Every morning

Just as she's done just about every weekday morning for as long as we can remember, my daughter climbed the stairs to my bedroom this morning -- her little puppy Lola trailing behind -- and climbed into bed with me.

"Hi," she mumbled, before pulling the covers up to her chin, rolling on her side and beginning to snore like her dad.

Just as I've done every morning, I scooted up behind her and snuggled, my nose buried in her brown curly hair. Lola found her own spot at our feet.

And just as we've done every morning, we stayed that way until the alarm went off.

We do this every morning despite the fact that she's now a tweenager with 12 years of living behind her, and despite the fact that she's now a head taller than me, and she can wear my clothes, but, thankfully, no longer my shoes. 

But this morning was different.

This morning I paused to savor the moment, knowing that there may be only a few more like this. School ends in two days. Soon she'll be sleeping her summer days away and won't want to be awakened at 6 a.m., then again at 7.

And in just a few months she'll be a seventh grader who just might be too cool to cuddle with her mom in the mornings. Or any other time.

~~

I put my daughter on the bus this morning, just as I've done a thousand times before.

But this time was different.

This time, I paused. I stopped. I waited. And I waved. Then I watched her ride away.

And for a moment -- just for a moment, my heart silently hoped that she would come back.

Yesterday in Oklahoma, a whole bunch of parents put their kids on the school bus with a kiss and a hug and a wave. And they didn't come back. Others came back broken. Or shattered.

The same thing happened in December in Connecticut.

And it's terrifying to know that we live in a world where that can happen.

Guest blogging with New Orleans Moms

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email asking if I would be interested in writing a guest blog for the website NewOrleansmomsblog.com.  I was thrilled! I'm happy to write for anyone who asks me these days, so I happily agreed.

A while later, I got an email telling me to come up with a topic and let them know what I wanted to write about.

Wait. You want ME to come up with the topic? Anything I want? About my snarky tweenage daughter I love to death but who drives me crazy most of the time?

Oh! The possibilities! There were so many. Too many!  It took me weeks to decide -- in between covering baseball games for the upstart New Orleans Advocate, rooting for my husband, driving Miss Jane to dialysis three times a week (and back), going to the store for more macaroni and cheese and keeping the dogs from barking at the neighbors.

I finally narrowed it down to a choice between my fruitless attempts to curb her macaroni and cheese addition (is there a Macaroniandcheese Anonymous?) or our attempts to survive her first year of middle school. Although the editors liked both offerings, they preferred the second choice

So here it is, my first (I hope!) effort for the New Orleans Moms. Please check out their site. And to the New Orleans Moms,  thanks for having me over. Next time I'll bring macaroni and cheese.


The First Year of Middle School: Challenges for both Mom and Daughter

 

This just in ...

The Coach actually broke his own story, you know.

 In his little blog post that I shared a few days ago, he wrote that next year will be his last.

Then this happened.

Marty Luquet decides 2014 to be final season as Destrehan baseball coach

And this... Destrehan's Marty Luquet to retire after 2014 season

And he made the 6 o'clock news.

"I didn't know this was going to be such big news," he said.

Right.

Meanwhile, I'm working on his honeydo list.

A word from The Coach

I am The Writer. The Blogger.

He is The Coach.

But sometimes he writes (and I correct his punctuation).

And he can make me cry.

Not when he writes about me, although his words are so sweet. But when he writes that next year is his last.

What the hell am I going to do with him then?

Check him out:    Coach Speak 

Disturbing the peace

                                  

I've always tried to be a good neighbor, no matter where I've lived.


Uptown on Joseph Street, on Prytania, on Henry Clay, on Willow, and in LaPlace, I parked in my own space, I kept my music to myself, I didn't have wild parties. Well, maybe one or two.


I never was a complainer, not when my upstairs neighbors used to stomp up their wooden stairs, or when the next one hung dozens of photos of his wife in various Playboy-type poses in the front sun room for all the world to see, or when my landlords turned down the thermostat that controlled my air conditioner. Or when I found out my LaPlace neighbor had nine speakers in his apartment and a boa constrictor. Or when our backdoor neighbors smoked so much weed we could smell it in my kitchen.

 I DID yell at my second LaPlace neighbors who decided to cut the grass at 6 a.m. On a Sunday.

And I did get pretty angry when the current ones cut the branches on MY trees and dropped one on the huge ceramic fish by my pool. Yeah, I know accidents happen. But what pissed me off the most was that they didn't come knock on my door to say, "Oops." They just left it there for me to discover. And didn't reimburse me, either.

But when I got into an accident and my husband refused to answer the phone because he didn't recognize the number, it was nice to know that I could call them and ask them to go knock on my door to let him know. True story.

And the night our neighbor's trailer caught fire and we came home to find fire trucks all over the place, they weren't home. The firemen went in, did their job and left. They didn't even leave a note. So we waited up to let them know what had happened.


Most of my neighbors have liked me back. The Uptowners did because, back then, I had a sort-of-boyfriend who was an NOPD officer and he used to drive by my apartment on occasion in his cruiser.


Need sugar? Salt? Someone to feed your cats? Extra chairs for your crawfish boil or a pool for your guests to swim in? Sure! No problem!

I have no junk cars or spare tires, I keep my grass cut, my garden green and my pool blue.

So you don't get to call me "Trash."

That's what my next door neighbor called me the other day because my dog was barking at him through the fence.

"Can't you control your dogs you goddam piece of trash?"

That's what he yelled at me across the glorious green ginger in my backyard.

To which I replied, "Fuck you."

To which he replied, "Fuck you too."

And in one instant, 20 years of peace was shattered.

A few hours later, a nice St. Charles Parish Sheriff's deputy knocked on my door, aggravating The Coach and terrifying my kid. He asked me what happened. I told him. With tears in my eyes.

"It all went to crap when he called me "Trash."

And I will never forget the look on my daughter's face when she asked me, "He really called you that? The man who let me and Paige cut through his yard?"

"Yes."

I've been called that twice in my life. Both times because of dogs, both times by people standing on the front porch of their trailers. My mom's dog ran away once and as I chased it down the street, my mom's neighbor yelled at me, "You white trash."

The fact that it was nearly 30 years ago and I still remember it should tell you something.


I fully admit that my dogs can be a pain in the ass. I  have two at the moment.  A pair of poodles -- one big, one little, both rescues.  They're good dogs, except Lola likes to run away and drag my daughter's dirty socks all over the living room. Leigheaux is plotting to kill the mailman (or at least the truck) and has a strange compulsion to pee on my favorite chair.

And they bark. They wake us up. They wake the neighbors up. Worst of all, they wake the mother-in-law up.  They LOVE to bark. At the mail truck, the UPS man, the FedEx truck, the delivery trucks across the street, the chicken eaters, the walkers and, occasionally, the reflection of the TV. Hell, sometimes they bark at the wind.

And the neighbors.

As soon as we hear them, we try to scramble to get them back inside. But sometimes we don't hear them. And sometimes we're, like, naked. So we can't always get to them. But we do try.

They know that.

I don't know what set my neighbor off this day, whether he was in a particularly bad mood or if the dogs were just unusually annoying this day. I do know this. He can't take it back. And he can't fix what he broke.

We've lost the sense of peace we had, knowing that there was somebody next door if we were in trouble, if my daughter was in trouble, if my dogs were in trouble. Not because of two dogs, but because of one word.

And I don't know if we'll ever be able to get it back.

Dancing in the streets

A lot of my social media friends got quite a kick out of this video last week.

It depicts a wonderful British woman who obviously has music in her head. Or at least in her ears. And somebody gave it a sound track. It quickly went viral.

Some laughed at her. Some made fun of her.  Some blessed her soul and admired her spunk.

I laughed with her. And I absolutely love her.

She could be me.

Just about every morning since I became a laid-off mother-in-law keeper, I have grabbed my iPhone, my ear buds, my sneakers and my trusty poodle Leigheaux and hit the streets. We head north on Apple Street, turn right on 5th, circle the park a time or two, then head home. It's exactly two miles;  2 1/2 if I make two circles.

If I'm good and my hips don't hurt too bad -- or if I don't catch a damn train -- it takes roughly 42 minutes.

And it's 42 minutes of pure bliss. No mother-in-law. No barking. No mom. No Marty. No television. No soliciting. No goddam beeper ready to go off in my ear. It is my mental health moment. It is, perhaps, the only thing keeping me from going completely insane through this. Or from becoming a raging alcoholic.

It's just me. And the music.  And sometimes, I dance.

While the good people of Norco see me "walking" down the street, in my head I'm dancing.  Sometimes I really do dance. Sometimes I sing. Play the drums. The air guitar. The piano. Sometimes I'm Joan Jett. Sometimes I pour sugar on me. Sometimes I touch myself (not really).

And sometimes people do laugh at me.  I know the cop at the school corner does. And the ones doing their paperwork at the park.  And the bus ladies who wave at me as they pass by. Someone  may even be video taping me. I don't care.

There are 249 songs on my Walking playlist. 269 on my "Favorite songs" playlist. I can't figure out exactly how many songs I have, total, but it's a lot. I am a song collector. I have songs you've never heard of. I have songs you heard when you were a kid and forgot about. I have songs that I love, songs that I like, even songs that I hate.

And I never knew that AC/DC was great walking music.

According to iTunes, I could walk for 17.2 hours with my Walking playlist. 

And sometimes I wish I could.

Laugh at me if you will. Or dance with me.

Celebrate

It's Lora Day!

Eleven years ago today, Judge Emile St. Pierre signed the papers that made our baby girl, Lora Leigh, ours forever. And changed our lives forever.

We will celebrate with a family dinner at IHOP. Because we never want to forget how happy we were that day.

The rest of you should hug your children today. Celebrate them, and the ease with which you were able to have them. Or the work you had to go through to have them, to get them, or to keep them.

And say a little prayer for all those parents who still have empty arms.

Here are a few of my blog posts commemorating this day. 

Here is a post from 2011. 

Here is a post from 2010.

And another from 2008.