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A friend of mine is 34 weeks pregnant and her baby’s room is all decorated and she has spent the better part of the last few months obsessing about color schemes. My niece is preparing for her pregnancy and just announced the crib is in and she and my nephew are having fun fluffing the nest.

We get a weekly update from babycenter telling us how big the baby is in our belly right now and how we are feeling a lot of activity. We know this because BG tells us about it too.

But the “baby” room is remarkably unchanged. There are no little socks or dresses washed and folded. And there is certainly no wall color pondering going on around here.

In the Jewish religion it is bad luck to buy anything and bring it into the house before the baby comes. Croatia has a similar superstition. So does Russia for that matter, which is why my Russian pregnant friend put all the stuff from her baby shower at a friend’s house.

We pacify ourselves by saying we are following custom. But what we are really doing is taking a wait and see approach because in the state of Louisiana, a birthgiver can change her mind up to five days after the baby is born.

So we prepare for the baby by having faith. We look at children in strollers, in the park, in mother’s arms and on father’s shoulders, and hope that we too, will soon be mothers. But our nesting is internalized, we are preparing ourselves daily for this important role by reading, talking, asking questions, and hoping that we are bringing the baby home.

When someone asked me if I am prepared, I just respond, “I’ve been preparing for half a century.”

We ended day two of the astronaut diet by having wine with our friend visiting from PR and neighbor. And a couple of snacks – and then collapsing into bed at 8:30 due to a blood sugar low then spike then low. After 11 hours of sleep, and a loss of two pounds, we greeted the day with oatmeal and decided moderation is better than outer space.

Ground Control to Major Tum.

First evening of astronaut’s diet and I’m holding fast while T caves to two beers and a hot dog. Of course, when you’re as thin as her, you can cheat galore. But I’ve got to pull through to the other side. This is a big weekend – one that involves excess – and Fat Tuesday is days away and I’ve got to be a good Barbie, not a fat Barbie.

This is Ground Control and I’m slipping into regret that I’ve ever heard of astronauts and diets.

An email shot through the neighborhood recently putting down Endymion because it is not a neighborhood parade. The writer was correct – it isn’t. People from Timbuktu come set up tents and chairs and camps and take over the neutral ground pretty much canceling out anyone from the hood walking over casually on the actual day of the parade and seeing it.

I passed Orleans around lunchtime and the camps were getting started in earnest – by this evening when I was returning from my hair appointment it was downright shocking! It’s like people are getting ready for the royal wedding or something.

There are many positives to having Endymion in our backyards – it helps our neighborhood businesses make money is the big one. Also it’s kind of cool to have this huge parade in MidCity since everything else is Uptown or in Metairie.

Scott at Jupiter was cutting my hair this evening, and he spun my chair around so we could watch the Krewe of Morpheus roll by. I was telling him about my ongoing education on black hair. Most of what I’ve been reading is that a black woman’s hair instead of being a source of pride is a source of misery. And that everything in the world is being done to burn it right off of the their heads – relaxers, color, straightener – you name it. They don’t want “the puff” as BG calls it – but I really like the puff – even though BG is right, it’s whatever is in fashion and right now or for a while now straightening is all the rage – Q.E.D. The first lady and the first two daughters.

I’ve read a lot about how older people in the black community judge a child’s parenting by how their hair looks down to whether the parts are straight or not. And I’ve also read black writers bemoan how their mothers fell down on the job of teaching them how to do their own hair. Scott told me it’s a whole generation – not just blacks – that skipped teaching their children how to do their own hair. Hence, the ubiquitous ponytail or clip.

None of us women know how to do hair.

Here I’ve been thinking that I would like to be able to help low income people learn how to eat right and stretch their grocery budgets for healthy food – maybe I should be learning how to help all women have a good hair day.

Who knew?

Bayoudate: Astronaut’s diet started 7:00 AM 20 February 2009.
Log: Did not weigh in, couldn’t bear it (get it?)

We left the parade and headed to Camelia Grill – an institution I told the boys – we waited in the typical line and then were seated within a reasonable amount of waiting. The service and food were horrible. What happened? I think it might be under new ownership since Katrina but long gone is the excellent service, the delicious and fresh tasting ingredients. My chili cheese omelet was uninspired and skimpy on the chili. The fries were greasy. The apple pie – for godsakes – was like store bought. The hamburger was a dried greasy piece of yuck.

So long Camelia Grill – we will not be back.

It’s Carnival time and around 4 I drove my truck over to the Milan Lounge uptown and left it there. I biked home and then we all rallied at about 6 to head back uptown to catch Muses. Only every person and every publication had a different agenda – historically Muses is the third parade on the Thursday before Fat Tuesday. Generally doesn’t roll till around 7ish. Well, we got in a cab with a driver who insisted he was a home boy and knew this area (better than me was the implication) and so instead of heading down Jeff Davis and cutting up Napoleon we had to get on the stopped freeway traffic to head to Claiborne. I kept whispering Zen droppings to myself while chit chatting with him although we were all sure he was wasted out of his mind.

But I digress, I meant to write about how fabulous Muses is – the parade began with the Roller Derby girls who were all wonderful, then the lit up shoes and then the awesome butterflies. Then the big lit up shoe.

The boys were having a blast – we went by the Milan for jello shots and beers – and then headed up Milan to St Charles and caught the parade there. We caught lots of booty and ended up driving to Camelia Grill afterwards.

Now that we have found a routine of eating and drinking and chatting with our Croatian boys, they are going home tomorrow. Boo hoo.