Sunday, May 30, 2010

I Have No Idea


There are lilies and then, there are lilies.

Here is a lily we saw today at Just Fruits and Exotics:

It is a voodoo lily and that is one incredible lily. Here's some perspective (and Lord, I wish the picture was in focus but it will serve for its purpose)

That is one huge motherfucking lily. My mind can't even grasp a flower like that. You're just walking along looking at persimmon trees and blueberry bushes and then...
GASP!

It was hot there at Just Fruits today. Not as hot as the last time Kathleen and I were there but throw in a hot flash or two and it would do as a preface to hell. Add in the damn yellow flies that found my ankles to be succulent and it was as close to a heavenly hell as I ever wish to experience. My eyes were in heaven, my ankles and skin were in hell. Or something like that.

I kept the buying to a minimum. I bought a few prosaic things from the fifty-percent-off area and two blueberry bushes and...a Royal Star Magnolia.
I couldn't help it. I had to buy it. And where in this yard am I going to put it? I have no idea. It needs some sun. I have no sun. It can grow to be fifteen or more feet tall. I have trees everywhere. I am not sure what I am going to do with this beauty but by god, I'm going to do something with it.

Here's part of a bog garden. These are pitcher plants. Most of them had bugs in them which they were slowly digesting:

Here's a grasshopper. Whoo-hoo! A grasshopper!

I believe it may be the nymph of the giant yellow Georgia Thumper which can take down a plant like a plague sent by god.

Kathleen bought a bunch of things. She's a planter, a grower, a nurturer of green growing things. And dogs. And cats. And chickens and bunny rabbits. And oh yeah, people. But today was about plants and she got some beauties. A Korean Persimmon for one thing. She has a sister-in-law who is Korean and SHE loves persimmons so there you go.
I don't know what all she bought. Another blueberry. A parlor maple in pink. Pretty things. The orange tree, I think.

Judy and Denise walked around considering each and every plant with great concentration. They bought mostly flowery things. Some nice ones.

Rich joined us and bought a gardenia and two blueberries and then we all went and dried our hands at the Kangaroo Express. Dang. I laughed. Very loudly. Denise came out of the restroom shaking with quiet laughter. I tried to get a good picture but failed. But here's one of Kathleen's hands under it. Can you see how the powerful jet engine of the XLERATOR is moving the skin of her palms around?

The picture doesn't do it justice. Sigh.

We drove down to Spring Creek for our lunch. I sent a wine bottle filled with salad dressing flying across the table when I tried to replace the cork in it. Judy tried so hard not to laugh at me but Kathleen told her it was okay and pointed out that I was laughing too. We ate some seafood and it was good. Who knows how long we'll be enjoying that particular pleasure? I've been going to this restaurant for over thirty years. Seriously. The mullet net ban almost closed it. The oil volcano may finally do the trick.
Fuck.

We walked around a little bit after lunch. Spring creek is literally at the end of the road. It's mostly a small fishing community. Here's a house that was once a place where very lucky people lived. Well, geographically speaking, anyway.

No one is living there now.

I took this picture

because that is Florida to me- live oaks, Spanish Moss, palm trees. And an old cracker house. The creek is a few hundred feet down the road.

It was a perfect road trip. Absolutely. Short, sweet, and to the point and with people whose company you truly enjoy.

I got home and unloaded my plants and Mr. Moon had to run over to a fish camp to buy some bait but they only had four fucking crickets. Four! He wants to go catch some bream tomorrow morning and I am all for that. There is no fish sweeter than bream. I hope he makes good use of those four crickets.

He got home while I was out planting the blueberries and let me tell you how bad I smelled and how hot I was. Jessie pulled up with some friends on their way back from the Florida Folk Festival and I was embarrassed for her because I smelled so bad.
They took off after a short tour of the house and yard and then the damn electricity went out.
I felt like my world had come to an end and realized, once again, how fucking wimpy we are.
I was hot. No air-conditioning.
It was supper time. No microwave to heat up the leftovers and no light to slice the cucumbers in. I got the kerosene lantern going and we made up plates and were about to sit on the porch to eat our supper, hot and slightly pissed off and me resigned to a life of misery when all of a sudden, the lights came back on.
Glory hallelujah.
Cool air. Lights. TV. The microwave to heat up the potatoes with dill sauce.
And oh, honeys, it was heaven to sit there and eat supper with the AC on and the fan blowing on us. I swear it was heaven.

"How did they used to DO this?" I asked Mr. Moon at one point while we were struggling with how to fix supper. No refrigerator, no ice, no cool air, no fans, no lights.
HOW?

Jesus. I do not know.

All I know is that I am so damn grateful that I don't have to know.
And yet, it's impossible to ignore the fact that here we are, sucking up oil to live this plain, simple, ultra-luxurious life and the Gulf is being spoiled as we speak and no one- NO ONE- seems to know how to end the gush, the leak, the spouting of petroleum from the bottom of the ocean.

Are ALL oil wells this productive? Really?

Obviously, there is an awful lot I do not understand.

And obviously, my happy day of a road trip and then tonight's supper and rest depend on that poisonous oil.

I don't understand shit but I know that I have skipped back and forth today from things growing in the dirt, to delight in a machine that blows warm air, to my home where I grow food and live in a house that was built before electricity and to resignation and misery without electricity and now, electricity restored to here, where I can write on the computer and send it out on the internet and I have no more idea of what to do or how to live or what to think than I ever did or probably ever will.

And maybe I think too much and shouldn't try to connect dots that don't connect at all but isn't that the human thing to do? Try to line up the stars and make bears and archers and virgins and lions out of them?

I don't know. But I do know it was a beautiful day and I had a wonderful time and I know without doubt that I am addicted to oil and the gifts it brings to me and when those gifts are suddenly and without warning, taken away, I can barely stand it.

So once again, I have no answers, I have no wisdom. I just have questions and thankfulness that for now, right now, tonight, I don't have to choose between the ocean or the air conditioner.

I think the choice has been made for me and I am not proud of that at all.

13 comments:

  1. I wrestle with it every day and take baby steps to ease my conscious but who am I fucking kidding, right?

    We live the oily high life.

    Love ya Ms. Moon
    xoxoxo

    wv: damet

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  2. "I am addicted to oil and the gifts it brings to me and when those gifts are suddenly and without warning, taken away, I can barely stand it."

    I so appreciate your refreshingly honest remarks on this dilemma. I'm not sure what we can do individually to hasten new energy- producing technologies. I do know one person whose urban dwelling is completely off the grid, and whose electric car plugs into his solar powered house. But for most of us installing and maintaining solar panels is beyond our means,
    their production is not a particularly "clean" process, and energy storage is still problematic.
    I have no answers, either, and when the power goes out my well pumps don't run and the stairlift that carries my daughter up and down will last only as long as its battery. If only Obama had begun his tenure by starting a WPA-like
    project aimed at totally revamping and decentralizing energy production in the US. Such an effort is the only good I can imagine might result from the unmitigated disaster in the Gulf.
    But maybe that movement will not come from the top down, but from the passions of a young generation with the will to see it through. We hippies lived off the fat of the land in the sixties. Kids now will have it harder.

    A.

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  3. I haven't any answers either...and many days, I don't even want to ask questions, knowing I won't understand those answers!
    But I do understand the beauty of a Star magnolia. And every spring I covet them, and then talk myself out of buying one.
    -sigh- I will have to just enjoy yours Ms. moon!
    p.s. I can't seem to get this link to work, but PLEASE google something like 8 Month baby cochlear implant...you will just love the love you will see on this baby's face. I thought of you immediately when this showed up on my aol page. (and for the record, I am neither for nor against the implants...but i am all about love)

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  4. I have faith that if you had no choice you would adapt. We humans are immensely resilient, extraordinarily adaptive. Choice makes it more difficult -- but only in perception.

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  5. another fabulous post.

    and I'm pretty well spoiled and all.
    but today I read another article, about the problems the dispersants cause, and it still is just so horrific.

    No answers about anything here ever.

    oh, and I read your last post and don't see my comment , but that banana leaf picture is stunning.

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  6. "So once again, I have no answers, I have no wisdom".

    Me neither, me neither.

    But you know what? It takes a wise person to admit it.

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  7. Hey Ms Moon,
    I need your posts transmitted straight to my head. I'm always late getting to them these days. It's this damn back pain that keeps me off the computer chair.
    I'm going to have to do a mass comment and skip off to my hairdresser (!) - have you booked your pedicure yet? It's the season to pamper oneself.
    I'm sorry about Miss Sukie. And I'm glad Owen is on the mend. It's amazing he only now got sick for the first time. My first was the same - the second got every bug going. We'll have to see about number three.
    The oil thing does my head in. I know it causes war and ruins habitats but I like going places so much! Yeah - life sucks that way. I think we get our electricity from nuclear power, which has all its own issues.
    Right - I have to stand up now. I'll stop by again soon. Big kiss from me!

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  8. Thank you for letting me and my stinky friends come visit the house yesterday, and filling our bags full of delicious treats. We ended up doing exactly what you told us too, and the boys listened to you and washed the dishes when it was done. It was very sweet.
    And I was not embarrassed at all to bring them home after you were working so hard in the yard. You and Papa made me very proud, as usual.
    I will see you later, and hopefully the power won't go off again, because I am a guilty girl when it comes to the use of oil.

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  9. I am as guilty as the next person but am wlling to give up a lot if some good alternatives to oil come along. Solar and wind come to mind. We did live for thousands of years without AC so I can do it again.

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  10. Ms Moon, you totally live in paradise. That lily is beautiful. I have never EVER seen such a huge lily! Gorgeous!

    Those moss covered trees with the palms in the background are heaven. HEAVEN!!! Thanks for sharing those.

    With the hand dryer. They have one of those things in the Toys R Us where I shop and that thing drives me crazy. I'm afraid that thing will blow my kids away. It's so dang loud that I worry my kids hearing will be shot if they dry their hands while at Toys R Us. Ggrrrr

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  11. Michelle- The oily high life. Exactly.

    Anonymous- I completely agree on the WPA thing. Now would be the time!
    Great idea.

    JustMe- Get a star mangolia! Do it! And I'll check out that baby. I saw it on AOL too but didn't go there. I will.

    Elizabeth- I don't know. I think maybe you have to be raised in those conditions to be able to tolerate it. I mean, I guess I COULD bear the heat here day after day but it would be horrid.

    deb- I don't know why all the comments don't come through. I certainly don't block them. Thank you for saying that about the photo.

    Nigel- I wish I knew more than I do, I know that.

    Mwa- My feet look so bad I'm embarrassed to get a pedicure! Seriously. Thanks for all your sweet thoughts.

    Honeyluna- I love you. Come here anytime- it is your home- and we will welcome you with all of our stinky hearts. And your friends, too.

    Syd- I know. But we are spoiled. I am, anyway.

    Rebecca- I do live in paradise. Thank you for commenting on the pictures.
    And really? You don't like the XLERATOR? You won't be in my cult, then.

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  12. The power went off for about an hour in Buttfuck, Ohio, over the weekend, too. I was getting ready to take a damn shower. I sat in all my naked damn glory and drank a cold beer while I waited for the power to come back on. Sometimes, the gods just want to enforce downtime on our busy asses.

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  13. Holy SHIT that is a huge flower. And you're right, those hand blowers are INTENSE. I saw one this weekend for the first time and I nearly peed myself because I was so shocked.

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