Finally, N'awlins!

So I came back from the good ol' NOLA with a wicked cold/cough/nastiness, and then my six year old computer at home was being mean and wouldn't let me upload my pictures. I finally got them onto my Picasaweb, though, and I owe you people a New Orleans post!

We got into New Orleans late Friday night (March 28, gosh, three weeks ago!). Bryan wasn't sure until two days before that if he was going to be able to get away from work, so we ended up on different flights. He actually left Richmond about two hours after me, but he flew US Air through Charlotte and I flew Delta through Atlanta, so he arrived in New Orleans about 15 minutes BEFORE me. (If you've forgotten how I feel about Delta, I direct you to this post from last year, when I attended this same conference only in Toronto.)

Anyway, normally neither of us is the going out type anymore. We did a lot of partying in our college days and even into our early twenties, but since we moved to the 'burbs, we just don't go out much. But we were in New Orleans. Three blocks from Bourbon Street. And so, we went out.

Can I just say that Bourbon Street is out of control? I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like during Mardi Gras. I mean, the only thing I can compare it to is being in a giant club, and having lots of big clubs all around it that you can go into, too. We wandered to the end (well, almost the end--we stopped at the gay clubs, figured we didn't need to go down that way being straight and all...) and bought ourselves some Hand Grenades, one of the signature drinks of Bourbon Street. Then we made our way back towards our hotel and towards what has now become my favorite place ever, the Blues Club.

And let me tell you why it's my favorite place. It's because one of my all time favorite scenes from a movie is when Chris sings the "Babysittin' Blues" in Adventures in Babysitting. Here's the clip:



THIS WAS THAT PLACE! Aw, man, it was SO FUN!!! I was soooooo tempted to ask if I could sing the Babysittin' Blues, but I resisted...

Saturday we got up and began to wander. It wasn't a pretty day... really humid and overcast. Before we left the hotel I washed and blow dried my hair as usual. This was a huge mistake. As we walked out onto Canal Street, I could literally feel my hair turning into an afro. Oh, it was bad. But there was nothing I could do about it except try to smooth it down, which resulted in non-existent curls. Whatever. We still had fun.

We tried to get beignets (a type of doughnut) from this famous place, Cafe du Monde, but we were not the only tourists in New Orleans on Saturday morning who were told that was the place to get them, so out of starvation/desperation we went to another place down the street and got them instead. Maybe they weren't as good as they would have been had we gotten them from THE place, but they were still damn good.

We went and watched the IMAX movie about Katrina's effect on the area, and wandered around some more, and then it was time for lunch. We found a great outdoor cafe with a band (there's bands EVERYWHERE down there) and ordered the Louisiana sampler platter, complete with gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice and crawfish etoufee.

We ate the hell out of it... it was SO GOOD!
After lunch we went back to the room for a nap before hopping on the St. Charles Ave streetcar. We wanted to check out a different part of the city (and the streetcar experience), and this gave us the chance to see all sorts of beautiful homes. We stopped along the way and had some yummy barbecue, and then it was time to turn in for the evening.

NOT! Of course it was time to head back out to Bourbon Street. And yes, we did manage to revert to 23 year olds for the weekend (but I did take care of the business I was there for, I promise!).

A few shots from our evening:

First things first: more Hand Grenades:
After one of these and a shot or two, I can't remember if we had this club in the background on purpose or by accident... because you really can't avoid having these places in the background:

We eventually ended up back at my FAVORITE PLACE EVER (yes, it deserves all caps), the Blues Club. I made some friends:


By 1am or so, I had decided I needed a boa--and a picture with this suave dude who had just come from his high school prom....

...and Bryan had decided the best place for his excess beads was on his ears:
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Somehow we made it up and out the door by a fairly decent hour on Sunday. I had learned that there was no hair drying allowed in NOLA and double the hair gunk was required, so unfortunately my photos with Jackson Square and the St. Louis Cathedral have me lookin' like a drowned rat:

It was a beautiful day for sightseeing, and we spent part of it on a tour of the areas hit hardest by Katrina. A few lowlights, if you will:

The markings on this home show that two peoples' bodies were found on the right side. Their bodies were not recovered until about a month after Katrina. :(

Many homes still have the flood line. You can see it here, it's kind of orange:
And finally, FEMA trailers were still EVERYWHERE:

There were so many homes and businesses that were still boarded up... in some cases because people couldn't afford to come back and rebuild, in other cases because people chose not to since others in their neighborhoods weren't coming back. It was really sad. We were a little unsure about paying a tour company to show us the devastation, but I'm glad we did. I felt it was important to see the remnants of the worst natural disaster of our lifetime. There is still so much work to be done.

Of course, parts of the city are still beautiful, like the good ol' Mississippi River!

Sunday night we needed a break from the partying, so we went to the casino and played poker for a few hours. Monday, Bryan headed home and I headed to my conference. After the conference, I did get to go out with some coworkers, and guess what we drank?

And Tuesday, it was home again home again jiggity jig... besides the cold I came home with, it was really a great weekend!!!

A completely satisfactory weekend.

If this weekend went to elementary school, I'd give it a nice solid S on its report card. Maybe even an S+.

It started on Friday, when I left work and headed to Short Pump to get my toes did. They needed it. Any time you're telling someone you need a pedicure and you refer to your toes as "talons," that is a good indicator it's time to pamper your feet. Of course, once I got off 64 onto Broad Street right around 5pm, I wondered what in god's name I had been thinking, going there on a Friday evening. How do people live out there? I mean, traffic on Hull Street is bad, but it's like a country road compared to Broad Street!

After many complaints to myself about the impossible number of things they're building out there, I made it to the mall. There I found that they are building a hotel ONTO the mall. Jesus. Have we become such creatures of consumption that we can't shop enough in one day, we have to stay overnight to get it all done?! Wow.

The pedicure was good. There's a nice faux-spa in Short Pump called Avalon. Really it's a regular ol' Asian nail salon, but they put on a good show and there's not a lot of neon, so I like it better. After that, I weighed either going right back to my car and going home or going to H&M. Take a guess which I chose.

$90 and 5 pieces of clothing later, I headed back down 288 towards home. Bryan was still at work, so I decided I deserved Chipotle. It had been, like, two weeks since I had had my steak taco fix, and, wow, what bliss. I ate my tacos and watched Top Chef and American Idol and finally my husband came home.

Yesterday was productive... I probably cleaned for a good three hours, did quite a few loads of laundry, and made a trip to Target for razors and Swiffer Wet Jet juice. I left with razors, Swiffer Wet Jet juice, shampoo, headbands, a shirt, a sweatshirt, two pairs of leggings, some socks, two books, milk and some Ziploc containers. Yeah. Target'll do that to a girl. Since my dear husband was STILL working, I asked myself what I was treating me to for dinner on this lovely Saturday evening, and the answer was Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Where I decided that I do not drink enough smoothies. YUM. Then, home to read and watch TV and wait for my husband...

Today I have done umpteen loads of laundry, spent an hour and a half cleaning, gone to the Chesterfield Berry Farm farmer's market (I'm trying to use more local products) and gone to Costco, read a good chunk of my current book, All the Pretty Horses, and now it's time to finally do my taxes while I yet again wait for my husband to come home from work.

So, in case you haven't noticed, the thing that's keeping this weekend from getting an E on its report card is the working husband. :( Every spring, there's maintenance galore to do at the power station where he works and he ends up working these damned 80 hour work weeks. It blows. All I can say is I'm glad I did spend a few years of my adult life as a single girl, because I still remember what to do with myself without him around.

But I sure do miss him.

Realizations.

The weirdest thoughts strike me sometimes.

For example, I was just looking at www.celebritybabyscoop.com, and there's a picture of Britney Spears' kids in a stroller. Here was my thought process:

Huh. Those are nice looking kids, but they're not BEAUTIFUL. Just cute regular looking boys.

You would have thought Britney Spears and Kevin Federline would have made prettier children, they're pretty nice looking.

I wonder if they will turn into hot young men.

What will they look like as teenagers?

That'll be weird... when they're teenagers Britney Spears will be old.

Wait a minute, if I ever get to see what these kids look like as teenagers, that will mean *I'm* old, too!

Holy crap.

I'm going to be old one day. Like, Madonna's age.

How is this possible that I'm going to watch Britney Spears' kids grow up?

What is Britney Spears going to look like at 40?

What am *I* going to look like when I'm 40?

JESUS CHRIST THAT IS ONLY TEN YEARS AWAY.

Oh my god, I have got to go write a blog about this.

Spring has sprung, now spring me from this joint.

Oh, people. It's spring outside. And I am stuck in this office, high up on the 12th floor with not a window in sight. Torture.

This morning I had to go by our financial planner's office to drop off a check so we can get some money in our 2007 IRAs, and they don't open until 9am. So by the time I was headed there, the morning chill was gone and the sun was shining to beat the band and it is so freaking perfect outside that it seems like a crime to go to work. I am always reminded of college on days like this, because those first few days of spring were perfect days to hang out on The Lawn with everyone and their cousin... reading a book, chatting, doing work... man, those were the days. Back when responsibility was just turning in research projects on time and spending a few hours a week at your job...

I found out through a friend this morning that Crayola recently held a contest to allow kids to rename some of the crayons in honor of the 50th anniversary of the 64-crayon box. My favorite? Turquoise blue will, for a limited time, be renamed "Happy Ever After." That has always been my favorite crayon, and I actually think that is the perfect name for it! How fun is that? Here are some others, and a link to the press release:

I think those are awesome, personally. Yay kids.

Anyway, guess I'll get back to work now... at least I can't SEE how beautiful it is. Maybe I'll just pretend that it's actually stormy and nasty outside. Yeah, that's what I'll do... nobody better come in here and say, "Man, it's SUCH a BEAUTIFUL day!!!" If they do, I'll have to kick 'em.

My feet are planted firmly in the past. It's high time they move on.

This morning as I walked from the bus to McDonald's to get a hot cuppa joe, I had a very peculiar sensation in the area of my left ankle and foot. Slowly but surely, my sock was creeping down into my shoe. They're cute socks I'm wearing--dark gray with some nice dark colored flowers on them. Not boring, but not noticeable really either. This is the type of sock I prefer (although truth be told, I don't care for socks, I'd rather be barefoot).

Anyway, Mr. Left Sock had decided that maybe it would be warmer for him if ALL of him was down around the arch of my foot, and so that's where he went. This was not a comfortable situation for me. While I knew that no one could see this, since my socks were covered by my pants, I found myself a bit embarassed. Because I knew why Mr. Left Sock was doing this as soon as I got over the discomfort of the whole thing.

Mr. & Mrs. Gray Flowered Sock have been with me since, oh, my first year of college. And for those of you not keeping track, that would make Mr. & Mrs. GFS about TWELVE YEARS OLD.

Oh jesus. How did I become this woman who wears socks that are old enough to be in seventh grade?! I mean, they're not holey or anything... I have enough socks that none of them get worn *that* often. But obviously they've been worn and washed enough times that there's no such thing as elastic in them anymore. They have no interest in staying up a couple inches above my ankles where they belong. Mr. & Mrs. Gray Flowered Sock have done their duty, dammit, and they are REFUSING to stay up so that I am forced to finally put them to rest, give them the peace they deserve.

And so, since my day is done and I'm home where there are younger, more spry socks for me to warm my toes with, I will now be sending Mr. & Mrs. GFS to Sock Heaven. I intend to go through my sock drawer and lay all of my socks from college to rest, as a matter of fact. Because I'm a working woman. I can afford to buy myself new socks at least every ten years.

So long, dear friends, you've served me well.

Fun times in NOLA result in temperature of 100.6.

Monday, I had a conference to attend in New Orleans, so Bryan and I decided to make a weekend getaway out of the trip. We flew in on Friday, then Bryan left Monday morning and we both went to work that day. I have to say, what a city! We had such a great time!!!

Of course, now I'm paying for it. I have no idea what I caught or how I caught it, but I came home with a wicked cough and this evening, when my head started feeling swimmy, discovered I have a temperature of 100.6. HOW ANNOYING! I got in super late last night, so decided to work half a day from home and take half a personal day. Considering I spent the second half of my day taking a 3.5 hour nap, I'm thinking that personal time might come out of sick time instead. I even skipped the second week of my new "advanced" belly dancing class. :(

Anyway, I'll be updating with pictures of our trip sometime soon!

Mad knife skillz. Like a samurai, almost.

Two Christmases ago, I asked for a gift certificate to Sur La Table, the gourmet cooking store that also offers cooking classes. Bryan obliged, but stuck a note to my gift card saying that he wanted me to go there and learn knife safety. The man freaks out anytime I have anything sharper than a butterknife in my hand. So what did I do? I promptly spent all of my gift card on a series of classes which had nothing to do with knives.

To make up for not following the rules (and really just because I wanted to take another class), I finally signed up for the Knife Skills class they offer. Last night was the class.

The results? Well, I think my tomato peel rose speaks for itself!!

Yep, using a paring knife, I peeled a tomato, ending up with just ONE strip of tomato peel, then I contorted that sucker into a rose! I was impressed with myself. My teacher was so impressed he carried that masterpiece around the class and showed it off! I have missed my calling, people. I need to go into food peel art.

Even though this was the most exciting thing to come from the class, it was really just a small part. Mostly we learned how to hold a knife properly; how to slice, dice, and julienne properly; how to not chop your fingers off (it’s called "the claw"). Because of my arthritis, I haven’t been able to bend my right wrist since I was about 8, so the teacher was great about helping me figure out what worked best for me. I found that for some things (herbs, celery, tomatoes), a regular chef’s knife is great for me, but for others (onions, carrots, potatoes), I’m better with a serrated knife. So I bought one of those. :)

All in all, I think I accomplished what Bryan hoped I would, and I feel pretty confident I won’t be chopping any digits off anytime soon. And I am totally itching to figure out someplace to use that tomato rose skill now.

Funny, 'cause I actually kinda *feel* six years old.

Tuesday was a big day for me. For the first time in a good twenty years, I had a cavity filled!

When I was really little, maybe five years old, my mom took me to a dentist in Hopewell for a filling. I'm pretty sure this was intended to be a routine dental procedure, but for some reason the dentist wouldn't let my mom come back into the room with me. So naturally, as he started towards my mouth with some scary dental power tool, I freaked. I wanted my mom, and I started calling for her. Instead of letting her come back, or calming me down in some nice way, he put one hand over my mouth and the other over my nose and shut me right up. Thus began my dentist phobia. (For the record, I distinctly remember both my mother and my father wanting to kick this guy's ass... and when I was a teenager I remember considering finding him and doing the same myself. I'm sure someone eventually did kick his ass though, he obviously deserved it.)

So, I went to the dentist a fair bit as a child (because my mama gave me no choice), but as a teenager, I avoided it at all costs. Throughout college, even, I stayed away as much as I could, with nary a teeth cleaning visit. Until Sara and I became best friends. Sara's mom (aka Mama P.) is a dental hygienist, so naturally Sara began harassing me about taking better care of my teeth. I don't remember the turning point, but eventually I started going to the dentist regularly again. Thankfully, all that I needed was a cleaning every six months, and so until this week, I managed to avoid the scary dental power tools.

Recently I decided to switch dentists and start going to the one where Mama P. works. Somehow I had gotten off the teeth cleaning wagon for about a year and a half, and so when I went a couple weeks ago for a cleaning, I was told it was time to have this one tiny cavity filled. And I didn't realize how scared I was until I parked my car and found myself trying to come up with some reason that I should cancel my appointment.

But I didn't. And Dr. Mason and her assistant Libby were great. They tolerated my many, many questions quite well: "How long will it take? What will you do? How long will that part take? Will it hurt? What's that? What will it feel like? But how long will the actual BLASTING part take? Can I have some valium?"

Finally, Dr. Mason said, "Didn't Mama P tell you I was going to put on my kid gloves for you? I do this to six year olds all the time, you know."

Yes, well... fine.

So, I shut up. Or shut OPEN, if you will. And it took like ten minutes, and it didn't hurt. And now I can eat as much chocolate on that side of my mouth as I want, pain-free. :-D

Meet Miss Ally Lynn!

On March 1, there was a new addition to the Klinger side of our family! Miss Allison Lynn was born to Kelley and Jason and big brother Joey. In spite of outage season, which keeps Bryan working almost every weekend at this time of year, we managed to sneak up to Pennsylvania last weekend to meet our new niece. And lemme tell ya, she is PRECIOUS!
I pretty much held her the whole time we were at Kelley's house. She has a head full of the most beautiful black hair, and I couldn't stop petting her. Ha! :)

Bryan wanted to cuddle a little, too, so he held the cat since I wouldn't give up the baby.


Okay, that's not true... I did give up the baby eventually. But only long enough for Bryan to get a picture with her and her proud big brother, Joey.


Ally thought she would show off while we were there and pooped three times in a row... we'd change her, then five minutes later another poop, then another new diaper, then another poop, another new diaper, another poop, and finally, no more pooping for a while. I guess that's what babies do. :) (And I am one of those people who actually finds babies pooping cute. Ask me again if I feel that way once I have my own, I am guessing I will not.)

She didn't seem to have much interest in staying awake or opening her eyes (again, with the typical one-week-old behavior!), but we did get a picture or two of her checking out the world...

Splashin' Around Juvenile Arthritis Style.

Somehow over the past couple of weeks I have gotten super behind updating my blog. Which is understandable considering all the stuff I've been doing and the fact that work has been super busy so blog breaks just haven't happened! Anyhow, I'm going to try to get in all the fun stuff that's happened lately, but one thing at a time!

A couple of Saturdays ago, my friend Sarah W. and I volunteered at the Juvenile Arthritis Weekend at the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg. Sarah's a former 4th grade teacher, so she got her own group of 6 10-year-olds, and I had a group of 5 7-year-olds. We each had a sorority girl from VCU to help us wrangle the children. I mean, entertain the children. :) The morning was spent doing activities to help the kids (and us) get to know each other and then a little time in the arcade, then in the afternoon we all went to the water park.

Some of you may not be familiar with Great Wolf Lodge. It is a massive hotel/resort with its very own water park inside. And it ain't no little water park. It's huge... I think there are four pools counting the Lazy River, and a giant clubhouse thing in the middle with some slides coming off of it and a giant bucket of water that fills and empties on the children every so often (their website tells me it holds nearly 1,000 gallons of water!), and then many bigger slides throughout. It's a lot of fun for children, and the last time I went (last year, I hung out there with Jodie and her two kids and Bryan) I had fun, too. This time, I was a bit more worried about making sure none of the five children in my charge drowned. :) We did have a great time, though!

Hanging out with the juvenile arthritis crowd is always a great experience for me. It turned out that only one little girl in my group had arthritis--the rest were siblings of children with arthritis--but my arthritis buddy, Megan, and I both share the same rheumatologist, too! I remember when I first started meeting people who also had the disease and were my age (or older for that matter). Even though you know the numbers (300,000 kids with juvenile arthritis in the US) and even though you know there are other kids dealing with the same issues you are, it is super reassuring & envigorating to actually come face to face with more and more people just like you. It truly is a family at Arthritis Foundation events, and I am so glad I found them almost eight years ago!

PS-Megan is the girl in the blue in the picture above! And while I actually have a waterproof digital camera, I was too busy whipping my head around locating 7-year-old girls to get any pictures of us in the waterpark!