Cold Spaghetti

View of downtown New Orleans from the rooftop of Tulane’s 6-story parking garage.

The view of downtown New Orleans, with Fourth of July fireworks silently exploding in the distance.  There are two sets of fireworks because the celebration here has “dueling barges” sending off pyrotechnics from the river.

All in all, an easy way to see fireworks with no crowds.  Drunk college kids arrived part-way through (note to Tulane: install a sobriety check-point directly at the exit of the garage at 9pm on the Fourth) but the roof area is large enough for them to be only a minor annoyance… in the sense that we can’t help but look at ourselves and go, “my goodness, were we that self-absorbed and clueless when we were that age?!”

It’s not a sign that we’re old.  It’s a sign that we’re simply mature.

Hello.

My name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father. Prepare to d—

*Door slam*

It was after 3am when I crawled into bed Saturday night.  I was out late.  With the girls.

Oooooh, yes.

But that is not where this story starts.  It starts with a Girls Nite from a few weeks back.  A jewelry-making fundraiser, for one of my favorite nonprofits, sponsored and organized by some wonderful people.  Followed, later by drinks.

Doesn’t this lady look too beautiful to have three children under 5 and a big school to manage?  Let alone do fundraisers?!

Georgia at The Bead Shop donated her shops wares and the personal talents of her staff — we all made beautiful accessories and hung out.

I brought one of the cameras in our Photovoice project.  I’m so thrilled with these cameras and very impressed by the options and handling.  It’s nice having something little to pull out quickly, even if all my friends look at me as if I’ve suddenly become ill, “isn’t that a little… SMALL for you…?” they ask in a worried glance.

Well, yes, true.  But I’m practicing what I preach to the research team.  It’s not about the level of fancy in the camera… it’s how you use it, right?

Focusing is actually the most difficult part.  Maybe it’s that I’m used to my many possibly focal points and having manual focus so easily accessible — but it was tough for me to focus on smaller foreground objects (like the earrings below), even on the “macro” camera setting.

It took a couple of tries to get this, and even still, I couldn’t quite get the main focus on the first earring in the row, as I wanted.  Practice, practice.

We picked out a strand, a pendant, and some supplies.  Then we sat down and ate, laughed, and threaded until we all had new bling.

Georgia helped with the finer details.

The incredible food was donated by friends at Cochon.

Don’t ask me what it all was.  I’ve blocked it all from memory and replaced it with the word GOOD.

It was somewhere in the middle of all of this that we re-affirmed our plans (first made at our Belly-Dancing girls nite) for Indigo Girls…

I’ve been trying to come up with some sort of creative, literary fancy-pants-writer way of recounting all the random craziness going on here.  Listing has felt too random, too quick.  Instead, I’m taking a page from Jim Croce, who famously used music to express emotion.  Borrowed, of course, from the Internet’s favorite Helena, TPM with 80s inspiration from Mad.

Here it is, the soundtrack to our lives as of late, 80s style.

— Friday, girls night out at The Bead Shop, followed by drinks and hey, Let’s Dance to the Sultans of Swing, ’cause Girls Just Wanna Have Fun but also, we need to prove that we, Mamas?  Yeah, we still Got the Beat.

— That Sweet Child O’ Mine, Baby Kate, turned 3.  A bunch of our friends came over and we had fun while 13 kids ran around our house, beat a pinata, and screamed “I Want Candy“!

— Tomorrow morning, I’m going to Photograph the Abeona kids for a school fundraiser.

— The social work class I’m teaching starts tomorrow night.  I don’t expect anyone to be Hot for Teacher, but it would be cool to form a Cult of Personality.

— The uncertainty around my parents’ move has us feeling helpless, but I guess That’s Why They Call it The Blues.  Explaining to Will why his Grandparents are moving means a lot of Sad Eyes.

— I got a Visiting Scholar appointment at a big Northeast college which is cool and wonderful and awesome because the folks there took me as What I Am.

— My SMA conference proposal was accepted and I’m Walking on Sunshine that at least an abstract of the dissertation is of interest.

— Next week I go to Boston for the Schweitzer Fellowship.  I have to leave a day early to be there on time because we live In a Big Country.  The program director’s retreat is a 3-day all-day event, yet I am hopeful to have some quiet time to myself to write.  My greatest dream is to have a full, uninterrupted week alone in a place that isn’t my house to work on nothing but my dissertation… Save a Prayer for me.

— Two friends and I have made a walking pact for regular exercise and stuck to it now for over a week.  When I feel like there is too much going on and I can’t manage to get away, I Whip It.  Not that this is helping me look at birthday cake and manage not to Eat It.

— The firehose went from bone dry to full blast, as Paul is Back on the Chain Gang (or maybe the Morning Train?) with several projects and overtime.  Combined with my income and his guarantee of at least 10 weeks more of work, we’re fine.  There is no more Livin’ on a Prayer.  And yes, New Orleans is still tough place to live and work but it’s our American Dream and we love it and there’s no place like it and I Still Believe that it’s worth sacrifice to raise our kids in this amazing place.

_______________
This has been a Monday Mission.

We’ve lived here for 5 years now and we’ve just figured out Jazz Fest.

Here’s how it works.  You hang out.  You somewhat randomly wander around, meeting up with friends, checking out crafts and tents, getting food, and (of course) hearing music.  If you LET the magic happen, it will.

Here are a few random highlights that show a little of what we saw… I apologize that I did not capture in photographs more of what we did.  I was very busy dancing, listening, talking, eating, laughing… you know, doing.

Here’s Washboard Chaz.

Here’s Beausoliel avec Michael Doucet.  This is a few hours before Paul realized Mr. Doucet was standing directly behind me in the plantain and spinach food line. (You can click here to go and hear “Alligator Purse.”)

Gospel Tent… with typical Jazz Fest magic.  That’s Paul Sanchez in the back (see his black jacket and hat?) and Trombone Shorty.  The tuba?  He’s from Rebirth.  Apparently, they are buddies of the singer and came over to back him up on this bit.  We just happened to be walking by the tent when this started and a random photographer walked up to us to tell us that folks from Rebirth were backing up the singer and it was awesome.  We walked in and were thrilled to… “wait, is that Paul Sanchez?!” … before settling in for awhile.

By the way, if you haven’t heard it, I love Paul Sanchez’s song Sedation…

Friends Ecoee and Melody shared their brass pass… and we enjoyed the refreshing WWOZ tent, impressive fruit spread, and clean bathrooms.

Doc Watson and family.  Yup, THE Doc Watson.

And yes, they did Tennessee Stud.

The tent was PACKED.

We had to get the kids by 5 and with our regular tickets could not be re-admitted.  Instead, we picked up the kids and went back to Ecoee and Melody’s, where we watched Tony Bennett from their front porch.

We tried to impress upon Will the Tony Bennett coolness factor…

This is our view — that’s our white car on the street and a jazz fest flag flying from their porch to the top right.  See the stage, upper right?  That’s Tony in the yellow jacket.

The porch is fantastic for sound.  Things are a little loud when you’re in the field… but right outside?  Perfect, just right.

No, really, it’s him!

There he is, taking his bow.  The show was all standards and it was awesome.  He dedicated “The Good Life” to Britney Spears, which made me feel a little badly for Britney because I thought we were sort of over picking on her.  Ah, well, I guess when you’re Tony Bennett, you decide what’s in and what’s out.

By the way, it’s humid and well into the 80s and the dude was out there for over an hour belting out note after note, sounding JUST like he did 40 years ago.  Amazing.

Once everyone got back from the Fest, we had a great night hanging in the pool and talking while the kids played… without meltdown or fuss… until 10pm.  I can’t think of any stronger magic than that.

I am a woman with many irrational fears.  And three times as many pet peeves.

A few of the things I am irrationally afraid of:

— Driving off of a bridge and into a body of water with the kids in the car.

— Intestinal parasites that enter through the feet (oddly, I am not afraid of any other intestinal parasites).

— Kate falling off the slide/swing set/stairs/ladder or whatever else she has climbed up despite being half the size and a quarter of the age requirement.

— A child running into the street.

— The attachments to bicycles where kids ride? They are so low that I worry a car won’t see them.

— Someone breaking in the front of the house and I can’t the kids out of the back of the house fast enough.

A few things I am irrationally irritated or preoccupied by:

— Yard chemicals being tracked through the house on shoes.

— Mud on shoes or clothes getting on bed linens or furniture.

— Whether or not my pillowcase is causing me to break out.

— That I’m not diligent enough about the kids’ teeth.

— Dirty hands.

Lucky for me, the people in my life tolerate my craziness.  This means that they generally abide by my crazy rules.

— No sitting on furniture when you’ve been working outside, until you’ve bathed/changed clothes.

— No walking around barefoot outside, especially in rural areas.

— I have to brush everyone’s teeth.

— Unlocking the doors when we go over a bridge (one less thing to do if the car flies off).  When I’m feeling particularly crazy, I also get out the glass punch from the glove compartment and put it down my shirt or in my pocket until we’re off the bridge.

— Sleeping with one of the kids (sometimes both) when Paul is not around.

— Strict handwashing.

I try really hard to not be as crazy as I am.  In general, I consider myself pretty laid back.  I’m not afraid of getting dirty, I like mud pies, and have absolutely no problem with getting stains on things (I’m a master remover.)

Also?  I love walking in the rain.

Paul and I have limited Jazz Fest experience, all of which has so far been tremendously excellent.

So why would we want to bring the kids and ruin a perfectly good record?

At least, this is what we thought.

But last Saturday, the first weekend of this year’s Fest, we couldn’t help but want to have the kids there.  The Imagination Movers were the first act up on the Acura Stage and a huge masse of their friends (read: our friends) were going to be there, too. 

We sucked it up and shelled out the extra $5 to bring them.

Thank goodness. It was awesome.

The awesomeness was not in small part to our incredible friends. No really, these people can do all sorts of mind-boggling things like have crew passes so that they can sneak in boxes of juice drinks and get in birthday cakes with their booth exhibition materials and simply just be so cool that they know all the local celebrities and yet aren’t embarrassed by us when we show up with our flies down. Because we are just that kind of classy.

We hung out before the gates opened with friends who live right outside the race tracks.  (Yet another example of cool.) Fate took over and somehow we all met at the stage perfectly, a huge hodge-podge of families and friends taking over with strollers. We wore the kids on our shoulders and danced around as if none of us had ever experienced back problems. (Probably because we managed to send someone out for frozen cafe au lait and rosemint tea before the music started).

We love Imagination Movers.

Message to parents who are suffering from a household full of The Wiggles or Ralph (or, heavens to Betsy, Barney!)… CHECK OUT THE IMAGINATION MOVERS.  You will thank me.

We hung out with an Imagination Mover spouse.  (A friend of our friend Kathryn, whose husband was the original “Warehouse Mouse” in early videos and who now does crew stuff for the band… the Movers gave a shout out birthday wish to her son during the performance… see what I mean about the coolness?) Years ago, Kathryn introduced me to her at a music performance at Tulane (a girls’ night from long, long ago).  Can you guess which Mover she’s married to?

I love people who understand the importance of accessories.

But I’m not giving anything away.

Nina, one of the cast members on their Playhouse Disney TV show, came by to say “hi.”

(I know.  I didn’t realize we were that cool, either.)

The kids loved it.  Despite the strong morning sun, Kate played a rattle and dutifully performed all moves as instructed.  Us parents had a few head scratching moments when they busted into “She Sells Sanctuary.” (Um… did they just play “The Cult?”)  And we all sang along to “In a Big Country,” their finale.

But Jazz Fest is about so much more than music.  The food.  Oh… the food.

Kate clearly understands that one should not delve into snowballs until so much mango freeze has been ingested that the skin starts to turn orange.

Her Jazz Fest food of choice was cochon du lait po’boy.  With the spicy coleslaw.  As if there would be any other.  (I promise I will get food pictures next time.)

We visited our friend Mark’s booth.

Mark made the tiles in our bathroom.  Each are handmade and exquiste in detail.

We spent the majority of the day in the kids’ area, meeting up with other families and taking turns watching kids to go on food runs and bathroom trips.  There is a children’s music tent and a variety of activity and craft tents — staffed by the nicest, warmest people.  The kids decorated fabric squares…

…and added them to the children’s Jazz Fest quilt.

We chilled in the kids’ tent for a few hours during the heat of the day (even spread out a blanket to lay down for a bit), and saw a variety of performances (puppets, drum band from Malawi, kids’ high school dance group).  Then, a washboard performer came up and got the kids involved.  Will not only got a washboard, but was deemed “Earl of Crawfish” (or something) for the story.

He was so into the washboard that he almost missed the second line going around the tent.

After the big dance around the room, the story kept going.  Kate is up posing with Will.  She played the tin can and then traded for a parasol for the parade.

Both kids passed out on the way to James Taylor.

Our friend Georgia graciously invited us to crash in their lawn space to listen to JT.  I was too antsy to sit (back was tired and sore) — even to one of my favorite vocalists.  So we took in a few songs and moved on.

In moving on, we caught part of Erykah Badu (sans Elmo) and Wilco.  We headed out about a half-hour before the official end of Jazz Fest and had no problems with traffic or crowds… successfully spending the entire day at Jazz Fest with the kids.  Wow.

But next time, we’re totally going solo.

Though I posted pictures of Panorama’s French Quarter Fest performance weekend before last (not to be confused with New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival which started this past Friday) — I didn’t post anything about the Fest in general.

And French Quarter Fest is too good to be passed up.

We missed the first few days because I was in full-day trainings for one of the community-based research projects I’m involved in… which, by the way, is a wonderful reason for missing FQF (they’re aren’t many.)

Jazz Fest is the city’s premiere celebration, drawing tourists and artists and fans from a wide base to hear musicians and music inspired by the sounds of New Orleans.  French Quarter Fest is often dubbed the “old” Jazz Fest in that it involves primarily local artists in a smaller venue spread throughout the city.  Because it’s free, it doesn’t have the exclusivity of Jazz Fest.

We took the Streetcar downtown and walked into the Quarter towards the river.  First we hit on gospel performances, which was fitting since it was Sunday morning.

There is a ton of food and drink.  Which is why it makes perfect sense to see my kids drinking juice and eating goldfish.

Jackson Square had Dixieland… and of course, lots of dancing!  The crime is that I didn’t get either of my kids boogie moves.  Paul and I were busy with our duck po’boy from Jacque-Imos.

No wallflowers in this city.

Between acts and food booths, we strolled through the Quarter and some of our favorite places.

I don’t know this for certain, but I’m guessing that as long as there has been booze in the Quarter, there has been the presence of someone (or someones) who feel themselves to be personal appointees in God’s Condemnation Task Force.  Everyone has a different take on them, whether it be that they are annoying, patronizing, self-grandizing, nice for those that need them, or a nusiance.  Me?  Well, I figure it’s all kinds that make this place special.

This guy is my personal favorite.

His philosophy is that sinners love shiny things.  It keeps us distracted for a few moments while he preaches.

Oooooooooo… preeeeeeeeeeeeetty….

His little army = A LOT of happy meals.

The postcard?  I couldn’t find one.  But I think I can guess the message, because I’ve been through the Quarter enough to hear it.

It goes something like this: God loves you, but if you don’t believe this very specific set of things, he’ll smite your ass in an instant.

But don’t dwell on that.  Remember, we’re happy!

Once enough po’boy was in her belly, Kate passed out.  This let us enjoy the rest of the afternoon with relative ease.  We walked down to The Mint, where the blues tent was set up.  Kate had no idea.

Our friends had their tent RIGHT BESIDE the stage.  The report was that they are still trying to find their voices.  Do you see Paul?  He’s arguing about paying for our sorbet and gelato.  Have you heard of La Divina? It’s wicked amazing, and you don’t have to take my word for it.  Although you’ll think so when you taste it, I have it on good authority that there is no crack cocaine in their from scratch, homemade, totally local ingredient product.

From The Mint, we wandered up Esplanade to Royal.

Just admiring the city is relative quiet.

The battle for art is front and center ’round here.

I love the angels in this iron work.  There is something new and interesting and unique to see with every building… even with ones you’ve seen a hundred times.

These are the sort of porches that make the Quarter architecture famous.  Interesting, too, that they are more Spanish than French in design.  (Or so I understand.)

Kids LOVE the Quarter.  Will kept running ahead to scout out details in the sidewalk and buildings, pointing and talking the whole time.

Here’s a tourist favorite: the cornstalk fence!  Notice the guy checking it out to the left?

He wasn’t a alone.  A whole horse-drawn carriage full of folks were doing the same thing.  From what I remember, the owner of the property built the fence for his Iowa-born and bred wife, so she wouldn’t feel so homesick.

Street performers.  But watch out for the “where’d you get them shoes” guy.

There are living statues all over the Quarter, but none of them can hold a candle to this guy.  That board is balanced on his shoulder, his right hand (not visible) is pulling out plyers from his back pocket, and his foot is completely bent so that he is on his flexed toe on his right side.  Will could not stop asking questions about this guy and actually speculated that he wasn’t even real.

The kid had a point… real is relative in New Orleans.

If I completely lose my marbles in the next few days, it’s not because of the three part-time jobs, the conference submissions (one more tomorrow and then today, an invite to apply for this one), the dissertation writing (hah!), the ongoing home renovation, the husband and his penchant for putting t-shirts in the laundry inside-out, or the number of times I have to say “LEAVE YOUR SISTER/BROTHER ALONE” in a day.

It’s because this song will not let me rest:

Panorama Jazz Band performing on Royal Street, French Quarter Fest.