Health has been avoiding our house lately. And yesterday, it was CS and Sun who were down and out. So Pete and I headed to New Orleans East to attend the Tet Festival to celebrate the Vietnamese New Year.

There were vendors selling religious statues, irises, art and furniture.

Games for kids of all ages. Here’s one prize fish we all hoped got to his new home quickly:

And there was food.

Delicious phở:

And perfectly fried plantains:

And there’s the unusual.  I knew they’d be serving the fertilized duck egg, and I knew it wasn’t even conceivable for me to try it (I gag on tongue still). But I so wanted to see someone try it.  Pete chickened out too.  I was disappointed.  But then I ran into a friend and her husband.  And doncha know he WANTED to try one!  I asked if he’d mind me taking pictures and gawking; he didn’t.

Once he cracked it and SAW it, he said, “Oh, wow, he’s further along than I expected.”  Oh my.

Undaunted, he took a bite. I looked away. And then back. It was now just gooey looking. Blech.  He said, “Mmmm.” Then took another bite and then another and finished it.

After my face stopped cringed against my will and I regained control of my senses, I asked how it was.   Pete asked if it tasted like a scrambled egg.  He said it did not.  His final verdict: It was really good.  “Except for the beak.” And then I momentarily lost control of my senses again.

Then we stepped to the stage to see the two-men-in-one-dragon dance (there were actually two dragons but I did not get a good pic with both in it) and fireworks.

Overall, it was The Awesome!

I lay in bed last night greedy in utter darkness. Since having Sun, we keep a nightlight on in her room and sleep with our bedroom doors open. It’s never dark enough for me at night anymore. Or quiet enough. Every time I stir in the middle of the night, I automatically look for that light and listen for the quiet to know Sun is soundly sleeping.

Sun spent the last two nights at my sister’s house, and I’ve had the luxury of darkness. And quiet. A quiet that is different from the quiet that comes from a soundly sleeping child. This quiet was of the knowledge that your child was soundly sleeping and that someone else with whom you have complete confidence is charged with the duty of listening for that break in sound sleeping. I didn’t have to keep my ears cued, my arms ready to welcome a Sun awoken by a bad dream (maybe of an evil witch in her fairy tales?), my eyes adjusted to having a light in them all night.

I lay in quiet thinking, “This used to be the quiet I heard every night.” And although at first blush it may sound the same as the quiet of a soundly sleeping child, any parent can tell you (while holding back a chuckle) that it is NOWHERE near the same.

I miss my Sun. And am delighted to be seeing her in a couple of hours. But, oh, how I miss my nights of darkness and quiet.

Bob Dylan once sang that “[W]hen you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Years later, he sang, “When you think you lost everything you find out you can always lose a little more.” Since they are both Dylan lyrics, the incongruity of these two lines has continued to have me scratching my head.

Dylan recorded “Like a Rolling Stone,” with the former lyric, in 1967. He was in his twenties when he wrote it. Dylan recorded “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven,” with the latter lyric, in 1997; he was over fifty.

When young, as Dylan was in the late ’60s, one’s got the world by the tail. Even when losing, one truly has nothing to lose because what one DOES have is time, time to try again and rebuild and re-establish. Whether it’s matters of business or matters of the heart.

But as one gets older, and has a mortgage and a marriage and a career, losing comes harder. Losing love is harder when children are involved; losing a house is harder than losing a lease on an apartment; losing a job, one’s reputation, is harder when one is older because there is less time to recover and more to overcome.

And I’ve realized, as I’ve aged, that there IS ALWAYS more to lose. Always. More. To lose. Things in my personal life are going very well. But I have full cognizance of just how much I have to lose, how much for which I have to be grateful.

But this question of losing, and of winning, has been on my mind lately. Probably because this weekend is BIG in New Orleans. HUGE. Saturday is the Mayor’s race. And Sunday, the Saints’ first Superbowl. Both will have a major impact on the city.

The city’s next mayor will have many challenges and is inheriting an office that’s been all but vacant for the last two plus years. The office has been plagued with scandals and malfeasance, and indictments are continuing to fly. Yet New Orleans is perched to move past the “Post-Katrina Era” of the past four-and-a-half years: to move away from the pain of the Storm and its aftermath and back to jazz and carnival and creole food and Cajun dancing. Yes, we will always have the scar of Katrina, and the change she’s made IN us, but we can be whole again without needing to explain Katrina as an everyday part of our OUTSIDE lives.

And the Saints’ hugely successful season has already meant a lot to the city. None of us will be less proud, could be less proud, of Our Boys no matter what the outcome this Sunday. Drew Brees and Sean Payton are the kings of our Carnival krewes this year; the team is the reason for a parade of their own next week. They unified the citizens of New Orleans in the way only natives CAN be united. We supported this team for SO MANY years, so many bad years, and many more WORSE years. But we always came back to them. Always loyal and optimistic. Even those Schwegmann’s bags were worn with a certain pride. We’re happy to admit now we were the Aint’s.

I always loved the Saints but never thought it was more than just a football team. But when that field goal was kicked in overtime, when Payton said that the win, the Superbowl game, was for the City of New Orleans and the fans, I felt something. And so did my neighbors, my friends, my family. We came together. Fireworks were heard throughout the city. We all joined in that moment and swelled with so much pride, it dripped like tears from our eyes.

And in the two weeks since that win, we’ve been a happier city. We laugh more; we talk to more people in line at the grocery, in elevators. We tailgate; offices celebrate. All over the city today, men, women and children were donned in black and gold. And a smile.

Because we know that come Sunday, we have nothing to lose.

We love people for who they are on the inside: how they treat us and others and how they make us feel. We want so much to have that love in a tangible way—so we can touch it, feel it, know it is real—that we fall in love with the person’s very humanness: You love the gentleness of the soul and find that gentleness in the shape of their fingernails. You love the person’s capacity to forgive and see that in their deep, beautiful eyes. You love their voice, the words they say and find that beauty in the curl of their lips. You love how well they listen to you and find your fingers outlining the curves of their perfectly shaped ears.

When I fell in love with Captain Sarcastic over a decade ago and hitched my wagon to his star, the only regret I had was the knowledge that if this was IT, I’d never fall in love again. Sure, you re-connect and re-fall in love, but it isn’t the same as finding someone new and falling in love with their humanness for the first time.

No one ever told me that the romantic notion we have about falling in love is every bit applicable to the love you feel for your child. I smell Sun’s hair or milky breath, I hear her say “Nite, nite, Mommy,” I feel her holding my fingers and plucking my fingernails, and every aspect of her humanness, and my discovery of it, has my earth shaking beneath me. I want to squeeze her and never let go. And when her thin little arms snake around my neck and return my hug, I melt. There is nothing less in the skipping of my heartbeat now than when I first fell in love with my husband.

And THAT is the truest gift of motherhood.

My pal, Leendaluu, mentioned to me that she planned on making gumbo for the Superbowl.  This was a week and a half ago.  Clearly she already believed the Saints would be in the game.  And so did I.  And her being in upstate New York makes it hard for her to buy filé powder, poor dear.  So I offered to send her some.  Well, not wanting to send her plain, ol’ store bought stuff, I asked my foodie friend, René, if he could help.  He emailed the coordinator of the Tuesday’s Farmer’s Market.  She said that the guy who sells the powder is usually not there regularly except during the holidays, but that if it was a “filé emergency,” she may have had a jar she could get her hands on.

Now, not wanting to overstate the case here, I asked René his opinion on what, exactly, would constitute a “filé emergency.”  In the end, all three of us agreed this was a true filé emergency and if there as a jar available, it was mine.

But then last Tuesday, I got an email informing me that Lionel, the filé guy, would in fact be at the market and I could buy it straight from him.  So Sun and I were given the treat of seeing the sassafras leaves pulverized before our very eyes in the biggest, smoothest wooden mortar and pestle that can possibly exist.  It was a slice of heaven.

Hmm, slice of heaven.  KING CAKE.  After having procured the filé powder, I knew I had to send Leendaluu a Saints Game Care Package.  So Sun and I then headed to Haydel’s to get a king cake.  Though Leendaluu can assuredly bake one that’s delicious, it’s always nice to have one delivered to your door.  And what’s king cake without chickory in your coffee? So next we headed to CC’s.  Now, to tie it all to the SAINTS, I added to her package the now infamous (at least on Twitter) Fleurty Girl’s #WHODAT t-shirt.

Then came the hard part.  I had to keep my big mouth SHUT til she got it! TWO WHOLE DAYS!!  But got it she did!  And she wore her shirt Sunday and, well, y’all know the rest of the story.

Looking back, there could never have been a more dire filé emergency. I hope she enjoys her gumbo as she watches the Saints win the Superbowl. I know my running around town getting all her items was the best day I’d had in a long while.

Last week we attended a funeral out of state.  The trip got me thinking good and hard about what family really means.  You hear talk about family being that which you create.  But what of those people whose blood you share?  Who really ARE your kin but with whom you have no relationship for reasons not entirely your own: What meaning do you give these relations in your life?  What do they deserve?  Or, are you cheating yourself by giving only what is required and no more?

I saw a picture of a small child on the wall of the deceased’s home.  It stunned us how much that child looked like Sun.  That child is now an adult; she’s never met her half-sibling; Sun has an aunt, well, two, actually, of whom she has no knowledge.  Even if we want these women in our lives, how do we go about working on relationships 25 years later than when they should have started?  How do you evaluate whether it is now worth the emotional homework to bring them into our lives?

What of uncles that you’ve met once or twice and adult cousins you’ve never met?  How do these out-of-towners ever become non-strangers?  Friending them on Facebook?  That’s hardly enough.

How do you not get suspicious when there’s a hint of being cut out of that to which you are legally entitled?  Even when the same people, your relatives, are being so generous, thoughtful.  How do you give the benefit of the doubt to folks that have only blood to tie you together?

My mind kept thinking of the opening of one’s heart, one’s life, to an adopted child.  And how, as the corollary, blood alone isn’t enough to hold a relationship together.

What does it all mean? Anything at all?

I returned again this year to the Open House of the grammar school we want Sun ultimately to attend.  I walked away confident in our decision to send her there for grammar school but prefer where she is now for preschool.  However, I have since learned that her current school does not offer a 3-day-per-week program like it does for toddlers. Soooo, either school, we’ll be paying for her to attend five days a week.  And since her current school would then cost TWICE as much as her new school, the decision has been made to make the switch in the Fall.

Every time I even think about that last sentence, the air surrounding me evaporates.  I am not ready.  I fear she isn’t ready.  Ok, I think she’ll do fine. Me? Not so much.

I’ve been living these past couple of days wrapping my head around returning to work five days a week; of losing my two weekdays not in the office; of not being with my daughter two full weekdays every week.  Alas.

Since Sun will be going to school five days a week and all of three years old, we feel strongly that she not attend after-care and turn her days into 10-hour ones.  And since her class will start at 8am, 3pm seems a long enough day.  With no after-care as the goal, CS and I plan to rotate picking her up from school, leaving our jobs early on alternating days to get her and do what work we can from home once we get her.  I expect I’ll be picking her up three days a week.

I am currently in the office about 24 hours a week.  Give or take.  This new regime will have me arriving earlier, but every day, and leaving early three times a week.  I expect it’ll get me in the office about 30 hours a week.

Going from 24 to 30 hours in the office, I know, seems like nothing.  And I KNOW many moms work 40 hour weeks away from home and I should be grateful. And I AM.  I AM.  But I still will miss those two golden days I have now that are mine spent at home.  I do laundry, play with Sun, garden, cook, clean, work, nap with Sun; I do whatever Sun and I are up to, and that’s usually just puzzles and dolls and tv and housework.

I fear going into the office every weekday will stifle the decadent golden time I’ve had these two-plus years spent in my garden, in my kitchen, with my young daughter, with time to burn.  I fear it will be a struggle to get into the office an hour or more earlier each day (I HATE mornings) and to get out of the office around 3pm (my afternoons are so productive!).  Can I shift things around and really make the hours mean that more time in the office will equate to more hours being billed?

I have voluntarily worked a reduced load since Sun was born, and it has worked on all levels (well, that reduced income wasn’t wonderful, but, oh, so worth it).  I know I am not good with change, even with change that is good. But I’d expected this three-day a week routine to continue with Sun until kindergarten, and then maybe even beyond for me.  And this sudden about-face has shaken me up.

Our choices, though far more than many families, are not unlimited, and this isn’t the ideal choice for me.  But really?  I KNOW it’s the right choice:  For Sun, our family, my career, and me.  But oh is it gonna be a hard adjustment!

New Orleans has rather mild winters, as far as weather goes.  When I was younger, I preferred the summers:  swimming and sno-balls.  But as I get older, the heat and humidity of a New Orleans’ summer gets to me more.  And now I find her winters more preferable.

Winter, and by that word, I mean the period from December 22-March 22 (the true winter season), in New Orleans includes Christmas, New Years, and Carnival.

Carnival season began yesterday, Twelfth Night.  Mardi Gras is early this year, February 16.  It seems it will be a cold one.  And that usually equates to thinner crowds, a good thing to us parade-goers.

I wasn’t in much of a holiday mood for Christmas or New Years.  And, honestly, I am not that excited about Carnival this year.  Maybe it’s yet to come.

I am not sure why the holiday slump.  I am in good spirits otherwise, but the hassle of holidays just doesn’t seem worth the payoff lately.  I’d rather just stay home and knit.  Or build puzzles with Sun.  Or play Little Big Planet on our new PS3.

There’s something going on, my desire for some sort of hibernation.  Maybe it’s just winter getting the better of me.  Maybe when it warms up a bit, and that sun shines warmly on my now-shabby garden, when Spring arrives, maybe I’ll feel that rejuvenation of spirit.

But for now, I’ll work on getting excited about King Cake.

Waaaay back in college, I watched Oprah.  And one day she had a guest on her show, Gayle Delaney, who was a dream interpreter.  Having always had vivid dreams, my interest was piqued.  Her theory, in general, is that your dreams are little movies that your unconscious mind produces especially for you.  Throw out those “dream dictionaries,” she advised; forget Freud.  For example, you dream about a horse.  Freud would say it’s sexually connected.  Delaney would ask you, “What’s a horse?  Pretend I am an alien and don’t know what one is.  Describe it to me.”  And if you answer, “a horse is a large animal, one that my family held in a stable when I was a child.  As a matter of fact, I once was thrown from a horse and was never so scared!” then your horse means something very different from someone whose only experience with a horse is the nag they’ve ridden at the zoo.

And so it’s all about YOU and what those dream images mean to you.

I REALLY dug her theory.  So I bought a couple of her books to help me keep a dream journal and interpret my dreams.  And it was cooool!

For example, she claims that your mind tries to pick things that are often things you are struggling with when wide awake.  Your brain uses other parts of itself to get a message to you that you otherwise can’t see wide awake.  And if that message is really important, it will repeat in your dreams and get more obvious.  And more obvious and more obvious as days pass and the message is not coming through.

So, that summer I needed to break up with my boyfriend and I struggled to cut loose a good man but not my ideal, my dreams got more and more blunt.  It started with one pool of water.  Contained emotions that needed to be released.  Before I accepted the message, I was dreaming of a house with 5 pools that was on a lake.  Yeah.  Lotsa water.  All contained.  All un-utilized and scary to me.  How does this connect to a boyfriend? Well, there were other elements to the dream that tied him in.  But what still stays with me were those growing number of pools.

Once I got into law, my dreams quieted down.  They got a lot more literal and didn’t need journaling to get.  Maybe my mind knew I had no time to deal with symbolism.

So now my dreams are just those things I see at night and forget after a few minutes of the morning have passed.

Except lately they are more.

Last week I dreamed I met Bob Dylan.  He was the man, not the legend, in my dream.  And it was so nice.  I woke up disappointed that I’d not really made that connection.

Then I dreamed about seeing something I shouldn’t have that was committed by a serial killer.  And as a result he was then after me.  And a co-worker came to save me.  And so did Brad Pitt. It felt so real. I woke up scared and shaken up.  And weirdly, I knew in the dream that my co-worker was really trying to help and that Brad was really there as an actor. I mean, I knew as I was dreaming part was a dream.

Delaney also gives guidance on dreaming about what issue you want resolved, and about returning to a dream once you’ve woken up.  I’m able to do both now.

In that serial killer dream, I woke up and against my will returned to that dream.  But at least when I returned I was more aware that I would not be killed.

I have NO idea what that dream is about!  Or the Bob Dylan dream.  And why am I dreaming about famous men I really like?

Maybe after all these years my unconscious has something good to tell me again.  Maybe I’ll dust off my dream journal.

Do you believe in your dreams?  Do you keep a dream journal?  Or do you just think I have repressed sexual energy to burn?

This holiday season was certainly seasoned with ups and downs.  I wasn’t much up for the big bash we usually host and so my sister graciously stepped up to the task.  My in-laws came in and spent two weeks with us.  That would prove to be the brightest spot of the holidays.

And let me take a moment here to say that I’m relatively certain that a certain relative knows of and reads this little blog of mine.  So, em, HI!  I’ve pondered whether to ask or down right tell this relative about this corner of the internet.  But I feel weirded out about them possibly knowing and not telling me.  So we’ll keep pretending in real life if that’s what needs to be.

I am too exhausted to go into the details, but on the eve of Thanksgiving, things with one relative were edgy.   In the end, CS and I spent the day at home with Sun.  We ate ribs.  And relaxed.  It was nice.

Then Christmas Eve found another relative upset with me.  Apparently this has been months in the coming.  At least, that’s what their behavior towards me would indicate.

Then there were some harsh e-mails.

Then the Thanksgiving rough relations flared again on New Years Day.

Lovely, eh?

I see now why some people do not like the holidays and avoid family gatherings.  But the thing is, I LIKE my family members. I don’t like all of them all of the time, but generally speaking these are people I’d chose to be friends with if they weren’t family.  In fact, I think taking that family obligation out of things would make our relationships better.  So I am not shying away from family gatherings any time soon.

My sister commented to me (the way only a sister can and get away with it!) that I am a little… she struggled with the word.  “Not catty,” she said, “I guess demanding. You can be demanding.”  And (okay, pay close attention, I am about to be brutally honest) she’s right.  It’s not demanding, so much as just not polite about asking those close to me for something.  For example, if I were at your party and I needed to know where the napkins were, I’d ask you, “Excuse me, can you tell where your napkins are?”  To my family, I say, “Hey, where’s the napkins?” or worse, “Hey, I need a napkin…” And leave it for the person to know I am asking them to STOP WHAT THEY ARE DOING, including any conversations they may be in, and get me a napkin.

Manners, people. Manners.  Mine aren’t that great around my family.  Ok, there. I admit it.  And this has been seen as me being rude, disinterested, disrespectful.  And dammit I can see their point.

In any event, this leads me to my New Years’ resolution: I resolve to be better mannered, NICER, less sarcastic, especially with my family.

What’s your New Year’s resloution?