Musings from some former inhabitants of the sprawling metropolis that is Prudhomme City

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Like Princess Leia...But Not

by CajunKate

So...here goes. Help me, Kansas; you're my only hope!

(Click pic to enlarge.)

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Must Be All Those Hormones

by CajunKate

So there are only two chicks in our NCAA bracket tourney. One (ME!) is sharing first place tonight, and one (Sista!) is in last place...with a 100% chance of finishing in last place. Blame it on that baby, girl, blame it on that baby! All them hormones messin' with ya. We'll just forget the fact that BDaigle twisted your arm to complete a bracket form, and you blindly chose the teams in a fit of rage. I still love you. Ain't no shame in your game. Keep ya head up, Sista!


(Click pic to enlarge)

Friday, March 28, 2008

Before It All Goes Bust

by CajunKate

So this must be posted for posterity. Yes, I am so very self-involved that I feel the need to broadcast to the world that, at one point in time, I was #1 (okay, co-#1) in the BDaigle sponsored NCAA tourney pool. Now for the ghetto...

In your face, beoooooootches!

That is all.

(Click pic to enlarge)

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bunny Day at the Manor

by CajunKate

So how was your Easter, my peeps? Ours was pretty freakin' sweet. I unglued my hands from my laptop and burrowed out from under books, journal articles, and reams of paper to make an appearance at Daigle Manor in Prudhomme City. This was totally worth the five hours away from my research paper because there was wine, basketball on TV, and crawfish etouffee so good it'd make you wanna slap your mama. Unless your mama is the first lady of Prudhomme City, in which case, you don't wanna go there. The mayor was the one who cooked it up, and the only slapping going on was that of my thighs under the weight of accumulating cellulite. The brief reprieve was fun while it lasted but, alas, I had to get back to the sheer joy of that research paper. Have I mentioned that this semester sucks big sweaty donkey balls? Yeah, well, it totally does. Anyway, here's a photo essay for ya. (Click pics to enlarge.)

Of course, we had an Easter egg hunt. Was there laughing? Sure. Was there crying? Well, what was I supposed to do when everybody else found more eggs than me?!? (Sidenote: Ted with foam sword? WTF?)


Noah counting his eggs. It's cool. These will never hatch.


Max was too busy counting his eggs to even notice that I was taking a picture.


John will let you take his picture because he's a complete narcissist. Immediately after I took this, like every other time I've taken his picture since he could talk, he was all, "I can sees my picture?"


Ah, Sammy. Sammy does not like hugs. Sammy does not like kisses. Sammy does not like having his picture taken. (Also, he had informed me earlier that day that I was no longer allowed to refer to him as Sammy.) Our conversation went something like this:
Me: Sam, let me take a picture of you.
Sam: No!
Me:
C'mon, dude!
Sam:
No!
(At this point the conversation became, as it always does in the case of me and tricycle motors, another stunning endorsement of God's decision not to bless me with offspring.)
Me:
I'll give you a dollar.
Sam:
Okay!
Click. Pic taken.
Sam:
Gimme my dollar...(brow furrowed thinking going on)... Nanny Kate, is a dollar like the metal money or the paper money?
Me (before I engage brain):
Paper!
Then I promptly mentally kicked myself in the a** 'cause I could have totally gotten away with giving that kid a quarter.


Hello, ladies!
(L to R: Aimee, Mary Grace, Molly, Emily, Melissa)


Oh my God! I just wanna eat Mary Grace all up! She's so delicious!


After the hunt, basketball was played. Notice our future Tyler Hansborough, Gabe, keeping his eye on the ball. Uncle Bydee is playing the part of ornery coach Bobby Knight in this scene.


Also, the four wheeler was abused. Don't worry about the lack of helmets. They drove in one big circle and never got out of second gear. A lightning strike was more likely than an accident.


I just had to include this picture because of JT's face. Freakin' hilarious!


Muh Zandy. Lookin' cute as usual.

And that's pretty much it. The day after Easter, I finished my research paper. Now, during the rest of my spring break, I get to work on a ginormous take-home psychology mid-term. Or I could run off to Tijuana and open a fish taco stand. Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, hope all of you had a great Easter, my peeps! As I always say, keep on, keepin' on!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Happy Anniversary, Operation Iraqi Freedom!...?

by Cajun Kate

So can you believe it? It's been five years since Sadaam Hussein and his WMDs forced us to commence shock and awe. It was all good though since in May of the same year, W told us it was "Mission accomplished!" from the decks of U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, and all the troops came home. Wait. I think I got part of that wrong. Oh, that's right! There were never any WMDs, and we're still over there, only now our mission is to f**k us up some Al-Queda in Iraq. They're apparently a lot easier to find than WMDs, mostly because it seems we may have actually invited them in when we invaded. Now, according to recent polls, about two-thirds of the country is opposed to our ongoing occupation of Iraq. But the administration is totally taking public sentiment into account. You can tell because when a reporter brought up that whole "more than half the country hates this war" thing to Dick Cheney on Good Morning America this morning, he replied, "So?" Wait. Dammit! Wrong again. It's okay though 'cause we're all going out to protest today to force the will of the people on W and Dick and the rest of those peeps up in D.C. Oh, not me, mind you. I myself have no mass demonstration plans today, but it's only because my agenda today is chock full of contemplating. Yeah, I've got to contemplate my economic future. What with the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the Bear Stearns bail out and all, I'm just really tied up with considering whether to take all of my money out of any long-term stock market investments in my portfolio (that would be all of them) and invest them instead in a Folgers coffee can buried in the backyard. You can see where all this brain work would seriously cut into any placard carrying and invective hurling in which I might have liked to engage. Ah well, c'est la vie. There's always next year.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

But Can I Win Some New Kicks?

By CajunKate

So if I could maybe win a pair of McCain crosstrainers, I'd totally be down with this. But a fleece pullover? Man, didn't you see Mother Nature's Post-It from yesterday?

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Let's Dance!

by CajunKate

So sing with me, will you?

It's the most wonderful time of the year!
With the refs' whistles blowing and Duke fans a-yelling,
"Tyler Hansborough's a douche!"
It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Yes, dear peeps, it's MY favorite time of the year. March Madness, the Big Dance, Cinderella teams, bracket busters, the Sweet Sixteen, the Elite Eight, the FINAL FOUR! It's time to scream, and curse, and drink lots o' liquor, and weep into your wee pillow, and dance around your living room. To experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Have I mentioned that I love the culmination of the college basketball season? Yes, oh yes, I love it dearly.
Yeah, I'm a chick. Yeah, I love J.Crew and cute pumps, but more than that, I love to yell profanities at the zebras, to spill my brewski when I leap from the couch, to pump my fist in glory at the buzzer beater, to laugh as #1 seeds fall and the #13 seeds pull the upset. Oh, it's that time of the year, my peeps. MY time of the year!

The highlight of my bracket tenure was the prowess I displayed in 2005. Oh, how I remember the late night call. As I laid in my comfy bed, watching UNC win the national championship, the telephone rang. A call from bracket commish BDaigle proclaiming my domination of the tournament bracket. How sweet it was! My WINNING bracket, my MONEY MAKING bracket! Unfortunately for me, when it comes to winning the tourney pot this year, I may be in trouble as my knowledge is pitifully lacking due to prison...er, school... doing a number on my b-ball viewing. I did keep one eye on boring textbooks and one eye on exciting championship week match-ups this past weekend. Huh...I just realized something. I am now treating college basketball viewing the way I handled far too much of my test preparation in undergrad- cram, cram, cram, then say a couple of Hail Marys and hope for best. Well, let's hope it wasn't just situational, and my incomprehensibly successful strategy at test taking can cross domains into sports betting. *fingers crossed* I really want that hundred bucks. Mama needs a new pair of shoes! No, seriously, I really need to replace my cross-trainers. So, while I am not willing to reimburse you monetarily for any help you may wish to throw my way, I can give you...well, I really can't give you anything...except love. Lots and lots of love. Hey, it makes the world go 'round, Mr. Snarkypants!

And, in a completely unrelated post script to this post, Mother Nature put her version of a Post-It note on today's weather. It read, and I quote,
Eighty-six degrees in mid-March! Thanks for f**king up the ozone layer and get ready for summer, b***hes! That's how I roll! Did you know Mother Nature recently went gangsta, my peeps? I know. Weird, right?

Keep on, keepin' on and send me some tourney tips if you gots 'em.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Week Fifteen

by BDaigle

Here we are almost 3 weeks into the second trimester and Melissa had a checkup today. Melissa has granted her Mom two doctor visits and this was one of them. (The next one will be the ultrasound at Week 20). Everything looks good and Ms. Nancy got to hear the heartbeat and she was so excited she left a message for me on our home answering machine congratulating us again. It's her first grandchild so she's just a *little* excited. Melissa isn't showing yet, but I've been doing a lot of uterus feeling from the outside and it IS growing.


In other new baby news, if you didn't already know, we are not going to find out the sex of the baby. We are working on names and here's what we have so far. We have decided on a boy's name of Jonah Charles. We both like Jonah and Charles is the name of both our fathers and one of each of our grandfathers. Unfortunately, we are not having as much luck with a girl name. We briefly flirted with Clementine Camille, but after further review, we have gone back to the drawing board. (We're running out of ink.)

That's the latest on the baby front here in NOLA. Here's more about what's happening with the pregnancy in Week 15.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Mish Mashy Mish Mash

by CajunKate

So, I haven't posted anything in almost three weeks. I've discovered, in the time between, that there's a weird phenomenon that takes place when I don't write any blog posts. I am transported back to the anxiety I had when I began this blog last fall. I thought then that any writing I did would be boring and pretty useless, but I wanted a way to keep track of family stuff and let people in on what's going on so that...well, so that basically I wouldn't have to use the phone as much, I guess. But, luckily, my family knows that I am, essentially, a selfish and vapid person, and they still love me. Back then, I didn't think about anyone other than family reading my posts. Silly me, as it turns out a number of non-family people actually emailed me to tell me that they were indeed reading them and, more astoundingly, finding them vaguely amusing. And as I posted more and more, I got more and more comfortable and, as you may have noticed, more and more long-winded. A sure sign of comfort...which brings us to now. With the overwhelming school schedule, I hadn't had time to post anything. Then the longer I went without posting, the more I thought that any ideas I had for a post were stupid and boring, so I did what I always do when confronted with things that bring me anxiety, I procrastinated. This is an inherently faulty coping skill of mine. You see, the more I procrastinate, the more worried I get and that leads to more procrastinating. You can see where this is going. It's a big ol' vicious cycle that inevitably ends with me having to give myself a mental smackdown in a drill sergeant from
Full Metal Jacket manner during which I berate and sneer at myself. This usually goes down with something like this flying around in my cranium- You f***ing wuss! Get off your a** and just do what needs to be done! F***ing moron who doesn't realize you're just making things worse! Which brings us to today wherein I will throw out all three weeks' worth of ideas that I've had for blog posts in a complete, disorganized mess. Huzzah! Off we go.

Driving through Lafayette at the end of February on a bright, sunny day when the temperature was just delightfully mild and spring-like, seeing all the azaleas and camellias in bloom got me thinking that maybe this time of year is wasted on Louisianians. I don't think we give those kind of days the proper appreciation they so richly deserve. The general mention of weather on such days around here is,
Wow. It's a really nice day. I really don't think that happens to the Yankees. By the time spring actually arrives for them, I imagine they all go into a Disney-like happiness spiral. They run out into the world ripping off their parkas and thermal insulated underwear as they go, dropping to their knees to kiss the little flower buds, and screaming out to everyone they meet, Look! The sun! Look! You can see my legs! I put on a pair of shorts because the temperature rose above fifty degrees! God bless you, every one! Here in Acadiana, we think Why did I even bother to get those sweaters dry cleaned. I only got to wear them once. Ah, f**k, it's seventy degrees in February. That means I'll be sweating my a** off sometime soon. Six months or more of buckets of perspiration before I get delusional again in October and send the sweaters back to the dry cleaner. I f**king hate summer. This is why in the month of January we all need to trade places with those residing in Wisconsin. This would ensure that we are properly appreciative of our early and lovely spring days, no matter the fact that we only get approximately ten of them before we have to endure the next half of the year steeping in a humidity stew. There you have it. My own little theory. Fun!

But wait! I had more fun during the procrastinating interim than just coming up with unfounded theories. Such as when I found out that Ralph Nader had entered the presidential race, saw this on the internet, and laughed hysterically. That was fun.



Also, I saw this, and it made me laugh hysterically. That was fun, too. (Click pic to enlarge.)



Then there's this, which inspired me to laugh
and think about my dad. Happiness two-fer. That was even more fun. (Click pic to enlarge.)



Also, my love of Barack Obama has been cemented now that
he does such awesome things for me every day. Fun, right? (Oh, here's the story on that site in case you are wondering about how such a thing came to be.)

Need more fun? Why not give someone the finger today? You know you want to.

And, finally, here's proof that I did actually have some non-internet related fun on a furlough from jail...I mean, school. Alex and I went to the Cajundome to see the Cajuns take on Denver. It was a "white out," and they were giving out free t-shirts. Alex made the mistake of not getting one, which prompted me to go all crazy Southern wife on him in the lobby, yelling
Whaaaat? Go get your t-shirt! We don't pass up free s**t! like maybe I was raised during the Great Depression or something. But, in the end, it was all Cajun basketball, the 'rents, and mmmm, beer! Now that's fun!

Dad's happy smile= Cajuns win


Mmmmm, MY beer!


Dad and Alex

Almost final score


Cajuns huddle to celebrate as co-champs of the Sunbelt Western Division

But I'm not the only one who's been having fun. What do you do when you're a president and one of the most hated men in the world, and it suddenly strikes you, as you wait for the Republican nominee, that your time in a world of s**t is soon to be over? You freaking dance, man! That's what you do!


Enjoyed that mess of a post? No? Well, look at it this way. With any luck, you've got a good three weeks to get over it before the next one comes along. Keep on, keepin' on, my peeps!