We woke up Sunday morning and discovered the Easter Bunny had skipped our house. Apparently he got scared from the ham bone eating frenzy the dogs were in Saturday Night. CS screamed “HAPPY EASTER” to Sun and woke her up–she started jumping all around.

We had a leisure-filled morning before heading to a friend’s house for an Easter party. We opted out of the family party because that would have required a long drive and my energy levels were just not up for it.

The party was a crawfish boil, and I knew going in that I had to stay clear of the crawfish–way too much salt for my system these days. But going to a crawfish boil knowing I can’t have crawfish is like asking an alcoholic to go to a free wine tasting for the cheese. Especially when they are Ben’s crawfish. He really does a good job with them. I did eat a few of the potatoes and mushrooms, but luckily Ben makes a pretty good gumbo, too. Look how fancy Ben arranges his peeled crawfish shells!

The most interesting thing I learned in college was how to tell a boy crawfish from a girl. And I will share this knowledge with you, my loyal reader. It always draws a crowd at a boil. Here are two crawfish. They look identical except for one thing: the first set of legs on the tail part. If they are hard and stiff, no surprise, it’s a boy (the one on the top); if the first set of legs are soft and thin like the remaining legs, it’s a girl (the bottom one). There you go! Biology for the Non-Science Major. Don’t you feel smarter already?

The cold snap continued through Easter. In New Orleans, we turn the heaters on when it drops below 60 degrees. Thus, even though it was no less than 55 degrees, Ben had his mobile heaters blowing! Yes, I was huddled near one.

Then inside, the dining room table was filled to the brim with homemade desserts. They even had cookies that were iced ON BOTH SIDES!! Sheer culinary genius.

I left earlier than CS–he stayed to drink cider and eat more crawfish. I came home for my afternoon nap. Had to reserve my energies for the Soprano’s season premier. All in all, it was a pretty good three-day weekend.

So far, my three day weekend has been very nice. Saturday I actually started on the task of going through my things in the attic–something I haven’t done since moving in over five years ago. Plus I hemmed two curtains with my sewing machine that’s been stored away for about three years. Then I napped. Then my friend Pete came over and he wanted to cook gumbo. So off we went to the Westbank to get the good andouille sausage from the Gourmet Butcher Block. We Eastbankers are quite snobbish about our preferred side of the river. Truth is, the Westbank is fine but doesn’t offer much that you can’t get on the Eastbank. There are a few exceptions to this rule, and the Gourmet Butcher Block is one. They are home of the famous turducken–a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken stuffed with rice stuffing–not for the faint of heart. We really like all of their sausages and their stuffed chickens and briskets.

Driving back over the Mississippi River Bridge, the rain turned to ice–sleet in April in New Orleans! It was 45 degrees outside. We’ve been running the a/c for crying out load! This city has crazy weather! Between the weather and driving from the Westbank, I took a wrong turn on our way to pick up Pete’s sister from her French Quarter apartment and ended up in Central City. Making a U-turn to get back on track we came across this little gem. Here’s a closer shot of Lady Liberty. It’s things like this that make any random drive in the city interesting.

Once we had sis and groceries, we came back to the house. I again took on the role of the sous chef while Pete took the lead in the kitchen. He is far braver than me–I always push my roux to be as dark as I can get it but I never get it as dark as I’d like it–I always chicken out thinking I’ll burn it. Each time, I get a little further. But never as far as Pete goes with his. Look as this fabulous pot of gumbo with a rich, dark roux. It had chicken, andouille, ham, and oysters. It was delicious and will only taste better as the days pass and the flavors have time to relax and blend together. Oh, happy leftovers this week!

We finished off dinner with 1/2-price Easter cupcakes. The cat enjoyed some ham, and the dogs each got a ham bone–it was a bonanza for all!! Another nice relaxing day. I will miss these once Baby comes.

HAPPY EASTER!!

Since announcing we are expecting, we have had many inquiries as to what will be the theme of the nursery. At first, I thought, “Theme? We need a theme? Oy.” And then we bought a crib (cherry stained) and acquired my mother’s dresser from when she was a baby (white paint). We don’t even have continuity in furniture and we need a theme? Then we registered for baby things and found that there were themes aplenty throughout these stores. We didn’t like any. This may sound odd, but we don’t want it to look to “baby-fied.” Rather, we want the room to be more appropriate for a little girl than for a baby.

But what kind of little girl will we have? One that loves animals (like my niece) or one that loves dolls (like I did) or one that is a tomboy? Then that evolved into thinking we’d want her input on what her room looks like. Well, great. So what do we do with the room between now and when she has a real opinion?

Then we looked around the house. A rocker we already own will be placed in her room. The bookcase currently in the room will stay. That will round out the furniture. Color? We did select lavender. In truth, it’s my favorite color and CS likes it too. We’ll get a rug (I am thinking in the shape of a flower) to put under the rocker to protect the wood floor. My sister and I made curtains for this room some years ago. They are orange and I still love them. If they look good once the room is painted lavender, they’ll stay. If not, we’ll swap them for white ones (with a touch of green) that are in our bedroom.

So, really, we are down to the wall hangings. So what theme??? Again, we looked around the house. CS and I like art and buy a lot in our travels, and some are kid-friendly. For example, we have several Children’s Hospital Chuck Jones’ prints that are signed and framed. We have some Bugs Bunny and one Daffy Duck. One of Bugs happens to have a lavender matting. Voila! The centerpiece of her room has thus surfaced. To that we will add two animal masks (one dog, one cat) that we got in Taos, NM. Once that’s all in there, we’ll see how it looks and adapt as necessary.

So I guess there IS a theme in there, but damned if I can tell you what it is. All I hope is that we do not get any of those pillowy letters that spell her name that someone expects we’ll put on her wall. We won’t–it’d clash with the theme.

Our office is closed today due to it being Good Friday. New Orleans is very catholic, so it’s a no-brainer that today the city is closed. Once, CS went to a local seafood restaurant on a Friday during Lent and (gasp!) ordered a hamburger. There was apparently a hush in the room before the waiter said they would serve no meat to him. Food and catholicism–two strong tenets in this city.

So as I was driving around today I was listening to local talk radio (fact is, most of the radio in this city is now talk radio–is that weird?). The guest on the show was Tom Fitzmorris, local food critic. He was talking about his list of 33 best local fish and shellfish. Oysters came in number one (and I totally agree!!) and pompano came in number two (I do like a good Pompano en Papillote even though Fitzmorris says this way of preparing it stifles the flavor of the fish). There was some debate whether frogs and turtles should be included on this list (it was even pointed out that turtles have shells!), but Fitzmorris stuck to his guns. Of course, all this talk of food so early in the morning caused me to go to McDonald’s for breakfast. Shhhh. Don’t tell anyone down here, but not only did I not fast (some will argue since I am pregnant I am exempt, and my position is that I simply don’t follow these church rules in any event, but if I did, I’d be “old school” about them and follow them to the letter–I mean, people, how hard is it to be “forced” to eat seafood here once a week?? It’s a treat and a tradition!) but I ate sausage, too.
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As I have already mentioned, we adopted a kitty to become the shop kitty of our new store. The idea was that Peanut was to live at the store. That’s what shop kitties do. But CS didn’t like that she’d be alone through the one day a week the store was closed. So on Sunday evenings, he’d bring her home and then take her back on Tuesday. Within a very short time, CS decided that that was not enough. He didn’t like her being left alone during the evenings after the shop was closed. I explained that it was no different than the time she’d be alone at the house while we were at work. I couldn’t get through to him. So next thing I know he is driving kitty to and from work with him every day. I thought Peanut would get used to this drive–even come to enjoy it. I was wrong. Apparently the noise affects their inner ears and that is why cats don’t like to be in cars.

So here’s Peanut, the shop kitty, being driven around town against her will to avoid being left alone. It made no sense to me. Soon enough, however, there’d be a reason why CS could not take kitty with him to work on a given day–he had to make a stop on the way or some such other lame excuse. Then, frankly, he just stopped doing it all together. So then Peanut began to live in our home 24/7 and was left alone during the day every day.

Then we went out of town for a week and brought kitty back to the shop. Her previous family came in to feed her along with the help of the (non-cat loving) employees. This did not go well–actually, it went just fine. It’s just that our employees whined and CS used it as the final excuse to keep Peanut from resuming her duties as the shop kitty. Can you guess her crime? She pooped on the floor. Ohmygod, call animal control. I am sure she did it as an act of rebellion. Maybe she knew the consequences of her act, as she is quite the smart little thing. The result: she has been our house kitty ever since.

Well that is all fine, I suppose. But here’s a typical evening at home with Peanut:

I get home before CS. She cries her head off like she hasn’t eaten in a week. I feed her. She gobbles it down, then goes to sit by herself. Then she naps. Then we hear the door of CS’s car. Well, that just perks her right up. Once CS is inside and settled on the sofa, it is less than 2 minutes before Peanut is crawling to him to curl onto his lap. Often, this somehow requires her to walk over me to get to him. He explains that when he’s home alone with her, she sits on his hands as he tries to do work on the computer. I have seen her do this to CS; she has never done this to me.

Then the coup de grace comes when we go to bed. For some reason, this cat MUST sleep on my side of the bed (I think it’s because I am closer to the door and she likes the vantage point). And she’s a bed hog. But before she settles down to sleep and wrangles me to the dreaded middle of the bed (I know, I need to just kick her out of the bed–you don’t know the single-minded determination of this cat), most nights she unceremoniously crawls over me to make biscuits on CS–an act cats do on their (surrogate) mothers. Of course, this just makes CS laugh. ha ha ha.

I just pray that Baby likes me a wee bit more than she likes CS. But I fear she’ll be just like the other animals and babies in our world–uncannily attracted to CS’s inner calm. Ugh.

A moment of silence, please. One more. That’s better; thanks. I had a day yesterday that made whooshing sounds rush through me ears.

When I was clerking during law school, one of the attorneys, John, told me that early on in his career he’d met with a client who told John his “tale of woe.” As the client got to the end, John thought to himself, “man, you need an attorney! . . . Doh! That’s why you are telling me! I’m the guy you need to fix this. Ugh.” He told me this still happened to him from time to time and would happen to me, too. I hate that he was right. That moment hits me infrequently and it hit Monday night. And it never ceases to suck. Most legal issues I can help with–whether it’s in my field or in the field of another attorney I work with that I can bring in to take over. But occasionally I get that call from someone that knows nowhere else to turn but to me and who truly, desperately needs legal advice in the form of which I am ill prepared to give. This time, it resulted in me spending the better part of yesterday doing what I could to get my guy to the right person he needed for help and listening to the sad details of his “tale of woe.” It is very hard for me to have someone I know and respect ask for help and me be unable to do so. The whole thing has left me edgy and raw and consumed.

And as the world as my guy knew it was crumbling, he remembered to ask me how my early morning appointment with the chiropractor went. I had forgotten I’d even gone–this small detail highlighting the normalness and non-crumbliness of my own world–and here he was checking on me. That’s tough stuff.

So my message today is: rejoice in the quiet peace that life gives you from time to time. You never know when you are gonna need to stuff your ears with cotton just to hear yourself think again.

CS got me a new toy Sunday afternoon–a digital camera of my very own!! CS backpacked through Europe just before we married, and he’d bought a nice digital camera for the trip. Once back, he was a goner. We now have more cameras than I can count–film, digital, expensive, cheap, old, new. And I can’t work any of them! I have two (old) 35mm film cameras that I really don’t like and thus never use–especially since CS is usually wherever I want a picture taken: I point, he shoots.

But now that I am blogging, well, it’s a DIFFERENT WORLD! And I need my own small digital camera. It took NO TIME for me to convince CS that I needed said camera–he (not so secretly) hopes that I lose my interest in it and he’ll end up with it. So he did research and got me a really nice one.
So Day One of having a camera was, admittedly, not too exciting. I am afraid my pics resemble CJ’s pics over at Absolutely Banana’s. Further, I haven’t learned yet (meaning CS hasn’t shown me yet) how to put a pic on this blog. So you’ll have to click to get to my new flickr account. I am sooo technologically savvy!!!

Here goes. A day in my working life:

1. Here’s the view I see out of my window sitting at my desk.

2. Here’s a closer view of the New Orleans Fairgrounds that you can see from my window (sorry, it was hazy out!). When I first moved to this office some years ago, another attorney asked how I liked it. I said that I liked that I could see the Fairgrounds nestled in the background. He responded in his deep New Orleans’ accent that “hoss racin’ is so tawdry.” Still love that line!!

3. Here’s the view outside my window from the other side of my desk. The Mississippi River is just beyond the buildings.

4. This is the view looking through the carafe on my credenza. I’ve been wanting this picture taken for YEARS!

5. Here’s the view if you go right up to the window and look down. Keeps me from jumping
6. Finally, here’s my reserved parking spot seen through my windshield as I am leaving for the day.

Exciting, huh? Just WAIT until I have something worthwhile to take a picture of!!

CS and I have a tradition of having Sunday breakfast with Southern Mom and her family. Yesterday, we tried a new place–Bywater Bar-B-Que. They had the BEST biscuit with gravy I’ve had in a long time. And their homemade jams–DELICIOUS. Oh, and the rest of their food was really yummy, too. It was a nice time, even though little Amber was cranky and did not use her inside voice the entire time.

Anywho, on the drive over, we came up to a signal light that was green. But a little bird was walking across the street in the crosswalk! So even though we technically had the right of way, we slowed down for the bird. As we got close to it, it decided to fly the last leg of the walk.

Then, on our drive home, we got behind this truck that had come to a stop in the middle of a street. It seemed he was waiting for someone. I mumbled to myself, “Pull over already!” And instead of pulling onto the side of the street to park, he pulled the other way. Then we saw what he was waiting on–a box turtle was walking across the street! Once the turtle was in the clear, we both drove on.

Two street walking animals in one day. In my book, that’s a pretty good day.

Southern Mom tagged me again. I was never so popular!!

Three Things That Scare Me:1. Birthing this baby inside me 2. Weird noises at night (thank god I have CS and 2 protective dogs) 3. Big-ass hurricanes
Three People Who Make Me Laugh:1. CS (one of the reasons I married ‘im) 2. Southern Mom (brew us up some of your “special soup” sometime!) 3. My CO friend–to thee I sing.
Three Things I Love:1. Movies 2. knitting stores everywhere 3. my pets
Three Things I Hate:1. artificial deadlines (well, real ones, too) 2. a messy house (though you’d never know it) 3. trying on clothes to buy
Three Things I Don’t Understand:1. Politics in New Orleans 2. Men 3. “Lost”
Three Things On My Desk: 1. the crap to do my cousin’s taxes 2. bills 3. files I am working on
Three Things I’m Doing Right Now:1. eating stale jujyfruits 2. watching TV 3. listening to CS eat leftovers
Three Things I Want To Do Before I Die:1. Travel to Europe 2. Finish knitting the blanket I started in October 3. Learn to bake well.
Three Things I Can Do:1. Write a mean will and trust 2. Cook 3. Sing any song off-tune
Three Things I Can’t Do:1. Drive a standard car 2. see the pictures in Optical Art 3. Stand any Star Wars movie
Three Things I Think You Should Listen To:1. Your grandparents (or other older folks)–they have great stories if you can get them to talk about ‘em 2. a Daniel Lanlois album 3. David Sedaris.
Three Things You Should Never Listen To:1. President Bush 2. People who tell you you can’t do something 3. Weathermen (they never get it right)
Three Things I’d Like To Learn: 1. Who my grandmother’s biological mother is (I have to wait 15 more years for the records to be unsealed) 2. what my dog thinks when she barks at a stranger 3. why CS attracts and calms babies and animals.
Three Favorite Foods:1. starches 2. salty 3. sweet
Three Shows I Watched As A Kid: 1. Captain Kangaroo (why did he never wash his carrots before eating them??) 2. The New Zoo Review 3. Zoom!

Three Wonderful People to Inflict My Meme On:
1. Absolutely Bananas
2. Mamma Loves
3. Pete, because he LOVES memes.