Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

i have to do this in 2 entries because i can’t cut and paste all of it at once.

Argh, i spent a huge long time meticulously punching in an entry one slow letter at a time on my palm, and i lost it.

anyway, we’re here at the ranch and i am blogging from my phone like the total freaking geek that i am.

we went to a tank that was close to see how full it is. there’s a creek where normally there’s nothing but antbeds on the way there. i got out of the car to take pictures of the tank which is literally 6 times its normal size at least, and i was descended upon by a plague of mosquitoes of biblical proportions. i screamed and ran, and you should know that if i do either of those things it’s serious business. both at the same time… well, let’s say it’s rare.

anyway, i ran to the car and refused to go back outside until we went to town to get bug spray.

At least I’m feeling a little more human now.

We went to Dallas yesterday to visit a friend. She’s not from Dallas, she’s from Ohio, but was in town for a convention. Since it’s a hell of a lot closer than driving to Ohio, we went up to see her while she was in the same state.

And we took the 9 month old and the 2.5 year old.

If you have children, you are shaking your head at this point and saying “What were they thinking? That’s crazy-talk.” And you’re right.

We had stayed in another location of Staybridge Suites once and it was really nice, what with the high speed internet access and kitchen and stuff. I booked us a room at the one in Dallas and we had high hopes. Well, when we checked in they told us that the net access was temporarily down and they were working on it. That was fine, we had dinner plans and they would have plenty of time to work on it while we were out. It never got fixed. And our phone was broken so we couldn’t call out.

We headed over to Pappadeaux and had a really excellent meal and the kids were fine and it was loud enough that if they hollered, nobody could really hear them. Then we headed over to downtown Dallas to see the skyline, since it’s one of my favorites, especially at night. I love the skyscraper that has the green neon all down the sides. While we were there we decided to look for the Grassy Knoll�.

(pause blogging for a moment while I go upstairs to make some dinner for the 2.5 year old and the fridge breaks and one of the shelves falls and a bottle of Frank’s Hot sauce shatters on the floor and I use the F-word about 50 times)

If you’ve ever been to Dallas, I’m sure you were as underwhelmed as I at the JFK memorial. I took to calling it the Non-ument. It’s this granite slab in the ground surrounded by concrete slabs, and it is singularly ugly. We were woefully unprepared for the foray and didn’t know where the School Book Depository building or anything was. We stumbled across it by blind luck, then decided to go back to the hotel.

Still, the kids were doing well, no major blowups. The little one crashed out. It was only a matter of time. The 2.5 year old had not taken a nap all day, and she refused to go to bed. Nuclear wasteland ensued. Around 2 AM she went postal, complete with snot, spit, tears, blubbering, hysterics, screaming, the works. Past experience has shown that people staying in hotels do not appreciate wailing kids at 2 in the morning. She spent the next hour and a half crying. At 3:30, once things had calmed down, I climbed into bed and proceeded not to be able to sleep. I kinda sorta vaguely drifted off a little bit and then the little one woke up at 5:30, hungry. She went back to sleep and woke up at 6:30, hungry. She fell asleep and all was well.

Until 8 AM when the hotel fire alarm went off.

We canceled our visit to my cousin’s house and headed home. The kids were positively filthy from the carpet in the hotel room. It looked like they had been playing in a coal bin. And they refused to nap during the 3.5 hour drive.

Next time we go out of town, we’re dosing them with Benadryl.

This is a really interesting town. Where else can you walk down a street that’s 200 years old and within a block hear blues, Dixieland jazz, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Winter), and a lone trumpeter playing a slow, mournful rendition of Summertime (and the Livin’ is Easy)? Despite all the city’s charms, however, I’m getting homesick. I miss the babies. I want full-body toddler cuddles and warm fuzzy babyhead kisses. My older daughter, when she was littler, always smelled like cookies. The younger smells like a furniture store… in a good way of course . My favorite is sweet vanilla baby breath. I tickle the baby until she giggles and lean over to smell her ice cream and cake breath.

Today was such a lovely day that it was cliche. It was the kind of day that you could bottle up and sell for outrageous prices to deprived Yankees. It was sunny and mild, and we took the St. Charles Streetcar through the Garden District. That’s where all the old Victorian homes live, sitting quiet, genteel, and grand. The streetcar goes up the ‘neutral zone’ of St. Charles – in actuality it’s the median. All the windows in the streetcar were open and letting in the breeze, which carried on it the smell of the blooming magnolias, the grape Jolly Rancher the guy behind us was eating, and a pleasant smell that was apparently from the streetcar which was just like a bonfire made out of cedar wood. The monumental live oak trees had Mardi Gras beads tossed up into them, festooning them with a kind of gaudy spendor. In the lower Garden District, the old buildings had an air of desperate elegance, belying their current purpose as hair salons or locals bars. We passed some truly majestic homes and I loved seeing them. If I ever had to move to New Orleans, I think I’d want to live in the Garden District.

Tonight we’re off to Upperline for dinner.

Welcome to my birthday. It doesn’t seem like a special day anymore, not like it did when I was a kid. Then, it would be weeks of build-up; first the potato chips would gradually have 5/23 as an expiration date, then it would be a real sign it was getting closer when that was when the milk expired. Finally the big day came and I felt like it was really important. Usually I’d have a slumber party to celebrate, and there would be 10 girls in sleeping bags in the living room watching movies on the Betamax. Carrie was always a favorite, because I could grab someone and make her scream during the last scene. I pissed off my friend Debbie so much when I did it that she called her mom to take her home.

Slumber parties and spending the night were the best. Up all night giggling and whispering, trying to prove that you can make someone pee by putting their hand in warm water while they sleep, putting bras in the freezer, putting on makeup while wearing pajamas, talking about boys. I miss those times. There are some times that I can recapture that spirit now with hub. We stay up late after the lights are off and just whisper and giggle.

I’m beginning to wish I brought tennis shoes with us on the trip. I brought 4 pairs of sandals.

My, we’ve had a lazy day. Since we were up so remarkably late last night (for which I blame my husband for his 3 AM munchies), we slept in this morning and finally rolled out of bed around 1. Well, I rolled out of bed; hub lounged around and watched TV. We headed over to Mother’s Restaurant for some debris poboys and etouffee. ‘Debris’ is the stuff that’s left soaking in the juices after you cook roast beef. It’s famously good. They serve shredded cabbage instead of lettuce on their sandwiches, so you don’t get that nasty wilted flavor.

Then we drove over to the D-Day museum, but they stop selling tickets at 3:45 so we didn’t get in. We’re planning on getting up while the clock still reads “AM” tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll go then.

Then we proceeded to get lost while trying to find Metarie Cemetery and ended up crabbing at each other the whole way there. We found it and scooted through, not wishing to be locked in when they closed the gates at 5:30. Spending the night in a New Orleans boneyard is not my idea of a fun time. Especially when we have reservations at NOLA tonight.

On the way back we got lost again and ended up in the projects. We felt just a wee bit out of place, between the fancy car and the color of our skin. We were both humming “One of these things is not like the other” until we got out.

Oh, and driving in this town sucks. The streets are narrow and bumpy, there are kamikaze pedestrians, street signs are one sided facing the wrong way on one way streets, and in one memorable intersection between a fairly-busy road and the interstate access road, there are no stopsigns. To my credit, I did not shriek a bone-piercing yell at that point, although I did sing “Nobody has a stopsiiiiiign” rather loudly.

I almost forgot to mention that we’re staying next to the Ritz Carlton, and last night when we went out there was an obnoxiously huge RV with shaded windows offloading an obnoxiously large amount of luggage and the guys doing it were taking up the whole sidewalk. I wondered what cele it belonged to. About a half block away we passed a group of people and one of them was either Reese Witherspoon or her doppelganger. Maybe it was her junk littering up the walkway.

OMG, Ron Jeremy is on an infomercial pimping penis enlargement pills. That’s it, the world is officially coming to an end. Someone pass me the ice cream, I’m going all out for this one.

I just ate an $18 poboy from room service. Plus 19% tax, plus $2.50 delivery. Insane. But tasty.

I really need to go to bed. What in the hell am I doing up at this hour? And why won’t anyone leave comments for me?

Hello, howaya, I’m tipsy. Greetings from Nawlins, where it’s against city code to be sober. We got here around 8:30 and spent a good 30 minutes talking to Bellman Earl, who was very nice but didn’t seem to understand that after the 5 hour drive, I had to pee! So here we are at our hotel, and may I add that it’s really, really nice. Right after getting here we headed down to the elevator, where we were accompanied by a wheezing weirdo who picked stuff out of his teeth and showed it to his wife. Nice.

We walked the couple of blocks over to the Acme Oyster House and had some oysters on the half shell and poboys. And beer. Then we walked down Bourbon Street for a stretch whereupon I proceeded to step in a big deep puddle of ick whilst wearing my sandals. That was, of course, all the way at the other end of Bourbon Street from our hotel, so I had stickyfoot all the way back. I had to buy about a gallon-sized pina colada to make me feel better. Understand that this came straight on the heels of falling off the bed last night while reaching to get something. How embarrassing. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t made such a huge loud thud, especially since we were trying to get the kids to sleep. Whoops.