The Coffeehouse Post
A while back, Shelly pointed out to me this little coffeehouse and that it had wireless broadband access. So here I sit today, making a very long overdue entry. Thank you Mylo's for the free web access and refills of Coke! :D
And now on with the show...
Things with Shelly and I are just as friends. That's it. Period. Yeah, she's cute and fun to hang out with, but I am starting to realize that it's a good thing that she is no longer attracted to me in that kind of way. She's a bit too high-strung for me, always worried about this or that. I am much more of a laid-back type of person that does not tend to stress over things unless they require stressing out over. Maybe she would be different in a relationship type of setting, but I just do not think it would be enough of a change for us to work out in the long run.
We were supposed to go to New Orleans over the Labor Day weekend. Because of Hurricane Katrina, we had to change our plans. This turned out to be a GOOD thing as I just found out that Labor Day weekend in New Orleans is also the Southern Decadence weekend (New Orleans' Gay Pride weekend, as it were). As neither of us are gay and the event is a mainly (from what I understand) festival of flamingly gay males, the hurricane allowed a fortuitous change of vacation venues.
Instead of The Big Greasy, we went to Hot Springs, AR. What a wonderfully beautiful place! We went down there on Thursday evening, checked into our room around 8:30 then went to this place called Doe's for some steaks. Shelly got the ribeye that I swear must have been 5 pounds of meat (I have seen smaller dinner plates!) while I got the tenderloin. The resteraunt is situated on Lake Hamilton and folks that live on the lake can drive up in their boats for a bite to eat. What a novel idea!
We liked the lake so much that night, that Friday morning we stopped by Wal-Mart, bought a cooler, some ice, drinks, and food, then rented a party barge on the lake for about 4 hours. The water there is beautiful! Nothing like the muddy Ouachita. Hanging off the back of the boat, neck-deep, the water was so clean and clear that I could see my feet clearly enough to see my toenails! After a trip to the hotel room and some application of Aloe Vera (God bless ya Aloe Vera) while Shelly worked on an assignment for her online class, we went down to the older town area and toured the basement and first floor of one of the bathhouses (the upper two floors had already closed for the day). We went to some little hole-in-the-wall resteraunt (Shapiro's?) for some food, then roamed around the city a bit more. The springs there are naturally hot! 134 degrees, to be exact. While this would be suh-WEET in the winter-time, it was quite a bit too warm to hang around right now.
Saturday we took a duck-tour of the area. The driver/captain was a pretty funny character. After the ride, we munched on some BBQ at this place called "Stubby's". The BBQ was great, the potato salad though was a bit too "pickle-y" for me. After such a great meal, we drove up to the Western Summit and looked out over the town and entire (big-assed) valley that Hot Springs is nestled in. There was a Blues festival in Hot Springs over the weekend, and up on the summit, the music was at just the right level. It was wonderful and I cursed myself for not having thought to bring some chairs and our cooler of drinks.
After coming down from on high, we headed to Magic Springs. Since we hadn't thought to bring our bathing suits (we had no idea we were going to Magic Springs until we were atop the mountain), we just rode the non-water rides. Another day for Aloe Vera... I may name my next gaming character that out of sheer gratitude. We had planned to go to the Blues fest after the sun went down, but once that time came, as we sat in Ruby Tuesday's, we both realized we were just too damned drained to do anything more than a movie or walk in the local mall. The movies had just started, so we opted for the second choice then went back to the hotel.
Sunday we got on the road around 11am, and even with stopping for 30 minutes to an hour in El Dorado for lunch at Ryan's, we still rolled into West Monroe around 3:30pm.
To nip any questions in the bud, nothing happened between us. It was completely plutonic the entire time. I must admit though, spending that much time with someone really made me start thinking again that I may want to settle down. Thankfully, that may have passed.
Interesting... as I sit here a drop-dead gorgeous woman approached me asking where she knew me from. I vaguely remember her from a class or two at ULM. Her name is Krystal Knighten (or was, she's married now, don't remember the married name nor do I care :p). She wasn't hitting on me or anything, but DAMN SHE IS HOT! And of course married... *sigh*
Now to the Hurricane situation.
Mom, Ed, Aunt Val, Uncle Frank, Ed's two sisters and a brother-in-law all came to the house on the Sunday that Katrina was in the gulf. Needless to say, since I was having to give up my bed for a sofa, I went to crash on a sofa that was at least closer to work. Thanks Shelly for the sofa :)
By Wednesday, everyone but mom had left and we had confirmed that all of our family had survived. Helen and crew were without power as the eye of Katrina had passed directly over them. The house still stood, but the grove behind their home is now so much firewood. They are still without power, so Helen and the boys came over on Saturday evening. Sam is probably coming in this weekend, and his brother ray and his family (wife and 4 kids) may be coming as well if the power isn't restored soon. If this happens, I will once again be giving up my bed and sleeping on Shelly's sofa (although I may just buy a bed/mattress/footon/etc and put it in her spare room instead).
While I feel for all the folks displaced by the hurricane, I am about ready to strangle the ones that have bitched and griped about how long it took for them to be rescued. The mayor had run the city transit system for hours to shuttle people that couldn't afford to leave (no car, can't afford gas, homeless, etc) into the Superdome. Because of this, the only folks that should have been left to rescue would have been those too old and/or handicapped to leave their homes. Because of this, a massive "FUCK YOU" to the ones that bitched because it took the rescuers days to get to them. You had your chance to leave, now your stupidity/stubbornness/whatever your excuse is has now placed others in jeapordy and caused thousands and thousands to be needed to rescue your sorry ass.
New Orleans has, more than once in the past decade or so, been the Murder Capitol of the US. Now those criminals have been flushed into neighboring areas. Sadly, you can't get a grasp on who is deserving of being shot and who is not by just looking at them, but the spike in voilent crimes in Baton Rouge are a very good indication of what's to come unless there is some hardcore police action taken. Sad that a few hundred bad seeds will make it hell on the thousands of good ones. Maybe if the good ones would police themselves (like killing the dumb fuckers at the Superdome that fired on helicopters trying to deliver goods and evacuate people)? Like that's going to happen =/
And before I go, a special "FUCK YOU" to Pierce Brosnon, Sean Penn, Jessie Jackson, and their ilk. You fuckers have millions of dollars at your disposal to buy boats to rescue folks, or rent trucks and buy food and water to send to these areas, and what are you doing? Bitching. That's it. Bitching. Either pitch in and HELP or shut the fuck up. There will be time eventually for politicing this to death, now isn't it.