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I’ve been in the woe stage of life on account of Arlene. Today, I went to yoga and Michelle was back – she’s like some rock star yogi – just awesome. She had just gotten back from a retreat in the Bahamas with 50 others who were mostly studying or were already monks.

What she talked about today is the lens we use to evaluate people, things, events and how we filter it through our mind and depending on where our mind is at the moment, we might filter negative, or positive.

It was a good lesson for the day as well as a hard and challenging yoga practice.

A lot of people have been talking to me lately about their woes and I know I must be attracting that kind of talk as my heart is heavy. But today, I was listening to my friend who lost her daughter and her perspective was too much in the negative direction and so I wrote to her about perspective – about her cup half full.

I wanted to have a second line for Arlene but I don’t think I can do it tomorrow. Maybe when I get her ashes, I can scatter them in her favorite places and then think about a celebration of her life in my life. Then I might have better perspective.

I was sitting at my desk thinking about one too many things and a pelican flew over the bayou. I thought they were all gone for the summer, at least the ones that hang in the bayou. It warmed my heart.

Jazz Fest must be here – there is usually this last burst of cool weather and you start thinking Jazz Fest might not be as stifling hot as it has been in year’s past – and then boom, suddenly, heat. Got to love it – or at least endure it.

Yesterday evening, friends came by to say goodbye to the Bean. We sat on the porch and Arlene was on a leash to keep her from wandering off the porch, but she got a little anxious so we ended up coming inside and giving her her tranquilizer.

It seems weird knowing she is going to die tomorrow, but is it? My full on recognition of where we were with Arlene hit me like a MACK truck last week, but every day of saying goodbye to her is making the transition not necessarily less sad, but more acceptable.

I worked with a guy who was dying of AIDS – loved him. He had a coterie of good friends who came to his bedside to be with him as he died. It was no less sad, but comforting to all of us to have had that time to say goodbye.

My friend brought home her daughter from the hospital and we all sat with her, held her, kissed her, as she died. It was no less sad, and still is, but there was time to say goodbye.

I read about an old letter that was found from a husband whose wife was dying. As she lay in the bed, he transferred first to the floor beside her, and then to the sofa in the bedroom to get used to not being near her. No less sad, but he did what he had to do to say goodbye.

There is an acceptance of the inevitable that comes from this process of saying goodbye that is less shocking than say finding my father dead of a massive heart attack months after he retired and moved back to New Orleans. Or friends who died in car accidents young and at middle age. Or colleagues who committed suicide (I’ve known two).

The Bean would have been 14 years old this Friday. She has been a good and constant companion. She had a good life or as my friend who is a long term survivor of AIDS says he wants on his tombstone, in the end “she had a nice day.”

We took photos on the back steps on Sunday while our family is intact.

I downloaded a few of The Be Good Tanya songs from Itunes – very good sound – this is one of them:

In Spite of All the Damage
Written by Frazey Ford

If I wanted to say to you
That I wanted to see your face again
That I want to hear you laughing
In spite of all the damage I’ve done

If I wanted to hear you talkin’
Or to hear your sense of things
Or to call you up on a Sunday morning
In spite of all the damage I’ve done

Well I broke up our home and left you nowhere to run
Yes I broke up our home and left you nowhere to run

I’m living out my days away
I think you understand that I could not stay
But I like to hear you laughing
In spite of all the damage I’ve done
In spite of all the damage I’ve done

Well I broke up our home and left you nowhere to run
Yes I broke up our home and left you nowhere to run

It’s been a heavy time around here thinking about losing one of our family members – Arlene – we just move around the house and stop for a hard cry randomly. Yesterday, I was pruning the roses late in the afternoon and I got so sad, I sat on the rocking chair and cried.

My neighbor’s kids walked over and asked what I was doing. I said, “I’m sad because Arlene is so old.”

The youngest one shouted, “WOW. HAVE YOU SEEN BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA?”

My job is to listen, but I have to say although I’m curious and interested, a lot of time I fall in the category of yacker, rather than listener. It is something I am actively trying to work on. But the other day I sat around a table when the subject of love came up and although, several times I wanted to say something, I kept my mouth shut because interestingly enough, one person was telling the other person what I had been trying to tell them for a while, while the other person was telling that person exactly what I wanted to tell her. So I listened and saw that they both were listening unlike what they had been doing with me.

One said she opens her heart to love even though she knows she might get hurt. The other said she wants to be in love if the right person came along. They talked back and forth and hopefully the one who keeps getting hurt heard that she needs to be more selective and the one who is not meeting the right person heard that she needs to open her eyes.

It’s Marijuana day and according to an article in the NYT, there is a good chance in our lifetime, very soon, we’ll see the legalization of marijuana. About damn time.

We went to the French Quarter Fest yesterday afternoon after lunch. It has been an unusual weekend of rides – we have gotten rides everywhere. This time our other neighbor brought us down to the Quarter and we walked from Esplanade to the other side of Waldon Park to see the Treme Brass Band. We caught a band playing at the Two Louis stage and then got to the stage just before the TBB came on. A pre-adolescent boy sang When you go to New Orleans – it was very enjoyable and a much needed respite from the woe.

Then we headed to the Mint and walked into a zydeco band playing and made our way around to the Esplanade side to see Astral Project.

It was the best of New Orleans – from brass bands, which predates jazz in this city, to the awesome sound of Astral’s jazz funk. All along the river front – all free.

Then we headed to Cooter Brown’s for oysters on the half shell and draft beer. Honestly, we passed a good time, cher.