What an incredible day to be a Square. We partied hard, folks, starting early this morning as Anthony and Marcela were working the kitchen to prepare our feast of Creole and Cajan food.

On the left, the famous New Orleans mufalatta sandwich in production…on the right, feast your eyes upon 40 pounds of crawfish.

Special note: there was a scare earlier in the week, when it appeared that there might be — and you know I just could not make stuff like this up — a severe nationwide crawfish shortage. It seems so many ex-pat New Orleanians wanted to host crawfish boils all over the country, that crawfish suppliers were overrun, so to speak, with orders and had to develop waiting lists.

I couldn’t write about it. Some things are just too terrible to contemplate.

Late last night, we got word that there was a shipment for us….which arrived early this morning and was promptly thrown in a huge steaming pot with corn, potatoes, oranges, and lots of spices.

     

I think I’m going to title this one “Crawfish Management”.

  

Ready for transport!

Meanwhile, the weather holds. We move the beer and the hurricanes outside. I sample the hurricanes. Weak sauce. I add another gallon of rum.

Then, people arrived. Lots of people. Little people. Big people. Old, young, people from our past, people from our present, people from the past and present that might be our future.

People ate…oh, yes…people ate. The fried alligator was gone in about 20 minutes. I think most people thought it was fried chicken nuggets. Huge platters of sandwiches, cases of beer, enough jambalaya and gumbo for 60 people, a good 30 pounds of the crawfish, plus all three king cakes and TONS of desserts that people graciously brought. Every single scrap was gone.

As the game got more interesting, people got more serious about watching. Do note the black and gold Mardi Gras beads.

  

Downstairs, the siren call of The Great Box Of Legos exerted its pull over all visiting boys ages 4-10, while a passel of giggling girls ensconced themselves in M’s room.

Upstairs, the viewing was unimpeded…

except when huge, ferocious dinosaurs ran past the crowd…

As darkness fell and the last scraps of jambalaya were being consumed, we began to believe.

The Saints, a team that almost left New Orleans five years ago, when the stadium was in tatters, filthy and covered with abandoned trash, and 80% of the city had been under water…when it seemed that IT COULD NEVER COME BACK, that team looks poised to beat the odds and win a Super Bowl.

Now, I’ll be honest. I’m not a pro sports kind of gal. I don’t even understand the rules of football….

but when I saw this guy make a touchdown and I knew that New Orleans was going to win, I got a lump in my throat.

Tonight, New Orleans has a smart, effective new Mayor and a Super Bowl victory and five years ago the entire city smelled like mold and had lost two-thirds of the population and it seemed that it could never, never, never recover.

New Orleans, my adopted and beleaguered hometown, you give me hope.

You give me hope that there will be an end to this shitty economy, that Undead Labs will be a big success, that Pioneer Square will regain footing and develop a new economic identity.

We walked along the river
heard the whistle of the Dixie Belle
well we never made it to heaven
and there are secrets we can never tell

but you know that I still love you
and I’ll always stay
As we watch the muddy water
carry our troubles away

Laissez les bon temps roulet
O ma cher, o ma cher
Laissez les bon temps roulet
O ma cher, o ma cher
Tout les temps, tout facon,
Tout mon coeur, oui, allons
a la bon temps roulet
(ma ‘tit monde, ma ‘tit monde)

Like a captured meander
you locked my heart away
I was a wild roving river
whiskey and sweet tokay

now we wander more slowly
the ghosts of the parish at our side
I know one day we’ll join them
but tonight
let’s take a ride

I don’t think I am the only one.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulet!

Annie

Yesterday was a grueling day of shopping, a day that comes as infrequently as possible in the Square universe.

After driving M 45 minutes out to the barn, we decided that a hamburger was in order. Since we’ve been doing lots of thinking about how we spend money and how important it is to spend our money on places that we care about, we decided to skip the chains that were more convenient and drive….urk!…a little further to Red Mill Burger.

Yum, Red Mill Burger.

  

With all this stress over the recession, we have a new way of evaluating shopping….first, we look for a way to shop in a mom and pop shop in the neighborhood, then we look for a local Seattle-based chain (Starbucks counts!), then we look for something made in the state of Washington or the Northwest, after that, we just try and buy American products.

It’s easier than you think to do this, even though the boys were starving by the time we got there and the wait for the big juicy burgers and the milkshakes seemed to take forever.

I’ve always heard that “you vote with your dollars” thing but I never really believed it. Now, I KNOW I vote every time I buy something. We all do. I’m going to try and vote the right way. Of course, it’s very easy to do that when the end result is a Red Mill burger…oh, Red Mill Burger, how we love you.

Baby J loves the hamburger and french fries but the real star is the chocolate milkshake in that paper cup there.

For the grown-ups, the highlights of a hamburger fest are the hand breaded onion rings.

Fortified, we set out out across the bridge to pick up M from riding. The weather was lovely, just lovely. I know all this mild weather isn’t good for the Olympics but it’s so nice for us.

Once we got there, we had a few minutes of goodbye snuggling with the pony.

From there…we launched our shopping. It was time for a big milestone (note: state level shopping).

Yep. My girl was ready for tall boots. That’s what the big girls wear in the horse world, folks.

No local choices for boot makers so we settled on buying the boots from a local merchant.

  

And we tossed in a baseball hat, a new jacket, and a saddle cover. American companies for the win!

Next, it was time to outfit for the upcoming snowboard adventure so we went to REI (note: Seattle based company).

Baby J happily played in the giant play area under the watchful eye of Jeff & I took the big kids off to get them suited up.

  

Long underwear, snowboard pants, a snowboard jacket (D’s will double as his new winter coat) and then it was time to buy helmets and goggles. Not surprisingly, nothing was made in the US. Disappointing.

Zombie snowboard. Awesome.

Major Tom to ground control, I’m stepping through the dooooor-waaaaay….

Heh. That’s a dude ready for the slopes, folks. I’m betting he will take to snowboarding like a duck to water. He’s got amazing balance and he’s really lean and strong. Can’t wait to see it!

I know it doesn’t look like it but these two errands took almost all day and it was late by the time we got home.

I lobbed the breakfast for dinner out there with enthusiastic response…

The big kids spent the rest of the evening doing homework so that they can relax and enjoy the EPIC Superbowl party today.

Local eggs and milk but we can do better with the bacon and pancake mix, Who needs pancake mix anyway?

Signing off, your very local correspondent,

Annie

Finally. This dreadful week comes to a close and this morning I wake up to this beautiful sunrise outside the window.

That’s a lovely way to move into the weekend, don’t you think?

I also feel a sense of relief over The Great Coat Incident.

So, let’s see…how to begin…

We live in Seattle, yes? It’s a great climate, really, cool but not really cold but it IS rainy for much of the year. A wardrobe of proper outerwear is an absolute necessity here….a heavy coat for really cold weather, a couple of down or fleece vests, plus lots of things that are good for layering, like sweatshirts, plus a lighter weight waterproof jacket with a hood.

While this seems like quite a bit of stuff, these are the kinds of things you need in the Pacific Northwest.

So, rewind to last October, D has outgrown all his coats, many of his sweatshirts, and has no fleece anything and I looked at him and thought Well, this guy just needs a big batch of new things to get him through the next couple of years and so we went on an epic shopping trip & bought 5-6 cool sweatshirts, 2 new vests, a thick warm fleece jacket, and a very, very expensive brand name down jacket. It was a splurge but he was so happy when he put it on that I gave him the whole show me you can take care of it speech, etc, etc, etc. and bought it. At least part of that was that he was getting to be at this age…that age where how you look starts to matter. I want him to have a nice new coat and cool sweatshirts and a nice haircut and the shoes that make him feel cool. I’m not at all ashamed to admit it. I want him to look and FEEL good. I do.

Well, here we are in February annnnnnnd….

They are all gone. The coat. The vests. All the expensive hoodies with the pictures of snowboarders on them. Gone.

Where are they? Your guess is as good as mine. His name is in them but apparently he’s left them in places where they can’t be returned. School doesn’t have them. They aren’t at home. I suppose he’s left them hanging over the back of chairs at restaurants, and on buses, and god only knows where else.

I only figured this out because he walked out for school this week wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and a sweatshirt that could have fit Baby J and I looked at him sideways and laughed and said Go grab a coat, hon! and I followed him into his room and realized that EVERYTHING I BOUGHT HIM IS GONE. A flurry of calling all over the place and digging through lost and found at school followed this realization and then, I just got pissed off. All around us we have people who have nothing, people who stand on the streets with no shoes and no coats and with a floundering economy all across the country and WE JUST AREN’T GOING TO WALK AROUND SHEDDING COATS LIKE IT’S NO BIG DEAL.

It IS a big deal. A very big deal. It’s not one coat being accidentally let somewhere….it’s about 15 different pieces that he just doesn’t care enough about to even think about. That’s not an accident –that’s a pattern.

I have been stewing about it all week. I feel like this is a watershed parenting moment and it brings up all kinds of paranoid concerns about affluence and spoiling and gratitude and it comes right down to a fundamental question of good parenting. I don’t want to raise spoiled brats. What to do? What to do? What to do?

• I can’t let him just be cold and wet. That’s not an option.

• Just talking to him accomplishes nothing. He gets big tears in his eyes and says how sorry he is — and I believe him, I really do — but there’s not that lesson that fundamentally makes you starts treating things with more respect.

• Buying a second hand coat wouldn’t make any difference. He doesn’t care about style or status. Obviously.

• Just buying a new coat teaches a bad lesson.

• He doesn’t get an allowance so he can’t buy it himself.

After and entire week of staring up at the ceiling in the middle of the night and stewing and stewing and stewing, I suddenly think

I can buy him a nice new coat and then make him PAY ME BACK through chores! Like $5 an hour kinds of chores!

It’s going to take a whole lot of cat box cleaning, guinea pig cage cleaning, doing dishes, etc. to pay back an $80 coat. Oh, and did I mention that the chores only happen on weekends, during the approved video game/tv time?

I know this seems obvious but it was like being in a dark room and having a lightbulb suddenly turned on.

I’m just guessing here but I’m going to bet that this will be the last “replacement’ coat I ever have to buy.

And if something catastrophic happens and one of the kids does genuinely lose a coat, I’m not going to get mad or upset, I’m just going to smile and we’ll set up a schedule for paying me back for your new coat. I don’t think it’s terrible to learn that even when it’s not your fault, sometimes you still have to accept responsibility for what happens.

Got to run. I need to teach someone how to wipe down the inside of the refrigerator.

Sincerely, hard-assed,

Annie