Laissez les bon temps roulez.

Who has plans?

well, almost... just noticed that we're pretty close to having a Jake bingo over in the journals sidebar. if only he and dave's heads were swapped. can we start Killoggs Bingo?

Shell was asking me last night about how to prepare for her first Mardi Gras parade, and it got me going. As I was laying them down all the memories started flooding back of spending days out on the medians playing with cousins and running around between parades. Here were a few tips I gave:

• bring lots of beer, lots of water, and lots of snacks
  
• you'll need plastic bags for beads and trinkets,
  you can bring home as much as you make an effort to catch or pickup
  
• just bring an ice chest, like a big one.
  
• you can sit on it, and fill it with beer and food... but if that's too much trouble,
  just bring a small one
  
• or you can not bring food and just go get a bucket of chicken or somthing during the day, walk to Popeyes or whatever
  
• chairs, folding chairs
  
• get there early, and stake out a spot on the neutral groun in the grass if you can
  
• if you can find a spot with grass... lay down a blanket, get comfy... then you have a home base
  
• parking is the hardest part, if you aren't worried about being cheap, lots of people just open up whatever little dirt lot they have and charge like $20 to park
  
• sunscreen, maybe an umbrella
  
• stuff to do between parades is good too
  
• It's sometimes fun to take posterboard and make a big target so the float people have something to try and hit and they'll bombard ya
  
• and you have to yell "THROW ME SOMETHING MISTER!"
  ... it's like tailgating all day long
  

Man I started really reliving all the Mardi Gras good times. Southdowns in BR... Rex... the Truckers Parade... Endymion... Bacchus... Zulu. Fighting over the white pearl beads (I can remember the SMELL of those beads, the pearlescent coating reeked). Stomping on fingers if need be to get the doubloons and the scramble when you heard the "chink chink" noise when they hit the ground. The Plastic cups they'd throw were gold, your entire cupboard would be full of them, no need to buy cups. Little rubber dog poops and bamboo tomahawks were huge scores. Wearing as many beads as you could to look like Mr-T and that lasting like 10 minutes before your neck was killing you. Being jealous of the kids who had ladder seats. Chasing after bouncing superballs. All the amazing marching bands who, if you were lucky, would stop and break it down in front of you. FLAMBEAUX! Wondering how the hell all those dance teams lead by the trucks loaded with crappy PA systems made it to the end without their feet falling off. The smell of horse manure that was unavoidable to stomp through by the marching bands. Huge diesel tractors pulling giant float sculptures. The fleet of street cleaners that signaled the end of the parade. Street vendors with shopping carts loaded down with plastic horns. Buying snap 'n pops and trying to throw them under the feet of passers by. Getting a bouncing ball in a passing Tuba was like winning the lottery. Waiting at the beginning of Bacchus across the street from Tipitinas to see my uncle who would UNLOAD on us. Carrying home BAGS of beads and trinkets so they could sit in the closet to be given away next year. Riding in the truckers parade dressed as a Yam. Being a page for my Grandfather who was king of one of the local Krewes (was it Mystique?)... and having to wear tights and a pointy merlin hat. King Cakes at school. So much fun as a kid. I'm sure I'll think of more. Share your memories in a post or at least in the comments!

Mardi Gras isn't the Quarter. That's what it is to tourists. To the locals it's family time. Well... unless your in college, then maybe it's about the Quarter... and drinking... but if you are a KID... it's about family! Hahah.

And Happy Mardi Gras folks!

i watched the last 4 episodes of the sopranos until 3 in the morning last night with a friend of mine. i wanted to catch up before the new season started.

i ended up having a chase sequence dream where christopher was trying to kill me. at the end he was standing above me and yelling at me. i said something taunting towards him--i'm not even sure what--and he pulled out his gun and shot me in the neck. i fell to the ground and had a really weird tingling/suffocating feeling--trying to breath but having air enter me in ways it obviously shouldn't because of the gaping hole in my throat. when i woke up i found that they (doctors, i believe) had inserted a round, thick ring of plastic where i was shot, to keep the hole open, like an open plug. it kept coming loose every time i moved my head or spoke so i would have to painfully keep pushing it back in, fearing i would lose it. eating was a strange challenge, and i kept choking on my food to the point of thinking surely i would die. i ended up losing the ring and was terrified that i wouldn't be able to breath through my throat, but i was able to. the end of the dream consisted of me talking to my mom and asking her if i should talk to tony, tell him i christopher shot me, i lived (obviously), and i wasn't sure what to do since i feared he would try to kill me again. my mom told me tony would act really nice to me and then he would kill me and that i should get as far away from [where ever it was that i lived in the dream] as i could. and then i woke up.

i had another dream where i also went to my mother for advice and she told me the same thing: run. get away. i was a hostage and one of the things i had to do was kill one of the other hostages or else i would be killed. so i was pointing a gun at the other hostages, and the kidnapper was pointing a gun at my head. if i didn't pull the trigger on the fellow hostage, he would kill me. every time i pulled the trigger it would jam, and then i would hear the click behind my head, which was the kidnapper's gun jamming. this went on 3 times--it was completely nerve wracking. they said the guns sucked and that we would stop for today and resume the next day with better guns. somehow in the dream i was in my hometown, in the living room with my mom, (exactly the same setting as with the dream above) and asking her what i should do. she kept saying, "marcy, RUN. you have the chance to get away!" and that was the thing, i mean, it was more like an honor system where the hostages would let us go but we understood we would have to come back. i told her i couldn't run because if these guys knew who i was, they knew where my family lived and it would put my entire family to risk for being killed/maimed. but she kept telling me to flee. then i woke up.

i should write down all my dreams and talk to "a professional" about them, i swear.

ps. josh, you should have a "dream" category for posts.

This morning I saw someone getting a blowjob in a car. A fairly ...vigorous.. one, the speedily bobbing head seemed to indicate. You know how you see a bobbing head, and for like half a second, you think someone is rummaging around in the glovebox, but then it clicks, and you realize what you're looking at is really RHYTHMIC, purposeful bobbing, and then you're somehow fascinated and can't look away as quickly as you should? Well, good morning to you, too. In broad daylight, within sight of my office building.

In a related vein, I have to say that when you live in a group house, probably the most disgusting thing to find when you put your hand between the couch cushions in search of the remote is a small, used, single-use, flavored lube containter. You know that one time, when a spider crawled on your hand, and you yelled HAAH and flung it really far across the room? Well, that's nothing compared to this HAAH and accompanying fling.

I no longer live in a group house. (cue: opening strains of the Hallelujah chorus)

And I have a new couch being made specially for me up in Olney, Maryland, by little munchkins to whom Todd Oldham has personally taught the upholstery arts. Oh, the imagined joy of sitting on cushions where no one has ever sat/fucked before. I've never done it! My bum can't wait.

Upholstery arts --> Dark arts --> Harry Potter --> I really love this picture of Hermione Granger that came out on the internet today:



The Segue. It's not just a gyroscopically-inspired human transporter that makes George Bush fall down go boom! anymore.

When I used to be able to play on Killoggs all day at work, I feel like I used to be a more fun member of this site. I don't read it cover to cover anymore, and I notice that when I do come out from under my bridge to make a comment, I sound pretty cantankerous and retarded. So, sorry for that. It's like I'm one of those old crankypants talking heads who used to be in Nixon's cabinet, and now gets trotted out twice a year to respond in a reliably bitter-old-fart way on The MacLaughlin Group. I don't want to be that guy. I want to be Eleanor Clift, the one who's on every week, sounding smart and with-it.



So, here's a good one for you: I had a really good laugh on Friday night, enough to make my abs ache the next day. I was at a bar with some friends, including a friend's mom. The Olympics were on the bar tvs. Screens big/close enough to see the action, but not quite big/close enough to make out all the words. And really loud, the mom cried out, "Look who's skating, Bob De Jong and ...Oyster Scrotum!?!?!?!" We were laughing so hard, it was difficult to see through the tears, but we finally saw that the dude's name is Oystein Grodum. It would've been minorly amusing if *I* had said it, but it became high hilarity when it came out of the mouth of a sweet little mom with dimples and bad eyesight, wide-eyed and slightly buzzed, and holding her finger up to point at the tv throughout the whole episode like a little impertinent statue of liberty. Plus, doesn't Oyster Scrotum just conjure up the most amazing mental imagery? I can't get over it.



I had Ethiopian food last week with a big group of girls, and one of them insisted on having regular white bread rolls brought to the table, because she thinks the injera bread "feels like a penis." Color, texture, weight, and "sponginess," in her words. She is utterly and completely freaked out by it. Now I've never been one of those people to go off my food after hearing it compared to something strange, but let's just say I could definitely see her point. It's even the right temperture! Still, as another diner pointed out, chowing down, "Yeah? So, what's the problem? I like penis." Yes, most of us do. I found myself wondering if her aversion to "injera bread" caused the downfall of her last relationship. Then I felt guilty for thinking that. I hope she doesn't read Killoggs.



I went to the bank today, and stopped to watch a crew of guys replacing a big section of brick sidewalk. There were six of them at least, with some loud humming machinery and many stacks of sharp red bricks. They had ground-tampers and stampers and levels and scrapers and scoopers and a small backhoe with jackhammer attachment. They were gonna make that section of sidewalk level and perfectly engineered if it killed them. And out loud I heard myself mutter, "Still can't beat ancient Rome, dumbasses."

All those layers! Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.

Seriously, there were like nine layers.

Last-Chance Beefy Roast

1 angus chuck roast or bottom round, approx. 3lbs.
2 medium onions, cut into large dice
2 yukon gold potatoes, large dice
1 large carrot, large dice
1 14-oz can beef broth
1 1/2 cups red wine (unsalted, please)
4 stalks fresh thyme, stemmed and sliced
1 large bay leaf
1/2 cup vegetable or olive oil
1/4 cup flour
Salt and pepper

Season the roast on both sides. Heat the oil in a cast-iron or large skillet until almost smoking. Brown the roast on all sides. Place the roast, vegetables, and herbs in a dutch oven or crock pot and cover with the beef broth. Drain the excess oil from the pan and, while still hot, add 1/2 cup of the wine to the pan. Add this liquid to the cooking pot. Cover the pot and bring just to the boil, then reduce the heat to a slow simmer. Cook until the roast is falling-apart tender, about 5 hours. Remove the roast to a platter and allow it to rest. Add the cooking liquid to a small saucepan and bring just to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Whisk the flour into 1/2 cup of cold water, then add this to the liquid, thickening it to gravy consistency. Serve with white rice or buttered noodles.

Last night Ron, friend of my family, died of a heart attack. He was my mother's oldest friend and one of the people I have known the longest in life.

He lived the last 15 or so years of his life on a resort island, watching girls in bikinis and drinking fruity drinks. He had a family down there, one of his nephews made the call to my mom. He had a pretty good life.

I'm glad I got to see him and help him out last year, when he came and stayed in Baltimore for knee surgery. He managed to get his artificial knee removed, and lived the last year of his life without the chronic pain that had been dogging him. I'm glad I could be in some small way be involved with that.

I'm going to miss him, even though I didn't see him that often, it was nice to know he was out there, and likely to pop back in my life randomly.

Goodbye Ron, you are already missed.