walk.
It was a horrible walk. I found someone's debit card. I saw a dead snake.

Pretty little king snake. It started to rain a little. The streets starting steaming. It was so hot. Sweat was pouring off of me. It started raining harder. I came home. 

I'd gotten an e-mail from the guy who's in charge of this whole delegation to Cuba. He's in another country right now but he sent me a flyer of the trip. My heart was already starting to say, "What if? What if? What if?"

I looked at the flyer. 

My heart started to say, "You can't not do this. You will regret it forever if you don't go to Cuba with Lis."

I got in touch with the man in charge via e-mail and then he called me. 

In the three hours since then I've downloaded and filled out documents and printed them on my neighbor's printer because mine doesn't work. I've found my passport. I've called Lis. I've promised the man in charge that unless some dire event happens to me or someone in my family between now and next Thursday, I will be on the flight from Miami to Cuba. 

Cuba. I am going to Cuba. I will be staying with Lis in...a place. I am not sure about that. Not a hotel. A room. Somewhere. In Havana. The shows Lis are playing in do not begin until 11:00 p.m. Did you hear that? I go to bed at 10:00 every night. There will be tours. There will be meals. There will be drinks. There will be...CUBA!

If. Of course. If, all of my documents get to the right place by the right time. If I am approved. If I don't die of anxiety before then. 

I have been feeling on the verge of passing out ever since I got home from that walk. 

What do I need to do now? Outfits? It's going to be hot. I'll take all my linen dresses. Also, my Rolling Stones T-shirts. Will that be allowed? I signed a form saying I won't buy drugs or do drugs or criticize the government or engage in prostitution. Among other things. 

Okay. No problem. I won't do any of those things. 

I need a book about Havana. I don't know anything about Havana except cigars and old cars and amazing music and, yeah...like that. 

It'll be fine. One small step at a time. I'm going to do it unless there are glitches which disallow it. 

Meanwhile, it's Jason's birthday. We're going to supper tonight to celebrate that precious man, that amazing father, that wonderful husband.

All right. That's all. For now. 

Can you believe this? 

I can't. 

Love...Ms. Moon, who is quaking in her boots, her blood, her heart

Speaking Truth, Inappropriately And Not

My MacBook is back and I am so happy. When I went to pick it up, the guy showed me the old trackpad which they'd replaced. I looked at it and said, "Oh yeah. That's one messed up trackpad!" As if I could tell one damn thing from looking at it but now my beloved Mac works and before it didn't and I am relieved.
Computer Doctor for all of you people who live in Tallahassee.

I had a good walk this morning and discovered two new things.
One- the first Clitoria of the season.

It is also known as the butterfly pea for those who are too shy of tongue to utter such a name. You know which name I like best. 

Yes. I know. We go through this every year. It doesn't take much to make me excited. 

And then this:

I stopped and talked to some guys working on the mystery project and they informed me that we are getting MORE sidewalks in Lloyd. These will go from the road I live on to the truck stop. This is good. There are plenty of people in Lloyd who use the truck stop as a place to buy stuff. Bread, milk, beer. Etc. And personally, for me it means that for a small part of my walk I won't have to trudge through the tick-infested grass which grows beside the road.
It's an election year, y'all. Projects are getting done.
But I can't help but wonder why they can't do these projects in winter when it's not 95 degrees in the shade. Who knows? Not me.

When I was in town I had to go to Publix and Lily had been in town too, and we met up there, at the grocery store. Owen was so proud of the new tooth he's lost. Here's a picture from last night.

After we finished shopping, I brought the boys home with me while Lily went home with Maggie and unloaded her groceries and gathered up bathing suits to go to the river.
While I was unloading my groceries, Owen called from my (very, very clean) bedroom where I did find and disposed of a dead mole on Sunday.
"MER! You need to come see this!" he yelled.
Oh, Lord, I thought. What now? I just knew from his tone of voice that it was something I did NOT want to come and see. And I was right.
One of my cats, probably Maurice, had dispatched a rat into...uh...pieces and left it for me. Because I am kind I will not tell you what I had to clean up but I will tell you that I had to clean my broom and dustpan when I was done.
Sometimes even I am impressed with my strength and my fortitude.

But the river was lovely, once again.

The boys are becoming fishes and Owen told me for the first time today that "Mer, I am not a baby anymore," when he wanted to swim in a different area than the one his mother and I were sitting in front of.
He's right. He's not.
But we still have to be close enough to watch him and that is that.
Maggie loves the cold water. She splashes and plays in it and I call her my squishy fishy because I'm clever like that.
Gibson told an old woman that she looked like an old man. This speaking his truth is getting out of hand. She was standing in the water wearing a t-shirt with the message, "Beer Is The Answer, But I Can't Remember The Question" on it.
"Nope," she told Gibson after he made his pronouncement. "I'm just an old lady."
I wouldn't have blamed her if she'd swatted him.
"I'm sorry," I told her. "He'll say anything."
"It's okay," she said. "I've got grandkids too."
I told Gibson that he'd been rude. That this was a GRANDMOTHER. He did not seem fazed one bit but Owen, who had overheard the entire thing, asked me if I would be his son's grandmother.
"No," I said. "I'll be his great-grandmother."
"That's good," he said. "I hope you get to meet his son."
"I'm not going to live that long," I told him.
Sometimes I have to speak my truth, too.

And so that was my day. Mr. Moon is home and I've steamed yellow squash and onions to make squash croquettes. I wrote my piece this morning on how I feel about gun control and although it may seem like from what I've just written, that I've gone on with my life and forgotten about the whole horrendous tragedy, let me assure you that it's been with me every moment. I've simply taken a little while to live my own life, to take a breath of mindfulness to remind me of my surroundings for moment, if you will.

And I know without a doubt how incredibly lucky I am to be able to do that.
There are so many for whom the reality of what happened is just beginning to settle in and they don't have that choice.

Peace.

Love...Ms. Moon

Take A Breath. Think.

Someone wrote a comment on a FB post of mine last night that made me grind my teeth all night long and I really wanted to reply back but knew it best to wait until the rationality of the light of day took over. 

I watched a little video of Jimmy Fallon's this morning where he talked about how we should all have the right to our own opinion without fear of being shot or even humiliated on social media and I thought that was wise and to me the bottom line to all of this mess is that whether a massacre occurs because  a guy went crazy due to Christian teachings or Muslim teachings or terrorist groups easily accessed by the Internet or self-hatred or something wrong in their genetics or WHATEVER, it is the easy accessibility of assault weapons which allows their insanity to find fruition in the blood and deaths of the innocent whether in a school, a movie theater, a church, a government building, a McDonald's, a nightclub.

No one in their right mind decides to kill innocent others. 

You cannot convince me otherwise. 

And there will always be murders. There always have been. Humans are and forever will be fucked up. But to give them the ability to act in their insanity in such a horrendous way is to display a sort of cultural insanity which goes beyond belief. 

Ban assault rifles. No. It won't prevent all future massacres from occurring but it's a completely reasonable and sane place to start. The evidence is so clear that the mere fact we are disagreeing about this shows a level of national insanity which is sickening. And horrifying. There is no power on this earth which can prevent insane murderous raging but we can and MUST legislate a way to deny the means by which this insanity so easily delivers death to the innocent. 

I've had my clumsy say. That is my opinion. 

Love...Ms. Moon

My Daughter May And What She Said

I cannot stop thinking about Pulse, about the people who died, the people who love them. I think about how, for so many in the Queer community, this is one of the greatest fears. And it happened. In what would be thought of as a safe place. Not just their greatest fear, but their mother's, their sister's.

      I think about how many times I have read and heard homosexuality referred to as an abomination, an aberration. I feel very strongly that this, that Omar Mateen and those of his ilk (the ones who walk out armed with guns and a heart full of hate, ready to play God) is the abomination, the aberration. Not love. Not love.

      Because isn't that the very basis of Queer rights? The freedom to love who you love and not be harmed? The freedom to be who in your heart you know yourself to be, and to love yourself? Without fearing recrimination, prosecution, or death. To love and be loved. To be human beings. That is Truth, that is Right, that is Good.

     It's so simple and yet so hard for some people to really get it, and it breaks my fucking heart.

       I believe that, no matter who or what wants to claim Mateen as their own, he acted alone and without guidance. He was one crazy individual, like all the ones who walk into churches, schools, movie theaters and open fire. This isn't an organized enemy we can build walls against, or wage war against, this is an aberration. A cancer within ourselves. 

      Things do need to change. We have made some progress against hate, but it is not enough. People keep murdering, and thinking they are righteous, but they are not righteous. They are crazy and they are angry. 

       I'm going to wrap this up, because this is not a rant or a speech and I have no answers at all. I am only writing because I am shaken and I am angry and I am so very very sad.

      Hold your loved ones to you, tell them that you love them. Most of all, look out for the lonely ones, and I mean that in all the ways I can.

Just Let People Dance In Peace

The fig trees are full of fruit and I have great hopes for pints and pints of fig preserves this year. I am writing this on my iPad and have taken the pictures with it too and the camera on it is not making me happy. The camera on my phone is useless at the moment because my storage is full and it won't let me take pictures even though I now have Google photos installed and if I knew how to just transfer all of those photos on my phone to Google, the problem would be solved. 

This is hardly an insurmountable problem. I just need to figure it out but between recent events and the heat, I am feeling listless and too languid to do so. 

I will. 

I could have driven back into town this evening to get my repaired MacBook Magic Box but I spent most of the day in town and am feeling too...listless and languid to make that drive again, let us not even discuss the putting of a bra-like garment on in this heat. 

I needed a new trackpad. Mine was not tracking properly and was also sending "phantom instruction" (or was it imput?) making it impossible to use. 

Reminds me of my brain. 

Ah well. I had a very fine time with Lily and her children today. Lily had an appointment to get the results of some Pre-K testing that Gibson did recently and the boys and I waited in the van while she and Maggie went in for that. Turns out that Gibson is excellent in all regards and the boys and I played cards and read a book about frogs while we waited and I learned a lot, including the fact that frogs have external eardrums and that you can tell a male from a female in that the male's eardrum is larger than his eye, whereas the female's is smaller.

Did you know that? 

We went to the big library and we went to lunch at a Chinese buffet and Owen ate more than I have ever seen him eat. I have a feeling he's going to grow three inches this summer. At least. We went to Costco and bought a bag of apples so huge that Owen nearly fainted with joy.  Apples are one of his favorite foods. 

And so that was all good and Maggie is making raspberry noises with her little pink tongue sticking out of her mouth and giggles and laughs and I got all her sugar today, nuzzling and kissing her. 

What would I do without my babies, the ones grown and the ones still little?

Before I left Lily's house Owen informed me that he had seen his parents having "sex" the night before and he used finger quotation marks. Lily said, "What?! What did you see?" And he said "lots of kissing."

"That is not sex," Li.y said. 

"But it was romance!" Said Owen 

He was right about that. 

I remember the first gay bar I ever went to. It was in Tallahasee and I was living with a woman named Paula and a man named Bruce, and Bruce took us to a place that was a fried chicken joint by day and a gay bar at night. 

I loved that place. There was outrageous dancing and fancy flirting and a sense of community and safety I'd never felt before in my life.

I've been to gay bars since. Some with my son. Some with my husband because Club Park Avenue was the the very best place to go dance on a late Saturday night and no one cared whether you were whatever or whatever and why define things? Just fucking dance. 

I am rembering these things, even as I do grandmother things. I want nothing more for my grandchildren than for them to grow up in a world where love is love and dancing is dancing and everyone is allowed to fall in lust or in love freely and with joy wherever they are. 

That is what I want. For them to know that they are loved to the heavens and back and that they will be safe in all regards as they experience all of these things as all humans must and should do.

Is that so much to ask?

I have lived with the fear that a child of mine may be in danger simply because he is who he is for so many years. 

And I think of all of those mamas and daddies whose fears were justified yesterday in such a horrific way and I am brought to my knees. 

I contemplate the making of preserves and I feed my chickens fruit and I try to remember that love is stronger than hate and that for all of the years of my life I have been blessed with the absolute knowledge in my soul that there is no wrong way to love and it ain't my business anyway. 

The wisteria is putting out its second summer growth.

That's what's on my mind tonight.

Love...Ms. Moon

Dark

I still can't talk about it. 

My soul feels sick and it is tired. 

I'm watching my chickens run across the yard in this beautiful day and listening to the crickets whose symphony seems especially tuneful and sure this morning. 

I am going to go spend time with Lily and my grandchildren. 

A hen is singing her egg song. Mick is there to protect her. 

I'm trying to concentrate on all of that and light. 

We try. 

Love...Ms. Moon

And If You Couldn't Access That Link

Here is what Hank wrote:

I've spent vast portions of my life in bars. Punk bars, venues, the places I do trivia, dive bars, the places my dad played as a kid. I enjoy bars. I feel safe in bars. A whole fucking lot of the places where I took refuge or met friends or just hung out and played pool were gay bars and clubs. I was at Brothers the night they opened because some of us queer teens heard we were getting a new gay bar and they weren't carding yet. When I lived in Tampa, I was in Ybor every weekend at the drag bars, sweating my ass off and figuring out how to navigate co-ed bathrooms. My mom took me to my first gay bar - the Lighted Tree in St. Pete Beach. I'll never forget the shock of seeing people like me just hanging out, casually. Kissing. Flirting. I drank a coke and tried not to hyperventilate. No matter where I have gone, I've known that if I could find a gay club or bar, at least I had a safe place to have a drink, maybe meet some locals, and not be a fucking freak just for who I like to fuck or what gender's clothes I wore. 

It is no coincidence that the modern queer rights movement started at the Stonewall Inn, a sketchy little club that made a place for drag queens, bulldaggers, and the homeless gay kids living in a nearby park. For many of us, bars and clubs were the only public queer spaces available. The only places to meet people like us. If you were in the closet and had to hide yourself, that Saturday night at Cliques or My Sister's Room or Club Park Avenue or whatever you local dive may have been was your one chance to pull down your walls for a little bit and just be. 

This isn't the first time that someone has invaded that space to kill queer people because they find us disgusting or perverted or frightening or just a little too attractive, maybe. The media used to make a joke out of it. Police didn't bother to investigate. Churches sure as fuck didn't say anything against it. Now we get to watch Republican politicians try to walk a balance between acknowledging the fact that over 50 people were slaughtered and the fact that they've been part of this problem. Now we get to watch our neighbors and sometimes family or friends use our deaths to further their own hatred of religions or cultures (because their own religions are certainly squeaky clean when it comes to attacks on queers, eh?). Every step we take forward, we are chained to all that hatred and violence behind us. It slows our progress and sometimes it comes into our clubs and guns us down. 

If you have ever called yourself an ally or claimed to be a friend of the queer community or put up a rainbow pic on your FB feed when a pro-gay law passed, suit deed to word. Now is the time. Get your fuck ass up this week and do something useful for the queer community, while our people mourn. Go help some homeless queer youth. Go find out what LGBT vets need done. Talk to that gay couple next door and see how you can make all your lives a little brighter. 

I am full of rage. I want a living enemy to hate for this, and there isn't one. I am queer, and I am here, and I guess that's the best I can do for now.

My Son

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10210178354238512&id=1328732660

I could not be any prouder of this man. 

My Son

https://www.facebook.com/triviahank/posts/10210178354238512

Done

There's a lot of stuff I can do in this world but I cannot begin to find words that would have any semblance of meaning about what happened in Orlando this morning. 

All the fucking talk and all the fucking prayers and all the "Our thoughts today are with the victims and their families," don't mean shit. 

All the conjecturing and all the theories and all the blaming and all the rhetoric and all the claiming and naming and shaming and flaming do not mean shit because those people are dead and nothing is going to bring them back and nothing is going to allow us to go back in time to unravel whatever happened in that shooter's mind and allowed him the ability to buy an assault rifle to do what he did. 

And at this point in the history of this country, I have no hope that anything is going to change to prevent such a thing to happen again and again and again and that's what I'm feeling tonight and I have nothing more to say. 

Sunday Suck Day

 I obviously did NOT find the real source of the dead thing because now the whole house smells of deaded death and my laptop is just done pretending it's trying. 

Mr. Moon and I just had as close to an argument as we ever have around here and I'm going to town to drop my magic box off at the Computer Doctor and then come home and clean. 

Welcome back, Sunday blues. 

And bite my ass. 

Running In Jeans, Dreaming In Love

It has been a day as sweet as a praline. Did you ever have a praline? Probably my favorite candy of all times. Creamy, melty, and with that pecan on top to give you something to chew over when the candy itself is gone, extending the pleasure, giving you a chance to contemplate the experience which is celestial.
Oh my.
Anyway, so this morning Gibson came in at 7:30 and said it was time to get up and so his Boppy did get up and I said, "Come snuggle me," and he did, that little boy. We wrapped our arms around each other and I kissed his buzzy head and after a little while he said, "I'm getting up with Boppy now. You sleep for two more hours."
And by god, that's exactly what I did, dreaming dreams that made me wonder and smile when I woke up. I dreamed I was running in bare feet wearing old, old soft jeans on and a t-shirt and I didn't run very far or fast but I loved the way I felt and then I met up with my husband and I was so glad to see him. We had been separated by some turn of events lately in my dream and instead of the way I usually dream of him in different versions of this story, he was so glad to see me and he loved me and was patient with me and whenever I had to go off and explore a building or do whatever it was I was doing in that strange place, he waited for me and I knew he was waiting for me and I felt no anxiety whatsoever and when we would find each other again, it was romantic and wonderful and my bare feet stayed bare and I thought that I would probably get kicked out of places for not wearing shoes but I didn't care. Not one bit. I was just so happy with every living thing and I did not want to wear shoes at all and I did not.
When I got up, I laughed to find that it had indeed been two hours since Gibson bade me sleep again and I made those boys pancakes and bacon like I said and for the first time ever in my life, every pancake got eaten, and then fed them constantly until their parents got here with sweet Magnolia whom I held and kissed and made smile and her Boppy did too. She is the softest baby with cheeks that simply beg to be smooched and a neck that's hard to find but it too, begs to be kissed and finding it and kissing it is like discovering a treasure in the soft velvet of a jewelry box.
I wonder why lips are so drawn to babies' flesh? I do not know but it is one of the joys of this life.
And Owen and Gibson reluctantly took their leave with their parents who looked rested and it's been a restful day here and I've been mostly barefoot all day and have found my husband and it has been sweet and romantic, just like in my dreams.
I took a nap this afternoon and if I dreamed, I don't remember it and when I woke up I knew for certain that what I had been suspecting- that there had to be something dead in that room- was true.
Our bedroom is very dark, which I love. It is a cave-room and I sleep in it so well but the darkness hides my sin of omission of house-cleaning and so when I got out the flashlight to find the dead thing, it struck me with great force that I am five days away from being Miss Havisham. I know, I know, I invoke her name frequently and I'm sorry and it's really not fair. I mean- the woman suffered a great loss and shock and she lived in a huge house and it's not easy to keep a big house, especially when one is wearing a wedding dress at all times but I don't have the excuses, do I?
And so I found the thing which was possibly causing the dead smell and no, I have no idea what it was in its living incarnation and I did the merest modicum of sweeping and dusting and tomorrow, AS GOD IS MY WITNESS! I am going to clean that room even and unto the dark corners. I am going to sweep and dust and get a big bucket of Fabuloso water with vinegar and wash the mantle piece where cobwebs are keeping everything firmly attached and I am going to mop, too. I am going to scrub and I am going to polish.
So thank you, dead thing, and thank you, whichever cat brought it in to leave for me, right beside my bed in the darkest corner of all.

But here- here is sweetness and here is light.

August in Colorado, celebrating at a wedding with his mother and father.

I don't even need to say anything about this except that I hope August's mama got to pick a little too.
Oh my.

And so that's been my day and aside from the dead thing which turned out to be a good thing and also the fact that it's becoming apparent that I am going to have to take this Mac in for some diagnostics and repair, it's been almost, practically, amazingly perfect.

Rain has cooled things off. We are going to have delicious leftover spaghetti for our supper. I learned last night that the Mr. Peep story still has the magic to put children to sleep and Rebecca is posting again.

And oh, Lord. If I had enough brown sugar I would make pralines and it's probably a blessing that I don't and life is sweet enough as it is and that's enough for me.

Love...Ms. Moon

Second Breakfast

Or is it third?

Leftover wings and cheese sticks from yesterday's lunch. This, immediately after a goodly serving of pancakes which was proceeded by cut up fruit and energy bars.

I had forgotten that children are actually flesh wrapped around bottomless pits of constant hunger.

Everyone slept well last night.
Inside.

Love...Ms. Moon

Lagniappe

Do not even ask me how this happened.

And yet...it did. 

It's actually an honestly fantastic hair cut and Owen says he learned to do it from watching his dad and Melissa. 

And now it's bath time. 

Wonders abound. 

Today So Far

Maggie gave Hank a dental exam while we waited for our delicious food at El Patron. She is already going through the you-are-not-my-mommy-or-my-daddy! thing and Hank and I could only hold her for short periods of time before she started making faces like this

although honestly, Owen is one of her favorite people on earth. She adores him. Today she started, for the very first time, making raspberry noises and he encouraged her, demonstrating proper tongue placement and so forth. 

Oh! To have a big brother!

So it was a fairly merry lunch and then Lily and the boys and Magnolia and I went to Publix and and then back to Lily's house where we loaded up pillows and toys and clothes into my car and the overnight guests and I came on home to Lloyd. On the drive, we had a little discussion about "cross-talking" which I explained was something that was not only rude but which made it very difficult to pay attention to what anyone was saying and not fair to either the person who was talking first or the person interrupting them because you can't listen and talk at the same time. We agreed to try and not do that, me included. We also agreed that if a bear was about to attack someone from behind, it was acceptable to interrupt and warn the person about to be attacked. 

It's important to allow room for life-saving variations and breaking of rules. Don't you agree?

And here's why it is good to have grandparent houses to go to:

1. Grandparents have fun things like tea sets to have tea parties with. Owen was the butler and prepared our tea for us, as well as a plate of apple slices. Gibson stirred his tea and said, "This looks DELICIOUS!" and I agreed and we sipped our tea and munched our apples. 

(Side note- Grandmothers do not get very upset about spilled "tea.") 

2. Grandparents often have cool things they give to you. For example- a bag to put your marbles in.

My own personal grandmother MADE drawstring bags for me and my brother to put our marbles in but Owen and Gibson's grandmother just happened to have this handy bag already made and given to her with a bottle of vodka in it by Tearful Dishwasher and Yolie. The vodka is long gone but the bag is in perfect condition for marble-holding. 

3. Grandmothers sometimes have blog friends who send them toys which are excellent and fun to play with.

(Thank you, Joanne!)

4. Grandparents get worn out easily which makes them easy marks when it comes to you and your brother borrowing their handheld screen devices to watch videos on and play games with on in their cozy bed (grandparents have the coziest beds, by the way) while the grandparents drink a beer in the kitchen and look at each other with eyes that may or may not be rolling. 

5. Grandfathers are the best at making fires and you get to help and eat chips and feed chickens, all at the same time. 

In short, life is good at Mer and Bop's. There is a lot of discussion about sleeping or not sleeping in the van. Needless to say, Mr. Moon and I are subtly trying to convince them that it's kinda sorta really, really hot and that it might be more fun to sleep in the house. 

We shall see how that ends up. 

Good Lord. All those years ago when I had given birth to Hank and defied the powers that be and brought him home from the hospital way too early in their learned opinion and was in my bed with him, introducing him to the people in our tight-knit little community, literally over the moon in love and in ecstasy, I never imagined that in forty years (FORTY YEARS!) I would be where I am right now and if you had told me I would have thought- WHAT? I'LL BE ALIVE IN FORTY YEARS?

Yep. Pretty much. 

So this is all gravy. Pretty darn rich and delicious gravy. 

I'll report in tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon, The Old Mer Who Is Still Alive