Today was ostensibly spent researching and seeking a generator.   But today was much, much more.  Today was the day I felt more like a New Orleanian than I have in a really long time.  And it had very little do to with the amazing muffaletta I ate at Just Italy with Warrior Engineer.  No, it had to do with seeking the advise and comfort of my elders: my uncle, my former boss and my neighbors.

1.  My uncle.  This man is a New Orleans original.  He has little idea how much I love and adore him.  I seek his counsel on all things seafood, carpentry and hurricanes.  And today we talked over and over about the right generator for me.  And he did it happily and sagely.  His final advise: Buy one and keep it in the box until you lose electricity.  If you don’t lose it and you decide you want a different generator for whatever reason, sell it.  Being still in the box will bring you more money.  See? Sage.  And he interrupted his time at the casino to impart this advise to me.  I told him he’d earned his good luck tonight. Thanks, Uncle Mernie, and do break the casino’s bank!

2. My former boss from the hardware store.  As a last resort on pinning down a generator, I called my first boss ever, E, the owner of the hardware store I worked in as a teenager.  Seemed obvious enough and I am not sure why it took so long for the thought to occur to me.  But I was immediately put at ease with what he told me about the generator he had to offer me.  I knew he wasn’t just trying to sell me something–he’d never forsake a friendship for a sale.  And my uncle supported his recommendation.  A warm bath of ease washed over me.  After hours of twisting and turning and deciding and undeciding, the decision was a simple and obvious one. Thanks, E.

3. My neighbors.  Three of the four neighbors immediately surrounding my house are older; two are in their eighties.  The fourth is a single mom about my age with a four year old son.  We all talked today, us five neighbors, and we each are currently waiting-and-seeing and staying until and unless serious danger seems imminent.  We offered them to come to us if we all stayed and they wanted the benefit of our generator.  The one other of the five of us with a generator made the same offer.  We will take care of each other.  And even if we evacuate, we won’t leave anyone behind.

And so that germ of a dream to live high on the hog during a storm has really propagated into something far more.  It has reinstilled what New Orleans is all about:  The people; the community; the watchfulness we have for each other.  Who knew that THIS is what my generator would, in fact, generate?

From all accounts, the City of New Orleans is aflutter with Hurricane Gustav.  And frankly, I have done my best to stick my head in the sand about it.  It is expected to hit land Sunday or Monday.  We have cancelled our plans (for the third time) to visit CS’s aunt in Houston.  Otherwise, we are on a wait-and-see plan.

Katrina was the first storm I ever evacuated for, and that was done the day before the storm when I called my uncle at 5 in the morning and he said, “You need to leave.”  I cried, panicked, packed and left.  And had no regret about leaving.

Now, with Katrina behind me, you’d think I’d be more willing to evacuate.  You’d be wrong.  The thing is, these storms take days to come in.  And the weathermen LOVE to get all hot and bothered about how it’s going to be terrible: They cry wolf.  A lot.  We’ve had many friends evacuate time and again to drive like a snail out of and back in to town with everyone else and pay lots of money to stay in blah hotels in blah cities.  Only for the storm to miss us.

Tonight, CS and I had a bit of an argument over plans.  He insists that if it’s over a Cat 3, we are evacuating.  Because of Sun.  I, on the other hand, insist on a slower approach that will keep us here unless it’s serious AND coming pretty straight at us.  Like Katrina.  And yes, I know Katrina was a Cat 3 when it hit New Orleans.  But it was a Cat 5 UNTIL then.  If it’s a Cat 3 in the Gulf, it isn’t gonna get WORSE once it hits land.  And Katrina, though maybe downgraded to a Cat 3, I assure you, had much more tornado activity than “regular” Cat 3’s.

But I digress.  My plan is to have a generator and a window unit.  We can stay cool and have access to a TV or laptop and keep the fridge plugged in.  No long drives; no hotels; no issues with the pets; no heartache about what to bring and what to leave behind.  And if it shapes up, say, the day before to be a serious storm that is barreling down on NOLA, we leave.

CS promised me a generator—in public—3 years ago.  And we both kinda let it go until a storm is brewing.  I called CS earlier today to ask him to finally live up to his promise; he assured me he’d make calls and take care of it.  When he came home, I knew he had done nothing.  And he hadn’t, claiming he was too busy.  To which I responded, “If it were the new i-Phone coming out today that YOU wanted, you wouldn’t have been to busy, I assure you.” (Yeah, I fight ugly).

After a few rounds, CS argued that we didn’t need a generator; that neither he nor I EVER evacuated when we were kids and we lived through no electricity.  Finally, he said, “You only want a generator because your grandfather and your uncle and sister have one.”  And as I sharpened my lawyer’s argumentative claws, I looked at him and, well, looked away.  He had me.  Dammit, he was dead right and I couldn’t lie.  So finally, I admitted it.  “Fine.  So what?  When I was young, we’d call my grandparents during a storm and they’d be living high on the hog.  TV.  Air conditioning.  It was like no storm was passing over them.  Can’t I have that for myself?  Can’t I “grow up” and have a damn generator?  Even if we never use it?”

And he said yes.  I can live high on the hog when storms come to town.  If we stay.  Which we are likely to do.  But nothing is set in stone.

I wrote some time ago about Sun’s hemangioma, or strawberry mark.  Several of you have e-mailed me inquiring about how she’s coming along.  I appreciate your concerns and wanted all to follow her progress.

This is Sun’s leg now:

Today, we had her ninth laser treatment.  The doctor tells me that he is “completely confident” Sun will not need surgery for her hemangioma.  He is delighted with her progress and warns that her leg is likely to have “texture issues”—the texture of the skin is likely to be a bit wrinkly.  But he expects the redness as well as the raised-ness of the mark to continue to completely dissipate.

Overall, we are very pleased with her treatment and have no regrets about the course we took.  I do believe she is too young to remember this experience, and, really, she seems fine as soon as the treatment is over.  So it isn’t too harrowing on either of us!

At this point, the doctor tells us the mark will go away on its own and the laser treatment is just hastening the process.  And having come this far, I am willing to continue with the treatments so that it will be gone before Sun is old enough to be asked directly the rude questions we continue to be asked.  I was surprised to discover that other children are far more kind about it than adults.  And if I can shield Sun from that rudeness by hastening the mark away, then that is the path we will continue to go.

Thanks again to those of you who e-mailed me.  It really meant a lot to me.

CS gives Sun her baths; that is their special time together.  Occasionally, I am called on to do it and find I do it wrong—too little water, the wrong toys, I get water in her eyes.

But getting Sun down for the night, that is our special time.  I play no musical instrument; my fingers are not meant to be over piano keys or guitar strings.  But in getting Sun down for a nice night’s sleep, she becomes my instrument.  I know just when to pat her back as opposed to scratching it.  I know instinctively when to sing along with her lullaby music and when it will only work as a distraction to her.  I know when to rock, when to dip.  I know when to give her my fingers to squeeze.  I know when to hug her closer to me and when to release her to herself.

I know Sun’s nighttime habits the way a musician knows the limits of his instrument—when to call its bluff and when to heed its warning to proceed with caution.  I know the results I will get from tweaking a movement one way or the other.  I know when to come in for an encore and when to walk away and let the artisan’s work be left to play in the memory of the audience.

I know this because Sun and I have developed a routine over these 14+ months.  I know this because I am Sun’s mother and it’s my job to know.  I know this because I long to know it; I know the days of me strumming my daughter to sleep are limited and I best make the most of the precious time I have of her needing me as a part of her nighttime ritual.  And I do and will make best of this sacred time between us.  Because that is my choice as her mother.

Sun likes to hold my hand when she is readying herself for a nap.  Actually, she likes to hold just one finger in her small hands.  She’s done this since she was born.  She’d hold your finger as she bottle fed. 

My mother commented once that Sun has my hands.  I looked more closely.  And although her thumbs don’t appear to be double-jointed like mine (and the thumbs on my mother’s side of the family), her hands do indeed look like mine.  And my hands, in turn, look like my mother’s and, in turn, her mother’s.  The shape of my fingernails resemble my father’s nails, and my brothers’ nails look like mine too.  But the movement of my hands remind me very much of the movement of my mother’s hands.

I never quite realized the similarity before.  I have never been overly fond of my hands–they are small but not delicate or striking.  And my cuticles are always ruined; but that is my fault and not genetic. 

It took me using my hands as a mother to Sun to realize I had my mother’s hands all along.

Zella died today.  She was our 11+ year old German shepherd.  Actually, she was my husband’s dog.  He came with a dog, I came with a cat; they are both now gone.

I was never a dog person, especially a large dog person.  The main reason for this was that I was not around dogs growing up.  We were a cat family.  So when I met CS and he had a large dog, it took a while for me to even go in the back yard to meet her.  And slowly I learned how sweet and gentle she was.  Then CS went out of town and asked if I’d feed her.  Wha?  I wasn’t THAT into her.  But the things we do for love!  And I learned she was a sweetie.

Then CS and I got married.  And Zella stayed in her back yard and me inside.  Then CS went out of town again.  And I took it upon myself to walk Zella in his absence.  She loved it.  And so did I.  And we walked every day.  She was very well behaved; she was a gentle giant.

Within the year, I decided Zella was lonely and needed a friend.  Enter Lucy, our (then) puppy Australian cattle dog, or blue heeler.  They got along fine.  And we began to walk both dogs.

Then Hurricane Katrina hit, and we evacuated.  After the tension of a 13 hour car ride, we were all testy.  Once in the hotel, Lucy and Zella went at each other.  And this “dog thing” all being new to me, I jumped in to separate them.  And got bit.  By Zella.  Some stitches later in my left wrist, I regained the fear I once had of large dogs.

Since the bite, almost three years now, if CS or I spent time with the dogs, they’d get jealous of the other’s attention from us.  And they’d start to fight; it was the only time they fought.  And it forced me not to spend time with them both.  And as Zella aged, she got more aggressive.  So our walks all but ended.  And I’d feel guilty walking Lucy and not Zella, also, so my walks with Lucy all but ended, too.

The two dogs would sleep inside on hot, cold or wet nights.  When I got pregnant, their room needed to be converted to the nursery.  To accommodate the dogs, we built a porch on the back of the house.  The dogs took to it right away; it was immediately their space.

In the past six months, Zella has been struggling with walking.  Her hip displasia was really kicking in.  It got to where she’d not even leave the screened-in porch for any reason.  It got messy in the porch, and we knew she was on the decline.

Yesterday, she couldn’t walk.  And she whimpered when she was moved.  Today, CS took her to the vet and they “put her down.”  And we cleaned the back porch, then swung Sun in her swing and drank a glass of wine sitting on our barely used new outdoor furniture.  And we watched Lucy look for Zella.

It is going to take time for us to adjust to life without Zella.  Even our neighbors will miss her (two snuck her food and another would play with her).  I feel guilty for not being a better momma to her, especially since Sun’s birth, but really since Katrina; I feel bad for CS’s loss; I ache more so for the loss Lucy will realize in the next day or so (the vet prepared us for odd behavior to expect from her as she realizes Zella isn’t coming home to her); and I hate that Sun won’t remember her.  Zella was a good pet, every bit a member of this family.  And she is already sorely, sorely missed.

Georg Williams‘ rendering of Zella on oil.

As I stepped out of the airport and in to the parking garage, I was hit with a wall of humidity.  It was only 83 degrees, even at 10:30 at night, but the air was thick and moist; it felt heated, like I was in a sauna.  As we then entered our house, still sticky with sweat, I saw a mosquito fly by.  And I sighed.  Humidity and mosquitoes. Yes, they are omnipresent in New Orleans and not surprising to be faced with immediately upon my arrival.  Yet they annoyed me.  I was not relieved to be home. 

To leave the absolute perfect humid-free weather of San Diego, with its beautiful beaches and pleasant outdoor dining, and return to the sultry summer in the South that is New Orleans was not liberating; no, it was oppressive.

And now there is a pile of laundry to do, groceries to buy, a house to rent, work to do at the office—all the things I gleefully abandoned for our trip.  How nice it was to be relieved of the pressure.  But stepping into the steam of New Orleans brought with it all the pressures of my day-to-day life without reminders of the pleasures.

Now, today, Monday, I will struggle to get that first day back under my belt.  And I will do the tasks I am required to do.  And soon (I hope) I will be charmed again with this sultry city of mine.  New Orleans owns me, I know that for certain, but I can dream of summers spent away. 

I have begun a list in my head, not even on paper yet.  I have gotten a haircut and bought a bathing suit.  Today I will go to the library to check out Sue Grafton’s “T is for Trespass” for the flight and I will get a pedicure.

Although this upcoming trip isn’t technically a vacation, I have allowed myself the indulgence of thinking of it as one.  How could I not when we are certain to be dining at La Strada, one of my all-time favorite restaurants?  Also, it will be Sun’s first trip to the beach.  And as far as U.S. beaches are concerned, they don’t get much better than Coronado Island.

Considering I just had to convince my husband that in fact today is NOT Sunday, I’d say we’re all in need of a change in latitude.

Growing up, my mother was the height of organization and cleanliness.  My mother was a stay-at-home mother that cleaned and cooked. A lot. She’d fuss if we didn’t make the bed in the morning and if we dumped our school books on the kitchen table in the afternoon.

Twice a year, my mother would take all the food out of the pantry to touch up the paint that got scraped. She’d spring clean the closets and strip and redo her linoleum floors once a year too.  All the while, she was preparing dinner for us every night.  With five children, we rarely had leftovers.

I thought all mothers cooked and cleaned as vigorously as my mother.  I learned that was not the case.  We’d have friends over and ask if they wanted to stay for dinner.  They’d inquire what we’d be eating, and I’d go look at my mother’s calendar—she always had her menu written down for the coming two weeks.  My friends were amazed.  Their mothers didn’t know what they were having until about an hour before they ate—no pre-planning went into it.  But with a large family on a budget, planning was essential.

So, every two weeks my mother went to Schwegmann’s.  She wrote her grocery list, organized by the order of the aisles, on an envelope and put her coupons inside.  She’d buy so many groceries, she’d need two baskets.  When the first basket was full, she’d take a note she’d tucked into her purse out and place it on top of the bursting basket, “Please do not touch.”

During the summer, I’d go with my mother to Schwegmann’s. I LOVED going to Schwegmann’s.  We went to the store in Gentilly.  This was their largest store; it was once the largest grocery store in the nation. Can you imagine?  The Gentilly store had two stories; the upstairs had a pet store and the administrative offices.  My sister and I would visit both.  The women in the offices gave us candy.

Downstairs, there was a lunch counter (frequented usually by the working men in the neighborhood), a shoe repair place, shoe store (Shoe Town–remember Crazy Johnny?), hair salon, post office, florist, and even a bar room (also frequented by those workmen).  The Gentilly Schwegmann’s was such a special place.  It was just so big!

It was so big, in fact, that as a child it was the biggest indoor place to which I had ever been (apparently I never went to the Superdome as a child). And in my child’s eye, it was the biggest place on Earth.  Once, I told my father I loved him and he asked, “How much do you love me?” And I responded, “Grocery store much.” He laughed and asked what I meant.  I explained.  Schwegmann’s was the biggest quantifiable thing I could imagine existing.  It became our thing, for me to tell my father I loved him “grocery store much.”

I have many memories of time spent in Schwegmann’s, and all of them are positive.  It was more than a grocery store, more than a Sav-a-Center Rouses or a Whole Foods. It was a way of life. And for us New Orleanians, it is very much missed even still, both the grocery and the way of life.

Update: Thanks Dail_m for the link to a few pics of the inside of the Gentilly store–click here and view the last one, No. 13, for an idea of the size of this place.

The following morning, my sister called first thing with no new news. That, we knew, was bad. I drove into the office in an attempt to feel normal. Distractedly, I did what I could in the way of work. This was interrupted before noon with a call from my sister. She was at the hospital and they had told my family that my grandmother was terminal. Her organs weren’t working on their own and it wasn’t likely that they would. They got my grandfather’s permission to take her off the machines. They kept my grandmother on morphine. They were moving her to a private room and were advising that it could be days before she died. She would not return home.  The bomb had been dropped. I was numb. “You need to be here. She’s asking for you,” my sister said. I didn’t want to go. I had been dropping work since this ordeal began over three weeks prior, and I think I thought that if I delayed going, I could delay her death.

After a brief internal struggle, I grabbed my purse. My knitting was now left in my car due to the fact that I had left work suddenly to go to the hospital enough times to warrant it. I arrived at the hospital and set off for the fourth floor. I had hoped it’d be two or five, a different floor always meant progress. Four was bad; it was a step in the wrong direction. As I turned the corner, I saw my family spilling from a doorway into the hall.

I went into my grandmother’s small room; she was barely conscious when I arrived. Someone leaned in close to my grandmother and said, “Nola’s here.” I moved to her bed and held her hand. I didn’t have any appropriate words to say. “I’m here, Maw-Maw. I love you.” She nodded. I don’t know if she knew I was there. She continued to call for me and my one brother not there. “Nola’s here,” someone would say. My grandfather was nervous. He kept rattling the coins in his pocket. Once my parents showed up, he seemed a bit relieved. After about ten minutes, everyone left my grandparents alone. He told her that everyone was there with her and that it was okay for her to leave us. We then shuffled back into her room. We all took turns holding her right hand. The left one had the IV of morphine in it. She looked very small in the bed.

The night slowly passed. The small room could not hold us all. I went with others to the waiting room. I sat and knitted. “Knit, knit, knit, knit, purl, purl, purl, purl,” I repeated silently to myself. My scarf was close to being done. We’d rotate being in Sunshine’s room. As the night wore on, Sunshine began being non-responsive. She also began reciting names. It started with “Albert, Ann. . .” and moved up the alphabet. She could not tell us who these people were. Some names we recognized: family members and friends. Others, we did not. My grandfather thought she was doing one of the word puzzles in her head that she did every day in the newspaper. My mother thought she was seeing people in Heaven. I don’t know what I thought. I did not think it was a puzzle. As she said names, I’d wrack my brain for a piece of the family tree I’d done. “Alphonse,” she’d say. There was no Alphonse in our family. I knew it meant something, something more than random ramblings.

Around 11:30, we gathered around her room and discussed whether we’d stay the night. I suspected her death was several days away and thus wanted to get a good night’s sleep so that I could continue my vigil in earnest. Others felt as I did. My sister could not be pulled away. Thus it was settled that my sister and grandfather would stay through the night and the rest would return in the morning. As I said goodnight to my grandmother, she had advanced a bit in the alphabet and said, “Robert.” That was the name of her father and the last word I ever heard her utter. She died at dawn.

Although I was close to being done with the loopy scarf, I put it away after my grandmother died. After several weeks, it was bugging me and I finished it. I wore it a lot, and every time I thought of my grandmother. And sitting at the hospital.

Time passed. My sister and I took my grandfather out to dinner. I wore my scarf. Weeks later, it got chilly again and realized I had left my scarf behind at the restaurant. I called, but it had not been turned in. I was devastated.  I thought about knitting another one in the same pattern with the same yarn.  But it wouldn’t be the same—I was a better knitter; it wouldn’t be loopy nor would it tell the same story.

And so it is with everything I knit. The love, sorrow, joy, concern that is running through my mind also runs through my hands and into the work. I wouldn’t have it any other way.