But First, Then This

It has been the sweetest day of almost constant movement but very little accomplishment.
You know what "but-firsts" are?
They're like, you're going to make a bed but first you have to sweep the floor in there. You're going to change out towels but first you have to clean the sink. You're going to wash the dishes but first you have to talk to your darling Lis on the phone, sitting on the front porch, dangling your flip flops and watching the breeze make the ferns sway and observing the blooming Confederate Rose against the blue sky, giggling and laughing with that darling Lis. You're going to do the laundry but first you have to exchange hilarious texts with Billy, none of which will be shared here. You're going to make bread but first you have to fool around with a cute man. You're going to do a major cleaning out of a drawer in the bathroom but first you have to polish the silver-plate cup you keep your toothbrush and toothpaste in. And then your favorite silver earrings and...okay, you get the idea.
So it's been a good day of doing tiny things that didn't really need doing but what the hell? and Jessie and Vergil should be here in about an hour and a half and I can't wait to see them and it's going to be so incredible, knowing that they're here and they're not leaving except to go to their HOME, their actual real HOME and we'll all unload the truck and then they'll be HOME and oh, boy. I just can't believe this.

I am going to make supper. BUT FIRST I think I better take a shower. It's been hot here today. And I look like a hillbilly unkempt grandma and smell like a stevedore. Before deodorant was invented.

All praise running water. Raise your praise to soap and towels and eggs and flour and yeast and babies coming home to stay. And friends and porches and chickens who come in through the dog door for little visits and cats who offer their heads for scratching at four a.m. when the Crazy comes to visit and for cute men and silver jewelry and pine cone lilies and every damn thing which has brought me joy and pleasure today.

All of that. And so much more.

Love...Ms. Moon

YOU Try To Title This Shit, Version XXIV

(For Elizabeth and Sophie because I saw your sirena.)

Golden morning, cool and soft air, dogs barking down the road, chickens running up to the bird feeder to scratch and eat the seeds that fall beneath it. They spend hours there daily now. Miss Trixie is singing as she does all day long. I wonder why she is the only one with a song-voice. 

Mr. Moon has had his egg sandwich and is off to town to do whatever it is he does. Something-something. Lowe's? Cars? He told me but you know- it all sounds like blah, blah to me. I nod and smile. "Okay! See you in a little while!"

Jessie and Vergil have just gotten on the road. I am washing the sheets from the bed in the guest room because they may spend the night here. That drive is going to be hellacious and it would just make sense for them to stay here tonight, get up in the morning, drive to Tallahassee and start unloading that Chinese puzzle of a truck into their new house. Times like these make you wish for magic wands, don't they? It always seems absolutely impossible to me- the concept of moving. I mean, EVERY ITEM IN A HOUSE HAS TO BE PICKED UP AND PUT IN A BOX OR A TRUCK OR SOMETHING AND CARRIED OUT OF ONE PLACE AND TRANSPORTED TO ANOTHER. Every fucking paper clip. Every sewing needle. Every dish cloth and plate and toothbrush and leftover container and everything in the goddam junk drawers that no one can set up housekeeping without. Every book. Every towel and bowl and potato masher and bracelet and necklace and hoop earring and picture and pair of panties. Every piano even! Who came up with this crazy concept? Some crazy Nomads back in the day, I suppose.

My jaw hurts today. Is this normal? I don't know. I'm having some anxiety about it. It doesn't hurt like "Oh, I need a Hydrocodone," although I do have seventeen and a half of those left from the prescription of twenty I got and to be completely honest, I probably didn't need to take one and a half of those. No, today it hurts like a few Ibuprofen should take care of it. I just took some. We'll see if that's the case. Why is it that I got TWO Xanax and TWENTY Hydrocodone? I sure wish the pharmacist had mixed those 'scripts up. I have a lot more anxiety than I have pain. And I had a ten pound, two-ounce baby at home so we know I can deal with pain. (Not very well, actually, but I can.) Anxiety is a much tougher thing for me than pain. Not that I like pain. Please. 

Oh well. I only took one of the Xanax so now I have a total stash of two and one half. Plus one Valium. This feels pretty good. Just having them relieves some of my anxiety. And really, my anxiety hasn't been bad lately. I keep that stash for when I have doctor's appointments. 

I'm not kidding you.

Do I talk about drugs too much? Better talking about them than doing them, I suppose. Depends on the drugs. 

So obviously I don't really have anything to discuss today. I will say that Billy sent me a picture of himself last night and he is looking GOOD! Well, you know, if you ignore all the bandages. Here's a funny text we sent back and forth two days ago.

All right. That's about all the news so far today. I just got a spam e-mail with the subject line, "You don't have to live with obesity," which is very good news. I'm really glad to know that. 

Also, an actual e-mail came through from a company who would love for me to share their article about the documented positive health effects of owning a dog.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Is it nap time yet?

Love...Ms. Moon

Just More Life

It's Friday night and the water is on the garden and I just went out there to check on things and damn if I don't already need to get in there and hoe like a monkey because all the weed seeds have germinated at approximately the same moment as all the greens and carrot seeds and already I am shrugging my shoulders at the thought of the impossibility of keeping on top of it all.
Well, I guess if gardening was the easiest thing in the world we'd all be eating fresh and organic and it would be a better world and I know there are easier ways to garden but at this moment in time I am not practicing them.

I did go into town. I called my Lily and even just communicating through actual true words made me feel a bit less unmoored and I went to her house and then Boppy came over and we all went to pick up Owen and went to eat a lunch and although I was some spacey and had to think about questions that were asked of me like, "Do you want me to get your tea?" for longer than one would think necessary, I managed to approximate the visage and actions of a fairly normal person. I think. I could be fooling myself.

After I left Lily's I went to the grocery store and then I came home and did some laundry and washed dishes and made up the bed with the fresh sheets I'd washed and I finished cleaning up our room and discovered the reason that it stunk like death in there. A tiny mole in a rather advanced state of decomposition which Maurice had brought us, I am sure, as a gift. I was mighty glad to find it because I'd thought something had crawled up under the house and died and there's not a damn thing you can do about that without crawling up under the house yourself and that's a scary, dark thing to do and not worth it just for one dead stinking animal. I picked up the poor little critter with a paper towel and took it outside and tossed it and did a good vinegar and water cleaning on that area of the room and all is now restored to rights.

Here's a corner of that room.

I know. It's a little dark but it's a dark room which suits me for sleeping purposes, whether at night or for naps. Speaking of naps, I laid down on the bed after I made it and rested my eyes for about forty-five minutes. It was one of those drifty-in-and-out naps wherein you can maintain that intensely pleasurable state of natural narcosis in a prolonged and most pleasurable way. I wasn't attached to the idea of napping as much as I was just to the idea of resting and I woke up easily when my husband came home.

He's out splitting wood to make a fire right now to cook two chickens that I bought. We'll eat some for our supper tonight and take some over to Jessie and Vergil's tomorrow along with soup and bread and eggs. They are coming, y'all. They are really, really coming back to live here.  

Here's the picture Jessie sent me of the loaded truck. 

Since Vergil is an engineer, I feel certain that the truck is packed as tightly and elegantly as a Chinese puzzle and it's going to be an adventure for those two, Vergil driving that loaded truck, Jessie following in her car, then arriving here tomorrow and unloading on Sunday into their house. 

Their house.

And then the adventure truly will begin. 

Will there be babies? Will there be music? Will Vergil meet people who become part of his tribe? Will they get chickens, will they plant an urban garden in their front lawn, will they be happy here? 

Oh, how I hope so. It is such a generous thing he is doing, leaving his beloved mountains, his family, his very, very dear friends, to come and try out this Florida thing, casting his lot with Jessie's crazy family, now his family as well. He wants to learn to hunt and fish. He is ready to redo the kitchen in their new house. He has taken on the role of a husband with love and steadfastness. It is an unbelievably beautiful thing to watch my children grow up and live their adult lives.

Lily and I were joking in the car today about something that I am not going to repeat here but she laughed and laughed at what I said and I told her, "You had no idea as a child that I was such a fun person, did you?"

And she agreed that she had not. 

Sometimes I miss my baby-babies so much it hurts like a sword in the belly. And sometimes, I am just so grateful for these friends that I have now. And funny thing- they can give me new babies to love. 

I like how that works. 

Owen gave me lots of love today and Gibson gave me some too. And here I am at home with a husband whom I adore and Maurice who wants a little petting now and then and my chickens.

Elvis is getting old but we just watched him take two of the hens in marital bliss in the space of twenty minutes so he's not that old. 

Owen told me and Lily today that Claire is his girlfriend. He hasn't told her yet, but she is. A few days ago, he and I were talking about how Boppy is my husband and I said, "Isn't it funny, Owen? If Boppy hadn't been my boyfriend and I didn't love him, then your mama never would have been born and then you never would have been born? You are here because I love your Boppy."

He thought about that and agreed that yes, that was true. 

If there is nothing else I can teach him, then at least I can teach him about how love makes love. 

And life. 

It's Friday night. I'm going to go saute some mushrooms and make some brown rice to go with. Mr. Moon is going to cook the chickens. Tomorrow, Jessie and Vergil will be here. 

I may be a crazy old woman but I do get some shit right. 

My god. The adventures never end. 

Until they do. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Here I Am. I Think.

I woke up this morning feeling great. Like I'd slept enough and everything was fine and it's a beautiful day but as the hours progress I'm not so sure.
Ugh.
I feel like such a wimp.
I know damn well that Mr. Moon would have gone right back to work after having a post jammed into his jaw. He just would have. He probably would have refused all the drugs, too.
"Just give me some Novocaine and let's get this done! I've got an appointment to sell a car at four!"

Well, he is who he is and I am who I am. And who I am is not feeling spectacular today and a lot of it is in my mind and some of that is probably clearing my body of all those lovely drugs and some of it may be the book I'm listening to, which is "We Are Water" by Wally Lamb which I mentioned the other day. It is a very good book and as Mr. Lamb does, he has taken many different threads and voices and woven them together in a tight braid of a story and one of the threads involves a sexual predator who preys on little girls and it goes back to his story and how he was preyed upon and not in a way that makes you feel exactly compassionate towards him but at least a little more understanding of how these things happen and I am thinking of how some people lately have been saying that works of art should be labeled for triggers for people with certain issues so that they may avoid them and I'm not sure how I feel about this. For one thing, everyone's triggers are probably so different. What may be a completely benign and even lovely image to most people, may trigger a horrible emotional reaction in someone else.
Of course, the details of all abuse are similar and yet as diverse as any human activity. And an artist, an author, a poet may need to create work which reflects his or her own traumas, a sort of therapy of release, perhaps, and this is something I can very much understand. It has just never occurred to me that I myself need to be protected from the works or words of others. If something disturbs me mightily I can turn away, put the book down, leave the theater. That is in my control. And there have been times when yes, I have most definitely been triggered and this may be one of those times. I feel a certain sense of disassociation at the moment and honestly, I don't know if it's the remnants of the drugs, the insult to the body I just experienced, or the words I am listening to from a book. Mr. Lamb certainly gets it right, the way the predator grooms his victims, the way he describes the relationship the pedophile curries between himself and the mother of the little girl in order to gain access to the child.

The way the child comes to love him dearly before he molests her.

Whatever the cause, whatever the root of this disassociation, I am feeling scattered all over the place, laundry going, a cleaning-my-room project halfway started and temporarily abandoned, trying to decide if I'm going to town today or not, the idea of a walk taken on and given up.
I know I dreamed of my stepfather last night but I cannot remember the dream.

I don't know if I would be putting myself and others in danger to drive to town or if I would be able to shed this spacey fog and focus and go on and break through. I'm not sure I care to risk that.

So odd how after fifty-one years, the events which occurred in my life still have such a powerful hold on me. Not all the time, by any means. I think that I, like many, many survivors of abuse, am able to function quite well. I am beyond grateful that the cursed sickness of pedophilia was not passed on to me in any way, shape or form and that my love for my children has been as clear and bright and fierce and right as the love of angels for their gods. That whatever demons I do have are far more mundane and include an overwhelming desire to protect children from any sort of pain. My own children as well as other children.

But sometimes, yeah, you get blindsided. And I'm not sure that any sort of label would prevent that. And perhaps every time I go through something like this I come out the other end a little stronger, a little more aware and compassionate through the knowledge for certain sure that I am not the only one. My story is my story but it is in no way a unique one.

Well, this post is probably meandering and poorly written. But even through my spaciness, my disassociation, I feel the need to get these words down. Get 'em down, take the time to actually get through the feelings from one end to the other (and of course, that has to begin with FEELING the feelings) and then to go on.

Can't rush these things, whether they be the use of a chisel in the jaw or the memories of my nine-year old self. And I'm old enough (if not wise at all) to know that.

Much love on a beautiful Friday...Ms. Moon

Billy Got Something Off His Chest Today

Do y'all remember when I did this post? 
Well, he got his surgery today. In San Francisco.
His mama reports that he's doing great, surgery went great, all is great.
Hurray!
Billy, Billy, Billy, my god, the world loves Billy. Here's a picture of him and Waylon last Father's Day.

I just wanted all of y'all who contributed to his GoFundMe account to know that he's done it and he's that much closer to becoming who he already is and always has been. 

Thank you so much, those who contributed and those of who simply know Billy from this blog and who have come to like him. If you knew him, you would love him. 

As someone said recently when we were discussing Billy, "Everyone loves Billy. Even people Billy doesn't like, love Billy."

Love...Ms. Moon, Billy's #1 Fan

Back Up To Speed: The Speed Of A Stoned Tortoise, That Is

One of the last things I truly remember from yesterday was sitting in the dentist's chair and being handed a little ketchup cup thing with about four pills in it. Five? The nurse told me what they were and all I can remember is "Valium" and "Xanax" and after that, not much although I do remember being told, "You're doing great, almost over," and me thinking, "Hey, I'm not doing a thing here, the important question is- how are YOU doing?" and realizing that shit- this was starting to hurt.
Which I told them and then there came the big silver hypo of Novocaine, I guess, although it could have been liquified Eye of Newt for all I knew.

Then, done, unrobe me from my paper coverings, ask me if I want a milkshake.
No thank-you and my husband was there and he gave me a cup of coffee because he knows me and I love him. Back in the car, stopped at Publix so my husband could get my drugs and chicken pot pies and coffee ice cream. I stayed in the car and slept. When we got home, I undressed, went straight to bed and slept until he woke me up and told me supper was ready.
Can I just say that was the second best supper I ever ate, the first being the chicken pot pie he made me after the tooth was originally extracted?
Dear god. Nothing ever tastes better to me in my life.

I tried to stay up for awhile. I tried to knit, I believe. Lord knows what a tangle that must be. Gave it up. Went to bed. I carefully placed another pain pill beside the bed in case I woke up and needed it. Woke up at three, needed it but thought I'd already taken it. Got up and took Ibuprofen. Went back to sleep. Woke up when Glen kissed me good-bye and asked if I needed him to stay home to take care of me. I kissed him back and told him I'd be fine.

Found the pain pill. Put it back in the bottle.

It's a beautiful day. Unless I'm hallucinating.

My jaw hurts a little but it's not bad.

I just went out to fill up the birdbath. It took me five minutes to find the end of the hose.

I think I'll go lay down now.

I wish I had another pot pie.

It's John Lennon's birthday. I wish he was here. I'd make him a cake, even if it took all day and half the night.

Love...Ms. Moon

Home

All went well.  I am home and may sleep for days.
I imagine it will take me forty-five minutes or so to put on my nightgown.
Thank you all for the sweet good wishes.
Love...Me

Pre-Surgical Ramblings

It's very misty here this morning and a pileated woodpecker is thunking into a dead limb on the chinaberry tree, working away.

I'm nervous this morning. Which is different from anxious. Nervous is normal and understandable. Okay, there's a little anxiety too. My doctor sent in a prescription for two Xanax for me, one to take the night before, one to take an hour before the procedure. I did not take the one last night. I figured I'd sleep okay and I did. But you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be taking one before I go in.
Amen and yes, m'am.

I can eat up to three hours before but of course, I don't feel like eating. Drinking a smoothie.

Okay. I'll quit talking about that now.

You'd think I was the only person in the world to ever get a dental implant. At least if I was getting breast implants I'd have something to really look forward to. Probably cheaper than a dental implant too. Not that I'd know.

Jessie called me last night after she got off work. She does that a lot, gets off work, calls her mama. Such a sweetness. Last night she was crying a little bit though. It had been her last day of work at Mission hospital. They'd thrown her a party in the break room. "They made a CHEESE BALL!" she told me, laughing through her tears. Here's a picture she posted on Facebook.

Would you look at the size of that cheese ball?
And the view from that break room? She's never going to have a view like that from a break room in Tallahassee. Jeez. No wonder she was crying. But what she was really crying about was having to leave the women she's been working with. A team of nurses truly is a team. And she's had the joy of working with such a good one and I know they're going to miss her as much as she's going to miss them.

Okay. I just ate an English muffin. That's going to do me. I'm going to clean out the hen house because it needs it. It's pretty shitty in there. Thirteen full-grown chickens will just poop more than six chickens and that's a fact of nature and science. We found a little chicken poop by the couch in the Glen Den last night so I guess Nicey and Lucille were exploring that room while I was gone. I keep visualizing them as being like a little pair of Goldilocks, you know?
"Hey! Check out this couch! Man, this is nice. Here, I'll scoot over. Hand me the remote."

Etc.

Talk to you later.

Love...Ms. Moon

Come On In, Y'all

When I got home from the store and Lily's this afternoon, I found chicken poop all over the back porch which meant that some of the chickens had come in the dog door. While I was still cleaning it up, Ms. Nicey and Ms. Lucille strolled out of the back door from the house as if they owned the place.

Which, I guess, for awhile they did.

Maurice didn't give them a second look.

I suppose I should be a bit upset but frankly, I'm mostly charmed. Where in the world did I get this white trash gene? Next thing you know, I'll have a washing machine on the porch and insist that Mr. Moon start removing the tires from his vehicles and putting them up on blocks. And planting petunias in old, abandoned toilets.

Okay. Maybe not. Probably not.

But you never know.

Back To Using My Words

Did you notice that I didn't really write anything yesterday? I just didn't feel like it. Maybe for the first time ever.
And it was a busy day. It was actually, in my life, a remarkable day in that May and Michael came out for a visit while the boys were here AND my friend Judy stopped by. And the phone rang at least seven times which is about two weeks worth of calls for me. Not counting political robo calls. And one of the calls was from Hank who told me all about the new apartment he's about to move into and I am so thrilled that he's moving from his tiny little place into a bigger place with an oven that actually works and sinks actually attached to the walls. And TWO bedrooms! And a blue-tiled bathroom! Such good news there.

The boys had a fabulous time when they were here. They glommed onto May and made her play with them for about two hours. Tarzan, Power Rangers, Fly-Like-A-Bird.
I don't know what all.
I had some plants I wanted to give May and I did. One of them was the pup of my ancient split-leaf philodendron. The smaller plant was in a pot on the front porch that is slowly coming apart in shards. The pot, not the plant. It froze last winter and cracked and I have several of these sister philodendrons and so I dug it up yesterday, amazed at the number and length of the roots and was even more amazed at the number of earthworms in the pot's dirt. I mean, it was like a worm condo in there! I bagged up the plant and gave it to May along with one of my giant-leaf begonias. I have so many of those plants now that I started years ago from sprouting two leaves. I feel so rich in my plants and isn't that silly and when winter gets here and I have to bring them all in to prevent death by freezing I'm going to feel even sillier.

After May and Michael left and Judy was here, she and the boys went on a worm-digging adventure. They are always shy of her at first (they are a bit shy of anyone they don't really know) but Judy is so good at getting them to finally shed their shyness and they always end up in love with her.

They transferred the worms they caught to other pots on the porch. It was quite a project and after Judy left, Boppy came home and played with them for a little while and when the boys were in their daddy's car, ready to leave, Owen said, "I wish we could all live here forever."

And I'm sure he does. With all of the people who love him.

When he was still sort of hiding from Judy, he came out to the porch and sat down with a notebook and a pen. I came out to check on him and said, "What are you doing, baby?"
"Figuring out who the murderer in this house is," he said.
"Okay," I said.

May came and checked on him a few minutes after that. She came back in the kitchen and said, "I'm a little worried about who this murderer is. The only name on that paper is Owen."

A tiny bit later, I came back out.
"Mer," he said, his voice all trembly and dramatic, "I figured out who the murderer is."
"Who?" I asked.
"Me!" he said with great and fearful dramatic flourish.

Here's his figuring-page.

I love the X's and V's.

Oh, his mind.

He had a cold yesterday and Gibson was a bit sniffly and now I've talked to Lily and she's got the cold. It's not a bad one, just an annoying one. She texted me a little while ago when I was on my walk and said, "If I ask you something will you answer me honestly?"
And of course my mind went to all sorts of crazy places. What in the world was she going to ask me? 
I texted back, "I guess."
I got home and called her. What she wanted to ask me was if I was going to be coming to town for real because if I was, she'd like some seltzer water and cough drops but she did not want me to just come to town for that.
Oh Lord.
And I am going to town so it will be easy to get her those things and drop them off. Honestly and truly.

I just talked to the very delightful Norma Jean at my dentist's office. I'm going in tomorrow at one for my "procedure" which is getting the damn spike put in my gum which will, eventually, anchor my crown. For some reason I thought this would take about twenty minutes. Dope me up, drive that sucker in with a nice little surgically sterilized hammer. Done. Right?
Fuck!
They have me scheduled for "most of the afternoon!" They said that it'll take me about forty-five minutes to an hour to become properly sedated. Shitfire!
Well, if the extraction process was any indication, they definitely know how to sedate me properly. I still look back on that day with such fondness. The drug cocktail they gave me was better than the quaaludes we used to do back in the old days and that was some good shit.

I should shut up now, right?

Yes I should. I'm going to run to town and get things to make a big pot of vegetable soup and drop those things off for Lily and kiss my babies and then I'm going to spend this beautiful afternoon chopping and simmering and nothing in this world makes me much happier than that.
I am listening to Wally Lamb's "We Are Water" and enjoying it so very much.

Here I am. I have had a good walk, I feel good, tomorrow I'm finally going to get this implant process started, there will be drugs. Jessie and Vergil will be here in a few days, I got to see my May yesterday, and Michael and Judy too. Hank will have a new home soon.

Oh! And Mr. Moon shot a deer the other night! Fresh sausage! And if all goes well, fresh greens from my own garden in a month or so.

It doesn't take much to make me happy, does it?

Well. That's me.

Lucky as hell, rich as Midas, and wise enough to know it.

Love...Ms. Moon

A Monday Morning Walk In Lloyd

Fally-Down house.
Still here, leaning more than ever. Scraps of wallpaper still on some of the walls.

Taken by accident. See my foot of fire?

Zebra butterfly on Spanish Needle.

Skull on old tree stump with barbwire running right through the wood.

Extremely interesting mushroom. What do YOU see?

 Hard to beat 110% Results.

Beautiful wild flower. Don't know its name. Do you?

Local As You Can Get

Mr. Moon did indeed clean up the Cutlass Supreme and we drove down through the swamplands and the woods and the planted pines past roads named things like "Pinhook Drive" (which always makes me think of pin worms and hook worms) and through the town of Wacissa and the town of Newport where we were thinking of stopping at Ouzt's Oyster Bar for our lunch but since it was such a beautiful day every biker in the entire North Florida/South Georgia area was already there, motorcycles lined up like shiny chrome dominoes, old dudes (i.e., our age) with long hair and beards and leather jackets outside listening to a band and drinking beer.
We passed on by and went down to St. Marks where Posey's oyster bar used to be on the banks of the St. Marks River but it's not any more and that is a mournful thing to many of us. Posey's was as down home as you could possibly get. When I first started going there, back in the seventies, they served two things: raw oysters and smoked mullet. You could also get crackers. And beer. And soda. Over the years they expanded the menu somewhat but the oysters and smoked mullet and beer are what people went down there for. The floors were so slanted from age and moisture you felt drunk just walking across them and the toilets in the bathroom were so poorly connected to the floor that you feared you might tip over on them in the middle of a pee. FSU professors and students and politicians and all sorts of regular folks used to go there, Sunday afternoons especially. There was a dock to sit on and it was a fine thing to go to Posey's on a Sunday, sit in the warm sun on a cool day and eat some oysters, some of their delicious smoked mullet served on a brown paper towel.
Praise the Lord and please pass the hot sauce.

Anyway, a few years ago a terrible flood came through. It was the result of a perfect storm of the rains of a hurricane, a full moon, a high tide. St. Marks flooded entirely and Posey's, which was built over the water on stilts, mostly, was, as we might say, ruint.
There was no way to rebuild it. There was no code book in the world which would have allowed it to be built back where it had been and it's gone now. Some of the floor is still there and it's so much smaller than you'd think. None of the bar, the tables, the docks, the little beer garden are there anymore. Just some old tile floor and a new picnic table and a trash can. That's it.
The river's still there, same as ever though.

Another restaurant opened up just about half a block (if there were blocks) from Posey's and it's on the water too and it's about a half a step up in elegance and it's an okay place to eat if you have about four hours to wait for your grouper sandwich. It always takes forever to get served there, no matter what time of day or what day of the week and we walked in today and looked around at about twenty occupied tables, none of which had food on them and we walked out.
We tried this other place newly opened called "Cooter Stew" (I am not making that up) but their menu consisted of about five different kinds of hamburgers, hot dogs, and a grilled tilapia sandwich. Well, fuck me, you don't drive down to the coast to eat any of those as far as I'm concerned so we drove back up the road a tiny bit to a place where we ordered shrimp and oysters but the waitress informed us that the oysters were so tiny all we'd be getting was some fried batter, mostly, so we settled on the shrimp which was...fine.
The sign above was taken there, out front. I sent it to Jessie because whenever I go to Asheville I'm always laughing about how everything is local from the beer to the beef to the art to the knitted baby blankets.
"See?" I said to her. "You can get local products here too."
Glen and I both laughed at the sign. "Wouldn't want to eat any of that damn imported gator, now would we?"

So we had a good time and as we all know, it's the journey and not the destination which matters and we held hands, driving down the backroads, past all the trees and sparking river and everything shone like glory, golden and purple wildflowers covering the roadsides.

Here's what the Cutlass looked like when we stopped on the way.

I love the contrast between it and the tractor which is not our tractor. Our tractor is up in Georgia at the hunting camp.
Isn't it a beautiful car? It's running very well, flat-out on the highway, especially. It roars and it rumbles and it doesn't have cup holders and that's fine. It's parked back in the garage now and Mr. Moon is down the road in his deer blind at a friend's property. The friend lets him hunt there because the deer eat his garden down to the nothing every year and it drives him crazy but let's face it- that's just the way it's going to be, even if Glen does get a deer there every year.
When he left he said, "I'll probably scare the deer off with my snoring."

And so it goes.

I just talked to Billy. He makes me laugh so hard. Best thing he said today: He was discussing how he and Shayla fixed a toilet of theirs today which was a miracle in that Billy is NOT handy, or so he says. And he told Shayla, "Why do you keep thinking I'm handy? Don't you remember when I installed that ceiling fan and we just had to quit using that room? Don't you remember when, at your urging, I replaced a screen door and we had to use the back door from then on out?"

I'm still laughing.

Okay. Last night's shephard's pie remainders are in the oven. When I had six people at the table every night I cooked for twelve. Now that it's only two of us, I am finally cooking for six. This is the way it is and my husband never, ever complains of leftovers at all and insists that they're always better the second night. This one might actually be in that it was a bit mushy last night and perhaps tonight's reheating will decrease the mush factor. We shall see. It will be warm, tasty mush anyway, and there's nothing wrong with that.

It's been a good day and tomorrow I get my boys. More adventures to anticipate. A week from now, Jessie and Vergil will be here, probably sleeping in their own house. I'm still not believing that but it does appear to be true. The cardinals have rediscovered the feeder, Maurice is still jingling, and my husband will be home at dark-thirty.
I'm sure Maurice will be happy about that, the little minx.

Me too.

Love...Ms. Moon

Can We Laugh About It?

It's nice and chilly but not cold and I've found my slippers and that damn Maurice- I thought she slept on me all night long but noooo...
This morning the first thing when I got up, Mr. Moon told me about their nighttime romance. How she came and kissed him and then cuddled with him and is my jealousy directed at the cat or the man?
Neither too badly.
He loves to pretend that he does not like the cat but he doesn't pretend very hard. He is fooling neither me nor Maurice.

Yesterday I read the headline of some stupid article on Huffpost to him which went something like, "70% of married women have a back-up husband in mind" or maybe it was 50%. Whatever.
"Mmmm..." I mused. "Maybe I should have one of those."
"I'll pick you out one," he said.
"And who would that be?" I asked. And then I said the name of a friend of ours who, although he is a darling and precious soul, I wouldn't marry if he was the last human being on earth or even the last primate.
We laughed. That was that.
But last night as we were watching Anthony Bourdain on the TV, he said to me, "You can marry him if I die," which I thought was about the sweetest thing in the world because he knows I have a little crush on Anthony and also, Anthony is a tall guy like him and although the odds of that ever happening are somewhere right up there with me being killed by a piece of burning space debris, I loved him for saying that.
I should have told him that if I die, he has my permission to marry Salma Hayek because I know he has a huge crush on her. I do too, but then again, who doesn't?

One of the things I love most about our relationship is the fact that when we spend time together, really spend time together, not just exist in the same space which is what a great deal of life is like, we laugh a lot. We make each other laugh and I think that's a vastly underrated part of long-time love. We share jokes and silly memories and the punch lines that come from those and it's a sweet, sweet sharing. Other things in a relationship are very important too. Physical closeness and intimacy and shared values and respect and family and so forth but humor- that's a good one.

And pancakes, of course.

This morning I'm making what should be the Best Pancakes Ever because they have sweet potatoes and banana and apple and pecan in them but I swear to you- I can't get the pan right and they're all wonkey and either a little burned or a just a damn mess.

Oh well. He'll eat them and he'll like them. I promise you. And we may even bring up the joke which is not even ours, but was a story that my grandfather used to tell from the early days of his marriage to my grandmother.
When they were first wed, she couldn't cook a damn thing. She was the darling spoiled baby of a family with ten children and she always burned the toast. But he, being a loving husband, told her that it was fine, that was just how he liked it.
So once, when they went off on some sort of trip, they were at a restaurant for breakfast and the toast came out burnt. The server offered to take it back to the kitchen but my grandmother said, "Oh, that's okay. That's exactly how he likes it!"

This story never ceases to amuse us, as silly as it is. I think it is a gentle and loving story as well as a funny one.

I never remember my mother and stepfather sharing this sort of thing. His attempts at humor were cutting and mean or over-laden with inappropriate sexual innuendo. I don't remember any genuine sweetness or silliness. I remember the fear of saying the wrong thing, the cruelty of his words and actions. The threat of his anger. Not much room for laughter in that.

I have no idea how I escaped such a similar fate in my own marriage but I certainly have. There is no cruelty at all in my husband. There is, instead, his gentleness, his ability to laugh at himself and with me over our foibles. We are both losing our hearing and the other day he said, "Maybe we should get two sets of hearing aids," after I didn't hear him say something and I said, "Maybe we should."
"Nah," he said. "Let's just keep doing what we're doing and laughing about it."

Oh god. As long as we can laugh we'll be all right.

Well, the morning has passed. The pancakes were indeed pronounced "the best ever" and eaten with pleasure. My husband is out cleaning up the old convertible and I think we're going to take it down somewhere near the coast and maybe have a few oysters on this beautiful fall day. I just got off the phone with May and we laughed a lot too. We're the laughing family. And yeah, we cry too but mostly from sweetness.

Happy Sunday, y'all. For once, it really is one here and I am not disregarding the joy in that.

Love...Ms. Moon

Saturday Night

It has been the most absolutely beautiful day I can remember. I spent a great deal of time just sitting on the back porch steps watching the birds and the way the light and shadows changed. Maurice sat with me and I felt as content and peaceful as a cat myself. Not lazy, just not bothered enough by anything in this world to do a damn thing. Elvis came up and demanded treats but I didn't give him any. He has lost his last tail feather and thus, his magnificence is a bit dimmed but he is still a handsome lad, don't you think?
I remember once, before we moved in here but after we'd bought the place and I came over to clean one day and it was March, I think, and the weather was much like it was today and I was so happy, so filled with the wonder of knowing I was going to be moving into this house and I walked down to what was then the open little convenience store owned by Mr. Lawrence and his wife and I talked to them a bit and told them who I was and I bought a six-pack of beer and came back here and sat on the steps and drank one, just completely blissed-out.
Here I am, ten years later, still sitting on those steps, still feeling blissed-out.

I saw Mr. Lawrence a few weeks ago. He'd come over to mow the grass around his building which is now empty and falling-in and sad. He and his wife closed the doors a few years ago. They were helping with a niece who had to have a liver transplant, I think, and it was all getting to be too much for him. I stopped to talk to him and he did not look very well. He said that he'd had some health problems but the doctor assured him that it was "all behind" him now. And that he and wife were planning on reopening at some point.
I don't know if that'll happen. He's got to be eighty, although he doesn't look it. It sure would be wonderful if it did happen. We miss that little store, not only because it was so easy to run down there and get a quart of milk or a six pack, but because it was a place to get the news, to have a chat.
Mr. Lawrence asked about my husband. He calls him "The Fisherman" and about my grandson and I asked about his bride. "She's as mean as ever," he said.
"She needs to be to take care of you," I said, and we both laughed.
He used to tolerate no nonsense, that man. He had a shotgun behind the counter which you could not see and a framed picture of him and Bill Clinton together which you could see. One of them, and I can't remember which, was holding a saxophone. And Mr. Lawrence was wearing a bad-ass baby-blue suit and a ruffled shirt.
Yes. I miss him. I'm not the only one. He told me that day that since he'd been there an hour or so before, at least ten people had stopped to talk to him, tell him how much they missed him.
Everyone always called him "Israel" which is his name, but I always called him (and still do), Mr. Lawrence. 
A community needs that sort of a place, that sort of a man to run it.
If he was still here, I'd take the boys down when they're with me and let them pick out a piece of candy. It would be a damn big deal in our days.

A few of the birds have found the feeders, one female cardinal in particular who has been chipping about it all day long. I put a neon-pink elastic collar with a bell on Maurice today. She rolled around and tried to get rid of it for about five minutes but now she seems almost proud of it. I don't know if it'll do any good to prevent bird murder but at least I've done it. And I'm going to go buy more bells and sew them onto the collar too so that she'll jingle like a belly dancer when she walks. I'll have to take it off at night because the last thing we need is a jingling cat at two a.m.

And now it's time to listen to Prairie Home Companion and I'm going to make a vegetarian shepherd's pie and did you know that one of Keith Richard's favorite foods is a good shepherd's pie and that he won't start playing a show until there's one backstage which he does not eat until after the gig, or least that's the way it used to be? I'm sure his shepherd's pies aren't vegetarian but ours tonight will be. We may be on vacation but let's not be ridiculous with the red meat. Mr. Moon is comfortable in his chair watching football and I've got The Duck out on the bed and and I can't wait until he sees it and calls it That Damned Thing and then he'll laugh and I bet Maurice will spend the whole night, sunk into its depths beside me.

Just about a perfect day.

I am so glad to be able to report about it. I am even happier to be living it.

A Fine Vacation

It's a beautiful peaceful morning here in Lloyd. The Spanish moss is swaying in the breeze like the waggling beards of old, laughing men. The chickens are out, running and scratching. Maurice is somewhere in the yard, hunting on safari, her morning chore of watching the ceremonial releasing of the chickens complete.

Mr. Moon and I are taking it easy, easy. He's doing some bird-feeding related project and I have stone-ground grits cooking. 

I hardly ever cook these grits because they take almost an hour of simmering. And if you bother to read those cooking instructions you may be as baffled as I am. I have never in my life heard of anyone cooking grits in chicken broth and half-and-half although I am sure the resulting product would be more than delicious. I'm doing the water and salt. But if the Queen were coming for brunch, I might try the other recipe. I'm sure she'd love them. 

I might throw some cheese in at the last minute or I might not. Depends on how I feel in forty-five minutes. 

I'm also going to cook eggs and bacon. We're on vacation this weekend, just the two of us, right here. We both agreed that we don't feel stressed out about a damn thing and if that's not vacation, what is? In my dreams this morning I was traveling and kept losing my passport and had to leave a whole lot of stuff behind and the leader of our group (?) wasn't interested in anything but making out with her trashy boyfriend who dumped her right before we were supposed to fly out of wherever we were flying out of but she seemed pretty sanguine about that. She seemed pretty sanguine about everything and certainly wasn't trying to help me find my passport. So when I woke up in my own bed with my own sweetie beside me and my orange cat laying cuddled next to me, I was most happy. It is cool, it is clear, yesterday's rain washed everything new and is bringing this sweet air which dances through the trees and rustles the leaves and sways the moss. 

Today may involve some limb-and-branch picking up and I feel quite certain it's going to involve a nap or two. We're on vacation in our own house which is a very fine place to be and no passports are required and there is no schedule or group leader. Just...us. 

And Elvis, of course, who is always the group leader but not of my own personal group and yes, he does make-out, or at least fuck, but it's fast and the hens seem to tolerate it fine.

For an old guy, he still manages to do his job with authority and he would never abandon his sister-wives.

Good morning. 

Good morning from Lloyd. I think I'll go make biscuits now. 

Love...Ms. Moon, The Peaceful And Contented  

A Sort Of TS Eliot Homage

Did I tell you that it's supposed to get down into the upper forties tomorrow night? I can't remember if I did or not. I'm old, my brain is older. I know, that doesn't seem possible but trust me, it is.
Anyway, forty-seven degrees or something like that. That, for us, is COLD, y'all! I just had the AC on last night and tomorrow I'll be using the heater. And wondering where my sweaters are. And my down comforter, known fondly to me as "The Duck" and to my husband as "That damn thing."
Coldest night in winter (and I do leave the window cracked) and he sleeps with the sheet and maybe a cotton blanket. Maybe. Meanwhile I have the blanket, a quilt and The Duck.
We are differently tempered in more ways than one.
Bet you knew that.

I have bread rising and am even making a little plate of cheese and crackers and smoked salmon for our martini hour tonight. Like Lis would do, except Lis would do it better and I forgot the damn cream cheese, of course. And she always garnishes things and makes them beautiful and finds tiny silver serving spoons that I don't even know I have. I feel like such a pretender. But I'm going to do my best. Speaking of garnish, I need to plant pansies and violas. They are perfect for all sorts of garnishing purposes, aren't they? Salads, cakes, little plates of smoked salmon and crackers and fancy mustard. They are so delicate and yet so hardy when the coldest days and nights fall upon us. And so pretty with their little faces, their colors of purple and yellow and white velvet.

I went out and checked and the garden is already coming up. Tiny ear-sprigs of greens. Oh, how I love this most perfect time for the garden! It's all potential and promise. I want to get back in there and plant cilantro too. I had good luck with that last year. And guess what I'm going to do this year?
Fertilize!
It has all-of-sudden-occurred to me that perhaps some fertilizer might actually allow my plants to grow larger than the bonsai stage. Yes, I will use something organic. When Mr. Moon used to have his tire store, a guy would come by and try to sell him drugs and also some sort of fertilizer made from dried crab...guts? Claws? I don't know. But that shit was awesome. We didn't buy the drugs. Maybe we should have. As I recall, the crab stuff came in big bags marked with Oriental writing of some sort.
I'm so ignorant.

Anyway, here we are and it's rained today and I took three pieces of jewelry to be repaired which makes me feel as if maybe I'd climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. One of the pieces was a tiny gold ring that my friend Sue bought me in Italy. It has chips of rubies and diamonds in it, and it's either 18 or 22 carat gold and the band broke a long time ago and I pulled it out of my jewelry box today and in a week I can wear it again. That makes me happy. I went to Publix and ran into an old friend and it was good to see her. She's recently retired from nursing and is helping tend her new grand baby. We showed each other pictures of our grands and we laughed and we hugged and god, if it wasn't for Publix, I'd never see anyone I wasn't blood-related to.

I remember when we used to go out every Friday night to a beer garden where they had a happy hour which everyone came to call "hippie hour" and the tribe all came together to drink and chat and dance and we brought children and babies and dogs. Those days are gone forever. All of us stay home now, all of us old hippies. Those of us who are still here. When we meet, we shrug ruefully and say, "I never go anywhere," and we laugh a little and say, "I miss those days."

But we had them, we had those days, and now we stay home and that's okay too. To everything there is a season.
And a time for every purpose under heaven and so forth.

Friday night. Martinis with blue cheese olives and Tabasco olives and cheese and crackers and next weekend Jessie and Vergil will be moving to Tallahassee and the downtown festival which Hank has been working on for months will be happening and life just keeps on happening and thank god because if it didn't, I wouldn't be.

Happening. That is. Time to bake the bread. Time to make the salad. Do I dare put a record on the record player? Or eat a peach?

The mermaids sing each to each.

I still think they sing to me.

A most literary cat. I swear, I did not pose one thing about this.

Wear your trousers rolled, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Too Many Buts About It

This is one of the signs I see on my walk. It amuses me, being a pedestrian and all. And rebel that I am, I do not slow for the curve.

I also stopped by the old hidden graveyard.

I love that spot. It looks different every season but is always remarkably peaceful. Not a bad place for bones to spend an eternity. 

Mr. Moon called me this morning and said,"Hey. Let's go to Mobile."

And me, just awake and feeling all existentially angsty and shit said, "But, but, but..."

"I'm ready to just check out of here," he said. "Let's just go."

"But, but, but," I said. "Who will take care of the chickens?"

And he said, of course, that our neighbor would and I said I wasn't ready and he said that all I had to do was pack a bag and then I said some other stupid shit about not really feeling like I could go and so he said that all right, he had plenty to do right here. 

I had made the suggestion last night that we might go but hadn't really thought he'd heard me. Our old friend Ziggy is playing there this weekend and we made a little weekend of it a few years ago, found a beautiful old place to stay, had a wonderful time. But. But. But. 

Of course, after I'd had my walk, I'd thought more about it. And I called him back but I still wasn't really truly gung-ho and we've decided that we'll just wait until our anniversary at the end of the month to go somewhere and this weekend we'll just take the time to be with each other which seems to be so hard to do. 

But. But. But.

On my death bed I'm going to be pissed off at myself for not going. I know it. 

I say "no" too often when "yes" would be, without a doubt, the very best thing. 

Well. I'm going to run to town to take some jewelry to be fixed, to go pick up steaks and the makings for martinis. I'll clean off the table on the front porch and cut pine cone lilies to put in a vase. It'll be a sweet weekend. 

But oh, how I want to remember to say "yes" more often to my husband, to the universe. 

Here's Ziggy doing a cover of Bell Bottom Blues and I especially fancy the way he does one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. 

I don't want to fade away. Really, I don't. Life is so short and my bones will be part of the earth for so long.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

News From Lloyd

Is this one of the funniest kid-pictures you've ever seen?
Here you have Wolverine and his side-kick, Small Pissed Off Man.
Yes, there's a story there. No, I don't need to tell it. Besides, you probably already know the plot-line by heart because you've either been a parent or a grandparent or a sibling.

I really had a very good time with the boys. Gibson was mostly not in a bad mood at all, but in a sweet, loving mood. He spent a good long while putting eyeshadow all over my face and then he tried to poke the end of the brush into my stomach because he thought that would be funny and it sort of was. We listened to "Gus And Me" twice in the car on the way here from Lily's house. Owen loved it. Or so he said. He was the one who wanted me to play it again. And when we got home, he wanted to hear a little Stones on the phonograph and so we did. He wanted the record with the "yellow label." I let him put the tone arm down on the album himself and he did it beautifully. Very gently. I was proud of him.

He has learned how to make the "f" sound at speech class and he is practicing all the time. "Fart" of course, is his favorite word and I swear to you, the other day in the car when he was demonstrating his F-words, he gave out with a great big old F-Bomb and Lily and I both about had to strangle our owndamnselves to quit laughing and he was told in no uncertain terms that he is NOT to say that word. Not at all, never, especially at school.

"You'll get in big trouble if you say that at school," I told him. "They'll send you home."

"That's okay! I don't want to go to school!" he said, quite cheerfully. 

"If you get in trouble at school, you're going to get in even worse trouble at home," Lily said. 

Meanwhile, we were both turning blue from the effort not to bust our guts. 

Gibson's language skills are increasing by leaps and bounds. Even English. And he is so polite! Not only does he always say "Thank-you" but he also says, "You're welcome!" after we thank him. Never have I met a two-and-a-half year old who does that. Ever. And he can count to five and he probably knows all his ABC's. You know how it is with second kids. Unlike with the first ones whose every molecule of growth and learning is noted with great glee and celebration, the subsequent children could be speaking Latin and the parents wouldn't know it until someone else pointed it out. 

Gibson loves to take showers. Mostly I think it's an opportunity to be pants-less but whatever. I let him stay in there as long as the water's warm. Here he is my shower today. 

That's a plastic frog, by the way. He is so beautiful. Children and their perfect, lovely bodies...

While the boys were here, Mr. Moon's doctor's office called and left a message that he should call them. He had his physical last week and then went and had his blood work done and you know how incredibly freaked out I get about going to the doctor and getting stuff like that done? Well, it's just as bad for me when it's my husband. I texted him to give him the message and waited on pins and needles and with my heart in my throat and my stomach in knots until he called to tell me that they just wanted to tell him that all of his numbers were GREAT!

Lord, child. I was so happy. I am so happy. 

I have to keep that man alive. Forever. Or until after I die, which is the same thing. 

And in another not-very-related topic, let me report that I went to see Kathleen yesterday and she looks fabulous and even better and more importantly, she said she feels great. I think her body is finally getting over the effects of the chemo and she told me that she's even occasionally hungry which just thrilled my heart. She'd had no idea how sick the chemo was making her. May she continue to feel so very well, to be able to enjoy every minute of her life. 

Which reminds me to try and do the same. 

It's been a good day and one of my old hens laid me a beautiful green egg- the first one I've gotten in forever and I'm going to make us poached eggs over spinach and mushrooms tonight and I will be cooking that one, for sure. 

So. There's the news from Lloyd. Well, not really. I have no idea what's going on next door or across the street or on Main Street or Lloyd Subdivision Road or on that beautiful little dirt road where I walk because there's an old house that I love so much with such beautiful trees that it makes my heart feel at peace just to see it. Since Miss Martha retired as Post Mistress, I don't get the news the way I used to which is sad but anyway, this is what is happening here, in my tiny part of this tiny village in North Florida. For today, at least, there have been worries and frowns but far more sweetness and light. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Mind Blower, I Mean LEAF BLOWER. Plus, Shameless Self-Promotion

I heard a cat snarl-up and yell-fest last evening and I think Maurice may have been involved because a little while later she came into the den and actually sat on my lap and wanted to be scratched and that is not like her. And then she slept cuddled up next to me and this morning was wary of going outside. She's outside now but staying close to the house, hiding under the rose bush. She thinks she's a lion or a tiger and I suppose it's good for her to be reminded at times that she's really just a fairly small house cat who can't lick a chicken unless it's a bad day for the chicken although she's hell on lizards and frogs. And old, diseased squirrels. And moles.

The sun made an appearance this morning and so has my better mood. I am not taking a walk this morning because last night I was so damn sore that I almost cried and fuck the turmeric I'm taking for it's AMAZING (according to many FB posts) anti-inflammatory properties. You know what? I realize that never once in my life have I taken a supplement or vitamin that did a damn thing that I could feel any actual proof of. Okay. Maybe St. John's Wort for a little while.
Ibuprofen, however, works a charm. Every time.

It's a strange morning here in that Mr. Moon is still at home. He's trying to set up the bird feeders again which I have a terrible feeling about. He's going to be absolutely enraged when Maurice pounces on a bird feeding on seeds which have been scattered from the feeder onto the ground. He's also taking business calls on his phone and so my usual peace is disturbed and I have a window into his typical day which is chaotic and completely busy and I have no idea how he does it. I myself am extremely agitato just from watching and listening.

Here he is spreading bark butter into the hollows on the feeder. Bark Butter? Don't ask. I'm certain we could eat it. It would probably be good for us, too.

So now he's leaving and there's a guy at the church next door using a leaf blower. My god those people keep that place tidy. And obviously, it's just one of those mornings wherein there will be no peace and as soon as the church guy quits, a train will come by and later the boys are coming out which will be wonderful but not exactly peaceful.

I suppose this would be a good time to do some self-promotion at which I have been sorely remiss. In case you missed it, I have a little Shebooks e-book out.

Click on the picture to go to Amazon to download it or you can go HERE and get it for Nook Books on Barnes and Noble.

And...if you've already read it and if you liked it, I will come to your house and make you a pan of cornbread if you'll leave a review at Amazon. Wait- can that be construed as bribery?

I have done nothing whatsoever to promote this except for a post on Facebook and writing about it here on the blog. I haven't had a Shebang, I haven't had a release party, I haven't passed out flyers, I haven't gotten in touch with my local newspapers, I haven't...well, done anything.

So. Thanks. Jeez. I hate this stuff.

The leaf blowing is still happening, the sun is still shining. And this:

The tiny blossom of the tea olive. You can smell it from twenty feet away. And when I say tiny- you see those leaves that in the pictures look as big as magnolia leaves? They're the size of your regulation bay leaf. The swooniest bloom I know of when it comes to the power of its perfume. 

And this:

The Confederate Rose which is, as I have said before, the Prom Queen of blossoms. And she is large. Big around as a baby's head. But no scent that I am aware of. 

Thank god. The leaf blower has stopped. I honestly thought I was going to have to go do a shot of vodka and it's a little early in the day for that. 

Peace restored. I hear roosters crowing and birds twittering and I can feel the risk of a stress-induced vascular accident receding. It takes so little to make me crazy and let's face it- I simply have to live somewhere peaceful. Self-medication comes in many different forms. Better bird-call and flowers or the blue expanse of a sea or bay before me than drinking vodka at ten in the morning. 

Right? 

Thanks and love...Ms. Moon

It'll Be A Thing

Some days I am just so very grateful for the roots of my life.
Those incredibly small things which anchor me to it all, which give me enough purpose to keep moving. Laundry, my walks, floors to sweep, soup and bread to make, the chickens scratching in the fern and camellia bed.

Their eggs to gather.

Wonderful escapist novels to listen to, read by fabulous narrators. 

I think I am going to ask my children to start addressing me as "Lady Mother."

Love...Lady Mother