Wednesday, I Think

 If you look very carefully there, you can see the tiny trimming of a baby's fingernail of a moon. Because I read The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver, I know that the moon is waxing because it is making a D shape which stands for Dios, God, while if the moon is curved the other way, it stands for Christo, which means Christ who died, which means it is waning. 

I am having the strangest reaction to the idea of blogging right now. For whatever reason, I really do not feel compelled to write for the first time in however many years I've been doing this. Unbelievably, I have posted over 8,000 posts and never once have I become disinterested in writing my thoughts here the way I feel disinterested right now. 
Of course, here I am- writing my thoughts here. 
But I could just as easily not do it. I would be fine. 

This is not to say that I am not having thoughts. Perhaps I am having too many thoughts. Perhaps I am simply not up to the regular ritual of reportage.
Today we did this. And then we did this. And then this happened. And then this is what I thought about it. 
And so forth. 

Perhaps I have too many conundrums going on in my head about this experience. Parts of it have been stunningly beautiful. North Carolina is incredibly beautiful. Sometimes staggeringly so. The shades of green and blue with the mist of lowered clouds like gauzy veils on distant mountains along with the impossibly verdant hillsides and deep gullies knock me to my knees and sitting in a creek as the water rushes around me while butterflies and damsel flies flit and dart is almost too much to bear. 

The view from the back of Vergil's mama's barn on Black Mountain.

And at the same time, some of the roads being so close to drop-offs that are hundreds of feet down scare me to my bones. I have actually cried, not quite from fear, but from an awareness of how literally close death can be. And yet- these are roads that the people here drive daily to get to work, to the store, to school and meetings and to get a haircut. It is absolutely foreign to me. So are paths that Heidi would feel comfortable on, taking her goats to pasture. The other night we went to a cook-out supper between Vergil's mother's house and Vergil's sister's house where the RV is parked and I watched in utter amazement as August and Levon and their three cousins ran up the hill and then back down, like little goats, like Heidi and Peter, seemingly propelled by nothing more than sheer joy and life.

So. So. So. 
What am I saying here? 
See. I don't know. 
There have been parts of this trip that have been worrisome- parts of aging and change for both me and my husband. Or if not even worrisome, then different. 

Okay. Worrisome. 
And different. 
And once again, we learn how to adapt and cope with the tools we have and we are fine. 

The sweetness of being with Jessie and Vergil and August and Levon in their mountain place is overwhelming. Seeing the way the boys interact with their cousins here is beautiful. August has an almost-twin in his cousin Maida. They are close to the same age, the same height, each with curly blonde hair, both thin and long and strong-legged. August has huge, beautiful brown eyes, Maida huge beautiful blue eyes. Last night, we saw them hold hands, walking to see Vergil's mother's chickens and we almost swooned. I hope never to forget that. Part of me wonders if I am being incredibly selfish in wanting them to live in Florida when I see how amazing their life here would be. 

Too much to think about when I consider what my life without them would be. 

And yet, I could not move here, leaving behind my other grandchildren, my other children. And as beautiful as North Carolina is, I am a foreigner here. 
I am a flatlander. That's all there is to it. 

So I am thinking about all of this because of course there is no way I can just take a week's vacation of enjoyment and adventure without dredging the deepest trenches of meaning as I go. This is just who I am. And the older I become, the more meaning things take on while at the same time, the less significance other things hold. 
The conundrum of it all. 

Meanwhile, we have had fun. Jessie and I went to Asheville yesterday to get massages while Mr. Moon hung out with August and Levon. Today Boppy and I took the boys to the grocery store and they beep-beeped the entire time 

I took a nap with Levon this afternoon, telling him the Mr. Peep story until he feel asleep. As we cuddled up on the bed I told him, "Levon, we are in the nap club. Just you and me." This delighted him. 

While we slept, August drew a picture for Boppy. 

We had supper here tonight with Jessie and Vergil and the boys. We laughed so much. 

This morning we ate breakfast in Black Mountain which is obviously where the celestial hippie movement is centered. 

August ate so much I thought he'd truly burst. 

As we were eating, the guy who is probably at least a co-owner of the business came around to check on things. He had a very, very hip man-bun hairstyle and the sort of body which would seem to indicate at least eight hours of yoga a day. 
"Is everything delicious?" he asked each table. 

In a way, that sort of sums it all up for me. 
"Is everything delicious?" Well. Yes. Sort of. Not entirely. No. Actually, I didn't like the potatoes. It wouldn't really be life if everything was delicious, would it? 

Meanwhile, we learn to live with the parts that aren't, we recognize the parts that are. We make do, we go on, we are humbled by the experience. 

Or so it seems to me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Listening To Rivers

Vergil has been off work for the past two days and he has kept us busy with fun adventures. On Sunday morning we drove about an hour and a half to the Tuckasegee River where he'd booked us a raft to travel down the river a few miles which involved some very small rapids. In that picture we had stopped for lunch and a swim. It was about a two hour trip and a lot of fun. Vergil steered the boat from the rear and Jessie and Mr. Moon paddled in front, following Vergil's directions as he chose the paths between rocks where we should go. There was a lot of laughing. 

I felt great trust in Vergil, knowing that he has paddled the Grand Canyon. 

This picture was also taken from our lunch spot. There was a beautiful house on the water across the river and it was nice to watch the people there swimming and playing with dogs and sunning on the rocks right off their shore. 
Idyllic.

There was a place on one of the rapids where a photographer was set up and to take pictures of all of the people kayaking or rafting over them and you can go online and order them if you want. We have not done that yet but here's the (obvious) proof of us having survived. It was pretty funny. I had to do a screen shot because that was the only way to get the image without paying for it and I understand that completely. 

When we got back to Black Mountain, Jessie and Vergil packed things up for them all to spend the night and we had a little slumber party with a movie and a supper of Lloyd vegetables and biscuits and by bedtime, the boys were wild with it all and we only made it through two books before they were tucked into their beds which were right next to our bed, one on each side. 
Pretty cozy. 

This morning there were pancakes, 

of course and we packed another picnic and packed up and headed to a pretty little creek quite near here for Mr. Moon to fish and the rest of us to cool off in the water. It was so very beautiful. 

Can you see the Ninja Boy?

Blooming rhododendrons. 

It was just incredibly peaceful and Mr. Moon fished in a little pool and the rest of us played in the water or just sat and listened to the way it sounded as it rushed over rocks and eddied through its own passages. August saved a bee that was floating on the water by lifting it up on the walking stick he had in his hand and setting it gently on a big rock where it stood stunned for a few minutes and then began to squeegee the water from her body and wings and then suddenly, when no one was looking, it flew away. 
As beautiful as it was, and as glad I as I am that we went and as grateful as I felt today to be there, parts of it were difficult for me. I've never been exactly a mountain goat and am a Florida girl for sure where our rivers have sandy bottoms, not slippery rocks with water rushing over them, and I'm not comfortable walking on the rocks but today I just felt old. Since I fell last year and broke those ribs, I've been much more cautious and whatever has been wrong with my foot makes me feel less than confident in its stabilizing abilities. Jessie kept holding out her hand to help me and it was so kind and loving but as I told her, also hard. One minute in life you are the mother, holding your hand out to your child to help them safely traverse what needs traversing and the next minute the child is holding out her hand to you, to keep you safe. 
It is the natural order of things but it's hard to accept. 

But this is the way it is and I am so thankful to have children who are willing to hold out their hands to us. And Vergil was beyond helpful today. He was there to move chairs about and fetch umbrellas when it began to rain and free hooks that Mr. Moon caught on things in the river. He is such a good man and I love seeing how calm he is with his boys, how kind and patient. 

Those boys have been a joy. We've read some books and they've watched TV and played on the rug in the basement here which is the softest rug in the entire universe, I feel quite certain. There's also been model-car building and painting. Today August found a jigsaw puzzle and Vergil set it up on the coffee table, organized by colors and subjects. 

Levon has been my little buddy today, wanting to hang out with Mer, and of course I've loved that. We all went to supper at a nearby Mexican restaurant and he and August shared my burrito, bite by bite. They had their own food but it was mine they wanted. It sounds so silly but things like that are precious. Levon's vocabulary has expanded even in the short time we've been apart. I'm not sure I've ever heard a three-year old who has so many words that he uses appropriately. And of course August is his own self, as always. They both astound me with their ability to think things through, to express how they feel, to come to logical conclusions.

I'm tired tonight even though I took a nap today. It's so quiet here in our little forest house without the boys and their parents. I'll probably go to bed early and read for awhile. No reason not to. 

We've seen so much beauty in the past few days. As we drove home from the creek today on a very windy backroad I kept thinking that it was as beautiful as anyone could possibly want. It's so green and the rhododendrons are blooming and summer is in almost full ripeness. Small creeks follow the roads and houses are up impossibly steep driveways. I think I am integrating all of these images and all of our experiences. That can be tiring even as it is exhilarating. 

So that's the report for today. 

Love...Ms. Moon

In The Hills With The Mountain People

Well, we are here. That's what it looked like when the Smoky Mountains came into view. 
We drove on some roads so small today that it was a wonder they were paved. We stopped for lunch and this is what we got. 

Collard greens, pinto beans, fried okra, and macaroni and cheese. I was shocked to see that the beans and greens had no meat in them at all. Not one bit of grease, either. It was a royal feast. 

The house we're staying in is pretty nice. It's also a little weird in how it's arranged. But it's up in the trees and there are balconies and porches and a basement with a bedroom and August and Levon like it fine. 

It is so good to see them. And their parents, too. There sure were a lot of good hugs. 

Jessie and I went to the grocery store to buy the things we need for the week here while the menfolk stayed at the house and worked on the model car. I asked the boys what they wanted me to bring them from the store. August said, "A pineapple?" and Levon said "A monster truck." So that's Levon's monster truck he's holding in front of his face and August got his pineapple and some markers and a workbook because his mama said that's what he'd like. 

After our delicious dinner of frozen pizza at the house, Levon got so tired. And this is what he did. 

You know I had to cry for a second or two. The sweetness overpowered me and I could not help it. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Travel Adventures, Day 1

We have made it successfully and safely to Athens, Georgia which is a cool and hip town, not as cool and hip as Asheville but still, pretty sweet with lots of pretty people. A lot of young people, mostly, as it is a college town and it would appear that the fashion-forward statement for young women right now is bralessness, halter tops, and cut off jeans shorts. Also, vintage high-waisted Levi's. 
I approve.

The drive up here was fine although I have to say that no one can turn a five-hour drive into a ten-hour drive like we can. We drive the backroads, mainly and when we did accidentally allow Siri to goad us into taking an interstate road, we both hated it and got back on to the roads leading through farms and fields and woods and tiny towns as soon as possible. 
Phew. 
Quite by accident we found a Mexican restaurant in a very small little town that we'd eaten at a few years ago and we ate our lunch there. I swear to you- I often cannot remember what I ate for supper the night before but I knew as soon as we got to Sylvester, Georgia where the restaurant was and also the antique store right next door to it and sure enough- there they were.

We're both pretty exhausted now. Besides the fact that we drove all day, and that yesterday was insanely busy, our power went out last night about nine o'clock and didn't come back on until 1:45 a.m. which made things more difficult than they should have been including sleeping because it was not a cool evening. And of course when the power did get restored, all the lights in the house came on and where there had been complete silence and darkness there were suddenly fans and the air conditioner and lights on everywhere. 

But we're here and I just love this little hotel. Here's what our room looks like. 

We walked to the restaurant where we like to eat. That's where we people-watched and noted fashion trends. 

We ordered at least three times too much food which we couldn't even begin to finish although it was all delicious and our server's name was Shepherd and he had a man bun which delighted me and he was PRO-FESSIONAL!
And then we walked back to our little room-home and we are all settled in. 

Tomorrow we'll be back on the road, I'll read more of Comanche Moon to my husband and we'll drive as slowly as we want because we are sort of old and it's all about the journey, not the destination although of course in this case, it is about the destination too because that's where we'll see the Weatherfords. 

All in good time. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Story

 Okay. Well. When Mr. Moon's mother died in '91, I think it was, his daddy and my mother who barely knew each other, decided to get married. My mother had been married twice, both times to men it would have been far better had she not married (to put it mildly) and I say that knowing that none of my siblings nor me would have been born if she hadn't. So what? We wouldn't have known the difference.
But Glen's daddy was a jewel and one of the finest men I ever met and he and Glen's mama had been married for many, many years before she died. Their love story was a beautiful one. They met via correspondence when he was overseas in the war and when they met in real life, it didn't take long at all for them to hotfoot it to wherever it was they got married, get it done, and get on a bus in Utah where Grammy lived and head to Tennessee where Paw-Paw was from, to live in Bug Tussle, the crook in the road where Mammy lived and where Paw-Paw was raised. 
There is more to the story, of course, and the adjustment period for Glen's mother was a hard one. She was not a country girl and suddenly she was faced with the harsh reality of a farm life with very few conveniences, no luxuries, and a mother-in-law who was as strong willed and determined as any woman ever born. 
This is all to say that Glen's dad made up his mind quickly and did not mess around when it came to picking brides and for his second one, he picked my mother. 
It was all fairly odd. Of course we wanted them both to be happy but as I told my therapist, "WILL THE INCEST NEVER END?" And yes, we thought about all of the different results of the union. We would be step-siblings, our in-laws would also be our real parents, oh god, I don't know. It went on and on. 
But they were happy and made a sweet little life together which did not last very long at all because within a month of their marriage, Paw-Paw was diagnosed with a cancer that would kill him within six months. 
And it did. 
So that was a rather weird and very, very hard time in all of our lives, as you could imagine. 
I don't think my mother ever got over it. She was angry that what had appeared to be her one shot of happiness was so quickly shot down. I believe she became somewhat resentful about my marriage- why had I been so lucky when she had not? 
And I understand that. But it didn't help the relationship between us. 
I often wonder if my mother and Paw-Paw would have continued to be happy together. They were so very different in every way, but I suppose that Glen and I are too and we've managed to make that work. 

So that's the story. Or at least a brief version of it. Just another adventure in this crazy thing we call life, I suppose. 

******

You will not be surprised to hear that I am not entirely packed yet. I've thrown all my linen dresses in a suitcase and have enough underwear for a week and a bathing suit and two pairs of overalls and two sweaters. That's enough, right? Maybe I'll throw a bra in there. Or a bra-like garment. You know me. 
I did cross everything off my to-do list and was miffed that I had forgotten to write down "clean hen house" and was tempted to add it after the fact just for the great pleasure of crossing it off but I'm not that ridiculous. While trying to sweep and tidy up I was vastly dismayed to finally see how dusty my house is, visualizing it through the eyes of whoever may have to be the one to come in and deal with everything if we die on the highway or fall off a mountain or eat a bad oyster or something. 
Lily and the kids came over for a good-bye visit. They are heading over to Lauren's parents' house on Monday for a little vacation which is like the best thing in the world as Lauren's parents spoil them with sweet abandon, have several refrigerators full of delicious foods, a pool, a river to fish in, and...best of all...many wonderful domestic and farm animals to play with! 
It's like a resort, spa, and farm all in one. 

But do they have a Buddha to wash? 
Probably.

I am excited for us to get on the road tomorrow. We'll only be driving as far as Athens for the first leg of our journey and are going to spend the night at the very sweet and pretty darn cool hotel called The Graduate. While we drive I will be reading aloud to Mr. Moon as is our tradition. He is reading, with his eyes, McMurtry's Dead Man's Walk which I did just read last month but I am going to supplement his reading of it as we go. I am halfway through the very last book of the Lonesome Dove series and am pre-grieving. I am trying to make it last. So it will actually be a huge pleasure to dip back into the beginning of the stories that have kept me awake too long for many nights. And we can talk about it as we go. 

That's it for tonight. I will be posting from the road most likely and from North Carolina. The place we're staying supposedly has wifi. It better. I may not, however, get around to commenting on blogs but I'm pretty sure I'll be reading them. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. I boiled the peanuts. They are pretty good. 

Redrum

 There you go. Red glasses. 

Y'all were right, though. They didn't look so very red in that other picture and yet, they are. 

I don't know what's wrong with me today. Maybe it's the weather. All that worry about the storm and we got less rain (and no wind) than we have been getting the past week. This is not to say it hasn't rained at all. It has. Just not very much. 

So in the knowledge that I had two days now to get ready for the trip, I actually got out an old journal and made a list of things I needed to do before we left. And then I made pickles. 

I made six and a half pints of dill pickles and one pint of dilly beans. There was no way I was going to let my cucumbers go to waste. 

I also finished the dress I have been "working" on for about six months now. It's...okay to wear around the house. Nice pockets at least! 
And I know I've done some other stuff but I don't know what. I packed some potatoes and a few pints of things I've canned to take to NC. I talked to Jessie and the boys. We discussed things we might do while we're up there. I was told that I do not need to bring the Mike Mulligan book because they have one of those at the cousins' house. 
Check! 

Meanwhile, while I was doing all of...whatever it was I was doing...Mr. Moon was shelling peas and then he decided to pack and in about half an hour he was entirely ready to go, clothing-wise, at least, and I haven't even started down that path. 

About 3:30 I started feeling so tired that I eventually had to go lay down and take a nap. Like I said- maybe the weather? 

I can't even imagine how tomorrow is going to go. I have so much I feel like I need to do before we leave including cleaning out the hen house and making sure the people house is in reasonable order and of course doing my own packing which is always ridiculously hard for me. I did get two new dresses that I like very much and that is cheering. 
I'm so ridiculous. I always have to remember that none of this really matters because they sell everything in North Carolina that I could possibly forget or neglect to take. 

Here's the best thing on my to-do list for tomorrow:

Boil peanuts. 
Yep. I bought a bag of green peanuts at Publix to boil and take with us on the road. Is that just about the most southern thing you ever heard? 

No. That would be when my mother married Glen's father. 

As the lady in Costco said the other day, that's a long story for another time. 

Okay. I will end this now but I do want to show you a picture that Lily sent around last night. 

She had put Maggie in the tub and left her there for a few minutes with some red finger paint soap that Lauren's mother had given her and came back to find this. 

"Looks like she had a doll execution and then signed her name," Lily said. 

You are welcome. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Slosh, Slosh, Slosh

We are getting so much rain here that if Elsa does bring more this way, we might float away. I've been drenched again, this time going out to pick a few things in the garden, getting eggs, and then checking the fig tree. We are actually getting some figs! They are tiny but I love them and dammit, I'll be gone when most of them are ripe. I do so love to make fig and lemon preserves. 

 See them there, over to the left? There were probably more ripe ones but the rain was coming down in buckets so I made a run for it. It's been doing that on and off all day today and did yesterday too. I stepped out in the back yard earlier today to throw my kitchen peelings and shrimp shells out for the chickens and my foot sank down at least four inches. I have no idea why it's so soggy right there but it's a little worrisome. 
The floor boards are doing their cupping thing and soon the doors will be sticking. Wood, as my friend Lon said, does mix with water, and as a result it swells with the moisture, it grows a bit softer. Luckily, the heart pine boards our floors are made of seem to be able to withstand the yearly swelling, going back to their regular svelte smoothness when autumn's relative dryness returns. 

If yesterday was one frustrating situation after another, today was pretty sweet and juicy. I got a text last night that my glasses were in so I went back to Costco. I waited in line for at least half an hour, just standing there but not unhappy or bored. I was there for a purpose and I waited my turn as the two people working helped the customers they were serving with attention and patience. I had absolutely no desire to start yelling, "Hurry up! Hurry up!" They had a job to do, they were doing it. 

When it was my turn, the person helping me found my glasses and they fit pretty well from the get-go. Seeing through them was odd and I wondered if I was going to be able to adjust. Strangely, it took me all of the time it took for me to walk across the store, go to the restroom, wash my hands and walk out for everything to be fine. Feels like a small miracle. And when I was driving home, I didn't have to constantly try to resolve my eyesight between my two eyes. It just was. Resolved, that is. 

I would show you a picture of these glasses but I am feeling most unattractive today. Let's face it- I honestly do not think that I look like what I DO look like and when faced with the proof either in a photo or the mirror, I am shocked and dismayed. I absolutely cannot take a selfie of myself that I can even bear to look at. The word "selfie" itself makes me want to retch. 
Oh well. 

I had posted a thing on FB the other day about wanting someone to house/chicken/cat/garden sit while we are gone and an old friend replied and he came out this afternoon to check out the situation. This is a man whom I've known for many, many years and we really do not know each other very well but somehow, we just...do. We are Facebook friends and keep up that way and I know he's been going through health problems for a long time now but we haven't really talked in awhile although he is the kind of person who will call out of the blue just to say, "Hey. I'm thinking of you. I love you."

So I was happy that he was coming to Lloyd, even if the visit didn't end up in him being able to house sit because I knew I would love to just see him. It turns out that no, he is not going to physically be able to get around here without threatening his health but I loved showing him my house and talking to him. I talked way too much and I have apologized. I know I don't see people very often and when I do I have a tendency to just go on and on which is so annoying. He loved all my madonnas. He was raised Catholic and no longer is, but religious art makes him feel at home. We talked about religion and we talked about health issues and we talked about a lot of things. When he left I sent him away with eggs and pickles and some beauty berry jelly. I hope he comes back to visit. I would love to make lunch for him one day. 

After he left and I went out to pick and gather, I stopped in at the garage to check on my husband who has taken the engine out of one car to put into another. By himself.

The entire process reminds me of nothing so much as an organ transplant. Instead of veins and arteries, there are hoses and, uh, that other stuff. Mr. Moon is a car doctor. A car surgeon!

I can't believe we're heading out in three days to North Carolina. This is, of course, contingent on what Elsa does. Rob Nucatola still isn't making a final prediction on what this storm is going to do. I keep thinking about Steve Reed visiting from London to see family in Florida. 

Welcome to Florida! I keep thinking. Or in Steve's case- welcome BACK to Florida. I seriously doubt that he is truly surprised at this development in the weather. 

Anyway, I gotta go heat up the gumbo. It was so good that we're doing it again tonight. 

Talk to you tomorrow, most likely. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. 

Okay. Here are the glasses. The only thing interesting about them is that they are red. But I sure can see well out of them. 

Summer Story

 I sent that picture to Lily last night. 
"Pint by pint," I said. 
And that's just what I've put up this summer so far. Could be about the last of it too, considering that we'll be gone for a week and the garden could die of neglect, bugs, and heat by the time we return. I'm looking forward though, to a week where I can't possibly do any preserving despite the fact that I do mostly enjoy it and looking at my jars lined up so nicely gives me a great deal of pleasure. 

Today was rather frustrating. I kept trying to call Costco to see if my glasses were in but no one answered the phone so I finally decided to just go into town. Now it's not that big of a deal to go to Costco and Publix because they're on "my" side of town which is the east side of Tallahassee so there's not a whole lot of traffic to deal with. And I wanted to take Lily some beans and eggs and same for Hank and Rachel whose neighborhood is practically across the street from Costco. And I wanted more canning jars and Mr. Moon needed the pills he takes for his leg cramps and so off I went. Rachel had to shop at Costco too so we met and I gave her the produce and then we went in the store and no, my glasses were not ready. 
"But y'all said a week to ten days!" I said to the lady behind the counter. "It's been eleven!" I knew I sounded ridiculous, like a whiny child saying, "It's not fair!" 
Somehow I couldn't stop myself. I want to get those glasses and get this process of adjustment started. 
I felt even more ridiculous when I actually counted up the days since I ordered them and came up with nine, not eleven.
Sheesh. 
Oh well. So I got some more apple cider vinegar and Rachel got what she needed and we checked out and then I went to the liquor store where the beautiful lady who loves August was working today. I asked her if her daughter had moved into her own place yet. She made a face and said, "No. And that's a long story for another time."

I hope to hear it because I do love a story. 

I had dropped off Lily's beans and eggs at her Publix which is where I usually shop because she was there working but I wanted to do my shopping at the Publix by Costco because they usually have the cramp pills while "my" Publix doesn't. So, off to Publix #2 I went. 
They had no pint jars, only quarts. I don't want quarts. And no cramp pills either. 
I felt so frustrated. And hungry. I got some sushi. I am not a sushi snob. Grocery store sushi is fine with me. At least that Publix has its own sushi chefs. Are they called chefs? I don't know. 
Spicy tuna rolls. 
I decided to re-hit the Publix where Lily works on my way home to see if they had pint jars. While I'd been in the other Publix, it had begun to pour rain. I got drenched getting to my car. I didn't care. I sat there in my own little Prius world for awhile, eating my sushi. It was delicious. 
Of course Lily's (and my) Publix had no pint jars. Well, damn. Who knew the entire world has taken up canning? 
Oh well. I got to see Rachel and Lily today so all was not lost. 
I got drenched coming out of the second Publix too. 
Yeah, I should get an umbrella. I live in a rain forest. 

When I got home I started a roux for gumbo and made up the dough for a loaf of bread. I had finally gotten enough okra pods from the garden to make that worthwhile and it's simmering now. I'm pretty excited. It's got our own peppers, okra, and garlic in it as well as some of Mr. Moon's wild pig and also venison sausage. The shrimp came from Costco but at least it's wild shrimp. I'd rather go shrimpless than eat the stuff they farm. 

The sun has come back out. My gumbo smells like funky heaven, and all is pretty right with the world. 

Here's some more zinnias. These are in a vase.

May all be well with you.

Love...Ms. Moon

Lagniappe Part II

One of the chickens had to autograph the slab of cement. We could call in a forensics unit but instead we'll just be amused. 

Lagniappe

 Text my husband just sent to the family. 

Do you realize that's only 260 pounds less than a ton? 

Oh. My. God. 

Trigger Warning- Fireworks In Video But Also Keith Richards And Mick Jagger's Hips

When I was a young girl I would, as young girls have always done, wonder about what sort of person I would marry. He would be handsome, of course, or at least interesting-looking. He would be dangerously sexy like Mick Jagger or Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix or perhaps he'd be incredibly artistic and poetic and mysterious like Bob Dylan. Or maybe he'd be really spiritual in the coolest way possible like George Harrison or sort of cozy and cuddly-looking but with beautiful eyes like Paul McCartney. 
Do you detect a theme here? 
I've always said that since I didn't really have a daddy, I didn't have a father-figure and thus, my ideas of what constituted a perfect mate could be based on whatever I wanted them to be based on and for me that pretty much meant musicians. After all, I was a child of the sixties and seventies. 
When I heard B.B. King say, "Who's your daddy?" I almost swooned. 
"You, B.B.! You!" I shouted. 
Well, I grew up and married a musician so we can strike that off the bucket list. It just didn't really work out. But over my lifetime, many, many of my friends have been musicians and that has gone tremendously well. 

Anyway, in all of my musings, I never really thought about marrying a jock. Never, never, never. 
Nor did I ever consider height in my wonderings. I am 5'4" and thus, most men are taller than me although when I was a child in Roseland, there were two brothers whose mother was a friend of my mother's and they were both in their late teens and well over six feet tall and I loved them both with all of my innocent little girl heart. I wanted desperately for my mother to marry one to be my daddy. 
This would have worked out better than the man she DID end up marrying but that's another story.

So when I met Glen Moon, my first thoughts about him were that he was cute enough but good lord he was tall. Too tall. Really. Almost seven feet tall. He had a truck. He had a dog. He was hired by a friend who was painting my house to paint the shutters and steps. He seemed annoyingly happy all of the time. 
And he seemed not the least bit interested in me. 
It wasn't until I met him again at a local bar (my ex-husband was playing) and he asked me to dance that I began to see that he was, well, yes. Cute. Very cute. 
And just as tall as I had remembered. 
And within less than a week, I told a friend of mine, "That boy is going to ask me to marry him."

This is all leading up to say that I never considered that I would marry an almost seven foot tall former basketball player who was bizarrely happy who would own businesses that involved car repairs and car sales, and a little bit of real estate on the side. I never considered marrying a man who could paint, do carpentry, fix almost anything that needed fixing, read legal documents almost as well as an attorney, was not in the least bit insane and who, thirty-seven years later would ask me to please wash the cement out of his overalls before they dried. 

And yet, that is what has happened. 

All day while I have puttered around the garden and the kitchen, making yet another seven pints of pickled green beans, he has made cement (concrete?) and poured it into a form that he made with his own hands where the generator will go. He didn't take a break once. He never even stopped for lunch. 

He had to get the cement mixer back to the rental place by five. He has now done that and, as we speak, is smoothing the cement. 
This is not going to be an attractive yard feature, y'all. But it has to be within ten feet (no closer!) to the gas tank and so that's where it has to go. Right there. And when we lose power and can run our fans and lights and refrigerator and perhaps even AC, it will look beautiful. 

And that's what I have to say this evening. I used a red flame pepper in the brine solution that I made for my green beans and I'm curious as to what the result of that will be. I have not tasted them yet. 

There are already about four open jars of pickled green beans in the refrigerator and I don't need to open another. One of the reasons I haven't tasted the Moon Sauce is because there are numerous jars of other tomato-based products in the refrigerator including salsa and chili sauce and it's just getting crazy in there. I have a bag of peas that I picked, waiting to be shelled that probably has at least two gallons of the durn things in it and also two other gallons of more green beans. Also a gallon of banana peppers, a drawer-full of cucumbers, five dozen eggs, and god knows what else. 
I spend half my life now trying to find things in the refrigerator like leftovers or yogurt and honestly, it's now the place where good foods go to die. 

I am so overwhelmed. 

The Land of Lost Foods. 

I love these zinnias. And they don't require canning. 

So. Happy 4th of July. Here's my gift from me to you. 

I need more Rolling Stones in my life. 
I assume you do too. 

Mick Jagger's hips at around 52 seconds. 

Isn't it funny how as a girl I never even considered a future partner like Keith Richards? And now he's my spirit totem animal. Turns out that he probably would have been the best bet of all of the musicians in some ways. He's been married to the same woman longer than I've been married to Mr. Moon. So there is that. 

But in all honesty, I sure am glad I married a man whose overalls need to have the cement washed out of them. 

Love...Ms. Moon

All That Work!

Are y'all getting tired of my vegetables yet? 
Suddenly it would seem that the cucumbers have decided to LIVE like Frankenstein's Monster coming to full consciousness with that last bolt of thunder. Or electricity. I've never actually read the book. 

One time, when Hank and May were still little and before their younger sisters were born, Mr. Moon took them fishing in a tiny pond in his little Jon boat. I don't remember what they were catching. Bream, most likely. But they had a good stringer full and somehow, they lost the fish. Gone. All gone. 
And May, probably hot and tired, wailed at the loss. She cried and she said, "All that work!" 
That has become one of our family's phrases. We use it often whenever something goes awry after much effort has been put into it. And I feel like saying it today. 
Sigh.
After I picked the garden I was burning-up hot, as my friend Lynn used to say, and I'd gotten ant-bit so one of my feet was on fire and also, the bean leaves and the cucumber leaves and even the tomato leaves all have something in them that I react to and so besides being so sweaty that I'd pulled my dress up, exposing everything to god and anyone who might be watching (probably no one), to wipe the sweat from my face and having a foot on fire, I was itching everywhere too. But after I cooled off a bit I decided that I'd make some Moon Sauce which is a recipe that Glen's mother gave me and which I assume was her mother-in-law's recipe. I've posted this before, I think. 

I've been wanting to make this for years but just never seemed to have all of the ingredients on hand at once but today, I did. The tomatoes and peppers and hot peppers (I think that's what "hop peppers" is supposed to say) and I had onions and cabbage and apples. So why not? 

Thank goodness for the food processor. Even with that, it took at least an hour to put everything together after blanching the tomatoes to peel them and seeding the peppers and peeling the onions. You know. 

I filled up my biggest pot and because the measurements were a big vague in the recipe, I had to sort of eyeball it all. How big were those ten onions? How hot were the peppers? So I just reduced things a bit, including the sugar- eight cups?- and the salt and the vinegar too. It all filled my huge pot

and I heated it to a boil and then simmered it without a lid for two hours to thicken it all. Because of all the sugar it didn't require as much cooking down as the chili sauce had or the salsa. Sugar is a beautiful thickener. 
As I tasted though, I soon realized that the stuff had too much salt in it. And what in hell are you going to do about that? I've heard that raw potato in something with too much salt will take some of it out but it's never proven true for me. Also- who wants potato in their Moon Sauce? I could have added a lot more vegetables but the pot wasn't big enough for that and besides- I'd used up all the cabbage and the apples and most of the tomatoes. All of the ones I wanted to use in sauce. So, I just cooked it and then I canned it and I'll put a warning on the lids that no extra salt is needed for whatever you put it on. I got six pints and they look so pretty and the sauce smells so good but what can you do? 

All that work. 

I have corrected the recipe by striking through the "2/3 cup of salt" and writing beside it "TOO MUCH!" 
I knew it was too much and used far less, proportionately, than I did cutting back on the sugar. 
Well, that's cooking. 

This is a rather bitchy, whiney post, isn't it? I'm sorry. Just like May, I am hot and I am tired. Canning requires a lot of work and if I get nothing out of doing it besides realizing how strong and tough all our foremothers were, then that's enough. And they didn't can in an air conditioned kitchen. And they also had to water their gardens by hauling the water. And hell- they had to tote wood to heat their stoves. If their sauce was too salty they probably spit on the floor and said, "Eat it. It's fine." 

Hurricane Elsa has been downgraded to a tropical storm which is good although it's still early days. I just read Rob Nucatola's latest post on FB and as always, he is the voice of reason and calm. The meteorologist that the Tallahassee Democrat uses for their articles about hurricanes is known as "The Weather Tiger" and his article in this morning's paper claimed that Elsa could become a category two or even three. He is an alarmist, selling papers. 
I hope. 

It's raining and the frogs are calling and in a week, good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, we'll be in North Carolina hugging on the Weatherfords and I won't even have a thought to spare about sauce that is too salty. 

No matter what that sauce tastes like, my husband came into the kitchen and said, "It smells like Moon Sauce in here." I never met his daddy's mother and I wish I had. From the stories I've heard, if there was ever a super woman, she was it. She was called "Mammy" and that name was always spoken with deep reverence. 

I'm going to sleep good tonight. I hear that Mammy barely slept at all and spent her nights wallpapering the ceilings and making quilts. She was a far better woman than I'll ever be but I'm doing my best. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Here We Go- Trying To Keep Reason During Hurricane Season

Babies growing up. 

 I did not post yesterday due to the fact that when I got up we had no wifi and no cell reception to speak of. For whatever reason, when we lose wifi here we also lose cell. My across-the-street neighbors were out of town but they gave me permission to go and check to see if they had wifi which I did and which they did not so I figured there was an outage. I called Century Link which is the company we get our internet with and after about fifteen minutes of listening to their speech about Covid and advising me to go to their web site for help (which was impossible because I could not access their web site because we had no internet which is why I was calling them), and being on hold for awhile, I finally got a no-nonesense-sounding lady who was somewhere not in America and we did our best to communicate and after she had gone through hoops and I had gone through hoops and she had pulled up my account, etc., etc., I was told that we had an outage here. 
Well. No shit, Sherlock. The fact that someone all the way across the planet had to be contacted to tell me that seems immensely ridiculous and ludicrously inefficient but that's the way it is now. 
She also said that it should be back on by noon. And then she asked me if there was anything else she could help me with which always makes me want to laugh because I can only think of things like, "Sure. Come help me pull invasive plants in my yard," but I said no and thanked her and she thanked me for being a loyal Century Link customer. 

So I went and took a walk and the internet wasn't on when I came home and later in the afternoon I called again and this time a recording told me that we had an outage but not to worry because crews were working on the problem and it should be back on by noon the following day. 

Now of course we all know that we're addicted to our devices and our web access but what struck me yesterday was how scary it is to realize just how important these things are in our lives. I had a question about canning that I could not answer by reading the Ball canning handbook. I couldn't check the weather. I could only get texts from my kids by going way out into the back yard and even then, replying was quite iffy. I do have a landline so we can call out and be called here but somehow that does not feel normal anymore. I could not read blogs nor could I post a blog. We get our news and our TV via internet. 
I felt as if we had been tossed directly back to a previous decade and I don't mean the last one, either. 
I did do a crossword with a pen and that felt strangely satisfying. 
I read some. I took a nap. I made tomato sauce for eggplant parmesan. I picked vegetables. 
And I realized how much time I waste online. 
Which did not stop me from wasting a hell of a lot of time online today because miraculously, overnight, we got our magical powers back. 
All of this is making me think about the hurricane which may be headed this way. 

It is looking something like this right now. 

Hey, Elsa! How ya doin'? 

According to my favorite local meteorologist, its path won't truly be predictable until at least tomorrow sometime and maybe not until Sunday. So here we go. 

I've lived in Florida long enough to know that these things happen. Storms start up and there are hundreds of variables which direct their paths and their strength and the amount of water they bring and it can be anyone's guess as to how and when and if one will actually land near us. And it does no good to start worrying before there are more accurate predictions but it is good to be prepared. 
We are actually getting a generator that was in a bank building at Moon Plaza. Mr. Moon spent all afternoon yesterday clearing out a spot near the gas tank where he will pour a cement pad for it and having that will be a comfort. But it's not going to get hooked up overnight. Electricians and I-don't-know-who-all will be involved. 
As to food- we could live for weeks on what we have in freezers, cabinets and in the garden although if a big storm hit, the garden would get torn up and until we have a generator, food in the freezers isn't going to last. 
Well. This is not my first rodeo. 

And we do have a small generator which we can use to power the freezers for a few hours daily. 
We'll be fine. 
It's all just such a fucking stressful hassle. 

I didn't really mean to go into that discussion but I did. 

I went to town today to do a little shopping and while I was at Costco anyway, I checked to see if my glasses might have arrived. Surprisingly, the sunglasses had just come in. 

Can you see the little pearls? Or should I say, "pearls"? 
Yes. Yes I should. 

I am happy with them although as always with new glasses, it is going to take some adjustment as my eyes adapt to the new prescription. My regular ones should be in any day now. 

My husband is home from the seas where he went fishing today. He kissed me good-bye around three this morning. Three a.m. 
The only things I can think of that I would get up at 3 a.m. for are:

(1) The birth of a grandchild, or

(2) Getting on a plane to go to Mexico

He says he's tired. Really? Really honey? 

I believe I will cook him one of the fishes he caught. And I'll fix something to go with it. Perhaps this:

 Lord knows we have the tomatoes. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon