Already Exhausted (and haven’t even left yet)
I’ve got a good bit of my upcoming trip planned. I hate planning, would rather just stumble upon places to go and things to do, but my family doesn’t tolerate this too well and it is not a good time for all the unknowns. I’m exhausted from all this and haven’t even left the house yet.
I can drive in England, a stick at that. The brain adjusts quickly, it is just a mirror image of driving here. No big deal. Still, I did do this a couple of years ago. Rear ended someone. So I think I’ll be a sissy and get an automatic shift this time.
You’d never see this here. It’s funny seeing things like this. (It is a bit over the top, aye?)
My friend Liv has a green thumb and a warm heart. Will go see her and her beautiful gardens and chill for a few days. I’m restless though, can’t stay in one place too long.
So we’ll do London for a few days. I do not like driving in London. I got stuck in the city once while driving through. It was like being a rat in a maze with no end. Took me three hours to get out of there and this was at night with little traffic. And a stick shift.
Bet you thought the Eiffel Tower was black. In fact, every few years they change the color. I found this out from my friend in Paris. I had just painted my fence and she asked what color. I told her it was called “Eiffel Tower.”
She said, “But Keetty, it shanges colors all ze time.” I love her accent in English. I especially like the way she pronounces the “h” in “hour.”
That is a house she owns near Paris. My favorite place in the world, that house. It is right on the River Marne and although she says we are too good of friends to charge me, I hide money in there for her because if I am there, it means she is not leasing it out to someone else and is losing money. We are staying there for a week. A long time for us to stay in one place. It is not difficult to stay put there.
There is a village in walking distance with bakeries and markets. No tourists.
And Paris is a short Metro ride away. Since this place is outside the periphique, it is expensive for four of us to take the metro into Paris. We usually get a car while at my friend’s place and when we want, drive into the city and find a parking garage to put it for the day.
I like things like this about France. The parking garages are clean and painted. Every one of them. I lost a car once in Nice, went to the wrong garage and was severely confused. That movie “Dude Where’s My Car” had just come out and I kept hearing that in my head.
We leave Sunday. I’m looking forward to seeing my friends and seeing something different.
Oh, did i tell you we’re going to see My Chemical Romance in Paris? By coincidence they are there at the same time we are (I swear). We’re seeing them at a festival in Switzerland too. So twice. Think I am an obsessed fan? No, just a passionate one. It is important to have passions in life. It is what makes life good and interesting.
Their “Teenagers” video came out yesterday. If you want to go see it, click here.
No, I’m not packed yet. I pack on the day I leave. C’mon, it’s me, what did you think?
I will have some internet access while there, so keep checking, I may do some blogging from there.
Memorial Day…
It was a little scary driving my mom home this Memorial Day weekend. I’m wondering if there is some sort of curse on us with all that is going on, you know. While there I drove out to the cemetery to clean my father’s grave. I don’t know if it is tradition to clean graves for Memorial Day, for me, it was just coincidence. Just time for Mom to go back and since I was in town and knew it needed to be cleaned, I had to get that done.
While driving out there, on the highway shoulder was a man dragging this huge wooden cross and about 30 people following him. I don’t know who these people are or why they do it, but they are really begging to have an accident.
I wondered if these people are suffering. Or recruiting. It seemed a bit blasphemous. Strange. Especially on that day.
Anyway. The cemetery is in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. It is behind St. Charles Catholic Church which was built in the late 1800’s.
It is not the town where we grew up, just a nearby town. In my town the graveyard was full and there was no more room for any new graves, so we had to find another place. My husband’s family being in the funeral business suggested this place, it is where their family members are, so they must know something, right?
It is a gated community. No worries about grave vandalism as with the cemetery my dad was in (we moved him recently).
There are moss covered treed pathways. A peaceful place.
And see, they do bury people above ground in Louisiana. Some of them. They do this because the water table is high in South Louisiana. Dig a hole, you hit water quickly.
That is the older part of the cemetery.
My family is in the new section. It looks pretty empty, but most of these plots are sold. The owners just haven’t died yet. It is too soon.
Way way too soon. Candace and Shane are on the right with the taller headstone (two in one vault), my dad in the middle, and Lorne (Pumpkin) in the yet unmarked grave. All four of them should still be alive. Should.
I don’t write this stuff for sympathy, in case you are wondering. I don’t like that, sympathy. Or pity. I pack light, remember?
I do pity those who abuse alcohol or drugs. And those who live with them. It is a miserable existence. I am blessed I do not have this disease.
The reason I am writing this is because three of these deaths were related to alcohol or substance abuse. (Some would count Candace, too, although she did not have drugs or alcohol in her blood, she was partying most of the night before her accident).
You use, you lose. All of it. And the people who love you also lose. Because once you check into this place, you are not coming back.
Smothered Chicken (AKA Sticky Chicken) Recipe
This is a good old Southern recipe I made this week and would like to share with y’all.
Gather up:
1 onion
1 bell pepper
stalk of celery
couple of cloves of garlic
2 tbsp butter or olive oil
one chicken
salt and pepper (or Tony’s Seasoning)
1-2 tbsp Kitchen Bouquet
cup of water
steamed rice
Chop the veggies and sautee in the butter or oil on medium-low flame until translucent. Put aside in a bowl.
Season chicken pieces and brown on medium to high fire.
Once browned add some Kitchen Bouquet (hope you can find it in your store) to a cup or two of water and add that to the pot of chicken.
Pour the sauteed veggies on top of the chicken.
And here is where you “smother” it. Put the lid on and cook for 35 minutes on a medium-low fire. Stir a few times. I like to leave a little crack in the lid. My mom puts the lid on her’s tight. Which means someone else must have taught me how to cook this. I think Shane showed me how to make it. One time he put green food coloring in the pot and he cackled when the chicken turned green.
Serve over steamed rice and call yourself a Southern cook.
Some people call this sticky chicken because the chicken feels a little sticky on the outside once cooked. You can smother rabbit and other game… Vegetables such as okra or green beans are delicious smothered. Some people smother corn.
Home cookin’ darlin’. That’s what this is. Next time I’ll show you how to make gumbo.
I Didn’t Do It
Out at the tombstone man’s place, while he was writing up the order, I asked if I could go out and take some photos. He said, “I know what you are going to take a picture of, that Sinclair sign.”
He said he’s had countless people offer him good money for that sign.
So I made sure to take a photo, but really, I wanted to take photos of the molds he had for burial vaults (he makes those too).
Yesterday he called and asked if I got a photo of it because someone knocked down the pole and stole the sign. Today a detective called me and asked if I could email that photo to him. Evidence.
My mom asked if I thought they thought we stole it. LOL. It hadn’t crossed my mind.
Anyway, this was a nice old dude and he was just heartbroken about that sign. It’s how he gives directions to get to his place, “Look for the old Sinclair sign.”
It’s sort of ironic, this man who makes so many markers for people no longer has his marker. Anyway, this happened near Lawtell, Louisiana and if you are from that area and know anything about this, let me know and I’ll forward the info to the detective. It would be cool to crack the case.
Postcards From Home
I don’t know if I can actually call this place I grew up “home.” I do, but it doesn’t feel like it anymore, hasn’t for many years. Nothing really feels like home for me.
What a surprise, as soon as I drove up to my Mom’s, an Amtrak train passed. The 15 years I lived in that house by the tracks I only saw one passenger train pass there.
I always loved watching these guys scrape the gravel road in front of the house. I’ll be damned if they didn’t scrape while I was there. I couldn’t help but watch the entire time. I wanted to get in that thing and scrape that road myself. I want one of these things. LOL.
I couldn’t believe it either. The guys from the jail are back in stripes! They have them fixing roads and doing landscape. Hey, if I were to go to jail, I’d definately go for the vintage prison look.
Here is a cute sign near a nursing home. Remember those old “children crossing” signs? They have grown up on us.
I have no idea what this is. A welder lived there and made these. Reminds me of that bone cage in “Pirates of the Carribean II.”
Went out to the place where they make tombstones and the man who makes them showed me how he does it. First he makes a template out of a rubber sheet and then applies it to the granite. Then he sandblasts it and that is how it gets engraved. He then sprays the engraving with black paint.
Here’s an angel I’m having him put on my brother’s tombstone.
This is a crazy messed up photo, but I like it anyway.
A Million Kinds of Crazy
Yes it is true, there has been another accidental death in the family. That makes three in seven months. My brother Lorne died on Friday and although we don’t have the results of his bloodwork, word on the street is he took too many muscle relaxers. This is the exact same thing that happened to Shane, my other brother who died last October. That was the word on the street for him too.
Louisiana is broke and is not doing autopsies as they should. They did not autopsy either of my brothers and I hear Soma (muscle relaxer) does not show up on drug screens. What comes back on these death certificates is “probable heart attack.”
So we have to rely on “word on the street.” I don’t like having to interview and interrogate friends and family, a good chunk of them addicts for information to figure out how my brother died.
I have another brother (still living) who is strung out on drugs. At the funeral home, there were stories circulating that he had gone to my mother’s house and ransacked it looking for money to buy drugs. First, the story was he had torn my mother’s room apart. As the day and evening progressed, people were saying he had turned the entire house upside down. It kept getting worse and worse, this story. We didn’t tell my mother any of this, got a hotel room for the night and kept her there.
After the burial services I brought my mom home but told her to stay in the car while I checked the house. Now, I didn’t really believe those stories, and I’m not afraid of much. But. When I opened the front door, I smelled a horrible odor, like something dead was in that house. It was dark and very still. I got this feeling that maybe my strung brother or one of his friends had gone in there and died, and I tell you my knees were knocking. My heart raced as I turned every doorknob and flicked on each light.
Much of my adult life has been like this regarding my brothers. If you’ve had alcoholic or substance abusers in your family, you know that feeling, that late night phone call or knock at the door, the shit that races through your mind. You never fucking get used to it. And when you do get that dreaded call, the nightmare come to life thing, it’s a sorry ass feeling. A fucked-up one. On the one hand you are devastated about the loss, on the other, you don’t have to worry about getting that call again. Unless you have other substance abusers in the family.
About my mom’s house and that rotten smell, I didn’t find a damn thing. No dead body, no ransacking, no nothing. Unless Snow White came by and cleaned that house. Turns out my mom had left some food out and since she was in a hotel for two days, it went bad. So much for word on the street.
About my brother Lorne, he didn’t use drugs all the time, wasn’t strung out on them. I never really thought I’d get a call like that about him. I thought for sure it would be my other brother who is out walking the streets right now doing his thing. Trying to get him into rehab is like trying to keep water cupped in my hands.
Frenzy
Wow, what is this all about?
These ladies are waiting in line to have their Bobbie Faye book signed by author Toni McGee Causey. She made a special appearance at Shecky’s Ladies Night Out in Dallas. All evening, the line was long and the girls excited.
So was Toni. She sure knows how to work a crowd.
She’s friendly and talkative and the ladies just loved her. It was a spectacular event and it was just great seeing Toni.
P.S. Toni has bookplates in case you can’t make it to a signing and have the book. Check out Toni’s site and send her an email. Don’t forget to sign up there for her newsletter and you may win something.
Let’s Go
I’ve been planning a trip to Europe over the last few days and burning up the Expedia search engine. The flights are expensive this summer. Outrageous. The cheapest cities to fly into from Dallas are usually London, Paris, Zurich, and Brussels. There are some cut-throat ways I could get there, but it would involve using mileage and crazy flight connections. This year, I just want to do some straight flights.
I always read guide books about the area I want to visit. Rick Steves is okay, I’ve learned a lot about traveling from that dude, but the hotels he recommends are always booked, and well, I don’t want to see a bunch of other Americans when I travel.
Lonely Planet books suck. Just take my word for it. I hate those books. Fodor’s, I never could connect with that guide.
Let’s Go guides are my favorite. They have detailed maps, the prices for whatever they are talking about is always accurate, and they have phone numbers and websites for just about any place they recommend. The writers of the books are a bunch of backpackers who actually do this travelling. They are an adventurous crowd. The books are full of asides like the one about the backpaker who ran a marathon around the tiny county of Liechtenstein just so he could say he saw an entire nation in a little under six hours.
I like quirky whacked-out things like that.
So far I have tickets on hold entering London (going to visit a friend there) concert tickets to the Greenfield Festival in Interlaken Switzerland, my favorite place in Paris reserved for a week, with flights back home from Paris. I am not sure how I will get to Switzerland from the UK, but I’m thinking I will fly to Paris and pick up a car there and drive. It is about a six and a half hour drive, a beautiful one. Just us girls. Road trip, baby! We’ve got ten days until Blane flies into Zurich, we’ll meet him at Interlaken. We’d like to camp at the festival there, but I know how cold it gets there at night and shit, Blane is not much of a camper.
That takes out the entire month of June. Gotta go…
Getting On Like A Housefire
After losing power for about an hour or so (there was a bad storm) the girls and I jumped in the car to see how extensive the power outage was. We heard on the radio that power lines were down near our house and that we should avoid a certain intersection because there was a housefire.
Ha. Me? I drive straight to it. There is a cul-de-sac right behind the house and the firemen are fighting the fire from the front of the house. I see a perfect shot, firemen in backlit mist, a powerline on a house, blasts of water on that fire. One big problem. No camera.
We drive back home, get the camera and go back. The shot is gone. The hoses aren’t even on anymore. The flames have died down. And Spanky is raising hell. She says I’m sick, that I should not be so excited about something like this. I tell her it is an empty house, (it is owned by a builder). Sweetpea on the other hand is saying “C’mon fireman, turn that hose back on.” When he does, Sweetpeas yells, “Whoa, look at that, get that shot, Mamma!”
This is the best shot I could get.
I don’t have any good firehose shots and the firemen didn’t go back in the mist. I missed that shot. It’s just gone.
I’m sick alright.
We didn’t stay long because Spanky was raising so much hell about it. She said Sweetpea and I were pretty disgusting. She even had the nerve to call one her friends, right there in front of us to dog our behavior. We said she was a wet blanket. It was a total girl fight in that car about this stupid housefire.
So, would you go look at a housefire? A friend of mine sent me a funny email the other day, it was a joke Louisiana driving rules list. One of the items was, “When you come upon the scene of an accident, drive slow and rubberneck to show your respect for the victim.”
Big Easy Pieces
Just before landing in New Orleans, the pilot asked over the speaker if anyone had change for a twenty. Sweetpea shook her head and smiled, “You know we’re in the Big Easy.”
While touching down and applying the brakes on the plane, the pilot made it sound like he was stopping a horse, “Whoa, boy, slow down, whoa,” (slowing gallop sounds) and then “neigh.”
We were there for Blane’s cousin’s wedding, the one who was our translator on that trip to France where we saw that spooky French property with the bones all over the place. She is a cool girl and she married a cool dude who went to film school. The rehearsal dinner was a crawfish boil, oh boy, and the wedding was just beautiful. We all had a great time.
Of course we had to go out to the French Quarter while there to kill some time between wedding events.
Places like this call me, “Come on in.”
As well as places like this. (AJ, I was thinking about you, this guy gave us tons of free samples and a hefty discount on a case of pralines.)
Had to take a stoll down here. I told the girls that the guy to girl ratio is always about 5:1, and not a single guy on that street is worthy of them. Too bad. One thing I love about this area is how there is music coming out of everywhere, all types, jazz, zydeco, rock, blues, techno, country, you name it. The sounds just sort of all mesh together in one big gumbo of music.
I love these old machines even though they give me the creeps. I wonder what he knows about the future of New Orleans?
Here is a cool video I took of a street performer/acrobat who cuts a flip over some audience members (Sweetpea and Spanky are in there). It is amazing. Street acts are one of my favorite things to see on any trip, and New Orleans is full of them, especially near Jackson Square.
While we were leaving the Quarter for our trip home, we ran across this guy near the river. He was drumming on plastic five gallon cans for donations. I noticed his legs were bruised and he was weak. Then I noticed the hospital bracelet on his wrist. He said he had just been released from the hospital and pointed to his walker, “I got that from them, too.”
Out of all the people I saw out there, all the Hurricane Katrina stories I heard over the weekend, this one man embodied the spirit of the people there the best. Still crippled, but up on their feet and back to work with no excuses, no rest. Just moving on. So really, as weak as this man looked, he possessed some of the greatest strength and resilience I have ever seen.
