Photo of the Day: Chandelier

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This chandelier was hanging in the lobby of a hotel in the French Quarter in New Orleans. And I don't think this will be the most popular photo I've ever taken, but I'm just in love with it. I've been obsessed with macro lately. And obsessed with both natural light and light sources.

I love how both are captured here. This crystal was quite small, but it seems so large, every cut facet having a different reflection or capturing the light in its own way.

Also, thanks to a lovely tip from my pay Morgan, I'm on redbubble now. Check out my profile now or there is a link now living at the top of my blog. And for (in my opinion) very reasonable prices, you can buy some of my work in cards and prints. If you've seen something you like of mine that I haven't uploaded to redbubble and you'd like me to, just let me know.

Photo of the Day: Bourbon Street

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This is from a roll of 100 Lomography film I took in New Orleans and I am so just stoked about how this roll came out. Nawlins just lent itself to the B&W and the plastic camera aspects, the light, the focus. I took this shot as people were lining up along the street for one of the city's many Easter Parades. It just feels straight out of another time and that's just how I feel about New Orleans. It's old meets new, where living life fully and in the present meets so much history and a past unique and rich. 

Down to New Orleans

I'm home, Internet. Home. Home from New Orleans. As always happens when I travel, I don't really want to leave. There is so much more to do. More to see. More to eat. But, then I did miss my bed. And my cats (don't laugh). And I thought about the nasty Nawlins humidity that would kick in around May.

And then I woke up on Tuesday with a  wickedly sore throat. I really thought I was just tired. It had been a long week. Of working outside and inhaling god knows what. And then my friends drug me out to party all weekend. So it was understandable that I would be a little run down. But it seems I brought the sore throat home with me. An unintended souvenir, packed along with the beads and hot sauce. It's Thursday and it's still sore. I sound like Kathleen Turner after smoking six packs of Marlboros.

So it's inconvenient. But whatever.

I can't say it's not worth it. Because I had SUCH a great time in New Orleans! I did. I had a fucking BLAST! The work week was total awesome sauce. It was completely moving and as fulfilling as I expected it would be, while of course, finding ways to surprise me. I can't recommend this enough. If you're looking for a new experience. If you want to step outside yourself for a few days and try something new and change your life and bit and grow as a person, go to New Orleans and serve. Do it! It's so amazing, my meager words will never do it justice.

that would be me at the end of an extremely satisfying work week.

that is a face both exhausted and pleased. 

Now, this trip was not all about the work (it mostly was, but all work and no play makes Andrea a bitch). I had some fun too. We listened to fantastic live music down on Frenchman (in the French Quarter, but where more locals hang out) at Checkpoint Charlie's and the Spotted Cat and I danced my butt off (not really, I ate so much that this ass isn't going anywhere).

I did the obligatory walk down Bourbon st., drank a Hand Grenade, and collected more beads than would fit in my carryon (and I never had to show my boobs. not once. and it's a good thing too. my boobs are so little, they'd ask for beads back.).

I sat in an open-air cafe at night with friends and listened to outstanding jazz while sipping coffee, where I overheard a girl mention my alma mater. Turns out we graduated college the same year (small school) and have mutual friends. What a small world. I'm always amazed at what the universe throws my way.

I got to experience a real Nawlins Easter Parade (not watch. no one just watches a parade down there) where I collected even more beads and saw some of the best bonnets of my life on both men and women.

But the best time I had was just sitting alone in a cafe on a weekday morning, sipping the best chicory coffee you'll ever taste, eating beignets, writing poetry, followed by wandering the Quarter alone, photographing anything and everything. That's when I really met the city. 

I'm always preaching that there is so much more to New Orleans than the French Quarter. That if you've gotta venture out and meet the locals and see how much more there is to really get the flavor. But, I didn't take my own advice, because I wasn't paying attention to the French Quarter enough. There is so much history there. Colonialism. Pirates. Disease. Jazz. 

It's a beautiful city. As a whole. But the French Quarter is especially gorgeous. But the absolute coolest thing I did and the most spectacular was a swamp tour. I'd always pictured the bayou as murky and buggy and smelly and muddy. Well, this swamp (being in early April anyway) was completely breathtaking. 

I need a better word than gorgeous. Splendid. Stunning. Awe-inspiring. Help me out here! Also, I saw two Great White Herons (no pics of those, sorry), one snake, and like 5 alligators. It was very, very cool. 

Now, I would be remiss if I didn't mention my very favorite thing about New Orleans. I know you know what I mean, Internet. If you don't, then you don't know me that well yet. The food. THE FOOD!  Crawfish etouffee, po'boys, fried catfish, fried shrimp, fried chicken, fried anything, beignets, jambalaya, dirty rice. YUM! 

And though I'm not much of a drinker, I will give a quick nod to Abita beer (I prefer the Amber to the too girly for my taste strawberry). 

And the bubbly French 75, which has champagne and something else secret and which you can only get at the bar of the same name. It was the best place to spend my last night in the French Quarter. French heaven. Reminded me SO MUCH of Paris. And with the champagne going right to my head, I got a little homesick for that smelly old city. But, of course, the Quarter smells just as bad as Paris.

Until next year...

Laissez les bons temps roulent.

SORE (said like Oprah)

What a week, y'all. What. A. Week. I can't believe the work week is over here in New Orleans, but my body can. I am sore. So sore. Sore in my thighs. Sore in my big ghetto booty (more on that later). Sore in my back. Sore in my biceps. Sore in whatever muscle is in your forearm (anyone know?). Sore in my neck. SORE. (picture me as Oprah shouting to her audience). And you're sore and you're sore and everybody's SO-OOORE!

Is it just me or is sore starting to sound like a crazy word? Oh, Oprah.

Thursday was an immensely satisfying day. Up until then (as I wrote earlier), I was working with others in the same house on the base boards and window trim and caulking all that. CAULK! (sorry, couldn't resist). Well, Thursday we painted it ALL. We took out all the doors and painted those and then painted the interior, from those base boards to the closets to the ceilings. I used detail brushes and wide brushes and rollers. It was a blast and it was hard. My arms were aching and my things were going on strike from crouching in small spaces. And I was covered in paint. Paint on my arms, on my back, on my clothes, covering my hands. Later, when I took a shower, I found this massive clump of paint behind my ear. How that got there, I can only imagine. When the painting was complete and secod coats applied, we brought in all the doors and said goodbye to our house. We had done all we could do before the cabinetry and flooring and I have to say it is so cool to get a house so close to completion in such a short time.

The gal who is getting that house is moving in next week. She has cancer and this house has been coming to her since last October (a typical Habitat house takes a couple of months). So it's so rewarding to know that we were a part of finally getting her into her home.

Last night we went to eat in the French Quarter and I ate fried alligator tail and crawfish etouffee. And OHEMGEE it was DE-LISH-UUUS! I lurve Cajun Food. Not just like. Love. My lover, The Shower, may have to move over to make room for Cajun Food. Or maybe The Shower and Cajun Food and I can have a polyamorous relationshiop. Scandalous.

Then we went to a cool jazzy bar and listened to the Young Fellaz Brass Band and danced a little. One guy who was dancing with (I assume) his girlfriend accidentally bumped into me. So to apologize (which he didn't need to), he grabbed me and led me around the dance floor. I have to say, it was fun and that kid could DANCE. And I think he was surprised that I could hold my own. When we finished, he girl thanked me profusely, which I thought was hilarious. I guess I did her a favor.

The party girl in our group, Jen, didn't want to leave as early as the rest of us (because we were tired, yo, and we had to work Friday too) and she was a driver, so we tried to squeeze into one minivan rental. Which is where we find me, determined to sit on the floor of the minivan, between the two middle captains seats, something I did often as a teen. Imagine my old ass surpise when my big old ghetto ass wouldn't fit between the seats! Dudes, I have clearly underestimated the size of my ass up until now. I really thought I would fit! No worries though. We all squeezed in. But I may need to start buying more Juicy Couture to maximize my ghettolicious my booty. I apologize for unproperly accessorizing my ass up until now.

Of course, if I eat any more down here, I may upgrade from ghettolicious to bedonkedonk. Just you wait.

Today I woke up feeling like ass (because I'm an old lady and I need my sleep), but I powered through. We worked at a super cool not for profit called The Green Project, which started as a paint swapping program because New Orleans has no toxic waste disposal system. And now the repurpose all sorts of materials that are old, donated, or salvaged such as lumber and light fixtures, doors, windows, sinks, bathtubs, you name it. Then they sell it on the cheap. They are seriously short staffed as they barely make enough back for operating costs, but they provide such a vaulable and much needed service to this community. Plus, the place was SO COOL (pictures soon!) and the staff was super fun to work with. They are in serious need for volunteers, so if you make it down this way, try to spend a day there helping out. They'll reward you with "freezy pops." 

My team spent the day in the humid Nawlins sun organizing lumber and removing nails and staples to make it usable. Meeting locals as they came in looking for wood all day was amazing and the work was literally back breaking.

Aside: if I hear anyone ever again accuse construction workers of stupidity, I will punch you in the neck. This work requires constant thought, technique, and the ability to think quickly. You have to keep yourself safe while maximizing your strength and utilizing basic physics. It's hard work.

Needless to say, I feel like I am falling apart now. My back is sunburnt and I already mentioned how effing sore I am. But today was the last day of work. THE LAST DAY OF WORK! It was fun but I am glad to be done (and my body is grateful). Let the fun commence! Going out to hear more jazz in the Quarter tonight and then tomorrow I head with two friends to our hotel where I'll spend the next several days touristing it up. I still have tons more to eat and a few things I want to buy. But mostly I'm excited to spend time down here on a vacation.

Seriously. I get to relax. Did you hear me? Relax. Re-lax. Re to the motherfucking lax, y'all.

I have no idea if I'll have internet access after tomorrow. If not, dear Internet, just picture me with a Po Boy in my hand strolling the Quarter with my camera.

caulking

The last two days have been a lot of work down here in Nawlins! And I may be starting to pick up the Looosiana accent, ya'll. I am such a dork.

I am just starting to move past the tired (and realization that I am SO out of shape) and hit a groove.
I spent all day yesterday ruling the chop saw and cutting and installing base boards in our house. It was grueling and incredibly detailed work. And after I cut like 5 pieces wrong, I got really discouraged, but I finally hit a second wind and got it right. I have bruises on my knees (har har) and my biceps have appeared for the first time in a year, but at the end of the day, I was really proud of the work.

Which we followed up with a NOLA tradition: drive-thru daiquiris. I know this seems incomprehensible. And it's technically illegal to drink and drive (and our driver didn't imbibe) and you would never see this elsewhere, but it's real. Take my word for it. I have pictures to prove it.

Then today I finished up the boards that I couldn't do yesterday because I was waiting on someone else to do door trim. And then came the caulking. (warning: excessive caulk jokes) I caulked the hell out of that whole house. Well, maybe I had help. We caulked that whole house. We caulked the shit out of it. There was lots and lots of caulk. I caulked the door trim. I caulked the base boards. I caulked the window trim. I caulked shelves in the tiniest closet in the history of the houses. I wedged myself in that tiny space and I took that caulk and I worked it hard. Oh yeah. I ruled the caulk. And then I helped Katherine find some nuts. So my day was filled with nuts and caulk. How many times can I say caulk before it gets completely annoying. Caulk. CAULK.

All in all, a good day. And then some of us who had built in the past, drove around to find the old houses we'd worked on and meet the current residents. Which was AWESOME! The people were so nice and they had some incredible stories. Plus it was totally satisfying to see these spaces as homes. Whether you're working at the start of a home (like I did last year) or interior work (like I'm doing this year), it's so hard to imagine the space in use. You can see the rooms, but they're still raw spaces. But when you see the paint and the furniture and the pictures and the people inside, it becomes a home. And all of a sudden you see how nice it actually is and how worth it all the frustrating work you're putting yourself through actually is.

I am so glad we did that today. Moments like that are why I do this.

A few last thoughts:

I hate teenagers. Do they ever shut up? Sharing a dorm with dozens of chatty teenage girls may just be the death of me.

Food I've eaten so far this week: fried chicken and shrimp (twice), beignets, red beans and rice, dill pickle chips (trust me, SO GOOD), cornbread, and a half a million red vines. We're going to an amazing restaurant tomorrow in the Quarter and I am thining I'll have the Jambalaya. Oh baby. I am getting HUGE! Yowza.

What I still need to eat before I leave: crawfish pie, poboy, and mufaletta.

Have I mentioned the amazingly hot showers? They're heaven sent. I tell my shower I love it every evening. I expect a proposal any day now. My shower and I will live happily ever after. *sigh*

Don't know if I'll have another chance to post before I go home next week. But I'll try! Also, I'm tweeting this trip all day.

and it begins

First day of work in New Orleans is done. It was pretty damn cool. We worked at a Catholic cemetary in St. Bernard Parish (just out of NOLA), an area that was completely submerged after Katrina. So we cleaned up the tombs that had noone to care for them and painted them white again. I gotta say, they looked gorgeous after we painted them. Like magic somehow. I took lots of pictures.

And my arms are all painty and my back is aching already and my biceps have come out of hiding, but I am already having a blast.

Did I mention we're staying at Camp Hope? This is Camp Hope 3, their third location in the last 5 years and I'm really liking this new spot. We're closer to the 9th Ward (which could be scary, I admit), but that means closer to the Quarter. And this location is certainly smaller than Camp Hope 2 so they can support less volunteers, but the showers. The. Showers. THE SHOWERS! *sigh* The showers this year are 5 gazillion times better than last year.

An aside about the showers: last year's showers were nasty (to quote Coco, very Psychoish) and dirty. And the hot water lasted through the first 3 showers and then was freezing. And water was scarce so each person was alotted 60 seconds per shower. I kid you not. No exaggeration. 60 second power showers. But the water was freezing, so who wants to spend longer than that anyhow? Not I, said the fly. Not I.

So the showers this year and clean and warm and even though the water pressure is incredibly low, I don't give a hot damn. It's a WARM SHOWER YO! Nothing worse at the end of a long work day than a cold ass shower. It's enough to turn a girl to god. Not me, but maybe some other girl. Who's less of a heathen.

Tomorrow is our first day working with Habitat and I am so ready to build. I want to climb a roof. And pound some nails. Or chop something up. I feel like I did as a little girl when my boy friends didn't want to play with me because I was a girl. But I just wanted to play with the monster trucks too! Why couldn't I do the boy things? Well, down here, they don't care that I'm a girl. I can climb and pull and carry and pound as much as I want. The way life should be.

Hopefully we're going out to eat tomorrow or Wednesday (because I want to some good cajun eats!) so I'll try and post again sometime later this week.

Building Hope

Whew am I tired. I'm getting ready for my next trip to New Orleans at the end of March to help rebuild. And I have been fielding phone calls, filling out forms, and making arrangements for the 15+ people who will be in our group. My throat is raw from talking all day, but it is absolutely worth it.

I know I've mentioned this trip before and I'll continue to go on mentioning it. I know there are immediate disasters on Chile and Haiti, but we cannot forget about New Orleans. NOLA is still in shambles. They were forgotten after Katrina. And the only saviors that city has had are volunteers. Friends of mine who have gone for 4 years say that it will take 10 years to rebuild New Orleans and they're absolutely right! It will take years.

This was the house behind the house we were building last year

And it's not the houses that are still falling down, that no one has gutted or bulldozed or refurbished that bother me the most. There are many of those left and it breaks my heart to see them, yes. It broke my heart when I saw a family whose stoop had been completely washed away, so they had a step ladder to get into their home. How awful is that? 

This house has been gutted, but I doubt will be rebuilt. 

Most houses like these will hopefully be torn down.

What bothers me the most is the emptiness. The vacant lots where the pylons are the only remnants of houses that once where. New Orleans is like a ghost town. 

In the lower 9th Ward, near where the levees broke

And it's so important to volunteer. Give a week of your life. Stay for dirt cheap at Camp Hope. And build some houses. Restore public places. Meet the locals. See NOLA outside of the Quarter. And really, really do something important.

This trip puts life in perspective for me. A friend and I were talking today about how easy it is to moan about how hard our lives are. How easy to whine and complain about the dumbest of things that can make life seem so crappy. But really, REALLY, our lives are great. We have jobs. We have homes. We have cushy little lives and it's hard to appreciate that most of the time.

This is me last year, hammerin' in the rat runs like a pro

So once again, I'm off to New Orleans to get dirty, work until my arms and legs fall off, take cold showers and sleep on bunk beds. And it's the best time I could possibly have. I'll bond with my fellow workers, meet amazing volunteers from all over the country and even the world, and hear stories from some of the most resilient local people you could ever know. 

With the best volunteers ever

And let's not forget the AMAZING FOOD! Muffalettas, Beignets, Po Boys, Crawfish pies, Gumbo...OHMYGOODGOD the food is wonderful. I cannot wait! It's a good thing we work so hard, because otherwise I'd come home 10 pounds heavier, yo. 

Photo of the Day: Building Hope

I took this last spring while building this very house in New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity in the Upper Ninth Ward. It was an incredibly life-changing experience and I urge everyone to take a week of their lives and go and build. There is so much left to be done there and the only way it will happen is through volunteers. So, go. Listen to the local's stories. And see if you can't live with their burden of gratitude. I dare ya.

Also, it's tons of fun! I'll be going back next spring and I totally can't wait, not just to use power tools, climb rafters, and nail in boards, but to eat Po Boys and Beignets and Muffalettas and crawfish pie and King Cake. Good god it's good you work so much because otherwise I'd come home HUGE!