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We packed a picnic of egg salad and the nun’s Irish soda bread with some cookies from Sucre and headed over to Mom’s grave to refresh her flowers, have lunch with her, and commemorate the anniversary of her death two years ago. It was a beautiful day, the camellia bushes in the cemetery had all spent their blossoms that now skirted the tree like a snowy apron, the sun was bright, and the undergrowth around the pine trees was a riot of winter hues composed of umber, scarlet and browns.

Tatjana bought some elegant cookies especially for mom because she was so elegant herself. Tin offered part of his cookie to Mimi:

Afterwards, we drove over to my aunt’s house who was babysitting her grandchildren. We entered to a house with freshly baked snickerdoodles and two lively little girls. Tin got some good play time in on her sunny and lovely screen porch and talked about his cousins the whole way home:

We always say on Fat Tuesday that everywhere else it’s just Tuesday, but really last night a friend and I went to Meaux Bar and it was lively and gay. I had a delicious lardon salad and a winter vegetable soup that was divine; my friend had boudin noir – delicious. Then we headed to the Spotted Cat to hear Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns who were starting at 10PM. We walked into Smokin’ Time Jazz Club in full swing and a crowd that made you think it was a holiday.

Is it Tuesday night? I wondered.

Tin went to his nap knowing that when he got up he had a playdate with Lina so he woke up so excited and said, “I have a playdate and I’m going to eat pizza and cookies and have juice,” – hmmm – I said I think it is broccoli and kale they are serving. “NO BROCCOLI AND KALE!”

Fine, I have a playdate tonight too – I’m going out with my Puerto Rican friend to hear music and see the town a little bit. I started getting a little excited myself about having a playdate and having a cocktail and adult time. “NO JUICE!” I thought to myself as I put my lipstick on.

To celebrate the release of a new Clarinet Road CD, Clever Wines will host my next jazz brunch this Sunday. They’re handling the food this time, and if it’s half as good as the band, it will be great.  I have Mike Pellera, Peter Harris, and Ocie Davis. Background jazz? No way! Hope to see you Sunday.

I went from a StarTac to a Blackberry to an iPhone and along the way my contacts have gotten more and more screwed up. I’ve just figured out that I’m not going to have the email or phone number I am looking for at any given time. But when I asked a friend who dat? she responded and I apologized for my contacts being all screwed up and she said, everyone knows my contacts are all screwed up – and so it is.

Similarly, our guest sent a pic of Tin taken at Thanksgiving and I was just thinking about them, that like attracts like in the sense that either you are in or you’re not as far as this crazy mixed up world. As for me, I keep writing, and those that are in get woven into the fabric and those that opt out, are out by their own choice, not mine. I practice inclusivity, not exclusivity.

In contemplating all the things that are changing in our life, what seems constant is music’s indelible place. Children respond to music and dance and sing without inhibition. Adults respond to music in more muted tones (well some of us, some still have happy feet). Tin has always had a strong ability to focus in on music – remembering lyrics, beats, and even the performer’s gestures.

Music is what redeemed us from the darkness of 2005 and the aftermath, it is what gets us up in the morning, and carries us to sleep at night. The certainty that music is what links us to the universe is evident in every movement on earth. I drove Tin to school this morning listening as usual to WWOZ and Coco Robicheaux was singing Spiritland. I was reminded of why we’re here.

We’re supposed to dance while the music plays.

One of the themes after Federal Flood was all the things that weren’t here no more like K&B or Sidmar’s or Bucktown or Fitzgerald’s or Maggie’s. But lately in my interactions with Tin I find myself telling him over and over that what I am doing right now might not be what he does when he grows up such as:

Reading the newspaper

Putting a letter in the mailbox at the post office

The payphone still on Louisiana that he always looks at and says telephone.

It is quite amazing to be living through these times when so much change is upon us that it is making us all somewhat off kilter and yet I don’t know how many people knew as parents that icons of their present would not be there for their child’s future.

Despite the rainy, cold day, Tin and I went to Big Lake in City Park to take a spin on the bike around the path and then wound up at the playground for some much needed climbing. Just like dogs need to be walked every day – little boys need to run, climb and jump.

I was reading a post about the passing of Coco Robicheaux on a friend’s blog and was thinking to this week where Wednesday marks the second anniversary of my mom’s passing. Today as if written, Deacon John’s smooth voice was belting out Any Day Now, the same song he played graveside for her one year memorial. It’s time to refresh her flowers in her vase, and to visit just for a spell, and mostly to remind Tin that Mimi existed someplace other than our memories at one time.

I read with interest an article in the NYT about Black Atheists and wondered how it is that after all these years of partnering with atheists and moving further away from Judaism that I feel more spiritually intact than I ever have before – this isn’t a discussion about whether there is an afterlife or whether there is a divine purpose – this is an acknowledgment that we are mere mortals and there is a spiritland that exists inside and beside all of us.

God bless you Coco – and mom – we miss you here on earth.

Faced with the innumerable possibilities of how to spend yesterday evening into this evening, the drumming at the Healing Center, the Celebration in the Oaks, the French Quarter stroll, Three Muses, a CD release party for a friend, a playdate – we did the following: nothing, nada, zilch.

Because when you can’t remember the last time you simply lounged for the lord then the time is ripe. No excuses necessary.