pink pajama mama

My older sister, Maria, called me this morning to let me know how her Halloween trip to Vegas went this weekend. Maria has inherited my Grandma Lupe’s love of gambling. I was lucky to escape this family trait as my parents spent many an evening inside some nasty casino, leaving my little sister and I in the car. It turned me off gambling forever, but Maria loves it. Probably because she always wins ridiculous amounts of money, even taking into account her losses. So, certain hotels in Vegas have gotten wind of Maria’s love of gambling and they invite her to participate in their “slot machine tournaments.” This I don’t understand as slots seem to be games of chance and not skill, so how could it be a tournament? But she keeps going and she keeps winning.
So, Maria is 41 years old and has been married for 23 years and has three sons. She’s entitled to a little wild phase at this point, and she’s loving it. She dressed up as Naughty Snow White and took a Las Vegas Stripper dance class where she learned to dance on a pole, do a lap dance, and even got a certificate that says “Las Vegas Stripper.” Another notch in her belt. Another dream fulfilled.
She had to get off the phone as a client was calling her (did I mention she’s an extremely successful businesswoman as well?), so I didn’t get to hear the rest of her wild weekend, but then my girlfriend Flora called me. She said her husband’s grandmother was about to die, and that he would have to go to St. Louis for the funeral, and that he had always had a dream to make his own boat and take the River back here to New Orleans. While he had decided against making his own floating device, he was going to try to convince a captain on the river to let him ride a boat back to NOLA. She said this laughing. “So Ben’s taking a little trip and we’re not sure when he’ll be back.” For some reason, this story delighted me. A grown man following a sweet Huckleberry dream. I like it.

Annabelle initially planned to be a mermaid-witch-ballerina-princess for Halloween. She ended up narrowing it down to Cinderella, and we have the whole costume complete with glass slippers, sparkling ballgown and crown. Now that it’s two days before the big event, things have changed once again.
Scenario from the bathtub tonight:
“Mom! I want to be a mermaid for Halloween!” (This said with great gusto.)
“I thought you were going to be Cinderella.” (This said with amused weariness.)
“I changed my mind! I lost my marbles.” (This said with big smile.)

Last year she wanted to be a princess until five minutes before we went trick-or-treating and she decided to be a Lullaby League munchkin from the Wizard of Oz. George decided to implement a yearly tradition laslt year of watching The Wizard of Oz every year. Thay’re obviously too little and we skip right to the munchkins and rarely get past that scene, but Annabelle loves it. Both the booboos are made about their father. As soon as they hear his voice they scream in delight and want him to hold them. Their favorite game with him is running around the pool table in the billiards room shouting “Ha!” every few steps. Annabelle loves to invent games with imaginative names and make up her own rules. Henry loves to follow her every move, imitating her and taking his cues from her. If she cries, he cries. If she screams, he screams.

We went on to a prolonged bedtime. They were almost asleep with their sleepiest faces on, when they rallied and started laughing and screaming and wrestling. I tried to be stern and make them go to sleep, but they had me laughing too hard.

Yesterday we went to the zoo with our dear friends, Lacey and Zazie. Zazie is one and wore a pink tutu with wings attached to the back, and Lacey is her mom, a doctoral candidate at NYU in the field of Popular Amusements. I’m not a fan of zoos as a rule, but the Audubon Zoo is not terrible as far as zoos go. The animals are not kept in cages, and even though it makes me sick that they’re not free in their natural habitat, they have it pretty good over there.
As always, Henry and Annabelle were more enchanted with the statues around the zoo than the animals themselves. They ran and sat on the back of the duck statues and were hugging the cardboard cutouts of ghosts and pumpkins.
We were standing in front of the fountain pool with the elephant statue at the front ot the zoo when Lacey overheard two little boys talking. They were about 10. One said, “I bet I could take that elephant in a fight!” The other replied, (Lacey thought he would probably grow up to be gay) “I don’t know about that but look at the color of the water. It’s beautiful!”
A few minutes later, we were in a pen with the farm animals and a big boy, about 16, knocked Zazie over. He apologized profusely, but even sweeter, he got down on his knees so he could look Zazie in the eye to apologize. She was so fascinated by him she stopped crying. It renewed my faith in humanity to see a teenage boy acting so sweet.
Later, as we walked home, two 8 year-old boys were shuffling across the path very slowly. “Look at the snails” I said to Annabelle. The boys glanced over at me and said very quietly, “We’re turtles.” i stood corrected. “Ah, they’re turtles.”
“Where?” Annabelle said, looking around.
“Right there,” I replied. “They’re pretending.”
I love seeing all these sweet boys. Makes me feel better about the world.

Oh exhaustion has settled its fuzzy blanket over me. I’m so tired! But I had to write about the latest wonder.
We left the house today with the stroller at 10am and returned home at 3:30. We were on an adventure walk, just following our noses. The weather was a perfect 70 degrees–sunny, crisp, gorgeous. We went all the way down to Tchoupitoulas. On the way back, we were walking through the park and Annabelle said, “Mom, there’s a giraffe.” I nodded, thinking she was in her little fantasy world. “Mom!” she said more emphatically. “There’s a giraffe!”
I looked where she was pointing and sure enough, there were two giraffes in the park. We were right behind the zoo so they must have put these giraffes out in some holding pen. They were amazing! We stopped and watched them for a long time. They were swinging their heads around, their long spotty neck rotating in huge circles. They even crossed heads and wrapped around each other’s necks a couple of time. The kept knocking heads and hips. I don’t know if they were mating, fighting, or playing games–it’s sometimes hard to know, even in our human world.
We continued our adventure and went to Loyola to see a funk band called Trombone Shorty who was playing outside. There was a whole lot of funky dancing going on, and Henry and Annabelle were delighted. We ended our adventure by eating lunch at the cafe and the booboos had a ball running in circles around the giant room.

When we returned, Henry got into a whole lot of mischief in the span of about five minutes. First, he put the portable potty on his head. Then he dragged a chair over to the ice/water dispenser on the front of the refrigerator and filled up a bowl of water which he promptly spilled down the front of his clothes. He dumped out his dry cereal all over the floor, tore down some Halloween decorations, and grabbed the broom from me so he could sweep my dirtpile of cereal (I’d been sweeping) under the cabinets where I would never reach them.The finale was trying to climb on the oven and turn the burners on and off while I was making dinner and baking cookies.
My little impish mischief maker.

I’m reading another wonderful book: The Search for Nefertiti by Dr. Joann Fletcher. It has awakened my lifelong yearning to be an Egyptologist/Archaeologist. (I also yearned to be pirate, a princess, an astronaut, a detective, a nun, a veterinarian, a movie star, and a geisha girl.)The stories of the ancient tombs and statues and mummies ignites my imagination and I long to go outside with an adorable safari hat and kneel down in the sand and brush off dusty rocks covered in hieroglyphs. Imagine finding something sealed away for thousands of years that no one has touched since! How amazing to think about the people who built those monuments and tombs, the hands that wrapped those mummies, the beliefs that put everything in the tomb just so. Fascinating.

I suppose my fascination with Egyptology is one of the things that drew me to belly dance. The jewels, the sparkles, the gold and incense and myrrh, the kohl-lined eyes, the movement in the hieroglyphs, the art, the textures of papyrus, the lotus, the mysteries of the architecture, the sphinx, the poetry, the smell of apricot tobacco, the ritual of the hookah, the wailing of the voices, the soft chanting and prayers, it’s all so intoxicating.

Belly dance is like my prayer. I offer my body in reverence, in celebration, in healing, in sensuality and fertility and love and the deepest primal urges–to move when there are no words for the emotions you are feeling. The dance is a prayer of my body and soul. It is sacred and beautiful and so so deep. I have danced my heartbreak, danced my all-encompassing joy, danced my deepest grief, danced my babies into the world, danced the love that has no words.

I am not a religious person, but I love the psalm: You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have removed my sackcloth and clothed me in joy.  One of my favorite dances I’ve ever performed was in my Isis costume. The jeweled wings wrapped around my breasts and hips, a lotus flower joined the back. The skirt was like jeweled feathers, and I wore golden wings, moving them as if I was awakening the creative spirit in my audience.  Dance, my most fervent prayer.

Today Henry befriended a colorful burro pinata at the store where I was buying bookshelves. He pointed his little arm up at it–it was sitting up high– and made the universal baby sound for “I want that.” I brought it down and gave it to him. He smiled and patted it on the head, and then made the universal baby sound for, “I want to ride this like a pony.” I helped him climb astride it and he made a clicking sound with his mouth like a horse clip-clopping and bounced blissfully up and down. When I needed him to follow us, I had to pick him up, burro and all, and carry them both around the store. He was completely delighted by this turn of events–a flying burro pinata!! He smiled from ear-to ear all the way out to the car. He held the burro all the way home, and pulled it behind him all around the front yard. I had to do the flying burro all the way upstairs. We had a picnic of mexican food on the floor and made our pumpkin into a Diva with a Mr. Potato head kit. Henry wore the kit box on his head like a hat and both he and Annabelle had a ball wearing the pumpkin’s sunglasses.
Then my dear friend, Michelle, on Martha’s Vineyard called and told me that Annabelle had called her last night. Somehow, she managed to push the green button to call the last person who called me. I didn’t know any of this. Apparently, she had a long conversation with Michelle and told her all about the blue fairies who came in her bedroom window. She said, “My mom’s friend, Kim, says some people call them lightning, but I don’t. I call them blue fairies.”
Pinatas and blue lightning fairies–what a great day.

Walking barefoot with flowers in my hair, dancing to New Orleans bump and grind music, running in circles around the ottoman with Henry and Annabelle, laughing my ass off with my best friend, listening to Billie Holiday, drinking red wine, taking hot bubble baths with candles, being fed chocolate-covered strawberries and grapes while sitting in the bath, hot oil massages, bright red toenails, silk nighties, luxurious linens, moments of grace, swimming in the ocean, slow-dancing with my husband to Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter, watermelon-cilantro margaritas, talking to my sisters, splashing through rain puddles, baking chocolate chip-oatmeal cookies…

Well, let’s see, this morning I woke up to Henry refusing to wear his diaper and promptly pooping on the floor in the sunroom. I made him put on a diaper, and he managed to pull his winky out the side and peepee on the living room floor. A few hours later, he pulled the Winnie the Pooh stepstool over to the toilet and tried to climb on it and managed to fall into itm his leg splashing in the water.
Yes it was that kind of day.
We made Halloween cupcakes and danced and puttered about. Henry has some dance moves! He leans sideways and raises one arm and pretends to snap his fingers. Annabelle made a sticker chart for Kim, my best friend who is staying with us for a few days. She came into the kitchen with a big piece of paper with a chart and three kitten stickers and said, “Kim, I’m so proud of you for going to Whole Foods I gave you three stickers on your sticker chart.”
I make sticker charts for Annabelle all the time. They work like magic. I’m always so amazed by her and the things she comes up with, the connections she makes.
It is really such an honor and delight to take care of these little beings, to be a part of their lives.

I finished another surprisingly great book today called “Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned City” by Billy Sothern. I bought in on a whim as the author was doing book signings in the tiny bookstore where I was shopping and I couldn’t very well NOT buy his book. Wel, surprise surprise, I loved it. He’s an attorney for people on death row, and it was so nice to hear someone speaking for the porr and disenfranchised. I’m surrounded by people who believe in free market and less government. It was so great to hear someone say we should live in a society of compassion where decisions are made for the common good with the goal of protecting the poor and vulnerable, children and the elderly.
New Orleans is such a unique city with a unique set of social justice issues. Mr. Sothern speaks of these issues in a profound and eloquent way. It did make me have nightmares about hurricanes, but other than that, it made me think about the things I really believe in.
He writes about the horrible murder last year of Helen Hill, a murder which had a profound affect on the citizens of New Orleans and spurred the march on crime last winter. I didn’t know her personally, but her son attended the preschool where I’m a Board member. When I heard about her being shot in her bed at 6 in the morning and her husband being shot in tihe back three times while trying to run out the door carrying 2 year old Francis, I felt sick, as most people did. Helen was a peaceful vegan artist and her husband was a doctor who ran a clinic in one of hte poorest parts of New Orleans. They were trying to rebuild this magical city, like all of us, and this horrible tragedy happens.
Mr. Sothern was a patient of the docotr and writes a line of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay: “I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground…”
I am not resigned either.

One of my favorite episodes of Sesame Street was on today–the one where Andrea Bocelli sing a duet/lullaby to the tune of “Time to Say Goodbye.”
Annabelle and I love it. I closed my eyes and said, “Annabelle, listen to how tender and loving his voice is, how raw. he sings something called opera, and do you see how his eyes are closed, that’s because he’s blind, which means he can’t see.” I looked outside as I said this and imagined a life without seeing the rain falling in a fine mist through the trees outside.
I was reminded of visiting the Louvre with my friend, Eric. We were standing in front of the awe-inspiring “Winged Victory,” a sculpture of a woman’s body enfolded in draped fabric with magnificent wings, and I heard someone whispering quite loudly. I looked over and there was a woman speaking into the ear of a blind boy, explaining what the sculpture looked like. I looked around myself and saw a group of blind children, each being guided through these amazing works of art, each with someone to try to explain the beauty of the pieces surrounding them. It was such a powerful, staggering moment, I had to sit down. And although I’m sure they each had gifts I can’t even imagine, I felt so deeply thankful for being able to see.
But it made me think how I would describe the art in the Louvre to someone who couldn’t see it.

This episode of Sesame Street also made me think of the time Andrea Bocelli was performing right up the street from my house at the Hollywood Bowl. I wanted to see him so badly it hurt, but I couldn’t afford a ticket. I told my friend Courtney to come over and get me, and we would call on the Goddess of Music to help us find a way to hear him. We packed a bag of snacks and wine and a blanket and headed off to find a back way to the Bowl. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who had ever thought of this ploy as the police were blocking the streets. We told them we lived there, they asked us our address, I made one up, and they let us through. After a series of checkpoints and obstacles and wrong turns and dead ends, we kept following the music. Bocelli’s heartrending voice led us to the highest trees behind the Bowl. We climbed over a little gate, not knowing where it would lead, and presto, we overlooked the entire Bowl. Bocelli looked like an ant on the stage, but his voice washed over us and we sat down, ecstatic, poured our wine into glasses, and heard our favorite songs.

I’ve actually had many experiences like this and I can honestly say I have never not gotten into a concert, show, or play I wanted to see. Even when they say they’re sold out, I find a way. The Music Goddess seems to help. I called on her once with my niece. I was taking her to see NSYNC of all things and they were sold out. I refused to be deterred of course and called on the Music Goddess on the way to the ticket place, and sure enough, they had released more tickets. Once I wanted to see my all-time favorite, Tom Waits, but I had spent my meager waitress earnings on too many shows–Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead–actually I never paid for a ticket to the Dead. I became friends with the Dancing Bear at one particularly magical show and he left me a ticket for every show I attended under a rock here and there.The Dancing Bear was a man named Rob Levitsky who was covered in hair and owned ten houses in Palo Alto–all named after Grateful Dead songs, a 60 acre-park, a coffee shop, and he slept in a sleeping bag on a table in the backyard of one of his houses, under the stars. I asked him what he did when it rained and he pointed to a little room with a tie-dyed curtain under the house. He had created a furry costume for himself with a dancing bear that lit up on the front, holding a flower, and a winking sun lit up on the back. He also carried a spinning ball of lights, a treat for all who might be tripping. You could see his dancing winking lights all the way across the auditoriums. Very magical.

Ah, but I digress, I wanted to see Tom Waits, but I had no money. I went to the Wiltern theater where he was playing wiht $10 in my pocket. One magical thing led to another, and next thing I knew I’d found my way to the side of the theater with the smokers. I noticed their tickets to get back in were the same color as my Grateful Dead tickets from the night before. I nonchalantly showed the doorman my Dead ticket, and boom, I watched my hero play from 8th row center.

Well, I could go on and on with magical stories like this, but I’ll continue with the next thing the Bocelli lullaby reminded me of: my love of opera. Once again (this seems to be a theme in my life) I desperately love opera, but I could never afford a ticket. And so I decided to audition for my favorite opera of all time, Pagliacci, just do I could see it for free. Well, I auditioned, and next thing I know, I’m meeting Franco Zeffirelli, the director, and watching Lawrence Foster, the Master conductor, and listening to Placido Domingo sing my favorite aria–Vesti La Giubba– every night.
And getting paid to do it.
Talk about dreams coming true.
It turned out that Placido adored me. He brought his family to see me belly dance at a little persian nightclub in Westwood. He gave my family fabulous tickets to the opera, and gave me free tickets to every opera he sang in or conducted in Los Angeles, San Diego, and New York for years. Poor little me found myself sitting at the Met in NYC, weeping over La Traviata, sitting in seats I could never have afforded, and later the same evening, cheering over some other amazing opera I can’t remember the name of. I took my poor ass to New York every year and belly danced to make ends meet. I stayed with my friend Vin, and when I arrived, he’d say, “Why is Placido Domingo calling my house every ten minutes?” Vin had the audacity to ask him about some concert he did with Diana Ross in Czechoslavakia. “Vin!” I said. “I can’t believe you!” “Well, he’s calling my house! I want a copy of that concert!”
Vin is a huge Diana Ross fan. He’s always wanted to have two children, a boy and a girl, and name them Diana and Ross. He’s also crazy about Farrah Fawcett and Lucille Ball and comes home from work every day to have lunch with “Lu.” (Episodes of I Love Lucy.) But he says he’s not gay. Vin is hysterical and wonderful and we have spent many a night, broke and bummed, but lack of money has never gotten it in the way of our adventures. And he has always encouraged me to be just the way I am. (”Marci, never apologize for being too sensitive.”) And he taught me how to take the high road in romantic fights with my boyfriends (”It doesn’t matter what they say or do. You are only responsible for yourself. It only matters what you say and do.”) And if Captain Jack (yes, as in the rum) wasn’t his best friend, I would be.
My goodness, I had a lot to say. I suppose because I haven’t been able to write for a while. Henry has been very sick with a flu of some sort.I have been holding him for three days, his sweet head heavy on my shoulder, rubbing his pudgy little arms, washing the vomit out of his hair (and mine!). When I was little, my mother would always say when I was sick, “Oh Marci, if I could trade places with you I would. I wish I could take your pain away.” I would just smile and nod, but now I understand. How I wish I could take his pain away.
Which brings me to why we were watching Sesame Street in the first place. We never turn on the tv during the day, but Mama needed a break for a minute. And look what happened. A mile-long blog.
And whoever said Sesame Street wasn’t stimulating?