What The Fucking Fuck Can We Do To End This Madness?

Blossom number two after a rain. I found a grasshopper on it this morning. It had already gnawed a whole in one petal and had its way with the edge of the one next to it. I flicked the dang bug off but the picture above was taken just a few minutes ago and I see no more signs of insect damage. What I did see, however, was a cardinal swoop in on the plant this morning and I think he may have been going after another grasshopper. Now wouldn't it be perfect if the reddest bird saved the reddest flower from the mandibles of grasshoppers? 

I've had a good day except for the horrible news of Trump's bill and then of course...the concentration camp in the Everglades. I'm not sure which one makes me sicker. Perhaps I feel equally sick about both, just in different ways. 
The bill is going to kill people and the camp is going to kill precious natural resources and well, yes, people will die there. There is no way around it. 

How have we let this man and his puppet-masters get this far? Is there not one Republican law maker who has not only balls but a heart? They do not care about people, they do not care about our planet, they do not care about safety or arts or education or science. They only care about Dear Leader and I have no idea why because after a few years of living under this new bill, a whole lot of people are not going to be feeling that positive about their Republican representatives. 

It all makes my stomach roil and my brain feel like it's exploding. 

I had thought for one second that perhaps the ridiculous wedding of Jeff Bezos and his plastic Barbie bride might be such an example of how billionaires have so much money to waste that they can take over Venice and put on an incredibly insane and tacky production that has nothing to do with a marriage or love or affection but everything to do with a gross and sickening display of wealth, would upset enough people to give them some perspective on why billionaires do not need tax cuts.  
Every fucking guest who attended that vulgar display of wealth should damn well be publicly shamed and condemned. I'm not kidding. I believe that. 
I doubt there has ever been a larger gathering of humans proudly presenting fake body parts, including breasts, asses, and surgically created faces in the history of the universe. All, of course, draped in obscenely expensive clothing, designed to show off the work of the surgeons. 
And I am sure that many of the guests did not support Trump but that didn't stop them from stepping into those gondolas and gliding to the wedding of one of Trump's biggest supporters, money-wise, at least. 
How the hell do they sleep at night? 
On satin sheets with the aid of designer sleep aids prescribed by their Beverly Hills doctors, I would imagine, dreaming of the tax relief they're about to get. 

I wonder what the odds are in Vegas for this marriage to last as long as five years. 

All of this shit is a travesty and a horror and the Republican party has become the party of the inhumane, the soulless, the evil. There is no way around it. 

So yeah, like I said, it's been a good day except for all of that. 

I went to the dump and I washed rugs and I went to town and I saw Brenda and hugged her hard. 
I came home and made pickles and Lis came by and we commiserated about the terrors. We talked about other things, too. It is such a goodness having her right down the road, able to stop by. 

Glen called me when he was about four hours away from where he was picking up the boat. I know there's a time difference but he may or may not have done the deal already. And then he will turn around and come home. 
I will be so glad when he's back, safe and sound. 

I was feeling so low last night that I brought Dorothy Anne out of her sleeping place beneath my vanity and brought her to bed with me. I am not kidding you. Unlike Maurice, she allows me to hug her to me and does not complain if I turn over and I can't imagine her ever drawing blood. 
We all do stupid shit. I do a lot of it. But at least sleeping with a very old and very well-worn doll is not harmful in any way. And over her heart, someone has written, "I love you."
I needed that.

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

The web that the golden orb weaver wove overnight. The rain and the light made it visible. 

Tiny new leaves growing on a plant Ellen sent me that I just stuck into the dirt a few days ago. 

Dorothy Anne, just in case I need her again tonight. Don't you laugh at my baby. She is sensitive and older than all of us and as such, deserves respect.

But laugh at me if you want. I really do not care. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

There's Another Spider In Here. Also The Private Parts Of A Crepe Myrtle

Here we have another one of my pictures of the sky taken blind from my walk. 

I felt so blue after Mr. Moon merrily took off this morning with his sunflower seeds and pistachio nuts and nectarines and so, so many cookies. He's driving to Texas to buy a boat! 
And of course the family he's buying it from has already invited him for dinner when he gets there and he is taking them some snapper he caught and some beans we grew and next thing I know, he'll have even more people to care about because that's the way he does things. 
It has become quite obvious to me that Glen had such good success in a career that required good people skills because he really does care about people. He'd come home and tell me about this single mama buying a car for a child going off to college, or that recently widowed woman trying to navigate a system which can seem so bewildering, or a lesbian couple who were sick of being treated like ignoramuses at dealerships, or a teen-aged boy who'd been working and saving to buy his first car.
I'm not saying he was as happy to help some folks as others. There were jerks, of course, who always thought they knew how to get around an asking price with all the tricks in the book which was akin to a four year-old trying to get away with eating the cookies when Mama can plainly see the chocolate crumbs covering the child's face. 

He heard it all. But he helped so many people and he's still getting calls from folks he helped years ago, hoping that maybe he can help them again, even though he's not really in business. He still has his license. He keeps that current. And sometimes he is able to help someone. If he knows he can't, he'll tell them and I've heard him give away so much free advice and judgement calls on cars that he has nothing to do with, simply because he wants to help. 
And dear god he knows a lot about cars.

This is not what I was going to write about. Yesterday was his birthday tribute, not today. 

But as I said, I've been blue today and so I decided to take a walk which can't be a bad thing, no matter what unless you get struck by lightening or a rogue vehicle, I guess. 
Which I did not. 

It was hot but not hotter-than-holy-hell hot, although humid of course, as it always is as the clouds begin to gather for the late afternoon showers we're almost sure to get. We've had a good soaker already this afternoon and as I told a friend it smells like Grateful Earth if I had to put a name to it. It's cooler now, but the humidity is still over 75% and it's just sticky. That's all there is to it. Sticky. 

I'm not sure why Mr. Moon's leaving today affected me more strongly than it usually does. He has been gone a lot but I'm still fairly certain he loves me and I don't really get lonely. I suppose the walk helped but not in such a way that everything just felt better afterwards. Well, except for the air conditioning and a fan. 
I had plans to trim the rest of the sagos out front and I was about to go do that when I remembered that I had been planning to make pickles but that's a rather time-consuming operation and I realized I needed to pick the garden, which I did, and that took almost an hour and then it was raining so I couldn't trim the sagos so it was mostly a fuck it day. 

Who cares? Not me.

Maurice and I worked on the jigsaw puzzle. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll make pickles. I swear. On Wednesday, Lily and I are going to pottery open studio and then to lunch with all the kidlings and then I'll be bringing Ms. Magnolia June Hartmann home with me to spend the night. 

Wish me luck, y'all.
Nah. She'll be good. She's always good for me. Nary a hissy fit will she throw, not because she knows better than to do that around me, but because she's probably not entirely sure how I'd handle it and she does not want to risk it. She's so much like her mother was when she was a kid, testing limits to the point of parental insanity and yet, I never once had a teacher tell me that Lily was anything but sweet and well-behaved in class which I was grateful for, but also mystified as to how that could possibly be true. 
And here she is now, one of the strongest, kindest, most loving women I know who would walk five miles before saying something that would hurt or offend another person. 

I've got another bloom about to open on the native hibiscus Ellen sent me. I just went out and got a picture of it, flicked a grasshopper, and realized that a golden orb weaver has used one of the leaves near the opening bloom to anchor her web. 

Can you see that gossamer and yet powerfully strong line pulling the leaf to the top right of the bud in an unnatural way? 

Here she is, about a foot and a half away from the plant. I wonder if there's a chance in the world that some of the grasshoppers will get caught in her web. 
Probably not. 
But she's serious about the location. She already has a diminutive gentleman caller trying to court her, although I doubt she's mature enough to be interested in any advances he may make. 

And two more pictures. 

This is just a very few of the blossoms on a crepe myrtle growing in the yard of the former Woman's Club of Lloyd. It's an exceedingly tall crepe myrtle and when I went to take those lacy flowers, I saw this. 

Those are the stamens and pistols of the plant and in all of my years living around crepe myrtles, I have never once noticed this feature. But now I know. 

There is SO much I do not know, not entirely out of ignorance, but out of sheer inability to see what's right in front of me. 

I'm going to go make something with a garden eggplant and some red sauce and tomatoes and mozzarella and basil that I saw on a stupid reel video on Facebook. Did I get an actual recipe? Oh hell no. 

We shall see how it goes. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Very Good Man Has A Birthday

I took this picture in Cozumel on Christmas Eve in 2017. Eight years ago. And I swear to you- he has not changed one bit. 
Well, not in looks, anyway. He may be a little grouchier. Not much though. And if he is, it's probably because I'm not as sweet as I used to be. 

Good Lord. We've spent 41 birthdays together. We were just talking about how, when we got married at the age of thirty, we couldn't even begin to imagine that we'd still be celebrating birthdays with each other for 41 years. 
We would have laughed and laughed. 
And here's the thing- that forty-one years has flown by in the time it takes one of Ero's arrows to be pulled from a quiver and shot through a heart. 
Have a little life, make a little love, take a little nap, there you are. 
Could we please slow it down for the rest of our life together? Stretch out whatever time we have so that each and every moment is frozen, framed and made memorable? 
Can we learn to be here now? To quit thinking about how it's going to be when this happens or that is accomplished or things get more simple, less complicated...easier? 
Damn but we humans want to rush towards the future with all of the urgency of someone on the interstate who desperately has to pee, looking for the next exit with a gas station. Why do we do this? Why can't we be more mindful, more able to be here now, more cognizant of the fact that in truth and reality we can ONLY live in the present? 

Ah well. The cynic in me reminds me that no matter when or how or in whatever state of mind we reach that exit, it only means that all of our memories, our feelings, our thoughts, will become nothing more than some absolutely unexplainable bits of energy if we are lucky, and that no one is going to be able to access much of that. Or any of it. I mean, if our journals and diaries and blogs and books and songs and paintings and recipes and poems survive, parts of us will be left behind for others to ponder if they want to but let's face it- the living have their own lives to live and although the lives of those they loved may be vaguely interesting to them, they will not be of great importance unless we are Sir Isaac Newton or Linus Pauling or Frida Kahlo or Harriet Tubman or Bessie Smith. 
Or Keith Richards. 
Just checking to see if you're paying attention but, well, yeah. 

And so it goes. The universe does not care at all. What matters is that we do pay attention to that which forms and informs our days, our thoughts, our lives, our love. That we try to pass on the knowledge that we may have acquired in whatever years we are given. That we are aware, in these years and days and minutes, of what we have learned and been given. 

And that includes loving the ones we love. If there is a higher power that I believe in, it would be love. Not the "sending love" kind. Not the "oh I love that" kind of love. 
The kind of love that we feel might burst our hearts when we first hold our babies or when we realize we have found the person we want to spend our lives with or the kind where we watch a sunset and our hearts expand almost big enough to take in the whole universe or the kind where we can gaze at the milky way over the Gulf of Mexico and be knocked out by the knowledge of how small we are and yet, how we somehow must matter. 

I have no idea what I'm talking about but I think what I may be trying to say is that loving my husband is a kind of love that is deep enough to matter in the whole scheme of things, on both the molecular and universal levels. 

But honestly, I don't know shit. 

I do know, however, that I sure am glad Glen Moon was born seventy-one years ago and that he loves me. 

Happy birthday, my darling. You have changed the very structure of my heart, my soul, my life. 

Love (truly)...Your wife

The Crazy Is Deep Within This One

I think it was three years ago that Ellen sent me seeds from her Texas wild hibiscus because every time she posted pictures of them, I couldn't stop talking about how much I loved them. 
The first year I planted them and I don't think a one germinated. I dipped back into the box last year and several of them germinated but I got no blooms but they survived the winter and this year, patience being a virtue and its own reward, I have at least two more blooms coming after this one. 
However. 
I've been noticing that something's been nibbling on the leaves and damn if it hasn't already started on the flower which is probably particularly tasty and if you look carefully at that picture, you will see a green grasshopper wreaking havoc on a petal. 
I flicked him away but a few hours later I found a tinier version of that one also filling its minuscule belly. I flicked it too. I cannot stand guard over the scarlet beauty all day and night, finger and thumb in ready flicking position but I'll be flicking all I see. It's very difficult to see them on the leaves or stalks because their greens could not match more perfectly. 

I cannot begin to tell you how absolutely thrilled I was this morning to see that the bud had opened. The color is as beautiful a red as I can imagine. I grew up with hibiscus growing all around me, various colors and varieties, but I had never seen one like this. 
It makes me swoon. 
Thank you, Ellen. 

We went to Chow Time AGAIN today so that Lily and her kids and Hank could celebrate Mr. Moon, who's birthday is tomorrow as I am sure I've mentioned. 
It was fine although I got miso soup instead of hot and sour soup and it wasn't nearly as pleasing. 

So- the boat. Well, his old, very large boat just left the Garage Mahal, being towed by the guy who bought the boat. Well, he was in a truck. You know. He didn't tow it barehanded. This is all just in time for the new boat to make its appearance and settled into its new home. 

I don't know how to describe the new boat except that I know it is a very stable boat, meant for a lake or river, not so much for a Gulf of Mexico. The stability makes a lot of sense. Mr. Moon's balance is becoming more of a problem, albeit slowly. This is due to a neurological situation so please don't suggest he do yoga or have his inner ear checked. 
Thank you.
He's going to get up Monday morning and start the 12 hour drive. He has, of course, invited me to go with him and the very idea makes me want to hide myself away in a closet. This makes me feel very guilty and also ashamed and saddened that my anxieties have been able to affect me so much. 
The trip to North Carolina is coming up fairly soon and that I will be able to do because we have done it many times and it feels familiar. I am even looking for to it. So I am not completely useless. Only mostly. And perhaps, if I had had time to prepare myself, I would have been more open to the idea of road-tripping to Texas. But I didn't. And besides, I need to make pickles. 

I feel this post has been most inadequate. I would apologize but some days are like this. In my defense, I had a dream this morning that was so horrendous that I am not certain I ever want to sleep again. Far too horrendous to talk about. Not here, not anywhere. And I have not begun to shake it off. 
I doubt I ever will be able to. Not entirely. 

I hope that's not true. 

Love...Ms. Moon 

 

The Absolute Most First World Of All First World Problems

Glen and I met up with Lon and Lis in Monticello today at the Mexican restaurant. As Lis said, it feels like being retired neighbors who can just meet up whenever! And so it does. I think she should consider that house for sale on Main Street in Lloyd because then we really would be. 
I know she's never leaving Gatorbone. Her heart and soul are there and so are Lon's. 

We had good food, good conversation. The men do tend to talk about their stuff while Lis and I talk about our stuff but that's okay. We go back and forth between that and then all four of us together. I guess we have a pattern now, the four of us. It is so good to be with them. 

After lunch we decided to hit up Wag and I found my treasure right away. Six gorgeous wooden salad bowls for fifteen dollars. 
Come to mama, babies.

Are they beautiful or what? 
Here's a funny story. 

Back in 1978, and I am sure of that because it was right after May was born, I bought four salad bowls that I had been lusting after at the hardware store in Monticello. At that time, the hardware store doubled as an almost-everything-else store and you could buy toys, rocking chairs, pots, pans, cooking utensils, canning supplies- you name it, they probably had it. Including some wooden salad bowls. 
And I got four of them. Those salad bowls have been with me all these years, although the number has been pared down to two. The other two cracked and became unusable. But we still use the two that are left along with some other wooden salad bowls that I bought at the Methodist thrift store in Roseland. 

Here's one of the Monticello hardware store bowls. 

As you can see, that one has a crack in it but it still serves us well when we want a snack of peanuts in the shell or something like that. It does exactly what a bowl is meant to do- it holds things. 

And the thing is- that hardware store was in the exact same building that Wag the Dog is now in. The store took up the whole block front, whereas Wag only takes up about half of it, but still, same building, just many years later. 

And of course the hardware store is long gone and the tacky places that opened which caused it to close its doors are also gone, but those are not even a memory. 

I feel very, very pleased with my new bowls. Now-here's the question I am having, buying these new things that are supposedly for the cabin- do I take them to the cabin or do I keep them here and take things I already have to the lake? I mean, that would be fine but you know how emotionally attached I get to my things. I mean, I just spent many words talking about my forty-seven year old salad bowls and I had to restrain myself from talking about how much I love my Roseland thrift store salad bowls. I also love the wooden bowl I make my salads in and it has a crack in it but not so wide that the olive oil escapes. I need another wooden bowl to make my salads in at the lake and I just looked up large bowls by the same company that made the bowls I got today (David & Carey International) and they have one but it costs $79 and I think, eh, matchy-matchy, who cares? 

All right. But as you can see- the things I love are the things I love. I am not an unfaithful lover of either my husband or my salad bowls. Which makes it sound as if the decision should be easy- take the new bowls to the lake! But, but...they're so pretty! 

Oh god. I'm crazy. 

And then, THEN, Glen and I went to the antique store where I freed  Dorothy Anne from the dark, musty shelf where she was hidden away for so long. Glen likes this shop. They sell some car and farm related things he likes to look at. 

When we walked in, Glen noticed, before I did, a very large rug. He's been talking about how we're going to need rugs to bring color to the cabin. "What do you think about this rug?" he asked. 
"I like the one next to it better," I said. 
The one he'd noticed first was mainly blue and probably fairly old and thus valuable. I don't know squat about rugs but I did know that the other rug was a color that made me happy. 

I'm pretty sure it's a Chinese wool rug, not very old, certainly not antique, and it looks to be in excellent shape. 

Long story short, Glen asked the store guy how much they were asking for it and the number he gave us was so much lower than I had thought it would be that I actually said, "In dollars?" 
What did I think? It was going to be rupees? Or yen? 
I honestly thought that the number was going to have another zero on it. 
And so, as we looked around the store we discussed the rug and I finally said, "Look, we're not going to find anything nearly as nice to cover that much area for that price." 
And he agreed that was true and so, we have bought a rug. It's still at the store, but we'll be picking it up soon. 

This does feel like a start for me. It can either go in the bedroom or the living room and I think I'd like it in the bedroom. It can be MY rug. The rug that makes me happy. It is thick, and soft, and the colors please me very much. 

So that is that. 

I can go from here. 

Clean sheets, martinis, a supper of Mexican restaurant left-overs for him and a salad and leftover grouper for me. Too bad we don't have any of the okra and tomatoes from last night but we ate them all. I've always made my okra and tomatoes with canned tomatoes and making them with fresh cherry tomatoes was a revelation. So sweet, so fresh, so damn good. 

While I was picking beans this morning, I almost picked a very green anole by mistake. Luckily he was too fast for that nonsense. But it made me laugh. He did rather resemble a bean. 

We shall not at this moment discuss the boat Mr. Moon has bought which needs to be picked up in Texas. 
The man is living the dream. And hey! It's his birthday on Sunday and I definitely do not need to figure out what to get him this year. 

Sigh. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Back To The Garden

Last week, Ellen from Stuff From Ellen's Head emailed me that she had sent me a few plants. We have traded plants back and forth before. We have very similar growing conditions and so what works well for her in Texas seems to do well here, too. 
Anyway, when Ellen wrote to tell me she'd sent them, she said they should be delivered by Saturday. That would have been last Saturday. Guess what? 
They arrived in Lloyd today. 
Oh well. They look to be in fine health and the dirt Ellen had the roots packed in was still very damp so I think they'll be fine. I've got them all in pots and I am going to watch them very, very carefully. Poor things, living in the dark all that time. 

It was a tiny bit cooler today and for awhile it was overcast so I was finally able to get some garden weeding done. It was still hot but an overcast 90 degrees beats a sun-beating-down-full-strength 97 degrees any day of the week. So I got the area that was truly disturbing me weeded out and mulched and I worked in another area for awhile too, and then mulched that. Such a very good feeling to get that done! 

The zinnias are in full glory. 

I'm not even sure there is a name for a color that intense. 

I like this orange one that on first glance seems very simple and yet, if you look closer, the center of it is so intricate. Never really thought that garnet, gold, and orange would go together so beautifully. 

Plain white. Not to be dismissed. I think it's pretending to be a daisy. Clever little zinnia. 

I got a text from Mr. Moon a few minutes ago asking, "Can I come home now?"
"I guess so," I replied. 
Then I turned to Maurice who was laying beside the MacBook. "Hey Maurice!" and she gave me a little acknowledging mewt.

"Do you think we should let Daddy come home?"
She didn't say a word, just seemed to ponder the question but I have to say her tail was flicking in such a way that I would not have tried to pet her at that moment. 

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

And now he's home and all is well. We're getting another nice little shower and the air has that delicious funky dirt and sharp ozone smell. I'm going to cook us some grouper he caught last month along with some tomatoes and okra from the garden. Another Florida meal for sure. He ate chicken and rice soup for supper the last three nights and he's probably ready for something different although he swears he'd eat it for a week and not get tired of it. He's probably telling me the truth. He is not a fussy eater. 

Working in the garden today, even for a fairly short time, really did give me even more of what I needed. It offers so much more than just food. It gives me a sense of purpose, of accomplishment, along with the sheer pleasure in creating a tidy, verdant space. I find that I have more energy these days and less inflammatory pain as well, which is yet another benefit of taking a GLP-1 for some people. I feel so lucky to be able to take this medication and to have such an easy, side effect-free time of it. I don't want to jinx anything so I'll stop there. 

Love...Ms. Moon

These Are The Good Times

When I was heading out to the garden this morning to pick beans, I carried a few plants I'd dug up and wanted to put on the burn pile and for the first time in awhile, I really looked at this old tractor in the yard. Obviously, it's been there for some time. The plant you see growing all over it and which has the very large pink blossom by the rear tire is glory bower which is one of the horrible invasives in this yard. I have pulled it and pulled it and pulled it to no avail. As I just read, it spreads by both root suckers and seeds and if not controlled can outcompete the native plants which it is well on its way to doing here. 
Sigh. 
The tractor is one that Billy's grandpa left to Glen. Or maybe he left it to Billy and Billy gave it to Glen. I don't remember. But it was Billy's granddaddy's tractor. He has used it some and it gave the grandkids hours of fun, pretending to drive it when they were little. 

So the best thing happened today! Did I mention that Lon and Lis are in Monticello? They're house/cow/dog sitting for Lon's sister and her husband while they are in Greece. They have a lovely home they built years ago and in the last decade, I guess, they have begun raising grass-fed cows. Of course the house and cow pasture are not in the town of Monticello, but out in the country, a few miles from town. So we are close enough to see each other and they will be here for awhile.

Heaven.

Lis came over here today and I'm not sure how she feels about it, but I had one of the most pleasant times I could imagine with her. She helped me can beans and while we faced each other across the kitchen island, snapping the beans to get them ready for the jars, we talked and we talked, and we talked. 

She took this picture of me filling jars. 

I honestly think this was the first time in my life that I've ever had help with canning. I'm so used to doing it myself that it's no problem, but it went so fast with four hands, rather than two. My left hand didn't even go numb! 

We filled 6 quarts and pressure canned them and every one of the lids sealed. I just texted her and told her that two of those quarts had her name on them. 

We discussed everything from carving out time for ourselves after all these years without feeling guilty about the 244 things we absolutely need to do right that minute, and how we've grown less and less concerned with what others think of us, to how good it feels to get rid of stuff, and to husbands, of course. We did not talk about getting rid of those. She and Lon will have been married 46 years in July and Glen and I will have been married for 41 in October. We both agree that our boys are the sweetest boys, the best boys although sometimes they can drive us a little bit crazy. But we do like them a lot. 

My best boy showed up on a drive-by when he came to get the trailer or something. He came in and kissed us both but no hugs would he give because he was so sweaty. And then off he went and I said to Lis, "I have never seen him this happy in my life."
She agreed that he was indeed, a happy man. 

I made us a little lunch of salmon patties and leftover quinoa with cabbage and peppers and onions from last night. I hadn't cooked quinoa in forever and remembering that it is high in protein and in fiber, I thought it would be a good thing. And it was. 

The jars were ready to come out of the canner by the time she was leaving so she did get to see the fruits of our labor. It was a very wonderful visit or at least it was to me, as I said. 

After she left, I finished picking the beans I had not gotten to in the morning. I have been picking so many beans that the forefinger on my right hand is sore in the top joint because that's the finger I squeeze the stems with, along with my thumb, to pluck them from the vines. I switch off and use my left hand too but obviously, not as much. 

I also got enough cucumbers that I really do need to make some pickles, one squash, two okra, a few regular tomatoes and a lot of cherry tomatoes. I told Lis as I was washing beans, I still find great pleasure in growing food. And I do. 

We just got a little rain (of course, because I watered the garden today) which came with a lot of impressive thunder rolling and sky darkening. The temperature on the back porch has dropped seven degrees in the last forty-five minutes. 

I think I will remember today. Well, for as long as the sieve which my mind is becoming can still hold water. It felt so good to be two old friends, come together on such a country woman task, hands busy, hearts happy. There are so many things that a woman can only share with another woman and to be able to do that, and to ask, "Do you feel this way too?" "Is it like this for you now?" is far more important to our mental health and general well-being than almost anything I can think of. 

Lucky. That's how I feel right now. Very, very lucky. 

I do not have multitudes of friends. I have only a very few but they are the best anyone could have.

Love...Ms. Moon

Anne

I think my photo of the sago palm yesterday led at least one reader to think that it was in front of the steps up to my porch but as you can see here, it is not. The steps are just gracefully made of semi-circles. 
Or at least I think they are graceful.

Okay. The woman whose death I was informed of yesterday. 

Her name was Anne-Helene Dreyer. She was from Norway. I met her in 1987 in Cozumel. I wrote that story HERE. 
I have written about her many times so if you want more, just go to the search box at the top left on the page and type in "Anne-Helene." 

I still cannot believe she's gone. She was absolutely one of the most vital, strong, beautiful, and joyful women I've ever known. And although she was so far away, in Norway, another country, another world, and I never visited her or got to meet her daughters, I am certain that she lived the rest of her life as bravely and as lovingly and as beautifully as anyone on earth ever did. And there has never been a moment since the last time we saw each other that she has not been in my heart. Her life and mine were braided together too strongly for her not to be. 

As May said, when she read the text I sent to the family about her being gone, "I don't have words. We were so blessed. She came into our life, arms and heart wide open, and made our lives infinitely richer. What a deep loss. I love you all so much."

As usual, May is the one who can express so beautifully what all of us feel. What we all know is the truth. 

And now, finally, I am weeping. I have so many images of Anne in my head. An inordinate number of them, really. But that's because her presence in my life was so unique to who she was and what she meant to me and our family, that I unconsciously collected those images of our time together knowing somehow, I suppose, that this was a woman whose time spent with us was something so precious and rare that I would never experience anything like it again. 

And I haven't. Although it's been many, many years since I've seen her, I feel as if she might still be right here, ready to make her Norwegian fish dish, to play reggae loudly on the boom box on the back porch, to kiss me on the lips every night when we went to bed, saying, "Good night, Mary."

Good night, Anne-Helene. Thank you so much for everything. I hope you knew how much you were loved by me and my family here in North Florida, and how you unknowingly but surely taught us so much. I honestly don't know that I could have made it without you. And if there is an afterlife, I hope for you that it is Jamaica, which was your favorite place on earth, and that you are dancing, dancing, dancing, to the music and the waves and the the rustling of the palm trees on the clean white sand and the clear blue waters of the Caribbean stretch out before you endlessly, whispering you home. 

All My Loving...Mary

I Think I Need To Learn How To Meditate

Remember that sago palm I trimmed to the bone a few weeks ago? 
Well, that's what it looks like today. I told you it wouldn't die. 

It's been a pretty weird ass day here in Lloyd. The strangest part of it has been the death of a pet (not Maurice) and a phone call I got from my brother, White, who lives out in Bellingham, who sorrowfully told me about the death of a woman who played a very big role in both his, mine, and my family's lives. I have not yet begin to process this and I don't feel as if I can write about it now. I think if I write about it, I'll truly have to accept the reality and I'm not ready for that. I don't think I've ever been in as profound denial about anyone's death as I am right now.

The pet who died was Jessie's cat, Celo, who has lived a scrappy life of his own choosing, a cat who has regularly come and gone and who had another house he sometimes hung out in. He had a ruptured abscess and the house sitter took him to the vet today where it was decided (Jessie was on speaker phone) that it was best to let him go. He had several serious medical problems as comorbidities and was fourteen years old which is fairly up there for an indoor-outdoor cat who lived life on his own terms. 
But. Sadness, still, and Jessie was so sorry not to be there with him when he took his last breaths. But the house sitter, a neighbor, was someone Celo knew and trusted and that is good.

Mr. Moon and Gibson are up at the lake house. I will be interested in seeing what Gibson thinks about this experience. I believe his first task set by Boppy was to clean cabinets and drawers and line them with shelf paper. 

Yes. I should be doing this myself. 
I did pick out the shelf paper so there is that. 

I had several goals for myself today. One was to get some of the garden weeded. Out I went in gardening overalls with a strong sense of purpose, and within about twenty-five minutes of working in the ninety-something degree heat in the direct sun, I decided that weeds in the garden were preferable to death by heatstroke and I put up my trowel and came back inside. 

Another goal I had was to truly sweep Mr. Moon's and my bedroom. Yes, I should have vacuumed but I hate to vacuum and I'm fairly sure the vacuum cleaner is up in Georgia. I did my best with my broom and managed to collect an impressive amount of dust. 

And the third major goal? Do a deep sweep and mopping of the kitchen. Didn't I just do that? I knew it was time though. You know when you spill something in the kitchen and you grab a damp rag or a paper towel to wipe it up and the paper towel or rag is completely black when you've wiped the spill? 
Please tell my you've experienced this. Or not. I'm getting too old to shame for things like dirty floors. 

But I was shaming myself which is a completely different matter and so I took all the moveable objects out of the kitchen and the pantry and the bathroom that adjoins them and swept twice and mopped twice and when it all dried, I put everything back and so now the scent (aroma?) of Fabuloso and white vinegar fills the air and for at least this moment, although I would not eat directly off the floor, I would let a baby crawl on it. 

While all that was drying, I watered the porch plants and the plants in the back yard in pots. We haven't had that glorious everyday rain for some days and with this heat, things are looking beat down and tired. 
Except for the sagos. 

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

My brother and I talked briefly about what's going on in the world right now. We are both rabid yellow dog Democrats and we both agreed that we are having to step back a little. He's a news junkie whereas I am not but he's limiting himself as to what he's taking in. I'm taking in about the same amount of news I usually do (none of which comes from TV) but I am trying to stay sane by building a sort of wall between myself and it all. It's not a dense, impossible to see through wall, but it is a method of distancing myself a little bit. 
I still find myself enraged. 

As if the whole war in Iran thing wasn't bad enough, here's something going on in Florida.

That's obviously a screen shot and not the entire article but you get the gist. It's from the New York Times. 

There is absolutely nothing about this idea which makes any sense at all. It is cruel, it is ridiculous, and it is a threat to one of our country's most vulnerable and threatened environments. They're going to house these people in tents? They won't need much security because of the alligators and pythons? What's going to protect the security they do have to hire from mosquitoes and biting flies and the insane heat? What are they going to do when a hurricane rips through? Are they going to evacuate all the tent-housed immigrants to safe shelters? And what's this shit about Florida requesting reimbursement from FEMA? Last I heard, the government was trying to shut down FEMA entirely. 

Okay, Mary. Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Go fold some laundry. Go heat up some leftovers.
GO LOOK UP!

Yes.

Can you see Hawk? 

Breathe. 
Do it again. 
There. 

Love...Ms. Moon

How It's Going

 I realized when I sat down to write this, I had not taken one picture today and so I just stepped outside of the porch and took this photo of the wisteria arbor and the phlox behind it, not even realizing that Maurice was in the frame until she meowed at me. 

That's her "Do you realize it's after four and I have not gotten my Temptations?" look. 

It's been a decent Sunday and on the whole, I guess I've felt better today. I didn't especially wake up in a good mood but as the day has progressed, it's gotten better. I made our Sunday brunch but it has definitely changed since Zepbound has entered my life. For some reason, I'm not real excited about eating eggs. In fact, the idea is a bit icky. I've also become a little paranoid about eggs being not very fresh. This is not like me. But this morning before I cooked any eggs, I did the float test on a few of the ones I had in the refrigerator and although most of them passed technically, the results didn't please me. Anyone who has kept chickens is probably aware of the float test because sometimes hens don't lay in the laying boxes but rather in random places they feel more comfortable in or for some other mysterious reasons and it's a good thing to be able to tell if they are still fresh enough to eat or not, thus the float test. This involves filling a bowl of water and setting your eggs in it to see if they float. If they do, throw them away. They should just settle right there on the bottom. Ideally. However, if they are somewhere between really fresh and not-so fresh, the small, pointier end of the egg will magically float above the rest of the egg so that it appears to be standing on its butt. These are probably safe to eat but I didn't feel like testing that theory out this morning and threw some of those away. 
And in fact, I decided I didn't want an egg anyway. 
So I made biscuits and sausage and sliced tomatoes and cooked Mr. Moon some eggs and I ate a biscuit and tomatoes and a piece of sausage which was a small patty and delicious but my stomach has been telling me all day that it wasn't very pleased about that decision. The biscuit may not have helped. Who knows?

I am still learning. 

Here are a few of the changes in my life since I started taking this medication about five weeks ago: 
Except for a very small piece of the prune cake I made May for her birthday, I have not eaten one dessert. I have not had so much as one dark chocolate chip. I have not eaten ice cream or cookies or really, sweets of any kind. Except for fruit. 
I have eaten butter on exactly one slice of bread. I have not used butter on potatoes or rice and I have not used even half a stick of it in my cooking since I started. I do use olive oil. Mostly in salad dressings. 

I have not had one in-between meals snack except for my late afternoon cottage cheese and fruit, except for a very few pistachios one day and a very, very few roasted peanuts another. 

And of course the serving sizes of what I eat are generally dramatically smaller. 
Now. Here's the thing- none of this has been difficult in the least. I do not feel as if I am denying myself anything. I feel quite happy with vegetables and grains and tofu and beans and some meat. We eat some sort of seafood at least two times a week. 

I do not go hungry. If I was hungry, I would eat something. 
And every bit of this is because of the Zepbound. I know this without a doubt. I do think I am making good choices when it comes to my diet but it is so easy. 

This is a remarkable drug. At least in my opinion and experience so far. I don't think it's magic although, I can't help but feel that it has magically allowed me to be someone not ruled by food. I do think about food and I always will, but now when I think of food, it's mostly about what I can make that will be nutritionally dense and that I would really enjoy. 

But I cannot take credit for the changes I am making. And if I had to stop taking Zepbound, I'd be right back where I started and I know that. 
I do not want to go there. With all my heart I do not. 

I think that some people who are on these medications eat pretty much exactly what they've always eaten although far less of it. And this must work too because it seems like almost every one  on them does lose weight. And that's fine. But along with losing weight I want to lower my cholesterol so that I can perhaps cut back on that medication and also I would like not to blow the sphygmomanometer when I get my blood pressure taken. Again, this would mean less medication.

And I'm not going to lie- I would very much like not to cry every time I get on a scale or catch sight of myself in a mirror. 

And that's what's on my mind right now. 

Glen is heading back up to Lake Seminole tomorrow and Gibson is going with him this week. Hurray for Gibson! I was going to make them chicken and dumplings and I got the whole broth/stew thing done and decided that instead of dumplings, this is going to be a soup and I added some nice brown basmati rice to it. That will be far better when it comes to transporting it and heating it up. Mr. Moon gave this his whole-hearted approval. 

Tonight we're having yet another salad with bread that is about to go into the oven. It's made of whole wheat flour, oat bran, and white flour. It also has molasses in it. If I have one weakness when it comes to sweets now, it's molasses. I know that molasses is not one bit better for me than white sugar. All the sugars from completely refined to dark molasses or cane syrup have the same chemical formula. 

C ₁₂H ₂₂O ₁₁

Different forms of the sugar we eat may have trace minerals that more refined versions do not but as I always say- they call them trace minerals for a reason. In other words, I am not fooling myself, I am saying that I am not afraid to eat some sweet things. 
Except, obviously, for mangos. 

Jesus.

I can't talk about politics in any form tonight. I just can't. 

Moving on then...

Ms. Moon

I See...

That the US has bombed Iran. 

I swear to god- I think this is all because of the sad, sad military birthday parade for Trump a week ago. 

But the reason is moot. It's happening.  

Yes. Timmy Is In The Well

 I had a fine evening last night. Made myself a stir fry with tofu and all the vegetables, and decided to do what I've been threatening to do for awhile which is to restart watching "Reservation Dogs". This will make the third time I've seen some of it. Or maybe fourth. 
I just get so tired of what's being offered new these days. I don't want to watch blood and guts things, I'm sick of all the tropes and stereotypes that seem to pervade everything streaming now, and I don't really have the patience for comedy specials. Documentaries? They have their place and sometimes I do enjoy them. 
Maybe I'm just lazy. 
Maybe I really do like "Reservation Dogs." As I've said before, I love some of those characters so much it makes my heart hurt. 

I had some trouble sleeping last night which is unusual for me. This can be a side effect of Zepbound. First of all, I stayed up too late reading a novel that I'm not really enjoying that much but it's enough to keep me turning pages. It's "The Paris Novel" by Ruth Reichl and I had great hopes for it but...eh.

The review the NYT's did of it is entitled, "A Sugary Bonbon of a Novel by a Legendary Foodie."

Pretty much sums it up. There are some interesting bits, mostly the snapshots of historical places and people in Paris but honestly- how many times can a person use the word "aroma"? 
Quite a few, it turns out. 

Anyway, what the hell is a book review doing here? Nothing. That's what it's doing. But I got to sleep late and I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep for quite awhile with those middle-of-the-night thoughts and also mango rash itching which wasn't horrible but enough to keep me awake and then I did fall asleep and Maurice came in and scratched the bed with her scimitar-like claws and meowed like perhaps Timmy was in the well, making enough noise to wake the dead and then she jumped up and for some reason wanted to get all in my face. So I slept late and that made me feel like a slug and basically I've felt old and fat and ugly and useless all day. 

I picked beans which is my go-to when I feel like this because it's a mindless way of at least attempting to be productive and I do enjoy being outside although it was so hot that Maurice kept trying to lure me back in. I picked for an hour, finishing up only one side of the fence, came in, drank water, ate lunch, cooled off, and went back outside for almost another hour and picked a whole bunch more. I have almost filled a jumbo-sized Ziplock and already have half that much in the refrigerator so really, I wasn't doing anything that needed doing. I do need to weed though. Badly. 

And then a nice thing happened which was that Lily came over with the kids and it was so good to see them. Owen was greatly entertaining and he and Gibson and Lily and I talked and talked while Magnolia worked on my jigsaw puzzle and then played with the miniature things that Linda Sue sent her which she loves. 
I got Owen to give me the real dirt about what's going on with that cabin and the work situation. He has observed that Boppy is a perfectionist and he's not wrong about that. He's enjoyed the work, I think and is proud of what he's doing and what he's learning. Owen is such a dear boy. Gibson wants to go up and help more too, and since they'll mostly be working inside for awhile, that's more his speed. Maggie also expressed an interest from what I hear, but Owen told her she was too young. 
I can just hear her saying, "Harrummmph!" and flouncing out of the room. 
Owen told us some duck-hunting stories that I'd never heard and I laughed so hard. Mr. Moon does not relate all of these stories to me but Owen has no problem telling them. 

Glen's off the boat and safe. He always texts to let me know that and I appreciate it. Of course it'll be hours before he gets home after cleaning the boat and cleaning the fish and taking a shower and all that stuff. 
God, he must love to fish. I can't even imagine. 

So I guess I'm just hot and tired and probably bored with myself and everything I do. Also, I have chin hairs and a mustache and no neck but I do have enough skin where my neck used to be to cover my entire back should I ever need a skin graft. My creative abilities in the kitchen seem to have smashed into a wall, and as stated before, my garden is on the fast track to being as overgrown as my facial hair. 

I think I may be obsessing on what's wrong with me and my own tiny little life so that I don't have to think about...you know.
The death of a country and the rights its constitution promised for all all, and the possibility of WW III, all caused by a man who claims he should have gotten five Nobel Peace Prizes and in fact, they should call it the Trump Prize. 

But here's a very, very nice picture which made me very, very happy. 

Time is flying. 

"You're driving!" I said, when Lily and the kids got in the car and Owen sat himself in the driver's seat as if he's been doing it for years. 
"Yeah," said Owen.
And Lily said, "I don't even bother to look anymore." 

My babies, my babies, my babies. 

Oh yeah. Happy summer. Let the hurricanes begin. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Day Date

I am really failing at the butterfly photos this year so far. They just won't sit still for me! But here we have a Gulf Fritillary, in deep communion with a zinnia in the same color range. 

I'll try to do better and I will have the opportunity as both the zinnias and the phlox are big butterfly attractors. 

Glen's been talking about us going up to Bainbridge for an outing and today we went. I was reluctant for several reasons, one being that going to Bainbridge is not part of my routine. Sad, I know.
The other main reason was that I felt as if he was trying to placate me for all the time he's been gone in the past few weeks. Sort of like a mercy date, I guess. 

Anyway, I really could not say no and we drove up to Georgia which is not that far and to Bainbridge we went. What a pretty little town! The downtown area is just charming as all get out and it's surrounded by a square of old brick buildings in good repair and almost all occupied by different businesses that look to be thriving. There are beautiful old houses and the smaller funkier ones that call to me, massive churches, tiny churches, many trees, and brick streets. 

We wanted to go to lunch which was also a little anxiety-producing for me. So much of the food in little town southern restaurants is fried and/or highly sugared or barbecued or smothered in something delicious. But we found a place that was a tiny bit classy on the Flint river and the menu offered a few things that wouldn't hurt me much. Today was a Zepbound injection day but I was hungry. I ordered a Caesar salad with grilled salmon and it was absolutely fabulous. Well, the salmon was. The rest of it was just romaine lettuce and some shaved cheese that purported to be parmesan and quite a few croutons that may have once been crisp but weren't anymore and some very decent dressing. That doesn't sound so great, does it? And yet, the salmon was as good as any I ever ate and that made up for everything. 
I ate half the salmon and a lot of the lettuce and a little of the dressing and a not-crispy crouton or so and I was absolutely satisfied. I have brought the rest home. 
The Zepbound kicked in. Phew! A thing I am really beginning to understand about this drug is that in my case, at least, it calms my appetite enough for me to make the better choices when I eat. 
Lord, it's a beautiful thing. Glen's po'boy came with fried onion rings which, as we all know, are the food of the gods and I just didn't have much interest in them. I could have eaten one but given the choice, I just as soon would not. Weird but wonderful. I feel free in ways I never have before. 

Bainbridge has many antique stores and we went to one as a first stop after lunch that was also a gift shop and a place to find new furniture and sorta classy home decor accessories and so forth. When we first walked in, I saw a pillow that I really liked and I checked the price. 
One hundred and seventy dollars. 
Oh my. 
I'm surprised I didn't turn around and walk out. But what the hell, looking is free.
And then, I found my dream sofa. 

For at least thirty years I have been yearning for a green velvet sofa. And there it is. 
Sigh, sigh, sigh. 
I sat down on it and the cushions were soft, yet supportive. They were...dreamy. 
Glen asked the very sweet store lady how much my dream sofa was and well, let's just say we did not buy it. Perhaps I should have told him that if we did buy it and put it in the cabin, I'd be far more apt to spend a great deal of time there. 

Well. 

And we continued to look at beautiful rugs and all sorts of furniture, old and new. There was a light fixture that we really should have asked about. I didn't get a picture of it. I do not know why. 

When we left, we thanked Store Lady and as all shop proprietors in small town Georgia do, she said, "Thank YEW for coming in. Come by and see us again!" 

Next we decided to go a little more downscale and found a place called something like Carol's Junk and oh, Lord. It was at the opposite end of the spectrum from the shop we'd just left. 
The smell of despair and defeat dripped from the very walls and ceiling. 
They were really into Elvis though! 

Just three of the many, many Elvis collectibles in the store. 

There was also a whole lot of yes, junk. They had not lied or falsely advertised. It was such a depressing place and we didn't spend much time there. We were told by an old guy who seemed to have something to do with the shop that there was another shop right next door that sold antiques. Whoa! Let's go! 

And so we did. 
We opened the door to find a shop with less junk in it, but no less existential darkness. The proprietor there was a younger man than the one next door but I know without a shadow of a doubt, this man has many, many stories, none of them with happy endings. 
But. He was so pleasant and I had to give him a great deal of credit for being there, for having a business which seemed to be his own, and for just goddamned trying. If I judged him for anything, it was his courage and strength to not give up. 

After we went through the small front room, I headed to a door that said, "More Here" and I pointed at it with a questioning look on my face and he said, "Sure. But we call that the oven." 
It was a cement block building. The back room had no windows and no air conditioning. It was over 95 degrees outside and he had not lied. The heat hit like an NFL tackle. 
Don't ask me why I said that. But I can only imagine an NFL tackle hits real hard. 
We knew immediately we were not going to be spending much time back there and we didn't. We did a quick walk through and there was more sad stuff but on our way back out the door, I saw such a pretty little drop leaf table. It called to me. 
I stopped and checked it out. It was very solid, seemingly pretty old, and in good condition. The drop leafs worked with a metal hinge that clicked satisfactorily in place. 
It cost $45 dollars. 
If it had been at an antique store in Monticello, it would have been given a good wood treatment and priced at $150. At least. 
It came home with us. 
I'm not sure whether it will stay here or go to the cabin. I am thinking to the cabin. Something there for me to love. 

Here it is. 

I posed the lamps I bought about a month ago on it. 

I will give it a little love and it will give me great pleasure. 

We went to one other place called So Much Stuff, I think, and yes. Again, no lie. 
I almost bought a set of china. The Franciscan Desert Rose pattern which I have always loved and it was a decent price. The entire set wasn't there but plenty for us. The cabin needs dishes and at this point, has none but paper and plastic plates. 
I am not sure I've ever bought a matching set of china in my life. And I probably should have bought this one. For those of you who do not know, this is what the pattern looks like. 

I'm already kicking myself. 

Live and learn. 

Mr. Moon has gone to the coast to fish tomorrow which is fine with me as I'll take all the legal gulf seafood I can get. 

The sheets are clean, I have made my own martini, the church next door appears to have a full house, and Hawk is keeping watch. 

I am pressing tofu as we speak. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon