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Hey y’all…

So yeah, been a bad girl and haven’t been posting. Again. I know I promised to be better but I at least wanted to pop in, make sure you knew I was still here and still dedicated… and that I was going to have to step out for a few more weeks. It’s for good stuff all around, but other than a few very brief posts I have auto scheduled, I’m going to be MIA for a few weeks while I’m away both physically and mentally.

Things I’ve learned during my transition period so far:

1. I have a metric crapton of pictures. I’ve kindly been invited to do a show of some of my cemetery photographs in a local cafe, which is totally flattering and wonderful, even though it’s made me face the depth of my photographic illness. I’ve discovered that I have several (like 5) thousand cemetery photos taken over the last decade, most of which haven’t been looked at in a long time, many still on film only, and oh, btw, I have no idea how one goes about putting this sort of thing together, so it’s been a really interesting process, but I think we’re getting there, finally.
2. Weird cherry picking process makes me bang my head repeatedly, which isn’t good for concentration I’m actually having to do this bizarre dance with what pics to use and what not to use, because I’m working on (shhhh, top secret! Double pinky swear not to say anything, okay?) a book that involves some of these same photos + some quasi-genealogy, complicating things. But, hey, since when do I do simple?
3. Writing writing not going so well, and drastic measures are called for. Just to be confusing, there’s also the “real” book I’m (theoretically) working on. (Not that you could tell.) I’m starting to reach the panic stage, where I can foresee myself dramatically flinging the bastard into the fireplace flames, drunkenly crying “L’chaim!”

   This sounds far fetched, perhaps and in the particulars I suppose it is- it’s New Orleans in the summer, fer godsakes. There’s no WAY I’m lighting a fire! But in practice, it’s something I’ve done it before. In fact, I have the better part of a pretty good vampiresque parody done that I tossed aside because a) I lost touch with it, and b) panic set in, although, honestly, also playing a part was c)how freaking tired can you get of vampires? They’re everywhere! They weren’t when I started, but by the time I got serious, they were deep into oversaturation territory.

4. Depression/obsession blows like the oil rig that causes it. It is so so SO easy to start reading the horrifying news stories and have a months-long freakout at the bottom of deep dark pit of despair. I’ve been trying to wean myself from the obsession, and it’s not been easy. When we were in NY for 9/11 I watched coverage for months, curled up and miserable on the couch. After Katrina I drove and drove and drove around until I ended up on a shrink’s couch. I cannot afford to do it again, so I’ve got to call for a mental moratorium, even though it sort of seems like cowardice.
5. If I don’t do something about planning this wedding, Charlie will kill me if my sister doesn’t get me first. Ummmm…. pretty self explanatory, really. Though the venue and date are now set at least…which happened just yesterday. I know, I know, I’m a bad bride, but this should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, really. It’s hard for me to worry about those kinds of things. It’ll happen, it’ll be fine, it’ll be a party, and that’s that.





So a drastic change of scenery, both internal and external is the ticket. That’s where the stepping out comes in while I take a geographical and mental sabbatical. I’ll be back soonish and will start posting more bits of fiction and suchlike for those who care, and to hold myself accountable if nothing else.

And that’s that. I’ll leave you with one of the photos that I’m on the fence about including before saying hasta luego. I like the perspective and the white against the blue, but not sure if it’s a keeper or not- thoughts or comments welcome as always:

Well, that’s the birds’ interpretation, anyway.

The yearly vet visit is a little different for the birds than the dogs. Puppies get leashed, widdle a little on the doc’s floor and get over it. They know there’s a treat at the end and the bonus of a car ride, so they go along with the program without much fuss.

Birds? Oh boy. Typically Jack’s the troublemaker, but he went without much of a production. Pratchett led me on a not-so-merry, squawking, growling, 20 minute long miserable chase around the kitchen. You would have thought I was trying to kill him.

Never heard a CAG growl? Oh, how you’ve been missing out…






I think Linda Blair took acting lessons from these birds, and Pratch did it for several hours straight.

Check out these fluffled up feathers and glare:

So he had to be toweled twice in one day, once just to get him in the crate, once for his exam, and it was not pretty. I thought the wing clip was going to give him a heart attack, and let’s not even talk about the nail clipping…

Note that Jack is way over in his crate, trying to see what the hell could be so different over in Pratchett’s world to cause all that noise…

The whole time all I could think about what the prediction of a “very active” hurricane season and what a barrel of laughs it’ll be if we actually have to evacuate with our own growling, freaked out and above all LOUD parrot soundtrack.

I did a writeup over at Noteworthy, but wanted to highlight one particular photo from today’s parade that just killed me:

Somehow the blue tarp train just perfectly summed it up (and he was workin’ it, btw). Just as we’re past the last disaster, here we are again.

And yet, still together as a city, and still making the best of it. Still dancing, costuming, second lining. There are worse ways to cope, even as I’m sure it’ll be misinterpreted by some outside the city.

But so what? Screw that. If we give up our ability to laugh in the face of corruption, decay and governmental apathy, we’d all just have to go jump in the oil with the pelicans and have it done with. And honey, we ain’t nowhere near that yet- Satchmo Summerfest’s around the corner, and there’s always one more great event coming up after the last great thing to convince you that, screwed up or not, there ain’t no place like home, baby.

So, yeah. There’s a dog at the house. I have been stressing the word ‘temporarily’ until it’s become a reflex. Someone gushes over him and like a Tourettes patient I yell “He’s. Not. Staying!”

But it’s been a couple of weeks now since Jen and I found him by the side of the road in the Hoffman Triangle, a particularly rough part of Central City. He looked like a large cat, so dirty and tangled that Jen started calling him Marley for his matted dreads. He came running over, though, which is not typical street behavior.

The boy can recognize a couple of saps, what can I say? Jen let the little filthball happily roll all over her while I drove to the vet. They’re a non-profit rescue group and I was hoping they’d be able to keep the bugger. No such luck, and although there were several people who oohed and ahhed over the cleaned up puppy nobody was able to adopt him. So he’s stashed here. And the clock’s ticking. And people are getting attached.

He’s not going to look anything like that in a few months- the vet said he’s a Schnauzer/poodle, about 18 months old and 9lbs. Thick, inches long fur was shaved from him- there was so much of it that we had no idea he was a boy despite his…uh… well endowed and amorous nature (a situation what’s also been ‘fixed’).

Look, I don’t deny he’s cute. But there are already three dogs in my house and I’m in trouble here- outnumbered 2 to 1. Alison wants to keep him because, theoretically, she’ll be taking Bruiser at some point when she gets an apartment and says he’ll be lonely without company. Charlie wants to keep him because he’s a cute little bastard and the same size as Bruiser. When I tell him that Crazyland lives in the gap between having 3 dogs and having 4, he’s pointed out that that’s really only 2 dogs per household. Which is nice, except he lives, eats and poops at my house, not his.

I suspect this is a fight I’m going to lose. But if you know of anybody looking for a cute, affectionate puppy, drop me a line. Please. I’m begging you.

I didn’t want to dwell very much on the situation in the Gulf earlier. Now I find that our friend Craig has done it for me and captured the feeling perfectly:

Stella Got Her Groove Back — just in time to discover she had colon cancer.

I hadn’t realized how much this damn oil situation in the Gulf had been affecting me. Not directly, mind you. But in a more general and more consuming fashion. We thought we had finally killed the loup-garou, but now he’s back — more menacing and more pervasive than ever — and for potentially a much longer while.

Check him out at BeerFoodDude, and in person with the lovely Kim cooking their asses off at the Avenue Pub.

Once again, I’ve been a terrible correspondent and disappeared for awhile. Too long, I know.

It’s been a real roller coaster of a month, good and bad. Kids to get home from college, puppies to deal with (more later on that disaster), existential crises to wrestle with…

The bad is obvious- the oil spill (Spill. Right. Gusher, more like) hangs over the city like the slowest moving category 5 ever. It’s been a time of weird dread and helplessness, and it’s left everybody listless and depressed. Just when things were getting better it’s back to volunteering and bootstrapping.

And yet in the middle of the city’s misery there’s great personal happiness. Alison survived her first year of college like a champ. She was happy and healthy enough to use her world-class arguing skills to drive her mother crazy before heading to see her father in NJ for what’s likely to be her last “kid” summer vaca.

While she’s gone I’m going to have a busy summer, thanks to amazing and generous encouragement from Charlie to stay home and focus on the things I enjoy most- writing, photography, research- and see how I can make my passions pay.

It means a lot of things- for starters, shit or get off the pot, not to put too fine a point on it. (who, me? vulgar? lol) Stop dabbling, get serious, get to work, to be more precise.

It wasn’t easy to make the decision, but I took the plunge. Gave notice, and today starts my first week out in the great wide world. So wish me luck, don’t hesitate to hold my feet to the fire, and keep your fingers crossed for me.

More to come. Soon. I promise.

So far, this year’s experiment goes well. Cats have not peed enough (yet) to kill the vines. Things have not dried out to dangerous proportions. True, I’ve scaled back expectations- there are no truly exotic strains here, but I’ll be happy if we just get enough vines to really pop.

But it’s a start.

Bird toys are damned expensive. Totally cool, but made to be destroyed, and so there’s this sort of double edged sword to putting a new toy in their cages. Like, “Ooh, great! They love that one, they…oh, geez. Dead already.”

vs. “Ooh, dammit. Did I just spend that money for nothing? Totally not interested in it…but at least it’ll last awhile, I suppose…”

Except for one thing – the bamboo!

It was one of the first things to go in when we first started the garden, not realizing that the stuff is indestructible and will do its best to overrun everything it can. I don’t have a picture from when it was planted, but at only about 3 feet tall and in a 1 gallon container it looked innocent enough.

It’s now almost as tall as the house and has to constantly be whacked back, because it’s impervious- bugs don’t eat it, the cold doesn’t touch it, and after it rains you can practically sit back and watch it grow with the naked eye:

I don’t know if you can get an idea of the depth here, but there’s a ton of the stuff.

Luckily the parrots have decided they love it- I’ll cut a couple of canes and criss-cross them through the bars. The boys’ll go to their work, stripping and breaking them down, covering their cages in shredded little leaves.

It’s kind of hard to get pictures of the action, but here’s Pratch hanging down from his swing to get at it:

Honestly, he usually stands right on the canes to strip them, but he had a little a little Wile E. Coyote-style accident the day before. Taking a tumble after snapping the branch he’d so recently been standing on made him a little more wary the following day.

Jack loves it too, but of course had to get nosy when the camera came out:

He actually has it somewhat easier, being smaller, lighter and (sorry, Pratch!) more agile, he climbs and hangs all over the stuff- it’s a completely free jungle gym.

Proving that I am totally insane, I briefly considered buying another of those tiny, innocuous containers of the stuff at the nursery, thinking I could leave it in its pot between the parrot cages. They could strip stuff at their leisure, Pratchett could have a screen between himself and the hated Jack, and the bamboo would be contained and unable to spread.

Luckily I came to my senses, which, contrary to popular belief actually does happen once in awhile. But if you’re looking for a low cost, high yield parrot toy, this one fits the bill! Or beak. Or talon…

So when I heard that you could drop off hair, fur and nylon at (of all places) the Ritz Carlton, I was a little confused. It’s to help absorb the spilled oil in the Gulf, and while anything that helps is worthwhile, I couldn’t imagine how stuffing used pantyhose with cut up hair was going to help.

Here’s how, and it’s all pretty amazing:

Crossposted to NoteworthyInNola

I didn’t know that tomato plants flowered at all, but apparently so:

They’re a sort of strange shade of yellow, but I guess that’s par for the course.

Now to defend them against the slugs and caterpillars. This is third time I’m trying this experiment, and the ‘pilars have gotten them both times before. Diligence will hopefully pay off with lots of gazpacho this summer.