I questioned whether I should go home to Cut Off this year. I’m allergic to my hometown (all the mold and mildew of the swamps). I don’t keep in touch with anyone back there (I was a social outcast back in high school). However, the family wants me. So, I’m there babye.

Arriving in New Orleans around 10PM, X-mas Eve, I was met with hugs and kisses as my mom, dad, Evan (newphew) and I went to my sister’s place. Phil (bro-in-law) and I did some guytalk catchup till I got some couch-crashing sleep. I was later woken up to kids running around, and a gift to unwrap in my face. It was cute. One set of nice really nice kitchen knives, an automatic tape dispenser, an MC Escher book later, and a few other cool toys later, we were outside marvelling at the first White Christmas New Orleans has had in 50 years. It was beautiful.

One smoked turkey, some ham and a Falgout Family Portrait later we left Mandiville around 4PM to head to Cut Off. We were concerned about the roads, since there was lots of snow, but Dad figured that if the Causeway (26 mi bridge, across the Ponchetrain bridge, which we had to cross) was open, then we were home free. Should we check to see if we would have problems getting across the Mississippi? Heck no! I mean, if we can get through a 26 mile bridge, then crossing the little ol’ Mississippi River, should be nothing.

We got past the Causeway, and I decided, it was naptime. I woke up to noticing us doing what seemed to be a U-turn on a major highway as 310 was closed off. (Our first choice for crossing the river) After some Falgout deliberation, we decided to take another bridge, and ended up taking a Left Handed Turn into some Frozen Swamplands. This later got us right to the river, but no way to cross. Which made us cross. After going up and down the river for many more miles, we found ourselves right back at the airport, where my whole adventure started, with no way to get over that tiny river. So, X-mas night was spent in the confines of a Best Western. Thankfully, the connecting Denny’s would be opening at 10PM.

What’s that? The employees can’t make it across the bridge either? No Denny’s X-mas Dinner for us? But Red Warrior needs food badly. So, we went outside, mom in her Mink Coat, me in my Leather Trenchcoat and dad in his “Goosedown” to go outside and walk about a block in the freezing weather, for food. On Christmas. It was around this point where we couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. Maybe it was the surrealism. Maybe it was that the three of us just spent 3 hours in a hotel room on X-mas night, snowed in, laying waste (Warning 2.6 Meg video. Right click and Save to File) to a considerably sized flask of Jack D. on an empty stomach.

We walked into the Hilton’s Sports Bar, and was much later approached by a waitress who looked like she was at the end of her proverbial rope. So, we gave her some proverbial slack. Apparently, due to the weather, she had been working since 2PM. Mind you, when we finally get there, it was 10-11PM. Food. Drinking. Popcorn. Drinking. Yea, X-mas is over!

We walk back to the hotel, all read some more and even partake in some ballet watching. “Well, I guess we’re not making it to church tomorrow.” Crash.

Wake up. Get dressed. Go to Denny’s (finally open!) and we notice that our Hostess seems to have a hard time dealing with the sheer amount of people that have bombarded her. This, I’m sure, because she seemed to have a hard time even dealing with just 1-2 people. We’re finally seated (I think we must have earned some good karma last night as the hostess actually walked us to our table, rather than the couple in front of us who just got pointed to where they were supposed to sit.) and got some food (none of us got what we ordered, but we dealt). Little bit later: “Say, is that Pastor Jemison?” (Pastor of the church we were supposed to go to this Sunday morning.) “Holy cow!” So, we called him on over to our table and greetings abound.

Come to find out, he had to get one of his son’s to the airport and somehow got here, but had to wait as his son had missed his original flight to Beruit, and was trying to get on standby. At one point, his wife called and I was amused by this transaction I had with her on the phone:
“Yeah, he’s (Pastor J) playing hooky from church.”
“But so are we.”
“True. But he’s paid to be good. You’re good for nothing.”
(Have I told you how I love word tricks?)

Anyways, we say our goodbyes, and get back on the road. Back to 310, which Dad is hopeful is open as it’s now 50 degrees outside and most of the snow seems to be gone. Ok, so we didn’t earn THAT much good karma. After talking to some of the people who were in “line” to get on that frozen highway, we decided to not wait and made that SAME LEFT HANDED TURN, back into the swamps. This time, I got pictures in the light.

After another on-ramp barricade, we talked to the cop and the two of the exact same people who were in “line” back at 310 and came up with a gameplan with our newfound information from the cop. 2 Bridges open. One inside New Orleans, one far, far away. Of course, being Falgouts, we let them head into the fire (read: city) and we took the long route. I think it ended up being the best bet as the traffic going into the city was horrible. (twice as long, none of the traffic). My dad told me that this was a good lesson as I was learning the backroads of Louisiana. I told him that I hoped that I would never have to use this information again. I decided not to tell him that a better lesson would be to drive the speed limit (not under) and pick a lane (he was literally in the middle of the road while on the Sunshine Bridge). This had been trying on us all, so I digressed.

So, just shy of 24 hours after we originally left my sisters place, we finally made it home. Only to find out that my old bedroom had been completely redecorated.

This story does have a happy ending tho. I later went out and purchased some Popeye’s deep fried chicken, and a daiquari for myself and a pina colada for mom w/o even leaving the car. Gotta love drive through alcohol stores in Louisiana.

–Snoopykiss now knows what they mean when they say, “You can’t go home.”

Blurting out “Speaking of Jesus” is quite an effective way to transistion between two completely unrelated subjects.
If ever there is a position which seems impossible, but amusing, I will always enlist my friends to help me try it out.
I will never get tired of some people saying “w00t”.
It’s ok to say “For the Love of Booty” to some girls.
I do crazy things when I drink.
The difference between my friends and my aquaintences are the number of inside jokes and band names we’ve come up with. “Underwater Ass Seizure”, “No Funk For Tommy”, “Suzi Bites and Nibbles”

ALWAYS have your camera ready.
I do crazy things when I’m sober.

Within the last 6 hours of my stint in Portland, I’m in the back seat of Barb’s (who must have cast some type of spell on my Lee to make him so smitten by her), almost drooling on her pillow (containing a patter that strangely resembles a part of the female anatomy) and I then wake up to the Pacific Ocean. Not just any part of it. Cannon Beach…”Astoria.”…Where they shot “Goonies“.

“Holy cow! That’s…”
“Yeah.”
“Sweet!”
“Dude.”

Having never woken up to such a majestic site in my life, I started frolicking.. I had no idea that this was what my soul needed. Upteen billion gallons of water. And a rock sticking out of it.

Thanks Barb and Lee, for the grand-times. Oh yeah, and for letting me play with your iPod. I’m sure eventually, I’ll learn to use it properly.

And a special thank you to Heidi. I was never a big fan of sushi. (Now I know it’s about as good of a laughing instrument as milk.) Oh yeah, and for the Architecture geek-out time too.

–SnoopyKiss feels like doing The Truffle Shuffle.

P.S. Check out my panoramic pics. Lee says they are “TEH RULES!”.

After taking enough trips for dancing/swing related events, I decided to do something completely different: Accept an invitation to go to Baltimore/Wash. DC to see a wedding of someone I had never met before, a friend of an x-girlfriend. And get some dancing in, if I’m so inclined.

As you might know the x-gf in reference is Melissa, the only girlfriend who matched the “area code” rule Lee and I created. (My mobile’s 214, so close enough.) We parted on good terms and have kept in touch.

I had always seen pictures of the beautiful spread out houses of New England and was delighted to see that unlike my neighborhood, you could walk out your front door for more than 10 straight steps and not be on the road. These people had yards! I mean REAL yards. Ones with more than 50 blades of grass. And hills! And REAL houses. Not ones that have some floorplan as 20 other houses in the same 1 mile radius.

While doing touristy stuff there, I saw the Baltimore harbor, had a deee-licious crab cake and observed some of the local marine life. Afterwards, a Asian wedding was to be had and if you know anything about Asian weddings, you know that at the end, you won’t be hungry for days. I partook of a 12 course meal, that went on for hours. Thankfully, I shed that shyness layer a while back and I was able to socialize with a bunch of people I’d never met before and even walked out with a small gift!

I also did some dancing. Well, I tried, but the music was too fast, and definitely not to my style. I only danced with 3 people the entire night. One of which was a woman who used to live in Austin and was in desparate need of some Texas style dancing. (which I was already missing) I hung out with some of peeps afterwards, and although they were cool enough (they started writing funny sayings on the Equal and pink stuff), the guys definitely don’t treat outsiders as well as I’m accustomed to. (“Hey Texas. Go get me some more sugar packets.”)

The next day I got to play around on a carousel and witness Contra dancing. And then ahhh….back home to Dallas where I’ve been running around like a crazy person with his head chopped off…but still with all of his motor functions. Err…nevermind. In any case, I’ve been busy and am finally getting a chance to journal this.

— SnoopyKiss likes the dancing in Dallas, because DC’s too fast. And the people are cooler too. Those kids and their damn fast music.

A while back, my good frirend Teel told me about this place called
Kerrville. Being somewhat perceptive, I noticed that Teel seemed to like
this place a lot. A LOT. Like A LOT, A LOT. No really. More than that.

After finally letting my mind accept the fact that if I went to the
Kerrville Music and Wine festival, I would have to be camping the entire
weekend, possibly w/o showering. I did enough of that back as a kid to know
that it’s not my cup of tea, coffee, beer, or soy protein drink. However,
feeling adventurous and curious, I decided to jump in.

I would say that I got more than I expected, but how can you really expect
something like Hippies named Shaggy, sampling and passing out numerous Texas
wines, skinny dipping and staying up till 5AM with about 20 other people
listening to lots of folk music and comtemplating life?

Without a doubt, my favorite part of the weekend was being on wine duty,
where people would give someone else a dollar for a ticket and then give me
a ticket for “a taste” of wine. The quotation marks are because as I
“tasted” the wine myself, my “tastes” got bigger. For both me and the
ticket holders. It was a win/win situation. Except that I was on a red
wine table, and I strictly prefer sweet white wine. But that just meant I
got to make friends with … uh, um … some vinyard that had a really good
traditional Reisling. Man, I wish I remembered who it was. Mind you, snake bites can be pretty nasty.

There was also a wedding!

By the time it was over, I was sleep deprived to the point where I was seeing things, stinky and having problem
comprehending the English language. All the signs of a good time.

— Tommy now thinks that hippies are cool!

I’ve
always known that I’m surrounded by some of the greatest people on Earth.
I think that God has blessed me in many ways by providing me with friends
that care for me deeply and will support me eternally. This weekend, I got
to be a Groomsman in the wedding for one of those people that I hold very,
very high: Jeromy McDerment.

Jeromy and I were Sophmore roommates back in my zany days of college.
During that time, I was off persuing my own ways, trying to figure myself
and my life out; meanwhile, Jeromy was a strong Christian influence on me
which was unwavering and never-ending brotherly love. He and his brother
Cliff, and Cliff’s wife, Brooke, always amazed me at the amount of pure love
and respect they had for each other. They don’t know this, but they were
my idols back in college. Jeromy and I always used to kid about who the
other people was going to marry and about our futures. (Ahem…Annette McDerment!)
And now I got to see this lucky girl who Jeromy asked to be his wife. I
first found out about Cathy when Jeromy told me that he was engaged. I knew
that they were perfect for each other after seeing this picture of them.

Now onto the wedding:

I carpooled with some of Jeromy’s current friends and one of my old Tulane buddies,
Aaron Kirtley. (One of the smartest men I know, who just finished MIT graduate
school and knows at least 3 languages and is a very humble and pleasant person.
Pretty good for someone who also looks like Matt Damon.)
We caught up and had lunch together at the mall where we discovered the freaky
chicken guy. (Some white guy who wore lots of makeup, had dreadlocks which
he wore up while some dreads beaded down his white beret.) We got to the
hotel to discover they had Krispy Kreme
right across the street. My taste buds were more than happy to take some
free samples and eat some for breakfast, dinner and lunch the following days.
After the rehersal and rehersal dinner, I crashed after getting only 2 hours
of sleep in the last 48.

The wedding went almost flawlessly, except for the limo driver who didn’t know what he was doing and passed the church on more than one occasion.

Here’s some pictures from the wedding:

One of my favorites: The bride and groom getting heart shaped sugar-paper tossed at them.

After the wedding, the two of them couldn’t keep their hands (or lips) off of each other. We then went to this beautiful park
to take some pictures. Come to find out, we weren’t the only ones to have
that idea. There were about 5 other bridal parties taking pictures at the
same park that time. Some of them apparently had a hard wedding and needed
to help loosen up. Some people were also fishing at the park and caught a biggie. Jeromy learned that if you ever need support, to just call on your friends.

Following the picture taking was the reception. Were the women had their hands up most of the time either catching stuff, or doing the YMCA. And of course, what would be a wedding w/o the ceremonial wrapping of the groom’s car. Maybe I should get out of the way.

The next day I went to Niagara Fall’s
with some of Jeromy’s buddies and we had a good time talking about the follys
of life, Krispy Kreme, women and of course…how to meet them. The best
thing we could come up with was following in the footsteps of this one guy
who we saw walk past us with a T-shirt that said, “Available.” How much
easier could it get except for adding your phone number to the back?

Needless to say, Niagara Falls
was breaktaking. I forget how many gallons of water flow over each minute,
but it was some number larger than my bank account. Oh, and here’s something
I didn’t know. Niagara Falls is actually two water falls. One is “America Falls” and the other is “Horseshoe Falls“. People say that the Canadian side has a more attractive view, but I think that it couldn’t get much better than where I was standing. One thing I really liked was the cloud of vapor that rose from the Horseshoe Falls. Me and the guys also went on a boat ride to the middle of Horseshoe Falls which was awesome. If you’re ever there, you MUST go. Oh, and yes, I took all of those pictures myself.

All in all, it was an amazing experience and I am so glad that I was able
to be a part of my good friend Jeromy’s wedding. Many blessings and much
love to you bro. Thanks for everything.

8/5/02 – Just in case you were wondering if I had any fun. 🙂 (That’s Cliff and Brooke in front of me.) Here’s another good picture of the couple.