News.Flash.

I am a Southern girl.

I know.  Try to pick your jaw up off the floor.

Both of my parents spent the majority of their lives in Southern Louisiana.  The only one out of the five of us who was actually born in Louisiana, though, is our baby.  Lucky duck.  Quentin and I were born in California, the parents were born on military bases in Texas and Florida.

My father's job took my parents to SoCal when they were newly married and the oil business was at its height there.  They had two kids and then opportunity came knock-knock-knockin' and they followed it home to Southern Louisiana, where they stayed.  Family was close, work was convenient and plentiful, and who wouldn't want to come home to a place that just gets in your blood and doesn't let go of her iron-clad grip on your heart?

I consider myself fortunate to have grown up where I did.

Mandeville has its faults, please don't get me wrong.  I know its many sins.  12 years non-stop in the same place will do that for you.  But we never wanted for anything.

Being Southern is something I always took for granted until I was 20 and Hurrican Katrina came ripping through our back door.  I never looked back and from that day forward, I have spent countless hours coming to terms with my heritage and who I am and what it means to me to be from an area that millions of people feel like they know.

I relish where I'm from because it is such a huge part of who I have become and who I want to be when I close this ex-pat chapter in my life.

New Orleans is ubiquitous when people think of parties, carnival, food, music, tragedy.  Our city has a tumultuous past and what promises to be a future full of more of the same.

I will never forget the summer after Katrina when I was working at a tiny summerstock in the backwoods of Pennsylvania and one of the actors went on a rant about how he thought it was ignorant and foolish to campaign to rebuild a city in such a precarious and naive position: below sea level, on a notoriously tempestuous couple of bodies of water.  I was stunned and all I could say was, "It's their home.  How would you feel?"

John Besh, a New Orleans chef, said something that stuck with me: "I don't think New Orleans has a place for people that are lukewarm.  I think you're either with us or against us.  You have a city here made of people who want to be here and that makes all the difference in the world."

Preach.

Right after the Hurricane, my mother and I's favorite Times-Picayune columnist, Chris Rose, wrote with amazing clarity and honesty about our situation and the mindset of the people.  He struggled publicly down the dark path that so many of us internalized.  The anger at the human error for letting it happen, the hopelessness, the darkness, the despair.  And then he began to pull out of it and compiled his columns into a book that I purchased at the New Orleans airport on a trip back to Pennsylvania.  He had this to say about our culture:

"I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We're South Louisiana. You probably already know we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat things you'd hire an exterminator to get out of your yard.  

We dance even if there's no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large, and, frankly, we're suspicious of others who don't. 

Everybody loves their home, we know that. But we love south Louisiana with a ferocity that borders on the pathological. Sometimes we bury our dead in LSU sweatshirts. 

We're resilient. After all, we've been rooting for the Saints for thirty-five years. That's got to count for something. Okay, maybe something else you should know is that we make jokes at inappropriate times.  

But what the hell."

That stuck with me. To this day it is the most honest explanation of my home that I can offer anyone.  I own an LSU sweatshirt that may be my most prized article of clothing.  It was my mother's when she attended LSU.

I want to be buried in it.

Maybe now you understand a little better who I am.  Or even maybe a little of why I am the way I am.  Why when people make fun of "ya'll" I argue a little louder in favor of it and use it as many times in a sentence as I can.  Why when I speak on the phone with home, I get in touch with my roots and the Southern drawl gets more pronounced.  Why everything I have done since the day I left my home has been bringing me one step closer to returning.  Why people say they love their home and I just smile with the knowledge that they don't know what they're missing.  {I know what they are missing and they are better off not knowing.}  Why I have known since I was 18 that I would one day retire in New Orleans, but that I would have to travel the world before I would fully appreciate the Dirrty South.

And oh honey do I appreciate it.

I leave you with another Chris Rose quote from another of his post-K articles -

"She is a New Orleans girl and New Orleans girls never live anywhere else. And even if they do, they always come back.

That's just the way it is."

Wait, Hold the Phone.

When you live however many ungodly miles away from home like I do, you have to get used to the idea that life is going to go on for those you love back home regardless of whether you speak to them or not.

For example:

I am terrible at keeping in touch.  Just a glance through the publication dates on my blog will give you some idea if you don't already have one.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's not that I don't care, I think about everyone back home every single day.  I am simply very easily distracted.  And also the world revolves around me (I sometimes would like to think, as I am often accused) so it is very easy for me to believe life stops when I am not around.  And then I get phone calls.

These phone calls are some of the worst you can get when you are this far away from home:

"Now, honey, first of all, everyone's fine..."

Those words can incite only one reaction: commence panicking.

I have been on the recieving end of this phone call twice now, only once have I recieved a worse one.  The first time I recieved this call, I lost my marbles.  Never in my life would I have imagined how terrible phone calls can be when you can do absolutely NOTHING about the situation.  This phone call went somewhat better.  The first call we didn't know what was wrong for about a week, I think.  It seemed like a week, it may have only been three days or so.  This call, there was something wrong, but the situation had already been resolved.  It does not make the words "heart attack" any easier to hear.  It just furthered my resolve that I need to go home and spend some quality time with my family because holy moly do I miss the hell out of them, especially right now.

Amazing how a phone call can change your life so dramatically, is it not?

The first time I was ever knocked off my proverbial bar stool by a phone call, my great grandmother passed away the day before I started my first ever big girl job.  She had been sick for a long time and she hadn't been the woman we knew when we were younger for a few years either.  Dementia is a sick and twisted way to go.  But she had her clear moments and I will never forget when I lived with Bitsy (my grandmother) and Mommie Ree and Mommie Ree had one of her bad nights.  But then her mind cleared and we talked about her rose garden and what kind of roses she had in it.  That woman loved flowers and had some beautiful gardens at her old house in Lake Charles.

Not attending that funeral was a decision made for me and while I appreciate not having to make that decision, it didn't make staying in Louisville rather than travelling back home any easier.

Nor was that first "your loved one is sick" phone call.  Same year, coincidentally, a couple months after Mommie Ree's passing.  Staying in Louisville until after the diagnosis, surgery was agonizing.  I did get to take an emergency leave for a couple days to reassure myself and gain peace of mind.  Still hard.

This time, home was not really an option again.  Everyone's fine, but I hate that helpless feeling.

Phone calls like that make you remember just how fragile life really is and if I were to kick it tomorrow (remember: Southern.  We are nothing if not inappropriate: don't hold it against me...) where would I want to be?  Who would I want to have around? What would I want to have done?  Said?  Not said?

And Just Like That

The long awaited weekend is over.  We start a new schedule tomorrow: 830-530.  I'm not complaining as I get out of work earlier and admittedly my favorite schedule is the 7am to 430 pm shift because of how early I get out.

This weekend was so nice.  We finished season 7 of Weeds: it was a shocker.  Fish tacos were even better the second time around with our vodka lemonade drinks. We went to bed early to be ready for the pool on Tuesday.  The pool was amazing.  Spent a solid four hours there soaking up some much needed vitamin D and heat because working in a windowless icebox all week can really grate on the soul.

Dinner at Lemongrass (Thai) with my three best Macau friends and then wandering to the OTT until approximately 2am to hang out with other amazing Macau friends who are making their way to Belgium this weekend.  I really will miss Courtney whilst she's living it up in Lint.  Erin and I got McD's after which is the only reason I was functional today to pay rent and pick up a package which turned out to be our eviction notice.

We have two months to find a new apartment.  Ugh.  I so don't want to move.  But we "grownups" have to do many things we do not wish to.  So apartment hunting we will go.

I also had to look up tax information because my first round of taxes determined I owed the IRS an obscene amount of money.  It was paid, but I disputed.  Turns out there was a misunderstanding about the nature of my employment and I didn't really owe the government that much money.  Now I have to figure out how to ammend my taxes and get that money back.  I may be able to put a downpayment on that house I am in love with after all.  Wouldn't that be nice?

What a weekend.  Hopefully this week flies by because next weekend, I want to do more of the same.

Things To Look Forward To:

1. This weekend.  The pool.  BEYOND excited about some Vitamin D and my back issues of People magazine (courtesy of Kitty Manuel).  And Erin Roderick.  She doesn't read at the pool which is why I'm bringing People.  Because we all know how Boracay went.  For those who don't: {Erin: Hey are you guys really reading?  Me and Rachael: Yes.  Erin: ...Now?  Me and Rachael: Yes.  Erin: ......Now?  Me and Rachael: Sigh. No...}  And that's why we love her.

2. Friday night (Monday for normal people).  Lillith Fair continues with Taco Pescados parte Dos.  AND some chocolate peanut butter cookies.  And maybe a special drink for the occasion as well.

3.  Friday night (entertainment edition). Finishing Season Seven of Weeds.  Our favorite.

4. This weekend.  Staying home all weekend except for paying rent.  Yes.

5. Nga Tm's this weekend. An afternoon/evening in Coloane with friends, food, and Casal Verdhe.  Because who DOESN'T love that stuff???  Shaping up to be a fine weekend indeed.

6.  Having a lie in/Templeton Day this weekend. (See previous post for clarification re: Templeton Day)

7. Dive inspection Monday to kick off the weekend with a wetsuit of my very own courtesy of the Aquatics Department (Thanks ROB!!!)

Man, after this weekend, next week (back to work) is going to be a huge let down.  But as a soldier of fortune, I will march on.  Getting ready for the next one...

Living for the Weekend.

This was my first weekend in a long time where I had time to have a lie in.  Lie-ins are the future.  We used to call them "Templeton Days" growing up.  After the rat from Charlotte's Web.  We were allowed something like one per summer, maybe more often than that, I can't remember that much, where we were allowed to stay in bed all day in our pajamas and watch movies and just be lazy in general.  Now that I'm an adult, I can have TWO Templeton Days a week if I want to (because I am considered an adult), only to call them lie-ins is more adult like.  So today I had a lie-in.  I slept til 1030, which for me is SUPER late, and then decided I didn't even want to go to the pool to enjoy the sunshine.  I stayed in my airconditioned bedroom in my super comfy bed and watched Gone With the Wind.  I am ashamed that as a Southern girl it has taken me this long to watch said movie, but it has.  I am pleased to say it was well-worth the wait, although it didn't have today's typical Hollywood ending, which I appreciated.  Interesting, isn't it, how as society has become more and more "politically correct" and "socially concious" our movies stopped having real life endings and began having unrealistic lofty endings.  Oh this world.

I did interrupt my Templeton Day to pay our electric bill, even though it's not due till next week!, and go grocery shopping, because I do have to eat lunch tomorrow.

Yesterday in Hong Kong, I was productive enough for two days I think.  I had new pages put in my passport at the US Consulate, which was uber productive as I was almost out of pages and now I have two new sets, at least!  Yippee!  Then I sat in the Hong Kong Botannical Gardens with Erin for three hours waiting for my pages to be ready.  Following that was our eye appointment, where not only did I have a thorough eye examination, I got some new glasses that I am super excited to wear.  They are super bright and though not hot pink, still colorful.  I lurve them.

I also bought two new books to read with my new glasses.  Such a productive day it makes me tired just thinking about it.  And now, I should retire because tomorrow starts a new week.  Already looking forward to spending next weekend by the pool, because it is time for Erin and I to begin our Hard Rock season!

You Catch More Flies with Honey...

Salads are the new Pasta.  I'm all about warning people on new trends and this one is here to stay. I may have just made that one up, but salads are awesome.

As I got older, I started to trend my eating habits away from meat.  Like it or love it, I did.  I'm from the South (SHOCKING, I know.), so this wasn't a problem because seafood is our meat.  I was always prejudiced against Chinese shrimp and refused to buy non-Louisiana shrimp in the supermarket because I support my local commerce.  Here in Macau, it's even more imperative that you monitor what you eat.  So I stopped eating meat completely after the incident with the chicken in the Red Market, surely I wrote about that..., and I only eat fish and the like, but mostly veggies.  Healthy is the future.

Also prawn crackers.  I know, I thought "Gross" too before I moved out here and they're everywhere.  Prawn crackers are the new potato chips in this household, at least.

Work is productive.  I think (knock on wood) we have a prototype at last that seems promising and stable.  I have the utmost faith in its ability to produce results.  Once that is determined, the sky is the limit.

Also, we did end up going to see Lady Gaga last minute last week.  She added 3 more tour dates in HK and released a ton of tickets last minute and we snapped five of those suckers up.  It was actually a super good concert and in light of a vote the UMC conference held last week (from my best friend's fb posts, truthfully and in a nutshell, I gather it was to look down on same sex couples...), her concert was a message of acceptance and love and being proud of who you are.  I can appreciate that message.  Also to the UMC: you are human and who are you to judge?

Soapbox moment: If you have been made a God in the eyes of the world, fine, you can judge.  But let none of the rest of us forget: judge not lest ye be judged.  The reason I am not married to a church is because when I worked for mine, I found out my church is human.  Glass shattering moment there, folks. The bottom line in this world should be that we treat everyone with respect and love because the fact of the matter is: no one knows what is out there in the ether.  We believe, but no one KNOWS and there is a fundamental difference between the two.  So have your convictions.  I choose to live by another law and when you condemn me for it, it doesn't matter because I know that I love my fellow human beings.  I will come back to my church when you accept everyone without judgement as we were meant to do.

Soapbox moment over.  I'm sure I'll get in trouble with a lot of people for that one.  Keep it to yourself though, because I have spent 26 years trying to be comfortable in my own skin and come up with my own beliefs.  I finally am and I have.  At LSU, the holy rollers scream at college students in "Free Speech Alley" as if they will actually make a difference to a bunch of twenty-something year old sinners.  They're merely a pageant. Garnering attention for themselves, but not for their message because hate does nothing to communicate a point.  "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar." How many times did I hear that from my mother growing up?  Heck, I still get that from her!

Anywho.  Enough of me being preachy.  I'm tired of hearing myself rant.

And in True Me Fashion...

It has taken me two months to get back on track. But here I am. Back. AND on track.

I know, you're welcome.

I wish I could sum up my two vacations in March in one sentence apiece.  I can't, so I'll just give you a brief overview in a few words.

Bali: Scuba diving, Open Water certified, beach, floaties, water, friends.

Japan: Brother, cold, walking, amazing, sushi, rice balls, cherry blossoms, clean.

Maybe later I can write more.  Because there is oh so much more to say about all of theses places and things.  Don't take my word for it, go! And see for yourself.

Tonight was date night: Erin and I went to see the Avengers in 3D.  And Date Night did not disappoint.  Naturally.  I for reals am going to be lost without my best roomie.

We have started doing dive inspections at work: win! Tomorrow is diving and that means I miss yoga, making me 0-3 in getting to yoga this week, but at least it's some form of work out and I get to have lunch, instead of spending my lunch period wondering why I do this to myself (as I do in yoga, sometimes).

Big weekend planned: it's Tuesday in HK with Roomies.  We have an appointment at the consulate for new passport pages and then we're going to the EYE DOCTOR.  Exciting right? Totally jealous?  I thought so.  And it's ok.  Not everyone can be as awesome as we are.  Maybe there will even be some Greek food involved AND some tax discussion.  But don't get crazy.

There it is folks.  I am still alive and well in Macoma.  Still missing home, still having good days and bad days.  But mostly good ones lately.  Never boring, never dull.