Luckiest In Love

This made me laugh today.

Ruefully. But still. 

Jessie and August and May came out so that May could pick out a pair of earrings to wear for her wedding and some clothes to take on her honeymoon. It was so lovely. She is going to be the most beautiful of brides. I will never forget something that her bio-dad, my ex-husband, once said which was that a woman is most beautiful on her wedding day and the days she gives birth. 

He was paying attention. 

The rest of the day I have spent just doing little things around here. I remember when getting company meant cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. 

Thank god I'm over that. 

But of course, there must be clean sheets and clean towels and fresh flowers. I hung the sheets and towels on the line and picked lots of beautiful flowers. 

Some largish

Some tiny.

I took stuff that could probably have been fixed and re-used to the dump. Gone! If you haven't fixed or reused something in a decade, you ain't gonna.

And now I am waiting on Lon and Lis. Mr. Moon is at supper with his sister who flew in this afternoon for the wedding and I am glad they're going to get some time together.
I am making a supper for the Williamsons inspired by the frittata that Scott made for supper on Monday night.

Greens and sun-dried tomatoes. 

Peppers and mushrooms and green scallions. 

There is nothing more soothing to me than making meals of good things chopped and sauteed and mixed and cooked. Especially if eggs and cheese are involved. 

Our friend Tom grew the scallions and made the sun-dried tomatoes from his bounty last summer and of course the greens came from our garden and the eggs from my own beautiful hens. 

In less than 48 hours, May will walk down the aisle with a daddy on both sides of her. 

I may have gotten a lot of stuff wrong in my life but I will tell you this- I did not let my children get short-changed on love. 

And that was the easiest thing I've ever done with a whole lot of pure luck thrown in. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Meandering Through The Rapturous Madness

What wedding?

Will there be mice?

So it's a very windy day here in Lloyd and I have Lon and Lis coming in tonight and thank god. Lis knows me all too well and she will be here to hold my hand and look me in the eyes and take care of things and by things I mean me. Also, other stuff. 

I have to tell you that the last six months have been amazing. August's birth, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Magnolia's birth 

(And oh, by the way...)

Owen breaking his arm, Mr. Moon going through all of those tests...what am I forgetting? And this wedding is the denouement of all of that. 

And this is going to be a joyful and beautiful wedding and I think I am doing pretty well at setting aside anxiety as best I can and just going with it. I know that May has done everything in her power to not stress me out. She is the loveliest love. She truly is. And the next two days are going to be filled with so much fun. Flower shopping and decorating and a rehearsal dinner with pizza and musicians and mani-pedis and getting dressed and crying and laughing. 

There will be pictures!

Life is just the busiest thing, isn't it? And for those of us who do not handle stress that well, be it bad-stress or joyful-stress, we can sometimes feel overwhelmed but if we take it all one step at a time, one moment a time, and take the TIME to stop and breathe, to give thanks for every drop of the ecstatic insanity, we will be fine. 

Now, in an unrelated and yet somehow related topic, I am finally reading this book:

I can't recommend it enough. If you suffer from depression and/or anxiety or love or live with someone who does, just READ IT! It's short, it's written purposefully, I think, for people who are suffering to easily take in. No. It will not cure you. But it will help you. I promise that. And best of all it will make you realize that you are far, far from alone. 

I'm going to go hang clothes on the line. I am staying home today to take care of what is mine. I am remembering to breathe and to focus. I am gobbling up all the joy I can. Life is short. Here we are. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Cursing And Caps

Oh my Lord. I spent the entire afternoon shopping. I did okay up until about the last hour and then I lost my mind.
No, no, not really.
But this is down-to-the-wire shopping because (don't tell May), I DON'T REALLY HAVE A MOTHER-OF-THE-BRIDE-DRESS YET!
Okay. This is what happened. I ordered a dress from the Sundance catalog. It came post haste but it swamped me. How did that happen? Well, I'll tell you- it happened because women's sizes are no more standardized than horse shit. Of course it also happened because did I bother to check their sizing chart? Oh hell no. Because that would have involved getting out a tape measure to use on my own personal body and I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW! So I just ordered the large and it came and yes, it was large. Larger than me.
Which is somewhat reassuring in that I am NOT THE LARGEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD!
So. I sent the dress back for an exchange. Has it gotten here yet?
NO.
IT HAS NOT!
So today was my cut-off day to just assume it will show up before Saturday and I went out to try and find a back-up MOTB dress.
Not a regular mother-of-the-bride-dress which can look like anything from this

to this

to this.

It's like the mother-of-the-bride is supposed to be really hot in a matronly way and fuck that. I am a hippie and don't you forget it and besides that, I am far from skinny. 

Now those of you who have been here awhile have gone through this with me two times already. First for Lily's wedding and then for Jessie's. In both cases, I got dresses that were fine and even lovely but it feels wrong to repeat a bride-mama dress and besides, I can't fit into the one I got for Lily's wedding so fuck that idea anyway.

I could not bear to go to the mall so I went to the TJ Maxx and I went to a consignment shop and I went to a place I will not even mention the name of (Chico's) and they didn't even have dresses there. Then I went and got a chicken salad on sourdough sandwich and it was delicious. 

And then, feeling stuffed and truly ready to FIND THAT DRESS I went to Steinmart and they had about a million cute dresses and none of them would have done for me. 

Except for one I found which was made in India, of course, and it was almost semi-appropriate (although the check-out lady did ask me if the wedding was going to be held on the beach) and after sending a picture to Jessie and Lily who were tired of getting texts from me saying, "I am going to cry now," both said they loved it and to buy it. 

So I did and la-di-dah. 

By then I thought I'd die from exhaustion and frustration and went to Fresh Market where I bought artichokes the size of GIBSON'S HEAD and now I am going to cook them. 

So that's what I did today and after half a beer, I am feeling much better about it all and more laissez faire (and boy, did I have to look up that one to spell it!). 

It really wasn't that bad and I did enjoy eavesdropping on people's conversations, especially the older (OLDER THAN ME!) ladies in the Steinmart. Their voices were so sweet and southern and they were buying Easter dresses. I also saw a woman in the TJ Maxx who was about six feet, four inches tall who was wearing eight inch heels and she was GORGEOUS and an old white woman stared at her like she'd never heard of RuPaul in her life. 

All right. This has nothing to do with any of this except that even if you are a matron, it might make you hot. 

Watch until the very end because that is the choicest bit of all. And if for some reason you cannot find it in you to agree, well then...bless your heart. I feel so sorry for you.

Bruce Springsteen: 41 Years on Thunder Road from Phil Whitehead on Vimeo.


Love...Ms. Moon

Because We Are Human

A morning in which tears flow and that's okay.

Scott just left to collect Yolie and Kaleb and the Airstream and head west. He and Mr. Moon had one more transaction to complete and look what's in my yard now.

Good thing we have a big yard. 

I wrote Yolie this morning that my heart was sort of breaking. And also that sometimes when we meet someone, we realize that there had been spaces empty and waiting, shaped just for them in our hearts. 

"Oh hello. There you are."

Like that.

I had Yolie and Scott and Kaleb-shaped places in my heart and they are no longer empty and today, on this beautiful windy day in March, the people whose shapes fit those places are leaving but somehow, they leave without taking themselves from my heart. 

They are going to stop in Apalachicola and that makes me so happy. They will get to see some more of the Florida I love.

So yes. I hate to see them go but they say they will come back and I just feel very lucky that we got to spend this time together now. And I know that they are on a journey and there is such a big wide world for them to discover. Some people journey in big ways and some in small. I am one of those. But that, too, is okay. 

And May is about to journey into her new life, married to her Michael and she's been searching for the right song to walk down the aisle to. I shot her a text this morning with a suggestion and she already had that exact same song in her head and I think it will be the one. 

I won't tell you the name of the song although I am sure you know it. It is one of the most beautiful songs ever written and it is perfect for coming togethers and for taking-leaves. Both.

Well. I have much to do and better get off my ass and get on with it, my heart swollen to three times its size, thus overspilling through my eyes. 

It is a day to be humbled by love. 

We Fall. We Get Up

I have been going through some fairly harsh self-agism lately. The aging process seems to me to be brutal. One moment one is strong and flexible and the aches and pains of over-work are manageable and expected. The wrinkles are starting to come but they are still mostly interesting and the skin, although it is losing its suppleness, is still skin-like, tight enough to keep everything where it should be, for the most part, still doing okay in the battle with gravity. And the brain is almost as it always was, clicking away and mostly coming up with the right word at the right time, the right name for the right face, and if you sometimes walk into a room and forget what you have come there for...well, it's all right. You've always done that occasionally.

But then it seems that overnight (although it is not), it's all gone to hell. The pains are constant and affect the way you walk and are able to get down and up. The face becomes something you do not recognize, unless it is to see your mother in it. The skin is thin and bleeds at a touch, it seems and the elasticity is gone, shot, kaput. You look at your arms and you do not see your arms. You see the arms of an old person, lumpy and weird and thick in places they never were before. Fingers become crooked and knobby, knuckles suddenly become bigger.
And the brain seems to lose words faster than you can search for them and you find yourself going to do a task only to discover you had already completed it fifteen minutes ago or else something entirely different robs you of your focus and you head off on another task before you ever get to the first one.

It may not be this way for everyone but I think eventually, most of us will know how this feels.

Today when I was in the library, there was a very refined, dignified looking older man, dressed as neatly and nattily as you can imagine and he had a walking stick and suddenly, he had taken a tumble, and was on the ground.
It was one of those moments where you hesitate in your actions, not because you don't want to help but because you want so badly to spare the dignity of the one who has suddenly found himself laying on the carpeted floor between the audio books and the new fiction arrivals.

Of course I stayed. "Are you all right?" I asked. And I knew that I had asked that too quickly. It takes a moment to figure that out.
Does this work? Am I bleeding? Does anything feel broken?
"I think I am," he said, but he did not sound sure. I picked up a few things he'd been holding and which he'd dropped when he fell and he began the laborious process of trying to pull himself upright again. He held on to a shelf and I held on to his arm, his so-carefully ironed sleeve between my hand and his skin.
Another man appeared. He, too, was older.
"Can I help?" he asked, but the man who had fallen was already standing again.
"Good thing you have that cane!" the second man said. "They can be a lifesaver. I fell once and didn't have my cane and I couldn't get up."
After it was established that all was relatively well I looked carefully at the man who had fallen.
"Getting older is so hard, isn't it?" I asked. "And it seems to happen so quickly and somehow, I never thought it would."
"All you can do is keep on the best you can," he said, pulling himself back into dignity. He said these words with no false cheer. They were not a bit of parroted advice, meant to smooth it all over with senior citizen bullshitty stiff-upper-lippedness. The words were the simple truth.

And I keep thinking of him tonight, hoping that he is not in pain from his tumble. Hoping that he is getting along the best he can, whatever that may be. I am thinking of all of us and how, no matter how strong we are, no matter how sure-footed and fleet, no matter how well we dance or how easily we rise from the floor in one fluid movement without even using our hands, no matter how beautiful or firm we are, no matter that our vision is like eagles', our hearing like hawks', no matter how well we can follow a thought to its teased-out conclusion, no matter our education or our race or our gender or our diet, eventually, nature will have its way with us and these things will change.

I am writing these thoughts tonight not to be depressing or sad but to simply say that this is the way of it for most of us, should we live long enough. That even our very dignity can be taken away from us and it is not fair but life rarely is, and we just keep on the best we can and hopefully find reason to keep on doing that with as brave and humorous a heart as we can.

And keep reaching out to help others as they hopefully will reach out to help us.

Love...Ms. Moon

Pretty Babies

The boys have their wedding shirts now and Jessie has her wedding shoes and August is going to be wearing a hand-me-down guayabera from his cousins.

Gibson hung in there pretty well at the mall. He liked the mirror at the shoe store. 

The concept of two Gibsons fascinated us both. 

Then Lily and Gibson and Maggie and I met Hank for lunch. 

We joke that we should make a Facebook page called Hank Holds Babies. Have I already told you this? 

Forgive me if I have. I am old and I am forgetful.

Gibson loves some Hank too. 

Hank is a kind and gentle soul. I am constantly blown away by my children and now by my grandchildren. It's all about the love. We wring out every damn drop of it and somehow, there is always more and more. And then some more. 

Girl Needs A Valium And A Come To Jesus

And one morning later and the anxiety rolls in like a tsunami and I keep listing all of the things in my head I need to do and I feel flattened and fibrillated both at the same time and yet, I did wake up with Maurice in my very arms, her tail curled nicely into my hand.
Still, I had to get up and here I am and trash is taken and laundry is going and I'm going to town, always going to town, and I need to calm the FUCK down because the world does not spin itself around my tiny little ego, my microscopic little presence.
Breathe in, breathe out and let that shit go.

Right?

Love...Ms. Moon

So This Is Why I've Lived So Long

It's been another one of those magical, good days.
When I got to Lily's house, Gibson ran to meet me and hugged me and said he was so glad that I was going to stay with him. And I was too.
After Lily left, Magnolia wanted some attention and so I held her and talked to her and she was still a bit fussy so I gave her a bottle and she was happy and then she spit up and then I changed her clothes which made her even happier. That girl loves her changing table in her pink room with the light coming in and I love seeing her beautiful little baby self, remembering the night she was born and I put clothes on her for the first time. We talked and she smiled and gave me coos.

We decided on the boat yesterday that Maggie June is like a Jason-Lily biscuit. A perfect combination of both of them made into a warm and delicious treat. Pass the butter and honey. 

It was such a beautiful day that I put her in her little car seat which she loves and we went outside and she seemed to be mesmerized by the cool breezes, the leaves in the trees above her moving with the wind, the changing patterns of light and shadow. She lay watching it all for awhile and then...she fell asleep.

We moved back inside and Gibson was so snuggly and cuddly. We played the spider game which is where I tap my fingertips so gently over his arm, being the spider, and then play in his hair, the spider thinking that it's a forest there and then coming to nap in his ear. 

He giggles and laughs and says, "Do it again!"

That boy is such a love. 

After Lily got home from the dentist I got a text message from Yolie, asking me to supper in their Airstream. Mr. Moon was going to be leaving for auction but I was so thrilled to be asked and of course I accepted. I came home and made Mr. Moon's snack bag and his popcorn and kissed him good-bye for his journey to Orlando then took a shower and put on real (not overalls) clothes and drove over to the campground where they are staying. I took Kaleb a little wooden cigar box with some dinosaurs in it as well as an old very simple book about insects which was perfect because when I got there, he ran to meet me to show me the bugs he had just captured. Some sort of little beetle with a few ants and it was an entire universe in there, the ants going after the poor wee beetle, and there was much discussion about karmic implications and so forth, although Kaleb was just mostly interested in the life and death situation going on without the need to hear about all of that karma stuff. 

Little boys. But he liked the book and we looked at some of the pictures and I got to meet Lu! Or is it Lou? Whatever. Such a beautiful old bulldog. 

You can see her there, hiding behind Kaleb. 

I got a full tour of the Airstream and it's as comfy and tidy and lovely and beautiful as you can imagine. And Scott had made a delicious frittata out of Moon eggs and greens and a salad that was perfect. We ate outside on the picnic table, the skillet with the frittata in the middle so that we could just help ourselves to its goodness.

After we finished our supper we moved inside and talked about all the things that really matter- love and life and death and religion and Uma Thurman. And then we had large delicious cookies with ice cream. 

Sigh...

It was like a dream and oh yes, we discussed dreams as well. 

We exchanged tribal gifts and hugs and I got in my car and drove home. I wanted to take the back roads instead of the quick and dirty interstate route and I did, moving through the night in my swell, cool/hot little Prius. It took me longer but it was good to drive lonely roads and I realized that yes, I am mostly night-blind but that my real fear about driving at night is that I'll find myself in an alternate universe and not know how to get back to my own universe which sounds silly but is true. I may have passed through one or two of those but eventually, I found the road that leads to Lloyd and here I am in my own cozy world, chickens all counted and accounted for and I have talked to May on the phone (she is marrying her Michael in five days!) and my husband made it safely to Orlando and I have clean sheets on the bed and perhaps Maurice will come in and sleep by my legs, her weight a great comfort to me when I wake up from my dreams. 

I couldn't have/I never did/

dream

dreams of as much dreaminess as the dream I am living. 

And so forth.

Love...Ms. Moon

Parts Of The Palette This Morning

You can have your red, white, and blue. I'll take my green, white, and brown.

Pink isn't a bad color either. 

While orange can be pleasing as well.

It's a beautiful morning in Lloyd and I'm going to go babysit my granddaughter for the first time today. Her mama has to go to the dentist. Gibson will be there to help me. He is a very good helper and always alerts us when his sister has spit up. Or is crying. Or is cute. He still says, "Mag-a-no-lia, I so glad you out now."

Good morning.

Love...Ms. Moon

Traveling Down The St. Marks River

The St. Marks River was as beautiful as it always is and always has been. The boat ran great and no one fell in the water and the Fanta Red Strawberry soda which got spilled wiped right up and the boys were wild.

I even had to use my GRANDMOTHER voice at one point and it seemed to make an impression because Owen quit stomping on the deck the way he was doing and settled down into playing dungeon with his brother. The dungeon is the little cubby where we store life preservers and whatever else needs to be stowed away and it figured large on this jaunt. Vergil showed Gibson how to unlock it from the inside and I was all- why did you teach him that?

Gibson kept wanting to throw the anchor out and drive the boat and both boys got a chance to do that. There were many throwings around of the terms "Captain" and "First Mate" and "Ay, Matey's" and so forth. Also eating of chips and salsa and crackers and cheese and pepperoni and breast and botttle feeding and some book reading. 

At one point, Boppy made the boat go fast and the boys were beyond excitement. "Go SUPER SPEED!" yelled Gibson and then he hit his eye on a rod-holder and cut it (his eye, not the rod holder) and cried for a moment and then stopped and it was as if nothing had happened at all. 

Maybe there was a dungeon moment. 

All I have to say about being a grandmother is that you can't make any predictions about how it's going to go any more than you can make predictions about how motherhood is going to go. 

All the way down to the coast Boppy and Mer told stories about our childhoods, prompted by Owen. Stories about baby pigs and Christ-like figures named Chester and discovering ancient ruins where lions waited to spit water into a cement pool. And of dogs named Snoopy and catching sting rays off a dock and at one point Owen said, "It's like you two were meant to be together."

I have some smart grandchildren. 

Amen. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Sunday Services

Oh dear Christ on a crutch. Oh dear heaven in a hammock. Oh dear god in a girdle. Oh dear Lord in a Lincoln. Oh dear Jesus in a Jeep.

Or something like that.

Hey! Happy Sunday. Pancakes today: blueberry, banana, pecan.

Plans afoot to get the big boat out on the water. This entails many transportational issues due to the fact that we have a thousand children and forty-thousand grandchildren.

"Why did we have so many children?" I ask my husband as I lay out the strips of bacon in the pan.

"Heh-heh," he says as he goes outside to start getting the boat ready.

I had thought that today was going to be about gardening and maybe a little fooling around later on. Oh well.
Mr. Moon is going to take the cast net in case we run into some mullet.

It's going to be a fun day.

Love...Ms. Moon

Being Here Now And Remembering Being There Then

Now ain't that a pretty sight? Two men who have just successfully completed a truck-related task standing in front of the cherry-red truck itself with the redbud blooming behind them. That is one fine and fancy truck, y'all. I feel so good that Scott and Yolie and Kaleb are going to be pulling their Airstream behind it.
"Does the truck make the man?" I asked Scott when he pulled up in the yard this morning.
"It does!" he said and his eyes twinkled and I think he's pretty proud of that red beast.

Jessie and August did come out and we got the old walker from upstairs and Jessie cleaned it off and we put that boy in it. He liked it.

I think he was pretty darn excited to be in a standing position and he twirled the little twirlies and scooted around a bit. We brought him out to the porch and by the time he tired of it, he had real and actual dirty feet for the first time in his life. 

Look at that gorgeous foot! Oh my god. I had so much fun with him today. My body is awash in oxytocin from all of the hugging and kissing and cooing and laughing and nuzzling and silly noises and tongue-sticking-out communications. 

Mr. Lizard. 

Mr. Beautiful Mr. Lizard. 

After the truck project was completed and Scott left with a bag of garden greens and a bouquet of camellias for Ms. Yolie, Mr. Moon and Jessie and August and I went to Monticello to the Tractor Supply to look at chicks. Sadly, they only had a few and they were all the same and despite their darling cuteness, we decided to wait until there's more of a selection. They'll be getting a big new bunch of them on Wednesday and we'll go back. I got the fever bad. I guess there just aren't enough babies in my life already. 

Speaking of which, here's a picture Lily sent me of Magnolia from Owen's T-Ball practice. 

They'd been to a little Easter photo shoot before the game and Maggie is wearing her pretty Easter dress. Doesn't she look thoughtful? Or is she meditating? Look at that hand. Look at those lips, shaped like like an angel harp. Just study that for awhile and you too shall receive a nice hit of oxytocin. I promise you. 

And so it has been. Garrison Keillor himself is on Prairie Home tonight and I'm about to heat up some leftovers. Tomorrow I think I will work in my garden and I can't come up with any better life that I could be living and my great, good man is working out in that garage of his doing something and the frogs have tuned up and are in the second movement of the Frog-Almost-Spring-Symphony and I am wearing a sweater and have bare feet. 

For the moment the anxiety and depression have departed and they are singing Michael, Row The Boat Ashore on Prairie Home which reminds me of sitting around a campfire in Girl Scouts with Carol Edwards and Joanna Corley playing their guitars and singing that very same song, the fire snapping and sending sparks up to the black, infinite, star-hung sky and then Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, their voices harmonizing and rising up with the sparks and as corny as all of that sounds, it was a moment in time for my life and I will never forget it and I am so glad I was there for it and so glad I am here for this one and all of the ones that keep flooding my heart with peace and with goodness. 

All love...Ms. Moon

I Am Officially And Truly Old

No, y'all. Just, no.
I am not meant to go out on a Friday night anymore.
Or probably any night, for that matter.
It was fun, getting ready, painting my eyes and picking out what necklace I wanted to wear, putting my silver bracelets on my arm. It was fun kissing my handsome husband and driving in to town with the sunset in front of us.
But then when we got to the restaurant there were people. Lots of people. And noise. Plenty of noise. Way too much noise. And when it finally came time for us to leave, I was so fucking happy I could have died and felt like I needed some heroin to calm down.

Let's face it- I can't handle that much sensory overload. I simply can't. And I don't have to.

Lord, Lord. I am so happy I live in Lloyd.

So good morning and it's a beautiful morning and Scott is coming over and he and Mr. Moon are going to do something on Scott's new truck and Jessie and August are coming out and we might go get baby chickens!

Yes. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. And if I want to paint my eyes and wear silver, I should just do it right here where my chickens are, my flowers are, my beautiful old house is, where my very true heart is.

Love...Ms. Moon

Can You Believe It?

Mr. Moon and I are actually going out on a date tonight.
Call Ripley's!
He has convinced me to do it and I am wearing velvets and silks and silver and more silver.
I am wearing make-up, including lipstick.

Holy shit!

Yolie has inspired me with her incredible sense of fashion and style, even when going out to view alligators.

My husband is so handsome.

Don't tell anyone, but I sort of like this.

Love...Ms. Moon

So Many Types Of Perfection

I had not taken one walk this week, every morning being claimed by some errand or another involving babies and lunches and swampy, crittery field trips, all wonderful and completely excellent as excuses not to walk. Of course, I could have simply gotten up an hour earlier on each of those mornings but please...
Do I look like Jack Lalanne? No. I do not.

So this morning, with no excuse whatsoever except that the sky was gray, I finally pulled on my old walking clothes and and went first to the post office to pay my yearly box fee and then walked down Main Street to see where my feet would take me.
I walked past Ms. Liola's house and before I got ten feet past it, she called to me from her doorway.
I haven't seen or talked to her for a long time and it was such a sweet meeting. The Sheik was visiting her and he flashed his golden smile behind her and I told her about my new granddaughter and the upcoming marriage in my family and she said she was well and then she said something she's never said to me before which is, "I love you!"
Blew me right away.
"I love you, too, darlin'!" I told her and indeed, my heart was swelling with those words passed between us.
"I won't keep you," she said a minute later. "I just wanted to say hello." And then she told me again that she loved me and I was so glad my feet had taken me by her house.

Such small and perfect grace.

I walked on to my regular path, was stopped part of the way through my route by a giant pond puddle and turned around and took the other path and decided, up by the old graveyard, to walk into the woods down to where the creek runs.
And so I did, making my way through brambles and thorns. I had not gone that way in so long but I wanted to see how last night's rain had made the creek dance down its banks and again, I was so glad I had.

I was all alone in that still place, water rushing past, tangling around roots and fallen limbs, swirling around banks where the water has cut its own desired channels. 

It was one of those moments where you feel like if this was to be where you took your last breath, it would be perfect and fine. 

I've been having those recently. These moments of awareness of absolutely undeserved grace. 

And now I'm home and about to eat some leftovers from last night. Yolie reports that they have just picked up their truck and that it is perfect. 

And this is what my back yard looks like right now from where I sit with Jack drowsing behind me on the chair. 

Wild birds and tame, twittering and Trixie singing her little hen song. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

This

This has been one of the fullest and sweetest days of my life.
From this little snuggle boy and his sweet little snuggle sister

To this sweet little snuggle boy, all cozied up in my bed under my down comforter with big bears. 

As I tucked him in to watch a movie while the grown-ups ate supper, he asked, "Do your kids like this cover?"

"They do," I said. "Especially Gibson."

And he was so happy. 

And so am I. 

We are such perfectly imperfect humans who do the best we can. God damn. Sometimes I love us so much it hurts. And when we meet together and share hearts together and stories together and food together, well...that's it. That is it. 

Right there. 

Yolie made this and gave it to me. 

She said she wanted to leave something here from them. 

And I say- when they go, they will have left part of their hearts in my pocket. But I am so happy to have that to keep on my wall above my bed. 

I am humbled and I am grateful and the frogs are singing and the wind is blowing now and the rain is coming in and there is thunder and it all feels just exactly right. 

Love...Ms. Moon

And Occasionally She Cuddles

Last night when I was cuddled down into the bed I realized that there was a crunching noise coming from the corner of the room. I peeked above my covers to see in the shadows that Maurice was eating something.
Oh dear.
I did not turn on the light over there. I did not get up and put on my glasses. I waited for Mr. Moon to come to bed.
Maurice, my cat who had not hours before refused to eat organic cooked chicken innards, was happily chewing up the delicate bits of a mouse.
She is my service animal.
I love her.

Singing To The Choir

Jessie and I did Costco today with August and then we went to Publix and I swear to god- if one of us needs to go to a grocery store of any kind in the next two weeks, I will be amazed.
But of course we will.
Tonight I'm baking a little organic chicken with potatoes and onions and carrots from the garden, both purple and orange. I wish I could tell you how excited I am about this. I wish I weren't so food-oriented. And honestly- I am not even sure which I like better- cooking or eating. I always think about that wonderful moment from Northern Exposure when Adam, the insane chef, asks a group of cooking students why they think he cooks. They hem and they haw, they are completely intimidated by him and finally one shyly says, "Because you are hungry?"
"YES!" he booms. "Because I am hungry!"
A moment of epiphany for me. Because yes, I am hungry, and I like to eat good food. And thus- I love to cook.
Which is another reason I love to garden. There is no better food than what we grow.
Well, except for Velveeta, of course. Just kidding!
Sort of.

Anyway, that's not what I came here to talk about. I came here to talk about Donald Trump which I had sworn I would not do. I can't help it though. If there is any truth to the belief that what we put out into the universe has some effect (and the jury's still out on that in my opinion) then I have to put something out in the universe. It's too fucking late to worry that anything I say will only add flame to the fire of the energy which he seems to engendered which is now blazing white hot like an uncontrollable forest fire, set by a careless person with a match in a place drought-ridden for a very long time which was completely dismissed and ignored by those whose job it was to keep watch until the flames threatened the very life of...well, an entire country. Or maybe the world.
Fuck.
I see that the Republican Party are finally getting a bit perturbed. I mean, even the party that let Clint Eastwood stand up at their convention and talk to a chair is beginning to think that the idea of Trump as president might be insane.
A man I know, whom I am "friends" with on Facebook, with whom I went through an incredibly emotional and difficult time a year or so back, posted a picture of himself yesterday at that Trump rally in Valdosta, Georgia. You know, the one where thirty black students were forcibly rejected simply because they were black?
Yeah. That one.
And I have had the hardest time not attacking him. Verbally, of course. He was holding a sign that said, "Making America Great Again" or whatever that Trumpism is and I DID ask in a comment exactly what that meant. He didn't reply but his daughter did. Her comment was, "Yay!!! We will be laughing together inside because we both know why!!!"
I have a very strong feeling that the reason has a lot to do with race. Our president's race, the races of immigrants, the race of everyone in the world who has skin-color darker than theirs.

And as I've said over and over and over again, it is not Trump himself who scares me so much. It is the fact that he is given not only tacit approval but full-on, blood-pumping approval of racists spewing their hatred out loud.
I don't know if this is what the Donald set out to do, but the reality is- he has.
He tossed the match. The flame caught.
The fire is not under control.

So. Do I say anything more under that post?
What's the point? Because the truth of the matter is, these people do not care one bit about the truth. They do not care. They do not give a shit that DT is no more qualified to be president than my rooster is. In fact, that makes them happy! People like Obama scare the shit out of them because they KNOW he's smarter than they are, better educated than they are, more decent than they are and is far more successful in every way than they ever will be.
Nope. They like the Donald who is as white as white, who, no matter what incredible bullshit he comes up with, no matter how far-flung and ridiculous and impossible and hateful what he says may be because he gives them permission to say out loud what they've had simmering in their paranoid, angry brains and hearts forever.

Make America great again? Before no one had the vote except for white men?
I think that's probably the core of it right there.
When the true fact of the matter is, of course, that Donald Trump no more cares about them and their families than he cares about African American families or Mexicans or Muslims or the impoverished.
Again- they may even know this. And again, they don't care.
He's (supposedly) rich and white and has a wife who looks like a stripper and he isn't afraid to say what he thinks.
Hell yeah!

So. What are we to do?

Vote. That's all we can do.

I'd say we need to speak out but honestly- what good is that going to do? These Trumpers have heard all they want to hear which is that they can finally express the basest thoughts of their minds. And I am no longer going to be flabbergasted at the fact that their number is legion. I'm going to just accept the truth of it. I don't like it and in fact I hate it.
But it is what it fucking is.

I'm going to cook some green beans now.

I'm hungry.

Fucking vote, y'all. Please.

Pictures

Miss Nicey under the wisteria arbor.
It's another perfect day here and the chickens are all over the yard and one of the Chi-Cha's is in the henhouse, cackling about her egg. Mick is under the bird feeder and is being too lazy to go and get her but keeps crowing to tell her where the flock is.
Chickens are so busy. Until it's nap time.
My peas are up and I'm feeling the need to go find some new baby chicks. I'd love to order some really fancy ones but you have to order a bunch of them and I don't want to take on more than six or so.

A Chi-Cha and Lisa Marie under the white camellias. 

Pink camellias taking a little sun bath. 

Peaceful. And I can feel the sap rising, the buds swelling, the exact correctness of warm earth nurturing new growth.

I wish I could offer the whole world a bit of it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

The Junior Museum Comes Through Again

North Florida is doing her damn best to make sure that the traveling Tearful's have a good impression of it. We had another gorgeous day of perfect temperatures and a reasonable humidity. We all met up at the Jr. Museum (aka more officially as the Tallahassee Museum) except for Hank who was busy springing our friend from the hospital and writing trivia as Trivia Masters needs do.
Lily emailed Owen's teacher last night about our outing and the teacher (who is wonderful) wrote back, "Sounds great! Have fun!" and so he got to come too. May and Michael even got to join us and it was a baby and kid festival and those three little boys- oh my.

We always start out with the snakes because they're near the entrance and besides...oooh, snakes!

The diamond back rattler is always the most exciting. 

August staying safe at the snake exhibit. 

It was a happening day at the Jr. with at least one busload of school kids and teachers and parents and mamas with babies and children and families too. We are so lucky to have this resource right here in Tallahassee and this weather makes it absolutely the best time to enjoy it. 

We visited the 19th century farm with the old farm house and garden and the horse and the donkey and the geese and chickens and the pig and sheep and goats. Sort of like Mer's house with a few extra animals thrown in. And my greens look better than theirs. And my house is older than theirs. And I have bathrooms and air conditioning. But besides that, pretty much the same. 

Haha!

We visited all the animals and saw deer and a wolf and the visiting leopard and the sleeping bear and foxes and we smelled the skunks. Oh! And here's something special we saw- one of the rehabilitating bald eagles eating his lunch which was one of the museum's prized albino squirrels. I'm pretty sure he caught that one his own. We saw the owls and the panthers and the bob cat and we would have seen the otters but they were hiding. 

Here are some pictures from the trail.

One of my favorite things about the museum are the incredible dinosaur sculptures made by Jim Gary which are now in permanent residence at the museum. You can read about them here. 

Beautiful Yolie.

Owen and Michael and Jessie and August and May. 

We went into the discovery center where kids can put puzzles together and look at more snakes and turtles and there's a stage and a tiny little seating area for puppet shows. They have all sorts of animal puppets and the kids can play with them. Lily settled into the seating area and let Maggie nurse and I got this photo. Madonna and child. 

Both babies were so very good today, napping and watching, taking little breaks to get some mama milk. It's so hard to believe that in a year, they, too, will be toddling around the museum. But they will. 

Here's Magnolia, napping in her stroller.

She gave me the biggest smile today. Just about knocked her old Mermer out. 

After we saw all the animals, we let the boys play for a few minutes on the playground but by that time we were really hungry so we corralled the wild boys and all left for lunch, although May and Michael had to go run errands and couldn't go with us. Can you believe they're going to be married in less than two weeks? They are so beautiful, floating around on a bubble of love and excitement. 

Lily and Jessie and the boys and Maggie met up with Scott and Yolie and Kaleb and me at the Indian restaurant and we barely made it before they closed up the buffet. It was so good. I realize I got no pictures of Scott today. That makes me sad. 

By the time we drove all the way back from west Tallahassee to Lloyd, we were all exhausted. I don't know about Scott and Yolie and Kaleb but I took a nap. And now Mr. Moon is home from the auction and I'm about to make him some clam spaghetti. I got an egg today from one of the oldest hens- either Trixie or Mabel, I do not know, but it was green and small and so thin-shelled that when I went to scrape a little bit of poop off of it, it cracked in my hands. 

But what a brave effort! Those hens have to be at least six years old.

It's been such a good day and what I am really taking away from it is how much I love my family and how proud I am of them. I couldn't have been happier, seeing them meet Scott and Yolie and Kaleb. It's just been a beautiful thing watching Kaleb and Gibson bond together. It's just been a great good thing, being able to share the Florida that I love and my family with these fine people. 

I'm so glad they're here for whatever time they can before they take off to explore and wander again. 

The world may be going insane but right here in my tiny world, there are animals and plants and things to explore and children to love on and smiles and hugs to share. 

I wish nothing more for all of us.

Love...Ms. Moon