Dangermond.org

Yesterday morning we made our way to La Vita to have brunch and I got a call from mom that she had fallen and was going to the emergency room to have stitches. What? So I brought J to meet G and left for Metairie to take her into East Jefferson – a hospital I have come to loathe – it is dismal and the people working there even depress me. When I got to her house – she had almost a hole in her throat from a puncture wound but what was more shocking was that she was dressed for work. It was Sunday. She said up until that minute she had thought it was Monday and was getting ready and had actually called her boss to tell him she’d be late because she needed to get stitches first.

You know those moments of terror or of “this is how it goes” – well that was my moment – and so I hugged her real close and told her she should think about coming to live with me. She never could suffer reality, which kept her always in a fantasy world, but now that real world keeps encroaching more and more and I could see the fear palpable in her eyes.

But in the hospital with my arm around her she joked about my brother and her sense of humor gave me hope she’d be all right – for now.

Much later – Dr. McCallister came to stitch her up and he was so kind to her, and so thoughtful and informative, that it made me forgive the whole ensemble at EJ.

Even the dead still speak about us here and now, and then:

“I don’t believe in dullness. I believe in passion and wonder and excitement. I believe in people having a storm in their hearts, a great big furious storm that sweeps all trivialities away like scraps of paper or dead leaves.”

— from Tennessee Williams’ Mister Paradise

Headed in Swirl on Friday I ran right into P&E – my neighbors from General Pershing back in 1988. They said they were just talking about me to Chris over at Bacchanal because they were reminiscing about neighbors – but in particular our neighbor who lived on the left of me. She had a dog she called Mother (only because it had a litter a week) who lived under her house and during one particularly nasty storm the dog died. So she put it in a Winn Dixie shopping cart and rolled it out front to the curb where the dog proceeded to swell up to huge proportions, feet straight up in the air, from rigor mortis.

P said all he could remember was coming out on the front porch for a couple of mornings (that’s how long it took for someone to come take the damn thing away and that was way pre-Katrina) – anyway he’d see Mother in the Winn Dixie cart with the logo that read “The Beef People” and just get a couple of yuks.

We were going to head to Chickie Wah Wah last night but the band was not about dancing and that is what we wanted to do. So we went by La Vita and caught up with the girls and sure enough found dancing there. We got home late and J still had her little dinner party going on and was out in the front yard sitting around the table listening to music. J and I strolled over to have a night cap and ended up getting engaged with talk of the midwest that so animated J, she was a pleasure to behold. Then one of the women asked my maiden name and I said Namer. Rachel Namer. And in unison the couple looked at me said, are you Bob Namer’s sister? And I said yes. And then it started = They Love Bob Namer – why isn’t he on the air? – he was a breath of fresh air – the only one who spoke out against the Levee Board – the one that kept them on the straight and narrow during George (was that the hurricane where he guided everyone out of the city and kept traffic postings?) and overall they said they couldn’t believe that was my brother.

I said oh, yeah, and I have three other ones – not necessarily just like him – but sort of – the family tree is dotted with Southern gothic and that’s why New Orleans is the only place we can call home in the United States.

We went to August last night for the beginning of my birthday celebration and had what I call the menage a fois – YUM – the dining room has been reconfigured yet again but is gorgeous with its chandeliers and dark wood and oversized windows. My entree was the gnocchi with truffles – fabulous as only Besh could do it – need I say more?

Friday, I took J through the routine – walked from the LaLa across the Magnolia Bridge to wine tasting at the Pitot House, then to the packed house of Swirl on a Friday night, moseying over to LaVita to get the prime table, and have everyone join in – the Turks, the Farris’s, the Italians, the whole community all out for the night. I just read in the Lagniappe that Angel who owns Lola said that it reminds him of Seville, where it is hot and humid and the people love to go out. And that is New Orleans – we are social by nature, fun loving in spirit, and generous souls.

I struggle with laws as I was raised by a maverick man who chose not to follow any conventional path except that he became a doctor – and even in that he was intuitive more than disciplined. But yesterday after J and I left CC’s and walked back around the bayou with the Bean on our way back to LaLa we saw a black lab jump in and go after the mama duck with her 12 ducklings. I started yelling for the dog to get out and almost dove in after it. The owner kept jogging in place as if nothing was going on and I then told her – you need to have yoru dog on a leash.

I never say that kind of stuff – I’m not a nosey parker, or a note leaver, or a custodian of what other people “should” be doing – but at the threat of these baby ducklings that I have been watching – our signs of spring here – I lost all my composure.

G said it best – the water is for the ducks. You have a lab, put it on a leash because its instinct is to go in that water – labrador retriever – get it – they like water and ducks – or as W used to say – a laboratory retriever – ha, love that boy.

Friday I got my hair cut by Scott Reynaud and I have to say it is the haircut I’ve been wanting for the past two decades – lots of long layers with lift – the perfect answer to long thick hair. G came across his name from someone she knew and after seeing her cut I said I’ll try him – he said something interesting that keeps rolling over and over in my mind – after the storm he had a lot of time to think about what he was doing and he felt as if he was getting up every morning dreading the work he loves – and he knew he had to reinvent himself.

Katrina forced us all to take a good long look at ourselves – and the rennaissance of people has become enough to keep us hopeful about the odds of surviving a catastrophe not just better, but best.

An email from T that I got after seeing her:

Let me reiterate: your hair looked amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s a good thing!

I think people live in San Francisco, ney, I know people live in San Francisco, because they love the anonymity there. I loathed it. I enjoyed knowing my neighbors and being social – it is at the core of who I am. When I was coming back to the LaLa from walking Arlene, Ms. Marie was on my side of the bayou and she said, “when I evacuated, I stayed with my son and I grew depressed. He lived in a subdivision where everyone drove up their driveway to the back of their house and you never even saw them go in or out. There were no people just houses and driveways.”

I have made my life here in MidCity, where everyone knows my name, take the good and bad of that, but oh what a difference to me.