What Do The Simple Folk Do? Well, I'll Tell You

That is what my increasingly weirdly shaped toes looked like today after Jessie and I went and got pedicures. That was the Big Adventure for today. I eschewed my usual "I'm Not Really a Waitress" red by OPI and chose instead "Flashbulb Fuchsia" by the same company. I think I mostly like OPI nail polish because of the great names they choose for their colors. But I have to say that they do indeed have great colors. They live up to their name! 
So to speak. 
It was a busy day. I did a few chores around here before I went to town and then I picked up Jessie and we drove just a few blocks down the street to the nail salon and sat in the chairs that massage you in so many different ways and luxuriated in the pampering. Spa music was playing, a trickling piano that just sort of wandered about, being calm and rather mindless. It was heaven although I always hold so much guilt about having another human being having to deal with my calloused, gross feet. I mean- there you are, sitting in the pamper chair with a person sitting on a low stool at your feet, tending to the beast hooves that have developed over time. I always tip extravagantly but still- it's not something that really sits right with me. 
Well. I suppose there are worse ways to make a living. I mean- someone has to open those Cologuard boxes and deal with human excrement for eight hours a day, five days a week. Lord, I hope they pay those people well. 

Mr. Moon had to go to town to get new tires on a vehicle and Jessie and I picked him up at the tire place and we all went to lunch at a new Korean/Mexican place. 
Ya know? I'm not sure that's the best idea yet. It was...okay. I got Korean tacos and I have my doubts about how long this place is going to last unless they have unbelievable drink specials or something and I'm not sure even THAT would help. 
But it was fun, anyway, and I dropped off Jessie at her house so that she could go get Levon at his little school and I took Mr. Moon to pick up his car with its new "shoes" as he said, and then we signed some papers...
Blah, blah, blah. 
I stopped by Costco on my way home and made the foolish mistake of not getting a cart because I only needed a few things, forgetting that even a few things at Costco are going to be HUGE so I struggled with my fifty pounds of pears and twenty pounds of bacon and five pounds of shrimp and so forth and got a dang cart when I left to get to the car. Costco is a world unto its own, isn't it? There may have been some hyperbole there which does not take away the fact that I did indeed struggle. 
And then later on, when Mr. Moon got home, I had to give him a ride back into town as he was buying a car from a very sweet lady. And now we're both home and he's going to a basketball game tonight. I will heat him up some soup and make him a toasted cheese sandwich and then I will eat my leftover gumbo after which I will work on my latest mending project which is patching a nightgown that I wore to pieces. I've had three of these nightgowns. I love them so much. The color, the design, the softness. And now I can't find them to buy anywhere but luckily, I've kept all of them and can use one for spare parts to patch the other two. Once again I am doing a sort of wabi-sabi stitching and I am thinking of how my mother prided herself on her almost-invisible mending. She was an excellent needle-worker in all regards but obviously, I am not cut from the same...cloth. 

One of my favorite pairs of overalls has developed a rip and I am almost beside myself with joyous anticipation to begin patching those. 
I suppose that one of these days I should get a life. 

Meanwhile, I am listening to this on my phone. 

I have to tell you that few pleasures in life equal the pleasure I get from listening to a book by Philippa Gregory narrated by Bianca Amato. I thought I'd heard all of them but no, I have not. And it's 21 hours and 9 minutes long of listening enjoyment!
Ooh boy. 
Life is good. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Big Wheel Keep On Turning

The window in the little area off of the kitchen is catching the late afternoon light now and I keep bottles with plants rooting there. It is one of my favorite pieces of eye candy in the house. My house has plenty of spots that I don't really care to look at- baseboards rimmed with Lloyd's black dust, peeling ceilings, the cracking, settling wall in the kitchen...
Oh. I could go on. 
But there are places in the house that I do receive pleasure from every time I walk by them. The baby plant nursery in the laundry room is one of them, our bed, made up with cozy-looking covers, my hallway "altar" where I have my favorite Virgin of Guadalupe, seashells, pictures of the children. The window in the bathroom is another place that I like to look at. It took me years to finally yank down the stupid ugly blinds in there and make a pretty curtain out of two different vintage tablecloths and it makes me happy to see that every time I go in that bathroom which is frequently. I have plants rooting in bottles on that window sill too. 

Anyway, I'm partially on this tangent because I think that Mr. Moon is going to create an office of sorts in the bedroom we've been sleeping in for quite awhile and we will move back into our old bedroom. This means we have to buy a mattress for the bed in there because the one that's there is horrible and the one we sleep on now is wonderful but it weighs approximately six hundred pounds and we've been planning to replace the other one for quite awhile and now's the time! Motivation! This will also entail putting a piece of furniture that's in our now-bedroom into the laundry room which will look a great deal better than the card table that's in there now where I fold clothes. 
You know how it is- you change one tiny thing and the next minute you're redecorating the entire house and taking out walls and putting in a swimming pool. 
I wish. 

Jessie and Levon came out today which was lovely. Jessie had some gumbo and Levon had some soup and some macaroni and cheese and a honey and peanut butter and raisin sandwich. I ate my yesterday's leftovers and we all enjoyed sitting on the porch. Mr. Moon came in from the funeral just as we were about to sit down and he joined us. 
"How was the funeral?" I asked. 
"It was a funeral," he said. 
"Was Jesus mentioned?" I asked. 
"That name did come up," he said. 
But he learned a lot of interesting things about the woman and that's always nice. 

Levon wanted to play cards but then he changed his mind and wanted to put together a puzzle so we started that and then he wanted to put the tepee up in the middle of our puzzle-doing. He told me he just wanted to lay down in it and pretend to sleep. 
It's the easiest thing to put up in the world and so Jessie and I did that for him and when they left I told her not to put the puzzle up because GODDAMMIT! I was going to finish it. 
It's a dinosaur puzzle with all of 48 pieces. You will be pleased to hear that I did finish it. I am the world's worst jigsaw puzzler. 

Mr. Moon is getting a colonoscopy next Monday and he's not supposed to eat a whole list of things before then including nuts and raw vegetables. Forget salads, I guess. Salads are part of our supper five nights out of seven so this is going to be a tough week. 

And that's about all the news from Lloyd. Life is proceeding in its normal way. Oh! I made the cranberry/orange/apple/pecan relish for Thanksgiving. We still don't know where we're all going to get together but there WILL be cranberry relish. If the menu was entirely made up of that and turkey and dressing with gravy, I would be completely satisfied. 
As we all know, that won't be happening. 
Sigh. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Reflecting, Of Course

That is the only picture I've taken today. Do you think my house needs pressure washing? 
Of course you do because it absolutely does. 

Today has been weird. I told my husband last night that I would go to a funeral with him today for the wife of a man who owns and runs an auto repair business here in Lloyd which of course is one of the few businesses here. One of Mr. Moon's good friends works there and he's been a sort-of friend of the owner for a long time. But when I woke up this morning I just saw no reason for me to go. I'm sure it's going to be quite Christian, I am not a friend of the husband's and I never met his wife in my life. Nor has Mr. Moon but that's a different story because of his connections with the family and business. 
And perhaps still fueled a little bit from this past weekend, I just spoke right up and said, "I don't believe I'll be going to that funeral." 
"Okay," Glen said. I don't think he was upset. 
Turns out the funeral is tomorrow anyway but I'm still not going. If I went, it would be in support of my husband but I know how it will affect me to attend a service which will no doubt have at least a little mention of Jesus and his magical powers of salvation. This sort of service is a comfort to believers but it will only roil my stomach acid. 
I just don't have the patience. 
No. I am not being grace-full. Or graceful, either one. 
If there is one thing I came away with from the weekend, it is that this is MY life. The only one I have and it ain't gonna last forever. And most likely I'm not going to change my ways very much but I am going to be less inclined to say "yes" to things I'd rather not. I've already been that way for quite awhile but I feel that I might become even more so. And hopefully, just hopefully, maybe I'll say yes to some things that I would not have considered before. 
We shall see. 

So I ended up going to town to shop at Publix where Lily was working and as she got off work just as I was finishing up we went to lunch together at a very fine farm-to-table restaurant just a bit up the street. It was good to be with her. We caught up some and I probably bored her to tears with tales from my adventure. But she graciously listened. 

I came home and unloaded the groceries and started a pot of gumbo. I made up the dough for a loaf of sourdough this morning and as we speak, the gumbo is simmering, the oven is preheating. 
All is well, all is normal and fine and yet...I have a deep sense of what almost feels like anxiety. Like the separating of my friends and me has caused some sort of bone-deep shearing of parts of a whole. 
I don't know. I'm awfully dramatic and I know that. That is something that will probably never change. But our time together did not involve husbands or children or grandchildren. Oh! We talked about all of those things. A lot. But it was all the discussion of our beloveds from our own hearts. And because we knew each other before the husbands and children and grandchildren came into our lives, we were able to somehow reconnect with the parts of ourselves that were there before these deep relationships. Well, except for me. I had two children already when they met me. Still. 

Eh. 

As I said this weekend and as I always say, if the unexamined life is not worth living, my life is definitely infinitely worth living. 

I am not sure about a lot of things but I will tell you this- I know how incredibly fortunate I am in the friends I have. That may go without saying but I wanted to say it anyway. 

So. I am sure that I will adjust to my own life as it is soon enough. I will soften back into it. And even as I write all of this, I know that I have the life I have wanted. That I never even dreamed was possible. I mean- let's face it. I certainly never dreamed of having chickens and such a good-looking rooster as Liberace. Or a husband as good and dear and fine as the one I have. Or my amazing children who are all so different and so loving. Or five grandchildren, each one living in velvet-lined chambers of my heart that I did not even know existed. 

Time to go stir the gumbo and put the bread in the oven. It has not quite risen to what I believe is it's full potential but can't we all say that about ourselves too? It will still be good. 
And we are too. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Lagniappe : Vicky Comes Through. As Always

 

It's a bitch. 

We Are Witches, We Are Women

The beach was just incredibly beautiful yesterday. That picture is actually from the day before but you get the idea. Mary, Terry, and I actually baptized ourselves in the water. I pronounced the experience to be "exquisite." And it was. 
We ended up spending all day long on the beach, sitting under umbrellas, talking, talking, talking. Vicky brought a book she'd had put together of photos, some of her family, some with all of us in it. Some of the pictures brought back immediate recollection- nursing school graduation, specific parties, but this one sparked no memory at all. 

I was obviously never that young and gorgeous. I wouldn't even have recognized me if I didn't still own some of that jewelry. Obviously not the cross and why I was wearing it is a complete mystery as is the reason that Mr. Moon was doing an Elvis impression. Isn't Vicky beautiful? She told us a story about the guy beside her which I will not repeat here to protect the guilty. 
The whole weekend was a bit like that. 
"Do you remember?" 
"Oh god. Oh god, oh god. Fuck yes."

There was more cursing and blatantly crude and foul language than I have heard or used since...last we met? 
It was wonderful. Oh my god. We so deserved the title of the bad girls. We still do. In our own good ways. 
But it truly wasn't all about the memories. It was about things we've learned, experienced, feared, loved, gone through in the last million years. We shared everything. Or at least, just about. It's like when you know someone to their core and they know you to your core, there is no real reason to try and hide anything, to paint or taint our stories to make ourselves feel better. And our ability to do this, our comfort in doing this, was immediate although of course, as the weekend progressed, we were able to go deeper and deeper into all of it. 

Terry and I are both very introspective. We probably delve into things more than we should. But that is how we are. Vicky and Mary are more do-ers. They are both incredibly active and hard-working. They have accomplished things in this world that are amazing. Terry and I have too, but different sorts of things. Hard to explain and I won't really bother to try but let's just say that when presented with difficulties, Terry and I tend to ponder and over-ponder while the other two ladies just increase the speed in their activities. 
And in this way and every other, none of us changed at all in the last almost-forty years. This fact alone made us laugh so much. We are who we are and shall ever be so, I guess. 

It's not easy to talk about all of this. But it made me think (ponder?) about the powerful almost-magic that is created when women who know each other in this way come together. Not in any woo-woo sense of the word but just a pragmatic reality of what happens. I can understand how the concept of witches and covens came to be. When women (oh god, I hate to use this phrase) speak their truth, their real heart truth, there is nothing more powerful on this earth. 
And that is how it was. 

After the beach yesterday, the girls wanted to go into Apalachicola to eat dinner and although I begged and pleaded for us to just stay in and watch the sunset, they overruled me and so over the bridges we went. We started at the Oyster City Brewery where there was music going on and a party in the street. Since I almost never, ever, ever go out, the stimulation of it all was a lot for me. A LOT. And then we walked to another bar, one that I have been to before. My ex used to play there and Lon and Lis have played there too. They've opened the place up so that it is larger and there were so many people there and loud music and it was just overwhelming but I did not die. 

That picture does not do justice to the true number of people who were there. 

Then we walked back down the road to the Owl restaurant and the temperature was dropping and everyone was freezing. But the Owl was warm and welcoming and we had the most delicious suppers. Our water pourer was a gorgeous girl from Ecuador and we were not satisfied until we had her story. Terry's son-in-law is from Peru and she asked most of the questions. The darling girl was happy, I think, to be asked to speak about herself. She's only been in the US for six months, didn't know a bit of English when she got here, and she's fluent already. We were blown away by her spirit, her dimples, her obvious joy in life. 
And then we drove back across the bridges and the Rolling Stones played us Honky Tonk Women and when we got back to the condo we sat and talked some more until we all absolutely had to go lay our bodies down. 

This morning was hard. There was crying. I said, "But we haven't said all the words!" There were tears. I didn't want to let them go. But of course, we all have these lives that now we know so much more about. 

I stopped at the Mexican and ate a solo breakfast with a New Yorker for company. 

I just did not want to rush home. As much as I love and cherish my home, my husband, my life, my routine, I did not want the magical journey to end. I drove slowly, I went down side roads that looked interesting. I stopped at a place in Panacea that I've always wanted to see but have never taken the time. 

Today, on my own, I did. There is a history to the springs. You can read a very brief description of it here.  

This is what the hotel that was once there looked like around 1929. 

Today, it looks more like this. 

If yesterday was a beautiful day, then today was only more so. I walked around in the sweet cool peacefulness. I was almost tempted to take the waters, as they used to say, but did not. The smell of sulfur was not overpowering but it was there. The scent of the water I grew up on. 

I drove on down the road towards home and took the tiny detour to the Wacissa where I walked out to the platform where the kids jump in the summer, lined up and rowdy, showing off like peacocks to the opposite sex. 

A woman walking a little doggo joined me and initiated a conversation and within three minutes we had sort of bonded, the way women can. Not in the deep, forever way that I am bonded with Terry and Vicky but still, sweetly. It was as if the woman-magic was still upon me and she could sense that. 

And now I'm home. I've washed the sheets and made up the bed anew because of course Mr. Moon did not think to do so on Friday. I've unpacked. I've been out to the garden and the hen house. I've picked a few salad greens and some beautiful roses. 

I think my husband is glad I'm home. I think Maurice is too. I haven't seen Jack, come to think of it. I'm sure he's here somewhere. 

I wish I had more pictures of the four of us women. Vicky, of course, took pictures. That has always been one of her roles- the documentarian. 

I wish I had more time with them. I am so grateful I had the time I did. 

Before we left today I told Terry that in all of the anxiety I had about the weekend, never once did the thought that she and I would not connect exactly the same as we always have cross my mind. 
I cried. 
"I know," she said. "Me either."

Well. 

As much anxiety as I had about the whole trip, I would not have traded the experience for anything in this world. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 So Terry and Vicky showed up yesterday afternoon around 1:30 and after we all greeted and hugs were given and they got to meet Jessie and her boys, they wanted to see The Table. 
Vicky said, "We grew up at this table."
We all had a tiny cry. 

And then we hit the road.

We met up with Mary who is Vicky's best friend since forever, in Eastpoint at a Brewery and I thought, "Oh. So it's going to be this kind of weekend." And immediately I felt just like I did so often in nursing school when I couldn't party with the young'uns because I had children and responsibilities. Of course now my children are grown and my responsibilities are few but I do not enjoy day drinking and I do not drive even after one beer because if I hurt someone I would not be able to live with myself and so I had a root beer and was again, the old one, the oh-so cautious one. 
Sigh. We never really change, do we?

Still, it was a very nice little gathering right on the water and then we drove on to the island and they went off to a local restaurant on the ocean and I stopped at the Little Pig to get a few things and met them there. We had our supper and then came and unloaded our stuff here at Mary's condo and there were more drinks and there was a great deal of talking and catching-up. 
This morning we sat out on the little balcony and had coffee and there was more talking and then on to the Mexican where we had breakfast and then made a few stops to get more stuff that we needed. 
Vicky and Mary are ardent cyclists and, well, exercisers of every sort. And you can sure tell. Terry lives in Colorado and hikes and bikes there and is pretty fit too. So they are off right now to bike around the island and stop at various establishments and I begged off to stay here and throw out a few words. In a few moments I'm going to take my chair and my umbrella down to the beach to sit and read New Yorker magazines and I'll be as happy as I could be. 

My heart is full. We have discussed everything from politics to religion with waystops for relationships, sex, memories, aging, children, death, and anything else that springs to mind. 

Not sure what this evening or tomorrow will hold but it will be interesting. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Here We Go

This lovely was blooming in the little garden patch beside the kitchen door today. It shares space with the bananas and some pinecone lilies and assorted other completely unrelated plants. I think that's the prettiest rose I've ever seen on that bush. It gets well fertilized in that area because I throw out kitchen scraps there and the chickens scratch and poop and what they don't eat breaks down and if you ever need any worms, that's the place to look. 

I've spent most of the day doing domestic goddess chores. I made chili and did some ironing and laundry and made cookies- all of this in preparation for me leaving my husband here alone tomorrow and heading off to St. George Island again, this time with my two best friends from nursing school and another good friend of one of them. I imagine that after this weekend, she'll be a good friend of mine too. 
This is what I was talking about when I mentioned being very anxious at the beginning of the week. I feel completely ridiculous even talking about it because my GOD! I love these women. We went through everything together in nursing school. I can't even begin to tell you. Vicky and Terry were just starting college and I? Well, it was my second stab at higher education and I'd already been married, divorced, and had two children. I felt ancient at the age of 29. But somehow, we found each other, so different in so many ways, and yet absolute kindred spirits and my house became our study place, our getting-ready-to-go-out place, our eating place, and sometimes everyone's sleeping place. We did our clinicals together at Chattahoochee, the state mental hospital where we literally feared for our lives until we realized that all of us are insane, just in different ways. We learned how to give bed baths on each other, we sat through lectures on everything from Anatomy to Death and Dying together- and always in the back row of the room and we were absolutely the worst behaved students and some teachers loved us for that and some hated us but by god, we were serious about nursing school and we did pretty well. There was so much laughing and there was plenty of crying. There was dancing at Bullwinkle's the local college bar. Sometimes with two of our teachers. There was kissing of boys and there was style advice. We went through all our romances together, we confessed things to each other that we've probably never told anyone since. They were there when Glen came to my house the second time and they were at my wedding. When we graduated I was pregnant with Lily. Then we all studied for our state boards together and took them together and passed them together. 

And we all began different lives in different places and we've only seen each other a few times since then. 
Here's a picture of us from when Terry's daughter Christie was a baby. 

Christie, Vicky, Terry, me

Now Christie's a grown-up married woman and her two younger brothers are grown men. Vicky's two children are grown too, for the most part, the younger one at FSU himself now. Terry's nursing career has led her to being a hospice nurse and I believe she was born for that. I can't imagine anyone I'd rather have midwife me into death. Vicky got her masters degree and is a Nurse Practitioner, still working. 
And you know me- sixty-seven years old with five grandchildren, still married to the man I met when we were all in school together thirty-eight years ago, canning vegetables and shoveling chicken shit. 

Recently, one of us has had a pretty severe medical scare and that has been the impetus for us to get back together for a visit. 

So. Why am I so anxious? 

Who knows? Not me. 

I do know that my social anxiety has gone through the roof lately. As I told Lis on the phone the other day, the most talking to anyone outside my family I've done recently was when I was getting an appendectomy and I was on morphine for most of that. 
"This is going to be so good for you," she said. 
And I know she's right. I told her so. 
But. 
I'm just that kind of crazy. 
I think I love them so much and after all of these years, I want them to still love me. Maybe that is the long and short of it. And I feel like such an odd duck these days in my overalls, living in this old, old house with chicken shit on the porch and on my shoes. My hair has grown so thin, my body has grown so NOT thin. I hardly have a neck at all. I know they are older too but I feel positively and absolutely old. Aged. 

And please don't bother to tell me that none of this matters. I know that. I know it in my bones and in my heart but some part of me feels like maybe they'll be shocked and disappointed in the reality of me now. And part of me is already teared up because I am thinking of so much that we shared and perhaps I'm just afraid of the emotions that I know will be evoked when we get together. That they will be too big for me to bear. 
There will be crying. I can guarantee you this. 

Crying. Laughing. Drinking. Stories. Memories. Catching up. 

I've never been one to have a huge group of friends. I've never been interested in casual friends. I fall in love with the people I give my heart to. And I fell in love with these ladies almost forty years ago and the thought of seeing them is truly overwhelming. 
Phew. 
Well. I'll be reporting in, I'm sure. 

In very good news, here's the email I got today from the imagining center where I got my mammogram:

"Dear Ms. Moon: Thank you for choosing TPCA for your health care needs. We are pleased to report that your recent mammogram and/or ultrasound showed no signs of cancer. Early detection of breast cancer is very important. Although mammography is the most accurate method for early detection, not all cancers are found through mammography. Therefore, if you have not had a recent physical examination of your breasts by your clinician, see your physician or other health care provider. All of your mammogram results will become part of your medical file here at Tallahassee Primary Care Associates, PA for at least 12 years. Patients are responsible for informing any new health care provider or mammography facility of the date and location of this examination. It is our pleasure to serve you at TPCA. We hope that we met your needs and made your visit as comfortable as possible. If you should have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you, Tallahassee Primary Care Associates, Diagnostic Imaging Center"

So there is that. 
And here's a picture of August, getting his covid vaccination today. 

Jessie said he cried and said that it hurt and I know it must have or he would not have said it. But we are all so proud of him. And Maggie and Gibson are getting theirs tomorrow. 

So once again, that's the news from Lloyd. My husband will have leftover chili and soup to eat and plenty of cookies to snack on. I imagine he will survive. I will miss him. But it is very much time for me to pull up my big girl panties and do something that is hard and that is wonderful. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I'm So Tired. Let's Just Do Pictures

 

It happened. He's taller than Hank, he's taller than May. He's taller than me. 

Digging for buried treasure. Matchbox cars and unicorn bracelets. 

How cool is THIS? 

The always popular fishing game. 

Auntie May. 

The best cake for Levon. 

Getting ready to blow out the candles. 

Successful blowing out of the candles. 

The bad-ass cake baker. 

The bad-ass cake eaters. 

All in all, it was a very fine party for a very fine boy who has certainly grown a lot in four years. 

Levon at his original birth day party. 

And oh- look at August. He was only two. 
Our babies will grow up and before we know it, they are taller than we are.
Sigh. 

Happy Birthday, Levon. 

Love...Ms. Moon

This Is How It Goes

 My doctor belongs to a large group of affiliated medical people and whenever we need anything diagnostic, we end up in this waiting room. Blood work, x-rays, mammograms...I don't know what all. But those are the things I've had done there. Oh yeah, ultrasounds. It is actually very convenient and takes away the tiniest bit of stress because there's no need to try and figure out where I'm going. I KNOW where that building is. And the people who work there are kind and efficient and except for getting blood drawn, I've never had to wait very long. 
Same today. 
I wasn't in the waiting room for ten minutes before I was called back by a technician who very carefully told me exactly where we were headed which sort of made me feel like I was an elderly blind person but it wasn't confusing. 
In some of the places I've gotten mammograms, you are shown into a little changing area, given a key to a locker where you stash all your stuff, change into the gown, and then you wait in an adjoining area to be shown to the room where they do the smushing. But in this place, the tech talks to you for a moment in the room where she takes you from the waiting room, excuses herself for a few minutes so that you can take off your clothes from the waist up and put on a sort of cape which is ridiculous but which is an attempt to preserve modesty.
If you have any, which after nursing all of my children for at least two years, I really don't. 
Here's what the exam room looks like. 

There you can see the Smushorator. (Actual medical term. Haha.) The technician gently handles your breasts, one at a time, to fit between two glass plates and then cranks the Smusher (nick name of the Smushorator) to compress them into something resembling a French crepe. 
You are instructed to stand still, hold your breath, take a breath but don't move, and then hold your breath again. 
Images are taken. 
I have always found the techs to be so very, very gentle up to that moment when they have to crank the plates together. But it only takes a few seconds. 
And that is how you get a mammogram! I am sure that all of my lady readers already know this but no one ever really talks about the whole process and so I now have. 
They cannot tell you anything, of course, about what the images look like in their opinion. They must be read by a radiologist and then the results will be e-mailed in four or five days. 
Almost every woman knows and dreads the "we just need to take a few more pictures" call or e-mail and our minds go directly to the worst case scenario. As far as I can tell, it's not easy to determine what is normal and what is possibly concerning in breast tissue. I've also heard that even experienced radiologists can disagree completely on what they're looking at. The images I got today are 3-D which hopefully are more easily read and accurate. 

And then you put your clothes back on and you can leave and then...you wait. 

I went to Goodwill today after my exam. I was in the mood. And I found some lovely damask napkins, a very cool old baking dish with a lid, and an incredibly soft flannel sheet that will be my husband's new favorite blanket. I sleep under a down comforter, folded over, in winter, while he sleeps with a flannel sheet over him. Maybe a flannel sheet and a cotton woven blanket if it's really cold. His oldest flannel blanky (which is what I call it) is getting so thin and so worn that there really isn't much for me to patch. So this was a good find. 
While I was in the Goodwill, he called- would I like to meet him for lunch? And so I did. We went to a newish place that is called, bizarrely, Chow Time. I thought it was probably some country-themed place, right? However, I was wrong. It's a Chinese buffet, mostly, with approximately four acres of steam tables and cold food and two acres of dining area. 
It felt like such a sin to go to a buffet and it turned out that it was for more than one reason. The choices of food were overwhelming. Salads and sushi and your typical Asian buffet choices and a noodle bar and a soup bar and a dessert bar and seafood by the ton and macaroni and cheese too. 
We tried not to overdo. It was not easy. 

Surprisingly, the food was pretty darn good and how they can make money charging what they are charging is beyond me. 

And now I need to go and fix our supper, speaking of food. That's the thing about eating. You do it and then five or six hours later you need to do it again! It's so strange. 

Tomorrow is Levon's birthday. There will be a little party at their house. Here's the card I got the boy months ago.

I think I'm more excited about that than I am the present we got him. 

A boy will turn four. There will be hot dogs and cake and presents and a mother and father and brother and cousins and aunts and an uncle and grandparents. 

I'm excited. I hope he is too. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Green Therapy

 Here you have the Chinese rice paper plant, Tetrapanax Papyrifer. It is, as they say, a showy plant, an exotic and dramatic addition to your landscaping. 

It is also a plant from hell when introduced here in North Florida as it multiplies by suckers and although relatively easy to pull up, especially when young, those sucker roots do not come up when you pull the plants and as far as I know, you never really get rid of them. 
Just one more GD invasive growing in this yard which I'm sure seemed like a good idea when they were planted. 
The plants are also covered with a dust that flies up from them when you pull them, going directly into your nose and throat, irritating everything in those passages, resulting in coughing and sneezing. Masks are required when removing them. 

Anyway, today I got all of the ones I could see although I am under no delusions that they won't be popping up babies soon. If not now, then definitely in spring. 

Here's another crazy thing that grows here:

I believe this is a smilax vine but I just call them a fucking scary plant. There are smaller varieties than this which are mostly just very, very annoying as they just grab you and pierce your skin with their little prickles but as you can see from the picture above, you could use one of those vines to kill someone with. Well, if you wanted to kill someone slowly and extremely painfully. I don't even try to dig those things up. I just slice into the root with a shovel and then pull the vine down from the tree and electric lines it crawls along. They can get to be at least twelve feet long in my experience. So I cut and pulled a few of those too. 

So that's mostly what I did today, filling up the garden cart and taking the pulled and cut plants to the burn pile because you cannot just leave those paper plants to compost because you will soon have an entire jungle patch of them. This is true of all of the invasives. They just really want to live. 
And don't we all?

While I worked, my little tiger girl kept me company for awhile. 

I was glad to see her. She has lately become most enamored of Mr. Moon, joining him in his chair every time he sits down in it. 
"Maurice," he says to her, "This is becoming a bad habit."
"Shut-up," she snarls. 
I'm sure that's what she's saying. If I have the effrontery to lean in to kiss my husband, she snarls at me and often jumps off the chair and races from the room as if to tell me that I have ruined everything. 
She's like a twelve-year old girl, stuck in constant rage at Mom. So it was nice that she came to witness my efforts in the yard although who knows? She may have just been laughing at me. 
While I was working, Pinot strode by. I pulled my mask down and said, "Hey!" and he did not even look at me. 
What the hell have I done to piss him off? I have no idea. 

So it goes in Lloyd and I am feeling as if my nerves are frayed and sparking with electricity. Tomorrow I have a mammogram at 11:25 which is really not a big deal. For whatever reason I don't have quite the anxiety about getting my bosoms smushed between two plates and shot through with radiation as I do about, oh- getting the results of bloodwork at my annual physical exam. But it IS a medical procedure and I WILL be going to that medical procedure building and of course there always is the possibility that all is not well with my bosoms although I think they're fine. 
As I have said so many times, I am just crazy. 

There is absolutely more that I am feeling anxious about but that has everything to do with my social anxiety and nothing to do with bloodwork or tit-squishing. I will go into that as the week progresses. 

Honestly, all is very well and I am already adjusted to the time change as I demonstrated by waking up at 8:30 (new time) this morning. The crazy dream of that sleep was being in a water aerobics or possibly water yoga class with my husband and Bill Murray. That was pretty fun. No Mormons were involved. 
I am glad to have gotten those plants out of the yard, even if they will magically reappear and I have further tried to deal with my anxiety by making a soup of venison, sweet potatoes, and vegetables. I also got to talk to Lis and that was a pleasure of the highest order. So my soup is simmering, I have a Dutch oven full of sourdough bread baking and once again, my husband is in the deer stand. He came home empty-handed and empty-trucked last night so we shall see how it goes tonight. Will he catch a deer as I insist on saying? 
Who knows? Not me. 

I guess that's all I have to say for now. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Ferns which are not invasive because I say so.