Louisiana, why can't I quit you?

Yeah I had a tough day at work. I should probably take it as a compliment that folks are always asking me to do administrative work for them. I did admin work for three years, and seriously, I'm a master collater. But I hate being treated like an intern/someone's secretary (because I'm not a secretary, not that I have a problem with clerical work I just don't like being targeted for my age/gender).

So just when I want to hate Baton Rouge the temperature drops to a sunny, low-humidity, 75 degrees. Amazing...in the last six months there have been only two days when I haven't been a hot sweaty mess. Yesterday and today.

One of the women I work with actually suggested we drag our desks out to the parking lot. She also warned me that it would be unbearably hot again by Friday.

Bar-complaint against Sen. Vitter

CREW--Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington initiated a complaint against Sinning Sen. Vitter. The complaint arises from Sen. Vitter's relationship with the DC Madame, obviously, prostitution is illegal in Louisiana.

CREW issued this kind of hilarious press release--"Vitter Seeks Investigation of ACORN for Assisting Fake Prostitution Ring; CREW Seeks Investigation of Vitter for Role in Real Prostitution Ring". Zing. Melancon 2010.

I was pretty excited to read the comments after this article in the Houma Courier--I feel like the Houma/Thibadaux area (and their papers) is seriously conservative as a rule.

Chachki

Out of food...

I'm a little bit lazy when it comes to blogging and shopping. This is what I made for breakfast on Saturday before seriously breaking my newfound vegetarian streak (which I broke again today at Dorothy's soul food restaurant off of Gardere Ln)

Plantains, potatos and raisin bread

And more food...

Semi-new (?) Vegan, Gluten-free bakery (with meat and veg-friendly entrees) on Perkins Rd. Truly Free has the best vegan baked goods I've ever had, even better than Sticky Fingers in DC.

I wish I knew what they used for egg/milk replacers.

Lake Ponchartrain Causeway Bridge

The Third Lizard in My House

The lizards (or are they geccos?) in Louisiana have probably been one of the most surprising instances of culture shock. My housemate found the first lizard (try to control your gag reflex) when he was getting a glass of water one night and turned on the tap. "Oh!" he motioned toward our sink which was filled with dirty dishes. "I just turned on the water."

I walked into the kitchen and saw this translucent, mottled creature looking up at me. "Holy shit! Did that just crawl out of our drain?"

Yeah, it had crawled out of our drain. A rat or an army of sewer cockroaches would've grossed me out less. "Tobin. Kill it. Please" He didn't kill it though, he herded it onto a rolled up magazine and let it go outside. But that convinced me that we must be the most disgusting people ever... The second lizard was a bright, translucent violet, and was perched (upside down) on the screen door in the kitchen. It scurried into the house after me when the door banged shut.

So...this is the third and much cuter lizard--not sure how it got into the house. I could love this lizard like a really cute kitchen mouse.

Food

Lately I feel like I'm only interested in work, food and my housemate's dog...possibly the next mayoral election in New Orleans (Rep. Karen Peterson, Speaker Pro Tem, has decided not to run...likewise, Mitch Landrieu and Arnie Fielkow. Rep. Badon, Sen. Murray and James Perry are still in.)

But work has been pretty slow over the last couple weeks with all my coworkers out of town (it's looking to pick back up). Yesterday afternoon I realized that the majority of my email has been from google alerts. So it was really exciting to get out of my office and head down to New Orleans yesterday afternoon for the healthcare rally (pictures).

I got home around 9:00 and spent a couple hours working before deciding to make sweet potatos fries at like 11:00. And promptly cut my thumb open. Yuck. But cooking is my new, much-needed hobby, so I've been using every dish that we own on a daily basis to cook some good and not-so-good vegetarian meals.

What's kind of awesome about Little Dog is her love of starch, scraps and garbage. She's been snacking on the leftover sweet potato fries for the last couple of days and she'll gnaw on Tobin's leftover corn on the cob or pretty much any table scraps we have.

Done