The thing about the bayou is that there are bugs. Really large bugs. Really big, extremely populous bugs. They’re everywhere and they’re loud as hell. Of course, they are what keep the anoles and tree frogs and geckos fed, so I don’t mind.
Okay, I know I need to catch up on highlights since you’ve gone and assumed I’m dead….
Tuesday
David took me for a sunset ride to the estuary marsh. Past the rigolets we discovered the egret sleeping place. It’s an island covered in giant white birds going “grawk…grawk….graaaawk…GRAWK…grawkgrawkgrawkgraaaaawk …GRAAAAAAAWK”. Sadly, it was just a little too dark for the photo to turn out. The ride was peaceful and romantic and sighworthy.
After our ride we met up with Marshall and I got to see the cool claymation movies he and David made when they were in high school. After that we fed moths to the venus fly trap.
Wednesday
The chillitude of Tuesday was completely counteracted by the busy-ness of Wednesday. First off, we had to get up butt early after getting to bed ass late. We had to get up super early to make the long trek out to the Global Wildlife center so we could catch the 9am tour which would allow us to be out amongst the animals before the heat got too overwhelming AND get us back to town by 12:30 to have lunch with David’s mom and a family friend. It required a lot of hustling and bustling and coffee.
The Global Wildlife center rocked so hard I feel like I got rocked twice and then slapped on my bare butt! The pictures are posted to the right. You get on the tram and you get your cups of pelletized feed and you’re off. The place is mostly full of hoofed animals and flightless birds, they all know the tram and they do Pavlov proud by immediately running up to it, begging for food. Most of them you feed from your cup to avoid getting bitten (they don’t mean to bite, but you now) but the camels, llamas and giraffes you can feed from your hand. Sadly, the giraffes were playing shy and wouldn’t come near us, but everything else showed up as expected. It was so much fun to see all the animals getting all goofy for food, and I’m pretty sure that most of the world could live on pelletized food. If you go, and I SUPER RECOMMEND that you go, make sure you buy more than one cup of food. David and I got 3 cups to share between us and we found we had to conserve at the end. The family groups on the tour bought buckets of it, if I brought my kids (If I had kids) I’d go with the bucket.
After the GWC we headed back to Slidell and I had my first real battle with the heat. I spent about 20 minutes seriously considering vomiting everywhere! But then we got to the restaurant and chilled and drank lots of iced tea and things got better.
Marshall called and wanted to know if we wanted to meet him and Holly Peach and Ben and Stephanie for a movie. Ahoy, of course I did, I love popcorn! As we were driving into New Orleans we got caught in the most massive storm I’d ever seen outside of Texas. The city was completely obliterated and visibility was probaby measured in negative feet. It was so strange and a little scary. Luckily we parked in the ramp connected to the theatre so we didn’t have to walk in it.
We saw “A Scanner Darkly” and I really liked it. I was apathetic at first, I’m fairly apathetic about Linklater and I’m opposed to gimicky shit in movies for the most part. Gimmicky shit doesn’t ruin the movie, it is just a great big giant signal to me that all the effort went into the gimmick and not a bit of it went into plot or script or anything like that. I was pleasantly surprised, they did a great job with the film, the script was interesting and the plot moved along. A tad predictable but thoroughly enjoyable.
Afterwards the six of us headed over to Zots to chill play scrabble, chain smoke and talk about the mexican health care system and my plan to get a “yield” traffic sign tattoed above my ass.
And it should be mentioned that the delightful Holly Peach brought me candy! Sweet sweet candy! Pez dispensers, candy bracelets and “Tool Pops: the lollipop play tool”! Could I love her any more? probably not.
Thursday
We spent the day on Thrusday hunting baby anoles after David set up their special home with live plants and a liner and all that. We caught two babies, super cute and super tiny and we’re feeding them little moths and bugs and hoping things go well.
We took David’s mom out to the brew pub in Abita Springs where Abita beer is made. The food was most excellent, though I regretted my bbq ribs after I saw David’s stuffed eggplant.
We stopped by and chatted with Marshall for a bit, while we were standing outside a very giant beetle flew around and landed on my ass. I very calmly announced “it landed on my ass…get it off my ass”
David and I stayed out late driving around again. He’s very romantic
Friday
David took me to the aquarium today. It’s my third trip there and it’s still exciting. I love the fish. On the way there we stopped to get po boy sandwiches. Now, here’s the problem with the po boy, they usually come in 5 or 10 inch sizes, at most places you want to get a 10 inch po boy, it makes a good, filling sandwich, but every once in a while you order a 10 in from a place that packs in more fried shrimp than the law allows. that was my sandwich today, a 10 inch french roll, stuffed to bursting with 47 pounds of breaded, fried shrimp. It was delicious, but I could barely eat half. David’s 10 inch oyster po boy was just as huge, so huge in fact that he was unable to finish mine and he always finishes my food for me.
The aquarium was up and running again, there were a few missing exhibits and the jellyfish section was missing the larger jellies from before, but all in all, I was happy to see them back in business. Also, the gigantic white alligator actually moved! The last two times I was there he was so immobile that I was convinced he was dead and stuffed, you never even saw him breathing. Today, not only were his eyes blinking but he actually got up and walked around! The damned thing got up and walked around his area.
Afterward we headed over to the Villa Convento and hung out with Holly Peach and Oyster the Official Dog of the Villa Convento. The thing I love about the south is that you can bring your dogs everywhere with you. if it weren’t for the overwhelming heat and humidity and gigantic bugs and hurricanes, i’d want to live here.
Holly Peach recommended that we check out the Hookah cafe, a full on hooka bar, for dinner. as we walked over there we met a man with two fatty shar peis and we talked dogs! His dogs were so so so cute and fat.
The Hookah Cafe had excellent food, mostly tapas to share and a wide range of flavored tobaccos and hooka pipes. We did not partake in the hookah pipes, but we did enjoy the food, except for the dessert, their idea of a crepe was compacted sawdust and the twisted souls of inquisition underlings. A crepe should be a light, eggy, springy experience, it should never be tough to cut, thick, dense or otherwise overly chewy. Oh well, the fried chevre dumplings more than made up for it.
We wandered through the french quarter and stopped at cafe du monde for au laits and beignets.
It was one of those days where you stop and evaluate things. I’m so lucky to have David, he’s sweet and kind and he has worked so hard to make sure I get to do and see all the things I want on this trip. I am so very glad I came down here to see him.