Moogie's Interesting Day

After last night's rather forceful hail storm, today has been one of "interesting times," as in the old Chinese proverb and curse.

Let's recap, shall we?

I stepped in dog poop on the way to a doctor's appointment.  With both shoes.

Younger Daughter picked up the "Plan B" bridesmaids' dresses today (chosen after it came to pass that "Plan A" didn't come in navy blue after all) and says they're hideous and noisy.  Plus, the shoes agreed upon after quite a lengthy debate and much discussion have been discontinued.

Pepper is sick with a chest cold on the day before I leave town for bridal frivolity.

The grocery was out of rotisserie chicken, with which I was going to pamper myself after an "interesting" day.  I deserve pampering, so we're going with by-golly fried chicken!  (Suffer with the image of fried chicken, Michelle Obama.  Suffer.)

And, it seems that, at five feet in height, and not-obese-poundage in weight, and at 56 genteel years of age, Moogie can still change a flat tire.  In drizzling rain.  With freshly washed and styled hair.  In under an hour.

I despise so very much the interminable wait for automotive assistance in the Crescent City that, after checking twice that the tire was in fact too flat to make it to Firestone (because I was in denial after the first time), I decided to walk the two blocks home to change clothes, and to change the sucker myself.

First I re-scheduled the doctor's appointment.  Those people charge you anyway if you decide just not to show up! 

Then, I pulled out the owner's manual to brush up on where all the tire-changing equipment is located (and to figure out how to use that fancy twist-instead-of-pump-to-operate jack -- this alone should give you an idea of how long it's been since Moogie changed a flat)  (and where, exactly, to place the fancy jack) (and how to lower the spare from its snug perch beneath the MoogieMobile).  Those fine folks at Toyota wrote a driver's manual that is actually helpful! 

I miscalculated how very heavy a full-size spare for an SUV crossover is, but somehow, and with much perspiring and colorful language and laughing aloud all by myself at the absurdity of the whole situation, I managed to wrestle the flat tire off, and the spare onto, that wretched rear passenger-side wheel.

Of course, all along I was hoping against hope that some kind gentleman would happen upon me and come to my rescue.  My Mama didn't raise no foolish children, after all.  And, about 35 minutes into the process, just as I had gotten that "interesting" jack to lift the car to an adequate height, and was preparing to pull the contemptible flat off, from the corner of my eye I spied a white pick-up truck slowing, and coming to a stop across the street!  I heard the door shut, and sensed the motion of someone heading in my direction!

Not wanting to appear too eager, I didn't immediately turn on the damsel-in-distress charm for my Good Samaritan.  And, it's a good thing I didn't bother wasting any of that charm because the man who headed in my direction was not a Good Samaritan -- he was the Samaritan's evil twin.  Or Satan incarnate.

First, he asked me in passing, "How ya doin'?"  As I replied, "I've been better," he continued to stroll right into the nicely manicured yard beside which the hobbled MoogieMobile was parked. Then he sashayed past me again to open the gate.  All in all, that scrawny landscape guy passed me, as I strained and sweated, FIVE times.  Then he crossed the street, got in his truck, and took off, without so much as a fare thee well.

After more colorful language, and considerably more perspiring (I was well beyond "glowing" by this time), I succeeded in getting the spare situated, and stood on the lug wrench to tighten each nut.  And, just as I was preparing to crank the despicable flat up into position to take it to be repaired, good neighbor Wayne pulled up.  He asked if I needed any help, and when I said no thanks -- I was just putting stuff away now -- he remarked that he had apparently gotten there at just the right time. 

Ha.  Ha. 

When I told him about the landscape guy, he asked if the guy was blonde.  I told him, no, he was more grayish and really slim.  He said, "Yeah that'd be Joel.  Doesn't surprise me that he'd take off without helping."  So, apparently Joel's reputation precedes him, and follows him.

I rinsed my hands with water from a thermos and toweled off with stowed-away Wendy's napkins,  (I apparently failed to see the filth on my calves, acquired while trying to coax the spare onto the frickin' wheel.  At least I didn't notice it until I was sitting and soaking in the pedicure chair -- which, by the way, I absolutely deserved today!  The nice pedicure lady made an "interesting" face when I apologized for having filth on my calves because I had just changed a flat tire.  She should count her blessings that at least I took a quick spit bath of the important parts and changed clothes before going there.) and headed for Firestone.  The nice clerk checked and aired up all my tires, apologizing because my tire can't be ready until tomorrow.  When I'm leaving town.  In my car.  And then they were out of soap in the ladies room.

*Sigh*

So, I'm going to indulge in a cocktail this evening before our fried chicken dinner.  And it's good to know that I can still change a tire when the necessity presents itself.  I suppose.

I'm gonna be sooooo sore tomorrow.

In Today's Inbox

[I don't know who started this email, but I like it. Not the idea behind it, of course, I just like the way it crawls down into your stomach and just grinds. Sorta.]:




Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.

Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night."

So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?"

So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?"

So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One was to do the studies and one was to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?"

So they created two positions: a time keeper and a payroll officer then hired two people.


Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?"

So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one Year and we are $918,000 over budget, we must cut back."

So they laid-off the night watchman.


Let this last statement slowly sink in.


Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter.




Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY.....
during the Carter Administration?

Anybody?

Anything?

No?


Didn't think so!

Bottom line is, we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency....the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember!

Ready??

It was very simple... and at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8/04/1977,


TO REDUCE OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

AND NOW IT'S 2011 -- 34 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY" DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. IT HAS 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE!

(THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?")

33 years ago 30% of our oil consumption was foreign imports. Today 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports.

Ah, yes -- good old Federal bureaucracy.

NOW, WE HAVE TURNED OVER THE BANKING SYSTEM, HEALTH CARE, AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY TO THE SAME GOVERNMENT?



Hello!! Anybody Home?

[Can you say "Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act?" Gives you the creeps, doesn't it?]

The Third (okay -- the Fourth) Time is the Charm?

Thanks to suggestions and encouragement by Murphy and Andy, today I ventured into the Wonderful World of YouTube!  This post will (hopefully) re-post last Sunday's doomed "Carnival 2011 in Video" post, but this time there will be actual, visible, "available" videos, courtesy of Mr. YouTube.  (Hopefully.)  I'm just cutting and pasting the narrative from March 20.  Here goes (hopefully) something!

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I'm not sure how well this will work -- I might just overload and explode the internet, and then we'd all be in trouble, so I apologize in advance if I destroy the internet or break Blogger. My bad. Nonetheless, I'm going to try to post 5 short videos from Carnival! One that is really funny won't work because it's too dark, so I'm sorry about that. I'll just have to tell you about it.

Muses is a registered carnival Krewe, and the only all-female organization to parade at night. The Parade has become a favorite of many over the last 10 years (Moogie is a proud member of said Krewe, albeit a non-riding member -- there's a years-long waiting period before one can ride), probably because it is clever, irreverent, satirical, and welcomes many "walking groups" to come along for the evening. Among the first of those walking/marching groups is the "Gliding Elvi," a large-and-growing group of men who dress up in full Elvis regalia and ride in masse on Vespas, throwing beads and kisses. Yep, Vespas. I did see a few walking this year, so I suppose we'd have to call them "Striding Elvi." Sorry the video was too dark, but just picture it!

Another men's group, new to the parade, is the "610 Stompers." ("Ordinary Men. Extraordinary moves.") They dress in sorta, kinda Richard Simmons-ish 80s fashion, complete with sweatbands, and do little marching and dancing routines. Such a hoot. Here's a little taste:

Okay.  My bad.  The video above is of the Gliding Elvi (I apparently misread my notes and uploaded the wrong video.  And, apparently I broke The YouTube for awhile, but it seems to be better now.  Sorry.).  Quality on The YouTube is definitely better than on Moogie's pitiful little phone!  The 610 Stompers are below.

This is a panoramic taste of the scene one block from Moogie's Mansion on Bacchus Sunday (the Sunday before Mardi Gras), which, due to horrible storms on Saturday also became Endymion Sunday when the Super-Krewe's parade was postponed from Saturday and moved from its Mid-City route to the traditional Uptown route following Bacchus. What a nightmare! Check out all the extra port-a-potties that were hastily trucked over to Uptown from Mid-City. They walled off goodly chunks of parade-viewing. It was impossible to get close to the floats because huge numbers of Mid-City folk came over Saturday night after the storm and camped out on the neutral ground, pitching tents, erecting awnings, and setting up housekeeping with furniture and cooking grills. The unhappy-looking child being held nearby was one of the several for whom I had to run home to get first aid supplies -- he fell and sliced open his hand. Why don't the young parents of toddlers come prepared? Mine were always falling down and bleeding and stuff, so I was a walking infirmary for years!

Here's an idea of just how wretched the traffic is in Moogie's neighborhood come Carnival. This year seemed to be worse than in previous years, but, for the most part, people were willing to let residents try to save parking spots for themselves. For the most part. On Bacchus Sunday, visiting Younger Daughter and I leapt amid cars to direct traffic so that a loaded ambulance could make its way through the gridlock. Fortunately, the drivers could hear the LOUD siren and accepted our direction of how best they could get out of the way, without causing Younger Daughter and I the need for another gridlocked ambulance. I even charmingly had to stop traffic so the Pepper could back out of the garage and head out of town for a Monday hearing near Vicksburg. It was as much fun to watch as any rodeo!

This is a quick view of "The Lighting of the Flambeaux," closely monitored by the fire department because most of the flambeaux torches are powered by naptha -- stinking like jet fuel and just a teensy bit flammable. The lighting makes for high drama and lots of photo ops.

This next video shows one of the huge floats from Bacchus (on second thought, I think this is the big train in Endymion) as it passes. You can see how huge the crowd was, spilling over into the street. Be sure to check out the trash factor. The Second District Police commandeered a prime spot and roped it off for themselves and their families. I suppose I don't mind them doing that for one day -- they do put up with an awful lot of nonsense, and they are among the best in the world at crowd control, but they surely did contribute a lot this year to the stuff that the Orleans Parish Prisoners are bused in after parades to clean up with rakes and trash sacks!

This next one is new today.  We have the treat of having access to a balcony every Mardi Gras morning, courtesy of MARFORRES and the Lupo family, at the Parc St. Charles, catty-corner from Gallier Hall on St. Charles Avenue, where the Mayor greets and toasts King Zulu (of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club) and Rex, King of Carnival.  We didn't stay for Rex this year (they were drastically delayed by the pace of Zulu -- who kinda likes to mess with Rex's schedule!), but we saw the arrival of King Zulu and I caught a little of it.  It was so windy that morning that I feared King Zulu might take flight!

I caught no Bacchus beads this year -- nor beads from any other of the Sunday parades, except one lonely strand from an over-achiever with a great pitching arm in Thoth. I certainly didn't get close enough to snag a Bacchus doubloon featuring Grand Marshall Andy Garcia, or really even get to get a decent view of the floats honoring "The Greatest Generation."

*Deep Sigh*

Of course, Pepper says that is a good thing since we have no need of more worthless trinkets taking up space around the house. Pepper is fast becoming a Mardi Gras Grinch.

Did you like that superior camera work! (Hopefully!)

Bouie, the Outcast

Today's Times-Picayune carried Shelia Stroup's column about local goings-on.  Ordinarily, I like her columns; I even sent her a "fan email" shortly after moving to New Orleans, telling her that after reading her column devoutly, I counted her among my first "friends" in the area.

But, today's column was about the first anniversary of the wonderful dog park ("City Bark") that was opened in City Park last year and sounds like something that Bouie would envision as Doggie Heaven. 

Why, you might wonder, doesn't Moogie know first-hand how wonderful the City Bark is?  Well, just let me fill you in.

The City Bark "board members" feel they should "support" the City in its "efforts" to reduce the number of "vicious" dogs maurading around town, slashing children and propagating their own breed as they maraud.  The Board's solution?  Ban all dogs who have not been spayed or neutered.  Without appeal.  Without Due Process.

Although we haven't yet been successful in arranging a "date" for Bouie, we're still trying.  He has a bloodline, good nature, and hunting instincts that should be preserved and passed along to future generations.  We never dreamed that packaging up an arranged marriage would be so hard.

So, he remains a dateless outcast.  Doomed never to romp in the ponds and sand pits of City Bark; doomed never to enjoy a cool, cleansing shower after playtime is past or slurp a drink from the fire-hydrant-shaped drinking fountain. 

I think it's just shameful and mean not to have a procedure for intact animals to pay their money and revel in the pleasures of City Bark.  If every domesticated animal were spayed or neutered, there'd be no more domesticated animals!

So, I posted this comment on Ms. Stroup's column at nola.com.  It won't amount to a hill of beans, but it made me feel better.

And I hope it will make some of those know-it-all do-gooders feel bad and mean, like the mean-spirited baddies they are.

I cannot express the pain I feel that our adorable, non-agressive, playful, INTACT 4-year-old black lab will never get to enjoy the City Bark playground and make new friends. It sounds like the park was designed with him in mind; furthermore it sounds like something our family would delight in supporting, both financially and as volunteers. Sadly for all, that's not in the cards.


Shame on you, board members, for assuming the role of omniscient judge and jury. Shame on the City for assuming that all intact dogs will become rogue puppy mills. Not all owners of intact pets are irresponsible, but it appears that we must assume the penalty along with those who are irresponsible.

Shame on you all. Shame, shame, shame.

I Give

Okay, Mr. Blogger.  I'm not sure what it is that you want of me, but I give up.  Mardi Gras 2011 in Video is apparently not to be.

Jerk.

So, to assuage my pain and sense of loss, I think I'll try to post some ordinary pictures and see if you sabotage them, too.

It's oak flower season in New Orleans.  This year isn't as bad as some have been, especially the spring after Katrina when all the trees were working overtime to recover, but it's plenty bad enough.  This is what my car has looked like every morning this week (the birds have been using it for target practice, too):

The parades may be over, but the memory (and the evidence) remains.  I saw a guy on St. Charles Avenue the other day with a long hook, picking beads out of the trees and dumping them in his trunk.  He had enough to set up a stand in the French Market after he sorted and banded them -- and that's probably what he planned to do!  And he probably picked this tree bare.  That's a shame because the rest of us really like to look at them all year long.

There.  Do your worst, Mr. Blogger!  I shall not yield on photographs.  Nay, say I!  I shall not yield.

March 20 Video Re-post #2 *SUPERSEDED*

Superseded by March 27th post.


Here are the "610 Stompers" marching and dancing their way through the Muses parade.

Let's See, Shall We? *SUPERSEDED*

Superseded by the March 20th post. 

Let's try posting one at a time and see if that's more to Mr. Blogger's liking.   From the March 20 post:

This is a panoramic taste of the scene one block from Moogie's Mansion on Bacchus Sunday (the Sunday before Mardi Gras), which, due to horrible storms on Saturday also became Endymion Sunday when the Super-Krewe's parade was postponed from Saturday and moved from its Mid-City route to the traditional Uptown route following Bacchus. What a nightmare! Check out all the extra port-a-potties that were hastily trucked over to Uptown from Mid-City. They walled off goodly chunks of parade-viewing. It was impossible to get close to the floats because huge numbers of Mid-City folk came over Saturday night after the storm and camped out on the neutral ground, pitching tents, erecting awnings, and setting up housekeeping with furniture and cooking grills. The unhappy-looking child being held nearby was one of the several for whom I had to run home to get first aid supplies -- he fell and sliced open his hand. Why don't the young parents of toddlers come prepared? Mine were always falling down and bleeding and stuff, so I was a walking infirmary for years!

UPDATE: Okay -- so the video showed up twice -- at least it showed up!  I'll do the others separately, too.  Hold your breath and cross your fingers!