I want to be in that number

You know, I'm not even going to lie, I cried when the play timer ended and read final. When there were 45 seconds left and the team chose to run the clock out I didn't cry because who knows, New Orleans has awful luck and I've learned you don't count your chickens before they hatch. But when it flashed final? Tears. Big tears.

I know even before the game had started a lot of people were tired of hearing about the Saints and how important of a game this was for New Orleans. The problem was that unless you're from New Orleans, or have some very strong ties to the city, you really can't understand why it mattered this much. I know it's just a game but to New Orleans it was a way of reminding everyone that we are more than just a destroyed city. We cannot be written off as losers anymore. We are Super Bowl Champions.

Today police estimated somewhere between 8,000 to 10,000 people were at the airport to greet the Saints as they landed. Tomorrow schools are closing so families can attend the Saints' parade. 11 people met the Colts at their airport and I've heard nothing about a parade in their honor. Our parade was rolling win or lose because just playing in the Super Bowl was more than enough for us. You might think your town loves its team, but people in New Orleans love their Saints more. They are more than just football to us, they are so ingrained in the city that we wouldn't be us without them.

Bless you boys!

Saints Superbowl Victory Celebration from Cottage Films on Vimeo.

the decision at hand for New Orleans

The third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is this weekend and Mother Nature seems to think that the best way to celebrate this is to throw another hurricane at New Orleans. I've been watching this storm probably just as much as the actual residents of New Orleans, and other than the fact that I haven't run to WalMart in a frenzy to stock up on candles and tuna, I feel exactly the same as I did when I lived there and had to make the big decision of to evacuate or not to evacuate.

When I meet people and they find out that I left NOLA because of Katrina, many ask why so many people didn't evacuate. "If they knew it could be bad, why didn't they leave?" "Isn't it just irresponsible to stay?" "How could they just not go?" These are all valid questions and, honestly, I would rather people ask and get answers rather than just assuming that folks in NOLA are stupid and that's why they didn't leave. And trust me, some people do believe that NOLA residents are just dumb and have no problem telling me that. They usually follow this sentiment up with "People shouldn't be allowed to live in New Orleans in the first place." I usually follow this up with a polite "Fuck you, you arrogant asshat. I hope your hometown falls into a sinkhole soon." Bonus points to me for saying it with a big shit-eating grin on my face.

But honestly, deciding to evacuate is a huge decision. One I've wrestled with many times as an adult and I can say that coming to a decision never is easy. Yes, evacuating for every hurricane that is even a mild threat to NOLA would be the correct move, but in reality that will never happen. Evacuating is a huge expense. It's a hassle. It's time consuming. And a lot of the times it's totally pointless. Katrina has been the one time in my life that evacuating was the correct decision. Every other hurricane I experienced in my 25 years in NOLA either missed the city at the last minute or didn't bring with it more than a heavy rain and some wind. You can imagine how this would make you think twice about evacuating for every hurricane gunning towards the city.

The other problem with evacuating is the expense. Hurricanes can happen multiple times a summer, seriously there is no limit. If you evacuated for every one you're looking at huge amounts of money spent on all kinds of things: hotels, gas, food, and many other various expenses along the way. And let's not overlook the fact that if the hurricane misses the city, you could be out a day or more of work. That's money lost for many residents, especially ones that work on hourly pay scales. And for many of those people, that's money they can't afford to not make.

But losing a couple of days of work is really a small concern, considering that you could lose your job for evacuating. Many retail stores and restaurants are not sympathetic to people's needs to flee. If the business does not shut down for evacuations, you could be faulted as a "no show" for any shift that you're scheduled for. Same thing after evacuating; if the business opens and you're on your way back from Houston and can't make your Tuesday morning shift then you could be out a job. It's not fair, but it happens. I worked at a business that said we would be fired for not showing up if we chose to evacuate and didn't make our shifts. And when you need that income desperately, sometimes the easy decision is not to head out of town. Or to send your family and stay behind, hoping for the best.

Has this become an unfun blog post about a depressing topic? ding ding ding, we have a winner! Yes it has! Sorry. Go get a cookie if you've read this far. And go get me a drink because, dude, I neeeed one. And I swear I only have like one more point to make.

Right now Hurricane Gustav is just entering the Gulf of Mexico but if you started to call hotels in the typical cities people evacuate towards (Houston, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, etc) I bet you couldn't get a room anywhere. And if you could get a room, I bet they would only hold it for you for a couple of hours. One time, before Katrina, a hurricane was heading our way. I called Houston and booked a room, but the hotel told me they would only hold my room until 6pm on the day of the reservation. Problem was, I was not going to make it to Houston in that time frame. I offered to pay for the whole reservation up front, but they wouldn't allow it. The hotel staff told me that they can't hold reservations during times of evacuation because of such high demand. If I couldn't be there by 6pm, my room would go to someone standing in the lobby. I called a few other hotels, but no one else had rooms open. I decided not to evacuate because where would I go? I would have had to sleep in my car in Houston and that wasn't an option. And going past Houston wasn't an option because I needed to be able to get back to the city quickly to get back to work if the hurricane didn't do much damage. For many people that don't have family willing to take them in, leaving is hard. You don't know where you'll end up, you don't know if there will be room for you. You just don't know and sometimes that stops people dead in their tracks.

For Katrina jparks and I went back and forth about evacuating. We had friends in Houston to stay with if needed (and we ended up doing just that), and we had the money to evacuate, but still we thought long and hard about it. At first we weren't going to leave our house. Then we were going to stay with my mom in the suburbs. Finally we decided to get the hell out. Had we stayed in our house, bad things would have happened to us. Had we stayed at my mom's, we would have physically been fine, but without power or water and we would have been forced to leave anyway. Getting out for Katrina was the right decision and one that many people just couldn't make.

I hope that people continue to watch Gustav and take the hard lessons from Katrina into account when making their plans. It's not an easy decision to leave, but if Gustav stays on it's path (which it might not. there's plenty of time for it to turn. turn, you bastard TURN), it will be the correct one.

But what do I know? I'm just a New Orleans girl stuck in California.

it just goes on and on

oh my god, this vacation WILL NOT END. I can has flight home, plz?

weather

Last night it started raining right as jparks and I went to bed. The raindrops heavily hit the roof and trees outside our window creating a soothing noise I hadn't heard in awhile. In the distance you could hear thunder but it never got close enough to rattle the windows. I feel asleep listening to it and it led to dreams of being at Girl Scout camp where the sound of rain is the absolute best. There it falls through pine trees onto the canvas coverings of our tents and sounds hollow and heavy. It lands on the pine needle covered ground and creates a soothing white noise that makes everything feel comfortable.

California rain just isn't the same, it falls fast and cold, never with thunder. It's nice to be back home where rain takes its time, as it should.

landed

Jparks, Lily, and I are all safe and sound in New Orleans! The flights were long, but Lily was a trooper, only whining a bit, and making tons of friends in the airports. Guys, if you ever want an easy way to pick up girls, might I suggest borrowing Lily.

We've only been here a few hours and jparks' niece has told him he's picky and he laughs like a girl. Ah, good times!

going back to cali

Jparks and I are finally heading back to Cali tomorrow morning, and as much as I love being in New Orleans with friends and family, I'm very ready to get back to my shit-hole apartment. We've been on 'vacation' since the 23rd and I miss my animals, I miss my bed (stupid air mattresses that deflate in the middle of the night), and I even miss my job. The reason why we've extended our stay hasn't made it any easier either.

We've decided that the additional time we've spent here this trip has made it impossible to come back for Mardi Gras. Well, impossible unless we win a lottery between now and the end of February. Which is totally possible. I'm kinda planning on it happening. There's no way this plan can go wrong, right?

i made it home

I realize now that I posted a rant about getting bumped from my flight into New Orleans, but then never stated that I did make it onto the plane. It's amazing what a teary eyed girl can accomplish.

I've been home for about a week now and I've been busy running around, seeing family, and visiting some places I miss greatly. Here's photographic evidence:







And here's the best picture from the whole trip; jparks getting his ass beat by his younger brother:

saying thanks

Jparks and I are home from NOLA and as a thank you for letting us stay with him, we left Jeremy, jparks' brother, some new man panties. And took all of his boxers back with us to California. And boy, are those man panties something special. We left an assortment in lavenders, pinks, neon yellows, oranges, and teals. Some had unicorns on them, some rainbow colored butterflies, and some had cute sayings like "I love my mom" or "Just call me tiny" right across the crotch.

Man, when Jeremy goes to get dressed in the morning and finds his new man panties he is going to be sooo grateful. I bet he won't even be able to come up with words for how happy he is.

i'm ready to go home

...because waiting for me at home are my Moo Cards. I'm tragically unhip since I'm currently without Moo Cards. oh to be cool, it's all I ask for out of life.

I'm also ready to go because I'm tired. Being here has worn me out more than our trip to Disney. It's been a constant go go go of visiting friends, seeing my grandfather in the hospital, and hanging out with family. I'm sure last night's trip to the Quarter, where I consumed more alcohol in one night than I have in the past six months, has nothing to do with me being completely and utterly pooped.

I'm so tired that jparks has had to resort to other women for loving. And if I'm going to be perfectly honest, his new women are real bitches.

i was supposed to take pictures

One of the things I wanted to do while in NOLA was walk around town and take pictures. Uptown, City Park, the French Quarter, all places I wanted to visit. So far I've been Uptown, but the only pictures I took were these:



Today we are going to the LA Renaissance Festival and, while I'm sure I'll take plenty of pictures there, they won't be of things I think are uniquely New Orleans. I have enjoyed everything I've done, nothing beats talking with friends about shoving frozen Twinkies up your loved one's butt, but maybe next time I visit I need to come without a to do list.

to do list, NOLA edition

Since I'm flying out of San Jose at 4:30 in the morning, I'm again, pre-writing my post for the day.

I'm heading home to NOLA and in honor of that I'm creating my to do list while there:

1. see family (duh)
2. see friends (again, duh)
3. eat red beans and rice
4. eat gumbo
5. eat beignets
6. go to a Saints game (I know this is impossible since the whole season is sold out, but darn it, I want to go to a game)
7. drink iced coffee from PJ's
8. drink iced coffee from CC's (NOLA sure does love its two letter coffeehouses)
9. visit Magazine Street
10. eat a praline
11. eat at Slice
12. go shopping at Chi-wa-wa-ga-ga (small store for dinky dogs)
13. take a ton of pictures

So, apparently I'm going to be eating a lot while I'm home. hmph.

trying to cut the cord

Since the hurricane I've had a hard time adjusting to the fact that I no longer live in New Orleans. I pause when people ask me where I'm from; do they mean where do I currently live, or do they know I'm not local and want to know where I came from? The past few times I've been asked this question I just stood there with my mouth open, puddle of drool gathering around my feet. People assumed I was from Mississippi, based on that puddle of drool and my inability to answer a simple question.

I've slowly started to accept that in certain ways California is home. I voted here, I've got a CA driver's license, and I drive a yuppie car. I'm very Californian in those aspects.

But in other ways I'm having trouble becoming Californian. Whenever jparks mentions buying a house here, I clam up and won't even discuss it with him. I think that some part of me isn't ready to own property in this ridiculously over-priced area. Or maybe it's just that as long as we don't own property here we can leave at any time; head back to a land below sea level where I feel more comfortable.

Right now we think nothing of heading back to NOLA for the holidays. But once we have kids, flying halfway across the country will no longer be an easy feat and holidays will have to be spent here. But without Celebration in the Oaks, Cajun Night Before Christmas, and Benny Grunch and the Bunch I'm not sure how the holidays will ever feel right.

And at what point in time do I need to stop feeling like it's my right to have time off of work for Mardi Gras? When will I stop feeling like something is not right if once a year I don't stand in the middle of a street with a beer in one hand, cold Popeye's chicken in the other, and yell at men on floats to throw me some long beads?

I guess what I'm wondering is how long do you have to be gone from a place before you stop thinking of it as home? I need to know so that just a day before I hit that amount of time I can move back to NOLA.

no blog posts for you

You can all hold jparks accountable for the lack of blog posts. I sat down tonight to make a lovely post about our day at the Renaissance Faire and that jerk pulled me away from the computer to have me make flight arrangements for our trip back to New Orleans during Christmas and New Year's. Yeah you read that right, we're coming home for the holidays.

Everyone better open their calendars up and make time for me, dammit!

And until I get the post about the Faire up, here's a picture of jparks trying to throw a knife. He took this very seriously and tried his best. Thank godness we don't have to rely on him to hunt down our food. But we would be sooooo skinny. hmmm, I'll have to check into that.

monday night football

I've never been interested in football. I used to think the best, and only, reason to go to a game was for the big cups of beer and the giant pretzels to soak up some of that beer. But tonight is the home opener for the Saints and the first game in the Dome since Katrina and I've got to say that I'm really interested in football at this moment.

I hate to admit it, but I want the Saints to win. But it pains me to admit that because over the years I've rooted for the Saints, only to have my heart broken by their loses. And I think the city needs a win. It needs something positive to focus on while it still struggles to move towards normalcy.

For the first time in 40 years all the home games are sold out. That may not sound like anything special, but it's a huge deal for New Orleans, especially considering how much of the population has moved on to new cities.

My family used to have season tickets to the games. They really were great seats, right at the 50 yard line, about 10 to 15 rows up, on the away team's side. Most of the people around us had their tickets forever, just like us. Some of these people could remember seeing me as a little kid joining my Grandad at the games, and because of this it was more like hanging out with friends than going to a game. I wish that we still had those tickets and that I still lived in New Orleans. I really wish I could attend this game and pretend nothing has changed.

U2 and Green Day playing half time are definitely fueling my desire to want to attend, but really it all boils down to pride for the boys in black and gold.

Geaux Saints!

Happy Katrina-nniversary

Katrina hit a year ago today, meaning a year ago my life began to take a bizarre loop I never planned for, never saw coming, and am still trying to deal with.

To recap, first Jason and I hauled ass to Baton Rouge where we spent a few hours getting some sleep for the long trip to Houston. Did I mention that we got lost in the contraflow? You know it's not as easy to navigate as our local government led us to believe.

We then got back on the road to Houston where a very nice couple let us stay with them. Us and our animals. For quite a long time. Did I mention this couple is a couple of saints? Looking back I don't know that I ever thanked the saints for letting us crash in their spare room. Thank you Dan and Erin for tolerating Jason, myself, Lily, and the two cats. I'm especially thankful since Jason and I sat around all day watching CNN and getting pissy with each other since we had no idea what was going on at our house and in our city. I have to admit we weren't exactly the most pleasant houseguests, but you guys never made us feel unwelcome. My saying thank you will never express how truly wonderful you were to us and how we would have been up Shit Creek without you guys.

After camping out at Dan and Erin's for a bit we headed to Austin, which was to become our semi-perminant home. We stayed there for 8 months before moving to the golden state of California.

When people would ask how I was doing after the hurricane my stock answer was "Well, we lost everything, but Jason and I are alive and our animals are safe so we are pretty lucky." But I can now say, thanks to some therapy, that although we are safe, I am upset and feel robbed by Katrina. Why did it take therapy for me to admit that? It seemed so greedy to me, so ungrateful, and so disrespectful towards people that suffered more than me. Jason and I might have lost our possessions but so many others lost so much more, what right did I have to be upset? It turns out, a lot. I didn't ask to be whisked away in the middle of the night to not be able to return home for almost 2 months. I didn't ask to lose my job. I didn't ask to leave New Orleans. And I have every right to be upset and angry and hurt. And still, a year later, not a day goes by when I don't ache for New Orleans more than I will ever be capable of explaining with words.

I miss snowballs. I want to walk down Magazine Street. I want to be able to go to the French Quarter because I have nothing else to do. I miss magnolia trees. I miss CC's and PJ's iced coffees. I miss that no other place ever makes me feel like I'm home and I belong there. I miss being a local and knowing how to say Tchoupitoulas (see I can even almost spell it). I miss the people. I miss the culture. I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss knowing my way around town.

At first I felt like I had abandoned the city when it needed it's residents the most. And some days I still feel like that. But other days I know being there would be more difficult. Having to see how slowly the city is being rebuilt, seeing how many restaurants are still on limited menus, how many stores have closed up and moved on. But if I were given the chance to go back tomorrow I would take it. I would go because since I've left New Orleans it's like a piece of me is wrong. The piece is not missing, but it's also not fitting comfortably in its place. My heart aches for something it used to take for granted.

Yeah, I am a little homesick.

I talk real purdy

While living in New Orleans I was often asked where I grew up. Apparently most locals didn't think I sounded Southern enough to claim New Orleans as my home. I never minded not having the typical southern drawl that makes folks think your IQ is about 63 points less than it really is, I like people to base their low IQ assumptions on what I say, not how I say it. But since moving to California I've been asked almost weekly if I'm from the South. Which makes me wonder if my accent that I thought never existed, actually is very present and influences how people perceive me. I also wonder if this new found accent requires me to go out and get a banjo, sleep with relatives and skin me a 'coon because them be some good eats.

Lauren's Birthday CrawLobster Boil

Lauren's birthday was Wednesday and to celebrate we decided to boil lobsters as if they were crawfish. The thought process was: Lobster= crawfish on steroids. Crawfish on steroids= flavor x 1,000,000= delicious. How could we possibly be wrong with those calculations?!?

The first thing we didn't consider was that Jason wasn't going to be around and we would have to handle live, angry lobsters. After trying to pick them up with tongs and failing at it, Lauren suited up in what she felt was appropriate Lobster protective gear:


We managed to get them into their pots, but just barely. This guy wasn't going to die without a fight:


When we were done boiling them we set them up for a romantic photo op complete with roses. Look it's true love, they're holding claws.


Getting the meat out was hard work. It took a meat mallet, hammer, and brute force to just break through the shells or exo-skeletons or whatever the correct word is. At one point lobster juice was flying everywhere, like a bad Gallagher show. I'm pretty sure this is why they give you bibs in fancy restaurants.



In the end, I hate to admit it, but the lobster was a bit of a let down. They are way more work then crawfish to peel and they didn't absorb any of the crab boil flavor. Plus I think we boiled them too long and the meat was a little rubbery. But the biggest disappoint is that since lobsters are huge and mean you can't race them like you can with crawfish before you cook them.

There are a few more pictures from our boiling adventure posted here if you're interested.

Mardi Gras Observations

Some things I've noticed about Mardi Gras this year are:

1. The parades are much shorter and faster moving because of a lack of school marching bands. I miss the bands.

2. Bacchus has a couple of floats that are known as the floats that it's okay to throw beads at. It's okay because these floats conatin no riders and the tractor drivers are protected from the flying beads. But apparently parade-goers have decided that ANY float can be a 'throw your beads at it float' which really upsets me. It upsets me because now the very beautiful floats in Endymion and Bacchus were so covered with beads that you couldn't see what the hell the front decoration was supposed to be and because the floats contain riders that were being hit with beads. The crowds weren't being mean, they weren't throwing at the riders, just the front decoration, but they were still hitting the front few riders. If that were me on the float I would have been pissed. Very very pissed. How disrespectful of us as parade-goers.

3. It's not as crowded along the routes as usual. That makes me sad.

Walking to New Orleans

I'm off to Mardi Gras now. Check back for pictures and updates since I'm going to have the iBook with me.

Woohoo!