In Which I Tell A Story With Many Run-On Sentences

Well, here's my annual picture of the cypress vine, aka cardinal vine, aka star glory. Of course every year I have to look it up again to see what its name is. 
Every. Year.

Maybe I did have early onset dementia and just ignored it. 

Here's another wildflower blooming now. 

Leavenworth's tickseed, aka Common tickseed. And yes, I had to look this one up too.
I admire both of these plants but I have to say the cardinal vine is simply one of my favorites. The color is so truly red and the shape is so genuinely seductive to nectar sippers. 

I waited until it was good and hot this morning to go take a walk and it was a special sort of hell. WHY DO I DO THIS? 
Because I'm stupid and I have my morning routine which I feel I must complete before I can do anything else. Seeing as this routine consists of actions which must be taken like drinking lots of coffee, and visiting certain sites that must be read on the internet, as well as eating my breakfast, doing the crossword, and completing Wordle and Connections, it wouldn't bring the universe to a halt to wait until I get back from my walk to do at least some of this. And of course there's always the option of getting up an hour earlier which would definitely help. 
I tell myself this every time I go out for a walk and it's already ninety degrees and ninety-five percent humidity. I sweat and I walk and I chastise myself and then I walk faster so I'll be done sooner which makes me feel worse and I have to remind myself to slow down and I'm just a damn mess. 

A damn, sweat-soaked mess. 

When I got home today I texted Mr. Moon who was at the gym (he does get up early because he is a sensible human being) to ask if he wanted to go to the river this afternoon and cool off and eat sandwiches and he said he did. He even stopped at Publix and got us Pub Subs which is what we here in the south call the sub sandwiches we get at the Publix deli because, well...that makes sense, right?

We are so clever here in the south. 

And we did go to the river and it was pretty okay but I didn't come home reborn. There was a group of teenagers, probably around the age of 15-17 and all boys except for one girl, who were loud as hell and being all manly and shit, jumping off the rope swing and yelling profanities and making great huge whopping splashes when they entered the water the wrong way followed by huge groans from the rest of them. 
Many of you have heard my theory about why young boys are so crazy and wild and it goes like this- back when people were just figuring out how to survive and shit, when young boys hit the age of puberty and thought they could do anything, anything at all, and had that great desire to demonstrate their ability to do anything at all, it was a good thing because they could go out and kill saber-toothed tigers and cave bears and mammoths without fear or worry, having no idea that they, too, were mortal, and I'm sure that was a difficult lesson to learn but meanwhile- YAY for killing the saber-tooth tigers and cave bears and bringing home mammoth meat! And the ones that survived probably got lots of female attention and thus, the other main symptom of testosterone overload was taken care of and even if they died, many of the children they no doubt procreated lived and most likely the males who had been a little more cautious and thus, were still alive, helped raised the children and in doing so, impressed and pleased the ladies so much that their bloodlines got continued too. 
Phew. That sounds like a lot but it's really simple and nowadays young boys don't have saber toothed tigers to kill or mammoths to slay and so they form gangs and join gangs and do crazy things and jump off of rope swings while screaming at the top of their developing voices to impress the one girl in the group. 

And all of this is fine and natural and I understand it, but god almighty, it sure can upset the peace and tranquility of the river. 

Glen and I wondered why in the world these boys weren't at school and I conjectured that perhaps they were homeschool kids. 
"And the river is their teacher?" asked my husband. 
"I guess," I sighed. 

And of course they had every right to be there. They weren't drinking or obviously doing drugs. It's a county park. All are welcome. 

Looks perfectly peaceful from that angle, doesn't it? 

But we ate our sandwiches and we dipped in the cold water and we cooled off and I finished reading "The Late Child" by Larry McMurtry and I have so many mixed feelings about that book but I finished it. I'm sure I'd read it before but remember very little of it. As with all of McMurtry's books, it's the characters that carry the weight of it all on their shoulders and not just the main characters. As I said a few weeks ago, it is not McMurtry's best but his worst is still better than most to me. This book is mostly a study on depression and grief but also very much about families, both blood and chosen.

Well. 

When we left the river, the wild boys had begun a new activity. One of them yelled to the rest- "Do you want to see me reincarnate Jesus?"
Those were his exact words which leads me to think that his study of the Bible has been a bit unorthodox. 
And then he ran about thirty feet as fast as he could down the grassy area towards the swimming area of the river and proceeded to throw himself into the river in an attempt to walk on the water which he did for a second, maybe, or so it seemed, before he pitched headfirst into the water.
And then all the boys had to try it but none of them were reincarnated Jesus either but all of us there were entertained. The couple with the toddler, the pregnant mother with her probably four-year old daughter, the mother and daughter who spoke with accents that were quite possibly the strongest Brooklyn accents I've ever heard or maybe not Brooklyn but from somewhere up there. Mitchell, you would have known. All of us stopped whatever we were doing and watched these boys flinging themselves with abandon into the Wacissa and I, at least, was wishing we had not gotten rid of all of the saber toothed tigers. 
Sigh. 

And that was today at the river. 

Love...Ms. Moon