The weepy week of the year

Thinking about my mom who passed away 16 yeas ago. I think this is the last photo I have of her, from my BFA graduation show at FSU. She preferred to be behind the camera, not in front. Maybe that's why I'm such a ham in front of the camera because she took a ton of photos of me growing up. :-) I miss her but I carry with me her love of cats, reading, photography, art, music, laughter and The Blues Brother.

Mourning the loss of my mom this time every August gets compounded with the Katrina anniversary. I'm not always sure which event prompts which tears but with them being a week apart I spend a good part of the week grieving. I learned after my mother's death you cannot, and should not, try to ignore it. You have to let the grief flow and not fight it. I also found it helps to come up with you own way of marking these events. With my mom, there are plenty of good things to remember about her. With Katrina, not so much. But the occasion needs to be marked, and it's good to see how far you've come since then.

I finally settled on the way I like to honor my mother. I make a meal of Hungarian origins, because my mother was proudly half Hungarian. It is either chicken paprikash with spätzle, which I don't really recall her ever making but is damn tasty and my husband loves it too, or stuffed cabbage leaves, which she did cook. There's usually a cucumber salad because I love cucumbers and they are used a to in Hungarian cuisine. Since I'm making the chicken tonight, I'll also sauté some cabbage. Rouses grocery store actually carries Hungarian wine so I picked up a bottle of a red called "Bull's Blood." My mom was also a Dracula and vampire fan WAY before it was cool, as well as a fan of murder mysteries, so anything with word "blood" in it would be OK in her book. And last but not least, we'll pop in "The Blues Brother" movie to enjoy with our meal and drink a toast to my mother, Margaret.

As for Katrina, I haven't figured out a good way to deal with that bitch. And when I say Katrina, I'm not just referring to the hurricane, but the whole damn thing: the storm; evacuations; wondering what was happening to our city, friends, home; wondering where we were going to stay and when we could return; watching the footage of the destruction; hearing the national media and politicians lie; reading the hateful things people were saying about New Orleans. But I'll figure something out between now and Saturday.

Well I have quite the weekend ahead of me. Tonight's the Opening Reception for the Rising Tide IV "Bloggers" Conference. Got to love this year's theme "Sinking to New Heights." Looking forward to checking out the new and improved Avenue Pub. It's been a long time since I stepped foot in there.

The conference starts Saturday at 9 a.m. Ouch. I'm not really one who follows celebrities but I am very excited that Harry Shearer is going to be the keynote speaker. He's so talented, I hope I get a chance to meet him. It can be hard to get a word in with other bloggers (they can talk as much as they type) and I'm sure Harry will be the belle of the ball. The conference has been getting some press so it should be interesting to see what this year's turn is like.

That evening there will sure to be the post-party somewhere, but I'll be scooting off to go join my fellow FSU alumni at the Greater New Orleans Seminole Club inaugural meeting. Years ago there was a club but it became defunct. Thanks to the tireless Shrimp Po-Boy we again have a group. That's 7-10pm at Cafe Prytania, 3445 Prytania Ave, in case some fellow Seminole stumbles across this page.

Sunday marks 10 years since my mother passed away. In her memory I'm going to have a movie marathon of some of her favs. I already watched "Clue" (can't ever get enough of Tim Curry and a favorite board game of ours) and saw "Young Frankinstein" when I was in Albuquerque (Gene Wilder was on of her favs). First up will the "Blues Brothers," hands down her #1 fav movie followed by "Murder by Death" (she loved murder mysteries and had a great sense of humor). I have all of these on DVD. Another fav is "Ladyhawke" that I only have on VHS - it's kinds of a silly movie with a bizarre soundtrack by Alan Parson's Project, but has Rutger Hauer and Matthew Broderick so there you have it. And I should get a Dirty Harry but there's only so much sitting around I can do at one time so we'll see. Plus I'm going to make Hungarian stuffed cabbage and that can be time consuming. Hmm... maybe I can roll the cabbage rolls while watching one of the movies?

Saturday, we held our first St. Patrick’s Day party, which was a blast. We live next to the Irish Channel neighborhood and every year there is a parade, as well as parades in other parts of the city. It’s like Mardi Gras lite – almost all local, no elaborate costumes but lots of green clothing, lots of drinking, hanging out and good fun.

Along with the usual parade fare--beads, cups and toys-- cabbages, potatoes, onions and carrots are also thrown. I put corned beef on to cook that morning. After the parade, I threw in the veggies we caught and had a very yummy “Irish Boiled Dinner” (the secret is beer!) Typical parade day, the group of people we started out with, wasn’t the same one we were with at the end of the day.


In addition to St. Patty’s day, spring has sprung and everything is growing. And the oak trees are dropping their neon green pollen everywhere. ACHOO! I started my veggie garden early this year. Last month I planted lettuce, spinich, parsley and cilatro, which is now coming up. Planted a few tomato plants this weekend-hmm guess I forgot to take a picture of that. Saving room for cucumber and peppers. We put down plastic to keep weeds at bay. One gardener had a roll of FEMA blue roof that we used to cover the empty plots.