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Ta-Da! Here you have it. The finished sink. I think it's finished. Glen's mighty proud of that commercial-grade faucet with a sprayer. That'll come in right handy when it's time to wash off potatoes! And beans. And whatever else needs washing from the garden. I can rinse out my compost bucket too. 

And that was about the most exciting and positive thing that happened around here today. It's been steel gray and gloomy and almost bizarrely warm and humid. According to my weather widget, it's going to rain here tonight and then the great temperature drop will begin with at least a week of low temps down to the lower twenties. 
I will not complain while some of you are in the middle of the one of the worst snow and ice storms in recorded history. I'm not stranded in an airport and I'm not snowed in with no power and I'm not going to be shoveling driveways or sidewalks or waiting for the snowplow and most of all I'm not out in the streets protesting the presence of the murdering ICE, risking my life either from weather or gestapo. 

So. Are we going to just become inured to watching videos of people being shot and killed on the streets and in their cars? 
Oh boy. There's another one! 
We cannot. 
And you may notice I didn't even add the descriptor "innocent" before people and that is because no ICE agent is a judge, jury, and executioner as far as I know and also as far as I know, no one who has been shot by these Nazi storm troupers has been a threat at all to anyone, especially to the armed, masked militia. 
I cannot tell you how incredibly in awe I am of how the citizens of Minnesota are responding to the presence of ICE and the murders they have committed. If ever there has been an example of people speaking truth to power, that is it. Meanwhile, our so-called government lies and lies and lies and lies calling the murders self-defense and whatever else they cook up, trying desperately to spin what the videos and witnesses say and show without a shadow of a doubt. 
Yesterday's murder of a VA ICU nurse who was trying to help direct traffic and then help a woman who had been pushed down and was being pepper-sprayed is too fucked up to even contemplate, as was the murder of Renee Good. Or the kidnapping of a five-year old child. Or any of the shit they are spraying and calling...well, what ARE they calling it today? What in hell does any of this have to do with border control except for the fact that cosplaying miniature Nazi border commander Gregory Bovino is indeed a senior border control officer who is strutting around in his Nazi coat with his Nazi haircut and insisting that the murdered were far from innocent and indeed, a threat to the ICE officers who shot them. 

You all know all of this. I won't go on. But these are the things my mind keeps coming back to. Every morning is like waking up after a loved one dies and for just one moment, forgetting that death, thinking life is going on as usual and then realizing and having the grief come rushing back to pummel and destroy any sense of normalcy at all. 

There is no end to this terror. There is no end to the astonishment of the cruelty being thrust upon American citizens. And of course the world at large. And at the epicenter of all of this is one man, although I feel certain he has never been in control of the plans and carrying out of them which are now far beyond wreaking havoc and on into absolute and undeniable destruction. However, Trump has been such a fantastic puppet, getting elected on his promises of Making White People Great Again and, oh, I don't know- stopping windmill cancer? Proving that sexual predators have no need to atone for their actions because, oh, you know- women and children. Who cares? Making sure that you can get adequate water pressure in your shower and you can cook on your gas stove? 

And since his dementia and failing health have progressed so rapidly, these puppet masters need to get things done in a hurricane hurry before even the least glimmer of sanity and the Constitution begins being defended again.

This is one of those times I feel like I should just delete everything I've written. I am not Heather Cox Richardson or Robert Reich or even Jeff Tiedrich. I am not a constitutional law expert. I am not an expert on anything having to do with politics. 

But I am a human being. As such, I have empathy and I have the ability to think logically, and I know evil when I see it and I am seeing it now as is every decent person on this planet. 

Remember what the protestors said during the Viet Nam War? 
The whole world is watching. 
They were. And at that time, even the warmongers had the ability to feel shame for what was being seen. Not done, perhaps, but seen. 
And that may be the difference between then and now. 
These people have no shame, no decency at all. 

I sure don't have any answers except that we must refuse to believe the lies but that goes without saying. If you're not a liar, you see no need to accept anything but the truth. If you're not a pedophile, you see no need to protect one. If you're not a hater of people who have different skin color, religion, gender and/or sexual identities, culture, music, food, or abilities, you do not understand why anyone would judge another on any of those things. And this is not a leftwing conspiracy. This is not some woke bullshit. This is decency and respect for our fellow human beings, our neighbors, our children. 

All right. Here are some camellias. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Dogs And Some Other Beautiful Souls

This is the only picture I'll be posting today that I took. The rest were either Rachel's or Vergil's. Most of the kids and grandkids and Glen and I met up at a Mexican restaurant and ate on the porch where they allow dogs. So not only did Xena (aka Large Marge) get to come, so did Sophie. She was a bit overwhelmed by the hugeness of the other puppy and also by all the people. 

Hank is generally the person who instigates these gatherings. When we all haven't gotten together in over a month or so, he alerts us that we need to meet up and of course for our family, that involves food, often Mexican food, and I'm so glad Hank has taken on the responsibility of doing this. 
Before lunch though, August had a soccer game and Levon had a basketball game. Jessie went to August's game and Vergil went to Levon's and so did Mr. Moon. Levon is sort of tearing it up on the basketball court. I asked Glen how he'd done and he paused for a minute and said, "He's the man." 
His team got 24 points today and Levon made ten of those. 
Has Glen finally gotten a basketball player? Only time will tell but at this point, the boy is showing promise and is absolutely thrilled to play and practice all he can. 
Plus, he already knows how to wear the bling. His sensibility on style is something none of us can quite figure out but he has it. Here's a picture Jessie sent me last week from the FSU basketball game. 

Rhinestone anklet with Spider Man crocs and sweat pants. Need I say more?
He really wants a string of pearls. In case you haven't noticed, men are wearing pearls which I'm sure causes many a dowager to clutch her pearls but I absolutely love it. 

I'm having a little be-still-my-heart moment. 
Oh, Lenny. 
And yet, well. 

Jason Momoa, anyone? Who's going to tell him that pink pearls make him look like a girl? It would have to be a crazy son of a bitch. 

Wait. What was I talking about? For some reason I lost my train of thought there. Oh yes! Levon and jewelry. Even when he was very little he was the one who wanted me to help him make bracelets and necklaces out of beads and he would wear those bracelets and necklaces for a long time. He was and is as casual about wearing jewelry as he is about wearing a shirt, the main difference being, that he doesn't really like to wear shirts. 

I am going to find that boy a string of pearls while I'm out thrifting that he can wear. 

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. After the game and before lunch, this happened. 

Those boys got their hair cut. Mr. Moon doesn't look real sure about that, does he? Levon, on the other hand, begged his mom to give him a haircut a few days ago. Glen's also trimmed his beard and so my Viking Sea God/Mountain Man is looking less wooly. 
I love the way he looks either way. 

So yes, we ate lunch. Vergil finds it interesting and amusing that our family gets together and eats and his family gets together and does things like go on fifty-mile bike trips or dig a well, or plant a garden. They are far more constructive than we are, obviously. I think he sort of loves us anyway and we are in complete awe of him and his folks. 

Looking at this picture I realize I may have taken it myself, seeing as Rachel is actually IN the photo. 

Honestly, that dog is the sweetest. 

It's been a bit of a hard day for me today and before I go into some sort of deep dive into the why's and wherefore's, let's just ask who isn't having the hard days right now and I must ask if there will indeed be an end to the hard days. 
At least in our lifetimes. 

The cruelty and horror know no end, it would seem. 

But right here, right now, we're okay. I hope you are too. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Gibson and Maggie were at their friends' house and May and Michael were, of course, working. We missed them. 

Another Walk, A Lot More Talk

Well it looks like Blogger isn't allowing me to reply to comments. I googled the issue and yes, it's real and I think I could do a work-around by changing my comment format but that's not going to happen tonight. 

I went on another walk (more on that in a minute) and took yet one more picture of the fally-down house. It really is close to being flat. I remember when I used to see signs that someone may have been camping in it and those days are long gone. Not even a toddler could walk freely in it, the ceiling being almost part of the floor in some parts. 

Here's another thing I saw on my walk this morning. 

Anyone know what those birds are? 
Here's a picture off the internet as a hint.

That, my friends, is a guinea fowl, and in this case probably a guinea hen. I am basing that supposition on the chick she has beside her. 
The funny thing is that just yesterday, I think, Hank sent us all a text picture of guinea fowl in their back yard in town! I love the birds. I think they're beautiful in their own way and there are many good reasons to keep a flock, one of them being that they are an excellent alarm system when it comes to any sort of predators. 
But. The very thing that makes them so good at that is the thing that drives some people crazy. They talk all the time. They're like the Rolling Stones once they get started up: they never stop, never stop, never stop...
Here's a very short Youtube that demonstrates their voice.

They are the funniest birds. My next door neighbor used to have about a dozen of them and they would make their way through my back yard every day, on their way out to forage and on their way home to roost and they would be making their rattling call every second of the way. 
They cracked me up when they got to the fence between our yard and the neighbor's. They would stand there, looking at it as if they had never seen a fence in their lives until one of them would remember she could fly (a little bit at least, not unlike chickens), make it into her yard and the rest would follow suit. As the days and months went on though, the flock decreased slowly but steadily and I suppose some predator was not deterred by their chatter and finally, there were none. It was so sad.

So yes, I saw the fally-down house and the guinea hens and all of the things I usually see and the walk seemed very easy to me and I also noted that after yesterday's walk I did not have my usual soreness and joint pain. This would make sense as I am not carrying around nearly as much weight and besides that, Zepbound is actually used to treat inflammation. So yes, I am still considering this drug to be somewhat miraculous and not just because I can wear Levi's again. I'll be getting bloodwork in May and will be interested to see what that shows as to changes in things like cholesterol and so forth. 
However.
Not related to Zepbound, but to kidney stones, one of the reasons I have been leery of walking and exercising in general is that whenever I do, it seems to jostle a stone into a less than optimal position which causes aching, pain, and other issues which I really do not care to go into here. Let's just say...
Well, let's just not. 
Now. Yes. I did go get scans of my kidneys almost three weeks ago and no, the doctor did not call me back to tell me about the findings and no, I have not called THEM back to make a follow-up appointment because calling Dr.'s offices is almost as hard for me as it would be to stick my arm into a viper pit. But today, I did. This morning. I screwed my courage to the sticking point and made the call. I just looked it up and screwing up one's courage to the sticking place comes from Macbeth which I am sure I knew already but needed to check which reminds me that Hank once said that almost every quote we use comes either from the Bible, Shakespeare, or the Beatles. 
Hank is smart and I think about that statement a lot because he's not far wrong.

Mr. Moon is home again. He was going on a duck hunting trip to Louisiana this weekend but it got canceled and rescheduled once, and then just canceled. Ice storms may be involved. So he's stuck here with me. Seeing as how it's Friday, martinis are softening the disappointment I'm sure he feels in not being able to go. He's brought me home some catfish filets he caught this week and I suppose I will be air-frying them tonight. 

I am sure you can tell I'm in a better mood today and I am so very, very grateful for that. Just as I do not know where the past few days' darkness came from, I do not know where this relief comes from. Chemicals. I guess. I believe I am heartened by the number of people who are showing up and protesting in Minneapolis, despite the frigid weather, as well as the one hundred clergy there who protested ICE despite knowing they'd probably be arrested and they were. 
And let us not forget the shut-down in Minneapolis today of businesses, schools, and shopping. 
Of course there are so many things that are not heartening including measles outbreaks, especially in South Carolina where 700 cases have been reported. But somehow I feel able to hear about the horrors without crumbling and that is a good day for me. 

After lunch I went outside to cut back the dead and blackened parts of the firespike and after that I decided to just add a few yellowed pinecone lilies by the big live oak in the front yard which led to pulling some vines out of the tree which had dead limbs entrapped in them and also cutting some bamboo and other things I didn't want there and picking up fallen branches in the yard but when the garden cart was full I called it a day, hauled it all to the burn pile and returned the cart to the camellia bed where I've been using it. 
I was going to cut some of the camellias in that front yard bush but then I realized that the dark spot in the center of these blooms were entire ant communities. 

If I were an ant, I would love to live in a camellia blossom which has to be one of the softest places to live in the world, not to mention the probable sweet nectar to be found there. 
Okay. Honestly, I have no idea why ants want to live in camellia blossoms. But they do and I have no desire to bring them inside where they might decide to move to the kitchen when the camellias turn brown and die. 
I did bring in a few of the last remaining camellia sasanguas. 

Sigh. 
We're about to get some bitterly cold weather (FOR US!) in the next week and I'm sure that any of the blossoms opening now will be killed while that's happening but I have faith that the buds which have not yet begun to open will be okay. 

One more picture.

The native azalea is budding up once again. That, to me, is hope. 

I better get my ass in the kitchen and coat some catfish with cornmeal. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Tiny Walk, Tiny Post, Tiny Moon

This is one of those evenings when I write and write and then delete and delete. The first deletion was unintentional but when I tried to recreate, I just did not have the heart and so that went away too. 

What I meant to say is that I took my first walk today in many months and the thing that finally motivated me was that I was hoping with all of my heart that moving my body and being outside under the blue skies and looking up into the branches of the live oaks would calm my anxiety. Also, I've missed these walks in my community, seeing the minute changes that occur as the seasons progress, feeling a part of this tiny place where I live. 

Walking was a different experience in that I probably have not taken a real walk since I was at least twenty pounds heavier and I am here to tell you that it's a different experience. I will not expound on this but it is quite true. 

I don't feel like anything really therapeutic happened but if nothing else, I got out, I moved, and I was glad to have done it. 

One of the camellia bushes in the front yard has popped open a few blossoms. 

Hello, my lovelies. 

The moon tonight is the silver smile of a Cheshire cat, and the only times I long for a "real" camera are when I'm trying to capture the moon in any of its phases. 

Can you see it? It is trapped in the net of naked pecan limbs, witchy and black against the gloaming sky. 

That's all I have to say tonight. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I Left Lloyd

That is the only picture I took today. One lousy (and it is lousy) picture of a blooming redbud against a gray sky. I took the picture right outside where we take pottery which is a park with ball fields and a playground, tennis courts, and nature trails. It is really quite lovely and when I lived in that neighborhood, I spent a lot of time there with my children. 
The redbuds are usually the first to show color which indicates that spring will come. I am discounting camellias because they are absolutely a fall, winter bloomer so not quite the same. I'm also seeing Japanese magnolias beginning to announce their fancy selves and that is always a joy. I went searching for a photo online of them but decided to just wait and give you pictures of the one I have in the backyard which takes a bit longer to bloom because of all the trees around it as well as the fact that it's one of the darker varieties and I think they bloom later than the ballerina slipper pink ones do. 

It was not that difficult to get up in the almost darkness this morning. When my phone began its soft chiming, Maurice got up from where she was sleeping beside me and came up to stick her face into my face to see if I was aware of the fact that it was time to get up. I turned off my phone, assured her I was, laid there for a few minutes, and then got out of bed. 
Maurice of course just settled back down and went to sleep. 
By the time I was dressed, all was well with the world and I drove to Jessie's house and drove us to class after giving Sophie some love. It was cold this morning. 
For us. FOR US! 
37° when I left Lloyd. 

When I left my flower bowl last week I wrapped it well in hopes that it would not dry out so much that I couldn't finish what I was trying to do with it and it wasn't terribly dry. I rolled out the little worm-strips to attach to the edges of the petals and using a damp sponge and my finger dipped in water, I tried to get at least all of the outside petals edged but it was a very time-consuming process. I didn't begin to have time to smooth and ensure the stability of the backs of the petals, nor to even begin to work on the inner petals. 
Sigh.
I did manage to lift the bowl out of the slump bowl I had it in and transfer it to a different one that I could better work with and at least nothing came off or fell apart or collapsed. 
I did my best to smooth that edging to both backs and fronts but it was not an entirely successful attempt. 
What was there to do as the time for the class's ending came and then went but spray the bowl down with water and cover it carefully in plastic?  

I do realize that I am still very much in a learning phase of this type of pottery and I can only imagine I will be in that learning phase for as long as I dabble. However, gaining experience through one failure after another can become frustrating and I got frustrated today. 
Oh well. La-di-dah. Life goes on, does it not?

I did mean to take a picture of the vastly flawed bowl at the end of class and even went and fetched my phone with which to do that when something distracted me (I have no idea what) and that plan went to the wayside. 

Lily couldn't make it to lunch today so Jessie and I went to a Mexican place we like and I got what I always get which is a chili relleno because they make them so beautifully. Right after we sat down, a woman came over to the table and told Jessie that she'd been her nurse when she had her baby and that she was the BEST and she thanked Jessie. I know that made my girl feel good. 

After lunch, I went to Publix because it's been a week and how I've managed to survive this long is a mystery to me. 

It was all fine, being in town, being around people, but there were a few minutes in pottery where I could feel my brain's electrical connections beginning to buzz and blur and I will tell you the truth- I took half of one of my emergency Ativans because I do not like getting to that point. There was absolutely nothing going on in that studio which should have made me anxious. There was nothing loud, Gail's playlist was a good one, everyone was being so supportive of everyone else, and my hands were busy with the clay, rolling, pinching, smoothing. I was not worried about propane or running out of onions or any upcoming doctor appointments or my husband running off with that black-haired truck driving woman or not being able to find a baby I was supposed to be taking care of or passing an exam or saying something stupid in a social situation (i.e. "Fuck that shit") or making Thanksgiving dinner or driving a very old car in the dark down long, snaky, dirt roads with children in the back, or...anything. Really. Not anything like any of that. 
Of course there was the never-ceasing fear that all of us are living in at every moment of our lives these days. 
But mostly, I think it was all just being in a room with other human beings, albeit human beings I have come to know and care for dearly, who seem to accept me as I am. 

I suppose this is why it's called crazy. 

Vergil and the boys are up at the cabin right now, eating pizza and salad. Vergil is trying once again to figure out why the internet phone connection gets dropped every time only a few minutes into the conversation. 

So they called me while they were eating their supper and we chatted for quite awhile. The call was not dropped. 
Here's what the bar between the kitchen and living room looked like when it was all set and ready for pizza. 

Now just look how pretty that Fiesta Ware is and how well it goes with the thrift store napkins I bought.  

I better go cook the little piece of salmon I bought today. I still have salad, and spinach and rice casserole and that will make a perfect supper. Perhaps not as good as pizza but good enough. 

You see- I have nothing whatsoever to be anxious about. 
Not one thing in this world. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Please Don't Read This If You're Depressed Unless You Need To Know You're Not The Only One

He made it. KC, the man whose name so many of you found for me showed up late this afternoon and I was incredibly relieved. He was polite and asked me how our Christmas had been but he was not nearly as convivial or gregarious as was on his last visit. I suppose this is what happens when you deliver propane gas for a living in an area which is in the midst of a major cold spell. Everyone probably puts off getting gas until they realize it's going to be below freezing for several nights in a row and then they frantically try to get some fuel in the tank before their pet goldfish's bowl freezes solid. 
Well. Anyway. I have turned the thermostat up to the more tropical realm of 67° although we always turn it down about four degrees lower than that at night. 

Speaking of low, I have been feeling rather flat these last few days. I mean, who hasn't, right? I think it's quite possible that I have not left Lloyd in a week. I know I went to pottery last Wednesday but as far as I can remember and as far as my posts seem to report, I've been right here. 
The point is that I've been hiding or hibernating or rolling up into a ball like a doodlebug who has been threatened by a child's probing finger. And I've done nothing of value or interest in that whole time. A little mending and patching, a little jig-saw puzzling, a little laundry, cooking, dusting, sweeping, and putting Seminole Indian dolls on the wall. I promise you that all of these things could have fit into one day, the keyword being "little". 

I started wondering this afternoon if it wasn't near the anniversary date of my mother's death and so I looked that up on the blog by searching for "Mother's death," and easily discovered she died on January 16, 2013. I cannot believe it's been thirteen years. 
Thirteen years since that day I was with her in the hospital as she took her last breaths. I wrote it all out on the day after her death and that can be found HERE if you're interested. It is not graphic or weird or anything. Just a plain recounting of her last moments. It's funny that what I remember so strongly is that "Sister Morphine" by the Rolling Stones was playing in my head which was appropriate because of course they had given her morphine at the end to ease what they call "air hunger" and I was in the middle of my journey of discovery about Keith Richards and, well, that was the sound track to the death of my mother for me. 

Yes. It is true. The body remembers. It remembers anniversaries, it remembers what our minds do not and perhaps have even tried to cast aside, to bury deep in steel boxes strapped with iron bands locked with fierce determination, the keys as lost as we can lose them. 

I do not even need to mention the madness of the man who would be king and who is finally being called out by other world leaders as insane and as such, a person who cannot be reasoned or negotiated with but who must be stopped before the entire world falls into the same horror that began in Hitler's Germany. 

Still, I feel as if instead of falling into any sort of immovable darkness, I should be doing the things you're supposed to do in the face of times like this. Move your body, get involved, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS.

Thank god I have pottery tomorrow. That is exactly what I need. I will get up early, I will drink my coffee. I will put in my hearing aids so that I can hear what is being said in the studio around me. I will focus on something that has nothing to do with my mother, my country, my fears, my regrets, my guilt, myself. 

Look what I found today. 

The trillium. In going back and looking at old posts from this time of year, I saw my photos of it then and wondered if it had come up already this year. 
And it has. 
The bed it's in is a complete mess, a chaos of weeds and frozen ferns and downed oak branches and browned pinecone lily stems but there it is, alive and well and beautiful and strong and showing proof of the continuation of life. 

And then there was this. 

Look up, look up, don't stop looking up. 

And having said all of these things, I cannot stop watching this. 

I think it is probably one of the best live videos ever taken of the Rolling Stones and I'm trying to describe how I see this song, this performance, as a testimony to the depths to which we can fall and yet, rise out of. Make art of. Help some of us come to terms with things we find impossible to understand. 

I'm a mess. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Cold Day In The Hell Of Our Reality

Well, as I said to my kids in a text this morning, we have no pumpkins but if we did, the frost would be upon them. That's what it looked like in my backyard when I got up. When I tried to open the screen door on the back porch to go outside and take a picture, I realized it had been frozen shut with some of the standing rain on the steps we'd gotten yesterday. I had to give the door a good kick to open it. That was new. 

The frost thawed not long after that because the sun was fully shining, but it never got warm enough to suit me. I am going through massive anxiety because the gauge on our propane tank is way down in the red area and although Glen has called the propane guy twice now, we've still seen no truck show up with the magical hose that stretches for half a mile to go over the fence and down into the tank where the life-saving liquid is stored. The man at the gas company guaranteed Glen that his driver/deliverer would be here either today or tomorrow. 
I guess it's going to be tomorrow. 
I surely hope so. 
Do you remember me recently (as in the past six months) writing a post about the gas delivery guy? The man who was so kind, so sweet, so empathetic, so beautifully and proudly loc'ed? The man who told me he was freezing because he grew up in Jamaica and he was not used to this cold? The man who had played college football at Stetson University? 
Obviously, the man made a huge impression on me and yet, I cannot remember his name and I cannot find the post I wrote about him. I've done searches for "propane gas," "gas delivery," "locs," "kind strangers," and I don't even know what and I can't find a damn thing. Except for the fact that this is definitely not the first time I've gone a little bit crazy worrying that the tank will run dry and I shall die of exposure and frostbite. 

And of course Mr. Moon is back up at the cabin (which he is now regularly calling the camp) and I feel a little deserted in my hour of darkness although what the hell could he do if we did run out of gas? So I've set the thermostat down to 66° and am keeping my fake-fleece-lined hoody on over my long sleeved shirt, long sleeved sweater, and long-sleeved cardigan. He tells me that the heater up at the camp works quite well. He is doing more painting and told me this morning that he wants to get the bedroom all fixed up so that I'll come and stay with him and I made some not very convincing "Ummmm's" and hugged him tightly and well, I am hoping like hell that between a lovely very pale green bedroom and a kitchen with a brand new stove and very cool Fiesta Ware I will indeed be lured into being okay with the concept. Of course, he needs to get that downstairs bathroom finished too before this finicky princess even considers such an idea. 
And I am a woman who has not only camped where we had to dig our own latrines and was fine with that, but also lived in a house for almost a year that had no running water which meant we used an outhouse. Which snakes took shelter in. 
As did wasps. 

Well. 

I watched most of a movie today that I have been meaning to watch since it came out. Pamela Anderson's "The Last Show Girl." I don't know why it's taken me so long. My god. Pamela Anderson doesn't miss a beat. You do not catch her acting. She IS the character. 

Jamie Lee Curtis is also in the film and although she does a fine job, I've never found Jamie Lee to be completely convincing in her roles. I love her politics, her outspokenness when it comes to queer rights, her heart which is most definitely in the right place but the fact is- I DO catch her acting. I can see her trying her hardest to inhabit a role which is admirable but somehow, in this case, it does not work for me. 
Still, I sort of love her character. 

The movie asks the question of what happens to a woman who has based her entire life, sacrificed everything, in the name of beauty and youth as she ages? Who has based her self-worth on the things men worship and is now losing? 
It's powerful. 
Pamela Anderson is a force and that's not something I ever thought I'd say. 

I've made a pot of pinto beans, my favorite, and cooked some rice which is going to go into a spinach and rice casserole that I love. That will be supper tonight. I had what I thought might be a hankering for a big salad at lunch and did my chopping and slicing, and mixed miso and rice wine vinegar and garlic and ginger and other delicious things to make a dressing and, well... it was okay. But bottom line is, I've had a lot of vegetables today and a bowl of beans and a dish of comfort casserole is just what I need. 

Another picture of Lloyd on a cold morning in January. 

Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr today, of course. Hoping with all my heart that the  things he accomplished in his way too short life will not have been in vain as a completely insane man has the reins of the country which Dr. King wouldn't even recognize today. 
Or perhaps he would. 
We should hang our heads in shame. We should raise our voices in protest in whatever way we can. We should remember and honor King and all of those who marched and protested and faced the guns and slavering dogs so bravely with the determination of knowing that what they were marching for, risking their lives for, was the generations to follow as well as the generations who came before. 

Love...Ms. Moon