Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Tired

I am so tired. I am not sure why because I didn't do that much today but it seemed like I was always doing something and even lunch, which was big fun, was active in that we ate outside so that Owen could run, and run he did over the grounds at the cafe of a beautiful old place in Tallahassee called Goodwood.
At one point, to coax him to eat, I made him a picnic by putting his plates on the ground and he liked that a lot. I'd give you a picture but I'm too tired to transfer it from the phone and sorry but take my word for it- it was lovely.

This is such a time of wondering for us all. What will the new baby be like and how will Owen take to him or her? Will he be jealous, will he be fascinated, will he decide that in order to get his fair share of attention he'll have to act out and be crazy, crazy?
Probably all of the above.
Bless his heart.
But mostly bless Lily's heart. She is SO pregnant and yet there she is at work and she doesn't complain. She is so much stronger than I could ever be. I am so proud of her.
I think of how tired she must be and I am humbled.

Tomorrow I go back to the Assisted Living, as does Mr. Moon and as will our social worker and we will all be there to observe as Mother gets yet one more cognitive test, this one from someone the insurance company is sending over. This is just so far past the point of ridiculousness that I can't even begin to find any humor in it or meaning, either. Hoop after hoop after hoop must be jumped and here we are, jumping them like dyed-pink poodles, kissing the hand of the company to which Mother paid so much money in good faith.
Well.
Perhaps the thought of that is making me so tired. Why this country fights single-payer universal health care is so far beyond my ability to understand that I can't even tell you. The money we would save in not having to do the paper/office work of all of the insurance companies has to be enough to pay for it all. Or at least close. And the only losers would be...the insurance companies and who doesn't hate them?
They must have some powerful lobbyists and I'm sure that's true. I am SO tired of political bullshit. So very, very tired of it all. But I tell you this- the next time I hear ANYONE say that we have the greatest health care in the world, I am going to personally smack that person into the next week.
Sure. It's the greatest if you have enough money to buy a medium-sized country or drive several Cadillacs and several Range Rovers and have four or five mansions and many off-shore bank accounts. Yeah. It's probably a really great health care system then.
Otherwise- fucking forget it.

All right. I am just tired. And as soon as is decently possible, I am going to go to bed and then I'll get up and go to Mother's and then go pick up Owen and bring him here and maybe he can help me in the garden. I'm trying to get that potato plot ready to plant. He can wear his overalls and I can wear mine and we can get filthy and then he can take a bath, which he loves to do here, and then I'll wrap him up in a big towel and hold him to me and he'll say, "Shake, MerMer!" and I'll shake the baby (but not the kind of shaking where you give them head injuries) and then I'll try to get a diaper on him and he'll run like the wind and hide and laugh. I know that boy.

Oh yes. I know that boy. That Kung-Fu, Hai-Yai-ing boy, that running, hiding boy, that laughing, naked boy. That "no way!" boy, that "hold on!" boy, that boy who is growing like a yard-long bean on the fence. That bend-down-and-crunch-collard-greens-from-the-garden boy, that boy I tell the Mr. Peep story to, that boy who plays so hard and then falls asleep as I softly rub his back and croon a story to about an old turkey and all of the animals he plays with. That boy who chases chickens and who tells his mama, "Owen love you, Mama!" and hugs her hard, hard, hard before she goes to work.

He is the essence of all the love I've felt for all of my babies and here I am, drowning in all of it again and am about to jump into love with another who will be so very different and whom I will love with all that same fierce and unbelievable joy.

Yes. I get tired. Who wouldn't? And would I trade it for anything?
You know the answer to that one.

Get some rest, y'all. And especially you, Lily.

So much love...MerMer

Is It Just Me

Or are any of you also getting e-mails from people who offer to do you the favor of writing a guest post on your blog in exchange for putting a link to their websites on them?
Jesus.
And they're all like worded the same, even though the websites are seemingly valid and all different.

Then today I got an e-mail from a woman who survived a terrible illness and wanted to guest post on my blog to "reach out" to people whom she could help and inspire.
What?
Again, she seems to have a valid website and appears to be real but what is going on?

I think anyone who reads here would understand that NOT HAVING ENOUGH TO SAY ON MY OWN is not my problem. And it's not like I have thousands and thousands of readers.
I have just the perfect number of them and we are a family here or at least a community and NO, I DO NOT WANT TO LINK YOUR WEBSITE, I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH GOOD YOU ARE DOING IN THIS WORLD AND IF I DO, I'LL LET YOU KNOW.

Okay. Thanks. That's all.

The Founding Fathers and Jimmy Buffet

Dang! I slept late! I changed out the clock in my room because mine was so old and so lightweight that it kept falling off the bedside table at three a.m. so I put one in that I found upstairs but you can't see the numbers on it (or at least I can't) so I have no idea what time it is all night. I COULD switch it out again for the clock in the Panther Room but that thing is so bright (even on the lowest setting) and the numbers so big that you could see what time it was from Mars and I hate having light in the room when I sleep. You could read from the light cast from that thing. Truly. I have done just that before.

So anyway, I woke up (and thank god!) from a dream wherein I was about to have to speak about the Fifth Amendment at some Official Gathering and I don't know SQUAT about the Fifth Amendment, not really, and besides that there was a boat ride and sexy times with my husband and then all of these school children kept getting on the boat...oh well. Let me just say it was a relief to wake up but then I discovered I was late and I have to get to town to take care of my boy and so forth and man! I missed the Jimmy Buffet concert last night and don't laugh. I mean it. I LOVE Jimmy Buffet. He saved my life one summer. Well, him and the beach. Hey! I told you- DON'T LAUGH! Okay, go ahead and laugh but it's true. And last night I found this picture on the Facebook:

Which is Billy and some mermaids and HE was at the Jimmy Buffet concert with his wife and as Hank said in a comment to Billy under this picture: Man, how'd you take a picture of your dream?

Well, I'm sure that Jimmy put some healing on the faithful of Tallahassee last night but I wasn't there.

I'm not at the beach either. I'm in Lloyd and it's foggy as hell and I need to get my ass in gear and get to town. Hank- I have a cooler for you. And the keys. Hank IS going to the beach this weekend, Dog Island to be exact, and I'm taking him the necessaries for that trip, specifically the cooler and the keys and I'm glad he's going. I think Billy is too but I'm not sure. I hope so.

So that's me. Running late. Feeling like I have some alien on my face because new glasses will do that to you. I felt like an old woman this morning, going out to feed the cats, let out the chickens and get the newspaper. Like a little old woman who wants to wear the same glasses for forty years because she hates change.

Well, I do hate change mostly but life is all about it so if I can't embrace it, I might as well at least try to go with the flow or some other sort of bullshit thing.

I'd like to end this with some profound Buffet-ism but all I can think of at this second is "Let's get drunk and screw," which is probably not appropriate but hell, when did I begin to think I should be appropriate?

And one more thing. Mr. Moon fixed my table! He even put casters (castors?) on the legs so that it will roll and be the proper height. He is my hero!


In the past few days he's also brought me roses and driven all the way to Monticello to buy potatoes to plant.
No wonder I was having dream-time sexy-time with him.

I love that man.

Hey Honey- why don't we get drunk and...?

You know.

I love you. And you know that too.

I think the Fifth Amendment may cover some of this post. I sure hope so.

Love...Ms. Moon

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

In Which I Go To Church And Get New Glasses. Plus, Other Things


Man. It turned out to be quite a day.
So yeah, I took my walk and I took my phone with me so I could take pictures if I wanted and I did want to and here's a church:

It's a small, local church, just a few blocks from my house and yeah, no big deal except...
Here's the exterior:

How precious is that? See that building in the background? That used to be the church and then it was remade as a duplex and even though I saw the whole project from start to finish, I'm still not sure how it was done but anyway, they built a tiny replica of the old church and that's it. I had no idea the inside was fitted out with pews and an altar. It blew my mind.

Here's the door. I love the door.

And those teeny-tiny steps.
It's a church for faithful fairies! And they even have steps! And a bell!
Lloyd. I am constantly surprised.

So anyway, after the walk Kathleen came by for a short visit and then Freddy called and I met him in town for coffee and he caught me up on all of his BIG doin's and I just so enjoyed that. He's doing really, really well and working his tail off and I'm as proud of him as I could be.

I was right across the road from where I'd ordered my glasses and so I called, just to see if they were in and yes! they were! so I went and got them and I think I can see pretty well out of them. I'm not sure how in love I am with the way they look but hell, it's a change.
And they're red.

I think they're maybe too big on my face but what the hell? My old ones were too small. Life will go on.

And by the time I'd gone to the library and the grocery store and gotten home it was almost time to cook dinner and then I did and we ate it and now I'm in a rousing game of Words With Friends with Lily and I saw her today and she looks fabulous and her due date is less than two weeks away and every day we all grow more excited. We're going to meet this new baby soon! A brand new person will be here on this earth and we are going to love that baby so much. Golly. I'm just as stunned to believe this as I was when it was Owen we were expecting. I guess that's what you call a miracle or something.

Tomorrow I'll go to town to take care of Owen and he and I are going to lunch with Uncle Hank and that'll be lovely. My boys! Perhaps we can even talk Bop into joining us. We'll see.

And to top it all off- the sun came out today! It finally cleared, late this afternoon and I could feel my heart beating to a little bit of a more cheerful rhythm and although I am SO VERY grateful for all the sweet rain we've gotten, I am glad to know that the sun is still there.

Now. If you've gotten this far and haven't read the post right below this, please go there and click on the link and vote for the inclusion of the All American Redheads, the nation's first professional women's basketball team, into the Basketball Hall of Fame. And watch the video.
Please?
Thank-you.

I mean it.

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. In case you feel that this is all just too damn cheerful and sort of makes you want to barf, consider this: My dogs are still alive.
That is all I am going to say about that but believe me- that fact balances out some of the sparkle, shine, and apple-red joy of everything else. Sort of.

Vote!

My sister-in-law, Brenda Davis, was one of the All American Redheads back in the sixties and seventies and if you don't know what the All American Redheads were, just watch this video, which I have posted before but hell, it's worth watching more than once.




That's Brenda, right there, first girl doing awesome basketball things.

These women traveled around the country in a station wagon, y'all. A STATION WAGON! The entire team, the coach, and his wife. Who may have actually been one of the Redheads and they played events like the Harlem Globetrotters did, back before, oh, you know, women and African Americans could play on the "real" teams.

Anyway, The Basketball Hall of Fame is asking people to vote on who should go into the Hall of Fame and the Redheads are up for inclusion and I'm going to ask you, if you wouldn't mind, to go and vote for those women.

The link is right HERE.

It'll take like one second. And then go watch the video again. It makes me cry, watching those gorgeous, tall young women back in the day when girls weren't supposed to be athletes, running and jumping and throwing and doing things with basketballs that totally confused and frustrated the men they were playing against, all the while looking completely fantastic.

Thanks, y'all. I mean it. And the Redheads deserve it.

Just A Day

Of course the downside of not being in a play is that my life has once again returned to completely and utterly boring instead of just mostly and seriously boring.
Haha!
Ask me if I care.

Let's see. The train is going by. I just filled up the chicken-waterer. The chickens were making so much noise in that hen house that I figured someone had laid either a golden egg or one weighing in excess of a pound but when I went to check, I found no eggs at all.
Girls, girls! Let's lay off the drama and get back to work!
Elvis obviously prefers Miss Ozzie to all of the other hens. Her back is looking a bit raggedy where he catches on to her and then perches while he...has his way with her. Now what is it about Ozzie that makes her his favorite sister wife? She's such an odd looking bird. More bird than chicken, really, with that long neck of hers. And she's drab. Just plain old drab.
Well, I do not have rooster goggles so it makes no sense to me.

So back to the train- they're talking about bringing the Amtrak back to Tallahassee and wouldn't that be awesome? I could stand in my back yard, surrounded by my chickens wearing an apron and sun bonnet and wave in a friendly manner at the folks in the passenger cars when they went by. Or, I could wear that slip, drink gin and curse at them when they went by. It could be like performance art that I do everyday. Wouldn't that be AWESOME?
People would say, "Did you SEE that?" And then someone would nod and say, "Wow. Like stepping back in time."

Well, it is painfully apparent that I have no actual thoughts today, nothing of importance to pass on. No babies have been born, no dogs have died. I'm fine with that. I think I'll take a walk and maybe go to the library and then get in the dirt and transplant some stuff and then, oh, you know, make supper and go to bed.

It's a day where I don't feel any reservoirs of anger or sadness or sense of hopelessness. More just a day of feeling that this is life. And now I've just gone and read our dear Gradydoctor's post today about her mother's sixty-fifth birthday and I'm crying a little bit for more than one reason and just damn glad to have this day, to have this life and there's nothing more I need to say about it.

It's just the truth and that may be boring but it's more than good enough for me.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Owen Meets Fabio

When we walked into the office, he saw the six-foot tall cut-out and had a moment of extreme...shyness? I think. He doesn't really look afraid. Slightly amused. But shy.


He figured out pretty quickly that Fabio is a lightweight.

And then he got on a chair to explore the upper regions. Went right for the nipple.
Yeah, me too. That thing looks REAL.

It was a hoot. What Owen mostly wanted to do was to stick a tack into Fabio. Wherever he could. I would not let him. Hell no! That's MerMer's Fabio!

Owen and I had a good day. We got a lot of playing done. Fed the chickens and got the eggs. Fed the mule next door with some Cheerios. Found a marble in the yard that the rain had revealed. I always love to find new old treasures in this yard. I wondered about the child who might have owned that marble, the games he or she might have played. The kid probably fed chickens, too.

I doubt he or she touched Fabio's nipple though. However, one cannot assume anything.
Anything at all can happen in this big world.

Anything we can imagine and a hell of a lot that we can't.

And Then There's This

I'm in a it's-raining-and-never-going-to-quit-mood and Owen is washing his hands a lot for fun and I don't know. I didn't mean to be mean about Ms. Jolie. Hell, I think she's one of the most gorgeous women in this world.
I'm just thinking she's got some problems.
And of course there's no reason for us to speculate or theorize about movie stars. I think it's just something we do because we feel powerless in the face of the big things like war and cruelty and poverty and ill health and injustice and, and, and....
It's like, well bread and circuses.
Although some of the circus people could use a little bread.
But really? Bottom line? It ain't my business, not really. Which makes it so easy to talk about.

More Oscar Commentary And Trash

Well, I stayed up until eleven-thirty and I wish I hadn't.
Argh.
Oh well.
It's been drizzling here for about four months. Okay. A few days. Hard to get excited about spring when it's chilly and raining and I think the azaleas are not going to bloom at all due to that hard freeze we got when they were budding up.
Oh, who cares?
Do you? No.
My poor chickens. They're standing in the coop wondering what in hell?
I need to take the trash and recycle. I'm not going to do it in the rain. No way. Owen will be here soon. This is exciting, isn't it?
No. It is not. It is not exciting. It is raining and gray and chilly and the trash overfloweth.

Okay. Let me ask you this. What in hell is going on with Angelina?

She kept sticking that leg out of her dress last night which I am wondering if she did in order to distract us from the stick-form shapes of her arms. Bless her heart! BABY! Eat something! All joking aside, she looked very, very unhealthy to me. I'm just gonna say it- I think she's on drugs. Something ain't right there. And I am NOT judging. Who in this world can maintain that sort of career, that many children (even with all the nannies in the world) and a marriage AND keep her sanity? Boy, I sure couldn't. Not even WITH drugs. Hell, I can't keep my sanity for more than an hour or two at a time. But I sure don't forget to eat.



That's my Oscar commentary. Okay, that and...was there some sort of secret competition to see who could mention Martin Scorsese the most often? Every fifteen seconds someone was mentioning him and then quick! shot to the audience!

To Martin! Who has inspired EVERYONE!

Well, they're movie stars and I'm not. Their minds work in ways that mine never will.
Don't we love them? Did I actually see someone say that her dress was made from cruelty-free silk spun from humanely treated silkworms?

I think so. God. Now I should worry that silk worms are being treated inhumanely?
And I thought it was enough that I don't hit my dogs.

Okay. Enough.

I have to take that trash, raining or not.

And eat.

Happy Monday.
Love...Ms. Moon

Sunday, February 26, 2012

This is me in the Panther Room (see the lamp?) with my martini, watching the pre-show for the Academy Awards. I'm sitting on the guest bed which is also known as the place where I change Owen's diapers.
I love this room.
I love having a house which winds and wends for about one and one-half miles through rooms built fifty years or a hundred years after the house was originally made.
Oh god. I do love this house. I've lived here for almost eight years which is the second-longest I've ever lived in any house in my life and it's gone like....whooooossssshhhhht. That fast.
Anyway, I'm here in the Panther Room because there's a TV in here which we crank up about once every six months when Mr. Moon and I both want to watch something on TV and they're not the same thing.
He's watching some game on the TV in the Glen Den which is where the Big TV is and, inspired by Ms. Radish King who wears red sequins and buys fancy cheeses to eat while watching the Academy Awards, I am allowing myself the tacky glory (sorry, Madame King!) of watching Hollywood's royalty walk the red carpet and being asked, "Who are you wearing?"

I wish someone would ask me. I am wearing a red Gap long-sleeved t-shirt and Old Navy overalls with Gap short hoodie. Hoody? God, I have no idea. I got the overalls at an antique store (I am not kidding you) in Thomasville, Georgia and the hoody and shirt may have actually come from the Gap. Or hell, they may have all come from Goodwill. I can't remember shit these days.

Anyway, it's been such a good day. Mr. Moon went with me to the set tear-down and it went real fast and it's been chilly and drizzly all day so I've just puttered about, doing laundry (washing my costumes/clothing) and making soup. Oh. This soup. I sauteed some chunks of deer with garlic in olive oil and added chopped collard and turnip greens from the garden and then canned tomatoes and onions and celery and carrots and left-over black-eyed peas and rice and some deer sausage and potatoes and green beans and potatoes. I added a tiny bit of brown sugar, inspired by Tearful at Plate and Fork although only a few tablespoons, not a cup of it. And yes, ketchup. A little bit. It's still simmering and I can't wait to have a bowl, held in my lap here in the Panther Room.

I've also ironed some flannel soon to be hopefully made into a quilt for the coming-baby (no, I did not get that done before I left for Cozumel) and watered the inside plants.

Antonio and Melanie are on the red carpet right now. Are they like yesterday's Brad and Angelina? Melanie is wearing Yves St. Laurent. Antonio is wearing Georgio Armani.

Oh whoa! J-Low is wearing...hold on...okay, I did not catch that. But she's a goddess. Although I'm not wild about how her breasts are being presented in that dress.

Mr. Moon keeps popping in to see if I need anything.
I tell him, "No, baby, I don't need a thing."

It's one of those days where it's all about the tiny, teeny things. The check-out magazine rack silliness of E! Entertainment network pre-Oscar commentaries. The hair-dos! The Harry Winston jewels! Kelly Osbourne with her dyed gray hair swept over her shoulder. Guiliana What-Ever-Her-Name-Is-Who-Just-Had-A-Double-Mastectomy and that reminds me of a subject I've been meaning to write about about which is breasts and breast cancer and that is NOT a teeny-tiny thing and oh god, NO PUNS INTENDED, FUCK, REALLY, NO! Guiliana looks amazing and more Hollywood glamor than anyone else I've seen on the red carpet and well, it's just been a good day.

Soup. I need soup.

It's been a really good day.

Viola Davis is wearing her real hair and god, I love her for that. I have no idea what it's like being an African American woman and having to deal with all of the cultural stuff that goes along with hair but I swear to god- there is nothing more beautiful than a black woman with her own, real hair.
Talk about goddess.

Okay. Time for the show.

See you tomorrow! I swear you will.

Comment My Husband Made About Me Today

"That woman does love to sweep."

The Play Has Ended And Fabio Has Come Home


Well, I have to say that if we did that play for about fifty more times, it would really have gotten good. There would have been very little resemblance between what we were doing onstage and what was written in the script, but that could only have been for the better.
We had fun with it last night.
We threw ourselves boldly into places we'd never thrown ourselves before. We improvised, we added bits, we became whores-for-laughter.
Why the hell not?
It was so GREAT to come offstage, change my costume and throw my previous one in a wad in a bag to take home instead of hanging everything up carefully for the next performance.
I think I'm just too old for this. I don't know. But I know I gave it my best shot and Jon and I went over lines before the last performance and dang, if that's not trying, I don't know what is.

And so now I shall resume my life, the one I was leading before the play or The Play as it looms in my mind and that tattered and torn script is history and as I said to someone last night who said, "How in the world did you learn all those lines?"
My brain is already consciously working on forgetting every one of them.

It really is a more profound transition than you would think. I will no longer ease myself back into sleep by going over scenes in my head. I had thought after Steel Magnolias that I would never, ever forget those lines but of course I have. The lines from this play were never set in stone in my head, more like set in Jello, so there you go- the task will be easier but it's still a change. I can read a damn book or magazine without feeling guilty that I'm not running lines.

But you know, it was good. It was good in that I got out of the house, I did things with people whom I enjoy doing things with, I was forced to learn new things. I had to change my routine. I adapted. At my age, that's a good thing.

And now what? Oh well, that baby's coming soon. And speaking of birth, there's a video of a birth on youtube which is absolutely the most amazing birth-video I've ever seen and I've never seen quite as joyful a birth in real life, either although I have seen (and had) some joyful births.
Here's the link if you want to go there.
It is quite graphic in that yes, you see a baby coming out of a vagina, and watching it might actually change your perspective about women's bodies and joy and life and childbirth and oh, I don't know. You know, almost everything. But only watch it if you're prepared for all of that.

So yes, Lily's baby is due in about two weeks and I just want to rip everything out of the garden and have Mr. Moon till it all up and replant it all and I want to tend it like a mother tends a baby and I don't now what else I will be doing. Watching Owen. Watching him grow, watching him eat yogurt, watching him practice his Kung Fu moves, watching him completely and joyfully destroy my house, watching him become a big brother. I hope I'll be watching him learn to use the potty before too long. Seriously.

I guess I'll be cooking healthy meals (after the one I've already cooked this morning which involved biscuits and bacon) exercising more and I'll be remembering what it's like to change a newborn's diaper and maybe I'll write that novel. Having Fabio in the office with that stern expression on his face could help me with that. "Do it!" he will be saying with a German/Austrian accent. He is actually holding a chain and in my imagination I can pretend that he is about to hit me with it if I don't get my butt in the seat and write.
I honestly can't tell you why but it just tickles me to pieces to have that life-sized cardboard cut-out of a man wearing fringed pants and boots in my office. Tickles me to death. I wonder what Owen will say when he sees him? This could be hysterical.

But mostly what I'll be doing is just what I always do which is to despair and rejoice and to wonder and to wander and to cut and chop and weed and get dirty and gather eggs and clean nests and kiss the ones I love and then to fall in love with a new tiny person- rapture, in short.
When that baby gets born, it'll be rapture and I'll be raptured and enraptured and all of us will fall in love with all of us even more.

That's my plan.

And I'm sticking to it.

And of course I'll be writing about all of it and about the wisteria as it swells and blooms and about the signs of life seen from here in Lloyd because writing about all of it here is my joy and my thrill and my way of trying to make sense of it all.

All right! Happy Sunday! Day to go tear down that set, to see everyone again but this time with the pressure off and the overalls on and then...
Well.
Who knows? Not me.

Yours truly from the Church of the Batshit Crazy where one never truly knows what will happen next.

Love...Ms. Moon

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Last Call

I am made-up. I am bejeweled. I am going to the Opera House as soon as my red bush tea is done and put in the thermos.
Hitting that road, yes, it is gray, it is chilly, it is not a night to want to go out, my hair is clean, I think I may have forgotten my deodorant which is a bad idea seeing how it gets to be about five thousand degrees (Fahrenheit) on that stage and I will say those lines (or a reasonable facsimile) one more time, one more time, one more time and then I'll be done with that, it'll be over and Lord, Lord, when I get my free beer tonight, I am going to enjoy it like nobody's business and it will be the most celebratory beer of my life.

Amen.

That was a prayer. Or at least what passes for a prayer around this neck of the woods.

This Explains So Much

Check it out.

Thanks, Hank.

This Makes NO Sense But Go Ahead And Dance

I thought I'd slept until ten-thirty this morning which would have been a world record but in fact, it was only nine-thirty. I'd set the clock wrong in the guest room when I went in there at six-thirty when I woke up after a measly five hours of sleep, determined to get MORE sleep, DAMMIT, and yet, try not to wake up my husband with my efforts to try and find a more comfortable position.

I know, earth-shattering. Need-to-know stuff here at blessourhearts.

Hey. You can't get world news, earth-shaking political insights, and deep philosophy every day. The damn brain just needs some time off sometimes.

And sleep.

Which I got.

There's so much I COULD talk about today. One of them being fasting for Lent. I talked about that last year, though so fuck it. But I will reiterate that a god who wants you to give up any of his (or her) great gifts to us, to blind ourselves to anything that is part of the great, creamy mess of creation and brings joy and, uh, sustenance, is suspicious to me.
Yes. I have fasted before.
I was insane and had a borderline eating disorder.

Okay, moving on and in the same spirit, I am about to make a hell of a lot of chocolate chip cookies. I am going to take them to my cast and crew mates tonight. There's a line in the play where our Lulabelle says, "There's nothing like a good homemade chocolate chip cookie," and there you go. Now, my reply to her in the play is this: "But what about sex? Have you never had to fake it?"
And quite frankly, I will be so happy never to say this line again after tonight but in the meantime, I do believe that a nice homemade chocolate chip cookie truly is one of the finest things around and I have four sticks of butter softening as we speak and two bags of Ghirardelli chocolate chips (one semi-sweet and one bitter-sweet) awaiting their destiny on the counter.

Mr. Moon is in fix-it mode and that makes a wife happy. Right now he is tackling our dining room table which is a very old round oak thing that has been in my life since about 1979. I can't even imagine how many meals have been eaten on it. It got me and my girlfriends through nursing school because we gathered around it to study (well, that table and the band Four-In-Legion and most specifically their song There's A Party In My Pants And You're Invited).

Okay, whoa. I just went to youtube to find the video of that and yes, I've totally posted it before but just watching a few minutes of it has sent be straight back to 1982 or some year like that and...table? What table? Shit. If you want to see what propelled me in my darkest hours and got me through the Valley of the shadow of death and yea, were my rod and my staff which did comfort me back when I was a single mother in nursing school, well, check it out.



Good God!

Now there was a band. There was a guitar player. There was a shitty video.
But still.
Lord, Lord, Lord. We used to dance.

Where was I?
I have no idea.

Oh. Table.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

I've always wondered about that line. Who in the world wants to sit down and eat in front of one's enemies? Even metaphorically, that would be some bitter dining.

But hey- let's tie it all together here- Mr. Moon (and also, our neighbor) is preparing my table. Or REPAIRING my table and I am very happy about that because I love that table and it is more than a table, it is a souvenir of a different time in my life when I danced with my girlfriends wildly and with abandon and we feared NO EVIL and let us not fear chocolate chip cookies, either.

How's that?

My cup runneth over.

Yes, yes it does. With coffee right now and this is probably the most random, craptastic post I've ever written.

Who cares? Not me.

Dance, babies. There's a party in someone's pants. Invite your own damn self. Lie down in green pastures or in the tumbled bed. Eat a chocolate chip cookie. Don't eat in the presence of one's enemies because to do so is to invite jealousy and indigestion. Get some sleep.

Annointest your head with oil at your own discretion.

Love...Ms. Moon

Friday, February 24, 2012

Hey- Nobody IS Perfect

One more performance down, one more to go.

I think we were all on automatic pilot tonight and every now and then we'd wake up and insert something weird and funny and see where that took us.
Hysterical.
The crowd was not a crowd. Tiny group. Okay, not a group. Our audience was slim. In numbers. There was a table of Red Hat Ladies. Do you know these women? One woman was wearing a purple boa that had lights in it. I am not kidding you. I thought these women would LOVE the play. They may have but it didn't sound so much like it. The bar made about five bucks. That says it all right there. The Red Hat Ladies did love our Grampi. They all wanted their pictures made with him. Also, Fabio. Yes. They all posed with Grampi and Fabio and many snapshots were taken.

Well, that's how it goes sometimes.

Now I'm home and the owls are hooting off in the distance. I had to throw a stick in the general direction of that hawk today. He (or she) was on the clothesline support, just waiting for the chickens to go to roost.

He (or she) would not move off his (or her) perch until I threw that stick at him. Or her. I didn't aim for the hit, just for the scare-off. It worked in that the hawk flew about ten feet and re-perched in a tree.
Mr. Moon and I are wondering if maybe the hawk just wants to join the flock. Maybe that hawk wants to be...wait for it... A CHICKEN HAWK!

All right. I'll stop now. I'm going to eat some sort of Bombay Potatoes with Garbanzos I bought at the Costco. They're in these heavy-duty pouches that you can boil or microwave. I have leftover black-eyed peas in the refrigerator but for some reason, I just want some Bombay Potatoes.
Not really.
I just want something I didn't cook. Something that I haven't eaten as leftovers three or four times. So, Bombay Potatoes it will be. And hey! They're

*All natural
*Gluten-free
*No MSG
*No preservatives
and
*Kosher!

Mr. Moon suggested I should add some cheese to them. I think maybe an egg would be a fine addition too.

So sweet dreams. I can sleep tomorrow morning as late as I want to. As late as I can. It should be good sleeping as it's getting cool again. It was eighty degrees today and muggy as hell. It's about forty-eight now and crisping up at the edges.

Spring in Florida. You cain't beat it.
With a stick.
But you can throw a stick at a hawk if you don't hit it. That's illegal.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

Parenthood, Personhood

This is one of those days...
Haven't had one of these days in quite some time. Gray as the gunmetal sky, have to put one foot in front of the other, do and do and do until it's done. That's all there is to it.
I've already given the hens fresh straw in their nests and let them out although that damn hawk has been perching around the hen house and I've probably let them out to their deaths.
I'll feel bad if that happens but it makes me feel awful to keep those birds penned up when they want so desperately to be out.
I don't know what that hawk is thinking. There are fifty birds next door, open and available to all sky-entrance. Including small chickens. More easily lifted ones. Plus, there are squirrels running around everywhere. Why would the hawk want one of my few fat hens?
I don't know.

Listen: Most of life doesn't make sense about 99% of the time.
As far as I can tell.

Which is probably why we have religion. To try and explain that 99% of the time that nothing makes sense using the 1% of the time that it does in order to back up the theories.
And that makes no more sense than anything, what I just said there.

I better get to it. Lines to study, things to purchase, a grandson to tend, a performance to get ready for. Things to worry endlessly and fruitlessly about. You know.

But here- here's this- one of my favorite parts of one of my favorite movies. They got this shit RIGHT. And I'm not posting this in response to any fathers I am thinking of at this particular moment. It's just a little Zen Moment of Truth. As far as I can see.


Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Clarification

When Mother said "that daughter of yours" she couldn't remember Lily's name. That's all. It wasn't an insult. She truly does care about Lily and this coming baby and adores Owen.
I wanted to make that very clear.
It's just names...she has a hard time with them.
As do I a lot of the time...

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Bless All Our Damn Hearts

God, it's been a frustrating day. One of those days where I should have just stayed in bed and wept at the vast hole of uselessness my life appears to be on these days.

I walked into Mother's room at the Assisted Living Place and she was obviously not doing well and she looked at me and said, "What are YOU doing here?" which was a damn good question. She seems to have given up on some levels and I don't blame her. It was probably nothing more than sheer will and determination keeping her going when she was living at home and now she doesn't need those things as much because there are others who are there to make her meals and do her cleaning and laundry and it's like she's lost her grit.
Again- I understand.
She's left with nothing to focus on but her pain and her dizziness and the things that piss her off and those are myriad. Just knowing, as she does, that the more she slips into helplessness, the better off financially she'll be, is enough to let her give up whatever fight there was in her although I know it wasn't possible to leave her at home where she could have burned the place up or taken all the wrong pills or gotten lost somewhere a few blocks from home or fallen and not had anyone to find her, or given all her money to a scammer (she gave SOME money to some scammers so this is not completely impossible), or, or, or.
But really- would that have been worse than what she's going through now?
I don't know. I really don't. That is not a rhetorical question. It is a true questioning question.

She is, yes, confused. And pissed. Not as pissed as the lady I saw down in the clinic who had drawn her eyebrows on with red lipstick (hey! I think that may have been a conscious choice) but pissed, nonetheless. She was pissed because they make you do everything there when you don't even want to. Or at least, she's pretty sure they do. They make you go to breakfast and if you don't want to go to breakfast, you don't get any breakfast! Which is not true. They bring her breakfast if she doesn't feel like going to the dining room but when I pointed that out, she said, "But then I spill things!"
She doesn't want to go to PT but they make her go to PT for her knees and it hurts!
I told her that she doesn't have to go to PT if she doesn't want to and she agreed that is probably true but...
But what?
Oh. I don't know.
She hates one of the women who sits at her table in the dining room. Frankly, I'd hate her too. She's a self-absorbed, prejudiced, snobby, snotty old bitch who finds great pleasure in putting Mother down. So I told Mother she doesn't have to sit there. She can sit at another table.
"Oh no I can't!" she said. "You can't move from one table to another."
This is entirely not true. Those sweet ladies up there who serve the tables would not care one iota.
But again...but...

So back down to the clinic where we all sat around (Mr. Moon, the doctor, the social worker, me) talking about the ways to make her qualify for the insurance which of course was all about her deficits. This just sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks.
GENWORTH. DO NOT BUY GENWORTH INSURANCE!
There. I just said it.

Then they set up an appointment for her to see the Orthopedist who was supposed to come in that afternoon so I was going to come back for that. I went and picked up my glasses prescription and went to the place where they supposedly make your glasses in an hour. This is true if you don't have the type of prescription I do, which if you do, it'll take 7-10 working days.
Oh well.
The nicest, nicest lady helped me. She was patient and she was sweet and she laughed at my snarky jokes. I found some red frames I liked. They are kind of funky but don't have any blingy, cheap-looking crap on them which even some of the most expensive ones do.


She didn't try to sell me every add-on they had. She honestly told me what she thought I needed and what I did not need. I agreed with her. I didn't walk out of there feeling like I'd been railroaded into anything.
Bless her heart.

I picked up a sandwich and went to Lily's to eat it. Owen has a cold but he's feeling okay. When I left, he said, "No leave me, Mermer!" which I thought was so sweet. I'll see him again tomorrow. I went back to the ALP to find that the doctor wasn't coming. The next time he IS coming is near the end of March. I called Mother's current ortho guy's office to make an appointment but they can't see her until April, so what the hey?
She said, "It doesn't matter. I've been in pain for so long that it just doesn't matter."

I sat and talked to her for awhile and she told me about the mean woman at the table again and we talked about some other things and then I left and came home, feeling like I'd been nothing of any use to her at all and feeling guilty and feeling, oh, fuck.
Just fucking useless.
Nothing got accomplished except that I ordered overpriced red glasses.
My mother is still in pain and will still BE in pain. I haven't tended anything today or created anything or even cooked anything. I have felt sorry for myself and I have felt resentful.
I feel like a worm or maybe worm shit.
Cold worm shit.

Mr. Moon is at a VERY exciting basketball game in town. FSU vs Duke and I know he's excited. I swear- that man deserves some real enjoyment. There he is with all of Mother's forms and everything is on his back and he's the one dealing with the insurance, he's the one being sweet to her, he's the one she calls when she needs anything. Anything at all.
And he's there for her.

Lickity split. He calms her, he humors her, he makes her laugh.

And then he listens to me whine and moan. He holds me up when I feel that I am going down. He doesn't judge. He is on my team. He fills the bin with dog food. He brings home the chicken feed. He comes home early to play with the grandson. He helps build the sets for the plays I'm in. He tells me every night how much he enjoys whatever it was I cooked. He washes dishes. He makes it possible for me to live this life I live and he seems to love me. He is there for the children, no matter what it is they need. He is just pure good. Or as pure-good as a spirit wrapped up in a human body can be.

All right. I've written myself into a puddle of maudlin tears. I believe I need to go paint myself some eyebrows on with red lipstick now and put on a nylon slip and make a drink of straight gin and sit on the porch and hope for small children or a stray dog to pass by to give me an excuse to yell obscenities into the darkening twilight and then weep into my dirty, tangled hair.

Hey! I'm an old southern woman! We get to do these things if we want to!
I'll wear my great-grandmother's diamond necklace while I do them. It will add to the charm of my insanity.

Or maybe I'll just go heat up some of those chicken and bean enchiladas and go to bed and wake up tomorrow when I have plenty of other things I need to do and accomplish and give it all another shot.

I'll tell you this, though, I am NOT giving my personal Rhett Butler a chance to tell me that he doesn't give a damn.
I hope.

And for my own personal Rhett Butler's sake, I hope that FSU wins tonight.

And in 7-10 business days, I will be wearing red eyeglasses which are just as good as red-lipsticked eyebrows as far as I'm concerned. And maybe the new baby will be here by then and I'll be crying sweet tears of joy.

"Let me know how...that daughter of yours....is doing with the baby," my mother said.

I will. I will let her know when her next great-grandchild is born. I'll even take her to see him or her.

I do all I can and on some days it is pathetically apparent how little that is. This being one of them.

And yet the planet still orbits the sun. Go figure.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon

Better Vision Needed

Well the chickens survived the night and so did we, not that a predator was threatening us, as far as I know which reminds me of that sweet little childhood prayer we all used to pray.

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

What???!!!!

Now, to be honest, my mother amended it for us. We said, Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep and let me wake up happy and healthy in the morning.

Which was better but I KNEW the other prayer and it rhymed and so my head said THAT one while my pious little mouth said the other one.
Phew.

Okay. Today I have to get through the next hurdle of the next cognitive test with Mother and then tomorrow we have the play again and Saturday we have the play again and Sunday we tear down the set and then, done, done, oh Lord, done.

After I go to Mother's today I have to go get a prescription for new glasses from that eye doctor clinic where I did the pretesting for the possible lasix surgery. Those suckers were supposed to call me but never did. They just sent me home with those contacts and never checked back in and that is no way to run a business. But I was trying to watch The King's Speech on the TV last night and I just can't focus on that screen and that's all there is to it and it's miserable. I need new glasses if I'm not going to get my eyes miraculously mono-visioned. Which I am not going to do.

New glasses. Always a daunting adventure. I think I look like a Mrs. Beasley doll in my current glasses.

Kindly, round, and completely harmless.
This is not a bad look for a grandmother, I suppose but somehow it's not the look this grandmother wants. I do like rick-rack, though.

I remember my first pair of glasses. Blue cat's eyes and boy, did I love them! Since then I've had everything from red frames to wire frames to green frames to brown frames to...
I don't know. I just know that it's mighty hard to pick new frames. Do I want to look serious, studious, ironic, hip, bejeweled, trendy or mysterious?
I should take someone with me to pick out frames. Who? May is always working. Lily would go and she's honest. Hank always gets those Military Birth Control frames. I think they come with one arm taped up with white tape. Jessie of course is in Asheville. I suppose on the new phone I could send pictures to all the kids and they could send me their input. I wish I could get Lis to come with me but she's in Gator Bone and that's too far a jaunt just to come and help me pick out some glasses frames even if I threw in lunch. Mr. Moon mostly wants whatever will do. Gah. Who cares? At my age? Who the fuck cares?

Well, I guess I must.
But not that much.

Okay. Time to move on. I'm glad to see that Virginia has decided not to force women to get a vaginal wand ultrasound before getting an abortion. Who came up with that idea in the first place? I love what Senator Janet Howell (a Democrat, of course) did which was to offer an amendment to the bill that would require men seeking a prescription for Viagra to get a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before a doctor could give it to them.

I could go on. I won't.

Gotta go to town.

Here's my tiny little life with my tiny little plans and my tiny little worries and you can be assured that I am aware of how tiny they are for which I am grateful.

Yours truly....Ms. Moon

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

An Afternoon Of Rest


As you can see from the calender above, my February has been and is quite filled up.

Yes. Owen is my social secretary. So, okay, yesterday he saw me write something on the calender and then he pulled up a step stool and proceeded to fill in the rest of it for me. He pointed out that there were letters and numbers. And then he asked me to draw things in there too. A moon, a star, some fishes. Can you tell which ones are sharks?
No, you cannot.
I drew him a picture of a bull one day that was so bad that when Mr. Moon saw it he said, "Thank god we don't have to live on what we could make from selling bulls drawn by Mermer." He wasn't joking, either. I can't draw anything. I can't draw convincing stick figures. But what the hell? I don't have to. Good thing, too.

But it really has been a busy month and a good one, or at least good enough. For a February, it's been spectacular, I guess, although I'll feel a hell of a lot better about it if I get some peas and potatoes planted.

Besides filling up my calender for me yesterday, Owen also took all his clothes off. I have found that this is something that children just do and it never ceases to charm me. My own kids were naked from dawn to dusk whenever the weather allowed when we lived out in Lloyd when the older ones were young and we lived even farther out in the country. So when Owen stripped and wanted to run around outside yesterday, I just told him that he had to wear his shoes and he was so happy.

Wouldn't YOU be? There was also naked tractor-playing and naked-gardening. By Owen. I had my clothes on. Believe me.

It was mighty fun but I was exhausted by the time his mama came and got him. And then of course I had things to do around here and then rehearsal and I was just so exhausted by the time it was over last night and then I woke up at approximately 4:53 again this morning and couldn't get back to sleep but when I finished doing everything I needed to do in town today, I came home and laid down and slept for two hours and it was as luscious and gorgeous and pink as this:

I'm sorry to keep posting pictures of those camellias but it can't be but a good thing for the universe. I mean, LOOK at that! I don't even know what I'd call that color. Or those colors. But the word "luscious" sure keeps coming to mind. And sleep CAN be pink. Or at least I think so. If we can dream in color, why can't we sleep in color?

I got up reluctantly from the nap and it was dripping rain and no wonder I'd slept so well. Then I was talking to Judy on the phone and I noticed something on the fence out back. "Good Lord!" I said to Judy. "I think that's a hawk out there."
And it was. I took some pictures of it and this is the best one I got.

That hawk was waiting for my chickens to come by for their evening promenade. I know he was. The chickens did not take that promenade but the hawk continued to watch them and even flew up into a tree by the coop when they went inside. They're closed up safe now but look at that beak. What a magnificent bird but I still don't want him snatching one of my hens. It would upset Elvis so much.

Speaking of chickens, when I took the trash yesterday, there was a little goldy hen pecking around the trash place. I asked the guy there about her and he said she's been there for about five or six weeks. "She laying?" I asked. "Just started," he said. She lays in the little portable building where he hangs out watching a discarded but perfectly good TV when he isn't doing his trash-smashing duties. The little hen looked happy as could be and he said he was building her a pen at home and was going to take her there when he got it finished.

Lloyd.

When I went out to take the picture of the hawk, I saw Ballsy, The World's Fattest Feral Cat. He was posing perfectly so I took his picture, too. He only has one eye but he has a full set of...balls. They're huge. They don't show up here.


I feed him and I doubt I'm the only one. I hear him at night sometimes, wrastlin' and yowlin' out in the darkness with another cat. I pity the poor fool who takes him on. He'll let us pet him sometimes so he's not that wild. Unless you're another tom cat out in the darkness.

Well, it's just about dark. I don't have rehearsal and I'm going to make some sort of chicken and bean enchilada casserole for our supper. I got to see Lily and Owen today and we planted a few things I'd dug up in my yard and took over there. Owen mostly stood on the picnic table and practiced his Kung Fu moves with a bamboo pole. Hai-YA! is his favorite phrase these days. Then we met Bop for lunch at the Chinese buffet and so it was a good day.

Lily had a midwife appointment and all is well. She's 37 weeks now and that baby will be coming soon.

Yes. It has been a full month and will continue to be so. Friday and Saturday are our last performances, Sunday is tear-down. Tomorrow I will go to the Assisted Living Place to be with Mother when she gets yet ANOTHER cognitive test. I have more insurance forms to fill out.

But I tell you what- it's been a nice day and I am so grateful for the sleep I got with the gentle rain coming down, the beautiful bird I saw sitting on my fence, my hens, my rooster, my husband. I better go make him some supper.

Love from Lloyd, y'all.

Ms. Moon

My Heart Just Exploded

Elizabeth sent me a link this morning and I went to it and I am sitting here with the biggest smile on my face and I am crying, too.

So okay, watch this and then let me tell you- I love this president. I damn well love this beautiful president.
And now I've seen him sing the blues with my daddy.

I swear. I just feel all tore up inside. In such a very, very good way and I can't seem to stop crying.




And on Monday night we can watch the whole gorgeous thing. Link for that information at

In Performance at The White House Red White and Blues

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Last Rehearsal

Harriet's office.

My Friend Harvey Sent Me This.


Thank-you, Harvey.

Come Here, Bozo. I Need To Smack You

It's five-thirty a.m. I am up, waiting for Owen. Mr. Moon got up too. I have no idea why. We'll all be going back to bed after Owen eats his cheese toast.
I had one of those nights where I was awake every ten minutes, worrying about ridiculous stuff. When I was asleep I was dreaming about ridiculous stuff.

I hate those nights so much.

I want to punch them in the nose.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Tennessee Mama's China

Mr. Moon is home and that bruise on his ass/hip is so bad that I was horrified. HORRIFIED! I told him he should go to the doctor to see if he has a blood disorder but he won't and I wouldn't either. That's the way we are.
He fell on it full-force, not having time to brace his fall and I guess that's what happens but shitfire. He says it doesn't hurt and I believe him but...still.

His sister is planning on selling her house and so she sent some things home with Mr. Moon. Three boxes filled with their grandmother's china, for one thing. Golly, that's some sweet china. Their grandmother, from what I hear, was a force of nature. She put wallpaper on her ceilings with a broom. She quilted endlessly. She cut hair, sewed clothing, crocheted bedspreads and tablecloths, doctored the poor, ran a broom-making business, raised three kids on her own, built her own quilting frame and baked so much at Christmas that she toted cake batter in buckets to her son and daughter-in-law's house (Mr. Moon's mama and daddy) to bake in their oven. This was a little ol' Tennessee mama who probably didn't get educated past the sixth grade but we've still got things in our house she made and now we've got her china.

At least one set of it. I hear that she loved china and had many sets.

We've put it away in a closet to save for Apalachicola. Seems like we're putting a lot of things off for Apalachicola. But, I guess that's okay. It's good to have something to look forward to. Change is inevitable and I'd just as soon buy my own ticket and be waiting at the proper gate than to be taken by surprise, although let's face it- that's going to happen too.

Another thing Mr. Moon brought home was a box of books and magazines. The books were all about Florida birds and butterflies and trees and gardening and there was a big stack of Florida Gardening magazines. I was flipping through them and saw a little article on Spanish patio gardening- gardening up and down the walls, as it were- and again, I thought of Apalachicola. Our lot down there is skinny and long and it goes into the marshlands and we're not going to be able to have a proper garden so I've already resigned myself to growing tomatoes and herbs and peppers and lettuces in pots on the decks. It was nice to garner a few ideas about growing things in window boxes too. Flowers and yes, herbs. Those will be fine, growing in containers.

It's going to be okay. I swear, it's going to be beautiful, moving to Apalach in three or four years. There are going to be changes and I don't know what the hell I'm going to do without my chickens. I need to research the city ordinances down there to see if I can maybe keep a few banty hens, at least. I can't even imagine living without chickens now. But it sure will be nice to have a grocery store within walking distance and a bookstore, too. To live right on the Apalachicola Bay and be able to watch pelicans fly by when I have my morning coffee. To watch the water, the sky, the shrimp boats heading out to the Gulf.

We have to build the house first, of course. A brand new house? Wow. That I can hardly imagine but it'll help if I can open a cabinet and find the dishes that Glen's grandmother used in Tennessee.

It's odd to think of all of this. It's weird. But I guess it's going to happen. And I'm trying very hard to bend my thoughts to it all.

We've stored the china upstairs and it's sitting there, just waiting for us. I think of all the meals which have been served on it. I am cooking black-eyed peas and collard greens and cornbread right now. I cook like an old country woman and always have. I'll be honored and happy to eat off the china of an old Tennessee mama. There will probably be more meals with seafood, but there will still be black-eyed peas, there will be greens. There WILL be cornbread.

Lord, life is strange. You just never know.

Well, that's it for tonight. I think the cornbread's about done. I need to put out the honey.

My man is home. He's fine and safe, despite the bruise on his hip. I got everything I need and so much more. And whatever else comes? Well, that'll be okay, too. Maybe it'll be glorious.

The bread's done.

Talk to you later.

Ms. Moon

There's Shit And Then There's SHIT

I'm so mind-boggled over the Republican candidates for president and how absolutely ridiculous they all are that I don't even think they're worth talking about. Which of course is not going to stop me.

The world as we know it is in flux and change and countries, entire COUNTRIES are going down the tubes and we here in the US are having problems that are so deep and to the bone that it's going to take years to straighten them out if that's even possible and yet, all the Republican candidates seem to be focusing on is how fucking truly, deeply, severely conservative they are and how their religion is the right one, the true one.

Bite my ass.

Meanwhile, women are being told what they can and cannot do with their uteri BY MEN and everyone's just like, uh...let's not piss off the Catholic Church.
When that bishop or whoever he was said that trash about how NEVER in history has the government forced people to pay for something they did not morally believe in, all I could think about was- how about all of us folks who don't believe in warfare? Do our taxes get put in a separate account to only pay for roads and education?
Fuck no.

People are sheep. People are stupid.
There. I said it.

Probably me too. But at least I try to think through things. Which is painful.

I just don't get it, I don't want to get it, I don't think it's possible to get it. I think the only explanation for what's going on politically here in the US is that yes, I repeat, people are stupid and people are sheep.

Meanwhile, I forgot that Valentine's Day was the day to plant peas and potatoes.
FAIL!

Peas and potatoes are real. So is chicken shit and also chicken eggs.

So is the fact that people who have penises shouldn't be able to tell the people who have a uterus what they can and cannot do with that uterus or the contents thereof. Hell, I HAVE a uterus and I am under no delusions about the fact that anyone else's is not my business. I know what it takes to bear and raise a child. I would never force anyone to do that who didn't really want to. In fact, I'd encourage anyone who isn't really sure they want to have children not to have them.

Here's the thing- we seem to think, in this country, that if you have a shit-pile of money or can collect a shit-pile of money, then you deserve to be president and tell other people what to do.
That's just the fact, Jack.
You can be a raging asshole who doesn't know a damn thing except what the Bible says (or what you interpret the Bible to say) but if you can afford to run for office and buy really nice suits and have hair that can be combed into a helmet-like configuration, you're GOLD. You're qualified, you're taken seriously.

Seriously?

Well, fuck it. Fuck THEM, the Santorums, the Gingriches, the Romneys. Fuck them and their white-men hair and their penises and their money and their PACS and their Bibles (or Books of Mormon) and their holy proclamations and their adoring wives (with their own helmet hair) and their sheep-like stupid followers who wouldn't know logic if it bit them in the ass and who are supporting the very people who care about them and their families the very least.

I give up.

I need to plant peas and potatoes. I need to clean up chicken shit. I don't have time for the great steaming piles of horseshit (and I apologize to horses here) the Republicans are dumping all over the country in their bids for president.

God. It's a beautiful day here in Lloyd. My husband is coming home. I am going to go take a walk. I'm going to ignore this whole stupid political game of fuckery and vote for Obama on election day. And mind my own business which I am barely capable of taking care of. Which I freely admit.

Why anyone would want to run for president is beyond me anyway. Well, except for the fact that if you're president you probably don't have to scrub your own toilet.

Which is also something I need to do.

Is there a shit-theme here? I believe there may be. Which reminds me of a product Lily and I saw at the CVS last week. It was called something like Ick Stick and you put it up to your nose when you know that a bad smell has been produced and you are trying to prevent it from reaching your olfactory sense.

I'll just leave you with that one and I won't say anything crude like how it would save a lot of time if they just stuck a few thousand of those things up certain helmet-haired men's asses. And a few million in their mouths.

Happy Monday, y'all!

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. There are some shit-filled Democrats too. I am not denying that. It's just that the Republicans are so good right now at pissing me off that I'm concentrating on them. Their big old helmet-heads are taking up all the room in the picture.
Plus- I have huge crushes on Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
I may be a sheep but at least I may be a black sheep.
Okay. That's all.
Yours truly. I mean it.

Yes. Bill Clinton has helmet hair but he hangs out with cool people who do not.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Although Mr. Moon is still not home, I am finally making a real meal.

I have a chicken beast in the oven in an iron skillet, the iron skillet I bought in Denver, Colorado in 1973. God, that skillet is older now than most of the people on earth and I use it almost every day. And here's the funny thing- I have an even older iron skillet that I use at least once a week.
You can't go wrong with an iron skillet.

Anyway, I put that chicken breast in there with slices of fresh pineapple and onions and cinnamon and some salt and brown sugar and put a lid on it. I usually do this on top of the stove, but I wanted a baked potato, so I am cooking the chicken in the oven with the potatoes. I am cooking two potatoes so that I can have one tomorrow if I want. Big oven, might as well use the heat, the space to make enough for more.

I picked salad greens from the garden today after I weeded and mulched. I gave them two sink-washings and then laid them on a dishtowel and wrapped them in it like a baby, like a burrito, like a handful of wet emeralds. I have peeled and sliced an orange, toasted walnuts, thawed wild blueberries. This will be my salad.

Hell, I might heat up some baby peas and then there will be more green to go with yellow pineapple, orange orange, emerald greens, blue blueberries.

I talked to Lily on the phone today and Owen came on to talk to me too. He told me that he'd gone to eat with his Uncle Chris and his Aunt Loren. He'd had a cheeseburger and french fries. He asked me if I like french fries.
How did he get so verbal? When did this happen?
I assured him that I love french fries. Especially with ketchup. I was telling him the truth. I do. I will always tell that boy the truth. He told me the other day that he goes to church with his other grandmother. He asked if I go to church. I said, "No, MerMer does not like church."
Again- the truth.

I talked to Mr. Moon. He tripped on a bush's root on Friday and fell hard on his ass. The resulting bruise is too shocking for words but he swears it does not hurt. He sent me pictures of it and I asked if I could post one and he said, "That's so weird," and I am not going to, although it's like an act of god, that bruise, it's so black, it's so big.

He has a nice ass, that man. I tell you he does.
Trust me.

I tidied up my office today and swept it. I took my computer out there and the intense responsibility of having the time and space to write completely undid me. I could not. It was like being in a five-hundred dollar-a-night hotel room with a lover. Things are expected to happen. There are expectations which may not be achieved under such pressure. The dogs had followed me in and settled down but I closed the laptop and said, "Come on, dogs," and they did. I am too intimidated to write any more. I have used up all of my ideas and wonderful first lines on books that are written but that I will never send out. I think of the old days when I snatched time here and there to write on yellow legal tablets. I think of furtive, quick love in broom closets, no pressure at all, just pure lust.

Listen: Do not ever look at an old person and think that they have never done this or that. You have no idea. Whatever you have thought of, whatever you have done, they probably have too. Humans are humans. Where there is a will, there is a way. Wherever there is a need, it will be met. Wherever there is a thrill, it will be sought after.

My chicken and onions and pineapple and cinnamon smell like something I might want to eat. I'm going to go make a salad dressing for those greens, that fruit, those nuts.

I am going to go to bed before midnight tonight.

This is what I have done today. This is what I have thought about.

I twist my rings on my fingers. I expect to find more evidence of spring tomorrow.
This is what it is like to be a fifty-seven-year-0ld woman on earth.

I kid you not.

Another Sunday In Lloyd, Florida

Well the storm did come and I went to sleep with the sound of rain pouring down and I didn't wake up at all as far as I know. Well, I did wake up this morning, of course. This is not the ghost of me writing this.

It has been recently pointed out to me that my world is very, very small. This was supposed to be either an insult or an example of how pathetic I am but whatever was meant, it's just the damn truth.

I do have a small world, albeit one without fucking dolls singing about it, dressed in The Costumes Of Peoples All Over The World.

(Fairly unrelated segue- why did Disney World eliminate Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and yet keep It's A Small World? That decision alone says more about Disney World than just about anything I could imagine.)

So I went out this morning, into my small world, which has been washed clean and left with a bountiful plenty of water and yet, very little damage that I can see. A GOOD storm indeed! Here's my rain gauge:


If you click on it, you'll see a reflection of some more of my small world. Also, bits of straw that I cleaned from the hen house. There's probably some chicken shit in there too.
An entire world in a Rubbermaid garden cart! Okay, okay, it's not an entire world. I admit it.

The wisteria is starting to get fuzzy at the ends. Sure sign of coming-attractions. Boy-oh-boy, I can't wait for the wisteria to bloom. I feel slightly intoxicated, just thinking about that.

And now this, I cannot believe.

That's a pecan, y'all! Do you know what that means? Well, if Old Wives and Aged Gardeners are to be trusted, that means we won't get another freeze. I have NEVER seen the pecans start to swell with leaf in February.
Should I be putting out my tomatoes and peppers already? Hell, I just got the cabbages in!

And here's Miss Trixie on the nest.


Now that's a face which does not invite under-body inspection for eggs. Nah. I'm going to just let her be. But I have to tell you- her barky-face is worse than her nip.

So that's my Sunday offering of images of a small world. I can't even believe it was only one week ago that Jessie and Vergil were here and we spent Sunday working outside and it was chilly but the sun felt so good on us and I made soup and Lily and Owen came over and we all gathered in the dining room and Owen ate about half a loaf of bread. It's been a busy week. For me. A rehearsal, two performances, Owen here two days, our Valentine's adventure to Spring Creek for supper, Mr. Moon off to Bradenton, some garden work, pruning of the rose bushes, shopping with Lily for the new baby and a visit to Costco AND the grocery store.
Wow.
For me that's huge. HUGE I tell you.

I think I better take a walk today. I think I better eat a salad. If y'all came by I'd have an excuse to cook a ham with brown sugar and pineapple slices; also potato salad and biscuits.
It's still mighty windy out there and if you DID come over for Sunday, we'd all have to hold our hats on to our heads with one hand while eating potato salad with the other. Our skirts would blow and ruffle and bits of bark and perhaps even bugs would land in the butter and we'd laugh and chatter and maybe take turns talking about the infinite and the tiny and what all that means or doesn't mean.
We could trade recipes and run after babies while the great beards of the Spanish Moss in the oak trees would blow over our heads like those of old men as they wagged their chins and talked about things they have seen and done and pass the rum, do you remember? and all the while the wisteria would be swelling silently, the pecans too and we could watch the Jesus bugs striding over the water in the little algae-filled pond, everywhere we looked a damn miracle under the blue sky of the dome of heaven and Elvis would crow our sermon and it would sound like, "I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive!"

Saturday, February 18, 2012

You Try And Title This Stuff

Back when I used to write fiction, I remember how I would write something and then within months, something very like whatever I had written would happen in real life. It almost got scary. It's one thing to understand that we write from past experience, it's another entirely to wonder if we write from future experience.

Anyway, I am thinking of that tonight as the air is sucked still of everything and it seems as if the planet, or at least this very small part of it, is holding its breath. There is a feeling of something impending and indeed, the radar shows a gnarly front heading this way right now, this second, and I wonder how long I'll have power.

Let it be a good storm, not a bad one. As I wrote this morning, there is a difference.

Tonight was just good. Damn fun. A packed house. We did skip great chunks of lines and scenes but then we always went back and found them, more a fancy embroidering back of the piece into the whole than a picking up of dropped stitches. I found it thrilling, I found it satisfying, I found the resulting quilt a more colorful and beautiful and us-created thing.

Our youngest cast member, our Dee-Dee, had her family there and I met her mama and her three siblings. They are all beautiful. Her six-year old sister was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous little girl I've seen in forever and a day. She wanted to meet me after the play and I wanted to catch her up to me, her sparkly silver shoes shining, her face like some perfect example of what the human race can look like if given the chance. I swear to you- she was a vision, and dressed up in a long dress and with a big shell necklace and those sparkly silver shoes, her hair pulled back and her face not hidden one bit. I remembered what it was like to be the mother of a six-year-old girl and I remembered how amazing it was. Six-year-old girls may be the most enchanting and magical creatures on this earth. I do not know for sure, but they are something. Women-to-be, already possessed of powers and beauty that will take this world by storm. As has our Dee-Dee, only fourteen and in her first role, creating and supporting and knowing and making us laugh so hard and slipping into her role as if she were born for it, slipping also into our hearts and bringing us something vital we so sadly lose as we grow up.

Kathleen, who runs the lights and sound, got a sudden attack of vertigo and luckily, Rich was there to serve tables and he took over. No, it wasn't perfect but for having had about fifteen minutes of instruction, it was perfectly wonderful. Kathleen went home and I have to think it was this storm front coming in that made her dizzy, that had her drunk on the pressure change. I will call her tomorrow morning and see how she is.

And before the play started, Jack told me this: "I am so glad I know you."
He didn't have to say that. It made me cry although I stood there all butchy and dumb-struck. "Man, don't make me cry. Stop that shit!" But he'll never know how much those words meant to me.

Ah...the wind is beginning to make the wind chimes sing, the leaves of the magnolia brush like a woman's green satin skirt in a fancy dance. A dog in the distance is barking. Beyond that, there is silence except for these typing sounds, my whisper-voice as I say what I type as I type it.

I need to eat. Without Mr. Moon here, I eat this and I eat that, none of what you would call good for me. None of it what you would call a meal. It is so late but I might cook some pasta, heat up some jarred sauce, have a bowl of that and call it done. The wind chimes sing a minor-scaled tune of warning. They say a storm is heading this way. That dog continues to bark. The night is as deep ink-black as the devil's own heart. My own dogs are nervous and keep looking at me as if for guidance or reassurance. I would not be surprised to have a snake charmer appear suddenly in my hallway, a cobra in a basket rising to his eerie flute. I wish I had a braid down to my hips and could wrap my hair around me, my lover so far away, it would be comfort in this approaching storm air.

Yeah. It's been that kind of night.

I wonder what sort of morning it will be. We shall see. We shall see. We shall see when it arrives.