New Year:New Deal

Its 2007 already. I can't believe how quickly last year went by. Does each year speed up now until I shrivel up and die? I hope not.

I was checking over some of my resolutions from last year and the only one I really made was to give up smoking. I think I can say pretty confidently that I am no longer a smoker although I do still cheat every once in a while. What does that mean, I wonder? I did pick smoking up again pretty heavily while I was in West Texas but had given it up again by the time we came back to Austin. Now I restrict it to times when I am drinking with friends who also smoke, and even then I'm down from 10 cigarettes over the course of a night to more like 3. I have noticed that I don't get as tired in the middle of the day as I used to. Is this a result of my cessation? I don't know, but if I'm even partially as successful with this years' resolutions as last years then I'll be in great shape come 2008.

Josh and I just got back from a two week vacation in New Orleans. I had never been there before and Josh grew up there so it was nice to see the city from a somewhat native perspective.
The primary focus of our trip was FOOD. I've mentioned a million times before how Austin restaurants can't hold a candle to really good restaurants like you find in Houston and I can now include New Orleans restaurants in the higher regard reserved for such fine establishments as Star Pizza, Backstreet Cafe, and Barnaby's.

Star was our first stop, by the way, and in Josh's words it "lived up to its hype, somehow". The pizza and salad and dressing and everything was as good as I remember it being, if not better.

Once I get to describing New Orleans restaurants everything becomes a blur. I know that the first place we went, Domilisi's for Po-Boys, was not very good and was one of the dirtier places I've ever been in. Standout's for excellence include Irene's, Palace Cafe, Maspero's, R & O's, Adolfo's and of course Cafe du Monde, where I instantly became addicted to beignets and their mounds of snowy sugar. We also had an excellent Muffaletta at Central Grocery and yummy ginger creme brulee at Cafe East. There were a few disappointments, but overall I ate myself silly and gained 7 pounds in the short time we were there.

We had a really great vacation, but New Orleans is such a sad city. Bourbon street was boring to me (its just a bigger 6th street where you can take your drinks into the street with you and the bars don't close at 2am, big whoop). A year and a half after Hurricane Katrina prices are still gouged and trash and debris lies in every street, begging for some moderately industrious person to just come by and pick it up. We saw "Now Hiring" signs in the windows of almost every business we visited, and one restaurant we dined in had only 2 servers working despite a full dining area, probably a third or fourth of the needed staff. Having never been there before the storm, I don't know if things were always that way, but I can't help feeling a little disgusted. Meanwhile I hear stories of 'refugees' in Austin, San Antonio and Houston, turning middle class neighborhoods into slums and the coinciding rise in the crime rate (up to 40% in many areas, if not more). I don't mean to seem callous but seriously, enough already. My patience and sympathy with the situation are completely eroded. There are real victims, like Josh's grandparents who lost everything they had and whose home was reduced to its foundation and brick walls. At 84 and 89 they have relocated to a 2 bedroom apartment and have carried on with their lives as best they can. They are the one's that deserve additional help, not the countless hordes who sit front of their playstation's in some reduced rent apartment waiting for someone to come along and do the next step for them.

Whoa, so, on a lighter note...

I'm visiting my grandmother today and her health has improved so much since moving in with my mom, I'm so happy for her. I'm a little worried about my parent's though. Problems with my brother continue to grow and there's no hope in sight for them. I guess the only thing I can do is just stay out of their way and try to find a new job for the new year. I am very hopeful that another movie will start again this month. I have been hearing rumors of one for a few months but nothing concrete yet. If not, I will probably have to move or leave the business, but I'm not making any decisions this week.

I've got to leave soon to get back to Austin. I need to pick up my mail from the Post Office (I had it held while I was on vacation) and then I'm finishing up some laundry and going to the gym. Maybe later I'll get to watch a movie with my sweet boyfriend:)