We ain't moving. And that's that. Why? Why? Why not move into a giant, lovely house that oozes potential and is currently hemorrhaging money? Why stay in NYC in my cramped apartment snidely nicknamed "The Shoebox"? Because, dammit, it's dangerous in New Orleans, that's why! The freakin' National Guard have been called back! There have been 54 murders (six this week!) and a section of a New Orleans neighborhood has been dubbed "The Triangle of Death"! I've lived in New York City my whole life and there's NEVER been a neighborhood saddled with a nickname like that.

About week before I left to return to NYC we found a posting in our local coffee haunt: a full typed page list of local crimes. Two weeks...one full typed page. And these weren't just little crimes. These weren't purse-snatchings. These were desperate, vicious and frightening. Stabbings, dogs being swiped from yards, people getting robbed at gunpoint, people getting robbed at knifepoint, people getting robbed at knifepoint on their own front porches, break-ins--one house got broken into twice in one week! On that single typed page there were three seperate attacks on pedestrians by a gang of young men brandishing a lead pipe wrapped in a towel. Three! In two weeks! They weren't even out for anyone's wallet--they're just out to bust heads. I don't have any idea why they bother with the towel...perhaps bonking people in the head with a naked pipe is too noisy. All of this occcured within 5 square blocks of the house within two weeks.

All that and hurricanes, too? Nope.

Deciding not to move was not an easy decision. Brian has a long history with New Orleans, and a lot of emotion wrapped up in that house. I don't have any ties to it, but I really like New Orleans. I love its funky charm and it's balls-out weirdness. I like that it's all rickety-looking and battle-scarred and slow and sultry and hot. I like the people. I love that our neighborhood reaction to the crime includes a sidewalk ceremony held in the name of Ogou Achade, The Voodoo Patron of Iron And The Forge**, although I'd rather people felt comfortable calling the police, instead. I hate the giant insects, but I figured I could learn to live with the idea of them once we'd hermetically sealed the house as best we could. I thought it would be a good idea for me--a lifelong New York City gal with a rock-solid, impenetrable, liberal, Northern, East Coast backround to spend some time in The South for a change of pace. And every day...no, really every hour after we made the decision to leave something charming and singularly New Orleans-ish would makes us pause and reconsider...until that ol' lead pipe story would creep back into our heads to bonk us back into reality.

In this instance, it was a raspberry Sno-Ball enjoyed in Audobon Park.

**You think I can make this stuff up? Hardly.