A Trying Day

I have been in a bitchy mood today. The kind of mood where I kept having to bite my tongue to prevent the tiny demons that were sitting there, just longing to jump up and say mean things to my husband. Certainly it was not me who wanted to say mean things. We all know that I am the very essence of sweetness and light in all ways and on all days because that is just who I am!

Right.

I have a dental appointment tomorrow, just a regularly scheduled cleaning, and of course that's making me anxious which sometimes brings out the worst in me. I suppose that anger can be a coping mechanism for anxiety as well as for depression which I know I'm having a little lick of right now too. 
And when these days happen, if the only person around is your partner, it sometimes happens that he or she gets the brunt of that misplaced anger. "I'm not depressed! I'm not anxious! It's just that you never..."
Never whatever. Doesn't matter. Or sometimes it's, "You always..."

Luckily for Mr. Moon he was gone all morning. He saw a buck on his trail cam pictures and he has worked hard for years on this specific hunting spot and was eager to go try and see the thing in real life, and to perhaps do that thing that hunters do which I don't like to think about, much less vocalize. 
This is why I always ask him, "Did you catch a deer today?"
Well, he did not catch a deer today and admits that he may have slept for most of the early morning in the deer stand but he did see a beautiful big owl. 

He texted to tell me that he was going to sit in the stand until eleven and so I just puttered about here and around 12:30 he called to ask me if I wanted to join him at a little restaurant near where he'd been hunting for lunch. I've never eaten at this place but he likes it and weirdly enough, it is run and operated by a woman I was in a few plays with in Monticello, years ago. Whenever I run into her she asks why I've never been so I told Mr. Moon yes, I'd meet him there. 
When I'd gotten to the highway that the restaurant is on, he called to tell me that dammit- the place was closed today. So we decided to meet at the Hilltop which is a place I've written about many times before. I told him I'd call there to make sure they were open, which I did, as I turned around and headed in that direction. 
They were closed. 
So this left Monticello because Jefferson County is not the foodie capital of Florida but I was just in overalls and a shirt and jacket because he'd convinced me that no one at the restaurant we were originally going to gave a shit. He himself was in full cammo. The Hilltop certainly does not require any sort of dressing up either, so I'd felt okay about going there but here we were, discussing dining in the big city of Monticello. 
Why I even cared, I do not know. I didn't really. I have no shame or pride left at this point. Still.

So we ended up at a place which used to be run by a local meat market who used to process deer for hunters and I figured that overalls would be okay to wear there but damn if THEY had not switched owners and it was now something like The Florida Grill And Barbecue or something. I don't know. By this time, it was late and we were both hungry and I was, as I said, bitchy, so we went in and it was fine although the first person I saw there was WEARING A SEQUINED SHIRT AND GLITTERY PANTS, I SHIT YOU NOT.
Oh well.
I got a pulled barbecued chicken sandwich with fried okra and potato salad. We also got some fried pickles and if you've never had fried dill pickles then please try not to judge. They are actually pretty damn delicious, which is hardly shocking in that fried anything is not bad. Generally. 

But oh, those demons on my tongue wanted to dance and joust with their devil-tridents or whatever those things are that devils are always carrying, and I had to be very, very careful to keep washing them down with iced tea and fried pickles and I was not mean although I am sure that my husband could tell that I was not in the best of moods. After almost forty years together, we can read each other fairly well and also, after almost seventy years of life, I know that lashing out without real reason solves nothing and, in fact, makes things worse. 

There is more to this story but it is no more entertaining or enlightening than the first ten thousand words of this post are so I won't go into them. Suffice it to say that after lunch, my husband got a haircut in Monticello at the barbershop downtown where they still have the original bench along the wall for waiting customers and I went to Wag the Dog because I felt like doing some revenge shopping. Revenge for what, I have no idea. But I eased my anger a tiny bit by finding a beautiful crimson made-in-India tablecloth and a very pretty, decorated Fire King pie plate. 

Now isn't that just the sweetest thing? 
I have several fine pie plates but they are all 9 or 10 inchers and sometimes you just need a smaller one. Know what I mean? Three bucks. And the tablecloth was four dollars so all-in-all that was some pretty cheap revenge shopping. 

I picked the camellias in the photo at the top this afternoon. 

Here are two more pictures of the red and white variegated ones.

I am not sure of their name but I think they may be of the Tricolor Siebold variety. I just call them peppermints. They all grow on the same bush which is blooming its head off right now which I find seasonally appropriate.

Love...Ms. Moon