I was 37 when Sun was born.  I am the youngest of five children (my mother was 29 when I was born), and all four of my siblings had their respective two children when they were younger than 37.  My sister, who is just three years older than me, is a new grandmother.  My grandfather was just 50 when I was born.

What I am saying is that my family tends to have children when they are young.  The one exception to this was my father’s mother.  She was 33 when my father was born and 37 when her twins were born.  And that grandmother was always the “old” one.

Since Sun was born, I have always felt like an old mom.  I know that mostly means to me that I am more mature, more experienced, more settled, more mellow.  But superficially I worry about not connecting with Sun as she is older; about being old when she marries and has children of her own (if that is to be her path in life).

I married someone who is the oldest child in his family.  His mother is 10 years younger than my mother.  Ten years–from being born in 1940 to being born in 1950.  Can you imagine the differences in my mother and my mother-in-law?  Compare June Cleaver to Carol Brady.  Both nice and motherly but in starkly different ways, and both ways very different from my path as a mother.

I also have a sister-in-law that is a freshman in college; she just turned 20.  My MIL and my SIL are very close, more like sisters than mother/daughter.  And sometimes it annoys me but as SIL gets older, I find myself a bit jealous of their closeness.  It is nothing I will ever share with my own mother, with whom I have a good relationship.

I think about Sun and how we’ll be as she grows up.  And I have been envious of the bond my MIL and SIL share, thinking that I will miss that because I will be too old when Sun is SIL’s age.  But I am envious no more.  Why?  Because being the smart bugger that I am, I asked MIL how old she was when she had her daughter (I am not good at math).  And she told me she was 36.  “Your age,” she answered.  Well, one year off from when I had Sun, but YES, MY AGE!

Age IS what it is in your mind.  And my MIL is simply NOT OLD (she loved me just a bit more for blurting that out).  And dammit NEITHER AM I.  Nor will I be when I too am 57.  Frankly, Bring. It. On.  I have no doubt I will just be even more mellow and confident then.  And my MIL?  She’ll still be visiting regularly kicking it old school with me (and Sun)!

This weekend and next is The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.  To many, this is THE festival of the year.  It is certainly the biggest and most famous.  My husband is one of those die-hard Jazz Festers.  He has a brass pass and will be attending every day minus one due to work, six days of festing for him.  That’s a lot.  My in-laws are two more hard core Festers.  They will have driven 30 HOURS, over two full days, to attend JF.  Yeah, it’s a big deal.

And in honor of Jazz Fest, Pete and I will be bestowing our next Lucky Blog Award.

We will be scouring blogs to find the single best post about this year’s Jazz Fest.  So, if you are festing it up at JF and think we may miss your post, leave a comment on this post with a link to your post and we’ll check it out.  You do not need to leave a post to be eligible to win, but we do need to read it!

So whether you are in New Orleans or not, hop around the NOLA blogs (many can be found under my NOLA Blog Krewes) and those vacationing in NOLA to read all about Jazz Fest 2008.  It never disappoints!

My funk is, finally, over.  Over. OVER. O.V.E.R.  And I hate to admit what it took, but I will

It took a day completely, fully, wholly, unattached.  Captain Sarcastic took Sun to Jazz Fest today, and because I had to work yesterday I was not in the office today.  Ten plus hours of me-time!  Ah, it was a luxury just to think of it.  I wanted to do NOTHING of the things I normally do; I needed to do something other than the same places with the same faces.

Yesterday on the twitter, talks were had about meeting for drinks this afternoon.  Things were settled on Cooter Brown’s.  Then, later in the evening on the twitter, Bud’s Broiler came up.  And before long, YatPundit and I had made plans to meet for lunch for a Number 4 and Number 3, respectively, each with cheese fries.

So once CS and Sun were off this morning, I spent an hour cleaning.  I got more cleaning done in that one alone-hour than I have in the past year!  It was amazing.

Then lunch.  I LOVE a burger at Bud’s Broiler; they are char-grilled and yummy.  But today the focus wasn’t on the food; it was on the company, the conversation.  We talked about blogging, twittering, lawyering.  We talked about the proposed church closings, cemeteries, where we went to high school.  We talked about being a cultural catholic, and about being a parent.  We talked and talked and talked.  No babies, no office calls.

After three and a half hours, I needed to leave.  I had meant to run to the knitting store between lunch and my next agenda item, but that fell to the wayside.  YatPundit and I parted and I drove to Old Metairie to meet Katie at Lovejoy Spa for a pedicure.  I haven’t had a pedicure since I was pregnant–a year and a half ago.  It was JUST what I needed.  Adult activities with adults with no children.  We talked about weddings and doctors and weddings OF doctors.  It was decadent.  I could have sat in that vibrating chair for two pedicures.

Then Katie and I parted–her to nap and me to head to Cooter Brown’s.  At Cooter Brown’s, Yat Pundit arrived and then WarriorEngineer. And so did my cousin and two of his friends.  We drank beers from “around the world.”  And I ate a dozen raw oysters.  Their oysters are some of the best in the city: super fresh, ice cold and salty.  Oh, and yeah, MORE cheese fries.  Damn, their cheese fries are amazing: hot discs of potatoes SMOTHERED in dripping hot melted cheese.

At the end of it all, I got a call from CS sounding downright frazzled.  This is a sound usually found in MY voice, not his.  All day at Jazz Fest alone with Sun–including an exploding diaper and port-o-lets–had taken its toll. I was needed back home.

Walking in the front door to a bathed Sun (Sun-bathed?) and an apologetic husband (he was sorry he’d interrupted my day alone–can you believe?), I was rejuvenated, refreshed.  I AM rejuvenated, refreshed.

I am appreciative of the blessings of my life, of my family, of this lil blog o’ mine, of the comments and e-mails you, my amazing readers, sent me regarding my last post.

I am a lucky gal.  And all I needed was a bit of exclusive me-time to feel it all again.

I am slowly coming around to feeling completely like myself.  But my irritability is still high, a sure sign I am not myself.  Here’s two examples.

The cat.  Peanut has been using our bathroom floor as, well, toilet paper.  Don’t know why.  Just know that I walk in to the bathroom to brush my teeth and there’s this nice long smear.  Oh, the expletives.  CS tells me that she’s obviously needing to go to the vet because something must be wrong.  That is certainly logical and the answer that gives Peanut the benefit of the doubt.  I, on the other hand, think nothing logical.  I want to kick her in her smearing ass and throw her outside.  Twice in two days this has happened.  I will call the vet to try to get an appointment tomorrow.  In the meantime, it is best if Peanut avoids me at all costs.

My blog.  I have nothing to say these days.  I was feeling very positive about finding my voice here and enjoying what I wrote.  But lately, I feel uninspired, that my writing is flat and my topics are tired.  A friend installed a new feature for me to look at my blog stats differently.  So now I have been paying way too much attention to those numbers.  And it just annoys me because I honestly don’t blog for the comments I get or the number of visits I get.  But.  There I am looking at the stats three different ways now.  (Why do all three show different numbers for the same thing?? So confusing.  Don’t answer!  It will only feed this negative energy!)

Ah.

So if I am not posting here often, it’s a public service of not putting dull posts out there.  A public service, that is, to the ten of you that read my blog.  And to you ten, thanks.  I do appreciate the readership.

I had to pick Sun up from the Westbank today.  Seems I am across the river often these days.  Today I passed Mosca’s twice.  Once was hard, twice was really hard.  Especially because YatPundit kept twittering about how he had cooked Mosca’s Chicken a la Grande last night.

Over dinner, I mentioned Mosca’s, planning a trip back to eat dinner.  A diner close to us mentioned a rumor he’d heard about Al Capone sending his chef to New Orleans to learn from Mosca.  I have no idea if this is true.

Then later tonight, YatPundit posted about his home-cooked Mosca’s dinner last night.  He used a sauce Mosca’s sells in the grocery store.  And YP mentions yet another mob-themed rumor about Mosca’s in his post.

Oh, the allure of a mob-rumored hole in the wall restaurant in the middle of nowhere three cities away!  Yes, we will have to do a group dinner there soon.  Until then, I will just pretend that YatPundit’s post was also a scratch-n-sniff.  I can almost smell the garlic!

I keep thinking of my grandparents fishing camp in Hopedale.  I still think of it as existing, as housing chiffarobes and roll-a-way beds, crab nets and fishing poles, seafood pots and Styrofoam beer huggies.  I can still see the spot of kitchen floor tile that sank as a result of Hurricane Betsy.  I spent two weeks a year as a youth fitting my foot in that pitting.  I’ll even still smell it from time to time–a stale briny scent.

My 88 year old grandfather does not miss his camp.  Prior to Katrina, it was needing a lot of work and in many ways was more of a burden than a joy to him.  I wish there were more pictures of it.  I wish the pictures that were in it when Katrina hit were with us now.

When I have trouble sleeping, I imagine myself back at the camp.  I let the pitch-darkness envelope me and then I listen for the drone of the a/c window unit.

I guess what I am saying is that although things are overall better for me, I am still feeling out of sorts.  I am having trouble concentrating–reading, knitting, getting things ready for a visit from my in-laws this weekend (which I am excited about)–and feel tired all the time.  I don’t feel depressed, but it sure sounds like I am, doesn’t it?

I have started and then resisted writing this post in the past because Angelo Brocato’s is a New Orleans icon and much can be said about it and I fear not doing it justice.  With that caveat (see the attorney in me kicking in?!), I will proceed for the benefit of those unaware of this spot of Heaven in New Orleans, like Katie. 

Angelo Brocato’s is an Italian ice cream parlor that has been a part of New Orleans for over a century.  It was originally located at 617 Ursulines Avenue in the French Quarter, and its name is still in the tile at its original corner (as is the curious second entrance that is tiled “Ladies Entrance.”)  They have been located at their current Mid-City location (at Carrollton and Canal, on the Canal/Carrollton streetcar line) for as long as I can remember.

Katrina did a great deal of damage to Brocato’s.  They have placed a brass plaque above the inside door handle indicating the waterline:

You can click here to see more photos relating to their rebuild and opening day (September 23, 2006) post-Katrina.

So their history is a long and rich one.  And speaking of long, so is the line to get in.  There is ALWAYS a line here, even if you come at 2pm on a weekday afternoon.  In the evenings, there is usually a security guard to help maintain that line.  What’s inside is worth the wait.

Gelatos, spumoni, cassata, cannoli, Italian ices (nothing compares to their lemon ice on a hot New Orleans summer day), and Italian pastries, cookies and candies.  The cookies and candies are made from their own recipies: Biscotti, scadalina, fig cookies, pigniolata, and my mother-in-law’s favorite, what she calls their “bird seed cookies” (Italian sesame seed cookies). And they serve hot chocolate, tea and coffee.  The coffee they serve is good steaming cafe au lait, espresso, cappuccino, and cafe latte.  Just look at their menu and beautiful brass coffee machine:

And here’s a pic of just one of the candies you can buy loose on the counter, their licorice pastels:

They have over 20 flavors of gelatos.  But I have only tasted about four.  Because that fourth one was their Pistachio Nut (as opposed to their Pistachio Almond) and I about died of ecstacy.  The texture of that gelato!  Really, it gets in your system and when it wears off, you simple CRAVE it.  So my typical order, no matter how hot or cold outside, is a steaming cafe au lait and a cup of Pistachio Nut gelato.  And when I am sitting on an iron chair in their bustling parlor, all is well in the world.

Somehow I managed to skip lunch today. This NEVER happens. But by 2 o’clock, as hungry as I was, I was beginning to think about dinner. And if I then ate lunch, it’d ruin my dinner. So I did what an self-respecting foodie would do: I called my husband and asked if he’d like to go to Doson Noodle House with me for dinner. He did.

I learned of this place through some friends–they ordered for us to go and we ate at their home. This was about two months ago. And since then, I have thought about this noodle house a lot. I love Vietnamese food, and Katrina took out many of the good Vietnamese restaurants in the area. So this restaurant was a welcome addition to the NOLA restaurant scene. And I have been craving it for about a week now.

Enough history. Now onto the food. For starters, I ordered an iced coffee:

You know how you can order a Thai tea at Thai restaurants and you get this sweet, chilled, strong, creamy tea? It’s like that but coffee. It was hard to stop at one, it is so tasty, but I didn’t want to be up all night, as these are big. It’s worth stopping here just for this coffee.

Then we ordered the Spring Rolls (they recommend these on their menu):

Two rolls come with one order. And these rolls are BIG, each nestling three large shrimp. They are cool, filled also with noodles, cilantro, cucumber, and tofu. I could make a meal of this appetizer. The sauce is nutty with a dash of spice–they have more heat on the table that both CS and I took full advantage of.

Then for the main course: Vermicelli. CS got his with grilled chicken and I got mine with grilled pork. Here’s a shot of the pork vermicelli:

This plate is deceptive. This dish is ENDLESS. It defies you to eat it all. How much is it? I skipped lunch and was ready to gnaw off Sun’s left arm (it DOES resemble a dumpling) and was content to eat all I could. I fully expected to finish this tonight. I didn’t. Neither did CS. Between the two of us, I have enough for lunch tomorrow. If, that is, I can resist eating it later tonight. Because I am already Jonesin’ for it again even though I am still WAY STUFFED. How stuffed? I turned down Angelo Brocato’s gelato that was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET. Yeah, that stuffed.

So, if Vietnamese cuisine is your thing, trust me, this unassuming spot will scratch your itch.

When I was younger, I believed all the songs I’d heard about love, about it being all you need and it keeping couples together, that it was the be-all and end-all.  Then I fell in love and learned love was not all you needed.  That love can hurt and make you go down roads you need not go down.  I became a realist at a young age.

In Captain Sarcastic, I finally found the right balance of head and heart.  I loved him, and still do, completely.  I think of his presence in my life and know his absence would hurt more than a shotgun blow to my chest.  And he’s reliable and dependable and lots of other “-ables” that made him a logical mate for me.

We’ve been together for 10 years now and married for just over five years.  I had to recount those five years three times just now to be sure.  Time has flown by–that’s what Katrina and fertility treatment can do to you.  And now that we have a daughter, that love is in many ways stronger.

But.

Sometimes, the act of being married can wear you down.  Nietzsche wrote

If we live in too close proximity to a person, it is as if we kept touching a good etching with our bare fingers; one day we have poor, dirty paper in our hands and nothing more. A human being’s soul is likewise worn down by continual touching; at least it finally appears that way to us–we never see its original design and beauty again.

One always loses by all-too-intimate association with women and friends; and sometimes one loses the pearl of his life in the process.

I agree with Nietzsche that living close can wear you down, that it can make you forget the original design and beauty of someone.  But I don’t agree that we always lose by all-too-intimate associations, by marriage.  Sometimes?  Definitely.

Things have been rough for me lately.  Mainly due to my own insecurities–worries about money (I will never not worry about money; it’s just the way I am hard-wired) and this impending economic depression; worries about my career and any loss I may have as a result of cutting back due to having Sun (see, money again); worries about my father who was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer and the fact that I can’t imagine ultimately living in a world without parents; and worries about my relationship with CS.

CS and I have been fighting.  A lot.  Like, every day.  Partly because he dropped a ball that has real impact to us.  And that ball is tied to money.  Ah, money.  You bitch.  And partly because I dropped an equally as financially-impacting ball, too.  And with each ball dropping, my base, my sense of security, the etching of my very soul, gets chinked, rubbed.  And now it has been chinked and rubbed so much, so regularly, that I am raw, exposed.

And we both want to get back to where we were.  We both want to rediscover each others’ original design and beauty.  We love each other, even on our worst days.  But that love isn’t enough to carry us to the finish line.  Nor will me bathing in patchouli fix this.  No; there is no quick-fix to this problem.  There’s work to be done; time needed to heal, rebound, regroup.  But we are up for the challenge, determined to do the work.  And that resolve is there because of our love.

I wax philosophical about my law school days.  They were probably more akin to the experience most people have in college.  It was in law school that I first lived on my own and really began to know myself and test my mettle.  It was also when I was a groupie huge fan of Big Sun.

The lead singer of Big Sun, Joe, and I became fast friends.  He introduced me to the works of Hunter Thompson, telling me of a line from the opening scene of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that went something like, “My attorney had taken off his shirt and was pouring beer down his chest to facilitate the tanning process.”  He thought as a would-be attorney, it was imperative that I know Thompson’s work.  He was right.

Joe often wore patchouli.  My mostly-steady boyfriend during law school (it was a long distance relationship that fit nicely with the schedule of a law student) spent a lot of time as a child in Hawaii.  He hated the smell of patchouli, saying it smelled like hippie sweat.

I began to wear Patchouli too.  I wore it mainly when I’d go out (without my beau).  I also started wearing it during finals.  It always reminded me that I had a life outside of the particular test I was taking.  I’d smell it and smile knowing that the test would be over soon enough and I’d be back in my world; that I was taking said test because it was my choice to be in law school to put my life on a path I chose for myself; that I had more facets than just the studious side.  I am not sure my classmates appreciated my approach to test-taking; patchouli isn’t a shy, dainty aroma.  But no one ever moved away from sitting near me and I wouldn’t have cared if they had.

I still have patchouli and wear it very infrequently.  I am now concerned what others will think of me when they smell it on me.  I have never worn it to the office.  I can only imagine what the other attorneys and staffers would think about me–probably that I’d gone off the deep end.

I have never worn it to the office, that is, until today.  I was still in a funk and knew finishing six tax returns really wasn’t gonna put a smile on my face.  So I resorted to a very old tactic: I wore patchouli.  I don’t know if that is why folks avoided me at work today or whether they intuitively knew I’d be grumpy since it was April 14th or whether I was overtly grumpy (a very distinct possibility). But as far as I am concerned, the patchouli did the trick of warding off being bugged.

Wearing patchouli today also reminded me that I am still that same person who found herself in law school; that I still know how to do what it takes to get through a tough spot; that I still have enough confidence to take care of myself without regard to what others will think of my ways.  And it reminded me that I still love the way patchouli smells today as much as I ever have.