Smelly

On my drive home along the Earhart Expressway I pass a caterers. I've had the windows down on the drive home recently (the weather is good, and the Earhart is just twisty enough to make it a fun drive first thing in the afternoon) and every day, halfway to Carrollton Avenue, I'm overwhelmed by the smell of really good red beans and rice. So I start sniffing and huffing and enjoying the savory aroma, right?

And that's when the smell from the next place down the road hits me. Unfortunately, the next place down the road is a waste management place with a parking lot full of dumpsters. Phew!

Speaking of interesting smells, I went running for the first time since...well, June, I guess. Yes, I was smelly when I came home, but that's not the point. See, I ran through the Garden District, and the neighborhood even smells better than most places. On my run, I smelled

Flowers
Sawdust
Whiskey
Cookies
Patchouli

The flowers were really good, too. They were sweet, strong flowers that smelled like someone wearing too much flowery perfume. You don't get that kind of smell from some pansies in Minnesota, buddy; you've got to move to the goddamned jungle to get flowers this nice. The cookies, patchouli and whiskey just drifted to me out of nowhere; I didn't see bartender, June Cleaver or any hippies while I was out. The sawdust was easy, though. Lots of renovations in the Garden District.

A new smell on every block. Pretty neat, huh? I'm gonna go a different way tomorrow and see what I smell there.

And yes, I'm so sorry I haven't updated since Friday. I know I've let you all down and set a bad example.

When I was in high school - at the Christian school, you know - public apologies were sometimes required for particularly heinous violations of the rules. I never had to do it, but lots of people did. They always trotted out the "I've set a bad example" line.

I didn't buy it then, and I don't buy it now. If you're using a troublemaking high school kid as an example for yourself then you're a retard.

Let's see...I have some notes from the weekend. Did you see the end of Big Brother? I did. For all the bad reviews it actually got decent ratings. The format definitely needs work, but I bet we see it again. Congratulations, Eddie.

Fun things happened Saturday. We had lunch at Franky and Johnny's, which is just too good, y'all. It's a total dive down by the river and they make some fine food. If I had any New Orleans readers I would recommend it to them.

And we saw The Exorcist at the Prytania, which is a cool old art deco theater not far from the house. It was a good place to see the movie. I haven't seen The Exorcist since junior high; it wasn't as scary as I remembered it, but it was a much better movie. I mean, the acting is amazing - especially Linda Blair, in what must have been a mind-bogglingly difficult role - and the sound is, really, the scariest thing going on. It's an intelligent movie, but it's also scary as hell. We saw it in the afternoon, so when we came out it was still daylight. Very important.

Then we went to the Riverwalk to get a little baby-goodie for my nephew's little girl. We got her a onesie with a big crawfish on the front (and matching socks) and rewarded ourselves with ice cream.

Not just any ice cream.

Haagen Dazs.

And not just a scoop, either, though that's what Sonya had. I had a by God milk shake made with Bailey's Irish Cream flavored Haagen Dazs. We sat on the terrace outside and ate.

"This is the best thing I've ever out in my mouth ever!" I enthused, slurping up the cookie crumb-covered whipped cream that topped the milk shake.

"Thank you very much," Sonya replied tartly.

We also went to a tattoo joint Saturday - Electric Ladyland on Claiborne. The large, heavily tattooed guy working the front was very nice, going in back to get me the portfolios of the two artists working at the time.

Right now Ellie is in the lead - she does excellent work, especially cover-up work, and she seems to be a fairly good artist, too. I've got a couple of other places I need to check out - I'll keep you posted.

And, um...Sunday. Would you believe I ordered a soccer game on pay per view Sunday morning? I did! Fifteen bucks, too. But it was Man United at Arsenal, so I thought it was totally worth it. The final score: 1-0 to the Arsenal. It was excellent soccer. In honor of the game Sonya made her patented English Breakfast - eggs, bacon, toast, baked beans and hot tea. Fabulous.

Not much else happened Sunday, though I did clean the kitchen and iron a pair of pants. I dropped off the vast majority of my pants at the cleaners Saturday, and I didn't realize until Sunday night that I had no pants to wear to work on Monday. I had to go to some back-up pants. Well, they're not really back-up pants. They're good pants, really, that got washed and never got ironed. You'd think if a guy packed up and moved 400 miles he'd iron his pants before he packed them, but that's where you'd be wrong.

Oh, yeah! I did watch a little bit of the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, and you know what I saw? I saw Kylie Minogue, wearing a little bit of nothing, dancing around and singing Dancing Queen. Personally, I don't know why they didn't do that at the beginning and then every day after that. I'd be there, every day, to see Kylie sing an Abba song and prance about near-naked. I thought it was a great moment for Australia.

And the other night I saw MTV playing videos! Can you believe that? I know it's trite to talk about the lack of music on MTV, but really, the only time they do play videos is on Total Request Live, and no one over 14 watches that, do they?

So it was strange to see video after video come on. It wasn't the best music, but I saw the new videos by Robbie Williams and Orgy, and they were good. The Robbie Williams one, well, you have to see it. He takes it all off. It's not pretty.

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