Ramble on

Are you ready to Ramble? hmmm?

Ok Ramblers, Its time to see each other again, as god intended, in costumes with lots of glitter, eyelashes and fancy wigs.

I hear that we are meeting at Will's house this year and begin our ramble with the Panorama Brass Band. BTW..I don't know if y'all have heard the PBB in the parades this year, but they sound even more fabulouser than ever! [sqeeeeel!]

Here's the details.

823 Spain St.
New Orleans, LA 70117

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Cocktail Breakfast 9am
March begins at 10am

Route
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2464819

Stops at:
R Bar
Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop
Jackson Square
Harry's Corner
Molly's at the Market
Spotted Cat

If you are attending this event because I have invited you, please make sure you hand me $25 each member of your group before line up. It takes brilliant thinking, diligent organizing, and hard cash to create this spectacular event every year.

There are things I love about my town today

The first of these things I love is the almond croissant from Haydel's Bakery that I ate for breakfast this morning. Yes, indeed! I got out of bed and drove to Jefferson Parish and got one. There is really no need to ever eat the crappy marzipan filled stale excuses for croissants that are all over town. I loves Haydels.

Next, I love my house. I love it because its old and gorgeous and functional. Its cute without being flashy. The floors feel great on my feet. The tub is huge, the shower is great. My living room is somehow warm in the winter and cool in the summer. My bed is cozy. My dogs are sweet. I can hear the cars from the overpass and the underpass moving at different speeds.

Sean and I went for a really great bike ride today after completing our requisite lazy hours for the weekend. We rode to Audubon Park, then the fly, where we watched the barges go by in the sunset. Riding down camp street it occurred to me that there were a million amazing smells. None of them bad or overpowering. They were all getting along quite well. I smelled sweet olive, bbq, charcoal, campfire, and clean house.

I love a sunset in New Orleans from any view and especially on Saturday.

The juice box crowd knows how to spend a sunday afternoon

These folks have been paaaartying down with the PJB at Sound Cafe. This is a beautiful day, with great music in a great venue. I love New Orleans.

A guilty pleasure

This one was sent to me with the subject line "When Pumpkins Drink"

The most fun I've had since 3/16/2007

The whole thing was gorgeous. It was fantastic to connect with everyone. Lauren is a delight and so were all the New Yorkers. It was great to meet some of Wess and Lauren's people.

Well, the picture above was taken from the kitchen window of Amelie. Unfortunately, my camera had no flash, but there is still quite a bit of happiness, and movement in the image. Wess and Lauren can be found atop chairs dancing the Hora in the center of the pic.

Really pople, MREs?

I love that everyone loves New Orleans, but really, the MREs and the 8 oz bottles of water need to go to BR, Feliciana Parishes, Lafourche, etc. We don't need them b/c I took myself to the Whole Foods and bought some overpriced groceries, mineral water, and then had a dinner party. This is not what WE need right now. It is what some folks need, but not us.

There is a very significant way that Katrina offered an opportunity for people to feel better about themselves and their lives by volunteering their time to repair a problem that was actually way bigger than the damage to people's homes. In many big ways, this volunteering has been helpful, appreciated, and has had a noticeable impact on the recovery effort in New Orleans. It has also allowed New Orleans to remain stuck in a victim role.

It drives me crazy to see college kids walking around my neighborhood picking up trash. That trash is there because somebody, or a lot of people who are responsible for that trash are too lazy to do it themselves. Christians get to put an entry on their application to heaven called
New Orleans Relief Worker. If you really want to help us, bridge the gap between public need, and public policy, solve housing inequity, sit in a classroom and assist a public school teacher, but do not come pick up trash and hand out MREs and tiny water bottles.

Screw the cone of probability... seriously

This storm actually sucks. It looks like it is coming here, but nobody seems to think it will. I have not decided to evacuate. If things go anything like last time, we will be much better off staying. More on that later.

Words from the safehouse

I had a dream last night that featured the dark bands of a hurricane that suddenly took the form of an Octopus reaching down from the sky and swatting at everything on the ground. I hid in the closet as the octopus tore the house apart and sucked all the light from the sky. Fortunately when I woke there was only a fast moving grey sky. Sean is outside playing the trumpet as each note gets sucked up by the wind, and hopefully taken back home to New Orleans by this circular breeze.

I have a few things to say about this experience so far. Most notably Sean and I now identify as evacuators. We leave under any reasonable threat and pack a month’s worth of stuff. We will continue to do this even if we do not believe that the worst will happen.
We realize that this is what it means to live in New Orleans. We are completely aware that at anytime our home, stuff, town, and life as we know it could disappear and we would need to start over. We know that New Orleans will flood again. We left this time with our eyes full of tears and our hearts in our throats drunk with gratitude for 3 more years in New Orleans. We do not have a plan B to living in New Orleans. We do not want a plan B (at least not yet).

It is 11:44 on Monday the industrial canal is about spill, I have know idea what this storm will actually do but I suspect that it won’t do what we all thought. Good.

I know that many people have been watching the news, and it has been very scary. Please don’t let them keep you scared for us. I am not trying do downplay the seriousness of this storm, but CNN, MSNBC, TWC, etc… make tons of money by keeping people terrified and watching TV. They will never be able to tell you exactly what’s happening or going to happen. So given that we are evacuators now, just know we are ok and don’t believe the hype.

Our camp in Clinton LA is great. We are comfortable our dogs are happy; we are with good people watching movies; all is well.

XOXO Jacqui

Listen up people, We are ok, we are thinking we are expecting the least and preparing for the worst. I remain unconvinced that this storm will become the cataclysmic event that occurred in 2005. These are the plans.

We will either evacuate to St. Francisville or Kansas City depending on the size and course of the storm. It simply does not make sense for us to go East or West, so North it is. If we are required to stay out of town for a while, I can work from anywhere and Sean will pick up gigs in KC. If we are out for more than a week, we will go to Wisconsin to stay with Dad and Jenny.

What about all our Floridians? hmmm? Have you purchased your plywood, flashlights and batteries yet? lots of water?

Take care, love to all,
Jacqui

Coming up for air

In the last 2 days, it has been brought to my attention about 4 times, that my blog has been woefully neglected. If this keeps up, people might get the impression that Sean and I are sitting around eating ice cream and watching episodes of lost, and that wouldn’t be…well it would sort of be true….BUT, that’s not all we’re doing!

Sean for instance has almost completed our upstairs bathroom. HIP HIP HOORAY! Here’s to not having to negotiate my stairs in the middle of the night. I am going to wait until we install the hex tiles in the shower, before I go and post a picture, but it is gorgeous. He has been playing some music, but enjoying the slow season this summer.

I have been keeping busy at the agency, which has been both challenging and fun. Most people don’t know what I do, so I will tell you that since December I have been enjoying my new position at Peter A Mayer Advertising as an Interactive Producer. I launched the first site that I produced from start to finish last month. TA’DA It was very satisfying to launch that site. It takes quite a while to get these things up, so you know, I’m glad.

Kendal and Dwayne (our across the street neighbors) are making tremendous progress on their house. I think they may actually be living in it by Jan. this year. That is nothing to sneeze at, they have been working on that house for as long as I have known Sean. I so look forward to living near them. Kendal and I can walk to work together; we can spend Sundays bb-q-ing in yard. I sort of imagine that having the Johnsons across the street will be like having a slumber party every weekend. We can tuck each other in at night and wake up and have coffee on the porch. They need a shady pool.

We also have some sort of new neighbors around the corner, Elizabeth and Gary. They have been there for about 2 years, but it’s taken a while to get to know them. They have come all the way from Brooklyn to Central City New Orleans. Sean and I call them our fairy god neighbors. Not only did the have the grace to install a pool and share it with the neighborhood, but they also have brought Kundalini yoga classes, and some amazing Indian recipes, including panir cheese. They have also been instrumental in crafting the Central City social situation. More on that later.

Sean and I have been attending their yoga classes daily. That is one of the more incredible developments on Clio street. Elizabeth just informed us tonight that there is going to be a Kunalini yoga teacher training in New Orleans next year. Sean and I are both very excitedly considering going through the training. We have seen such drastic improvements in our lives, it seems that we should take the opportunity to take it to the next level.

Well people, I have to say, I am a little sad that we did not make it to NYC this year. Sean and I were both very excited, but in the end, it just didn’t make sense. Thanks to all who offered up places to stay, I’m sorry we were unable to accept. We will start planning for next year.

Speaking of New Yorkers, I am sooooo completely stoked about Wess and Lauren’s wedding. I hope to see lots of friendly faces. I am going to get a mazillion hugs. It is going to be very cool. Thanks for coming to New Orleans to get married guys.

Until next time, let love rule!

Xoxo
j&s