New Orleans

New Orleans!!!! Dee and I went to New Orleans this week to attend the National Child Traumatic Stress Network All Network Conference. The last time I had been to New Orleans was pre-Katrina, so I was very interested to see how much the city had changed. As part of the conference, we took a tour of the city to view the damage as well as the rebuilding. While damage is still very visible, especially in the 9th ward, it seemed that empty lots were homes used to stand were much more prevalent. Even to an outsider it is clear that some neighborhoods are far from being rebuilt.

 

Given the recent weather in DC, I had high hopes for the city. They were crushed. The weather was disappointingly cold, windy, and even rainy. Not impressed, Louisiana! We ate amazing food, including jambalaya, gumbo, red beans and rice, and bread pudding. And that was just my first meal. Throughout the week I also had a lot of good seafood. However I avoided the oysters, and any place that said oysters, at all cost. Not for this kid.

We stayed at the Roosevelt, of the Waldorf Astoria. It was on Canal street, and a huge point of pride for the city, so I was told. It had been closed ever since Katrina, and had only opened a couple of months ago.

 

Of course we did the typical and expected things in our free time. We took in some excellent live music...

Ate beignets at Cafe Du Monde...

And tried our luck at Harrah's Casino.

 

Of course I had to play Village People Party, which is one of my favorite slot machines. And by favorite I mean the one I find the most ridiculous. I also like to play Lucky Larry's Lobstermania because I like to think Larry wants me to win. Somehow that's never actually worked out. Fortunately it only takes 5 or 10 dollars to realize this.

I Graduated!

Tonight I graduated from the DC Rape Crisis Center volunteer training. Yay! A couple of months ago I decided that I should probably be doing something more constructive with my free time. So I decided to become a volunteer. Combating gender-based violence is something I feel very passionate about, making the DC Rape Crisis Center a good fit for me. So after many, many hours of training, I am now ready to provide support and advocacy to survivors on the hotline and at the hospital. I am really looking forward to being done with training and actually doing something.

100% Whole Wheat

I made whole wheat semmel for the first time ever this morning. It was my intention to make them with half whole wheat flour and half regular flour, but I started making them only to discover that I had no white flour. So I just went with it. Anyone else out there try this? My result: dense little buggers. They had the essence of semmel, but were kinda missing something familiar (and good). I will definitely make sure I have white flour on hand next time I try this. In the meantime, however, I'll be enjoying my whole wheat rocks for breakfast.

Cabin Fevah!

Is this too much of a good thing? Today will make the fourth day working at home, plus getting out early on Friday, plus not being able to leave the house for much this weekend, means I've spent almost an entire week just in my house.

Moral of the story...I am looking for in home entertainment. Suggestions welcome.

Why did I pass three patches of yellow snow on my way to Dupont Circle?

So much snow! I woke up Saturday morning thinking I was back in the UP of Michigan. This made for an amazing weekend. The city was so incredibly festive. Tons of people were out and about enjoying the snow. It was the friendliest I have ever seen DC. All of the streets were basically sidewalks.

 

The storm did a lot of damage, however. In addition to taking out many, many trees, a couple roofs collapsed.

Someone organized a DC-wide snowball fight at Dupont Circle. I took part. Over 5,500 people RSVP'ed for the event. Spicy.

 

I was joined in this endeavor by my good friends Meghan and Jessica, who came decked out in a halo.

  

Since she had the halo, Jessica had to make a snow angel.

  

People got so silly. One of my personal fav's, the above car was aptly named "Mr. T".

  

  

We aren't kidding when we say that people ravage the grocery stores at any hint of a storm. After the snowball fight we decided we needed some "essentials". But after seeing this when we walked into the grocery store, we weren't sure we'd find them.

  

But in the end we were successful, and came away with frozen pizza, chips, toilet paper and wine. The essentials.

  

On Sunday Jessica and I took in some more of the storm, and did some sledding. We started out on a gentle slope and some cardboard.

  

This didn't get us far, however, and we ended up going down a long flight of snowed-over stairs in Meridian Park. Much spicier.

Snowpocalypse

 In typical east coast fashion, DC is in an absolute panic about the impending snow storm. Widely dubbed "snowpocalypse", my favorite quote has come from channel 4 news, which referred to the storm as "Snowtorious B.I.G." "SNOMG" is a close second.

The grocery store freak out is by now a common and expected reaction to any amount of snow in this city. What I did not expect, however, was the crush of people at the public library. I guess my thought to stock up on books before getting shut inside for a few days was not unique. This isn't the greatest photo, and I'm not sure if you can tell just how long the line is, but I guarantee the library has never seen so many people at once.

 

Book update: I just finished reading "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers and will be beginning "The Magician's Nephew" from the Chronicles of Narnia.

More Winter

So we got some more snow. We got several inches last night, but by this morning when I took the picture it was already staring to melt. This is my apartment, first house on the right.

This is my street.