The Good, The Bad, And The Amazing Americans Who Showed Up

I actually took that picture yesterday. That is the sea grape that I grew from a sea grape seed that I picked up near Sebastian. It has been a slow grower but it is still alive and seems relatively healthy although there is some bug damage on the a few of the leaves. It's about three feet tall now. 
Last summer when we were in Roseland, Glenn Our Darling Landlord told me to go ahead and dig up any of the baby sea grapes growing in the backyard where we were staying and I did dig up a few. I planted them in pots when we got home and they are looking very good. 

They are even sending forth new babies. Perhaps one day I will have a lovely sea grape garden. 
Well, that's a fond dream which is not going to come true unless I move farther south because I don't think sea grapes especially enjoy freezing temperatures. 

I slept very late this morning. I think that last Zepbound dose sort of did me in or perhaps that has nothing to do with my low energy right now. It could be my body working on repairing whatever's happening in my knee which was quite bothersome this morning. In fact, I decided that today would be a good day to just stay off it as much as possible and I suppose I have but of course I really haven't and I am reassured because if it was really torturing me, I would be more apt to rest it. As the day has progressed, it has felt better and better and that too, seems a good sign. If it were seriously injured, I don't think that would be the case. 

I have been following different news reports of the No Kings protests across the country and it certainly looks like a hell of a lot of people have shown up to stand up for democracy. Tallahassee had quite a few protestors at the old capitol building which stands right in front of the new capitol building which is one of the most phallic buildings in the world as far as I can tell. The old one is a graceful thing, though. 

It would appear that millions of Americans came out today to voice their opinions about what's going on in Washington and I'm not talking here specifically about the parade taking place there to honor Dear Leader with jets and tanks and the bullshit reason for the parade which, as we all know is a lie. Trump couldn't care less about when the US Army was formed but he does care a great deal about his own birthday and the fact that this is the sort of tribute that rulers in dictatorships can expect and do indeed get. 
How very, very sad and weak do these men have to be to put on such penile pageantries displaying all of the perceived strength that they themselves do not have? 

Well. Hopefully the tide is turning against this administration and people's eyes are opening but even as I say that, tragedies are occurring and I can't even believe what happened in Minnesota. If nothing else, I believe that Republicans are getting a clue about American's mindset when it comes to Trump's dream of his very own authoritarian government and that their chances of being elected or reelected to office are sliding at the same exact rate as Trump's place in the polls. 

To all of you who put on your shoes and made your signs and showed up today, I thank you. YOU are what America is. Not tanks in streets or jets flying fancy formations in the sky over Trump's reviewing stand or ICE agents who are as determined as KKK members not to show their faces because they know what they are doing is the wrong thing, or anyone, anyone at all wearing a MAGA hat, or driving a truck with a confederate flag flying from it or taking a US senator to his knees and handcuffing him because he wanted to ask a question at a PRESS conference, or arresting a mother and father for the sin of being brown and taking them into custody while their child weeps because he has no relatives in this country and no idea where his parents are. 

Mr. Moon has already started his Father's Day by catching a large catfish off his very own dock. 

He reports seeing two new alligators and I can't wait until those fuckers decide to bask in the sunlight in the backyard of the house that came with the dock. 

Forgive me for once again being all over the place. I'm going to go cook an eggplant that I picked today. 

Yes. More beans. All this rain is swelling them up like Trump's ego is swelling right now as missiles pass the reviewing stand in all of their long, hard glory. 

That's all I have to say.

Love...Ms. Moon

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Not quite fully-opened okra flower. As you can see, it is part of the mallow family, like hibiscus and rose of sharon. Also, cacao and cotton and I did not know that. 

Today has been tough. Part of it was lovely and I did enjoy that but the rest of it has been rather dark for me. I woke up from more stupid, stupid dreams with all of the themes in them. Themes of taking care of children, of taking care of grown-ups, of being surrounded by filthy laundry and many washing machines, none of them any good at all. Kitchens that are also filthy with many ovens that are horrendous, most of them non-functioning, and never, ever enough food to feed all the people I need to feed. Trying to find something to wear and not being able to. This morning's dreams took me all the way back to the closet in my brother's and my room in Roseland. 
And then there is the other recurring theme of my husband not loving me, of having another true love for whom he is leaving me. The hussy who loves to hunt and fish.
I wake up exhausted and fighting to find reality in the daylight. 

But. I got up and got on with it. I knew we were meeting Hank and Rachel and a few others at 11:30 for lunch and so I needed to get the sheets in the washing machine and and do all the other self-determined necessary things for a Friday. This includes weighing and injecting myself with another dose of Zepbound. 
The scale showed no progress and like I talked about in my post concerning weighing and scales, I was ready to start stripping off clothes and wondering how much extra weight my swollen knee was responsible for and all that bullshit. Even knowing what I know from personal experience and from Weight Watcher member experience about how weight loss goes, I fall right back into the thinking that no weight loss means that whatever I'm doing isn't working, no matter what the other evidence shows. 
And the last week on the low dose of Zepbound, the starting dose, has been hard. The magical silencing of the voices in my head reminding me that I should eat, that I'm hungry, that just a little bite of this or a little bite of that certainly can't hurt anything, and blah, blah, blah, had mostly disappeared. I wanted that silence back. And I have become afraid that I won't ever get it back which is another example of faulty thinking. 
Today I started on the second level of dosage and I am waiting to see if that kicks into gear. So far, it has not. I cannot stress enough that I still have not been eating nearly as much as I was before I started taking the drug, and the choices I've made have been far healthier. I do not eat between meals except for my afternoon snack of cottage cheese (protein!) and fruit. And that has been very satisfactory. But still, it's not been the same as when I first started and it was as if I had been given the keys to a magical kingdom where food was not my boss, my tyrant, one of the main focuses of my life. 
I know that I will feel that again as so many others report that they have. Many people don't experience that at all the first month. I was a rapid reactor. So I'm just being paranoid and pessimistic and worried, once again, that somehow I don't deserve to have the keys to that magical kingdom. 

But on I go and I wore a dress today that I simply could not fit into last summer and that is after one month. I've had to move a ring that was getting too large for the finger I wore it on. I see many small changes already, ones that are not based on the scale but on the reality of the size of my body. I am certain no one looking at me could tell any change at all but I can. 

Still, all of that negativity had hold of me when I drove into town to the restaurant that used to be El Patron where our family has spent so many birthdays and just plain get-togethers. There's a porch where the children could run around without disturbing anyone and the food was always good and reasonable and they knew us. Not unlike Japanica, El Patron closed for a good long while and we feared it was gone forever. But no, ownership just changed hands but still within the same family. It is now San Marcos Mexican Grill. The restaurant has been spiffed up but still has some of its funky charms. There are new chairs which impressed us all. Very comfortable. The porch has been remodeled and is now more inviting. They're going to start having live music there a few nights a week. 
So it was fun to see all of this but mostly it was good to see not only Hank and Rachel, but also our beloved Melissa, she of the hair salon where all of us go, and beloved Lindsey who gives quite possibly the best hugs in the world and makes tiny origami birds that she leaves for the server.

Glen was there too and that was sweet. I love how easy things are between us and the kids. I'm sure there are things we don't talk about but those subjects are few and far between. 

I stopped at a Goodwill on my way home but wasn't there long. My knee has been hurting all day when I walk and I'm sorry but Goodwill just isn't worth the pain. 

Since I've been home I've done little. Made up the bed, swept the kitchen, fretted over stupid, little, selfish things, despaired over huge frightening things, and tried to fix a buckle on a pair of overalls which felt to me like I was attempting a magic trick with no instruction book. I've never been good at things like that and now, I am even worse. Mr. Moon has fixed them for me. Bless him. 

Forgive me for talking so much about such frivolous stuff that really doesn't offer anything to anyone. I simply cannot talk about the big stuff right now. You know- how the world as we know it has been erased by wars and tyrants. 

Let's see how this martini works. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Oh, to be as wise as Frida. 

All Of This Is True

My hope, when I planted those zinnias, was to have an almost solid glory of chaotic color. And I think we may get close. Even if that doesn't happen, any showing of zinnias is a happy thing for me. 

We need happy right now. We need sweetness. We need beauty. We need respite from our fears and our worries, our outrage and our horror. I woke up this morning from a dream where I had observed, from a window, ICE rounding up workers at a restaurant. I think. I was at once horrified and not surprised. And you know what I did in my dream? I watched for a little while and then...I shut my door and got on with my dream life.
This speaks volumes, I think. 
We all would love to believe that if we were that close to such an event we would step forward, to be witness to, if nothing else. And I thought about that in my dream but I made a conscious decision not to even though I knew that was wrong. 
And I am not pleased with myself at all. When I told Glen about my dream, I cried. I've always known I was something of a coward and my closing of the dream door seems my way of recognizing that cowardice. Or at least show me that it's there. 
I am quite aware that it was people like me who allowed Hitler to do what he did. People who weren't evil or even really bad. People who were probably good, with good hearts, with strong beliefs that what was going on was so very wrong but who were so afraid of what would happen if they stepped forward, that they did not step forward. 
They shut their eyes, their ears, their windows, their doors. 

They said What can I do? I am only one person. 

This isn't what I meant to write about this evening. As if I ever have a plan to begin with. Still. 
It is the truth. 

Meanwhile today I did regular things. My left knee which chronically bothers me and threatens to do more than that, did do more than that this morning. It "went out" on me. Do you know what I mean? It's like all of a sudden the tendons and ligaments forget how to do what they're supposed to do which is to hold it all in place. And it hurts when that happens and it's surprising like, Why are you doing this to me, knee?
And it was swollen and I HAD SHIT TO DO and I was almost sure I had a knee brace because this has happened many times in the past and I dug through the places I thought it might be and could not find it which also made me cry. My mission today was beans!
So on the wild hope that the GDDG might carry some sort of knee braces because they can surprise you like that, I drove down there and by golly, they did. I also found a box of pint Ball jars with lids which Publix doesn't even have because I suppose everyone and their great aunt's husband's sister's garden is coming in now. I was so thrilled. 

I put the brace on as soon as I got home and it did the job. I picked more beans and then I began the process of preparing the two giant bags of beans in the refrigerator for canning. I decided to use quart jars for those because you can get a lot more in the canner at one go that way. I was going to do seven quarts, which is the canner's capacity but after snapping beans for two hours and packing jars, I decided that six quarts would do it. That was all of the refrigerator beans and a few of the ones I picked today. 

Yes! More beans in jars! 

As I just wrote a friend, "When the apocalypse happens, people are going to be begging for my green beans." 
Shoulda thought of that earlier, suckers. 
You know I am so joking because honestly, there is no rhyme or reason to be putting up this many jars of beans. Trust me- they aren't cheaper than store bought. 
But they are better.

Have you seen THIS? 

In short, Texas lawmakers are pushing a bill to test waste water for hormones, specifically the ones found in birth control pills, abortion medication, and hormones which could be used in gender affirming treatment. 
Because they're absolutely terrified these hormonal horrors are going to get in the ground water and pollute it and people will be affected and oh, oh, oh! It's so scary! 
As if trace amounts of hormones pose any risk to the ground water compared to heavy metals, agricultural pest and weed control, and about a million other things that they don't seem to give a shit about. 
They just want one more way to intrude into the privacy of Americans in a way that pleases their need for control. 

Sickening. 

I don't even know what else to say. I'm glad I was able to can beans today. I am glad that we are able to grow things that we can and do preserve. I am glad I could be outside for awhile, even though it was horribly hot because there is no place I'd rather be when I can be. Despite the heat I love the lizards and butterflies and even the wasps and giant grasshoppers and oh yes, the anoles. To observe them as they live their own lives. To watch the garden as the vegetables grow and ripen, to hear the birds as they call and talk about their day. 

It is such a privilege and a joy. 

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

Can I say that the death of Brian Wilson was a sort of shock? Not specifically because he died but because it felt like the end of something. Not an era- that era ended long ago. But of the burning light of a genius who managed to bring so much damn happiness and pleasure to so many people despite the fact that he came from a history of so much abuse and pain. I remember listening to the Beach Boys when I was in the fifth grade. Their harmonies soared and so did my spirit when I heard them. I would not be who I am if they had not been who they were. I have never not loved them. And they were there because of Brian Wilson. Please let there be peace for him now. I feel sure there is. 

Enough. 

Love...Ms. Moon

In Which I Venture Out Into The World

Lily and I did go to the Open Studio for pottery today and I am so glad we did. There were familiar faces there, people who make me smile, who make me glad to see them. 
Both of us searched through all of the bisqueware (which is pottery that has been fired once but is not so hard that it can't accept glaze) looking for things we'd left to be fired at the end of the last session of classes. I'd almost given up finding my things but they were there. The leaves that I'd made for a wind chime were rough but kind of cool.

I had wanted and tried to make more than three but not really knowing what I was doing, two of them broke. But I think they will make a sweet tiny wind chime with a pleasant voice. 

When I found my bowl, I was rather surprised. Do you remember that I made it using another bowl as a mold? A hump mold. At the last minute before I left class that day, I grabbed my needle tool and made the design in the bottom of the bowl and poked those tiny holes around the rim just to make it something beyond a wonky bowl formed over another bowl. When I held it this morning, it felt good in my hands. In all the classes I've taken, this bowl is the first thing I've done that pleased me. 

Today I sanded the bowl and then painted the design with underglaze. Next week I'll apply very light or even clear glaze over the design and it will be all fancy and stuff. Hopefully. At least it will be fine to eat from and to put in the dishwasher. A real bowl. 

After class we met Lauren and Gibson and Maggie at Kyoto, formerly Japanica! for our lunch. 

Y'all- I was not very happy with the situation. First off, the prices have gotten really high. Someone has to pay for all that new decor and the tablets they use to take orders on.

Secondly, they no longer serve the type of curry that I always ordered and loved so much. 
I ordered ramen in a broth with other things and I didn't think it was that great. I sent the leftovers home for Owen to eat. Or Gibson. He really liked it. 

So that was that experience. 
And then I went to Costco and then to Publix and it was all sort of okay but a little not okay. When I got out of the store, it was pouring down rain and I got soaked. I should have waited a while for the rain to slow down but I was so ready to get home. Lunch and the shopping had done me in and I needed to get away from parking lots and people. To tell you the truth, I'm still a little wet. I should change. 

Mr. Moon is coming home and bless him, he's getting another salad tonight. This one with tuna. The kind you cook. Not from a can although there's nothing wrong with that. I wonder if he'll be exhausted. I wonder if he'll be happy. I wonder if he'll be able to settle down for a little while, even though I know he'll have a thousand things on his mind having to do with the project he's undertaken. 
I bet you anything Owen will be relieved to get home and back to his computer. He has been so kind to go help his grandfather. I know for certain all that physical labor outside in the heat has been a shock to his system.

I know I couldn't do it. Mr. Moon is a beast. 

Tomorrow I will can beans. Believe it or not, I am looking forward to it. And I almost have enough cucumbers to make another batch of pickles. 

Meanwhile, everything we do right now, every place we go here in the US, everything we take for granted as our right as Americans is being threatened in ways I never had any idea could happen. 

I'm not even going to voice what I fear most. What's happening this second is unbelievable enough. 

Let's be strong, y'all. Whatever that means, however we can. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I Wish You Could Smell The Rain

This is the text I got this morning before I even woke up. I knew we had someone coming to replace a gasket on the refrigerator but the appointment was supposed to be any time between noon and five, not eight and five. And then, for it to say "it could be earlier or later" than 8am-5pm seemed excessively unspecific to me. 

Obviously I wasn't going to get my shopping done today. 
And I couldn't seem to get motivated to get anything done. So I piddled around doing a little of this and a little of that and at one point I went out to the swing porch to give the hair from my hairbrush to whatever critter might want it, I saw something that I could not believe. 

I wish I had taken better pictures which included the whole bamboo stalk. What you're looking at here is a bamboo that we obviously missed which had actually entered the the porch roof and ripped up part of it. 
Not to offend anyone but Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!

The damage had been done but in order to prevent even more, I went and got the loppers and cut that stem off at the bottom. I cut it into three pieces, thinking I'd get those and the dead branch that had fallen from an oak tree, hauled to the burn pile but that never happened. 
Yet. It will. It really will. I swear. 

Here's what that piece of bamboo looks like. 

You see that yellow part? That whole thing was inside the ceiling of the porch roof. Which now looks like this.

Does homeowner's insurance cover bamboo damage? 

How could this have happened? It's not like I NEVER go out on that porch. Am I blind? 
I guess so. 

So that was perturbing and the big excitement for my day. 

My plan was to get the garden cart and load it up with the fallen branch and the bamboo after I'd picked what I thought would be just a few beans. Didn't I just pick those things? 
Well, an hour later I had this.

All this rain we've having is encouraging the beans to make more of themselves and these beans are fat and luscious. Some of them are huge but I guarantee they'll be tender. 

Anyway, picking those things took almost an hour and after that, I was soaked through and in no mood to be loading up garden carts which is why I didn't. 

Tomorrow Lily and I are going to try and get to the pottery open studio. And then I'll have my shopping to do. This will probably be an all day affair and lunch will be involved with Gibson and Maggie too. I bet I know where they'll want to go. 

Sigh.

So how IS the Zepbound adventure going? 
Asked no one.
Too bad. I'll tell you anyway. 

On Friday it will have been a month since I started taking the medication and as I have said, it has made a profound difference in my life and how I think and feel about food. And eating. And myself. 

When I give myself the injection on Friday it will be with a higher dosage than the one I've been taking for the past month. You start on the lowest dosage and increase slowly until you've found the right place for you to be. I am glad I'm going to be increasing my dosage because I have started hearing some of the food noise again. I told Mr. Moon that a few days ago and he was clueless about what food noise is. 
Oh, to be that sort of person!
I explained to him as best I could, which is that it's the constant, constant brain chatter about what I should eat next, what I can eat next, what I shouldn't eat next, and what I have in my cabinets and refrigerator that might taste good right about now, and hey! I'm hungry! 
And so forth. 
He had no idea that's how my brain worked. Why should he? I never told him. I just thought it was normal to think like that, feel like that. 
And thus, felt great shame that I could not just shut that shit up by myself. 

And this week, I've found myself thinking more about treats. Those dark chocolate covered coconut things from Costco have remembered to call my name. Not strongly enough to really tempt me but...in a way, it's scary just that I'm thinking about them more than very occasionally. I do not want to lose this mindset. I do not want to wake up and find that this is all a dream. 

And I'm still craving the salads. Oh my god. Here's what I made last night. 

There's baked tofu in it along with all the vegetables. And the miso dressing. Gotta have the miso dressing! 

I did not eat nearly all of that salad and I ate it again for lunch. Tonight I'll be eating some leftover chicken and vegetables from Sunday night. I am still very satisfied with my meals. 
But I can feel myself on a slippery slope and so the higher dosage sounds right to me. 

Here are two pictures that Mr. Moon sent me from this morning when he got up early to go drink coffee on the dock. 

He finally caught a bass! There ARE fish in Lake Seminole! 

And I guess we're going to have to name this guy.

It's storming again. Here's a little video I made. That last few seconds are the most dramatic ones although the sound of that bolt of lightning and the resulting thunder were much louder than the video captures. You can see that I jumped. 

It was way close. 

I am once again reminded that there are powers much bigger than any I have. 

Although- I did have the power to create a human life and deliver that life safely onto earth. And that's not nothing. 

Happy birthday, Hank. I love you so much and can't wait to celebrate you this weekend. 

Love...Mama Ms. Moon

P.S. Caleb did come and he replaced the gasket in the refrigerator in less than a red-hot second. And it was before 5. 

Jibber-Jabber And The First Best Story Of My Life

I took this picture on my walk this morning and was completely blinded by the sun when I took it. It really was just "point and shoot" because I had no idea what I was shooting although it turns out that the sky is pretty easy to get a picture of, even if you can't see it through the lens. 
I guess because it's so big? 

So, yeah, I got out there and did the walk and it was fine. I didn't feel close to dying although I was hot. Part of my route took me down Main Street in Lloyd where I noted that the restored house is still for sale. It seems that there's more and more "cute" things showing up on the porch and in the yard which I guess is someone's way of trying to improve curb appeal. I'm not sure we have curbs though. You'd think I'd have noticed by now. I also saw that there are TWO porta-potties on Abraham's property across the street from where his house is which would usually indicate some sort of construction about to happen. I also noticed what I think is a new truck in Abraham's yard and I am just hoping that he won the lottery and is building himself a new and stronger house because if not, he may have sold that property to someone who's going to put something commercial on it. Like the GDDG which is right next door. 
Hoo-boy. 

The route I walked was intended to keep me less than a mile from the house because the sky was threatening. By the time I got home, it was seriously thundering and rain had just started to fall. It turned into a downpour and I was so glad I made it home before that started. Since then it's already rained at least twice more. 

It felt a little cooler when I'd finished my lunch, or at least I was cooler, so I decided to go out and dig up some more potatoes. It tickles me that when Maurice sees me putting on my gardening shoes, not to be confused with my walking shoes, she heads on out the back door to meet me outside. She may be crazy but she isn't stupid. She kept me company while I dug potatoes which was a messy business due to the wet dirt and I sweated through my clothes once again. She laid in the shade and kept an eye on me, just in case...well, I don't even know.  Keeled over from heat stroke? What would she do? Dig around in my pocket and find my phone in the ziplock I keep it in when I work in the garden to prevent dirt from getting into the charging port? Take the phone out of my pocket, remove it from the bag and call 911? 
Nah. She'd probably just stand over me and meow. 
I know she is concerned about my wellbeing, though. The sky darkened up again and when it began to thunder, she did indeed meow directly at me and then went and sat closer to the gate so I'd get the message and stop what I was doing and go inside. Between that, and the fact that it was starting to rain, AND that I'd dug up not only some potatoes but also some extremely fierce-looking ants, I decided that was enough for today. Those ants were huge and they were boiling out of the ground. Also, they were very red. I managed not to get stung which was a sort of miracle for which I am grateful. 

I've got the potatoes on an old sheet with the other ones I've dug with a fan on them to dry them out a little. We've eaten a few of the potatoes and they are fine. I do not care to lose them to rot. 

I've got a little experimental project going on here. It's so silly and so simple that I'm a bit hesitant to even mention it but here goes- when I make fruitcakes, I wrap them in cheesecloth which I have soaked in rum and then I wrap them in aluminum foil. That's the way it's generally done, I believe. Cheese cloth is, well, cheese cloth. It's used for many things in a kitchen and it's available in kitchen supply stores and even grocery stores. 

When we had eaten all of our fruitcake last winter, I decided I was not throwing that rummy cheesecloth away and I didn't. I washed it and it came out of the dryer feeling like the nicest cotton gauze. Like, perhaps the sort of cotton gauze that hippie clothes were often made of, but softer. 
Hmmm... I said. What have I here?
And since then, I have been using cut up pieces of that cheese cloth as cleaning cloths and also, sweat rags which are infinitely valuable here. When I'm working outside, I have to have a sweat rag to keep the sweat out of my eyes and off my face. I've used old napkins before and if they are the older, softer, more absorbent ones, those work great. 
But they have met their match with these cheesecloth squares which I just use and wash, over and over again. 
And today, I washed most of a package of unused cheesecloth with the dedicated purpose in mind of using it for all sorts of things that need utmost absorbency and softness. 

Here's the piece I washed today along with a piece that I've been using since winter.

The top one is the older one and it has gone through some bleach loads which is why it's so much whiter than the new one. And because the new one has only been washed and dried once, it has not yet achieved that closer weave. I plan on cutting the new one into good-sized squares or rectangles and hemming them. I can guarantee that they will be used over and over again. With enough of them, I could almost do without paper towels. But that's a long way from happening. Meanwhile, I will be buying more cheesecloth. That package in the picture cost about five dollars, maybe? 

Some of you who are as old as I am, will probably remember Birdseye diapers. These are still made and every new mother should have a few packages, not necessarily to use as diapers, but to use as burp cloths or as we called them around here, spit-up rags. 

These, too would probably make excellent kitchen rags or sweat rags if that's something you could use but for right now, I'm going with the cheese cloth. 

So that's my household tip for the day. Just call me Heloise. 

And I have to add that forty-nine years ago right now I was in labor with my first baby, having no idea whatsoever that labor could be so horrible. It was for me, anyway. It's certainly not for everyone but it is not painless without drugs. I'll just say that. I wanted a home birth and the women who attended me were not trained midwives, but women friends, some of them who had had babies of their own, who wanted very much to be midwives. Armed with a copy of Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin, they were by my side for the entire twenty-eight hours of the labor. I finally could not go on one more moment and my then-husband drove me to the hospital, which was about a mile away, where I was checked in, assessed, and sent immediately to the delivery room where the doctor who had done all my prenatal care, delivered the baby. Fast, fast, fast. 

Forty-nine years ago and I remember some of those moments so clearly. So very, very clearly. The memory that always makes me laugh happened after I got to the hospital and the nurse was trying to get me to get up on the exam table and I was so into pushing that I would not stop squatting on the floor to do just that. 
"Get up here on this bed," she said, "Or you're going to have that baby on the floor!" 
"I DON'T CARE!" I roared. And I didn't. 

And that was Hank. My red-headed baby whose arrival immediately put all of that work, all of that pain, into a place that didn't matter and there was nothing that mattered except for him and I knew what love was from that moment on. 

And before supper time, we checked out of the hospital, AMA, and went home where my life and Hank's life too, truly began. 

I was twenty-one, almost twenty-two and I had just met the greatest teacher of my life. 

And that's what's going on within me and without me this evening. Mr. Moon and Owen are at the lake and hopefully, no one's fallen off a roof or lost an arm or a leg to a power saw. I hope they sleep well. I do believe I will. 

Love...Ms. Moon

It's Hot, Humid, And Buggy. In Short- Florida In June

 That is a young Georgia Thumper. The grasshopper I've been writing about for a few months. They start out as tiny little black hoppers that cover plants and then they begin to grow and they grow some more and then some more and eventually, they are huge and yellow and red and look like this.

They can (and do, trust me) grow to be up to three or more inches long. The first time I saw one as a child I could not believe my eyes. What the HELL was this terrifying, unholy thing? 

And they can chew right through a garden. The only way to really get rid of them is to squish them but it's hard to smash something that big. I mean, not physically, just mentally. For me anyway. 

I've seen a lot of the young black ones on the beans and I have smashed a few but mostly I just leave them figuring there's enough there to share. 

It was so hot and humid here this morning that by the time I'd picked the garden, I was teetering on sweaty collapse. Any thoughts I may have had about digging more potatoes went right out the window. 
No way, no how. It did rain a little while after I came in and it is much more bearable outside but still too much for me. 

Glen spent most of the late morning and early afternoon in town, gathering supplies to take to Lake Seminole to get some work done on the cabin. Owen's going with him and they're leaving early tomorrow morning and will spend two nights. Two helpers are going to be there and I have no idea what the immediate projects are but I don't have to know. Glen did hint broadly that a pot of chili might be good to feed everyone for a few days but I redirected him by educating him on the merits of a good Stouffer's Family Sized Lasagna. I didn't even make cookies. I am getting so mean in my older years. He and Owen are going to go grocery shopping on the way up there. I hear there's a Walmart only eleven miles from the cabin. 
Sigh. 
Not sigh because of the distance but sigh because Walmart. They do sometimes have good produce. Or so I hear.

Yesterday, the day I did NOTHING, I decided that time was up on the fourteen-day pickles. Every day I was reboiling the syrup and adding another half cup of sugar and it was getting so ridiculous. Plus, I had not used alum in them and so they were looking like someone's biology experiment going very, very badly. Alum is a substance that I assume has aluminum in it that crisps those pickles right up. I mean, those pickles will snap to attention and salute after you add it. But I didn't have any and besides, it just seems like it's not a good thing to be ingesting but hell- with all that sugar, who cares? 
Anyway, I hadn't added it and so I figured I'd just jar those pickles up and process them but somewhere along the line I'd fucked up the pickle syrup (it's a long story and I'm not even sure how it happened) so I had to make a whole new brine with vinegar and sugar and spices. I used a recipe for bread and butter pickles and that's what went into the jars along with the pickles and I haven't tried any but they look okay. 

Just for fun I took a picture of the canned goods in the pantry.

Please do not think the entire pantry looks that orderly and tidy. It most definitely does not and one of the things on my should-be-done list is taking everything out of it, cleaning the shelves, and putting everything back in better order. 
But that part of it makes me feel like a good pioneer housewife, perhaps even a Mormon! and brings me pleasure. 

Tune in tomorrow when I may or may not dig up more potatoes! Oh, the drama! I am sure you are all hanging on to the edge of your seats! 

Until then...

Love...Ms. Moon

If screaming were a color, this would be it. 

Screaming for joy, of course. Or...whatever.

You Gotta Move

This morning I opened the online newspaper we read here, the Tallahassee Democrat. 
I read the first sentence and thought to myself, Steve Miller? 
There was a guy in my high school named Steve Miller and we always ended up sitting one behind the other because at that time my name was Mary Miller. We joked about being brother and sister. 
Anyway, I looked at the picture and damn, if that wasn't the Steve I'd known. He looks about the same now as he did in high school except he didn't have a mustache then. Still handsome. Maybe more so.
The article was pretty good and the reporter talked to others who are in minority communities who feel very threatened and frightened by what Trump and his lapdog, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, are doing. 

Steve and I lived in Winter Haven then. It was a fairly small town known mainly for citrus, Cypress Gardens, and being the City of One Hundred Lakes. Most of the Black residents lived in a community called "Florence Villa"and that was the way it was. Steve and I were in possibly the eleventh grade when our schools were first integrated and I was thrilled by the prospect of our country finally moving forward when it came to civil rights and equal rights although I knew that not everyone felt that way. 
It was a tenuous time and that first year was a year of unease. It seemed, however, at least from my own privileged white girl perspective, that overall the change was positive. That the new students were being accepted and that what had once seemed impossible, was now appearing to be cautiously positive.
Of course I don't know what those students went through daily as they walked through the halls to get to class. I do know that many of them went out for sports and were soon dominating both basketball, football, and field and track. This did not hurt with their popularity and by the time my class graduated, a Black guy named Larry Hardaway was our class president. 
So there really was progress made although I know there were incidents which occurred that were disturbing and I am sure I didn't know the half of it. 
But Steve Miller and I became friends. He was so outgoing and friendly and I was so open to a friendship with him. He would ask me how to tell a girlfriend that he wanted to break up with her without hurting her and I finally ended up writing letters that he would copy and give to these ladies and I seriously doubt that any of those letters made anyone's heart less apt to break. I honestly think, though, that he and I had a pretty deep affection for each other. We were friends, or at least the best friends a white female and a Black male could be in those days. And reading how he has become someone who has been a strong voice in his community and who is now a strong voice in the protest of Trump and his policies, I am proud of him and I sorrow for him. He has always been strong and the baby steps society was taking in the early 70's was part of a lot of growth and understanding and here we are, 2025, and there is a grave possibility that this administration will erase, or at least attempt to erase, the results of the constant, never-ending, brave and dedicated work that so many people like Steve have spent their lives doing. 

And what have I done today? What has Mary Moon, nee Miller, accomplished? 
Nothing. Oh, you know me. I did a few things. Beans must be picked. But mostly I spent watching stupid Reels on Facebook, time spent that I will never get back. The most non-challenging way a human could spend their time. And I do not feel the better for it.

I remember when I first moved to Tallahassee. I had quit college in Denver because I was in a very deep state of depression (which I did not understand then) and because of about fifty other reasons and I had chosen Tallahassee because it was in the South which I missed desperately, near the water, far enough away from my family of origin to feel relatively safe, and mostly because I'd met a guy back in Winter Haven over Christmas break whom I figured I was in love with and he'd said, "If you hate Denver, move to Tallahassee! You can live with me!" 
And so I did. 
Unfortunately, it turned out that although I felt that I loved him desperately, he did not have the same feelings about me. And there I was, in a town in which I did not know one soul aside from him with nothing but my pressure cooker, a rocking chair, and two parakeets, in a profound depression with no plan, no place to live, no job and no skills, and no desire whatsoever to go back to school. 
There is a lot to this story and obviously, it turned out just fine but there was a period of time there where I found myself living in an apartment with someone I did not really know but who just needed a roommate, with no job, no place to go either day or night, and nothing at all to do beyond the most basic self care of feeding myself and keeping my laundry done. 
It was one of the lowest points in my life. 
And ever since then, I have felt so strongly that in order to have even a shot at happiness, I need to be busy and productive. 
Let me add that although the boyfriend broke my heart so bad, he did introduce me to some of the most amazing human beings I've ever known or will ever know, who took me in, enfolded me into their lives and families, and that's probably why I'm still alive. 
Also, the not-boyfriend and I are still friends and always will be. Same with his wife. 

But when I have days where I cannot motivate myself to get things done, I get the same feeling I had when I lived in that apartment with the stranger, feeling estranged from everything and anything and everyone and anyone in the entire world. Feeling as if I have no purpose or meaning in this life, in this world. Even though I know that's just a shitty lie my brain tells me and that mopping the kitchen is not required for me to be worthy of the air I breathe.

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

Hawk is back, perched, as always, on the old playset tower that Mr. Moon built. I have become accustomed to this bird and its routine. Another being with whom I share my yard, my tiny world. Another set of eyes, far sharper than mine, on everything that goes on in that part of the yard. It is somehow a comfort.

Jessie reports that there is a mama bear and two cubs who have been in a tree beside their camper all day, probably not coming down because of the barking dogs. 
Oh, Sophie. You are a labradoodle. Well, one of those doodles.

Can you see them? 

Mountain life sure is different than North Florida life. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Oh Boy! You Get To See Another Jar Of Something I've Canned!

Gaze ye thine eyes upon that which I have accomplished today. 
I have no idea where that came from. Maybe I'm channeling the King James version of the Bible. You know, the chapter about pickles? Book of Cucumber, probably. 

I am so tired tonight and I wish I could say it was a good tired but not really. It just feels tired, tired. The pain in my side has been a pain in my ass. I even took ibuprofen for it this morning which did not help much. And the whole situation made me anxious because if it is a kidney stone jockeying for position to escape via the ureter and it does find the secret passageway, I'm in for a boatload of agony. And if it's not a kidney stone it might be something else like cancer of the side or something and yes, I'm being ridiculous but I have to joke about these things. So that has not been fun. The pain is more worrisome than, well, painful, so there is that. I'm extremely paranoid about the prospect of another kidney stone in the wrong place and we all know that. 

But. Whatever. It felt too hot to go out and dig potatoes today and I had all those beans in the refrigerator so I decided to bite the bullet and get that project done. I chose to pickle them instead of pressure can them and it took me all afternoon to sterilize jars and lids, trim the beans, pack the beans into the hot jars along with garlic and spices, make the brine, pour that over the beans, screw on the lids, put the jars back in the canner, process them for fifteen minutes, take them out, and wait for the sweet, sweet sound of success which is when the lid pops, meaning it has a seal. 
It takes far longer to pack beans into a jar than you would think. Since the beans vary in size, it's a challenge to fill in all the spaces. I can't tell you how many chopsticks I've broken, using them to try and shove beans over to make space to put more in. And beans are pretty bendy. 

Oh well. I did it. Four pounds of untrimmed green beans made me seven pints of pickles. I think this will be all of the dilly beans I'll be making this summer. 

And of course there was laundry to do, including the sheets. I have washed four loads of laundry, folded two of those, made up the bed with the clean sheets, and have towels in the dryer and a load of things still in the washer.
I don't know why I'm complaining. It's not like I'm hauling my things to the river and beating them on rocks to get them clean. Or boiling them in a giant pot of water that I filled from the well and put on a fire I made in the yard, all the while wearing everything that women had to wear no matter how hot it got. I am so spoiled.

Today was my Zepbound injection day and that makes the fourth dose I've taken which means I've been on it for three weeks now. Gratifyingly, my clothes are already feeling looser and that is a joy. 

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

I buried the lede here today, folks. I apologize.

I present to you- THE DOOR!

I am not sure who is happier about this- Owen or his grandfather. Look how much our Owen has grown up! We are so proud of that boy. Glen said he's thanked him innumerable times and tells him he loves him. It makes me so happy that our grandchildren can say, "I love you," to both of us.

As to grandchildren, Jessie and the boys took off for the mountains this morning around eight. 

She sent me this picture awhile ago saying, "Thank goodness for electronics." 
Ten hours is a long time in a car for kiddos. 
And adults.

I've been listening all day to a book I had heard before. "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce. I wrote about it nine years ago when I first listened to it and I believe my review was, "It's fucking good."

It still is. 

And I just now realized it has been made into a movie which I think I can stream. 

I do recommend the book. I'll let you know about the movie if I am able to see it. 

Going to go cook some grouper and probably some new potatoes now. Maybe some green beans and a cherry tomato and cucumber salad. All hail summer, the season when the seas and the garden give abundantly from the fruitfulness of their loins. 

Martini is at hand. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Digging In The Dirt, It's A Gas, Baby Can You Dig It?

Not all of the rattlesnake bean vines are that heavily loaded with beans by any means but parts of it obviously are.  Picking beans was part of my practically perfect day. It was practically perfect because I spent a lot of time outside and also, I was in a good mood. My stomach issues are much better and I still don't really have a clue about what's going on although add in to the possibilities the kidney stone factor. I do have a recurring pain in my lower right side and my back aches which is a pretty sure sign. And sometimes when those stones get moving, I do feel sort of sick. Whatever's going on, it has done nothing to sap my energy level or bother me too much today. 

Anyway, the point of this discussion is that I ended up with four pounds of beans. They are now all tucked into a jumbo-sized ziplock in the refrigerator and I suppose I should do something with them tomorrow. Pickle or pressure can? Pressure canning's easier but I already have a lot of those. The true fact of the matter is, I have plenty of beans for both. 

The cucumbers continue to produce, a few at a time. 

One of them appears to be pregnant. 

I just put the ones we don't eat immediately into the crisper drawer and pretty soon I'll have enough to make some more dill pickles if that's what I decide to do with them. The ones I made the other day are pretty good. I've been using the same recipe for those since I began pickling which was in about 1979. I got it from "The Joy of Cooking" and it never fails me. It's actually a recipe for Kosher dills because it calls for garlic and I am not shy to use it. 

I don't know what's going on with the tomatoes. I think we have permanent green tomatoes growing on those vines. I mean, there's a lot of tomatoes out there but they are so slow to turn color. Every day I'll get one or two but I can't quite figure it out. There's no bug damage on them, they're not splitting. Go figure. We are getting lots of sweet, sweet cherry tomatoes which always give the most bang for the buck in my experience. More bell peppers are coming along and I've got an eggplant (aubergine) getting bigger and fatter by the day with another one not far behind. A volunteer butternut squash came up and it's got a good-sized baby growing and more blooms. The plant had to come from the volunteer butternut squash that popped up last year. I do love a volunteer that produces good stuff. The okra are coming along slowly and the most I can really say about them is that most of them are not dead. 

So. Potatoes. I've started digging those up and that's what I did for the last hour I was in the garden today. The way Glen planted them this year was to keep covering them with mulch and compost which sounds great in theory and we're getting some nice ones but they go so far down! The mulch and compost have sort of solidified so that digging through it is not easy. Instead of a shovel or pitchfork, I am using my trowel and my hands. I do wear gloves for this operation. Here's a picture of the ones I dug today. 

They are very dirty because the soil is fairly damp. I don't wash them off at this stage because potatoes must be cured to prepare them for long term storage. Also, it heals cuts which may occur in the digging process. One of the reasons I like to dig with my hands is to prevent that. But back to the dirt- I will brush a lot of that dirt off before I set them on the sheet I lay out on the back porch for them. I'm letting the dirt get a little dryer overnight. 

Homegrown green beans and potatoes. I'm toying with the idea of canning a few quarts of those together. Half-a-meal-in-a-jar! 
Maybe. Maybe not. 

Mr. Moon just got home from another day of door-hanging and the door is still not hanging. I swear. I think it would have been easier to just build Owen a new bedroom with a normal-sized door on it. Owen's room is actually an office or some spare room like that, so there's not really a doorway but a fairly large opening. I know there's a name for that but it's not coming to me right this second. Point being, it's not set up for a door and it's not the right size for a commercial door. Owen is helping him all the way and is probably learning new and novel ways to swear. Actually, I'm pretty sure he's educated in cussing already. Why don't we use the word "cussing" the way we used to? It's a great word. 

And he and his Bop are making plans to go to the lake house next week to get started on some sort of something and if all goes as planned, spend a night or two. 
All of Mr. Moon's dreams are coming true! 

I remember when Owen was a baby and he was coming over here a few times a week for me to take care of while his parents were working and Glen felt a little left out because he was still working too and I was getting all the time with our grandson. He always said though, "You get this part. I'll get my part later."
And so he has and so he is. 
Owen has always loved his Boppy. I remember him as a two-year old, pulling the kitchen stool up to the door where he would patiently sit in order to see his grandfather pull in the driveway.

Oh! The container I have the potatoes in is a very old enamel baby wash tub. Probably for a girl because it's pink. I do believe that was a dump find and today when I grabbed it to use to put the potatoes in, I noticed that some critter had been walking in it. 

I thought they were raccoon prints but when I looked up animal print identifiers, I realized that looks nothing like a coon. Still, could be. I'll ask Glen. He'll know. I just thought it was pretty cute. 

And speaking of dump finds, I took the trash today and as always, I scanned the area where metal and household stuff is left and I saw two old zinc buckets. Just regular buckets. But I decided, hell, why not? They'd make great planters. So I went and examined them and one of them had obviously already been used for that very purpose. I think. It had holes drilled in the bottom. So I grabbed that one up. The other bucket looked like it may have been used to mix something cement-related in it and I left it there. 
New free stuff! 

I am such a cheap date. 

Love...Ms. Moon