Prairie Home Companion is on and I have such a fondness for that show that when Mr. Moon asked me if I wanted to drive down to Spring Creek tonight for supper or to get Mexican food if that's what I desired I said, "Oh well. You know. I look forward to Prairie Home all week, and maybe we could do that tomorrow." And he said, "Drive to Spring Creek on a Monday?" and I said, "Tomorrow's Sunday," and he looked so happy and said, "GREAT!"

So Roy Blount, Jr. is on and he just read a poem that rhymed and it wasn't really that terrific of a poem although he did name the kids in it Vera, Chuck, and Dave which is pretty darn cool in an old doddering sort of I-remember-the-Beatles way and it made me think about the fact that I do love to write poems that rhyme and I should start doing that because what the fuck? If you've got a talent for rhyming, you should just rhyme your ass off, right?

Well, maybe.

I've had a great day with my old beloved Singer sewing machine which belonged to my grandmother who was born in something like 1892 or something (White- when was she born?) and I honestly used to also own her Electrolux vacuum cleaner which I called the Dead Pig because it was so heavy and maybe that's why I don't own a vacuum cleaner now. It did a pretty good job of sucking but it didn't even have wheels! It had little glider things. Anyway, I'm working on Owen's name blanket which is a sort of blanket quilt which will have his name on it and I made one for each of my kids. I suck at quilting/blanketing because I don't measure at all and I'm not a very good seamstress but Hank and May at least still have their name blankets so what I make does last. I'm pretty sure they don't have the matching pajamas and night gowns I made to go with the name quilts but I did make them some.
Oh, the sewing I used to do!

Anyway, I'm cooking turkey and rice with onions and celery and garlic and tomatoes and green peppers and yellow peppers and cayenne peppers and I'll make a salad and that will be a lovely supper, don't you think? And I'm thinking of all sorts of things from my past including the post-Thanksgiving supper my mother used to make which I loved and which she called Turkey Chow Mein which had ingredients like lots and lots of celery and soy sauce and canned water chestnuts and canned bean sprouts and leftover gravy and she put it over rice and topped it with those crunchy chow mein noodles and it was so good. So very, very good. And I'm thinking about that and how she made it in the electric frying pan because the wok had not made it to the USA yet and sometimes the past is so close to now that you feel as if you could simply reach forward one quarter inch from your nose and snatch it up but that's not really how it works but the powerful magic of smell can make you feel as if it did. The smell of cooking turkey with soy sauce and the smell of the 3-in-1 sewing machine oil that I use to lubricate the old Singer, using the precious original instruction book to know where to carefully squeeze each drop of the oil

and it's a winter night, the last night of November, and I am making a blanket for my grandson to keep him cozy and which will have his name on it, the letters carefully sewn on by hand, cut from dinosaur-printed flannel.

I put my hands to my face and breathe in deeply and take in the smells of my childhood, my life, the lives of my foremothers'.

It's Saturday night and that is okay. It's even a little great. Maybe tomorrow I'll write a rhyming poem. Maybe tomorrow I'll cut out the letters O-W-E-N and start to stitch them by hand onto the blanket with the appropriately named blanket stitch.

One never knows.

Time to make the salad.

Rest well, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Wallowing in Ennui

The paper this morning is full of whack "journalism" concerning the experience of shopping on Black Friday.
Black Friday.
Doesn't that name just sound like you're asking for trouble?
Anyway, la-di-dah and here it is Saturday and I have no idea what I'm doing today. The turkey carcass is all neatly and tidily dealt with, the broth is in containers in the refrigerator, the meat removed from the bone and in another container, the giant pot washed and dried and put away in the back of the cabinet.
Last night I said to Mr. Moon, "Maybe we should go out and eat Mexican food tomorrow night."
He looked at me in bafflement.
"What?"
I know. Why would we go out to eat when our refrigerator is completely packed with turkey?
Shrimp fajitas?
We shall see.

The camellias have started to bloom and you know that's one of the few things that gets me through December. There's a Pink Perfection or something close. How beautiful is that little thing?

So I spend way too much time on Facebook although I hardly EVER post there. It's weird because I'll write almost anything here but on Facebook I feel too exposed. Plus, I don't think I really get Facebook. It's all so POSITIVE! Positive affirmations. Positive gratitude...stuff. When it isn't being all negative.
"I couldn't watch this video on...(insert horrifying action recorded on video here)... but you should because it's horrible and needs to end."
What?
Then there's the ads. Why is Oprah so embarrassed about all that weight she's lost and has she lost weight? Wouldn't it make more sense if she were embarrassed when she gained weight?
And what does Dr. Oz have to do with it?

I will say, however, that I am certainly enjoying being friends with Keith Richards on Facebook. And his band, the Rolling Stones. Maybe you've heard of them. I may have mentioned those fellows before.

But like I said, here it is Saturday and I am going to take a walk, yes, I swear, I really am, no two ways about it. And then...oh, I don't know. I've caught up on all the Facebook news of people I know and people whose names are vaguely familiar. Mr. Moon is going to watch football on the TV today and I could do anything. Anything at all.
Which makes me feel woozy, just considering.

What are you up to today? Anything fun and exciting? I just ate oatmeal! And I have to tell you that if you put just the tiniest bit of brown sugar on oatmeal it is like ten thousand percent better than if you don't. Which probably negates all the oatmeally goodness but whatever.

All right. I'm out of here. If you're doing anything more exciting than eating oatmeal I'd love to hear about it. Unless it involves doing something like feeding the homeless or finding a cure for cancer because honestly, that would just make me feel worse about myself than I already do which is hardly possible but actually IS possible. My ability to feel bad about myself is, not unlike the universe, infinite.
And if you've finished your Christmas shopping already, just keep that shit to yourself.

Much love...Ms. Moon

Addendum

When Mr. Moon came in (doe-less) and smelled the broth cooking he said, "Oh, I have been thinking about a turkey soup. With noodles."
Now I don't make turkey soup with noodles because after one reheating, the noodles become mush so I said, "Dream on," or something of that sort and moaned and groaned about all the laundry and turkey-bone-picking I had to do and said, "I don't want to cook anything."
But then I started thinking about it. This man. I love him so.
And then I made a little pot of soup with broth and meat and vegetables and...noodles.
Because, why not?
How hard was it to cut up a few vegetables into the broth with meat and throw in a few noodles?
How hard can that be?
Not so hard.

And it was thirty years ago on the Friday after Thanksgiving that my friend Sue babysat for me and I went out to a bar wearing her blue angora sweater that would not stay on my shoulder and this man asked me to dance with him and before the evening was over, tried like hell to get me to invite him back to my house for turkey sandwiches and I refused him.

But two days later, he came over and I made him turkey flautas.

Thirty years of having a very hard time saying no to this man and then eventually giving in whenever I did try.

Thirty years.

The soup was delicious.
So were those flautas.

And here we are.

A Bit Of Melancholy

I believe it is the last day of doe season in Jefferson County and indeed, my husband is in a deer stand because we are almost out of sausage and every now and then I hear a shot and I hope it's a good one and that a family will get meat. We are fortunate enough that venison is a luxury but for some around here, it is more than that.
Protein, I have always said, is where you find it and some fish for it and some hunt for it and some grow their beans and gather the nuts for it and some do all of that.

I have been lazy today. I sat on the couch and watched a silly stupid romcom with pretty people in it doing silly, senseless, ridiculous things and of course they ended up together for forever and ever and happily, which goes without saying. I enjoyed it. I will also say that Matthew McConaughey's breasts are bigger than Kate Hudson's but I find that incredibly charming.

Mr. Moon fixed the washing machine and let me just say that when you leave an entire giant box of wooden kitchen matches in your pocket and then it all goes through the wash cycle, things are apt to get a bit fucked up. But he took it all apart and fixed it and now I'm catching up on the laundry and I'm also boiling the damn turkey carcass in my biggest pot of all and what I'm going to do with all of this broth and meat is beyond me. I know, I know- freeze it, make soup of it. Yes, of course I'll do that. It's just in such a massive quantity. And so now my house smells like Thanksgiving all over again and that sort of makes me feel ill. We may have tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches tonight if we eat at all. I really haven't eaten that much of anything this past two days but just the smell of all of it, the overabundance of it, is enough to make me feel full and slightly nauseous.
I wish with all of my heart I'd put off the ritual turkey carcass boiling for another day but I did not and there's no going back now.

Here's a thing I did today- I made a new phone list for the side of the refrigerator. Do you still have one of those? I know, I know- our phones hold all of our numbers but what happens if the phone dies, if we lose it? I like having that list. I liked sitting down and writing it out by hand.
And now my phone list doesn't have the number of the nurse's station at the assisted living where my mother lived. Nor does it have her phone number. Or her social worker's. It was time.

And that's been my day. Lazing and laundry, writing out a phone list, boiling turkey bones in a huge silver pot. A shiver goes through me and I wonder how in hell I'm going to get through the next month.

Well, I will, and we all will, but let's stay close, okay? Let's hold hands and light candles to dispel the darkness. Let's tell wicked jokes and dance when we can and just keep building the bonfires to keep the bad spirits of winter at bay. Whatever it takes, let's do it and reassure each other that it'll be all right.
Some how. It will.

The sun has set and doe season is over. I imagine my man will be home soon, with or without a deer.

Yes. Here he is, as we speak and I am glad he is home, the truck pulled into the yard, the door slams. He is home.

The Calm After The Storm

It is so calm and so peaceful here this morning and let me just say this- IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!

Okay, the washing machine is broken and Mr. Moon is suffering a dental problem and Jessie and Vergil are going to be leaving today but compared to the last few days, it's pretty darn chill.
And chilly. Whoa! Where did this Arctic cold front come from? The Arctic? That would make sense.

Yesterday was insane. It all started with Jason shooting a deer and he and Mr. Moon and Vergil cleaning it and then the bonfire got started and people started showing up and the four-wheeler got cranked up and I almost froze my hand off picking greens

and Owen was not happy, having decided that Thanksgiving is a crock because no presents are involved and he thinks we should just go from Halloween to Christmas and skip the whole thing. I'd arm-wrestle him to determine whether we should skip Thanksgiving or Christmas and I'd win but he'd be so sad. I mean...presents? We eat every day of the year but the gift orgy only occurs on birthdays and Christmas.

All right. Here's the "menu" I wrote out yesterday just to try and keep track of things. You may notice that the chick pea salad is listed twice. It should have been. It was that good.

May made it and it had roasted squash in it too.
May made that and she made the roasted Brussels Sprouts and I can now say for certain that I just don't like Brussels Sprouts because these, by all account, were the best ever made and I still didn't like them. I mean, they were delicious for a food I don't like. Everyone else loved them though.

Hank made the broccoli casserole, Anna made the hot dish (I call it the TOT dish), Lily made the green bean casserole, Jessie made the sweet potatoes and the deviled eggs, Jason's mama made a chocolate cake and sausage dressing, and Vergil made the beer. So it was a true family effort.

Mr. Moon carved the turkey that he smoked and Jason carved the roasted beast.

It all ended up looking like this.

You can't even SEE all the food in that picture. It was insane. 

It took three days to cook all the food and approximately thirty minutes to consume it. 

Oh, and Vergil whipped the cream for the desert which I never did eat and praise the Lord because I did not feel like I was going to die after dinner for about the first time in my life. 

The best part, of course, was moments like this.

And like this.

Now THAT'S some fucking mistletoe, y'all. 

Gibson spent most of the entire day in his grandfather's arms and Owen spent most of the day trying to convince Jessie and Vergil to play with him which they did, most graciously. He also spent some time grilling May and Matt as to whether they are married yet or not. He is fascinated by marriage now and he seems to think it's a good idea and even asked me the other day how old he'll be when he gets married. Matt finally told him that he'll know if he and May get married because he will be there. This seemed to satisfy him. 

After dinner, everyone pitched in and cleaned up and Hank gave me a shoulder massage. I had to lay down for a few minutes after dinner but then I got up and I actually stayed awake until almost eleven.

A record, that one.

And that was Thanksgiving in Lloyd for 2013. 

Since I've started writing this we've had breakfast and spent some time outside throwing the ball for Greta to work off a little of her energy and now Jessie and Vergil have driven out of the yard with their sleek, black, funny dog and here we are, Mr. Moon and I and a broken washing machine and our own two old dogs. This year, as all other years, I have taken a serious vow to do something different for Thanksgiving next year but we'll see how that goes. 

Jason has suggested we all go to the beach and I like that idea. A lot. 

It doesn't really matter, I suppose, as long as we're all together. 

And now I have no idea what I'm going to do today. Clean the biscuit dough out of my rings? Take a bath and read a book? I should take a walk. I wonder if I remember how. I know for sure that I'm not going to be shopping. Black Friday, indeed. Let the rest of the world trample itself to death for a good deal on a Hug Me Elmo and a flat screen TV. I've cooked enough, gone out enough, cleaned up enough, partied enough. 

Now it's time to simply be and to reflect on the fullness of heart, the goodness of family, the sweetness of friends, the overall gift of the love in my life. 

And you know- maybe have a piece of pie. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

And Here We Are

It is cloudless and blue and crisp and cold and beautiful and I am trying to wake up and why, why, WHY did I have that last beer last night? Oh, Lord. The holidays are trying times and as far as I can tell, we are our own biggest enemies.
Well, speaking for myself.

I had a wonderful time though. I danced with May and Jessie and Melissa and Lucia and Karen. The ladies, we danced. The mothers and the daughters, we danced.

And now it's time to slice and saute the celery and onions, to make stuffing for the bird and to get that thing in the oven. It's time to cut greens from the garden, to chop them and set them to simmer for the day. It is time to start the chaos which will, inevitably end with everyone being fed and let's not forget the biscuits and let's not forget the sweet potatoes and let's not forget to just be thankful (and even if we're mostly thankful that this time of year rolls around but once a year) and I am.

And for you.

Always.

Love...Ms. Moon

My Little Gift For You To Warm You Up

That's a pecan pie, a chocolate pecan pie and apple thingies that Jessie made with the extra pastry dough and some apples they brought with them. Not a good picture but I believe they will be good pies.

It's been a full day. Giblets are cooked and cut up, the broth is saved for stuffing and gravy. A small turkey has been smoked. Cranberry sauce made (not to be confused with the cranberry relish I made last week) and angel biscuit dough has also been made. Eggs have been boiled. The cornbread for the cornbread stuffing has been made. And the plants have been brought in. It's supposed to get down to 29 tonight or something.
Gibson is asleep at the moment, Jessie and Vergil are in town and Owen is eating some noodles and watching TV with his Boppy. Owen keeps saying, "Don't fall asleep, Boppy!" Good luck with that one, son.

We may actually go out tonight to see the ex- and a dear old friend play music together at a pizza joint. We'll see when Jason gets here to collect these boys. I have been tireder in my life but tomorrow's going to be another full day. But I did not get my music fix last night and you know how that goes.
I did watch a video I posted a little over a year ago and it brought me great joy. I think I'll make it a seasonal tradition.
So. For your pleasure and entertainment, let me give you Muddy Waters and The Rolling Stones back a long time ago playing, "Baby Please Don't Go."

As I said when I posted it the first time, it's long and you probably won't watch it. That's okay. I've watched it enough for all of us.

Peace, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Well, it finally happened. After a lifetime of waiting, the clean-up fairies finally arrived.
A LIFETIME OF WAITING!
We had our modified family party. It was awesome. The menu was simple and Jessie made the best spice cake ever made on this planet or any other. She used the prune cake recipe and added chopped apples. You just can't even know how good that cake was.
And after we ate cake, I kissed everyone good-bye and got in bed. Owen and Gibson were still here! They came and kissed me good-night.
And I read for a little while and turned out the light and I went to sleep. I was asleep by 9:45. I got up about two to pee and the house was all tidy and the dishes all done and I almost cried, it was such a miracle. The rain was still coming down then but now it's just gray as hell and getting cold. And I have all day to make pies and cranberry sauce and angel biscuit dough and I don't even know what all. The boys are coming out at one and it's going to be a full day but I'm happy and I'm rested. This will be the first Thanksgiving in forever and ever that I won't have to deal with a party the night before and as much as we all love that party, I am pretty sure I couldn't be happier.

So that's the news from Lloyd. Vergil's taken Greta out for a run, guys are working on the railroad and I have no idea what they're doing but it's noisy. It's cold and it's nasty-looking but inside it's warm and cozy and I'm just going to move slowly through this day.

I hope all is well with all of you. You are in my heart and some of you were in my dreams.

True.

Much love...Ms. Moon

Unexpected

Well, we played trivia. Our team was too big to actually compete for the prize (bar tab) but we still came in third. We named our team, "Tanked for Hank!" and it was a good night for Hank. The bar was packed. Hank's trivia is awesome. He has the most interesting categories. Team Tanked for Hank! rocked the drug-name section and the famous duet section.
Mostly.
Should I be embarrassed to know so much about the names of commonly used recreational drugs?
Oh well.
We got home in the wee hours. Well, Lon and Lis and Glen and I. You know, the "adults." We walked into the kitchen to discover that Greta, who is obviously in her middle-school years, had TP'ed the house. As in decorated with shredded rolls of toilet paper. Approximately eight rolls of toilet paper.
Oh Greta. No longer are you Greta The Good. Now you are Greta The In The Doghouse.
She didn't seem in the least bit ashamed and we asked Buster and Dolly why they had allowed such behavior and they were mystified as to why she had done it and had no excuses either.
They plead blindness.
No one was punished.

We got to bed around two-thirty which is not a bedtime for me but I slept well and woke up to rain, rain, rain. The weather report was not good. For all hours of the day and night it goes like, "Rain with thunderstorms likely. Some thunderstorms may be severe with gusty winds."
Etc.
Here's what the radar looked like:

I canceled the party. I made phone calls, texted, put up a Facebook notice. Then the power went out. It was out for hours, as noted by my previous abbreviated post. I went back to bed. So did Jessie and Vergil. Now the power is back on and it's not raining but the wind is gusting and I'm not going to second-guess myself on the cancellation.
The family will still probably come together and that'll be good. It won't be like usual-times but it'll be what it'll be.

This is a very strange day and I feel like my skin has been taken off and rubbed raw and put back back on but it doesn't really fit right now and it's just a very, very strange day in Lloyd, two days before Thanksgiving, 2013.

Well...

Weather horrible. Power out. Party cancelled. 

Life. 

Waiting On Jessie And Vergil And For The Fun To Begin

I have given up entirely on any more preparation today. Instead I have soup simmering on the stove for our supper tonight and bread rising for the same. Laundry is eternally going, as always.
Gibson is asleep and Owen is waiting for Jessie and Vergil.

He has just learned that if he tells me a whopper and then rolls his eyes and smiles a sneaky smile it makes me laugh. 

I just told him that if he breaks anything else he's going to have to go to bed. I don't think he believes me. 

Wish me luck on the staying-up-for-trivia thing, y'all. I've been drinking coffee all day long and I'm not even kidding you. 

Sigh.

It's going to be fun. I hereby proclaim that to be truth.

Not rolling my eyes. Not smiling a sneaky smile. 

I mean it.

At This Moment All Is Very Well

God, it is cold here and gray and it's a heavy and dense gray. The list of things I need to get done on this cold gray day are also heavy and dense but la-di-dah and blah, blah, blah.

Here is what I am grateful for- that I am still capable of putting this whole Thanksgiving thing together. I still have the strength and the desire and the house and the help. Not to mention the financial resources. Here's another thing I am eternally grateful for- that my family can come together and that all of those articles you read this time of year about how not to let the holidays descend into family madness and anger and arguments and hostility and resentments and everything short of gun play, do not apply to us at all. We may be all crazy, every one of us in our own ways. We may be loud and profane and as different as night and day, as different as hippie and hunter/jock, as different as Jack Spratt and his wife but somehow, none of that really matters. We come together and we laugh and we laugh.
We just love each other. We respect each other. We enjoy each other. We support each other.
That is what I am grateful for.

I have always said that when I was a kid, I didn't even even have the dream of a dream. But if I had, it would have been to have the family I would have wanted to be in.
And I do.
We are so incredibly precious to each other.
And we are all going to come together here in this old house which is also so precious to me, even with the rodents in the walls doing something which sounds remarkably like bowling AS WE SPEAK and there's a 90% chance of rain tomorrow night which is when we're having the party and Jessie and Vergil are about to hit the road for Florida with Greta The Good Dog and I need to take a walk/go to the store/cook/clean/pick magnolia branches, get out the twinkle lights, pray with all my pagan might that the rat poison we've been putting out doesn't result in a death stench the likes of which has not been experienced since the Plague, and GOD WHAT IS THAT NOISE? WHAT ARE THOSE RODENTS DOING IN THERE?

The fun never ends.
The love doesn't either and that is all that really matters.
Well, love and light and Velveeta Dip and rum and beer and oysters and hot running water and the heater and clean sheets and hugs and hugs and hugs and dancing in the hallway and a porch I can hide on when it all gets to be too much and we have all of those things and we have each other and I am grateful.

Right now, this second, I am most grateful.

Happy Monday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

One Of Those Posts Wherein I Really Don't Have A Point

I just dropped my iPhone down the steps on my way to put the chickens up. The cement steps. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Smack.

Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit.

I'm the crazy asshole who doesn't use a case for her phone because STEVE JOBS designed it and it's a work of art and to cover it up is nuts. Right? It wasn't cracked but no, it did not come on. But I did that trick where you hold the top button down at the same time as the little button on the screen and sure enough, the white apple glowed brightly after a few seconds.
Phew. Saved again.
All is well.

I have done pathetically little cleaning today. I dusted a few things. I wiped down a few things. It's just ridiculous. Mr. Moon looked at me as I worked with my spray bottle of vinegar and water in one hand, rag in the other, and said, "So where are you going to stop?" because the truth is, I could clean for the rest of my life and it wouldn't ever be done. As soon as I got to the end of the rooms, the beginning of the rooms would be thick-dust coated again and the mildew would have regrown. How's that for an excuse not to even start?

I got into the library and started dusting and then I started tossing books. Look- just because something is printed out on paper and has two covers does not make it sacred. Trust me. Where did I GET all of these books? I have books I have no recollection of. Not just no recollection of reading but no recollection of at all. I have how-to books that belonged to my sister-in-law and which I kept when she died. Am I really ever going to do mosaics? I have about ten Gardening In Florida books from another sister-in-law who used to live in Florida but moved. I'm never going to read those books. I bet I have two dozen gardening books in all. And every year I garden the same damn way.
Which to tell you the truth, isn't working out that well and I should probably read some of the books.
Speaking of the garden, I went out there today to dump the hay I cleaned out of the hen house and I started looking at the volunteer green bean vines which sprung up after the vines I planted had died. This is what I picked.

Are you kidding me? 

No. 

Anyway, I did finally find The Little Red Hen Makes A Pizza which our beloved Bethany sent me back a year or so ago. Maybe two years ago. I've been looking for it for yonks and finally found it today. I am so happy. I have so many children's books. And young adult books. And Owen just doesn't care about books. He tells me, "Mer, I just don't like books."

GARRRRGH!

I'm going to start paying him to let me read books to him. I swear. Whatever it takes, that's what I'll do.
Gibson is still in the stage where he wants to look at any book that has Elmo in it. Freaking Elmo! He loves Elmo. This is normal and I understand it and I'm not even going to mention his love for Barney but I have no Barney books nor will I ever. I only have Elmo books because someone gave them to me. I should have thrown those fuckers out. I mean, Elmo's a nice guy and all (is he a guy?) but he does not make for good literature.

I have books that I read to my kids and books that they read to themselves and books that I read myself as a child. I have Wind In The Willows and Little Women, of course, and The Wizard Of Oz, a beautiful edition. One of my favorite books that I own is a book called Hitty.

This was my mother's book. Her brother gave it to her for Christmas the year it was published.

She was eleven, he was sixteen or so, I think. His inscription is still as clear and sharp as it must have been 75 years ago. 

It is an exquisite book. The story is fabulous. It's about a doll, Hitty, who was carved from wood, and her first hundred years. Hitty has adventures all over the world and the illustrations are magical. I poured over them a million times as a child, even before I could read the words of the story. 

Now THAT book is sacred. I believe I found another copy and gave it to Hank because I know he read the book when he was a child. He read everything. As I had done before him. As we both still do. As all my children do, truthfully. 

And Owen and Gibson may not grow up to be passionate readers. I know that. It's just always been such a dream of mine to read the books that I loved and that my children loved to my grandchildren.

Well, life is what happens while we're busy making other plans. 

Etc. 

I've got a venison roast in the crockpot with an entire HUGE sweet onion and potatoes and carrots and garlic. And I think I'll cook some...green beans!

It's been a good Sunday with grandsons and an unexpected lagniappe from the garden and sweetness from my husband. And yeah, a little cleaning. And holding a book which conjures up the good part of my childhood- the part where I could open the pages of a book and be transported to places far away and exciting and beautiful and truer and finer than the world I woke up in every day. I think that some of us NEED books. We need them the way we need air and food and light and love. And that some of us just do not. 

It's okay. We're all wired differently. Some of us read and some of us write and some of us do both and some of us create art which can open a child's mind to the infinite possibility of experience and some of us make music and some of us dance and some of us garden and some of us design phones with which we can communicate with the entire world on and use to READ ON! and listen to music on and to light our way to put the chickens up with the flashlight app on and which, when you drop down cement steps, do not break. 

I like that about the human race. 

Night, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Chickens Love Sundays Because They Might Get Pancakes With Real Maple Syrup

Eleven o'clock in the morning and the boys just left with their daddy and what more could you ask from a Sunday than pancakes, bacon, painting and coloring, Rolling Stones dancing and all the gugga a grandmother can kiss from the neck of a baby?
If I were to preach a sermon (which I mostly definitely am not about to do) the title would be, "Because They Are My heart."

It is suddenly so quiet and at some point when I wasn't paying attention the sun came out full and when you say "miracle" I say, That's what I'm talking about.

Quietly Screaming

We slept nine hours last night, boom! Done! The boys are coming over in about half an hour and will expect pancakes and bacon and the sky is mottled and it's windy and chilly and in two days we are having that darn party and I HAVEN'T BOUGHT ANY TWINKLE LIGHTS AND I NEED SOME.
Oh wait. I can go rob some of the actual Christmas stash.
Phew.
Because you know, cleanliness may be next to godliness and god knows I need to do more cleaning but LIGHT IS NEXT TO LOVE AND THEY ARE WHAT MATTER.
Or something like that.
Candles and twinkle lights. Oysters and beer. Tortellini and salad and bread and chips and salsa and cheese and crackers and here I am, making my list.
I did buy one cheese at the Costco. A brie the size of a wagon wheel or a Honda tire.
One. Brie. It cost like seven dollars. How could I pass that up?
Anyway, first the pancakes and bacon. Why do I talk about food so much?
Food and love and light and maybe music and it's chilly and windy and oh yes, I told you that, and good morning. It's Sunday. There is so much to do and Jessie and Vergil will be here tomorrow night and Lon and Lis are going to be in town and Lis wants us all to go play trivia with Hank which starts at 10:00 PM ON A MONDAY NIGHT and can you imagine?

The games will now begin.

A Tiny Bit Better

I spent all day and I mean ALL DAY in the kitchen. And although anyone in their right mind would walk in there and think, "Holy Jesus, this is one motherfuck of a cluttered kitchen!" it still looks about ten thousand times better.
Okay. That was a lie. It hardly looks any different at all. But I can tell the difference. And there's a little more working room in there. AND, I took seven garbage bags of crap to the trash place. SEVEN! And I'm not going to even try and pretend that I didn't throw some stuff away that probably shouldn't have been thrown away but fuck it. I'd pick up something and imagine my kids having to deal with it.
"Do you want this?"
"Hell no."
"Toss it."
Etc.

And so I did it for them.

Not to say that they're not going to need one of those industrial trash things when I die but at least a tiny bit of the crap is gone. I threw away three old pairs of glasses today. Of mine. That were in various drawers in the kitchen. And yes, I know that you can drop them off for the Lion's Club to do something with them (and don't ask me what) but the frames were shitbeat and who uses the same prescription that I use? Or used to use, anyway. So out they went. I threw away approximately eighty-seven beer coozies. And if you don't know what a beer coozie is then you live an entirely different lifestyle than I do. I threw away plastic cups and expired falafel mix and a moldy lunch bag and a rusty lunch box and stupid vases and I threw away decorative things that I can't even begin to describe.

I found some strange things.

See this?

Sweet little innocent picture that Jessie gave me and which I love and which hangs over the sink? There was an entire kingdom of spiders living behind that thing. A kingdom, I tell you, with a queen and her minions and their children and possibly a spider day-care and university. 

Gone. 

Not the picture. I cleaned it all up and hung the picture back. There's another much bigger picture hanging beside it and it had maybe ONE spider behind it. What's up with that? Do spiders prefer the Virgin of Guadalupe above all others? Did they think she would PROTECT them?

Whatever. 

And speaking of vermin, perhaps tomorrow I will tell you about the horror which we have probably unleashed here concerning the rodents. I can't bring myself to talk about it right this second. I get the vapors just thinking about it. 

Okay. I still have to iron the aprons and hang them back on the walls. 

What? You don't have aprons hanging on the walls of your kitchen? What the fuck's wrong with you? I didn't wash all of them, as you can see from one of the pictures above but I did wash about four or five of them and they need ironing badly. And I have to finish the laundry and make the supper. 

I don't know if my heart feels better but it does feel a little lighter. Which is good. 

Now, tomorrow- the rest of the house!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

What do I think I am? A speed addict? 

Not even close.

Enjoy your Saturday night. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Oh, My Heart

I laid in bed last night thinking about all of the stuff I need to do this weekend to get ready for the Thanksgiving week. The party we always have, the day and dinner itself. My thoughts mostly focused on my kitchen which of course is the heart of everything, whether of party or feast or just daily life in general.
It is so cluttered. Just filled with stuff and more stuff and mostly stuff I don't use but yes, stuff I do use, and I have got to do something about that. Let stuff go. Let...it...go.

I obsessed about all of that for half the night. This morning I've already thrown away a bunch of microwave popcorn we're never going to use and of course that did nothing except to make a token stab at it. But anyway, after breakfast is over (and I appear to be fucking up the cooking of oatmeal- I swear to you- how do you fuck up oatmeal?) I plan on putting on my overalls and getting in there with garbage bags and going nuclear on it all.
That's my plan.

And of course there's laundry that needs to be done and the chicken coop needs cleaning out and there are forty-two other rooms that need clearing and cleaning.
Yeah. It's going to be a good weekend.

But maybe, just maybe, if I can create some order and serenity in the heart of the house, perhaps my own heart will be more at ease.

I'll let you know.

Costco Has Really Big Stuffed Animals

This is what part of my day looked like.
The rest of it looked like hauling groceries in from the car (the primary Thanksgiving Shopping Event occurred today- I have to do this in stages in order not to keel over and die from the sticker shock), putting them away, and sleeping.
Either I still have a little bit of what the boys had/have or else I'm dying, therefore I am having to practice the Art of Moving Slowly. And sleeping whenever possible.

I'm going to go cook some grouper. And then go to sleep.

Happy Friday night.

Love...Ms. Moon

Not In Chronological Order

Up in the early morning to get to Lily's to stay with the boys for a few hours this morning. The boys may not even be awake when I get there or they may. One never knows.

I opened the paper and of course it's November 22 and what? The fiftieth anniversary of the day JFK was shot and I was nine years old and of course I remember where I was, what I was doing, who said what, the days and days of black-and-white TV reporting, the shock, the continuing shock, Jackie's blood-stained dress, LBJ's sorrowful big face, Oswald, Ruby, Walter Cronkite, tiny John-John, saluting his father (I remember where I was when I heard his plane had gone down too), the riderless horse, the fearsome, sorrowful, unbelievable time.
The Eternal Flame.
Sure.
Well.

Of course now we know that JFK was a cheater, a philanderer of the highest order, literally in bed with mob women, probably a drug addict due to his constant pain, he was a man, a beautiful man, he was the handsome daddy we all (me, me!) wanted, he let his children play under his desk at the White House, his wife was a princess, she spoke in a breathy whisper, she wore hats and gloves and a sheath dress, she lost her baby, we cried, he got shot, he died, the tears could have fed the oceans, the country split apart, civil rights, it was all still somehow in black and white except for that pink dress, blood-stained, even Jackie's face above it, black-and-white, but that dress, oh, it was in lurid, Kodachrome, pink and red, pink and red, fading to black and white.

I was nine years old, we were all so young and it's still all a shock somehow, somehow still a mystery. How could that have happened? After that, anything could have happened. I'm still surprised we as a species didn't bomb ourselves into oblivion.

Well.

Fifty years ago.

I shouted out "Who killed the Kennedys?" and after all, it was you and me. 

Let me please introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste. And what's troubling you is the nature of my game. 

I gotta go. I have to go take care of my grandsons who are still so innocent. The death of a spider is a huge thing in their lives. So it should be.

All you need is love. Love is all you need. 

Here we are, fifty years later. Some of us still around to bear witness to that strange time.

The sky is paling, the morning bird calls up the sun.

Time to go.

Love...Ms. Moon

My Brain Done Exploded

Today has been, well, one sort-of-crazy-thing after another. Not just for me but for Mr. Moon as well. Mechanical and technical things seem to be failing left and right. I just saw a mouse the size of a rat (okay, it could have been a rat) trying to sneak out of the laundry room. I had the boys for ten hours, more or less and Owen slept for almost three of those hours. Gibson has learned to say "NO!" and he says it frequently and loudly. He says everything in a voice which reminds me of nothing more than an enemy combatant in an old, totally un-PC movie about someone we may have been, at one time, at war with. (Think German or Japanese. Think a soldier holding a bayonet.) The accent needs working on but the tone and volume are perfect.

I do not feel that well. And yet...

Those boys are still alive and now home with their mama and their daddy. They helped me pick mustard and collard greens from the garden which I have cooking along with pork chops and sweet potatoes and oat bran muffins made with apples and raisins and cinnamon and leftover smoothie. Our friend Tom is here for supper and to watch an FSU game with Mr. Moon.  Owen told me tonight that Boppy "loves you to pieces." He also picked me four tiny zinnias which he instructed me to put into a vase, which I have done.
"You know why I give you flowers, MerMer?"
"No, Owen. Why?"
"Because I love you."

And there is this.

Two boys. Two eggs.

One love.

Is Suffering A Choice?

Let's face it- I am in a low spot. And at this point in my life I can't tell if it's mind or body or both or simply cosmic forces. You'd think I'd be able to figure that out after all these years of life on the planet in his particular body, with this particular mind but no, not really.

And quite frankly, I am tired of hearing myself whine and moan and I am certain that everyone else is too. I open my mouth and I feel as if my mother is speaking, borrowing my tongue.
"I hurt. I'm in pain. I suffer."

The boys are coming over in a little while. They will be here for the day.
I don't want to be remembered for my suffering. That brings nothing but guilt and deep feelings of inadequacy. There have been so many family patterns for which I have wanted to stop the buck here.
Do you know what I mean?
Is that even possible?

I don't know. I don't know shit today. Except that the boys are coming over for the day and I want to be the best MerMer for them that I can be. I want to be the best I can be for all of my family. I want to be a joy to them, not a constant nag and ache which becomes, eventually, their own.

I try to tell myself that yes, it's been a very hard year. That so much has happened, both good and bad, that it is going to take some time to incorporate it all. And that word, doesn't the root come from the Latin for body? To take it all in to the body? And wouldn't that necessarily be a process and sometimes, a painful one?

There. That helped. To think of that. To think of this lowness of spirit and pain of body as simply a completely normal and necessary part of taking-in. But will there be an ending to it? Will there be a breaking-through, a cessation or at least easing of symptoms? Will I ever be able to move forward?
I have to.
To not do otherwise is simply unacceptable.

Well, that's enough for now. Time to move forward in the small ways I can, to make the bed, to eat some breakfast, to get ready for this day. The sun seems to be trying to break through.

Here's a poem that our Beloved Miss Sarcastic Bastard sent me just now. It's a good one. I think it addresses suffering and how we are not required to participate.
I think.

Permission Granted

by David Allen Sullivan

You do not have to choose the bruised peach
or misshapen pepper others pass over.
You don't have to bury
your grandmother's keys underneath
her camellia bush as the will states.

You don't need to write a poem about
your grandfather coughing up his lung
into that plastic tube—the machine's wheezing
almost masking the kvetching sisters
in their Brooklyn kitchen.

You can let the crows amaze your son
without your translation of their cries.
You can lie so long under this
summer shower your imprint
will be left when you rise.

You can be stupid and simple as a heifer.
Cook plum and apple turnovers in the nude.
Revel in the flight of birds without
dreaming of flight. Remember the taste of
raw dough in your mouth as you edged a pie.

Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune
yourself. Close your eyes. Hum.
Each beat of the world's pulse demands
only that you feel it. No thoughts.
Just the single syllable: Yes ...

See the homeless woman following
the tunings of a dead composer?
She closes her eyes and sways
with the subways. Follow her down,
inside, where the singing resides.

Behind The Window

I am feeling quiet down to my soul.
But I am here.

Garble

I had a hard time sleeping last night. My hips were paining me bad and somehow I've refucked-up a foot problem and when I got up to go pee it throbbed and throbbed when I got back in the bed.
I laid there wondering...what's the point?
Pain just sucks.
It's gray today. It's chilly. It's another day and the wind kicks up and blows the magnolia leaves around and it sounds like the petticoats of dancing skeletons. I just want to lay on the couch and watch crappy TV but I've even lost my interest in crappy TV. All those real housewives in their pointy stiletto heels they wear everywhere, even to lunch (and I complain about having to wear a bra) and they walk like the bound-foot noblewomen of China in the olden days, that stupid woman on the Shahs of LA who is trying to market and sell diamond water who saged the fucking factory while the workers stood around and looked baffled and embarrassed. Don't even get me started on Phil Robertson and his Bible and his sex talk.
Well, maybe Jeff Lewis is on. I still love Jeff Lewis.
But you know I'm not going to lay on the couch and watch crappy TV or any other sort of TV. I'm going to do laundry and go to town to the Costco and take my car in for Mr. Moon to detail because it's time, it's time to sell the Prius and he has another car lined up for me and I'm the luckiest woman, I am, I know it and I need to shut the fuck up. I have the money to go to the Costco to buy vast quantities of mixed nuts and frozen organic blueberries and pecans and pine nuts and I told Lis that this year I will not be buying cheese for the pre-Thanksgiving party at the Costco because I did that last year and what seemed like a reasonable amount of cheese for the pre-Thanksgiving party while I was in the vast enormity of the Costco turned out to be a vast enormity of cheese in my kitchen and I laughed and laughed as I unwrapped and sliced it and I swear, I had cheese through Easter.

And not only do I have all of that, I have grandsons to roll around the Costco, to make laugh by going around the corners way too fast in the carts which are designed to be big enough to hold vast enormities of cheese while making dramatic sound-effect noises to go with the too-fastness. "You're silly," Owen told me the other day and that was a sparkling jewel of a compliment in my book.
With age comes a letting-go of dignity or perhaps I never had any to begin with. Fuck dignity.
Bring on the clowns whose bad feet, aching hips, gritchy shoulders all result from rolling out of the clown car too many times, hitting the ground running, day after day in the big top, the Big Top, the Show, the show must go on and the ring master has taken the day off, the horses are running in circles without riders, the elephants are sitting on tiny mice for fun, the tightrope walkers aren't walking, they are just sitting up there, eating their lunches on the wire, ignoring the crowds below and the trapeze artist deliberately misses the reaching hands of her mortal enemy, laughs like a crazy woman as the enemy drops, drops, drops to land without any dignity whatsoever in the net below and the crowd boos and the lions roar and their trainers cower in corners, their jungle-jim outfits wrinkled and stained and that's what it feels like for me today, the circus is in town and it is not the circus you thought you signed up for but it is the circus nonetheless and so you go dig out your costume, put on your make-up, try to avoid the elephant shit while you step as daintily as you can to the clown car so you can get in then get out again, roll with the punches, make funny noises, make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh.

Evening

Sun gone, the sky still silver, bare tree skinny bone arms reach out against it.

This can be such a hard time of day, especially in winter when it comes so early, having to bear the weight of so much darkness.

I spent some hours today writing two hundred words. A former Florida drug czar had written an editorial for today's Tallahassee Democrat arguing against the legalization of medical marijuana in Florida. So of course I had to come up with a letter to the editor, even though I've long since given that sort of futile activity up. But this editorial was so filled with ignorance and half-truths and well...there's Sophie and the many thousands of children like her and the potential for so much good if we just quit with the superstition and closed-mindedness about weed. At this point, I feel that anyone who is against even the legalization of recreational marijuana use must be in the penal industry. Is that the right word? Penal? Yes. I checked. Penile is the word followed by "implant."

Yeah, well. I sent the sucker in and there you go. I've done my job, at least as how I define it today.

My dogs are so nicely groomed. They were sent home wearing jaunty little handkerchiefs whose colors reflect those of their blind, milky eyes.
Poor old dogs.
Yet they seem to be in no way suffering. They even take their falls down the back steps with good grace. They do not break any bones. They just keep on with it. Gibson does love old Buster. He hugs him and pats him and croons, "Kitta, kitta." He still thinks that Buster and Dolly are just variations on a cat. If you define a cat as a creature who sleeps twenty-three hours a day, he is not far wrong.

I'm about to make a salad for our supper. Mr. Moon will be home soon and he is never hungry after his long day and drive from the auction. A salad would be good. And I'm going to go ahead and make the cranberry orange relish for our Thanksgiving. It's best if it sits awhile. I am a little excited about Thanksgiving. I talked to Jessie and she and Vergil will be here from Monday until Friday. We'll be having the pre-Thanksgiving party on Tuesday night this year due to certain musician friends taking a gig on the traditional night for the party, which is the night before Thanksgiving. I have let a few people know that. I suppose I should let more people in on the secret. I told Hank that I was really hoping to keep it small this year.
He almost fell over laughing.

And this may work out better anyway. I won't be partying until all hours and then be expected to get up the next morning early, early to make the dinner. I'll have a day to recover and to do more cooking in preparation. To pick up the trash and rewash the tablecloths.
This is the theory, at least.
I haven't really consulted anyone as to conflicting other-family plans. Mmmm...
Perhaps I should do that.
You can see how prepared I am for all of this.
But I can make the cranberry orange relish. I can do that.

And so I shall.

The sky is black now, the last silver bled into darkness. Black as...Hank's cat, Humberto-Humberto, whom I realize I have not posted a picture of lately, if at all, and this would be as appropriate a time as ever. I stole this picture off of Facebook, this picture of Hank's sweet, darling, little Humberto.

Now THAT'S a kitta, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

That's Art, Right?

There you go. That is the sculpture I have created (haha!) in the woods at the spot where I stop to pee most days. One day I left the path and wondered back through the woods to find a place to squat and when I looked right beside me, I saw that skull. I was having a rather strange day anyway and it seemed to me that the skull might, if I allowed it, portend some horrible thing.
I tried not to let it and as I recall, nothing horrible happened and over the months I have developed a bit of affection for it. I do not know what sort of animal whose head used to contain it. Anyway, a few days ago I picked it up and set it on that old stump. I think this is such a human thing to do. A primal urge to say, I have been here!
Or, in my case, I have peed here!

Sweet As Tangerines

I picked up my boys today after I went to the library and the grocery store. They were waiting for me and ready to roll on out to Lloyd. This hoopacoodis (which is what my mother always called any illness which involved coughing and snot) they have is lingering like a bad smell at a tea party. They're still both snotty and coughing and all mothers know this sort of cough can drag on for a month, driving everyone around them crazy. And they're still not feeling that well. Owen, in fact, was filled with evil at first today. He screamed at me and was unhappy and he actually hit his brother (not very hard) and then he put his face in his hands and said, "What is wrong with me?"
"Oh, honey," I told him, picking up Gibson and comforting him. "I'll tell you what's wrong with you. You've been sick for a week and you're tired of it and you haven't been able to go anywhere and do fun things and you're just cranky. But you need to be sweeter because your brother trusts you to be sweet to him. What would you think if all of a sudden I started smacking you?"
Gibson by then was calmed and had forgotten all about the insult and Owen said, "That would be weird."
"Yes," I said. "It would. And I would not do that to you and you need to not do that to your brother."
And then he was fine.
He was once again my sweet boy. We had snacks and fed the chickens and had discussions and played a bastardized version of Monopoly which involved rolling a dice and moving around the game board. We are learning to count. He came up with the rule that if you land in jail, you have to switch your little  game piece before you can get out. So if you're the train and you're in jail, you might have to switch to the race car to get out.
Like that.
Then he got bored with Monopoly and washed the shoe and the train and the car and all of the little magical pieces in a glass of water. They are still sitting in the kitchen on a towel, very clean indeed now.

We watched some TV. Gibson sat beside me on the couch and leaned over on me and fell asleep and I put him on the bed and Owen and I shared two tangerines. He's lost three pounds since he got sick and wants mostly fruit when he does eat. It was so sweet sitting there with him and sharing tangerines. He leaned on me too and hugged me a lot. He loves his old MerMer. He does. And when Gibson woke up, I held him and he snuggled me and stroked my arms (one of the very few benefits of growing older is that the skin softens which makes it look weird, but feel nice) and I did This Little Piggy on his toes and made him giggle.

Boppy came home and had to immediately pack up and head out to Orlando for business although Gibson would not get out of his arms while he was here and so he let the boy help him pack. Owen helped him too. The kitchen is a disaster now and there's more dirty laundry and the floors are absolutely disgusting and here I am, alone again.
Oh well. I do not mind.

I have all evening to clean up and do laundry and catch up in Blogworld and even watch TV if I want. Remember last Wednesday when I called the Dish people and described the constant losing of the signal and the nice lady said they'd send me a new receiver? Well, I hadn't turned the TV on in that room since that conversation but last night Mr. Moon did and it behaved perfectly and it didn't lose signal once today during our Tom and Jerry marathon this afternoon and of course, the nicest UPS man delivered the new receiver today.
Isn't that always the way?
Now. If only the dogs would spontaneously become groomed because I've made them an appointment with Miss Beverly for that purpose tomorrow.
I am not counting on it.

It has been a very sweet day. I had my boys and I went to town and I talked to Lis on the phone to check on them and give her a full update of last night's events. They are mourning but Buck is buried in the family plot and there are flowers and candles on all the graves. Lis is slowly cleaning the house and she says they feel so isolated all of a sudden. So far away from everything and every one. They had no idea that Buck was such a very real companion. They did, of course, but not really. Even I, when my dogs go, am going to notice the quiet. There will be a space of emptiness where they once were.
Not that I'm going to mind that especially, but I'll notice.
Lis told me that they're playing a gig in South Carolina the night before Thanksgiving at a famous Hollywood movie producer's party and I asked her if they were planning on spending the night there afterwards. She said that no, they were planning on driving up that day, doing the gig and driving back that night. I forbade her to do this. Not to not do the gig, but to do all of the driving in one day.
"No!" I said in my fiercest Mother tone. "You cannot do that. Do you hear me? I won't allow it!"
She said they'd stop on the way back but I know they won't.
No one ever listens to me and mostly I've given up telling anyone what they can or cannot do, should or should not do. But every now and then...well, the boss in me just pops out and so it did today.

We'll see how that works out.

Anyway, here I am, all is well and it is very, very quiet in Lloyd. I bought all sorts of good groceries to make nourishing and healthy meals for my husband and me and I will probably end up cooking a damn frozen pizza because, well, it's easy. I'll put spinach on it.

I feel as if I have come back to the land of the living. And before too many hours are up, I'll be back in the land of the sleeping. And tomorrow I'll do some cleaning and take the dogs to be groomed and at the end of the day, my husband will return again, and again the planet I live on will tilt back to a more proper alignment, my heart feng-shui-ed into the place of good and proper spirits once more.

That Was Different

After we dealt with the Florida Softshell Turtle yesterday, we went to a Gala.
I know. Our lives are simply so glamorous.
It really was fun, though. It was at the Opera House, as I mentioned yesterday and Peter Rowan and his stellar band performed as well as the Tibetan songbird, Yungchen Lhamo. Here's a picture of the two of them together.

The woman has hair down to her knees and her voice reminded me of a water harmonica if you've ever heard one of those. She was very, uh, Zenlike? Hell, I don't know. She closed her eyes and spoke very softly and did a few songs acapella and I wondered if the old Opera House had ever heard such a sound. It was pretty spine-tingling. Mr. Moon had to get up and leave to go use the restroom while Peter and the band were still playing and when he got back to his seat, Ms. Lhamo was alone onstage and he wondered if perhaps he'd blundered into a time/space/continuum warp thing.

Then the band came back on and it was one of the stranger musical style pairings I've ever heard and the dynamics going on up there onstage were...very, very interesting.
Hell. I don't know what was going on but I enjoyed the evening more than I can say. The whole thing was a like a Old Tallahassee Hippie Reunion and there were people there I hadn't seen in years and years and who, like me, rarely come out of the woods. Ever.
And the whole thing was over by 9:00 which was more than fittin' for the audience.

I'm so glad to have my husband home. He did not shoot one deer and so possibly, he was not hunting at all but actually has another wife somewhere up on Georgia (and I would say yes, Georgia, due to the red clay he always brings home on his truck) but if he does have another wife, she's not keeping up with his laundry so what good is she to me?
Oh well. As long as he keeps coming home I'm happy. It was so nice to sit and hold hands with him in the Opera House. It was so comforting to have him back in the bed with me again. It was so sweet to wake up and find one of his love notes for me this morning when I went to get my coffee.

The Eternal Gray Drip continues here and I need to get out and take a walk in it. I miss my grandsons something fierce and they need to come out and play with me whether their parents need me to babysit or not. Owen was pleading with his mama to go to work the other day so that they could do just that. I am keeping my ego in check about that by reminding myself that there are only a few places the boys actually go and this is one of them. I wish they could have seen that turtle.

It's Monday. Let's get busy.

Much love...Ms. Moon

Complete And Utter Mystery (Too Much Nature)

Mr. Moon got home and was in and out the back door, bringing stuff in from the truck and I was laying on the bed, reading.
All of a sudden, he called to me.
"Come here!" he said. "Now. You have to...I can't explain...just, come here."

I had no idea what I was about to see but I knew from his voice that it wasn't something normal. Not even normal for around here like chicken eggs in the potted ferns.

I got to the kitchen door and he was standing there holding the screen door open. "Look," he said, and pointed.

A turtle. A weird, mud-caked turtle with a pointed nose.

At the top of the steps. 

We both stood there and boggled. Words failed us. We tried.

"How?" "Why?" "Did someone...?"

We had no idea. Like I said, my husband's been in the yard and through that door for the past two hours and saw no one. The dogs haven't barked. They're blind but they can still hear and are a fairly reliable alarm system. So, the theory that someone dropped it off for us is not a very valid one. Just in case, though, Mr. Moon texted our across the street neighbor. "Did you leave a present by our back door?"

"No."

Okay. 

It's a Florida softshell turtle. It is almost entirely aquatic (can you see its little fins?) and it only comes out of the water to "bask and lay eggs."

It ain't basking today. 

The chickens too, were mystified.

They couldn't figure it out either. I called my go-to guy, Hank. He laughed and laughed. "I have no idea," he said. His only theory is that for some reason the turtle had left his (her?) watery abode and found itself in my yard and climbed the steps to get at the toad who lives there. Or maybe one of the many lizards or skinks.

But seriously? Can a turtle climb steps?

Oh, who knows? Another Lloyd mystery. He crawled over to the edge of the little porch, obviously looking for a way off. 

Mr. Moon came and carefully lifted him up and set him on the ground. 

"The water's that way," he said, pointing. 

Dear god. 

I hope it makes its way home. 

I just checked, it's disappeared. 

Life in Lloyd. Always something. 

Another Sunday

Arsenic and Old Lace was fabulous last night. My friend Judy did a spectacular job of directing and the set was perfect and the actors inhabited their roles as nicely and as believably as they did their fantastic costumes.
I got to sit with Kathleen and Rich, old friends whom I don't see very often, and it was a good time but I was exhausted by the time I got home. I brushed my teeth and took the dogs out and got in the bed and slept as deeply as I've slept in forever.
It was a good night out.
Two in one week.
And tonight, another.

It's dripping and gray here today and it seems as if it has been eternally dripping and gray although I am sure that's not true. I got a text from Lis a little after eight for me to please call her when I got up and I was already up so I did call her and she is in a very hard place. She's in Monticello because tonight's event at the Opera House is a project of hers which she has worked so hard to bring to fruition. It's a fund-raiser for the old building and she's brought in Peter Rowen who played with Bill Monroe and who is a very famous musician and a Tibetan woman named Yungchen Lhamo who is some sort of world-famous vocalist to perform and she drove over last night to make sure that everything is perfect for the artists and for the performers. The pre-concert catering, the hospitality food for the performers, flowers and candles for the dressing rooms...
No one can do this sort of thing like Lis for whom graciousness is breath.
But.
Sometimes life just gets too complicated, doesn't it?
Lis and Lon have had a beautiful black lab for years. His name is Buck and recently he was diagnosed with a terminal illness and the vet recommended that they get him in a treatment study which they did, but it hasn't saved their dog and he is dying and Lon, who stayed behind at Gatorbone with Buck is beside himself with grief and today is the day he will be getting his last shot and Lis has to go home to be with her husband so that they can say good-bye to Buck together, lay his body to rest in the dirt of their beloved Gatorbone.
As many times as I have wished that my dogs would trip the rainbow to go see Jesus, I understand this deep and abiding love humans can have for a true dog companion. I understand the deep sorrow of saying goodbye.
So Lis needed a little help with some food and her sister-in-law and niece are doing most of it but I'm going to make a little food to drop off for the musicians on our way in to go to the gala tonight.

I say "we" in hopes that my husband will be returning in time. I think he will be.

So a bit of a strange day. A sadness, thinking of that beautiful animal who has been such a constant and dear and loving and intelligent companion to two people whom I love so fiercely. This is the sort of dog to whom Lis could say, "Go get the boy for lunch," and Buck would trot over to Lon's workshop and notify him that lunch was ready and they would frisk back down the wooded path to the house together. His coat was the sleekest, blackest coat you've ever seen and no dog was ever loved more or better. He was a very fine dog and it says everything that Lis, the consummate professional, would know without a doubt that she has to go home to be with her husband on this day.

So. I need to tidy up this house which for some reason is not as neat and clean as you'd think it would be, having been occupied only by me for a week. There is trash to take and laundry to do and food to make and a husband to welcome home and love to send to Lon and Lis, and to Buck.
A very fine dog whom will be so grievously missed by the humans who have loved him so deeply and so well, every bit of that love returned and doubled as only the finest dogs can do.