Lizard in the Kitchen!

Yes, that is exciting for someone like me. I'll have you know that don't spend all my time crawling around our house taking photos of birds and searching for reptiles. I am in a community organization and yesterday I had a meeting! And, I have two job interviews coming up, but I can't say anymore because I don't want to jinx myself. I'm like, 14, or something.
ANYWAY, this morning I came into the kitchen and started to put away the clean dishes. I lifted up the top of a pot and Viola! out sprang this tiny lizard like I'd just been served him at a fancy restaurant.
He scrambled around the dishes (should I re-wash?)until I finally cupped him in both hands and headed toward the kitchen door. But I couldn't open it without risking his escape. Dire straits.
You see, he could get too cold in the house or he could starve. And then one day I'd unknowingly sweep up his shriveled little body like he was common garbage . . . So sad. He was already looking translucent.
So, I switched him into one hand very easily and he didn't even try to fight. I unlocked the door and held my hand open quickly, thinking, "Run Forest Run!" But the little guy didn't budge. He clung to my fingers like a prisoner who has developed weird loyalty issues with his captor. So I slowly stepped down the steps and to the far side of the courtyard to the "woods," aka the strip of banana trees, baldcypress and mulch and about forty million tiny snails that lines the property. There I coaxed him out of my hand by saying, "Freedom, don't you want your freedom?" He gave me one last parting glance-not really-and jumped off and almost instantly disappeared.

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Things to Do when it's 100 degrees outside

On the bike trail. One of my greatest assets is my ability to get scraped up or bruised wherever I go

Hipsters on the patio at Bacchanal

Well, you could:
1. Stay indoors.
2. Do all this:
A. Go to Bacchanal in the Bywater and sweat so much that you butt sticks to the plastic lawn chairs, BUT you get to listen to fun music, choose your own cheeses for a custom made cheese plate, and drink lots of wine by the bottle that you purchased inside at the wine store. Add in the fact that you are in a very "hip" courtyard with a lot of "hip" people and some restaurant or other is also offering their wares from a corner booth and you've got a fun evening. Also, scenes from Treme may or may not have been filmed back there . . .
B. Head across that giant lake to Mandeville and visit the Abita Brewery. It's air conditioned so you really do escape the heat for a little while. You have to do this! I am taking everyone who comes to visit me here. You line up, they give you shoe booties and then you go inside and help yourself to as much Abita beer as you can shove down your throat while they show you videos of what makes Abita eco-friendly, tasty and pretty much the best beer company ever. Then they take you on a ten-minute tour of the brewing facility. Then, MORE BEER while you get suckered into buying official Abita chotskies and memorabilia, like our nifty new beer coozies and crawfish platters. And magnet. Whatever, you are half-lit by the time you leave that brewery and best of all, it's free!
C. After you're all liquored up, ride the St. Tammany Trace, a 31-mile rail-to-trail conversion. It's paved and straight and you get to see into people's backyards. I also saw a snake.
D. Cheese tasting! Cheese doesn't melt when you're inside a frigid restaurant and cheese shop. We did one at the St. James Cheese Company and for every good-size sliver we tried, we got to try a good-size glass of wine or beer, called a "pairing."
Call it what you want, but it makes listening to cheese dorks (I mean that in a nice way) reminisce about trips to Italy and Spain while chewing on weird crunchy rinds totally worth it. We did learn a lot about goat cheese. It was fun, even though you have to sit with strangers because the events fill up so fast. But it's good to break out of your comfort zone sometimes. Especially over six pours of alcohol and cheese. It was only $20!

Good News!

The second squab is back and they are all cozied up out there in the bushes like a pair of pom-pons. I can't take a picture because I'm afraid I'll scare them again.
So I will now be the old lady who never leaves her house, imprisoned by two young birds. Mourning doves often use the same nest five times in a row and lay eggs several times a year.
Other moronic facts I learned:
Leonardo da Vinci studied birds to form the basis for his flying machines he called "ornithopters."
Golden-plovers fly nonstop from Hawaii to Alaska and BACK each year.
The American Robin belongs to the genus Turdus.

Welcome to my BIRD BLOG

I'm a bird detective

Smiled on by the heavens

Squab

Birds have "rumps"

Let's hide here

"Run Away!"

We have two juvenile mourning doves living in the bushes by the gate. Bet you didn't know this: baby mourning doves are called squabs and a female always hatches two in her lazily put together nest.
These are just two of the fascinating facts I learned in my "illustrated book about birds," the name that Tasty cleverly came up with for my bird book. Remember the band Nirvana anyone?
By the by, Tasty will now be referred to as

Elbow.

We went bike riding on Saturday and ONE of us took a spill and ONE of us hit his elbow pretty hard. And then ONE of us grew the most incredibly largely swollen elbow I've ever seen in my life. It looks like a softball attached to the middle of an arm. That's the good part. The bad part is that I'm not allowed to put pictures of Tasty on my blog anymore, according to him and his antediluvian internet behavior. So, in honor of the most entertaining elbow I've ever witnessed, Tasty's name is now Elbow. Wish you could see it.
Back to the birds. I've some supersweet bird photos for you. Would you like to see my mourning dove squabs? Well, allow me ...

These pictures show a series of events where I accidentally scared my two favorite neighbors. I was just trying to get the darn mail and they kept going the way I was trying to go. Eventually one flew away and one hid in the corner next to the pond.
Then I felt really bad.
I'm only a little embarrassed to say that I keep scanning the courtyard and trees for the my sole dove's little buudy to show back up, but I may have scared him off for good. And yes, I really do care.
I need a job.

Tasty vs. Palmetto Bug

The trophy

The money shot

Shot 1

The cockroach

"Palmetto Bug" sounds a lot nicer than "gigantic antenna-waving red bug with wings" that was moseying about on the wall of the guest room. The man with whom I live does not like for me to mention him by name on this blog so he will be known as "Tasty" in this story.
Tasty says: Where's my weight belt?
I say: In the guest room closet where all the toys are.
Tasty stares at me until I go and physically root through all of the golf clubs, oars, life jackets, footballs, basketballs, bocce balls and cornhole bags until I pull out this wide leather strip that he is going to fasten around his waist while doing dead lifts. BTW, it's cool to wear a belt on top of gym shorts and with no shirt. It's the latest hipster craze.
Anyhoo, as we are closing the closet door, Tasty nonchalantly points out that there might just be a humongous cockroach right above my head.
And then he decides that the best way to remove the insect is by smashing it with a tiny yellow football that I caught during my first Mardi Gras parade.
I sit back and watch. And I took pictures, so we can all enjoy this stupendous idea.

HOUSE PICTURES!

Several of you have asked, so allow me to comply with shaky photographs of our new abode. For some reason I can't take a non-blurry picture. Maybe it's because it's New Orleans and I'm drunk all the time.

I'm a walking cliche

Since deciding I would move to New Orleans, I've kept all of my job search correspondence through one email address. The other day I counted how many job search inquiries and applications I have sent. The total: 50+ And that does not include the annoying ones where you apply through their online system and then have to remember your password and user name.
So, today I applied for grad school. I am now part of the masses that are "turning to higher education in response to a down job market." In addition to the "living off my doctor boyfriend" cliche, here comes the "going back to school as an adult to sharpen my skills and gain a competitive edge" cliche.
One amusing effect of my attending grad school (if all goes as planned) is that I will actually have a WVU diploma to go with all of my WVU gear. The program is called Integrated Marketing Communications and is part of the Journalism school. It is 100% online. Go here if you are interested: http://imc.wvu.edu.
Just FYI, Chuck Hussion, also known as the Voice of the Palladins, is very proud of his IMC degree.
Anyhoo, I'm off to the park. I'm not taking my camera so something ridiculous is bound to happen. Yesterday, scattered groups of Texans were handing out free bottled water, "blessing us with the gift of water." I asked why and a little girl shouted, "We're Jesus Freaks!" and gave a fist pump.

The Effen Frogs

The frogs are sooo LOUD. Last night I woke up to what sounded like Banshee Fest outside. Have you ever heard a frog mating call? It's loud, deep and gurgled. And it's scary. At least until you figure out someone is not being murdered outside your bedroom window and that noise is just a bunch of stinkin' horny frogs.

Here's a pic of what the frog fest eventually leads to:

I mentioned the frogs to our landlord last week and he said, "We've had complaints before." At the time I thought who would complain about these cute little critters hopping around eating all the flies? The answer is anyone who prefers to be asleep between the hours of midnight and 2:30 am.

The fam arrives

We gotta mattress n'that

So we didn't go to Metairie for the mattress. We went to Bedding Plus on Magazine instead and got a supersweet KING size mattress from Gary, sales manager, and holder of the supersweet Super Bowl Who Dat ring (a very nice replica).
Here's our mattress on top of the Rav 4. The guy at the warehouse in the Bywater was very concerned about tying the whole contraption to the roof, but it worked.
Then ... we went to Metairie anyway! We got a new internet router, more wine from World Market, a bath mat and a whole bunch of other house bullshits.

Mom and sister Natasha showed up around 7 pm. There's a pic of them at the gate. After that, we went to Mahoney's for po-boys (oyster remolaude) and then we went back to the courtyard and some friends came over.

Among the friends was Andre, who tried to win over my sister by serenading her while she was sleeping. See picture. I'm not sure if it worked.

Mattress Shopping in Metairie

We moved our belongings into our new Uptown home on June 24. The very next morning we boarded a plane to Newark for a wedding in Scranton. So, we arrived home late to Bordeaux Street the following Monday evening to a mess of boxes, garbage bags and random light bulbs and pieces of who-knows-what.
We've come a long way, baby. Despite the absence of a few key pieces of furniture, our place has come together nicely. We've got a "tete-a-tete" for the porch, matching lamps in the bedroom and we even have a "man" room with a weight bench and what I keep calling the "weight holder," but is apparently supposed to be called a "weight tree."
BUT, we do not have a bed for the guest room. And this is a problem, because in six to seven hours, my mother and sister will arrive from Jacksonville. And while my little sister might not mind reliving her college days by camping out on cramped sofa, my mom might be a little sore the next morning if I toss her a sleeping bag and clear a spot on the hard wood floor.
There is only one solution: a saturday trip to Metairie! We've been to a sketchy furniture warehouse, Best Buy, Big Lots, Home Depot, my personal favorite World Market and a sorta scary but sorta fun used furniture store.It was there where Bryan picked up an old promotional mirror for George Dickel whisky that features two handsome cowboys beguiling against a fence and is straight out of Brokeback Mountain. For some reason, it features the faux signature of Merle Haggard in the lower right corner. Best $10 we ever spent.
Back to Metairie. It's a suburb, but it's close. And it's where you have to go for any of the "big box" stores or for any sort of apparel item that you aren't willing to fork over more than $100 for on Magazine Street.
Today we are going to the futon store and the mattress store. We are so grown up. If Bryan isn't fed up with the traffic and people, we might even get to stop at World Market and get wine! Rows and rows of wine in the home goods store! Pennsylvanians can't even imagine ... you can buy hand towels and wine! I'll take this dining room table and six bottles of wine! Oh, I just needed a new toothbrush holder and some wine!!!
We'll see how it goes!