ATL 11/26/07 - New Orleans

Christmas 1979 - We all pitched in stringing popcorn, but it was Mom's job to put the tinsel on the tree - piece-by-piece (which she removed, piece-by-piece, to save for the next Christmas). For good or bad, that bathrobe (and those light-sensitive eyeglasses) have met their maker, but we still have the same stockings! (...and I wish we still had that ceramic cat!)
The Pat O's pic is for Mom...the place she had her first sip of alcohol...on her Honeymoon! And look at those rockstars crossing in front of "Cafe du Monde"!

NEW ORLEANS/MOVIE/ART/LOCAL/WEB/WEB NEWS

Had a terrific Thanksgiving with S's family in New Orleans - from happy wanderings through the French Quarter to a sad tour of the neighborhood nearest the 17th Street Canal levee breach.

The last pic is the most poignant; it is in front of Aunt S' elementary school, announcing the beginning of the school year that never happened. More than two years later, the letters are still there and the school is still boarded up; no one ever came back.

NEW ORLEANS NEWS - Fashion - It's not T-day in N.O. without someone wearing a Saints baseball cap to the table.

Disaster tour - Every city has its blighted areas; in some of the less Katrina-affected neighborhoods, I was afraid to say anything like 'oh, how awful', only to be told 'that house wasn't flooded...'

Renovation - There is one bathroom in Aunt S's post-Katrina, rebuilt home that hasn't been renovated; it still has a pre-fabricated plastic shower/tub with seashell shelves molded into it. Climbing in was like being in the Little Mermaid's FEMA trailer...

Cajun Food - We ate shrimp-stuffed mirliton for Thanksgiving. They kept making fun of me for calling it "melatonin", but it's really a "Vegetable Pear." The insides are cooked like squash, mixed with shrimp and spices, and stuffed back into the vegetable.

Weather Report - The newspaper reported Miss. River level changes along with the temperature. The river was up .64" at St Louis, up 1.0" in Memphis, & up .38" in N.O.

The "K" Word - Everyone spoke of events on a timeline of before or after 'the storm'.

Exercise - We went running on top of the levee around Lake Pochartrain.

Nightlife - Question: 'When do bars close?' Matter-of-fact answer: 'After everyone goes home...'

Family videos - We watched the most recent wedding & the video of the first day back at the house after Katrina. (The house we stayed in was flooded with 2 ft of water; they weren't allowed back in the neighborhood until 6 weeks after "the storm").

Local thinking - In a Letter to the Editor re: sending a thank you to Congress for relief funding - '...we're supposed to thank the people who work for us for sending us our money to fix something they caused?'

Side affects - Uncle J described having 'Katrina Cough' for a year following the mold clean-up.

MOVIE NEWS - Not much new coming out in theaters this weekend following the big Thanksgiving releases of "Enchanted", "This Christmas", and "The Mist". I'll be heading out to catch up and see "No Country for Old Men".

ART NEWS - "Curvy Widow" - Cybill Shepherd stars in comedy about love, sex and online dating thru 12/16 at the Alliance Theater.

LOCAL NEWS - For those folks who think nothing goes better with drinking than "Toys", the annual "Toy Party" folks throw a great fundraiser for anyone donating a new toy or $15. All joking aside, they are expecting 4,000 eager Santa-wanna-bes at this annual Atlanta event.

The 'New Oxford America Dictionary's word of 2007 is 'locavore'. In honor of trying to eat only food grown within 100 miles of where you live, here are some tips:

Here is an online listing of where to pick your own vegetables.

Your Dekalb Farmer's Market labels bins of fruits and vegetables with their country or state of origin. Last week, I found collards, yellow squash, and habinero peppers from Georgia.

The State Farmer's Market has fewer local growers represented than I thought; the stalls were mostly reselling a mix of local and wholesale produce. I got a personalized tour of the whole market from Martin, who told me that the local farmer's drive their truckloads in at 3:00 AM on Fridays and sell to restaurants and the resellers (and Martin).

NATIONAL NEWS - NPR reports that the CDC figures $1 of every 10 spent on health care in the U.S. is to combat the effects of obesity. I don't care if you are going to sit there on your fat ass and eat doughnuts all day - in fact, I'll just go by Krispy Kreme stock - but when I have to pay for your coronary bypass because of it, that really pisses me off!

FRENCH NEWS - Because of the weakness of the dollar against the Euro, part of Airbus' aircraft production could be moved to those parts of the world using the dollar as the currency standard. The worldwide airplane market is based on the dollar.

DROUGHT NEWS - Local businesses have different reactions to the drought. Home Depot sells rain barrels. Pike Family Nursery declares bankruptcy.

WEB NEWS -This show must have been terrible, cuz I don't remember it at all...and I loved the live action show...Partridge Family AD 2200