If You Are Arachnophobic, Just Skip This One

 Not an overly exciting looking cake, is it? I assure you that it is not as tipsy as it looks in the picture. For one thing, my kitchen goes downhill from one side to the other and also, I was taking the picture. 
Anyway, that cake is pretty much the sum total of what I did today. 
I realized when I was making it that the filling of a German chocolate cake is quite possibly the most calorie-dense food on earth. It contains a can of sweetened condensed milk which has so much sugar in it that it should be banned, a cup of sugar because the sweetened condensed milk didn't have enough, four egg yolks, and 3/4 of a cup of butter. Also a bunch of coconut and pecans. And that doesn't even include the four eggs, two cups of butter, two cups of sugar, and a lot of chocolate in the cake itself. 

Eat at your own risk. 

Just got a text from the birthday man. They arrived safely in Lanark which is where they dock. They appear to have had a great day of fishing. 

That is one hell of a red snapper. 

I cannot imagine how happy and how tired he must be. He was tired when he drove down there last night and I know they get up so very early to get out on the water, then fish all day in this heat which is no joking matter, and this is not sit-on-the-bank-with-a-worm-on-your-hook-under-a-shade-tree fishing. 
I'm ashamed to say this but there is nothing in this whole world that I can imagine putting out that much effort for in the name of pleasure. And you could also take off the "in the name of pleasure" part of the sentence and it would still be true for me. 

So yes, I made a cake and I also met up with Lily, Rachel, Owen, Gibson, and Ms. Magnolia June for lunch at the Hilltop. I was so happy to see them all. I swear on all that is holy that Owen has grown a few more inches in the two weeks I haven't seen him. He's not just taller than me. He towers over me. He's as tall as his mama and he is nowhere near growing yet. Gibson, too, is growing and I'll be looking up to him before the summer is up. Maggie's getting taller too. That Moon gene is a strong, strong gene. 

I imagine that DNA getting together with my DNA and saying, "Get out of the way, you puny little runts!"

We had a good time at the old Hilltop, as we always do. I got one of my usual lunches- a chicken salad on a salad which is a tasty mayonnaise fest. I eat so slowly now. I remember my mother doing this. What the hell is that all about? There are SO many things they don't tell you about aging and eating slower is one of them. I do not mind eating slowly at all but when I'm eating with a lot of other people, I always feel as if I'm holding things up. Glen and I both remember when Lily was a baby and then a toddler and when we'd go out to eat with the family, one of us would have to take her out in the stroller to walk her around because if we didn't, she'd scream bloody murder. So we'd rush through our food as fast as possible to let the other one eat and after it was all over we'd look at each other and say, "Did I eat?"

But these days I take it slow and it's nice. I enjoy it. And I enjoyed talking to the kiddos and to Lily and Rachel. Hank had a lunch planned with another friend so he couldn't join us and of course May was working. But it was a very nice time.

Dear god it is hot again. Actually, the temperature isn't quite as high as it has been but the humidity is 72% which means you basically need scuba equipment to breathe outside. No sweet, sweet rain to offer relief today. 

I've done a lot of thinking today about the whole debate debacle and how everyone in the Democrat party is calling for Biden to step down. I mean- I opened my New York Time's news app and there were like five or six opinion pieces on that very subject. And meanwhile, have there been ANY Republicans who have called for Trump to step down as their presidential candidate due to his mental, moral, and criminal liabilities, not to mention that he's a sex offender, did a terrible job of running the country when he was president, and reportedly shits his pants? No. No they have not. They throw the red carpet down for their royal Emperor with No Clothes On, tossing flowers and praise and begging and pleading for the honor of kissing his butt. They have, with very few exceptions, blindly followed this sociopath into complete La-La-Land and handed over the keys to the kingdom, making his daughter-in-law the co-chair of the Republican National Committee. 
So- what the FUCK, NYT's and all you other news outlets? Why haven't you made a big deal of the Republicans having a convicted felon as their candidate? 

Another thing I've been thinking about is how Biden does have a stutter. A speech impediment, and I think that most likely the fact that he knew that he only had two minutes or one minute for each answer or rebuttal stressed him out a great deal which of course caused his stutter to be worse. You could see him pause and search for how to say what he was thinking. And I am not saying that his performance was anywhere near what it had been at the State of the Union address when he was on it, strong and clear. But in that speech, he had the time to find and use his own rhythms and employ the strategies he must use in order to express his thoughts clearly. He did not have that on Thursday night. 

And on top of everything else, everything that was thrown at him by Trump was such an obvious lie that I'm sure he was somewhat flabbergasted. 
Which is just as outdated of a word as "malarky". 

****************

When I went to bed on Thursday, after watching the debates, I saw this on my new bark-clothed covered little nightstand dresser. 

At first, my brain would not accept what I was seeing. It wanted to believe that that was just part of the print design on the fabric but I quickly realized that it was not. I did not scream but I did take a picture, and texted Glen who was still in the Glen Den that this was in our room and to bring a jar, please, right now! 
Unfortunately, in my agitation, I sent the picture and message to someone else whom I'd been texting with about the debates. When he didn't respond, I rushed to where he was sitting in front of the TV and told him what was going on, hurried to the kitchen to get a container to catch the spider in, and he followed. Unfortunately, at that point, the spider took off and scampered under the bed so...I have no idea where it is now. I looked under the bed for it but did not see it. I think it was a wolf spider which is scarier-looking than it is dangerous. 

Still. I mean. My god.

And then the next morning, when he'd already gone to Tom's, I found a mouse in the library whose head had been removed. I am sure that Maurice killed the poor thing and ate the head although who knows what Jack does at night? And so I had to sweep the poor little corpse into a dustpan and throw it out into some distant bushes. 
And I suppose- better dead than scurrying around, making more mouse babies. 

I thought once again of what Lily said once when we'd recently moved here and she got up before dawn to go to work and somehow a bat and a cockroach both got themselves into her personal space in the bathroom and she screamed, "Too much nature!"

Never boring in Lloyd. 

Love...Ms. Moon