Effluvia

I'm stealing from Memepool today:

• Like peanut-filled chocolates? Then you're a pervert.
• All the porn.
• This coffee tastes like shit!
• Build a railgun.
• Pathetic.
• Far more pathetic.
• Iron Chef Babes.

Journal Roulette

Tinisima - Tin...isima...the San Francisco crap!

Siobhanorama!

Siobhan pulls a Howard Hughes, staying inside and making bread. I can dig it. Some banana bread sounds pretty good, too.

Two Years Ago
Two years ago tomorrow, actually. I buy cigarettes for children.

So the Wife and I done had an anniversary!

Yup, ten years. A new record. I gave her a snazzy gold bracelet, she gave me a Kenneth Cole watch. Happy things!

We both took Friday - the anniversary day itself - off from work so we could wallow in each other's good company. We got up slow on Friday. Sonya made some phone calls, I started construction on the BeadCatcher3000. I'm worried about the '3000, though. It is, basically, two big pieces of wood with a bucket nailed to it. Some cop might think it could be a dangeroud weapon, and he'd be right - you could easily kill someone with the BeadCatcher3000. This is a serious design flaw.

Around eleven we left the house - top down in the Badass, of course, 'cause it was warm and beautiful - and went to the Holiday Inn of Royal where my cousin Margie was staying. Technically, I guess Margie is a second cousin, 'cause she's my grandmother's sister's daughter. But you know. Cousin, whatever. We took her and her husband, Gerald, to La Peniche, because no tourist has ever been there it's so far off the beaten track. They liked it a lot. They liked riding around the Quarter in a convertible, too. I'm glad I contributed to their happy vacation, which was also their anniversary. Small world, no?

We dropped them off at their hotel and made our way over to New Orleans Centre. The big dinner at Delmonico was planned for that night, and I really didn't want to wear a suit - nothing makes enjoying a fine meal more difficult than having the knot of a tie pressing at your throat during said meal.

Fun Harold Fact: I do not know how to tie a tie. If you put a gun to my head you'd have to shoot me. I can't do it. Many good men have tried and failed to teach me. I think it may be the left-handed thing. Maybe a left-handed person could teach me?

Anyway, it doesn't really matter, does it? Business casual now rules the world and I don't ever see myself having a suit-and-tie job. If I do I'll blaze a trail of tie-lessness. No ties for me. As it is, I wear one about five times a year. Weddings, funerals, job interviews, things like that.

Though on the last two job interviews I wore an earring, not a tie. And on the last one it was all done over the phone. This is an example of e-business.

So how do the ties I do own get tied? I have them tied at the store. If their not the correct length I have them re-tied. Then I just slip them over my head and adjust them.

Harold Williams: Unfriendly to Ties.

Anyway, blah blah. I looked all around at Macy's and Lord and Taylor and really, nothing did it for me. Off to the mall!

"I need to go to the mall," I told Sonya when we left Lord and Taylor.

"You're at the mall," she noted.

"But this is a shitty mall," I whined, "I need to go to a good mall."

Off to Metairie.

At Dillard's I found a lovely brown velvety jacket. Not really velvet, though. It looks nice. Very respectable. And an off-white Oxford to match.

Sonya said she might look for an outfit maybe, so off we went up and down the mall, searching for the elusive killer outfit. It turned out to be a knee-length striped skirt from the Gap with a sleeveless sweater and heels from Dillard's.

"I think it's a very Carrie Bradshaw outfit," Sonya said as we carried our bags to the car.

"Seventies, Steelers, that kind of thing?" I asked.

"What?"

"Terry Bradshaw?"

"No! Carrie Bradshaw!"

"Oh? Yeah, that too."

So we went home and put on our cool new clothes and exchanged many, many compliments with each other. We was impressive.

Then we stood around outside the gates, fuming, as our cab refused to come. It's like, "listen, Mr. Cabbie with your air freshener crown and wooden beaded seat, I've got fucking reservations and you better drop everything and see about me 'cause I'm the most important person in the goddamned world."

I get reservations at a nice restaurant and it goes straight to my head, doesn't it?

At Delmonico, we sat upstairs in the corner - a perfect place to people watch. We both put our backs to the wall and chatted pleasantly, like happily married couples do.

Sonya looked at all the silverware.

"I start on the outside and work my way in, right?"

"Baby, you can eat with whatever fork you want. My treat."

The wine list was thirty-two pages long. That's three-two. There were several rare bottles from the '60s in the low- to mid-four figures. That's some good wine, cap'n. I had a glass of the house red.

For the record, Sonya had fried green tomatoes and lump crab meat, pan-seared rainbow trout and cheesecake. I had pate, roast cherry-glazed Peking duck with rosemary bread pudding and the white chocolate ice cream for dessert. It was, indeed, the best food I ever did have.

And the service was impeccable. It wasn't just ass kissing, it was team ass kissing! Our waiter escorted me to the bathroom when I asked him where it was.

"Is everything satisfactory so far, sir?" he asked on the way.

"Well, Trevor," I told him, "could you tapdance a little for me?"

He made like the old black guy on The Lawrence Welk Show. It was sweet.

And was it cheap? Hell no! But, as I've observed to Sonya several times this week, "we'll only be married for ten years once."

"To each other," she always adds darkly.

Saturday? Um, we went to the Westbank to check out Mervyn's, which is supposed to be like a Target, only not. It wasn't as good as a Target, though. But did you know they had a mall on the Westbank? I didn't!

Oh, and we got a pick-a-nick basket for the Orpheuscapade. I've always wanted one.

The trip to the Westbank was so exciting I got a monstrous, thudding, stomach-turning headache. We came back to the house and I crashed for a few hours. Waking marvelously refreshed we put on warm clothes (Saturday was cool, and a cold breeze came up in the night) and walked to St. Charles to see some parades.

Sonya spotted a coworker of hers walking behind her daughter's marching group. We fell in with her and got to walk in a parade for a few blocks. It was deeply and totally cool. Then we stopped at the corner of Jackson and St. Charles to catch some beads.

A note, here, about bead-catching: contrary to popular belief you do not have to expose yourself to catch beads. Yes, in the French Quarter you do have to show your bits to get the people on the balconies to throw you things, but during Mardi Gras there are all these parades, see, and the people on the floats throw beads pretty indiscriminately. Yes, if you flash the float riders you will probably get stuff, but it's not required is what I'm trying to tell you. Now you know.

A friend of mine lives on St. Charles, so we walked on to her house to use the bathroom - we were invited and she was having a kind of open-door party with all sorts of people in and out. I got a six-pack of Schlitz on the way - didn't want to walk in empty-handed. Several people from my little reading/drinking group were there, too, so we visited with them and joined them for the evening's second parade, with the crowd much reduced by the cold weather. Soon, our necks were heavy with beads. A good haul.

And then we did pretty much the same thing yesterday afternoon, except we just walked up to where St. Charles crosses Seventh. Yesterday's parades were okay, but nothing special. I did get some queen beads from the hands of one of the queens, herself, so that was good.

And Sonya and I have a new policy this year: no beads get picked up off the ground. There's just no need. Orpheus is going to take care of us, I know.

I was off today. I burned incense and cleaned house. And I went and picked up the Orpheuscapade tickets. They're beautiful, of course.

Neat story: I was at the Orpheus offices when I heard the woman behind me on the phone:

"Can I speak to Harry Connick, Jr., please?"

Neat - on the phone with a celebrity!

Also overheard: I was walking back from the grocery store this afternoon. I man was standing in front of the coffee shop in our building. He had a huge helmet of seventies hair, his hand in his pants and he was talking on a cell phone.

"You didn't even bury him?" he bellowed into the phone.

That was all I heard, and all I needed to hear.