Friday, September 21, 2018

Staying Close To Home


In a perfect world I would make cornbread every day because my chickens like it so much. I just sat on the back steps and tried to get them to come eat a few leftover pieces of it out of my hand and the jungle fowl did but the rest would not. This is my fault- I did not hand feed them enough when they were peeps. It makes me sad. But maybe I'll start trying more seriously and frequently now. I love the way their beaks feel as they peck, peck, peck away at the crumbs of the cornbread. Back when this house was built, cornbread was probably the only bread they made and ate. Or maybe not but that would not have been unusual. Corn was such an important staple. Grits and corn meal showed up every day, I am sure, in one form or another. Wheat flour was not nearly as readily available and probably far more expensive although I'm sure biscuits were made too. 


That's little Darla. She's so plain and yet, so precious. She lays me the one really big egg I get. I got that picture this morning as she was leaving the hen house. I thanked her. I wonder how many chickens have been raised on this piece of property. Thousands and thousands, I would assume. It feels so right to keep a little flock myself. 

I laid low today. Low energy, low motivation, low spirits. But I finished up August's dress and I love it and I hope he does too. Once again- it's soft. 


A cotton knit and I thought I was not going to be able to figure out how to do the buttonholes but by golly I did. The parts that the buttonholes went in were backed by interfacing and so that area was sturdy enough to take the beating of the always-dependable Greist Buttonholer Attachment. In fact, I think they may be the nicest buttonholes I've ever made. 


Tidy as can be. 

I love buttons. I'm like a child with a granny's button box. I will buy old buttons at any thrift store. Here's my main source of buttons. 


And here's an especially beautiful button I found in a mason jar holding someone's collection that I bought at Wag the Dog recently. 



Isn't that a little work of art? There was only one which makes it all the more special. 

The buttons I sewed on the fox dress are nothing special but they needed to be big enough and those get the job done. I sewed a pocket on the dress because one should always have a pocket. August has now found two marbles and he brought them to show me yesterday when we had lunch. I think that a boy who finds marbles should especially have pockets. 

So I've been soothing myself today with chicken feeding and sewing and button sorting. I'm seething inside at what Trump said about Christine Blasey Ford. That if the sexual attack of Kavanaugh had been that bad, she should have filed a police report. 
I want to file a police report against Trump every day of my life. His presence in the White House and on Twitter and in social media and on the news makes me feel violated and terrified and threatened and triggered. I have discovered that it's not so much a description of sexual abuse or molestation or attack that triggers me. It is the fact that the women who suffer these things are so often not believed. Or are ignored. Or denigrated. 
Or sent death threats. 
Jesus Christ. 
And Trump is a walking, talking example of how little society cares when women are treated like chattel for the taking. Like asking-for-it sluts. Like If you're famous you can get away with grabbing them by the pussy. 
And Kavanaugh can blithely sit there and insist that he certainly doesn't remember any incident like the one Ms. Ford has reported but let me tell you this- she not only remembers, she's paid good money for therapy because of the pain it caused her. Because of how it changed her life. And not in a good way. And all of the therapy in the world isn't going to bring back the girl she was before it happened. 

So. Sewing. Letting chickens peck cornbread from my hand. Hanging sheets on the line. Watering my porch plants. Noting the growth of the succulents I pulled up in Roseland from the dirt beside the road and brought home to plant in a blue pot as well as the two mango seeds which have sprouted from Roseland mangoes that I stuck in dirt and watered. 
Things that require my concentration and make me feel grounded in good and decent reality. 
Things I do which require putting one foot in front of the other. 

Maybe when (if?) it gets a bit cooler, I will feel better. I think all of us who live around here will. 

Despite all, I wish you a happy Friday. 

Love...Ms. Moon





19 comments:

  1. That is such a cute little dress. And yahoo! on the botton holes.

    I also love buttons. I need to remember to buy them more often just for fun. That button is a keeper. It’s so pretty!


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    1. One of my really good memories of being in Jr. High and High School was sewing. I loved picking out the pattern and the fabric and the notions and the buttons. I could shut myself up in my room and sew for hours. And it was always fun to sew for my kids too. I can remember specific buttons I bought for some of their clothes. I wonder how old the button is? Who made the first one? Was it made of stone or bone or shell? I wish I could see it.

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  2. Another button collector, here. I don’t see many pretty ones these days, though.
    Love the dress! August is going to love it, too! I wish I lived as close to my grandchildren. You are a blessed woman!
    Debbie

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    1. I agree that really fine buttons are harder to find these days. I'm sure that online one might be able to get some beautiful ones. In fact, I bet there are innumerable sites for antique and fine buttons.
      I AM a lucky woman!

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  3. I was sexually assaulted by a doctor at work, never did call the police but I did testify twice against him in front of the medical board. Eventually he lost his license. He abused patients and coworkers.

    And a young woman trying to fend off unwanted advances, it becomes he said, she said. You don't report it but it never leaves you either. My ex-husband tried to rape me one night, although I'm sure he has no memory of it because he was so drunk. I was so embarrassed as my kids had friends over for a sleep over and I ended up sleeping on the couch after I got away from him. A lot of things happened that he has no memory of. I don't miss him.

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    1. Lord. I BET you don't miss your ex-husband. I am so sorry you had to go through that. I feel almost certain that every woman in the whole world has her Me Too story. Stories. It's simply bizarre how many men get away with shit and probably never even think about it again. And in our silences we are, if not complicit, enabling. That's a hard thing to say but it's not until women begin to step forward and speak up whenever and wherever sexual predation occurs that it's going to have a chance of ending. And it's so fucking hard! And we're so used to just saying, "Oh well. That's men." Or some other fucking thing, so often blaming ourselves. And education. Education has to be far better about these things. And men who are accused and tried and found guilty have got to receive serious sentences! It's just a never-ending battle for what needs to be done. But dammit! We must do it.

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    2. I wrote this on an old friend's blog the other day but it's relevant here too.

      And the boys will be boys bullshit, rape is not about sex, it’s about power, power to do as you please and power to ignore the rights of others. Rape is not about young people experimenting with sex, it’s about doing as you please because you think you have that right.

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  4. I feel safe enough here to say fuck Trump, and I hope someone either kills him or he drops dead. There. He's a vile human being with no bottom.

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    1. unfortunately Pence, McConnell, Ryan, and Grassley will have to drop dead along with him for anything to have a hope of changing.

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    2. Elizabeth- yes. I agree. I ain't gonna kill him myself but if he dropped dead yesterfucking day I'd be mighty happy. And Ellen- that would be one down, that many more to go. It would be a start. Jo- I know you agree.

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  5. Oh, Mary. The one thing I asked my grandmother to bequeath me was her button box. My father has lost it. I finally asked him for it the other day - years after her death, when it seemed appropriate. But He can't find it, thought I had it already. I'm so sad - I was the child playing with my granny's button box, and my children did too, as little ones. I would rather not get upset about material things (as I always do, being who I am) but this one really hurts.

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    1. That breaks my heart, Jo! I am going to hope with all of my heart that it is not, indeed, lost, merely tucked away somewhere and that it will show up one day. Soon, I hope. I know exactly what you mean about things only being things but some things really carry a great deal of value to our souls. I understand.

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  6. I fondly remember, not but a couple of years ago, when each citizen did not have to worry about our country everyday and we mostly trusted our president and his cabinet to do what was best for all of us. And, the congress did its job. They at least did something!

    I love buttons, too. I have many from my mother and a few from my grandmother. I use them for garments whenever possible. My mother sewed everything for her three children without a sewing machine until I was in high school. The buttonholes that she made were beautiful and never gave up or tore even tho all the clothes I got were hand-me-downs. So, I think in honor of that, I do buttonholes by hand even tho I am lucky enough to own four sewing machines!

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    1. Doesn't that seem like a Utopia? To not have to wake up every day and wonder what fresh hell our leaders have come up overnight?
      How quickly things can change. How heartbreaking and how insane it must be making us all.
      Your mother made clothes by hand? Wow! I bet they were beautiful. I have made buttonholes by hand and I do know how but I am not a master at it. They all look exactly as if they were made by hand. A clumsy hand. The buttonhole attachment that goes on my old Singer is sort of a clunky thing and sometimes I swear while getting it all configured just right but somehow I still love it because when I do get it right, the results are lovely.

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  7. Will be pleased to see that little child in the fabulous fox article of clothing that you made with the perfect button holes! Brilliant! Lucky little grand kids!

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    1. Maybe tomorrow I'll take it to him. We shall see.

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  8. The dress turned out great! And now that I can see the fabric, I agree that it's perfect. He will love it. And yes, one should always have a pocket.

    What's always really alarming about Trump -- and I suppose this has been true from the beginning -- is that so many people appear to agree with him. Maybe not a majority, but too many to be acceptable.

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