Tag: family

Julie Do You Love Me

One can never go wrong with old Bobby Sherman hits, can one? 🙂

Well, it’s Saturday morning, the apartment looks a lot better, and I am not feeling tired this morning, as opposed to yesterday morning. I had a good night’s sleep before my alarm kitty went off this morning–he let me sleep a while longer–and now I am awake, swilling coffee, and ready to get to work today. I have to get my COVID shot today (more on that story later), so am hoping for no adverse reactions so I can get some work done today. Paul is working with his trainer and then going by his office–they have to move out by the end of the month (remember the building collapse last year?), and so he is packing and throwing things away. There are football games all day today, too–including LSU-Mississippi and some other terrific match-ups, so the siren song of my easy chair and the television is going to be difficult to resist, but I do have work to do today, that I have to get done if I am going to be finished with this book on time.

Several weeks ago, I talked to my doctor about the COVID shot (I am not sixty-five yet, but I am immunocompromised), at which point I was informed that in Louisiana you now need a prescription for it and if you aren’t 65 or older you have to be at “risk”. Well, everyone’s at risk, since it spreads so easily from person to person, thank you again, MAGA garbage human beings who are seriously too stupid to breathe if it weren’t involuntary. Your doctor has to write a prescription for it, send it to the pharmacy, and you have to know which version of the shot they have. So first, you have to check with said pharmacy to see which brand they offer, and let your doctor know so he can write the scrip for the correct version. So, you can’t just can’t get a prescription–if it’s written for the wrong version they won’t give you either. Idiotic, right? This is what comes from living in a MAGA majority state filled with temporarily embarrassed millionaires. After jumping through these hoops, it turned out that CVS, my pharmacy of choice, wasn’t offering it in New Orleans at all…which meant biting the bullet and getting it at a Walgreens. I hate Walgreens. I’ve been boycotting Walgreens for the most part (other than the convenience of having one a short block away, so I might go get milk or bread from there in a pinch)and don’t spend money there if at all possible. Since the convenient one is the one I used to call the Marsten House on St. Charles, I decided to have it called into the one in the Garden District, by Breaux Mart on Magazine. When I went, they made me wait almost an hour–I had another appointment and had to leave. After leaving, about half an hour later I got a notice that my appointment was cancelled–so they expected me to sit there for an hour and half? And were rude about it when I finally asked? Yeah, I walked out and gave them one-star on Yelp. I also was more than happy to fill out the “customer satisfaction survey” they sent me because I had checked in for my appointment. I refuse to go back to that one, but still need the vaccine so had my doctor call it into the Marsten House on St. Charles. I will report back, for sure.

Paul didn’t get home until after I went to bed, and I imagine I won’t see an awful lot of him until they are finished moving into their new, temporary office space. DISLIKE.

A lovely review of Double Crossing Van Dine by Oline Cogdill in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel was published this week:

Double Crossing Van Dine, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren and Art Taylor; introduction by Catriona McPherson; Crippen & Landru; 310 pages; $22

The Golden Age of Detective Fiction that launched the classic genre novel is considered to be from the 1920s to 1930s. But contemporary readers know that a second Golden Age began in the mid-1980s when the novels became more emotionally involving along with the introduction of detectives from myriad backgrounds and cultures. The genre continues to evolve, seeing several golden ages in the past decades.Going out on a limb here, many authors from the ’20s and ’30s haven’t survived the test of time, aside from a few, such as Agatha Christie. And going out on another limb here, S.S. Van Dine, the focus of this short story anthology, probably is among those only recognized by readers steeped in the history of mystery fiction.Van Dine, whose real name was Willard Huntington Wright, was an American art critic, literary editor, biographer and author who wrote the series about detective Philo Vance.

Each story begins describing one of Van Dine’s rules, then crushing it. Fort Lauderdale author Elaine Viets’ “Sweet Poison,” about two young women struggling in New York’s Lower East Side during 1921, forgets the rule that “all clues must be publicly stated,” as they deal with the unexpected death of one’s “Wall Street sugar daddy.”Barb Goffman puts aside the “no love interest” rule in “Baby Love” as a fledgling-but-broke private detective tries to launch his career so he and his very loving wife can afford a baby. Co-editor Greg Herren stifles the “no supernatural” rule with “The Spirit Tree,” in which the solution to a murder comes from beyond. The “only one detective rule” doesn’t work for Delia Pitts’ “Better Together,” which finds two heads are better than one.Boca Raton author Alan Orloff’s “The Society Set” takes a butler who has several jobs for his persnickety employer on a journey of a jewelry heist that actually embraces Van Dine’s version of a “fascinating crime.” Leigh Perry has a work-around for the “no secret societies” ban in “Guilted Lily,” in which a tight-knit group of grifters seek a score.Tom Mead dismisses the rule that servants should never be the culprits in “The Tell-Tale Thumb.” Some people, Mead writes, see only the uniform, not the person who hides in plain sight.The majority of the authors in “Double Crossing Van Dine” have either won or been nominated for awards. A handy brief bio of each of the authors may inspire readers to seek out more of their stories.

Pretty cool!

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning.

Hero

Work at home Friday! Man, I was tired yesterday when I got off work–not the fatigue, thank God, just a little burned out. I had dinner with a friend at Acamaya in the Bywater (highly recommend) and then came home to just collapse into my easy chair for the evening with Sparky the Needy (Paul did stay at the office late, so li’l Sparkster was home alone much longer than he usually is, so yes, he has abandonment issues) and catch up on the news. I didn’t work on the book because I was very tired, but I only have to work a few hours this morning and then I get to run a couple of errands before diving headfirst into the book. The house is also a horrible mess…too tired last night to do anything. I probably wasn’t great company at dinner, because I really did hit a wall, and this morning my hips and legs ache. I’m beginning to think I can’t even have a solitary cocktail anymore; I had one with dinner last night and this morning I feel like I’ve been through the wringer. No hangover–it was one drink, after all, a margarita–but the fatigue is here in a very big way. And the house is a mess, mess, mess.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But the coffee and breakfast (yay, caffeine and blood sugar spike!) are starting to kick in and my body is warming/waking up and so is my mind. Huzzah! It also looks like a bright, sunshine day outside; low humidity and sunny and warm, of course.

When Paul got home we watched this week’s South Park, which was hilarious in its ruthless political satire. I’m not sure why or when we stopped watching South Park regularly; probably in the times after Hurricane Katrina, and while I am enjoying watching again–I am not at the point where I would want to go back and watch the YEARS I’ve not seen. I fell asleep in my chair at some point, waking up to go to bed around eleven thirty. I did sleep well last night, so I am not sure where this fatigue this morning is coming from…is it because of the work week, was it the drink I had with dinner, or was it both? I feel it much more this Friday than I did last Friday, so I am going to have to go with the cocktail. I don’t mind giving up alcohol completely; I was already down to the point where I only had alcohol when having dinner with friends, usually even then only white wine as a rule…so it’s not like I’m giving up something I do all the time and enjoy. And let’s face it; I started drinking alcohol when I was sixteen–so yeah, giving it up after almost fifty years of it isn’t really that big of a deal.

There are also a lot of great football games tomorrow, so after I get my writing work done for the day I am going to probably just watch games while cleaning or reading. LSU plays at 2:30, and it’s at Mississippi; I don’t think LSU has won up in Oxford since 2019, but I could be mistaken. I know LSU lost the last time in Oxford for sure–that was that insane game than ended up something like 59-54 or something like that, with Jayden Daniels playing unbelievably well; if we’d only had a defense that year we could have gone all the way, methinks. And of course Alabama-Georgia is tomorrow, too; Auburn is at Texas A&M, and I’ve not really looked at much more than that other than Notre Dame at Arkansas (GO HOGS!). So, today I am going to do data entry, have an on-line team meeting, and then I am going to run my errands before coming home to get the house back under control and write, write, write and edit, edit, edit.

And now, I am going to go get another cup of coffee before getting to work on the laundry and opening my data entry website. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning. See you then!

I will always love Joe Burrow, and will always be grateful for that 2019 LSU championship team. I am also super-grateful that I got to see them play twice in person.

Come Monday

Monday morning and I am not really awake yet. My legs still feel stiff and fatigued, and my brain is a bit cloudy, but I am back to the office today and thus need to wake myself up before it’s time to get in the car and go, you know? My coffee tastes great and it’s going down easily. Today is also the day the nurse comes by to teach me how to give myself an injection, and use the device I have to attach to myself for five minutes while it pumps the medication into me. Exciting times, am I right? I also am going to have to get up and go have blood drawn on Friday again, too. How many times have I had to have my skin pierced this year? Quite a fucking few. But at least I’ll have something to talk about tomorrow morning, won’t I? Heavy heaving sigh.

Monday mornings are always a struggle, you know, but this one is worse than my usual Monday. I am still fatigued–the legs are aching–and my mind is clearing, but there’s still some vestiges of Morpheus lagging inside my head. It’s going to be a struggle today, methinks, and I have to make some groceries on the way home, too. Sigh. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble sleeping this evening, and will probably be snoring in my chair by nine.

We did catch up on some of our shows last night after the US Open and the truly sad Saints game, watching another episode of Foundation, one of Peacemaker, and started the second half of Wednesday before calling it an evening so I could get ready for work and go to bed at an earlier time than I would have preferred. I also read more deeply into the manuscript, and I also need to start doing the tarot reading that tells the story in chapter headings.

I also had a lovely exchange on social media yesterday about some of the Broadway legends who’ve come to the Tennessee Williams Festival. I always forget that being Mrs. Festival has always enabled me to meet acting legends like Marian Seldes, Frances Sternhagen, and Zoe Caldwell, who were all absolutely lovely and fun to be around. I had a lovely conversation at dinner with Frances that I will always cherish as a memory, and of course, Marian was incredibly kind and generous, and Zoe was an absolute hoot. Sometime I’ll need to sit down and go through the old programs and remind myself of all the famous people I’ve met. (John Waters remains my favorite.)

I also became aware of an interesting story regarding the LSU Marching Band…a retired gentleman named Kent Broussard has joined the band! He’s sixty-six years old, and he had a dream that he wanted to play tuba in the marching band for LSU. So he bought a tuba a few years ago, took lessons, and enrolled in classes so he could audition for the band. He made it! Saturday was his first performance at a home game. Isn’t that cool?

I love being reminded that you’re never too old to pursue your dreams, don’t you?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, and I’ll be back with a full report on the injection tomorrow!

Rock and Roll Heaven

Well, yesterday was a lesson to me.

I was fatigued like I haven’t been since before I went into the hospital. Everything ached–back, hips, ankles, and neck–and my muscles were so damned tired that getting up and walking into the kitchen became more and more horrific every time I did. The coffee yesterday morning staved the exhaustion for a while, but it was really my worst day since May. I did get my day job duties done, but any thoughts about going down to Bouchercon were off the table as I was exhausted. I wound up falling asleep in my chair around nine last night, went upstairs around eleven, and slept until nine this morning with no objection from Sparky…so he knew how tired I was, precious little darling that he is. Even now he’s not trying to attack my feet or calves the way he usually does when I am sitting here typing in the morning. He’s so adorable, really. Who knew I’d turn into a cat person for the latest third of my life?

Tonight I am having dinner with some of the Queer Crime Writers at Lilette, which will be nice, and I was thinking yesterday that it might not hurt to go down there around four or five, see some people and hang out before dinner. (Sparky just attacked my left leg, so we’re back to normal here in the Lost Apartment this morning.) But given how exhausted I was yesterday…not sure if I should risk it, in all honesty. But I think part of it yesterday was not sleeping terribly well–my body was exhausted, but my mind was overstimulated and I couldn’t turn it off, plus I didn’t get home until after midnight and had to get up early. Maybe if I’d had time to nap yesterday there might have been a different outcome? I honestly don’t know. But today I am going to continue to rest and recover (my doctor told me yesterday morning that the fatigue occurrences also have to do with my newly compromised immune system and getting used to the medication and should probably no longer be an issue by the new year, greeeeeaaaaaatttt), and see how I feel this afternoon about heading down there. I think all I am really going to do much of today is reading here on the home front, along with some chores. Paul has his trainer this afternoon so he won’t be around much today, either. I am hopeful that taking it fairly easy today will put me in a position to do some writing tomorrow.

And no, seeing pictures on social media aren’t giving me FOMO, either–which is emotional progress, isn’t it?

And since I have a compromised immune system, is it wise to be in a massive crowd of people in the first place? Probably not, since the world is full of assholes as we learned during COVID (which hasn’t gone away, just no one talks about it anymore), and I also need to follow up with the pharmacy to make sure that a) they have it and b) which brand it is, because the prescription has to be exact. You can’t just write a prescription for the vaccine, you have to know whether it’s Moderna or Pfizer or whatever brand they are now. Thanks again, RFK Jr, you leather-skinned incompetent asshole and you also must be so glad both your parents are dead. When your entire family comes out against you…what does that say? But then again the Kennedy name used to be hated with the heat of a dozen white-hot stars the way the names Clinton and Obama are now, and conservative haters have long memories.

And on that note, I am going to take my manuscript to my chair and start reading during the dreadful morning football shows (there are very few ESPN football commentators I don’t loathe), so you have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning with a report on today.

I love artists’ renderings of Egyptian sites!

Lonesome Loser

Thursday and I have the day off blog because I am having dinner at 5 with a friend and after that I am hosting Noir at the Bar: Morally Grey. Tomorrow is a work-at-home day around my doctor’s appointment, and I was thinking about going to the Crooked Lane party Friday night but…not so sure about that. I was terribly tired when I got home from work yesterday evening, and just collapsed into my easy chair. Sparky joined me post-haste, and I basically watched the USOpen with Paul all night before I fell asleep in my chair before nine (the match we’d been watching concluded, and I couldn’t even tell you who played? Naomi Osaka?) but I slept deeply and well last night. I got up at my usual time to feed Sparky and went back to bed and slept for another two hours…but Sparky came up and cuddled with me when he was finished eating AND he was purring. Coincidence I feel refreshed and rested this morning?

I think not.

Today I want to get some things taken care of around the house before I head to the Quarter to have dinner, including some writing and reading, and I also have to get prepared for tonight as well. I have to work tomorrow so I am not going to be doing anything after the reading besides coming home and going to bed. Pretty nice, if I do say so myself. I actually feel good this morning, which is a lovely feeling. (Never underestimate how well the soothing relaxation from the purr of a cuddling cat works.) I also have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning after my department and team meetings. The Crooked Lane party is tomorrow night, and I may head down for that; never hurts to stay in the good graces of a publisher, am I right?

Yesterday, our shitstain of a governor applauded the mention of the military being sent to New Orleans (and other Louisiana cities) to clean up the “crime” problem by the demented president. That presence here won’t affect our already struggling tourist economy at ALL, will it? And how will such a thing fly in Moses Mike Johnson’s district of Shreveport/Bossier City? Yeah, no government overreach here at all. Imagine had Biden sent the military in to Dallas or Kansas City or Nashville to help with crime? I will say this–a city known for its hospitality and welcoming attitude will make those soldiers sorry they were ever deployed. Don’t fuck with New Orleans. And seriously, fuck our failure of a governor, who is doing nothing about the wetlands (other than making everything worse), and he also ran on cleaning up crime…so he’s admitting, straight up, he’s an utter failure and so is his administration. We already knew that, of course; our state government makes Florida’s look like California’s.

If the federal government really wanted to clean up crime in Louisiana, they’d start at the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge before making their way to the capitol. Louisiana has more oil than Kuwait, but we’re in the bottom five of everything. This is your Republican governance example as to why you should never vote for one of them; DeSantis is another great example of shit stain governance. You’d have thought we learned our lesson from Bobby Jindal’s corrupt incompetence, and how a Democratic governor basically cleaned up that mess…all so Landry could drive Louisiana into the sewer with little chance of getting out.

I know I’ll do my best to make the troops uncomfortable here. Landry also announced that ICE prisoners will have their own special section in the inhumane hell of Angola. (Reminder that immigrants have always rebuilt Louisiana after disastrous hurricanes. New Orleans would have been in ruins for years without them.)

And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, and I hope to see you tonight at the Crescent City Brewhouse for Noir at the Bar: Morally Grey.

Ramses II statues with drifting sand at the Abu Simbel temple

Swingtown

Wednesday and my last day in the office for the week! I was very tired yesterday when I got home from work, so very little was achieved here once I left the office. I did have a very good and productive day at work yesterday, and I don’t feel terribly tired this morning. I spent the evening catching up on the day’s news (I don’t know why I do this; I won’t ever have to look up the news I am really waiting for because his death will be everywhere and the celebration will be like the one at the end of Return of the Jedi), and then turned the television on the to US Open until I fell asleep in my chair between eight thirty and nine before going to bed shortly before ten. I am living large, am I not?

But I have the rest of the week off–I am hosting Noir at the Bar tomorrow night so I took the day off, and I have doctors’ appointments on Friday–and not having anything carved in rock to do for the weekend of Bouchercon is lovely. Both last night and this morning, the idea of not being around at all is more appealing than the thought of going and seeing people. I’m really not fully recovered from the illness yet, and the last thing in the world I want or need is a relapse or flare-up. I don’t want to feel like that ever again, frankly, and I hope the flare-ups are very few and very far in between.

LSU climbed in the rankings in yesterday’s polls, going to 3 in the AP poll and 4 in the coaches’ poll. I think this might be overrating; yes, they looked terrific on Saturday night at Clemson but we also don’t really know how good Clemson is, predicated on anything other than last season. They lost several games last year, including to South Carolina (whom LSU beat in their home stadium last year), and sure, they and their coach have a history of excellence…but Clemson hasn’t really been a contender since the last time they lost to LSU, in the championship game for 2019. Likewise, is Auburn back, or is Baylor terrible? Could be a very interesting college football season.

I got through most of my to-do list yesterday, and that was enormously pleasing. There wasn’t much traffic yesterday, either. I guess people took yesterday off? I’m actually hoping that they took the week so there’s not any traffic today. This cool streak appears to be holding through the weekend, but then again–People Not From Here don’t view temperatures the same way we do down here…I always forget that for most people high 80’s no humidity is uncomfortably hot for them. (Like I always forget that PNFH also love local food, so much so that places I think are “touristy” and would never pick are places they wind up loving. I got a reminder of that at Saints & Sinners this year…and that makes things so much easier when people ask about places to eat, too.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will be back tomorrow morning.

Count on Me

Tuesday and back to the office with me! Much as I hate getting up to an alarm, it wasn’t so rough this morning. I would prefer to stay in bed much longer under my pile of blankets and Sparky on my pillow above my head, but them’s the breaks, I guess. I made hardly a dent into my to-do list that I made yesterday morning, but again–them’s the breaks. I don’t think we’re terribly busy today. Next week? We are super-booked up with appointments next week….but even next week is a little soon for any STI’s to show up from this past Decadence weekend. (FYI, the window period for gonorrhea can be up to four weeks…)

It was a lovely weekend of rest and relaxation. Bouchercon is here this weekend, and so I am off Thursday and Friday so if I want to go down there and be seen, I can. I am hosting Noir at the Bar on Thursday night at the Crescent City Brewhouse, and have dinner plans for Lilette on Saturday night, but I don’t think (or remember) if I’ve agreed to anything else. I suspect I’ll end up not going down there very often or very much, to be honest. We shall see how it all goes, and I suspect it will have more to do with my fatigue levels than anything else. It really irritates me that I am still not at 100%. Patience, Gregalicious, patience. I’ve never been very patient.

It was a fairly calm and quiet Labor Day. I did get the downstairs orderly again, and did the floors (I love my new vacuum cleaner), and dipped into The Hunting Wives for a bit. I also made some notes on the new Scotty and also came up with how to write a short story I’ve been struggling with for years (staggering to realize how long that some stories sit in my files before I get around to finishing them), and I am not entirely sure this idea will actually work, so we’ll have to see how that all turns out.

We watched Platonic and Foundation last night, and we started the second season of Shrinking (ROY KENT!!!), which was a lot of fun, and I look forward to getting back into Shrinking tonight.

It was so lovely to come downstairs to a clean apartment with the rugs clean and put back in place (Sparky always moves them), and I had some lovely coffee this morning as well. It’s an odd week–I’m only in the office today and tomorrow, and I have a lot of things to do before the end of the work week. I also have a doctor’s appointment Friday morning as well…

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday wherever you are, Constant Reader!

Thunder Island

TIGERS WIN!!!

It’s been a very hot minute since LSU won a season opener (it was Joe Burrow’s senior season, for the record), AND it was over a Top 5 team AND it was on the road AND it was Clemson and their faux Death Valley. GEAUX TIGERS! It was a nerve-wracking game, and because the score was so close, I was worried the Season Opener Jinx would strike. When was the last time the LSU defense won the game? Last night was the first time since 2019 where I was impressed by the defense, and they were amazing. Like Tiger teams of old. It was an excellent capper to an interesting day of football that saw both Texas and Alabama lose. Of course, now I am going to get my hopes up for the season, but I am trying to be cautiously optimistic. Both Texas and Alabama looked terrible, frankly, and it was kind of a shock. I wouldn’t want to be the Alabama coach this morning…but Alabama always has down years after a legendary coach retires after rebuilding the program from mediocre to the heights of college football again. It happened when Bear Bryant retired, after all. No one has ever come into Alabama when they’re at the pinnacle and keeps them there.

And it could have just been a hiccup for both Texas and Alabama, you never know. (I said to Paul during the second half of Alabama’s game last night, “The alumni group chat is probably lit right now raising the money to buy DeBoer out.”) But it’s very nice to have a season opening win. It’s been so long…

Tulane also thumped Northwestern; they’re calling it the “Beatdown in Uptown” here locally, which I find amusing.

Yesterday I went uptown to the AT&T store on Magazine (in the same strip mall where I used to do my laundry whenever I don’t have a working washer or dryer) and finally got the phone situation squared away, which was great. I made a small bit of groceries, and went by the post office, too, before coming home to do some light cleaning while watching the football games. I was feeling pretty fatigued yesterday–oh, the aching of my tired legs–so didn’t think I’d get much of anything done and was right for the most part. I think I needed that do-nothing rest day, in all honesty. I also realized, in the 36 hours or so I was without a phone, that I’m horribly addicted to mine. Yesterday during the games I was scrolling endlessly through the damned thing until I finally made myself put the damned thing down. I do not like being addicted to screens or the Internet, frankly. I think less screen time will be a goal for 2026.

Today, Paul has his trainer and will be gone most of the afternoon (he always does cardio for a couple of hours after) so I should be able to get some things done today. It’s also nice that I have tomorrow off as well (thank you, three day weekend!). I should be able to get some things done that I want and/or need to get done by the time I have to return to the office Tuesday morning. I’m going to do some more reading this morning with the rest of my morning coffee before I get cleaned up and spring forth into another day. The kitchen looks much better than it did Friday, and hopefully will look even better by the time I go to bed this evening. I also have some filing to do, both from around my workspace and my digital files as well, which is always something mindless to do but it’s amazing how much time it kills.

I was also thinking a lot yesterday about books, short stories, and essays I am working on, which is always a good thing. I didn’t take many notes, just let my mind wander through the fertile fields of my creativity. I need to get this fatigue shit under control so I can do more work…or at least figure out a workaround so I can get things done anyway. I always think I’m being lazy, you know? But when you’re too fatigued to focus…well, that’s rarely if ever a good thing, you know?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back on the morrow.

Oh Sherrie

Saturday in the Lost Apartment, and I am going to take it very easy this morning. I got my flu shot yesterday after work, and it knocked me for a loop the way it does every year. It also occurs to me that this year’s much worse reaction has everything to do with the ulcerative colitis, a compromised immune system, and the medication I take for it. Last evening, as I switched between the US Open and the Auburn-Baylor game (WAR EAGLE!) while trying to read The Hunting Wives, I didn’t feel sick or anything, just exhausted and my joints (especially the hips) ached and kept locking up, so every time I got up to do something it was awkward and uncomfortable at first as everything unkinked. The hips ache again this morning, too.

I was hoping to not leave the house today, but I have to replace my phone. Thursday night when I got home from work I couldn’t find my phone before I went to bed. I used the “find my phone” feature, and discovered it was last located at the corner of Marigny and Claiborne, where I turn onto Claiborne. Yesterday morning I went to look for it, but the battery was undoubtedly dead and that was its last known location. I couldn’t find it anywhere, so obviously someone found it. I erased it once I got back home, and one of my errands yesterday was to go to the AT&T store on St. Charles to replace it. The girl who “helped” me wasn’t very good at her job, I think, because she finally just told me to go to the other store on Magazine Street. It was all very weird and strange, and having already had the flu shot was already getting tired, so I went to Raising Cane’s to get something to eat and came home. So I have to go to the store on Magazine this morning, and might as well go by the mail and the Fresh Market on my way home, hopefully with a new phone. It’s been weird not having one, but kind of nice at the same time. I really need to break my phone addiction.

College football season has already sort of started, but it kicks into gear today. LSU plays at Clemson tonight, Alabama plays Florida State (I think?) and Texas is at Ohio State today. I’ll probably not do much of anything except some chores during the games. A new football season is always kind of exciting because nobody really knows what will happen, and the “rankings” are based on nothing more than last year’s results and the opinion of “experts”–and the older I get the less I want to hear from “experts.” The only truly decent commentator–one who isn’t full of himself and talks to hear himself talk–is Greg McElroy, the former Alabama quarterback. He is a sports journalist, he isn’t biased, and he takes his job seriously. I wish he was the primary color commentator for SEC games. Sigh. I really miss Keith Jackson every Saturday in the fall…

I wrote and published my Katrina newsletter/essay (click there to read it if you haven’t and want to), and of course last night as I watched the third episode of Spike Lee’s Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, which was quite excellent. It also reminded me of the biggest lesson out of Katrina, one that I didn’t even realize I’d learned until watching last night: I learned rom the Katrina experience just how privileged I am, and it was the first time in my life I “woke” up and realized it. We had the means to leave, so our story isn’t nearly as traumatic as that of those who couldn’t leave. We lived in the “sliver by the river” so our streets didn’t flood in my neighborhood; our damage was from above with losing the roof…but we still had a place to live in New Orleans so we could come back while the roof and apartment were repaired. Our jobs survived the disaster so we still had income. We didn’t have to ride the storm out in the Superdome, or needed to be rescued from our roof. Yes, the event was traumatizing, but I never felt like I had the right to complain about our situation because we were so much luckier than so many others. There was also that weird experience of, for months and even years, having to catch up on Katrina stories when I ran into someone I hadn’t seen for awhile. “Are you back for good?” was always one of the things I’d ask to start with.

And, oh, it was so lovely running into those folks again!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely, lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

Love Will Find a Way

Work-at-home Friday! I did wake up early this morning–Sparky only let me sleep for another fifteen minutes before getting aggressive about his breakfast. Which was fine, I needed to get up, and somehow not being jolted out of sleep by the alarm has the psychological effect of well I’m up and feel rested. I was again fatigued when I got home last night, which led to me sitting in my chair with my kitty asleep in my lap like a precious baby. I got caught up on the news (update: the country is still ablaze), and then settled in for the first two episodes of Spike Lee’s new Netflix documentary, Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, which is very well done. The two new documentaries on the catastrophe are very well done. It’s depressing and painful to watch them, and remember…but watching has reminded me again of how incompetent the sitting government was, not just here but especially in Washington. (And all the time passed? Hasn’t lessened my eternal hatred for Brownie and Chertoff and others of their ilk–FAUX NEWS–who did everything they could to try to cover for Bush’s great federal failure, demonize New Orleanians, and spread vicious lies that impacted the rescue timetables, may they all burn forever in hell with lighter fluid soaked into their skin.) I wound up going to bed early last night, which probably dramatically helped with getting up so early this morning. Social media and the news today will–as always on the anniversary–be deluged with remembrances and memorials, which are appreciated, but sometimes feels like gritty salt being rubbed into the wounds.

I have a meeting this morning and data entry to do around my errands. I am getting a flu shot today (and seeing about new COVID boosters; I am hoping my age and compromised immune system will qualify me since we now live in Stupid World). I have to return a library book this morning, and I also have to pick up a prescription. I think I’ll have groceries delivered this afternoon as well. We don’t really need very much, though, so maybe I’ll just actually drop into a store on the way home. Or tomorrow; it looks like we’re going to have thunderstorms this afternoon…which will be excellent reading weather, and since I need to finish my reread of Scotty X, that is absolutely perfect. I also have lots of chores to do since I didn’t do fuck-all when I got home last night. We’re also supposed to get some rain this morning, too. So, once I finish this and post it, I’ll work on my chores some and get started on data entry work. I also have some emails to answer, and plenty of emails to send as well.

Southern Decadence, the big gay party weekend, started yesterday but attendance will continue climbing to peak attendance throughout today and into tonight. The weather is lovely for them, rain aside, but they won’t care about the rain anyway. It’s weird that Decadence Friday is also the Katrina anniversary–at the time I’m writing this twenty years ago we were getting up in that miserable hotel outside of Birmingham that checked us in at 2 a.m. but told us we had to be out by ten or pay for another day (their corporate office got a nasty letter from me and I’ve never stayed in one of their hotels again unless a mystery conference was using them, and even then it’s very reluctant and I have to think about it for a long time), and it looked like the levees had held…but there was no one reporting from the lower 9th ward. We didn’t know the levees breached (thanks again, Army Corps of Engineers) until we got to Paul’s mom’s in rural Illinois late that night. Southern Decadence was supposed to be the weekend after Katrina.

I’m not even tempted to even consider going down there this weekend. My, how things have changed.

Crime Ink: Iconic is wracking up kudos in reviews, which is lovely and wonderful. It’s so nice to see queer work getting appreciation from mainstream reviewers…who wouldn’t touch most of us back when I was getting started. This is such a lovely change and it really makes me happy, especially for the new generation of queer mystery writers, who are all very talented and are doing exceptional work.

And on that note, I am going to forage some breakfast and get ready for my day. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning here.

Another statue of Ramses II, in the light of a crescent moon