The other night Tin and I were visiting my neighbor and a football game was on and his eyes were riveted to the TV set. My neighbor said, “He might be on the field one day,” and I said, “I’d rather him sing When the Saints Come Marching In than be one.” So I was watching a video about Deacon John and he said his mother cut his fingernails under a fig tree because there is…
You could throw a rock and hit a musician in this town, and I guess that is what makes it great to play music in this city and not (it’s hard to get paid when there are so many of you). I’ve seen no other profession struggle to make a living more than a musician except if you compare them to a grade school teacher. Lofty work but low down pay. I was looking around…
Life has a funny way of being all inclusive like the fact that my dear friend is attending her nephew’s funeral tonight, he died suddenly of a heart attack last Thursday, and in the meantime, I’m thinking about my mother’s one year anniversary and ways to honor her spirit, and then the guy comes to look at the solid mahogany columns on the LaLa and says I should paint them white or else I’m just…
It’s Monday again, and I don’t mean that in any sort of dispirited fashion, it’s just that Mondays have become so typical in that they are the days that you race into work and plunge headlong into your projects and yet just minutes before you leapt out of the gate you were reticent to start the toil. My neighbor was walking her dog which started out with her dog running at a clip around one…
After a big walk through the park this morning with the dogs and Tin, we went to Parkway Bakery & Tavern for lunch to meet friends who wanted to see the open house on the bayou. The house turns out to be accurately described as a Gentilly house (a neighbor described it) with a new reduced price tag of $299K. It was $475K. But that’s another story, apparently the home owners paid around $300K for…
On my block of the bayou I have fabulous neighbors, who have become great friends as well, but even down the block and on the court, and across the bayou there are more of the same. Last night, we walked over to a neighbor who has a tradition of holding a break – fast after Yom Kippur, and there we found once again the company of friends. The table was filled with delicious food and…
Everyone needs a wife – this has been my motto for a long time since for many many many years I have been a wife and I could see how you would benefit from having one in your life. Today, T was my wife, having shopped and prepared the meal to break my fast – Afghanistan lamb with noodles and Turkish green beans – can I get a big AMEN.
Ideal Cities Ideal cities are cities where the neighbors play soul music all night long & don’t care who they bother because who doesn’t like Holy Ghost or Loose Booty? Ideal cities have at least one drunk lady outside the liquor store mornings, who asks you to hold her cigarette so she can lean in to touch your baby. In ideal cities, the pharmacist knows your prescriptions by heart. In ideal cities your neighbor sells…
Tin is cutting both of his canine teeth so he went to bed in a whimper and woke up with a cry and has been unable to be consoled. We see those two big old teeth coming down and didn’t need the drool and tears to tell us what was up. So I started my fast day worried about him and then came up to my office to begin in earnest. But actually my morning…
There is an article in the New York Times about a new modern version of the High Holy Day prayer book for Conservative Jews. In this new version, they are attempting to be all inclusive, not a traditional Jewish way of going about things. In this new version, in the Yizkor service (for the deceased) they have a prayer for a deceased partner, and they also have a prayer for parents who were hurtful –…