Dangermond.org

Today’s my mom’s birthday, she would have been 74 years old today. She had a long and interesting life, so today celebrate the life of a beautiful, loving, and interesting woman. We’re going to – the sun is shining outside on the bayou, my son is saying DADADADADADA (and at times we think he is saying Who Dat!), and my partner is walking around in her thermal pipi’s that she stays in when it gets cold in New Orleans, and life is, well it’s good mom, and we miss you, and last year when we threw you a birthday party and you didn’t come, it should have been clear to me how 2009 was going to go – but not a moment goes by where I don’t remember your impish smile and your beautiful face.

Love is my religion too, mom.

December 28th is my mom’s birthday and I’ve been feeling bummed out about the whole thing despite having this enormous bundle of joy in my life – damn it, I miss my mother. But instead of moping, in the spirit of my mom, T and I are going to get all dolled up tomorrow and go out to dinner to celebrate mom’s birthday. My rubber band heart that keeps expanding and contracting wants to remember her in the spirit in which she will always remain in my mind – gorgeous, stylish and fun.

This is my dad and mom in Cuba before I was born. I was almost born in Cuba but in March 1959, Castro took office officially and we left (me in my mom’s belly), I ended up being born in Miami in May 1959.

When we took in Wolfie we didn’t want a) another dog, and b) a German Shepherd, but then something happened – she won our hearts and the breed has captured our imagination. Anyone who owns a German Shepherd knows this about them, but I never had one so all of her GS ways have been a revelation. She’s soulful, thoughtful, loyal to a fault, protective, assertive and gentle, and she adores T1, just adores her and follows her around everywhere and now most of all Tin loves her!

Once upon a time Rachel was obsessed with finding the perfect shoes, purse, wallet, jeans – you name it. But now I’ve been obsessed with the perfect hat for Tin. Even going so far as to ask people who have brought beautiful gifts that if they see a good hat, not a baseball cap, but a good hat that is lightweight and will protect his head from the sun to buy it and I’ll reimburse them. Then yesterday, on my 869th trip to Target I found the perfect hat on a sale shelf. Naturally he looks adorable in it, and it’s soft and stretchy and just perfect.

We walked to City Park this morning, me, T1, T2 and Loca and it was a glorious day. The park is undergoing a great deal of renovation and what is there so far looks wonderful – first class for our third world city. The big lawn with the bench swings and the palms lining the square are all wonderful. I perched on the bench swing with T2 on me while T1 ran to the bathroom in the Parkview Cafe and three young girls about 8 years old came and danced and twirled in circles in front of me.

Then T2 woke up and we took him over to the play ground so that he could crawl Wimpy style up and down the ramps. Then we went over and sat in the wee little house and he stood at the bar as if he were ordering a drink so I went into the house and said, “Milk?” And he stuck a leaf in his mouth and started chewing it.

Tin can hold himself up for seconds and is cruising all over the place. In just a little bit of time he is going to be walking, and then eventually running straight away from us, and so right now I’m trying to hunker down and notice, and listen, and smell and savor every single second that he is not walking – that’s right, that would be me, the one who has been running at top speed since she was born finally learning how to crawl.

Tin woke up this morning to three presents waiting for him – two from Aunties and one from his Uncles, which was a Saints warm up outfit. So today instead of his Santa outfit, we put on the Who Dat tee shirt his other uncle gave him for Hanukkah and donned his black and gold.

Then neighbors came by to bring Tin books. They say a child arrives with a loaf of bread under his arm, Tin arrived with a roomful of stuff! Merry Christmas.

We went around the Quarter today, just hunting for a place that could take the tourist and local favorite place of Cafe du Monde but alas – foiled again – it and every other place in New Orleans was closed for Christmas.

Jews seeking out Chinese restaurants is an old stereotype but it’s actually true – there is no place to go on Christmas.

The Roosevelt was decked out with lights and trees and we also went to check the much talked about Fulton Street fair but found that there was not much to entice us – and then into the Quarter where the world of leisurely finding a place to have a drink and a snack soon turned into a fantasy. Even the perpetual Christmas store on Decatur was closed because it is Christmas.

Whatyagonnado?

For some reason, all of my significant partners in life have been atheists.

Today’s Christmas – not a morning that Jews are stirring because there are no gifts and there is no tree.

But here at the LaLa where we live, we have a Christmas Story and it goes something like this, my mother who is now angel knew that there was one thing in my wonderful life I wanted more than anything else – a little bitty baby boy. So while all the other Jews were celebrating the miracle of Hanukkah, how one pot of oil that was supposed to burn for one night burned for eight, we were celebrating our own miracle, the arrival of Tin on my mom’s wing and prayer.

Then on the last night of Hanukkah, when we made our weary way home from Indianapolis, we had friends come by to welcome Tin home and to light the last night of the menorah with us and one of Tin’s aunties brought him a little Santa suit. By Sunday, we dressed him in his little suit and took him out to our neighborhood holiday festival and it was there that I noticed something – that we – me, Tatjana and Tin – are a family but from the response Tin gets from everyone he meets, I realized he belongs to a much larger family than the two of us.

Last night on Christmas eve, we went to a friend’s house for a traditional German dinner of goose and activity. We walked in with Tin in his little suit and everyone reached for him and couldn’t resist his smile. Our friend’s mother was visiting from Germany and they put on a shadow puppet show for us that was so delightful I am still smiling. The theme was Katrina and contractors.

And this morning, while my godless girlfriend slept quietly next to me, our two dogs who were not wanted anywhere else slept peacefully on the floor on either side of us, our cat with AIDS who belonged to an older black woman name Rachel, whose family was going to put him down after she passed, prowled the hall, and on a video monitor I could hear my son who I had traveled miles to meet breathing as he slept in his room at the LaLa. Three wrapped presents await him this morning – his first Christmas – our first Christmas – and as I lay in bed I thanked god for him just as my mother thanked god for me.

Why me Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the pleasures I’ve known? But I digress.

That would have been enough. Until I got to my computer to wish you all a Merry Christmas and found 111 photographs that Marc Pagani took of Tin yesterday and I thought given the levity I felt looking at these photographs, I betcha I could go out the front door of the LaLa to the bayou and walk on water myself this Christmas morning.

Our friend, Marc Pagani came over to photograph Tin today and he was a little porky ham for the camera. Then came aunties of all stripes with books and then an uncle driving by with a nicely wrapped gift. Thankfully for Tin – whose mommies are Jewish and Atheist – three wise aunts and uncles gave him gifts to open on Christmas morning.

In the middle of all of this  – a wide colorful rainbow appeared in the sky and wrapped around from east to west and we took Tin out of his highchair to see it, but he couldn’t understand the commotion, no more than he could understand all the commotion over him. Little does he comprehend that his arrival on the scene of the LaLa has stirred up stuff – emotions – desires – love among more than his moms.

A little bitty baby boy fighting his nap in his crib right now from another day of over-stimulation who has no clue that he’s being raised by not just two women, but a tribe that is as colorful and vibrant as a Mardi Gras Indian costume on Super Sunday.

I outfitted Tin in the Moby wrap and he, Loca and I went for a walk into the park again. We were making our way to the wind chimes when a woman with a big moppy dog who laid down in the middle of the path to play with Loca tripped us up. Loca wasn’t in the mood – she was overbearing because she could tell the dog was submissive. And so I was trying to get Loca to leave it and hold Tin’s head so it wasn’t being whipped around and I said to the woman, “Sorry.”

And she furrowed her brow and frowned and said, “No, it’s you I’m sorry for having to juggle the dog and the baby all at once.”

I gave her a puzzled look and said, “Oh, I’m great.”

And I mean it.