Hilfe!

Ich suche fuer meine Freundinen aus Stuttgart, Isolde u. Dorothee Wuensch (vielleicht Dorothee Paulus). Ihre spitznamen sind Iso und Dodo. Kennst Du Sie? Bitte melde Dich!! Ich vermisse Euch so sehr!!!

{This post says "I am searching for my friends from Stuttgart, Isolde and Dorothee. Their nicknames are Iso and Dodo. Do you know them? Please get in touch with me! I miss them so much!" I wrote this because I lost touch with them and thought, hey, people google their own names all the time, maybe this post will come up in the search - and it worked! Dodo emailed me about a month later and then Iso came to visit. This internet thing is pretty darn swell, doncha think?}

NOLA needs YOU!

{{More Photos from the trip HERE}}
J and I went to New Orleans last week - I hadn't been there since 2000, so it was the first time for me since Katrina. It's a weird mix between renovated houses that are completely redone, empty houses that look like the flood happened only a week ago and other areas where, truly, they were probably falling apart before anyway and now the situation has exacerbated the problem.

As we drove into the area, you first pass Slidell and then the outer part of New Orleans, which, according to what you can see from the highway, is full of empty, boarded up and fenced off aparment complexes and neighborhoods. There was a Wal-Mart that had yet to reopen. J recalled having seen that same Wal-Mart parking lot full of tents when he came here about 3 months after Katrina. I was pissy when I thought about how Wal-mart was so quick to run commercials touting their support for the people affected by the hurricanes, but now can't seem to be bothered to reinvest in this community and offer much-needed jobs. But then, I didn't see really any work being done on the abandoned neighborhoods (except demolition) - so maybe there simply is no need for a Wal-Mart?

We arrived to our hotel, the Rennaisance Arts, got cleaned up and then headed out for dinner. We asked around for a true down-home style NO restaurant, but we wound up at Brennans and that wound up being one of those typical places that is mostly known because it's been around for-EV-er despite the food now being mediocre and waaaay overpriced ($100+ for 2 people and only 1 drink each!). BUT we shared a wonderful Bananas Foster, which was especially yummy because apparently this was where the dessert was created (due to an overflow of banana shipments). I like eating history!

Next day J had to work and I took a long walk down Magazine Street. I walked for almost 3 miles and saw the aforementioned mishmash of up, down and everything inbetween houses & businesses. Once I got to the retail section, that's when the human element, namely desperation, kicked in. Every salesperson I met had an underlying panic/fear/stress about the lack of tourists and money being spent. There they are, trying their darndest to get back to normal, opening their stores everyday, but with few people coming by to shop. They were very chatty - much more so, I believe, than before Katrina - and were full of questions. Where I am from, why I was there (J's business), what kind of business...? This was one time I felt no guilt spending money freely because I knew they needed to business so much.

I didn't leave a single store without the shop keeper strongly encouraging me to come back and bring friends. Or at the very least tell everyone I know that it's time to come back to New Orleans. My fave shops: Winky's (I spent the most here for some great funky clothes and a postcard that says "Gnome on the range"; Brass Menagerie (a reproduction house hardware store run by an old couple and their cat with the heart-shaped shot on it's nose, Domino); and Derby Pottery.

That theme carried over into the evening when we were given two rounds of drinks by 2 different people at the d.b.a. bar on Frenchman Street.

Merry F-ing Christmas

What a screwed up couple of days! Not all bad, but some of it was pretty damn unfortunate and is messing with my head. Good thing I can latch onto the made-up concept of starting over fresh in the new year or else ... I don't know what.

I did it!

I managed to throw quite a little shindig yesterday! We celebrated J's birthday with family, friend, food and fun presents! I made the following tasty treats (with some help from Jaime & Laura!):
Artichoke & Spinach Dip + Red Lobster-style Cheddar Biscuits + Phyllo Triangles + Mexican 8 Layer Dip + Fruit + Cheeses (including Ruth's Pimento Cheese Spread!!) + a Jelly Roll cake + Spice Bundt Cake

Toccoa put on her party dress and I actually finished making our stockings (a little thrown together, but still...)! Unfortunately my mom couldn't be there, but I'm pretty sure I would have made her proud!

Crafty (crazy?) Lady!

I'm getting really exicted and nervous about his party on Sunday (3pm at our house. Be There!) I am going to try to cook everything myself. It's very likely that we'll end up having to order pizza like at our last party when I didn't cook but I also didn't buy enough food and people were hungry and starving and falling over from being malnourished and it was bad. (ok, so no one really fell over, but it was still pathetic)

I am also going to try to make stockings from J, me and Toccoa (the dog). Ha! Let's just see if I can drive myself totally crazy in the next 4 days (er, at first I wrote "gays"!) (and just then i almost wrote "at fist"!)(what the hell? have i already gone nuts?) [note to self: put nuts on grocery list]

Unfortunately I will not have painted to dining room and guest bedroom like I really wanted to, but whatever. I also will not have finished sanding the armoire for the guest bedroom, nor will the yard have gotten de-leaved and landscaped. And I'm sure the kitchen and our bedroom, no matter what I do, will still look like a wreck. At least I can keep the bedroom door shut.

I will be happy when the holidays wind down because then I plan to apply to SCAD (or someplace similar) to take classes and eventually get a master's degree in graphic design.

Well, I'm off to try to make stockings!! Wish me luck and I hope to see you Sunday!

Electric fingers

Just got home from watching "Stranger Than Fiction" with J and Roo. Super great movie. Very enjoyable with a little guilty pleasure via the slightly schmaltzy ending. In appreciation, I let out a little clap of glee at the end.
I tend to analyze things a lot. Actually, I over analyze and generally I'm analyzing myself. Example: as I clapped I thought,"clapping like that is such a me thing. is it childish or endearing?" Just then, two rows up to the left, a lady with long dark blond hair clapped gleefully. The guy next to her, boyfriend perhaps, turned to her and put his arm around her, clearly amused by and endeared to her.
"that chick is just like me!" my brain fired. My heart sank a little,"maybe i'm not special. maybe there are tons of people just like me." But the ultimately upbeat nature of the movie quickly redirected my pouting,"Why not? It would be great if there were more people like me. [subthought: the positive, helpful, outgoing, uplifting, creative, productive, kind, true-to-myself me] i wish i were more like me!"

I fell off the top of Las Vegas and lived to tell you about it!

J and I just got back from Vegas last night and boy, lemme tell ya - it is an exhausting place! J and I are still recovering and we didn't even do it up that much! We arrived Wednesday 11/8 to our luxurious digs at the Venetian thanks to a company J works with. If you look at the picture and see where the name runs vertically up the side, above that, there's the half-circle window - that was our room! Wowie-zowie!
That first night we ate at Batista's Hole in the Wall, an italian place that's been there for-EV-er. J, his dad, some work-related dudes and I were serenaded by the in-house accordion player (well, mostly me). Afterwards J and I went and played on the slot machines for a little while and then crashed - it was 3am EST after all!

The next day I tagged along with J to his convention for a while and then lounged around the room, took advantage of the afternoon tea in our suite's lobby and got ready for dinner. This time another one of J's work-related people took us out to Red Square at Mandalay Bay. J enjoyed the best vodka martini ever and I stuffed myself with stroganoff that was out of this world. From there we met up with another work dude at Tao. We had fun there - one of the work dudes, who was a bit older, decided he was going to show us whipper-snappers how to dance... if you were some old dude freakin' up on a girl while having a seizure. (well, not really, but he did scare me when he joked, "take me to the hospital.")
After that we put all the old fogies to bed and played some blackjack at the Palm's hotel. Oh, and I can add another celebrity sighting to my list: Dizzle from "Inked." He was actually walking out of the Hart & Huntington tattoo shop, looking a bit drunk. I was drunk, too, and I REALLY had to pee, so I just gave a little what's up nod and kept on moving.

We broke even at the blackjack table and went back to our hotel to sleep!

On Saturday night I finally got to go to the top of the Stratosphere...and go on the rides that are ON TOP of it. I went on the Big Shot, that shoots you straight up and then you free fall down and then on the XSCREAM, which literally tips you off the side and drops down (randomly, just to make you wet your pants a little more). You can see the pix here. We ended the night by watching the ever-cocky yet equally amazing David Copperfield.