And So It Goes, Again And Again

Unbeknown to me, Mr. Moon had been getting excited about going to play Trivia all day. To the point where when I pointed out that it didn't start until 10:30 PM he didn't flinch.
"So what?" he said. "Let's be wild!"

Jessie got in and we met Lily and Jason and Owen at a local barbecue joint and Jessie got reacquainted with her nephew and we ate fried okra and other delicacies of the Southern type and then Mr. Moon and Jessie and I went to a local coffee place where hipsters were all working on computers and I drank a huge cup of coffee which did nothing to alleviate my anxiety at being out AFTER DARK and then we went to the restaurant/bar where Trivia was being held and I had a shot of tequila and a beer and then Hank got there and Lily came in to play after she got Owen to bed and so it was Mr. Moon and Lily and Jessie and me and we did all right, considering.
We won our bar tab and thank god I had listened to NPR while putting on my make-up because I knew how many Americans live below the poverty line (16%) and also I knew the term "break-bone fever" and Lily and Jessie knew TV shows that we oldsters didn't and Mr. Moon knew Larry Flint and lumbago.

Family teamwork!

Hank is an amazing Trivia Master. I can't believe all the research he puts into it every week. He loves that sort of thing, though. He always has.

We figured out where Owen picked up his little bug- the pediatrician's office, of course, when we took him into get checked out after he put that tiny seed up his nose. Or whatever it was. He hasn't BEEN anywhere else to speak of.
Dammit.
He's still a cheerful fellow, despite a fever and being pale, and we all fall over laughing every time he raises his hands and yells, "Yoo-hoo!" when he is delighted by something. We yoo-hoo'ed quite a bit at Trivia last night.

Hank's street cred has probably sunk to an all-time low.

Jessie spent the night in town with her girlfriends and Mr. Moon and I came home and went to bed and I just got up a little while ago. Mr. Moon is at work, the chickens are cawing to be let out, I have laundry going, I am fighting my way out of a darkness which I can't even explain because I had such a good time last night. About halfway through Trivia I looked up at Mr. Moon and said, "Thank-you for making me come out. This is so much fun."
And it was.
We saw people I know through Hank whom I like and Jessie's girlfriends whom I have known and loved forever and I met a woman who just charmed me to pieces and it was fun and it was good and there was no wildness and I used my beautiful red pen and nice handwriting to record our answers and I wore my old, old beloved Frey red clogs that make clonky wooden sounds when I walk and one of the answers was Keith Richards (and Hank didn't even know we were coming!) and it was a beautiful evening outside with my husband and most of my children and so why, why, is it so hard for me to just accept such a simple sweet thing as going out on a weeknight and staying up past my bedtime?

Where is my wild gypsy spirit?

I do not think I have one and if I do, it is buried so far beneath gray woolen blankets that I can't even see the corner of a red-silk scarf, of a silver hoop earring.

But I had fun, dammit. I did. And by god, there is nothing wrong with that in this whole damn world.

Synchronistically, I am having an e-mail conversation with a dear friend who is going through some things herself and I just wrote her that we need to learn to love ourselves and be as gentle and accepting of ourselves as we are with others and that it sounds so corny and cliched to say that but it is true.

That probably at the core of it all is that we don't accept ourselves, we don't love ourselves the way we do others, not believing that we are deserving of it.

Well, enough of all of that. Here's a picture of the most darling rooster I think I've ever seen. He is a banty from next door and he and some of his family slip the fence easily and come to scratch in my yard and I love that.

I doubt he is half the size of Elvis but is a fine specimen of a man-chicken, proving that size is not all about physicality and I have much to ponder this morning as the day moves on, moves on, keeps moving on.