New Orleans
Well hang on, let me back up. Or maybe fast forward, since this all just happened this morning.
Finally had my MRI and the orthopedics appointment. It's not the terrible triad, but I did bust 2 out of the 3 possible things to mess up. My ACL and meniscus are both dust. Not only does this mean surgery, but since I messed up my meniscus, there is only a short window of time to repair it, which means I need to get it done soon. So basically, I will be spending my spring break having surgery to repair my knee. My mother shall be coming down to take care of me and my recovering-from-hip-surgery grandma, but it is still gonna suck a whole lot. I also have to recover knee mobility so that I can bend 120% by 3 weeks from now, so I have lots of little exercises to be working on. So awesome I can't even stand it.
But anyway, moving on to more entertaining things, if you haven't checked out my pictures on facebook from New Orleans you need to do it right away. Because they're awesome! My particular favorites are 1. the picture of me posing with the cannon, harkening back to my days in Ireland and France, and 2. the picture of me in my ball dress and crutches: coolest cripple picture EVER.
Anyway, yes, New Orleans was a ton of fun. Despite the whole missing our flight at the crack of dawn on Friday and getting into town 5 hours late, and both my grandmother and I using wheelchairs in the airport which was like a crazy circus show, and the fact that I got patted down and investigated at security because there's METAL IN MY BRACE, WHICH IS ENTIRELY OBVIOUS BUT APPARENTLY THEY HAD TO PRACTICALLY STRIP SEARCH ME ANYWAY, traveling wasn't too bad.
Highlights of the weekend included:
1. Walking around and shopping at Riverwalk, the mall along the Mississippi that was also connected to our hotel. Got the prettiest going-out shirt EVER that was 50% off and therefore actually affordable. The Cafe du Monde had mochas and beignes (New Orleans doughnuts) to die for. And the view was pretty spectacular.
2. Getting picked up by my grandmother's cousin Lester in a Mercedes, no less, and taken to lunch at the fanciest restaurant in town. For the rest of my life, every meal I eat will just not compare. It was so fantastically good I can't even describe it. My main course was grilled pompano in a sauce with lump crab meat on top, and despite nearly meeting my ultimate demise from a fish bone, it was the best food of my life.
3. Going to #1, the family house that is a bazillion years old and huge and fancy. It's covered in pictures of like every generation of the family and imagine my surprise to go in for the first time and find pictures of me on the wall! Met my grandma's 101 yr. old aunt who is on her last legs (figuratively, since she can't leave her bed anymore), met my cousin Hylah who was queen of the ball and took a picture with her, ate more good food. A note on Hylah: when I tried to shake her hand, it was like grasping a limp, slimy fish. Ok mabe not slimy, but you get the idea. Apparently debutante types don't shake hands or whatever. Her outfit was pretty cool though. Her dress was white and had silver sequiny things hand sewn all over, a ruff sort of like Queen Elizabeth would wear that weighed about 20 pounds, a sceptor, and a crown.
4. Watching the whole spectacle of the court at the ball. The masked lords, the ladies in white dresses, the little princesses, and of course Hylah who had 6 page boys helping to carry her 10 ft. long train, and she'd take a few steps and wave her sceptor, and then go a few more and wave it in the other direction. Ridiculous. The rest of the ball was pretty lame because there weren't many people my age and I couldn't dance considering my current condition, but still, it was worth seeing.
5. Getting to tour the French Quarter--we took a carriage ride pulled by a mule named Dixie! She gave me a kiss afterward, it was v. nice. It's so beautiful and all the decorations for Mardi Gras are going up, which is so fun. Ate lunch at another nice restaurant, went to a museum, took some pictures.
All was not entirely fun in New Orleans, of course. Once you leave the French Quarter the city is pretty much a mess. I'd say 1 out of every 8 houses in the neighborhoods are inhabited, some streets can't be driven down, there are cars parked that haven't been moved since the storm, etc. A lot of the houses you can see the water line was like 8 ft. high. One of the houses my grandmother lived in as a kid is completely busted...bricks fallen everywhere, debris, rubble, etc. Very sad. Not to mention the day we left is the day everyone that was living in the hotels had to check out and find somewhere else to live. Unfortunately, FEMA hasn't really provided trailors for everyone, so they have to move out to...nothing. Katrina shows up in the news all the time, but until you really see for yourself, you have no idea the true extent of the damage.
However...I think this sign that I saw in the city pretty much sums up the city's attitude to the hurricane and the future: "Nothing Stops Mardi Gras. Nothing."
On another note: I got written up the other night at a "Liquor is better than love" party in my friend David's room. It was sad, he'd gotten us roses and we were having a great time. A little too loud, apparently. Anyway, after I got written up I was pretty pissed off, and I wasn't paying attention when I was riding the bus back to north campus and I missed my stop. So I'm walking down Raleigh street in the middle of the night, angry at the world. Stupid boys, stupid holiday, stupid knee. And I'm getting madder and madder so I decide to make a grand gesture against the holiday and life in general and fling the rose into the arboretum (also known as the raporetum for the number of crimes against women committed there). If I hadn't had a beer and 2 glasses of wine I might not have made that decision, since I was very fond of that rose! Anyway, when I flung the rose I forgot that my keys were in my hand and I ended up flinging those over a brick wall and into the pitch black arboretum. Thence commenced the process of me trying to get my bum leg over the wall and then finding the keys in the dark. Fun times. I did indeed find them, and managed to make my way home without being raped, so I suppose we can be grateful for small favors.
Now off to class.
Finally had my MRI and the orthopedics appointment. It's not the terrible triad, but I did bust 2 out of the 3 possible things to mess up. My ACL and meniscus are both dust. Not only does this mean surgery, but since I messed up my meniscus, there is only a short window of time to repair it, which means I need to get it done soon. So basically, I will be spending my spring break having surgery to repair my knee. My mother shall be coming down to take care of me and my recovering-from-hip-surgery grandma, but it is still gonna suck a whole lot. I also have to recover knee mobility so that I can bend 120% by 3 weeks from now, so I have lots of little exercises to be working on. So awesome I can't even stand it.
But anyway, moving on to more entertaining things, if you haven't checked out my pictures on facebook from New Orleans you need to do it right away. Because they're awesome! My particular favorites are 1. the picture of me posing with the cannon, harkening back to my days in Ireland and France, and 2. the picture of me in my ball dress and crutches: coolest cripple picture EVER.
Anyway, yes, New Orleans was a ton of fun. Despite the whole missing our flight at the crack of dawn on Friday and getting into town 5 hours late, and both my grandmother and I using wheelchairs in the airport which was like a crazy circus show, and the fact that I got patted down and investigated at security because there's METAL IN MY BRACE, WHICH IS ENTIRELY OBVIOUS BUT APPARENTLY THEY HAD TO PRACTICALLY STRIP SEARCH ME ANYWAY, traveling wasn't too bad.
Highlights of the weekend included:
1. Walking around and shopping at Riverwalk, the mall along the Mississippi that was also connected to our hotel. Got the prettiest going-out shirt EVER that was 50% off and therefore actually affordable. The Cafe du Monde had mochas and beignes (New Orleans doughnuts) to die for. And the view was pretty spectacular.
2. Getting picked up by my grandmother's cousin Lester in a Mercedes, no less, and taken to lunch at the fanciest restaurant in town. For the rest of my life, every meal I eat will just not compare. It was so fantastically good I can't even describe it. My main course was grilled pompano in a sauce with lump crab meat on top, and despite nearly meeting my ultimate demise from a fish bone, it was the best food of my life.
3. Going to #1, the family house that is a bazillion years old and huge and fancy. It's covered in pictures of like every generation of the family and imagine my surprise to go in for the first time and find pictures of me on the wall! Met my grandma's 101 yr. old aunt who is on her last legs (figuratively, since she can't leave her bed anymore), met my cousin Hylah who was queen of the ball and took a picture with her, ate more good food. A note on Hylah: when I tried to shake her hand, it was like grasping a limp, slimy fish. Ok mabe not slimy, but you get the idea. Apparently debutante types don't shake hands or whatever. Her outfit was pretty cool though. Her dress was white and had silver sequiny things hand sewn all over, a ruff sort of like Queen Elizabeth would wear that weighed about 20 pounds, a sceptor, and a crown.
4. Watching the whole spectacle of the court at the ball. The masked lords, the ladies in white dresses, the little princesses, and of course Hylah who had 6 page boys helping to carry her 10 ft. long train, and she'd take a few steps and wave her sceptor, and then go a few more and wave it in the other direction. Ridiculous. The rest of the ball was pretty lame because there weren't many people my age and I couldn't dance considering my current condition, but still, it was worth seeing.
5. Getting to tour the French Quarter--we took a carriage ride pulled by a mule named Dixie! She gave me a kiss afterward, it was v. nice. It's so beautiful and all the decorations for Mardi Gras are going up, which is so fun. Ate lunch at another nice restaurant, went to a museum, took some pictures.
All was not entirely fun in New Orleans, of course. Once you leave the French Quarter the city is pretty much a mess. I'd say 1 out of every 8 houses in the neighborhoods are inhabited, some streets can't be driven down, there are cars parked that haven't been moved since the storm, etc. A lot of the houses you can see the water line was like 8 ft. high. One of the houses my grandmother lived in as a kid is completely busted...bricks fallen everywhere, debris, rubble, etc. Very sad. Not to mention the day we left is the day everyone that was living in the hotels had to check out and find somewhere else to live. Unfortunately, FEMA hasn't really provided trailors for everyone, so they have to move out to...nothing. Katrina shows up in the news all the time, but until you really see for yourself, you have no idea the true extent of the damage.
However...I think this sign that I saw in the city pretty much sums up the city's attitude to the hurricane and the future: "Nothing Stops Mardi Gras. Nothing."
On another note: I got written up the other night at a "Liquor is better than love" party in my friend David's room. It was sad, he'd gotten us roses and we were having a great time. A little too loud, apparently. Anyway, after I got written up I was pretty pissed off, and I wasn't paying attention when I was riding the bus back to north campus and I missed my stop. So I'm walking down Raleigh street in the middle of the night, angry at the world. Stupid boys, stupid holiday, stupid knee. And I'm getting madder and madder so I decide to make a grand gesture against the holiday and life in general and fling the rose into the arboretum (also known as the raporetum for the number of crimes against women committed there). If I hadn't had a beer and 2 glasses of wine I might not have made that decision, since I was very fond of that rose! Anyway, when I flung the rose I forgot that my keys were in my hand and I ended up flinging those over a brick wall and into the pitch black arboretum. Thence commenced the process of me trying to get my bum leg over the wall and then finding the keys in the dark. Fun times. I did indeed find them, and managed to make my way home without being raped, so I suppose we can be grateful for small favors.
Now off to class.