Arlene Star, Arlene the Bean, Arlenoush, Arlenushka, Beanmush has grown old, four months shy of her 14th birthday, we are witnessing the rapid decline. Her anxiety reached a high pitch as the pacing picked up, the incontinence hastened, the running into objects intensified a couple of nights ago. The vet prescribed anti anxiety pills. We tried one and she was almost comatose and punch-drunk twelve hours later. So we gave her half last night and…

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I was having dinner the other night with two girlfriends – catching up on lost time – one of them told me about this video, about two men who purchased a lion cub they saw in a cramped cage at Harrod’s and how they brought it home, but a year later, the cub became a lion and so they decided to bring it back to Africa to let it out into the wild. Then they…

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While the rest of the world is stymied from weather, we here in New Orleans are enjoying a warm tropical Christmas. I woke around 6:30 am hearing Arlene pacing and jumped up to take her out back to pee. It was just barely morning and from over the fence I saw my two neighbor kids flying in the air – Santa brought them a trampoline! Then T and I walked Loca through the park this…

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Mom broke two teeth and now is faced with having the rest extracted and getting a denture – anathema she believes. So she’s not leaving the house. Her 73rd birthday is this Sunday, the last of the eight days of Hanukkah, and despite all the cajoling and assuring, she refuses to budge from her reclusiveness. So we brought a muffaletta and some soup and went to visit her today. She also had a black eye…

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Y’all have read about me wondering aloud most of the time why I’m so blessed. I just want to take a moment to tell those right now who don’t feel blessed this season, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. When I was taking the birthmother of our child home and driving along Earhart Expressway, she said, it is unbelievable Obama got elected, and I said, yeah, Bush was that bad, America…

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I’ve been talking to a lot of my friends and family about our baby who is on the way in June. And a few of them, including my mom, have voiced their concern about private adoption. It’s risky, they say. And I said you’re right. This woman could change her mind at the last minute they warn, and I say you’re right. Anything could happen they tell me, and I say you’re right. You don’t…

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We went to a dinner party last night where we were treated in grand style to cocktails, dinner, dessert, tea, conversation, and all the good things one hopes to have at a dinner party. Why is it the art of entertaining is lost on so many or rather than so few find it rewarding to entertain?

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I was walking through the park this morning and all the cypress have lost their rust colored needles and left them like a blanket around their trunks. Now just moss hangs from the branches and the trees look like men with hoary beards. Then an RTA bus drove by with flashing lights that said Merry Christmas and I thought of T asking me on the way to the beach about a sign that said, Keep…

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I went today to the obgyn clinic with the birthmother. Quite an experience. We were hoping to determine the sex of the baby, but it’s still too soon. You know what I’ve learned in life? If you go about designing your own life, having a preset construct of what you want, you’ll fall short of what you need. Today, aside from the birthmother and her grown daughter, I was introduced to the the grandmother –…

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