Father's Day Is Not My Favorite

A while after Glen sent me the catfish picture, he sent me this one too. The golden hour for sure. 

This one barely looks real. That is some still water. 

He also called me and told me that he had not just caught a catfish, but also a turtle and a small alligator. 
Good Lord! No worries, all of the critters were released unharmed. 

He got home around three this afternoon. I welcomed him home for Father's Day. I usually make him his favorite dessert for Father's Day which involves chocolate and pecans and whipped cream and cream cheese...

Yeah. I just didn't feel like it this year. Thanks, Zepbound! 

I did order him two pairs of shorts from the same great company where I get my overalls but they haven't arrived yet and they're probably going to be too big. I've made him a card but I haven't given it to him yet. I hope he likes it. 

Father's Day is just a real complicated situation for me. I'm sure I discuss this every year. I get a little jealous and a little put-out with all the people on FaceBook who post about how wonderful their fathers were or still are on Father's Day. I suppose I am mostly resentful, having never really had a father, or at least one that counted unless you're talking about the man who deserted us or the man who fucked me up for life. Well, the abandonment fucked me up for life too. 

I mean, in their own ways, they taught me many lessons, none of which have done a damn thing except guarantee that I would spend years in therapy. And, if we're being honest, do as much as I could do on my own to fuck up my life. That's just the way it is. And I didn't. I didn't because of two people- the therapist and my husband. There were others, too, who supported me when I was going through the hardest parts of the therapy when I finally faced everything as head-on as I could and tried to make sense of it all, tried to understand how it had all affected me which in turn, affected everyone I love. 

The sins of the father, and so on. 

A thing I do every Father's Day is to get in touch with Billy to whom I always say, "I wish I had had a father like you." 
And every year it makes me cry to say those words, to think those words. He didn't have a dad either and and he took all that pain and turned it inside out and created a template of how to be the best father. 

People can be amazing. I am so lucky to know a few of those. 

Knowing there are fathers like Billy and Vergil and Jason helps balance things out in my mind. And of course- the most important father in my life, Glen Moon. 
In the card I made for him I said that when I married him I thought I knew why and I also thought I knew how much I loved him. 

I think it's a sheer miracle that I managed to fall in love with a man who was so family-oriented, so responsible, so loving, so gentle, so kind, so damn hard-working, so dedicated to family. 

Also extremely good-looking and bizarrely tall but I did know that when I married him. And let me assure you he does at least a tiny bad-boy streak and if he hadn't I doubt I ever would have fallen in love with him. 

And if I had to choose whether I would have rather had a good father myself or give my kids a good father, there is no doubt which I'd choose. 

So it all works out. Or at least, it has worked out. Forty years down the road with that man and he's still making me laugh and making me cry and making me crazy and I so love watching him as he is the daddy to four grown kids and granddaddy to five grands. 

Speaking of which, Mr. Moon just announced that he and Owen are heading back up to the lake tomorrow for another three day work event. He was SURE he'd told me this. 
I am sure he did not. 
In his absolute focus on things, he sometimes forgets that he hasn't informed me of his plans. I am used to it. 

I did a little stitching on hems for these whatever-we-want-to-call-them that I've made out of cheesecloth. I could do the whole lot of them on the machine in a very short time but for whatever reason, I want to do them by hand. I'm just doing an easy, fast running stitch and for whatever reason, it's bringing me pleasure. 

I watched TV as I sewed for awhile and I swear to god- the algorithms for me are so sad and predictable. Every single "suggestion for you" is about old people finding love in a retirement community or old people finding love with the next door neighbor after a spouse has died. Or old women going on adventures together and learning how they can do new things. Or old women going on adventures together and finding love or at least a reasonable facsimile for a night. That last one often involves old women discovering the joys of cannabis which is never not funny. Am I right?

And now I need to go fix us some supper. I am feeling a bit agitato right this second as that needs to happen along with getting things organized for Glen to take to feed himself and Owen, and unload the dishwasher. The man actually asked me how to cut up a mango and how to cook spaghetti noodles. 

Sigh. 

Well, I'd have to ask him how to clear a clogged drain or do any of a huge number of things. 
We better both die at the same time or one of us is going to be in deep trouble. 

They could make a movie out of it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Good, The Bad, And The Amazing Americans Who Showed Up

I actually took that picture yesterday. That is the sea grape that I grew from a sea grape seed that I picked up near Sebastian. It has been a slow grower but it is still alive and seems relatively healthy although there is some bug damage on the a few of the leaves. It's about three feet tall now. 
Last summer when we were in Roseland, Glenn Our Darling Landlord told me to go ahead and dig up any of the baby sea grapes growing in the backyard where we were staying and I did dig up a few. I planted them in pots when we got home and they are looking very good. 

They are even sending forth new babies. Perhaps one day I will have a lovely sea grape garden. 
Well, that's a fond dream which is not going to come true unless I move farther south because I don't think sea grapes especially enjoy freezing temperatures. 

I slept very late this morning. I think that last Zepbound dose sort of did me in or perhaps that has nothing to do with my low energy right now. It could be my body working on repairing whatever's happening in my knee which was quite bothersome this morning. In fact, I decided that today would be a good day to just stay off it as much as possible and I suppose I have but of course I really haven't and I am reassured because if it was really torturing me, I would be more apt to rest it. As the day has progressed, it has felt better and better and that too, seems a good sign. If it were seriously injured, I don't think that would be the case. 

I have been following different news reports of the No Kings protests across the country and it certainly looks like a hell of a lot of people have shown up to stand up for democracy. Tallahassee had quite a few protestors at the old capitol building which stands right in front of the new capitol building which is one of the most phallic buildings in the world as far as I can tell. The old one is a graceful thing, though. 

It would appear that millions of Americans came out today to voice their opinions about what's going on in Washington and I'm not talking here specifically about the parade taking place there to honor Dear Leader with jets and tanks and the bullshit reason for the parade which, as we all know is a lie. Trump couldn't care less about when the US Army was formed but he does care a great deal about his own birthday and the fact that this is the sort of tribute that rulers in dictatorships can expect and do indeed get. 
How very, very sad and weak do these men have to be to put on such penile pageantries displaying all of the perceived strength that they themselves do not have? 

Well. Hopefully the tide is turning against this administration and people's eyes are opening but even as I say that, tragedies are occurring and I can't even believe what happened in Minnesota. If nothing else, I believe that Republicans are getting a clue about American's mindset when it comes to Trump's dream of his very own authoritarian government and that their chances of being elected or reelected to office are sliding at the same exact rate as Trump's place in the polls. 

To all of you who put on your shoes and made your signs and showed up today, I thank you. YOU are what America is. Not tanks in streets or jets flying fancy formations in the sky over Trump's reviewing stand or ICE agents who are as determined as KKK members not to show their faces because they know what they are doing is the wrong thing, or anyone, anyone at all wearing a MAGA hat, or driving a truck with a confederate flag flying from it or taking a US senator to his knees and handcuffing him because he wanted to ask a question at a PRESS conference, or arresting a mother and father for the sin of being brown and taking them into custody while their child weeps because he has no relatives in this country and no idea where his parents are. 

Mr. Moon has already started his Father's Day by catching a large catfish off his very own dock. 

He reports seeing two new alligators and I can't wait until those fuckers decide to bask in the sunlight in the backyard of the house that came with the dock. 

Forgive me for once again being all over the place. I'm going to go cook an eggplant that I picked today. 

Yes. More beans. All this rain is swelling them up like Trump's ego is swelling right now as missiles pass the reviewing stand in all of their long, hard glory. 

That's all I have to say.

Love...Ms. Moon

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Not quite fully-opened okra flower. As you can see, it is part of the mallow family, like hibiscus and rose of sharon. Also, cacao and cotton and I did not know that. 

Today has been tough. Part of it was lovely and I did enjoy that but the rest of it has been rather dark for me. I woke up from more stupid, stupid dreams with all of the themes in them. Themes of taking care of children, of taking care of grown-ups, of being surrounded by filthy laundry and many washing machines, none of them any good at all. Kitchens that are also filthy with many ovens that are horrendous, most of them non-functioning, and never, ever enough food to feed all the people I need to feed. Trying to find something to wear and not being able to. This morning's dreams took me all the way back to the closet in my brother's and my room in Roseland. 
And then there is the other recurring theme of my husband not loving me, of having another true love for whom he is leaving me. The hussy who loves to hunt and fish.
I wake up exhausted and fighting to find reality in the daylight. 

But. I got up and got on with it. I knew we were meeting Hank and Rachel and a few others at 11:30 for lunch and so I needed to get the sheets in the washing machine and and do all the other self-determined necessary things for a Friday. This includes weighing and injecting myself with another dose of Zepbound. 
The scale showed no progress and like I talked about in my post concerning weighing and scales, I was ready to start stripping off clothes and wondering how much extra weight my swollen knee was responsible for and all that bullshit. Even knowing what I know from personal experience and from Weight Watcher member experience about how weight loss goes, I fall right back into the thinking that no weight loss means that whatever I'm doing isn't working, no matter what the other evidence shows. 
And the last week on the low dose of Zepbound, the starting dose, has been hard. The magical silencing of the voices in my head reminding me that I should eat, that I'm hungry, that just a little bite of this or a little bite of that certainly can't hurt anything, and blah, blah, blah, had mostly disappeared. I wanted that silence back. And I have become afraid that I won't ever get it back which is another example of faulty thinking. 
Today I started on the second level of dosage and I am waiting to see if that kicks into gear. So far, it has not. I cannot stress enough that I still have not been eating nearly as much as I was before I started taking the drug, and the choices I've made have been far healthier. I do not eat between meals except for my afternoon snack of cottage cheese (protein!) and fruit. And that has been very satisfactory. But still, it's not been the same as when I first started and it was as if I had been given the keys to a magical kingdom where food was not my boss, my tyrant, one of the main focuses of my life. 
I know that I will feel that again as so many others report that they have. Many people don't experience that at all the first month. I was a rapid reactor. So I'm just being paranoid and pessimistic and worried, once again, that somehow I don't deserve to have the keys to that magical kingdom. 

But on I go and I wore a dress today that I simply could not fit into last summer and that is after one month. I've had to move a ring that was getting too large for the finger I wore it on. I see many small changes already, ones that are not based on the scale but on the reality of the size of my body. I am certain no one looking at me could tell any change at all but I can. 

Still, all of that negativity had hold of me when I drove into town to the restaurant that used to be El Patron where our family has spent so many birthdays and just plain get-togethers. There's a porch where the children could run around without disturbing anyone and the food was always good and reasonable and they knew us. Not unlike Japanica, El Patron closed for a good long while and we feared it was gone forever. But no, ownership just changed hands but still within the same family. It is now San Marcos Mexican Grill. The restaurant has been spiffed up but still has some of its funky charms. There are new chairs which impressed us all. Very comfortable. The porch has been remodeled and is now more inviting. They're going to start having live music there a few nights a week. 
So it was fun to see all of this but mostly it was good to see not only Hank and Rachel, but also our beloved Melissa, she of the hair salon where all of us go, and beloved Lindsey who gives quite possibly the best hugs in the world and makes tiny origami birds that she leaves for the server.

Glen was there too and that was sweet. I love how easy things are between us and the kids. I'm sure there are things we don't talk about but those subjects are few and far between. 

I stopped at a Goodwill on my way home but wasn't there long. My knee has been hurting all day when I walk and I'm sorry but Goodwill just isn't worth the pain. 

Since I've been home I've done little. Made up the bed, swept the kitchen, fretted over stupid, little, selfish things, despaired over huge frightening things, and tried to fix a buckle on a pair of overalls which felt to me like I was attempting a magic trick with no instruction book. I've never been good at things like that and now, I am even worse. Mr. Moon has fixed them for me. Bless him. 

Forgive me for talking so much about such frivolous stuff that really doesn't offer anything to anyone. I simply cannot talk about the big stuff right now. You know- how the world as we know it has been erased by wars and tyrants. 

Let's see how this martini works. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Oh, to be as wise as Frida. 

All Of This Is True

My hope, when I planted those zinnias, was to have an almost solid glory of chaotic color. And I think we may get close. Even if that doesn't happen, any showing of zinnias is a happy thing for me. 

We need happy right now. We need sweetness. We need beauty. We need respite from our fears and our worries, our outrage and our horror. I woke up this morning from a dream where I had observed, from a window, ICE rounding up workers at a restaurant. I think. I was at once horrified and not surprised. And you know what I did in my dream? I watched for a little while and then...I shut my door and got on with my dream life.
This speaks volumes, I think. 
We all would love to believe that if we were that close to such an event we would step forward, to be witness to, if nothing else. And I thought about that in my dream but I made a conscious decision not to even though I knew that was wrong. 
And I am not pleased with myself at all. When I told Glen about my dream, I cried. I've always known I was something of a coward and my closing of the dream door seems my way of recognizing that cowardice. Or at least show me that it's there. 
I am quite aware that it was people like me who allowed Hitler to do what he did. People who weren't evil or even really bad. People who were probably good, with good hearts, with strong beliefs that what was going on was so very wrong but who were so afraid of what would happen if they stepped forward, that they did not step forward. 
They shut their eyes, their ears, their windows, their doors. 

They said What can I do? I am only one person. 

This isn't what I meant to write about this evening. As if I ever have a plan to begin with. Still. 
It is the truth. 

Meanwhile today I did regular things. My left knee which chronically bothers me and threatens to do more than that, did do more than that this morning. It "went out" on me. Do you know what I mean? It's like all of a sudden the tendons and ligaments forget how to do what they're supposed to do which is to hold it all in place. And it hurts when that happens and it's surprising like, Why are you doing this to me, knee?
And it was swollen and I HAD SHIT TO DO and I was almost sure I had a knee brace because this has happened many times in the past and I dug through the places I thought it might be and could not find it which also made me cry. My mission today was beans!
So on the wild hope that the GDDG might carry some sort of knee braces because they can surprise you like that, I drove down there and by golly, they did. I also found a box of pint Ball jars with lids which Publix doesn't even have because I suppose everyone and their great aunt's husband's sister's garden is coming in now. I was so thrilled. 

I put the brace on as soon as I got home and it did the job. I picked more beans and then I began the process of preparing the two giant bags of beans in the refrigerator for canning. I decided to use quart jars for those because you can get a lot more in the canner at one go that way. I was going to do seven quarts, which is the canner's capacity but after snapping beans for two hours and packing jars, I decided that six quarts would do it. That was all of the refrigerator beans and a few of the ones I picked today. 

Yes! More beans in jars! 

As I just wrote a friend, "When the apocalypse happens, people are going to be begging for my green beans." 
Shoulda thought of that earlier, suckers. 
You know I am so joking because honestly, there is no rhyme or reason to be putting up this many jars of beans. Trust me- they aren't cheaper than store bought. 
But they are better.

Have you seen THIS? 

In short, Texas lawmakers are pushing a bill to test waste water for hormones, specifically the ones found in birth control pills, abortion medication, and hormones which could be used in gender affirming treatment. 
Because they're absolutely terrified these hormonal horrors are going to get in the ground water and pollute it and people will be affected and oh, oh, oh! It's so scary! 
As if trace amounts of hormones pose any risk to the ground water compared to heavy metals, agricultural pest and weed control, and about a million other things that they don't seem to give a shit about. 
They just want one more way to intrude into the privacy of Americans in a way that pleases their need for control. 

Sickening. 

I don't even know what else to say. I'm glad I was able to can beans today. I am glad that we are able to grow things that we can and do preserve. I am glad I could be outside for awhile, even though it was horribly hot because there is no place I'd rather be when I can be. Despite the heat I love the lizards and butterflies and even the wasps and giant grasshoppers and oh yes, the anoles. To observe them as they live their own lives. To watch the garden as the vegetables grow and ripen, to hear the birds as they call and talk about their day. 

It is such a privilege and a joy. 

**************

Can I say that the death of Brian Wilson was a sort of shock? Not specifically because he died but because it felt like the end of something. Not an era- that era ended long ago. But of the burning light of a genius who managed to bring so much damn happiness and pleasure to so many people despite the fact that he came from a history of so much abuse and pain. I remember listening to the Beach Boys when I was in the fifth grade. Their harmonies soared and so did my spirit when I heard them. I would not be who I am if they had not been who they were. I have never not loved them. And they were there because of Brian Wilson. Please let there be peace for him now. I feel sure there is. 

Enough. 

Love...Ms. Moon

In Which I Venture Out Into The World

Lily and I did go to the Open Studio for pottery today and I am so glad we did. There were familiar faces there, people who make me smile, who make me glad to see them. 
Both of us searched through all of the bisqueware (which is pottery that has been fired once but is not so hard that it can't accept glaze) looking for things we'd left to be fired at the end of the last session of classes. I'd almost given up finding my things but they were there. The leaves that I'd made for a wind chime were rough but kind of cool.

I had wanted and tried to make more than three but not really knowing what I was doing, two of them broke. But I think they will make a sweet tiny wind chime with a pleasant voice. 

When I found my bowl, I was rather surprised. Do you remember that I made it using another bowl as a mold? A hump mold. At the last minute before I left class that day, I grabbed my needle tool and made the design in the bottom of the bowl and poked those tiny holes around the rim just to make it something beyond a wonky bowl formed over another bowl. When I held it this morning, it felt good in my hands. In all the classes I've taken, this bowl is the first thing I've done that pleased me. 

Today I sanded the bowl and then painted the design with underglaze. Next week I'll apply very light or even clear glaze over the design and it will be all fancy and stuff. Hopefully. At least it will be fine to eat from and to put in the dishwasher. A real bowl. 

After class we met Lauren and Gibson and Maggie at Kyoto, formerly Japanica! for our lunch. 

Y'all- I was not very happy with the situation. First off, the prices have gotten really high. Someone has to pay for all that new decor and the tablets they use to take orders on.

Secondly, they no longer serve the type of curry that I always ordered and loved so much. 
I ordered ramen in a broth with other things and I didn't think it was that great. I sent the leftovers home for Owen to eat. Or Gibson. He really liked it. 

So that was that experience. 
And then I went to Costco and then to Publix and it was all sort of okay but a little not okay. When I got out of the store, it was pouring down rain and I got soaked. I should have waited a while for the rain to slow down but I was so ready to get home. Lunch and the shopping had done me in and I needed to get away from parking lots and people. To tell you the truth, I'm still a little wet. I should change. 

Mr. Moon is coming home and bless him, he's getting another salad tonight. This one with tuna. The kind you cook. Not from a can although there's nothing wrong with that. I wonder if he'll be exhausted. I wonder if he'll be happy. I wonder if he'll be able to settle down for a little while, even though I know he'll have a thousand things on his mind having to do with the project he's undertaken. 
I bet you anything Owen will be relieved to get home and back to his computer. He has been so kind to go help his grandfather. I know for certain all that physical labor outside in the heat has been a shock to his system.

I know I couldn't do it. Mr. Moon is a beast. 

Tomorrow I will can beans. Believe it or not, I am looking forward to it. And I almost have enough cucumbers to make another batch of pickles. 

Meanwhile, everything we do right now, every place we go here in the US, everything we take for granted as our right as Americans is being threatened in ways I never had any idea could happen. 

I'm not even going to voice what I fear most. What's happening this second is unbelievable enough. 

Let's be strong, y'all. Whatever that means, however we can. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I Wish You Could Smell The Rain

This is the text I got this morning before I even woke up. I knew we had someone coming to replace a gasket on the refrigerator but the appointment was supposed to be any time between noon and five, not eight and five. And then, for it to say "it could be earlier or later" than 8am-5pm seemed excessively unspecific to me. 

Obviously I wasn't going to get my shopping done today. 
And I couldn't seem to get motivated to get anything done. So I piddled around doing a little of this and a little of that and at one point I went out to the swing porch to give the hair from my hairbrush to whatever critter might want it, I saw something that I could not believe. 

I wish I had taken better pictures which included the whole bamboo stalk. What you're looking at here is a bamboo that we obviously missed which had actually entered the the porch roof and ripped up part of it. 
Not to offend anyone but Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!

The damage had been done but in order to prevent even more, I went and got the loppers and cut that stem off at the bottom. I cut it into three pieces, thinking I'd get those and the dead branch that had fallen from an oak tree, hauled to the burn pile but that never happened. 
Yet. It will. It really will. I swear. 

Here's what that piece of bamboo looks like. 

You see that yellow part? That whole thing was inside the ceiling of the porch roof. Which now looks like this.

Does homeowner's insurance cover bamboo damage? 

How could this have happened? It's not like I NEVER go out on that porch. Am I blind? 
I guess so. 

So that was perturbing and the big excitement for my day. 

My plan was to get the garden cart and load it up with the fallen branch and the bamboo after I'd picked what I thought would be just a few beans. Didn't I just pick those things? 
Well, an hour later I had this.

All this rain we've having is encouraging the beans to make more of themselves and these beans are fat and luscious. Some of them are huge but I guarantee they'll be tender. 

Anyway, picking those things took almost an hour and after that, I was soaked through and in no mood to be loading up garden carts which is why I didn't. 

Tomorrow Lily and I are going to try and get to the pottery open studio. And then I'll have my shopping to do. This will probably be an all day affair and lunch will be involved with Gibson and Maggie too. I bet I know where they'll want to go. 

Sigh.

So how IS the Zepbound adventure going? 
Asked no one.
Too bad. I'll tell you anyway. 

On Friday it will have been a month since I started taking the medication and as I have said, it has made a profound difference in my life and how I think and feel about food. And eating. And myself. 

When I give myself the injection on Friday it will be with a higher dosage than the one I've been taking for the past month. You start on the lowest dosage and increase slowly until you've found the right place for you to be. I am glad I'm going to be increasing my dosage because I have started hearing some of the food noise again. I told Mr. Moon that a few days ago and he was clueless about what food noise is. 
Oh, to be that sort of person!
I explained to him as best I could, which is that it's the constant, constant brain chatter about what I should eat next, what I can eat next, what I shouldn't eat next, and what I have in my cabinets and refrigerator that might taste good right about now, and hey! I'm hungry! 
And so forth. 
He had no idea that's how my brain worked. Why should he? I never told him. I just thought it was normal to think like that, feel like that. 
And thus, felt great shame that I could not just shut that shit up by myself. 

And this week, I've found myself thinking more about treats. Those dark chocolate covered coconut things from Costco have remembered to call my name. Not strongly enough to really tempt me but...in a way, it's scary just that I'm thinking about them more than very occasionally. I do not want to lose this mindset. I do not want to wake up and find that this is all a dream. 

And I'm still craving the salads. Oh my god. Here's what I made last night. 

There's baked tofu in it along with all the vegetables. And the miso dressing. Gotta have the miso dressing! 

I did not eat nearly all of that salad and I ate it again for lunch. Tonight I'll be eating some leftover chicken and vegetables from Sunday night. I am still very satisfied with my meals. 
But I can feel myself on a slippery slope and so the higher dosage sounds right to me. 

Here are two pictures that Mr. Moon sent me from this morning when he got up early to go drink coffee on the dock. 

He finally caught a bass! There ARE fish in Lake Seminole! 

And I guess we're going to have to name this guy.

It's storming again. Here's a little video I made. That last few seconds are the most dramatic ones although the sound of that bolt of lightning and the resulting thunder were much louder than the video captures. You can see that I jumped. 

It was way close. 

I am once again reminded that there are powers much bigger than any I have. 

Although- I did have the power to create a human life and deliver that life safely onto earth. And that's not nothing. 

Happy birthday, Hank. I love you so much and can't wait to celebrate you this weekend. 

Love...Mama Ms. Moon

P.S. Caleb did come and he replaced the gasket in the refrigerator in less than a red-hot second. And it was before 5. 

Jibber-Jabber And The First Best Story Of My Life

I took this picture on my walk this morning and was completely blinded by the sun when I took it. It really was just "point and shoot" because I had no idea what I was shooting although it turns out that the sky is pretty easy to get a picture of, even if you can't see it through the lens. 
I guess because it's so big? 

So, yeah, I got out there and did the walk and it was fine. I didn't feel close to dying although I was hot. Part of my route took me down Main Street in Lloyd where I noted that the restored house is still for sale. It seems that there's more and more "cute" things showing up on the porch and in the yard which I guess is someone's way of trying to improve curb appeal. I'm not sure we have curbs though. You'd think I'd have noticed by now. I also saw that there are TWO porta-potties on Abraham's property across the street from where his house is which would usually indicate some sort of construction about to happen. I also noticed what I think is a new truck in Abraham's yard and I am just hoping that he won the lottery and is building himself a new and stronger house because if not, he may have sold that property to someone who's going to put something commercial on it. Like the GDDG which is right next door. 
Hoo-boy. 

The route I walked was intended to keep me less than a mile from the house because the sky was threatening. By the time I got home, it was seriously thundering and rain had just started to fall. It turned into a downpour and I was so glad I made it home before that started. Since then it's already rained at least twice more. 

It felt a little cooler when I'd finished my lunch, or at least I was cooler, so I decided to go out and dig up some more potatoes. It tickles me that when Maurice sees me putting on my gardening shoes, not to be confused with my walking shoes, she heads on out the back door to meet me outside. She may be crazy but she isn't stupid. She kept me company while I dug potatoes which was a messy business due to the wet dirt and I sweated through my clothes once again. She laid in the shade and kept an eye on me, just in case...well, I don't even know.  Keeled over from heat stroke? What would she do? Dig around in my pocket and find my phone in the ziplock I keep it in when I work in the garden to prevent dirt from getting into the charging port? Take the phone out of my pocket, remove it from the bag and call 911? 
Nah. She'd probably just stand over me and meow. 
I know she is concerned about my wellbeing, though. The sky darkened up again and when it began to thunder, she did indeed meow directly at me and then went and sat closer to the gate so I'd get the message and stop what I was doing and go inside. Between that, and the fact that it was starting to rain, AND that I'd dug up not only some potatoes but also some extremely fierce-looking ants, I decided that was enough for today. Those ants were huge and they were boiling out of the ground. Also, they were very red. I managed not to get stung which was a sort of miracle for which I am grateful. 

I've got the potatoes on an old sheet with the other ones I've dug with a fan on them to dry them out a little. We've eaten a few of the potatoes and they are fine. I do not care to lose them to rot. 

I've got a little experimental project going on here. It's so silly and so simple that I'm a bit hesitant to even mention it but here goes- when I make fruitcakes, I wrap them in cheesecloth which I have soaked in rum and then I wrap them in aluminum foil. That's the way it's generally done, I believe. Cheese cloth is, well, cheese cloth. It's used for many things in a kitchen and it's available in kitchen supply stores and even grocery stores. 

When we had eaten all of our fruitcake last winter, I decided I was not throwing that rummy cheesecloth away and I didn't. I washed it and it came out of the dryer feeling like the nicest cotton gauze. Like, perhaps the sort of cotton gauze that hippie clothes were often made of, but softer. 
Hmmm... I said. What have I here?
And since then, I have been using cut up pieces of that cheese cloth as cleaning cloths and also, sweat rags which are infinitely valuable here. When I'm working outside, I have to have a sweat rag to keep the sweat out of my eyes and off my face. I've used old napkins before and if they are the older, softer, more absorbent ones, those work great. 
But they have met their match with these cheesecloth squares which I just use and wash, over and over again. 
And today, I washed most of a package of unused cheesecloth with the dedicated purpose in mind of using it for all sorts of things that need utmost absorbency and softness. 

Here's the piece I washed today along with a piece that I've been using since winter.

The top one is the older one and it has gone through some bleach loads which is why it's so much whiter than the new one. And because the new one has only been washed and dried once, it has not yet achieved that closer weave. I plan on cutting the new one into good-sized squares or rectangles and hemming them. I can guarantee that they will be used over and over again. With enough of them, I could almost do without paper towels. But that's a long way from happening. Meanwhile, I will be buying more cheesecloth. That package in the picture cost about five dollars, maybe? 

Some of you who are as old as I am, will probably remember Birdseye diapers. These are still made and every new mother should have a few packages, not necessarily to use as diapers, but to use as burp cloths or as we called them around here, spit-up rags. 

These, too would probably make excellent kitchen rags or sweat rags if that's something you could use but for right now, I'm going with the cheese cloth. 

So that's my household tip for the day. Just call me Heloise. 

And I have to add that forty-nine years ago right now I was in labor with my first baby, having no idea whatsoever that labor could be so horrible. It was for me, anyway. It's certainly not for everyone but it is not painless without drugs. I'll just say that. I wanted a home birth and the women who attended me were not trained midwives, but women friends, some of them who had had babies of their own, who wanted very much to be midwives. Armed with a copy of Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin, they were by my side for the entire twenty-eight hours of the labor. I finally could not go on one more moment and my then-husband drove me to the hospital, which was about a mile away, where I was checked in, assessed, and sent immediately to the delivery room where the doctor who had done all my prenatal care, delivered the baby. Fast, fast, fast. 

Forty-nine years ago and I remember some of those moments so clearly. So very, very clearly. The memory that always makes me laugh happened after I got to the hospital and the nurse was trying to get me to get up on the exam table and I was so into pushing that I would not stop squatting on the floor to do just that. 
"Get up here on this bed," she said, "Or you're going to have that baby on the floor!" 
"I DON'T CARE!" I roared. And I didn't. 

And that was Hank. My red-headed baby whose arrival immediately put all of that work, all of that pain, into a place that didn't matter and there was nothing that mattered except for him and I knew what love was from that moment on. 

And before supper time, we checked out of the hospital, AMA, and went home where my life and Hank's life too, truly began. 

I was twenty-one, almost twenty-two and I had just met the greatest teacher of my life. 

And that's what's going on within me and without me this evening. Mr. Moon and Owen are at the lake and hopefully, no one's fallen off a roof or lost an arm or a leg to a power saw. I hope they sleep well. I do believe I will. 

Love...Ms. Moon