How We Met

I’m a caffeine addict; I love coffee almost as much as I love shoes. In university I drank about five large Tim Horton’s coffees a day. There were few instances in which I could be seen without a coffee in my hand…it would be easier to have an IV. And when I don’t have enough coffee? I am Satan.

So one morning, before work, I was where I am every single morning…at a Timmie’s on the PATH (incidentally the world’s slowest and most disorganized Tim’s ever) waiting a lifetime in line. First to order, then for my coffee. Large, two milks, one sugar.

Do dah..do dah…chaos is happening…nobody’s orders are right…do dah do dah…ten minutes later…do dah do dah….oh oh oh! Finally … my coffee is ready! Yay!

And when I go to pick it up…so does someone else. Someone I’m gonna SMACK if they think they’re getting my coffee!

Insert niceties and a few “Oh sorry, I thought that was mine” here…and then some introductions…and then a “Oh here’s my card”.

A couple days later, this guy whose name I didn’t really catch, emailed me and asked me to lunch…at my favorite pub. And that? Is how Boyfriend and I met.

Three Years Later

When you live in New Orleans there are things you know without a flicker of doubt. How to eat a crawfish. That the Holy Trinity is bell peppers, celery and onion. Drive thrus serve daiquiris. Where you got them shoes. You know its not a perfect city because you know the violence and the racism…but you also know where to find the best damn sno-ball stand and po-boy shop. You also know that one day, one horrific day, the Big One will come.

Three years ago that Big One came. Katrina destroyed New Orleans, made us brutally aware that the levees would not hold and our wetlands were disappearing at shocking speed. Roughly $81 million in damage was recorded, and in New Orleans alone, over 1,500 people lost their lives.

Because back then, people rode out the storm as they always had. You bought some extra bottled water, stocked up the pantry and if you were really worried then you packed up a few things and maybe went to a friend’s house that was on higher ground…but nobody left the city. Katrina was the first time a mandatory evacuation was called…and not everyone left. Because leaving? Just wasn’t done.

Gustav, already having claimed 22 lives in Haiti, is hovering in the Gulf this year…too close for comfort and too reminiscent of Katrina. It will be three years tomorrow that Katrina hit New Orleans. In these last three years the city has been getting to its feet again only to face the same situation again.

But this time around…people are a little more prepared. Governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency to lay the groundwork for federal assistance, and put 3,000 National Guard troops on standby.

City officials have begun preliminary planning to evacuate and lock down the city to ensure there isn’t a repeat of the disaster following the 2005 storm. There will be no mass shelter like the one at the Superdome last time around. Instead the state has arranged for buses and trains to take people further away from the coast.

It seems a lifetime ago that I lived there. In that time and place I hoped and prayed that this one, this hurricane, wouldn’t destroy New Orleans…just like I am now.

Bit Dusty Around Here

Oh hello! You’re here! That’s really quite lovely of you…sorry to have left you there all by your lonesome. Hmmm so its been awhile…but now that I’m back I should have something at least semi-interesting to tell you no?

But what though?

Perhaps I could tell you about Rosie’s wedding a few weeks ago which was absolutely lovely, everyone had a good time and her cake was the yummiest thing ever? Or my cousin’s never ending wedding? Or my realization that next summer I have NO weddings? Not one folks! 

Speaking of weddings, I have a two month break before the last one of 2008.

Maybe you’d like to know all about the exam I was registered for over a month in advance and when I showed up they had no record of it nor an exam?

I’m sure you’d all be ridiculously fascinated by my getting stung by a wasp…or my work computer crashing story…or my crackberry being upgraded to an enterprise server and leaving me unable to send/receive text messages?

Maybe we can just talk about how my cable is having some issues and that? Sucks. Because The Hills is back on…and football will be soon too. And Grey’s Anatomy and then hockey. All that needs cable.

I could make you all gag with stories of how cheesy Boyfriend and I are…maybe the one where we went on a picnic…or how we watched Batman and I hid in his shoulder for a lot of it…but I won’t.

I happen to have gotten the world’s best manicure and pedicure with one of my closest friends on Saturday and that really should be a post of its own.

But its been a month almost. What should my “Hello, I’m back” post be? Do I just post and pretend I didn’t go MIA? Do I tell you everything I’ve been up to?

I mean I’ve done some really interesting things in the last couple weeks. Like buy new shampoo and conditioner. And bubble bath!

I took a bubble bath for the first time in…oh let’s see…twenty two years? But that makes me feel old  to say that I did such and such decades ago. So I won’t tell you about soaking in vanilla orchid bubble bath and reading Harry Potter.

Instead maybe I should just tell you of my discovery of petite vanilla scones at Starbucks and how much I love them. We’re meant to be, those vanilla scones and I.

Or how I desperately need a few days on a sandy beach with cabana boys making sure I have pretty drinks at all times?

But it seems I never told you how Boyfriend and I met? It’s a rather boring story…which I shall save for my next post!

So much to tell you, so little time! 

 

 

 

Insert Awkward *here*

Last night Boyfriend and I met up with some of my high school friends at one of our favorite pubs for a small birthday celebration of a girl I made friends with on the first day of high school.

After regaling everyone with the story of How We Met, the Cheerleader in stereotypical Cheerleader fashion, emitted a number of “OMG that is just SO CUTE!” squeals. Which was followed by…”That is just so cute! That would be the perfect story to tell at a wedding! You have to get married so you can tell that story!” *AWKWARD* “Oh! But its a good thing you’re not white then everyone would want you to name your kid Tim! And Tim is such a blah name, good thing you have an excuse!” *AWKWARD*

This would be about the time I finished my drink verrrrrrrrry quickly.