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I asked a friend today about his mother and he told me she died three weeks ago. I didn’t know. He said he thinks about her more now than he did when she was alive. Another guy emailed me that he was sorry he didn’t make my party because his father was in the hospital all weekend; he’s out now. My mom came to the party on Saturday night – she’s going to be 72 this December – that is young, right? – 72 seems young to me these days. But she doesn’t wear it well – she seems old and fragile and feeble. When I helped her to the taxi at around 10:30PM, she looked up at me in her brand new floral frilly blouse she had bought special for the party and said, “I had a fabulous time!”

Later J said she was speaking to my mom for a while and she hadn’t noticed before how much of a flair of drama she has about her. She told me the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Oh really? Well J’s dad is a country western singer which is probably why the last time she had the Karaoke mic she was singing Endless Love like the cows were about to come home.

Got up to do my usual constitution – feed the dogs, walk the dogs, then walk the dog, and then rush home for a conference call with Poland. Only all my rushing got me to a delayed call. I really believe all this rushing isn’t good for your soul. But that is the older me talking.

I was in Sav-A-Center on Friday picking up a few things for my party and ran into some people with heart shaped sandwiched boards who were there to spread the love. Love that is for us New Orleanians and love that is coming from South Carolinians. Life is very interesting here in New Orleans – was before and now post Katrina it definitely is. Check out Chris Rose‘s column in today’s Times Picayune for more on the people from SC who are sharing the love.

I got my Ipod and was going to take a walk with Loca this evening and get us both some exercise after my Pilates class. But Arlene gave me those big blue and brown eyes and I had to take her along which made for a much different walk. So I turned on my music and was just starting to listen to Loudon Wainwright’s Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder when the first person stopped and started talking to me. So I took one of the earphones out, then we crossed the bridge, and a woman stopped and was asking me questions about Loca and I had to take the other one out. As I made it across, I ran into the woman I wrote about earlier – the one who took elocution classes for her Yankee beau – and we talked for a while.

Then I saw Barbara standing out in front of her house, which is directly across the bayou from mine, and Joe has been telling me she wanted to know who did my roof – so I stopped to tell her and we got to talking because she was watching the party the other night and said it looked like fun. Then Dagmar, who lives down a few houses walked by and she was asking me how the party went and I told them both that I had invited the entire city of New Orleans so I don’t know how they didn’t get on the list other than I didn’t know them until just now. Barbara has lived in her house for 27 years. Dagmar grew up in her house and she is in her late 70s or early 80s. They both said they’ve seen some stuff. Ya think?

It makes me feel good to know that I have the potential to be an old woman living in the LaLa – wouldn’t that make for a great life? Surrounded by my peeps.

I went to Swirl around noon to return all the stuff Beth had lent me for my party. Ice chests, ice bucket, 144 Swirl wine glasses, and a bunch of left over cheese so that she can put it out for Tuesday’s tasting. I ran into Sinesio – our new grocer. He is a young, energetic guy and he has a nice smile. I’m so excited that the market is reopening – possibly on the 2nd – that I want to patronize him every day. He’s Cuban and so I spoke to him in Spanish and he showed me his end cap wtih all the Cuban and Latin items.

A friend in the neighborhood who came to the party late, having been at another party, and who, by the way, danced a wonderful slow dance to Al Green with me in my living room – I think it was somewhere around 3AM – brought his sister with him and she was a riot. I hadn’t met her before but she lives right across the bayou. She had me in stitches talking about this guy she had dated from up north who she was so in love with and who made her take elocution classes because she’s a Yat. You had to be here to listen to her tell us how she learned to pronounce correctly every day language such as “I am going to the grocery now.” OMG – had me in stitches.

The writer for the magazine article about the LaLa called me to go over the copy. She said a huge credit goes to your husband, Steve, who is a master of detail – he must have a terrific mind, she said, and I agreed. “I could ask for 20 details of importance and find them without having to look for them, from the way the front posts connect to the roof via the metal brackets, to the way the house flows from front door to back door.”

She said, you should definitely submit this house for an AIA award and credit Steve. But I chose to write this article about you because you live in the house and you embody it.

Last night, after having given up on ever getting a nap, I went to La Vita and joined friends outside at a big table for dinner. We toasted to Fatma coming back to MidCity after having gone to the Marigny to open up Del Forno. Overall, we were just happy to be living here in the greatest part of the world, among friends, and enjoying the good life.

Moosey arrived during desert and ended up coming back to the LaLa with me for a follow up to the conversation we were having – which had to do with getting priorities straightened – like business versus pleasure and at what point these two things should intersect. He had such a male perspective on it – keeping them so neatly silo’d in their respectives places while mine was the more overlapping female view that they are inextricably intertwined.

Around this time of year in New Orleans, weird crime starts to spike. Everyone used to blame the heat, and then they said it’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity. But there is something else, some form of desperation that is worse than heat or stupidity – it’s a man confronting a woman to steal her purse and then knocking her down to the ground and man behind her calling out to the perp to stop and getting shot in the face. Or it’s the woman who was being beat by a muscular man and crying out “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” But by the time the cops showed up, the perp and the woman were gone – was she kidnapped?

This morning, a man I see on the bayou pretty much every morning came over and introduced himself to me and asked if I had seen the craziness on the bridget the other day. A guy in a pick up truck tried to come across the Magnolia Bridge but the big iron pillars stopped him, so he went zooming around the bayou, drove up on the grass and entered the bridge from the other side, and zoomed across it and ran into the iron pillars, and then backed out of the bridge and took off down Moss. Psycho?

It’s around this time that the bucolic mixes with the alcoholic and perhaps throw in some crack and you have instant insanity. For those who are not familiar with it – it’s why we live here, not the horrific stuff, but the other side of the insanity that makes for a compelling life.

Today, on the day of lounging for the Lord, all I wanted was a nap, since I had only had two hours sleep. Loca spread herself over me on the sofa and was all over the nap but I had a few phone calls that lasted longer than I expected – by the time I rolled over and was ready for sleep, Loca was biting my belt loops wanting to play. Sigh.