Saturday, October 23, 2021

I Needed A Nap


When I was making delicious watery, juicy broccoli last night, I got out the cocktail mermaids and animals for Maggie to play with. She was delighted! Her grandfather joined her and look what they created:

A chain of monkeys, hanging from the light fixture. It's still there. It probably will be there for years, slowly growing as dusty as everything else up there. 

So we had a good time with our girl. She is really a sweet child. She kept saying, "I am so glad to be here with you, and I believe her. She sounded like a very sincere little adult at a party. She ate her supper happily- oven fried chicken that, per her instructions, tasted like chicken tenders, the broccoli, and cheesy noodles. And then it was time for the purple cow and then the bath. She let me wash her hair and then she got into her nightgown and she read "The Chicken of the Family" to me. She's about got the thing memorized. There were a few more books and then time for bed. 


But where would Maggie go? 
We figured it out. She went to sleep holding Zippy for whom she has developed a tender love. In fact, this morning before she left, she and Zippy had to have a chat on the swing porch. 


It turns out that Zippy truly loves Magnolia and he is very sad when she leaves and that really, he would like to live with her. 
I will leave him to her in my will but until then, the old, old boy will live here. It does make me so happy, though, that she loves him the way I loved my own identical Zippy when I was a little girl. None of the boys have really shown a great deal of interest in him, some of them have even called him "scary". But Maggie gets the chimp love. 

She slept through the night until around six at which point she woke up and wanted to cuddle. I had told her before she went to bed that we could indeed cuddle when she woke up so there you go. What was there to do except help her into the bed where she proceeded to cuddle and move about and wiggle and cough (the only coughing I heard her do the whole time she was here) and tug at the quilt and drop the quilt off the edge of the bed and...
Sigh.
About eight her Bop got up with her and I fell back asleep like a stone and had a dream about moving into a condo-like place where my neighbors were Real Housewife types whom I got angry at and actually said, "Fuck you!" to and told them that if they treated me right that I would be the best neighbor they ever had. That I was kind and loving and would be there if they needed me but not if they were bitches. 
I am still laughing about this. 

I woke up with a jolt, knowing that Maggie had dance at 10:30 and rushed to get the bacon and pancakes started. Breakfast was made and eaten, tights and leotard put on, stuffed animals and possessions gathered and packed and off she went with her Boppy. After she left, I found this poor child whom she had been feeding and then, sadly forgot. 


And then I was left alone for a few hours, exhausted and gritty-eyed. I had no energy. So I did very little the rest of the day. A load of laundry, a desultory sweeping of the floors. A nap. 
A heavenly nap. A nap like an angel's wings, brushing my eyes to heaviness, an angel's arms holding me in great comfort and peace. 
Okay. That was a bit dramatic. But it really did sort of feel that way. 

Two more pictures.


Levon and August at the pumpkin patch. The antibiotics seem to be kicking whatever August has in the butt. Jessie reports he feels very fine indeed today. 

And...


Maurice on the porch, being a jungle cat in her heart, I am sure. 

Maggie asked me yesterday why I love Maurice. 
I really didn't know how to answer that. 
"Because she is mine," I finally said, knowing even as I said it, how pathetic and also untrue that is. Cats do not belong to us. We belong to them. But that's a concept to discuss another day. 

Meantime...

Love...Ms. Moon

26 comments:

  1. I love Zippy, and I can totally see why Maggie loves him too! Hopefully you'll get to gift him to her when her first little one is born, which I'm just certain you'll live to see. The boys will inherit some special items from Boppy, I imagine. In Levon's case, probably a tool. :)

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    1. I don't know. If Maggie is only twenty when she has her first baby I'll be eighty-two. I really doubt I'll make it that long. But who knows? The boys all have their cars or trucks picked out that they are getting from Boppy. I mean- they're cool.

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  2. Because Maurice loves you.

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    1. Thank you! The whole kitchen is that color but it really needs repainting.

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  4. What a great girl she is. So full of ideas and such a happy person.

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    1. Mostly she is very happy, I think, although she has troubles just like the rest of us. She certainly does have good ideas!

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  5. Because Maurice picked you!
    Almost every day, for months, I've had a nap of about an hour. It's as if that is what I've missed, overnight.

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    1. When I lay down for a nap I feel as if I am getting two favorite times of the day instead of just one. This worries me a little. Surely one should not love going to bed that much.

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  6. I wonder the same thing about Maurice, why do you love her?

    Glad you all had a wonderful time.

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    1. I guess I love Maurice because as Joanne said, she picked us and also because I can tell that she really does consider us her humans. She's an odd cat but she is ours.

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  7. Such a beautiful time you all had. I can tell you from experience that if the monkey chain hanging from the light fixture is still there tomorrow it will indeed be there for years. That nap sounds delicious.

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    1. It's still there! And yes, will probably be there for years.

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  8. I had a Zippy when I was a child!

    You love Maurice, because you are not put off by creatures who cannot help but be true to their own natures.

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    1. Did you love your Zippy too? I think that Zippy was the first thing I searched for on E-Bay. I was so happy to find him.
      You may be right about Maurice. She is most definitely as true to her own nature as a creature can be.

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  9. That green creature in the chair made me laugh out loud.....he looks so dejected!

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    1. I know! Like..."Mommy left me!" Poor little critter.

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  10. I think when a kiddo gets into bed with you there's only one person who gets any rest and it certainly isn't you, is it! But how lovely that she enjoys spending the night with you. And yes, Maurice looks very handsome in that photo!

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    1. No, it was certainly not me! But it is pretty sweet to cuddle with her so there's that.
      Thank you for saying that Maurice is handsome. I think she is lovely-looking little tiger cat.

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  11. We can't really own animals just like we can't really own land, it seems to me. We're merely caretakers.

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    1. Exactly! Once when I was doing LSD I thought about the concept of owning land and it was the most hysterical thing to me. Still is. And same with animals. Or other people, for that matter.

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  12. when my grandkids were little they would want me to sleep with them in the back bedroom so I always did. they eventually got old enough not to need that. now the twins don't stay overnight when they are in town since that's now my bedroom and they don't want to take my room. of course they have another alternative which is their parents house just 15 minutes away. they other two live at home.

    I'm still having dreams, I won't say weird dreams because I've come to the conclusion that all dreams are weird, and remembering them upon awakening but if I don't consciously commit them to memory in the first 15 minutes or so then they fade.

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    1. I am thinking that before too long, Owen might want to start sleeping upstairs. But who knows? Now he and Gibson sleep in the back bedroom but the "littles" still want to sleep in our room which is fine. They love their little beds.
      I had a dream this morning that was so lovely. It involved Barack Obama- he was a Jr. High school teacher. My Jr. High school teacher. I loved him.

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  13. Maggie is angelic, any way you look at her! Your dream cracks me up! And.....those glass fronted kitchen? cabinets......to die for. An old house we lived in 30 years ago...all the kitchen cupboards were glass and I loved them so! Forces one (almost LOL) to be tidy and artsy!
    Susan M

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    1. The people who lived here before we did actually had those cabinets built. They are not original. In fact, the kitchen was not originally the kitchen! But they fit in well, don't they?

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