News. Categorized And Everything

Well, after this morning's excitement, I have little to report.

Chicken News:
Mick is chasing Otis away from the hens. Poor Otis. He can't get any. Mick will run across the yard and knock him off a hen if he tries. It's interesting, watching these two roosters co-exist. Lately they've started crowing back and forth as if it's a contest. It reminds me of the time my first husband was in a band and they took on another lead guitarist. I'm glad that there hasn't been any violence because I know that some roosters just won't tolerate another one around. I can deal with the noise but fighting would be another matter and if you've never seen two roosters go at it- trust me- it's violent. I mean, people pay money to watch that shit. I'd pay money NOT to watch that shit. Have you ever seen the spurs on a rooster? They are lethal looking and come in handy if there's a true predator going after the hens but when they turn on each other, they use them to slash the other bird and it's scary as hell.

Kitchen News:
Okay. I made cookies for Mr. Moon to take hunting this weekend. This makes me feel like the very good wife. Oatmeal, raisin, pecan, chocolate chip. He will not starve.
I also just slid a covered casserole dish into the oven with jasmine rice and chicken. This makes it all sound a great deal simpler than it was. Garlic and rosemary and lemon and chicken broth and white wine were all involved. I browned the breasts in some olive oil, took them out and set them on a plate. I sauteed a little chopped garlic and fresh rosemary in the oil, then added the rice and stirred that around to pick up the flavors, scraping the bottom of the skillet. I added about a half a cup of the wine, then the chicken broth and let it come to a simmer. I put all of that goodness into the casserole dish, put the chicken on top of it, added more of the garlic and rosemary to the chicken as well as a little bit of lemon zest, and squeezed the lemon over it. I covered it and I will let you know if is any good. I will say that it smells amazing.

House News:
The guy who detects and treats wood destroying organisms came over to check out the house. I have post hole beetles in the furniture in my office. We knew this. My choices are to either take the furniture (a large book case and a desk) to a place which can treat it OR to burn it.
The desk was my grandmother's and the veneer is coming off of it already and my mother was mad at me before she died because I let it get messed up and I don't know what to do about that piece. The bookcase I bought at a thrift store years ago and although it's a nice, large bookcase, I doubt it's worth the effort.
Jeez. I hate shit like this.
Otherwise, the rest of the house looks good. There's some mildew damage under the house due to ductwork. This house is built of heart pine and termites can't really do much damage. Or at least they haven't in the almost 160 years the house has been standing here. It is ironic that the only real damage the technician found was caused by the modern addition of the ductwork under the house which prevents air flow.
It's treatable, though, and am I willing to give up central heat and air?
I think we all know the answer to that.

Political News:
Are we watching the debate? I feel as if I must. At least until I can't stand it. It's almost as if I need to be there for Hillary. If she can get on that stage and face the orange farce and maintain her dignity, the least I can do is watch. I have to say though, that I am very tired already. I went to town today, to the library, to Costco, to Publix, I had my walk, I washed sheets and hung them on the line, I made up the bed again, and I have made this supper as well as the cookies. But goddam it- this is important.
Or perhaps it's not important at all for me to watch it.
I'll try.

And tomorrow, I am going to Monticello to vote and I think that Jessie and August are going to come with me, just to have a fun time in the little big city. On Friday we may go to the Greek food festival in Tallahassee and on Sunday we may all drive down to Panacea to visit the touch tanks at the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab and to have a little walk on the beach nearby and perhaps a seafood lunch.

Look at me- making plans like a big girl.

God, I'm tired. I guess more happened today than I realized.

Love...Ms. Moon

Crime Report

So I'm taking my walk this morning and it's a beautiful day and I get to the part of the road by the horse farm at the intersection of that road and the road that leads past Ms. Shelly's house and there's a big black SUV parked across the intersection. So, I approach with curiosity and a little caution, wondering if someone has passed out in the dang thing and if I'll be called upon to do something insane like try to revive someone and a guy steps out of the vehicle. He's wearing a black Kevlar (I guess) vest with guns and stuff in the pockets and he says, "We've got a man in the woods over there."
He then proceeds to describe the guy as if maybe I'd seen him and asks if I live up by the horse farm and I say, no, I live in Lloyd, pointing, probably in the wrong direction as I do because I have no sense of direction, and he says that well, I better go back the way I came. They have dogs on him. The guy in the woods, that is.
I do not hear any dogs but I take him at his word and that is somehow reassuring and I ask if he thinks it's safe to go back through the woods I just walked out of and he says, Yeah, he hasn't crossed the road. I ask what the guy did and he said that he stole a vehicle and they have warrants out for him.
So. With a small bit of trepidation I head back through the woods where I'd just come from and indeed, had stopped in the woods to pee as I also do, and just continued to listen to Meryl Streep reading Nora Ephron's Heartburn (which is truly one of the most delightful audio book experiences I've ever had) and sure enough, I made it back to the road and safety with no problem.

After over a dozen years of walking this same path I have never once had an experience like that and indeed, have only ever come across one guy walking the same path although now and then I used to see a couple of women on horseback from the farm.
So that was a bit weird.

Steve Reed just wrote a post about waking up at 5:30 in the morning to realize that a helicopter was circling his London neighborhood with flashing lights which was also weird and it's double weird that we both had distant brushes with possible escaped felons or whatever.

Well, I guess I'll go hang the sheets on the line.

Love...Ms. Moon

How It Goes

I watched Paul Hollywood from The Great British Bake Off make bread last night and I decided to use a few of his tips to make some loaves of my own today and I think my biggest mistake was that the knife I used to make the cuts in the dough before it went into the oven was not sharp enough even though I sharpened it and now all of my work is going to be for naught and goddammit, isn't that life? Don't ignore that part about having a special little tool for that particular thing because you'll just fuck up having done everything else right.

I don't know what I'm talking about right now. I'm in a weird mood and feeling yes, anxious, of course, and feeling worthless because I didn't do anything today but take a walk and do a little bit of regular housework, not even much, and the toilets need cleaning and I just don't feel like it.
I am also thinking that I have at least five kinds of cancer and that my husband may be contemplating leaving me but I keep reminding myself that depression and anxiety lie and I'm hoping with all of my heart that this is the truth of the matter.

This is how my mind is working tonight. Or not working, as the case may truly be.

I swear to you- this whole Donald Trump thing has got me in a mess of fucked-upedness and as I've said, I know I'm not the only woman to be affected by the things which have come out about him lately. Every damn day there's something new to add horror gas to the fire of the evil which is going on. That interview with Melania? Where in defending her husband she only made it worse by insisting that he's just like a little boy?
Well, duh, darlin'.
And you might have to put up with that shit but we, The People, certainly don't.
Unless his basket of deplorables which is now the size of a Great Lake somehow manage to vote the fucker in.
Bruce Springsteen, in a video I saw today, said that no, Donald is definitely not going to win but that he'll be trying to take the entire democratic process with him when he goes down. Somehow, I think we can come back from that but the very air of our country has been tainted by him and by the acceptance of him by so many people. So many of us, especially women, feel betrayed and dirtied and assaulted over and over and over again as the days go by.
And I can't help but think about the women who do support him. Of course many of them have been victims of sexual assault and what have they done with their pain and their anger and their shame and their fear? Have they simply buried it so deeply inside of themselves that they can't recognize what Trump represents to women? Have they internalized and accepted the abuser's assertions that it wasn't the fault of the abuser but of the woman for simply being there, that men are men and that's what they do, how they talk, and that girls just need to shrug it off?
I think about the woman who wore that T-shirt with the hand painted message on it- Trump can grab my... with an arrow pointing to her nether regions and I wonder if she knows that in a million years the man who shits on a gold toilet would not get within ten feet of her if he had anything to say about it.
I think about the fact that you can now buy T-shirts printed with that message.
I want to puke.

Well. Here we are. 2016 and this is where the political discourse has taken us and it's no wonder that we're all feeling sickened and sick. Or at least those of us who have some small ability to recognize and realize the horror.

Fuck it. I don't know.
I don't know shit.

Well, I do know that my knife wasn't sharp enough and I know that my left knee is bringing me grief and that I am starting to walk like a drunk on the rolling deck of a ship at sea due to my hips and that aging is taking far more from me than it is giving back.

Lord, God, I would pray if I were a pray-er. Please let us survive the next few weeks and please don't let Donald Trump become the president of the United States of America. 

On Thursday I think I will go to Monticello to the old jail where the early voting is held and cast my vote. Get it done and over with so that if I break my leg on election day I'll have already voted. That old jail is my lucky voting place. I voted for Barack Obama there twice and I'd vote for him again if I could but I will be very, very proud to vote for Hillary Clinton and that is the truth and the fact of the matter.

I'm hanging in there. How about you?

Love...Ms. Moon

Not Much. Not Much At All

This is how blue the sky is today. Not faked, not baked, not filtered or fucked with.
It's just that blue.

Here are my three babiest baby chickens. Darla Star, Dottie Begotti, and Nicey Two Two. 

They cheer me immensely as they make their cautious way about the yard, whistling their baby songs. 

I decided last night that watching an hour of The Great British Bake Off with these lovely and incredibly civilized people is more soothing than two mugs of valerian tea. 

And tastier, too. 

And that, my friends, is about all I have to offer today. 

At least for now. 

May we all be well and open to that which is offered, which is good, which is simple. May we be able to remove the lenses or irony now and then to just...be.

Love...Ms. Moon

I Did Not Have To Take The Valium

Things have been a bit crazed around here lately. Both sons-in-law have taken does to fill their freezers with good meat and last night it was Jason's turn and he and the boys came over so that Jason could use the equipment here to clean his deer and the boys ran in and out of the house and ate shrimp and corn and shouted and laughed and were merry and wild and I was barely hanging on with the anxiety which had my core tightened to a steel knot of twisted wire but it was okay. It really was and by bedtime, I was so glad to get in my bed and finish Springsteen's autobiography. I had saved just a few last pages to read and overall, the thing that got me hardest was the fact that Bruce has spent so much of his life suffering and battling depression and then, in his sixties, anxiety.

So much of what he described could have come directly from my own mouth- the inability to find comfort, the lack of interest in anything, the constant feeling of certain and imminent doom. I thought about all of this- how Bruce Springsteen who probably has one of the strongest wills on the planet, who through talent and belief and the hardest work imaginable has made a life which not only touches millions but also includes a family life with a loving wife and children raised and doing well. And that if this man who has had access to every sort of medical care available and who has had the loving support of his wife and his friends, found himself unable to leave the bed for days at a time- well, then I needed to admit that these horrible teeth of the black dog which bite my ass are not my fault and that there is no shame to them. I do not invite their horrible terror. I do not in any way ask them to come and live with me.

I am grateful to Bruce for speaking openly about these things. About his therapy, his use of medication, his struggle.

I enjoyed the book and here I will give you my favorite line:

"I've come across many spirit-filled folk in my travels but no one as spectrally beautiful as Keith Richards."

He had never met the Stones until a few years ago when Mick Jagger fulfilled his teenaged fantasy and called him to ask if he'd sit in with them on "Tumbling Dice" in the concert that the boys were playing in New Jersey. The same one I saw on pay-per-view two years ago. Three years ago?
I don't know. Time flies.
He of course accepted and when he got to the rehearsal, he said it reminded him of playing in a garage as a teenager, the same set-up with mics and speakers and that he was completely overwhelmed to be in the presence of the men who had invented his job.

Of course I loved reading that. That was one of the joyful parts of the book and there are plenty in the book along with the darkness.
And let's face it- if Springsteen wasn't who he was with his demons of darkness, he could never have written those songs, would never have had the motivation to prove himself to himself.

Knowing what I know about depression and anxiety, I cannot in good conscience say that it was an even trade. But it was what it was and the world is a far richer place because of him, exactly who he is.

So, this morning I woke around four and had a hard time sleeping for the rest of the hours left to me in the bed because I knew I had to get up and go with Lily and Owen and Maggie for a follow-up appointment from when Owen had his little incident on the bus a few weeks ago which may have been a seizure. So I drove to their house and we dropped Gibson off at school and went to the hospital, my least favorite place in the world and I had even tucked my last remaining Valium in my purse in case I needed it but it was okay. It was all okay. The doctor talked to Owen and his mother and then they did an EEG and if nothing shows up, that will be the end of it unless something else happens. Lily's mama-gut tells her that her boy is fine and of course, I trust that.
And also, of course, being the anxiety-ridden-Chicken-Little-the-sky-is-falling person that I am, I still worry.
But we shall see. While the test was going on, I took Maggie out for a walk and in her stroller and she fell asleep and we sat under some trees and it was peaceful and good.

After the test we went and picked up Gibson and then we met Jessie and August and Hank at Japanica! for a lunch. Here are all four of my grandchildren sitting on the most comfortable couch in the world.

And here are the two babies, considering each other, as they do.

After lunch I went back to Lily's house and got my car and drove back into town and got to stay with August for a little while as his mama had a doctor's appointment of her own. 

He was asleep when I got there and Jessie told me that he would probably stay down for an hour or so and I laid down on the couch with a New Yorker I've been trying to finish for a few days and of course, about ten minutes after she left, he woke up and he was so sad, that little boy. 

I worried that he would be sad the whole time, missing his mama, his beloved mama who is with him day and night but we had a graham cracker and we looked at books that he loves and we played with a few toys and before I knew it, he was happy and beaming and grinning and guffawing as he took the top off of this sippy cup and put it back on, took it off and put it back on.

We put things in a bag and took them out, we put things on our heads and laughed and laughed. We kissed the giant bear, we read more books. We had fun. 

He was perfectly content with me, he was a merry little soul, and when his mama came back he was happy about that too but he had the good grace not to cry and pretend that he had been bereft the entire time she'd been gone and I was delighted. 

And by then, my soul had calmed. The knotted wires of steel in my belly had disappeared and I left with many kisses and went to the store and came home and it had been over nine hours since I left my house and it was all okay. 

All. 

Okay. 

And so that's been my day. Having talks with a seven-year old and a four-year old and having snuggles with babies. Being with their mothers and also my son. Feeling needed and adequate. Being loved and giving love. Thinking about things, deeply and with distance and rationality from my own perspective and from the perspective of others. 

Time to go make the supper. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Dark And Stormy

That was what the moon looked like last night, coming in and out from behind the clouds and that picture does it no justice, nor does it do the shrimp boat justice nor does it show the agitation in my heart which was going on.

I still don't feel like writing but we're home and honestly, everything is fine and I got out and weeded some and everything is coming up and in a week or so, we'll be having thinnings in our salad, tiny bits and bites of sharp green life and that's a truth, a reality I can live with and I am grateful for that.

This Is My Grandson Hugging The Earth

Apalachicola

I Might Buy A Pair Of Black Earrings

Getting ready to leave on this gorgeous morning. Sky as sharp blue as the eyes on a scallop, orange cat sleeping in a leafy sunbed in the back yard, lazy drone of airplane, birdsong, squirrel chatter, huffy breathing of the sprinklers on the garden.

It is beautiful here. It will be beautiful in Apalachicola.
Also? Oysters.

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Appreciation

I've done everything slowly, slowly, slowly today. I've tried to be a decent housewife and yes, I did indeed do a little ironing. Four shirts, that is all, but that is about all I could stand up for.
I am exhausted.
I have not been sleeping well, waking up and worrying, and in the morning I finally just have to get up because my existential morning angst is too powerful to lay with in the bed.
I do go to bed early but I read for hours, curled up with the window open above my head, now that it's cooler. Sometimes Maurice comes in and curls up with me, sometimes she does not. Either way, it is probably my best time of day, this being in my bed with my book, the chores of the day all done, my most trustworthy form of escape- a book- in my hands.

I went to Publix again today to get the things I'd forgotten when I went on Monday. I had a complete mind meld with a woman I'd never laid eyes on before in the supplements/medication aisle. She was looking at Band-Aids and I knew what she was thinking.
"It's too much, isn't it?" I asked her and she said, "Yes! And they're all the same and it's too hard and why is it like this?"
And we talked about how our brains just haven't evolved for his sort of choice and that's why we're probably all crazy and by the time I drifted on to another aisle she had said, "We should have a show, you and I!"
I agreed with her and said that we could call it The Wise Ones.

I love it when that sort of thing happens. I have a feeling that if we'd lingered together much longer the F-words would have been flying and we would have been pledging undying love.

Or maybe not.

Jessie and Vergil and August are going to come and spend the weekend here while Mr. Moon and I are in Apalachicola. This makes me happy because I know the chickens will be tended and that the cats will be provided for and that August will become more comfortable and familiar with Mer and Bop's house, the smells, the pictures, the seashells, the turtle shells, the feathers and mermaids and madonnas, the feel of this old house, the sound of the train that goes by so near. He can ride the trike and read the books and play with the blocks and trucks and bears and dolls and look at the chickens and go feed the goats if his parents take him over there. He will know what it feels like to go to sleep in Mer's house and wake up here, too. This makes my heart happy.
I filled up all the chicken waterers and feeders today so that Jessie won't have to deal with that. All she'll have to do is shut them up at night and let them out in the morning and throw them some corn scratch and collect the eggs which is not much work, seeing as how I'm only getting one or two a day now. They can sit on the back porch steps if they want and throw the chickens some bread and August can watch as they cluster around as Owen and Gibson have always loved to do. I've bought bananas and coconut milk and sweet potatoes and an avocado so that August will have some of his favorite foods and tomorrow I'll wash the sheets and remake the bed so that Jessie and Vergil will have a fresh, sweet place to sleep and the Pac-n-Play is already set up in our old room from when Lily and Jason and their babies stayed here after the hurricane.

And so this has been my day. Moving slowly and taking it all in and cleaning a sink here, a mirror there, not really cleaning-cleaning but making tidy enough. The flowers I picked on my walk this morning are on the altar table in the hallway as well as the pinecone lilies which are still there, red and full.

I wanted to add another thought to what I wrote about some of the differences between Keith Richards and Bruce Springsteen this morning and that's the fact that if Keith does have a religion, it is the religion of the blues and not heroin. Even when he was a junkie, it was always the music and it has always been and will always be the music for Bruce, I think, as well, which saves their souls.

I am not a musician in this lifetime but as I have said so often, music has indeed saved my life and my soul more than once and I am beyond grateful and in awe to those who uplift me with it.

I am feeling most humbled today by life and by everything in it, both the good and the bad, the hellish and that which can only be described as ethereal.

And of course, that which can only be described as commonplace or mundane, which is most of what our daily life is all about.

I'm going to go make some cornbread now and you can't get much more down-home and prosaic than that but which, if made in an iron skillet properly and with buttermilk and dressed with a bit of butter and maybe some honey or cane syrup, is just about as good as anything on this earth.
Reason to live and the sustenance to do so.

Love...Ms. Moon

Words Of All Sorts

A friend of mine e-mailed me this morning to say that, no pressure, but he'd checked the blog to see if I'd posted anything about Dylan winning the Nobel prize for literature.
This is what I answered:

Just got back from my walk. I will probably say something about it. I've had a lot of thoughts, reading this B. Springsteen autobiography. Not about Dylan but about musicians in general and how they are as varied and different as say, lawyers or mothers. 

As I wrote Hank last night, seems to me that one of the main differences between Springsteen and Richards is that Richards probably had the better childhood, believe it or not. He had a lot of love. Also, Springsteen grew up Catholic and has never really quite abandoned that faith. It's bloodstreamed for sure. And he's spent most of his life in therapy. Richards of course just became a junkie although supposedly he's given up heroin whereas Springsteen will be introspecting for the rest of his life. Springsteen knew from the very beginning that he was not interested in just being a part of a band. He is and always has been the boss of his band. He gives everyone mad props and seems to have, as does Keith, very intense relationships with other men and has grieved mightily when they have gone through bad times. But overall, I'm not enjoying this book as much as I did Keith's. Springsteen's soul is darker although he surely does speak highly of every fucking body, even those he probably has no call to. But damn- not one scene where he does a Keith and pulls a knife on someone. He can be funny though. But it's a sort of sad humor and always leads back to something dark and introspective. 

How odd is it that both are long-time married to women named Patti? 

Anyway, feeling pretty dark myself today. I think this whole Trump insanity has been a trigger for bad feelings, as the Cosby thing was. You read about things like "triggers" and you feel like that may be a bunch of PC crap and then it happens to you and you realize...well. Fuck. Might be true. 

It is cheering, though, to see Dylan win the Nobel. I mean- it's about damn time. God love the old man. I wonder how that made him feel? I doubt we'll ever truly know. Even if he ever decides to write about it, it will probably be impossible to understand. 

Which makes him Bob Dylan. 

There was one passage in the Bruce book where he was talking about playing that night of the video I sent you and how Bob was so nice to him and said, "If you ever need anything, let me know," and Bruce said, "No man. You already gave me what I needed. Thank you."

My friend texted back and said, "That would be a wonderful post right there."
So, I guess I agreed or, if not wonderful, at least adequate.

And here's the video I was talking about. It was at the Kennedy Center Awards in 1997. I love the expression on Dylan's face. He's a mystery, that man, and we'll never pin him down and we don't have to. In fact, we shouldn't.




Love...Ms. Moon

Lord Bless The Washing Machine And The Drain Pumps Which Keep Them Working, Etc.

The woods and fields are full of golds and purples and lavenders right now. As Lily said the other day, it's the season of the royal colors.
She is right.

I'm almost caught up on my laundry so that went well. Or, sort of well. It was a bit of a stressful situation for me in that the guy listened to the machine for about three seconds and said, "You need a new drain pump. It'll cost you between $250 and $300. I've got the part in my truck."
So I said, "Let me call my husband." Which I did.
He said, "WHAT???!!! That part can't cost seventy bucks!"
Then he thought a minute and said, "Okay, tell him to fix it."
So I told the guy to fix it and next thing I know, I'm getting texts from Mr. Moon showing me those drain pumps online that we could order for $41 and they guy's already tearing out the old one and what am I supposed to do?
Anyway, the long story short is that we have a new drain pump and Mr. Moon is pissed at himself for not fixing the thing himself but he's come to peace with it because he'd run out of clean socks.

So it's been a day like that- nothing much with little pockets of stress here and there. I went out to check the garden, which is ridiculous in that I only planted it three days ago to find this:

Can you see my tiny baby arugula plants? Oh my goodness! I'm so excited! And you know what? If you took one of those tiny leaves and pinched it between your fingernails, it would smell JUST LIKE ARUGULA!

I cleaned out the hen house so that's all filled with nice fresh hay that the chickens will poop up tonight when they go to bed. Last night when I went to shut them up safely inside, I found Dottie Begotti and Darla Star up on a roost

which was good because we'd been having to put them up in a nest by hand every night as they'd been going to bed on the ground which is not safe, even in a closed up hen house. Any critter that found their way in there (and it's happened before) would immediately go for the easy target of tasty tiny morsels on the ground. But it was also bad because where was little Nicey Two Two? I swung the beam of the flashlight around and finally located her. She was on the skinny ledge above the door.

I was relieved. 

Today I saw the three of them almost all the way to the house and the pride I felt in their little brave selves is not unlike the pride I felt when I saw that the arugula had busted dirt. 

It doesn't take much, does it? Not for me, anyway. 

I'm thinking that tomorrow I might IRON and then I'll be proud of myself!

Bless Our Hearts where the bar is set so low that everyone can feel comfortable! 

That is the service we provide. 

And we are proud to do it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

False Assumptions Plus Other Crap

Yesterday, perhaps because I was already so anxious that I was having to remind myself to breathe, I decided to call a doctor's office that was recommended to me by a friend. The friend went to this doctor who is young and she said that he listened, he asked her about her gut feelings, she liked him. Now, it's no secret that I've been dissatisfied with my own practitioner for awhile so I sent a form from the internet in to ask for an appointment to meet with the doctor. Somehow, that seemed easier than calling although I knew I was going to have to talk to someone on the phone eventually.
While this was going on, I googled "intense phobia of doctors" and discovered that there is an actual name for what I have which is Latrophobia.

"Latrophobia is defined as the morbid and irrational fear of doctors or hospitals. Again, this does not refer to those who simply do not like these places, but rather those who are deathly afraid of them. Furthermore, people with Latrophobia fear doctors and hospitals, but also anything associated with them."

Being a person who actually takes routes which allow me to avoid driving by the hospital, I feel I probably qualify for that one. 
Yeah.

So. Anyway, I had a message from the office when I got back from town asking me to call for an appointment, that the doctor was indeed taking new patients. To call before 5:00 p.m. 
Already redlining in the anxiety department, I called and got a recording that they were busy talking to other patients and to leave my name and number and they would call back as quickly as possible. 
This was around quarter to four. 
I waited around the house for awhile even though I had things to do outside and needed to take the trash and finally said fuck it and went and did what I needed to do and no one called back while I was outside. I hate to give people my cell number as an actual calling number because I don't get reception in the house and it all just gets too confusing because they do call it while I'm in the house and then I have to go outside to take the call or ask if I can call them back from my landline and, and, and...

So. This morning. 8:00, I'm still in bed and the phone rings and of course, it was the office calling me back. 
Really? 
The woman who made the call apologized for waking me up but said that I'd been the last call of their day yesterday so I was the first to be called this morning. 
Seriously? It took longer than an hour and forty-five minutes to make a phone call? 
From the office?
Then the woman kept calling me "sweetheart." 
It's eight a.m., I am barely awake, I am 62 years old and I am being called "sweetheart" by a complete stranger. I told the woman I thought that this was inappropriate and I did not want to be called "sweetheart" by her. 
"Oh," she said and then she proceeded to call me that several more times.
Once, when she did it, I simply went silent. And she didn't get it. She did not get it. 
I should have just said forget it right then, but did not and have actually set up an appointment for the end of November. She asked for my insurance information, of course, and date of birth. After I gave her that, she seemed to think that not only would it be okay to call me sweetheart, but to assume that I was not only elderly but also no doubt confused and demented and probably couldn't find my way to their office without help. 
"Just call us if you can't find us!" she said. 
Uh. Okay. 
So now I was pissed. And then, when we went to end the conversation she told me to "have a blessed day!" in that chirpy, fucking Christian way that pisses me off so much that I can't even stand it. 

Yeah. I doubt I'll be going to that appointment. I mean, the doctor may be great but his receptionist and I are not a good match.
I don't know. 
God, I need a doctor I feel comfortable with. 
Is there even such a thing? 
I doubt it. 

But I've taken my walk and now I'm waiting on the appliance repairman to come and check out my washer. My husband just called and made me cry by asking if he could take me to Apalachicola this weekend. I SO want to go, to get away, to be with him but I've been afraid to even talk about it, knowing that this is hunting season and he is eager to be up in Georgia at the camp as much as possible, getting things ready. I DON'T want to make him feel guilty about doing something he loves so much. We are getting older and who knows how long we'll be able to do the things we love, especially those things requiring physical exertion? But I do start feeling a bit low on the totem pole of priorities this time of year and so, when he asked if I'd like to go and spend the weekend with him, I did cry a little. 
"Yes, yes," I kept saying. "So very much. Thank you."

And I am looking forward to that with great anticipation. To get away, to go away, to just be with him with none of our chores or duties or obligations. 

So. There you go. That's me today, being pissed (which is a great antidote to anxiety, let me just say) and being grateful. 

Now. Let's see what Repairman Guy says. He answers his own phone and I have a strong feeling he's the only employee of his own company and I can work with that. I told Lily yesterday that he sounded sort of grumpy when I talked to him because he was on a repair and had to walk out to his truck to get his schedule and she said, "Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe he's so good that he can afford to be grumpy."

And he didn't tell me to have a blessed day so he's winning at phone skills. 

There you go. The tea olive is blooming and the air is perfumed and the squirrels are fussing from the trees and the leaves sound rusty in the breeze and I'm going to go clean out the hen house.

Love...Ms. Moon

We ate outside for lunch today and the babies got to play on the patio for a few minutes before they were corralled into their high chairs. Maggie seemed to want to find out whether or not August's face would come off but no one was hurt and August didn't seem to mind a bit and Maggie seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of the attempt.

She seems to get a lot of pleasure out of everything, that delicious little goof. 

After lunch we went to Publix- three carts, two babies, one boy. August seemed to have the very best time of all. 

It's so odd when I am deep in the anxiety. I feel wrapped in something that I can barely see through, can barely feel through, but the smiles of these babies gets in. They do.

Lily sent this picture of Gibson who fell asleep waiting for his brother at the bus stop with his mama and his sister. 

Pre-K can be tough on a guy. When Lily asked him what he did in school today he said, "Science."

How I love these children. 

Even in the sharply painful fog of this day, they have brought me joy. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Blah, blah, blah

Another day as pretty as it can be and I'm just...crazy.

Oh well. What else is new?

Spent about an hour trying to find a repair person to come look at this machine. My neighbor recommended a guy and I called him and he can get here tomorrow. He's a one-man business, I believe, and let's just go with that.

I've had a sort of headache for two days and it feels like there's something sloshy in my head. It's probably sinus or whatever and it's not so bad but it's adding to the general feeling of malaise I have, a sense of not-right and the great problem with anxiety is that you never know if anxiety is causing you to feel not-right or if you're feeling anxious because you're not-right or if you're seriously fine and just anxious, and anxiety, being the deceiver we know it to be is telling you that you're not-right.

There are some fine lines there, I admit but if you've ever experienced anxiety, you know the neighborhood.

Anyway, la-di-dah and I'm going to town to go to Publix and I'm thinking that at this point, the Republican party is like some sort of hideous reduction sauce of all of the worst of the worst who have remained to defend their nominee and by the time it's over, there will be nothing in the pan but some burnt crust of lifeless carbon, the flame underneath still raging.
Perhaps it's nothing more than a purification ritual.
Who knows?
Not me.
I don't know shit.

Love...Ms. Moon

Bless The Mothers, Bless Their Babies

Jessie brought her boy out to see her daddy and mama today and we had a very fine time with them. Now- let me stop right here. A momentous thing happened last night in that both Lily and Jason witnessed Magnolia June taking three steps at a time.
As in- she is starting to walk.
But August, who is three months older than his cousin, has no interest in walking whatsoever. He can rise from a sitting position to stand all by himself but when he wants to get from one place to another he does a crab crawl like none other I've ever seen and he is fast and except for getting his hands dirty as he goes, there seems to be no reason whatsoever (in his mind, at least) that he should simply walk. Now, I can't wait for him to start walking because he's such a skinny little monkey and when he does start walking he's going to look so adorable because all babies look like drunken monkeys when they walk and he's going to be the cutest little skinny drunken monkey on the planet.
Perhaps he knows this and is preserving his dignity whereas Maggie just wants to keep up with her brothers and is not overthinking the situation.

So. Okay. We have this little Radio Flyer push trike sort of a thing out here that I believe my ex-husband and his wife gave us when their grandchildren had outgrown it, knowing that I had grands who could and would appreciate it. I gave it a quick wipe-down with the Fabuloso-vinegar-water spray today and we offered it to August for his enjoyment. He was so excited about it that he almost leapt from his mother's arms and when he finally got to it, he figured out everything he could do with it in about one minute.

This included standing on the seat and dare-dogging it. He rode it, he pushed it.
He loved it.

He figured out how to sling a leg over the seat and to get on or off it. He was the boss of that thing. 

Before he and Jessie left, I cleaned his hands of the Lloyd black dirt but he got them dirty again, escaping from the kitchen and making his way back to the porch and back to the trike. 

So he was amused and we were too. 

His Boppy babysat for him while Jessie and I went down to the Subway next to the Flannery O'Connor convenience store and got lunch which we brought back and ate as a picnic in the backyard. 

It was just the most beautiful day and the kind of day that makes you want to hit the road on a trip down long and interesting highways with no destination in mind, or perhaps to take a ride out on a river. Something. Anything.

But we stayed here and that was okay, too. We discussed the washing machine situation and Mr. Moon called a repair service and dammit, it costs so damn much to have someone come out and replace the shit that's broken that it's hardly worth it and I think we're going to end up buying a new one and, researching the blog, I believe that washer is only about five years old and that's a fucking sin. 

I don't know. 

Anything beyond picking out what sort of a sandwich I wanted was just too overwhelming for me today so we haven't done anything about it and have spent the entire day doing not much of anything beyond playing with that boy.

Well, that's all right. 

He's a good boy to play with and it was proven today that he is as happy as he can be out here in Lloyd with his grandparents and so he needs to start hanging out a little bit more and maybe giving his mama and his daddy some time off. 

It's not like we don't have any toys or anything interesting to look at or do. It's like a damn day-care around here plus, petting zoo, plus library. And snacks. Plenty of snacks. And porches to swing on and rock on and hang out on and mermaids to look at. August was fascinated by my mermaids, probably because they all have bare breasts. 

Or as we call them- nurseys. 

He's just such a delightful child, as all of my grandchildren are, and when he left he was holding a feather we found in the yard by the car and had tickled him with and was tickling his own head with it, and also a giant bear which I gave him because we have three giant bears and god knows, nobody needs three giant bears and he loved it.  

Despite all the joy he brought us, I have felt a bit under the weather and low-spirited and so have made a pot of garbanzo bean and everything soup, and have some bread rising. The laundry is piling up and I should have taken the garbage and recycle today but did not. 

Well, so it goes and so it is and tomorrow I guess we'll go buy some new expensive crap washing machine that'll get us through another five years and tonight I'll get in my bed and read some more of Springsteen's autobiography which I am very much enjoying. 

One more thing: 

It appears to me that every famous guitar player who ever lived had a mother who bought him his first guitar. They may have been cheap guitars, they may have come from the Sears and Roebuck, or they may have come from the Western Auto but by god, those women went out and spent every penny they did not have on an instrument for their kid and to a man, every one of those guitarists remember those guitars with almost obscene pleasure and are beyond grateful to their mamas. 

And oh yeah- almost all of these begged-for purchases were inspired by Elvis Presley's first appearance on Ed Sullivan. Or the Beatles. 

And that's your fact for the day from me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

From The Damned To The Sublime

I knitted obsessively last night as I watched D. Trump loom and stalk around that stage, snorting and sniffing, lying and threatening.
If I ever do finish that baby blanket, I'm going to have to sage it before I let it be used to cover an innocent child.

It's so good to have my sweetheart home. I mean, Maurice is fine to sleep with but it is such a comfort to reach over and touch the sleeping warmth of my husband in our bed. It got chilly last night and we both slept well and we both slept late. Since he works out of a bank which is closed for Columbus Day (and no need to educate me on the inappropriateness of having a Columbus Day-you're preaching to the choir here), he could take it easy this morning and I made us a huge pot of oatmeal with apples and raisins in it, and he figured out how to get my washing machine unlocked so that I could at least get the drenched clothes out of it and onto the line, and Jessie and August are coming out for a visit.

It's a beautiful day and I'm just so grateful for it.

Here are Dotty, Darla, and Nicey 2 who have finally made their way a few yards from the hen house to scratch along the red passion flower protected fence line.

Owen and I discussed these chickens' names yesterday and he wanted to give them all "nicknames." So, we have settled on Dotty Begotti, Darla Star, and Nicey Two Two.

I wonder if he finished writing his book.

Love...Ms. Moon

A Day

It was such a different dynamic having just Owen and Magnolia here today. Of course. We had a lot of fun and it was so wonderful getting to spend some one-on-one time with my boy Owen. I mean, Maggie was here of course but she's not very demanding when it comes to our conversations and activities. She's the sweetest little monkey and being able to watch Owen with her made my heart so happy. I remember before she was born and right after and how absolutely blissed out he was, first by the idea of having a baby sister and then, with the reality of her and I wondered if he'd tire of being a big brother. If the novelty would wear off.
But no. Not at all. As we were playing with her today, patty-cake and eensy-weensy-spider and this-little-piggy and making her laugh, I said, "Isn't this a wonderful age for a baby?"
And he said, "Yes! It is! But when she's one, it's going to be even better!"

And oh, how she loves him.

We walked up to the post office and down a shady road and whenever Maggie would fuss, Owen would simply walk in front of the stroller and talk to her and she'd settle and then laugh. 

It's not like anything I've ever seen- this love between them- and Gibson is the same way with her. When I was a child, I was the oldest of four kids and the only girl and I can remember so clearly wishing I had a big brother. 

And seeing this little girl with her big brothers, knowing that they will be watching out for her, loving her, her entire life, just gives me a feeling of great peace in my soul. 

There were snacks and the walk and feeding the goats and chickens and Owen wanted to play Monopoly which we've always played simply with a dice and our little train or shoe, going around the board, but today I told him we'd play the real game. I counted out the money and put the cards on the board and tried, as simply as possible, to introduce the idea of buying property and collecting rent. He got it pretty quickly and before I knew it, this child who has no idea how to count money owned three railroads and both utilities as well as other properties and was beating the living crap out of his grandmother. 

Sigh.

So it was a very good day and I not only appreciated the time with Owen but also, the time with my granddaughter who is just so happy and so fine. Sometimes she smiles so big that her eyes squeeze shut and she claps her little hands and chatters away in Maggie-Tongue and she fell asleep in my arms this afternoon while I rocked her and sang to her. 

I took them home when Jason got off work and while we were in the car, Owen started writing a book on Post-It notes. The first chapter was this: "It was a dark and stormy night."

I am not kidding you. 

The second chapter was, "Someone was there."

The third chapter was, "It was Snoopy."

He told me that he plans to write ten chapters. 

That boy. 

Lily is very sick. And miserable. Her throat is so swollen that they gave her a steroid shot before they let her leave the clinic. Strep is the suckiest of sucks and I feel so sorry for her. I remember once when I was married to my first husband and we both got strep at the same time. Hank and May were still littles and we could barely pull ourselves out of bed to change a diaper or make a peanut butter sandwich. I mean- it was fucking traumatic and I'm just glad we all survived.

But. We did. And so will Lily and who knows who'll get it next? Not only is strep the buggeriest bacteria but it may be the most contagious. 

Sigh and sigh again. 

Life. 

My man is home and he's tired too. He brought me a beautiful turtle shell from the woods, bleached by time and rain to white sculpture. He knows me so well. 

We'll be watching the debate because how can you not? It's a nasty train wreck about to happen and my fondest hope is that Trump completely loses his shit and walks off the stage, out of the race, out of the running, and out of our lives. Not that Pence is one damn bit better. 

We shall see. 

Let's check in tomorrow, shall we?

Love...Ms. Moon

Life Is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans

I had thought to have all the grandkids over for pancakes this morning but then Lily texted me that she was sick. Very sick. Fever, aches, chills, couldn't swallow her spit...
We all know what that means.
So I went over to her house and got the children and took Gibson to his other grandmother's so he could play with the darling Lenore and brought Owen and Maggie out here with me and pancakes and bacon were made and eaten and Lily went to the doctor and yes, she has strep.

That girl hasn't had a good day since she turned 31. I swear to god.

Anyway, all is well here in Lloyd where the brother and sister are happy and the day is gorgeous and life unfolds as it will and happy birthday, John Lennon.
I miss you every, every day.

Love...Ms. Moon

We Do Reap What We Sow

Don't I live in a pretty place and don't I have pretty chickens?
Yes. Yes I do.
I got that garden planted today. I planted collards, mustards, arugula (including a variety called "wasabi"and isn't that going to be delicious?), rainbow chard, winter kale, beets, carrots, Romaine, and a row of Mesclun.
It took me all afternoon due to the fact that it was 90-something degrees out there but I got it done and now the sprinklers are on it and I sure do hope it all comes up because damn! That was a lot of work.
Mr. Moon is going to laugh at the crookedness of my rows but I do not care. They are nicely spaced with enough room to walk between them and I'm as excited as an eight-year old to watch everything come up.
Well, you know, if it does.

I've spent some time today watching as the Republican party falls apart. It is odd that after everything Trump has said that it took the words "grab them by the pussy" to really create the horror and disgust necessary to cause the rats to flee the sinking ship. But I get it. There's just something so inredibly violent and wrong about the image those words describe.
Ugh. Not to mention that any woman who has ever been kissed or touched in places or ways that have made her feel demeaned or invaded or violated can't help but react in a visceral, immediate and passionately furious way. And I'd venture to say that a large majority of all women have been the victim of this sort of unwanted invasion in their lives at one point or another and most of us have shrugged a lot of these things off, thinking that surely we must have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong clothes and somehow signaling that we were asking for it because why else would a man do that to us? And it wasn't...rape? Right? And we took the anger and sense of shame and confusion we felt and stuffed them up inside ourselves silently and I think that many women probably never admitted to themselves until the moment that they heard those words on the video that what had happened to them had been a real and hideous violation of their bodies. By not just an asshole but a complete monster who never once had a thought about the heart and the soul of the woman he was touching and thus, for that moment, claiming rights over them that they had no right to.  
And right there, on that tape, Trump revealed himself to be that monster. We all knew he was an ignorant asshole but he just kicked his ass up into the monster category and even his running mate realizes that.
It makes me laugh, all these Republican politicians calling for Trump to step down, to be replaced. It's too goddam late, motherfuckers! You created this situation and now you have to suffer the consequences. Or, as Bill Maher said, "Don't let Trump quit! You assholes voted for him, nominated him, handcuffed yourself to this dead hooker, now drag it to the finish line!"
Although I would not have used the word "hooker" in there. That's disrespectful to women, too, but I agree thoroughly with the gist of what he said.

So. That's been my day. Planting seeds and watching the seeds that the Republican party planted and nurtured so carefully for years come to fruition.

My seeds will feed me and my loved ones if I take care of them. The seeds that the Republican party planted have revealed themselves to be the horror that they are and they are finally realizing that it's too late to weed them out. The damage has been done.

Good luck with that, you hateful motherfuckers.

Love...Ms. Moon

Done

"Grab them by the pussy."

Grab them by the pussy.

That's it. I could sit here and write ten million words about what a horrible human being Donald Trump is but he said it all in those five words.

And you know what? Any person left in this country who still thinks that Donald Trump should be our president can go fuck themselves. There is absolutely no excuse, no rationalization, no way to make those words (and the ten million other ones he himself has uttered with his ugly little white boy entitled mouth) mean anything but what they mean.

You want to vote for Trump? You go ahead. You just proved that you're a racist, misogynist, ignorant asshole.

There. Those are my words.

Fuck. That. Shit.

Grab this, motherfucker. Just try.

Growth, Change, Taking A Breath

Lily posted this picture of Maggie on Facebook today because that little girl is NINE MONTHS OLD! Can you believe that? And look at her- she's becoming a little girl. Still plenty baby but not nearly as much of a baby as she was just a month or so ago. And of course, the tres chic denim miniskirt with leggings does add a great deal of maturity.
Oh god. My babies. My babies, my babies.

Here's another picture Lily posted the other day:

Do you remember those days? Four years ago when Owen was my tiny rockstar prince and Gibson was a baby. I looked at that picture and I cried. Of course I love seeing these children grow up. What kind of a monster would I be if I didn't? And yet...

It's like I always said about my own children- it's as if someone came and stole my babies and replaced them with these people. No one could love their people more than I do but god, I do love babies. The weight of them. The squish of them. The delicious nuzzley necks on them. The open-to-the-universe heart and eyes of them. Their delight in the simplest things. Their need for being held and cuddled. 

The other day I said to Owen, "Come here and let me hold you and pretend you're still my baby."

"Utn-huh," he said. "We're not doing that."

Lord, Lord, Lord. I have become a stereotypical grandmother and there's no way around it. 

"Well, let me kiss you on your head then," I said. And he let me do that. He's tolerant of his old Mer. Up to a point. 

So we went to a different restaurant today and it was good. A sort of Asian fusion buffet and they had what Gibson wanted which was shrimp and noodles and they had Mongolian beef, tofu AND eggplant as well as absolutely delicious egg rolls and soups and other very tasty dishes not to mention an entire little refrigerator/cooler with all sorts of incredible desserts including jello puddings, nutty-buddy ice cream cones, flan,  AND home made cheese cake. 

Well. Only in America, y'all. 

Make America great again? I don't think so. We ARE great. 

Here's a few more pictures. 

I love that little hand on Uncle Hank's shoulder.

Gibson posing after I told him that all the food on his face made him look like he had a beard, which I thought was quite attractive.

Maggie and her beautiful mother. 

 I came home to find red feathers and one cardinal head on the back porch. 

Really, Maurice? 

Then I went to do a load of clothes and now it would appear that my washing machine is broken and it's broken in locked position so I can't even get those clothes out of it. 

Ah well. 

All of the chickens are fine and put to roost and I've heard from my husband and all is well with him. There is so much going on in my state, my country, my planet, which is horrifying and scary but right now I'm just holding on to this which is good right here. 

There is a thin line between being selfish and being unattached in the Zen sort of way. I tend to believe that I am more selfish than Zen but at least I know there's a difference. 

We are finally getting some gusts of wind. I wouldn't mind some rain. 

Love...Ms. Moon