Tis the season.  Crawfish season, that is.  And shrimp.  And really, it’s always crab season here in Louisiana.  Growing up in New Orleans, there are many things I took for granted and many things it seems my family actively sought to avoid.  But one Louisiana thing my family has always embraced is its seafood.

All of my childhood summers were peppered with crab boils, crawfish boils, shrimp boils. There is something that draws me to the formality involved in a boil, the ritualistic element: there’s the special large pot and burner, the paddle, the strainer basket, the spices, the vegetables, and, of course, the seafood.  Oh, and the large-handled spoon.  The spoon!  The spoon that is used to dip into the searing hot liquid to taste for spiciness while the seafood is boiling.

What I have tasted from the hand of my grandfather, father, uncles and brothers from that spoon–truly boiling, smoking hot spiced juices.  This is HEAVEN to me.  I once drank cups of this at a time (back when I didn’t know what sodium was).  Oh, me.

YatPundit changed his avatar on Twitter to a long metal spatula holding a crawfish over a boiling pot.  That image is so iconic in New Orleans.  How iconic?  Well, it reminded me of a puzzle I had growing up, a puzzle I still own and still build from time to time.  A puzzle purchased by my mother from D.H. Holmes Department Store.  I give you, “Bayou Banquet”:

I LOVE this picture!  It is so representative of Louisiana food and particularly a seafood boil: boiled crabs, shrimp, crawfish; lemons and vegetables to add to a good boil; oysters on the half-shell and stuffed peppers; cocktail sauce and Dixie beer; the Times-Picayune newspaper to cover the table; the notable Louisiana spices; the seafood basket and net; and French bread and gumbo.  How can you not want to live in a place where this is standard fare on a warm summer night?

For those of you here in NOLA that still call Dillards Holmeses out of habit, I leave for you this picture of the side of the puzzle box:

Louisiana is a community property state.  What’s yours is half mine after we get married, generally speaking.  What you come into the marriage with, that stays yours (mostly). 

Louisiana also has something called tutorship that deals with minors in the event of the death of a parent.  The child’s legal guardian is called a Tutor.

Got it?  Good.  Now, with this knowledge, do not make the mistakes I have made, to wit:

 1.  In talking to an elderly man who purchased his home before he married and who had a child out of wedlock such that when he dies his home will pass to his children leaving his wife with no roof over her head, do not say that he should donate his home to the community to protect his wife.  Because he will respond, “Give it to the community?  Why would I do that?  What’d the community ever do for me?”  Good point.  Dumb community.

2.  In talking to a man about his mentally impaired sister, do not say sister needs a tutor.  Because man will say, “Oh, no, my sister is no good with school.  She’s well past being able to learn new things.  A tutor won’t do her any good.”  Yeah, Miss Smarty Lawyer, she needs help buying groceries not doing math.

Now, go forth and speak legal mumbo jumbo without your foot in your mouth.

If you don’t follow me on twitter, you don’t know the run of bad luck I have been having.  Wednesday, Captain Sarcastic called to tell me he had bad news.  “Who died?” I asked, “No; it’s not that.  My car started to make a weird noise…”  “Is there a cat stuck in your engine?” (that had happened to me once in law school).  “No.  The mechanic says I need a new engine.  It’ll cost $3,000.”  His car is eight years old (mine is ten).  I tell him to drive straight to our friend–he works on a car lot and can get us the best deal on a new or used car.

CS calls back soon thereafter to tell me he didn’t make it.  His engine officially blew out on the Greater New Orleans Bridge.  Lovely.  After a long afternoon, we settled on buying a very stripped down 2009 Dodge Journey.  Since Wednesday, I have been having fits about being in a car note again.  Suffice to say, we will be eating a lot more home-cooked meals.  And that’s not terrible.

Yesterday, I finally accepted that we could manage the car note and let it be.  Only to come home and find the SECOND red light photo ticket sitting in the mailbox for me.  That’s another $110.  The first one I thought I’d fight (it’s the lawyer in me).  But after mailing it in to fight it, I have been advised that it isn’t worth fighting and I will now also have to pay court costs.  Again, it took me all night to come to terms with this hemorrhaging of money it seems we are doing lately.

Today, I woke up renewed.  I think it was the margarita I drank last night that helped me sleep.  I loaded Sun into our new fangled car and drove to meet CS.  At a light, I felt a bump.  “What the…?”  Sure enough, I had been rear ended.  In case you lost count, this is in the THREE DAY OLD CAR.  I stepped out of the car and see a large scratch on the bumper.  Errrr.  The couple in the other car are screaming at each other–the female passenger is screaming profanities intermingled with expressions of not having insurance.  My blood pressure continued to rise as Fortuna’s wheel dipped.

Folks, I swear I am not making up what happened next. The driver of the other car stepped out of his car.  With his Red Stripe in his hand.  Red Stripe beer.  In his hand.  Beer.  Hand.  Driver.  I could not believe my eyes.  I must have done a quadruple-take.  And what did he do with his beer?  Well, he DRANK IT, of course.  I swooned.  Then returned to tend to a screaming baby.  Then I called the cops and began the wait.  All the while, the driver is screaming at me that there’s no damage and I am being ridiculous.  And the female passenger is crying asking me how long this will take.

Then I wise up and ask for their information.  The female is now sitting in the drivers’ seat.  She hands me her license and (God bless) the car’s insurance card.  As I am writing her information down, my pen explodes.  Blue ink all over my fingers.  Undaunted, I stay on my task and tell her, “I hope you don’t plan on telling the cop you were driving.”  Then I tell them I need to see HIS license.  There is more screaming from her to him.  He steps out of the car and comes around to me.  Then he turns to his girlfriend who is screaming that she can’t believe he doesn’t have a license (somehow I could believe it) and screams, “BITCH, SHUT UP OR I WILL KILL YOU.”  And what does your fearless dumb Nola do?  She tells the boyfriend, “Look!  It isn’t her fault or mine that YOU caused this accident.  If you don’t have a license, just say so but stop screaming already!”  Then I hightailed my ass back to the safety of my car.

And I kept an eye on that beer bottle.  I was expecting them to throw it in the bushes on the neutral ground.  He didn’t.  As he got out of the car over his license inquiry, I had seen him tuck the bottle between the seats of the car.

Finally, the cop shows up.  I hear the other driver say the accident was the result of slippery wet streets.  I tell the cop about the beer bottle.  You know, the RED STRIPE BEER I SAW HIM DRINKING AFTER HE HIT MY CAR.  The cop goes back to the other car and I watch in the rear-view mirror.  He has the driver open the back door of his car and shuffle some things around (the driver, not the cop).  Then the cop comes back and tells me, “I don’t see a beer bottle.  And I don’t smell booze on his breath.  And he’s not slurring his speech.”

Inside, I raged against the injustice; the laziness; the stupidity.  I said, “He should be sent to jail.”  To which the cop responded, “There’s no proof he was drinking.”  And I responded, “Yes there is.  It’s in the car.  He didn’t throw the bottle outside.   Look under the seat yourself.”  He shrugged me off and said, “He’ll get a ticket for no license.”  The end.

It dragged on, but that was the gist of it.  Once I pulled away, I burst into tears.  This kind of thing really offends the lawyer in me.  I get that it could have been a lot worse–that Sun or I could have been hurt or the car, you know, totaled.  I GET IT.  But it does NOT negate the fact that this man was driving WHILE DRINKING A BEER I SAW THE BRAND NAME OF with no license.  I am pretty certain had that have been me, CS would have been retrieving me from jail.

And my anger!  I know had I left it unchecked, I WOULD have been arrested for assaulting a police officer, verbally or physically (depending on how off the deep end I’d have gone).  It took every ounce of my self control to keep that anger in check.  It wasn’t easy.  Especially watching the other driver walk around chatting on his cell phone like this was all nothing.

After it was all over and done with, I swapped cars with CS.  I also give him Sun and her baby bag.  As I was driving off, I looked at the back of our new car.  It seems what I thought was a scratch was dirt.  There is, in fact, such little damage you cannot see it from two feet away.  It makes me giggle.  Had I seen NO damage and NO beer, I’d have driven off without concern.  Serves that jerk right.

A bit placated, I drove to get coffee at CC’s on Veteran’s Boulevard.  After ordering and pulling up, I realized the cash I left the house with was not in my wallet–I must have put it in the baby bag.  Oh, for the love of all things holy!  I pulled up and explained to the clerk, whose name tag said “Rita,” that I was having one of THOSE days and left my cash behind and could I charge the $2.75?  Lovely Rita says, “Sure you CAN, but don’t worry.  Here (and she handed me my coffee).  Catch us back next time.”  I almost burst into tears again.

Later, I realized my cash was in the pocket of my jeans.  Doh!  So I returned to CC’s to make right.  Sweet Rita was still working the drive-thru.  She simply WOULD NOT let me pay for my earlier cafe au lait.  So I gave her a $5 tip.  And I drove away wondering what state I’d have to move to in order to stay married to CS but to also marry the sweet and lovely Rita.

Also posted at Pontchartrain Pete.

The NOLA bloggers have been doing great work covering the first weekend 2008 Jazz & Heritage Festival. Chronicling the rising prices, the food, the rain, the influx of tourists Foreigners taking over and most of all the music, NOLA bloggers have written of their experiences for all to read. We therefore bestow the following Lucky Blog awards for excellence in all things Orleanian and Jazz-Festy, First Weekend of Jazz Fest Edition:

Best Overall: Wet Bank Guy at Toulouse Street’s Battling Fortuna at the Track, and his posts that follow.

Most Thorough Coverage: Minor Wisdom’s posts starting with Where I’ll be on Friday (maybe) and continuing for each day of the fest so far.

New Orleans Music’s Best Friend: Bonerama Freak Stacey’s Jazz Fest or Rain Fest?

Best Jazz Fest Newbie Post: Kiss My Gumbo’s My 1st Jazzfest.

Best Jazz Fest Post From Someone Who Didn’t Go; also, Best Atmospheric Post: Tim’s Nameless Blog’s The Sounds of New Orleans.

Best Rant on the Foreigners Taking Over: Mosquito Coast’s Jazz Fest Musings.

Good Solid Posts That Do Not Necessarily Fall Into Any Category: Prytania Water Line’s Jazzfest Story and Drive By Blogger’s advice to the Foreigners at New Orleans Jazz Festival 2008.

So here are your awards to claim, if you so choose.

Full size:

Or bling-sized:

Disclaimer: Read these other blogs at your own risk. We don’t vouch for other peoples’ content in posts and comments we didn’t read. Also, Pete and Nola bestow these awards in appreciation of everyone’s hard work, wit and humor. If we left anyone out, sorry, we tried to gather as many as we could. You’re welcome to point out posts we should have seen in the comments.

I was 37 when Sun was born.  I am the youngest of five children (my mother was 29 when I was born), and all four of my siblings had their respective two children when they were younger than 37.  My sister, who is just three years older than me, is a new grandmother.  My grandfather was just 50 when I was born.

What I am saying is that my family tends to have children when they are young.  The one exception to this was my father’s mother.  She was 33 when my father was born and 37 when her twins were born.  And that grandmother was always the “old” one.

Since Sun was born, I have always felt like an old mom.  I know that mostly means to me that I am more mature, more experienced, more settled, more mellow.  But superficially I worry about not connecting with Sun as she is older; about being old when she marries and has children of her own (if that is to be her path in life).

I married someone who is the oldest child in his family.  His mother is 10 years younger than my mother.  Ten years–from being born in 1940 to being born in 1950.  Can you imagine the differences in my mother and my mother-in-law?  Compare June Cleaver to Carol Brady.  Both nice and motherly but in starkly different ways, and both ways very different from my path as a mother.

I also have a sister-in-law that is a freshman in college; she just turned 20.  My MIL and my SIL are very close, more like sisters than mother/daughter.  And sometimes it annoys me but as SIL gets older, I find myself a bit jealous of their closeness.  It is nothing I will ever share with my own mother, with whom I have a good relationship.

I think about Sun and how we’ll be as she grows up.  And I have been envious of the bond my MIL and SIL share, thinking that I will miss that because I will be too old when Sun is SIL’s age.  But I am envious no more.  Why?  Because being the smart bugger that I am, I asked MIL how old she was when she had her daughter (I am not good at math).  And she told me she was 36.  “Your age,” she answered.  Well, one year off from when I had Sun, but YES, MY AGE!

Age IS what it is in your mind.  And my MIL is simply NOT OLD (she loved me just a bit more for blurting that out).  And dammit NEITHER AM I.  Nor will I be when I too am 57.  Frankly, Bring. It. On.  I have no doubt I will just be even more mellow and confident then.  And my MIL?  She’ll still be visiting regularly kicking it old school with me (and Sun)!

This weekend and next is The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.  To many, this is THE festival of the year.  It is certainly the biggest and most famous.  My husband is one of those die-hard Jazz Festers.  He has a brass pass and will be attending every day minus one due to work, six days of festing for him.  That’s a lot.  My in-laws are two more hard core Festers.  They will have driven 30 HOURS, over two full days, to attend JF.  Yeah, it’s a big deal.

And in honor of Jazz Fest, Pete and I will be bestowing our next Lucky Blog Award.

We will be scouring blogs to find the single best post about this year’s Jazz Fest.  So, if you are festing it up at JF and think we may miss your post, leave a comment on this post with a link to your post and we’ll check it out.  You do not need to leave a post to be eligible to win, but we do need to read it!

So whether you are in New Orleans or not, hop around the NOLA blogs (many can be found under my NOLA Blog Krewes) and those vacationing in NOLA to read all about Jazz Fest 2008.  It never disappoints!

My funk is, finally, over.  Over. OVER. O.V.E.R.  And I hate to admit what it took, but I will

It took a day completely, fully, wholly, unattached.  Captain Sarcastic took Sun to Jazz Fest today, and because I had to work yesterday I was not in the office today.  Ten plus hours of me-time!  Ah, it was a luxury just to think of it.  I wanted to do NOTHING of the things I normally do; I needed to do something other than the same places with the same faces.

Yesterday on the twitter, talks were had about meeting for drinks this afternoon.  Things were settled on Cooter Brown’s.  Then, later in the evening on the twitter, Bud’s Broiler came up.  And before long, YatPundit and I had made plans to meet for lunch for a Number 4 and Number 3, respectively, each with cheese fries.

So once CS and Sun were off this morning, I spent an hour cleaning.  I got more cleaning done in that one alone-hour than I have in the past year!  It was amazing.

Then lunch.  I LOVE a burger at Bud’s Broiler; they are char-grilled and yummy.  But today the focus wasn’t on the food; it was on the company, the conversation.  We talked about blogging, twittering, lawyering.  We talked about the proposed church closings, cemeteries, where we went to high school.  We talked about being a cultural catholic, and about being a parent.  We talked and talked and talked.  No babies, no office calls.

After three and a half hours, I needed to leave.  I had meant to run to the knitting store between lunch and my next agenda item, but that fell to the wayside.  YatPundit and I parted and I drove to Old Metairie to meet Katie at Lovejoy Spa for a pedicure.  I haven’t had a pedicure since I was pregnant–a year and a half ago.  It was JUST what I needed.  Adult activities with adults with no children.  We talked about weddings and doctors and weddings OF doctors.  It was decadent.  I could have sat in that vibrating chair for two pedicures.

Then Katie and I parted–her to nap and me to head to Cooter Brown’s.  At Cooter Brown’s, Yat Pundit arrived and then WarriorEngineer. And so did my cousin and two of his friends.  We drank beers from “around the world.”  And I ate a dozen raw oysters.  Their oysters are some of the best in the city: super fresh, ice cold and salty.  Oh, and yeah, MORE cheese fries.  Damn, their cheese fries are amazing: hot discs of potatoes SMOTHERED in dripping hot melted cheese.

At the end of it all, I got a call from CS sounding downright frazzled.  This is a sound usually found in MY voice, not his.  All day at Jazz Fest alone with Sun–including an exploding diaper and port-o-lets–had taken its toll. I was needed back home.

Walking in the front door to a bathed Sun (Sun-bathed?) and an apologetic husband (he was sorry he’d interrupted my day alone–can you believe?), I was rejuvenated, refreshed.  I AM rejuvenated, refreshed.

I am appreciative of the blessings of my life, of my family, of this lil blog o’ mine, of the comments and e-mails you, my amazing readers, sent me regarding my last post.

I am a lucky gal.  And all I needed was a bit of exclusive me-time to feel it all again.

I am slowly coming around to feeling completely like myself.  But my irritability is still high, a sure sign I am not myself.  Here’s two examples.

The cat.  Peanut has been using our bathroom floor as, well, toilet paper.  Don’t know why.  Just know that I walk in to the bathroom to brush my teeth and there’s this nice long smear.  Oh, the expletives.  CS tells me that she’s obviously needing to go to the vet because something must be wrong.  That is certainly logical and the answer that gives Peanut the benefit of the doubt.  I, on the other hand, think nothing logical.  I want to kick her in her smearing ass and throw her outside.  Twice in two days this has happened.  I will call the vet to try to get an appointment tomorrow.  In the meantime, it is best if Peanut avoids me at all costs.

My blog.  I have nothing to say these days.  I was feeling very positive about finding my voice here and enjoying what I wrote.  But lately, I feel uninspired, that my writing is flat and my topics are tired.  A friend installed a new feature for me to look at my blog stats differently.  So now I have been paying way too much attention to those numbers.  And it just annoys me because I honestly don’t blog for the comments I get or the number of visits I get.  But.  There I am looking at the stats three different ways now.  (Why do all three show different numbers for the same thing?? So confusing.  Don’t answer!  It will only feed this negative energy!)

Ah.

So if I am not posting here often, it’s a public service of not putting dull posts out there.  A public service, that is, to the ten of you that read my blog.  And to you ten, thanks.  I do appreciate the readership.

I had to pick Sun up from the Westbank today.  Seems I am across the river often these days.  Today I passed Mosca’s twice.  Once was hard, twice was really hard.  Especially because YatPundit kept twittering about how he had cooked Mosca’s Chicken a la Grande last night.

Over dinner, I mentioned Mosca’s, planning a trip back to eat dinner.  A diner close to us mentioned a rumor he’d heard about Al Capone sending his chef to New Orleans to learn from Mosca.  I have no idea if this is true.

Then later tonight, YatPundit posted about his home-cooked Mosca’s dinner last night.  He used a sauce Mosca’s sells in the grocery store.  And YP mentions yet another mob-themed rumor about Mosca’s in his post.

Oh, the allure of a mob-rumored hole in the wall restaurant in the middle of nowhere three cities away!  Yes, we will have to do a group dinner there soon.  Until then, I will just pretend that YatPundit’s post was also a scratch-n-sniff.  I can almost smell the garlic!

I keep thinking of my grandparents fishing camp in Hopedale.  I still think of it as existing, as housing chiffarobes and roll-a-way beds, crab nets and fishing poles, seafood pots and Styrofoam beer huggies.  I can still see the spot of kitchen floor tile that sank as a result of Hurricane Betsy.  I spent two weeks a year as a youth fitting my foot in that pitting.  I’ll even still smell it from time to time–a stale briny scent.

My 88 year old grandfather does not miss his camp.  Prior to Katrina, it was needing a lot of work and in many ways was more of a burden than a joy to him.  I wish there were more pictures of it.  I wish the pictures that were in it when Katrina hit were with us now.

When I have trouble sleeping, I imagine myself back at the camp.  I let the pitch-darkness envelope me and then I listen for the drone of the a/c window unit.

I guess what I am saying is that although things are overall better for me, I am still feeling out of sorts.  I am having trouble concentrating–reading, knitting, getting things ready for a visit from my in-laws this weekend (which I am excited about)–and feel tired all the time.  I don’t feel depressed, but it sure sounds like I am, doesn’t it?