Relief

 Look- doctors can do better with their offices and exam rooms. They just could. I am aware, however, that I don't even have the slightest clue as to what it costs to operate a medical office. It makes me feel ill, just thinking about it. I mean- from the little cups to pee in for urine samples to- well- whatever the most expensive thing they use is. Plus staff salaries and cleaning costs, rent to mortgages. It must be never-ending. Throw in the fact that most doctors graduating from med school owe a shit-ton of money in loans and I don't know how anyone manages to get up and running in business for themselves, even if they belong to a group. 
So I guess I have to give them grace. There was a very large photo/picture on the wall beside where I was sitting of a beach at sunset, taken on the level of the tops of sea oats which was a fine picture but I wasn't facing it. Plus, the exam room was freezing. FREEZING. I finally rustled around in the drawers of the exam table and found a towel that I wrapped around me like a shawl. There was a pretty good wait to see the always interesting Doctor Zorn today but I never get too upset about that. I know how much time he spends with me and every patient deserves that. 

When he finally gave the door a knock and came in, he crossed the room and hugged me. 
Just saying that makes me want to cry. I've never before had a doctor like that. We talked about what you might call medically related things for a few minutes. He asked me how I was doing and I said, "Pretty darn okay!" and he said, "Well, I'll take that."
We discussed the weight loss and how that has affected me and he praised me for it, said I looked good and I told him I felt so much better. He could tell. Anyone could tell. 
He said my bloodwork was fine and that was all I needed to know about that. And then we started talking about...books! 
You want to hear something sweet? His daddy, who was also a doctor, read to him every day for at least ten minutes until he was a senior in high school. And he loves to read now. Which of course I do too, and we got started, throwing titles around. "Have you read this?" "Have you read that?" He wrote down the names of two books I recommended, one being The Yearling, the other being Keith Richard's Life. The Yearling came up when he mentioned how much he loves to grow field peas and black-eyed peas and zipper peas and how it's so amazing to think of all the people who have sustained lives on those things which of course led me to talk about how Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings described those very people. Then he got to talking about a biography of George Washington he'd read that was full of information that they do not teach you in school such is that George, a devout teetotaler who could not abide the drinking of alcohol around him could not make a damn cent on his giant plantation until they started making corn whiskey at which point his coffers grew and his disdain of the devil's lemonade lessened. 
And then of course I had to bring up Life, telling him not only was it my favorite memoir I've ever read, it is truly one of the best books I've ever read. 
"Really?!" he said. 
"Yes!" And he wrote it down along with The Yearling. 
He also wrote down "rattlesnake beans." He asked me about pressure canning and says he wants to learn how to do it. He even asked me a few questions about it such as what kind of canner do I use? Did I blanch the beans before they went into the canner? Do you sterilize the jars first?
In other words, he has some knowledge of this and wasn't just making nice. 
And how often have you ever been in a doctor's office where they asked YOU for suggestions and information? 

He did his magic trick and got me up on the table without me realizing it and then he took my blood pressure again as he always does because when the tech takes it, it's sky high but after he and I have visited for awhile it's fine, and he looked into my ears and throat and listened to my heart and my lungs and gave my legs and ankles and feet a quick going over and proclaimed me to be fine. 

I scooted back to my chair and we talked another minute or so and then he gave me another hug, told me to call if I needed them, and that was that. 
And when I made an appointment for six months from now, I did not have the stones-in-my-gut feeling, the pre-anxiety about the anxiety I would be experiencing in half a year. 

It could not have gone any better. 

And after that, I did a quick shopping at Publix and then met up with Jessie and August and Levon for lunch and then a quick thrift store run. The boys got a few things and Jessie got a nice bag and I got to spend time with those sweeties. There wasn't one thing in the store I cared enough about to bring home but there was this.

It was probably about 2 inches by three and a half inches and it's just a cheap little tacky Florida souvenir but I sort of wish I'd bought it to bring home and put on the shelf above the sink in my bathroom. The easel is plastic and if it had been wood, I would own it now. If I'm back down that way soon I might pick it up. 

So it was a good day for me. A day in which yes, I did take half of an Ativan but they're so old that there may be naught but the placebo effect left in them. And once sweet Dr. Z. showed up, no anti-anxiety meds were needed. 
A very cool thing that happened was that when I was in the waiting room, someone called my name and I looked up to see two of my old dear friends whom I used to play with at the Monticello Opera House back when Kathleen was alive. Kathleen introduced me to them, in fact. And it was one of them who had recommended Dr. Z to me in the first place. 
"You really, really like him?" I'd asked. I was desperate to find a doctor who would listen to me, who could calm my fears. 
"Well, let me put it this way," she said. "I'm a lesbian and I would have his baby."
I'm pretty sure she wasn't serious but I got what she was saying. And she was right. Another friend of mine, a trans woman, recommended him highly too. 
All right. I didn't need a burning bush to guide me to his office. And now almost our entire family goes to him. 

It's been another day with a distinct lack of pictures. I did take this one after I found it in the garden.

Does that cucumber look stressed to you? It surely does not to me. In my eyes, it appears not to have a worry in the world. 
We should all be so lucky. 

See you tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon

I'm Too Tired To Title

I did it! I got out the pressure canner and renewed my pressure canning license (which means I reread the little booklet on how to pressure can) because every year I sort of forget some of the details like do you put boiling water over the beans and how hot does the water in the canner have to be when you put the jars in and oh, yes, you have to get the canner up to the point where steam is merrily issuing forth from the vent for ten minutes before you put the little jiggly thing on and how much salt goes into a quart of beans? 
One teaspoon, in case you're interested and it can't be table salt due to the anti-caking agents they put in it although I bet you anything a million meemaws have used good old Morton's for eons without anyone dying. Funnily enough, a woman to whom I gave some rattlesnake beans who has just started pressure canning, messaged me on FB as I was writing the sentence about the Meemaws and Morton's salt to ask what sort of salt I used. 
Synchronicity, baby. 

If you look at the picture of the beans I canned today, you may notice that the front jar on the left has a buckled lid. 
Dammit. 
That was my mistake. I used one of the Pur brand lids I bought last year when I couldn't find Ball lids and I know they suck because the same thing happened several times last year. Why I have not thrown them out, I do not know. I definitely will. 

My pressure canner will hold seven quarts at a time and that is exactly what I needed to can each and every bean I had snapped yesterday. That was from one week's worth of picking and let us not forget that I gave nice sized bags of more of them to the Hank, Lily, and Jessie households. 
One week. 
In preparation for today's canning, I needed to locate my jar lifter and my canning funnel, both absolute necessities for me. I found the jar lifter but not the funnel and I can see it in my mind so clearly but I have no idea where I stashed it. I opened the bottom cabinet in my Hoosier cabinet because sometimes I put odd items that I don't know what to do with there and didn't find it. I did, however, find a few bags of dried and withered sweet potatoes which had to be two years old, at least. I'd dug them from the garden and put them in there, planning on using them for soup and so forth and then forgot them. They had all sprouted because sweet potatoes want desperately to make more of themselves but even the sprouts were dry as old witches' fingers. I still worry a little that if I throw them in the compost they will resurrect like zombies and try to walk among us again. 
I also did a little organizing of the pantry, pulling anything canned in the past to the front of the shelves and trying to make some order of my canning jars. Mostly what's in there are pickles and jams, some of them going back to 2023. I don't think I'll be making cucumber pickles this year because every cucumber we've tried from the garden so far has been bitter as sinful regret. Even different varieties! I have no idea why that is. I do have another grow bag with cucumbers in it that I planted from seed so I suppose there is still a sliver of hope. I just looked this situation up and it would appear that my plants are stressed, probably from lack of water. I know I planted too much in both bags and I'm sure that stressed them too. 

Oh well. Live and learn.

I also took the trash to the dump place place today, I did laundry, I tidied and straightened. I ironed. And guess what? I am exhausted. Maybe I pushed it a little too much. But we all do this, don't we? 

Here's another thing I did- I shaved my legs in preparation for my appointment with Dr. Zorn tomorrow. The closest he'll get to my legs is checking my ankles for edema but one must try to maintain some sense of pride. 
I guess. I know he wouldn't really care or judge if I didn't. 
Of course I am anxious but not in the crippling sort of way. I still haven't looked at my lab results but truly- if something had been way out of whack or worrisome, I believe I would have gotten a call. That is what I am choosing to believe, anyway. By this time tomorrow it will be well and truly over. 

In not so great news, the dining room definitely has some sort of dead animal in its vicinity. Probably under the house. This is not an unheard of situation. We can't find a corpse and no one in their right mind would venture under this house just to find a dead animal. It will eventually decompose entirely at which point, it won't smell like a dead animal in the dining room. 

And that's about everything that's going on here. Oh! Mr. Moon got in to see the optometrist at Costco and has ordered two new pairs of glasses. Hurray! They won't be here for a week to ten days but that is just the way it is. I am proud of him for getting that done. He's like that, isn't he? I wish I was. 
But I am not.

One picture today. 
One. How odd is that? 
I'll try to do better tomorrow. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Well It's All Right

Last night when I was dragging my ass around the kitchen, making us a little supper, I happened to look out the kitchen door which faces west and I had to stop and admire what the sun shining through the dratted chenille plant blooms looked like. They looked electric! I hate these damn plants with all my heart, right up there with crocosmia, but at that moment, it was truly a sight to see. 
Now why and how Maurice crept into that picture, I have no idea. 

There's a close-up. I had to get down on the ground to get that snap but I did it. It was actually far more impressively neon than the picture shows but that will have to do. 

Right now I'm semi-watching a live stream of Gibson's eighth grade promotion which is what they call the graduation. Of course I have no idea where in the crowd of kids he is and you can really only see the front row and I don't even know if the camera is on the portion of the gym that Lily and Jason are sitting in but I don't see them either. I remember going to Owen's ceremony some years ago and how crowded and hot it was but this year, as I think I have mentioned, they are only allowing two guests per child but it doesn't look as if that has made things any cooler as almost everyone in the stands is fanning themselves with a program. 
And the sound is abysmal. 
Now they're all standing up and a girl is singing a very impassioned Star Spangled Banner. 
Okay. I am not going to do a second by second description of the goings on. God forebid.

I have felt better today. Still rocky when I woke up but as the day has progressed I have felt better and better. I went outside to dump the compost and while I was there already, I did my daily garden stroll which of course led to a casual bean-picking. Glen was with me and we made the executive decision to go ahead and pick the first tomato. We have learned our lesson the hard way about leaving an almost-ripe tomato on the vine, only to have it split or be burrowed in by some tomato-loving creature. 

I have read that the best way to ripen a tomato is to put it in a paper bag with a banana to trap ethylene gas but I am not putting a banana in with a tomato because the tomato would probably end up smelling and thus tasting like a banana and that, as The Dude in The Big Lebowski would say, will not stand. 
I don't have a banana anyway. I do have a paper bag though. 

I also found this lovely today.

I have no idea what variety it is. Whatever it is, it is not the one listed on the tag that came with it. I've never grown one like this but I am excited to see it mature. It would appear that it could be anything from a Chinese String eggplant to a Fairy Tale eggplant to a Listada De Gandia. Or something else. Whatever it is, I think it is very pretty and I am sure it will be delicious, cooked in one way or another. 

I spent about two hours this afternoon snapping rattlesnake beans in preparation for canning them tomorrow if all goes as planned. Time to get out that pressure canner! I have no idea how many pints and/or quarts I can get out of what I snapped today. A not insignificant number though, I would say. And the season has just begun! I then opened one of the last quarts of the ones I canned last summer and made a little green bean casserole out of them for our supper tonight. Instead of using the traditional Campbell's cream of mushroom soup in it, I made my own goop with onions, portobellos, a little butter, and 2% evaporated milk. I am not a snob, per se, about Campbell's soup of any kind and let's give it its due- many a family meal was made tastier by a casserole with some sort of creamy Campbell's soup in it as a main ingredient and who among us has not been warmed and comforted by a bowl of their tomato soup with a gooey grilled cheese sandwich?
So speaking of casseroles, I got the cutest little casserole dish, perfect size for two of us, at the Goodwill in Roseland. 

It was made in China, not vintage, but I like it. It's just such a fine little design. And I do love that color. 
Here's what my beans looks like in it.

I have not yet put the French's crispy fried onions on it yet. That will happen during the last minutes of cooking. Does it bother me to use such a processed food for this particular dish? 
Not in the least. What in hell is a green bean casserole without the French's crispy fried onions? 

Life is short. Loosen up. 

While I was snapping beans I watched a few episodes of the new Dan Levy series on Netflix, "Big Mistakes." I had seen trailers for it and it looked like something I would like. Laurie Metcalf, whom I have always admired as an actor, is a quite prominent part of the cast and it looks to me as if she is having the time of her life with her role in it. I like what I've watched so far and Dan Levy is, well, Dan Levy, and that's not a bad thing at all. The premise of him playing a pastor who is not exactly closeted as a gay man but who hides his relationship with his lover boyfriend seems a little far-fetched but it is, as I say, TV. And the big surprise for me was the actor who plays his sister, Taylor Omega. I don't know that she's done a whole lot before this but I suspect we will be seeing a lot more of her. She plays her character, Morgan, as a many-layered thing and I like that. Just when I think I've got her pinned, she strides into a different dimension. Of course the writing has a lot to do with this but even the best writing cannot make up for an actor who cannot stretch and stray into different spaces with her character. 

I say this as if I know anything about acting. 
Well, I do know what I like and what I admire and what I'm simply not impressed with. 

Mr. Moon's had a hard day, all involving mowing. Not only did his lawnmower, which was just back from the shop, stop running due to what looked to him like a fuel line or fuel pump problem, he also lost his glasses which he takes off to put on goggles while he mows to protect his eyes from the dust. Either they are somewhere in the garage stashed where he knew they'd be safe, or else he accidentally left them on the mower and they fell off and god knows where they are. He has searched both garage and yard and they are nowhere to be found. 
He is hot, he is sweaty, he is frustrated, and he is not a happy man. 

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

Well, Gibson has been "promoted" and the ceremony is over. It was so much shorter than Owen's was which was way overloaded with speeches made by Leon County School Board dignitaries, etc. I did not see him actually walk past and get his diploma or whatever it was, but I did see him get to stand up and be recognized for his part in the win of the school's science fair in which they got to go to State. 
We are all so proud of him. 

I don't feel especially great about this post. I suppose I'm still a little slow from whatever tiny virus I had and not very inspired by such a low-key day. But it is what it is and we all have our off days. 

Here. I've saved my favorite photo for last. It was taken with the other chenille plant bloom photos. 

And now that I look at it, I'm not sure why I liked it so much. 

Well. La-di-dah. Maurice does look particularly noble, doesn't she?

Love...Ms. Moon

Kinda, Sorta Sick

The tomatoes are finally starting to get color. I'd say we'll be eating a ripe tomato this week. For a gardener, this is a peak experience. It would be so lovely if we got enough this year to make at least a few bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. Which must be eaten on white bread, of course. With mayonnaise. Or in Mr. Moon's case, Miracle Whip. 
I don't see the point in the lettuce part of the sandwich though and I skip it on mine. It is nothing but a distraction, a dilution, a taking-away of the very essence of what the sandwich is about which is the juicy burst of warm tomato with a crispy piece of fried salty bacon. The bread must be white because again, grains and nuts and seeds and all those fibrous, nutritious things are a distraction. 
It's all about the purity and simplicity of the tastes, combined so as to enhance and compliment each other. Don't be throwing a bunch of other flavors and textures in there. That's just wrong. 

So I figured out why I took such a long nap yesterday- by golly I was coming down with something. I started feeling pretty shitty about the time I was making supper and went to bed early. I slept forever and when I got up I still felt like crap. I haven't done a damn thing today and that's okay. I even took another nap. I don't have a lot of cold symptoms or any real aches or pains, just watery eyes that feel a little achy and my skin feels fever-sensitive and I do have a tiny bit of a fever. Just enough to barely register. But no energy at all. 
I planned to work on my leaf platter while taking it easy but I didn't even have the energy to take that on. My other choice of an activity would be to do needlework of some kind while watching television but just the thought of having to pick something out to watch made me exhausted. 
So, okay. I did pick beans but I HAD to. And it was still coolish and there weren't too many. 

Now of course they're starting to fill the refrigerator and I need to can them but again- oh god. Not now. Maybe tomorrow. It's not that challenging an activity. And boy does it make me feel productive. 

So I just finished reading (with my ears) a novel by Kiran Desai. The title is "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" and it's quite long. At first I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to hang in with it. There are so many characters and it can get confusing but Desai is a fine author and there were times I just let a thing or two go and caught it back up later like a skipped stitch in a piece of knitting that you can go back and pick up. The two main characters, unsurprisingly, are Sunny and Sonia, both from India, both who go to the United States for an education who meet each other back at home in India. Sonia's grandfather had actually approached Sunny's family for an arranged marriage between the two of them when they were still quite young, but that did not come close to happening when the idea was presented. 

I won't go into it all. I'll just say that there was some beautiful writing, there were twists and there were turns, there was an insane artist, there was time spent in Mexico as well as New York City and of course, in India. I loved the way Desai was able to weave so many things together and with a bit of this and a bit of that (including a tiny bit of magical realism), the story unfolded like a, well...magnolia blossom. 

One of my favorite things in the book is what a widowed woman says several times when she is addressing her deceased husband which was something like, "I am going get old and die before I ever have my happiness!" 
I feel like I can think about that statement in many ways and I've never, ever thought of life that way- that we have a period of time when life is just hard and a struggle but if all goes as it should, there will come a time of sweetness, of happiness.

And what I keep coming back to is that I have had my happiness and I do have my happiness and the best thing about it is that I am aware of it. That I recognize it, I acknowledge it, I cherish it. And of course that happiness, that sweetness, does not show up as winning the lottery or going on a dream vacation. It appears as one tiny thing after another, one little spark or spot of beauty, of goodness, of humor, of humbleness, of unexpected joy, of a song played at just the right time, as the perfect tomato and bacon sandwich, as a line in a book that hits you in the heart. 
But you have to slow down enough to take these things in. We have to pay attention. 
We have to look up. 
And you know- we have to look down, as well. Sometimes I despair at all I know I am missing in the immediate world around me. 
Oh, Ms. Moon, how you do go on.

Here's today's magnolia picture.

That's one of the two Glen brought home yesterday. The one I picked three days ago has turned a soft, velvety brown but I am leaving it where it is for now. It still makes me happy. It is part of my happiness.

Love...Ms. Moon

 

Sleepy Saturday With Children, Grandchildren And Tofu

This is what the magnolia blossom looked like this morning. The stamens were dropping, as they do. I swear, I am not sure where they all come from. 

They look like small matchsticks and they fall so fast you can see them as they exit the womblike interior. They spill all over whatever surface they are sitting on and then onto the floor below. And the flower still smells like heaven. 

I haven't done a damn thing today except go to lunch with my darlings. Everyone was there except for Mr. Moon and May and Michael. Those two are in Georgia for a Michael's family gathering. We missed all three of those people but it was a good-sized table of us anyway. 
Lily and Lauren had gotten up early to take Maggie to her last softball game and Jessie and Vergil had taken their two to see a performance of Peter and the Wolf done by a local ballet school and company. I can remember going to see May dance with that same company when she was a little. At last my memory tells me she danced in it. 
She was the most beautiful dancer. 
Gibson had been on his eighth grade field trip to Universal Studios and had gotten home at 5 a.m. so he was exhausted. 
And Hank and Rachel had just been to see Melissa to get their hair cut so everyone had been up and out and busy all morning while I...had not been. 
We chose to go to Koyoto which used to be Japanica! but has been completely redone. I remember us taking the grands there when Owen was just a little guy and Gibson even younger. Even then they loved sushi and miso soup and they still do. 
Speaking of Owen...

He sat right across from me and I kept putting food on his plate from my Bento box because there was no way I could eat it all. It brought me right back to all those years ago when I'd feed him bits of food from my plate when he was just a baby bird. 
That's probably weird, isn't it? 
Oh well. It's okay. 
At one point today I looked at him and said, "Owen, you're just..." and Lily said, "Enormous?"
"Well, huge," I said. 
Let us just say that he's going to be a giant among men. 

We had a really nice time and the tofu I got was probably the best I've ever eaten in my life. I think it was silken tofu, lightly fried with a crispy coating of something white. I should know what but I don't. It also had the most amazing teriyaki sauce with it. 

After lunch there had to be pictures taken of course.

Look at those bebes! I told August that I really liked his shoes and socks. He said that since they'd been going to the ballet he'd dressed up. I also told Levon that I like his shirt. 
"I knew you would," he said with the calm assurance of a man of the world as of course he is. As you can see, he's wearing his gold chain and I gave him the pearls I got him right before they left. I wonder if he'll wear them. Probably, if I know that kid. But I did tell him that if he didn't really like them, he didn't have to. I asked August to please tell me something he might want that I could find in my thrifting. He said that he's thinking about getting his ears pierced for his eleventh birthday and would probably like some earrings. I'll get him good ones for that, though, if he does decide to do it. 

Maggie is getting so tall that I wanted a picture of the two of us together to show that.

You can see the reflection of Gibson in the window as he takes the picture. 
Shall we take bets on long it is before Maggie too towers over me? August is getting there and Levon? Well, that's about to happen. As I've said before, Jessie stayed little for a long time and then all of a sudden, she was like the tallest kid in class. 
Moon genes. They are inescapable. Not to mention that Vergil's side of the family are all tall people too. 
And I'm not saying that being tall is a prerequisite for a good and happy life. I never, ever in my wildest dreams imagined marrying and having children with a man who was as tall as Glen Moon and so seeing these children become so very tall is just sort of shocking to me. I was part of this? 
Yes. It would appear I was.

And then I came home and for some unknown reason I was just too tired to do anything except lay down and take a nap. I thought I'd sleep for about forty-five minutes and ended up sleeping for about an hour and a half. I have no idea why. Am I dying? 
I hope not. 

Glen got home a little while ago bearing two magnolia blossoms he'd stopped and picked for me and five pounds of fresh shrimp. 
Now that is a good man. 

I've put the magnolias in a vase but will put them in separate vases when the other one I want to use comes out of the dishwasher. Those flowers are too big to share one vase when they open. 

And one last thing- as I was doing my daily stroll through the garden, I found this.

Now how the heck I've missed it is a mystery to me. I check those volunteer squash plants daily. I think, however that we can now say I am growing acorn squash. 
Lots of acorn squash. 

Pretty cool. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Living In Lloyd Ain't So Bad

I slept in this morning and as you can see, Maurice slothed it up longer than I did. Eventually she managed to arise and of course she wanted her morning treat which is usually about ten Temptations but this morning I gave her a little bit of what Mark had bought for her when we were gone which is something called a "lickable treat" that comes in a pouch and is squeezed out. It's like really thick gravy or a paste or something. I have no idea how much Mark gave her but I only gave her about half a tablespoon and boy, did she love it. 
Yes. Yes she did. Mark probably put it ON her Temptations but I am not as sweet as he is. 

I really didn't get much of anything done today but I feel no shame. None whatsoever. Of course I hung the bed linens on the line after washing them because it's been a beautiful day and I do enjoy that. Both the doing of it and the results.

Perfect drying on the line day. 

I spent a little bit of time in the garden. I knew I was going to Tallahassee at some point to pick up my hormones. Every time I write or say that word I think of Ninny (Jessica Tandy) in "Fried Green Tomatoes" telling Evelyn (Kathy Bates), "Honey, you just need you some hormones!" What a great book by Fannie Flag and what a great movie. If you're in a book club and y'all haven't read that one, I can't think of a better choice.
So knowing I was going to town I didn't start any projects but when I called to see if my prescription was ready the woman who answered said, "Yes, but it's not REALLY going to be ready until later in the afternoon."
Say what? 
"About how late in the afternoon?" I asked. 
"Oh, definitely by four."
Well, hell. 
I then planned to go do some more clearing out of crocosmia choked beds but before I got to that, I got a text from the pharmacy saying that my prescription was ready for pick-up. Could we get a little communication here? I needed to eat lunch first and oh, you know how these things go. 

I stopped by Publix on my way home from that little chore and got myself some salmon (Honey, you just need you some salmon!) and when I got home I shelled the overly mature snow peas I'd picked this morning. I really had no idea if the peas of the snow peas would be fit to eat but they are indeed quite sweet. It took me at least twenty minutes to shell them and this is the entire haul. 

Plenty for one serving. 
And by the way, that is one of my favorite little bowls. I have two. If the thrift store where I bought them had had ten of them, I would have bought every one. So I'm going to cook those peas and also some of our scabby potatoes and make a nice little white sauce to go on them and I'll cook my salmon with lemon juice and dill which is the way I like it. Simple and to the point. 

Mr. Moon decided to head to the coast to help his friend work on his trolling motor tonight instead of getting up early tomorrow to make the drive. I talked to him and he said that he needs to get back into floor-laying-shape condition because he is tired. He sounded rather merry though. 

I took a few pictures when I was in the garden this morning. 

I got all the way down on the ground to take this baby eggplant's picture. It's not as big as the end of my thumb. I think it's pretty though. 

The black cherry tomatoes are blowing me away. I just think they're beautiful. I have yet to eat a ripe one. How do I know when they're ripe? 

And of course, a stroll in the garden would not be complete without my orange familiar.

I think she really likes the pine straw mulch I put down yesterday. She dug around in it a little while and made a little wallowed-out nest. I wonder if she likes the smell of it?

My magnolia tree finally gave me a bloom close enough for me to pick and I did. It had already started its evening closing but was still open enough to show me its complex and fascinating reproductive parts. 

I put it in a vase on the hallway vanity altar. 

And this is what it looks like now, having closed its eyes and pulled its covers up for the night. 

It will open back up tomorrow and will be finished with this cold, cruel world in another day or so. While it's still here though, I will be able to catch its scent every time I walk past it. I just read online that the magnolia grandiflora flower is one of the oldest forms of flowers still alive and the article went on to describe a bunch of technical stuff about the botanical purposes of it all but I don't really want to know that. It's a magic flower and that's enough for me. 

Having made up the bed with the clean sheets and the freshly washed cotton muslin gauze blanket, the whole room now smells of that ineffable element of breezes which have traveled through green leaves after being heated by the sun. 

If I were a real photographer I would have taken that fan out of the frame and probably the Tums container too. I can't remember the last time I took a Tums in the middle of the night but it's there if I want it while the fan is used every night of the year, no matter the temperature. Dead of winter? 
Fan on, baby. 

Okay. So clean sheets checked off the list. Martini? 
You bet. 

I'm going to go cook some peas and potatoes and salmon. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

But First, Here's A Message From Our Sponsor. Haha! There Is No Sponsor

Today has been one darn distraction after another, or what we call around here, the but-firsts.
For example- the picture you see above is the one I got at the Thrift Bendy Man shop and I wanted to hang it. Finding the correct place to hang something around here can be a little complicated. First off, just finding space to hang something isn't easy. I tend to hang things on walls that many people wouldn't even consider hanging on their wall but many people hang things on their walls that I would never consider hanging on mine so there you go.
Also, and more importantly, I have to feel as if whatever I am hanging wants to be where I put it. I do not mean this literally but I think you get my drift. It must somehow fit in. At least according to my definition of fitting in. Glen just holds things up in a space and says, "What about here?" and I'm like, "Oh GOD no. I'll do it." 
Now to add to the problem of where to hang that rather silly picture I wanted to be able to tuck in the golden cotton burrs that Liz from Field and Fen sent me when she sent me the sweet golden orange boxes that I posted about two days ago. 
I really love those gold cotton burrs and I had to look up what they are called. I have probably seen hundreds of acres of cotton growing in fields that we've passed on the highway but I've never truly studied the plant and certainly did not know what the brown part of the boll in which the cotton is nestled is called. 

And Liz (or Boud as she is generally known here in Bloglandia), because she is who she is which is a curious person who finds art to be made everywhere, took some of the burrs she grew and gilded them gold. And it seemed to me that they should get pride of place atop the Spanish dancers. 

I finally decided today that I would like to hang the picture and the burrs right next to where I sit on the porch to write but it wasn't as easy as just hammering a little nail in and hanging a picture on it because when I truly looked, I realized that wall was dusty as hell and had its share of spider webs. Also the other things I have hanging on it were filthy. FILTHY I tell you. Which led to me pulling the table out and taking down those other pieces and washing them. 

Much, much better. May gave me this. More Talavera and one of my favorite things in the world.  

And while the things were soaking in sudsy water, I broom-brushed the wall and yes, it desperately needs painting and so does everything else in and on this house but that's another topic altogether. 
And then this led to me sweeping the entire porch and getting at the spider webs and of course there had to be a little tidying going on so that's what a but-first is. 
I wanted to hang my picture but first...
Phew.

An interior decorator or most likely even a person with a lick of taste would cringe at all that but whatever. 

I am happy. 

And I did laundry and while I was doing that I was making the bed and then I hung something in my closet and while I was doing that I thought about how many things were in the closet that just don't fit me anymore and I needed to winnow which led to me taking things out of the closet and trying to decide whether I wanted to donate each item or get it altered. I have some dresses that I love so much I don't want to give them up and I have some dresses that I love even more that I want to go into regular rotation again. So that took awhile. I've posted on FaceBook, which is a rare thing, asking for suggestions for a good alterations person. I thought I had one but the last few things she did for me did not really make me happy. 
Plus I'm a little afraid of her.

And while I was moving about the house, but-firsting this and but-firsting that trying to get back to the original plan, I kept finding little things that needed doing like toilet cleaning and oh yes, the laundry room needed sweeping and so did the kitchen and I seemed to already have my broom in hand so...

Next I wanted to plant one of my Roseland succulents in a pot where I had, as I thought I did, some of the same plant I'd also dug there a few trips ago and I decided that pot needed to go on the back porch steps where it would get more light and I moved the succulent pot there and transplanted the little darling I intended to plant in it. This reminded me that I had a monstera in the library that needed moving to the front porch. I thought to do it last week but the pot seemed pretty heavy to me so I figured I'd get Glen to do it but I didn't and today I figured I could just do it myself and I did. 

And all of these things were but-firsts that I did before I did what I had planned to do today which was to weed in the garden. 
I was finally ready to do that BUT FIRST I needed to pick green beans and I did and then I finally got on my knees and did a little micro-weed pulling and then I did some mulching. This time with pine straw. 

I realized, when I had my fingers in the dirt that despite all the rain we got on Tuesday, the ground was dry. I'll water tomorrow. 

Here's a few pictures from the garden.

Zinnia. 

Different zinnia. 

A nice bunch of tomatoes and why are they taking so long to get ripe? 
Come on, babies. Ripen up before one of these fuckers grows up and starts destroying you. 

Tiny, tiny baby hornworm. To give you some scale, those brown "sticks" the leaf is on are pine needles. 
And yes, I did indeed squash that alien-looking creature after I took its picture. 
And I know if there's one, there's a bunch more. 

Sigh. 

It's been such a beautiful day and even though I didn't get anything major accomplished, I did accomplish a lot of little things. 
Unlike Mr. Moon who got up very early and drove to the cabin and just sent me this picture of what he's been doing. 

Laying more of that beautiful flooring upstairs. He'll be gone until Saturday evening. He's going to the coast on Saturday morning early to help his friend Alan fix a trolling motor.
I think. 
The man never stops. 
Unlike me. I stop frequently. 

I think I'll go heat up some leftovers. 

But first.

Not a one of you needs to watch this but it's another example of some old boys who never stop, never stop, never, never ever stop.

And this was about ten years ago which means they were the age I am now. 

Okay. That's all. 

Love...Ms. Moon