Trigger Warning: Childhood Sexual Abuse And I Mean It

 I changed my mind last night about the tofu and veered into the soup lane. I'd read a recipe in the New York Time's cooking app for an onion, cabbage soup and that just sounded so good. And I had an entire head of cabbage. 
Of course I used their recipe as a starting point and went from there. I added spinach and sun dried tomatoes and potatoes, too. And it was delicious. 
Thought you'd want to know that. 

An "Anonymous" asked in a comment what the head of the little boy was in the picture I'd posted of Hank as a bebe. 

That was easy enough to answer and so I did. Here's a picture of the whole carving the boy is in.

Many of you have literally seen this same image dozens of times. The Lady there is the Virgin of Guadalupe, aka Reina de Mexico, aka Our Lady of Guadalupe. The male figure is representative of a guy named Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (don't ask me to pronounce that and don't ask me to spell it again) to whom the Holy Mother appeared four times in 1531. Supposedly she chose him to convince a bishop to build her a church on the spot of her appearance and in order to convince the bishop, she performed several miracles  which gave proof of her authenticity. Look it up if you're interested. And curiously- of all locations for this church, Our Lady chose the exact spot where an Aztec goddess, named Tonantzin, had a shrine. 
I doubt there's any image in all of Mexico as prolifically displayed as that of Ms. Guadalupe's. She is beloved. I cannot speak to the authenticity of her holiness and miracle-doing abilities and it has been several centuries since the whole thing supposedly occurred so I'll just say that, ummm...
Okay. 
And I sort of love that Queen too. This representation of her I have was bought at a little shop FILLED with all sorts of iconic wood carvings and I knew I had to have that one the second I saw it. 
And that's the story of that. 

It did indeed get cold last night and has been too cold for me all day. I took the compost out a little after noon, came in and said, "That's it for me." I may have also said, "It's too fucking cold."
Okay. You know I did. 
A lot of people did not have water this morning due to frozen and/or busted pipes. Hank and Rachel's entire neighborhood's water system was down. They report they're getting a little water now. And it will be cold tonight again. This is so hard on so many people. We simply are not prepared or set up for cold like this. 

I have a lot to say about the new Epstein files dump but I really do not have enough information to know what are accusations and what might be proven facts or truly anything and I do not want to assume that everyone and every deed mentioned in them is factual. I'm sure that sentence is grammatically incorrect but you know what I mean. 
However, having said that, there are now images I have in my mind which are so much worse than what I was originally led to believe happened although that was more than bad enough, and plenty to put a whole lot of men and a few women behind bars. For the life of me, I cannot understand why these people are walking around, free as birds, most of them profanely rich (there's the answer, of course) while the children they abused will never, ever be free of the trauma of what happened to them. 
Look- I am not easily triggered but some of the things coming out have triggered me. I am not going into details. That is not my purpose here. I'm just saying that as a victim of sexual abuse in my childhood, hearing what went on at that island, in mansions and private clubs, causes me to want to creep into a shell and bury myself deep under the sand where I am hidden and all is dark and quiet.
Or at least, the child in me does and the adult understands and is in agreement. And so what are the victims of these evil, debauched, predatory, mostly men, feeling? I don't think many of us can know. 
What kind of a justice system do we have when the worst among us go about unafraid and protected by their money, their power, their positions, their names? And you know what? Most abusers are protected by the power they may have over their victims and which they use to keep those victims silent. BUT, if the victims do manage to tell someone, and if the abuse is reported, there is at least a chance the perpetrator will be charged and have to stand trial and possibly imprisoned. With these men who are listed over and over again in the Epstein files, there seems to be not even the threat of justice being served. 

I can't write any more about his because at the moment I am feeling rather numb and powerless- another result of childhood trauma. So I'll just end it here, say I hope that if you were a victim of childhood sexual abuse and are being triggered on a daily, even minute-by-minute basis, you know you are not alone. Our names are legion for we are many or whatever the hell that saying is. Oh, I just looked it up. That's what the demons living in the possessed man in the New Testament told Jesus before He cast them out to be transferred to 2,000 pigs. 
Isn't religion great? Too bad Jesus doesn't cut to the chase and cast out the demons that live among us. Or the Old Testament God Dude doesn't smite them. 
I'll shut up. 

I am loving all of us tonight. 

Ms. Moon