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Went over to L’s house for dinner with him and Juanita – Hazan’s recipe for gnocchi sauce and spumoni from Brocata’s along with fresh squeezed lime cosmopolitans and Dutton Estates Syrah from Swirl – we all hope when we are about to turn 85 that we look as good and are enjoying ourselves as much as Juanita – and that we have children who dote on us like L dotes on her. The pièce de résistance had to be the guest who mysteriously showed up for photos later in the evening (hint: Tony Bennett). I’m still giggling about him.

My friend AA had called before I left the apartment to see if I was having a blue Christmas and I said nah, I’ve spent a relaxing day and watched a great Saints game and will have dinner with friends tonight. She said, you’re not going to believe it, but I’m in love! Turns out the woman we met when I was there with her, trying to make her ex jealous at the two-step club, and she are in a thing together. The sad news is her father is in the hospital with some kind of poisoning in his blood that no one can figure out what. I said if he lived here, we’d blame it on Katrina. That is where all mysteries point.

Today I’m going to volunteer with Temple Sinai – we’re meeting at Bridge House for still I don’t know what. I had almost threatened to go to Cavalry Church and volunteer when they didn’t respond to my offer. In the end, they sent me a one-line email saying to show up at Bridge House this morning. Another mystery that will soon be revealed.

For all the mysteries that will not be revealed and for all the miracles that occur in our lives, big and small, we are thankful for our many blessings in life. As Juanita says – “ya’ll are going to be fine” – and we want to believe her.

Didn’t feel like watching the Saints game alone and couldn’t ride my bike because of the rain, so went over to Wit’s Inn, a sports bar on Carrollton Avenue. It proved to be a good call. Some gals from the GPL group of Swirl were there that I knew – R called me over to sit with them but I picked a nice spot to watch in my own private world. The game was exciting and fun, because, of course, the Saints won. G, still in NY, was in the Meat Packing District with H and texting me the whole time because she was so excited about the game. R’s table right in front of me was loud and crazy, singing Who Dat every opportunity and by the time the Saints had a decent lead, they had the whole bar doing the wave. A great way to watch the game. And thank you Saints for showing the world that we are going to be just fine after Katrina – stronger and better – renewed.

I found out that Reggie Bush has the same aqua glass tiles in his bathroom. Must have good taste.

It’s Sunday morning and my usual long bike ride is being stalled to see if the rain clouds and drops are passing. So the newspapers were finally read, and the gift of tea my Flower sent me from Illinois was tasted, and Arlene was allowed to curl up on the couch and be near (something she seems to need more than anytime in the past – although she spent many a morning in between Steve’s legs while he read the paper – she is not used to my inability to sit still).

What came to mind this morning is the whole Sex in the City situation. Emailing with a friend, she writes – “I know he is bad news, but I want to read all about it.” And I know, frankly, what she means. Married my whole life, I was on the phone once with a newspaper advertising source who told me she LOVED the television show, Sex in the City – this was years ago – and I said, “I can’t relate to those women.” My friends were mostly married and the few in my life who weren’t, wanted to be, and surely none were indulging in $500 shoes or sport fucking anymore.

Enter 2006 and a big upheaval in my life and a change of scenery and friends. Now, when a woman from the Midwest refers to my “sex in the city blog entries,” I scratch my head. Earlier this year, I rented a few seasons of Sex in the City when I found myself waiting on a man to make up his mind about me, and waited for my feelings to sort out about my husband from whom I was separated. Inevitably, each episode would hold me in rapt attention and then all the air would deflate when the episode ended – I’d be left with this vague sense of emptiness and sadness I believed at the time was being informed by my own experiences.

In actuality, the single life of a woman in these times is complicated. Women are experiencing the empowerment of a feminine sexual expression, financial independence, as well as learning our own sense of what beauty is once the bloom of youth has passed. We are confident about who we are, but when it comes to communicating who we are to the opposite sex, we’re still at an impasse.

When we find the one man who stands out in the herd – call it sexual attraction – we behave in certain ways to communicate our interest, but more times than not, communication breaks down in each exchange – my friend laments in her email not hearing from this man she knows is “bad news” but she wants him anyway. I understand, is all I can tell her.

I’m not an expert on single life as some of my friends. But being married made me an expert in other ways. I know what it is like to love a man like your own life and care profoundly about his wellbeing. I also know what it is like to not be able to communicate with the same man even while sharing a bed every night, and drinking out of the same coffee mug, and staring into familiar eyes when you wake and before you go to sleep.

My ultimate desire in life is to communicate – to find the other on this planet to communicate who I am to – unfortunately I realize I want that person to know me, to get me, to want me, desire me, to love and like me, without too many words exchanged.

They’re only words, but words get in the way.

This afternoon I walked Arlene over to Swirl with $20 in my pocket to spend. Just wanted to give them some business. It was so BEAUTIFUL outside, I felt on top of the world. I ran into Greg outside Terranova – he has his table of flowers set up and so I ended up spending my $20 with him instead. I wanted roses but he insisted on cala lilies. He told me he LOVED my red dress last night. While he made my arrangement this large woman got out of a big Cadillac. She had tattoos on both arms and she started selecting roses, and her husband in the car kept yelling to get the pink ones, and she kept yelling back she wanted the peach ones.

I walked over to Swirl and sat down for a spell just to pass some time. We gossiped a little and people came in to buy wine and gifts for the holidays. And on the way home, I reached nirvana and believed that truly I am the luckiest woman in the world.

My mom called and said her two brothers and sister were driving over from Franklinton to take her to lunch – I asked, is it just for grownups or can I come? – her response, if it were just for grownups I wouldn’t go.

So I went to Metairie to meet them and had a delicious fried oyster salad. Yum. Then they all wanted to see my house so we drove back to MidCity and I gave them the grand tour and afterwards we sat outside on this delightfully gorgeous day.

They LOVE the house and say it has Rachel written all over it. Funny, didn’t I just hear that from Moosey? My Uncle John, who is a history buff and shutter bug asked me if I ever get the feeling there are ghosts of my relatives around and I said how’s that? Eight generations ago, my great great great great (don’t know how many greats) grandfather Hugh piloted the large sailboats that took goods off the big boats in the Mississippi and piloted them into the bayou. Kind of cool.

So as we sat there on the porch, soaking up the sun, and watching the rays glistening and dancing off the water, we decided that my backstory is my ancestors have been at the LaLa for eight generations and back in the day (1800s) when the bayou was used for moving goods, my great great great (whatever) grandfather Hugh would pass in front of the LaLa as he brought goods into the city.

Swirl was fun last night, particularly with the menorahs all blazing and lots of yummy wine. We took some wine and went and sat out in Alcee Fortier park – it was a gorgeous December evening and someone had strung white tiny lights on makeshift Christmas trees in the park and across the street in front of Cafe Degas there was a tree with red lights. All so beautiful. While we were lighting the menorah, the carolers were singing in the park.

Beth and Kerry gave me a bottle of Alto Moncayo, which we drank later at TL’s house. This morning after Pilates, I went by CC’s for some coffee and saw M, who was with us, I sat and had coffee with him and we went to go see my house. I was telling him all the travails because he is renovating a house right now too. I told him the house was making me suicidal and he said, “sell it.”

Once we went through the house – he said, you can’t sell it. This house is you.

See what I mean – the LaLa is nutty and I’m the LaLa.

What could that ever mean? Tonight, I am only milking wine and maybe winning some money at a game or two of dreidel. After a week, not unlike many weeks in 2006, it’s Friday, it’s New Orleans, so it’s off to Swirl to be with my friends and bring cheer into our little worlds.

Next year, the time changes are going to be earlier then later because a new law passed about daylight’s savings time. So there will be more light in our life in 2007. For tonight though, on the winter solstice, we will light my seven menorahs with 9 candles each as it is the eighth day of Hanukkah and we’ll create light where there is none.

I have made my world, and it is a lot better than the one they had prescribed for me. Hallelujah! Joy to the world. And to me.

So yesterday was a downer, today was a downer, and I thought what am I going to do? So then it came to me. I called Ken in Michigan and asked him if he would work directly for me on a weekly rate. We had discussed this months ago but I had nixed it because I couldn’t insure him and feared that if he couldn’t fuck me, he’d certainly sue me, thereby taking away the LaLa. Now I feel like he can have the LaLa if he wants to sue me, cause I need a plan and the one I have isn’t working for me.

SO I called Steve and said fixed the kitchen sink cabinet so Mr. Pieri can come back and measure on the 4th, because then I have to wait 6-8 weeks for installation. Give me a bid to finish painting. And Ken is going to work for me. Wala – LaLa – whatever – I’ll be the GC. Up until now I’ve needed the expertise of Dave and Steve, but they’re there if I get stumped, but I think I know what needs to be done cause hey, now I’m an expert.

I spoke to the window manufacturer and there are two possibilities where the leaks are coming from and so when the glazer comes we’ll address those and hopefully solve that problem. Once again – five man scratching their heads and elsewhere was getting me nowhere – so I called Lyn and she told me where the integrity might be compromised in the windows she manufactured and so I’ll have Bob address them.

God save the Queen.

Yesterday it was pouring down rain and I went to lunch with the contractor after we inspected the three windows that are leaking into the addition. He presented me with a bill as I said that was three times what he said it would be a month ago. I bit my lip but couldn’t help it and started crying there in the restaurant. Such a girl. Good grief. I went on to drink five Cosmopolitans and thought about taking the remainder of my Xanax and calling it a day. He drank 7 cocktails and said he felt bad.

But we’re not finished. On Tuesday after Chrismas, he is going to present me a bid for finishing what absolutely has to get done for me to get a certificate of occupancy from the city. I’m none to impressed at what the cost is going to be. I thought a few months ago, when we spoke, that I needed $70K to finish. But now that has been absorbed into just getting to this point and I need an additional $50K just to get me in, not even to finish.

At one point when the conversation couldn’t get any worse, he raised his cocktail up and said Merry Christmas! And I said, no, that would be, Merry Fucking Christmas. The good old MFC.

As I lay in bed last night I thought about the options of just getting in the car with the Bean and heading to Mexico leaving all of this behind, much in the same way Steve was able to walk away from this monster that he created and go live his life footloose and fancy free. Typical response – too much, can’t deal, won’t. I thought about polishing off the bottle of Xanax and being remembered as a pitiful creature who just couldn’t take the overwhelming weight of all this any more.

I tossed and turned, and all that kept creeping back in the forefront of my mind was what my mother had said when I called her last night, weeping and bemoaning my lot, I told her I couldn’t take it anymore, I’m done – she told me, “you are so strong. if anyone can cope with the enormity of this, it is you, honey. I know you’ll find a way to handle it.”

And so, here’s to another day, and Merry Fucking Christmas to us all!