Who Knew?

Is that not one of the saddest things you have ever seen? 
I think I may have done what I had considered impossible to do. I may have actually killed a sago palm. I mean, the cone is supposed to look like that after it has done its job in the fertilization of female sagos but not one new frond has appeared since I cut all the old ones off. I did the same to the others and they all put out new growth which is growing vigorously so perhaps it's a male thing. Or perhaps it's not dead at all, it's just taking it's own sweet time to show some new green. 
Honestly? If it is dead? 
Great! 
And the other palms throw out new pups all the time that I could dig up and replace that one with. I do not know if "pups" is an actual botanical word but again, I do not care. 

Woke up from another emotional dream this morning which mostly would not require the services of Dr. Freud to analyze. It was set in the house that my brain created a long time ago which is filled with rooms, all frozen in time from days gone by, with all the things in them, furniture, light fixtures, cosmetics, clothing, jewelry, hats...all of it...still there, undisturbed. A veritable museum of a house. I hadn't dreamed of the house in a very long time and I had missed it so that part was fine. In this dream, however, there were many, many people there. We were throwing a party of some sort, or Mr. Moon was. I was running around trying to get everyone into a room, making sure that sheets and towels were clean, despite their age. The house is so wandering and oddly built that it's easy to get lost in it, which I frequently do in these dreams, and did it again in this latest dream. There are staircases leading to work places and even a department store which is still in operation. 
Oh my. It was really too much. There is more but if I related it, you would know far more about my current fears, worries, and insecurities than even I am willing to share. But even though I am not unaware of my fears and foibles, sometimes a dream will just hammer it all right home. 
At least mine do. 

So that was sticking to me and I knew I needed to make some phone calls of the medical kind. Not like I'm sick and need an appointment or anything. More like insurance and why in hell do I need to go see my Ob-Gyn so often to get my hormone replacement drugs. Arrggh! And part of that involved getting information FROM my insurance company and then relaying that to my doctor's office and holy shit. By the time I'd finished up, as I told Jessie in a text, I needed an Ativan and a nap. 
Neither of which I took. 
I am absolutely not qualified for adulting. 

Then back out to the garden because I am a sick, sick masochist where I doubt I lasted forty-five minutes but I did get a few more spent plants pulled and a few more spaces weeded. After I cooled off from that I decided to transplant the plants I bought myself into bigger pots so I moved my trowel and half a bag of potting soil to the front porch. Now as most of you know, when you repot plants it is not unlike the hermit crabs at one of their shell swap meets where one hermit crab after another trades his or her shell for the one just shrugged off by another crab a size bigger. They actually line up at what seem to be special events to do this. So if I'm going to put this plant into that pot and there's already a plant in that pot but it's getting root bound,  have to find another pot that will accommodate that one and this could go on endlessly until you get tired of it and just stick some plant that you don't care about that much any old where. 
I mean, it is a process. 
And I got so hot. Even on the porches it is well over 90 degrees here and I sweat like...well, a post menopausal woman on drugs that make a person sweat. 
Eventually, I got things sorted out. I had to rearrange the location of many plants to make all of this work and I also had to sweep the porch because not only did it have potting soil on it, it also had the usual leaf detritus. 

There's the pink princess philodendron. 

And here's the snake plant in a giant clam shell pot that I believe Jason found somewhere and gave me. 

Hmmm....

Anyway, I then watered everything extra well because of the heat which cooks the plants along with the people. Even the banana spiders look parched. I am not sure what that looks like, exactly, but I can feel their thirst. 
Trust me. 

Mr. Moon has been working his ass off at the lake house. He sent me this a little while ago.

He called me. He's exhausted and said he was sitting in the recliner, cooling off under the ceiling fan and having a beer. Tomorrow he plans on getting the appliances he's bought and taking them to the cabin, dropping them off and coming on home. 

That sounds good to me. I told him I'd cook him something other than chili or frozen pizza. And I will. 

One more thing. Over the past week I've watched a documentary on Netflix called "Sunday Best." It's about Ed Sullivan and how he changed the rules about having Black performers on a national television show with status equal to that of white performers. Since 1948. Six years before I was born! 

I had no idea how incredibly influential he was when it came to changing attitudes about race when segregation was still the law in many states. He integrated television as surely as schools and public places were integrated by the bravery of people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Jessie Jackson.  Perhaps not in as dramatic a way, but in a way that promoted acceptance no one else could have.

I grew up on Ed Sullivan. Sunday night? Ed Sullivan. And when I look back, I think of things like the mouse puppet Topo Gigio, the guy who could keep a large family's worth of dinner plates spinning in the air on sticks, the Beatles first big American performance, Elvis being shot above the waist because the movement of his hips and pelvis were considered highly inappropriate and apt to inflame the loins of tender young women, the Rolling Stones being forced to change the lyrics of "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together". 

I also remember the Supremes and Harry Belafonte. I remember Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. But you know what? I had no idea that those performers and their performances were ground-breaking. Old Ed just introduced them like he did anyone else, and when the act was done, he shook their hands or maybe even gave the pretty ladies a circumspect peck on the cheek or gave the performers a little hug. As if to say, "Nothing unusual going on here." And the mostly white studio audience cheered and clapped just as they did for any other act, and 40 to 70 million TV viewers were introduced on Sunday nights to what had been called "race music" which they never would have voluntarily just picked up and listened to on their own and grew to appreciate it, like it, love it. 

Good interviews in the film with musicians whom Sullivan had hosted on his show, giving them their biggest breaks, along with others including Barry Gordy who was the founder of the Motown Record Corporation in 1959. 

I had no idea. I have always thought that musicians have done more for changing minds and hearts when it comes to racial issues than even law-makers could ever hope to do, not realizing that this is exactly what Ed Sullivan did. 

Well, that's what I wanted to say about that. If you have Netflix and care to learn a little American civil rights history, watch it. It's well worth it. 

And here's Pearl Bailey who sang on the Ed Sullivan stage 23 times.

I must have seen her at least a few times and although I do not remember that specifically, it does not matter. Her performances became a part of my consciousness in a way that informed my beliefs, heart, and mind. 

Thanks, Ed. You done real good. 

Love...Ms. Moon