Picnic Party Day

Lily had the day off today and she asked Owen what he wanted to do. "Do you want to go to the park?" she asked him.
"No," he said. "Party."
So she brought him out here and we had a picnic in the backyard and I think that was a pretty fine party.

We had sandwiches and fruit salad and cheese and crackers and salami and olives and pickled cauliflower and carrots and craisins. And a double-yolked boiled egg of Easter Blue.
The dogs invited themselves and we invited the chimp.

The tiniest frog I may ever have seen showed up. HEY HANK! I HELD THE FROG! I DID!
He was the size of a craisen.


We let him jump into the fruit salad and then into the craisins (which is how I know that he was only as big as one of them) and then we helped him off the sheet.

Lily loved on her boy.

They pretended he was a baby. He liked that.

Who wouldn't?

After he ate, Owen climbed the fig tree. Here's a little video of that adventure.



After we were all through eating, Bop came home and chased the boy across the yard because it was time to change his diaper. "You better stop, Boy," Bop said as his long legs took him across the yard after Owen who was running towards the goats. "You better stop right now and let me take you to get your diaper changed."
Lily said it was the slowest fast-speed chase she'd ever seen.
Finally Bop caught up and grabbed Owen up and brought him in so that I could change his squirmy, wiggly boy diaper.

I think it was all part of Owen's plan.

It was such a good day.

Such a very, very good picnic day. And after Owen left, I made Bop some lunch and then we got in the garden and weeded and weeded and we found toads so camouflaged that coming upon one was like finding an ancient relic and we carefully placed them safely away from our trowels and the chickens came in and cackled and scratched around us and I am going to proclaim this Perfect Picnic Party Day With Chicken-Assisted Weeding.

We are calling the new baby inside of Lily Olive and whether he turns out to be Oliver or she turns out to be Olivia, we are just so glad that he or she is there. I asked Owen where the new baby was and he pointed to Lily's belly and then the chimp stood in for the baby and well, we shall get there. The world will make way for this new one and I am almost afraid to discuss him or her but he or she is there and will steal our hearts as Owen has done and life is rich here in Lloyd.

A Story Fifty Years And More In The Making

The Front Porch Of The Baisden House, Roseland, Florida
2010

So maybe this isn't that much of a story or maybe it's just a story to me but it seems like a thing which has knit up ends of at least a tiny border of a my life.

When I was five years old, my mother escaped (there is no other word for it) from Chattanooga where we lived with my drunken father. He was the sort of drunk who would go off for days and weeks at a time, leave my mother and two children with no money, and when he was home, he was often mean, I think, and I remember him threatening her and then he got a gun and then he almost burned the house down and finally, she put aside whatever pride it was she had and with the help of her minister, she took my brother (who was about three) and me down to Roseland, Florida, where her parents lived.

I know this had to be incredibly hard for her. Her father had been against the marriage from the first and when she married my father anyway, Granddaddy told her that she had made her bed and now she could lie in it although I feel quite certain that he didn't mean it to the extent where her health and safety and the health and safety of his grandchildren would be in jeopardy.

How odd it was in those days. Mother had known my father since they were in first grade, maybe before. And yet, she had never known that he drank. She says now that if she had spent ONE night with him before they got married she would have known and never married him. I do not know if that is true but if she had lived with him for a few months, she probably would have known. And I never would have been here and so what? Someone else, eventually, would have.

But she didn't know until he left her on her honeymoon to go off drinking with his childhood friend, Moses Jumper, and she hung on to a bad, miserable, dangerous marriage for years because that's what you did in those days and she finally left him and we fled to Roseland where my grandparents had retired from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. There were, at that time, other couples living in Roseland who had come to spend their winters there, at least, living in small cottages and growing citrus in their backyards and going out on the river in boats and getting together to play cards and having their little cokes at sunset.

And here we came, this woman of thirty-two and her two small children and the first thing that happened was that Mother ended up in the hospital with pneumonia and my brother and I were in the care of these very old people (or so they seemed to us) and when Mother got better, she wanted, for whatever reason, to go swim in the ocean every day and it was crazy because it was January, February, and even in Florida, the Atlantic was cold and rough but one of the women who lived down the road would go with us and swim with her, and bless her for doing that. Kay Baisden was her name, and she was married to a man named Frank, and Kay fascinated me because she wasn't like anyone else. Frank wasn't either and although he scared me a little, I loved to go to their house for tea in the afternoons and I loved that house. It was an old grove house and not the least bit fancy (no one's houses were fancy in Roseland) but it was beautiful with wood and art and it smelled like no one else's house and I think that Kay wore beautiful skirts and jangly bracelets.
At least she did in my imagination, and her hair was pinned up on top of her head and she was kind.

Even as a child, I knew there was something different about Frank and Kay. They had not made their living in industry or any other regular way and had traveled all over the world and what I realize now is that they were artists. I don't know that Kay ever put a brush to paper in her life but she had that soul- that artist soul- and I responded to it and to their house in a way that I didn't understand then but do now.

Well. This is going on too long and I have not gotten to the meat of the matter yet, but have merely laid a background- but can you see it? Can you see a house at the end of the one paved road in a village where the artist and his beautiful wife lived?

Anyway, I never forgot the Baisdens, even after we moved away and I dreamed of that house and when I'd go back to Roseland, it was still there and I yearned for it, or at least what it represented which was as insubstantial as smoke or the steam from a cup of tea but as deep and funky as old wood boards and a jungle outside the back door. And I have always wanted a painting of Frank's. I wanted to know more about Frank and Kay. And so, I did what you do in these days of the wonders and internet and I googled him and somehow I found a site and left a comment or a question and somehow, I got an e-mail from a man named Alan Thatcher whose family had grown up on Lookout Mountain and he, too, remembered Frank and Kay from his childhood.

We corresponded very infrequently over the years and a few months ago he sent me an e-mail.
Here it is, in part:

Hi, Mary: I am glad my email reached you, after so long I wasn't sure it would. Anyway, on to the Baisdens. By the way, did you know about their house on Lookout Mountain, near Rising Fawn, Georgia? It was kind of built in to the top of a hill. I was only there a time or two as a teenager and I loved it though don't remember it well. Lots of tile they'd brought from Mexico. In old family slides I found one or two from the terrace there but none showing the inside. After the Baisdens' deaths, the family who owned the property had to demolish the house as it was falling in. And I'm sure it was damp and had other issues, but I sure thought it was neat. So...attached here are pics of the two pieces I was talking about. The 'shed' picture I know nothing about, including how my uncle came to have it. I never saw it at my grandparents' house or at my uncles'. I can't tell much about where the scene is...does it look like Florida to you? It's glued down to a board and it has some stains, I'm sure it's not good condition by art appraisal standards, but it's intact and colorful. I'd be happy to send it to you if you want it for the cost of postage. The other one is definitely a Mexico scene and I remember hearing once where it was supposed to be, but can't remember. It was a gift from Frank to my parents, but I think a last minute one as Frank didn't even know my mom's name, just called her 'his bride.' That makes it a more personal item but neither my brother or I are attached to it, and we both have other Baisdens we like more; he has a couple of Lookout Mtn scenes and I have a beautiful pen and ink and watercolor from an Italian trip. I think we could let that one go too. Let me know what you think. Regards, Alan

Well. What did I think? I thought I wanted those pictures. I thought it was amazing that this Alan Thatcher would remember me and go to the trouble to offer them to me, to pack them up and send them. I thought that yes, Frank and Kay must have had something very special about them for not only me, but this other man, to have been so influenced by them in his childhood.

And so I wrote Alan back and told him all of that and he has sent me the "shed picture"

and also, an article from the Sunday, May 14th, 1978 Chattanooga Times about a retrospective which was done of Frank's work and that is almost as precious to me.


There is a picture of him and it brings him back to me and I have gone to look through the pictures I have in two boxes that were my grandparent's to see if there were any of them with Frank and Kay but I cannot find any. There are other faces I remember, the faces of men and women from my childhood, people who were kind to me and my brother, people whose names I still remember, but none of Frank and Kay.

But now I have a picture Frank painted and an article with his picture in it.

I was telling my mother about all of this and she remembered "The Thatchers" from when she was a girl and when I told her about Alan sending me these pictures she said, "Well now, that right there is a reason to have a computer."

And isn't that true? Isn't this an amazing world where from my home in Lloyd, I can travel out into this world and find someone who knew the Baisdens and who, years later, would send me real artwork painted by Frank and tell me his memories of visiting them in another of their houses? Not one on a riverbank in Florida but built into the top of a hill in Georgia?

From Alan's writing, I assumed that he might be an older gentleman. The actual letter he sent me is on his letterhead and is set up perfectly- you know- the kind of letter they used to teach you to write back in school? and finally, because I am curious, I googled HIM. And I came to find out that he is a Director of Photography and Camera Operator and that he has his own IMDb page and isn't that funny because I have one too, thanks to Freddy Rabbath and I doubt that Alan is as old as I am.

But I am here to tell you- he is one very gracious man and he makes his living in the arts and I live in an old wooden house and still cling to the idea that art can be felt and that those who make it are somehow different from the rest of us and that there are many ways to make it.

And somehow, Frank and Kay Baisden affected us both and I am going to get my ex-husband to frame the picture that Alan sent me and I am sure that my ex remembers the Baisden house from trips down to Roseland with me, and Mr. Moon shall hang it up on the wall here and it will be part of my life now.

And that's the story of the shed picture and I am so looking forward to getting the one done in Mexico. And I am so grateful for all of the links that led up to the moment when we hang these pieces. My mother still has the painting that Frank gave her when Granddaddy built us a house in Roseland for a house-warming gift and she says that it, too, will be mine some day and then some day it will be one of my children's and if this blog is still here, if these words are still floating around the internet (who can know?), then they will have more of an idea about the artist who did them with their pretty, smiling faces and they will know that there is more to the story (as there always is) than just brushstrokes on paper behind glass, framed in wood.


That there was an artist and he and his wife lived in a small old wooden house near the Sebastian River and they served tea to a little girl who grew up to be a mother and a grandmother and who never forgot and who today, on this beautiful morning in North Florida, is remembering it all with tangible evidence in her hand, given freely by the grace of a stranger.

There Is A Story Here

And it's such a sweet one.
But it's going to take me a few words to tell it and I don't have the time right now.
But if you want, you can go back and read a post that I wrote last October about the house where the man lived who painted that watercolor.
It's here.

And I'll go on from there later on.

But right now I've got to put on some real clothes to go to to town. Lon and Lis are playing at the Mockingbird tonight and so Mr. Moon and I have a date.

Let's all be gentle with ourselves, okay? Life is a rough place but sometimes it is soft, and graciousness is offered.

Love...Ms. Moon

Friday Morning In Lloyd

It's to the point where I have taken and shown pictures of every damn thing in my world up to and including my own ass, I think, if memory serves, which it mostly does not these days.

I have posted pictures of frogs and lizards and light and more pictures of my grandson than the law allows and of Mr. Moon and bubbling soups and rising bread and ripe tomatoes and eggs, eggs, eggs and chickens as well. Elvis may be the most internet-represented rooster in the universe. There have been pictures of parties and pictures of Lily in labor and of all my children over and over and again. There have been pictures of flowers and of beaches and of sunsets. Birds and the moon and trees and dogs and friends, friends, friends.
And Keith Richards and Bill Murray and that famous celebrity, The Virgin of Guadalupe as well as her older sister, Ixchell.

Oh my.

So what can be new?

I would post pictures of my breasts because I have no shame but a still, small voice inside of me says, "No."
Or is that a shrill, appalled voice?
Mmmm. Probably.

This morning I could post pictures of the chigger bites I have which I probably got while working in the garden but they are all in the area which you can't scratch in public, as I said to Ms. Bastard-Beloved in an e-mail this morning, which is how I know they are chiggers. Fucking chiggers. Or redbugs as we used to call them. How they do love to nestle in the sweet, soft parts of our nether regions. Even I would not contemplate posting pictures of my nether regions.

So here are some pictures of my yard, and hell yes, you've seen it all before. I feel like my mother as she shows me the pictures in her room for the ten thousandth time and explains their meaning, their origins, their significance to her.
We love what we love.
We share.

Drying gourds and a zinnia.

The new beans we are hoping will live long enough to produce before a frost.

Another zinnia.

The plastic flamingos which Owen moved from in front of the chicken house to in front of the giant tree yesterday.

My house.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Web Log, Entry One Billion

Well Mother did not cry but she did tell the doctor that her profession had been teaching swimming which I found most interesting in that yes, she did teach swimming at Girl Scout camp when she was a Girl Scout but for most of her life she taught grade school and I think she never did like that one bit but loved the swimming instruction and there you go- do what you love if you can because that's what you'll remember.

It's been a good, full day, and Owen was here for a good, long time and when Kathleen came over he was out in the yard in my red wedgies and that boy can rock a red shoe! "Come on!" he says and we follow wherever he wants to go, to the garage, the chickens, the goats. "Come on!" he says and I follow him anywhere. The mule next door was not apparent this morning but was back this afternoon and he was overjoyed. "Back!" he shouted and then "Five!" and we had to high-five over the miraculous reappearance of the mule. He feeds his bouncy horse whatever he is eating, holding it up to the horse's mouth and then he strokes the horses head and says, "Good boy!" and my heart melts.

Good boy. He is such a good boy and I came in from taking Mother to her appointment to find him and Mr. Moon asleep on the bed together and my heart melted again. He is loving books and letting me read him new ones and one of his favorite new ones is one that Bethany sent to him. The Little Red Hen Makes A Pizza and it's delightful and the pictures are hysterical and he loves it. He is also listening to The Cat In The Hat and here we go- rhythm and rhyme and that poor fish who could be my doppelganger- NO! Do not let that cat in! Mother is out and she would not like this! and the children are at the cat's mercy and I've never really liked the Cat In The Hat, not my favorite but it's so fun to read and if I have any talent at acting it is from reading children's books out loud for so many years and I had despaired at never having that opportunity again, yet here I am.

Here I am.

Another cool evening and supper is almost ready and I don't know what the universe is going to hand us next but for right now, this second, it has handed me joy and simple pleasure beyond measure and that is what I shall cling to, that is what I shall sleep on, that is what I shall enjoy as it is here now, right this second, this day, this time, this tiny slice of a life.

And It's Not Even Eleven A.M.

Oh, the grief! Oh the trauma! Oh the tears and drama and sobs and snots!
Owen was pretty upset too.
Haha!
Let us just say that Owen's memory extends to at least six months back when he was last at the doctor's for a check-up. And let us just say that Mer-Mer's heart breaks open like a chocolate-covered cherry when that boy is upset and oozes all over the place and I would do anything to make him happy again.
All is well now, though. We are back at Mer-Mer's house and we've fed watermelon to the chickens and to ourselves too. There is nothing so fun as eating watermelon with toothpicks.

Or, rather, big wooden martini-olive spears.

So. We survived. I know exactly how Owen feels when he goes to the doctor. I feel the same way when I go to the doctor. Exactly, and I would scream and cry and snot too if I thought I could get away with it. I can't so my blood pressure just goes up but anyway, here we are back at home and have gathered a brown, a green and a blue egg and said hello to the goats and played with the toys and ridden the horse and smacked some flies and cleaned up two poops, one dog and one boy and also a dog puke and it's a beautiful day and I hope that Mother doesn't cry when I go to the doctor with her. I just could not take it.

Hurry!

Today's a day of doctor visits. Not for me. I am meeting Lily at eight-thirty at the pediatrician's office for Owen's two-year-old check-up and then at one-thirty I am meeting my mother to go to the gerontologist for her appointment. Perhaps with Owen in tow and boy, won't that be fun!

Well, maybe.

Run, run, run and get it done and the weather- oh my god- I am actually chilly- this is unreal, this weather. Sleep is blissful in it and if the trains pass two hundred yards away, I do not even know it.

Shower, shower, wash the dirt and salt from my hair. Yes, I shower daily but when going to the doctor, one must wash one's hair, even if the doctor will not be touching me.

Silliness, sorry. Laundry list of a post this morning and that's the way it is.

The dogs look at me and ask with their big eyes why I got them shaved just as the weather has changed and all I can say is, "It will change again."

Later, loves...M

May We Live As Best We Can

I am listening to Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace right now on tape (so retro!) and it is the story of a mid-nineteenth century girl who worked as a house servant and who was imprisoned for life for murder. It is based, I think, on historical fact but of course, it goes from there as all good historical novels do with thoughts and words given to people who may or may not have lived and it's a good book.
But as I am reading it, I am thinking of the way that some people were, and are, under the power of others, whether as slaves or servants or employees and especially how women have so long been at the mercy of men.

In the book there is a character who is gotten pregnant by the son of her employee and how he abandoned her in her pregnancy and suggested that she drown herself as a solution to her problem and how she sought out an abortionist and died from his butchery because she felt she had no other option unless she took her former lover's advice and yet- she knew in going to the abortionist that she might well be, albeit not drowning but bleeding to death.

In the book I mentioned last week, We Had It So Good, a woman relates how she found herself pregnant at a young age and who went to her father, a doctor, for help and he performed an abortion on her himself, how when she bared herself to him on the kitchen table, he said, "So pretty," or "Very nice," or something like that before he began his work on his daughter.
He had her at his mercy as did the doctor who performed the abortion for the character in Margaret Atwood's book and so did the man who led that character to believe that he loved her, would marry her, a poor servant girl of sixteen who believed his lies.

I think about this. I think about how power can be so perverse and so frequently misused and cruelly so.

I wonder how many women have died while trying to get rid of a pregnancy in which there was no way a baby could be brought into this world. We don't really talk about this any more. Abortion is still legal although the religious right makes it more and more difficult and those who would moralize and judge are making it more and more difficult to get one to the point where clinics and doctors who perform them are risking their very lives. And you know what it all boils down to?
Power.
Someone who believes that they have, for some reason, power over others to tell them what to do with their own bodies, their own lives.

So that's what I'm thinking about right now. About how it has always been the fate of some to be under the power of others and how there is something so fundamentally wrong with this that I don't even understand why this is a human trait. And that women have always been under the power of men and society and that's all there is to it and we still are in many ways and it is so easy to take for granted the strides that women whom Rush Limbaugh calls the "Feminazis" have made for us. How easy it is to become complacent.

I wish I were thinking lighter thoughts. But I am not. Not tonight and I'm not sure why but there it is and for those of us who are old enough to remember what it was like to live in a time when abortion was not legal and who are now too old to have a personal stake in the matter, we need to not let the matter slip into the hands of those who would take away the rights of our daughters, our granddaughters.

We must all realize that for the most part, humans do the best we can with what life hands us. We all make mistakes, we all reach for the stars and fall desperately short, we all mostly just want the ability to live our lives to the best of our abilities without anyone else who has no idea what our lives are like to make our decisions for us.

That's it for tonight.

Ms. Moon

It's Long

But every one should read it.

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

Thanks, L7.

This Life

I keep walking around with the camera this morning trying to capture how it feels here today. No way. Just can't do it.

We slept with the windows open last night and I slept deeply. I dreamed of Pearl. It was one of those dreams where the dead come back and you are aware they are dead and you go, "Huh. You're dead. Why are you here?" I hate those dreams. It's like all that dying business will have to be gone through again.
In my dream, Owen was here and he said, "Pearl!"
He asks about her sometimes. The other day, in real life, he said, "Pearl. Where at?"
How to describe death to a not-quite-two-year-old?
I stumbled around with it and then he said, "Nap," and I agreed. "Yes. She is taking a very long nap."

I came across her leash this morning when I was gathering the other dogs' leashes to take them to Miss Beverly's to be groomed. We bought that leash when Pearl was in puppy class and so it's at least sixteen years old now. We should have buried it with her. It is made of leather and looks and feels like some ancient archeological object. I will put it over the fence by her grave.
One of these days.

Well. A most beautiful gift of a day. I have taken the dogs to Miss Beverly's, I have sheets ready to hang on the line, the chickens are scratching in the leaves and bark-mulch. I want to take a walk. Lily called. She is making soup.

Here is the firespike, beginning to bloom.


Here is the resurrection fern, glowing in this morning's clean light.

Here we are on this earth and sometimes I think that near the solstices the lines get a bit wavery between what we know as this life and what we can only sense but which is probably (surely?) there despite our inability to see it.

And now it's time to quit writing about it and go live it.

Still Life With Beans

I have been wanting to put up a new header picture and I actually and thoughtfully arranged what you see above and took three pictures and did not realize until I had destroyed the elements by putting three eggs to boil that one of the eggs has a very dirty face and so, I shall not use it as a header, although really, I probably should anyway. Sometimes eggs have shit on them and that's just the way it is.

Do you see that big blue egg at the top? That is the same-sized egg as the one I got yesterday and the same color, too, and when I cracked yesterday's egg this morning for my breakfast I found two perfect yolks. Twins, as it were.

Anyway, eggs and beans and roses. And maiden-hair fern. I am in love with my new hens, as in love as Elvis is, but I am in love with them because of the beautiful blue eggs they are giving me. Blue and brown and let's face it- the blue ones charm me the most and why shouldn't they? I am not sure what has caused Elvis to be in love with the new hens but I think it may have something to do with their lovely fluffy butts. Ah. Sex. Ah. Love. Ah. The continuation of the species. Or in this case, protein for the humans. But if one of the new hens wants to set on her eggs, I will joyfully let her.

The beans are what's left from one bean plant in the garden. They are as beautiful as the eggs in their own way. I spent awhile in the garden this evening, weeding and getting the dirt ready for the fall garden of lettuces and onions and perhaps beets. Who knows? We shall see.

Today was amazing. The light, the air, the temperature, the humidity. The humidity, my friends, was less than fifty percent. The temperature was less than ninety degrees. I read in the paper today that this past August was one of the hottest Augusts on record and you cannot even begin to know what that means unless you live here in a place where August is always and without ceasing, unbearable. So today's relative dryness and coolness has been like finding that you have wings you did not know about. That is what a gift and miracle it was. It's supposed to get down to fifty-eight tonight and I can't even believe that. Working in the dirt was a joy and everything has been a joy today. Even going to town. Everywhere I went, people were talking about the weather- how good it felt. I saw a woman with long sleeves on in the library. Long sleeves.

Here's something funny- you know how people always say that time passes so much more quickly when you get older? It's true. It's so true that I don't even bother to put my down comforter (AKA, the Duck) away in a plastic bag during the summer. I just stuff it in my closet in a basket. Time passes so quickly these days that I can't even be bothered with storing things away for winter. And yet, it's like I always say about the first months of motherhood- they go like a blink of the eye, and yet, some nights last for decades.
Those walking-the-floor with a crying baby on your shoulder nights. This summer has had its fill of days that passed like centuries and yet, can it really and truly be fall again? Already?

The number of flies in the kitchen has decreased dramatically today. I had a beautiful and loving talk with Kathleen on the phone. I made the two phone calls I was dreading to make. I went to the library. I went to the grocery store. I weeded in the garden. Mr. Moon is playing cards in town tonight and I am going to eat leftover chili for supper. The very air I breathe in brings me memories of sweetness and nights of cool sheets and reaching for the covers. I gathered eggs and one of them was still warm. I talked to Lily and she told me that their power went out last night too and that when they lit candles, Owen kept saying, "Happy" in a singsong voice and they realized he was trying to sing Happy Birthday which is what he associates candles with. I am a grandmother, a mother, a wife, a woman who, although she mostly stays home these days, has done some things, has gone some places. I took a picture of eggs and beans and roses and maidenhair fern. I prepared the earth for the slipping-in of seeds.

I can't ask for much more than that.

Nor will I. As time passes so quickly I am grabbing up this day and holding it close.

I hear goats and birds fussing and beyond that, not much.

I am alive.

Bless my old heart. I am alive.

WARNING: CONTENT GUARANTEED TO BE DEATHLY BORING

Okay. It was either that picture of a late-blooming rose or a picture of the Shop Vac.

The rose won.

When I woke up this morning and walked out onto the porch, the temperature was actually lower outside than it was in the house. Like, oh maybe 69 degrees or something.
"I'm cold!" I announced to Mr. Moon and then I stuck my finger out to him and said, "Will you help me?"
I had a splinter.
He did. He is a good splinter-remover. It bothered me all night long, that tiny sliver of whatever which had embedded itself into the inside-part of the second knuckle of my second finger on my right hand. I even dreamed of tweezers. Funny how such a small thing, unseen to the human eye, can cause so much annoyance. The paper cut theory, as it were.

It's the little things, isn't it? Always and forever.

So I have a new car! Maybe. Mr. Moon, being a car dealer, is always on the lookout for ways to shuffle the family around in cars that come in on trade. I was driving a 1999 Honda. Gold? Champagne? Whatever. Hard to find in a parking lot due to its ubiquitny. I made that word up. Anyway, the new car he is perhaps putting me in is...an identical Honda! I think it may be younger. And it has a spoiler on the butt, unlike my old one.
Hoo boy.
When the power went out yesterday evening I went out and moved all my stuff from the old Honda to the new Honda. It was like, "Why am I even doing this?" Every thing went from one place to its identical place. It was odd. While I was doing it, I was on hold on the cell phone with the power company. They kept coming on and telling me to check their web site. Hell, if could check their web site, I wouldn't need to be calling them on a holiday evening.

Man. This is BORING!

Okay. So I made chili with my miner's headlight on. That was fun. Then the power came back on. I made banana blueberry bread. And a salad. Let me just say that cucumbers and mandarin oranges do not necessarily marry well, even with a soy/ginger/sesame dressing. Even with a sprinkling of sunflower seeds.
Oh well.

So then we watched Pawn Stars. I feel so sorry for Chumlee. But he's sort of the star of the show in a way. I wonder if he ever gets laid. I hope so. He did get to talk to Bob Dylan. His hair looks clean.

Well, that's all I have to say today. For now. I would tell you what my plans for the day are but they're even more boring than what I just wrote. Plus, a NORMAL person could do them in five minutes. It'll take me all day. I am a devout under-achiever.
They involve phone calls.

I hope everyone had a satisfactory Labor Day weekend. Whatever that would include. I hope you had it.

Love...Ms. Moon

Who The Fuck Knows?

This. This. THIS is a day when if I were a religious fruitcake to whom GOD spoke and told to run for president, I would blame on something like the fact that gay marriage is not allowed in Florida (hey- even if I was a religious fruitcake, I wouldn't be a fundamentalist, okay?) but I'm not so I'm just going to say that I think today is a day where Mother Nature is saying, "I'm still in charge, bitches and don't you forget it."

I GET IT, MOTHER NATURE! CALL OFF THE FLIES!

I suppose we're still getting bands of Lee's (Bands of Lee's would make a good band name, don't you think?) and the wind picks up and the rain falls again and it gets all dark and cloudy and then it all calms down and the sun comes out and it's like, Tra-la-la-la, and then the next thing you know branches are snapping and falling out of trees and it's raining again and all of the air has been sucked from the universe and we're living in that mushroom again.

And the electricity just went out. Of course.

Honestly. I give up. I'd just go to bed but I took a two-hour nap with Owen. I finally got up and then he got up and came and found me and said, "More sleep," and so I went and laid back down with him and he fell BACK asleep while I traced the outline of his tiny shell ear. And oh, Lily, if you are reading this, yes, he did indeed write on his nipples with a pen and you should consider yourself lucky- I stopped him just as he was about to tattoo his own scrotum. I'd keep an eye on that boy if I were you.

I hope he doesn't read this when he is fifteen.

There's a female cardinal on the feeder right now and she's not eating. She's just looking around like, "What the fuck?" and I know exactly how she feels.

I'm thinking of letting the chickens into the house to eat the flies. I'm at the point where cleaning up chicken poop would be far preferable than smacking or vac'ing any more flies. Owen learned to smack flies today. "Got it!" he'd say, smacking and smacking and smacking one dead fly on the floor. He's also learned to say "maybe."
He told me he wanted to see some cows. He is sort of obsessed with cows these days. Then he said he'd like to see a moose.
"There are no mooses in Florida, honey," I said.
He raised his shoulders up to his ears, looked at me and said, "Maybe."
Perfectly.

One never knows. There could be mooses in Florida somewhere. For all I know. I'm pretty sure there aren't any in Lloyd, though.

We got another giant egg today but it was blue. The new hens' egg-size regulators still aren't quite working properly I think. Takes a while to calibrate those things. Owen threw a hissy when it was time to go home. I had to give him an egg to take with him. He doesn't even like to eat eggs, but he sure likes eggs. Lily put it in the diaper bag. Lily, if you are reading this, remember you have an egg in your diaper bag.

Well, that's all I have to say. I tried to take some pictures of the spider out front, wrestling a wasp unto death and dinner but none of them came out right. Take my word for it- it was fierce. Another reminder that Mother Nature doesn't fuck around. I should bring in all the spiders I can find to trap the flies. No, I can't think of any problems which might arise from THAT, can you? Or maybe Mr. Moon and I should just abandon the place for a few days. Go spend some quality time at the Jamison Inn up on Bainbridge, GA. We used to do that, now and then. We could just hole up on the King Sized Bed and watch crappy TV and not deal with flies. Take our meals at the Waffle House.

Sound like a good idea?

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

Who knows?

Not me.

As always...Ms. Moon

Go Down, Moses

What a strange day. It is so humid that it feels as if we are trying to live in a mushroom. We have put the AC back on. It's ridiculous.
And the flies!
Mr. Moon got out the shop vac and started sucking them up. It's completely overwhelming, the number of them. They stumble around like sleepy zombie flies. You can sweep them up! I think they are coming from under the house, probably from that dead thing that has putrefied.
So. This is us. Living in a mushroom, a nasty, hot, wet, fly-ridden mushroom. I am expecting a plague of frogs next. I am serious.
Owen doesn't seem to care one bit.
But Mr. Moon and I may go insane.

Just Pictures

My boys.

It Rained All Night

Owen's coming very soon and it's going to be a different sort of day with him today because Bop is home and also, it is gray and wet outside. Dawn seems to have slept in, put up the Do Not Disturb sign, pulled the covers back over her head.

Thank-you, Tropical Storm Lee. You brought us rain and we never lost power and there were no moments of terror (for us) and you were polite and did not swish your skirts too much in our direction.

Now perhaps the hurricane lilies will bloom. Now perhaps next-spring's azaleas may have a chance.

I am grateful.

Not Exactly What I Like About The South

It rains and then it stops and it's gray and that doesn't stop and I worked in the garden, pulling great weeds and small ones too and I kept saying, "I'll stop when it really rains," but then it didn't and it didn't and finally I stopped anyway and now it's raining.

We have a fly infestation. We had one last year, I remember. I don't have the slightest idea where they are coming from. There are so many that it seems as if I should be able to see a black cyclone of them entering the house from whatever hell hath spawned them. It's as if some King Of The Flies has placed a side of beef or pork in the house, sequestered it away and ordered all of his queens to lay their eggs in it and now they have all come to life. We smack, smack, smack them and Mr. Moon has put up three rolls of sticky fly paper and still, there are more and more and more. I actually broke a fly-swatter last week and Mr. Moon bought a new one today. I said, "You should have bought two. We could have killed in congress."
Mr. Moon often wonders what in hell I'm talking about.
So do I.

This is my Labor Day weekend. Weeding and fly-killing. Well, I SAID I wanted to take care of my own life and flies and weeds are part of that.

God, I feel lazy. I suppose it's the rain. The pressure and the rain. At least it's not hot. I think I feel like some ridiculous Southern Stereotype. Old Cracker Woman pulls weeds in overalls, comes in and kills flies as a tropical depression approaches, is grateful that it's not hot.

Yes. That is me.

If I drank Bourbon, I would go fill a jelly glass full of it and sit on the porch and drink it and watch the rain come down.

I do not drink Bourbon. But if I did, that is exactly what I'd do. In my tattered silk slip, yellowed from age, and I would keep my flyswatter at hand, sipping and rocking, sipping and rocking and the rain would fall and fall.

Myths And Truths (I Wouldn't Swap This Blood For Nobody's)

Ah-lah, Sunday morning and I've already had a little cry.
Kathleen e-mailed me last night to tell me that Keith was going to be on CBS Sunday Morning today and then when I woke up at the ungodly hour of nine I had of course forgotten but dear Sarcastic-Bastard-Beloved called me all the way from Buttfuck, Ohio to tell me that he was on and thank goodness, because I would have missed it. That's how bad my memory is these days.
It takes TWO people to tell me something and even then, who knows?

I got the pancakes made before Keith's segment came on and cooked bacon too. I set Mr. Moon's milk in the freezer while I was cooking because he likes his milk cold. When it was Keith's time, Mr. Moon finished up the last six pancakes and served us breakfast and we ate while we watched the old man on the TV.
And yes, it made me cry.
I can't really figure that out or even where this love of the man comes from. By all rights I should be fixated on Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr or Joni Mitchell but no, it's Keith for me, babies. I'm sure it all comes from reading his book but what in hell even made me pick it up at the Costco? I guess that half-hidden face behind the gnarled skull-ringed hand. I don't know.

Well. He did not disappoint. He was his honest self, showing off his lemon trees, talking about whatever the interviewer asked him, gracious as ever, despite the having to repeat stories I know he's repeated a million times. He talked about his son who died at two months old. How he felt so guilty because he'd "left his post," was off touring with the Stones.
My first husband left to tour Michigan (haha!) when our first baby was four days old. Gone for a month. I am not kidding you. I was twenty-one years old and taking care of a newly-born all by myself and in some ways, it was the best month of my life.
I am not drawing any parallels here. I am just saying that yes, I understand how it could happen. Guitar players left their posts. They did. They do. Women stay behind. Babies thrive or not.
No, no. That's not what I want to talk about.

Tropical Depression Lee is pelting the Louisiana coast with rain I guess, and we are getting gentle patters on and off. It's supposed to be a 90% chance of precipitation today and lord, lord, we do need it. I wonder if we'll lose power, have to walk around with those silly headlights. The Popular Power-Outage-Dork-Look. Maybe. I spent some time in the garden yesterday, weeding around the beans I've planted, the late tomatoes we put in. Mr. Moon raked up leaves and we mulched. There so much more to do and if the real rain holds off, I suppose I'll do some of it.

The chickens are out, wandering the yard. As I worked in the garden yesterday, they kept me company, not in the garden but right on the other side of the fence. Here are my chicken's names:
Elvis, the rooster. Dolly, Miss Bob, and Mabel, the original hens. Ozzie, Sharon, Dahlia, Flopsy, and Trixie, the new hens. Ozzie came named and so of course there had to be a Sharon and Dahlia because she is black, black, black, and Flopsy because her comb flops over and Trixie because I like that name.
Such beautiful eggs they are giving me. I put two in the pancakes this morning. I have not used that giant one yet. I am going to boil it for Mr. Moon to take in his lunchbox for a mid-morning snack and I like the idea of him holding that huge egg in his huge hand and cracking it and laughing about how much egginess is there.

Sunday. Always a hard day for me, no matter what. Look- people who think you can just "get over" things like childhood sexual abuse need to come live in my skin on a Sunday. I don't wake up every Sunday and think, "Jeez. I was sexually abused on Sundays. I think I'll dwell on that, I think I'll be all depressed and moody today."
Nah. I just wake up and there it is.
Doesn't take two people to remind me. Just my own skin.

Well. Sunday it is and I'll take it. Keith got me crying and making pancakes got me going and my heart feels so full of things and many of them too sweet to bear and it all gets mixed up in my blood and I sort of want to scream and I sort of want to just quietly weep and I sort of want to sigh deeply and I sort of want to hold my man so tightly that he has to ask me to stop and I sort of want to go weed and I sort of want to lay in the bed and read and I sort of want to just sit in a chair outside and be as still as I can be, not trying to do or see or feel or hear but just taking it in like a leaf, like a rock, like a moss-covered stone which does not roll.

The dogs want some bacon grease. The dishes want their faces washed. The earth wants water. The frogs do too and they croak to remind us of that fact. The flowers want their picture taken. That I can do.

That is Sunday morning in Lloyd. At least in this house, at least in this heart.

Watch the video if you want to hear the real true deal on one Keith myth.

I have licked the ashes of two friends off of my fingers. I did not snort them. Just licked. I have never had my blood replaced and neither did Keith.

Ah-lah. Good morning.

I Liked It.

Here is a book I just read. If you are my age, I think you might like it too. Well written and it doesn't hesitate to muck around in the real things.
That, for me, is a positive review.

This Is A Brave MAN

And I love Carson Kressley's quote about the fact that there are openly gay and transgendered people on Dancing With The Stars this season. He said on Twitter, "2 all freaking out about having the GLBT community represented on DWTS -- it's a ballroom dancing show. It's pretty gay already."

To read the entire article, go HERE.

I Do Not Want To Hurry-Now

The air is different. Clearer, cooler, less dense with humidity. Sounds are clearer as well. This may be a trick of the imagination, but so it seems to me.

This sense of fall brings with it huge relief at the same time it brings a sense of melancholy. My mind roils and churns with this thought and that one. My heart turns with this emotion and the next.
A thing comes from left field and as soon as I turn to catch that, I hear the sound of something dire approaching me from the opposite direction.
I cannot keep up.
I cannot catch everything hurled or tossed or gently offered my way. I have to choose what to drop, what to hold close.

This past week was a wonder of peaks and valleys. I did and I did and I trudged and I sprinted and I was pulled under and I was lifted up. I feel tattered. I feel torn.
I feel shop-used, I feel worn.

I want to say, "I give up."

One cannot, though. One cannot.

In the midst of all of this I had a perfect moment yesterday. Owen and I had gone out to check for eggs in the hen house. The air was like it is today- you could go out and not have sweat falling from your face, you could feel sweet breezes. There were no eggs but Owen wanted to play in the chicken coop. Not really the perfect place for a small boy to play. There is, of course, a lot of poop in there, but still. Doors and runs and so forth and I let him.
I sat in one of the chairs that Mr. Moon and I have set right beside the coop so that we can watch our crazy chickens if we want and I watched my grandson, making play in the coop.
And that was all.
A beautiful day, a small boy doing what small boys do- playing.

No more than that.
And I thought, "This is all I want."
My mind was quiet. I was not anticipating the next thing or worrying about what I had to do or what might be undone. I simply sat and watched Owen and he handed me feathers from the coop through the wire and he carried things around and described to me what he was doing as he did things and he laughed.

It was that perfect moment and I was there, fully and able to realize that.

That was all.

Part of the reason I had been there so fully was that I had been sent a little thing by Ms. Bastard-Beloved.

HERE is the link.

But the meat of it, for me, was this passage:

We live in an unquiet world, and I wish us way more than luck in navigating it. There is a stillness available anywhere at any time if we tap into it, and some seem able to find it even in times of great upheaval and conflict. I think of people like Paul Rusesabagina (profiled in the film Hotel Rwanda). I had a chance to meet him, to interview him, and there is a calm humility about him that must have served him well during the terrible days of siege. Everywhere there are people — in our neighborhoods, families; at our workplaces — who have that calm center. How do we enter that state? It’s a question tackled by religious leaders, philosophers, scientists; and a question ultimately each person must answer for her or himself. One approach is to slow the thoughts… or even, as some Zen meditation urges, to temporarily cease thought. That cuts against the grain of our hurry-now culture.

And I thought of all the drama we put ourselves through for no apparent reason whatsoever. Our hurry-now culture of do, and do, and do. How it's never, ever enough, whether we are making money or gardening or cleaning or learning or even "enjoying" ourselves. Never enough. We could be doing a better job of it. We could be learning more, doing more, all of it "better and better" as if there were some goal ahead. As if we could take all of these prizes of having done with us to the grave. We seem to want to provoke ourselves into greater and greater states of chaos and when we are on that ride of doing, of hurry-now on to the next thing, we are signing the death warrant of any hope at calmness, at peace, of having a quiet mind, a still heart.

Why do we do this? Why are we so bent on experiencing everything we can? Is that truly what we are here for? And even if it is, if we are so hurrying-now, how can we really and truly experience anything? Much less enjoy it or even appreciate it.

Are we so afraid we are going to miss something that we end up missing everything?

I think I do that.

And I don't want to. I don't even think I have a natural proclivity towards it, that chaos. I think the way I grew up made me believe that if I was not in crisis, I was not doing my job. Perhaps crisis was my way of not having to truly think about what was actually real and scary and painful. I sought out people and situations where drama and crisis were prevalent and I inserted myself into all of it but as I have grown older, I have stepped back. I have realized that life will hand me more of those things than I want and to go out and purposefully (if unseeingly) seek them out is insanity. For me.
I certainly cannot speak for everyone. We are all different.

So this is what I am thinking about. How, at this point in my life, at least, what I truly want is to try and live in as peaceful and quiet a manner as possible. To know in my heart that it is truly okay and perhaps even my sacred duty to take care of what is around me from my chickens to my garden to my grandson to my marriage to...this life. Of mine.

I want more stillness. In this way, when life does hand me crisis, when someone needs me, I will be more able to deal with it. To help. To find a way to live with what is given. I do not want, nor am I able, to completely untangle myself from our hurry-now life. From chaos. I do not want to be a complete hermit. I am not a monk or a nun, put here on this earth to do nothing but meditate. To seek mindlessness. I have too much urge to nurture. But I also know that I have the mind of a monkey, always reaching out to grab and taste this hurt or that duty or this "should-do" or that perceived place of "helping."
I know that.

I don't want to do that any more. I do not want to hurry-now. Some people face the last part of their lives with the need to taste, to experience it ALL.
I have given up on that.
I want to do the very best I can with what I have here before me. I have spent my entire life getting to this point of this vast richness of a life which, if I slow down and take care of, is enough for me and more. No, I do not seek mindlessness. I seek mind-full-ness.

After that realization yesterday, after that perfect mindful moment, Mr. Moon and I drove to town to meet up with Billy and Shayla and Waylon and Denise and Lily and Jason and Owen and Hank to eat supper.

The sky looked like this:

And this:

And this:

I was not calm. I was agitated. I was not at peace.
Nor was the sky, even with that tiny strip of rainbow.

And supper was not calm either. Two boys, two-years old, almost. Monkeys.

That is the nature of the two-year old. The monkey nature. Climb and discover and taste and throw down and go on and do it all again. Test every limit, throw oneself into every bit of chaos that can be found. This is how we learn when we are that age. But we grow, we mature, we find other ways to gain knowledge. Hopefully.

I found Billy's eyes across the way and I knew he wasn't feeling well and I knew that we were not going to get to share calm time with each other, the way we had wanted to.

But in that moment, when our eyes met, we both understood that it was not possible then and there. But that also, in that moment, we knew that there was nothing to be done about it and that if this is what we could share, then so be it. I probably should not have even raised my camera. But. I did. And I have those eyes to look at whenever I want. Those kind, loving eyes of my Billy as his son drinks deeply from his cup.
And I am mindful of him, as I am of all the ones I love whether they are with me or not.

I am going to try to make of each day a place of not hurry-now but of be-slow and notice. To love the ones I love fully. To tend to that which I love fully. I am not even sure that it's possible but I am going to try. Step off the stage and back into my life. To say no to stress which I can avoid. To say no to worry about things I cannot control. To be available but not to force myself into places I am not doing any good in at all for anyone.

I am always going to struggle. That is who I am. But I do not have to dive into the deepest part of the rapids in order to increase that struggle. I do not have to take out my pen and sign the death warrant of any peace of mind and heart which might be available for me. I can put that pen to use writing poetry if I want, I can be still and sign my name to peaceful pursuit.

If there is such a choice, dear god, let me do it because to do otherwise is insanity for me. And at the age of fifty-seven, I have spent enough time with insanity to last me the rest of whatever years I have. One cannot give up, but one can change course.

I am going to try.

Chickens And Eggs And Spiders

I have finally named all of the new hens. They have rewarded me by laying lovely eggs in greens, blues, and browns.

The picture above was today's haul. Seven eggs from eight hens. So far. Who knows? That lazy slacker who didn't lay one may get it together by day's end.

Elvis has done a very fine job of drawing the new girls into the flock. He watches over all of them and today he led them up onto the front porch and created a nest in the big fern again and I have gotten three eggs from there and four from the hen house nests. Owen found the ones in the fern. He was very, very excited and so was I. Elvis stood by as each hen sat on the nest as patient as a bird can be.

I love Elvis. Who wouldn't?

Okay. Now take one more look at the first picture. What is the thing you notice most distinctly?

Yeah. One of my hens has a sore butt. Damn, that's a big egg.

I don't know what I'd do without my chickens. And I don't even eat many eggs.

By the way, I ran into the spider web today. My head just bounced off of it. I sprayed Ms. Spider with the hose. She said, "Thanks for the drink. I was thirsty."

Oh dear. Last night I clicked on New Blogger Template Interface or something like that and now I have no idea what this composing screen is all about.

What-what?

It's so upsetting when things suddenly change, even if you have wrought the change yourself.

Ah-lah. We shall persevere.

 Owen is coming soon and so I got up early to have a little bit of time being Mary before I switch into Mer-Mer Mode and it was dark and cool and lovely out. I fed the cat, got the paper and read an opinion piece by a woman named Tina Dupuy which I liked very much. The title of it is The Case For Separation Of Church And Weather and I couldn't have said it better myself.
Go HERE and read it if you want.
What she's pointing out is that although we chuckle softly at the very idea of the superstitious ancients performing strange rituals to appease the weather gods, there are actual and real present-day Presidential candidates who are doing basically the same thing.
Rick Perry issued an official proclamation for all Texans to pray for rain for three days? 
Uh-huh.
Michele Bachmann has drawn a direct line from the recent earthquake in Virginia to government overspending? 
 Just go read the piece. Ms. Dupuy already said it.

I just keep yearning for the old days when people who claimed to hear god's voice in such dramatic and unbelievable ways were treated for mental illness instead of running for president.

Oh well.

So as you can see, Owen is here and in the past hour and a half we have done so much that I am already exhausted. Right now he's on his trike-bike beside me on the porch playing with the purse I gave him with a pen and a pad of paper in it and he'll be on to the next thing in seconds, I am sure.

One of the things we did was to go upstairs to Jessie's room, which he loves, and being up there with the sweetness of Jessie's things and paintings and Beatles posters and pictures and her old clothes hanging in her closet made me cry. "Owen," I said. "I miss Jessie."
"No!" he said and I quit crying because, well, he doesn't understand and that's not fair to the boy. We played with her old chimp doll who hugs and makes pant-hoots and then we came back downstairs and I am still crying a little, but it's okay. Jessie is off living her good, true life and I am not Miss Havisham, merely presiding over crumbling memories. I am a woman with my own full, true life and this little boy to take care of and play with and feed and take on walks.

Which I think we'll do next. Take a walk. It's not so deadly hot, even now, and I cannot dwell in sadness if I do not have to and today, I most certainly do not.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

I did get a call back. On my cell phone. Which I never check.
Haha!
I swear to you- I felt more relieved thinking I had not. And then I didn't show up and the director thinks I'm a flake, probably.
Oh well.
I actually am.

Well, It Made Me Laugh

Gimme A Sarsaparilla, Bartender!

What a day. It has been such a good one. I got so much done. For me. Which, you know, isn't much but I try not to judge myself against others.

And if you believe that, I've got some lovely Florida land for sale CHEAP! Hardly ever floods!

But still. You know. One of those days when small goals were met. The walk, the laundry, the dishes, the dinner, the shopping, the playing with the boy.

I caught up on the phone with an old and dear friend. She's not old, our friendship is. We met before we each had our last fourth and last babies at approximately the same time.

Anyway, it was all swell and Owen made me laugh over and over again. We did the "What does the pig say? What does the dog say? What does the chicken say? Etc." game today and when I said, "What does the Mer-Mer say?" he answered correctly.
"I love you!"
That's what Bop says too, by the way.

He's doing this new thing. He plays the little piano which I bought when Hank and May were babies and he tells me to "dance." Now, a week ago, if I even attempted to dance in his presence, he'd cringe and say, "Stop! Stop!"
And now he's commanding me to dance. Every time he does it, I think of those old western movies where the bad guy would start shooting the floor at the good guy's feet and snarl, "Dance, Cowboy, Dance!" Do you guess anyone ever did that EVER in the history of the universe?
I have no idea.
But I expect Owen to grow a curly mustache and start wearing a black hat and drinking sarsaparilla and aiming his ray gun at me any day now.
He told his Bop to dance tonight too while he played wildly on the tiny keyboard of the good old Shoenhut.
We looked at each other, shrugged, and began to gyrate. I mean, what are you going to do?

Bop took him out and let him drive the tractor while I was making the eggrolls. They also played on the boat. They both came in black with dirt. My boys. Lily's going to have to scrub out the tub after she bathes her son tonight.

And so, it's been a good day.

One of the best things about it (and I swear, I am NOT lying) is that I did NOT get a call back for that play. Phew. I had almost decided 100% not to do it anyway. Every time I thought about it, I just couldn't figure out how I was going to get it up to manage. And now I don't have to even make a decision. It was made for me. What a relief! Like I said, there was a lot of fine talent at the auditions and that director has worked with a lot of those people and there were only three women parts and hell, I'm too old for them anyway. So, la-di-da, and there will be another play, another opportunity, when I'm feeling more up to it. And if there's not, well, I've had a lot of fun.

A tropical storm is heading to the coast between Texas and Florida and it doesn't look like it has enough time to really develop into anything wicked, but maybe we'll all get some rain out of it. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Oh yes. It would. And so there is hope for that.

Yep. A fine day. And I'm tired after doing fine things. A little while ago I went into the bedroom where Mr. Moon was packing up his bag for workout tomorrow and I flopped down on the bed. He joined me after his bag was packed and he said, "What time is it?"
"Eight-thirty," I said.
"Oh, damn," he said. We may be old but you can't go to bed at eight-thirty, no matter how tired you are. Well, you can. But it's sort of ridiculous.
I guess dancing makes you tired.
Hell, life makes you tired.
But then you can go to bed and that makes it all okay.

Sweet dreams, all you cowboys and cowgirls. Sleep well and then let's all get up and put on our boots and gyrate some more. If we're lucky, the bad guys will be aiming at our feet and not our heads.

And someone will be playing a lively tune.

Where Does My Dominion End And Hers Begin?

Ole! This mama spider seems to say, her leg jauntily thrown over to the side.
Actually, if you look carefully, she is just missing the opposite appendage and some of her remaining legs have been damaged.
She is a trooper, that one.
BUT, she has spun her golden web right across the entrance to my porch and I have to duck to get under it although Owen can safely make it across the top step without incident.
Really? Mama?

If you click, you may see the spider right in the upper center of the picture.

I have often said that my spiders are more pet than pest and I did actually move her once but she returned to the same place and what am I supposed to do? I already feel sorry for her. That missing leg. The hours and hours of work she's spent, weaving that beautiful, intricate web. Do I just take a broom to it, heartlessly and send her packing? I cannot smash her and that's just the truth of it. If I do take down her web, she will be disabled and homeless.
She ain't got good sense, I'll tell you that.

Here is one of her sister-spiders. She is entire and whole and has chosen to build her web in an out-of-the-way place on the side porch.


I don't know quite what to do. May and I sat on the front porch yesterday and discussed the situation. Mr. Moon joined us. Life here in Lloyd frequently centers around wildlife, as you may know by now.
"Too much nature!" Lily once screamed as a bat flew around her in the bathroom.
I think of that all the time.
Too much nature.
But is there really such a thing?
And is it any less presumptuous of me to take down a spider web or order Mr. Moon to shoot a diseased fox or an invasive toad which turned out not to be, than it is for an oil company to drill in the Gulf?

Would the world be any different if the Bible didn't have that line about Good Old God giving man dominion over the creatures of the earth and skies and would it have made any difference if man had interpreted that to mean we must watch over them and protect them rather than destroy them for our greater good?

And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps over the earth. (Genesis 1:26)

"Us," God said. "Our" image. "Our" likeness.

What's with the usses and ours? Who else was up there in heaven with him? That has puzzled me since childhood.

Well, it's too early to be discussing theology and I am not qualified, anyway.

I suppose a good Buddhist would simply leave the spider where she is and put up a gentle warning sign to those who wish to enter my house from that particular space. But the truth is- despite a sign I myself am apt to forget she is there and walk blindly through her web one of these days. Which will lead to cursing and using god's name in vain.

Kathleen and I were talking last night about the play and whether or not we really want to be in it. She said, "I'm like a good Baptist girl. If I kiss you, I think I have to marry you."
I said, "I'm like a good Catholic girl. If you get me pregnant, I'll have to marry you."

I am not feeling pregnant.

I am not really a Catholic or a Buddhist or even an old Cracker Woman who would just take the damn broom to that web and then sweep the porch and get on with her day, although I am leaning in that direction.

I do not fool myself about my dominion powers. But as much as I admire that spider and her tenacity, I do not want to walk through her web and find her crawling on my head.

Well, another day in Lloyd and Owen will be here later. He is already practicing his dominion over the beasts and birds.

He made this arrangement yesterday. It pleases me and I have left it up.

Good morning, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon