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I was walking out the door with Tin in pouch and Loca when I ran into three neighborhood mommies with their Ergo Baby pouches locked and loaded, so I joined them for a neighborhood stroll. Conversations about daycare vs nanny, about moms and inlaws coming to visit for extended periods (everyone seems to have an upcoming visit scheduled) as well as vocalizing anti duck, anti Disney, and anti this or that sentiments but when there is a kid in your pouch laughing at the air nothing we said took on a serious tone and was diffused as polite chit chat.

We walked by two men who were talking by a truck and they stared real hard at the four mommies with toddlers riding on them – “looky here, a bunch of mommies” one said.

And as Tin and I turned from the group to come home, I told him that he had made me a mom and how lucky am I? He said, “Moo, moo, moo.”

Marc Pagani just sent us some photos he took at Tin’s birthday as his present – not bad having someone as talented as Marc documenting your life:

Then there are the photos I snapped like this one with Evan Christopher who offered to play for free for Tin’s birthday – lucky boy:

And though we asked that people not bring gifts, some people felt that Tin needed something to unwrap after all.

My brother gave Tin a small blue baseball glove and baseball – which is good since that’s probably the only sport I wouldn’t mind him playing (read: no football)

And of course the artists brought art books – this one he is reading takes you through a day of classic paintings but it is a touch book too:

The suction cup bowl with the giraffe spoon has been his favorite though – he is loving having a his own equipment on his tray.

I got my earnings record in the mail from Social Security and it was interesting because I was looking at updating my resume just because it has gotten so rusty. When I was looking at my old resume and putting together my work history I was shocked to see that I’ve been doing this same work for 15 years (time flies). But then as I was going through my Social Security earnings record I started pegging each time period with what I was doing then. 1975 I earned $338 and was a Sophomore in High School. In 1977 when I graduated from High School I earned $3,159. Then 1983, I earned $16,144 and had just gotten married. In 1987 and 1988 there is no amount because I was working for my brother and the young woman doing the payroll was depositing our taxes into her personal account. We found out only after she wrapped her car around a tree and died and her entire mystery unraveled – like why she always had new clothes, new car, and would order out anything she wanted for lunch while we ate leftovers and that mansion she said she lived in across the lake, not – she lived in a trailer with a shoe box full of money as she had been embezzling her whole life – from her parents through every job she had ever had. So she was buried with two years of my taxes. 1990 I earned $23,541 and had just moved to San Francisco and was married to husband #2. 1991 was husband #3 and $23,730. Then in 1995, I started my current career – my annual salary was ascending until we got to 2007 and then it started ticking down and has been descending ever since.

To think that this record contained so many touchstones to my personal history is amazing.

Waiting in the Social Security office for Tin’s number (which I never got because the wait was horrendous) I heard a familiar name called to the window and looked up to see an ex in-law moving very slowly towards the window – yikes! – the years have not been kind and there was something downright scary looking in their eyes.

The lagoon in City Park was so glassy this morning it was a mirror reflecting the white cotton ball clouds overhead. A coot was be bopping along and suddenly took flight and sped it’s way to nowhere but the other side. The white swan circled the small islands towards Carrollton Avenue – my fellow walker tells me she is looking for a nesting place. Before Katrina, the swans regularly used the first island for nests and there were some hatchlings right before the storm hit. For now a Black-Crowned Night-Heron sat peacefully guarding the island, which might be why the swan hasn’t made her nest there. As I rounded the end of the park near Marconi, a flock of white ibis cruised across the green grass looking like poetry in motion and to my right a log lined with dark green turtles shell to shell sported a Tricolored Heron sitting at the tip creating a fabulous sculpture in the water.

Everywhere I looked moss covered oaks, waxy leafed magnolias, palm trees and pines, I felt a sense of how lucky we are to live so close to this park and to be part of its tapestry. When I got to my office, and looked out to the bayou, there were two birds on the wire snuggling and preening each other. Yesterday my neighbor shouted at me from the bayou, “Those ducks are getting it on,” she yelled.

Spring is in the air.

A long time ago in a disagreement with my estranged husband, I found him fighting tooth and nail on our material possessions and what I didn’t know then but know now is that was his emotional vocabulary (stunted, I admit, but nonetheless the only tools in his toolbox). Luckily, after a bit of time I understood that the fight was toxic and that it was poisoning me and so I said, have at it, it’s all yours and walked away. The day I did that monkeys jumped off my back. I was reading a media post this morning that quoted Pete Dexter’s line from Paris Trout: “Poison snake bites you, you’re poison too.”

That is why when it came to my separation of property with my last husband, I had learned a few things – nothing can make up for the hurt and sadness you are feeling and most certainly not any material objects so best to approach things fair and amicably. We did I’m thankful to say.

Which is why when it came to my mother’s belongings, I was like, don’t need them, none can replace the love or her presence in my life, although I do look at the Spanish vase she gave me every day on my countertop and think of her – it is exotic and beautiful and old-fashioned yet timeless.

Poison snake bites you, you’re poison. I learned they blow the horn to charge in battle and to retreat. Sometimes it is better to walk away and keep your blood pumping pure.

As a sign of the times, we couldn’t keep our eyes open till the end of the Oscars. We had taped it but still even fast forwarding through commercials we were toast. Woke this morning to my NYT update:

Breaking News Alert

The New York Times

Sun, March 07, 2010 — 11:57 PM ET

—–

Kathryn Bigelow Wins Best Director Oscar for ‘The Hurt Locker’

Kathryn Bigelow, director of the Iraq war thriller “The Hurt Locker,” is the first woman to win an Oscar for best

director. Only four women have been nominated in the category (Linda Wertmüller, “Seven Beauties,” 1976; Jane Campion, “The Piano,” 1993; Sofia Coppola, “Lost In Translation,” 2003).

I was talking to  someone recently who didn’t understand blog from Twitter from Facebook and here are my explanations:

Facebook – like slam books from when I was in grade school. We all carried spiral back composition books our friends wrote in spontaneously.

Twitter – like fence talk, you tell your neighbor you heard Sam’s dog is loose again, and then he tells his neighbor and so on and so on.

Blog – as a journalist you could say I blog because it is close to what I do for a living – investigative reporting, but blogging is also autobiographical so it is a form of nonfiction creative writing, but most importantly blogging is a realm of reality manifest. To wit, a quote from Louise Nevelson “What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable.” [I lost my favorite buttons one Mardi Gras during the 80s that said DON'T FUCK WITH MY REALITY.]

Spring is in the air and today was just over the top wonderful with blue skies, cotton ball clouds, and lots of outdoor time. I made coconut shrimp and udon noodles for lunch and afterwards, Tin and I went over to the little park by Cabrini and he wandered around amidst the 4 and 5 year olds that were running up and down and all around. Then we went on the swing and it was the first time I had put him in the baby swing, I normally swing with him in my pack, and he loved it, and when I took him out – he pitched a fit – one of many of his fits lately if you take something away from him. He thinks its a zero sum game, but he’ll learn as time goes on, there are plenty of things and happenings and people to go around.

Gone are the days of the Oscar parties at my house where I would have semicircles of chairs and plenty of catty critics to narrate the red carpet. Now Oscar night is about curling up in the flannels and getting through the first half. I’m rooting for Hurt Locker to sweep the awards – Bigelow deserves it, the screenwriter deserves it. We watched Inglorious Bastards last night and it was signature Tarantino – tense the entire film.