Joe at 11

Joe turned 11 years old yesterday, which is unfathomable in so many ways.  He's growing up so fast and he does, I am growing older, so it's bittersweet.  

I miss the stroller days, when Joe was two years old and JP was six years old.  It was an innocent, unblemished time, or so it seems in retrospect.  My mom was alive.  Carley, of course, was alive and healthy.  Carley shared a special bond with Joe, I've always thought.  I see so much of her in Joe and JP, too.  Those boys loved her fiercely.  Still do.  It's tough, sometimes, when I stop and think about how much my mom and Carley would have enjoyed watching my boys grow up.

As I think Jude sensed earlier on than I did, it's a little bit harder, as a parent, to watch Joe grow up.  With JP, we knew Joe was coming right along behind him, so we would get to do it all over again.  It's different with Joe, because he is our youngest.  There is no one coming along behind him, so everything he does we are experiencing for the last time.  From a nostalgia standpoint, that's tough for me to realize sometimes.  

Joe and I share a love of music, especially Tom Petty.  He loves Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers like I do, which is saying something.  I love to play music for him, particularly music from my past, or present, that he hasn't heard yet.  Recently, I stumbled upon a song, "Eyes to the Wind," by War on Drugs, when it appeared on my Spotify Discover playlist one Monday morning.  I couldn't stop listening to the song and I played it for Joe.  To my delight, a few weeks ago I heard it playing on Alexa, upstairs, one morning as he was getting up to go go school.  On his own, he has asked Alexa to play it as his alarm the next day when it was time to get up.  That made my so happy.

That's what Joe does for me so often.  He makes me smile and laugh.  He makes me happy, always.  

Joe is like me in many other ways.  He's perfectly comfortable being in the spotlight, most of the time.  He's a natural leader.  Other kids gravitate to him.  It's always been that way.  He leads on the basketball court, on the baseball field, and on the soccer field.  I don't think he sets out to lead his teammates but they look to him, which is the way it is with natural leaders. 

Joe's intensely and outwardly competitive, which is something that worried Carley at times because it was hard for her to relate to, I think.  I love it, of course, because I have long believed that as a parent, it's possible to channel competitiveness in a positive direction when a kids has it.  If a kid is not competitive and doesn't have it - whatever "it" is - it's hard put it in them.  At times, we have to dial Joe back a bit but I  am okay with that as it relates to competitiveness.  Again, it's easier to dial it back than to dial it up, so to speak.

It's been a great year for Joe, I think.  Captain of his club soccer team.  The leader of his basketball team, as a real glue guy.  A leader on his baseball team.  A leader at school, on the playground and in the classroom.  He's well behaved at school (and at home) and a friend to many, moving easily from group to group.  

Jude and I are so lucky to have the boys we have.  We're even luckier that they have each other, especially as older parents.  JP is such a great big brother to Joe.  Joe continues to worship JP and is loyal beyond measure.  

Happy Birthday, Joe.  I am so proud of you and I love you.  

Mardi Gras 2023

It's 7 a.m. and I am having coffee at CR Coffee on Magazine Street in New Orleans.  JP and I discovered CR Coffee after a 5 mile run a couple of days ago.  Cool place in an old house.  Nice seating inside, including a couple of easy chairs, one of which I am sitting in right now.  Great hidden patio on the side of the house.  Very New Orleans.  Good coffee, too.

Very different vibe from Undergrowth Coffee, another coffee shop I hit on Magazine after a run the day after we arrived.  That place was cool, too, just different.  A bit more of a hole in the wall but in a shotgun style building that went back and back and back to a walled off patio that actually was pretty cool.  

Where would I be without a place to get coffee in the morning or after a run?  

It's been a good trip, though a bit exhausting.  Parades, parades, and more parades.  I was done and ready to go home last night near the beginning of Bacchus.  Jude, of course, insisted on staying until the end, so we did.  We walked home, at frozen pizza, and fell into bed.  

The house we rented through VRBO - almost a year ago - is fantastic.  It's a converted basement in a large house on Camp Street, conveniently located a few blocks from our preferred parade viewing spots on St. Charles and, yesterday, Napoleon.  It's a block off of Magazine Street, which has restaurants, bars, and art galleries aplenty in both directions.  Three big bedrooms - all with king sized beds - which the boys loved.  Four full bathrooms, too, which is crazy.  

Certainly, if and when we return to New Orleans, I could see us staying in the same place again.

After a relatively uneventful flight down, Judy and Bob Quinilty were kind enough to pick us up at the airport late Thursday night and drive us to their house in Metairie, where we stayed overnight.  Friday morning, we picked up the rental car in Metairie, which was much more convenient than dealing with trying to get a rental car at the airport.  Then, it was off to find out house on Camp Street.

We found a decent but not great spot on St. Charles to watch the parades later that day with Jude's friend Jeff - El Jefe, the founding father of Foodbrothers - and his family.  It was fun spending time with them all weekend.  

Saturday morning, we hooked up with Jude's cousins, Ann and Catherine, and their families for more parade watching.  Much to Joe's delight, we had an early birthday dinner at what is maybe his favorite restaurant on earth, Frankie and Johnny's.  In his telling of the story, it's the first place he ate fried shrimp, so it's his go to dish there.  

Saturday night, Jude and I left our camping chairs and a couple of moving blankets I scrounged up in a new viewing spot on Napoleon Avenue.  Veteran move.  It secured us a spot for watching the three parades we saw yesterday, although I spent a considerable amount of time defending our turf from others - who had not been out there since 7 a.m., like us - who want to stand in front of us.  It was a complete madhouse by the time Bacchus started, as Jude predicted.  Everyone, everywhere, all at once.  

It's Joe's birthday today - 11 years old - more own that later.  I'm ready to get home, which we'll do later this afternoon after brunch with Judy and Bob Quinilty.  

A quick trip.  Action packed.  Lots of parades and a lots of beads (which I have not idea how we will get home).  

Angus Returns and Prayers are Answered

I have always said a miracle is in the eyes of the beholder.  What seems like a miracle to me might not be a miracle to you.  

For reasons I discussed in this space long, long ago, finding out Jude was pregnant with Joe - and the way we found out - was a miracle to us.  I believe God's hands are in all miracles and without question, His hands were in Jude's pregnancy and Joe's subsequent birth.

Tuesday night, I saw another miracle, and God's hands were in that one, too.  

Angus came home.

As the temperature dropped outside and the rain turned to sleet, Joe ran upstairs to my office, shouting "Angus is back!  Angus is back!"  JP and I ran downstairs to the kitchen and, sure enough, there he was.  Angus.  There were tears in my eyes as I reached down, carefully, to pet him. 

His poor feet were scraped up pretty badly, as was one of his legs.  It was clear something had happened to him and, most likely he had been holed up somewhere nearby, licking his wounds, literally and figuratively.  My guess - and what the veterinary tech surmised later - is that he was hit by a car Sunday afternoon or evening and was hurt badly enough that he couldn't get home.  Alternatively, he might have been confused and unable to find his way home, at least at first.

Either way, I think that as the weather turned and it began to sleet, he knew he had to find the strength and will to get home if he was going to survive.  So, that's what he did.

This is where it gets a little - okay, a lot - personal for me.  Since Angus had been missing, I had not been myself.  My equilibrium was off, because not knowing if he was okay, or hurt, or dead, was weighing heavily on my heart.  Most importantly, I knew my boys were hurting, especially Joe.  Watching them get up off the couch every few minutes and look out the back door at the deck and the back yard - looking for some sign of Angus - was heartbreaking.  

Monday afternoon, I left work and drove out to the Davidson County Animal Shelter on Harding Road to see for myself the cats that had been turned in over the past few days.  I saw a couple that looked like Angus but weren't him.  Honestly, it was kind of depressing to see these poor animals there with little or no hope of being reunited with their owners or being adopted.

One of the workers at the Animal Shelter suggested I post a message in a Facebook group that's for people if Davidson or Williamson Counties who have lost pets.  I am not a Facebook guy.  Far from it, in fact.  Somehow - and I'm not sure how this happened - my original Facebook account was deleted, not by me, though.  I was told it was damn near impossible to delete your Facebook account.  Still, my account managed to delete itself.

I didn't miss it because the only time I got on Facebook was when someone I knew died.  Facebook just wasn't my thing.  Twitter, Instagram, yes.  Facebook, no.

Nonetheless, I posted a photo of Angus on Skippy Lou's Lost and Found Pets, a Facebook group for people of have lost (or found) pets in Williamson or Davidson Counties.  It's crazy but within minutes of posting the photo and leaving a message, several people replied.  Some posts provided helpful hints for how to find a missing cat and other just offered kind words and, yes, prayers.  A lot of prayers for Angus and our family.

I was touched by the generosity of spirit of so many complete strangers.  I also was struck by the fact that in this age of toxicity in social media, through dumb luck I had stumbled upon a group of kind and caring individuals, united by a love of animals.  There was no red or blue, no Republican or Democrat, just a group of strangers who genuinely cared about my family and really, really wanted Angus to come home to us.  

It sounds trite, I know, but the reaction of those people on Skippy Lou's Lost and Found Pets restored my faith in my fellow man, or woman, as the case would be.  

So, I find myself sitting in the lobby of the Graduate Hotel on Sunday morning, have a cup of coffee (Poindexter's), listening to a young man play guitar, waiting on JP to finish his Sunday school class across the street at The Cathedral of the Incarnation (where Jude and I were married 20 years ago this month).  I'll pick up JP in thirty minutes and we'll head to church at St. Patrick's.  And Angus is at home, resting comfortably as he has been all week.  

I earnestly prayed for a miracle, for Angus to return home, one way or another.  And he did, just as the temperatures dropped and the freezing rain started.  He was injured but he was home.  Did God hear my prayers, and Jude's prayers, and the boys' prayers?  Of course he did.  That's what I believe, anyway.

God is great, life is good, people are kind, and I'm content.  It doesn't get much better than that.