Colleen Kane

Ash Wednesday

Today is the day all of us Cath'licks get dirt on our foreheads. Well, us lapsed Catholics don't, but that doesn't mean we don't feel the guilt when we see the others with it on (and at all other times waking and sleeping). From the perspective of not having gotten ashes in years, though, it now seems really strange.

Kara and I went down to New Orleans last night to take in the Fat Tuesday revelry: the end of the Mardi Gras season. Frenchmen's Street was jumping, almost as packed with costumed folks as it was at Halloween. But last night the costumes were more elaborate and shiny than Halloween getups: there were wings, jeweled headpieces, feathers, sparkly turbans, oversized chapeaus.

The above rather abstract photo was supposed to be of a fallen wig in a gutter accompanied by a flattened box of wine.

Spanish Town Mardi Gras Dos and Don'ts

We went to the Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade on Saturday, and hope to attend one of the NOLA parades before this is all over on Wednesday. Here are some results from Saturday's parade, where the theme was Bailout. 

There is an urge to take your look the extra mile for Mardi Gras. But in no way does this ever mean to take your favorite wacky jester hat look and adapt it to your hair, which is dyed purple and flamingo pink and fastened with yellow rubber bands. This is a Hair-Please-I-Beg-You-DON'T.

Friday, Pre-Mardi Gras Edition

A few quick things.

For this week's Tuesday night Best-Show-listening cooking project, I made a veggie gumbo. It took hours, and it was worth it. And finally, I get roux. I get why you have to babysit it until it gets really dark but not burned. I have seen the dark. I understand!

Haaaa-leigh-roux-ia!

There should be a different name for the roux they use in Louisiana, though the name's the same, it's not the same as the flour and fat mix cooked for a minute then used as a gravy base. 

A Modest Proposal for Transportation in Louisiana

  

Dear Governor Bobby Jindal,

How are you? I am fine. Biked by your house the other day. It looked very nice but there was garbage floating in the lake right next to it. You should get one of your guys out there with a skimmer. Anyway, I have a suggestion that I think would help stimulate the economy in Louisiana. Admittedly I have zero understanding of how the economy works, but it seems to me that this could only help.

There is a highway running directly from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. I call it Route 10, being from New Jersey, but I think people here call it the interstate. Between the northbound and southbound lanes is a wide strip of grass. That grass is wide enough for a train. The train would not have to make many stops along the way, so it could be high speed. Some trips could not stop at all and be express.

Presi-tines' Gras

Hope you all had a passable Valentines' Day and weren't confronted with too many sights like this, which makes me feel the opposite of what I think it's supposed to make me feel.

A woman from the Cortana mall appeared on the WAFB news to show and suggest last-minute gift ideas, one being a Minnie Mouse stuffed doll in a gift basket. Really? Some other "ideas" were chocolates and bling bling.

And now it's Presidents' Day. Here in Baton Rouge, LSU students don't have today off, because they have Mardi Gras Break coming up this weekend.

Friday: KITTENS!

I know the following video is Internet old (from yesterday), but it's a lot more awesome than hearing about how the creative part of my brain is stuck in the mud, or although I'm feeling more positive than the the past week or two, how another part of this aforementioned brain is a carousel of anxieties lately (on which numerous carousel horses represent wedding planning-- Finishing Invites; Should I Get That Dress? Must Lose Weight; Must Get in Shape; etc; then one enormous hippo on this carousel is the Writing Career, etc. etc. etc.). Anxiety-Go-Round = not good blogging right now, though it has resulted in numerous Woody Allen films [rim shot].

And so: KITTENS Inspired by KITTENS!

True Confessions Wednesday!

The first revelation on True Confessions Wednesday is that I know a former editor-in-chief of True Confessions magazine (and True Story and True Love), and she is a reader of this blog. So maybe really the first revelation is either "True Confessions still exists," or "True Confessions exists," depending who you are.*

The next revelation is also about a magazine that you might not know exists. It's a magazine I am too young to be reading, but it's time to come out of the closet. 

* True Confessions still exists in this time of magazines falling like Domino (as it were)? I believe so, I saw it for sale recently at my "bodega," CVS of the nearby CVS Crossings.

In a World...

On Friday, after providing our drivers license numbers weeks in advance, then passing through several security checkpoints, and surrendering our drivers licenses, Mr. Fiance and I boarded The World, a luxury ocean residence that was docked for the weekend in New Orleans.

I'm not sure yet whether it's kosher to blog about The World (for one thing, photography was not permitted in public areas) and I don't want to get our generous hosts in trouble, but know this: The World exists. It is most luxurious. We spent the night on board ensconced in buttery smooth trillion-thread count sheets. It was a memorable mini staycation.

Also, here's another new Abandoned Baton Rouge, and after another excursion yesterday, more photos are on deck for the next post.

Friday magazine and comment FAIL

Hey all, I'm going to something exciting this weekend that hopefully I'll be able to share here on Monday. Meanwhile it's time to say goodbye to more terrestrial magazines: Relix, Metal Edge, and Metal Maniacs, all titles which are folding, it was learned this week. 

I was personally surprised to learn Relix still existed (always a sign, in celebrity humans, that death is near: when you can't remember if they already died or not) but Metal Edge, that's another piece of my youth down the terlet. If I remember correctly when I last read it, a good 15 years ago or more, many of the non-photo pages were printed on paper akin to newsprint, and it was quite mindless stuff. It was a chaser to the (by contrast) high quality Rip magazine (now long gone), but I loved their roundups, where they would ask all these hair metal rockers about say, their first time, or their wildest party or whatnot. 

But really, how can print magazines compete with the immediacy of the Internet? I already think a viral video is old if I watch it one day and someone forwards it to me the next. That video of that kid who's all high on dentist drugs is ancient hist. 

Ancient, hilarious hist.

Wednesday Addams: Class act all the way

Addie's been escaping the yard again, and here is what she returned with from her grocery shopping trip yesterday.

The item on the right is easily identified as a chicken wing, possibly of the buff variety but maybe not orange enough. The item on the left appears to be a hot dog bun filled with a soft substance such as mashed potatoes and cheese over probably a dog or sausage, which was then over-broiled or over- grilled and discarded. Addie somehow found these, thought, Jackpot! then was thwarted on her return home with her oversize bundle. I'm still not sure how she carried both of those at once.

In some ways, Addie is like me whereas jocko Cooper is like his dad. She's like me in that she doesn't even try to do sports, like if you try to drop her a treat she lets it bounce right off her snout rather than try to catch it. Also, I've been known to bring some furniture home from the old Curbside Shopping Center, where everything is always 100% off. But found food? This is where we diverge. Our dog is a freegan.