Freakin Pack Rat

Oh my GOD, I cannot throw anything away. Unpacking sucks worse than anything.

Will someone please explain to me why I still am hanging on to the following things:

1. Navy blue polyester leisure suit (three piece!) that belonged to my grandmother, with hand-applied bedazzling brass accents

2. Citizens of Humanity jeans I haven't been able to squeeze my ass into since 2007

3. Fairly large pez collection

4. Photos documenting everything I have ever done in my entire life, carefully cataloged and placed in albums coded by year

5. One pair of electric blue false eyelashes

6. Mini gold buddha whose arm broke off sometime between college and the birth of my kid

Tell me, am I crazy for hanging on to this stuff? What random items can't you seem to part with, no matter how logical it might seem???

Pest du jour

In New York, we have cockroaches (note: we have em here too, only they are the size of your fist, found mostly outdoors, and pleasantly referred to as, palmetto bugs. Oh, come on. I don't care what the fuck you call it, if its big enough to blink at me and I can hear it chewing, it doesn't belong in my house unless it's shitting in a litter box).

Anyway, I've just discovered that here in Louisiana, the most popular pests are love bugs.

Don't be fooled by the dippy Disneyfication of their name. Love bugs are really kind of gross.

Upon first glance they appear to be two-headed fireflies. Examine closer and you will see that in actuality they are two members of the opposite sex copulating. Apparently, love bugs start out as larvae (or, ew, maggots, to the lay person), feeding on rotting vegetation, then grow to full size and spend the remainder of their lives screwing:

From the Wiki: The male and female attach themselves at the rear of the abdomen and remain that way at all times, even in flight. In fact, after mating, the male dies and is dragged around by the female until she lays her eggs.

Sounds horribly romantic, doesn't it?

And by romantic, I mean creepy and kind of depressing. How is it that even in the insect world, the woman is expected to carry around the dead weight of some dude whose only contribution is to donate sperm???

Thunder Only Happens When it's Raining (and it makes the windows rattle, too)

Holy Crap.

I'm sitting at the computer, minding my own business, plotting ways to inflict painful, anonymous, vengeful death on my assholio movers who STILL have not delivered my stuff (Lily is getting a little tired of playing with the same one Barbie and the kitten is sooo over being put shoved in a basket and getting carried around like Toto to Lil's cloying, overbearing Dorothy), when a low rumbling makes me turn my head toward the window.

Hmmmm.

The dog, sleeping loyally at my feet, perks his ears up, but does nothing.

Then, BAM!!! The loudest crack of thunder I might have ever heard pounds down on the house like the steel boots of a thousand giants. The windows shake and shudder, and the dog is off and running, yalping and barking at the front door because maybe he thinks its the mail man dropping off a really big package? (he might actually rip the mail man's leg off his body, incidentally, if he ever got the chance, so strong is his instinct to protect his dwelling).

I swear I've never heard thunder like that in my life. It was wild and ripe, a concussion of clouds that can only be produced in a place where humidity is as thick as a strawberry milkshake.

But the air here is sweet. It's fragrant and you want to almost savor it on your tongue. It is delicious in a way that New York air could never be. It's air that carries the scent of year-round tropical lilies and the greenest grass and sweet tea and shaved ice.

It makes me feel kind of drunk and I almost weep with glee when I walk out of the house and instead of livery cab drivers cursing my ass out, or the sweating cement of buildings and sidewalks sealing me into a kiln-like tomb, there is only the low rumble of thunder. There is the chutt-chutting of cicadas and baby frogs and there is green grass and the squeak of a cat laying under a patio chair. And I think, yes. Yes. Yes.

This is the life for me.

Here I am...rock you like a hurricane

Hi, Y'all!!!

Well, we made it. Exactly one week ago, Lily and I were getting turned away at Newark Airport because our flight down to Baton Rouge had been canceled for no good reason (a little misty rain? Come on, pilot! You pussy! It's only my life and my soon-to-be-6-year-old's life. Let's take a gamble!!)

Alas, we were stuck in Jersey for the night. A fate worse than death to many.
So, defeated, we gathered our two cats (each was tucked snugly in an airline-approved travel carrier; the bigger one, Sea Monkey, would later shit himself on the air train en route to the Best Western), and trudged reluctantly away from our would-be departure gate.

We were transient, free-falling, flappin in the wind. We'd packed up our New York City apartment a couple days before (at a grossly inflated price, I might add; Advice: Never go with a mover from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, who assures you in Tony Soprano-ese that there are no 'hidden charges') and our worldly treasures were en route (fingers crossed!) to Louisiana. We'd hugged my parents goodbye at the security gate (where, incidentally, the guards forced us to remove each panic-stricken, neck-clawing kitty and carry him individually through the metal detector). We were ready for Louisiana, but apparently Louisiana wasn't yet ready for us.

After a good night's sleep and a couple bloody marys at the hotel restaurant, however, and after slipping the front desk kid a Hamilton and batting my sleep-deprived, smolderingly bloodshot eyes, I managed to score some kitty litter and food so that the cats didn't trash the place.

Next morning was smooth as butter. We boarded, carried our docile, cooperative cats like handbags, and arrived at our new home, where we were greeted by our ever-lovin Jeremy.

Ex-to-the-frikkin-hale.

So, my darlings. Here's to the beginning of a fabulous new adventure. Stay tuned, lovies.
Much hilarity, I assure you, is to ensue...