Saturday, October 29, 2022

How Not To Tell A Story


I'm blaming the weather on that cake which is, by the way, an apple spice cake with a caramel frosting. 

The weather which has been coolish and overcast and humid all day long. It has looked like we might get some rain and felt as if we might get some rain but there is no rain. The radar shows some good rain to the west of us but it's probably not going to get any closer than Mobile, Alabama. 
Every time I think of Mobile I remember the time I drove through it when I was nineteen years old. I was on my way to Tallahassee from Denver, Colorado in a forest green Ford Capri which held all of my worldly possessions including a rocking chair, a pressure cooker, my books, my stereo and albums, and two parakeets in a cage. I was not just on a joy ride, y'all. I was making my escape. It was a last gasp from a severely depressed young human to try and bring herself back to life. Denver, where I had been attending college until I dropped out, was not for me. I have told this story before. Being eighteen when I moved there, I had not slightest idea what I needed and wanted to live an authentic life but it turned out that mountains, few trees, and no large bodies of water were not on the list. Neither was a college where many, many of the students were rich kids who chose Denver because they love to ski. I, of course, had only ever been on waterskis which, if you grew up in Winter Haven, Florida, home of Cypress Gardens, City of 100 Lakes, you most definitely had been. Hell, I barely knew what snow was! 
Anyway, okay. So I won't go into the part about living with the drug dealer or the reason I moved to Tallahassee but I packed up the aforementioned Capri with the aforementioned items and pulled out of the drug dealer's driveway about three days before he got busted and headed south and then east. When I got to Mobile I smoked part of a joint right before I got to the city and it was a most pleasurable experience, driving stoned through the insane five o'clock traffic. 
I'd die now if I tried that.

Good Lord! What in hell was I talking about? 
And no, I am not stoned. At all. 
Oh yeah. Okay. The weather which led to the rain getting only to Mobile which lead to that whole other story but I still haven't gone into the connection of it being overcast and humid with cake baking. 

I've been in a rather flat mood today. BECAUSE OF THE WEATHER? 
Maybe. 
So I've just done little domestic chores and listened to podcasts and texted with a friend. I've been wondering what to do with a surplus of apples in my kitchen. Mr. Moon brought home apples that had been bought for the road trip and hadn't been eaten and also apples that had been in his bag lunch every day while hunting and I already had apples. So. Yes. Lots of apples. Last night we had Waldorf Salad but there were still too many apples. Not enough to make apple butter and can it but a lot. So today in my sort of lost and languid mood, I decided to make a spiced apple cake and so I did and there you have it. It has five apples in it that I ran through the food processor along with fresh ginger and cinnamon and nutmeg and molasses and brown sugar and raisins and pecans, and the icing is butter, brown sugar, and confectioners' sugar. 

So that is my story for today. I did of course get to Tallahassee when I was nineteen and I've never left except to move to the boonies of Lloyd which is just a shoulder-flick off the east side of the town. I never truly meant to stay here but once I started having children my roots got stronger and longer and now with the grandchildren all here I could not leave if I wanted to. 

I never, ever miss Denver, not one tiny bit, and I think that the drug dealer is dead. He was a sweet guy, really. He was a businessman who loved drugs and the Grateful Dead. I went skiing one time and almost fell off the mountain which I was assured could not happen. I went rock climbing once and promised a deity I did not believe in that if I ever got down safe, I would never rock climb again. So far, that bargain has been kept. There were a few good things I experienced from my time in Denver and I do honor and appreciate those. But overall, I now know without a doubt that I am a southern woman who needs to be surrounded by southern things. 

And as I have stated before- I still have that rocking chair. It is a beauty. And unlike the parakeets and the drug dealer, it will outlive me. 



Love...Ms. Moon

41 comments:

  1. That sounded like pretty good story telling to me

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  2. Excellent tale of mountains and heat. I felt this in my wee crunchy bones. XR

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    1. Oh honey! It was a different planet inhabited by a different species.

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  3. I can't believe you had a Ford Capri!!! You are the only other person besides myself that I know of that had one or even knew about them. Mine was blue. I loved that car. I wish I still had it. Mine had a sunroof. But it just got too old especially after the front right got wrecked three times in the same spot. The first time was during rush hour and a guy tried to turn left in front of oncoming traffic but failed to see me coming along in the next lane and he hit me front right side. Second time a loaned my car to a friend's boyfriend while he ran up to the store, brought it back wrecked in the same spot. Still don't know exactly how that happened. Third time, Marc drove it to work at the steel factory and when he got off shift, it was bashed in, same spot. He says.

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    1. Did the front seats in your Capri end up having to be propped up with boards? Mine did. By the time I got rid of that car I was enormously glad to do so.

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  4. I hear you in where you need to be. I need to be within at least easy driving of a large ocean. No mountains, they get in the way of the view. No being in the middle of the continental mass, can't breathe too far from the ocean.

    Your story of the getaway is exciting and now we need more.

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    1. Yes. The ocean is one of my requirements too. I have to be able to get there if and when I need it.
      I will have to think of more stories. I mean, I do think about those times a lot but not within the framework of stories to tell.

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  5. Reads like a stoned story fer shure! LOL
    Glad you divested yourself of the drug dealer ... it's a memory you don't have to relive!

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    1. Well, yes. But that guy was sweet, like I said, and he took me in and sort of gave me a home for a little while.

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  6. what a trip, in so many ways, this story! made my day!
    Susan M

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    1. PS.....in some way, it seems you are apologizing for the cake. Why? Looks perfect to me!
      Susan M

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    2. Oh, it was indeed a trip. Several. Well, you know. I was not apologizing for the cake so much as apologizing for baking it. The very last thing I need on earth is a cake in the house.

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  7. Driving stoned through peak hour traffic. There's a story in itself.
    You have made me hanker for spiced apple cake - not that I've ever made or eaten one. I shall google a recipe.
    I will do mountains if they are filled with trees and ferns but much prefer the salty goodness of the sea.

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    1. I was so brave!
      You've never had a spiced apple cake? So good.
      Mountains can be and are beautiful. I am just a born flatlander.

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  8. Children and grandchildren create very deep roots for sure. I love your stories. You have lived many lives and yet I'm sure you have many more stories to tell I hope so.

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    1. Oh, I do indeed have stories. And the memories that go with them. As do we all!

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  9. OMG, I never drive stoned. Or half stoned, either. But I had kids by the time I smoked. I did cut off the tip of my husband's nose while half stoned. Cutting his hair with one of those razor thingies.

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    1. When I started having kids I could not enjoy getting stoned anymore. Haven't since. You cut off the tip of your husband's nose? Now THAT'S a story I'd love to hear.

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  10. Now that I have caught up on your posts, happy belated anniversary to you and Mr. Moon. .I hope the grandkids all enjoy their Halloween goodies, and how is Owen since his skate boarding accident?

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    1. Thank you, e! Owen is doing well. I'm not sure when that cast comes off.

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  11. What wonderful stories. Reminds me of my (lost) youth. Similar in many ways. I guess we do eventually find ourselves. I had a wild youth. When I
    look back I'm not sure how I made it out (alive or otherwise). I finally got myself through college (nursing school) and my feet somewhat firmly planted...as they're going to be.
    The spice cake looks heavenly! Is that a mermaid sitting on a blue rock
    by your rocking chair? Pretty cool! Love the chair. They hold us and so many memories. Thanks again for your story that brought back some memories for me.
    Paranormal John

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    1. I was pretty wild before I started having kids but I had my first at 21 so it wasn't very much of my life in the scheme of things. I had a lot of reasons, looking back, to be wild. When I finished nursing school I had two older kids and a baby in the belly. It's been a busy life.
      Yep- good eye! That's a little mermaid lamp. Mr. Moon got it for me. I love that chair too. I got it in an antique shop in Denver. They said it was a Southern lady's chair without arms so that the billowy skirts could flow about unhampered.

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  12. I sure do understand your dislike of Denver! Never my favorite town- no oxygen- too much wind and snow. Glad you got out of that pickle! Whenever anyone mentions molasses I can not think of anything other than the three ground hogs getting up in the morning- Mother hog sticks her nose out of the hole and says "I smell pancakes" , the Dad squeezes his nose out of the hole next to hers and says "I smell bacon" the little hog tries but can't get through and says "I smell molasses"... mole asses get it?
    I hope that your cake is as good as it looks!

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    1. Yeah- that was another thing. I did get adjusted to the oxygen situation but I never did get used to the dry air. I couldn't even wear my contacts. That was a HUGE adjustment for a girl who was raised where the humidity was always around 85%.
      "Mole-asses." Yes. I get it. And yes, that cake is BETTER than it looks.

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  13. When I had lunch with my friend last Tuesday we ended up telling stories. We didn't grow up together so it was interesting listening to her stories, all new to me. I enjoy your stories too. I don't really have any interesting stories, tried hash oil once and couldn't sleep for two days. That put me right off.
    I did used to drink a lot though when I was young and shy. Slept with a lot of losers and woke up with awful hangovers.

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    1. I slept with my share of losers too. I didn't drink much in my youth. Saved that for my old age.

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  14. One of my memories is being stationed in San Antonio, Texas, and a bunch of soldiers got stoned off our asses on hash, hopped in a car and spent most of the night looking for China Grove. (When the sun comes up on a sleepy little town, down around San Antone, and the folks all rise up for another day, round about their homes....) For the record, I had smoked pot once in my life before I joined the Army. It was at the time when the army was in flux: all these Vietnam vets with drug problems, and they couldn't really throw them out, so they turned a blind eye to a lot of it. Those Vietnam vets? Generous, generous fellas. They knew where to get it and they shared.

    Seems almost like I was another person.

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    1. Oh my gosh! What a great story! And yes, all the Viet Nam vets I know or knew smoked a whole lot of pot. Absolutely. I would have if I'd been in their boots on that ground. Shit.

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  15. That is a nice chair, but I prefer arms on my rocking chairs, which I don't have one of but would get one in a heartbeat if I had enough room for it. Anyway, your delicious apple spice cake wants me to cut a slice and eat it.
    Did you know the drug dealer was a drug dealer before you moved in with him?

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    1. I was told when I bought that chair that it was a southern lady's rocker and the lack of arms was so that skirts could have room to flow. Which is why I bought it, of course.
      I did indeed know that Gregg was a drug dealer. That's where I got my drugs!

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  16. Do those "southern things" include a line of brown beetles chasing each other around the perimeter of an apple pie?

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    1. First of all- apple CAKE, not pie, Mr. P. Secondly, it would be far more typical to have a line of roaches chasing each other around the perimeter of a baked good than beetles. You've been to Florida and I thought you knew these things!

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  17. Oh lordy, it's early morning here and I read "two pancakes in a cage"!! I thought it was your snack for the route!

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  18. I did a lot of stupid crap when I went off to college. I regret some of it and have probably forgotten a lot of it. Too late to change it now.

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    1. I did a whole lot of stupid crap but I am kind to myself about it. Looking back, I understand why and I am actually glad that I experienced a lot of it. Some of it not so much. But overall- I think I needed to.

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  19. I love your circuitous way of telling a story. It makes me laugh. It's very Southern.

    I think every young person needs to move far away and have some adventures and independence, if only to realize that home (or closer to home) is a better place to be. My brother moved to Colorado after college and, like you, came back to Florida after a couple years. But it was good for him.

    I'm impressed you still have the rocker!

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    1. It is very southern, isn't it? I used to have a friend who would always say, "To make a long story interminable" and I think of that often.
      Do you think you'll ever move back to sweet sunny Florida? Ha! I doubt you will.
      I'm impressed I still have the rocker too.

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