Momma Moon She Rises...........

I was reading Jane Poe's critique of "Winter's Bone", a novel by Daniel Woodrell, and I truly believe that if she wants a job as literary critic at the New York Times, she has it. She almost had me wanting to read the book. It's no fault of hers, I can assure you. I just have a hard time digesting literature this deep. As a big fan of King, Chichton, and other like authors, I imagine you can get my drift. I suppose that plants me firmly in the garden of most easily amused, but I get by. I'll not apologize for it. Hell, just look at my own writing.

And now for more pedestrian concerns. My legs hurt. My back has barely recovered from waking this morning on fire, having (to the best of my knowledge) not slept properly on my side as I should have, since my back has been informing me of late that sleeping on my stomach can no longer be tolerated by this aging spine. Yes, I've gotten rid of the waterbed and replaced it with a construct of a pair of hospital bed mattresses (upon which numerous people took their last breathes). and foam mattress pads, but so far it hasn't seemed to cure what ails me. The next step is to shuck out about $130 for a memory foam mattress topper of the proper dimensions, but something tells me it's not going to allow me to continue to sleep on my stomach and avoid the painful consequences. Getting old sucks.

A bright shiny moon has risen this night and the air is rather frigid, dropping into the thirties and making one think that Florida actually has a winter. Well, yea, we DO have something resembling a winter, only in fits and starts, and one never knows from one week to the next what kind of clothing one should break out and have ready. If we hadn't worked so late tonight we would have prepared a nice fire out in the shade garden to enjoy the moonshine and sangria, soft pagan music, and each other's company. I still have enough wood from clearing this lot to last us for many more comfort fires to come.

And now Yule approaches, and the wife has our winter decorations out. Note I did not say CHRISTMAS decorations. Finally, that monkey is off my back. No more pressure on the budget, no more wading thru the crowded Walmarts looking for crap to buy, held hostage by some insane social obligation to spend money we don't have to get things for people they could damn well buy for themselves. Strangely, the idea of not getting gifts myself is refreshing, since I dreaded having to open those packages and see what kind of crap I was going to have to smile and look happy about getting, when in reality it was never anything I wanted and wouldn't have spent my own money on if I had it. The gifts we give, when we find a proper excuse to give them, usually involve sweat equity and would be something we would love to receive ourselves. So, out with "SpendSpendSpendMas", in with celebrating the turn of the year, lighting the Yule log, and toasting the rebirth of the Sun, true bringer of life and light to this world, no pits of hell or hail marys required.

My good friend Buffalo clued me in to a dear old man who, of all things, actually blogs, and by old I don't mean barely old like us, but OLD, as in having been around awhile, that awhile being like back when two nutcases flew a kite at kitty hawk and they had one big nasty war as well as a flu epidemic that killed even more people than the bullets and gas did. He is a wealth of aged outlook and observation, and I thirst for the wisdom he has braved the new tech to give to us free of charge. He's "Don to Earth" and he belongs on your links. Remember, it was our cherished elders who once were charged with passing on the wisdom of the old ways and the old truths, instead of university professors who think they know everything before they've lit 40 candles. LIsten to him; you WILL learn something worth passing on.

As for my own words of "wisdom", well, you all know how much they are worth. About two cents after a mail in rebate. You got eight weeks to wait for a rebate? I didn't think so. Blessed be.