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I saw that a wild wind storm swept the midwest and was so relieved to walk outside in the 64 degrees sunshine and grab my paper. The front page was a photograph of the candlelight vigil for the two year old shot while playing outside. The side bar said 10 people were shot yesterday in New Orleans. Insane?

It’s always around the summer when things get out of hand, the heat drives passionate rage. But close to the holidays it is despair, that is when expectations are outweighed against reality. I saw another article about a woman who went to the mall with a mandate to spend only $200 per child for Christmas presents. How about no money for children for Christmas – how about the gift of love, reading, time shared?

Flower sent a gift for Tin that we are saving for him to open up Christmas morning. Tatjana will return with something from Croatia that he will open for Hanukkah menorah lighting. And that’s it – we are giving no gifts this year instead we are giving the gift of gratefulness.

Giftless and grateful. Maybe that should be the motto of this year – that and perhaps Sunny Days.

I slept last night early – a product of the continuing headache that plagues me and no relief in sight. And of being exhausted from the day. Tin without the structure of school was terrorizing the house – he pulled the shade down and broke it, climbed on the sofa, bed, and table, wouldn’t eat, and pulled the video camera out of its socket.

Breathe – breathe.

After he went to bed, I worked on a letter for my friend who I call a mother waiting to happen. She would be an excellent mother I said, providing a child a world so richly textured and loving that any baby born into her world would be lucky. I kept one eye on the bed while I wrote this – it was 8:40 pm.

Then I went to sleep and dreamed of people and places long ago that all collided into a fantastical world that left me breathless by the time I woke this morning. The encounters were all a series of misunderstandings and reconnecting and each one was more intense than the other.

Where do you go to my lovely, when you’re alone in your head…

I have just heard the word poo poo 83 times and caca too many to mention, forget about the no’s because I don’t think they’ve stopped yet. I then witnessed a temper tantrum that went on uninterrupted for 15 minutes complete with being called Mommy, Mom, Rachel, and No.

My head hurts. Wah. Wah. Wah. CaCa PooPoo. No!

Zora Neale Hurston
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

I was born, unlike the other women in my family, with large breasts. Me, I wanted junk, big ole junk in the trunk, so when I see someone who has great junk, I always stop, stare and appreciate. Today’s word of the day, callipygous from the Greek meaning beautiful butt.

“‘Pick me,’ Aphrodite says, arching her back and turning slightly to present to him under her robe a callipygous formation more perfect than ever he has seen.”
Joseph Heller; Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man; Simon & Schuster; 2000.

Now for some fair and balanced reporting, yesterday, a two year old was shot dead in the head while she played outside in her front yard. A victim of a shooting at the B.W. Cooper projects. Perpetrators, young bucks who have guns and think that life is trivial. Huge problem.

The only reason a young man would take a gun and foolishly shoot someone else, and foolishly kill a two year old is if that young man lived in a society where life was meaningless. His own life I mean.

Now you tell me what creates a life like that for a boy – a hungry stomach, poverty, no strong parental figure, a society that has failed to give that boy an opportunity, a city, a culture?

What about the boy who was called outside by his so called friends and was shot dead. His mother said he was good in school, she was strict, he was loved, but he got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Our young boys don’t need crowds like this. Huge problem.

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted… one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
Eminem

Our friend is about to become a mother – it looks like this adoption is going to happen – and as I write, I’ve just tucked Tin into bed. As a single mother of the last week, I can tell you that my friend has her work cut out for her, all those wonderful plays, art exhibits, movies, concerts, lectures, dinners, cocktail parties – forgetaboutit – she won’t see them anymore.

I used to marvel how mothers or fathers would tell me they had not read a book in a long time other than the Cat in the Hat – ahem – I have memorized the entire Seuss oeuvre.

But my friend, as I said, is a mother waiting to happen, and having been one myself I have to say that when the opportunity presented itself to be a mother at 50 years of age, I knew I had one shot, one opportunity. And now on the other side of that decision, I think to myself again I don’t believe in coincidences or accidents, another cliche is validated – the most rewarding and challenging thing I endeavor to do.

I’m excited to meet the little baby boy who is going to make my friend a mother. And to meet her after the fact as well.

It turned out to be a lovely day, so lovely in fact that when we all left to go for a walk and I passed my friend in her yard, I left Tin there so I could give the dogs a good romp and they got one indeed. They swam in the bayou, they ran off leash, they bumped and leapt and did all the dog things they have been unable to do since they are not getting even the bare minimum of their routine of a walk.

Pelicans were diving in the water, a large snowy egret opened its large wing span and created a shadow across the glassy bayou.

Beautiful.

I went to grocery shop at the new Rouse’s downtown on Baronne Street. It is so awesome to see a local grocer really catering to the people.

Beautiful.

I stopped in the new Maple Street Bookstore walking distance from my house – how awesome is that.

It’s beautiful.

A friend sent me this photo from an art opening we had all gone to where Tin kept hiding under my skirt. Again beautiful.

Loca and Heidi got in a dog fight today, and as it has happened before it was spurred on by Loca growling at Tin and Heidi growing overprotective, but it has my nerves frayed. Or let’s just say I’m over it. I took a cat in each hand again and ejected them from the house – Bam Bam sleeping on Tin’s pillow again (where he keeps getting bug bites on his face and I can’t help but wonder if it is caused by a cat on his pillow), Blekica terrorizing Tin so that he couldn’t walk in his own room (having been scratched by her one too many times). By damn, these are cats, this is our house! Sheesh.

So it was that I heard the fight start in my bedroom and went in just in time to gather Tin and get my kitchen towel and chase Loca into the bathroom and Heidi into her bed. I’ve decided that is the last dog fight we are going to have around here because from now on they are going to be separated unless supervised.

Everyone was fine as long as the gravy train chuck wagon was rolling free, but now suddenly everyone is getting shifty, nervous they will be the first kicked off the island, and believe me right now it’s looking like a mass eviction. I’m in the mood for some beach combing, and some me me me time.

I ran into friends at the museum who seemed to see me as frazzled but I say, try ending one job, starting a new job, running a community project, steering a school committee, watching a toddler, taking care of two dogs and two cats, being sick for two months and not having seen the gym not even once in all that times except for a yoga class that felt like ground zero, and let’s see how your nerves are at the end of the day.

I’m not saying I’m sparring for a dog fight, but I’m saying, just don’t let me taste even a drop of blood.

Looks like Gal Holiday & the Honky Tonk Revue is big in Spain – here is a club in Barcelona getting down to Vanessa and the boys. Who knew that Barcelona likes line dancing as much as we do.

I’m so happy to live on the bayou, but also near City Park, but then ALSO near the New Orleans Museum of Art and today was its 100 year anniversary that had a celebration that started yesterday at 5pm and continued into this evening. We went to hear the brass band by the NOMA Cafe and then segued to the marching band following it from the entrance of the park around the museum and back to the front entrance. Then we went back inside while Tin colored with his friends at the Young Audiences table, and then a trip inside a fluorescent room where we came out covered in fairy dust, and then Tin became a Valkyrie and later we saw a ballet recital with young girls dressed in white sparkly dresses and an Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike with a Ricky Ricardo accent as their instructor. Lovely day and we just barely scratched the surface at this celebration.

Excellent job NOMA and Happy Anniversary!