Lookout! Diabetic at the Food Bank!

Since I'm not currently employed I decided to take this time to "give back to my community." My community does not want me to help it clean up oil-soaked birds, BUT my community does need help at the food bank sorting donations.

This morning I drove to a part of town known as Elmwood to a warehouse where I received orientation and was given the post of "soup" and "fruit." Here's a tip: If you ever volunteer to sort at a food bank, pick the soup lane only if you want to stay really busy. People love to donate cans of soup. And cans of fruit. The coordinator said that requests for donations to Southern Louisiana's food banks have increased by 25% since BP's near-miss attempt to ruin the gulf.

Me and my neighbor J were busy as all get out in those lanes. And we only had one scale to weigh our boxes before we taped them up and labeled and stacked them. J was part of the legal team of a certain bank that I will not name but you may associate them with vikings who walk poodles and shop on Rodeo Drive.

I now associate them with passing out in extreme heat and banging my face off the floor. That's right. I passed out. Three times.

It was getting really hot in there and I started to feel dizzy but I had no idea what was coming. I had food and my glucometer in the car, so I asked, R, the kid who had biked from New York to Florida on a charity ride and then flown to New Orleans to help out with the gulf, to watch the soup line while I took a break.

I didn't take a break. I took a spill. I woke up on the bathroom floor. Have you ever had one of these moments? Not since college, right? But I think I was actually dreaming on that cool cement floor. Thank God none of the lawyers found me! ;-) I got myself up and then next thing I knew, I was sitting against the bathroom door, crouched like a broken gargoyle statue. It was getting really embarrassing so I had to get myself to the break room and then to some food STAT.

I actually got myself into the arms of Y, HR manager and saint. She literally carried me into the break room and sat me down. I had passed out right in front of her office window. Exciting day for work.

To make a long story short, I had to down a coke and eat somebody's hard candies until my blood sugar was back to normal. Type 1 Diabetes is fun-just ask Shelby from Steel Magnolias. There was an accident report and M, the coordinator, suggested I go home instead of back into the food-sorting inferno. I took her advice. Before I left she told me that there are shifts open on Thursday, when a group of girl scouts are supposed to come help. I'm thinking it over. It might be especially scary to come to on a cement floor, huddled under a bunch of eager munchkins. But, then again, maybe I can help them get their first aid badges.

I got my only B in handwriting, celebrity house pic

Back in second grade, I could not get straight A's because my handwriting was so crappy. When we graduated to cursive, I probably got demoted to a C.
I just had to write a "business" letter by hand in cursive and it was incredibly hard and tedious. I actually messed up and had to start over. Just so you know, the hardest letters are m and n. I always add an extra hump.

Here's where the Real World Ivy Leaguers lived

In other news, I took a picture of the house where they filmed Real World New Orleans. It's just down the street and across St. Charles from us. I can't decide if my favorite character is the Mississippi girl who doesn't actually move her mouth while talking or the blond haired dude who pines for attention but is so obviously not into it. Here's the house.

Cheese Tasting! Public Advisory: Avoid the Esrom

Last night we went to our second cheese tasting class at St. James Cheese. I had to drag Elbow to the first one, but he actually suggested we attend this one. We tried six Northern European "cheeses." I use quotation marks because one was more like nutella. It is called Gjetost and is from Norway. It looks like a caramel. In the picture it is at 1:00.

Counter clockwise form 12:00: Danish Esrom (gag), Danbo, Adellagger, Pittig Gouda, Bel Achelesse and Gjetost (caramel cheese)

The best was the gouda-delicious. I could barely choke down the Bel Achelesse. Ditto the Esrom. I admit it: I hate most stinky cheese. I have an undeveloped palate. But we met a very nice couple who I asked on a dinner date. You have to put yourself out there when you're new to the city and need friends.
In other news, just had a job interview for my dream job. Everyone keep your fingers crossed.
Going to see my Popaw in Biloxi this weekend. He asked me what kind of pie I'd like him to make: cherry or apple. My 86-year-old grandfather bakes pies and I struggle with cutting up strawberries.

Ho Hum, another lizard, another triple-digit temperature day

So far I haven't been met with any traditionally crazy New Orleans-type situations. I hear stories all of the time about how everything here takes longer and is more complicated than necessary-getting a drivers license or calling the cable guy, for example-but I have not had any of those experiences. I'm sorry. As soon as something crazy happens, which it most certainly will now that I've jinxed myself, I'll let you know.

This is a dumb joke, but doesn't it look like they spelled "avenue" wrong?

There may be a miraculous lack of red tape, but there is no lack of weird crap arriving in the mail. We received this notice about picking up a package at the nearest post office. Apparently the post office is on a street I've never seen before: Louisiana Avenew.

This guy wanted my finger BAD.

In other news, I found another, bigger, lizard in the guest room. Ironic that I keep finding unwanted guests that I have to kick out or kill in there. But, I caught the lizard to carry him outside and he freakin' BIT me! Like clamped down and held on for dear life. It didn't draw blood but it scared me pretty well. We took a picture of him, too.
Yes, it's still hot down here, in case you were wondering.

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.