Mardi Gras begins...and mom comes.

Ramping up for the last week-end before Mardi Gras day.And Mom comes to visit. And since she always brings them toys, the dogs go wild...even Merida, who has not met her before.

Took Mom to some day parades on Sunday. She quickly went from spectator to insane little old lady chasing floats and screaming "Throw me something!"

And she loved my parade pal Sammy.

Here she is with some of her swag...most of which she left behind for me to re-purpose.

Here Belle explains to my Mom how to be safe at parades.

And yes, we were at the Nyx parade Wednesday night where the woman got waffled trying to walk between two floats that were hitched together. Apparently she tripped over the hitch and the second float ran over her. I mean, how do you even do that? No one else in the history of Mardi Gras parades has ever thought of trying to walk between two halves of a tandem float before. But because of her, they ended the parade at that point, not quite half way through it. Naturally all of my liberal friends here are wailing with grief over her untimely exit and I've been humming the "Dumb Ways to Die" song for the last two days.

I also took Mom out to several good restaurants and bars. Here she is with one of my favorite jazz and blues singers, Romy.

Here Merida explains things to my Mom. And they got on great. My mom now has three "grand-puppies".

Now Mom's gone home and I'm getting ready for the last week-end of insanity, balancing between partying and working at parties for the $$$.

Mom visit AAR

So I think my mom had some fun while she was here.

I took er on a guided tour of St. Louis Cemetery, the oldest in the city, to see the above-ground tombs used here.

As a bonus, the tour was conducted by a good friend of mine, who also happens to be a die-hard feminist and social justice warrior.

Then I took mom to the Gumbo Festival for food and music from local brass bands.

Out for breakfast, drinking mimosas.

To part of a drag show, one that turned out to be just a little too risque.

We did a few museums and galleries around the city.

And we visited a private collection of Mard Gras Indian memorabilia.

We also went to a few shows at night, and mom took to a burlesque show hosted by another friend of mine surprisingly enthusiastically.

And she actually won the grand prize!

And of course there was much quality time with her "grand-puppies" as she calls them.

We packed a lot into four days but now she's home and life is returning to normal...whatever that is.

She's heeeere!

Sorry for the lack of posts. My dear mother has come to visit me so I'm taking some time to show her the sights and introduce her to some of my friends and acquaintances.

Meanwhile, the rest of New Orleans just elected a new mayor, a woman who, while on the city council, was notable for her personal misuse of a government credit card, and IRS lien on her house for failing to pay her taxes for several years. Her excuse: "But I took care of all of those things when I filed to run for mayor, so it's in the past now and we're not going to talk about it." And we're not supposed to talk about how her husband lost his job as a prosecutor on the city's drug court when he dropped his own marijuana on the floor in front of a police officer at the courthouse. But she was a staunch advocate of tearing down "racist" statues to our Civil War dead, so she is gold to a certain chunck of the constituency, notably the masses of young liberal transplants who have been infesting this city since the attention that this city got post Katrina made it a "hip" place to be.

This is why New Orleans is a cesspool of poverty and corruption, and not coincidentally, a bright blue (solid Democrat) island in the middle of an otherwise economically stable red state. The voters do stupid stuff like this every chance they get and then sit around carping the the state and Washington DC aren't sending enough money to help them out. And they just gave the keys and checkbooks to a woman who has already proven that she cannot be trusted with a simple credit card and turned responsibility for policing the city's employees over to someone who refused to pay her own taxes while ignoring the fact that her husband used the same drugs that he was paid to prosecute other city residents for having.

So should I start behaving like the liberals across America are doing in regards to President Trump and rampaging around destroying stuff while pretending that she's not really the mayor?

My mom and the homicide suspect.

Wow.

They just arrested "Uncle Louie", one of New Orleans' oldest and most visible street performers.

Uncle Louise arrested.

This guy has been around forever. And unlike many of the current ones, he's always been polite and courteous and never nasty or pushy.

And this past Christmas, he even met my mom.

Hey Mom, now you really have a story can tell the other little old ladies that you hang out with.

Lookin' good, Mom!

For your age, anyway.

Happy Birthday, Ma.

It's that time of year again.

September 18th. My Mom's birthday.

Every year I ponder over what to do for her special day. I used to send her gift cards, but then she's always drive to the mall to buy something, and that never really worked out well.

Mom at the mall, 2014

Mom at the mall, 2013

Mom at the mall, 2012

Mom at the mall, 2011

Sadly, she's been doing this sort of thing for a while now. Here's a picture of her first day behind the wheel in High school Driver's ed.

One year, trying to set a new tone, we chipped in and bought her a day cruise, figuring how could she ever have a problem on a boat?

Yeah, that's my Mom all right...nothing if not consistent.

But at least she shoots well with a 1911. And she does it while rocking a pair of pink fuzzy slippers.



Happy Birthday, Mom...and a birthday kiss for you.
.

For Mother's Day...

Here's my mother, with what she calls her two Grand-Puppies, when she came to visit recently.



Happy Mother's Day, mom!

So I'm driving into work this morning...

and I'm pissed, because I got a late start. Now I made most of the lost time up through "creative driving", but then I wound up hitting the drive-through coffee spot half a second behind some jerkwater in a minivan who placed an order and then pulled up to the pick-up window and just sat there, waiting, for SIX MINUTES! Now I and others behind me are also forced to wait due to the high curbs that prevent us from just chucking our orders and driving away, so all I can do is curse and beam hate-waves at this guy for SIX MINUTES while I wait for a FREAKING CUP OF COFFEE, all because this ass-monkey ordered a bag of breakfast sandwiches and INSISTED that they be made fresh, according the trained food-hander-outer at the window.

Now I'm pissed at this guy for being such a thoughtless jackass when he could have just as easily parked and gone inside to wait on this order, but I'm also cheesed at the lazy slobs at the drive-thru who couldn't be bothered to tell this chowderhead to pull ahead fifteen feet and let the rest of us get our simple orders and be gone. I mean, God forbid that "Double-wide Bertha" at the window actually have to walk this guy's sack of sandwiches out to him...far better that me and everyone else in line line sit and cool our heels, because hey--we're only on the way to our jobs, right? So what if we're late?

And yeah, when I got to work, I looked up the drive-thru and hit both their website and their corporate site with a complaint only slightly less strong than this one. Bad customer service exists because too many people are willing to take it. And tomorrow, I'll get my coffee at the gas station across the street.

Breath.

Another breath.

Better now.

Anyway, just a bit later, I'm getting texted at 5AM by my mother, who is just getting to bed after a night spend clubbing reading Old NFO's first book "The Grey Man--Vignettes", which I sent her on Kindle yesterday. (It's on special this week, so check it out.) She apparently could not put it down and stayed up all night reading it. She said that she hasn't read a book that good in a long time and begged for anything else that he writes.

Well, coincidentally, he did write another one, and it's just now out: The Grey Man--Payback. And her new Kindle copy is enroute to her as I type this. And my hard-copy version is on it's way here to complement my copy of the first book (which I seem to have misplaced...)

Anyway...Buy this book.

If you bring your copies to next month's blogshoot in eastern West Virginia, I suspect that the author will sign them.

Another Birthday, Mom? Really?

I never realized just how old my mom is until she came to visit last month. I took to an antique auction and three people bid on her.

This got me to thinking. I tried to figure out how old she was by looking at her driver's license, but it was in roman numerals. Her Social Security number was no help, either. It's "1".

But I did discover that my Mom is so old that:

--She has an autographed copy of the Bible.
--She has a book with pictures of the Founding Fathers in it...and it's her High School yearbook.
--Her first job was as a waitress at the Last Supper.
--Her first pet was a T-Rex.
--She still owes Michelangelo five dollars.
--Her initials are on three trees in the Petrified Forest.
--She was a hostess at the Boston Tea Party.


The other day, my mom was discussing the travails of getting older with two of her friends.
One said, "Sometimes I catch myself with a jar of mayonnaise in my hand, while standing in front of the refrigerator, and I can't remember whether I need to put it away, or start making a sandwich."

The second lady chimed in with, "Yes, sometimes I find myself on the landing of the stairs and can't remember whether I was on my way up or on my way down."

My Mom responded, "Well, ladies, I'm glad I don't have that problem. Knock on wood." She rapped her knuckles on the table and thddden said "Someone's at the door. I'll get it!"



Happy Birthday, Ma!

Aren't you glad now that you pointed out that I forgot to post about your birthday last year?

PS--There's a delivery going to be showing up at your place today, so don't wander off until it gets there, ok?

Hounds to the Hound Park

Because I've been neglecting my canines recently.

At the dog park last night, Murphy chases down his prey, a little old lady.

Whoops. Sorry Mom. But at least Belle is well behaved, lying in the grass.

Here, they work as a pack, hunting for a groundhog that was over here a bit before.

Spud is well guarded by the dogs up on the park bandstand

And here, the dogs were going for a nice walk with Spud until they realized that I wasn't joining them. They like the boy, but they're not going anywhere with anyone who isn't me.

And yeah, I know...the kid needs a haircut in the worst way.

The week that my mother was accidentally cool

Yeah, it happened once, years ago.

I had borrowed her car for some reason or another, and as was the norm back then, I took a few of my music cassettes with me to listen to. (If you have to ask what a cassette was, you're too young to read this blog. And stay off my lawn, you damned kids.)

Some days later, I noticed that I couldn't find a particular one. I didn't think much of it at the time, but about a week later, I was back at my mother's place and when I looked in her car, there it was, still in the cassette player. When I asked her about it, she said that she really liked that cassette and that she'd been playing it all week.

"You liked that cassette?" I asked, rather surprised.

She replied that she did. She said that she liked the singer.

I asked if she knew who he was, and she replied that, no, she did not. Apparently she just liked the ballads that comprised much of the tape. Of course when I explained to her who Meatloaf was, and that the name of the cassette was "Bat out of Hell", she immediately changed her opinion and gave the tape back to me.

And so ended her brief bout of coolness. So sad.

But here you go, Ma. Just in case you want to be cool again when you're out bombing around with your Red Hat posse.

What to do with your mom. Day #4

Today, I decided to take my dear mother for an aerial tour of the area. We had low clouds, high winds, and a fair bit of convective activity today, but weather says that it's probably the best day we'll get all week, so...

We took off behind one of the Air Force C-5 Galaxys who was obviously in a hurry, because he taxied out and took off as soon as he hit the end of the runway--no sitting around at the Hold Short line doing a checklist for this guy.



We got up and it was pretty turbulent but not unbearable. I'd planned two long trips for today, one a primary and one a back-up in case weather was bad along the first route, but both destinations were IFR today so we just stayed local.

So I went south a bit, then hedge-hopped over the ridge to the west and found a new skeet range that I'd not seen before.


Then I saw berms and firing lines and recognized where we were: over the Peacemaker Range in Glengary, WV.

Some of you will recall that we had a Wounded Warrior fundraiser shoot there two years ago. (We'll be doing another one this year yet, just not there. Stay tuned for updates.) In fact, we shot in this range:



The pace seems to have grown a bit since we were there. The skeet range is new, and they've got other ranges too now, it appears.

It's a nice secluded place, but there's no hiding from the eye in the sky.


However, courtesy of the convection, we were getting bounced around pretty good, and there were a couple of rain squalls moving through the area, which kept things interesting for me but taxed my mom a bit so out of respect for her tummy we cut the tour short and went back into the airport. The winds were brisk but right down the runway, and I greased it in with nary a bounce and taxied back to the parking area. I made up for the short flight by taking her to a great little Thai place out past the Llama farm. She'd never had Thai before, but the Thai iced tea, Chicken coconut soup and Shrimp Pad Thai won her over. In fact, she was so satisfied that we only had to stop at two antique stores on the way back here. (Of course had we drove past a third one on the way, I'm pretty sure that we'd have had to pop into that one, too.)

Now she's out on the deck brushing Murphy, and he's in his glory.

How come she can brush him and he likes it, but when I do it, I get nipped at?