A Real Ramble

 

That was one of the pictures I took yesterday when we still had standing water in the yard. The chickens are actually eating the birdseed I'd thrown out. They did not seem to mind the fact that it was covered in water. Today the puddle is all gone and the chickens are still eating the birdseed, now swollen, I'm sure, for it's soaking. When Mr. Moon let them out this morning they ran to it first thing and began pecking away. The squirrels and cardinals have been happy to dine at that dirt table, too. 

The rain seems to have moved on past us. I hear that that hundreds of thousands of people are without power in Alabama and probably Florida, too. Man, that was a wicked storm. We were so lucky. Even so, I spent some time today picking up limbs and branches that fell in the yard. I just looked at the National Hurricane Center's map and there's something that may turn into a tropical storm (or may not) down east of the Yucatan, but north of Cozumel, which is supposedly going to "meander" (that's a quote) in a north-easterly direction. 

Sigh.

There's another storm, I believe it's already a hurricane, in the Atlantic and who knows where that will go? Its name is Teddy. 

Well, never boring! 

I see another woman has come forward to accuse Donald J. Trump of sexual assault, this time in 1997. How the hell many does this make now? And why does his base not care about this? I can think of a few reasons right off the top of my head that they would probably cite including "fake news" but mostly I believe it's because they are heavily invested in the patriarchy, even (especially?) the women and, well, you know- men just do these things. 

And hey! What was she wearing? 

The only thing I was accused of today was always giving August and Levon a treat when they leave my house to go home. Vergil's mama sent me a sweet picture of August and his cousin flying their Lego helicopters and said that she's been learning a lot about the Moons from August. According to him, I am very nice and yes, I give them treats and also, Boppy has "thousands of moneys" and spends it all on lawn mowers. Here's a picture that Jessie sent today of the kids playing in the house where they're staying. 

This is the same house that we all stayed in when Jessie got married. It is a huge house and belongs to the camp that Vergil's stepdad owns (I think) with other partners. When we'd been there for about four days, someone mentioned the pool table downstairs and I thought they were kidding. Turns out there wasn't just a pool table but also a ping-pong table and a foosball table too! I have such beautiful memories of staying there and the wedding. I'm so glad that Jessie and Vergil are getting to spend some time there now with their boys. 

In other grandchild news, I hear that Magnolia has become a puzzle savant. Lily sent this picture today. 

I will be honest with you- I can't do a three hundred piece jigsaw puzzle. My brain just does not work that way. Maggie has the most intense attention/interest span. Lily says she does puzzles for hours every day. She can also play with her dolls for hours. She is four years old! I am not sure where she gets this sort of focus. I am fascinated and astounded by it. 

I made two more masks today. Not sure why. But they are nice, tidy masks. I didn't do much else. Watered the porch plants. Took the trash. Visited with a neighbor. Thankfully, she's as liberal as I am. So no, not the neighbor with the Trump sign in her yard. 

I gathered eight eggs. What in the world am I going to do with all of these eggs? I need to start giving more away. I have a banana, blueberry bread pudding in the oven right now that I put four eggs in but that doesn't make a dent in the number of eggs I have in this house. Some are in cartons in the refrigerator, some are in bowls on the counter. Mr. Moon took a dozen and a half to the guys he's working with in the woods on the hunting project. I am so rich in eggs right now. 

I think I'll go to town tomorrow for my Costco/Publix run. It's started being more of a necessity for me to leave Lloyd than it is for me to get groceries. And that really is the truth. 

Have you guys seen any of the "First Time Reaction" Youtubes? If you haven't, you really should watch some of them. It's a young African American guy and sometimes his twin, watching videos of songs by artists they are completely unfamiliar with. I'm sure that their target audience has to be old people like me. I mean, who my age doesn't want to know what someone who's never even heard of the Mama's and the Papa's thinks about "California Dreaming?" And it's a chance to hear songs with new ears, too, as you watch the reaction of someone who is hearing the music we grew up on for the first time. It's a genius move. 

I watched this one today. There's so much in it to love. 

The guy literally believed that the Rolling Stones was either a clothing line or a film production company. Of course that blew my mind but I completely understand how that could happen. But he loved what he heard. 

Enough already! 

Love...Ms. Moon

Rain Is Not Bad. Not Bad At All

 My hands smell of ginger and garlic and cumin because I am making one of my favorite soups which is the New York Time's Creamy Cashew Butternut Squash Soup. I make mine, however, with acorn squash and sweet potatoes and I think that the sweet potatoes are a truly southern gourmet addition but that's just my own personal opinion. 
I just put a huge loaf of sourdough, oat bran, and leftover-mashed-potatoes bread into the oven. It is more of a breathing mass of jiggling life than it is of what we think of as dough. 
And those two things shall be our supper. 

We've been getting toad-strangling rain all day in bands thrown off from Hurricane Sally which hit the Alabama coast as a Category 2 storm which isn't the most powerful but powerful enough, trust me. And because it moved so very, very slowly over the gulf it is a major rain producer and there have been floods from Alabama all the way across to the panhandle of Florida. We've been getting warnings and again, there have been times today when my yard was flooded. Lily has been sending pictures of her yard which has a small lake deep enough for the children to put on their swimsuits and wade into.
We are so lucky that that's all we're getting. I've seen pictures of bridges out and water up to the middles of cars in Pensacola. 

Two and a half more months of hurricane season. 

Blogger won't let me post pictures tonight which should not be a huge disappointment for you as the only pictures I have are of rain and puddles. It's been a rather quiet day for me. I woke up this morning from dreams that were not pleasing at all, to say the least. One of them, a variation on my house dreams, had changed the setting from a huge place with endless hallways and rooms and levels to a trailer which did have an upstairs and a downstairs but it was as crowded and packed with junk as any of these dreams AND it was Christmas and I was trying to figure out what to give my family members from the pile of things I'd shopped for, mere trinkets mostly, and I needed to wrap everything and it was so crowded and filled with crap in the space that I could not lay everything out, much less have room to wrap anything and then I thought about how I really did need to make Christmas dinner and there was just no way and I kept saying, "I hate Christmas, I hate Christmas, I hate Christmas."
Also, there were a whole lot of people there. 
Probably all of them expecting a fine Christmas feast. 
So when I woke up, I already felt overwhelmed and depressed and sad and frustrated and even angry and almost wanted to just stay in bed with Jack but I did not want to chance another dream like that so I got up which is what one does. 

I've done a little crocheting. I watched a few more episodes of The Office. And perhaps motivated by the dream I ordered birthday presents for all of our September birthday babies and a little something-something for my grandchildren who were NOT born in September, selling my soul to Amazon who no doubt will use it for packing material when they ship harvested glacial ice to hell. 

And so, that's how it goes here today. We dodged a bullet with a hurricane, we've probably caught up on any rain deficits we may have had, and right now I'm watching squirrels and cardinals feed from the pile of old bird seed I threw into the yard yesterday because it had become infested with tiny bugs. The chickens have been scratching at that all day, too, whenever it was dry enough for them to not risk drowning. 
And now it is raining again. 

I am too rain-dumbed and life-beaten to have anything else to say. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Another Fun-Filled, Action Packed Day In Lloyd

Well, as fires rage in the west, we here in North Florida are getting rain, rain, rain. That's what my back yard looked like earlier. The water has absorbed into the ground by now but it was coming done so fast that it puddled and pooled there for awhile. 

We're dodging Hurricane Sally but getting some rain from it and an occasional gust of wind. 

We are not entirely in the clear here. A friend of mine posted this on FB today.

Haha! 

And yet, even as part of the country is burning and storms are lining up in the Atlantic, Donald "I'm NOT a Scientist" Trump declared today that he thinks that science just doesn't really know why these things are happening. 

Now. If he's referring to the things that are happening in his brain, he's probably right. They won't know until he's dead and they can open up that head and see what's inside it. I imagine it as looking somewhat like a pile of hamburger that's been infested with maggots. 

I could be wrong.

It might look like a pile of hamburger that's been infested with roaches. 

Sorry. 

Sorry. 

Not sorry.

On to something more cheerful. Here's my expanding bunch of bananas today.

I have figured out that as each red petal separates from the bloom, another row of baby fruit is revealed. Why have I never noticed this before? I suppose because the only time it ever bloomed before this was last year and I just did not pay attention. This year, possibly due to the pandemic and my many, many hours staying at home (and days and months) I am noticing things that I've never noticed before. Anyway, isn't it cool to think that every banana you buy in the grocery store starts out like this? 

Not much else going on. It was a nap day due to the rain and general ensuing ennui. Also a day to do a lot of laundry for some reason. The pesticide guy advised me to wash the cats' bedding which of course means our sheets and quilt because Jack beds down with us every night. I may not have a Kardashian ass but Jack seems to enjoy falling asleep beside it. Maurice makes do in other places, usually on the backs of sofas or chairs or on the table on the back porch and I washed that tablecloth. Mr. Moon reports finding only one flea on him today which is a huge improvement. We've given the cats another flea treatment and hopefully, things are under control here. I actually did a little tiny bit of clearing out in my bathroom, throwing away make-up that is almost as old as Jessie. Not all of it, by any means. I think about the last time I wore make-up which was when Lon and Lis played in Tallahassee right after Valentine's Day. I had bought a blue velvet dress online and it got here in time for me to wear to the gig and I wore that and sparkled my eyes with glittery eyeshadow and now it seems like a million, billion lifetimes ago. 

Will we ever dress up again? Will we ever go out to hear music again? Will we ever hug longtime friends again without a thought for anyone's safety? 

I do not know. 

When was the last time you dressed up? I'm curious. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Wonders, Weeds, and Glory

I got most of the garden cleared out and ready for the fall garden today. Circumstances pushed me into the activity and I'm glad. The pest control guy came to spray for fleas and so I had to get out of the house and after wondering what in hell I was going to do for a few hours and where I could possibly go, I decided to just put my overalls on and get out there and pull weeds. It was overcast and not killer hot so although I got sweaty and filthy, it wasn't torturous. I listened to an audio book and the time passed quickly and the job is mostly done. I did not pull those zinnias you see there despite the fact that they really do not have a lot of life left in them and I didn't pull the field peas because they're still blooming and making peas. Some of the chickens flew into the garden and helped me by scratching up the dirt I'd just pulled weeds from and eating whatever it is they eat out there. And some of them helped by entertaining me from outside the fence. 

My house still smells of pyrethrin which is the pesticide the guy used. It's not exactly natural but it is made from the flowers of chrysanthemums and it's what they use in lice shampoo (ask me how I know this) and dog and cat flea soaps. So. It's not great but it's probably not going to kill us while hopefully, it kills the fleas. My husband has been getting eaten up by the little fuckers while I pass through the house unmolested. They just don't care for my blood. But he has been tormented and I'll be glad when he's not constantly finding fleas on his legs and arms and saying, "I'm just so tired of itching."

I did a bunch of other stuff today too but all of it so boring that I'm not even moved to talk about it. I will tell you that last night I googled "Kim Kardashian's Ass" because although I have never knowingly watched one minute of the reality show she and her family are on, I have not been shielded entirely from seeing pictures of her bottom online and it is a wonder of nature. 

Okay. Probably not nature. 

But good GOD! 

I am fascinated. 

And I admit it.

YOU GO, GIRL! 

That's all I have to say today. 

Except that here's a picture of the fans Lily bought me at the Country Dollar Store. 

Yes. They are on my stove. The light's good there and the burners served beautifully to hold them up and open. The pictures does not do the glittery and splendid glory of them justice. I can imagine having an entire wall decorated with Dollar Store fans. 

This could happen. 

And oh! My neck is almost completely fine again. I have no idea what that was about. 

I know so very little. I understand even less.

Love...Ms. Moon

Big Eggs, Big Ambition

That is the banana picture from yesterday. Look at all those little baby bananas! 

Today has been just as exciting as every other day which is to say, not at all. I've been ridiculously useless and even sat and embroidered my silly embroidery on my falling-apart dress and watched some more of the last season of "The Office." I am not kidding when I tell you that I do not know what I'm going to do when it's over. 
Maybe just watch the whole thing over again. 

I've got a pain in my neck which, as I just told Lis, is better than a pain in my ass, I suppose. It's a rather serious pain. Not like freshly broken ribs but still annoying as hell. It's even giving me a slight headache. I know that when I fell I probably did all sorts of hellvacious damage to my spinal alignment if, indeed, I still had any to begin with. Add that to the fact that I've been having to pull on the doors around here to open them with all my might because they're all swollen up from the rain and humidity. I am NOT complaining about that. It's just a fact and I really do have to tug and tug and tug to get those doors open so who knows? Not me but it's even been waking me up at night. I should probably go see a chiropractor. 

Besides that, though, everything is okay. Instead of feeling bad about being useless I've felt completely accepting of it. It is Sunday, after all and as a meme I saw the other day pointed out, even ol' Yahweh took Sunday off for a little self-care. 
We all need self-care. So lean in and sit with that for awhile and don't forget your green tea, either. 

I have to add that SOMEONE around here definitely did NOT take the day off. I found two extremely large eggs in the hen house today. 

There's one of them with a normal sized egg. 

As you can see from the picture below, each hen's egg varies in size according to...well, I'm not sure. Color varies according to breed.

The paler tan egg right across from the huge dark egg is also above average in size. That picture makes it look like it's bigger than the other one but it's not. 

There they are together. 

Don't be jealous that my life is so packed with excitement, fun, and constant frivolity. Someone is going to have to replace the Kardashians on the TV and I'm thinking that maybe it could be me and my chickens. What do you think? Ooh. Think of all the free shit I'd get for product placement. Why, just today I looked up an automatic chicken watering system with NIPPLES! 

And you thought I was kidding, didn't you? 

I better call the network and let them know that Mr. Moon and I are available. I think that even Maurice would agree to be filmed. 

A little hair and make-up would probably be required for all of us. 

Oh wait. They'd probably want me to wear a bra.

Forget it. 

I'm going to go make fajitas now. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Daily Report

 Pine cone lilies.

Lately my dreams have taken on a new story line. The crazy house where hoarders and museum directors obviously lived is still involved but the new twist is that I am given a newborn baby and am completely unprepared. The other night when I had my first dream in this genre, my main worry was that I could not breastfeed and I had no formula. There were other problems, one of which was that I had two other small children in my care and needed to bathe them all and despite the house having many, many bathrooms, none of them had been cleaned in decades (yet another task I needed to get to) and the tubs were especially atrocious. I mean, great giant chunks of something which could have been fungus. There was more but that's enough of that one.

The one I woke up to this morning involved another newborn and this time I managed to get to Target to buy the things I needed. A very helpful salesperson collected all of the items I asked for including little shirts and nightgowns, diapers, and blankets. When it came time to pay the bill, though, I was astounded at how much it all cost and looked through the items and realized that the "nice" Target lady had tried to upsell me by putting in fancy baby things like miniature yoga work-out wear instead of the plain cotton t-shirts I'd wanted. I threw a small fit and she exchanged those items. I was still worried about the formula situation and held the little baby the whole time this was going on, always afraid I was going to drop him. 

I am not quite sure what all of this means. Perhaps it is nothing more than being a bit worried about Levon spending the night for the first time. If that IS the case, I am obviously far more concerned than I should be. But who knows? I find dreams to be sometimes very uncomfortable, sometimes very frustrating, sometimes even horrifying, but almost always quite interesting and sometimes even fascinating and they're probably all more of a product of the medications I'm on than anything else but my brain does have to pick out what it is I'm going to obsess about in my sleep. And I suppose that given the way my waking hours have become so very routine, so very similar day-to-day, the dreams appear even more colorful, more interesting, more of something to ponder.

Today was one of those routine days. I spent some time in the chicken coop. It has come to my attention that it has really become quite nasty. The coop is the outside part of the whole chicken arrangement which is fenced but not walled. The birds just walk about on dirt and of course they poop in there too and I'm sure I should have been doing something about that all these years but really haven't. So I got in there today and raked up the top layer (pun alert) of guano-earth and hauled it to the place where Mr. Moon keeps his composting stuff. That dirt is probably worth its weight in gold to a serious gardener. I had an old bag of pine shavings from when I used them in the bottom of my peep nursery bins and I spread that around the coop. The chickens are not sure about this. Some of them appear to be quite suspicious about the new carpet and may be waiting to see if the bold and the brave chickens go up in flames or something if they walk on it. 

After I did the dirt thing I decided to do a little more clearing of the garden. I got down on my knees and weeded and we all know I love to weed if the truth be told but I do NOT love to weed when it's so hot and so muggy. It was okay when the sun went behind a cloud but when it shone down brightly, I dripped sweat. 

And then the red ants found me or I found them. 

And that was enough of THAT!

I came in, took off my clothes, threw everything in the washer and took a shower. 

But you know what? We're not on fire here. It may feel hot as hell but we are not in the middle of hell which so much of the west coast is. It is impossible for me to imagine what that feels like, looks like, sounds like, smells like. If there is anything more terrifying than fire I don't know what it is. As much as I hate being in a hurricane, I would choose that any day over being threatened with fire. I can't even talk about it without feeling overwhelmed with a sense of panic. For those of you who are experiencing the effects of those fires, I wish you safety. Whatever that means- I wish it for you. And I so wish we could share some of the rain we've been getting here. 

In fact, it rained again this afternoon and I sat at the sewing machine and made another mask, so carefully, so attentive to everything I was doing and was so proud of myself until I realized I'd sewed the little sleeve for the nose wire on the bottom instead of the top. A chin wire, I suppose. Oh well. I got out my beloved seam ripper and took care of business and have now moved the piece that you can adjust to make the fit better to the top where it belongs. I've got my field peas simmering with onions and some ham and will start my rice soon. 

Jessie has sent me a few pictures of their time on Oak Island with Vergil's family. It looks so lovely. Here's August, playing cards with his Uncle Ben. 

Look at that foot and those beautiful fingers. Do you think he's excited? 

Here's another from today when it was raining so they got out the sidewalk chalk to decorate the concrete pad beneath the house where they're staying. 

Can you tell they're related? I teared up when I saw this. What a magical and important time they're all having together. I know that part of my yearning for Vero Beach is related to Jessie and Vergil taking this trip to be with Vergil's family on the beach. When I was a child and we stayed in Vero, it was usually with my mother's brothers and their wives and children. Even though I was quite young when these vacations started, I remember. There was magic involved and not the least of it was that my mother seemed happy for once. She was with her beloved big brothers and I know that must have meant so much to her. There was a sense of safety and of connection in those visits with my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents all right there on the Atlantic together and there was always a pool and the ocean and the sand and the smell of suntan lotion (there was no sunscreen then- it was either Sea'n'Ski or Coppertone) and the days were endless and happy. My uncles were jolly and I, fatherless, fell in love with them. 

So. Unlike my dreams, no real mystery there. 

And I am so glad that August and Levon are at a beach with so many people who love them. 

I guess that's about it. 

Y'all be well. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Shelling Peas And Memories Of Another Kind Of Terror Than The One We're Living Through Now

That is approximately six or seven Netflix-streamed episodes of "The Office" worth of pea shelling. In that bowl are two different varieties of peas and some of them, as you can see, are dried and brown because they stayed on the vine too long but they cook up fine. 
Here's a close-up. 

The green-bean looking pieces are what we call snaps. They were picked a bit too early and their peas are immature and although you CAN shell (or shuck) them, sometimes we just snap off the ends and then snap the little beans into pieces. They are good like that too. Here's a really close close-up with a quarter for scale. They are quite small. 

Ten to the quarter or so? Something like that. Shelling them is indeed time-consuming but as a mindless chore to be done while watching TV, a pleasant task. And they are delicious. So it's worth it all the way around. I did get quite a few ant bites while picking yesterday but that's just the way it is. 

Isn't this exciting?

I knew you'd think so. 

When I went to Costco today, I asked the sweet guy in the liquor store if he'd done anything exciting lately. He said that no, he was just trying to keep his head above water, working, and not much else. He asked me if I'd done anything exciting lately. I said, "Coming to Costco is about the most exciting thing in my life lately. So to me, you're living the dream, buddy!" 
He laughed. But Kevin is quick to laugh. He's just a nice man. 

I went to Publix too. We were out of bananas. And almost out of limes. Danger, danger, Will Robinson! More bananas have appeared on my bloom but they won't be ripe for quite awhile. One must have bananas. And limes. Of course I managed to find about a hundred dollars' worth of other stuff to buy, too. As always. 

Besides that stuff, there's been little else. It's been raining again, on and off. It is, of course, the anniversary of 9/11. We all have so many memories of that day. That morning in particular. I was with Lon and Lis. Lis had had her appendix out and Lon and I had gone to fetch her from the hospital and the TV was on in the room and she pointed at it and said, "Look what's happening," and none of us could comprehend it and when we got in the car to go back to Gatorbone, Bob Edwards was on NPR and trying to make sense of it all for us and no one really understood what was going on but his voice was so calm and I still appreciate that. Then came the the other destructions and the endless loops of the devastating disaster videos and I drove home across the state, the sky empty of planes, my mind empty of answers, just knowing I had to get home to my children, my husband. 
It is still unimaginable after all this time. And yet, more people have died now from Covid than they did on that day of terror. 

I have no way to tie any of this up in a neat square knot. It's impossible. So I'll just say that it's Friday. Maurice is tormenting me by trying to walk across my keyboard as I write, rubbing her back on my chin. I think she may actually be mellowing a bit in her old age. She seeks out Mr. Moon when he is in his chair and yes, she still growls when he moves but she's not as apt to grab with her terrible claws and bite with her terrible fangs. Time has had its way with her just as it has with everything including me and you and our memories of that day when planes crashed and people died in the most horrible of ways. We haven't forgotten and those of us who were here will never forget and I still weep when I think of all of the pictures people posted of their missing loved ones, when I think of the heroes and the innocent who are gone. 

Well. On that cheerful note I believe I will ask my man to make me a martini. "Olives or pickled green beans?" I will ask him. And I'll make supper and we will eat it and the rain will continue to fall and we will sleep on clean sheets and sleep as if the world was a safe place, a good place, which may be true here and there for a moment or so but then change on a dime, on a whim, on a breeze, and yet, we go on as if we had no idea because that's what you have to do. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon