9/11 and my sources say they are going about their business there in New York.
August 29th and we went about our business here in New Orleans.
The Jews have a way of dealing with grief – we bury our dead within 24 hours and sit shiva for one week. You grieve and then you come out of the house and go about living again.
Life is for the living.
This morning, walking around the bayou, I passed a man in a flowing orange robe – Hari Krishna from their home on Esplanade. Turning the corner, came a group of nuns walking in a single file towards the church. Crossing the Magnolia Bridge three nutrias swam in a V, headed north. L says that D said the park is creepy and threatening – really? – I see moss fat from the trees, a lagoon where herons and egrets bathe themselves with the swans and ducks. Friends and neighbors – dogs and children – and a sense of plenty and bounty.
Down around the corner, out in the street, the folks on the court were all out having their glass of wine and night time talk. The pleasure police, as she has come to be known, was dressed down. The driver of the concrete truck who came to deliver to the house being renovated – dressed down. By the time, we were coming to Moss Street again, the penultimate house, the door opened and two heads poked out saying they were making left overs – come on and eat. It’s how we do it here. I begged off the glass of wine that was being almost forced on me and said I was headed for clean living down here at the LaLa, with my detox tea, and a bubble bath.
My neighbor is having her baby boy as I write – yippee!!! Another baby.
Last night, P, T, and G and I went to celebrate our birthday at Grand Isle where P’s husband is the chef. The food was delicious and the presentation was awesome. Crabmeat salad with citrus sauce, tuna with eggplant, then a profiterole with candied mint ice cream and caramel swirl. We girls caught up on love life, work, kids, and travel then G and I headed to Bacchanal to see what was up there. We sat with a couple, who were maybe not a couple, hard to tell, and the band sounded great (Broken Smoke) and the conversation grew interesting and twisted, and the night blooming jasmine was strong and heady. Classic New Orleans at Bacchanal, I kept thinking – nice crowd – we looked around and were surprised to know no one there except the workers.
Then I came back to the LaLa to a pleasant, serendipitous visit from the man with mesmerizing eyes. Hmmm.
It was a weekend cut from the cloth of Turkey – Friday had been a testy day, a day of workaday accomplishments with all of the weekend unplanned or scheduled – the last free one of its kind for a while, my mood was swinging from the trees with a sense of impending more and more to do and a little Eli creeping in. So that night, I forced myself to doll up and head out, and in doing so, reversed the course of the entire weekend. Hersheye cok guzell olijak.
Fatma wrote to remind me that I’m an international heartbreaker. It’s easy to be international in Istanbul and turn down the German, Turkish, French, Israeli boys who want to charm the pants off of you – literally. Fatma is down in Marmaras with Ferah on the coast without me. Wah!
My mom called today with news from a family who has already suffered with the death of young daughter and subsequent suicidal depression of her mother, that now the oldest son committed suicide. Too much pain for one family.
Twelve of us met for breakfast and gossip this morning after a long bike ride. Somebody said her co-worker’s husband became enraged by his wife’s vibrator and took the thing out in front of God and neighbors and threw it down in the driveway and rolled over it again and again with his truck.
Wow.
Another day older and deeper in sweat. It was a fabulous bike ride this morning – my entire entourage was somewhere else and I was out in Kenner and this guy almost ran smack into me, so I just smiled and said hello and then he followed me home. Well not home, but all the way back – he had just come from biking in Oregon and was talking about how beautiful it is out there. Oregon, shmoregon I said. Look how beautiful it is here – and right at that very moment, riding inches from the water, a flock of pelicans glided by – my mind screamed THEY’RE BACK!!!!! I thought the pelicans didn’t return until around November or maybe that is when they work their way back to the bayou – but there they were, for the rest of the ride it was a pelican bonanza and I was loving every minute of them.
One of the couples at my porch party last night was a Match.com date. He asked me if I am on Match and I said no. Then she told me, I am on Match because the photo she uploaded was one with me in it and she said, “it’s a real bad picture of you, but it’s such a good picture of me.” What goes on? Anyway the date turned out to be a nice guy – good dancer – and a lot of fun. But the behind the scenes stuff between this one and that one proved to be more interesting than anything. My favorite line of the night – “Oh, don’t even pretend like you know me.” Have a porch party – you never know what will happen or who will show up.
Down here in New Orleans, if the porch light is on, come on down – I started with one drop in, then two and now another on the way. It’s the magic of the porch.