Our wedding pictures are all done, and up online for everyone to see and buy, if they want… Wheeee!!!! 
Go see all of them at:
www.collages.net
For the event, type in “Melinda and Jerry” and the passcode is “10450″.
They are all there, even the ones I look funny in… Eventually I am also going to have them all up on my web photo blog, too, at:
www.saffitz.com/melinda/WEDDING
Yippee!!!!
–Melinda ^_^
Well, I’ve been home for a little under a week now, and RIGHT now, this very moment is the first time this entire time that I’ve been able to just do nothing. I had no idea I was going to be so annoyingly busy here. Errands, tasks, bills, etc. I’m exhausted. It’s all a part of the set-up of a new life.
I love my apartment. It’s amazing. And I love all our new stuff, it’s all amazing, too. And, surprisingly, I like to cook more than I thought. However, I get violently angry if Jerry refers to me as a housewife. This will never fly. I refuse to ever be that person, even if I have been doing laundry, cleaning, cooking and picking up drycleaning. It’s still not me.
At risk of cementing anything like such a title, here have been my dinners. Jerry stalks me with his camera for his blog, which is starting to become perhaps an unhealthy obsession. Not really, he’s just hilarious when he gets *really* into a new project. (http://jerrykansky.blogspot.com/)
So, then, dinners… in order: Meatloaf, hawaiian pizza, chicken pot pie. All made from scratch. Hell yeah. (P.S.- allrecipies.com is awesome.)
–Monday, 2-6-2006:
This morning we had to be up rather early for a lec-dem we were supposed to do at Utah State. By the way, I’ve now learned that Logan isn’t a crazy, small town, it’s a really, really spread out mid-sized college town. The fact that there is near civilization a long ways away does nothing to help with the fact that our hotel is in the middle of nowhere. Did I mention it has a highway address? Oh, and, in back of it is a trailer park.
Regardless, Becca, Leo, Chad and I were called to do a lecture-demonstration, with Monica leading, for an “arts and civilization” general ed class at USU. This is not normal. We’ve never done this before. We decided we would do improv and have the class manipulate the phrases and the steps according to their class content and prompts from Monica. We were up on a stage in front of 900 freshmen, and we were given words relating to love, hate, civilization and nature by the students. We then had to make up movement that correlated and then phrases individually and then with the four of us. By the end, the students had us doing the robot and spirit fingers as I tried my best to do movement somewhat related to “indoor plumbing.”
Despite what it might sound like from my description, it went really, really well, and the students actually really, genuinely liked it. It went so well, in fact, that Monica is going to ask Denise to add this type of activity to our roster of offerable outreach so we can do it more often.
After the lec-dem, we asked if we could be driven to a grocery store and our wonderful drivers/presenters took us. I was therefore able to waylay one of my larger fears of being here: no food.
Then I napped. For four hours. Have I mentioned I seem to sleep a lot, and never feel rested?
Then, we had tech. Tonight was my night to teach warm-up, and I finally got to try out a combo on everyone I’ve been playing around with for a while. The stage and theater were freezing, though, which kind of blew, cause it’s pretty impossible to warm up when you’re frozen. Maybe it’s because it was 18 degrees here today. For real. Also, there were flies everywhere on stage today… we can’t figure out/imagine where they’re coming from.
The theater provided us with unexpected, really good food. That ruled. The stage is crazy small. That’s kind of bad.
I’m back in bed. We’ve been watching TV and I’ve been taking care of business since we got home at about ten. Starr (my wedding photographer) wants Jerry and I to write a little bit about us and our relationship and wedding so she can submit us to Seattle Bride magazine, which I think is pretty cool. So, tonight I took care of most of that and a lot of other, backlogged emails… though not all of them, because there’s always just too many. Sigh…
So then, off to bed.
–Friday, 2-3-2006:
Our first morning in our amazing hotel we got to sleep in, which we only kind of took advantage of… usually free breakfast will get Becca and I up before we would wake up naturally, and since this hotel was too nice for that, we, for once, did get to sleep in until we randomly roused ourselves sans alarm. Since we were in the mile-high city, and since our last stop here over the summer (my first ever performances with Diavolo back in June,) we had such trouble with the altitude and lack of oxygen, we headed to the hotel’s workout room to do some cardio. This, supposedly would get our bodies more used to the change and lessen the blow onstage.
I’m not sure if that desired effect was ever achieved, but nonetheless, I’m glad I worked out so that I can say I did everything I could to prepare myself. Plus, I really don’t ever work out, and it really did feel good to get off my ass in a way that was rather superfluous considering my job is to be active and working physically all day, everyday. It gave me some nice reading/iPod time, too, while I was on the elliptical. After working out, I got to go back to my room and my amaaaaaaaaazing waterfall shower. That was worth the 2-hour workout right there.
Then, Becca and John and I walked to Qdoba for lunch. During this trip, even though I’ve eaten there before, I noticed for the first time that Qdoba is perhaps the only word in the (expanded) english language in which a Q is not, in fact, followed by a U. Q’eer.
Lunch was amazing, save except the random crowd of drunks who were wasted at 2pm in a perhaps even more random bar inside a Qdoba. We think the timeliness of their inebriation could be due to the prices at that bar: $1 beers, $2 well drinks, and $3 call drinks. For the record, none of us yet know exactly what a “call drink” is, since none of has ever heard the term before. The working hypothesis, for now, is that it might be a well drink, but when you ask for a name brand, like ‘bacardi and coke…’
After lunch, we went back, stopped by the business center to check our email (our hotel is also too nice for free wi-fi) and after did what else, but nap (as we seem to always do in any free time, after eating, while watching TV, etc.) We woke up in time to get downstairs for a later than normal tech. We were greeting by a white stretch limo (!!!!) I thought the guy was joking when he pointed to it as our ride, but he wasn’t. This was the first in a series of limos that took us to and from the theater everyday. We had a white stretch limo, a black stretch limo, and an excursion SUV limo. Some had the stars on the ceiling and the color-changing interiors. Others had the classic lighting and moon-roofs. This was so much fun for me, because literally the only other limo I’ve ever been in was for Megan’s wedding.
Tech was long, and tiresome, because it was late and we were exhausted and not adjusted to the altitude. We found out we weren’t getting oxygen on the side of the stage like we thought… a psychological blow to a hard situation. You never really feel out of breath in these conditions, it’s just you get about three times as tired as normal and your muscles just don’t want to work.
After tech we came back to the hotel and pretty much went to bed. Denver is really chilly, and it finally felt like winter for the first time on tour, which made me really very homesick. Both the cold and how worn-out my body felt made the hotel bed seem like the absolute most inviting, comfortable thing ever.
–Saturday, 2-4-2006:
Again, no free breakfast was in sight, so Becca and I got up earlier than needed for our 10am call to the lobby and walked to The Corner Bakery with John for breakfast. I got a pretty amazing breakfast panini and a cinnamon roll for later that kept me full for most of the day. The bad news of the morning was that I am out of my per diem… meaning food from here on out is out of my pocket. Sigh.
We headed straight to the theater, limo-style, and started our tech of act II. After tech, Becca and I headed back to the Corner Bakery to get salads for lunch. We took them back to our room, ate them, and napped. (All I do is sleep, apparently… so why does it feel like I never get enough?) In the middle of my nap, I randomly decided I wanted a shower, I think it was the amazingness of the shower that called me, and less any need to actually shower. My naps never seem long enough, and soon enough we had to be back downstairs to once again head to the theater for our show.
After warm-up I hurried and put on my make up and D2R costume (I really made record time,) so that I could meet David, Garrett and Monica onstage to practice my baby-carriage fly which has been getting wonky for a number of reasons. The show went well, really well, (for me at least,) despite our obvious fatigue from lack of oxygen, up until half way through Traj. Right before my eagle fly, John fell and was unable to power the rock need to propel my fly, so I didn’t have my pop and had a hard landing.
In trying to propel myself the amount needed to make up for the lack of push from the rocker, I also pulled my right quad, pushing against a floor that never came up to meet me. I think that fact that I pulled my quad was probably catalyzed by 1) muscle fatigue and 2) the fact that I slammed that same quad earlier into the front bay on Traj when my bracing arm failed to cushion the impact of my cross. I have a huge, puffy bruise running across my thigh – the kind that hurts to move the muscle underneath it – and I think that made that leg just a little bit more of a puss for the day.
Whatever, I landed the fly safe, and that’s all that matters. After the show, we ate the food the theater provides for us, packed our truck bags and did our load-out duties before heading back to the hotel for, once again, sleep.
–(Super Bowl) Sunday, 2-5-2006:
Another travel day. I didn’t really even unpack much in Denver, so packing back up was smooth and quick. I had a leisurely time getting ready while Becca was at breakfast with her mom. I took one last ultima-shower, got ready, and checked my email from the business center before heading downstairs to meet everyone. We once again go to take a limo bus, and had a nice, luxury ride to the airport.
Lugging around all my shit was more of a challenge than normal due to the gimp status of my right leg. I am thankful, however, because my leg feels better than I thought possible considering how it felt the night before – which isn’t to say it feels ok – but just not the worst case scenario I had anticipated.
We got to the Delta counter, only to be nonchalantly told our flight had been canceled. They booked us on a United flight that was scheduled to leave two hours later, so we all grumbled our way over to the United counter to check in there. This was no small trek since the Denver airport is not-so-convieniently set up in East and West terminals, the walk in between which is about 5-7 crowded minutes. When we got to United, the easily-overwhelmed counter lady informed us we were merely on standby for the flight, (this was news to us,) so, while we – with no other options – started to check our bags on that flight and start the standby boarding process, John headed back to Delta to raise a fuss and get it fixed so we were *booked* and all together.
When he got back, with a guarantee we were booked, the United computers still showed no such thing, and another round of frustration ensued, cumulating in me hobbling my slow-ass back to the Delta desk solo. Luckily I met up with a wonderfully nice lady who fixed everything, got us names of people to blame if not, and cleared up the whole situation. In the middle of this, some people had been able to check in okay, others were not (depending on the ease of the counter person they got over at United,) and people started one by one wandering off – a less than desirable action since we needed to all make sure we were all cared for. In the process of my fixing the whole thing, I had to walk back and fourth between terminals a bunch, and the whole mess made me rather ornery.
Thankfully, once I had my boarding pass, there was a Taco Bell to cheer me up. John and I ate, and then went through security. We had the pleasure of being in the extra-checked line, which we knew ahead of time… we’ve learned to see where on the boarding passes they write they fact they’ve flagged you for extra screening – we think we got the honor because of our one-way tickets.
We got to the gate in time for me to make some phone calls and for the majority of us to play a game of Catch Phrase. The flight from Denver to Salt Lake was really turbulent, which I think is because we took off over one mountain bowl and landed in another. Once we got into Salt Lake, which is a freezing, majestic and gorgeous city, we had a one and a half hour shuttle ride to Logan.
By the time we got into the Shuttle, the Super Bowl was about to start, so we listened to it on the ride. About half way through the ride, we hit an area where the radio wouldn’t receive signal, so we had Super Bowl blackout. This, by the way, should give an indication of just how out in the middle of nowhere Logan is… it was a beautiful drive, and this whole area is amazing… but Logan is about as small town as it gets while still being relatively modern. It looks like a typical mid-60’s little town, with a main drag, only updated a bit. Our hotel is within walking distance of nothing, and we’re quite concerned about where our meals will come from… except breakfast, which is included with the hotel. So is wireless internet, so it’s not all bad.
Logan is great, don’t get me wrong, it just makes me ponder exactly where enough patrons will come from to support, not one, but two shows here.
Once we got to the hotel and checked in, priority one was to find a pub to go to to watch the remainder of the game and to get some dinner. The shuttle driver dropped us off at the local place, which was rustic, adorable, and perfect for a small-town Super Bowl watching time. We ordered pizzas and nachos, and settled in to watch just as the Rolling Stones were starting their half-time show.
David, Crystal and Ed walked me through and reminded me of the ins and outs of football I’ve become less familiar with with time, and we hooted and hollered up until the bitter end. Most of the company converted to Seahawks fans for the game out of loyalty to me, and we were all sad to see the Hawks go down, mostly due to some truly biased and shitty refereeing. Even the people in the company who knew NOTHING about the game AND the commentators saw how bad the calls were. Eff you, you effing effed up refs. Booooo.
After the game we taxied back to the hotel and congregated in Garrett’s room to watch the video of the last show and get notes. Then, it was back to my room for some quality TV and computer time. Now, bed.
P.S.- Today is Monica’s birthday… Happy Birthday, Monica!!
–Tuesday, 1-31-2006:
The next morning we had to be up just as early, but this time for a kid’s show, otherwise known to us as a YPC (young person’s concert.) The presenters in Lafayette asked for an extra 15 minutes to half hour on top of our normal kids show, so for this one, we brought an old piece called ladders, otherwise known to us as “Apex.” Monica, Garrett, David and John performed it before the normal kids show, and we added a section of question and answer to the roster to facilitate our extra time to fill.
The show was going to be extra fun because most of the audience was comprised of kids from the classes we’ve been teaching in the previous day. Kids shows usually start at 10:30 and this one was no different. YPC’s, normally include bench (le siège,) door (phantome,) and wheel (humachina,) along with us bringing kids up on stage to warm up with us, do some log rolls, and fall from a wheel piece. They also get a healthy dose of children-friendly trust and teamwork propaganda with a side of how to use your imagination.
After the show, we had about a two hour break. I used the opportunity to call the babers, and to go to lunch. We walked across the street and down past the hospital to a wonderful little eatery called Cafe Lola. It’s the first food in a while that I’ve completely devoured without abandon, and this made me happy – I needed some just plain good normal food to up my mood a bit. (P.S.- I got a southwestern chicken salad.) The cafe is only open from 10:30am to 2pm: I guess it’s specifically for the lunch crowd, or else I would have sought it out again.
After lunch, we had a(n extended) tech of Act II – aka Traj. We took the fact that we were teching on not the day of the show to clean up some messy stuff and figure out why some of the rocks have been getting crazy-big. This process was slightly in vain, in my opinion, since we were on a stage that a) had a number of what we for some reason call “wonky-wonks” – uneven seams in the wood below the marly that leads the rocks to be uneven, unsmooth and often dangerous – and b) the stage was SO hard, that the rocks were crazy fast and big anyway. The quality of the rock changes from city to city, and this city was particularly brutal (this would come into play when we performed the next night and the ‘three amigos’ section was out of control.)
Regardless, we teched, we finished, we went home. I napped. Then I woke up and ate the soup I had bought to-go from Cafe Lola and a bagel for dinner, and then I napped some more. I opted to skip the night’s plans of Sushi and dancing on the main street (I think it’s Jefferson) in Lafayette to instead catch up on the real life I’ve been ignoring. I finally had the time to figure out some of my finances and things like bills, flights and paychecks. I also finally (finally!) got the chance to talk to my mom for more than three minutes for just business and also got to have just plain for-no-reason phone time with Jerry. I really, really needed that. Especially in New Orleans and Lafayette, I felt so disconnected and it was really starting to wear on my ability to emotionally handle being away like this.
I fell asleep blissfully early while watching the Terminal.
–Wednesday, 2-1-2006:
Show day. It’s been a long, long time since we’ve had a show on NOT the same day we’ve teched, so it was weird to wake up in the morning and have it, and the afternoon, off. Thankfully, our crazy fun trolley maestro, Don, had plans for us all: he wanted to pick us up and take us the the nature preserve to see if we could see some gators!! Who could pass that up?
However! My afternoon off was not entirely to be: the knot had had some technical issues, and upon waking on show day, I found out I was going to need to do the long version of body sofa (Origin) as a solo (ie- without hanging duet attached to the end.) Therefore, Benji, Ed, Monica and I had to be at the theater by 2:45 to tech and run the lighting for the piece so it could be added in.
No matter, we were still able to join in on the alligator hunt. Don showed up right on time, as always, and we head about 8 miles away to a nature preserve on a lake that housed birds, turtles, egrets and gators. Before we made it, though, Don decided we needed “appetizers” (his plans for us that day also included lunch later) and so he took us to a slightly bizarre meat market in a new area of town for what he assured us was going to be a delicious local delicacy. I had my doubts about the delicacy of anything being sold in a 7-11 meets a butcher shop. It turns out he wanted us to try boudin, a kind of creepy sausage-like meal in a tube. Don promises me still that the meat therein wasn’t anything “funny” and that is was the good parts and kinds of meat, but… I’m easily turned off by presentation. It was chopped up meat and rice and celery and gravy and whatever else all jammed into a sausage casing that had been occasionally split so the insides spilled out and the the goo-train could be held/handled in manageable portions.
Don said, “it’s like getting your meat, potatoes and stuffing in one convenient thing.” You’re my favorite thing about Lafayette, Don, but there was no way I going to try that stuff. Look on my photo blog for a picture of Benji loving the stuff.
Therefore, at the market I bought a neopolitan ice cream sandwich and a cream soda for breakfast – because I am THAT healthy of an eater. I wanted to try the red cream soda, but I couldn’t find it not in a can. Other curiosities: that market sold a coca-cola product called “Delaware punch,” which was non-carbonated, and lacking any kind of description at all anywhere on the packaging. It was a curious purpley-dark-tan color. Weird.
Onto the nature preserve! We saw one (rather enormous) alligator, and a slew of birds and turtles, and one ENORMOUS bug-type-thing that hitched a ride on the inside wall of the trolley. The ride was fun because we got to see all of the nature we wanted to, without all the pesky walking. We got to get out easily, like when we saw the alligator, and mingle with others who were on similar quests to ourselves.
After the preserve, we headed to a local cajun-style restaurant called T-Coons, which we were told was the best local place to get authentic Cajun food. We had previously been planning on going to Don’s favorite restaurant – a place whose name I can’t remember, but had cameras around the restaurant that web-casted the inside of the place so you could call a friend and tell them to go online to the restaurant’s website and watch you eat – and I must say, I really, really wish we would have gone there instead. I’m not sure what about lunch I found so unappetizing, but it was my first meal in Louisiana that I didn’t like. It’s ok, the ice cream that Don treated us to at his favorite, in his words, “old-timey ice cream parlor” afterwards more than made up for it.
We then returned home, pausing briefly to take pictures of the Diavolo billboard. I had just enough time to get my stuff for the show before we again caught the trolley and headed to the theater. The tech of Origin went a lot faster than we expected. Monica and I even had some time to change some choreography that I thought was an awkward transition in the longer version. I think it’s funny, and nice, that after not having done the piece for over a month and a half, that I can just whip it out. I remember back in the day, before Miss Emily’s recitals, I would feel like barfing and crying I was so nervous, and now it’s all so easy. It cracks me up actually. I shouldn’t say easy – at all – but I can’t believe how at home I feel with all this now. I love it.
The show that night went really well, though it was kind of a weird energy show. For me, personally, I think it’s because right before we went on, we were told that the theater we were in was a shelter for displaced Katrina victims and families who had loved ones who had been transported to the hospital next door. Until just a little bit ago, the stage we were on was covered in beds. So every time my mind wandered onstage, that’s where it wandered to. Especially during Traj. After the show, a number of people from the audience said that that piece was particularly moving because of its theme and motifs…
Origin went really well, too. I was pretty nervous since it’d been so long and I was back to doing it to music that I haven’t used in months and months and that has really specific music cues and timing. That’s the hardest part for me… in tech one time I was 10 seconds too long, and once I was 20 seconds too soon… but I was able to hit it dead on in the show… woot woot. Also! Jacques randomly showed up to Lafayette – he hasn’t been on tour with us at all yet, and he won’t be with us again until half way through March. So, there was a random pressure, not bad pressure, (after all, it isn’t like he hasn’t seen me do Origin a hundred times,) but more like that fun self-imposed need to impress pressure. Also – I freaking love it when Jacques is on tour with us. The guy is a hoot and a half.
Magic Mike and his friend Mai came up to see the show from New Orleans. It was great to see him again… he said he was impressed enough with what we do that he wants to try and come take one of the two summer intensives in LA with us. I would cry-laugh if that happens, it would be so funny and so much fun.
On a random note: one lady during Q&A asked us what our salaries were… what a piece of audacious poo.
After the show was over, we looked outside to see RAIN. Like sheets of rain, and – no exaggeration – multiple lightening strikes every 10-15 seconds. And! Crazy, crazy shake the theater thunder.
After we did our usual load-out duties, we headed back to the hotel, where Jacques treated us to an impressively large number of thin crust pizzas. We were all eating in David and Crystal’s room, when someone had the idea to show Jacques all of the magic tricks we’d bought and learned from Harry Anderson and his gang of rogue magician friends at Oswald’s. Jacques was very cutely astonished by our tricks, and I think we backed ourselves into a corner of at some point either putting on a Diavolo carnival or having magic tricks play a prominent part in our next fundraiser. Damn our side-project talents!!
–Thursday, 2-2-2006:
Ah, travel days. We had to be in the lobby by 9:45am, which wasn’t too bad because Becca and I packed the night before after our pizza and tricks parade. We got a ride to the airport from Don, who let us pick our favorite Caribbean trolley music mix for the ride. I’m really going to miss Don, for some reason, we all got really attached to him. I think it’s one of the first times I’m sad to leave someone I met on tour behind. Him and Stuart. Sigh. Nice guys.
We said goodbye to Don and checked in at the eerily-small Lafayette airport. The TSA guy unpacked my ENTIRE bag, crumpled all my papers, and repacked it in the least sensible way possible. He then wouldn’t allow me to touch my own stuff, so I had to stand there like a monkey behind glass directing him on how to put my toiletries bags between all my clothes so that the bottles wouldn’t break, and to NOT put the soles of my shoes on top of my underwear. Apparently I was up on his “matrix” – the answer I got to the question, “what did I pack that’s so different that it warrants all this?” In the 40 minutes it took us to all check in, he didn’t do that to anyone else’s bag. He was obnoxiously thorough, and part of me thinks he just either wanted to look at all my shit just to get his jollies or that he enjoyed how much it pissed me off and milked it.
Also, in the airport, I read a story on CNN.com about a tornado that hit the New Orleans airport overnight, and also the canal area neighborhoods – where we’d been teaching last week. Haven’t they had enough already?! Seriously.
On another tornado-related note, after a stop over in Houston, we got to Denver. I remember the Denver airport from this summer, and my two favorite parts are the tornado shelter-bathrooms and the oversize load baggage carousel that is upright and made specifically for ski gear. I think that’s just pretty nifty.
Other cool things: our ride from the airport to our outrageous hotel was a LIMO BUS! The inside had the cool sky ceiling with changey-color trims and a TV and a CD sound system and a mini bar and waters on ice for us. It was pretty swanky. The Denver airport is about 40 minutes from downtown because of the Rockies… so it was awesome to have such a pimp way to get to where we’re going on an unusually long ride.
Also: we get to stay at Hotel Teatro – the #1 rated hotel in all of Denver. It’s luxury. The restaurant downstairs is $100 for a 5 – course meal, $60 for the wine picked to go with it, and $9 for a bowl of soup. Becca and I totally lucked out with a corner suite on the seventh floor. The bathroom has an all glass shower with two shower heads, a jet-tub and Aveda beauty products. About the only downsides are the internet costs $15 a day if we want to get it, and it isn’t wireless, and there’s no continental breakfast… oh well. Also, after Becca and I left and came back from dinner – at Chili’s – our beds had been turned down, the bathrobes laid out for us, the soaps all unwrapped and placed out, and the TV guide was open to tonight’s listing with the remote on top. Crazy eh? (www.hotelteatro.com)
It’s also pretty rad cause we’re right in the MIDDLE of downtown Denver. I love downtown Denver because it’s down-towny enough to feel like a big, legit city, but not so big and concrete that it feels burdened with people and stress. I feel completely safe here, and the whole of downtown is as cute and fun as the Santa Monica third street promenade. Lastly, it’s cold here, and I love it. It reminds me of home, though, and it makes me miss the babers even more.
I was just talking to Becca – as we have TV and robe night in our room – about how cool it is that we get to crisscross the country go from hot southern winter to cold northern winter, and from small towns to big towns, from destination places to normal places… I am so lucky to get to do this. And, that, when I get to travel like this, it’s doing what I love so much, with people I care about so much. It’s so hard though, being away from Jerry and my family… hopefully sometime Jerry and I will have enough money that we can meet up often on each other’s tours and share these experiences with each other in person instead of over the phone…
–Sunday, 1-29-2006:
I found a different coffee shop, it’s called EnVie and was as equally adorable as CC’s was. After another morning in a coffee shop, we headed back to Stuart’s to put the final touches on packing and head off. Stuart saw us off, he was just the greatest. The van that had been shuttling us around all week picked us up, and took us to the hotel where our bus was waiting. We had a three and a half-ish hour drive from New Orleans to Lafayette. I promptly fell fast asleep. I blame this on the fact that I didn’t go to bed before 3am any single night in New Orleans. Half way through the bus ride, I was waking up and I hear “Does she know yet? Did anyone wake up Melinda? Someone should tell Melinda!”
This was kind of disturbing to me, in my half-asleep state, because I assumed that something had gone horribly wrong and I was being assigned either blame or cleanup duty. However! It turns out that, as a bus, we were going to stop at a Taco Bell, and since the reputation of my love for Taco Bell is well-known, everyone was excited to wake me up and watch me squeal. I thought this was cute.
We got to Lafayette, and checked into our La Quinta suite hotel, (which is pretty awesome, by the way,) and were greeted down the street by a freaking BILLBOARD for our show. I’ll have a picture of it later. I took another nap (my 2nd of the day,) and woke up just in time to get ready for the dinner we were to attend that night. The presenters hosted a home-cooked dinner party for us at one their houses (more like mansion.) The woman whose house it was had the most amazing backyard I’ve ever seen… It was huge, and landscaped in a way that it was divided into full outdoor rooms, complete with outdoor furniture and lighting, but not in a way that seemed artificial… it still completely felt like we were outside.
Dinner was gumbo (check another local specialty off my list!! plus, it was homemade and seafoodless… awesome.) It was really, really, good… and it was cool to eat something we’d heard SO much about. (I could probably already make the roux without the recipe in front of me…) We mostly mingled, and I must say, I was regrettably less social than normal (though still more engaged than most,) due to my now-bordering-on-ridiculous level of tiredness. One of the highlights of dinner was when one of the guests produced a newspaper article that featured us in the paper and the full-size image the article used to show us was a picture of just me, under a wheel piece in wheel duet… yay!
Perhaps the coolest part of the evening, however, was when we walked outside to be picked up for dinner, and saw a TROLLEY. A full-on trolley on wheels was there to pick us up. It was kind of surreal… and even more confusing. I later learned, that this trolley was to be our transportation for most events/rides for our entire stay here in Lafayette. The owner is somehow affiliated with PASA (the organization that brought us here,) and he volunteers his time and his trolley to take us all around. His name is Don, and he is a retired counselor who now owns a casino. In addition to this trolley we know and love (The Good Times Trolley, which he got from Portland, OR,) he also owns a trolley from Disneyworld and two airplanes. He a real character, and so fun and nice. He even has music he blasts over the trolley’s speakers as we ride in it… which ranges from everything from calypso and carribean to some kind of quasi children’s country on crack: “I wanna ride you little, donkey, donkey, donkey… I wanna ride you little, don-key…”
After dinner, we came home and fell asleep… yay for sleep.
–Monday, January 30th:
This day, we’ve been warned for a while was to be hell-day. We all had to be up and in the lobby to be picked up to all go around and teach classes. The morning was to be a logistical brainteaser, because we had about seven classes to teach, and three teams of three of us all coming and going to them all throughout the morning. The final class was the kicker: 100 students, all in one gym. Our classes normally range from 10 kids to about 30 on the very high side.
My first class was at a normal middle school. Perhaps, though, I’m throwing around the word normal too easily… they had so many weird strict rules, I thought the lady was joking when she explained it to me. In addition to uniforms and security badges – neither of which I ever had, but I know aren’t too unusual these days – every kid was required to use a mesh, see-through backpack. Supposedly this is going to halt middle-schoolers from carrying drugs and weapons in their packs, but I think that really, someone on the school board must have owed a favor to someone who works at Jansport, the only company who makes those bags.
I think it bothered me a little more than it should have because I remember middle school being so awkward, and having just a little bit of personal space inside my backpack was important. Also- whoever thinks that kids aren’t smart enough to find a way to still hide drugs and or weapons in their packs regardless of the mesh outside has got to be the most naive, or stupid, take your pick, person alive. But I digress…
The one super-impressive thing about the first school I went to was the fact that they had a dance program. They’re a magnet arts school whose mission statement was something like “enriching academics through study of the arts.” So, perhaps a dance programs is necessary and in order for such a school, but to me, I was blown away that these kids got to spend learning hours doing dance. For me, dance came in for the seven hours after school and before homework, and sometimes sleep. The dance room was amazing too, at least to my college-dancer eyes, because all over the walls were pictures and lessons about Graham, Horton, Ailey, Cunningham… basics and hallmarks about the dance world that I, regretfully, didn’t even get to learn about until college.
The class itself was fun, the kids were giggly and somewhat unfocused, but they really tried hard and were very interested in our lessons – the traditional mix of “I care, but no so much as to appear uncool to my friends” that runs rampant among 13 year olds. Regardless, I’d say I lucked out, compared to poor Becca who taught in what was later described as the worst teaching situation we’ve come across in our outreach. The school they went to said there would be 30 kids in the class, so we sent three teachers, who showed up to, instead, 60 students dancing, and another 25 lining the walls and watching. The kids were so uninspired, and so unwilling to listen, care, acknowledge and even remain in the classroom, that eventually the three Diavolo teachers had to resort to boot-camp tactics to even be able to run a functioning classroom.
The problems, I think, were twofold: First, what we do is dangerous, so the need for us to have focus from the kids and be in control is paramount. Secondly, I think this group of kids was at the place and the age to have just given up on life. This school, we knew going in, was 92% on free lunches, and notorious for behavioral problems, which I can only assume are characteristic of bad family situations and a hard life. We knew that going in… the problem really was that the school tripled the class size without telling us. It truly sucked for those involved.
Now, traveling from one end of the social spectrum to the other, our last class, (the 100 kids class) was at a private school about a half an hour – by trolley no less – from Lafayette. The school costs more per year than private college (which after attending Loyola, I find hard to fathom,) and is well known for what great people the kids there are. I took that last bit with a grain of salt, thinking perhaps they might be spoiled and that deemed perfect and good was only a byproduct of the “my little angel can do no wrong” principle. Nope. They were amazing.
Honestly, I haven’t seen so much love and heart in kids that age, ever. We were teaching ninth graders, and generally the freshman crowd is one I find particularly abhorrent, but there was no trace of bitchiness, evil, unfairness or exclusion among them. They rallied around one another, made no allusions to making fun of anyone for any reason, and were generally just a parade of unbelievable and unexpected kindness and focus. My group (me, Garrett and Crystal,) took our 30 kids outside. No one complained about sit-ups and push-ups once, even though we were even asking them to do them in the dirt. No one tried to sabotage their partner on the trust exercises, and no one did the typical trying to get attention by purposely failing. Everyone just tried and was having fun, and were helping each other.
One kid was handicapped, and we were doing cluster flys (where one person runs at the rest and they get lifted up into the air,) and we knew he wasn’t able to run at us, and was going to be much heavier than the rest, due to his size and his body’s lack of stability. I was over talking with him, giving him a flying lesson, and when I came back to my group of catchers, one kid, who had been the main muscle of the group – taking the exercise very seriously and keeping everyone focused, and taking the responsibility of calling our “set” – was giving a little speech… it went something like this: “You guys, you know this is going to be really hard for him, because he is so shy and nervous about his ailment. We need to make sure to get him up in the air no matter what. I really need to everyone to put everything you have into it, we really need to show him, he’s capable of this…”
I was shocked. I’ve never seen a ninth grader who was that intuitive and kind. Well I have, but I’ve never seen one who would put himself out there to take care of this friend like that, and then in addition, would also be surrounded by a whole group of ninth graders who were equally responsive and who would take that seriously, and to heart. So, when he came hobbling up, and jumped as best he could, they all did what they said they would, and even though it really was hard and strenuous, the group lifted him all the way up. Then, upon setting him down, they greeted him with hugs and high-fives and a chant in his honor.
I don’t know what it was about what they teach, or how they teach there they could produce such great results. It seemed normal enough to me (and perhaps a bit abnormal in a different way – exemplified by a yellow sign in the gym that read: “If your pee is THIS color, you need to drink more water!!”) Perhaps I have just been surrounded by the fakeness and social politics of Bellevue and L.A. for too long…
After our classes, Don, our trolley man extraordinaire treated us to lunch at a local Po-Boy restaurant. We had some amazing shoestring fried onions, and I got a turkey po-boy (yum) and I TRIED ALLIGATOR. It was okay, it tasted just like normal sausage. I had trouble swallowing it though, because I still can’t turn off that literal part of my brain that takes over.
After lunch we were dropped off at our hotel, with just enough time to come into our rooms and change, and then head off to the theater for tech. Yep, my day wasn’t even half over yet. We spent the afternoon and evening doing a slower-than-normal tech of act one. Nothing new or exciting, except perhaps the addition of a piece called “Bonjour”, which Jacques choreographed in the baby years of the company, and is being performed just in Lafayette by Nick, a founding member of Diavolo who now lives here. The piece is drastically different from the kinds of things we do now, and even though the piece isn’t my favorite, it’s neat to see the roots of where this all came from.
After tech: sleep.
–Saturday, 1-28-2006
Our class at Tulane went really well. Leo was out with me until 5am the night before though, so we were both a little impaired by lack of sleep and post-night-out fogginess. This class was an hour and a half instead of an hour, so it was nice, too, to not feel rushed and have to cut things short.
After the classes were over, we changed back at our apartment and went to Angelie’s (same place we had dinner a couple of nights ago) for lunch. I got a crazy-good spinach, mozzarella, artichoke, chicken, feta, garlic spread and yum sandwich. I name the ingredients, simply so that I can remember them to re-create it later. After lunch we headed out to a few boutiques, before splitting up to run some errands. I finally found a shop that carried the items I wanted to buy for my mom and my sister, and also bought some touristy stuff before I headed home.
When I got here, Becca and I laid around indiscriminately doing nothing, and generally being listless. Renee invited us in to watch TV and chill in her room. I fell RIGHT asleep and proceeded to take a four to five hour nap.
I was awakened by Renee, who, at 8:30 was asked by Stuart, the man who owns the house we’re staying in, to have us all come up and join us for dinner. I woke up really groggy and tired, and quite confused as to what was going on. Nonetheless, I went upstairs (in my PJ’s, no less,) and watched Stuart make us the most AMAZING stir-fry. We joined him in his dining room for the meal, and afterwards had aperitifs with him on his balcony that overlooks the street, in typical New Orleans style. I had chambord, Straga (I think it was called,) and so much fun… we continued talking and hanging out with him in his sitting room once we were rained off the deck. He is such an interesting and fun guy. I hope to be able to write to him to thank him for all his generosity and kindness while we’ve been here.
After our dinner, drinks, and conversation, Crystal and David and a friend they know from the area showed up to hang out for a bit. We toured Stuart’s house again, and talked a bit more before I excused myself to go make some phone calls. Becca and I eventually got ready to go out for the night in the midst of trying to pack all of our stuff. For some reason, it seemed like my bag exploded in New Orleans, so packing was more of an ordeal than normal. Also, I feel like perhaps my stuff expanded a bit here, because I went from having extra room to having no room at all, and even an extra store bag left to try and work in later. For now it’s okay because we have a tour bus to get to Lafayette, our next stop, but when we have to keep our bags to a 50-pound limit on three more flights… we might have problems. Hmmm… perhaps I should have limited my gift and souvenir shopping just a tid bit more.
Allen Moon showed up to retrieve Becca and I, and we went to meet Benji, Ed and Nick, (a former and founding member of Diavolo,) at a bar on Frenchman’s Street (apparently, more of a local’s place to hang out.) We went in and out of a few bars in that area before heading all the way back to Bourbon to LaFitte’s. We ended the night with Becca and I getting a chance to walk the length of Bourbon when it’s at its busiest, at 2am on a Saturday night. It was much like I expected: kind of like a big frat party and Vegas mixed together. We had some of our boys walk us home, and Becca and I finished packing – which was now even more confused and tiresome of an effort because at this point I was drunk – before we settled in for the night. Tomorrow we have to be up to be picked up by the bus at about 10:30am, but I hope to be up much earlier to seek out a coffee shop (CC’s is closed Sundays,) in order to check my email, take care of some bills, and post this entry…
–Thursday, 1-26-2006:
Thursday morning started once again with finding myself at CC’s writing emails and trying to take care of whatever business it is possible to confront on the road. I’m almost always there by about 10am and stay until it closes for the day at noon. Thursday morning in particular, I went there in my PJ’s and my newly blackened eye, so I was feeling pretty unglamorous. Renee and I share a table, and I always get an italian soda and sometimes an everything bagel and cream cheese. I’ve started to look immensely forward to my time in the morning at CC’s. It’s become my zen of connection to home and routine while I’ve been here.
After, Becca, Renee and I headed back to Camp 516 Rue St. Philip to shower, change and get ready. We took our time, having no real time limits other than that Becca and Renee needed to be at the hotel for their van pick up at 2:45. Becca and I left just in time to once again grab lunch at Cafe Mesparo, where we split another Mufaletta, and I also got a side of red beans and rice. On the way to dropping Becca off, we stopped at a most adorable boutique where I got sidetracked and bought a “personal items case” – actually a glorified tampon holder – I’m not kidding, that I’m using to instead house all 5 chapsticks/lipglosses I have randomly floating around my purse at any given time.
From there I met up with John and Benji in their hotel room, where we worked on resumes, and I gave a crash course in formatting 101. I finally got a chance to talk to my mom and dad for more than just a second, and also heard from Megan (!!!) who was standing the airport, waiting for her and Mike’s bags, freshly back from Africa (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). We decided to head over to Cafe du Monde once more to split a batch of beignets. I had the best frozen cafe au lait, I tell you what. Crazy yummy. After, they walked me back to my house and I laid down for a bit, once again in Renee’s bed and watched some TV, worked on my blog a bit, and took a small nap.
When Becca and Renee and Garrett all got home, a plan was hatched to all go out and eat: first at an oyster bar for appetizers, and then at a place called Muriel’s. The oyster bar, of course, wasn’t really my idea of fun, so I stayed back for a bit with Becca and rallied the troops to all meet on Bourbon street and we headed together to dinner. Muriel’s was missing the keystone salad for which the trip was planned, so we vetoed the idea and set off for a restaurant that we’d been oft recommended called Angelie’s.
By this time, I was randomly starting to feel like I was getting sick, so dinner was spoiled for me a bit. Even though, I did thoroughly enjoy what bit of my pizza I could manage to eat, which was listed on the menu, I kid you not, as the “Chicken Diavolo Pizza”… Whoa.
After dinner, I came back and took a nap while most others went to various bars and clubs. Renee came back with me and took a bubble bath, then joined me in her room to watch “9 to 5,” a movie which I adore, and haven’t seen in forever. When I say “took a nap,” I should explain that my intent was rather to go to sleep for the night, since I laid down at about 10:30 and already wasn’t feeling well. When Garrett came home however, at 12:30 and woke my up to let him in, I woke all the way up, and when I tried to fall back asleep in my own room, I found it too creepy, and couldn’t. So, I decided to call Becca and the gang of hoodlums she was with (the usual, plus a newly-in-town Allen Moon), and have them pick me up to join them.
When they got here, we walked back to LaFitte’s, the bar we first went to on our ghost tour, and then we walked further up Bourbon to a corner on which there were hoppin’ dueling gay bars: Oz and Bourbon Pub. I prefer gay bars because I get mostly left alone and they play actual fun music. Of the two, I preferred the Bourbon Pub, because they played music videos that I could totally zone out and watch. We stayed there until about 3:30 in the morning, and then after Mike left, had John walk us to our place for the night.
–Friday, 1-27-2006:
Again, the day started out with CC’s and a bagel and an italian soda. After they closed, Renee and I walked back to the antique store I bought my necklace at for me to look at gifts. At the shop next door, we found silver certificates for sale in a collectables shop. We each bought one, like weirdoes, and then walked back to pick up Becca for an afternoon of window shopping. We started out at a handful of boutiques we’ve been eyeing. It was a fun stint of girlie dress up times. Eventually we needed a ‘queer eye’ and called John, and then Leo (the straight version of such advice,) to help us make some important (ha, ha) fashion decisions. I got away relatively cheaply, with two cashmere scarves… everyone else kinda broke the bank.
I split off to go get a Po-Boy sandwich, the last on my list of local favorites and New Orleans-specfic cuisine (grits, cafe au lait with chicory, po-boys, muffaletta, red beans and rice…) The only missing two are gumbo and jumbalaya, which I am precluded from doing because of the seafood content. I walked home via a couple of shops I had made a mental note to return to for gifts for others, and arrived home just in time to get ready for dinner.
The board of the New Orleans Ballet Association was taking us all out to dinner at the best seafood restaurant in the area. It’s called Drago, and it’s in Metarie, about 45 min away. We got dressed up and met altogether and arrived at dinner only mildly late, due to traffic. On the drive over we passed a number of cemeteries on the freeway. All bodies are ‘buried’ here above ground, in tombs, or crypts holding ashes, due to the low (below sea level) elevation… if you dig you hit water, and bodies flood or float away, I was told.
Dinner was pretty amazing. There were about 25 of us there, invading the third floor. We all ordered appetizers, wine, salads, and huge main courses. It’s probably the most I’ve eaten in over a year, and I didn’t even partake in the 7 dozen raw oysters and 6 dozen char broiled oysters. I did have, however, spinach and artichoke dip, a salad, and Chicken Romano, with wine and a coke.
After dinner, we all headed back and changed and all again met up, once again at LaFitte’s. We then moved on again to the Bourbon Pub (the gay bar with the music videos.) Garrett and Renee and I split off for just a bit to had to a diner to get fries and ice cream -I was cramming it all in last night – but then we headed back across the street. The night was extended several times over as more and more people we knew showed up, and I got home at 5 oclock this morning.
So right now (8:30am) finds me incredibly tired, once again in CC’s eating breakfast, finally caught-up on my blog, and about to teach a master class at Tulane University. Today has more shopping in store, and tonight looks to be another party night…
**Continued from yesterday’s post…**
After we dropped off the first set of teachers, Garrett and I walked around for a bit. We mostly wanted to go back and see a set of cufflinks Garrett had spied in a window of an antique shop. They were 18k gold red foxes – almost exactly like what the high-art/jewelry version of the Diavolo logo would look like. He and I stalked the store until it opened around noon, and went in and asked about the cufflinks, wanting to get them as a gift for Jacques. What were thinking in terms of price was way (WAY) off, and they turned out to be about $900. She dropped it to $695 when we talked to her a bit more and told her who we wanted them for, etc, but it was still too steep and we left thinking maybe we might be able to get all 14 of us to pitch in…
Garrett had to be at the hotel for his Pas-Sages pick up (the traveling kids show,) and so I met John in the lobby so we could walk around together. He hadn’t eaten yet, so I took him to the same place we had had breakfast. We had a wonderful lunch – he is so great to talk to one on one, I love John. He makes me feel better about a lot of things, and inspired about everything else. After we walked around the streets and the small shops a bit, before heading back to meet up with all the people who were now getting back from teaching their master class at Tulane University. We all met up, changed and headed out in a pack, picking up people as we got ahold of them, trying to find a place to eat. We finally found an amazing little bar and restaurant called Chartres House Café.
We all sat down and everyone ordered drinks, except me. A little bit later, our amazingly fun and intuitive waiter, Dan, came over and handed me a free shot, of caramel vodka, chilled to 5 degrees… it was pretty amazing, so I ordered more of that, on the rocks, to go with with my chicken strip sammich. He read me well, and he knew it. It was awesome.
After dinner, we all headed back to our respective homes. The plan was to get changed and go out again right away, but then Becca and I discovered Renee’s bed, and the TV she has in her room… and we promptly fell asleep watching ‘That 70’s Show.’ When we woke up, we noticed that the one episode of Project Runway we had missed while we were in North Carolina was going to be on later that night, and all plans were quickly changed to accommodate all-important TV needs. We really are that sad. No, more so, we really were that tired. Sometime during that night o’ TV on Renee’s bed, John came over to join in, and everyone else wandered in and out in between bar and food runs.
–Tuesday: 1-24-2006
When we got here, Suzanne said we wouldn’t even begin to understand the destruction of Hurricane Katrina until we saw the areas to which we would be traveling on Tuesday. That having been said, we all got up at met together for internet and coffee at CC’s, then breakfast at the same River’s Edge restaurant we had eaten at the morning before. Then we all headed over to the hotel to meet our Van driver and Suzanne to drive about a half an hour away to the lower ninth ward area/St. Bernard Parish.
That day was just almost too much. More than anything it just makes me so grateful to have what I have and to have never experienced anything like that. I couldn’t help but feel just plain guilty, like survivor’s guilt or something, even though I was no where near the storm. Now, my mood has changed and the city feels so awful, and it isn’t and it didn’t before, but now it’s like I’m literally feeling and absorbing this pervasive sadness that is all over the place, instead of just seeing it.
Everything we passed on the way out of the French Quarter was pretty much like how I’ve described the French Quarter itself before: run down but not destroyed. But then, the situation rapidly changed. In the downtown area, stacked up under the freeway were piles of cars that had been towed there, unable to run, having been flooded out. The cars were somewhat unrecognizable. Many were crushed and mangled, and the majority were missing tires or doors or hoods. All of them were covered in a pattern of rings: like the lines on jupiter, documenting the slow recession of the level of the flood waters as they sat depositing minerals and eroding away the paint and polish. The businesses went from simply declaring “OPEN” or “CLOSED,” meaning for good, not for the day, to no longer having signs or windows or roofs. Then we crossed over a major drawbridge (the name of which I am unaware,) and there was nothing. No recognizable structures. A barge in the middle of a neighborhood. Splinters of wood and rubble and concrete everywhere.
This is going to be one of those things that I’ll just have to leave to pictures, because for it, there can never be words. More than anything, I was struck by an overwhelming feeling, heavy and burdensome and completely gray. I don’t think it has yet left me three days later.
We were going into this area, where the water completely covered the houses, and in which every structure was uninhabitable in order to teach the kids who somehow manage to live within it’s boundaries. In the parking lots of major buildings are row after row of white trailers, now the home to displaced residents. FEMA finally agreed to pay for those for the county, but only two days before they were about to be repossessed because no money had come in from the government for the county. That was about two weeks ago. All of the major stores and chains, like Burger King, McDonald’s and Popeyes had boards over the windows and had made no effort to reconstruct. Of all the things in this area that could bounce back, the huge corporations, even those were too far gone.
The school we were teaching at has been renamed since the storm, it’s now the St. Bernard Parish Unified school. It is the only school open in the entire county. It houses all 1600 K-12 graders that are in the area now, which is up from 300 in November. The school itself was flooded up to the middle of the second floor once, and when we walked in, we could see the line on the wall at the level the water had reached. The floors were all covered in a thin silt, a dirt so fine it was like powdered sugar, and it covered most everything.
There were two Pas-Sages shows, and then John and I taught a Diavolo technique class to the after-school Ballet program kids. The girls were amazing. I was unprepared for how normal they seemed. Their happiness and candor really just augmented how awful the situation was, because for some reason, I was unable to understand how they could be so positive. I guess, what I’m trying to say, is that more than anything, getting to be with the happiness in those kids was even more melancholy than seeing their surroundings because it just highlighted everything that was so wrong. After the class, we had to rush out because there is still a 6pm curfew in that Parish (county – napoleonic code here.) Anyone caught outside their residencies after six is arrested. The drive back at dusk was even more haunting than the ride over in sunlight. That dark gray ashy feeling cemented itself even further.
Now, that I saw all that, I really can’t shake it. Across the street from where I am staying is an X on the wall – just like on all the houses we saw mutilated by winds and flooding that day – each structure had to be searched, one at a time, for survivors or bodies. On the top of the X is the date they came, on the left is the team that did the search, the right is the number of dead animals (pets) and the bottom is the number of dead people. The french quarter where we are wasn’t that badly hit… and coming home that day, I noticed for the first time an X on the door across from ours and there is a 2 for people and a “3 – cats” and suddenly, my home here, the one place in the city that’s been so carefree and my little safe place from all the scariness, has been ruined because now I walk out the door and see death, again. It makes me want to come home so, so badly.
When we got back, after a mostly silent ride home, we were all anxious to pretend to feel better and have fun. John, Becca and I changed into normal clothes and walked to Bourbon street and bought pizza for dinner. We were supposed to meet Monica and her boyfriend Jarod, who flew in to visit, at a VooDoo shop for a Haunted History French quarter ghost and haunted places tour, but we were all feeling a little too morbid already, and opted out. After a random Gyro stop (yes, about 15 minutes after we’d already just eaten,) we changed our plans to go meet some others at a magic club and bar on the corner of Esplanade and Decateur.
This magic shop, it turns out, is owned and operated by none other than Harry Anderson, the judge from “Nightcourt.” It was pretty weird to walk in and see a familiar TV face. The night was set up that there were tables all over and various magicians would have a small group watching their tricks and we could migrate and stare and be impressed. It was crazy awesome, I never expected to have as much fun as I did.
In the middle of our time there, Becca, Crystal and I were getting drinks at the bar when Harry Anderson approached us, and asked us our interest in magic. I stuttered out something about the magic tricks my Grandpa had shown me when I was little, and how I loved the illusions. He told us he’d come find us in a bit… none of us really knew what that meant. Wandering back into the main room, we saw him onstage doing one of two bits for the night. After his show, he came over and pulled up a chair to our table, and showed us three awesome (AWESOME) tricks. He let us buy the ones we wanted, so now I will always have a magic trick in my wallet… ta-da!
Just to had it be said, he is a pretty awesome guy. When a lot of the patrons had left, he and I and a couple of other Diavolo-ites sat talking about our favorite graphic novels and the new politics of New Orleans. I am going to keep an eye out for a certain big corporation to try and buy this whole place…
After the bulk of “magician’s night” had ended at Oswald’s, we were invited by a couple of the more enjoyable magicians and their friends to a hookah bar that was a couple of doors away. Mike, and David two new friends, were much fun, and are going to try and come see our show in Lafayette even. We stayed at the hookah bar until it closed learning our tricks, seeing more of Mike’s antics and generally have low-key fun. By the time we were leaving, we were hungry enough to extend the night further and those us us who were left (Evan, Becca, Mike, David, and I) went to another bar, Check Point Charley’s, next door. This one was an all-night bar, was still serving food, and was in the middle of open-mic night. We hung around for quite awhile, and after a few more drinks, Benji even got up the courage to borrow someone’s guitar and go up on stage and sing a Bob Dylan song. He did a great job. Props, Benji.
We finally pooped out about 3am, and Mai, one of Mike’s friends who had joined us, drove us to our homes and we called it a night.
–Wednesday: 1-25-2006
Wednesday morning we all got up and headed to the coffee shop down the street from our house, CC’s, where I’ve been able to check my email. I got a bagel and a smoothie and had a nice and cathartic internet session, finally being able to figure out my moving-out of LA apartment situation and some bills. I had to once again teach that day, so after breakfast, we made haste to squeeze in some shopping and lunch before I had to meet Leo, my fellow teacher for the day, at the hotel. We stopped into an antique shop where I bought myself a perfume locket for a souvenir. For me, New Orleans is like Korea, in that I am not checking my spending as much as I usually do, because I think it’s important I pump as much money into the local economy as possible.
Lunch was at Café Mesparo, the first reasonably priced full meal I’ve had since I’ve been here… usually I can spend about $10-15 of my per diem a day for all my meals. On some days, the theater provides food, and I eat a continental breakfast , so I spend no money. Here, the average is $30-60, and all my frugalness is effing wasted. Oh well, I guess. It’s been damn good food. I had another local favorite, a Muffaletta – mom, this is a dish for you – a baguette with salami and ham (I subbed turkey) and melted swiss cheese, covered in an olive-salad, which is made of everything yummy. It’s definitely a recipe I’m going to have to recreate somehow.
After lunch, Becca walked me to the hotel, where I met up with Sir Leo to head out to teach two classes.
We were at a school about a half an hour away. Our first class was about 10 adorable 6-year olds who came prepared in black leotards and pink tights. They girls were very into our class and loved every minute of it, for what I could tell. They were, however, quite clingy, and there was more than one occasion when I needed to explain that I needed my hands back in order to teach, or I couldn’t demonstrate with three girls holding onto my legs for dear life.
The second class was about 10 thirteen year olds, and at first I thought that I was going to have a group of too-cool-for-schoolers, but they warmed up perfectly and we had a really great class. The only snafu was that I got a black eye. During our last exercise, Leo and I were catching the dancers and one girl decided to have a freak out (the scared kind) and she full of clocked me in the face with her elbow. I left the room as collectedly as possible, and headed to the bathroom with Suzanne in tow. She went to get me ice while I surveyed the damage: really swollen, really red, kinda bloody. I cleaned up in about 30 seconds and ran back to the room – I really, really didn’t want the kids to think anything too terrible had gone wrong. So I marched back in and told a while lie about how I had been hit, but not badly, and that all it did was knock my contact out, hence my jog to the bathroom.
Their fears seemed satiated a little bit after that, and we only had about three minutes of class left at that point. After they had all left, I let the impact sink it, and I will say, even though I sound dramatic, it truthfully hurt worse than anything has in a long time. I think this is too, because of the location, and that when I am used to dealing with high levels of pain it is all internal, things that I can grip to hold or curl up for… this was just throbbing agony, and I couldn’t touch it. The air hurt it. Thinking hurt.
We headed home, me with a surgical glove filled with ice on my face, and headed back to the hotel. Becca met me there, and we walked to our home so I could get changed and we could regroup to go out later.
When we showed up, the man who owns the house where we’ve been staying was finally there. He is a jovial, extremely intelligent, generous and fun man, with an amazing collection of art and a constantly thinking mind. He came out on his upper balcony to greet us, and he invited us in for dinner and a tour of his house – which, as I have mentioned before, is a thousand times more incredible than one could ever imagine having seen it from the outside. While we were eating he served us wine and gin and tonics and told us a bit about himself. I liked to pick his brain because he is an environmental law attorney. He saw my nose, freshly swollen, and declared it broken. (I have an appointment with my nose/sinus MD when I get back to Seattle mid-February.) After eating well, Becca and I headed downstairs to take advantage of Renee’s kindness in letting us use her bedroom as our link to TV bliss. For the next two hours, Becca and I watched Lost and Project Runway – necessities – and I continued to lick my wounds and take pain meds.
After good TV, we all had a date with Mike, the magician from the night before. The Ghost tour we had decided against the night before when we instead went to the magic bar was now going to happen, under very special circumstances. Mike had been one of the ghost tour leader for years, and he agreed the night before to take Becca and I and our friends on the tour late at night (against city ordinance, apparently – no guided tours past 10. However, had we been a marauding bachlorette party of a drunken 30 people, no problem there…) So, we got together as many people as we could and met him in front of the chapel by Jackson square for our unofficial, friend-led tour.
It was super fun, and spooky, and probably to be taken with a grain of salt, but worth it, especially since Mike gave us the tour for 1/3 of the price we would have had to of paid. After the tour, which included lengthily stops at two “haunted” bars – The Absinthe house on pirate’s alley and LaFitte’s Blacksmith shop on Bourbon street – we headed to Coop’s for a little food. We hung out there for an inordinate amount if time, and one by one people went home until it was just me, Becca, John and Mike left. We stopped in a couple of bars on the walk home, I just sat, throbbing, and I finally got home safe and sound at about 4am.
–Sunday: 1-22-2006
Well, first things first: North Carolina wrap-up: The trees there are the perfect Halloween trees with veins and capillaries coming off of hundreds of branches stemming from a single trunk. I’ve never seen trees like them in person before and I found them very enchanting in an odd sort of way. And, lastly, I remembered something about the Q&A after the Davidson show that made me rather pleased… a guy came up to me afterwards and said he liked my shirt. Small world… one in which all awesome people buy their tee-shirts on threadless.com. He wasn’t wearing the exact shirt I had on, but said he also owned it. He was, however, wearing a different one of the shirts from that site. Awesome. Also: his friend was from Tacoma, and was the only person who didn’t boo my Seahawks comment.
So, onto Sunday, when we flew into New Orleans. All the flights we have taken so far have been on AirTran, and all have had stopovers in Atlanta. This flight was no different… or at least not by the time we checked in. We all went to the ticket counter to check in, one at a time, at varying times, like we always do. Perhaps this situation was a bit different since Ed, Garrett and David were coming to the airport a bit later than the rest of us because they had to return our rental vans, but not by much. So, the first couple of people go up to check in, and we get the weirdest guy who has to do things his weird-ass-backwards way. So, he made us all check in at once, in a huge clogging clump (with many people behind us angry at 12 “cutters” in line) and then, we each didn’t get a boarding pass until all the people had checked their bags, and even then, some people had been given weird boarding pass coupons that they had to go back up to get a real thing. In other words, checking in usually takes maybe 20 minutes for all of us, and this ordeal took probably an hour and a half.
Luckily – I use that loosely – our flight was delayed, meaning me didn’t miss it. Baggage-counter moron didn’t inform us of this, however, so we freaked out and rushed to our gate to find that tidbit o’ news. Not only was our flight delayed, but it was delayed by two hours, and then our connecting flight in Atlanta was also delayed for three hours. I bought some magazines and a Duke shirt for my dad, and spent a small fortune on airport food. When all was said and done, we arrived in New Orleans, about six and a half hours after we were supposed to…
The one cool thing was that just before we boarded out second flight, the Seahawks-North Carolina game started and was playing on most of the TVs in the airport. By the time we took off, I knew that the Seahawks were ahead 7 to 0. The captain also came on over the flight’s intercom and said that he was a North Carolina fan and was going to try and give us updates on the score throughout the flight. When we landed, he announced the Seahawks lead of 20 to 0. By the time we were leaving the airport, I had called home, finding out the final score of, I think, 34 to 14?
Now here’s real kicker: eleven of our group’s bags didn’t show up with us. And of course, according to Murphy’s law as it affects Melinda’s baggage, my two bags were among the missing eleven. We spend ample time filing claims and I, of course, flipped out just a tiny bit in my own way by calling my parents and Jerry to whine and ask advice on just what the frick I was going to do without all my stuff…
That night I slept in my contacts. Suzanne, our contact here who met us at the airport and was the person who arranged for all of the in-school performances and classes we’ve done, dropped us all off at our various residencies for the night. Since this stay in New Orleans is very different from the norm, (no shows and all classes, due to the lack of a single theater in the city,) and the fact that we’re donating our time to be here, we all aren’t staying at a hotel like we normally do. Some people do get hotel rooms, at the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel, (which is gorgeous, by the way, and I would recommend it for any New Orleans-bound travelers…) but the rest of us are split up between some very generous families and people who are housing us like exchange students.
I am staying in a HUGE mansion right in the French Quarter, along with Becca, Renee and Garrett. The two gentlemen who own the house split their time between New Orleans and Miami, and so for the first few days of our week-long stay here we didn’t have any one here… we just had a key and a house to ourselves. This house is amazing… it is much like an ornate movie set… there are outside balconies that surround an enclosed courtyard, and three bedrooms, a bathroom, an office and a laundry room that all jut off from the courtyard. All of these rooms, by the way, don’t even belong to the main house, which is three stories, and amazing (we just got the tour today – I’m behind on my blogging.) I’ll really just have to take it pictures to do it justice… it’s quite spectacular.
Once we put our stuff down, we decided there was no better way to start off our time in New Orleans than to head straight to Bourbon Street to take a look around. Of course, after maybe just two blocks, we found a hole in the wall alcohol-to-go stand. Becca and I got Hand Grenades in souvenir cups and promptly were wasted and wandering in and out of bars and shops and souvenir stands. It wasn’t until I wandered into what I thought was a bar – that turned out to be a strip club – that I decided it was definitely time to call it a night, and head home to our cute little room, with our adorable pink-lined twin beds.
When we got home, we were just a little bit too enchanted with our new home to go to bed right away, so, only after some farting around in our new digs, we all went to sleep for the night.
–Monday: 1-23-2006
My first impressions of New Orleans was that I couldn’t tell if it was a run-down area or a damaged area… this comment, it should be noted, is only in specific reference to the French Quarter, when wind and water damage was minimal compared to the other parishes. I could see Military police on a few corners, but no overwhelming martial law presence like I thought there might be. On the way in, we even drove right past the Superdome, which I had seen countless times on the news as ground zero for misery and abandonment, and from my view point, zooming past it on the freeway, it looked much less ravaged and plagued than I thought it was going to be. I noticed as soon as I stepped off the plane, the whole area has a slightly musty smell, I think I only notice because of my crazy uber-sensitive nose capabilities, and that was a bizarre realization for me understanding that that sensation was indicative of the flooding and the events that have taken place here.
The French Quarter is still affected, even though it has fared far more well than most places. All of the shops have severely limited hours, and all are very, very understaffed. The coffee shop I have been going to in order to check my email, for example, (CC’s Coffee House,) is only open from 6am to noon. I overheard the barista today explaining to a loyal customer they have no idea when they’ll be open on Sundays again, because as it is now the entire staff works every hour they are open every day and they need a day off… Their next goal before opening in Sundays is to try and extend the hours until 3pm instead of noon.
The windows are boarded up, and structures all show wear and tear. The affluent areas look like the poor areas would have, and the poorer areas look like… garbage. But there are signs of life all over and a general sense of camaraderie. It’s funny cause when I see a gas lamp missing it’s cover, or a sign post that’s bent forward I wonder, is what I’m seeing evidence of the hurricane, or am I reading into a car hitting a pole and lack of city utilities fixing public use structures. Again, this is just the French Quarter. Which, despite all these tells, still is so much like the Orleans square in Disneyland that I can’t fathom I’m in the real place. I love how much it is exactly like what I wanted it to be like… with the balconies and the narrow streets and the beads and the architecture… I love it.
Monday morning we got up early and Renee gave us the basic directional tour of the quarter. She led us directly to Café du Monde, a New Orleans staple that’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It has infamous french doughnuts – called Beignets – that are legend, local and otherwise, and great coffee. The coffee is particularly special because it is actually brewed from a blend of coffee beans and chicory. Chicory is a root, that during the rationing of wars and poor economy, was discovered to taste similar to coffee when ground up and roasted and brewed. So, Café du Monde serves part coffee, part chicory coffee drinks. It tastes great, but definitely different… a little more burnt than normal coffee. I wouldn’t choose it over regular coffee, but I would definitely order it on purpose at this spot.
While Garrett, Becca and Renee finished their Cafe au laits and beignets, I walked away just a bit to Jackson square and the Moonwalk and artillery park — all rather close to the waterfront of the Mississippi river roaring past. I took a bunch of pictures and was privy to the rare treat of seeing it covered in mist.
We walked from there to the hotel where everyone else was staying to pick up Chad, and then walked back to nearly the same place – across the street from Cafe du Monde – and got an amazing breakfast at The River’s Edge restaurant. I had an omelet covered in Creole sauce and a big ol’ bowl of grits. Both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. Just after breakfast, I stopped into a cute little boutique clothing store while we were walking everyone back to the hotel – the meeting point for those who were about to leave to teach the first set of classes – and bought two luggage tags. An act, I would later find out was me tempting fate, as my bags didn’t show up, again, when they were supposed to… but I’ll get to that later.