Loving My Inner Child

Another perfectly gorgeous day here in North Florida. Cool and crisp and perfect for drying sheets on the line. 

And for admiring the fierce and delicate beauty of the camellias. 

I headed to town after I got my chores done here and stopped first at Costco. I wandered around, desultorily taking in scenarios- a mother with a toddler on her hip, looking at books, a man complaining to an employee because they'd changed the placement of everything and he could not find the dates! I was in and out of there pretty quickly and then I decided to take my own self to lunch and so I did, eating two chicken tacos outside. They weren't great but I enjoyed the experience, reading my New Yorker magazine that I'd picked up from the post office before I left Lloyd. Then I went next door to the Goodwill bookstore where I did some more wandering and meandering. There were only three other people including employees in the store and that felt safe. I ended up buying a Kate Atkinson book and a vase! 

Cat for scale. 
Jack was very curious about it, scratching his chin on the edge and even taking a tiny pink-tongued taste of it. It is in the dishwasher now. It's very heavy and very handsome. It will look lovely with a bold leaf rooting in it like a monstero or something of that ilk. Or perhaps even flowers. I have way too many vases already but as I always say- I do love a vessel. Things that hold things make me happy. 

Next stop was Publix. 
First I forgot my mask when I was halfway across the parking lot and had to turn back to get it. Then, when I was all the way in the store, I realized that I'd left my list in my coat pocket which I'd shed because it was getting so warm. So. Back to the car. 
It's times like these that remind me of something my friend Ruthie said once about our memories going- "embrace your spaciness." 
What else can one do? 

I ticked off all the things on my list except for orzo. There was a space on the shelf for it but no boxes were to be found. A sweet employee even got down on his knees to make sure that there was not one hiding behind the boxes of alphabet pasta. 

I love Publix. 

And then home where I unloaded the car and tried on the new overalls that I'd also picked up at the post office, delivered from e-bay. It's always an uncertain thing- ordering overalls without being able to try them on. But these were such a good price and although they were definitely not made by a farm-friendly company (J. Crew!) they had looked sturdy and the price was good so I'd thrown caution to the winds and ordered them. They not only fit, they are lovely. The pockets have already been filled with eggs that I brought in from the nests and I think they will be an important part of my wardrobe. I've even pinned a little broach to them- a small, bejeweled crown that I bought for my mother when I was very, very young at a yard sale in Roseland. I don't think Mother ever wore it but I'd never forgotten it and when she died, I found it in her jewelry box and brought it home. I think that it goes beautifully with denim overalls. 

I've tried to take a picture but for whatever reason, it ain't happenin'. But I feel certain that not only the gold but the rubies and diamonds and sapphires are all real! Proof that we never let go of some of our childhood beliefs. 
I remember one time when Hank was very little and I let him put a quarter in one of those machines that dispensed little prizes in plastic bubbles and he got a diamond ring. 
"Is it real?" he asked, his blue eyes wide.
"Nah," I said. "But it's pretty."
"Maybe they made a mistake," he said. "Maybe it IS real." 
You never know, do you?

I'm tired tonight. I did a lot and am still not completely recovered. But it's not a bad tired. And the bed has clean line-dried sheets on it and it's getting chilly again and Mr. Moon got the onions planted in the garden. 

I took their picture when I went out to pick our salad greens for tonight's supper. Those are carrots to the left of them. They aren't big enough to pull yet but they're coming along. Mr. Moon also cut up the potatoes he bought to plant and set the pieces on old cookie sheets to cure before he gets those in the ground. It's so funny how I never get tired of anticipating what the next season holds in the garden. 

Some things never lose their charm, whether jeweled crown pins or the prospect of potatoes so fresh that when you put the knife to them, they seem to split of their own accord. Or clean sheets smelling of sun and clean air or perfect eggs lying in a nest or new overalls with pockets big enough to hold five or six of them. 

Happy Friday, y'all. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Oh, What A Lucky Man He Is

When we moved into this house, the last owners had left several pairs of beautiful lace curtains. Not the kind you buy at JC Penny's that are made out of some not-found-in-nature material, but heavy, lovely cotton. I assume. I've never found a tag on them. I think of them in my head as Irish Lace Curtains. 
I have no idea if that's true but I do know that here we are, seventeen years later (almost eighteen), and I'm still using some of those curtains. It took me quite a few years of living here before I was able to get over the fact that the last woman who had lived here was a well-known writer. She was, in fact, a sort of idol of mine. Her name was Connie May Fowler and you may have heard of her. One of her books, Before Women Had Wings, was optioned by Oprah and made into a made-for-TV movie. Oprah herself played a role in it. I always call my bathroom, "The Bathroom That Oprah Built." I loved Connie May Fowler's earlier books. She's a Florida girl who grew up in an extremely sad and dysfunctional house and so her themes and her scenes rang very true with me and truthfully, I was jealous of her talents and success in many ways. That's when I still had the dream of being a Florida author myself and I judged my own writing against hers, sometimes with great self-recrimination and sometimes with a little whisper of, "You too, honey. You too."
And then she wrote a book that I really did not fancy at all that was basically centered on a fictionalized version of Dog Island that I found ridiculous although the scene that really did me in was one in which the protagonist and her love had sex in the restroom of a restaurant which was also a thinly described real place and I've been in that bathroom fifty times at least and would never even consider having sex there. I didn't even like peeing there.
Ugh.
I don't think that book sold very well. When we moved in, there were at least a half dozen copies of it, author-signed, on the bookshelves. 
She's gone on to write a few more books, none of them garnering great success. One of them was even based on this house. 
The kicker is that she now lives in COZUMEL for god's sake and I have to wonder how it is that she and I are so entwined in such strange ways. 
At the very least, I am still using her curtains. 

One of them is hanging in Mr. Moon's bathroom. I put it there as a temporary solution to a privacy problem but knowing us, it will still be there when we die. Today there was a little anole on the window behind it and I took its picture. 

Look at those tiny toes! He's waiting patiently for a bug. That is what anoles do. 

We've felt better today. Mr. Moon actually went to town and got stuff done and I stayed here and got a few things done myself. Laundry, hen house cleaning, stuff like that. I even hung clothes out on the line, mostly for the pure enjoyment of being outside under the blue sky in the cool air. It's been a beautiful day. 

I plan on going to town myself tomorrow but I'm going to make it quick and easy. I plan on going only to my two regular stations of the cross- Costco and Publix. Of course. 

I ordered some new masks a few weeks ago when it became all too apparent that Omicron wasn't fooling around, especially here in Florida and they arrived yesterday. We've been wearing either homemade cloth masks or disposable masks, or sometimes both together but I knew that we really needed more serious protection. I was wondering how long you could wear one of them without losing the protective value of it and so I read the instructions on the back of the package where I did indeed find the answer. 

See Number 7. 
Discard the face mask when it gets quite dirty or breathing resistance increase remarkably.
I just love that. 

Okay. Yes. They are made in China. They look impressive though. And as you can see, they are certified with a certificate. 
What could go wrong? 

All right- one more thing. You want to know how lucky my husband is? I mean, aside from the obvious which is that he is married to me (deep sarcasm). When he came in from running his errands in town he was positively jubilant as he told me that he'd run out of diesel fuel in his truck a quarter of a mile from the house and had been able to coast all the way home, through the gate, and up to his usual parking spot where the truck came to a stop without the use of brakes. 

He is so obviously beloved of the gods. 
I guess I'll go make him some supper. 

Love...Ms. Moon

 

Not Covid This Time For Me Or My Baby

Mr. Moon got home last night and I was so glad to see him. He had tales of the trip and we ate our supper and all was well. I'd been feeling a little funky yesterday. Sneezing some, some congestion, a little sore throat, a little headache. I had planned to pick up August and Levon from their respective schools today and stay with them until Jessie got home from training at the hospital and I told her in a text what was going on but I assured her that it didn't seem like much at all, not to worry!
And Mr. Moon who'd been having the same sort of symptoms since last Friday (remember when we went and got Covid tested?) was still having them but he slept very well and I slept as well as I could with a giant cat inhibiting the pulling up of covers and trying to burrow into me from various angles but every time I woke up I could feel that my congestion was worse and so I sleep-worried and when I woke up this morning I knew that whatever I had I did not want to take it over to Jessie and Vergil's house. I called Jessie and left her a message, breaking into tears with my apologies. I was a damn mess. 
We decided we should go get tested again so back we drove to Monticello but this time there was no frivolity or shopping or lunch, just signing in, getting swabbed, and coming home. 
We are both negative.
So we do not have covid. 
And we're not very, very sick. We're just a little sick. 
And neither one of us has done much of anything today. I worked some more on my overalls and in one of the places I've patched they are probably now impermeable even to the passage of arrows should I get shot in the breast by an archer. 
I've thawed out some turkey and rice soup that was in the freezer and that will make our supper. 

I just read that Ronnie Bennett Spector died. Some of you may not know who she was but all of you would recognize her music. I don't think she had an easy life. She was married to Phil Spector for a time and I think he virtually kept her prisoner. I do know that Keith Richards and Ronnie had a sweet romance in their very early days and he wrote so lovingly of her in his book. The Stones toured with the Ronettes in the sixties and Keith said, "...I fell in love with Ronnie Bennett, who was the lead singer. She was twenty-years old and she was extraordinary to hear, to look at, to be with. I fell in love with her silently, she fell in love with me."
In a few paragraphs, Ronnie was quoted as saying, "...to be honest, those were the happiest days of my entire career." 
On their first tour of the US, the Stones didn't do very well and Mick and Keith slept on the floor in Ronnie's mother's house in Spanish Harlem. Ronnie took them to see James Brown at the Apollo and after that, she said, "...they went home and came back superstars. Because I showed them what I did, how I grew up, and how I went to the Apollo Theater when I was eleven years old. I took them backstage and they met all these rhythm and blues stars. I remember Mick standing there shaking when we passed James Brown's room."
Keith again- "We were twenty years old and we just fell in love. What do you do when you hear a record like 'Be My Baby' and suddenly you are?"

It's still a damn fine song. One of the best. I think a lot of us are thinking of that lead singer tonight, and Keith Richards is probably one of them. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Musings

 The only thing I did today that was worth mentioning was moving three pictures into our "new" bedroom. These are the pictures I feel I must have closest to me while I sleep. They are, I suppose, totems that make me feel more grounded in my own life so that when my dreams take me to places so far away, the pictures will be there, even in the dark, to call me home again to myself. 

The one I took a picture of is a painting that my Uncle Jimmy did when he was a boy, taking art lessons from Frank Baisden. I've talked about this picture and my Uncle Jimmy and Frank Baisden before. Both men were well-known and well-regarded by their peers, Frank as an artist, Uncle Jimmy as an architect and designer. But that picture was done when Jimmy was very young and I remember it always hanging over my grandmother's bed and when she died, I asked for it and my mother gave it to me. I love it so. I can still clearly see in my mind my granny lying on her bed with her hands clasped together on top of the bedspread for her nap, her glasses with the hated, bulky hearing aids built in on the dresser, her tiny shoes on the floor beside her, that picture always present. 
The other pictures I moved have other stories, of course. I did not take their pictures but I'm sure I have before. And now they are all back in the room where I am sleeping, keeping watch as I roam about the dream world, making sure of my safe return. 

Mr. Moon should be home soon. He left Louisiana this morning. Speaking of sleep- I don't think he's gotten a good night of it since he left. I think he will be glad to come back to his own bed. Maurice slept on his pillow last night. She misses him, I can tell. A little while ago she came to me as if for comfort, licked my face and kissed me on the lips which I have never had another cat do in my life. 
And then she wanted to tear my hand off. I always think of Where The Wild Things Are when she acts like this. Remember the part where the wild beasts tell Max, "We'll eat you up, we love you so?"
Now whether or not she really loves us so, I cannot tell you. But I can safely say that she is a wild thing. 

When I put that picture up above the mantle in the bedroom, I had to take down a mirror that I'd put there. It had been my grandfather's. On the back of it I found this.

I would know that block print handwriting anywhere. Granddaddy put his name on all of his belongings. Or, at least many of them. In my grandmother's recipe box which I also have, I have found warranties for things bought long, long ago, now completely lost to time, filled out in that same hand. He was a man of order and precision. I am sure he framed the picture that Uncle Jimmy painted. He was a fine carpenter, even though he'd lost all the fingers on his left hand in an accident with a saw when he was first training to be a cabinet maker. I don't think those missing fingers ever stopped him from doing a thing. 
I think back on him and he will always be a mystery to me. 

I worked some more on my overalls today. I picked some more peppers and greens and made a little venison meatloaf that I'll put in the oven when I have a better idea of when my husband will be home. I'll put some baking potatoes in the oven too and that meal is one that my mother and grandmother both served at least once a week. Mother experimented with her meat loaves. Those were the days when every newspaper and magazine printed recipes for dishes made with ground beef- the thrifty housewife's best friend. They were endless. There were cookbooks too. "A Hundred And One Ways To Cook With Ground Beef!" I remember the period of time when my my mother started using a recipe for meatloaf that contained a can of Campbell's vegetable soup. Even as a young child I was aware the finding letters of the alphabet in the meatloaf was not right somehow. But I don't have a whole lot of room to criticize. My own favorite recipe uses a packet of Lipton's Beefy-Onion soup in it. And ketchup. And Pepperidge Farm breadcrumbs. And also peppers and onions. 
But no noodles, shaped like letters or anything else. And also no bits of diced carrots or the occasional green pea. Honestly though, we ate that meatloaf and loved it. And although going to Europe when I was eighteen and then becoming a hippie and especially eating the hippie food at a restaurant in Denver called Hanuman's Conscious Cookery, and learning to love and cook the foods that are representative of the south inform the way I cook now, there are still times when I crave the things we ate when I was a child. Sometimes I'd love an iceberg lettuce salad with French dressing and sometimes, I crave a grilled cheese made with Wonder Bread and American cheese or Velveeta or a big bowl of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Other foods bring back memories although I do not truly care to go back and eat them- bologna sandwiches for one thing. My Lord but we ate a lot of bologna. I had a friend once who said that her mother had made bologna salad like tuna salad, substituting chopped bologna for the fish. I'll be quite happy if I never eat instant mashed potatoes again. Or frozen mixed vegetables. 
I'd eat a fish stick though. Or a Mexican Hat made with a slice of bologna as a base and then a scoop of real mashed potatoes, topped with cheese and then baked. 
Food represents so much to us, doesn't it? Sustenance, of course. Love. Comfort. Celebration.

Guilt. 

It's complicated. Just like all our human stuff. 

Love...Ms. Moon

A Short Lesson In Palm Trees

 So today I decided to trim the real palms. Sagos are not real palms, they are cycads. But the cabbage or Sabal palm (state tree of Florida) and the Canary Island date palms that I have ARE true palm trees. None of the ones on this property are huge by any means. I planted all of them myself. When we moved here, there were no palms at all on the property which I saw as a grievous error. Our friend Tom has given us four cabbage palms over the years and I myself planted two Canary Island date palms for reasons unknown to me. I have bitched about them here many times. If the sagos have evil needles, the Canary Island dates have wicked, wicked spikes. But with the long-handled loppers, I can trim them without too much danger. And so I did. That's the mess of trimmings I dumped on the burn pile today. 
Here's what they look like in the front yard from the porch after I finished halfway denuding them. 

This is not a good picture as I waited too late in the day to take it but that's what you get. The two foremost palms are the cabbage palms and before I trimmed them, getting through them to walk up the steps to the porch was like being in a jungle for one second. It's like you needed a machete...oh, wait...nope! No machete needed! Here's the clearing! Mr. Moon has made it quite well-known to me since I planted them that they are, in his opinion, too close together. My theory is that as they grow tall and stately, as they will over what is obviously going to be eons of time, their closeness will not be a problem. Here's what a full grown one looks like. 

I just read that these beauties grow six inches a year (and that's probably in sunnier conditions than mine are in by far) and so Mr. Moon and I will both be dead before my theory is proven as I know it will be if they are allowed to grow long enough. And tall enough, of course. 

I hacked them and the Canary Island date palms back quite a bit. Once I start lopping, it's sort of hard to stop. 

That was the big thing I did today and it wasn't really that big. 

I got some nice pictures from my husband. Not of the woods or a river or whatever they're hunting in or on but of the restaurant in New Orleans where they were having a delicious meal. First he sent me a picture of the menu and I, having looked at it, knew exactly what he'd order. 

And he did. 

A bowl of gumbo and a salad. I know my man. 
There were also oysters shared by all. 

He said they were "incredibly good." I shall have to get details when he comes home. 

Although I am not eating gourmet New Orleans' cuisine, I am happily struggling along on what I'm making here. Especially the salads. 

I also did some more mending on my favorite overalls today. This may be a hopeless attempt at saving them. I'm having to sew large patches over places that I can't even stitch together because the cloth is so very worn through. 
Sigh. 
But I'm giving it my best shot. And it is something to do while I watch TV that I would normally not watch when Mr. Moon is here to judge me. He came upon me last week watching "Selling Sunset" and I defended myself saying, "Okay, look. It's MY version of "Drag Racing." Which is a show he loves and no, RuPaul is not involved. However, men with mullets and decidedly strong southern accents are. And cars that make a lot of noise. 
As they drag race. 
He doesn't really judge me. He's not that kind of fella. I obviously judge myself. It's funny- Billy also watches "Selling Sunset" and we trade texts about the show. And life. 

I love Billy. But you already knew that. 

Well, I could just sit here and chat forever but I think I'll go rustle up my non-gourmet grub. You probably don't have all the time in the world even if I do. 

Take care. Stay safe. Stay warm. 

Love...Ms. Moon

Grateful Appreciation

There are so many roses blooming that I just had to pick some and bring them in. They are the old-fashioned kind of roses, soft and sweet as your granny's bosom and I have put these in the kitchen because I will smell them fifty times a day. 

I am a hunting widow again but as we all know, this is not something that disturbs me much. My time flows with the day, and I do a little of this and a little of that, considering what would make me happiest. Not that I always do what would make me happiest but I do some of that. 

Today I worked outside for awhile, doing actual and real yard work. I pruned back two roses that haven't bloomed in a year because they're in shade, and pulled the border grass threatening to encroach them. I need to move those roses to somewhere a little bit less shady and plant something more apt to thrive there.

Then I attacked the sago palms in front of the front porch which is an easy job but a dangerous one as the fronds are needled and come each with their own dose of mild toxin. But it didn't take me long and I managed not to get myself pierced by one of the poison darts. 

It does not look like winter here, does it? 

I still have not had the heart to pull my pepper plants. These are just a small percentage of the peppers growing now. 

It has been warmer today but it's supposed to get a little cooler this week. Such weird weather. My arugula, beautiful and healthy and the object of my love and desire (culinarily speaking, of course) looks to be in the process of bolting which I have been fearing the greens would do. But still, the garden looks pretty, although it is relatively sparsely planted. 

Plenty of greens for us. 

Food for the soul and the body.

I have washed the lettuces twice and they are wrapped tenderly in a kitchen towel in the refrigerator now, waiting to be made into salads. As for the roses- well, you know. 

It wasn't just roses and salad greens I picked today though. 

The heavy-headed beauty of the camellias thrills me. It just does. And I do not become jaded about it. 

Each and every blossom I bring in is appreciated and admired and enjoyed just as is each and every bite of salad I eat from our winter garden, slicked a tiny bit with olive oil, sweetened by a splash of balsamic, seasoned with nothing but salt, pepper, and fresh garlic, peeled and pressed. 

I think I'm hungry now.

Love...Ms. Moon

A Dreamy Birthday Dinner

Last night's birthday supper was about the most excitement I've experienced in years. It was like, well- a fiesta! I'd never been to this particular restaurant, or at least under its present ownership, and it would appear to be THE place to go on a Friday night. There was a large outside eating area with a massive umbrella covering almost the entire space. It was like a palapa except that it was an umbrella.
And there were lights strung up and there was very, very loud music playing and there were things for children to play on and children were indeed playing on them and the children were screaming in delight and happiness and the wild freedom of being out and outside on a Friday night in the dark! It smelled a little like the fair and reminded me a bit of it too. 
As you can see, Gibson and Owen have both recently had hair coloring done and Gibson now also has pierced ears, like his big brother. My darling wildlings. 
We joined Lily and Lauren and Jason and his mother and the children at a big table and the grown-ups ordered drinks, some neon, some not quite so colorful. Hell, Mr. Moon and I even got margaritas, but just the regular kind with good tequila and because they were served in glasses the size of hubcaps, we sipped slowly. 
And Maggie, because it was her birthday, got a virgin something-something that was as fancy as a princess could want. 

It was good to be with Jason and his mother, to let the children see and feel that we are all family, even though things have changed. And it was just nice. There was no unpleasantness and conversation flowed, chips and salsa shared, all was well. It took so long to get our food that I told Mr. Moon that it was like deja vu all over again, remembering lunch. But we managed not to die of starvation. And Maggie got to open the presents I'd brought her. 

The thing she's opening in that picture is a giant activity pad with stickers and I don't know what all. It seemed impressive. But the present she liked best that I gave her was a "busy book" of "Encanto" the Disney movie we watched recently. I hear that Maggie has watched it several times and goes around singing the songs. Unbeknownst to me, Lily had gotten her an Encanto cake so it was a good gift choice. 

Maggie was so delighted with the little figures of the characters that came with the book that she insisted they all be arranged on the table to watch her eat. 

By the time we were finished with supper, I had been completely overstimulated by the noise and activity and people. The inside part of the restaurant was still completely full and no one was wearing a mask, servers were running hither and yon with trays of food and drink, and every time I went in to use the restroom (we were there a long time) I came out feeling like I was in some sort of Fellini dreamscape of noise and color and underlying threat. So when we finished our meal I was grateful to hug everyone good-bye and come home to Lloyd where Maurice was waiting in the yard for us to come home.
But I am very glad we went. When Lily first asked me if we wanted to come, I said immediately, "I don't think so," but after talking to my husband and thinking about it, I realized that it was important for us to go for Maggie's sake if for no other reason although honestly- she was having so much fun that I doubt she would have noticed if we hadn't been there. And it was important for me, too. I have become way too home-bound and fearful of leaving my house, especially at night. So for many reasons, it's good we went. 
After supper, the kids and Lily and Lauren and Jason and his mother went to Jason's house where they had the beautiful cake. 

May all her wishes come true.

I think Magnolia June had a very, very fine birthday. 

And today has been an easy day, a loving day with just me and my husband. I worked in the garden a little and did some household stuff. He's about to go to a basketball game and will be leaving early tomorrow morning for Louisiana. 

I am feeling very peaceful and very grateful on many levels for so many things. 

And I'm kind of wishing I had a piece of purple birthday cake. I do love a Publix buttercream frosting. 

Let's chat again tomorrow, shall we?

Love...Ms. Moon