Friday Night, Holiday Blues

Yeah it's not even Thanksgiving yet and I have the holiday blues.
I usually love the holiday season and do appreciate all of our blessings, especially reasonably good health, but am sad to not have any kids home for Turkey Day.
Not any relatives, period. Quite a switch from 2 years ago when the spouse's entire family descended upon us.
We had a holiday wine tasting tonight, and I was going to use that to sort of boost me out of my self-absorption, but the husband, triumphantly home from Honduras, now feels under the weather. I am not sure we'll go. Maybe we'll just stay home and look over his pictures. He has a great one of the antiquated train they had to take, where cattle got on the tracks and brought an already slow train to a complete stop.
I have been having fun baking. I baked up a bunch of cranberry-orange-nut bread. Good stuff, slighted heated and slathered with sweet butter.

At school we will make turkeys out of mini-pumpkins, that's always fun. And next week I am free after Monday, so I will be able to be outside and enjoy the sunshine.
Maybe there will be a holiday movie to see, as well--but that Jim Carrey Christmas Carol looks way too frantic for me.

The Petanque Tournament last weekend was SO FUN. I met Jacques Pepin, bought his book, and got his sweet autograph (Cook With Love.)
The weather was gorgeous, and everyone repaired to the saloon at the end of the day. I have not heard so much French since we were in France last spring. Many other countries were represented. It would be so cool if this cosmopolitan party became an annual event.
Now that would be something to look forward to.

I have no idea what we will be eating, drinking, or listening to tonight.
It might be decadent and filled with wine, or it might be homespun and filled with chicken soup. Regardless, I still can't get tired of the Avett Brothers.
The Youtube videos really don't do them justice. I'm not sure that recorded songs even do them justice.

Girl's Friday Night

The husband just called. His plane to Miami had a door problem, the flight is canceled and now he must catch a bus to Ft. Lauderdale in order to make his connection to Honduras for a work/fun flyfishing trip.

>head slap<
Yup, it's Friday the 13th.

The poor guy. I hope everything works out okay, but if not I guess he will spend the night in Miami (there are worse fates) while I sip white wine, listen to music and eat yet another dinner of pasta, homemade pesto, fresh mozzarella, romaine lettuce, with the last tomatoes of the season.
After dinner I'll probably watch a movie. I have been on an Alain Delon kick. I saw Swimming Pool (a bit too understated) and Dirty Money (Richard Crenna in a French movie! Cool helicopter scene) this week.

I have a training meeting tomorrow. Not happy about it, but I was able to get out of the latter half of it for the very good (and true!) excuse that I hate to leave my 145 pound pup Beau alone for 6 hours.
After I get home tomorrow afternoon, Beau and I will go for a walk to get his ya-ya's out and then we're off to the Petanque Tournament.
Chef Jacques Pépin will be competing, along with teams from 20 states as well as teams from Canada and Europe.
Petanque is sort of like the Italian lawn bowling game, but different. We played it with our kid in France, he enjoys the game quite a bit. I enjoy the quiet ambience. There is strategy involved, and even suspense--but petanque is not that physical, and it is fast-moving. Below is a fun Caribbean tribute to the game from Guadeloupe, where petanque is popular.

Clip video MESSAGE petanque
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Wild At Heart

A few weeks ago, the egrets around here, whether Great, Snowy, or whatever, began acting strangely. They massed in unusual spots and roosted where they never do.
They flew back and forth across the ponds. In heavy weather they will change their home base, but the weather was fine. It isn't nesting season. Something was disturbing them. Anyway,after a week, they finally calmed down.
I saw Where the Wild Things Are almost a month ago. The book has been one of my favorites for many years. I always loved Maurice Sendak's work and even have a poster autographed by the author.
To me, the book, considered edgy in its day, was about a young child conquering emotions such as fear and anger.
Max had his wild rumpus, but then it was time to calm down and go home to where someone loved him best of all.
Visually the movie is stunning: Earthy yet magical. The acting and voice work superb, and I love the soundtrack. I did like the Wild Things very much.

Edgy in *its* own way, the movie takes the book a bit further; it is about a 9 year old kid's outburst and subsequent odyssey; it is a reflection on growing up.
To me, the film's opening scenes are powerful and wrenching, but things meander a bit after Max receives his crown. But then that's how self-realization and growing up can be: Messy, and sometimes one step forward, two steps back.
This film is not really for young children; for a 5 year old, it would veer between boredom and vague scariness. The viewers who might enjoy it the most are the ones, either 30 or 90, who remember what it's like to be a kid.
That fort they built is awesome.

Friday Night, Mementos and Mulling

We had a blast at Voodoo in New Orleans. Outrageous atmosphere, great music, delicious food--lots of oysters. Between Saturday's Halloween and Sunday's full moon, there was a lot to take in.

It did not begin well. We were en route,in Atlanta, waiting to change planes, when the husband's phone rang; Pet Paradise was calling to tell us that Beau had broken his tooth trying to get out of his enclosure. He has not been the same since Elwood died, and if I'd known Elwood was going to die, I never would have planned this trip. Our regular house sitter had a conflict, otherwise Beau could have stayed home.
Anyway, he went to the vet, the tooth was extracted, Pet Paradise put him in the "Executive Suite" at no extra charge, and Beau bounced back as best he could. We regularly called to see how he was, but we still managed to have a really good time.

I look over my ticket stubs and some of the photos I took and can't believe I really saw the Pogues, the Flaming Lips, and MOFRO, not to mention green men, blue men, popes, herds of young guys dressed in red and white stripes (Where's Waldo) and more wolf-suited Maxes (Where the Wild Things Are) than you can shake a stick at.

But today I've been thinking about what happened at Ft Hood. What's up with that?
What predisposes these shootings? What are the dynamics? Why do some lash out with gun violence, but not others?
We've had going postal, we've had tragic school shootings, and now this. You never hear about sullen, over-worked and underpaid preschool teachers who finally freak out and spray a room with bullets.

Anyway,we'll make the age-old construction paper turkeys at school, then I will come home, walk Beau in this glorious 70° sunshine, and do something with local shrimp, red peppers from the garden, garlic and pasta. I'll be pouring Two Oceans sauvignon blanc. Music? We saw this group, a sort of marching/performing collective, at Voodoo and I fell in love with them. They are the March Fourth Marching Band. (Get the pun?)

Friday Night, All Done But the Packing

At the last dramatic second, my boss offered to give me the day off, which made me realize how much I still had to do and how awful it would have been if I was at work right now.
I cleaned the house, printed out some New Orleans maps, took Beau for a nice doggie play date, and arranged for neighbors to do a few little things for us.
Got a cocktail party tonight, but we have to take it easy, early plane tomorrow to New Orleans.
Yeah, I feel kind of old today. Still alive at 55.
I keep wondering why I still like to go to live music, I mean, Voodoo Experience kind of live music? Dunno. But it's not because it's all I know.
I still revel in music so loud that it bounces off my lungs. However, sometimes I feel sort of awkward about it. It doesn't quite seem appropriate, but I don't think I'll give it up until my knees tell me to.
In The Stone Diaries, Daisy Goodwill marvels to herself at the fact that she spent so much of her time being old--if not necessarily *feeling* ancient.
Life is long, and made up of a series of lives.
I guess I am entering my next one now--I am literally and figuratively in autumn.
But Beausoleil is still playing, and I am still listening--and dancing.
I'll see them again this weekend.

Friday Night, Web Mistress

When we first moved in, I got talked into taking care of the community website.
The site was already entirely constructed, all I do is sort of facilitate things: put up notices for people, help them find their log-in information. (The blind leading the blind.)
The site does not always interact well with Firefox. There is a silly bug which periodically shrinks the image in the window. I find myself putting on my glasses, peering at the screen, working up a headache--why I don't just use another browser, I can't say.
It is with this headache that I find myself facing both my 55th birthday (next Friday) as well as Halloween on Saturday, but I suppose I'm just happy to *still be here* to do both. Adults have appropriated Halloween, and I've had enough of that, but I need to prepare to embrace the holiday in New Orleans.

I can't believe that a week from tomorrow we will be winging our way to NOLA for the Voodoo Experience.
I looked at the schedule and there are some overlapping sets, but only a couple, so we can see all the bands I have my heart set on: Gogol Bordello, Black Lips, Parliament Funkadelic, Jello Biafra, Squirrel Nut Zippers, the Pogues, Widespread Panic, Beausoleil, MOFRO, Flaming Lips. I'm not too excited about the headliners (Lenny Kravitz, Kiss), but that works.
We'll be able to leave without regret, go grab a poboy, and watch the show that is New Orleans.

Tonight, dinner is up in the air. The husband won at poker and he talked about going out, but that will probably be tomorrow. We are still quietly celebrating the fact that our kid is staying in Paris; tomorrow he will be shopping for some sort of scooter.
I might even stop at the store for some oysters, and open another bottle of champagne.

A respectful nod for the passing of Soupy Sales. I loved that guy. Growing up on Long Island, I regularly watched his show. Some comedians seem disassociated from their audience--more into themselves.
Not Soupy: He was engaged and enthusiastic and in the moment. You never knew what was going to happen.
He used music a lot in his show, too. I learned a lot of new songs from him back in the day. Rest in peace, sir.

Good Deed for the Day?

Tree Frogs

I was loading groceries into the car in a busy parking lot when up hopped a tree frog.
This is not the first time this has happened, but still I always wonder how on earth these little guys appear in such a place. Anyway, I always have a bunch of school stuff in my car so I emptied a ziploc bag and stuck him in there for the brief ride home.


I opened the ziploc and herded him toward the tree fern. The garden hose is there, it's nice and dampish, no doubt there are plenty of bugs, and he can easily hunker down if the weather turns cold.
I hope it wasn't a Cuban tree frog. The other ones I have seen were Green tree frogs.
He looks very green and Kermit-like.
I just couldn't leave him in that parking lot.