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My thoughts are with Natasha Richardson’s family. Poor thing – so young and beautiful.

Okay so it isn’t freezing cold here and I was on my way back to the conference from a lunch appointment and popped into Henri Bendel and it was like a shopping fantasy land. Now I know why I hate shopping in New Orleans. So then I just browsed Banana Republic because I had just been there in NOLA and was wondering if the chains were downgrading us or something – turns out that BR’s clothes this season SUCK so that is not a NOLA phenomenon, but Henri Bendel didn’t couldn’t doesn’t exist in New Orleans, so this kind of shopping a ga ga, is only possible in the Big Apple not the Big Easy.

But one black mark, I was walking into the building this morning for the conference and a woman was coming out who I didn’t notice and because I hadn’t held the door for her she yelled, “THANKS A LOT BITCH!” Wow, anger management honey, check it out, you need it.

I woke this morning in a hotel room with that feeling of “Where am I?” and believe me that was a loaded question. When I turned on the light in the bathroom, I saw the red dotted face from whatever has bit me or made me allergic. And then I started making the slow progression into where am I.

I am about to turn 50, in New York on business in an economy that feels like quicksand, on my Facebook is a message from the German Shepherd we rescued who now lives with us, and on my bedside table is a note on Japanese paper my gf left in the bag with my picnic lunch she gave me for the plane, and on my cell is a text message I received yesterday from the birthgiver who changed her mind last week.

I look again in the mirror after brushing my teeth and think – gadzooks, I need to lose weight. And why is it so hot in here? I check the thermostat and realize, oh right, it’s me, who is hot, not the world. Global body warming is a menopause phenomenon. Then I remember a dream where people are coming up to me to tell me something and I move through them like the breeze through the trees – a phrase I overheard from a queen at the Country Club telling another queen about a Yugoslavian woman he’d had the pleasure of dining with years ago.

I pick up the sewing kit I begged off the desk clerk last night to replace the button my cashmere coat and find to my utter joy that the needle is prethreaded and think – it’s the simple pleasures that will get me through the rest of my life.

Now to face the first day of the rest of my life.

“Tell her we are not getting a bigger kennel.”
“Westies can’t stay in the kennel for ten hours.”
“Our dog is just a normal dog, why should it need a bigger kennel?”
“It’s not that I’m not listening to you, it’s just that I don’t think this is as big a deal as it is becoming.”

Tomorrow there is no rehearsal, so you are free to do what you want.

Amid whirring, honking, shuffling, sirens.

On the way to yoga, I heard Evan Christopher playing his clarinet on WWOZ and next he was chatting in the studio. Later on the way to the airport, I heard TR’s smooth voice introducing Danny Boy, appropriate for St. Patty’s Day. At the Louis Armstrong airport, a woman said, “Where’d ya get those shrimps?” “Um umm” another woman said, “they sure look good.” The gentlemen who looked at my ticket said, “I just got back from New York. Man, it was a trip.” And he didn’t mean the voyage. I sat down at my computer and discovered the airport has WiFi – wow – and then listened to a voicemail that was my neighbor saying, “I’m picking up a buddy of mine and headed to Finn McCool’s – thought you might want to join us.” That’s the same one who was sporting Red in his Green and White just the other day.

In the past twenty four hours, we have received numerous contact with people who have adopted through private adoption in the US, championing our cause and urging us onward. We’ve also received a note saying there is a possible baby.

So how do you plan your future without a baby and simultaneously plan for a maybe baby?

I’m headed to a conference in New York and it is cold there. It is stunningly beautiful in New Orleans. People are depressed there from the cold and the news. People are laid back and happy here. Why leave paradise? Because it’s hard to make a living in New Orleans, that’s why.

Marin County has the highest incidence of breast cancer in the world. Some believe that the demo of affluent white older women might be the cause – as they tend to go to the doctor sooner and are diagnosed earlier. Others blame bottled water. Yes, that’s right, this demographic of women were the early adopters of the strange bottled water craze.

We’re going green at the LaLa and have done away with all bottled water. We have our Brita and that’s about all we are investing in.

Selling water should be a crime. Manufacturing a gazillion plastic bottles a bigger crime. Do the planet a favor and give up the bottle.

I stacked up my business travel in anticipation of Ele being born early June, now I’m left with stacked up business travel. I’m trying to see the bright side and this is the only thing that comes to mind – if this baby were intended for us, she would have come.

What else can I believe?

The air is so humid in New Orleans you can cut it with a knife – we’ve all heard that one, but did you know that some of the reason why we are a social beast down here is that voices carry further in damp air than in dry and so we live not only in close proximity but also in hearing range of others.

That of course changes if you are in separate rooms in the same house and have an accent:

Where’s the none?
The what?
The none!
The nan? We finished that.
No, the none.
What?
Next door. The none! Where’d she go?
Oh the nun! She’s in Florida.