This is me and Mike, the other member of my esteemed household. He is very smart, more published than me, and is a fellow sci-fi geek. He tolerates my slovenly ways and my small, rude feline companion. Today he officially passed the Louisiana bar exam, and there will be much rejoicing!
He is pretty much perfect. :-)
This isn't a list of the best places to eat in New Orleans, necessarily, just the places I eat most often. That's why many of them are on the cheaper end, because, well, if I ate at the big flagship restaurants all the time, I'd have no dollars.
1. Commander's Palace (It is just that classy. I want my 25 cent martini.)
2. Camellia Grill
I once sat at the counter at the Camellia Grill in lingerie at 1 AM. True story. It was wonderful (well, it was Halloween). No one blinked an eye. I used to live right around the corner from the Camellia Grill. People have plastered it with love notes on Post-Its since Katrina. Please re-open soon, Camellia Grill. I need chili cheese fries. Word word.
3. Sukho Thai (This was my Last Supper out in New Orleans pre-K.)
4. Basil Leaf Thai (So I like Thai...)
5. Nacho Mama's (Somehow every time we go out to lunch, we end up sitting on Magazine Street having margaritas. Why is that?)
6. Upperline (I love Upperline. I love the art. I love the food. Love.)
7. Bacco (I ate this orgasmic appetizer the last time I was there.)
8. Galatoire's
9. Port of Call (Burgers and baked potatoes-- I love the baked potato.)
10. Jacque-Imo's
11. Reginelli's (I am throwing them a shout-out because they kept us from starving in January when nothing was open in the evening and we had no fridge. They were the ONLY place open and delivering.)
12. La Crepe Nanou
13. Roly Poly (I cheated, because Roly Poly is a chain, and anyway, you don't eat there. It's more like fast food. However, the amount of money I spend there is perfectly ridiculous-- seriously, I might as well just give up and live there-- so I thought they deserved a mention. In fact, now that I've given it a mention, I think I should go there right now...)
I was out last night trapping cats at an undisclosed location in Belle Chasse. (If there were two shady women lurking in an empty lot on your street last night, that was us.) 
We got two, and they spent the night in my basement. I thought, "Oh, we won't hear them." Yeah, right. The basement is still gutted, so there's no insulation. And the one was pretty feral, and loudly protesting being trapped. Jolee heard them right away and his eyes went wide. He sat in the kitchen watching the door. I said, "Come in the living room, bebe, there are no cats in the basement."
He gave me a skeptical look that said, "Shut up, Sarah. I clearly hear cats in the basement and you put them there. I hate you."
It could have been worse. I only woke up once during the night to "Yow."
"Yow!"
In reply, "Yow."
A scathing retort, "Yow!"
Oh, cats. Sorry about your reproductive bits. Hope your surgeries went well! Don't hate me too much-- it was for your own good.
I've spent the last couple of nights knocking around the GFFA ("Galaxy Far, Far Away" to the uninitiated). This is going to be my second full playthrough of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I had some previous games saved on the other computer before it became obstinate and refused to work. I never manage to play dark side because I hate that you have to be a bully. I think a real Sith lord wouldn't bother stealing credits from two-bit card players on Tattooine, and it's not very realistic. I think I'd spend my time being a lot more evil than that. Unfortunately, that's the way the game portrays evil. Evil is a lot more fun in KOTOR II, though, and I've gotten further with it.
Anyway, I just escaped from the Leviathan. I pretty much looted the ship and killed everyone. Now I'm on Tattooine getting the last Star Map. My character, the redhead, is named Karoly Durrik. There aren't any redheads as head choices in the game, so I downloaded a mod, which I ended up having to recolor slightly. She had blue eyeshadow. I sort of couldn't deal with it. I don't see Jedi or smugglers as wearing eyeshadow. I recolored her eyelids in the texture to a more natural shade in Gimp. The highlight of this particular game is the Make Mission a Jedi mod. Mission Vao is everyone's favorite teenage Twi'lek, and she always has something opinionated and snarky to say. But unfortunately, once you have a party full of Jedi, it doesn't make much sense to use her after Dantooine. My Mission, however, is a Level 16 Jedi Consular. I definitely recommend this mod... except the spelling and grammar in the dialogue leaves something to be desired. But I can overlook that, for the sake of sheer ass-kickery.
Mission and Karoly fighting back to back. It sort of looks like my lightsaber is chopping Mission in half in the screenshot. Oops. But my point is, Mission rocks the purple saber well.
So the talk this week at work is that a bunch of people are jumping ship to work at Commander's Palace, which seems to finally be reopening on October 1st. They have already hired at least five people I know, some of whom were trying to get me to go over and apply. Commander's is only the best restaurant ever. I love to eat there (25 cent martini lunches!), but I don't know if I want to work there. The advantage at _____ is I'm in a routine, and this is a good thing when I'm also doing classes, writing, and volunteering. If I go to Commander's, I'll start as a back waiter and have to train again. And buy new pants.
I really don't want to have to buy new pants. But maybe I'll stop over there on Tuesday. Maybe.
You do not want to work in a restaurant during a nationwide e coli scare. Especially a restaurant that serves spinach on every other plate. It is a huge, huge drag, and I hope they will finish recalling the bad spinach soon and declare the spinach safe. So I won't have to have any more conversations like:
Me: We have no spinach in the building. We threw it all out.
Woman: This looks like spinach to me.
Me: I can assure you it is not.
Woman: What is it?
Me: It's a mixed green salad. It doesn't normally include spinach anyway.
Woman: What are these green ones?
Me: Some of them are cabbage, some of them are mache, I think those ones are arugula...
Woman: (skeptical look)
Me: Look, would it help if I went and asked?
Woman: Yes. I won't eat it till you come back.
Me: (goes behind salad counter) Is this arugula?
Kitchen: Yes.
Me: (goes back out to floor) The green ones are not spinach. They're arugula.
Woman: Well, o-kay...
Chris Rose's column from earlier this week about how they should have done Survivor: New Orleans cracked me up. My favorite part:
"They could have one tribe live in a pothole, one in a tent under the interstate, one in a FEMA trailer (it goes without saying that it has no utilities) and one in what remains of Fats Domino's house down in the Lower 9th and let them try to survive the tangle of living options and deprivations that we have come to know as routine.
Or even better yet, one of the tribes could be embedded with Uncle Sal and Aunt Judy in their two-bedroom rambler in River Ridge, along with Sal's two grown sons and Judy's ex, C.J., and his fourth wife Tina and their two kids and four dogs, Sal's nephew Gerald and his family of six and Gerald's son Tony's parrain, Sid, and his boyfriend Jeff and their two cats -- and then they will know what "surviving" means in the post-Katrina landscape."
Boba Fett stands by ready and willing to fire on those who commit these crimes in the presence of Sarah. He pities da fool who makes a fool of himself in a restaurant. I don't come into your office or your house and be rude to you. Ya heard?
1. Mr. "What? You don't have Bud Light? Ew. I'll make a face at your beer list. Then I'll order a water." Dude. We've been over this before. I suppose it makes sense, though, because you're practically ordering a water anyhow when you order a Bud Light.
2. The people who ask for every random item under the sun to be brought to their table... and then don't tip. Invariably, the most demanding people tip the least. It's some kind of rule.
3. People who accuse the restaurant of performing false advertising by claiming to be a seafood restaurant. "BUT YOU DON'T HAVE ANY SEAFOOD ON THE MENU." I point out that there are at least ten seafood dishes on the menu. I point to them. "YOU DON'T HAVE A FRIED SEAFOOD PLATTER. YOU ARE NOT A SEAFOOD RESTAURANT." Thanks for clearing that up. Now I'm going to have to go in the walk-in and disappoint the one hundred frozen dead fish back there by telling them they aren't fish and they died for nothing. Oy. Also, fried food people don't tip. It's another rule. Your tip is, like, inversely proportional to the number of times someone at a table asks if you can fry that. The fried food rule. It's an exact science.
4. "Campers." This is what we call guests who sit FOR-EVER. I realize that you are the guest and you can do whatever you want because you are paying. HOWEVER. Order an appetizer, or a cocktail, or something. True story. I once had a table come in at 7:45, eat two cheeseburgers, a coffee, and a (free) water, and stay until 11:45 PM. As in, the staff was taking the restaurant apart around them. When I got the tip, it was $5.00, which was quite proper because they only ordered $30 worth of food. I was so angry by the end that I sent someone else to pick up the signed copy of the credit card slip, because I didn't even want to look at them. What I'm trying to say is, if you're going to sit forever, make sure what you're ordering is proportional to the amount of time you sit. To do otherwise is horribly rude.
5. Guests who get angry at the menu, or the prices. You know, you could look at it before you are seated. I always do. I thought everybody did.
6. Guests who attempt to inform me of things about the menu, as if they know more than me. I once had this lady who leaned over and, very conversationally, said to me, "You told me this lemonade was sweetened. But really, it isn't." I said, "Actually, it is fresh-squeezed and has sugar in it." And she smiled and said, "No, it doesn't," as if she was doing me a favor informing me so I would know what to tell people next time. I smiled and left the table. Argh. We make the lemonade in the morning. Don't tell me what is or is not in it.
7. Guests who try to pay me $5 to go across the street to the Walgreen's and buy some ranch dressing, because we don't have it.
8. Diners who order things and then try to tell me it's not what they ordered. Like, Ms. "But my meat is all red!" Yes, yes it is. You ordered it medium. If you don't know how you like your food cooked, just describe for me what you want, and I can help you. I had this lady who wanted a bone-in ribeye well-done and butterflied. When she got it, it was chopped up into smaller bits on the plate and wasn't as pretty as everyone else's, and she said, "This isn't what I ordered." Her husband laughed and said, "Yes, it's exactly what you ordered."
9. People who lie. This is really awkward for me to deal with, because the customer is supposed to be right, and all that. But if you make stuff up that I know is wrong, I am left standing there sort of flabbergasted, because I know you're just making it up. Last week some people demanded to be moved because they wanted a table by the window, and they told me it was their regular table and they always sat there. It is utterly embarrassing to pretend to be a regular when it is your first time in the restaurant. We work there. We know.
10. People who throw an unsightly fit. Once we had a totally classily-dressed woman throw a screaming fit because the restaurant wouldn't push two tables together for her. Then she ordered the rest of her party to leave, even though some of them had already ordered and kept trying to get her to sit down and stop making a scene. Don't do that. It embarrasses the staff, the rest of your party, and the other diners. It should embarrass you, but I guess you have no shame.
11. Diners who tip just under 15%. Why? IT'S ANOTHER FREAKIN' DOLLAR. Who are you? WHO ARE YOU?
12. Diners who leave cute notes and smileys on the signed credit card copy and/or gush to my manager about how great I was... and don't tip. OK, no. Does a smiley pay my rent, or buy my cat food? Do not leave praise in lieu of a tip. I actually dread seeing cute notes on the credit card slip because so often they are in lieu of a tip.
13. "The Five." These are the people who always tip five dollars. Good service, bad service. $8 cheeseburger, or $30 bottle of wine and a $28 filet. It's a five dollar bill for everyone. Equality, you see. Usually they do it in advance, too. When you go to drop the check and you see the five out on the table, it is not a good sign. It's like you go back in the kitchen and say, "Ugh, Table 84 has the five out. I saw it."
Mike: That cat gets more antisocial every day.
Me: Really? Maybe to you. But to me? You think he hates me?
Mike: Look at him. He hates everyone.
Jolee: (Glares from completely inaccessible spot between the legs of dining room table)
Me: Oh, he just doesn't like to be touched in the afternoons, that's all.
Mike: HE DOESN'T LIKE TO BE TOUCHED IN THE AFTERNOONS!? What is he, the Prince of--?
Me: Well, he just doesn't.
Mike: He's a scumbag.
My camp nostalgia spree led me to look for something Adirondack-y to read. A couple of savvy searches on LibraryThing and Amazon led me to A Northern Light, a YA novel by Jennifer Donnelly. I finished it today and I highly recommend it. It's historical fiction, the account of a 16-year-old girl named Mattie who spends her summer working at a hotel in the Adirondacks. She has been accepted to Barnard, and no one understands why she wants to go, why she wants to read instead of farm, why she has a deep love for words. She gets tied up in the death of Grace Brown, another girl who entrusts her with a packet of love letters with the instruction that she burn them. This turns out to be the same scandalous turn of the century murder case that Theodore Dreiser wrote about in An American Tragedy. I liked the way the story was told, not in flashbacks but rather in alternating chapters. We see Grace's death in the first pages, then spend time learning the events that led up to Mattie's being there at the hotel when it happened, then return to the days following her death to find out what Mattie does with the letters. It resonated with me because her final decision in the last pages was so powerful, in both an early feminist and a writerly way.
The murder of Grace Brown took place on Big Moose Lake. The fictional character of Mattie Gokey lives around the Old Forge/Inlet area, which was particularly interesting to me because I'm familiar with the Fulton chain and spent several days off there when I was working at Raquette Lake. It's the next town over.
A Northern Light reminded me of this other book which I loved but which I don't think was as popular: Grange House, by Sarah Blake. The style was quite different, as well as the heroine's background... but both took place in the same era, oddly enough, at resort hotels, and pondered the value of words and what it means to tell one's own story. The metaphysics of the story, if you will. It isn't the sort of thing that appeals to everyone, but is that rare book that is highly, highly satisfying for someone of my background (bad enough to listen to the babblings of an English major, but an English and Philosophy double major? -- Shudder). What does story mean? What do we attach to our words? Do we take a constructivist view of them (by this I mean in the philosophical sense; this word is tied to several different movements), or is the story itself something that takes on a life of its own?
Anyway. As a woman, a writer, and a native Upstate New Yorker, I loved A Northern Light.
This semester I am taking Developmentally Responsive Curriculum and Instruction for Adolescents (type that five times fast). I got a huge kick out of the fact that one of my assignments is to read Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret for class. Of course, I've read it. Like a million times. In fact, since I read three grade levels above my own, I read it when I was 7 or 8 and thought they'd made that thing up about periods. Surely it wasn't normal to bleed every month? Ew! Tough luck for me that we didn't get that health class talk until the fourth grade, and I was left mystified until then. Anyway, I just finished the book, and imegine my surprise to discover that it had been edited-- Margaret's pink sanitary belt (which I totally didn't get, in the late 80's when I read it, because they didn't have them anymore even then) is now an adhesive pad that sticks to her underwear! Shocking? Or my own bad memory?
Naturally, I Googled. Sure enough, the newer editions of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret have been revised to remove the dated references to the sanitary belt. Apparently, it caused a bit of controversy among women of my generation and the one above me. I sympathized with this author's take (watch the ad and you get to read the article for free).
Really, it's like how I feel about the Star Wars special editions. When we crave nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, it is quite jarring to find that something's been changed. How many years has it been since I read Are You There, God? It's got to be at least eight or ten years. My copy at home is purple, and the spine is so worn you can't read the title. I do remember that it's purple. But I knew instantly that those lines had been changed. In the first scene, where she and Janie go in the drugstore and buy the pads, I thought, "Wait, she stuck the pad on her underwear? Didn't she have some old-fashioned belt contraption? I guess that might have been in a different book." But then on the last page where she gets her period, the weird feeling kicked back in again, and I thought, "No way, there WAS a medieval belt thing! What did they do?"
I know it's for the purposes of education-- for many girls like me, this book is their first detailed glimpse into the world of puberty, and why confuse them more than they are probably already confused? I guess all's well, and too bad for the rest of us children of the '70's and '80's who expect things to be exactly as they were when we first read them. We aren't the audience anymore, are we? So I suppose our opinion counts for less.
Mike likes the description of New Orleans in the summer as a "nuclear winter," because it rains every day with little warning, is hazy and gray much of the time, and manages to be 95 degrees though there is an odd lack of consistent sunshine. Not that it isn't sunny-- you just can't count on it being sunny for more than 45 minutes together. Therefore it is no surprise that, every time I drive to Plaquemines Parish, I expect to drive through at least one torrential downpour.
However.
There is something about St. Bernard Parish and me. It rains every single time I drive through there. It is clear in Orleans, pouring in St. Bernard, and blue sky in Plaquemines. Without fail, this happens to me every time I drive through, which is roughly once a week this summer. In fact, today it rained on the way there and on the way back. So, if someone who lives in St. Bernard Parish happens to read this, please tell me that it does stop raining in Chalmette... doesn't it? Sometimes?
Or is it just me?
I am not a huge video game person. I mean, I played the classic Sierra games of the 80's, a bit of Castle Wolfenstein, and hours and hours of Snood and Spider. Then Mike bought Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, or, as we call it around here, "The Game." I became obsessed in a way that bordered on unhealthy. Who knew? But there are a lot of fun things video games let "you" (or your character) do that you will never, ever in a million years be able to do in real life. Such as:
1. I hypnotized a chicken. Really! I hypnotized it and told it to attack a sorceror. Unfortunately, it got squashed flat in about 10 seconds. Then I felt kind of bad.
2. I played a slot machine until I won enough money to buy a spaceship.
3. I walked in a room and waved my hand, and fifteen people instantly fell down dead. (I was kind of unstoppable in that game. Mildly ridiculous.)
4. I used the old Jedi mind trick to get out of paying for stuff ("You don't need to see his identification").
5. I became a hero to the Wookiee people. An entire planet of walking carpets worshipped me.
6. I got invited to party with the Sith. Ain't no party like a Sith party, 'cause a Sith party don't stop.
7. When people pissed me off, I just killed them.
8. I went around wearing tight black pants and a bikini that protected me like armor... but looked like a bikini!
9. And my boobs inexplicably didn't fall out when I fought!
10. I explored an alien toilet.
11. Some things I've carried around, you know, just in my pockets: a ladder, an ogre's head, 43 frag grenades, a scuba suit (complete with head bubble), an entire DEAD BODY...
12. I got swallowed by a whale and hung out inside its stomach.
13. I had a double-bladed purple lightsaber.
We apologize for the crappiness of this blog lately. Those responsible have been sacked.
Thank you.
Ever have a day when there was a whole list of things you wanted to do and places you wanted to go, yet you can't seem to get anything done? I wanted to work on my site, clean the house, go tanning, get gas, go to the bank, hit the library, and work on a story. I have only managed to pull myself together to do the bank and a quick lunch. And now my window is over because I have to go pick up Mike from the airport (he flew to Boulder for work). Oh, and I also ran out of time to shower.
Perhaps this all stems from me forgetting to make coffee this morning. See what happens when I don't have coffee?? Well, hopefully I will not run out of gas on the way to the airport. I am not quite on the E. Whoever decided to make your tank hold, what, 30 miles worth of gas after you hit the E is a person I like. It's a little surprise bonus for procrastinators. I like to think the person who designed this feature into cars was the sort of person who sets his clock 10 minutes fast (like me) in order to get places on time. I can appreciate that.
I didn't do anything for 9/11, or even think about it once all day. I just didn't care. I was wiped out enough by the Katrinaversary angst. Label me another crazy Nagin if you want, but I think it's the greater American tragedy.
Binary Blonde tagged me with this meme, which is a word association game. You have to type in what came to your mind when you read the word. Here are my words:
1. strawberry - juicy
2. beach - I want to go NOW!
3. happy - cat (he is lounging and just looks happy)
4. candle - litter box (wow, that's pretty unromantic... but seriously, I just lit a candle when cleaning the litter box in the kitchen)
5. tattoo - I might get another one, but where to put it?
I am not going to tag anyone in particular, because I see that a lot of people whose blogs I read have done this one already, but I'll throw some words out there. If you want to go for it, enjoy the Freudian fun...
1. lake
2. pen
3. drive
4. rock
5. key
While we're on the subject of boats... My brother alerts me to the fact that he wasn't kidding, and there actually is a Mr. Homemade Pontoon Boat Maker ad in the Bud Light Real Men of Genius series. This caused me to spew coffee on the desk. "It's a boat... AND a dance floor!"
Awesome.
You'll have to excuse me, I'm on another of my "wishing I was at summer camp" binges. I really think I might try to find a way to go next summer. I think it's time to face the fact that I can't go more than 2 summers without being at camp. Doesn't matter which camp. I am just one of those people. If you are one too, you understand.
Anyway. So I learned to sail at Camp Little Notch, worked on staff there for 2 years, then worked at Sail at Raquette Lake Girls Camp for another two years, then was Head of Small Crafts at Camp Matoaka in '04. I love me some small one-design boats and dinghies.
1. The cool water of Adirondack lakes. The crisp air rushing by.
2. The creaking sound that a boat makes when it heels over.
3. The fact that I can never remember what a particular piece of rigging is called, because I've worked with so many Brits that it is forever ingrained in my mind as the kicking strap, or the "kicker." Americans call it a boom vang, but I had to go look that up just now.
4. Flipping a Sunfish on purpose.
5. And seeing who can right it fastest. (Me. Despite weighing 30 pounds less than everyone else.)
6. It reminds me of Swallows and Amazons.
7. The smell of wet rope. I know, ew. But I do.
8. The smell of mildewy life jackets. (I might be kidding here. But I might not.)
9. I know what everything is called. Every part has a name. A rope is never just a rope. There is great comfort in this.
10. How a fiberglass hull feels under bare feet-- all warm and sloping.
11. The slap of tiny waves against the bow.
12. My sailor's tan. I MISS MY SAILOR'S TAN. For those of you not in the know, a sailor's tan is sort of like a farmer's tan... dark and with distinct lines. It comes from being out there all day, every day. It is usually recognizable by thick flip-flop lines on the feet, very brown shoulders cut off by a life jacket line (I know people who sail on larger boats don't necessarily wear life jackets, but I think if you are zipping around in a Laser or something where you're practically touching the water, you ought to have one), a fat line on the wrist from a waterproof sports watch, a fairly pale chest area, and a faint board shorts mark. Oh, fine. I don't really miss it because it is ugly. But then, I do.
13. Maintenance stuff. Like tying knots and setting out bumpers and making sure the mooring buoys are nice. And bailing. I secretly enjoy bailing. And going through a toolbox to find an extra bit, a pin or pulley or something, that matches the one you accidentally dropped in the lake. Fixing things. Boat soap.
The mail has produced all sorts of lovely things this week. Like The Forsyte Saga parts 5&6 from Netflix, this book, and a box of SkinCeuticals and MD Formulations stuff from my mom. The battle to wrest control of my skin back from the slimy New Orleans summer begins tonight. I look forward to my clarifying clay masque. I finished watching the Forsytes, which wraps up the first series. I am debating whether to throw the second series onto the queue, but I suspect Mike thinks I waste too many of his Netflix on British soap operas... Whatever. I like things with costumes. I think I would watch anything if it A) was based on a Victorian novel, and B) had costumes.
Mike cleaned my closet last night. Well, sort of. He started the closet for me, which means my clothes are now strewn around the office in huge heaps. I think it's interesting what brings out anal retentive tendencies in different people. Mike can't look at my mess because it stresses him out, yet I could leave heaps of clothes sitting around for months before it began to annoy me... and it wouldn't annoy me because the heaps disrupted my inner feng shui-- it would annoy me because I like clothes, and I buy a lot of them, and I wouldn't be able to find them when I wanted to wear them. Then I'd roll my eyes and clean. So the heaps of junk themselves? They do not bother me in the slightest.
On the other hand, my blog is listed over on Authors' Blogs, and has been for quite some time. Yet I cannot bring myself to link to them. Why, you ask? Because there is a grammatical error in their widget-y button-y whatever you call it. I just can't put it on my site, even though their site is quite cute and I have found, upon occasional scrollings through their list, some interesting blogs by like-minded people.
I can walk around a three-foot-tall heap of junk repeatedly, yet a tiny misplaced apostrophe disrupts my inner peace. Yeah.
Sarah is tired. Her new haircut went out to Columns after work last night. She is about to go on a mission seeking Roly Poly. She is pretty sure she might not live without it.
We stayed up till 3 AM last night watching Nip/Tuck Season 3 on DVD. We hadn't watched any of the season, just so we could watch them all at once. (Well, really, I had no such idea, but Mike did and he wouldn't let me. We all know this isn't the way I operate. You know I'm a spoiler girl. You know I can't resist the fact that the internet will tell me INSTANTLY what happens with the touch of a key. I mean, come on, I read books back to front.) Anyway, those Nip/Tucks are like crack. Like crack, I tell you. We watched them for 6 or 7 hours straight. I have had 410 theories on who the Carver is thus far-- I think we're on the third or fourth disc-- and it's fun to keep yelling them out every five minutes. We were aided in this rampant DVD debauchery by a bottle of sauvignon blanc.
Can I just tell you how happy I am that Kimber is in this season? Because I love Kimber. She's such a guilty pleasure, and personally I am convinced she's one of the only characters who's actually grown since the first episode-- and how cool that she was supposed to be a throwaway character in the first episode? Plus it reminded me how I like her hair, and I think I'm going to go get mine cut if I can find an opening somewhere today. I have been meaning to do it for ages.
Plus I need to buy new work pants. And some books for school. And despite the fact that dollars are low right now because I just wrote the rent check, I think there's nothing wrong with a little shopping...
You ask, why is the cat wearing a look of such pure evil? Here is Jolee Bindo watching me dangle a straw. Straws are his favorite toys. Ever. When I say straws, I don't mean some complicated cat-designed toy you haven't heard of. I mean black plastic ones that you stick in a Coke and drink out of. Individually wrapped in clear plastic. My restaurant uses them, and I usually have a handful riding around in my apron, which I toss in my bag at the end of the night. Jolee will actually go through my purses for straws. I caught him doing it yesterday. Not just the one I take to work, but all of them. In his head, purse=straw! I do not for the life of me know what is so singularly exciting about these straws, but they cause him to morph into this flying ball of fur that does backflips. Maybe it's the crinkling noise the wrapper makes. Does your cat have a weird household item that makes him or her turn crazy?
No Thursday Thirteen today. This whole Katrina thing has kind of stressed me out, causing me to run the gamut between guilt, despair, anger, sadness, blah-ness, and back to guilt, but I think I'm recovering. This new book that arrived yesterday via Amazon, The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner, is helping. So are English Breakfast and cheesy potatoes. Today is going to be a writing day. I'd like to thank everyone who offered their comments and support on my last few posts. It's good to know people haven't forgotten about what happened here.
Sarah loves you. Even though you won't smile for the camera. I hope you didn't get wet in the flood. I expect you didn't, or you wouldn't be so fascinated by the toilet water.
