| These are the seconds of our lives... |
[25 Aug 2007|10:24am] |
 The Passionflower or Maypop is one of my favorite plants in our garden. The blooms last one brief day and smell like grape soda. The passion in this flower's name does not refer to its short fury of beauty, but to its resemblance to a crown of thorns and the passion of the Christ. However, I am a romantic and will cleave to my belief that the flower is the most lovely, daily reminder to live life with a passion because it is short. Recently, this plant provided me with more life lessons. Going far beyond the birds and the bees, in complete photographic detail, a tale worthy of a Spanish Radio Novella,I give you, THE BUTTERFLIES and THE WASP |
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| Free China!!! |
[18 Mar 2007|04:33pm] |
No, not the country!
I have to offer up my grandmother's china. I have new dishes that I love and I am keeping my other grandmother's red depression glass set.
The set is white china with wavy edges, gold on the rims and blue flowers in the center. I think this is a full 12 place setting. My grandmother got these dishes through a program at her local grocery. As a young mother, she was poor, but managed to collect this entire set, one place setting at time. The china is ROYAL BLUE IRONSTONE ENOCH WEDGEWOOD. Here is a link to the exact pattern on ebay.
I'd like to offer this to my friends before I take other avenues. I kind of feel sucky about giving it up. Please be a friend and take away my guilt by taking my china.
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| Golden slobbers |
[17 Mar 2007|09:49pm] |
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Happy St. Patrick's Day from New Orleans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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[16 Mar 2007|08:18am] |
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Right now, here in New Orleans, Hollywood South, movie magic is happening. Yes, we could all be gushing about Brangelina, or we could debate the finer points of what the film industry could do to/for our city, or we could all ignore it as yet another wave of change rolls in. Instead, I just like to roll around in the movie magic. Today, on my daily bike ride home, I reveled in the self-righteousness of crusing past several blocks of cars down St. Charles where there is always a jam at the broken light at Jefferson. At the next block, a pair of policemen had stopped a few cars and I looked around for an accident. The cop in the street motions to me to ride up to him. "I don't see why you can't go through, no reason to hold you up. They're filming this College movie at the library, just don't stop." I rode on, past the usual fleet of shiny, huge trailers, trucks full of filming equipment, and people scurrying about. (The people who scurry are obviously not local. We don't scurry here.) For several blocks there was no traffic at all. I swerved my bike, enjoying the full breadth of St. Charles. The oaks and their speckled shadows were all for me. This was a scene in my movie. 
A week ago, I rode through the filming of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I didn't realize that they were actually shooting until I happened upon a very friendly couple. They were excellently dressed for a Wednesday afternoon, her in a peach wool suit and him in in crisp brown with a sharp hat. Surrounding us was a array of the finest 50's and 60's cars New Orleans has to offer. The white girl with the beehive across the street ultimately tipped me off and I asked the couple if I should keep biking. "Go on. They'll yell when we're supposed to start walking up this side walk, again." I rode on. The doors to all of the crew/cast trailers were open. Inside there were people lounging on comfortable couches, pacing in circles, even scurrying, with the room to do it! These huge trailers lined at least seven blocks of Napoleon Avenue in Broadmoor, dwarfing the FEMA trailers that sat behind them on every other lawn. I told ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) maitrix about my fantastic bike ride home today as we sat in her car outside of a parking lot full of trailers. I excitedly pointed at the lot. "Look, movie trailers! (Ignore the pun if you dare.) I can tell they're movie trailers because they're nice and so much bigger than FEMA trailers!" Momentarily proud of my discernment in trailers, soon the disgusting nature of the comparison sucked the movie magic right out of me. Instead of talking about Brangelina, or the film industry, we just ignored them. Instead we ranted about the toxicity of FEMA trailers, their depressing, confining size, and the criminal amounts of money that were paid for them. FEMA spends about $60,000 for each of these plain white trailers over their estimated life span of 18 months. For that cost they could have got a bulk rate on luxury or at least human sized trailers. A lot of these trailers are camper sized, and intended only for a few nights stay. So, Hollywood, many of us are glad for the business and jobs that you have brought to our city. I enjoy the magical way you make cars dissapear. But you better look out. What we really like are your trailers.
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| I've never |
[10 Mar 2007|10:26pm] |
I've never lost a pet before. She's so pretty.
My baby.
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| Definition of love... |
[04 Mar 2007|08:02pm] |
So, I went out to breakfast this morning with my husband, dad and stepmom.
They all ordered the basic eggs, meat and grits.
Dad and husband ordered smoked sausage and stepmom ordered bacon.
When the food arrived the sausage was very generously portioned and the bacon was wimpy.
Dad kindly shared some of the sausage with his wife.
She was very happy and made the following comment.
"Now that's love. If you looked up love in the dictionary, there would be a video clip of you giving me the sausage."
We all laughed until our stomachs hurt.
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| A dream |
[02 Mar 2007|08:47pm] |
It's thirty years in the future but I'm still the same age. I find a baseball, circa 1990, covered in the autographs of a little league team. Curious about the kids that signed the ball, what kind of adults they have become and where they live now, I place the ball in the scanner. The scanner is a two foot square box that suspends the ball in the center, spinning it about while reading the scrawled names. It deciphers the signatures and I soon have roster of middle aged men, their occupations, hometowns, wives, kids, hobbys, rap sheets, recognitions, etc. Still, I don't feel that I have any sense of who they really are and I have no idea what this ball, the team, or their childhood means to them.
Road trip! Leaving the ball in the scanner, I ask the computer to route a voyage that will take me to visit these boys, now men, in a random sequence. I move the scanner to my pirate ship and prepare to set sail. I suddenly realize any good, nutball vacation needs a family, (think National Lampoon's) and I find random, suburban parental units with one teenager and we're off!
In the future, we will travel to destinations on the sea of information. The internet, it turns out, is not made of tubes, but is in fact a place. An ocean stretches out before us. The ports of call are URLs. Standing on the deck of my ship, leaning over the railing, I gaze into the murky depths. Words and images, breaking news, celebrity stalker blogs, hundreds of baby photos, term papers all mesh together, appearing and disappearing with the waves.
We visit a few of the grown little league players and everything is peachy. We all decide that it's time to refuel and make a stop for munchies. I pull my pirate ship out of the internet and we coast up to the front of a strip mall. There are three shopping options at this backwoods mecca of commerce. The first is a store simply called MEAT. The father heads off to score some sustenance for our journey. The store next to MEAT is a nondescript shop that sells only vibrators and dildos. The mother quickly heads into the shop, once she is sure her husband is safely absorbed in the MEAT mecca. The teenager and I opt to make our way to the Lucky Dog stand. Back on the ship, the dad returns laden with armloads of dripping, raw, unwrapped meat, which he releases, spilling the whole mess all over the deck, beaming proudly at his haul. The mom returns with a plain gray box hidden under her arm. The teenager and I lean back, enjoying the rest of our dogs, waiting for the chaos. The mom, appalled at the heap of meat on the deck, noisily drops her purchase. The box pops open, revealing a very scary looking vibrator that is attached to an array of electrodes, switches and blinky lights. The previously grinning dad snarls at his wife, grabs the baseball from the scanner and proceeds to smash the box to bits.
Now, the baseball was important. Our entire journey was guided by the ball and the randomized, automated program was active and only paused for our shore leave. We are instantly jerked into the sea of information, cast adrift amid spam, long forgotten, potentially incendiary journal posts, and school of colorful, confusing, orphaned icons. With the navigation system going haywire, we search for a port for weeks. We eat meat, until it is too rancid. We begin to go mad from staring at the sea.
Finally, we see another ship. It is decrepit and appears to be abandoned. The teenager and I set out on a raft to search for supplies or navigation aids.
Dusty, musty victorian furnishing greet us. Dark velvet chairs and drapes, a tarnished silver pitcher and the ghosts of lace napkins adorn the dining room. I head to the front of the ship and the teenager goes below to hunt down some food. Right away, I stumble into a room, about ten foot square, brightly lit by a chandelier. It is completely filled with bottles of lotion, tins of ointment, and tubes of liniment. A pang of memory. A news report. The giant, albino who had been exiled to drift in the sea after committing horrid atrocities on children! He had an unusual and ferocious skin condition! Oh, horrors!
I run to the side of the ship, jump overboard, and swim to the raft while screaming for the teenager. The albino giant appears, hot on the trail of the youngster. They both jump in to the sea and swim for the raft. The teenager climbs aboard while I fend off the pursuer with my oar. The albino begins to wail and reach for the oar. His skin falls from his body, sloughing into the ocean. The wails become cries of pains as the hands reach for help. His pale blue eyes pleadeing for just one more moment, one hello. As he sank beneath the surface I felt the real horror of the situation. He just wanted to be able to touch something, have friends, have a childhood. Because of his skin problems, and his generally atrocious appearance, he already lived a life of exile. I just killed the saddest person who ever lived.
Then I woke up.
Ha, analyze that!
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| Rum Love |
[02 Mar 2007|07:46pm] |
I finally did it. I cracked into the three-tier rum trio that we purchased on our honeymoon. We honeymooned in Dominica, (click here for pictures) a small, pristine island in the west indies. We bought some local cane sugar rum that we finished promptly upon our return. I was smooth, rich and sipable. The three-tier bottle was purchased mostly for the bottle itself as it was made on a neighboring island St. Lucia which we did not visit. (Someday) My new husband convinced me to wait to break into the triple threat until carnival season. Well, he made the first break by filling up a flask with the Chairman's Reserve for Mom's ball. Since there was no longer need to abstain I set up three of my new mikasa shot glasses and grabbed my camera.
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| WARNING! |
[25 Feb 2007|04:48pm] |
So, I was telling a friend this story for the umpteenth time, when I realized that I should just get it over with and tell the world.
When I first moved to New Orleans, I had a cute half of a shotgun double full of my meager posessions. These posessions included an ancient microwave that I adopted from my mom. It was huge and had that lovely fake wood grain siding that seems to grace all 1980's household appliances.
I was doing some house cleaning one Sunday and while I wiped the dust off of the front of my TV (with fake wood grain siding) I decided to make some tea. I took the dry, dusty, static filled paper towel to the kitchen and thew it away in the garbage can that sat next to my microwave stand. I took a mug filled with water and put it in the microwave.
I turned on the microwave, it lit up and I watched to make sure it did not boil over. POP! The light went out and a blue glow illuminated the interior. In less than a second, that blue glow was sucked out of the back of the box and shot down into the garbage can, presumably attracted by the static filled paper towel. Now, we all know what lightening rods are for. However, most of us don't have one at home, fake wood grain siding or not. Apparently my head serves the same purpose. The blue bolt hit right between my eyes and felt somewhat like a close range paintball that splatted electricity all over my face. The strangest part came next as I felt my brain ripple in my skull. It moved. Not like a throbbing headache. Not like a concussion. It waved like the ocean from the front to the back.
I stood still for a moment, wating to keel over. As soon as I was able to blink my eyes I stumbled over to the mirror. Fully expecting a hole in my forehead, I was quite please to find that I only looked stunned. I quickly started wondering if I still knew who I was. Yes, I supposed I did. I tripped through all of the things that I knew about myself, trying to make sure that I had not forgotten anything. Then it occured to me, if I had forgotten something how would I know.
The microwave made a lovely plant stand on the porch of my apartment.
I still refuse to use them. When a microwave must be used, it is the one time I will allow a friend to chance death for me. I make my tea in a kettle now.
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| Mardi Gras pics |
[25 Feb 2007|11:24am] |
So , I took a ton of self portraits with friends this Mardi Gras because I usually have the camera and I'm never in any of the pictures. This is a smattering of the best of them.
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| *Smack* |
[15 Feb 2007|08:31am] |
Yesterday morning, lying in bed, G asked me if I could handle being both his valentine and his wife.
"Yes, of course."
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| Now! Do it now! |
[14 Feb 2007|10:42pm] |
The other day at the Shangri-La parade they threw fortune cookies. This is what mine said.
You have it in you power to increase
the sum total of world happiness now.
Happiness
Happiness
Happiness?
Or we could all just have some chartreuse!
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| Because it's carnival ti-i-i-uh-i-me! |
[10 Feb 2007|08:11am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 excited |
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music |
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hungry mewling cats |
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Mardi Gras has totally snuck up on me this year! I usually count down the days but whoa, parades last night, guests in a week, (can't wait to see you ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lylythe_strega!) and way too much prep for the big day. I always make a headdress every year but this time I am being wholly masochistic and sewing my entire costume! (So I think) I am halfway done with adorning my corset. I have to design and sew my skirt. I still have to make a headdress (which I am usually almost done with by now). I desperately need a new pair of marching shoes. We still have to make throws and a float for our march this year. G has to make krewe CD's and I still have to make a royal sceptor (plunger/septer) for our krewe's new dark lord. Ackkk. Too much fun.
Today I am going over to the house of maitrix and helping to sort her throws for King Arthur, have brunch, watch movies, and catch some peerades. I am going to juice some lemons and satsumas and contribute some super tart, detoxifying lemonade and some super sweet and toxifying satsumosas to our brunch.
I am also super excited for my friends retc and jerrygarciuh who are due to have a baby any time now. Talk about getting the baby in the king cake! I think if the kid arrives on one of the parade days that one of the parades rolling that day should be the middle name. Some might invite trouble (chaos), some would not work (proteus/firstborn), some might sound stuffy (Jessica d'Etat _______), Rex is for the dogs, and Tucks would just be mean. I think Thoth is nice, plus, it is a very kid friendly parade.
Anyway, my husband just woke up and I am going to go be excited at him. He'll forgive me someday.
HAPPY MARDI GRAS BABY!
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