Today would have been my parent’s 43rd wedding anniversary. 43 years of marriage. They were married for 2 years before I was born. Tomorrow is my birthday. Talk about the GREATEST.ANNIVERSARY.GIFT.EVAH!

That’s what my dad used to tell me, anyway.

I’m going to spend today with my mom in Biloxi, and then she and I and some other family member’s are going to one of my parent’s favorite places, Mary Mahoney’s . We’ll toast my parents, miss my father and just be there, in one of their favorite places.

It’s hard to celebrate love when one of the ones you love is gone, but he taught us well, and we won’t let him down.

Love you Mom and Dad. Always.

P.S. – Apparently my comments are broken, but I’m trying to get them fixed!

Parasol’s is closing.

Parasol’s is a bar/restaurant in the Garden District of New Orleans owned by a good friend of mine, Jeff Carreras. It’s actually more of a dive, really. But a good one. It’s the center for all activities during St. Patrick’s week in New Orleans. It’s the neighborhood place. It’s where no matter when I went, I knew someone there, and there was always a few hugs hug and some “dahlin’s” for me. Where else but Parasol’s would my wedding picture be on the website and behind the bar? Where else would be the best place in New Orleans to get a roast beef poboy? I’ve spent many a St Patrick’s Day, Saint Joseph’s day and Saint Kim and Gregory days at this fine establishment. Gregory and I eloped but had our “vow renewal/real  NOLA wedding/party” there. And now, it will be just another memory.

But new memories are to be made, and as Gregory would say, better days ahead. Jeff and company are moving to another location, larger and nicer, and the tradition that is Parasol’s will continue. I don’t think New Orleans knows any other way. Rebirth and rebuild. On August 29th, which incidentally is the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall along the Gulf Coast, there will be a second line from Parasol’s on the corner of Third and Constance to the new location. As there should be. Taking the old memories to the new and showing it how it’s done. And you better believe that this girl is gonna do her best to be in that number, and will surely be there for St Patrick’s Day 2011.

The best memories I have of Parasol’s though ? They’ll live forever …..

Laissez Lez Bon Temps Roulez y’all….

As you get older, your friendships and your family ties are supposed to strengthen and mold into some type of safety net for your life. At least that’s how it happens on the big screen and in many books. Mostly fiction.

Real life is not always so warm and fuzzy.

It’s more of a sticky, syrupy haphazard obstacle course laid out like some game on which I find myself the pawn lately.

I’m tired of it. I’m making cuts. Severing ties. Doing for me. Me. ME. Or of you like the interwebz slang, MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !

If you’re not aware, there is the asshole uncle saga.

The ex-wife and evil step-daughter saga’s.

The other family drama I have yet to blog about for fear of the nuclear bomb it will unleash upon my barely hanging onto the definition of family.

And now, as it has been before, the frenemies saga.

The people in this picture were my friends. Two of them were what I would have called best and lifelong friends.

They were my friends before Gregory and I fell in love. They were mutual friends of ours. If not for them, there would be no Kim and Gregory. P was Gregory’s friend for 30 years. They went to school together, they lived together, they were like brother’s. C was a teenager when she and P started dating and knew Gregory for just as long. The have a lake house three houses down from ours. Their home is a 1/2 mile from mine, their subdivision borders ours. I worked with them, I cried with them, I played with them. Some of the best memories of my life happened at their home and at the many Auburn games we went to with them.We were as thick as thieves at one point. In the beginning of our relationship, they were less than thrilled with G and I being together. I’m still not totally sure why. There were things said, feelings hurt, but in the end, the friendship prevailed. After we got married, we still hung out, but not as much, what with jobs, the kids, etc. Gregory and P had a falling out, and we tried to repair the damages to save the friendship, but things were always different. One of the reasons we stopped hanging around so much was because of the atmosphere and some of the people in their circle. It just wasn’t good for us. So we retreated into suburbia, soccer practice, weekends at the lake, and us. When G went into the hospital, these people were on a cruise. They came to the funeral. They were “here” for me, to a degree. But really they were here for themselves. They are toxic. They are the kind of people that cannot stand for others to be happy, because they are not. Even though it took me awhile to see that about them, I mourned the death of our friendship as I mourned the death of my husband and slowly tried to put them out of my mind.

And then came the estate battle.

I hadn’t heard from them in months. I had heard about them, oh yes. About them hosting my ex-husband at their home. About their digging into mine and Gregory’s business. Then they showed up at my father’s funeral. It wasn’t the time or place to confront them.

Two weeks after we buried my father, I saw them again. Sitting on wooden benches in a Shelby County courtroom, with Gregory’s ex-wife and my step daughter. Neither would meet my eyes. They sat in that courtroom and listened to the testimony. For what? I don’t know. Neither were privy to our business decisions, personal or otherwise. At that moment they were dead to me. Gone. Ghosts in the machine. I deleted their numbers, threw out anything that physically had anything to do with either of them.

Today while I was mowing my grass, I missed a call. From C. She left a voice mail. I haven’t talked to her in so long, I almost couldn’t place the cadence of her voice. But then I did. I recognized the drunken slur. The “Hey girrrrrl” she always started off with when talking to me drunk. She wanted to know “how the hell I was doing” and why she hadn’t heard from me all summer. Really? REALLY.

At first I was MAD AS HELL. She has some damn set of balls to be calling me after all of this. Then I was sad. I was sad for the past, for the life that I had before, when everything seemed so perfect. Then I was mad again, mad that one call could send me into an emotional tailspin, questioning my emotions, my decisions, myself. Mostly mad at myself. I am in charge of me, no one else. And the me that’s in charge says the hell with her, the hell with them. All of them. All of the people who cause me anger, grief, and to question myself. I don’t need them in my life. Not right now. Maybe never.

They are going away. To some far off corner in my mind where they can stir the pot of crap they bring with them and make mayhem amongst themselves. I’m not dealing with them anymore.

From here on out, its all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns farting cupcakes.

Or as close as I can get.