You Know You're From New Orleans When...

This comparison is the corner closest to my house, July 2005 (top) and TWO WEEKS post-Storm (bottom).

Because of the one year anniversary of The Storm, I've been revisiting my feelings about all this. I'm working on a post describing them. Until then, here's something for my fellow residents.

You Know You’re From New Orleans When…(Post-Katrina Version)

Pre-K has nothing to do with the year before Kindergarten.

The flies are bigger than your Chihuahua.

Your bank, dry cleaner, and grocery store are closed but your bar is not.

You judge your elevation by the brown horizontal line in the city.

You have to show an ID to get into your neighborhood.

Your neighborhood has no children, so you actually start to miss the little boys across the street who used to throw rocks onto your roof.

You go to Sam's Club, but instead of coming home with a case of pop tarts, you buy masks, bleach, rubber gloves, and baking soda in bulk.

You know five remedies to get the smell out of your refrigerator.

You spend a lot of time talking with your friends about the five remedies to get the smell out of your refrigerator.

Ice becomes more precious than gold.

Your office goes from 40 employees to 5.

Living in a house with twelve other people is not a sign of how poor you are, but how rich you are with friends and family.

You know what a double-evacuee is. (Damn you, Rita!)

FEMA means "failure to effectively manage anything" and hearing the words "Red Cross" makes your blood boil.

You get sick of hearing people from Baton Rouge tell you how bad the traffic is now. You remind them that Baton Rouge traffic was terrible before there were 200,000 more people in town.

The strip clubs on Bourbon Street have power before your house does.

The Salvation Army, a firefighter from Michigan, and cops from Wauconda show up at your house to make sure that you are OK.

There is a pirogue on your roof.

You return to your home and all of your belongings fit into two boxes.

Contraflow just doesn't seem so bad.

You have to purchase hip boots to walk in your neighborhood.

You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

Lakeview becomes Lake.

The crosses on your wall and kitchen counter top remain despite the five feet of water in your house.

You know what it truly means to miss New Orleans.

Travels Around The Country

I stole this idea from Carlos's blog. Here are the states I've visited:



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Liberal or Conservative?

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 40% Conservative, 60% Liberal

Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

The Birds and The Bees – See Reference Section (Parents Story I)

As I grow older, and am exposed to other people’s parents, I realize more and more that my parents are unique. Here is my first story of many about them.

Growing up, my family had a habit of reading while eating. Not at Family Dinner, which we had for many years until my mom decided to stop cooking. (That’s another story.) But while eating alone.

We had a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bookshelf in our kitchen. Our ritual would be to pour a bowl of cereal and then take a book off the shelf. From the age of three, I did this. I went through Goodnight Moon through Where the Wild Things Are to Dr. Seuss to the entire Three Investigators series.

When I was around six, I noticed more serious titles like Talking To Your Five To Eight Year Old About Sex appearing on the shelf. As I aged, so did the title ages of the books, finishing when I was 13 with Talking To Your 15 to 18 Year Old About Sex. Page 57 had the good pictures on it.

My sister Christine and I would refer back to that page often.

My parents NEVER discussed sex with me – or my two sisters – growing up. Those books were our parent's way of imparting that knowledge.

My Cousin In Iraq

I received this email today from my 30-year-old cousin Christopher:

There was the rumor going around that our unit will be deployed to Iraq this year and recently the rumor has become truth. On July 10th I will be reporting to Gulfport, Mississippi for training for deployment to Iraq. I expect to spend a couple of months down there for training and more shots. UGH! From what I hear I should be in Iraq around September/August. I'm going to be stationed in a large Marine base north of Baghdad called Al Asad. It's basically a giant military truck stop and I will be doing logistical work for the convoys. I suspect that I will be there for 6-8 months as my orders are for a year. As of right now, today is my last day of work (YIPPEE) and plan on spending time with family and friends up until my deploy date.

He seems happy about going. Has he not heard that people are killed there?

On The Road Again...To Good Health

I took a health quiz this week here. It predicted that I'll live to 76.8 years old. It recommended that I quit smoking (duh!), exercise more (duh!), eat less meat, drink less soft drinks, and drink more tea. I took the quiz again with the assumption that I'd done all of those things. It said that I'll live to 96.4 years old. That's very powerful motivation! Tomorrow I quit soft drinks. (Yea, right.) That seems to be the easiest one to do first. Smoking will be the last one.

My Hurricane Katrina Story - Part I

I live in New Orleans and have been meaning to post my personal Hurricane Katrina story here. I have been corresponding with an out-of-town friend who is asking me questions about, as we commonly call it here, The Storm. I thought posting our emails here would be a good start to my story. His emails are in red; Mine are in blue.

I hadn't realized you were down there. You survived, obviously, no thanks to Bush.

Carlos and I evacuated to Montgomery, Alabama for five weeks, but have been back since the beginning of October. New Orleans has a long way to go before it's back to normal. I could tell you many stories.

I was lucky: My house only had some wind damage - but no flooding - and I didn't get laid off from my job. (They let almost 70% of the employees go.)

How did you find a house on high enough ground there not to have flooding?

Contrary to what was shown on the news, not all of New Orleans was under water. I think the reported statistic was 80% of New Orleans flooded. That might be true, but it's misleading. That stat only counts Orleans Parish - New Orleans - not metro New Orleans. I live in Jefferson Parish, the next parish over, though I still live about seven miles from Bourbon Street. New Orleans is very compact.

My area of town didn't get ANY flooding. We did lose electricity for almost a month.

To Be Continued...

Survivor Metairie

Let me catch you up with my latest celebrity encounter. Here's the story from the beginning.

Last April, my friend Jason put together our own version of the TV show Survivor, calling it Survivor Metairie. Here's a link to some pictures from that day.

We videotaped the entire 10 hours. My friend Debbie - after six months of editing - put together a four-hour version for us to watch, complete with after-game interviews from each player. She hosted a party for all of us to see the video two Saturdays ago.

The previous day, Debbie's tenant Christine came by to see how Debbie had decorated for the party. Christine works at The Gap in Lakeside. Saturday afternoon, Lisa Keiffer and her husband Thomas came into the store to shop. Thomas mentioned to Christine that Lisa is a player on the current season of Survivor. (The show tapes months in advance.) Here's a link to Lisa's bio on the official CBS web site.

Christine said that Debbie was having a Survivor-themed party that night and they should stop by if they're in the area. Lisa and Thomas tried to call us that night, but Debbie didn't answer her phone because we were all busy watching our Survivor Metairie highlights. They decided to just pop in.

You have never seen a more funny sight than watching 14 Survivor fan's reactions when one of the people they watch weekly on TV walks into their party.

Lisa and Thomas ended up staying for three hours. Lisa answered all our questions about the show that she was not bound by her CBS contract to not answer, and then watched the remaining 30 minutes of our Survivor Metairie video with us.

She was having her own Survivor-watching party that next Thursday (October 14) and invited us all to her Mandeville home to watch the show with her. Debbie, Gina, Jason, and I went.

It was so much fun!

Lisa and Thomas had about 50 people there. Lisa introduced us to the entire room as "the people who I was telling you about. They put on their own version of Survivor and I went to their party last week." I have some pictures from that night too, but I have to get them developed.

Well, that's it for my latest celebrity encounter. For now. Pretty cool, huh?

New car, caviar, four star daydream, think I’ll buy me a football team

Carlos and I have a new Saturday tradition. For the past three weeks we’ve headed off to Port of Call, a great hamburger joint right outside the Quarter. (That’s what us native New Orleaneans call the French Quarter.)

Carlos always orders a cheeseburger - medium, a baked potato with chives and bacon bits, and a large draft beer. I always order a mushroom cheeseburger – medium well, a baked potato with “everything” (chives, bacon bits, sour cream, mushrooms), and a large draft beer. Always.

Neither of us likes change.

Part of our new tradition is that we walk off our meal afterwards. This past Saturday, Vincent rode his bike down to the Quarter to meet us, and the three of us walked over to a local used bookstore.

Carlos bought $10.00 worth of books. I ended up picking up a $6.00 book. This is where my moral dilemma comes in:

Carlos: I’d like to buy these $10.00 worth of books please.
Bookstore Owner (after he figures the sales tax on his adding machine): That’ll be $10.90 please.
Carlos gives him $11.00 and gets $.10 change
B.O.: Next.
Me (after 5 minutes and another customer have gone after Carlos): I’d like to buy this $6.00 book please.
B.O. (not using his calculator to figure the tax): That’ll be $6.00 please.
Me: Here’s $10.00.
B.O.: Do you have a $1.00 and I’ll give you a $5.00 back?
Me: Yes.
Bookstore Owner pulls out a $10.00 bill.
B.O.: Here’s your change. Oh, that must have been in the $5.00 slot. Hang on. I think I have a $5.00 bill in my wallet…Here’s your change.
Me (walking away): Thanks.
B.O. (handing me the $10.00 bill lying on the counter): Don’t forget this.
Me (on the inside): Dumb ass is giving me his $10.00.
Me (on the outside): Thanks.

Then I casually walked over to Carlos and Vincent, waiting until they were ready to leave.

Once outside I told them what had happened. Carlos was outraged - not because I took the money, but because Bookstore Owner charged him tax and not me. Now he refuses to go back to that store.

Another time: The $5,000 bank error in my favor and what I did about it.

Communication Breakdown, It's Always The Same

I am such a wuss.

My co-worker Gilya and I have been battling back and forth for the past two weeks. She creates the purchase orders for me when I need to order something. She's constantly complaining that I'm not following the correct procedures. I'm always complaining that she keeps changing the procedures every time she and I work together.

We're both frustrated with each other.

Yesterday our conflict came to a head when, after all the underlying tension for weeks, I emailed her:

Me: "Nothing's easy with you anymore. You okay? You've seemed very grumpy the last two weeks or so."
Her: "Marshall, I really get tired of debating everything with you. Everything is being done for a reason. Things will go a lot smoother if you would just cooperate."
Me: "You'll get no more debate from me."
Her: "I GREATLY, GREATLY, appreciate it. THANKS!!!!"

I gave in, as I do in any situation like that. I'd rather just avoid the conflict and look like a complete pussy. The bad thing is that when I came home from work last night, I was so frustrated. In the past, I would drink a few beers and lash out at Carlos. I think I did pretty well avoiding that last night. I took a calm walk around the block, jerked off to Academy X, and finished with a hot shower. When I was in the shower, I mentally told myself that the water was washing away my worries from the day. I then called Carlos. I was feeling good by then. It’s not fair to him if I take my day’s stress out on him.

After a good meal of Tuna Helper, I headed off to bed. It was 9:30 pm.

A bit of exercise, a good meal, lots of sleep, and no alcohol seemed to have worked. I feel fantastic today. I’ve already spoken to Gilya this morning. She and I were smiling and laughing like old times. I obsessed about our conflict for no reason.

I am still obsessing that I gave in – again – but I’ll work on that another day.