I’m a Misunderstood Comic Genius.

On the short list of things I never thought I’d find myself doing in my life, sitting outside of a Best Buy in the middle of the night with 200 of the same closest friends I celebrated the big win with, as well as a man in an oversized dog suit (Apparently his name is “Gumbo.”) was nowhere to be found. 

Next time I’m about to nag Man that we don’t go out together enough anymore, I’ll be sure to remember this night.

So why, you ask, am I parked on my tushie on the cold pavement walkway outside this electronics superstore?  Well, as it turns out, the New Orleans Saints have released something of a “greatest hits” DVD of this past season, and if Man doesn’t get a signed Blu-Ray copy of said disk he might cease to exist.  (Frankly, I thought he’d already seen all these “highlights” having watched Every. Single. Game. But what do I know?)  Hence: me and hundreds of other women’s Mans sitting outside, exposed to the elements and subject to various remixes of “Stand Up Get Crunk” for the next two hours.

No offense, Who Dat Nation, but I think we should start seeing other people.

Especially since none of you seemed to find my incredibly clever quip about Scott Fujita funny.

Man to The Random Fan to His Left:  Nobody seems too broken up about the loss of Fujita around here.

Me Cutting In Before Random Fan Could Answer:  I don’t see what the big deal is.  You can pick up a sack of Fujitas for 3.99 at Taco Bell.

*crickets*

Screw you, it was funny!

Everywhere Else In The World It Was Just "Tuesday."

My first Mardi Gras was a shining success.


Light-up bunny ears, Hell Yeah!

Well, there was that incident at one of the parades when I nearly fist-fought a lady over a string of plastic beads (Worth all of 0.25 American, I'm sure).

In my defense, she was taking bead-catching faaarrr too seriously, and after 20 minutes of this bitch knocking into me or shoving me aside, I'd finally had enough. We both caught the same string, and thus the stand-off began. She wouldn't let go. I wouldn't let go. Our eyes met, and just as the thought to break the strand to spite her crossed my mind, Man intervened.

It just isn't worth it, Em.

Sigh. Of course he was right. Going to war with some woman on the streets of New Orleans over little plastic baubles would have been stupid. Especially since there seemed to be an unending supply of such things that day. It was the point though! She was acting like they were throwing money off those floats! Someone had to teach her some parade-manners, and leave it to me to try bringin' Jersey-tude to the party.

After that I gave any bead, coin, toy or stuffed animal that I managed to body-check or wrestle away from that woman to the little girl standing to my left. (Spite is the new violence.)

However, I swear to all of you: I would have brought it to blows had that bitch tried to get my string of fiddle playin' alligators.

After This I'm Giving Up Holidays For Lent.

By the end of the day we were referring to our shift as "The Valentine's Day Massacre." My motto for tomorrow?

Tips or GTFO.

After work, Man and I are heading straight downtown until Tuesday night. Should I survive the Bead-Pocalypse, we'll return to our regularly scheduled blogging program.

Oh yeah, and I got a blog award from B Sparkly. Thanks! The links will come Wednesday as well, since I have about 0.05 seconds of coherent consciousness left before I lapse into a coma. (Today really really sucked!)

See ya'll Wednesday!

Who is it? Who's there? Who's that? Wait... How do I say it again?

I've never been anywhere for anything big. I somehow managed to live 33 years without being present for a major historic event. No natural disasters, earthquakes, political movements or hostile takeovers. (I moved to New Orleans in May and we had a totally hurricane-free hurricane-season.) My answer to the question "Where were you when... happened?" has always been "I was miles away. Probably on the couch."

I've never in my life been a part of history.

Until this past Sunday.

Hey, Emma. Where were you when the New Orleans Saints went to and then won their first Superbowl in the history of the team?

I was standing on Bourbon Street with what quickly became tens of thousands of my closest friends.


I'm thinking of inviting them all over for dinner Saturday night.

Wait. Let me amend that. I was standing under a balcony on Bourbon Street when the clock ran out and the win became official. Apparently the people up there were each holding one of the street's famous jumbo-sized cocktails, because in a matter of 0.05 seconds I was covered in liquor. Mostly beer, but I think I smelled a little rum and tequila on the fur lining of my sweater the next day.

And all day I was wondering why so many people were walking around carrying umbrellas. I thought they knew something about the weather I didn't know. Well, I guess they sort of did.

New Orleans Newbie Life Lesson #42: Don't stand under a balcony when something exciting happens on Bourbon Street.



Life Lesson #43: If you must stand under a balcony, be prepared not only for a gin-shower, but to be pelted in the head repeatedly by fistfuls of beads. Ow!

Yeah, apparently those umbrellas work double-duty as shields, too.

Speaking of beads, Man explained to me that only the tourists can't catch them. A seasoned New Orleanian can simply raise their hand and the beads seem to somehow float like graceful little plastic birds into their palms. Perhaps it's generation upon generation of bead-catching blood running through their veins, but I think it's an evolutionary defense mechanism like the spots on a leopard. If you don't catch them, they end up in your eye. Or hitting you in the face. Or knocking the cell phone out of your hand, causing you to scramble in a panic to get it up before one of your 30,000 new friends steps on it.


Don't be fooled. That kid's got quite the throwin' arm on her!

So it became my mission to catch as many beads as possible. Not only as an attempt to make myself official, but to keep myself from sporting a black eye at breakfast the next morning. I kept my guard up, kept my eyes on the balconies and I'm happy to report I caught every bead that sailed my way.


Woo!

PROLOGUE: Despite all my kvetching about NOLA's in-general terrible eating habits, I must confess that I sat here writing this blog with a big fat piece of leftover King Cake for breakfast. I'm back on the diet tomorrow. I swear!

PROLOGUE II: I've moved on to the leftover guacamole and Tostitos. God help me, why did we bring this stuff home with us?

La Benneton Roulette! (or something...)

If there's one thing I've learned since moving to New Orleans, it's that there's always a holiday.

Back in the real world (i.e. New Jersey.) there's a certain spacing of holidays that leaves one with a sense of celebration without causing one's head to spin clean off one's shoulders. Here in the Big Easy it's different. Just when I think I've got a handle on things, I discover that I am smack in the epicenter of another freakin' holiday. I usually find this out by the inordinate amount of coworkers begging for days off, or showing up in the mornings smelling like they just rolled out of a gin distillery. There's one girl who looks like she's about to give birth to a keg. Seriously, a beer belly on a chick? Not. Hot.

But I digress...

Did you know that Christmas isn't over on December 26th? No, my friends. Christmas lasts until King's Day (January 5th), which is supposedly the day the three kings arrived at the baby Jesus' manger. There's a special cake for the occasion and everything.


They taste better than they look.

If you happen to get the piece with the little plastic baby baked inside, and don't die of asphyxiation because you weren't expecting to get a little plastic toy in your mouth, it's your responsibility to buy the next cake. Another thing I've learned in New Orleans is there's always a reason to eat cake.

Just ask the half of my closet that holds all the clothes I used to fit into until I moved to the Big Easy-To-Find-Cake-And-Cookies.

Alright, fine. I celebrated Christmas until January 5th. I ate the cake(s), and survived the babies with all my teeth intact. It's over now, right?

No.

Now it's Carnival Season. Carnival Season?!?!

Another thing on the long list of stuff I didn't know about New Orleans is that Mardi Gras isn't just that one Tuesday. No, it's a month of parades, parties, masquerade balls and, of course, a new rotation of King Cakes and tiny plastic choking hazards. I can't take it anymore. My waist can't take it anymore. And my jeans? Every time I put them on these days I can just about hear the stitches and buttons screaming for mercy.

This city is making me fat. With a capitol FAT.

But fine... Fine. It's tradition, and who am I to argue with hundreds of years of tradition? Frankly, I can't argue, because I've only recently gotten a grasp on the accent down here. Yeah, now people only have to repeat something to me twice as opposed to the dozen or so times it took when I first got here in May. So instead I began to artfully dodge the cakes, cut back on my eating and started to get an in-general grasp on my eating habits.

Then the New Orleans Saints win their first NFC Championship in the history of the team and the city has a whole new holiday to look forward to: Superbowl Sunday.



Now bigger than Christmas, bigger than Mardi Gras, bigger than the second coming itself, the city has another reason to celebrate. Even I, the first to declare "I don't care about football," can't ignore the game this year. I'm surprised to find a giddy little knot in my belly waiting for tomorrow's big game. We're going to be in the French Quarter all tomorrow night, and I have to say: I think it'll be cooler than actually being in Miami. Man's family got a suite somewhere near Bourbon Street so we can watch the game and head out to join the celebrations.

As I type this, his mother is in the kitchen fixing a royal feast of chicken wings and 7-layer bean and guacamole dip to bring with us. And sitting on the kitchen table? Two of the biggest King Cakes I've ever seen in my life. So much for that diet I thought I was on.

As they say in Cajun Country:

Laissez les bons temps rouler

(That's cajun-french for "Let the good times roll!" which I thought until five minutes ago sounded a lot like "La Benneton Roulette!")

A First Month Retrospective

Today marks my one month anniversary in Louisiana.

This could turn out to be a blog full of profound thoughts about changing one's life and taking chances for love, but... Well, you know me.

Hey, did you know that New Orleans and the surrounding areas is kind of swampy? Did you know that in such climates a bug can grow to be the size of a small rodent?

Yeah, me either.

Until one chased me out of the garage last week.

Also, they fly.

If you need me I'll be under the bed with a can of raid and an aluminum baseball bat until Fall.

Seriously, though, I've learned a lot these past four weeks. Like how to pump gas, which is no small feat for a Jersey Girl such as myself. It isn't as complicated as the gas station attendants led me to believe. However, it does smell funky and your boyfriend tends to frown a bit when you spill some and nearly turn his Toyota into a rolling death trap. Try to keep that in mind, Jersey.

Love you, baby... You've got the patience of a saint. xoxo

Speaking of New Jersey, my new favorite show started while I've been here. The Real Housewives of New Jersey is by far the greatest multi-female train wreck to come out of Bravo's Indulgent, Narcissistic, Useless Housewife machine. A Cunt, a Psychotic, a Doormat, a Soprano-wannabe and an Old Bitch with a God complex... Sounds like Easter dinner at the old family table to me. I'd go into detail, but I'm afraid it might make me homesick.

Honestly, the fat one's my favorite, but that's probably because I've gained something like 15 pounds this past month. Seriously! I thought we knew how to eat in the Northeast, but I was wrong. See, food up there is pretty synthetic. Cheesesteaks with Cheeze Wiz, French Fries With Brown Gravy, Funnel Cake (which is really just a beignet but shaped differently) and the occasional bagel with Philadelphia Cream Cheese. It's fattening, but it's easy to get rid of (for me, anyway.). Down here? This is the kind of food that binds to your DNA and doesn't let go. And I? Can't stop cramming every delicious, buttery, bar-be-qued, creamy scrap of it in my ever-widening face.

So there you go, a somewhat amusing glance at my first month down south. Hopefully the novelty of Everything Ettoufe will wear off and I'll be able to report next month that I can wear my own jeans again without feeling like I'm being tortured.