Elvis really is in the building...

So, just when retail gets me down - as it does most days...no one is shopping, the temp is rising in the 90's, I am low on inventory, I am so very cash poor...in walks Elvis Costello, his wife Diana Krall and their 18 month old twin sons, Frank and Dexter. They spent a bunch of money on vintage cowboy boots, interesting jewelry and assorted clothing. So very awesome...Who cares about movie stars when we have the coolest musicians shopping on South Congress...


Addendum to Mother's day Post...
So, here are my problems with Erma Bombeck's little ditty...

1) I don't consider either of my children to be 'disabled'.

2) I am more a woman of Science than of God.

3) I don't believe in the whole angel hoo-ha.

4) I don't believe in the 'my world' - 'their world' differentiation.

5) BUT I do like to think of myself as their patron saint!

Happy Mother's Day...

My Mother's day dedication to all of the "Toxo Mamas" everywhere:
Just ignore what I see as the obvious problems with this essay and take a minute to read it for what it's worth...

The Special Mother
By Erma Bombeck

Did you ever wonder how mothers of disabled children were chosen?

Somehow I visualize God hovering over the earth selecting his instruments of propagation with great care and deliberation. As He observes, He instructs His angels to make notes in a giant ledger.

"This one gets a daughter. The patron saint will be Cecilia"
"This one gets twins. The patron saint will be Matthew"
"This one gets a son. The patron saint.....give her Gerard. He's used to profanity"

Finally He passes a name to an angel and smiles. "Give her a disabled child"

The angel is curious. "Why this one God? She's so happy"

"Exactly," smiles God. "Could I give a disabled child to a mother who does not know laughter ? That would be cruel!"

"But has she patience?" asks the angel.

"I don't want her to have too much patience or she will drown in a sea of sorrow and despair. Once the shock and resentment wears off, she'll handle it. I watched her today, she has that feeling of self and independence that is so necessary in a mother. You see, the child I'm giving to her has his own world. She has to make him live in her world and that's not going to be easy."

"But Lord, I don't think she even believes in you"

God Smiles, "No matter, I can fix that. This one is perfect - she has just enough selfishness"

The angel gasps - "Selfishness? is that a virtue?"

God nods. "If she can't separate herself from the child occasionally she won't survive. Yes here is a common woman whom I will bless with a child less then perfect. She doesn't realize it yet, but she is envied. She will never take for granted a 'spoken word'. She will never consider any 'step' ordinary. When her child says"Momma" for the first time she will be present at the miracle and will know it. When she describes a tree or sunset to a blind child, she will see it as few people ever see my creations."

" I will permit her to see clearly the things I see...ignorance, cruelty and prejudice...and allow her to rise above them. She will never be alone. I will be at her side every minute of every day of her life because she is doing my work as surely as if she is here by my side"

"And what about her patron saint?" asks the angel, his pen poised in mid air."

God smiles "A mirror will suffice"

Blackbird singing in the dead of night...

When I was pregnant with the twins, I used to sing 2 songs to my full belly. One was the Mockingbird song: "Hush little baby, don't say a word..."
and the other was this Beatles tune:

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night
take these broken wings and learn to fly
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly,
into the light of the dark black night."

And on another note, I just signed up for my Intro to Braille course offered by Hadley School for the Blind. I'm very excited and can't wait to be able to write little notes to Zelda in braille and put them in her lunch box - that is, as soon as she actually has a lunchbox...and can read...

Pay it forward...

it's that time again. We're going to "March for Babies"...raising money for the efforts of the March of Dimes. This special organisation supports research, education, and grant funding for issues pertaining to prematurely born babies. Someone asked me the other day why I thought there were more premature babies being born than ever before. Here's my theory and it may have something to do with it: Medical science has come so far in saving the life of even the tiniest baby when born early...in the past, these babies would have died. There would be no talk of "I was a preemie". There would only be talk of a baby being born too early and who died too soon. Now that these little ones are surviving, the doctors, surgeons, nurses and specialists all work together to help create a healthy baby that can face the future without hopefully too many residual issues from a too early birth.

So why do we walk? We walk for...Enzo who was born with spina bifida and who only lived a few months. We walk for Aidan who was born with a kidney disorder and spent his few short months of life on dialysis and was Creed & Zelda's very first friend ever. We walk for Bailey who somehow contracted every preemie issue that an early birth can suffer from in the NICU. She never went home. We walk for Frederic who lived only an hour. There are so many more...

I'm trying to teach my kids to "Pay it forward". They're alive. So many people helped them get to this point. Now we need to help others.

If you have a chance, please donate to this worthy cause...

Weekend update...

with Credence Paul and Zelda Nicolette. Evan's dead dad had this platitude that he used to repeat "Run, run, run...see Bosco eat snakes." I think it meant something like "running around like a chicken with its head cut off."

This past weekend went something like this...
- We had friends arrive in town from Dallas to stay at our 'guest house' next door (more on that later). They stayed in Austin, we took off for a road trip.

- On Saturday, we headed out on a 3 hour drive to Granbury, TX for the Tyler & Teresa Beard party. Our dear friends who were the epitome of all things western design both passed away. Teresa took her own life a little over 2 years ago and Tyler (the well-known author of all of the books about cowboy boots) died in December. They were an amazing couple and are sorely missed (more on this later, as well). There was a party with dinner, drinks and stories told at a country club (?) outside of Ft Worth. Needless to say, the twins were the only kids there.

- We spent the night in an 1867 dog trot log cabin where there were ostriches (that Creed decided were actually 'cows'). We roamed on the range, tried to learn to lasso, and generally enjoyed just having a big yard to play in.

- On Sunday morning, we drove to Waxahatchie to visit the Webb Gallery (www.webbartgallery.com) owned by our friends Bruce & Julie. They featured a show of vintage carnival banners and lots of super cool stuff. When they're not out finding oddfellow paraphernalia and such, Julie teaches belly dancing and Bruce gets more tattoos. La petite princess Z found herself a new throne while Creed took a tour of downtown, accompanied by Allie and Moby.

- Once back on the road, Creed decided he needed to walk again, so our next stop was the old flea market in Waco - yikes - a 'perfect' place to stock up on used baby toys, bootleg DVD's and this Elvis:
- Then finally on the homestretch to Austin on I-35, we just had to stop in Sun City of Georgetown to visit Nana & PopPop so the twins could run around the 'hood to the delight of the senior citizens.

Home again home again jiggity-jig, just in time for bed...
more exciting news to come.

B-R-U-C-E...

so I'm from New Jersey, if you didn't already know that. Before this past week, the last time I saw Bruce Springsteen was about 30 years ago at the Spectrum in Philly. It was the "Darkness on the Edge on Town" tour. The Boss was amazing, jumping and running across the stage, screaming and singing his unforgettable lyrics in his gravely voice...Clarence wore a white suit and Nils Lofgren wasn't even playing with him yet. Hell, he wasn't even married to Patti Scialfa yet and hadn't produced those 3 teenagers. People stood on their seats and he played for hours. I saw him twice that tour. I was in college.

We saw him in Houston on Monday. Again, he was amazing, just more strutting than running. Clarence wore black and has dreads down to his waist now. Patti was at home with the kids. He played for 2 1/2 hours and was joined by our friend Alejandro Escovedo for an encore song. And I swear I have never in my life seen a bigger crowd of 40 yr old + white people in one concert hall.

But there's just something about Bruce that brings tears to your eyes, that makes you feel that it's okay to be an American and that there's still hope for this country. 'Cause whatever you may think of his music, he's the real deal.

And I swear I got his shout out to "the one Jersey girl in the audience" among all of the Texans...I saw him smiling at me. He did, he really did...

Hot Rods & more...

Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months...and it's just another event down here on South Congress. This past weekend was the Hot Rod show - wheeee!
La petite Z, Rod and his new Hot Rod!

Creed will thank me for this photo some day...

The girl in black.



This weekend is a birthday party, an art opening and of course, more visitors.