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So far have two friends who have been to Bay St. Louis and around Alabama’s Gulf Shores and said the coastline is looking clean. Just heard from someone who got back from Destin yesterday morning, and said the shore was clear (except he heard that tarballs washed ashore last night after he left). A friend continues to blog about the shoreline in Florida.

I continue to have hope that the ocean is mightier than human stupidity.

My friend’s updates are better than CNN – after a while I feel like the endless loop of HORROR played out on the TV screen is just too overwhelming.

We went to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo last night in the recently remodeled Canal Place Theaters (very fancy by the way). I’d say it was hard to judge the movie given what we knew going in. I run into this sometimes when I’m speaking to a friend or acquaintance who happened to have read my blog and I’m repeating a story or thought. It sort of loses it’s immediacy and luster told twice in two different ways. The books were so engrossing and the movie, well, I’m not sure if so much of the wonderful detail that brought those characters to life was really there. Lisbeth still doesn’t look like what I imagined – a frail willow wisp of a girl who kicks ass. The actress who plays Lisbeth looks more like a butch lesbian. Blomquist is sexier than I imagined from the book although his sex appeal is so understated which makes it even more intriguing how gals are falling into his bed left and right.

No rush for me to see the next movie versions as I feel like I like the story I own in my head rather than the one they are retelling to me on the big screen.

I saw a friend running on the bayou yesterday afternoon when I was walking Tin around, one of the neighborhood lesbians that overindexes compared to most communities. She sent me a great clip this morning about a woman who wrote a book about being raised by a lesbian mom and about a study that shows that children from lesbian parents overindex towards being more adjusted, getting better grades in school, and overall. Interesting gaybit.

I can’t see why Tin wouldn’t benefit from having two mommies.

Apparently John the Baptist was born six months before Jesus and so his birthday falls on June 24th and is celebrated with a feast day. Some cultures celebrate the eve of St. John’s Day with music, dancing, food and a celebration. This date is also venerated by Voodoo practitioners and Marie Laveau was said to hold ceremonies on Bayou St. John. Because of that our modern voodoo priestess Sallie Ann Glassman continues the ritual by holding a ceremony every year on St. John’s Eve (June 23rd) on the Magnolia Bridge over Bayou St. John. Everyone wears white and brings something for the altar and there is drumming, singing, dancing, and lots of mysterious water sprinkling. Here is a video from Katrina Film from 2008 – this celebration grew in importance after Katrina.

I ended up at the last minute finishing the dinner preparation, grabbing mother in law, a friend visiting, and Tin and heading over to the bridge for the year’s celebration. While the drums were going hot and heavy, I felt Tin’s hot little body moving to the drums – the only thing he had really responded to all day. And then the conch shell was blown – reminding me of the shofar and Yom Kippur.

Turns out every child around the bayou is sick with this bug – Joseph, Ruby, Lucia, Tin – whatyagonnado?

Yesterday, the plan was simple – walk dogs, work, gym, work, spend time with Tin, walk over to see Sallie Ann Glassman perform her St. John’s Eve ritual on the Magnolia Bridge with mother in law while T worked with a colleague on her manuscript. Okay that was what was supposed to happen.

1. The dogs got walked, but literally right as we crossed into the park a deluge came and we ran into Loca’s best friend, Sangi and well, everyone was soaked to the bone. Still good despite being soaked not being in the plan.

2. Work – well first get out of wet clothes but put on temporary clothes because no time to shower (an issue with this job) and so wet head, power through five millions phone calls.

3. Tin – run down after morning calls to get him up and give him bottle and something is fishy in his eyes – turns out later he has a fever. This does not improve with the day.

4. Gym – pishaw – as if – wearing now gym clothes but missed three potential classes and about to call it quits.

5. Work – more of the same.

6. Tin now whimpering and not napping because he feels so crappy and his fever has gone up to 100. Declines food. Can’t be comforted. Then he falls asleep.

7. In gym clothes still – and so go for run, might as well get something done here that is progress.

8. T working with colleague, Tin feeling crappy, take him for walk, cross over Magnolia bridge as the voodoo devotees are getting set up. Ask them if they are on for 7, yes.

9. Make dinner for everyone which gets eaten by everyone in this house at a different time including the guest. Tin doesn’t eat. Sobbing now sitting on his bean bag in his room and me stroking him, then T coming in to stroke him. Doesn’t even want to go to trampoline or anything.

10. Walk over to bridge – witness ritual – everyone calm. Back to the house for a bath with Tin to calm him some more.

11. Guest leaves close to 11PM. No Wire episode. Exhausted. Tin sleeping deeply – check on him – not hot – he is clutching Leonardo.

Boo hoo is all I have to say. Tin came down with a fever and I could tell by the look in his eyes this morning that something was not right. He had slanty eyes but not sleeping, not fussy, but off and sure enough he caught a virus from the birthday party he was at on Saturday. Germ bus – other kids are germ buses!

Someone sent an email volley with a lewd photograph about finding a starfish in the Gulf. But really before I opened the email I thought it was that one more celebrity was giving their opinion about the Oil Spill – so far James Cameron has been consulting by the head of the EPA. Robert Redford was on CNN last night offering up his wisdom. And I believe Lenny Kravitz was on the news the other day voicing his opinion. Starfish.

Tres bizarre.

In yoga today, Michele said she had traveled to the Gulf to check in on Mother Ocean and was happy to report that Mother Ocean said she was bigger than all this and would survive. Good news.

I checked in with the bayou and asked if all the rest would be okay and the bayou said, yes, indeed.

Tin woke up late this morning and I envied him the ability to sleep in. I got up early to walk the dogs as this was the first morning I didn’t have to be at my desk before dawn and just as we were stepping out it started thundering and Heidi grew skittish, so we just rounded the bayou and returned. A neighbor called and said it felt like spring outside and I thought she was joking. Minutes ago the sky opened up and the deluge started, the kind of rain that only happens in New Orleans, where it feels like you should have started work on the ark months ago.

Which brings me to right now and what’s on my mind. I spoke with a long-time source yesterday and we had a long talk about aging and perception. Is it me? But I’m not having those pangs or fears of losing my looks like my friends? I still feel attractive, even carrying extra weight around, and even looking in the mirror and seeing deep set lines EVERYWHERE. And more importantly, I just don’t give a damn what anyone thinks and probably less so now. I told my source that the good news for her, she’s a few years behind me, is that while she cares about these things now, as soon as her libido takes a nose dive at 50, she won’t give a rat’s ass about her looks.

On a day like this when the rain is coming down in grey sheets, I care only about not getting too caught up in the moment – you know where you think things like OIL SPILL, WTF? Or like earlier in the week when I spoke to a broker because friends of ours had refinanced their house at 4.5% interest and changed to a 15 year loan and gotten a similar monthly payment and I desperately hoped for the same but my calculations came back different – $600 more a month – and not a good plan. So I’m back to contemplating retirement and how that will be possible with a 30 year mortgage and a monthly payment that will exceed any retirement I could hope for at this point. And yet, I just thought about all the beautiful apartments I have rented in my life – that was really the passing thought – they are clear to me in the rain as I experienced the best ones here in New Orleans during monsoons similar to the one we are having right at this moment.

There is something comforting about where my mind is after all – I look outside the window at the rain and feel cozy inside; I look in the mirror and know where every one of my laugh, stress and frown lines have come from and each one tells a pretty decent story; I look at my midline and know that it was a delicious glass of Stolpman Syrah or the pizzeta that put it there; and more importantly, I look inside my heart and know that there is love.

I ask you – what could be better on this, one of those days?