Martini Night In Lloyd

Cleaning that very utilitarian piece of furniture was about the sum total of my efforts today. Y'all- I have got to pick up the pace here. 

I didn't even clean it that well! I just wiped it down with Murphey's Oil Soap and water and scrubbed at the most intensely filthy places like the corners and edges and nooks in the carvings. It's an interesting piece of furniture, isn't it? Got several design features going on there. I didn't buy it. It came with the house. But it makes a good work surface when it isn't clogged with stuff that gets plopped there because where else are you gonna put it, and the cabinet part is where I keep all of my napkins, dish towels, dish rags, place mats, aprons, etc. 
I have a lot of all of those things. I do love practical fabric objects. 

I had sworn to myself that I would at least go do some weeding in the garden but that never happened. Then I determined that I would try to do a deep cleaning and rearranging of the kitchen counters but that didn't happen either. I did clean out (sort of) under a few of the cabinets where the flooring doesn't actually meet the cabinet. There is always the nastiest dust and dirt in there along with stray Friskies, lost supplements, and, okay- I admit it- dead bugs. Not very many. I didn't even find any today. But hey- we live in Florida. This house has many, many places where bugs and mice can crawl in at their pleasure and sometimes do. The other day when I got up I found one of the throw rugs in the hallway crumpled up and asked the cats, "What happened here?" They pretended they can't speak English and ignored me but I figured it out when I found a dead roach right by the rug. There had been a roach-killing situation and they love the way the roaches skitter on their backs across the floor when batted at. 

The fun never ceases. 

A friend who is in Africa with his wife and some of his family and some friends sent me a travel report this morning and I spent a little time reading that. Between all of the birds and animals they've seen, including a pangolin which was the first siting in that area in three years, and descriptions of the cool places they are staying AND an emergency plane trip to a hospital for medical care (everyone is okay), it was all far more exciting than roach rodeos, I can tell you that right now. 

I also got an email with the results of my mammogram and my bosoms are fine. I was not worried, as I said yesterday but it's good to know. 

It's been cloudy here all day, warm, and muggy but I am not complaining. It's going to get up to 80 tomorrow but the low on Saturday night is supposed to be in the upper thirties so, as usual, we will be confused and disoriented and have no idea what to put on when we get up. 

The little family made it to Legoland and I do believe they are having the time of their lives. 

Florida Legoland is on the site of what used to be one of Florida's biggest tourist attractions, Cypress Gardens. A man named Dick Pope opened the place in 1936 and at that time it was basically some beautiful gardens planted with exotic trees and flowers and bushes that he and his wife had collected from all over the world. 

Dick was an entrepreneur if there ever was one and started including boat rides through the canals and onto the lake that the gardens were built on and then he got truly creative and started having regular water-skiing shows there. Water skiing was a relatively unknown sport but Cypress Gardens took care of that. 

There were death-defying water ski jumps and gravity-defying water skier pyramids. There were barefoot skiers! It was all amazing. And when the aqua maids weren't water skiing, Pope had them dress up in Southern Belle costumes and sit at ordained spots throughout the gardens. 

I know all of this first-hand, because I lived in Winter Haven from the year I was in 6th grade through high school. Even before that, I'd been on a field trip there from Sebastian Elementary when I was probably in about the fourth or fifth grade. It was glorious! I bought orange blossom perfume in the gift shop! 

All was well and good for C. Gardens, as we called it, until the Mouse came to Florida and ate it all up. Almost all of the smaller attractions closed and eventually, in 2009, Cypress Gardens did too. Several other theme parks tried to bring it back but it never really happened until Legoland bought the property and I think it's doing okay again. 

I am thrilled to find out that they are paying homage to Dick Pope's dream. They are doing a water ski show and they have made lovely Lego southern belles. 

Okay, yes. That's a little creepy but whatever. 

August and Levon of course don't care a thing about the history of the place. They are simply enchanted with it all. Here's their bedroom. 

Could life get any better? 
I think not. 

I wonder what Dick Pope would think about all of this. 
Who knows? 
Not me. 

I just know that it's Friday, despite feeling to me like a Saturday, so I am having a martini and thinking of my husband who is up in the frozen north while I'm sitting here on our back porch, barefoot, happy, and definitely NOT pregnant. 

I did sit down at the piano this afternoon and messed around for about an hour. I found a few pieces in the 3rd grade instruction book that I have some muscle memory for and once again, when I hit the right notes, my soul is happy. 

Tomorrow I SWEAR I will get outside and do some work in the garden and maybe in the yard. And I really would like to clean and reorganize the kitchen a little bit. Parts of it are just ridiculous when it comes to organization. I have a few books that I want to take to the little take-one, give-one library down the street, even though the woman who put it up yelled at me that time for being on property she doesn't even own. 

The drummer at the church next door is pounding out the beat for the Lord, I can hear the crickets singing their own percussive measures to whatever it is they sing to, and I am content with my world. 

Here's a trailer for a movie that was filmed at Cypress Gardens in 1953, starring Esther Williams and Van Johnson. 

Watch it if you want to, don't watch it if you don't. 
It is sort of a hoot. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Gentle Storm For Us

What a day. It's been pretty okay though, truthfully. 

First off, Jessie made it to Orlando fine and the weather hasn't been that horrible there. She sent me this picture this morning. 

I love how August is wearing a rain jacket while Levon's just dealing with being wet. That's how they roll, those little guys. All the big theme parks down there are already reopened so Legoland will be ready for them tomorrow. 

Lily and Lauren and Jason took the other kids to the fair last night. Lily sent pictures. 

Stuffed animals were won.

Lily got Owen to smile. 

Maggie is milking Miss Molly Moo who is the star of the North Florida Fair in my opinion. They always put her right in front of the cattle barn. They have given her a calf this year which thrills me! 

As you can see, Owen is NOT thrilled about anything having to do with Miss Molly Moo. And yet, he used to love her so much when he was a tiny boy! What happened? 

It does not appear that he is thrilled about riding the carousel either. I would not be thirteen again for all the money in the world. 

Lily reported that a good time was, however, had by all. The best part was the story she told us this morning about something Gibson said last night. 

I've been laughing about that all day long. 

I think that instead of spa day though, Lily had nap day. Which is almost as good as spa day. 

I did not have a spa day nor did I take a nap. I drove to town and the wind wasn't bad and it was barely drizzling. I checked in to the imaging center and first got my mammogram. I recognized the woman who did it from before. She has magical kind hands, I swear. They dance around breasts, gently nudging and arranging them on the plates where they are to be smashed and scanned. Also, she was wearing tie-dye Crocs and a peace sign necklace. Need I say how comfortable she makes me feel? 
She didn't ask me to repeat any of the poses to get more shots and that is generally a good sign, I think. You ladies know what I'm talking about. 
And then I had to wait and wait and wait to get my dexa scan and while I was waiting, there was a going-away party for an employee going on with pizza and cake in a room right nearby and people kept going back and forth for more party food and I got hungrier and hungrier. Finally, the dexa tech came out and got me. She apologized, saying that her computer did not like this weather. 
I do not think I am going to be thrilled about the density of my bones. 

Oh well. It is what it is and they are what they are. 

When I got out of that place, I drove home, filled with a sense of relief and accomplishment. The rain and wind had picked up and rain was skittering sideways down the road. I had truly thought I'd take myself to lunch to celebrate. Perhaps to Japanica! for a tofu bento box, my favorite. But I decided to get on home and I did. The weather was much calmer in Lloyd. Hurricanes and tropical storms have bands that twirl and whirl and affect areas differently and in waves. I actually bagged up the trash and took it down to the trash place and although I wasn't even sure that they'd be open or the attendant on duty, they were and he was. 

And then, feeling as if I had truly done all I needed to do today, I came home and made myself a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese which has been lurking the cabinet for eons, adding a can of tuna to it and some baby peas. 
Didn't we used to call this "tuna wiggle"? 
Whatever. It was delicious. And of course the tuna and peas made it gourmet. 

I couldn't decide whether to go take a nap myself or watch TV and knit and so I fooled around and did some laundry and some crosswords and looked at footage of Nicole hitting the coast near Vero Beach which is just south of Roseland. I had texted my landlord guy down in Roseland to see how they had fared and he said it was not bad at all. I was so glad but damn! Vero got hit pretty hard. Scary waves, rain and wind. St. Augustine and Jacksonville got the brunt of it, though, I think. The northeast side of a hurricane is where the strongest storm action takes place and as Nicole headed north, those parts got brutalized. Parts of highways are washed away as are some older beach houses and people have been evacuated from beachfront condos. We get pretty jaded about hurricanes which are "just" a Category 1, or even tropical storms, but by god- they can wreak destruction and cause hellish havoc. 

But we seem to be very lucky here. Rob Nucatola said that it wouldn't be a huge big deal for us and he was right. We're now getting good rain which we need so much but it's not the torrential sort. At least not yet. And although it was gusty this morning, it's calmed down now. So all-in-all, I've just been cozy today and so grateful for my house and this time that I have of peacefulness, the sound of the rain a comforting thrumming, the knowledge that all of my children and grandchildren are safe and sound. We haven't even lost power here in Lloyd so I am not sure if the generator is working properly or not. I imagine it is. The kids have threatened to all come out here for a storm party if they lose power. 

I did watch some TV this afternoon. When I was at the beach with my girls, Terry highly, highly recommended the movie, "Good Luck To You, Leo Grande," and I started watching it in delicious bites and I watched more of that. I am not going to say a lot about it except that it is a remarkable movie in my opinion and the subject matter, which is basically about an older woman wanting to experience true sensuality while she can is profoundly important and a subject rarely explored in film. Emma Watson and the actor Daryl McCormack are perfectly and beautifully cast. 

I will be watching it again. 

And in large news for my little world, this-

My Gracie hen laid her first egg in well over a month. I had a suspicion she was going to this morning when she seemed to be checking out nesting boxes when I went to let them out of the coop. I noticed later on that she was not with Lucky in the yard and then later, I saw him standing by the hen house and I thought, "he is waiting for her to lay her egg," and when I got home from my appointments, I checked and there it was. 
I am as excited about this as a first-time chicken mama for both Gracie and for Lucky who is learning how to be the sort of rooster that a hen needs. I am proud of them both.

Love...Ms. Moon

Happy Birthday, Levon, You Fine, Funny Guy! And More!

 

Five years ago today this little guy exited his mother and entered our atmosphere. He was just a little-time born in this picture and he still looked a bit worried but after some time spent like this

he got right into the swing of things. A week later he was looking more like this.

Quite frankly I think he still looks pretty much the same only more in control of things, as is the usual case. 
I got to see him today before they left for Orlando. Yes! They went to Orlando! Who drives into a possible rather large storm? 
A native-born Floridian with children who have been promised a vacation, that's who! 
Whoops! I just checked and Nicole is now a hurricane. 
Oh god, oh god, oh god. 

I'm not really worried about us because I don't think we're going to get more than some very good wind gusts and probably a lot of rain. But who knows what the conditions are going to be like in Orlando? 
I have to stop worrying. I just have to. 

So yeah, I had a dentist appointment at 12:30 just for a teeth cleaning but oh- wait! I hadn't had x-rays in forever so let's do that! And they did the kind where they do eighteen x-rays which involve jamming very awkward and overlarge things into your mouth and STOP LAUGHING! It wasn't funny. And then the hygienist cleaned my teeth and then the new dental partner came in to examine things and the dentist I've had for about thirty years generally comes in, pokes around for a second and says, "Looking good! Keep it up!" and I go home and don't think about it for another six months. But not this new guy. 

Oh hell no. First of all, if he's reached puberty yet, I saw no signs of it. In fact, when he walked in and sat down, I blurted out, "You are a child!" 
I'm sure he appreciated that. And my hygienist tells me he's incredibly good at what he does. INCREDIBLY. His implants are PERFECT! 
Okay, okay, okay.
But he finds two cracked molars that need crowns first thing off and if that ain't bad enough, he starts talking about bone loss and how he might have to send me to a periodontist and how they can do bone surgery and I'm like SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME WITH THAT SHIT! and so on and so forth although only in my mind and in real life I'm saying, "Uh, so. Okay. Well."

And then he reminds me that I must floss and brush every day which I already do like it's my job and I've always been told that I take such very good care of my teeth but did he notice that? 

No. He did not.

I'm sorry. I'm a little upset. I now have an appointment to get two crowns next month. 

What in hell was I talking about? Oh yeah, Levon's birthday. So after my appointment, I went by Jessie's house and got hugs and gave Levon his present which they took with them for the boys to work on in the hotel room while the hurricane is raging outside. 

I also gave Jessie a loaf of banana bread to take with her, sliced and wrapped up in tinfoil. It's got delicious crunchy sugar topping on it and it's a very fine banana bread. 
I read the boys some books while Jessie finished getting the van loaded, then there were more hugs and kisses and off they went. I had thought I'd go by Joann's fabrics to buy the flannel for Maggie's name blanket but it was 3:00 and I just did not have it in me so I went to Publix because we're perilously close to running out of cat food and that would not be a good thing. 

Tomorrow, as I have noted before, I have a mammogram and dexa scan scheduled at eleven and I'm going to get those done and get on back home and wait for the storm, or whatever it turns out to be once it gets here. Rob Nucatola says that it will all have passed by Friday afternoon or something like that and I believe him with my whole heart. 

I have plenty of food, both for humans and cats, a massive generator, vodka and Ativan and the good sense not to mix them. I live in a house that has survived countless storms for the past 163 years and will no doubt survive this little blow-by. 

May all be safe and well for us all.

Love...Ms. Moon

Day One Of Solitude This Time Around

Is it just me or is that a rather lewd picture? Lewd or not, that's the latest from the National Hurricane Center. My adored meteorologist, Rob Nucatola, hasn't reported in this afternoon except to do a short video on what the "cone" means in all of these predictive graphs. What it means is, is that anything in the cone and oh yeah, outside it but nearby can be the actual path of the storm and where it could cause the most damage.

I'm not worried for us here. I am somewhat concerned about the Weatherfords. Vergil rented a car to drive down to Orlando today and Jessie's plan was to head down tomorrow with the boys to join him after Levon and August get out of school. I don't think she's made a decision yet about whether or not to go. This is a huge big deal for those little guys. A trip to Legoland is about as good as it gets for kids who play with Legos all the time, who read the books (yes, there are Lego books and they are terrible), and who have a play room basically filled with the little plastic blocks and all of the accouterment. Plus- going off with Mama and Daddy to stay in hotels! The glory! The joy! The TV right there in front of the bed! They would first stay with Vergil in his fancy Orlando hotel and then the hotel at Legoland and I just googled that place and it's...well...my personal nightmare but if I were August or Levon, I would probably rather go there than heaven where they probably do not even have a water park or a Ninjago World. 

So that's all up in the air. 

Speaking of being up in the air, Mr. Moon got up at four this morning and gave me the sweetest hug good-bye and headed off on his journey. He had packed the car last night and was ready to go. He drove to the Weatherford's and St. Vergil gave him a ride to the airport. I woke up hours later to a love note and a hot pot of coffee. He called me when he was in Seattle and he should be in Canada soon. He said that all was well. 

My hip that I got worked on yesterday has been sore as hell which is to be expected and I decided that I should take a walk. All weekend, Vicky and Mary kept saying, "Motion is Lotion!" when anyone would complain (even them) about joint and muscle pain. Mary has been a fanatical work-out person, biker, runner, you name it, forever. She TEACHES Boot Camp, y'all. And Vicky is obviously in excellent condition, goes to the gym, bikes and is an NP in an office where she spends her days diagnosing and treating different sorts of pain issues, I do believe. She sure knows a lot about the subject, I'll tell you that. So I trust them on the "motion is lotion" thing although it seems to me that the more I exercise the more I hurt and I brought this up with Vicky and she agreed that yes, this can be the truth BUT, ya gotta keep doing it anyway because if you don't, I guess you'll lock up and die or something BUT as I told her, it is not very motivating when it comes to exercise. 
So all of this is to say that on top of knowing that I needed to move, I had the "motion is lotion" thing in my head so I took off down the road. The Lloyd Woman's Club, which is on my route and which is a voting place, had cars parked all in the yard and across the street too. I did not know whether to be cheered or discouraged. But I suppose that overall, the very fact that people are voting is good. 
I just hope (oh please god, oh please god) they aren't voting for the Trump minions. 

It has been a beautiful day here, a tiny bit cooler and less humid. Glen said that we got a pretty good rain while I was gone but everything is still so shriveled and crunchy. 

This is what the pinecone lilies look like now. Instead of having lush frond-like leaves, they are pulled in on themselves in order to conserve whatever moisture they have in them, I suppose. 

My bananas are getting ready to cut. 

They are few in number but somehow they appear to be fatter than any I've seen grow on those plants. And yes, I have now cleaned my lens. 

I've not done a lot today. A few crosswords, some putting together of another potholder while I watched the last episode and a half of "Mormon No More" on Hulu. I cried my eyes out at the ending. 
Yes. I am still obsessed with Mormons. 
No, I still have no idea why. This series though, is about two women who were good Mormon girls, good Mormon wives, who met and fell in love with each other. Pretty emotional stuff. 

I picked some greens to actually cook. Mustards, turnips, collards, kale. I will stir fry them as they are so very young and tender. 

I took a walk around the yard this afternoon. Here's one of our oak trees. 

And three small but beautiful sasangua blossoms. 

I do so love that vase.

One more. 

The cat who could not care less about me and yet, at the same time, has a deep need to follow me around as I move about the yard and house. 
Not all of our familiars are affectionate and that is okay. 

Also, I sat down at the piano and as expected, I am a bumbling, stumbling fool and despite that, I loved it so much. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Mr. Moon just texted me that he has arrived in Edmonton and the temperature there is 7 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Holy fuck. 

Whip It, Nicole! Whip It Good!

Poor Jack. He had to get off the bed when I made it and just as he'd settled on the swing porch to watch the yard, I came out with a broom to sweep the leaves off. He was not amused. 

I had another appointment today with the massage therapist who works on specific areas of the body and today it was my hip. It is the kind of massage work where the phrase, "Let me know if it gets too intense," was used frequently. Lots of pressure on certain points to try to get things to release and relax and I am sure it will have helped but this evening I just feel sore and almost pre-flu-like which is exactly how I felt last time so I guess that's the way it is.  

I'm feeling rather flat and down altogether today and I am sure that most of it is because Glen's leaving at four tomorrow morning and has spent the day very cheerfully packing. I will be absolutely fine and am looking forward to getting back to playing around on the piano and I've already bought some salmon, some tuna, and some cauliflower. I just kinda like the guy, you know? I'm used to having him around, I guess. When Covid started and we were all hunkering down in our houses I really wondered how we'd manage because for our entire life together he'd gone to work every week day but I was surprised to find that instead of growing weary of having him around, it was instead a time of growing affection. 
I am so grateful for that. 
And I think that my emotions are a bit overworked from the weekend I just had and I'm already in a little bit of a crash so there's that. 

And just to add to the fun, I have a dentist appointment on Wednesday, and appointments on Thursday to get a mammogram and a bone density test. None of these are horribly anxiety-producing for me but they do rouse a certain bit of agita in my soul. 
Of course the cherry on top of the cowgirl as Tom Robbins once said, is that by the end of the week we are most likely going to be getting a tropical storm. I keep watching for updates from my favorite absolutely non-fear-mongering meteorologist and he does seem to feel that we will be getting something. He's usually so good about advising  us not to panic and reminding us of how things can change so quickly but I guess things are stable enough in the areas surrounding the building storm that predictions are more apt to be accurate than they usually are. 

It would appear that the storm will hit Florida twice, first on the east coast and then it will whip around in the Gulf and hit us again, right in the Big Bend area, but hey! Who really knows? Right? 
I'm slightly concerned. That is all. It's also concerning that Jessie and Vergil and the boys are going to be in Central Florida starting on Wednesday. Vergil's got a business thing in Orlando and then they're going to Lego Land in Winter Haven. Levon's birthday is Wednesday and this is the big event. 

Oh, it's all going to be fine. 

But I suppose when I put all of this together in my head, it adds up to some discomfort and I need to just go with it all and not be such a Chicken Little. "Face it" and "sit with it" as they say. 
And as I always say- who the hell is they and what do they know about the inside of my crazy head? 
Nothing. That's what. 

Off to go cook my husband some good southern food before he leaves for the Great North. Snapper that he caught, cole slaw, cornbread. Like that. I have eaten so much good seafood lately and I am not in the least tired of it. 

All will be well and all will be very well or however that saying goes and at least we may get some real rain which we so dearly need.

Be back tomorrow.

Love...Ms. Moon

We Meet Again

 

I am home. I am back from the beach, from the sweetness of being with such long-time loves. And I do not use that word lightly. What I had with these women so very long ago in nursing school was indeed love and the bond we formed then has not been loosened the least as the years and decades have passed. 

It was really only Terry (who is beside me) and Vicky, across from me, who were nursing school students together. Mary, behind Vicky, has been a ride-or-die of hers since perhaps before that time but we have enfolded her into our love. 

This year was a bit different from last year because we hadn't seen each other in eons when we met up then. This year, we'd only made one trip around the sun since last seeing each other and so it was not quite as emotional but it was as joyful and much can happen in a year. 
And has. 

We had thought we'd go out that first night but after we'd unloaded everything we'd brought and hauled it up steps to the little condo-cottage, we decided that we'd just stay put and I'm so glad we did. We went down to the beach and sat in a circle and talked and talked, took up where we'd left off last year, and re-formed ourselves into ourselves as the sun set, as the sky did it's miracle thing. 

I'd brought salad greens from the garden and bought some shrimp on the way to the island and I made Anne-Helene's shrimp salad for our supper. I remembered everything I needed- the avocados, the corn, the little seashell pasta, the boiled eggs, the olives, the Havarti cheese. We all sat at the table and ate and I told them the story of Anne-Helene and how she came into my life in Cozumel, me thinking she and her traveling companion were some sort of celebrities on holiday because they were so beautiful, and how a Norwegian woman ended up showing me, a Florida woman, how to make shrimp salad. I had also brought sourdough dough to let rise and bake. It had been refrigerated and then transported in a cooler and I knew it was going to take hours for that process so we saved that for another time. 

We sipped and talked until relatively late after supper and shared stories, secrets, and all the things that we still, somehow feel safe sharing with each other. We are such different women but essentially, we are all the same women as we were forty years ago. 

We have changed, of course, in many ways. We all had our daily pill containers, we all groaned and bitched and laughed about our aching joints and bones. None of us can remember a damn thing when it comes to names and sometimes words. The entire weekend was like a guessing game or a game of charades.
"You know- that guy. That guy that was in the movie with that woman and there was a dog? Come one- YOU know. THAT GUY!"
I have to say that google was employed frequently. Thank god for the google. 
It was reassuring to us all, I think, that we are going through all of this together. If one of us is in early-stage dementia then we are all in early stage dementia. 

On Friday we stayed home all day, just enjoying the beach and doing more talking and laughing. The water was quite choppy and even Terry and I didn't get in. Terry's from Colorado and last year she was the first to brave the November gulf and I jumped in after her because I would follow Terry anywhere and I have to tell you that it felt so good I will never forget it. It was, as I said at the time, exquisite". 

That evening we did go out, first to a place for beer and appetizers. Mary and I split some oysters. 

If you love oysters, that picture will set your mouth watering. If you do not love oysters...never mind.

Then we went to another restaurant where we had supper and big-girl drinks and then we went on back to the house. I had gotten the sourdough sponge out of the refrigerator that morning and had been tending to it all day like a baby and when we got home, it was risen and ready to bake and so...we baked it! Eight o'clock at night we baked a loaf of sourdough and by nine-thirty, half of it had been eaten. 

More talking, more laughing. 

Saturday we decided to go to Apalachicola to shop and walk about. It hit me just as we were getting ready that it might quite possibly be the weekend of the Apalachicola Seafood Festival and I used the google and found out that indeed, it was. 
Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. 
The Apalachicola Seafood Festival is a big deal and has been a big deal for many, many years. Billy's mama was crowned Miss Florida Seafood there fifty years ago! There would be thousands of people. And you know me- ones and ones of people is about as much as I can deal with at a time. 
I announced the fact of the festival to my girls with the vague hope that they would say, "Oh, yeah, let's skip that," but no. 
"There won't be a place to park!" I said. 
"We'll find a place!" said Vicky.
"There will be so many people!" I said. 
"You'll be fine," they told me. "Take an Ativan."

"It'll be all country music bands and Christian bands!" I said. 
They didn't even bother to answer that one.

We got in Vicky's Jeep vehicle and drive across the bridges and yes, there were many, many people and yes, we found an excellent parking spot, and thankfully, they did not force me to go to the part of town where the booths were all set up selling all the food and arts and whatever. I was texting Billy about this the whole time and he did ask me to buy him a white straw cowboy hat with a purple feather roach clip if I saw one. In the biggest size they had. 
Unfortunately, I did not see one. 

Ay-yi. I survived. We had a beer at the brewery, shopped in shops that were not there last time I was there, and shops that I have known and loved forever where I calmed down and felt at home. 
I bought nothing. 

AND THE BOOKSTORE WAS CLOSED BECAUSE THE OWNER IS BRILLIANT ENOUGH NOT TO WANT TO DEAL WITH THE FESTIVAL!
Oh god. I was so disappointed not to be able to go there. I just gazed through the window in sorrow, seeing all the lovely books that I could not buy.
I was absolutely amazed at the number of new little shops in Apalach that have sprung up recently. Let me just say that the little fishing village I have loved for so long is not the same. Not the same at all. 

But. I got this picture of the sky. 

I also bitched the entire day about many things. So many things. Shops with potpourri that gives me a headache. Cutesy signs with supposedly funny and witty sayings on them that people can buy and put up in their homes and mass-produced tchotchkes that are meaningless and will only collect dust. And of course, the mass of humanity that was there. 
I can't believe that Vicky, Mary, and Terry didn't tell me to shut the fuck up and kick me in the ass. 
They must love me. 

But we had a delicious lunch where the view looked like this-

Which is the Apalachicola River and I ate the best fried flounder I've ever had in my life. 

When we got back to the house, Mary and Terry took naps and I went down to the beach and saw things like this.

This jellyfish was bigger around than a dinner plate.

The sky just kept on amazing me. 

A seagull, trying to use his hypno-stare to force me to give him food.

A sandpiper, striding across the sand. 

That night we sat on the deck and random delicious food and the moon did things like this, weaving itself in and out of the scuttering lace of clouds.

Sunday morning we packed it all up and went our ways. But not before I insisted on this shot. 

I stopped in Eastpoint for breakfast at the Mexican restaurant which was excellent, as always, then took my time driving home. 

When I left Lloyd on Thursday, I saw a sign at the corner in the midst of all the election signs that I could not believe. I fretted over it all weekend. So when I drove in today and passed that little corner, I saw that it was still there. 

I pulled into the parking lot of Israel's old store and got out and pulled it. As I was doing so, one of my neighbors, an older Black man riding past on his bicycle saw me and asked, "Are you running for something?"

"NO!" I said. "I'm just getting rid of this."
He read it and said, "Yeah, that's awful."

"It's horrible evil," I said. He nodded his head. "Yes. It is. I agree with you." 

It's in my trash can now. 

Lordy, Lordy. What a world we live in. 

I started this last night but it got late and I was tired. 

Back to real life again. Lloyd is quiet for now. There is a storm in the Atlantic that may well affect us in some way this week. Mr. Moon is leaving again for Canada tomorrow. I feel unsettled and unfocused. 
As grateful as I am for the experience of getting to see these women, of our time together in such a beautiful place, even the act of leaving my routine for that is difficult. 

How I wish I were not this way but I am. 

But I wouldn't have not gone for anything. 

Love...Ms. Moon

I may be rather inactive here in blogworld for a few days.  Probably. 

So far today I've walked several miles back and forth across the house trying to pack, remembering one thing I need to add to the growing mound of stuff I'm taking that's in the other end of the house, walking there and forgetting what it was, walking back and remembering something else. 

Also? It's a good day to be leaving. Something died under the house near the kitchen and it does not smell good. Hopefully when I get back on Sunday, the worst will have passed. 

Love....Ms. Moon

More Story

 It is a good thing that I'm being forced out of my home, my county, my life, tomorrow, for a little adventure. I have felt so inert the last few days. 
Or weeks. 
Maybe months, I don't know. But this trip to St. George with the ladies will get me off my ass and out of my head, hopefully. 
I've been in a little more pain than usual, I think. Or it could just be that I'm not busy enough and am paying too much attention to it. After a certain age I think most of us experience one sort of chronic pain or another and I do admire those who do not speak of it but I am not one of them. And chronic pain can wear you out and wear you down, even if it's low-grade. I am far more apt to notice now how older people often dip and roll with each step and I remember a line in a book I read a very long time ago wherein the author said that old people walk like that because they hurt. And it's true. 
We are doing the slow dance of pain. 

I think that pulling out these memories has been hard on my psyche. The period of my life I've been discussing is not one that I've spent a great deal of time analyzing. I guess with everything else that has happened in my past, I've just never given the whole Denver/Tallahassee transition a great deal of thought. I have thought about it and it's been obvious to me that it was absolutely a formative period of my life but until I really started talking about it, pulling up and out those memories, I didn't realize how emotional it all was. 
Well, that's not entirely true. I did. I do. 
I look back on images of me sitting in my dorm room with snow falling outside, listening to Joni Mitchell's Blue, crying and embroidering a denim shirt for my ex-boyfriend which he eventually gave to his new girlfriend. 
And that sounds so cheesy and it was but it was also the beginning of the depression that I now realized I suffered for at least two years. It was a period of time in which there was absolutely nothing that brought me joy. Nothing. Oh, sure, I could appreciate and even enjoy certain people's company and different experiences but there was always the veil of grayness over everything. 

So what happened? 

Well, I went back to Winter Haven for a Christmas break. I was already living with the drug dealer by then and he gave me a few hits of very good acid to take with me. Being back in the family home for even a few weeks was horrid but I managed to be out of it most of the hours of the day and the night and I hung out with my friends and I had started up a flirtation with a boy I somehow knew on another school break and it was at this time that we got together. His best friend from childhood was another guy I knew and they played music together whenever they had the chance. D., the guy I got together with was a violinist, going to music school at FSU. The friend was a guitar player and spoiler alert: I ended up marrying HIM but that wasn't for quite awhile. 
So that whole vacation we were hot and heavy and it was emotional from all angles- being back in the house of horror where the stepfather lived, being around the ex-boyfriend whom I was still bonded to in my heart of hearts with his new girlfriend who was sometimes wearing that shirt I'd embroidered in my grief and despair, seeing the people I loved and had missed so much and yet, this little flame of true interest and sweetness. 
I think back on it and it was overwhelming in so many ways. 
D. and I dropped the acid that I'd been given right before his mama's annual giant Christmas party and that was definitely an experience I'll never forget, especially the part where I had an entire conversation with a woman who had not only been my sixth-grade music teacher but also my assistant Girl Scout leader from sixth grade through high school. 
I do not recommend this combination of drug-doing and holiday conversing but it was certainly interesting and obviously a memorable experience.

At some point during the holiday, I had told D. how much I hated Denver, how unhappy I was there and because he was such a nice guy and because he never, ever, in a million years thought I'd act on it, he said, "Well, you can always come live with me in Tallahassee."

So that was the Golden Ticket. That was all I needed to hear. 
I flew back to Colorado, finished a two-hour final exam in ten minutes because I knew nothing at all about the subject (I had lost any interest in my studies I may have ever had), went and withdrew from school, told the drug dealer I was leaving to go live in Tallahassee, Florida with a violinist, told my mother I had quit school and was going to go live in Tallahassee with D., went to Triple A and got a Trip Tik with my route marked on it (remember those?) and as soon as the snow melted enough for me to leave, I was out of there. 
My drug dealer boyfriend had already found a replacement for me (she even looked a little like me) and a friend of his had sort of taken custody of me and the night before I left he took me to a movie and was so gentlemanly and so kind and he gave me a few joints for the road. I will never forget his kindness. 

Nineteen years old, driving halfway across the country in a green Ford Capri with the two parakeets, the pressure cooker, the shitty stereo, my Joni Mitchell records, and my rocking chair. Also a blue corduroy comforter that I sure do wish I knew what happened to. I loved that thing. 
The farthest I'd probably ever driven in my life was about fifty miles. Once. 
And yet, being nineteen years old, I had no doubts I could do it, and for a time on that journey there were bright flashes of light that pierced the gray veil and when I got to the more southern parts of the country and started seeing little cabins in the middle of fields and great green groves of trees, I was convinced that I had made the right decision. 

And looking back, I guess I had. 

Here's a picture of August from today. 

I love that! Croc With Character! Ain't that the truth? 
And as you can see, he's pulled a few more teeth. Perhaps he will be a dentist when he grows up. 

Yes. I made the right decision. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Thank You, Mother Maybelle

My own sasanguas are blooming now. They don't get enough sun to be early bloomers like my neighbors' but they are beautiful and soon the camellia japonicas will begin blooming and they are the most beautiful of all. 

Because I am going to the beach for the weekend and it is far too late to lose thirty pounds and/or get plastic surgery, I decided to get a pedicure. Jessie and Lily were able to meet me and we had a great time, as we always do, chitter-chattering, our feet and calves being attended to, our toenails made pretty. I always feel like new feet have been revealed to me after a pedicure. I am rough on my feet as are we all, really. Feet are miracles in my opinion. They are asked to do so much throughout our lives and we do so little to show our appreciation for them. 

After we were all prettified, Lily went off to do errands and Jessie and I went to Costco and then had lunch at the seafood restaurant in the same complex of shops and stores and it was good as it always is. 

One of the things I really missed in Denver was seafood. This was before I became a vegetarian, of course. But I had never realized how much fish we ate in Florida. The cafeteria in the dorm served glorified fish sticks which was pretty disgusting and I remember getting trout in a restaurant once. It came with hushpuppies and I truly wanted to go into the kitchen and show the cook how they were supposed to be made. Ironically, I do not even now make very good hushpuppies but I guess I had a high opinion of my abilities at that point. 

I was homesick. Not in the sense that I missed my family home- far from it. Home was what I had escaped from with the horrible man who had abused me and who, even after he stopped, made me feel threatened and vulnerable every day of my life. He abused my mother with gaslighting and he abused my brothers with his cold creepiness. And my mother, as unhappy as a woman could be, swallowed it all and carried on, going through bouts of depression herself, many of which led to her spending days in bed, often with vague physical ailments. I loved my little brothers and I had many, many dreams of rescuing them and I felt incredibly guilty about leaving them when I went off to Denver but it was go or die and I chose to go. 

But yes, I was homesick. For fresh fish and for large bodies of water, salty and sweet, for trees and flowers and people who didn't laugh at my accent. I was homesick for those friends who had been my true family and I was grieving for that boy. I wanted to be loved so much. When someone is sexually abused, they learn in a most literal perverted way that their power is in their sexuality. At least that's how it was for me. And I had already lost all my innocence at this point and it was the early days of the pill being available and there was no AIDS or herpes and well...sex was just sex. 
I had a friend once who called having sex with lots of guys "random sampling" and in a lot of ways, that's what it was like. At best, some of the sex I was having was vaguely pleasant. At worst it was just...nothing. And the boys who thought it might lead to something more romantic were never the boys I wanted. 
I am not ashamed of any of that. As I said before, I know exactly why I acted the way I acted and honestly, it wasn't that different from how anyone acted. I remember a girl in my dorm who had joined a sorority and scored a relationship with one of the guys high up in a fraternity asking me for sexual advice so that he didn't get bored and uninterested. 
Strangely, this question mystified me. If they really cared about each other, wouldn't the sex just be grand no matter what? It had been with my first boyfriend. The one I had loved.
Ah well. Perhaps I should have had a few tricks up my sleeve when I was with him, too. Perhaps he would have stayed faithful and true if I had. 
But I doubt it. 

But back to being homesick- I realized I was homesick for things I didn't know I had loved. I had always hated country music. Just hated it. The stepfather had been a big fan and I associated it with him. But once I went over to some people's house and they had a copy of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" by The Nitty Gritty Dirt band and for those of you who do not know, these young guys sought out some of the most venerable bluegrass musicians and asked them to play with them on an album. Vassar Clements played and Bill Monroe, Mother Maybelle Carter, Earl and Randy Scruggs and so many more and somehow, some way, when I first heard those songs with mandolins and banjos, auto harp and guitar, something inside of me, some knot of grief and love and authenticity broke and I cried and cried. 
Music has always been important to me and I have said that in some cases, it has saved my life. That is the truth. And I don't know if this album saved my life but it gave me a piece of myself back that I had been hiding without even knowing it and that, too, was part of my ultimate decision to leave. 
I had no idea I would react that way to this music and it wasn't just the music. It was the voices of the musicians who had been recorded discussing arrangements and parts. Their deep accents soothed my soul and I felt like I could fall back on them and rest. 
Up 'til then, it had always been rock and roll for me. And there is no mystery about that OR about how this roots music affected me. As Keith Richards once said, "Country music and the blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll."

Or something like that. 
And it was also around this time that I found and fell in love with B.B. King, whom I love to call my daddy. 

So the cold winters and the people who seemed so exotic and foreign and fascinating to me began to wear down my soul. I took ice skating as a physical education requirement and the only person who was as bad as me in the class was a girl from Hawaii whom I could hear crying in her dorm room next to mine. If I was an alien from a different planet in Colorado, what was she? I still think of her. I still remember her name. 

But was there a way to go "home" without going home? I couldn't figure it out. And so I just kept on with it and kept trying to figure out how to make a life that was bearable in this place and I found myself, like my mother before me, spending hours in bed. I went to see a psychiatrist who was an advisor for the Open Clinic and I'll never forget him asking me if I wouldn't be happier if I lost some weight. And oh, y'all. I was not fat. I was beautiful. And when I finally made the decision to leave and told him, he warned me that leaving Denver to go back to Florida might sound great but it wasn't going to make me any happier. 
Thanks, Dr. Whatever-Your-Bullshit-Name-Was! 

Tomorrow I'll try to write about how I found my ticket out. 

Oh! Here are the greens I picked for our supper tonight. 

They are no longer micro-greens but they are still tender and delicious, eaten raw. 

Turnip greens with the sun shining behind them as it sets. 

One last thing- Mother Maybelle Carter. And others. It can still make me weep to listen to it. 

Love...Ms. Moon