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We’re in the thrust of a lot of heavy news from earthquakes in China to volcano ash spewing over Europe to oil spills in the Gulf – everyday you’d think that the end of the world is upon us or something close. Today, I got up and walked Heidi and Loca and they were all over the place – Heidi sniffing here, Loca jumping there – and I walked to the park where other people were walking there dogs even though the end of the world is about to happen.

Then I went up to my desk and had no more news about the end of the world, but lots of inklings – BP apparently has a rig about to blow that is much worse than the one in play right now. New Orleans lost another young musicians to stupid violence – a lover’s quarrel. The European financial system is in crisis – here’s a quote from today’s New York Times:

With the exception of wartime, “the public finances in the majority of advanced industrial countries are in a worse state today than at any time since the industrial revolution,” Willem Buiter, Citigroup’s top economist, wrote in a recent report.

And yet, today I went to lunch with a friend at a restaurant that just re-opened as it has been shuttered since Katrina – Katie’s on Iberville. It was amazingly packed and nosy and bustling with business. It’s a block away from Liuzza’s that has almost the same menu. Go figure.

Today, I heard that a woman graduated from Mills College (my alma mater) who is 94 years old. She’s one of two over 90 year old women to graduate from college in history.

I found my wishbox pendant as I was getting my clothes together to pack for Miami and in it was a wish for a Croatian baby – wow – that was a couple of years ago – so I put a new wish in the wishbox and cut a lock from Tin’s hair and put it in there with it.

I’m sure the sky is falling and that we are not alone in the universe and that there are negative and evil forces out there that threaten our joie de vivre every day, but today, without a doubt, it is a stunningly gorgeous day on Bayou St. John, we have a new police chief, our birds here are safe, and people who know what they are doing are working alongside the people who don’t know what they are doing to do something about the oil spill, the economic crisis, and peace in the world.

Most everyone I speak to in Louisiana believes BP is lying about its capacity to cap this oil well. They believe that BP is trying to divert the oil before they cap it off permanently so that their investment is not squandered. As well the manufacturers of the rig supposedly divested dividends in secret to stave off having to cough up liability money. Could a corporation be this greedy? You make the call.

Meanwhile, WWOZ posted a video from the fishermen who make their living off these waters – who came back from Katrina and who as one says, have saltwater in their blood – our way of life here in the Gulf South is once again threatened. Our shrimp, our oysters, our marshes and wetlands, our beautiful birds.

Today the Yellow Crowned Night Herons soared on the banks of the bayou – we’re surrounded by water here in New Orleans – it’s our pulse – and it’s under assault again.

If the answer is that corporate greed did this then what will we boycott to make our stand? There are hardly any BP stations not to fill up your SUV at – so this will have to be a bigger sacrifice in order to make sure that this is the last of these sorts of man made catastrophes – this time it’s not the CORPS, its the CORPORATION.

This morning we woke up to a few drizzles that turned into a storm to end all storms – thunder, lightning, rain galore! Tin slept in late and if I had had my druthers of what to do with a day like today, it would have been to sleep late, and then to resleep. It would have been great to start one of the many books by my bedside or even watch a movie from my collection that T gave me for my 50th (so far we’ve seen 3 of the 50).

T decided we should have a family outing – just us three – and so we headed to the aquarium where we encountered everyone else in this city with small children – only we forgot to bring Tin’s Ergobaby and he was suddenly looking like he needed a nap more than an aquarium visit and so we spent most of the time trying to get him to fall asleep on my shoulder with T’s jacket tied around my waist trying to take some of the weight off. It wasn’t working.

Then we decided to just bolt and get to the truck but alas it was pouring down rain and then I stepped in gum. At one point, I said to myself, “Self, this is a rainy day Sunday and it will pass.” We gave him a bottle and some crackers then we finally got back to the truck and decided to go for a drive instead, so we drove up and down the levee in the Bywater hoping Tin would fall asleep. We listened to WWOZ and the Gulf Aid musicians.

He wasn’t falling asleep so we stopped at Dizzy’s on Esplanade and I went in to see if they served beer and the woman said, “Yes, Root Beer.” Ha. We drove around some more and he fell asleep and so we stopped at the Country Club for a beer while he slept in the truck. We were on the porch watching him and then I had such a sugar low by this time, we ordered club sandwiches – just as they arrived, he woke up.

So we took the sandwiches to go, gobbled them in the truck, and drove home.

And I finally did go back to bed, but instead of a peaceful, rainy day resleep, I went from one tortured dream to another, waking up to low grade anxiety that had me almost curled up in a little ball. It’s a stressful time for me at work right now and there is stress in the house with T’s mom visiting for three months.

This too shall pass and right now we have to find our rainbows in the rain where we can. T also suggested a little sandbox play for the whole family and so we chilled on the back porch while Tin scooped all the sand from one part of the box to the water and in the end, we had smiles on our faces.

I was telling a friend the other day that it would be nice to have a six month event hiatus – no bad news – and she said wouldn’t that be nice. As I listened to yet another relationship in crisis, I wondered today if this is just the way it is, somedays are big things like catastrophic oil spills and colleagues passing, and some days are your day to day relationships breaking up, drama from other friends, and not winning Powerball which had gotten to $95 million.

We have these areas of our life that we are balancing and we try to get all our ducks lined up just so and then some cosmic hand comes down and knocks one, two, or all of them down so that you spend all your time trying to get them lined up again. Wouldn’t it be nice if your ducks could just waddle along behind you for a spell.

Bad News:

From Silence is Violence on May 12th – This past Sunday, brass band musician and music educator Brandon Franklin was murdered in an episode tragically reminiscent of the origins of SilenceIsViolence. Like Dinerral Shavers, Brandon was a founding member of a local brass band, a young man with a spirit full of energy, and a gifted musician with a special touch for sharing this gift with other young people.

Good News:

NEW ORLEANS – Looking to revamp the troubled New Orleans Police Department, Mayor Mitch Landrieu picked Ronal Serpas to lead the efforts to clean the brand which has been tarnished by federal investigations and named him as superintendent at a morning announcement at Gallier Hall.

Tin and I walked over to the New Orleans Museum of Art this morning to see a few exhibits – Patti Smith donated some of her photography to the museum and those were interesting. There is also an exhibit called Beyond the Blues, which is reflections of African American artists that had some interesting paintings. But the most striking were the Joan Mitchell large canvases that were hung in the lobby – gorgeous. It’s quite a treat that the museum is just steps from our house.

As we left the museum, we detoured over to the big lake and went under the big oak tree with the wind chimes. There was a nice breeze blowing as clouds were forming and rain was on its way. Tin looked up almost startled to hear the chimes and I could see in his eyes that he remembered something about those January mornings when we walked to the park and stopped under the tree to hear the chimes. Even I stood there mesmerized by the sound and the thought of how much younger he was just five months ago and how much he/I has changed.

I came home and as I was preparing his lunch, my mother in law walked in back of me and called Heidi “Vushka” (T’s name for Wolfie), and I suddenly felt as if Wolfie’s ghost was here in the house with us. Later, I came upstairs to wait out the rain before heading to the grocery and I kept thinking of Wolfie and looked at my calendar and saw that she passed on January 9th. We let balloons go into the air for Wolfie just a few weeks ago, just like we did for Arlene a year ago. It’s good to let the dead go.

Voices from the Corners of the Sky

Some of us are leaving now.
Some of us have done our time.

Some of us were taller candles and had more burning to do.
“Poof,” you said, and it was true, “Poof.”

Maybe we loved you, but not always.
Maybe you loved us and it will never be done.

We’re finished now with lost keys, the dust
of teeth grindings milled mostly at night.

The shimmering is falling off your names and the names
of things, the pots, the colors, the books that fed us.

Whatever language we take with us—the murmur
of flowers fallen face down in the mud, the drink’s ice

chinking to seal the sunset, the exhalations at the end
of circling a place to lie down a dog makes, lying down—

think of it as one day coming back to you
in the rain’s slow trickle down panes of glass.

Now, please. Let us go
like a meadow of balloons let loose to the sky.

By BARBARA RAS

T and I keep marveling over how Tin can play with his grandmother in front of the boombox listening to Blue Moo (a CD that a friend in Boston sent him) over and over and over. Songs like We’re in a Parade!, Singing in the Shower, and Blue Moo travel in an endless loop around my head. T thinks that Tin and her mother are closer in age than anybody else in the house.

I think we set ourselves up for stress by taking on too much in our lives. A friend just ran by the house this morning on her way to do one thing and then another and then another and then another. It’s Saturday for godsakes I thought as I dragged the plants into the bathtub to water them and then put the clothes in the laundry.

I watered the cactus in the back and decided not to put in a plunge pool, or make a storage shed, or change the laundry room into a den of iniquity/guest room – I’m done I said. Done done done.

I dreamed last night that Tin had gone in for his eye procedure and I kept thinking he had been under too long and they said no it has only been 20 minutes and I looked at my watch and it had been 40 minutes and I was screaming at them to stop the procedure, STOP THE PROCEDURE.

Good grief.

We were out with friends last night and listening to the spill over from couple’s therapy and I wondered to myself does couple’s therapy ever really work? There is always someone trying to change the dynamic and someone who is resistant – that’s the push pull of most couples I’ve observed my entire life. So having an outsider say to someone – you know he really is right, or you know you really oughta ____, seems to me to be futile exercise.

Sometimes people know what they need to do to get along but they simply don’t do it because of reasons too myriad to categorize here.