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I went by Swirl yesterday to see B and K and catch up since I’ve been housebound for the most part due to my feet. B chilled a bottle of La Reve and I was about to leave but decided to just stay behind and have a taste – B, the wine expert, who has labelled all the wines in the store by their taste – Fruity and Fresh, Supple and Refined, Big and Bold – declared the sparkling wine from Napa “fucking unbelievable” – now that is a ranking I can get next to and I did – the bubbles had a nose of coconut and a taste of freshness and celebration in the glass. Wow – what a wine. She heated up some blue cheese bread from La Boulangerie and we settled into a little visiting that included friends dropping in – D rode up on her scooter decorated head to toe in some sort of Pucci St Patty’s day fantasy costume – L and K left their respective cranky diabetic girlfriends behind to stop by – as well as other wine shoppers who came looking for B and K’s expertise in selecting wonderful wines to take home and share with others.

Last night instead of watching Casino Royale and ordering a pizza which my foot would have so preferred, G, TL and I opted to go to El Gato Negro and then see the Iguanas at the DBA. When we left the Gato, there was a parade coming down Decatur and so we walked over and were able to catch a ton of beads from kissing Irish men and G’s cleavage was outfitted with tons of green and white carnations. TL said “see, you should have brought the camera” – I had opted not to get the CVS camera today cause of the parades uptown yesterday, but it proved to be the night to film. When we went back to the car to go to Frenchmen Street, there were people pouring out of all the music clubs. We sat in the bar as John Boute played in the other room, then we made our way back to a couch and waited for the Iguanas to come on. My foot was in no mood for this outing. When we left, people were spilling out of the Spotted Cat and there was a band playing and people dancing around the sidewalk that had drawn a crowd.

I’ve been thinking about S a lot lately – why he didn’t call me when I had my surgery (after all had I needed that living will he would have stood to inherit over a $1 million in cash, not to mention the property etc.) and also just unpacking and finding more evidence of a life we created together. He called late in the afternoon from the Farmer’s Market where he was looking for flageolet beans – I marvel at the irony of Steve at the Farmer’s Market searching for fresh ingredients to cook and wonder who this man is? – he is moving to Portland to partner with C – a great and talented guy and they will have a wonderful firm together – but Portland? – I marvel at how badly I wanted to get out of San Francisco and a move to Portland was just not entertained even though I would have gone anywhere to get out of California.

Who is that man? Was I with him for 16 years? Who am I?

The acacia trees in San Francisco used to send my allergies into a tailspin – well the pollen from the oaks that has covered everything in my office with the same yellow dust as the acacias sent out has sent my body into lethargy. Yesterday, I had a myriad of tasks to perform for the house that I just couldn’t even contemplate. I went to Pilates and afterwards dragged my foot to the couch and put it up since it was throbbing and I was falling asleep just driving home from uptown in the morning.

Then A appeared at the door – he hadn’t been in the house yet and was checking on me and checking out the house. We toured and he delighted in all of the features of the LaLa – by the time we got to the terrace he said “no one until now has a house that I envy.” He was then off to find Blakely in City Park on his bike to tell him how badly the recovery needed to involve green space and on the way out he said at the door – “you ready for men?” – I said sure why not – he said in good Jewish fashion “I know a nice cardiologist a few houses down from me.”

Since I was up I went about the tasks – first put the spacers in the bookshelves that don’t fit the bookshelves that sag because they have books on them – a real mystery in mind. One load of laundry. Tried out my Dirt Devil upright, which I am now in love with because it works so well on hardwood floors unlike the Oreck that has been my staple for years. Hang a monkey mask in the living room, hang Kim Frohsin’s Tower in the dining room and place the wood carved Barong looking back at the house again to keep an EYE on the LaLa. The horseshoe over the office door. The elephant knocker from Bali by my office since everyone raps on the window and I didn’t think about the need for a doorbell back here. Although the front door bell has two chimes – the one in the house that sings Who Shot The LaLa and the one in my office that has elephants trumpeting.

Later as I was getting dressed to go out I spied two men studying the LaLa and I walked outside and thought I recognized one of them – it was the Bayou Stone Fox – Travis, I called, is that you? – I invited both of them in for a tour. The BSF’s friend C is an architect so they were marvelling at the house. They came through in the usual kind of chaos, me trying to get my shoe tied, Arlene running out to the front lawn to use the bathroom at the most inappropriate time, me searching for a doggie bag, hobbling outside to pick up the dog poop, my guests now wandering aimlessly inside, delighting in the the wonderful features of the house.

I am in the post phase or the time to enjoy phase – which brings a different energy level as I told TL later in the evening – did you have post-house depression? He says he thinks he did, does.

So P gave up shredded cheese for Lent. She told us that the other night when G, T and she were over here bringing the party to me since I was immobilized from my foot surgery. I laughed so hard I hurt.

Today G and I were chiding TL for losing the junk in his trunk since he’s lost about twenty pounds – later when I was trying to figure out how big his boat is for the vignette on New Orleans he told us nowhere near as big as the junk that was in his trunk – G and I laughed till we almost spit.

This afternoon I was finally forwarding G the Mardi Gras pics that I took and the one that makes me laugh out loud is her with the two guys dressed up like Justin Timberlake’s Dick in the Box skit – it’s hysterical.

During my send, P sent me an email saying her husband R likes to tell a story about me from Mardi Gras that cracks him up – she writes: The night we saw you at Molly’s, you were telling him how stressed you were with the house, job etc. and then you told him that you knew things would be better because you had a Tootsie Roll in your pocket! He thought that was priceless and so did I.

I went by to see the pool being dug at L&M’s and to see the J-man because they kept him home so he could watch the excavation and the big digging equipment. He answered the door with a bike helmet on and said he was wearing it all day because he hit his head on the couch. Meanwhile, Abby was being her own sweet self.

Later S came by to see what Delta had done with my sagging shelf problem – they made these spacers which brace the shelves that can’t support the weight of books (now, you realize these are book – shelves) – so we sat on the porch for a minute and tried to talk while he fielded calls from his kids. When he hung up, he said kids – they drive you crazy. And I said yeah but you love them. And he said, uh, right.

Monday – get the whips out
Tuesday – the ugly side of others
Wednesday – make a plan
Thursday – go after plan aggressively
Friday – enjoy your lunch because it all came together

I went to lunch with TL and G at Parkway today and had a catfish dressed on a bun, some Crawtators, and a banana Hubig pie. Wow, does it get any better than this? We then drove over to Park Island to see the ashtray house as I learned that Nagin lives in it. We were all impressed by the fact that our mayor lives in a glass house. But most impressive are the decorative amber ashtrays that serve as ornament – the house was designed by a local modernist architect, Albert Ledner, 83-year-old, whose own house by the Lake took on five feet of water during Katrina.

So I’ve decided to take this PR stint into my own hands and am going to purchase a CVS disposable camcorder. We’re going to do the first vignette at the LaLa, another canoeing around Park Island with shots of the ashtray house, then on TL’s boat watching him catch a fish, bicycling through City Park, Friday night at Swirl, walking down Ursuilline.

When I first got back from evacuation I called J, whose father started one of the largest advertising agencies in the city and told him I wantd to talk to him about an idea I have. We set up a lunch but that day he had a ton of fires to put out and had to suddenly go to Baton Rouge and one thing led to another and we weren’t able to hook up.

My idea was I wanted to see if his agency might be interested in doing pro bono work to get a message out across the country that New Orleans is coming back. Some time passed and we didn’t reschedule and I heard there was a $5 million pool to get the message out and thought that Steve Perry (head of the Tourism Commission here) was taking care of all this.

Well this hasn’t been taken care of, and recently I conducted an online survey for my advertising sources where I pooled the reporters who work at my company about their media habits – one of the advertising sources from New Orleans put in a question about whether New Orleans would be as fun post-K as it was pre-K and a resounding majority of the reporters who work with me said no, they don’t think it would be.

SO last night when I saw J, I said we need to talk – we need to do something about this – I am personally a proselytizer for this city and am trying to recruit every minion I come across who travels here and enjoys our largesses to go spread the word when they return that New Orleans is open for business and coming back better than before – but that word of mouth could take up to five years to be successful – we need a campaign – we need to do this now.