Friday, August 31, 2018

This Fine Day


The two rooster bros. And Big Mama. Note the difference in size between Liberace and Ringo. They are still best friends and I am so curious to see if they will remain that way or will become mortal enemies. 

By the time I got up this morning Lily and Jessie had already started the texting. Should we do something? What should we do? Etc.
I suggested we have a Monticello day. Eat lunch at the Rev and go shop at Wag the Dog. We all agreed that this was a fine idea and then Lily backed out because she had about fifty things she really needed to do and get done and galavanting about Jefferson County wasn't one of them which made Jessie and I so very sad but we understood. So Jess and August and Levon came out and I was still getting dressed when they got here and I heard the sound of August pattering through the house to find me and when he did he said, "What you doing?" and I said, "Getting dressed to go to Monticello with you!" and he said, "Why?"
Because that's what he says.
ALL THE TIME.

Jessie suggested that we first go to the library in Monticello which I readily agreed to.
Library?
Of course.
I hadn't been to the library there in years and years and although I remembered it as being a very nice library it has become even nicer. Just a perfectly sweet place. The children's fiction room was terrific with a little stage or reading nook and a puppet theater and toys and lots and lots and lots of books, mostly new ones.
And this sign.


Which you know charmed me and made me very happy. Before our visit was over, Levon who now nurses in a most gymnastic manner demonstrated the truth of it. 

Here's August in the little stage. 


And Levon, crawling about, exploring. 


Such a merry little man. 

The puppet theater had lots of puppets to play with and August loved that. 


He began making up a story and pretending and Jessie told me that last night when Vergil was trying to get him to bed he started telling a story about someone named Starknocker who knocks stars out of the sky. This sort of blows my mind. Do we have a tiny Neil Gaiman in our midst? 

We read some books, of course, and we probably hung out there for forty-five minutes. We will go back. It was a lovely place to take children and I can't wait for Magnolia to come with us. 

We did go to the Rev for our lunch and they did have Wiki Stix and we did play with them. I made glasses, of course, and also a mustache that attached up the nose and that was sort of a failure but the glasses were good. I'm getting to be an excellent Wiki Stix glasses maker. 



Levon thought they were highly amusing. 
Our lunch was absolutely delicious and it's so cool that there's a really good restaurant in Monticello. It's a happening little berg. 
And then of course we went to Wag the Dog where Jessie and I both got some new (old) plates which are beautiful and were so cheap it was unbelievable. The pricing is pretty random. I think she got about six plates and a few bread plates of a very beautiful pattern which have 22 karat gold rims for $2.50 and I got three plates and four bread plates for $3.00. Also old and with gold rims but not as old and not as gold as Jessie's. We also got a panda lamp for August's room and a book for August and a puzzle that looked like it came from 1958 and a little train engine and a solar bobble head Spiderman that August really wanted and I think that's all and we didn't pay twenty bucks for the whole lot of it. 
Plus the boys played happily with the toys for half an hour which was worth at least five dollars in and of itself. 

We agreed on the way home that it had been a very, very good day and I am still quite cheerful from it. I also found out today that JK Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith, has another one of her Comoran Strike books coming out on September 18th. It's been something like three years since the third one in the series was published and I have been looking forward to this announcement for most of those three years. I love these books. Very, very dark detective series and her characters are, as always, just wonderful. Deep and fascinating and multi-layered and imperfect, just as characters in crime fiction should be and I never guess who-done-it. 


Then again, I probably couldn't guess who-done-it in a Nancy Drew novel but Rowling makes the raveling and unraveling deliciously drawn out and mysterious. 

We got another good rain this afternoon and the air feels cool and clean. I am grateful for that and for all of the rain we've gotten this summer. I am grateful for my children and my grandchildren who are each one different and unique and beautiful and wonderful. I am grateful for my children's beloveds who are all people vastly deserving of love. I am grateful for plenty to eat and for libraries and books and I am grateful for dirt to grow things in and for the critters I share my life with from the tiny lizards to the toads to the birds to the butterflies to the chickens and to the cats, even when they grab my hand with their razor claws and bite it in the middle of the night. (Looking at you, Maurice.) 
I am grateful for my man in all regards. 
I am grateful for so much more. 
I am grateful for you. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

22 comments:

  1. And I am grateful for you (along with a list like yours). Thanks for the reminder to be so!

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  2. My son would have liked the bobble head spider man. He’s 22. 😂

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    1. Spider Man is very appealing to boys of all ages, I guess. Owen and Gibson still love him too.

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  3. Big Mama chicken is BEAUTIFUL. I want a few hens of my own one day. Yours are so pretty and full of personality.

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    1. I think maybe you have confused Big Mama with Liberace who is the large, golden-colored chicken. I should have been more specific.
      I think all chickens have a lot of personality but unless you spend some time watching them, you'd never even know.

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  4. Wishing you a wonderful weekend, and thanks for being here.

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  5. That library looks enchanting but your wag the dog bounty for less than twenty is truly amazing. I’d love to find a place like that around here. Your day sounds perfect.

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    1. And I forgot that I also bought four beautiful linen napkins, each embroidered and named with a different flower!

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  6. I had to look up Monticello, I know very little about Florida, other than my cousin moved there a year ago, and that you live there, obviously. It looks like a sweet little town with some beautiful buildings. We don't have much old stuff here, Europeans have only been living here for about 170 years.

    Your grandchildren are so sweet and I am so thankful you have them in your life. Their photos make me smile. Have a lovely weekend.

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    1. Well, it's a very, very small town even though it is the ONLY real town in entire county which is quite a large county. Very rural. But yes, it certainly has its charm.
      I am so thankful for my grandchildren too. I am glad their pictures make you smile.

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  7. that is what I do at the end of yoga class when Abby is saying her Jesus prayer, list the things I am grateful for. and your big mama chicken is almost as big and fluffy as R&D's chickens. Rongo's the red rooster, right? he's gorgeous.

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    1. Yes, but Liberace is the big fluffy one. Big Mama is the smaller, black and white one behind them. Liberace is impressive but Ringo somehow has my heart, that little, colorful rooster.

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  8. That is one pretty awesome library, and the wiki stix are delightful, I have not seen those before. August and Levon are beautiful boys! So many things to be grateful for, and I made myself a list today, too!

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    1. I love Wiki Stix. I think I like them far more than the children do. They seem like such awesome and environmentally friendly little art toys to me.

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  9. A heartwarming post, Mary! Levon is so grown up now - though he does still look like Harold from Harold and the Purple Crayon in that first photo.

    I went to sleep to the news that a Trump visit is to befall us in November. Someone on Twitter said he found it touching he was still making plans for that far ahead (prison etc) but I think that's quite optimistic. I hope he's right though. I don't want to pay for that creature to come play golf here, right on the back of the Pope's visit.

    Anyway- if he comes, trust that we will protest in style.

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    1. I have a feeling he's not going to make it to Ireland. This is based on absolutely nothing except my own feeling. Or perhaps it's just my own deep hope that he'll have resigned or will be in the process of impeachment by then. But who knows? I think the Irish will indeed do themselves proud if the asshat does make it there.

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  10. I hadn't heard that a new Rowling novel was coming out! Woo hoo! I love those books too. She's a fabulous writer. "Starknocker" sounds like it has potential too! (How do kids come up with these things?!)

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  11. Lovely chickens! Lovely kids.

    Can you access the BBC TV series of Cormoran Strike? Great stuff.

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