We went to Plymouth, MA yesterday for breakfast and then looked around a bit. I insisted on stopping at Plymouth Rock. There is this grand pavillion for the rock.



But, the rock itself is this little tiny thing! I always get a big laugh out of seeing it. It's sooo obvious that this is probably not "the" rock and just a very old cheesy tourist attraction.



The harbor is pretty, though.



This afternoon we are going into Boston to have a very early dinner, then walk around and see the ice sculptures that have been done for First Night. There are early fireworks at seven, (because thats midnight GMT) and then we will head back to the South Shore. Most of us will be travelling tomorrow and one of the people in the picture below has to be in bed by nine thirty...



Happy New Year!!!!

I wanted to post this yesterday, but there was a service interuption with Blogger, so they were down all day.

Christmas Eve, we had an open house at my brother's and a lot of the in-laws came over, including some of the lil kiddos. I cooked all afternoon and everyone had a good time.

Christmas morning is the time for opening gifts at my brother's. This is what the tree looked like on Christmas morning.



Emma was thrilled with everything and everybody. She's normally an incredibly happy kid, but this morning she was radiant!



She liked all her toys, (and she got quite a few), but she likes this baby doll a lot.



I think it looks like "Chucky" and it has this very insane sounding laugh. We all find it a little unnerving, but Emma loves it, so it has been with us wherever we go these days.

Christmas day we went over to the in-laws for dinner and had a pleasant evening.

Yesterday we hung around the house, installed a dryer vent and took lots of naps, then went out for dinner at a little neighborhood place.

Today we've got a bunch of errands to do, (including another trip to the Super Stop and Shop!), and tonight, my sister and her lover arrive to complete our family gathering.

Yesterday, everything started out smoothly enough... The New Orleans Airport was not all that busy and check in went fairly quickly. Security was smooth, although they were very interested in my camera bag. Everybody was polite, though. The gate area was largely deserted.





As we took off, I got a nice view of the Mississippi River.



O'Hare in Chicago was full, but not overcrowded and all the flights on the board were On Time. My flight left about 2 minutes late, but made up some time in the air, so we landed in Boston 15 minutes early. And that's when the rest of the day began to go down the toilet!

We sat in the plane for 20 minutes while we waited for someone to attach the gateway to the plane. The luggage was unloaded before we were able to leave it. Then we had to line up and go through a revolving door one at a time to get out of the gate area. There were lots of security people watching us, which was odd, because they hardly ever pay any attention to departing passangers. When I got to the baggage area, there was this guy with no badge or uniform waving his hand in my face and repeating over and over "This area is inaccessible!" He would not answer any question about how I was supposed to get my bags, just kept grinning, waving and repeating the same thing. Logan is and always has been a horribly managed airport, and I was going to get someone to handle this rude guy, when I noticed that there were an awful lot of heavily armed national guard guys, like maybe 60 of them right ahead. I decided to just leave that area of the airport. I finally found someone from American Airlines who was able to get me my bags. When I called my brother to tell him that I had arrived, he told me about the guy on the plane from Paris who had the explosives in his shoes. My bags had been delivered right into the middle of the secured area where they were holding all of the passengers on that flight; I suppose I was lucky to get them at all. Of course, you're always lucky if your luggage makes it through Logan, undoubtably the worst baggage handling in the US.

Well, I got out to the bus area; it was freezing! And then the scheduled 9:45 PM bus didn't come. It had for some unknown reason been canceled and the next bus was at 11:15. My bro decided to make the 40 minute trip into Boston to pick me up and we ended up getting to his house about 12:30. All in all, I had spent about 2 and a half hours at Logan, most of it outside. During it all, I watched the hundreds of soldiers and security people running back and forth through the airport, wild and goggle eyed. It was obvious that no one knew what they were doing and that people that should have been calm and in charge had lost their heads. I mean, this was over nine hours after the plane had landed and the guy with the exploding shoes had been taken away to jail. Wierd finish to an otherwise pleasant day!

This morning when I woke up my lil niece was there to greet me! We all had breakfast together and then got dressed to go shopping for the food we needed for the party tommorow night. Emma was ready first.



We went to the enormous Super Stop and Shop



Emma selected the cart with the cute red car in front for her to ride in and my Dad was selected to steer the huge thing through the crowded store. After a while Emma decided to get out and help us pick things out, so my brother spent the rest of the time chasing her around and putting things back.


We were in the store for over an hour and a half! It just took forever, but we finally got out of there with almost everything we needed and drove back home.



It all just soooo New England here, (not too surprising...), with a little snow, it would just look like a Christmas card.

Tommorow, I've got to put on my Martha Stewart apron and cook for a couple of hours to get ready for the Christmas Eve party. I have some fabulous things planned!

The early flights were all booked up, so I got a few hours more sleep. I've finally finished packing and I'm ready to go. With the construction on the airport road and holiday traffic, I have to leave the house around 10:30 for a 1:15 PM flight! It makes for a long day. So far all flights I've checked seem to be running on time, so it might be a smooth trip. Just time for one more cam pic.

I spent the day getting ready for my trip; washing clothes, packing in my usual disorderly way and working for hours to get the laptop ready. It's the first time I've tried to take the web site on the road. I think I have everything set up so I can do almost everything. I'll be updating the journal and I hope, the web cam from my brother's house.

During all this lil' Puddin' has been doing her best to trip me so I'll fall and hurt myself and maybe not go. She knows that somethings up and she doesn't like it!



My friend Robert will be taking care of her while I'm gone, but she hates it when I leave. She's never very nice to Robert; seems to think that it's his fault that I'm not there.

I've got an early afternoon flight, but I may be able to get on a morning flight. I'm waiting until midnight to call and see if I can. There are still seats available on three earlier flights, but I can't tell how many. If it looks good on either of the two earliest flights, I'll have to be at the airport by 6 AM. I won't get much sleep, but I never do the night before a trip and I tend to sleep well on planes. The earlier flights go through DFW instead of O'hare/Chicago which might be a good thing tomorrow.

Well, the funeral was kind of sad, which is amazing since I didn't know the woman. My friend seemed OK with everything, he was handling it so well, but said that was due to the Xanax. The visiting hour was pretty easy, but then we stayed for the service which included members of the family, mostly grandchildren, getting up and talking and weeping for the longest time and hymns, bible readings and a sermon. A bit much for me.

But then it was over. So we went shopping!



It was way crowded.

We saw some tacky beautiful dolls in the toy store.



And a Lucy one...



And here's Robert "walkin round in women's underwear"!



(We had dark suits on because we had just been at the funeral. We don't usually dress like that for shopping.)

After that we went to a BBQ joint and had a huge lunch, then crawled home through pre-Christmas rush hour traffic.

And I did find a good prezzy for my niece.

Another gorgeous day! The weather has been exceptional this fall and early winter. We definitely must be heading for a big hurricane next year!

This morning Robert and I are going to a funeral. My friend George's mother died. She was 85 and I never met the woman, but we're going for George's sake. When it's over, the malls are quite near the cemetery, so we'll do some shopping to cheer us up.

I'm still trying to decide about going to Vegas in January. I got a free pass to the Consumer Electronics Show which is going on at the same time, which now makes it an even more desirable trip! I think I'll decide today.

I still have a lot to do before Boston. I've got to go over everything on the laptop and make sure it's ready for a road trip. My intention is to continue doing site updates as I travel, particularly the journal and maybe some cam pics.

Got an extension cable for the cam and I can now actually go outside with it, plus around the house. I did a pic from the front of the house since it's such a gorgeous day.



I noticed on the "society page" in the Times-Picayune this ayem, in one of the pictures there was a woman named Cissy Tittle! Seems like she could have picked a better nick name! NO society women always have wierd nick names; one wonders why they don't drop them as the grow older, but they don't. That nick will probably be listed in her obit.

My friend Ken is coming over today to cut my hair. It's been a while since I've seen him and there's lots of dirt to catch up on! Ken always has tales to tell and he's looking forward to hearing about my trip to Waveland last Saturday night.

Yesterday was a washout; I accomplished almost nothing. Well, I did talk to luca and helped him with some computer stuff. And I did watch Ellen and Absolutely Fabulous. Not a total washout, but there have been more productive days.

This morning I woke up with a sty in my eye. I've never had one before and this one doesn't seem to be too bad. If it doesn't get any worse, it should go away pretty quickly. ( I hope.) It's not pretty. Warm compresses; I be walking around dripping all day. And I have a lot to do before this weekend!

OMG! So we went to the party

We took off in Robert's big old Oldsmobile, a very huge old car and went screaming down I-10. We went across the edge of Lake Pontchartrain and in between The Rigoles and Lake Catherine. Then we took US 90 towards Pearlington. One of the things you have to understand about this road is that it's very narrow, there's lots of marshland on either side of the road and only occasionally a spot where there might be a gas station and a pawn shop. We missed our turn to Joel's house and went wildly out of our way! And during that time we went over the Jane Mansfield Death Bridge!!!! We were on that same horrible highway!!! We were on that same piece of road she wrecked on coming back from Biloxi!




Shit, Pussy and Goddam!!

Then we found another big road and ended up at the Stennis Space Center Rest Area in the state of Mississippi. It was the hugest place to pee that I have ever seen! It looked like a "plantation home" rest area!

And the Space Shuttle was there!!!



And there were soooo many rules to follow. Um, we forgot...




Anywhoo, (as that Dell Boy says), we used the cell phone and Joel came and found us and guided us, eventually to Peaches' house. But as we drove along, we went through a "restricted dead zone". Joel told us that the entire area had been bought up by the government in the fifties so that if a rocket that they were testing really blew it's ass up, people wouldn't get killed too bad. It was a long dark patch of road.

Finally, we got to Peaches house in the country, a long box like structure.... it was fabulously decorated, so many lights! We parked the car, got out and managed not to fall into the ditch.

And entered the party.


I have to tell you about this group of people; if you didn't know them to start with, you'd never believe them. The 20 or so people that were there were from New Orleans and places in between, and San Antonio and Austin and places in between.



The big round guy used to manage a notorious bath house in New Orleans. Our host/hostess at this party was the infamous "Flame La Rue" a man who worked the Bourbon Street strip clubs as a woman when he was only a 17 year old boy. (That was back then, when you didn't have to take it all off...) Peaches was pretty amazing then, she still is now. Actually she's more amazing now!

And of course, we had to listen to a guy who once was Clay Shaw's lover. (Funny thing, if you get drunk with a bunch of gay guys well over sixty years old anywhere in the New Orleans area, one of them is going to tell you that he was Clay Shaw's lover.) The Kennedy thing is still alive here... oooooh!

(The guys in the picture have nothing to do with the story really, nothing I tell you. Don't ask)

especially in the country in Waveland, MS late at night.

We were sooo glad to get back to New Orleans, where we know our dangers and the streets are lit at night!

I added a page to the images section; it's page 4. On it are some pics that my grandfather and his friends took over 90 years ago with an early Kodak camera. When I look at these old pics, I remember how important it is to take pictures now. It's great stopping a moment and saving it. My Dad took photographs because his Dad did. My sister, brother and I take a lot of pics as well. There were always a dozen cameras around the house when I was young. There are thousands of pictures in the family collection and I find them endlessly fascinating.

I'm going to a Christmas party in Waveland tonight. It's a long drive, but it should be fun.

I've learned that I can post pictures in this journal, just haven't had much time to do it yet. Maybe there will be some pics from the party to post...

Never mind. The party is tomorrow.

Yikes! I just found out that the Christmas Party that I thought was tomorrow night is tonight! And it's in Waveland, and hour away and that we were invited to spend the night! I'm not so sure about all this...

Well! It turns out that my cat, Puddin', is a cam whore!

I was typing a post for one of the message boards and I looked down and there was Puddin', doing that very cute cat thing, laying on her back, legs all splayed and wiggling. So I put the webcam on her with a 10 second refresh figuring that I might get one good pic before she jumped up and left. She posed for ten minutes! I saved one pic; it's going to stay up until tomorrow morning...

Then I shut the cam off and told her, "Nice work, Puddin'! Yas, Puddin" and all that. But she stayed right there and kept posing for a few more minutes; what a professional attitude! So, "work it gurl!" super model!!

Warm, sunny day, (hi temp 79F), nice breeze... In the middle of the afternoon, the power goes out! I was at the drugstore at the time and it took 15 minutes for the registers to come back on line. When I got home, everything in the house had rebooted. The computer was fine, but some of the clocks are still blinking. I'll get around to them later. (Funny thing, the power rarely goes out during a hurricane...)

The message board is up and people are posting to it. So far, so good!

I listened to the JoMax GayCams radio show from South Africa for a while this afternoon. There were a lot of net traffic problems; I'm sure it was frustrating for him. Got into the radio chat room for a bit. The music that Jonathan plays is very interesting and he has a good sense of how to do a radio show.

Now I got to work on some kind of holiday greeting animation...

It's been a grey day in New Orleans, chilly and damp, but it was productive. Got caught up on a lot of e-mail, helped luca install a CD burner (long distance), and did some work on some new stuff for the site.

I decided to do a message board and GC is setting it up. At first I wondered if it was a good idea, maybe no one would post, how would I make it interesting... Then I decided to just do it and see what happens.

I've gotten a little more used to the cam, like maybe I won't be carefully posing for every shot soon. My friends in Australia got to see my cat last night which was certainly another great moment in the history of the net. hehe.

I added a web cam. I decided it was time to join the party.

I had been spending time on developing the web site, but kind of half-heartedly. If no one was really looking at it, I could just forget about it for weeks at a time. So I thought I'd up the ante. Now I have to come up with new stuff and I really have to learn some more HTML so I don't look like too much of an idiot. This is good, I think.

Well, I've decided to add a journal. This will be mostly for what's new on the site and for general news.