A Musing On Cats And Marriage

I took two photos today and both of them were of Maurice. I spent most of the day in town and I don't think y'all need a picture of Costco. Or Publix. Or even Oak Tree Treasures, as lovely as it is. 

I have no idea what Maurice was examining there but it must have been some sort of little critter. 

I was thinking the other day about Maurice bringing me mice and other delectable meat treats and it occurred to me that I get so excited when I think the crows have brought me a gift of any sort but when Maurice brings me something my reaction is invariably, "Dammit, Maurice! What the fucking fuck?" 
And that's so wrong. 
That cat went out and hunted with forethought. She wanted to catch something to give to me which she did. She then brought it into the house or on the porch, leaving it where she knows I'll come across it because she is more familiar with my paths and patterns than I am myself, and on top of all of that, whatever she's brought me is almost always so unmarked by struggle or blood that she must have made a quick, lethal kill which is also not nothing. It's almost like someone giving you an entire ice cream cone, unlicked, whole, and all for you, rather than handing you a soggy mess of cone with most of the ice cream gone saying, "Here. You want this? I've had all I want." 

We can say what we will, or at least I can say what I will, about Maurice's very odd and not always pacifistic behavior but in giving me these gifts she is showing her love and concern for me in the way she knows best. She has to think about doing it, create a strategy, do it, and deliver it. 
And instead of praising her or marveling at her hunting abilities, her obvious affection for me, I yell at her, mostly in profane ways. 
Why IS this? Well, because I don't like finding dead animals in my house or on my porch. I am obviously not going to eat them, and obviously they must be disposed of which is not a pleasant task. 
But. Their meaning to the cat is completely and purely altruistic and in the end, that is what matters, isn't it? 
And it is such a feline thing to do. What would the canine equivalent be? The only thing they bring humans are balls and sticks that the human can throw for them which brings the dogs much pleasure and I guess, shows that the dog enjoys interacting with the human and that's nice. But it's not the same. 
I realize that dogs show their affection in different ways. Defending their humans sometimes. We all know stories of dogs who have protected their owners or the children of their owners or somehow got the attention of another human when their human is in a dangerous situation. 
"Timmy's in the well!" 
I've heard of cats doing things like this too, but they are not known for it, like dogs are. 

And this is not a cats versus dogs thing. Or even a cats versus crows thing. Crows are wild animals, and as such, are not generally expected to interact with humans in the ways that a domesticated animal would although it would seem that cats are not domesticated in the least, but are essentially the same animals they were when they first began living with humans. A deal was struck. The cats would come into the living spaces of people and help rid them of vermin and the people would let them sleep by the fire or stroke them or even let them have a bite of mammoth entrail from time to time. 

So I've been thinking about all of this and realizing I don't give Maurice enough credit for doing the things for me she perceives as true gifts from the heart. 
I should at least maybe thank her before I start in with the cussing. 

Mr. Moon has gone to the hospital to see one of his very best friends and his best fishing buddy. There was an incident this morning which caused his wife to take him directly to the ER and they're trying to figure out what happened. 
Glen has had so many friends who have had medical problems or even terminal diagnoses lately, or who, in fact, have died. He takes each one with great sorrow. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic here. The man cares very, very much about his friends. 
And as he worries about his friend, I worry about him. He spent all day on a bush hog, clearing land at the property where he sometimes hunts, to get it ready for the season. He does not own this property and he never will. He may not even hunt it. He does love to put up the trail cams and watch what comes in to feed. Bears and raccoons and sometimes even deer. 
And after working all day long in this heat, I know he's exhausted and spent. Hell, I'm feeling complainy about having had to shop all afternoon. 
Poor baby. 
But his exhaustion is the serious kind, the kind where you sweat all day long, and I hate that he's not in his chair, resting now. I know he pushes himself too hard but I also know there's nothing I can do about it. There is simply no way he would not go to the hospital to see his friend and his friend's wife. I know that after all he did today, his legs are even less steady than usual. I asked him to please take his cane, thinking of those long, polished hospital hallways. 
For once, he listened to me. That alone tells you how tired he is. 

These are the things you never consider when you're young and crazy in love, standing in front of a justice of the peace or a notary or a preacher along with your family and your friends, and vow to love each other in sickness and in health. 
You have no idea what that even begins to mean. 
I often wonder if this is why older women at weddings are so apt to cry. 
They know. They do know.

Pottery tomorrow. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Mashes Sands

Before we go any farther, that's what last night's supper looked like. 
It was fine. 

Our sleep last night was odd. At one point the fan at my bedside suddenly shut off which woke both Glen and me. Also, my phone chirped. I peeped outside the window and everything looked dark as hell. No lights from anywhere. I determined that our electricity had gone off, which happens around here frequently although I didn't detect any storm-like activity. This, too, is not unusual. And then, because the fan did not come back on, I figured the generator hadn't kicked on and I spent at least half an hour in bed, fretting about that because our generator is life. 
Not really, but sort of. I feared that the house would become hot without the air conditioning and wondered if Glen would be able to fix what was wrong in the morning or not and so I fretted some more until I finally went back to sleep. 
Turns out that the electricity had gone out but the generator must have come on and I just didn't know it due to the fan but that fan has one of those new modern magic on/off buttons and I guess once it cuts off, it's off until it's touched again. 
Or something. 
Turns out Glen did the same thing, the worrying, the fretting. 
Eh, we lived. 

It also turns out that it had rained. A lot. And I missed it! According to the garden cart rain gauge, we got at least an inch. I think. Maybe more. Anyway, by the time we got up, the electricity was back on, the house was still very cool, and the world looked greener and felt fresher than it had the day before. 

Jessie texted us early to say that they were thinking about going to a beach or some springs. Did we want to go? Glen, as soon as he got the text, called her back at which point she said, "Daddy, just because I text you at this hour of the morning, it doesn't mean I'm up. You don't have to call me." 
That child has always been and always will be the boss of us both. 

In the text I sent back to her after I'd had a few cups of coffee I asked if she didn't think the beaches and springs would be full of people due to it being Labor Day. She said that yes, probably, but she was wanting to go to the beach. 
So what ended up happening is that they decided to go to a rather nearby beach which is not really a beach like usual beaches because it's a peninsula surrounded by marshes and all kinds of natural Florida and there isn't much white sand and the water isn't greeny blue and there are no waves on a normal day but...it's water. It's sand. It's got fish and crabs and seagulls and osprey and pelicans. 
We decided we'd meet them and it turned out to be a good day although I really have to say that Mashes Sands is never going to be my favorite beach destination. However, we were relatively separated from other beach goers with plenty of room all to ourselves and August and Levon had a fabulous time digging in the silty sand and herding fiddler crabs and floating in the funky-colored water and doing a little fishing with their grandfather who brought fishing poles and the assorted accoutrements for said fishing as well as some live bait shrimp that we'd stopped at a huge convenience store place on the way that sells not only regular convenience store stuff but also everything from all the fishing equipment you can imagine to racks and racks of beach and sportswear clothing and all sorts of things you might need at the beach from sunscreen to, oh hell, I don't even know, a deli, nice restrooms, and of course, fresh bait. 
Here's the wall of art right beside the restroom entrance.

Well, that's just part of the wall of art. There was a lot more. 
A little something for everyone, right? I was worried I'd leave there with a tropical print moo-moo but managed not to. 

Because I'm tired and even possibly sunburned (and I cannot remember the last time that happened), I'm going to try and make this a lot shorter than I usually would. 
There are pictures. 

The biggest catch of the day was a huge stingray that August caught. 

There's some video that really shows the size of this sea creature but I am not in the mood to go through all the hoops required to edit and post it. Perhaps I will tomorrow. It was a truly impressive stingray. And of course, he is back with his family in the water now. Glen didn't even have to use a pair of pliers to get the hook out of its mouth. It just sort of fell out when the pressure of the line was removed when it was beached. Jessie helped bring it in and when we congratulated August on his catch, he said, "We all did it." 
He is the sweetest boy. 
A little while later I was standing beside him and I could not help but reach out and hug him sideways and he leaned his head over onto me and said softly, "Oh, grandma's are the best." 
Well. That was everything, right there. 
Levon was wild, doing wind sprints on the little islands left by the lowering tide, running and running, excited and pretty happy from what I could tell. There were tidal pools behind us or little estuaries? I don't know. 

But as the tide went out, those pools drained into the bay with a current so strong that it was almost like being caught in a bathtub drain. 

We risked the funky-looking water because it was so hot and floated about, making sure to keep an arm or a leg or a butt on the bottom to prevent floating out to sea. It was crazy! I've been in hot tubs with less water pressure force. 
We saw osprey carrying fish and seagulls fighting over what looked like a chicken wing that some other beach goers had thrown to them. They were fierce! 
And although it was way too hot and although the water was funky, we had a good time. 

The dead and downed tree sculptures told the story of a time when there had perhaps been more land, less water. 

Still, beautiful in a wind-worn sort of way. 
And the sky? Well. You can see it. 

On the path back to the parking lot there were wild flowers with butterflies flitting about and plants that I should have taken the time to identify. 
But I am old and I was tired and it was so hot. 
Now we're home and I'm going to heat up the soup from the other night and because I am probably insane, I have made more naan dough. 

It's been a good day. We got out of Lloyd. We moved about. We got in the water and we got to spend time with our sweeties. 

We will sleep well tonight. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Remembering

 

Last night while I was making supper, Billy and I were having a texting session, which is something we do. Billy is an excellent texting partner. It started out with him sending me a video of Joni Mitchell performing one of my favorite songs of hers, which is "Case of You" off her Blue Album. It's funny because I was just thinking about that song a few days ago, wondering if I still knew all the lyrics, and had been singing it in my head. Of course, as I discussed a few days ago, Blue is the album that I listened to constantly (in the darkness?) when I was attending college in Denver and it either saved my life as I went through a major depression or (and this is possible), pushed me even farther into it but either way, it gave me something beautiful to hang on to, something of color and sweetness and a sense of sadness that reflected my own perfectly. I knew I wasn't the only woman ever to have felt this way. She gave me that. 
So Billy and I discussed how much we love her and why and how beautiful the lyrics are on this song (all of her songs, really), and then we moved on to other things until it reached a point where I was telling him how inadequate I feel these days and he gave me wise words to contemplate. 
And while all of this philosophizing and sweet counseling was going on, I was making my soup and then the naan and finally I said, "To lighten things up, I can make some GeeDee naan," and sent him that picture. I love making making naan bread. It's truly easy and almost too delicious. 

I was worried because the dough hardly rose at all but it didn't seem to matter in the least. As soon as my flattened rounds of it hit the hot skillet, it puffed majestically. 
And I didn't burn one!

Anyway, that happened last night and today has been Sunday, Mr. Moon's and my date day, as we describe it sometimes. We spend the time together just doing what we usually do but with more loving intention somehow. I believe it's good for us. 

I took no pictures today except for the one below. Absolutely no one needs to see another shot of my Seminole pumpkins ripening on the vine or of Maurice following me around as I feed the crows. That went well, the crow feeding. This morning they yelled at me to alert me to the fact they were hungry so I fed them their mealworms and peanuts. They seem to like these peanuts. As soon as I got their food on the six stumps, the one I call the Scout came down to check it all out. I think that the same one does this every time but I really don't know, as I have said before. They all look just alike to me. But this one did a little walk around to check out the offerings and then cawed to the others in the branches, waiting for his all-okay signal, and then they flew down and began to eat. 
You are old, Father William. Or, rather, Mother Mary. 
Old enough to be entertained daily by five crows.
It's not so bad. 

I finished sewing the green heart on Glen's overalls. 

It's not done. I have not stitched together the small tear which was the reason for patching yet. I'll probably make another heart inside the green heart to do that, sewing together the edges that need to be joined as I do. 

Maggie's incredible growth spurt in the last year has made me a little nostalgic for the days when she was just the most darling cherub in the world. Here's one of my favorite pictures of her, back when she was still a horse-riding girl. 

She was already starting to really grow but she still had plenty of baby-child in her. 
I don't know if nostalgic is the word I would choose to describe my feelings about missing the little ones my grandchildren used to be. I feel exactly the same way about their parents. About all of my own children. 
It's more like a sort of homesickness, I think. Not just a fond remembering feeling but more of a very mixed emotional yearning for those days as I look back on them. They say you can't go home again but you can surely do that far more easily than you can go back in time to when your littles could sit on your lap, wanted to sit on your lap, were still so open and, if not uncomplicated, than at least more open to the uncomplicated love I could give them. 
Does that make sense?

Oh, dear Maggie. Her emotions have always been big, from so sad to so joyful. Her mother was very much the same. 

I'm thinking about all of that tonight and how it's not the young ME I miss nearly as much as the young sweeties I raised and that some of them are raising. Don't get me wrong. I love who they are now and that we can talk about stuff, both the grands, and the kids. Stuff that's quite real and quite serious and quite humorous and quite wise. 
I adore the fact that when I hug Lily or Jessie, my head pretty much comes right up to their bosoms, and I can feel like the kid for a moment, and they let me. I love the fact that May is like my twin in so many ways, only smarter and funnier, and that Hank is Hank, as wise and true to himself and to the world as he has always been. 

Still. We can adore where we are now, where we live our lives and make our days and sleep our dreams, and still look back on places we remember with such longing.

It's okay. Humans are complicated little critters, but then again, so are gag groupers. 

I'm going to go cook some shrimp and grits and trust me when I say there will not be any damn mushrooms or truffles or other hoity-toity, cheffy-ness influence in them. The grits are stone ground and as such, take about an hour to cook. 
I better get on it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Another Life In Lloyd Post

Well, it was bound to happen. I just wasn't expecting my granddaughter to reach my height when she was in the fifth grade. I've still got an inch on her or maybe a little more. She was wearing shoes and I wasn't. It delights the grands when they become as tall as I am. It's like a badge of honor and sign of maturity around here. I haven't seen August in a few weeks so it's quite possible he's right there with his cousin. 
Lily and Lauren and the Magnificent Magnolia dropped by today. Lily recently bought a new car which is new only to her but it does have AC which her old one did not and let me tell you- when it's 97 degrees, all driving around with the windows open does is to blast you with hot air. It's not just like being in an oven, it's like being in a convection oven. Or air-fryer. 
It's not in the least bit enjoyable. So anyway, of course Lily wants her Daddy to sell her car for her and they dropped it off here today and that was the main reason for their visit. Actually, Glen volunteered to sell her car for her because he doesn't really like the idea of strangers going to Lily's house, especially since she has children. As Lily pointed out today though, he doesn't seem worried to have strangers coming out to our house even though his wife is here and when it comes right down to it, she said that her kids could probably fight off an attacker a lot better than I could so there's that too. 
I'm not worried about the issue. I can't tell you how many things (including cars) Glen's sold from our house and no one has ever come back to do any sort of mischief. 

Now where was I? Oh yeah. Lily and Lauren and Maggie. They left after just a little while because they were hungry and I really didn't have much here to offer them. I mean, I have plenty of food but nothing guest-worthy. 

I hardly did a thing today. It was one of those ugh days. And you can't spell rough without ugh, can you?
Gosh I'm clever. 
Nothing really wrong at all, just one of those days. I took the trash and dropped by the post office where I had a chat with Ms. T. We discussed the new business going into the old boutique which is probably a hundred yards or so from the post office. She doesn't know much about it either. I told her I'd visited their web site and it seemed to be mostly about their faith. We agreed there might be eggs. That would be nice if they don't charge twenty dollars a dozen. 
We talked about a few other things and she thanked me for coming in and chatting as she had not had one customer all day. It was already almost 11:30 and they close at noon. I'm sort of surprised we still have a post office here. I probably should have discussed this whole mail-in ballots mess that Trump's trying to do to prevent people's votes from counting. What's the end-game there? Are there far fewer Republicans who use mail-in ballots than Democrats? 
I swear. I can't figure out a damn thing anymore. Nothing makes sense. I just didn't feel like talking about it so I didn't bring it up. 

I watered porch plants and I admired the firespike. 

It's doing well by the front gate. I actually set the sprinkler on them yesterday. The rain we got wasn't nearly enough to really matter although some things do look a little greener. 

I think the crows left me another token of exchange. I found a magnolia cone on one of the tree stumps this morning when I fed them. It was an older cone and the seeds in it were softened with age and I wonder if that is how the crows like them because they're easy to eat whereas the new seeds might as well be made of plexiglass or something, making the aged ones more valuable in their estimation.  

The new ones are pretty, aren't they? 
But once again, it's hard to imagine how an entire cone could have gotten onto the stump without some help. In this case avian help. 
Not to be ungrateful but it sure would be nice if they found and gifted me with the earring I lost some years ago and still miss. 

I decided to use one of my pumpkins in making the creamy, curried, cashew, butternut squash soup I love so much. 
There is going to be a learning curve as pertains to these vegetables. 
Here's what they look like when cut open. 

Beautiful color. And a whole lot of seeds. Seed to meat ratio is a little disappointing but these are heirlooms and that makes sense. Their desire to live and thrive which I have truly appreciated is reflected in the number of seeds and I'll never have to buy any more seeds again. 
There was no way I was going to be able to peel the raw pumpkin so I steamed the halves for awhile after I'd removed as much of the guts and seeds as I could, and then cut them into smaller pieces which were far easier to peel. I do the same with butternut and acorn squashes. Delicatas do not need to be peeled. Their skin is imminently thin and edible. 
I threw a sweet potato into the soup along with the pumpkin and I think the soup will be good. I've good dough for naan bread rising. Mr. Moon is not the biggest fan of curry flavors (or so he says) but if I make naan to go with the soup, he is far more enthusiastic. 

Fishing didn't go smoothly today due to something about the trolling motor but he wasn't too disappointed. He got to come home earlier, he's not as tired, and he doesn't have a cooler of fish to clean. He also stopped on the way home at My Way Seafood and bought me some gorgeous shrimp so I am quite happy too. 

The only other project I worked on was patching a place in a pair of Mr. Moon's overalls that he'd snagged. They are practically new so of course they deserve a patch. I asked him when he showed me the snagged hole, what sort of a patch he wanted and what he said charmed me so much. 

"A heart is good," he answered. 
I agreed. So I'm sewing a green flannel heart-shaped patch over the snag in his overalls and I think I'll try to fancy it up a bit. I remembered something about patching or sewing on pants as I was working on this today though, which is that stitching and embroidery require one to be able to access the patching area from both sides, inside and out. And by golly- it's not that easy to get your hand down the leg of overalls, especially when they're the britches of an extremely long-legged man. It's just awkward. It can be done but it's not nearly as easy as stitching or embroidering on, say, the front or back of a blouse or dress. 
This may not make sense to you if you've never done any sewing on a pair of jeans or even a shirt sleeve, but if you have, you know what I'm talking about. 
And that's something I'm pondering about the Levi's patching project. Would it even be worth it? 

Who knows? 
Not me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Eat Up! With Jesus!

 
We're finally, and at long last, getting some rain. It's certainly not a downpour but it's enough to green up the grass some, to perhaps give the beauty berries the fortitude to stand up a little straighter, and cheer the birds enough for them to talk about it in their own various bird languages. Do you suppose birds have different accents depending on where they live? Different dialects? Does a cardinal in Texas sound exactly like a cardinal in Florida? I'm sure someone's studied that. 

Glen and I are taking the credit for bringing on this rain. He's been watering those fruit trees as if their lives depended on it, and they do while I hung out the laundry this morning. Mainly sheets.

In fact, I barely got my sheets off the line before it started raining because we were on our way back home from Monticello when the sky began to bruise and the thunder began to clap. But I got them in, still dry, and all is well. They're back on the bed now. 
I'll be sleeping on them alone tonight as Glen has gone to the coast to get up early and go fish for gag grouper. Don't ask me what a gag grouper is or why it's called a gag grouper. I'm sure there's a reason but even if I found out, I would forget before two days had passed because my brain is only accepting important calls for retention and often not even those and I'm not really curious enough to just look it up to satisfy that sort of itch so what's the point? 
Well, I lied. I looked them up and I'm glad I did because there is a very interesting fact about them which is that all gag groupers are born female but some transition into males later on in life. And now I'm wondering whether or not the individuals who turn into males make a choice to do that or does it just happen randomly? Are the fish surprised when they wake up to realize they are now of the male gender? 
Probably not. I am far to quick to anthropomorphize, aren't I?

So Mr. Moon had some legal stuff he had to go to an official office of some sort to get prints and copies made and of course this involves Tom's estate. There's a little office in Monticello where he could get that done. I was eager for another shot at Wag the Dog and perhaps another place, too, if there was time. So we both got dressed in more socially acceptable clothing and I even put on a bra-like garment and off we went. He dropped me at Wag while he went to get the papers printed. 
Wag was very, very good to me today. I believe that anyone who thrifts realizes that going shopping at one of these places in hopes of finding a specific item is rarely rewarded by finding that item. I believe it's best to just go with open eyes and an open heart. As soon as I walked in the door I saw a display of glassware which included five nice martini glasses, all of different colors. Five of them for sixteen dollars. A steal! 
And no, of course I don't need any more martini glasses but I am fond of them and these looked to have never been used as the little stickers on the bottom that said, "Handwash Only" were still attached but in such a way that I think if they had been washed, even by hand, they would have peeled right off. And anyway, it doesn't matter. So I gathered the glasses up and took them to the register and the woman behind the counter said she'd wrap them for me while I was shopping. 
Monticello has some mighty sweet people in it. 
I looked through clothes, found nothing. There was a good selection of lamps but none I needed in the least, the cookware did not excite me, the sewing and crafts things were not treasure-worthy, and the placemats were nothing I'd use. However, I did find four Vera Wang napkins for $2.50 and they are quite nice. 
While I was going through the knickknacky china stuff, my eye fell on a tray that I was immediately drawn to. I couldn't tell if it was ceramic or plastic but it turned out to be made of a very heavy plastic, a resin? Yes. Resin I think. 
It wasn't the material the tray was made of that drew me to it though, it was the print of the woman's face on it. 

I've done some searching and the image on the platter may have been originally painted by a woman named Alja Horvat. 
Whoever, whatever, I picked it up, felt its heft, set it back down. It cost ten dollars which is pretty high for a plastic tray at Wag the Dog. 
When I'd finished up with my survey of the entire place though, my feet took me right back to this lady who knew without a doubt that I'd return and buy her. Her stare dared me not to. 
I did not have the strength to resist. 

So I bought my glasses and my tray and some lovely satin ribbon and then Mr. Moon and I went to lunch at place where I don't really enjoy eating because, once again, Jesus is prominent on all the walls via those plaques you can buy at the Dollar General that say things like, "In this place we shall worship Jesus Christ, our savior and redeemer." 
Talk about being eat up with that shit. You just can't avoid it in small towns in the south. 
The owner wore a t-shirt that said, "Redeemed" in case we didn't get the picture and it would appear that she did something in the entertainment world at one point as there were quite a few pictures of her with celebrities and near-celebrities on the wall when she was a lot younger. 
And possibly not yet redeemed. 
The funny and frustrating part about the restaurant for me was that everything I asked for from the menu they were out of. To begin with, they were out of iced tea. 
This is like going to a Waffle House and discovering they are out of Waffles. 
Sigh. Water was fine. 
They didn't have the chicken salad salad, they didn't have the Caprese salad, they didn't have the grilled chicken sandwich.
"Get a wrap!" the owner told me. It didn't sound like a suggestion but more of a command.
"I don't really like wraps," I said. And I don't. 
I finally ended up with a bacon, lettuce, tomato, and avocado sandwich with potato salad and they were all good but the bread on the sandwich was Wonder Bread and I shit you not. 
Still. Not bad. 
Glen ordered a club sandwich which they also had so all was not lost. That too, came on Wonder Bread. 
Here's a thing that was on the table:

I have to say that even for Monticello, this place was pushing it. 

We crossed the street after lunch and went to the antique/vintage store for a short run-through. Another extremely tall man began a conversation with Glen, asking him how tall he was and it went from there. This guy had been a football player, although he'd loved basketball. I take it he just didn't have the necessary skills. They traded stories about their glory days but I don't think either one of them is the kind of man to be stuck back there. Still, I have come to realize that people who spent a portion of their life playing a team sport and playing it well, will never forget the experience and can't help but look back on it with some wonder and also pride. I think Glen's basketball career had a lot to do with the sort of man he turned out to be. 
And hell, at least he got to go to Europe. 

I took a picture of myself upstairs in the vintage place, right down the hallway from where I found Dorothy Anne. 

I wore the Is He Dead shirt and I do not think one person actually noticed it. They were all too busy concentrating on their "Redeemed" shirts. 
Each to our own. 

Here's a picture I took because I wasn't sure if it was an art installation or just a temporary place to put a mannequin bust. 

Could be both. One never knows. 

We didn't buy a dang thing in the vintage place. I was hoping to find a string of pearls for Levon but did not. 

On our way out of town we stopped at the farmer's market.

Glen wanted a 25 pound bag of raw, jumbo peanuts to roast and of course, they can be crow food too. I got some peaches and some onions and a few sweet potatoes. 

When we got home I decided to do some culling and clearing of one part of my kitchen where I keep a lot of glassware and bowls and platters and trays and other things that I don't use from year to year. I wanted to do this so I could fit my new tray and martini glasses in and so, I have done that. 

Another art installation, I do believe. 

That area looks a little more tidy and perhaps, slowly, slowly, I shall get rid of even more. 

I already have several things promised to the children and in fact, my hallway is looking a bit like a yard sale staging area. 

It feels good to pass these things on to the next generation. 
They're going to get whatever of them they want eventually and I'd like to clear my spaces now and am feeling relatively unattached to a lot of it. Many of these things made me happy at an earlier time of my life and now, well, if I want a platter with a stern and beautiful woman on it, holding five martini glasses, so be it. 

As you can see, I still have a goodly plenty of bowls. But you know what? I am getting rid of a few of them. I can easily see getting rid of more.

The other end of the porch. It's stopped raining and according to the garden cart rain gauge, we did not get a lot. 
Still. Better than none. 

Can we comment yet on blogger blog comments? I hope they fix this situation. Please know that if I generally comment on your blog, I have no doubt read your post from today, I just couldn't leave my footprint. 

Oh well, probably does us all good to have a comment free day, both on the making and receiving ends of the deal. Really, there are no rules. 

Here's your weekly shot of joy, this time provided by The Boss and Little Stevie Van Zandt. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Hot Pants

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The hurricane lily, the only one I've seen so far, has opened up entirely. They are such gaudy beauties. 

It's so, so dry here. The grass has gone crispy, the leaves are drooping, I can almost hear the earth panting, thirsty for a good, long drink of water. Our daily cruel rain tease happened early today and gave us just about enough moisture to dampen the back porch steps. Mr. Moon bought a new sprinkler in town today and he has it on as we speak, watering the fruit trees we planted a few months ago. Well, there was no "we" about it. He planted them. If we don't water them, we're going to lose them and they were not cheap and let's not forget his labor, getting them in the ground. 
Plus, I would just feel so very guilty if we let them die. You know how I am about plants. 

I stayed home all day and finished up my shirt project. I am not what we might call thrilled about the job I did but I could spend the rest of my life on it, trying for perfection but that ain't gonna happen. It is good enough. 

Now, speaking of embroidery, I discovered what I consider to be just about my favorite example of visible mending combined with embroidery and patchwork I've ever seen in my life. 

I am completely in love and blown away. You can find these glorious jeans at the Magnolia Pearl website. I knew nothing of Magnolia Pearl until Lily told me about the company. They have extremely unusual and very hippie/boho clothing. I get a sort of Helena Bonham Carter/Betsy Johnson vibe from them. Some of their things I like, some I don't, but they are all unbelievably expensive so it doesn't matter what I like or do not like of their collection because I won't be buying any of it. 
Those jeans cost $650. 
However. I think you'd be purchasing a work of art which, should you so choose, you could wear. 

The handwork is phenomenal in an extremely folk art way. 
And of course, the Virgin of Guadalupe is my girl and so I really feel that they should just send me a pair as obviously, they were made for me. 
Sigh. 
But what I'd really love is to take one of the shit-beat pairs of Levi's I have and make my own art jeans. Being a realist though, I know that the project would take me approximately twenty years. 
Still, my fingers are itching. I'm thinking about all the Virgin of Guadalupe images on fabric I have. Not as many as are represented on those britches, but a few. 
And other things that would make fabulous patches. The jeans are not especially holey and I have patched the places that are but the fabric is so thin in many places you can almost see through it so it wouldn't be exactly fake patching. I'm not going to start ripping up Levi's. 
That would be almost as much a sin as letting the fruit trees die. 

But if I started doing one little patch and embroidery border at a time, that might be doable, right?  

Not much else happened here today. I gave myself permission to not do any yard work after I got bitten by at least three different yellow flies. I'm still itching. Those things are the pets of Satan. 

I tried something new with the crows today. Along with their mealworms, I put three raw-in-the-shell peanuts on each tree stump. They came in and seemed to do a lot of discussing about this new development. I truly wish I knew how and what they think, and what they're saying to each other in these discussions because I would bet the ranch they are saying things to each other which they can and do understand. Anyway, all of the mealworms and the peanuts have disappeared so I guess the updated menu was approved. 

I also wish I knew what Maurice was thinking. I hate to say this but she is becoming seemingly more and more...mentally ill? 
Her fear of Glen is becoming worse. She hasn't gone to sit and nap on his lap in weeks and that hurts him. They really had such a cozy relationship. If she's on the back porch and he opens the door she bolts off into the yard. 
I don't know what to do. Perhaps she has a kidney issue. Can UTI's cause cats to display behavior that mimics dementia like it can in humans? I just looked it up and the answer is that they can. So perhaps that's it although she isn't displaying signs of discomfort and is eating and drinking water as usual. 
Let's face it. She's never in her life been "right." 

And that's enough chatter. I don't want to be like the lady in the Aldi who wouldn't stop talking. 
But first- I forgot to tell you about the best thing that happened to me today. 
Yesterday I realized I didn't know where one of my favorite blouses is. It's got the colors of almost everything I wear in it and it has pockets which makes it perfect to wear over t-shirts or whatever, with dresses or skirts that don't. I went through my closet twice. I looked on the floor. I checked the closet where I hang the un-ironed garments. 
I could not find it. I decided I must have left it somewhere after shedding it when I got too hot to need it.  
But this morning I thought I'd just do a double-check in that ironing closet and by golly- it was indeed there. 

It needs ironing. So does everything else in over half that closet. 
La-di-dah. La-di-dah. It was here all along. 
I am so happy. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Tickets To Fire!

This is a cockeyed picture of how my caladium platter fit on the shelf of squares. Sorry. Jessie placed it for me on a higher shelf than I would have put it on so I was holding the phone at a clumsy angle to take the picture. As you can see, I slid my little fishy under the leaf and Gail, our teacher, said that would be fine. So. Four squares for the one platter. Not so bad. I am honestly excited to see how this turns out. I hope it colors up and shines up during the firing. It should. 

And...I finally started working on the fish platter. 

It has begun! As I painted her eye she whispered that her name was Francis. Francis the Blue-Eyed Fish. 
I have never named anything I've made in pottery before unless you count, "Failure" or "Sigh" as names. 
I'm excited. I do love to paint fish. 

It was a big day for our pottery class as we celebrated Gail, our friend and teacher, and Shelly, our joyful friend who loves festivals and has a beautiful son she's raising by herself. And she's doing a damn fine job. The lemon bars I brought and the cookies Jessie made were hugely enjoyed. I am so glad. It was nice to make today's class a little special for Gail and Shelly. The lemon bars were delicious. I'm not going to lie. And Jessie's cookies- well, I have to get that recipe. It's gluten-free and has peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate chips, butter, and flax seed in them. There may be other things. I think I like them better than the life-sustaining cookies I make for Glen when he goes off on one of his manly adventures. When I get it, I will share it. 

There was some serious pottery-making going on today, too. It wasn't all cookie eating and birthday celebrating. Jessie's trying to figure out how to make August a dragon pot for the plant she got him. He has requested that. She'll do it. 
And Gentleman Caller™ came in for a quick visit. He looked especially spiffy today. I bet I'm one of the last ten people to use the word "spiffy." Perhaps I should use the "sartorial" instead. It is far more sophisticated, don't you think? Lizzie sent me this picture which she took this morning. 

Takes a real man to wear a pink jacket and a tie to go with. 
It really is amusing how the class responds to his presence when he comes in for one of his quick visits. Let us just say we all have a fondness for the Gentleman Caller™. 

I think he looks a little like my own Gentleman Caller™, don't you? 
And by the way, he gave his permission for his photo to be posted here. I thank him for that. I believe people like to see what the folks I talk about look like sometimes. Generally, I am shy about asking anyone if I can take their picture to use on my blog but I don't think it's fair not to get permission. I mean- someone could be in the Witness Protection Program and one of the ones and ones of people who visit here might recognize and wish them harm! 
You never know. We are a pretty wild and possibly dangerous community here at the Church of the Batshit Crazy. I mean- look at me. I attempted to steal a cart with unpaid for foodstuffs in it today. 
Not on purpose. Let us be clear. Read on for that story.

After class Jessie and I met Lily at the Indian buffet which was excellent, as always. We talked and laughed and then laughed some more, again, as always. And then I dropped Jessie off at her house so she could get a nap before her shift tonight and I went to Costco and Publix. Are we surprised? 
I had an experience at Publix. 
I should be embarrassed to tell this story but for some reason I am not. Perhaps because this was not the first time this experience has happened to me. Well, I made it happen. But that was a long time ago back when I didn't worry about my brain and its functioning. So that is reassuring. 
What happened was that while I was shopping I felt the need to visit the restroom. I parked my cart near the restroom doors, went in to one of them, did what one does in a restroom, came out, saw only one cart, grabbed the handle and pushed it down the aisle. 
It wasn't until I was about two aisles over that I looked down at the basket where I stash some of the things I'm going to buy and thought, "I am not buying bread. Or grated cheese. WTF? Goddammit! I grabbed the wrong cart!" 
And indeed I had. 
I found the guy whose basket I had stolen and he was NOT WELL PLEASED. Turns out I'd parked my own cart a little bit away from the restroom doors, sort of in the floral section, and had blithely taken possession of his cart, which was parked much closer to the doors. 
Sigh. 
I apologized and he sort of glared at me but I was feeling feisty and refused to be shamed. Are you not proud of me? I thought, What the fuck, man? Shit happens. 
He took possession of his groceries and sort of huffed off and I went back to the floral section to collect my own which was sitting there, waiting patiently for me to realize my mistake and come back to retrieve it. Which I did, and off we went. I finished up my shopping and then went to pick up Mr. Moon who had taken one of his cars to a body shop to get something done and that's a long story but there were no dents, scratches, or tragedies involved so, whatever. 
I was was vastly relieved that the place he'd taken the Camry was very near to the Publix I'd been shopping at and not twenty miles away which is often the case when he needs a ride. 

And home we came where everything is so very, very dry. The beauty berries are not as fat this year and the clusters are smaller too. 

Everything looks tired and somewhat sad. 

These years happen. We were doing so well there for awhile, getting daily rain, and a good amount of it. 
And now, well, we're not.

I'm tired. Wednesdays are long days for me. But they are generally good days, as this one was. And tomorrow, I can gather my energy back around me. Perhaps I will even finish my shirt. 
And oh, wouldn't I love to put a little more color on Francis? 
Yes. Yes I would. 

I hope you've had a good day too. 

Love...Ms. Moon