One thing that just makes this city so frickin fantastic is the music. We all know that. In my case, I happen to think it IS the best thing. It is actually everything that comes with the music that makes it so wonderful. It is the food and drink that you can consume while listening to the music. It is the people that come out to hear the music. It is the different kinds of music you get to hear. I heard a nice blend of different music and I found myself falling in love with the city all over again.

On Friday I went out to the Columns on St. Charles to hear my friends play with the New Orleans Helsinki Connection. They played the happy hour set from 5-7. This was almost a perfect setting for them. They played on the grand porch that leads into the hotel. With a drink in hand and the streetcar clanging by, the scent of flowers in the air and the sounds of a nice jazz song ringing in the air made me say "yeah this is the life". However most of the people that were also sitting on the porch didn't care that there was music playing. They were all unwinding from their work week, or were there to try to pick up the opposite sex. Unless you were sitting right in front of the band? You were talking as loud as you could over them. The band didn't have microphones, so anytime there was a vocal either singing or talking? You didn't get to hear them. From where I was sitting, right next to the band, I discovered that my friend Todd hummed as he played his solos. I have seen Todd play in so many different venues and with different people but this was something new I learned about him. That should give you some indication on how close I was to the band. Later that evening there was a plethora of music going on all over town, but like I told NOLA, I was most likely going to the closest place to me. That of course was the Maple Leaf. Took in some Groovesect for a set before calling it a night. A small crowd but the set was nice.

Saturday I journeyed on over to d.b.a on Frenchmen. Normally on a Saturday it is John Boutte's set and I had told myself that have a very long hiatus of attending these Saturday night gigs of John's, that I was going to go. One of my friend's that played on Friday night plays with John on Saturdays and they had been giving me a hard time about not making it for awhile. So come hell or high water I was going to go. I found out on Thursday that John was in fact NOT playing and that Paul Sanchez was filling in. Lee was also going to be playing, and I was extremly excited to be able to see two of my most favorite musicians play together. It was a wonderful evening of music and laughter. I did get a lot of teasing from Lee and his wife, saying the only reason I came was because Paul was playing. It isn't true at all!! (This coming Saturday Paul will be filling in once again for John...and he will have not only Leroy Jones on Trumpet but Shamarr Allen) I ended the evening again at the Maple Leaf hearing Juice. A nice groovy band. A smaller crowd than the night before, but they danced the night away.

Yesterday rounded out my weekend of music. Once again taking in the sounds of Leroy Jones and Katja Toivola at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe. If you ever get the chance to get out there to hear music and eat some wonderful food do it. You won't regret it. Not only were there people there that I did know, but I met some wonderful new people as well. It made for a wonderful end to a fantastic weekend.

We have a new addition into the household. A kitten tentatively called Izzy. She adopted our front porch about a month ago. She showed up skin and bones and just wanted to be loved. We of course, the softies, provided the food. She would show up every evening and eat, snuggle and meow whenever we went inside. It became apparent soon thereafter that not only was she gaining weight from the now constant food, she was also pregnant. This sweet kitten was not even a year old and she had gotten it on! Kristen wrestled over the fact that the kitten was expecting and was wondering what to do. Take the kitten in for herself or just let her be a porch cat. I would have taken her in a second, had I been able to afford another cat. Finally last week some point Kristen did decide to adopt her as her own. She set up an appointment with her vet for early on Friday morning. This is were it got a tad tricky. We knew the time frame she came and hung out on the porch. 6-7 in the evening to sometime in the morning. We would have to crate her in that time. We didn't want to bring her into the house until we were sure she didn't have anything that would pass on to our cats. We also didn't want to crate her for a long period of time. So at 2 in the morning on Friday found Kristen and I trying to wrestle and pregnant kitten into a cardboard crate.

The prognosis of the kitten was good. Carrying no disease, a little malnourished and an issue with a tooth, but other than that, she was good. The babies she was carrying was another story. In fact the Vet couldn't detect heartbeats. Izzy was spayed on Monday. She is no long carrying kittens. It was the one thing I said to Kristen I didn't want to know about. However I do. It isn't an easy decision, but knowing the kittens were not surviving at that point made it a bit easier. Saturday Kristen left town to go to Maine. Izzy made her way to her new home on Tuesday. She has been staying in the bathroom for the time being, so her and the other two cats can get to know each other through the door. My cat didn't seem too keen at first on the new addition but seems to be doing better. Kristen's cat doesn't really seem to care and Izzy is just happy to be somewhere warm. She is still the sweetest thing. She even seems to drool a little like my sister's cat Felix does when getting loved.

Other than the vase shattering in the bathtub on her first night, there has been no disasters. I did leave the bathroom door open yesterday evening and observed the normal hissing/growling dominace dance. I did finally bring her out to the living room because she didn't seem to want to move out on her own. She did find a hiding spot where she hung out for awhile. I couldn't find her this morning right away, she had found herself a real good hiding spot under the recliner. She is back in the bathroom today, and her human mama will finally be home this evening. I am going to gladly hand over the med giving duty to her and let them bond properly.

As promised, here are a few more shots that I took from this past Friday's swamp tour. Again I was so pleased with the tour we took. There were times when everyone on the boat (8 taking the tour plus the captain) would all be quiet and the sounds of the swamp just washed over you. Mainly it was silent with an occasional call of a bird, the splash of a fish (or a gator not wanting to be seen) an unseen animal off in the distance. Everyone left the tour just so relaxed and happy. It was the perfect natural life high.

I can't accurately explain the trip out to Cajun country. We went out to Houma to have some food and then the swamp tour. The plan was then to have some dinner and listen to some Cajun music and then head back to the city. We forgot that it was Good Friday, so we didn't get to have the dinner and music portion.

We had lunch at Boudreau & Thibodeau's. It was a great place, the service was excellent.

We split 2 platters and 3 appetizers between four of us. We had Boudin balls, oysters, crawfish, stuffed crab, etouffee, and many many other items. Almost all was fried. I didn't end up eating dinner at all that night. I was stuffed all day.

The tour that we took was Munson's Swamp Tours, the only one that is on private property and is an environmental preserve.

We saw about 30 gators, Herons, Egrets, an owl, woodpecker, turkey vultures, turtles, fish,racoons and some of the most beautiful scenery you will ever see.

I can't explain nor will the pictures quite do it justice. We had 8 people total on our boat and we were out there for about 2 and half hours. The silence in the swamp was what impressed us most. It was amazing. All you could hear were birds and the occasional splash as a gator slide into the water.

I will put a few more of my favorite pics up tomorrow....

My cat wont stop crawling on me. She is purring very loudly. She likes the days that I get to stay home. I totally forgot that we got today off until just recently. I plan on spending this spring day visiting cajun country with some friends. Then taking in some wonderful music of Paul Sanchez at his CD release party. The rest of the weekend will stretch out ahead.

I hope everyone has a happy spring!!

PS it took me 20 mins to write this because of said happy cat. :)

As I glance through the pictures that I took this weekend, I am still amazed at the amount of work that goes into each outfit. Granted some pieces are glued on, but most are hand sewn. I have done some dabbling in beading work back when I was younger. I had a little loom and could make some bracelets and necklaces. The designs were never too intricate as I didn't have the patience to do that, also the fear of having them turn out ugly was there. The time and patience that goes into each Mardi Gras Indian outfit is out of this world. The cost is also amazing, but when you see the end result, you can understand why.

There are lengthly explanations of the Mardi Gras Indians, and traditions from Big Chief, Flag Boy, Spy Boy and Wild Man. I won't even try to go into detail here because I will get it so wrong. One thing I have gathered from reading is that the African Americans wanted to pay respect to the Native Americans for their help and understanding during Slavery and everything since. Many other traditions have come to past since the first of the Mardi Gras Indian gangs were formed.

I am so glad that I went to Super Sunday to check out this display of tradition. I only once felt out of place when it was obvious that one lady didn't want us taking pictures at the park. Mainly because we were white. There were other people taking pictures and she had no problem. I wanted to say to her, "Hey I am Native American stop treating me so different!" But I didn't. If she wanted to judge on looks then that was her perogative. Yes maybe I should have been respectful and not taken the picture, however the suit was on display like all others, and I know she hadn't been the one wearing it. Possibly she helped in the construction of the suit. I did get the picture of it however.

This was a relaxing yet very busy weekend. Believe it or not, but I did not go to the Maple Leaf at all. Yes I did go on Thursday, but the rest of the weekend I did not. I spent Friday night at Lee and KT's having dinner and watching movies and visiting. The perfect relaxing evening. Homemade salsa to die for.

Saturday I did head out to the St. Patrick's day parade, however I waited for a long time for it to get up to Magazine. I realized not long into it, that I was indeed paraded out. I didn't make it very long into the parade before leaving, as it was I had been out for about three hours. That night it was to Tipitina's to sell merch for PBS (Porter-Batiste-Stoltz) for an amazing night of funky music. It really was a great night. PBS threw down.

PBS (picture taken by Tracey Freeman)

George throwing it down.
Today I took in Super Sunday. The Mardi Gras Indians in full force.



The bead work on the outfits are just incredible. I will go more into my thoughts about today later, as I am so very exhausted and still need to think about dinner.

So I just saw Chris Rose on my street. I guess he went to go and get a cup of coffee at Zotz or something. He pulled up as I was standing outside talking to a friend on the phone. I saw him get back in his car as I was about to go for a bike ride. I thought that was pretty cool.

There was something else that also happened that is pretty damn cool as well today...what was it? I don't know...let me think...oh yes it had to do with a phone call I got just as I was leaving work. As it turns out I will one of the Assistant Stage Managers for the Vagina Monologues that is happening at the New Orleans Arena and the Superdome as part of the big V-Day events.

I have only just stopped jumping up and down and am letting the nerves come and get me.

Last night was my final on air slot for the WWOZ spring membership drive. It was an amazing night. First I thought it was kinda funny that the DJ from the previous show was a lady that I had sold a Bonerama shirt to at the last Rock-n-Bowl gig. Second I found out right before our show started that Deacon John was coming in. Are you kidding me?? That man is an incredible musician. He came in about 20 mins into the show and stayed the whole time. He is so so so sweet. I can't explain what it was like to be sitting in the studio with him, and have him play live. There were only 2 other people in the room at the time. I do realize that there were a ton of people listening online and on their radios but it was like a private concert. To hear him talk about his life and everything he does was so interesting. He gave me a HUGE hug at the end and said that there need to be more young people out there like me to keep the New Orleans music and heritage alive. I am going to do my best.

It has been an whirlwind so far. It started on Friday with going to Rivertown's production of "Flea in Her Ear". My friend was in the show and she had been trying to get myself and Ms. Kelly to a production of hers. We both finally made it to one, I had been determined to make it to this one as I had seen a production of it in Ashland, OR at the Shakespeare festival. It is such a funny show, an this company did a great translation of it.

I then headed over to the Maple Leaf to see Anders play. Mr. Mark and Mr. Eric were sitting in with him, so it was fun to see them outside of the Bonerama environment. It ended up being an extremely long night, but it was a good one.

After a short snooze it was time to head to the Quarter to see Leroy and Katja play, then it was out to have a few drinks and catch up. I had just enough time to get home and grab the merch before heading out to the Bonerama gig. It was an interesting one, and it took awhile for the crowd to get into the music. The boys were doing their best. At one point there was some pole dancing...by a band member. It was blink and you missed it moment. Steam was literally coming off of at least Greg and Mark's trombones. Yes the event was outside, and it was COLD. At least it wasn't as cold as it had been the night before.

The weekend will be wrapped up with cleaning and heading to OZ for another stint. 6-8 today. Tune in if you get a chance. I hope the time change doesn't hurt too bad!

Yesterday I was on WWOZ helping out with the membership drive. It was an honor bestowed upon me last fall. I had been volunteering helping out with the studio music library, and someone asked me to help out by co-producing a few shows for the fall membership drive. It was a lot of fun once I got past my nerves. So here we are at the spring membership drive and I knew that I wanted to get to at least once to co-produce my favorite show. Which I did yesterday. I had the best time. Sherwood Collins does the New Orleans Music Show every Thursday from 11-2. I wanted to steal his music collection by the end of the show. See the DJs are all volunteers as well, and most of them bring in their own music. I do want to state to those that did listen? I had nothing to do with the three Bonerama songs that were played on-air yesterday. Seriously. Sherwood always seems to play a Bonerama song during his set. He was getting ready to play one and I said, "Oh you are playing my boys!" I preceded to tell him that I sold merch for them. I think he said something like "I knew I recognized you" or something like that. Later Matt, Craig and Eric all popped in and said hi off-air. They were up the street filming a commercial with a bunch of other musicians. So Sherwood played another song. He finished the whole set up with another one. The other songs that he played? They were perfect. A lot of people called in that I knew and renewed memberships. I do believe that overall there were a lot of memberships happening that day. I will be back on this coming Sunday!! It is a short shift, but that is okay. 6-8.

Once again I will be on WWOZ today. This time? It is during my favorite show. I am on-air from 11-2. Some make sure to tune in, hear some fantastic music, hear me make a fool of myself and if you feel so inclined, become a member. :) You can listen online!

I have mentioned before that I don't have a car anymore. I don't know how many people rememeber the saga of my vehicle after the storm. So here is a quick rundown. When I moved here, I didn't have a car. I got by with the public transportation, cabs, and friends. It was fine. Then this thing called Katrina happened and I realized after a short visit back home, I was going to need a vehicle to get around if I wanted to return to the city. So I purchased a car at the end of October. It died on me by January. I didn't even receive the title for it until March. (that was a saga itself). One day I came home from work, and it was gone. My old landlord swears up and down that he had nothing to do with it, but I know he had it towed. No matter, I was back to riding the bus, an occasional cab and of course friends.

Right now I am frustrated to no end. I know so many people are happy to see the streetcar back and running. It truly is a sign of things getting back on track. (yeah I went there) However, I really and truly do no believe they were ready. Why do I think this? Maybe it is because they don't have enough drivers. Maybe it is because the cars are prone to breaking down. All I know is I use public transportation as my main source of getting from one place to another and it is becoming increasingly difficult. For one thing, the streetcar is slow. If I want to get from my house to downtown? I know that if the streetcar is there when I arrive at the stop? It will take at least 45 mins to get downtown. Which is fine, that is what it was before. However chances of the streetcar being there are pretty damn slim. Not to mention that the streetcar is still not running down to Carrollton. So I either wait for the bus, which seems to have its own schedule, or I walk the 6 blocks down to the stop. More and more I don't wait for the bus because I can walk it in that amount of time.

Let me use yesterday as a prime example of my frustrations. I had an eye appointment at 1. I knew that I had to leave no later than 12:15 from work. I got to the streetcar stop a tad later than I wanted, at 12:25. There was no streetcar down the street, meaning I didn't miss it. One should be rolling by at any minute, because the streetcar is scheduled for every 10 mins. I would just make it to my appointment. By 12:38 I called the doctor's office to tell them I would be late. I didn't get on the streetcar until 12:55. By the time it got to the end? It was 1:20. I then had to decide if I wanted to wait for the bus or walk. I walked. I got to my appointment half an hour late. Then I had to wait for an hour, because of that. Did I mention that I had to be back downtown at 4? yeah....so when my appointment was over at 3:10, I called a cab. Which didn't show up until 3:50. So I was late to WWOZ. This is a constant. Everytime I have had to be somewhere, I leave in ample time to get there. Two weeks ago? I had a dental appointment just off of Canal. The streetcar ride should be 10 mins tops. If it had even showed up. I pretty much had to run from Lee Circle to almost Canal to make it it my appointment, which I was 10 mins late for. That entire time of my power walk/run? (15 mins total) plus the time I had waited for the streetcar (15 mins) and one never passed me. I then walked up to Canal to catch the streetcar to go home. Let me just say that in that day? I spent 1-1/2 waiting for streetcars or a bus. This is NOT including the actual ride. This is the waiting. It is becoming more and more of a problem. Some of the streetcars come by so packed, there is no point in getting on them, so you have to wait for the next one. Which is most likely about 3 blocks behind that one and totally empty. I don't even think that RTA realizes how many people depend on the streetcar as their transportation. It isn't just a tourist attraction. It is getting beyond frustrating. I know, go get a car. Well I can't afford one. Not with with the price of gas, insurance and well I can't afford payments right now. I am pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place.

It is that time of year once again. Some people wait for this every year, it is your last chance to get a brass pass for Jazz Fest. Yup that is right. It is time for the WWOZ fundrive. I will be co-producing a few shows once again like I did this fall. My first one will be this evening from 4-7. I will also be on this Thursday during my favorite show from 11-2. Actually I signed up for that show, and I need to verify that I am really doing it. I will also be on this Sunday. The fundrive lasts until next Thursday the 13th. WWOZ is a listener supported station, so this is how the station keeps on running. Hopefully you can tune in, hear and be able to help out.

Last night the boys of Bonerama played at Rock-n-Bowl for a VERY packed crowd. They kicked it off just right. It was funny because there was about an area right in front of the band that no one wanted to enter into right at first. I tried to get a few people out there, and finally Eddie showed up and took charge. That and Mark told people to move on up.

I got to meet some other NOLA bloggers, which happened to be a first for myself. Lisa even made it out!! She just missed meeting Nola, Pete and Leigh. (and I mean JUST missed, ya'll probably passed either in the parking lot or on the stairs) It was great to get to chat for even just a few brief moments with all of them. I also saw L out again. Last week we met/chatted at the Maple Leaf. Met her boyfriend who knew Mark way back in the day. I was also standing at the bar when this lady asked me if I was Stacey. Turns out she knows Lisa via her blog and was hoping to meet her. Which she did!! There were a ton of people that I have met via working for the Bones hanging out last night having a grand ole time. That atmosphere was a party.