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Rabbi Ben Simmons was fed up with his congregation. So, he decided to skip the services on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and instead go play golf.

Moses was looking down from heaven and saw the rabbi on the golf course. He naturally reported it to God. Moses suggested God punish the rabbi severely.

As he watched, Moses saw the rabbi Ben Simmons playing the best game he had ever played. The rabbi got a hole-in-one on the toughest hole on the course and then again on the next hole.

Moses turned to God and asked, ‘I thought you were going to punish him. Do you call this punishment?’

God replied, ‘Who can he tell?’

Wednesday is radio silence so I can see about getting entered into the Book of Life and clean up my list of people who have pissed me off and get off other people’s list of who I have pissed off.

So tomorrow when the Book of Life is open, and I’m fasting, here’s what I’d like my entry to say oh great cosmic forces:

Rachel had a year of transition, but we’re going to cut her some slack and make that transitory stage end now instead of going the whole full year. She has done a lot of introspection and decided there are only a few things that need to be tweaked but for the most part life’s good. Only she would like a little more this and a lot more that in some areas, if you are feeling generous. And also, give her a head of hair:

Gimme a head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

AMEN

I’m working with my life coach and today was a particularly tough session because I realized that I kicked Wonder Woman to the curb during all my recent travails. Wonder Woman is the person in me who speaks up, who speaks directly, who speaks her heart. I spoke my heart to two people who turned their back on me. I took on heady work of the resurrection and reconstruction of the LaLa after the Federal Flood, and bulldozed my way through an army of men whose main goal was to prove that I am a woman and would succumb. I worked at a company where things were going sideways, I called a spade a spade and that got me fired.

But then I started stacking auto immune deficiencies one after a another, and I started questioning Wonder Woman’s role in my life so I kicked her to the curb and set about trying to reinvent myself as Ponder Woman.

Well, I’m resurrecting Wonder Woman today – she’s coming in to clean house because things have gotten a little untidy – step aside Ponder Woman, she’s baaaaaaack.

Go in peace my daughter. And remember that, in a world of ordinary mortals, you are a Wonder Woman. ~ Queen Hippolyte

I took the dogs for a walk this morning and ran into my therapist, which is always tricky because there is a part of you that wants to just start letting it rip, and then there’s a part that knows you are not “in session” and so best to approach topics gingerly.

There were pelicans swooping around the bayou, and lots of dog walking action, and we skirted the banks catching up about this and that and covering a lot of ground without getting too deep.

In the meantime, it’s has been my armchair therapists who have been carrying me along. I spoke with a good friend in Atlanta last night for a spell to go through each and every major life bullet point, I tried to catch up with another in California the other day but we got waylaid, another from Gentilly stopped by to check in on me and how I am doing, and then I spent the better part of yesterday with neighbors hanging out and watching the Saints lose.

Yes, it’s my friends who sort of spirit away the negative energy and make it easier to face a Monday such as today – a crazy mixed up run around Monday, where there didn’t feel like there was enough time from the second I opened my bleary eyes.

Tomorrow will be different.

Last night, I went to the Foundry for a Waldorf fundraiser and Deacon John and the Ivories were playing. I walked over to him to say hi as he had played for my mom’s memorial service. He said he had played Sugar Boy’s funeral that morning.

The band was fabulous – there were two female singers along with Deacon John and they tore it up. We danced our feet off.

Later, a crowd of us made our way over to DBA where a DJ and some bounce dancers were getting their groove on and so were we. My groove is killing me this morning.

Nonetheless, I had this thought as I was in between dancing and sleeping and it occurred to me that there is a good chance in your lifetime you might not accomplish any great deed, but if your life is an accumulation of many small ones, then you will have contributed to a better world.

It was just a thought, and I thought this morning when I woke up of when I phoned Deacon John to sing at my mom’s gravesite and asked him how much he charged and he said, “I do this because it helps people in their time of grief.”

You wonder what your gifts are – that’s what people at the AARP conference have been talking about – discovering your gifts and using them wisely.

Tin and I got up and went to Zumba and had a particularly wonderful class. Then we showered and went to Louis Armstrong Park to go to Music for All Ages, which is one of the best kept secrets in New Orleans. Any child can show up with an instrument and be taught to play and play along with these seasoned professionals. It was good getting back into the groove – we haven’t been in over four months. As if no time at all had passed, Tin was sitting in Sunpie Barnes’ lap (he told me that he wasn’t happy that we cut Tin’s hair – I said neither was I!).

And while I couldn’t get him to dance at Zumba this morning, he was shaking a tail feather as soon as Eve hit the scene:

Then we headed into the Quarter to see the Mississippi and to eat pancakes (Tin’s idea, needless to say).

Tin made four wishes, one that his Mama come home from NY, and three for me, him and Tete:

Look at him enjoying pancakes and a mocha freeze in Camelia Grill’s new French Quarter digs:

I ate half of my scrumptious chili cheese omelet – big YUM:

We wandered to the Mississippi and saw the Steamboat Natchez and note to self: I’ve promised him a million times that I will take him on it.

I loved this tee shirt I saw on Decatur Street:

It was the first time I felt like we were totally back in our groove:

And hey, the day isn’t over yet! Love you NOLA.

We arrived at Little Tokyo last night and upon getting our menus I asked Tin what he wanted and he said, “Pizza.”

His friend wanted miso soup and smoked salmon and avocado roll. Tin turned up his nose. So I ordered him udon. Eventually he ate sushi and miso soup (all of it).

All it took was letting them draw on the paper tablecloths.

So there was this house on the corner across the street bayou that was in disrepair and was basically an ugly house to begin with. And someone wanted to tear it down and put a new house there. And the neighbor opposed it. And every time there was some kind of neighborhood meeting, it got ugly between them. And then that neighbor sold their house. And Friday when I took Tin to school the house was there. But then:

And then:

Sometimes if you just wait it out, things change.

My neighbor the nun was on the bus in Chicago and I’m so proud of her. We were talking about the courage of Sister Simone Campbell in organizing and then kicking off the nine-state “Nuns on the Bus” tour.

Here is an excerpt from their talking points:
Ryan Budget would:

Raise taxes on 18 million hardworking low-income families while cutting taxes for millionaires and big corporations.
Push the families of 2 million children into poverty.
Kick 8 million people off food stamps and 30 million off health care.
NETWORK’s Executive Director, Sister Simone Campbell, said in a recent media interview that Catholic Sisters “know the real-life struggles of real-life Americans.” It is this knowledge that impelled us to organize this bus trip. When the federal government cuts funding to programs that serve people in poverty, we see the effects in our daily work. Simply put, real people suffer. That is immoral. Click on the links below to see how the Ryan budget affects people in your state.

How the Ryan Budget Hurts Illinois
How the Ryan Budget Hurts Indiana
How the Ryan Budget Hurts Iowa
How the Ryan Budget Hurts Michigan
How the Ryan budget Hurts Ohio
How the Ryan Budget Hurts Pennsylvania
How the Ryan Budget Hurts Virginia
How the Ryan Budget Hurts Wisconsin

“You know the Vatican is against this whole idea,” my neighbor the nun told me.
“Well,” I said, “let’s put it more bluntly, the Vatican is against anything y’all do. We need a female pope.”

I lay in bed last night with four books surrounding me, all of them ones I’m about to begin, along with Magic 123, a parenting book. If I had an iPad I would be using it to watch some more of the Issa Rae channel on YouTube, Black & Sexy TV, WIGS, and of course, The Louise Log. These are all channels and programming only found online. And they’re good.

But I just had my iPhone and I was about to plug it in, when I happened to flip over to a friend’s new site, My Spilt Milk, and then started watching an hilarious clip from Lewis Black that got me so tickled, I couldn’t stop watching. Then I watched John Stewart blasting Fox News over Romney’s video clip.

And I thought to myself, now if I had a television screen in my room right now that had YouTube instead of ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX on it, guess what I’d be watching? Bingo – you got it.

So this morning when I woke up it occurred to me that we are a lucky bunch of people because some people are so damn creative and entertaining, and for that reason alone, I’m very happy. Happy happy happy. So TGIF everyone, but more importantly, TGIYT.