Critters

Sometimes, as Lily once so famously said as a bat flew around her in the bathroom, "Too much nature!" I think there may have been a roach in underwear involved there too. 
But it's been a slightly nature-ish day. Well, okay. The gecko in the sink was from last night. Now I like to think of myself as an old, strong, country cracker granny who can handle most things on her own but that is a big fat lie. There are a lot of things I can't handle, most them having to do with any sort of mechanical breakdown. Those things are Mr. Moon's job. Sorry but that's just the way it is around here. I cook, he fixes stuff. 
He also handles the wildlife which may mean taking care of a dead mouse, killing a rat in the dining room, removing a snake from a bathroom, or catching a darling little frog in the house and gently placing it outside. I'm not bad, really, at dealing with the dead things as long as they're not too big. I don't like it but I gird my loins, shut my eyes, and do what it takes.  
Dealing with the live creatures though is above my pay grade. So last night, when I discovered a gecko trapped in my kitchen sink, I was not happy. First off, I've never seen a gecko in the house, secondly, he or she seemed quite freaked out and last but not least- excuse me? How can a lizard which can literally walk on ceilings not get out of a damn sink? 
Just use your little suction cup toes there, Sister, and walk yourself out. 
But no. Not happening. So I put a cutting board at a slant in the sink so that the unhappy reptile could simply climb the slight incline of it and scuttle off to wherever it came from. 
Gecko was obviously not that smart. I changed cutting boards, thinking perhaps another size would work. 
Nope. 
So I finally just took a dough scraper and gently urged it out of the sink and before I'd even blinked, it had disappeared. So that was relatively painless. 
And then this morning, I woke up and came out to the porch to find that there had obviously been a drunken peanut party sometime in the night. I keep the crows' peanuts in a plastic bag and either I had forgotten to slide the little slider or else whatever had been having the revelry had figured out how to unslide it. This does not sound likely but raccoons have incredibly clever little hands. And I did suspect raccoons because they'd been up on the table where I keep the nuts although, possums can climb too. So who knows? 
There were peanuts and peanut shells scattered everywhere but they were easy to clean up and I wasn't too disturbed. Then I found the hole in the giant bag of sunflower seeds that Mr. Moon buys to feed the songbirds with, of course, sunflower seeds spilling out. 
I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. I can't exactly animal-proof the back porch because there's a largish screen rip under the dog/cat door and I don't know what I could use to block it all off. 
Why, we may ask, did Maurice not chase off these nut and seed loving critters? Probably because she was asleep with me. 
And oh yeah- that bag of sunflower seeds weighs fifty pounds so I can't exactly move it. 

Too much nature.

Nah. Not really. It's just sometimes really annoying nature. I am sure the animals feel the same way about us, the clumsy humans who seem to fuck everything up but then again- there would be no sunflower seeds or peanuts without us. 
Glen'll deal with it when he gets home. Until then, I'll just be sweeping up stray sunflower seeds every morning. 

All right. I have some words to live by. As you know, I frequently say that I don't know shit but I do know some shit and one of the things I know for sure is that if you just think you smell something not right in whatever area it is you keep your potatoes and onions and so forth, there really is something that's not right and by the time you smell it, it really ain't right. 
I seem to have to learn this lesson over and over and over again. 
Today was this year's continuing education on that issue. 
First off, I did something I've been putting off for at least, well, I don't even want to admit how long it's probably been but I finally got around to mopping the kitchen, bathroom, and pantry. I have no idea why I do this so rarely. The whole process doesn't take forty-five minutes and that includes moving everything out that can be moved, sweeping twice, mopping twice, and moving everything back in. 
And it's so rewarding! 

 I always do this in the late afternoon so I can see how nice the clean floor looks with the late afternoon sun streaming in through the kitchen door. 

And let us not forget the wonderful smell of Fabuloso and vinegar that lingers after. 

Except today when there was another odor which seemed to be coming from the pantry and suddenly I knew exactly what was going on and yes, there were potatoes on my shelf in their basket that...well, look. Nature was involved. Nature's very own clean-up crew! So I immediately controlled my gag reflex, picked up the bag the offending, rotting, purifying, maggot-crawling potatoes were in and carried it directly to the compost and dumped the contents. Then I rinsed out the bag in the spigot because there was no way I was putting that bag in the trash in the state it was in. 
That is not all true. I didn't really have to control my gag reflex. I have a pretty strong stomach. 
But then I had to wash the potato basket and hang it outside and scrub the shelf it had been sitting on and somehow, still, the pantry retains a very slight odor of the horror which had occurred. 
I should be so embarrassed to tell you all this but somehow, I'm not. This is just life. Or at least my life. 
I tell you what- potatoes can turn on you in a heartbeat. Especially ones you buy at Aldi's. I am never buying any produce there whatsoever again. 

I have a lot more stories of my very exciting day but I think I'll go make my eggplant casserole and Crispy Masala Tofu that I am having for supper. These two things don't really sound like they go together, do they? 
Oh well. They are what I want. 

Here are two pictures I like. 

Cabbage palm transplanted from our property in Apalachicola to the old barn on our property. 

An extremely ancient oak on the back of our property which is so very sadly in the last decades of its life. I hope it's still decades. I could be fooling myself.
When we moved here twenty-two years ago, this tree was almost as big as the one next door. Majestically huge. Part of it split away in a storm, though, and this is what it looks like now. 

The moon is a beautiful waxing silver crescent hanging in a black velvet sky right outside my porch. A very tiny gecko is on the screen, patiently waiting for...what? A mosquito? A gnat? 

It's so young it's still almost transparent. 
Stay out of my sink, little guy! 
Thank you very much. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Weight. And Weighing

In the years before I started taking Zepbound and before I lost weight, I never, ever stepped on a scale unless it was in a doctor's office and I hated that experience with all of my being. The reason I did not weigh myself is no mystery. I knew I was gaining weight and I simply did not want to know how much. When I had to weigh at a doctor's office, there was no denying how many pounds I had, in fact, gained in the last several years. 
I've always had a fucked-up relationship with the scales. When I was in high school, I flirted with disordered eating as so many girls do. Luckily, I was simply not cut out to starve myself to the point where I did actual damage to my body. But for awhile I became obsessed with keeping track of every calorie I consumed and weighing myself. I honestly cannot remember how long this lasted but I know my anxiety about my weight started probably in the second grade. Kids will be happy to point out the fatty in the class. Well meaning adults were happy to step up and express their worry about my weight. This included my P.E. teacher in the fourth grade who, under the excuse of talking about what a healthy diet was, picked me out of the class in front of the class and asked me what I'd had for dinner the night before in order to show the other kids what an obviously unhealthy diet was. Since a lot of the kids in my class were skinny due to everything from intestinal worms to simply not having enough to eat, this was not only cruel, but ridiculous. 
In college I became a vegetarian, mostly in hopes that I could control my weight like that. I wasn't too stressed about it all, as far as I can remember but I do recall a psychiatrist I was seeing for clinical depression asking me if perhaps my weight was making me unhappy. 
Actually, it wasn't. And actually, I believe I was probably gorgeous. And actually, at that point in my mental un-wellness, that question was not only absurd but horribly unhelpful. 

And so on and so forth. I struggled with my weight and my feelings of inadequacy due to thinking I was overweight for years after that. And then, after my first two children were born, I determined that what I needed to do was to get skinny. Fucking skinny. 
And I did. I cut down my caloric intake to a dangerous level and I began running. 
And this is the method I used for years to lose weight. 

After I had Lily, I found Weight Watchers and I learned how to eat in a relatively healthful manner and still lose weight and then maintain it. I loved Weight Watchers. It was great. It wasn't easy. I never quit craving the foods I did not allow myself to eat or that I could only eat a little of. But I became far more educated about diet. It was a constant struggle though, keeping track, once again, of everything I ate. And I was pretty darn compliant. 
Eventually, I decided to work for Weight Watchers and I did. I can't remember at exactly what period of my life that was. Possibly after my fourth child. I was a good Weight Watchers leader. I really was. I was good at speaking to a roomful of people, I was funny, I was empathetic as hell, I was properly educated on the program, and I believed in it. There were times, though, when I felt like some evangelical minister preaching the Gospel of Weight Watchers. 
And yet, I still believe the program has helped many, many people and even now, I don't think it has the earmarks of a cult. 
Besides that, their cookbooks have some of my favorite recipe and I'm not kidding. 

Anyway at that time, I weighed once a week and that was at work. All the employees had to chart their weight because we were all active members of Weight Watchers and weighing once a week was far better than stepping on a scale daily or, okay, more often than that. 
And to tell you the truth- I got a hell of a lot of positive reinforcement for being fit and thin. Not skinny. But slender, shall we say? And the reinforcement came not only from my fellow employees and class members, but from the people I knew and saw regularly. 
And I felt pretty darn good-lookin'. 

After I'm not sure how many years, though, I decided I'd quit working for Weight Watchers. The pay was shit, we'd just moved here to Lloyd where I was deeply and purely in love with my new house, and I had an agent for a book I'd written and wanted more time to spend on that. 
Fine. Good. 
But over the years, I quit keeping track of all my "points". The vast relief of not having to measure every fucking bite of peanut butter I ate was unbelievable. I still kept up a lot of my good habits and made meals that were healthy and I still walked regularly. 
And yet, with just that tiny lapse of discipline, I began to gain weight again. 
Which leads us to where I was when I started taking Zepbound which I have been doing for about seventeen months now. I was very overweight. Unhealthfully overweight. I had aches and pains that I knew were associated with what I was carrying around. As I so often mention, it was difficult for me to get up off the floor or ground. I felt...well, I felt old and unattractive, to say the least. I groaned every time I got up from the couch or a chair. I did not look into mirrors unless I had no choice about that matter. 
I was not only uncomfortable in my body, I was miserable in it. I did not want to be fat phobic. I did not want to judge my own body in ways that I would never judge another person's. 
And yet I did. 

Finally, at an appointment with Dr. Zorn who had NEVER ONCE commented on my weight, I asked him about the possibility of getting on a glp-1. And he helped me do that. 
From the first day I injected myself with it, my relationship with food changed utterly to such a degree that it was miraculous. 
And it was nothing like taking drugs that promised to "suppress the appetite". And who among us women who have struggled with their weight have not tried a few of those, both OTC and well, a bit more sketchy?
The Zepbound simply made it so that eating was not an overwhelming force in my life but something that was pleasant enough but not a major force in my life, always on my mind. 
And I mean always.
It's gotten a little less powerful after all these months but it's still a miracle and I still can eat just enough and that's all I need. 
Will I be on it for the rest of my life? 
As things stand right now, I believe I will. And that's fine with me. 

But ALL of this is to say that I ordered a new scale today. Since I began taking this drug, which I give myself every Friday, I have weighed once a week. 
Once a week. I am not tempted to weigh more than that and the only reason I do weigh myself is to keep an eye on things. I can tell you though, that I still have some of the same feelings about stepping on a scale as I always have. It's just far more manageable and far less toxic. 

That picture you see at the top? That is the scale Mr. Moon and I have been using to weigh on for the last twenty-something years. Or at least, he has. I've only being using it for the last seventeen months. I got that scale for cheap when Weight Watchers decided to get rid of all of those scales and replace them with scales probably made in the twentieth century. And it's been a good scale. It's hefty. It feels like something you can trust, like it's a professional scale. It's not a lightweight itself. It makes squeaking noises and clunking noises. It has been a trusty and trusted item that lives in my laundry room. 
However. In the last few weeks it has become less and less able to be balanced properly which one does with a screwdriver and that black rectangle looking thing on the left side. I believe it may have finally sprung a spring or...whatever these scales do to indicate an end-of-life situation. 
So today I sat down and did a little research on reliable scales which do not have to be paired with an app, do not attempt to analyze your bone density, do not calculate your body mass index. 
A scale that simply tells you what you weigh when you step on it. 
And I fucking ordered one. 
And I will use it once a week. 
I have no idea what we'll do with the old clunker. Perhaps Mr. Moon will want to keep it. Fine with me. But I'm done with it. 
I think. 

It's been a good Friday. Not a GOOD Friday, you understand, but a good one. I hung laundry on the line and have made up the bed with those nice, clean sheets. 

I turned on the garden sprinklers to give all of those plants a little drink of water. I took pictures of marigolds shining in the late afternoon sun. 

I did more weeding in the area by the gate. 

I still have this (the stuff you see in the back of that photo) to attack. 

I'm sort of excited. 

Maurice has been my girl. She slept with me last night and she followed me around today, making sure I knew that she was only in those places by accident. 

Oh wait. 

This is not Maurice but her sort-of doppelgänger who lives in the yard and under cars and I don't even know where. 
He's sort of really handsome, isn't he? 

And Steve! 
Here are the sea grapes. 

This is the largest one, the one I started from the seed of a sea grape seed I picked up off the ground in the parking area of a little museum situated between Sebastian Inlet and Wabasso Beach. 

These are the ones I've grown from tiny seedlings I got in Roseland. 

I doubt anyone but you, Steve, can appreciate the thrill I feel, having grown these myself in North Florida.

I know I wrote too much tonight. I'd say I'm sorry but I'm not. I am not asking anyone to read it all. 
I have a feeling though, that I am not the only woman to have experienced the same things, thoughts, feelings, and actions as I have in their lives as pertains to body weight and body image. 
And there may be some men, too, who can relate. Body dysmorphia and disordered eating is not entirely a female thing. At all. And I think it's becoming more and more of an issue. Social media makes it all so much worse. 

Well. Happy Friday. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Correction Time! Credit Where Credit Is Due

 

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. 

Do NOT believe everything you read online. 
You'd think I would know that by now. 
Despite what I posted last night, the Aunt Sue of Meme Fame who got escorted out of a Trump rally in Syracuse a few days ago is NOT the Aunt Sue who is the founder and CEO of Biatch Tequila brand. That is Sue Hrib who, from what I have read (true?) is indeed a bad bitch in and of herself.

The Aunt Sue who was in the video making its way across the internet in huge numbers is a woman named Sue Secaur, a seventy-three year old retired school employee and animal rescue volunteer. Here's an excellent article about her from Syracuse.com.
Which is supposedly a reliable source. 

This woman deserves to be identified correctly, respected, admired, adored, and given a Nobel Peace Prize. 

That's all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Liz Is Back In Town!

(This post has been edited and corrected as to facts about Aunt Sue Hero HERE.)

Well, dang. Liz Sparks, who is back from her world travels, asked me if I'd like to meet up and go up to Metcalfe in Georgia to eat lunch at Mary's. 
Well of course I would. It was way past time for us to get together and catch up on each other's lives although her life in the past three months has contained more adventures and roads and mountains and rivers and hiking trails and cool people and miles than my entire life probably has so her stories are far better than mine which really does not matter in the least. When she got here, I noticed the big black brace she was wearing on one of her legs and that she was definitely favoring the leg. I remembered from her blog that she'd badly twisted her ankle on a hike and I assumed that was what was going on but she said that no, she'd healed up from that but this injury was in the same ankle and all she'd done was to roll her foot off her flipflop and BOOM! Start back at the beginning. She even managed to tear off a tiny bit of bone in this accident. 
They didn't cast her but she has to wear the leg brace all the time that she's on her feet. ALL the time. As in, if she gets up to pee in the night she has to put it on to get to the bathroom which is about eight feet away. 
She's handling it well but Liz is not a lady who is good at sitting, and too much walking around is simply too much. She knows she has to let it heal but she is not loving that. At all. She is not a complainer though.

So anyway, we drove up to Metcalfe, looking forward to some of Mary's soul food. If you want to read about another trip she and I took up there you can go HERE that I wrote six years ago. I have no idea how many trips we've made to Mary's kitchen and no idea how many times I've written about it but I'm sure the answer to both is many. 
Unfortunately, when we pulled into the parking lot which is a bit of space under some trees, we realized there was no one else there and there was a sign on the door. I got out of the car and read it and yes, they were closed today. No reason given. Just that they were. 
Sigh. 
So we got back on the road to drive to Monticello which is a very cool drive through miles of woods and a very few houses and/or driveways. At one point, the road turns from asphalt to dirt, nice red Georgia clay dirt, bordered on both sides by trees and I was happy just to drive slowly and take it all in while we talked. It's sort of crazy to me that we can drive from Lloyd to Metcalfe to Monticello on a fairly direct route. As I have often mentioned, I have no sense of direction whatsoever but Liz does and thank goodness or I'd probably still be out there on some cow path, weeping and trying to get Google Maps to work which they wouldn't because we were on the back end of nowhere. 
We saw one other car on that whole part of the drive. 
We ate lunch at the Mexican restaurant and as always, it was quite decent. We did not visit any of the refillerys or cute and clever shops but we did go to Wag the Dog because that's a must. Liz found a nice skirt and I didn't find anything I wanted but my thrifting luck has been so good lately that I can't complain. 
And besides that, there was something on the counter up by the cash register that made the whole effort worthwhile. 

What is this, you may ask? 
Well, my loves, this is a Joy for All Companion Pet Cat in the Silver with White Mitts color style, according to Google Lens. 
It is an interactive robotic and therapeutic companion pet. The lady behind the counter showed me how it worked. You simply touch and pet and stroke the cat and it will do things like licking its paw or purring or meowing or rolling on its back or doing other things that cats do. 
I will be honest. It was a little freaky. But you know what? It was also extremely cool. These were created for people with Alzheimers or people who need a companion and are not able to keep a pet. I have no idea about the effectiveness of the robotic pets but I have a feeling they could be a comfort. How many of the older ladies in nursing homes hold a baby doll in their arms for hours every day? 
As I always say, I will be one of those women. I mean, I already have the dolls...

And it was a very soft cat and had no claws. I checked. 

And so that's what I did today. I got out of the house and into the world with Liz Sparks and it was good. Liz and I definitely have that sort of relationship where there is no lag time when it comes to getting back together. 
As we all know, those relationships are real and they are rare and as I grow older and evermore apt to, well, isolate myself, they are very important. With Liz I feel completely comfortable. I don't think there is anything either one of us could say that would shock the other. We've been through it all together. 
Well. Not really. Not yet. But I don't want to dwell on that. 

Mr. Moon just sent me this picture.

He has a very good eye.

One more thing I want to discuss. This.

This is Aunt Sue, aka Sue Hrib who showed up at a Trump rally in Syracuse and showed the world what a woman with absolutely no fucks left to give can and will do. 
She immediately became a media hero. I've looked her up and she is a major business woman in Atlanta who is the owner and founder of BIATCH Tequila which was launched under her company, Boss Babes Brands, Inc. 
Completely woman owned, woman run. The tequila itself is made in El Arenal, Jalisco, Mexico by a woman-run, family owned distillery and the master distiller is a woman along with her daughters. 

I cannot possibly express how I feel about this woman and the action she took. Let's put her face on Mt. Rushmore. 
She is an inspiration and she is a hero. 
Finally, someone raised her middle fingers and shouted FUCK YOU! to all of the attendees at a Trump rally. 
And of course it was a woman. Women keep more anger and frustration and rage inside of us than even we ourselves often recognize. The power of even one woman who unleashes all of that is earth-shattering. 
And history-making. 

That's all I have to say.

Love...Ms. Moon
 

P.S. 
Steve Reed- I'll post sea grape pictures tomorrow. I know you're just dying to see them. And honestly, I am proud to show them. 

Rambling

Since I swept the porch yesterday I decided I should take a picture of it. I haven't been the best plant mama in the past few years, mostly just trying to keep all the plants alive. Some of them are flourishing, despite my benevolent neglect, but not all. As I noted yesterday, the correct light has so much to do with the growth and wellbeing of plants. 

The porch faces north and runs east and west so that end is the west end and it gets the most light. I try to cram as many light-loving plants there as possible. Of course, some of my plants aren't especially thrilled to be in sunny spots for long periods of time. And some just do not seem to care. They all get watered once a week, no exceptions for actual water requirements. And perhaps once a year they get a pretty good shake or two of fertilizer. 
The hard part is bringing them in for winter which you know if you've been reading here for a year, at least. I've reached the point where I just want to cover them up as best I can and that seems to work pretty well. The smaller, more tender plants which Glen and I can easily handle overwinter inside though. Glen can definitely still move even the biggest plants with his dolly but I just hate that whole process. 
And I've discovered over the years, that even a plant that looks to be as dead as your great aunt Agnes lying in her coffin with her white-gloved hands crossed over her bosom, may indeed come back if I'm just patient enough to give it the chance. I cut off all the dead parts, keep watering it, and hope for the best. 

I met Ms. Jessie today at the TJ Maxx. She wanted to look at picture frames in which to put a family photo in for her new office. 
She has an office! Okay, she has to share it with four other lactation consultants but there are only two on shift at a time. This is pretty darn huge. 
A space of her own. 
I have to tell you that I'm really proud of her for taking this leap into a whole new realm of nursing. That's one of the very cool things about nursing, I think. You can spend years on the cardiac floor and then decide, eh, I think I'll check out the ER for awhile. Or pediatrics, neurology, oncology, surgical, L&D, or psychiatric/mental health nursing. Of course you have to receive training for each different position you move into but every move is an opportunity to learn new things, to do new things and in doing so, you may find a niche where you truly feel you fit. My friend Terry from nursing school went into hospice nursing, which is what our blog community's beloved John Gray does. I can't imagine having a better nurse to help me through to the end of my life than either of those people. 
And there's always the possibility of going back to school and becoming a Certified Nurse Practitioner and as we all know, these people are now firmly a part of the health care system. 

I have no idea why I wrote all of that. My entire nursing career mostly consisted of assisting midwives at a birth center. I'm not saying this isn't an important role to take on but I am saying that beyond that- well, let's just say I went to nursing school to begin with to either become a certified nurse midwife or to simply be able to support myself and my two children. I hate hospitals, almost all things medical send my blood pressure into the mesosphere, and one more reason I view Mr. Moon as my knight in shining armor is that he immediately took over the whole support thing and also was my partner in creating Lily Rose Moon and then Jessie Gibson Moon, and that was that. 
I did work at the Birth Center for many of those years. 

But all-in-all, I'm glad I went to nursing school. I learned a hell of a lot, some of it about nursing, some of it about other things. I was able to use the knowledge and skills I had acquired when I took care of various people with problems ranging from cancer to a gunshot wound to domestic violence, to my own daughter who was in a terrible accident involving a vehicle as she was walking. 
I don't want to talk about that. 
I can't believe I did all of that. I really can't. 
You can bet it wouldn't happen now. 

So yes. Jessie and I met at T.J. Maxx where she did not find a picture frame but we perused the many aisles of clothes and shoes and kitchen wares and bed linens and make-up and fancy soaps and hair accessories and oh hell. I don't know. 
We looked at the jewelry and I looked at the purses. 
Let me just say that this is a HORRIBLE year for purses. There was not one purse among the hundred or so they had that I had even the slightest interest in. I do not want a purse that has Mickey Mouse on it. I do not want a purse that has anyone's name on it, I do not want a purse made of whatever that shit is that makes stuffed animals and throw blankets incredibly and unnaturally soft. Fluffy purses that scream, "I need to bring my emotional support and comfort toy with me wherever I go!" 
So that was very disappointing. 

I did end up buying a citrus juice squeezer, a clever-looking device called a "pocket vac" which both sucks and blows (I'm sorry, I had to and besides, it does) and a thirteen dollar bottle filled with the promise of the miraculous effect its Vitamin C 13, Super Vitamin E, along with Hyaluronic Acid will have on my old, age-spotted, wrinkled face.
It came with an eyedropper. You know it's bona fide. 
Look. Girls just wanna have fun. 

Here's a card I got today from Lorie, the very nicest person in the world.

You can trust me on this- that is true. 

Love...Ms. Moon



 

It's One Of Those Mostly Plant Days

Here's how you can tell fall is coming along here in North Florida- the pecan trees have lost most of their leaves and the sky is so very blue. 

Those trees are oaks and they hold on to their leaves until spring when the new leaves push off the old ones. I love this. These trees can make acorns, sustain the old leaves, and create new ones, all at the same time. They've dropped a good number of the acorns but we'll be getting more until December, probably. It seems to be a good mast this year but as I recall, we got an usually large crop of acorns last year too. I hope this is a good thing. I just looked this topic up and learned something new. A mast year occurs to create "predator satiation," which is basically when there is a synchronized event among the trees to produce a huge number of acorns in order to satisfy the animals which eat the nuts and leave enough for new trees to emerge from the acorns the predators can't manage to eat. 
Like- the number of acorns one mature tree drops can go from around 2,200 to 10,000! 
I had no idea. I've been living around, under, and among these trees for at least sixty-five years and really never wondered why some years were just so good for acorn production. 

I know that many wild birds and different mammals are happy when this happens. I just read that acorns make up to 75% of white-tailed deer's diet in late fall and early winter. 

I swept a good many of those acorns off the front porch steps this afternoon. One of my goals for the day was to get the front porch and swing porches swept and then to water the plants. 
This I did. 

Some happy, happy begonias. I have some of the same variety in a pot just a few feet away but further from the edge of the porch, thereby getting less light and they do not have that beautiful red color to their undersides. 
The older I get, the more I believe that the proper light has more to do with plant health than anything else. 

I spent a lot of time outside today, just slowly doing a little of this, a little of that. I cleared more of the pumpkin vines from the garden and did a little weeding in there. I have to say that I am vastly disappointed at how all of the greens I planted a few weeks ago are doing. 
Which is to say, they are not doing well. 
I have no idea what's going on. I know we've had some very dry conditions but I've carefully considered that and watered the garden when it got dry. And then of course we had inches and inches of rain before and during Isaias's journey to the west of us. Perhaps it's simply time for us to give the garden a break, till in a massive amount of mushroom compost, mulch it good and let it sit until spring. I'll discuss this with the man when he returns. 

I also did a little invasive-plant weed pulling in the front yard in the area inside and to the right of the gate which is my ongoing, never ending, always interesting project. That's where I pull crocosmia, briars, pyracantha, and another plant that I can't remember the name of but which grows quite large and all of the sprouts are connected by roots so tough I often just end up cutting them which does no good whatsoever. Today I discovered that a new thing has sprung up there. Deer tongue grass. Supposedly it's a native, but mostly in Canada, and although it is not invasive in that area, guess what? 
Yeah. 
Well, we all need a hobby. 

But I like being on my knees in that area. I find bricks in the dirt and once I found what I think may have been part of an arrowhead or spearhead. I still have no real idea what I'd plant there if I ever did get it cleared out but at this point, it's a moot point. 

Inside the house I did two loads of clothes which will probably be the last laundry I need to do for at least several days. I also gave our bedroom a good sweeping which produced an oddly satisfying amount of dust and cat hair. At least enough to form a kitten out of. 

Mostly, I've just enjoyed being alone and being quiet. The only person I've spoken to is Maurice and please don't try to tell me that doesn't count. She and I have quite extensive conversations, mostly about why she doesn't need any more treats. She insists she does. I tell her she doesn't. 
And so forth. We are both quite certain of our positions in this discussion and we are both quite verbal. 

Mr. Moon has made it to Minot, North Dakota where the entire group has met up, both the flyers and the Gun Dog Express drivers. They will be traveling to Saskatchewan tomorrow, good Lord willing and they aren't turned back at the border. 

I'm going to heat up some of the soup I made last week, thinking I'd be taking it to St. George. I thawed it out two nights ago and added the coconut milk to it and we enjoyed it immensely. Well, Mr. Moon mostly enjoyed the naan I made with it immensely but he managed to eat quite a large bowl of the soup. 
I have to tell you that using the Seminole pumpkins made the soup so much sweeter and oranger and just all-around more wonderful than either butternut or acorn squash ever did. When I pick one of those squash, the liquid that comes out of the stem area is sweet enough to put on pancakes. It's so sticky I have to wash the pumpkin off and let it dry before I put it with its mates. 

I have one more close to ripening and then that will be that for this year. 
Do I plan to grow them again next year? 
Oh yes. Yes I do. 

I took my valiant effort of a bird on magnolia leaves out back to the little bit of woods beside the railroad track. I did not bury them. I laid the leaves, broken and breaking as they were, on the ground but I placed my first effort at a bird on a stalk of cut bamboo. 
I like it. Not the bird, specifically, but where it has come to perch. 

And so it goes. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

And Somehow, A Miracle Occurs

Last night Levon butt-dialed his grandfather and somehow, that small accident led to every one of the immediate family getting together for lunch less than twelve hours later. Do you have any idea what a miracle this is? Despite the fact that it seems as if we all get together for every birthday and all the holidays, there's always someone who can't make it for one reason or another. 
We plan, we scheme, we schedule and reschedule but somehow, someone is always missing. Visits to North Carolina, illness, having to work, etc., etc. 
But it all came together today and there we are, the whole group of us at Pepper's Mexican restaurant where they always manage to take such good care of us, have a nice patio where we're usually the only ones, and also...they allow dogs to hang out. 

Remember Xena, Princess Warrior, aka Large Marge? She's a year old now and topping the scales at a hundred pounds and she has calmed down a lot in the last few months. She was a very, very good girl today. 

The kids were out of school due to a teacher planning day which I believe is probably how the county dealt with the delicate problem of the celebration of Columbus Day versus the celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day. 
You know where our family falls on this controversy. 
Lily was working but was able to take her break just at the right time and even Jason made it, as did Vergil, along with Michael and May who are almost always working when these things happen. 
I was quite late getting to the restaurant and when I walked in and saw all those people sitting there I thought as I always do, "And this is what unprotected sex can lead to."
A whole lotta joy. That's what it can lead to. 
We were almost giddy today, feeling as if we'd gotten away with something somehow. 
But obviously, it was just meant to be. 

More pictures. 

Dang it! I did not get a picture of me with Owen. Trust me. We hugged several times. 
Those are some good-looking kids. I had to tell Gibson how handsome he is. Isn't he though? He is looking more and more like his dad's Italian side of the family. WITH the Moon gene for height. And Maggie looks a great deal like her other grandmother but also with the height. 

So that was a whole lot of fun and the food was fine although of course, that's hardly relevant. 
After lunch some of the group had to scoot but Hank and Rachel and Jessie and May and Michael and I stood in the parking lot and probably talked for forty-five minutes. August and Levon were in the car waiting with the AC on but after about half an hour, they came out and joined us. They were very sweet about it though. 
I'm so glad we got to do that. So glad we were all able to be together before Mr. Moon left to go up to the frozen North. Well, not frozen yet. He's hoping for some really cold weather. It's so disappointing to him when he travels all the way to Canada and it ends up being warmer there than it is here due to some glitch in the universal weather system. 

Before I leave I must share something which on the surface is absolutely no big deal at all but for here in the rural county in which we live, it's pretty damn awesome. 
We don't get the local Monticello paper but Tom did and Glen goes over to his house to collect his mail regularly and we do enjoy looking over what is considered news in this county. Lots of church news and lots of Christian (heavy on the Baptist variety) columns and lots of news of various crimes which generally involve speeding or drugs although there always seems to be some official who is being fired, tried and found guilty for crimes generally involving misappropriation of funds or, sometimes, something far more horrific.
Recently a huge legal marijuana growing facility was found to be guilty of illegal handling of their run-off water and was ordered to come up with a better plan and fined $80,000. 
There is news of kids' sports teams, beauty queens and there are obituaries as well as pictures and reports from various clubs. 
Monticello is big on clubs. 
But just a little while ago, Glen came out to the porch and said, "I'm so glad we live in such a liberal county!"
Excuse me. What?
He was holding the most recent paper he'd retrieved from Tom's and showed me a picture. Here it is. 

I gave it a quick glance and said, "Yeah?" 
He then pointed out the description printed under the picture. In case you can't read it, here's what it says.

"The Brock family was honored as the 2026 Jefferson County Farm Bureau Farm Family of the Year during the organization's annual banquet, recognizing the family's generations of farming, commitment to conservation and continued involvement in Jefferson County agriculture. Pictured from left are Kirk Brock; his daughter, Emily Brock; son, Jamen Brock; and Jamen's husband, Alex."  

As I said, this should be no big thing but here, it is. There is an entire special section of the paper devoted to this award and the celebration banquet. There are ads from agriculturally oriented companies honoring the Brock family. 
I am somewhat amazed. And so very, very pleased. 
Rock on, Jefferson County! I am proud of you. 

It's been a good day and tomorrow, my sweetheart will be flying out of Tallahassee at 8:30 in the morning. Will I be getting up at five to get him to the airport by 6:30?
No. I will not. 
But I will kiss him goodbye, tell him I love him, to have a wonderful time, and to please come home safely to me. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Dog, Tree, Grandchild, This Is My Life

May sent that picture on our group text this morning. She found it when she was going through pictures on her phone. I remember that picture of Baby August and I do believe it's one of the most darling baby pictures I've ever seen. That little bald-headed boy, flirting with his mama, being all joyful and impossibly adorable. He was a little guy for quite awhile, as was his mother. I carried that girl in a sling until she was way older than I could have carried any of the others. 
And now she's just this shy of six feet tall. Goes to show you. 

Today has been sunny and the temperature has been about what it was yesterday, somewhere in the mid-eighties, but the humidity has gone down from 89% to 52% and around here, that feels absolutely crisp. 
And did I do any work outside? 
No. I did not. And I can't even blame being sore because I really haven't been. So I'm not sure why.
Laziness. That and of course the Lord commanding us to remember the Sabbath Day and to keep it holy. In the light of that, I just watched the "Paint it Black" video again and it gave me as much pleasure today as it did yesterday. I did a tiny bit of research and Keith and Mick wrote the song in 1966 when they were around twenty-three years old. 
It has held up quite well, I think. 
Definitely one of the favorite hymns here at the Church of the Batshit Crazy. 

I worked on the jigsaw puzzle today I've had up in the dining room on my very, very cool puzzle board for about six months or more. It always takes me a long time to do a thousand piece puzzle but this one has been ridiculous. I fear that my age is having something to do with it. Well, not my age specifically, but my brain which, as I age, is becoming less and less capable of many things and I believe that doing jigsaw puzzles is one of them. Not that I've ever been very good at them. 
Still, I made some progress. 

My next door neighbor texted to ask if I could possibly do another drop-by at her house to let her sweet dogs out for awhile and then feed them. Of course I said yes, not unhappy at all to go visit with them again. Mr. Moon went with me and got to meet them. They were as loving to him as they are to me. 

I believe someone's in love. 
Now. Whether I'm talking about Mr. Moon or Rukie is up for debate. I have to say though, that Rukie only has eyes for him so...

While we were there I asked Mr. Moon to go and stand by the oak tree I took a picture of on Friday to see if we could get a little more perspective on it. 

Now his arm span is probably around six and a half feet so one of you geometry geniuses can go ahead and try to make an estimate on it's circumference and thus, diameter. I used to be able to do things like that but I can't any more and I'm not blaming that on age but on pretty much forgetting everything I ever learned in geometry by the time I was twenty-five. 

Let's see. What else? 
I haven't done a report on A. recently. Mr. Moon hasn't been down to Gainesville where he still is in a week. I think he realized he needed to take a step back and I'm glad he did. I could see my husband's neurons frying as he tried to come to grips with what was really going on with his friend. He's still having a lot of trouble with that one, but not being in the ICU with him for days and nights has allowed more light into his soul. He's sleeping better, he's less anxious. I can tell. 
There has been no improvement in A. as far as Glen can see. I'm not sure if I mentioned this but he was moved from Neuro ICU to Trauma ICU, mainly because the neurology docs are saying they've done everything they can at this point. He still needs constant skilled care and thus- ICU. Talk of him coming back to Tallahassee has been paused due to the fact that complications relating to the things that can happen when a person is in the state that A. is in have occurred. Some requiring surgery and exploratory procedures. 
I cannot possibly imagine what his wife is going through. Her daughter has come to relieve her for a few days and that's good. 

And of course, Mr. Moon has been quite cheerful, getting ready for his trip. Here's what the guest room looks like at this stage of the preparation. I believe this picture sort of sums up how different he and I are from each other. And yet, somehow it all works. 

It cracks me up. That's a whole lotta camo going on there. He has lists and more lists. 

I've thawed out the creamy, cashew, Seminole squash, sweet potato soup and will add the coconut milk soon. My naan dough is rising nicely. I've told Mr. Moon that while he's gone I'm going to eat nothing but steak and shrimp and lobster and salmon and roasted cauliflower. 
He said, "Okay." 
He knows that only part of that is true. Also, there will be tofu as we know, along with Le Sueur baby peas.
My time with him today has been so very sweet. I probably look at him the same way Rukie does. But I'm pretty sure he looks at me the way he looks at Rukie. 

Yesterday Jessie went by the pottery studio and grabbed my fish for me. This is good because it is the only thing I actually produced last session. 

She is fancy, is she not? Also, I do believe she is dressed to party. You go girl! 

Good Lord. That's enough. 

Love...Ms. Moon

This Is How I Hold On Some Days

The house next door where the dogs I fed yesterday live is a nice house but to my mind, the very best thing about it is the oak tree in the yard. It is literally and technically one of the largest lives oaks in Jefferson County. That picture is not a great picture of the tree for several reasons, one being the shed and one being the trailer there. However, when I tell you that the tree is bigger around than the shed by far, believe me. This is a tree that makes the one in my front yard which is no small tree, look like a miniature version of itself. It is a tree to be worshipped. It is a tree to stand under and be struck dumb by.

It is a tree whose branches extend out to cover and amaze all of those beneath it. 

It is a tree that Ross's admonition for us all to "look up" is a holy reminder. I am sure it's at least a few hundred years old. 
I'm sorry about the gray skies but that's what the sky looked like yesterday when the storm was approaching all those miles to the west. 

I was really surprised that we got all the rain and some fairly strong winds from a storm that far away. I believe we got at least four inches of rain and there was a lot of what I'm calling limb litter left behind. This was to be expected. But all in all, we survived nicely. It was still coming down hard when I went to bed but even with the window open above my head I slept through it all. I generally do sleep through these things. Glen didn't sleep well at all because we opened windows instead of leaving on the AC and that man is just incredibly sensitive to temperature, especially when it comes to sleep time. And it never really did get that cool but what made it most difficult for him, I'm sure, was the humidity which is still up in the 80-something percentile. And it warmed back up to the upper eighties again today. 
I was sort of hoping it would still be raining today, giving me an excellent excuse not to get outside and start cleaning up the yard but it did not. It was somewhat overcast but it wasn't raining. 
Sigh.
So I put on my big-girl overalls and pulled the garden cart out to the front yard and picked up everything from twigs to biggish branches. Nothing huge though. Not one huge branch. In the front yard, at least. And while I was out there, I decided to do a little trimming up and weed pulling and so I probably spent about two and a half hours out there and it does look nicer. I only got one minor wound and that came from a palm frond I cut. I'm not sure what sort of palm it is but I think it was originally supposed to be a house plant. The stem of the frond is sawlike. As so many of these things are. Little sharks' teeth line each side of those stems. Evil, evil baby shark teeth. 
Glen gathered and picked up a lot of downed limbs from the back yard and hauled them to the burn pile where I'd dumped my garden cart contents. That is one hell of a burn pile now. We're going to have to wait for things to dry up at least a little bit before it can be used for its purpose, even with the amount of accelerant that Mr. Moon uses on those piles. That word, accelerant, cracks me up. 
I don't think it's pure gasoline but it could be. I have no idea. 
I do have an idea that I am going to be sore as hell tomorrow. That was a lot of bending and pulling and hauling and so forth and I have been such a slug recently. So it was very good for me to get out and do a little physical labor and all that stuff that makes me feel worthy as a human being on this planet. 
It's been a good day when my overalls are filthy and drenched with sweat at the end of it. A little bloody wound only adds to my strange masochistic joy. 

I shall quickly address the pork chop recipe I made last night in just a few words: Not worth it. 
I probably screwed up a few things, taking suggestions from the comments, and I know I overcooked the poor things but the flavors just did not make me happy. Glen wasn't thrilled either. So next time it's either back to the Shake and Bake or I'll use another NYT's recipe for pork chops with onion gravy. Glen loves that one. I like it fine myself. It's a no-recipe recipe and calls for sautéing "an enormous number of sliced onions." 
Gotta love that. 

Tonight I'm keeping it pretty simple though, with yet another recipe from the same source, this one for scallops. "Seared Scallop Pasta With Burst Tomatoes and Herbs." 
This one is tried and it is true. I remember after I broke some ribs that it was the first meal I cooked when I felt I was up to that sort of thing again. So you know I like it. 

I do believe that's all I have to talk about tonight. However, because I have had this eerie song in my head for a few days even to the point where I find myself whistling the notes of it as I stand over my cutting board with a knife and a vegetable, and because it's a fantastic video in all ways with the old boys showing how it's done, especially Keith and Mick and Charley, and because I am the boss of this blog, I am going to post it. 
As I always say, don't watch it if you don't want to. I'll never know and besides that, I do realize that the Rolling Stones are not as strong a force for sanity in these times of complete insanity for everyone as they are for me. 
Public execution by firing squad? 

Paint it black.

Love...Ms. Moon

Even Just Being Hurricane Adjacent Can Be Intense

In preparation for Mr. Moon's trip to Canada, I have made an army of the life-sustaining cookies he loves so much. I just use the recipe for Quaker Oat's Vanishing Oatmeal cookies, add a huge amount of chocolate chips along with the raisins, and then for good measure a few handfuls of pecans. 
We were watching a series on Apple TV this afternoon called "Small Prophets" that Pottery Lizzie had told me about. She has watched it three times. In other words, she feels the same way about it as I feel about "Reservation Dogs" and so I wanted to give it a shot. We've only watched two episodes but I do like it. The humor in it is quite English, quite dry and there is alchemy and magic. 
I was working on a sewing project, replacing the waistband elastic in a skirt which over the years has degraded to a slack, useless gray material. And all of a sudden, Mr. Moon said something about how he guessed he's waited too late to ask me to make his cookies. 
Well. I had completely forgotten about the need for life-sustaining cookies but he had not. "You're not leaving until Tuesday, are you?" I asked him.
"Yes. But the Gun Dog express is leaving tomorrow and I'd like to give those guys some to take with them." 
The Gun Dog express is the vehicle which two of the guys drive to Canada with yes, the dogs and guns in it. Glen has frequently been one of the drivers for this operation but he's flying up this year, letting some of the other guys take that job. I think he may be driving back with them though. I should get all of these details figured out, shouldn't I?

Anyway, we finished watching the episode we were watching and I got up and made the cookies which I can do in my sleep and they came out very nicely as this recipe always does. 

They are ready for their close up. 

I am so glad we decided to reschedule our trip to St. George. Even though the storm is hundreds of miles from here, we are getting rain and rain and rain and a whole lot of little wind gusts. We've had a few branches drop and this is the sort of rain that brings down trees due to the sudden soddenness of the earth. Old trees often just let go or perhaps the oldest parts of them simply fall away. 
From the footage I've seen of Dog Island which is just a few miles east of St. George, the tides are already very high and the wind and rain is not insignificant. We are getting some weather for sure. I feel so sorry and worried for the area in which Isaias is going to make landfall tonight. It has become a Cat Three storm and that is serious. The kind of serious that can cause incredible damage. As in- beach houses will be ripped apart, roads will be flooded, and cars will be floating down them. Trees will be downed, roofs will be lifted and blown away, and even houses on stilts will flood and the owners will lose everything. Power will be out for who-knows-how-long. There will be no flushing of toilets and no water at all when the tap is turned on. Food will spoil in freezers, emergency services will be blocked by water and downed trees, hospitals will be operating at very reduced abilities.
And anyone who has chosen to stay with their homes is going to be having a lot of second thoughts about that decision. 
This is what happens and it is never good. 

So. Yes. I am incredibly grateful that not only are we not on St. George right now, I am also incredibly grateful that we are not in the direct path although thoughts like that always make me feel guilty but I will not lie about it- I thank the Lord it's not us this time. 

So we've had a cozy day and I didn't even try to get much done. The main thing on my list of to-do's was to go and feed the dogs next door as their owners, our neighbors, have gone out of town for the weekend. They have someone coming to take care of them for the rest of the weekend but there was that one small gap this morning. 
We are not close with these neighbors but when the woman texted to ask if I could do this favor, of course I agreed. I've never personally met these doggos until today but have only seen them in the yard occasionally. They are a bit wolf-like and they never bark and I've never quite known what to think about them. I did ask her if there was a chance they'd kill me. My neighbor assured me that they are the most gentle and loving of dogs and I would have no problem with them. 
Hmmm. 
Okay. So this morning I followed the instructions as to how to get into their yard and open the back door to let them out to perform their morning ablutions, and I have to say that my neighbor did not lie. As I approached the kitchen door they were at the window in it, not barking but absolutely smiling as dogs are sometimes wont to do. 
I opened the door and instead of jetting out, they greeted me and sniffed me and gave me a little snout-up-the-crotch inspection. They rubbed their heads against me and I scratched them and petted them and talked baby talk to them. And then they went on outside to take care of business.

The boy dog spent some time doing a perimeter patrol of the front fence while the female was more interested in getting head scratches and hearing me tell her what a beauty she was, what a sweetie, what a very, very good dog. 
I fell in love. 

When I felt they'd had enough outdoor time, I called them in and they came immediately, back into the house where they showed me exactly where their food is kept and where their bowls were. 
I gave them each a good scoop of their kibbles, told them again what excellent and beautiful babies they were, locked up and came home. 

Boy. It's really raining now. I mean...REALLY raining. Down-pouring. Shit. If it's like this here, what's it like in the area around Destin and Pensacola and Navarre Beach? 

I'm going to cut this short. I want to make a recipe tonight that I've never made before. It's a NYT's app recipe for Skillet Pork Chops and Apples With Miso Caramel. 
The reviews are beyond beyond. 
I generally just do Shake'n'Bake pork chops in the air fryer and those are plenty delectable enough. So we shall see what these are like. 
Sweet potatoes will be involved. 

We're in for a crazy night. I'm so glad Glen hasn't left for Canada yet and that he'll be right here in our bed with the clean sheets if I need to reach out for him. This is something that I am becoming more and more grateful for with every passing day. And hopefully, while he is gone, there will be no new storms. Perhaps I shall play some piano. We shall see. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon