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A friend wrote me this morning saying, “Thanks! You throw the best parties!” Now that is what I’d like inscribed on my tombstone. Last night, we reveled in the joy of the Festival of Lights, the 4th night of Hanukkah with loved ones gathered around. The table was spread with some favorites – white fish salad, egg salad with bowfin caviar on top, latkes and apple sauce with sour cream, challah, vegan brownies and kugelhopf from Maurice’s bakery, and quiche from La Boulangerie. All yum yum yum.

And as the LaLa was made for parties like this, we had Ben Schenck and Evan Christopher (along with Tin) playing music. May all your holidays be happy and bright like last night was for us.

“Words are more powerful than perhaps anyone suspects, and once deeply engraved in a child’s mind, they are not easily eradicated.”
~ May Sarton

Never look a gift horse in the mouth – because here I was bragging about the weather and now a cold front is fast descending from the north and my head is cold along with the entire rest of me. Shouldn’t have said a word, but there it is and now whatyagonnado?

Coats, boots, hat, and gloves.

May wisdom shine through me
May love glow within me
May strength permeate me

That in me may arise
A helper of humanity
A servant of sacred things
Selfless and true

~Rudolph Steiner

I was in Rouse’s and passed an African American woman in the aisle talking on the phone, she said, “Hold up! You look fantastic, fabulous. Wait, can I hug you. Yes, I want to hug you.”

So I stopped and she gave me a bear hug and another African American woman was trying to get through and I said, after turning away, “Love fest on Aisle 9.” She said, “Nothing wrong with that.”

And so goes my life being bald. Sort of amazing isn’t it?

Tatjana is in Zagreb under two feet of snow and we’re here on the bayou in our tee shirts. Don’t get me wrong, I love wearing boots and I have coats a plenty but the freedom to move in and out of the house without a drastic weather change is what I love about this area. Snow is nice to see every once in a while – like every ten years – but give me that balmy Southern winter any day.

We went to the Monkey Room on Saturday to celebrate Violeta’s birthday. Everyone there knew Tin even though he and Violeta don’t go to school together. The reason? Violeta has apprised everyone that Tin is hers for keeps. So when the cake was being cut and Tin took his piece to Violeta, I just had to laugh. Isn’t it so easy to love those who love us?

We’re preparing for a Hanukkah party on Tuesday night, usually we have one on the eighth night. We moved it up because we had renters who wanted the house on the weekend of the 14th and the 8th night falls on the 15th. It turns out after rearranging my life to accommodate the renters – two house cleanings to show it, rescheduling my sacred eighth night, they opted out at the last minute. Ah, the ways of the world are mysterious.

Tonight, friends stopped by spontaneously, first one set and then another, and we lit the menorah together. Our menorahs are so beautiful, the light reflects in the window and out towards the bayou, and it makes me feel so good and centered.

Tin knows his shamash (helper candle) and he loves to light the menorah because it means he will get a present. But tonight he went beyond that and gave one of his presents to his friend. It was the glittery silver train ornament I had bought him despite the fact that we don’t have a tree.

Later, while tucking him in, he sat on the edge of the bed and said, “We have to make plans now.” For what? “We have people coming to the house and I realize … we need food. We should make some latkes, we should definitely have pasta, and we should have food.” My mensch – so wise for his age, so beautiful and free. My Hanukkah gift.

On the first night he received a train menorah and train sheets. He was a little thrilled over the menorah and not so thrilled over the sheets – a true Hanukkah gift in its practicality. But he loved them tonight when he crawled in bed and saw them.

Lighting the menorahs is best done with friends.

The beauty of the season is bringing light into the darkness. May all people be happy and free.

You know how it is when you buy a car of a certain color or make and then suddenly start seeing it everywhere when previously you didn’t. Such are many things in life. Once I adopted Tin I started noticing all the handsome young African American boys and youth in our city. So it is also that in preparing to launch Transracial Parenting and reading about race, I’ve noticed how integrated New Orleans is and how segregated it is all in the same lens.

Parties without a single African American or person of Spanish descent are odd to me. They were before, but now they are downright odd. Events that are mostly attended only by African Americans are equally odd.

I live on Bayou St. John in Faubourg St. John and our neighborhood is distinct and rich in people and place. Yesterday, I went to friends’ 20th anniversary together and they had a feast spread out to celebrate from rare roast beef to oyster shooters, with all of the neighborhood there to wish them well.

And I learned that DeBlanc’s Pharmacy is closing – one of the holdouts from the era of the big three – Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS – it was anachronistic and charming, with waits that were sometimes unbearable and service that was always personable. It’s becoming a Starbucks. Please stop. We have Fairgrinds, we have CC’s, we have PJ’s, (all homegrown) we need a Starbucks like we need Winn Dixie going up across from Rouse’s (also homegrown) like we need nothing. Nothing at all.

This fact made me so sad even though I was standing in the midst of all the wonderful people who color my neighborhood and make it what it is. Deblanc’s morphs into Starbucks.

I was driving down Magazine Street the other day and saw they had razed several small boutiques to put in a Walgreens. It sickened me.

A few nights ago, I was sitting at a table eating with friends and we were speaking about radicalism, about viewing whites as the oppressor and one said, “I’m sorry but it’s not whites who are the oppressors here – WE ARE ALL OPPRESSED by the great corporate machine of greed.”

When I lived in San Francisco, there were subversives who torched the new Walgreens that was trying to go up in the Haight Ashbury area, not once but twice, trying to keep it out. No radicalism here in New Orleans, just sad whimpers of regret as the oppressor discovers us and pushes out our small businesses that made our lives richer.