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I went to Gal Holiday’s goodbye party and garage sale and spotted two Christmas tree ornaments with special meaning attached to each. I delivered one the other day and received a thank you that was two gifts in one: a word for the day – ex-gratia and the idea to sign up for the word a day email myself. What a wonderful way to start 2011! I sent a link to three friends so they could receive a word a day too.

Gratia was my second husband’s last name, the name I used for the five months we were married. So it is not without a big grin that I clicked on ex-gratia to see its meaning – out of kindness, or a favor.

I’ve been grappling with the default on all my preferences with my new computer. Everything including my iPhoto defaults to someone’s idea of the best way to set it up, not mine. The other day I was in a restorative yoga meditation class and Aaron was speaking about the default position and we lay on our backs for one hour running a diagnostic test on our body from tippy toes to top of head – it took a full hour – and in that hour we were checking out what our default position is – how we have become programmed to react to certain things and people.

I’m here to say that the default button can be changed, but it takes a lot of work. And sometimes it seems like life is a lot of work – how to deal with stress, how to deal with loss, how to deal with relationships, how to deal with toddlers throwing trumpets, how to deal with dogs acting aggressively, how to deal with cats clawing their way through your household and furniture, how to deal with just about everything. For everything we have a default position but that doesn’t necessarily serve us.

I received a text message from my sister the other day and I chose to ignore it. But then I veered to a higher calling and tried to do what my mother would want me to do and that is respond, so I did. And the next text message she sent was a reminder that I murdered my mother and she asked, “how could I live with myself?” So I defaulted to me and responded to the rant in Rachel speak, “Easy,” I text back.

We are our default button. But the truth is we possess the ability to change our programming – we just have to decide for each event if it is worth it to work passed default into a more evolved response – in this case, it wasn’t.

I really hated to see California women wearing Uggs, it made no sense. And it makes NO sense here in New Orleans either, except at the Lala where the cold air just seeps right in through the floorboards where you can almost see down to the ground since the last freeze popped out all the filler between the boards. So I went online to see about getting Tin some Uggs for around the house and to go to Croatia in (there you need Uggs).

$90 for a pair of toddler size 7 Uggs (read: fits in the palm of your hands) – what goes on? That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life. He will not be wearing Uggs. Sorry.

Our nanny is still out and her friend came to watch Tin to give us a needed break, not necessarily a desired one. We have loved having him to ourselves even if it has come at the expense of everything else. This morning it’s almost like everyone could sense the change in energy – from domestic harmony to once again BATTLE STATIONS!

Loca lunged and growled at a woman who was peacefully walking towards us – the second time she has done that to a human. The first was a woman who was talking on a cellphone in a shrill voice and waving her arms as she talked and Loca lunged. This time she was fierce though and it just upset me (and the woman) so much that I came stomping home and put the kibosh on T taking Loca with her to the Reading for Rover and elders program. Just Heidi, not Loca.

Then Tin was in his hitting mood and trumpet throwing mood and before you know it the whole house swirled into chaos. So much for domestic bliss, but we all managed to assume our positions and of course, he was a PERFECT ANGEL for the new nanny who he showed off for all day. Whatyagonnado?

Meanwhile, she told us her friend’s toddler is so musical just like Tin and he walks around the house saying WWOZ just like the DJ because they are always listening to the radio (well to the best radio station in the world that is – WWOZ). Now, I thought that was totally cool.

Tell me, why oh why, just tell me, why we have to endure “the name that can’t be spoken in this here blog” in a reality TV program? Has American audience sunk to the lowest common demoninator? The answer, a resounding yes. I was watching an interview with Ian McEwan where he was asked if he thinks that we are all going to hell in a handbasket and he said that writers like to think so, thinking people like to think so, because it gives you cred to believe we are all deeply flawed “we love pessimisim, it is the badge of any decent intellectual to think we are all going to hell in a handbasket” but he himself believes that for the most part people are basically good.

So in abstract I have to the believe most people are thinking beings and this anathma is surely just the conjuring of a jester in the royal court – merely entertainment – merely getting rich off of people’s base fear.

[Watch this interview too on McEwan talking about my all time favorite author John Updike – marvelous – my English professor at UNO, Malcolm McGraw said that he had written the great American novel in the Rabbit series, and I sent Updike a letter and told him that and said I believe it too, and he wrote me back – a handwritten letter I will forever cherish – I had told him I bought most of the tetralogy on a remainder table and he was quite taken by the hilarity of that – oh but I digress, was I not speaking about an unintelligent being and here I am discussing a hyper intelligent one? – oh silly me.]

The other day we were walking to a friend’s apartment in the Quarter and we stumbled across a man playing the guitar. Tin stopped, of course, to check him out and the guy let him play with the guitar. Then he played him a down low blues song that came deep from his gut. We gave Tin $5 to give the man and said, “We always pay our musicians.” The guitar man said he liked that lesson a lot.

We’ve been watching Trombone Shorty and Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis and Professor Longhair on YouTube and Tin is mesmerized by these musicians in the same way we are (not to mention just how hot is that Trombone Shorty – good lord!).

We’ve been on some sort of food jag around here that is more amplified than it usually is – last night for dinner we had kale soaked in coconut milk that was flash fried in a hot skillet so the marinade caramelized the kale and then we had chickpeas with dates and star anise curry to go with it. Yum. We got these recipes from the New York Times magazine last Sunday and they were yum yum yum. So tonight we’ll add some tilapia and kaffir lime sauce to go with these dishes.

I’m not going to sit here and say that all books are better than movies, but for the Salander trilogy they are – the second book was so engrossing that the first time I became aware of the trilogy was in Europe when I saw Spaniards, Germans, French and Portuguese with a copy of The Girl Who Played With Fire in their respective language in front of their faces. That book was a doozy – kept me turning the pages.

We went to the first movie because someone said it was good – it wasn’t. We started watching the second one on DVD last night and it sucked so bad that I can’t believe they let this guy make the movie.

Read the book – so much more enjoyable.

Yesterday went so swimmingly, we decided we’d try to head out to PoBoy Fest today to hear some more live music and eat a poboy and enjoy the last of this good weather, even if it did get a little chillier today. Heading out the door already proved ominous when Tin refused to budge unless he had his sunglasses though it wasn’t sunny outside.

We got to Oak Street and instantly scored a great parking place and Tin immediately ran to the first stage and was dead center right up front and although we were having fun and dancing, even I couldn’t take the loud thumping music that close so extricating him was like pulling teeth and we headed down the street trying to find a friend who had texted us. The crowds were growing thick even at the start and before you know it one little tantrum turned into another as suddenly he was starving as the three eggs, two pieces of toasts, one mango, one container of yogurt, were simply not enough for him. So we stopped and held up a wall and fed him brisket and french bread and our friend found us.

And within minutes of greeting, we all knew the best thing to do was to go as far away from the PoBoy Festival as we could possibly get, so we headed to the little playground and the boys ran around and slid down the slide and were swinging their blues away.

This is not a criticism of PoBoy Fest – it looked like a real good time, but I think there is a period in your toddler’s life where grass and swings and slides work way better than crowds and live music and concrete.

A neighbor was walking her dog on the bayou today and stopped to chat a while during lunch on the porch time. Dining al fresco as we like to say around here. She had been in a long marriage and divorced and not too long ago had married again and it ended in divorce shortly afterwards. She said one thing that keeps her going is there is no scarcity of love, so she’s not worried about meeting someone and has a matter of fact been having a good time and met some great men.

I like that because the other day I was speaking to a good friend about this guy we know and I said, “how is it possible this man could be single when he is the most eligible bachelor I know” and she said, “because he wants to be single.”

Touché.