Who Dat!

So, my peeps, how was your weekend? Well, Alex and I ventured down to NOLA this past weekend. Lemme tell you all about it. This is the point at which you should stop reading and just skip to the pics (you knew that had to happen) if my ramblings annoy you. For those of you who choose to soldier on, off we go!

A little background as to how this trip came about- during the week of Thanksgiving, Alex's brother Pete told us he could hook us up with some Saints tickets for any of the remaining home games. But not just any tickets- SUITE tickets! Ho, ho, ho and how now, brown cow! I was all over that like white on rice! A chance to see how "the other half" lives? I'm on it! So, me being me, I called him during the week, and he endowed us with two free (hollah!) suite tickets to the Saints vs. Cardinals game. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Pete (and your bajillionaire friend).

The plan was to head out at noon on Saturday, drop by Slidell to visit Alex’s parents, pick up the tickets from them, go to the city to visit with my brother Burt and his wife Melissa, check out their new digs in NOLA, spend the night at their place, and go to the game on Sunday. Hot diggity doggedy, was I excited! But we're the Mottrams, so you know there was no escaping a few Son of a B***H!!! inducing moments along the way. Not wanting to disappoint us, the universe threw us a few curveballs right off the bat. First, I was running late. Okay, male readers, stop rolling your eyes and muttering Shocker! under your breath. In my defense, I am usually on time and ready to go at the appointed hour. Yes, really. So, at 12:30 PM (not so bad, see?), the Vue was all packed up, and Alex jumped in to start it up and get the party started...and it didn't. Start, that is. The car or the party. Son of a B***H!!! moment #1. Dead battery. We frantically threw everything from the Vue into the truck. Why frantically you ask? Because a massive line of hella crazy storms preceding a cold front (*cue Hallelujah chorus!*) was bearing down on Lafayette…aaaand the truck had no fuel. Nice. So we had to stop and get gas. And, of course, as soon as we pulled into the gas station, nature unleashed her full fury- pouring rain and twenty mile-per-hour winds. Son of a B***H!!! moment #2. Poor Alex cowered behind the pump as much as he could, but still got pretty wet. Then we drove like bats out of hell trying to get in front of that thing, which we eventually managed to do right outside of Baton Rouge. Ahhhhhh, thaaaat was better.

The rest of the day was great. We visited with Mom and Dad Mottram, and they treated us to dinner (supper? Whatever. Last meal of the day…if you’re a normal person and not, um…me) at their local Chinese buffet. Noticeably absent from dining at the buffet with Mom and Dad Mottram were the normal loss-of-appetite comments Alex subjects me to when we dine in such fashion in Lafayette. Valid proof that he was, indeed, “raised right,” as they say. Anyway, that was much fun as we got not only the tickets, but Christmas and anniversary checks, too. (Money, money, money! I love money! Oh, and of course, I love my in-laws, too!)

We headed into New Orleans proper to catch up with Burt and Melissa. Burt (nicknamed B Daigle by the NOLA set) and Melissa (nicknamed Sister- or more accurately, Sistah- by her sisters, which was then adopted by the NOLA set) moved down to New Orleans back in the summer and purchased a townhouse this fall and, nosey *ss bi**h that I am, I’ve been dying to check out their new pad ever since. It did not disappoint. Burt and Melissa got a phat crib, yo! Seriously. It's in Lakeview, which is a part of the city that was flooded during Katrina, and their place has been refurbished. It's three stories, so only the bottom floor was flooded, and they have 3 bedrooms and 3 ½ baths, real wood floors, granite counters, stainless steel appliances...yeah, you get the picture. This place is so big, they can't even fill half the rooms. It's almost twice the square footage of our house in Lafayette. If you throw in the two-car garage and work room, then it is. Is it weird that I want my much younger brother and his wife to adopt me? Anyway, Burt and Melissa are livin’ the high life over there in the big city, and I am plenty envious, I tell ya.

After a blissful night’s slumber at Chez Sistah and B Daigle's, we left for the Superdome at about 10:00 AM. Game time was noon. Of course, the cold front had come through and it was delightfully nippy. *Yay!* We had to stop at the bank to get money and stuff, but I still felt we had plenty of time to get there and be settled before kick off. Mmm-hmmm, you know what’s coming right? By 10:30 AM, we were stuck in traffic. For almost an hour, we were in line for the Dome exit off of I-10 East only to be shooed back onto the interstate just as we had reached the point where we should have been able to park. Why? I have NO idea. Maybe you needed a parking pass or something. The cop just blew his whistle and pointed us onto the ramp leading back onto the highway. I was in so much shock and disbelief, I couldn’t even launch into an impressive string of trucker epithets. I think I said, “I’m gonna cry!” three times while Alex said, “Okay, it’s too late now. We just deal with it!” at escalating volume until I shut the hell up. At this point, it was 11:35. Final Son of a B***H!!! moment of the trip. Somehow Alex got us down in the vicinity of the dome, screeched into the Holiday Inn parking garage, hauled me through the streets, figured out where to go in the Dome to get to the suite, and had me hoofing it through the hallway to the actual suite as the Saints kicked off. We almost made it! But we didn’t…but who cares cuz that suite was freakin’ SWEET! Food out the wazoo, free beer, free hard liquor and mixers, leather stadium seats with cupholder, a cute little Saints towel to wave around and a shiny new roster sheet waiting for you on your seat, flat screen TV to keep you abreast of the other games, clean restrooms with no waiting even during halftime. Yes, peeps, this is the way to watch football. If you, like I, have ever said to yourself, it can’t be that good up there, they’re not getting the real game experience, and all those other things we say to try and fool ourselves into believing that we aren’t missing out on anything. We are sooooo wrong. We are soooo missing out. Even if that was the only time I will ever get to experience it, thank you, Baby Jesus, for giving me a brother-in-law with a really rich friend, even if his pockets are lined with the blood money of Bush administration defense contracts. I don’t care. I got to watch the Saints like all those old, rich, fat Republicans, and it was awesome. As I looked down upon the great unwashed masses and imagined them queuing up for their Dome Foam and eboli infested bathrooms, I was unequivocally and blissfully happy. People, I have lived the dream, and it was oh so, so good. And I know it was a dream because the Saints actually won the game. Boo-ya! We're still alive for the playoffs!

Then it was back to reality. Upon stumbling into our humble, 1970s countertop, wood laminated abode, our cat Gizmo leapt at our faces to let us know that we had forgotten to leave out food for her. A stunning and irrefutable piece of evidence that the man upstairs was right on when he decided not to endow us with offspring. That kid would probably still be sitting in a suite at the Superdome right now.

Enjoy the pics that follow, my peeps, and then get that darn Christmas shopping done already. You can’t procrastinate forever! Oh wait…that only applies to me. My bad.

The holiest of holies- my ticket to the dream and the souvenir I got to take home and treasure forever.

This picture does no justice to the phenomenally fantastic and unobstructed dream view we had of the field. Brings a tear of joy to my eye just remembering it.

Alex watching the game- fat cat style. Notice the smug grin on his face. Love it.

Proof that dreams do come true!

Proof that I (er...I mean, we) lived the dream, if only for one game.