Life and Times of AlieMalie

Got here yesterday and had a nice night on Bourbon Street with FW. Pretty cool guy if I do say so myself. Anyway, this morning was breakfast of beingets at Café du Monde followed by some shopping in the French Quarter. I tell you, I have never met a guy who likes to shop more than most girls, but FW definitely takes the cake. hehehe. After shopping we stopped into JAX brewery for a tour about some robot that goes searching for underwater treasure. We also went walking around one of the cemeteries here in town which are all above ground – kinda weird to be surrounded by the dead. That was followed by a jaunt down Canal Street all the way to the end of the line on one of the trolleys. I’ve gotten to see a lot of destruction from Katrina and a lot of the places still have the water lines from where the water sat for weeks without anywhere to go. When I get home I’ll be able to post photos.

Anyway, this evening we’re going on a vampire tour of the French Quarter and will maybe go back to the cemeteries after dark – would be interesting. Tomorrow I hope to go on a swamp tour and have dinner at Mulaté’s – they have some of the best cajun cooking I’ve had in my life. Mmm, frog legs.

That’s all for now folks.

I was driving along today when I looked over and saw that B’s dad was in the next car over. I rolled down my window, tapped my horn and waved hello. He proceeded to follow me into where I was going to and track me down. We spoke for a little while, I introduced my munchkin and I asked how he and my other mother were doing. Turns out they’re doing super well, all things considered. They’re leaving for Prague in a week exactly and will be gone for a month. They and their other son are taking B on one last adventure through Europe before leaving him in Prague for the rest of eternity as he had wished. It’s turning out really well.

Anyway, he flagged me down because it turns out there’s been a rose theft. About six or seven years ago, I went through a time where I was a gardener extraordinaire during the summers and on the weekends. I would plant tons of things, take cuttings, graft trees – you name it, I did it. One weekend I decided that I was going to try my hand at rose propagation – all from cuttings. They say that if you can get one in ten cuttings to grow, you’re a raging success. That being said, I decided to do 100 cuttings in a bunch of different pots. Knowing that it’s fairly difficult to get them to grow, I put about five cuttings in each pot so I didn’t actually have 100 little pots floating around our potting bench out in back. As the days and weeks passed, it turned out that not only was I a raging success by other people’s standards, I had roses coming out my ears. Out of 100 cuttings, I had a 90% success rate. I had 90 roses – all of the same variety. That Christmas, I gave away roses.

Anyway, I gave about five of them to the E’s because my other mother is a fantastic gardener and her husband was wanting a rose to replace one of the ones that had died at the church where he is the rector. No problemo. Soooo … fast forward to today and he says he needs me to make another couple of cuttings of the roses because someone went to the church Saturday night, dug up the rose and carted it off. Now, I know it’s a beautiful rose – it’s a double yellow antique which means it’s looks like it has four blossoms all crammed into one bud and it’s a bright yellow the first day and as the sun hits the petals, the edges of them turn a slight pink. Not only that, it smells fantastic. It’s a very nice rose. Antiques are always easier to propagate. I’m just stunned that someone would actually steal a whole rose bush though. This one had gotten pretty big too, about four feet in diameter and about four feet tall; not to mention that it is an extremely thorny variety. Whomever took it really had their work cut out for them as the root ball was pretty big and then the thorns aren’t exactly pleasing to touch.

I’m still incredulous. And from a church? Wow. Some people. Anyway … so that’s what I’ll be doing when they’re out of town and I’m staying at their house … making more rose cuttings. Anyone want one?

Big day with a munchkin today – much swimming, movies and laziness to be had on this Memorial Day. It’s his first week of summer vacation so we’re going to make the most of it. Or should I say least? hehe. He’s already announced, at 8AM, that’s he’s totally bored. I asked him why and he responded that you’re supposed to be bored during summer vacation and he wants to be bored because that means there’s nothing to do. Ahhh, the logic of 9 year olds.

Tomorrow at this time I will be more than halfway to New Orleans. Woohooo! Hopefully I will get there without any speeding tickets, after all, speeding tickets are one of the reasons my car has cruise control now, though I’ve termed it AlieMalie control – 9 and counting, I don’t need any more tickets. This evening will consist of packing and sleeping – hopefully I can get to bed early early because I want to be on the road at 4AM to drive at night which is cooler and so I can get through Houston without having to deal with rush hour traffic there. It’s the worst in the US according to some statistics. Once I’m past Houston it’s smooth sailing through Louisiana – the highway is pretty much all bridge, very few entrances and exits – don’t forget to get gas, haha – and there are hardly any troopers on that stretch of highway, knock on wood.

Anyhoo, see y’all back here Saturday at the latest. See you, FW, tomorrow. Holy cow! :)

I got this photo from my aunt. I promise you that the rest of my family makes me look like a neoconservative. Scary, eh? I still can’t stop laughing.

These are some of the things people have searched the internet for and ended up coming across my blog with. I find them utterly hilarious.