The Friends You Keep

I spent last weekend in Brockport, NY visiting my very dear friends, Thad and Jeanne. A lifetime ago, before Thad became a 3rd grade school teacher and took Jeanne and all their earthly belongings back to their childhood home, they were my neighbors in California.

I met them through my ex husband, John. He and Thad were working musicians. Traveling most of the year with Dolly Parton, Mac Davis, the Bellamy Brothers, Rick Nelson...basically anyone who toured and needed a guitar player (John) or a pedal steel player (Thad). We didn't accompany them...except during Christmas when they usually played in Lake Tahoe.

For the most part Jeanne and I were left behind to care for kids, dogs, cats, plumbing, paying bills... just the mudane tasks of keeping a household running. This, in addition to our outside emplyment at Glendale Memorail Hospital (Jeanne) and various advertising agencies (me).

And Jeanne carried me through two marriages, two divorces, three kids (two for me and one acquired from my first husband and his first wife). She even accompanied me into the delivery room when my first daughter (now 28 years old) was born. (John was on the road in Vegas at the MGM Grand at the time.) Both of my kids ate their first solid meal (spaghetti) at Jeanne's kitchen table. Her kids, Jason and Tammy, are older than my kids. So I could go to Jeanne with my fears and questions about raising children. She always gave me sensible advice and seemed to know how to handle any emergency.

Jeanne basically taught me how to be a responsible adult in the world. Something that, until meeting her, I couldn't fathom at all.

Her family became my family. Her mom, Betty, is in her 80's now but has spent her life raising championship german shephards, keeping her horses, painting beautiful portraits (mostly of horses and dogs but she did small ones of my two kids), baking bread and walking in the woods near her massive Victorian era farm house. Her dad, a retired WWII pilot, was my stunt date for dinners out with Thad and Jeanne while John was on the road and I was hugely pregnant. These are people I've been incredibly fortunate to know.

Visiting them is just like being at your mama's house if your mama happens to be a really nurturing, non-judgmental, generous human being who listens well, cooks what you want to eat and accepts you with all your faults laid bare.

I forget sometimes that no matter how long it has been since we've made contact, they are still there for me. No matter what. And thank God for that.

Living in the Crossfire

When I first moved back to New Orleans in 1996 (from NYC), my new home was a beautiful 1920’s craftsmen cottage located Uptown near the universities. A porch swing. A big yard. Trees. Flowers. Idyllic, right? Well, not exactly. I forgot to mention the white wrought iron burglar bars on every door and window. “Is this really necessary?” I thought. But within 24 hours my new home had been robbed (someone pulled the burglar bars off the kitchen window) and several service industry workers were murdered at the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen in the French Quarter.

As a house warming gift my big brother brought me a gun. He was worried that someone would hurt me living alone and all. I didn’t touch the thing after stashing it in a locked location. To tell you the truth, it creeped me out.

I’m older and wiser now…and much more cynical. I love this city. But I fear for its future. After a very brief respite from crime last winter, the free wheeling violence is back. And not just in the "bad" neighborhoods. And the Times Picayune reports the details. Add that to the fact that insurance rates, propety taxes, and utilities are out of control and the mayor is a total moron and I don't really know how long I can hang.

Thank God for Chris Rose. Every time I find myself scratching my head and saying "Am I the only one who thinks this is unacceptable? Mr. Rose put out a column that says exactly what I'm thinking.

Monday night three people shot on Frenchmen Street (where my son had walked only moments before on his way to work on Decatur). Tuesday night, two blocks from my house an attempted robbery. The perp (I'm learning the lingo) put a gun in the wrong person's back and her companion made as if to reach for his wallet and pulled out his own gun killing the would-be robber. I found my inner voice saying "Score one for our side" and instantly felt a surge of self-loathing for feeling that way.

I'm scared. I'm worried. But I'm here. For now.

Saints preserve us!

Okay first of all let me say I’m not exactly known for being a football fan. And although I love the Saints just because they are the home town team, I’ve only been to a couple of games at the Dome and watched about half a dozen on t.v.

However, since returning from my evacucation last year I’m as crazed as anyone about the black and gold. Seriously. I’m in my living room watching every play and I don’t even want to hit the pause button on my Tivo for a bathroom break for fear that everyone else in the world will know what happens next before I do.

Monday Night Football did it for me. Well, that 24 hour period actually did it for me. The Saints return to the Superdome. The entire city in black and gold. The streets crowded with people celebrating our city, our football team and really just ourselves. It felt like the entire world was pulling for us and given the history of our team, my thought was "If they don’t win another game this season, please God, let them win this one!" And they didn’t disappoint. I actually started to have hope.

And now, every touchdown sends me into emotional overdrive. But the Reggie Bush touchdown on Sunday was miraculously beautiful and in spite of the liberal dose of antidepressants I've injested since the storm, my eyes welled up and my throat constricted and I felt something close to real joy.

And there is at least ONE Bush in the world who has my respect and affection.