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I was walking through City Park in some state of headiness as I am want to get while strolling through a lush landscape dotted with interetsing birds and plants and trees. The Louisiana yellow and purple irises are just starting to fade from their Easter burst, but there is still a dot or two of color here and there. As Arlene and I rounded the lagoon, I saw a shadow in the distance, a black man making his way toward the picnic shelter and in the shadows saw a glint of metal. I had two choices, continue strolling by the lagoon’s path, which would position me alone behind the shelter or divert to the railroad tracks which is more out in the open. I watched without watching to see what he was doing and he leaned over the picnic table. To the left were ducks and swans and I chose to the take the path on the right, out in the open. As I came near the front of the shelter the man had disappeared causing a slight chill down my back as if indeed one of those ducks had walked over my grave. When I turned back, I could see the man now leaning in slightly towards the lagoon, and in his hands a long telescoping camera lens focused on the ducks as they swam away.

It’s the fear that wears at a community.

Another rough round with a ticker that Wall Street likes to kick around – why not kick MSN? That company has $40 to $50 million in the petty cash drawer and it still failed to launch its own search, failed to buy Overture, failed to buy DoubleClick – insane. Anyway, it made complete sense to run out the door and to the Square for Irma Thomas today, but there was no way I could pull it together – instead it is a Calgon take me away evening.

Everyone’s familiar with fabulous cost overruns of the Big Dig in Boston but let me introduce you to the big dig in New Orleans. The concrete guys came to build a retaining wall in the front yard and put in a driveway and sidewalk and entrance path. While digging they broke the water line and had to redo. Then the irrigation guy came and dug a trench and broke the sewer line and started cussing at me about it because I hadn’t marked it and in all the years he’s been doing this work he’s never hit a ceramic line and I looked at him as he was a nutball – because he is. Meanwhile he told me I had to pay for it and I threw an ever loving fit and stormed back in the house.

Meanwhile, my friend arrives from Boston on Friday and will be treated to mounds of dirt, broken pipes galore, and one very psycho hostess.

Joe came by this afternoon and said that he is going to trial tomorrow to testify against the man who killed his nephew right in front of him. He’s worried of course about repercussions. He says he told his judge friend that this is why people don’t come forward – fear of retaliation. He told me it’s because of how easy the NOPD can be bought. He said a few dollars a cop will tell the suspect’s family who is doing the testifying.

It got me all worried and I told him to call me after trial tomorrow but also to lay low – to drink his beers at home – and stay off the front porch and stoop.

He said he didn’t know if he could sleep tonight. I told him he was doing the right thing and he said his two other friends told him the same. I asked if he could live with himself if he didn’t testify and he said no – he has a conscience. What are we going to do when every day I pick up the paper and see another black man gunned down? This morning it was a grandmother saying she has lost five grandsons to murder. How do you cope with that?

I’ve been reluctant to even change my hairdresser to be here – instead still seeing my stylist in San Francisco – but today Graham got the best haircut in the world – and so now I’m moving that much closer to believing New Orleans can deliver on everything. Scott Reynaud at Jupiter Salon in the Warehouse District – 304.4752.

He said that if people read the news they’d think we are still not back – well we are and we aren’t – but it’s good to know we have decent haircuts, restaurants, music, and joie de vivre – all key to the good life.

I took Arlene in for her dental work and informed Dr. Ghere of her episodic puking and told him I fear it might be lead paint based on all the work that is going on around here. He said let’s do blood work before we do her teeth but that would mean waiting two days for the results and I said well her Lucky Dog tag fell off yesterday and I was nervous about the anesthesia today anyway and he said, well definitely let’s wait two days. I like a vet who understands superstitions and the attachment that a person feels towards her dog.

Later a friend in SF wrote that her dog – 14 – had an emergency run to the vet this morning but she was saved too. She said that Cleo is her lifeblood – oh don’t I know that.

It’s a rough age – 47+ – it’s when everything even your mind is headed in some other direction or in multiple directions – and the A.D.D. that comes through the line of work I do is no help – well nor was Katrina and etc etc etc – all distractions times 1000. So today I am now focused on retraining my mind how to focus and the first thing I focused in on is why the Street always has such overreactions to overexpectations – it’s like someone is not mind the store or something. So again, focus. We all could use a little bit of it these days of multifarious distractions.

God help them all – what a waste of life. A horrible tragedy. Why no immediate broadcast that a killer was loose on campus? Who, what, why?

The guy who invented that slogan just died – he was the king of infomercials and came up with a lot of the ubiquitous direct ads you see on television all the time. My favorite was – “but wait there’s more…” And that is how life is for me. This morning I got up, reluctantly, because Sunday was about learning to linger in bed – in my bed – and relax. I had forced myself then found myself relishing my bed on Sunday morning with the Bean in it and the fat Sunday paper to read and the heater on full blast – so this morning I did not want to get up.

Then the day began – my neighbor came by and said there was a miscommunication as they didn’t really want the fence along their property line but instead on my side and they’d figure out their life on their side later. Fair enough.

Then the plumber came by to inspect the toilet that keeps clogging and said well these are those new fangle toilets, which unfortunately I put one in like it myself, and so it’s back to old school where you flush and release for peeing and flush and hold for stool. You got that? Yes, I said I got that.

Some phone calls – clients, sources, colleagues – the usual workaday stuff with the usual uncertainty and good and bad – and then but wait there’s more. The concrete guys dent the water pipe which now has to be replaced, capped, etc because it is going to be under concrete and so the plumber caught it on the way out and you know the drill by now here at the LaLa – it’s the LaLa three-step – that would be one step forward, two back on any given day of the week.

Then Arlene’s lucky tag fell off her collar and she is set to go in tomorrow to have her teeth cleaned – a procedure that requires her going under anesthesia so now paranoia and superstition plague me because her lucky tag fell off but wait there’s more – while the concrete guys were digging they uncovered deep within the bowels of the LaLa dirt an old horseshoe and so it’s a lucky horseshoe – luckier than a lucky tag.

My haiku for the day:

My name is Rachel
No hidden agenda here
You can see through me

My haiku for a friend/colleague:

Call me transparent
Tell me it’s not good or bad
But are you see through?

My haiku for Graham/Trish:

Graham tells Trish this:
“Rachel is an open book
That’s why I love her!”