A few things have changed- now we have some jays and cardinals around, which makes for a more interesting viewing experience for my seed-purchasing dollar, but also, and maybe more importantly, the cats are older and more sedentary, so I don’t feel guilty, as if I’m stuffing them like mini-turkeys.

But Bianca decided she wanted to relive her kittenhood and started searching for a vantage point. He’s a bit of a porker herself these days, and the birds saw her coming a mile off. She happened upon the brilliant idea of climbing the trellis, I suppose with the plan that she’d drop on them from above.

This greatly alarmed the dogs:

Initially she was proud of herself, and basked in her queen-of-the-hillness:

But shortly thereafter, she got worried, too, and hoped for a helping hand:

Eventually Bianca made her way down, and peace was restored to the kingdom:

Which, in this case, consisted of a combination of being taken out to eat, home cooked meals, and sleep. Upon their arrival, she used what little voice she had to croak out a pitiful plea for Craig and Kimmie’s food. While there she took out her prescription, and I just couldn’t stop laughing:

At any rate, several requests were made for food to be brought back to LSU- Charlie’s special chicken, a tray of fancy-schmancy mac n’ cheese and chocolate chip cookies.

The ‘homemade’ part was stressed. Repeatedly. So how do you resist that one? You don’t. In the midst of preparations I discovered that Pratchett loves cheese.

Loves? Adores. Worships. To get his greedy talons on some, he will actually ‘fly’ over from his cage (poor lad. It’s more like semi-controlled falling, but he didn’t seem to care if there was the potential for some cheesy goodness to ease his rough landing).

Unfortunately, I also discovered that I have my grandmother’s hoarding/feeding/stockpiling genes. Every time I visited her while I was in school she sent me home with food, which I appreciated, but also started to wonder if she thought the only grocery store in existence was the one in her neighborhood. In the end, the girls were packed up with loads of food- cold cuts, chips, Special K bars, boxes of tissues, juice, only slightly parrot-nibbled mac n’ cheese, etc, and sent off after one last meal out, at Cafe Atchafalaya.

I do despair of ever getting a normal photo of them together. Here they are, ‘sizzling’ in Atchafalaya’s huge frying pan.

Then they were off, with a stop at The House of Shock. I was a little worried about that one- two years running Alison went with friends who were got scared just by the freakshow outside that they were sobbing and quit before they even got inside the building.

For the uninitatied, here’s the House of Shock, named by the Travel Channel as the most extreme Haunted House in the US:

(If you don’t have the patience to sit through it, skip to the 3:58 mark and you’ll know everything you need to about why I was worried.)

Needless to say, Alison loves it and can’t wait to go every year, but Elizabeth is a sweet, semi-sheltered religious sort of girl. In fact, they were leaving a day early so she could go home to practice for a play her church is putting on- you can see why I just wasn’t sure how this would go over.

I have yet to hear just how it went, but hey,they’re still coming for Voodoo Fest later this month, so it couldn’t have scared her off too much, right?

Still, I got some good feedback from it, but nobody figured out what the central problem is. Have an idea?

I actually like the premise; I think I’m going to stick with these characters for awhile in the writing group and see where it goes.

As always, any comments welcome.

All but three of the nineteen bedrooms held an untrusting, nervous occupant. It was Mitch?s turn to be out, and Cali sat out in the recently carved out common area, listening to the unhappy rustling behind the closed doors above her as she gathered her thoughts. Only one bedroom was left unaccounted for- the smallest bedroom at the far end of the hallway, now vacant since its occupant vanished two months ago.

Not vanished, Cali corrected herself. Adam wasn?t gone at all. Absorbed. Integrated. These were the terms she was supposed to be using now. Unified. That was the idea she was supposed to be hanging onto when the doubts crept in. All nineteen of them, together as one, that?s what Jesus said had to be; that?s where salvation lay.

But, still. Poor little Adam had been the first to go, the first sacrifice that Jesus said had to be made. Barely a toddler, his diaper was perpetually sodden, and was born a deaf-mute. He rarely ventured out beyond his miniature hobbit-esque door, and when he did, his eyes would be swollen and bloodshot as he silently bawled his endless angry tears.

The baby would occasionally wander through the other rooms, feeling his way along the wall and clutching onto whoever he found, desperate but inconsolable. As much as everyone tried to help, they always ended up feeling guilty, having failed him once again. Poor Adam. Poor baby.

She told herself that of course Jesus was right; it was kindest to release Adam from his pain. But there was that guilt again, because it wasn?t only the tot who?d been freed, was it? Everyone else in their system had benefited from Adam?s?integration. And that felt wrong. Evil, even. You didn?t kill people because it made your life easier, did you?

Cali paced the little room and heard a door in Mama?s room slam. Adam hadn?t really been her son- none of them were biologically hers, but Mama still took his absence hard, and she was none too pleased about today?s meeting with Jesus.

They were going to start deciding who would go next.

Cali had crept up to Adam?s tiny door before coming down to wait. His doorknob and hinges had faded over the last weeks before disappearing, leaving no way back inside. She?s wanted to check, just to be sure. The idea that he was stuck behind that door, silent and unable to call for help haunted Cali?s dreams.

Mitch had to be almost to Jesus? office by now; it seemed like hours had passed, though it could be hard to gage realtime when you were locked inside. Mitch could drive, but Cali?d never learned, so he bringing them to the appointment, though Jesus had wanted to talk specifically to her this time, that she should be ready and with no one else hanging over her, listening.

She chewed a nail, turning the problem over again as she waited for it to be her turn. It was pretty much all she?d done since their last meeting. Did Jesus want her advice? To ask how their system was getting along? Or did he want to tell Cali that he?d chosen her and she was the next to go?

Her heart pounded at the thought. It couldn?t be her. Everybody here needed her. She kept things orderly, made sure the kids didn?t fight, worried about the appointments. She and Mitch kept everybody calm and relatively on track. She was essential. It couldn?t be her, she prayed. Not me.

She sat in the relative stillness and waited, listening for Jesus to call her to come out and face her fate.

A terrible accident has taken Zulu way way before his time. I have been more devastated than I could have ever imagined possible by the loss of a bird.

With the intelligence of a 5 year old, an ever increasing vocabulary and constant curiosity, Zulu seemed more like a person than a pet. Anthropomorphizing? Maybe, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

Ironically, Alison took two funny little videos of him the night before the accident. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at them, but when I do, I’ll post them.

We buried him the garden, between the big angel’s trumpet and plumbago, near the bird feeders.

So that’s it. I just wanted to explain why, in this busy Jazzfest week, I fell off the turnip truck. I’m officially climbing back on now and getting back on track.

This is how I feel- and my assistant even more so- after dealing with eBay.

They keep jacking up their rates while reducing the reasons to pay them. They’re so busy trying to keep buyers happy that they’ve forgotten that SELLERS are their customers as well- in fact, we’re the ones who pay them. And we do pay- a lot.

The average eBay sale costs me between 15-23% of the overall price, between store fees, listing fees, closing fees, Paypal fees… ay yi yi.

And, frankly- (and here I don’t mean YOU, of course. You’re perfect. I’m talking about a small but vocal percentage of the others) eBayers are pains in the ass. They think I’m running a garage sale, not a business.

I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve gotten that go, “I saw your brand new in package elaborate hand sewn costume complete with dress, leggings, wings and an elf to fit it to my own personal body, and I’d love to buy it, but I am NOT paying $20 for it! But if you’ll take $3 and ship it to me free, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands.”

We’re professional about it. We’ve gotten so good at being nice to those types it’d make you puke. We’ve got 100% positive feedback and try to keep everyone happy as a matter of course.

And, to be fair, we’ve dealt with many more wonderful people than not- but those NOTS are really time consuming, so we’re getting out of the pool.

But if you’ve bought something from us via eBay- first off, thank you- I’m sure you were a lovely and absolutely phenomenal person to deal with!

But I feel better already. Thanks for letting me rant:)

It was a damn cold day, and I know Travis was itching to get his hands on a nail gun and really go to town, but they kept warm swinging hammers, putting down floors and putting up walls.

They kept the location quiet so they could work in peace, but the Times-Pic did show up for a few minutes, shot some photos and videos and were off.

Times-Picayune story with link to their gallery

Times-Pic video

We took a few pics when we picked him up, but weren’t allowed up on the staging area without wavers, etc. The studs (boards that is, not bands) were sort of in the way, but they were only going to be working for a few more minutes, so we opted to stay grounded.

Since they were winding down we chatted up the Habitat rep instead and found that that pre-K they did an average of 4 houses a year in New Orleans- post-K it’s about 170, and it’s only through the generosity of groups like Music for Relief that they have the funding to keep going.

When we took off, she was rounding everybody up for the Death & Destruction tour through the Lower 9- something she gets to do a couple of times a week.

The photos after the jump:

(btw, I REALLY hate Picasa’s slideshow now that I’ve been playing with the other version. I’ll get everything transferred over soon.)

The twins are 8- Marisa is dark haired and normally the shy one, Nadia the lighter haired and bold as brass tacks.

Marisa held her own, though- she really loved it, and loved that hat with all the balls. Lots of compliments came her way, as they did for Alison when she first wore the hat a couple of years ago. She tried out the ladder, being up at eye level worked out well, and gave her dad and my brother’s shoulders a rest.

Nadia opted for the freedom of the street, picking out her target, waving and jumping, and both girls made out like bandits.

We packed it in around 11:30 so the little ones would have some rest before getting up for Tucks in the morning. If you would’ve told me I was going to leave before the last shoe passed, I’d have called you a liar.

But add a gallon of Charlie’s pomegranate margaritas over several hours with no dinner beforehand, add some tired kids, and sometimes you do the previously unimaginable.

The parade starts with the guys in skeleton costumes handing out their newspaper, detailing the floats and the meanings behind them- a fantastic idea because between how quickly they go by and jumping around for beads you can miss a lot of detail, and this is one parade where the genius is in the details.

A strange and wonderful Carnival has come and gone, and it’s taken me a full 2 days to recover. The last guest left on Wednesday afternoon, so I guess really it only counts as one day on our own, but whatever.

Friday was the first day we went out, and it was a doozy. 4 parades- Hermes, D’Etat, Morpheus and finally Muses.

The always sensual Hermes was the first to step off, and the girls were thrilled. It resulted in a little more oversight than usually required- their blinky krewe bead featured bare breasts everywhere…lol.