An Average Sunday "Morning" At Home

Click here or on the picture above for the Quicktime, or here for the Flash rendition of my day off this weekend. I work the overnight shift 7pm to 7am, which can wreak havoc on my days off. Specifically, it virtually destroys that very first day off after a string of shifts, because I need a whole day to re-adjust to a more "normal" schedule. I get home from work at 8:30am, go straight to bed, wake up at around 3pm and start my day. This leads to dinner at 10pm, and a whole night of...well...killing time at home. Few of my friends want to meet me for dinner at 10pm, so I keep busy with various in-house activities such as attempting to interact with the television as much as possible. But no matter how much I talk to it, it never listens...

...until last night, that is.

Featuring some of America's favorites: Hummus, The Tick, The Punisher, James bond, The Girl Scouts and a couple of 1970's monster movie icons.

Wicked Lester?

We're just one big happy family!

Okay...so we're one big weird happy family...

But come on: We Rock!

And before you go calling the ASPCA on me about MaisieGene: what you see there is the magic of Photoshop. BigB and I, however, are covered with grease-based make-up and sweating like crazy...I don't know how Mr. Simmons and the other members of KISS managed under such sticky conditions! Maybe there's some sort of genetic link between underactive sweat glands and always behaving like an asshat.

The Door

We're going to try something new today! People who don't use web-based or desktop video aggregators to view my posts have reported some difficulties; many folks don't have Quicktime. Let's see if this helps:

Click here or on the picture for the Quicktime version.

(ED:it used to say " Or click here for flash...but it totally isn't working...I'll try again later...I'm cranky...I was so excited about it...)

(Re-ED:It's later now. You can click here for a flash version at Blip.tv, where this video lives)

It's very short and not the least bit sweet.

Unfortunately, my neighbor is losing her mind. She either needs major meds or has decided not to refill the prescription she already has for whatever it is that ails her. This is a tiny snippet of what I've been treated to ove rthe last several months...usually it goes on for hours. And hours. And hours.

(please toss me a litttle feedback about this whole Flash-thingy...thanks)
(totally don't bother...it ain't working...)
(Yeah, go ahead and let me know about that Flash link...)

Things I Will Miss About NYC #1 (because by 2007 I'm moving)

Taxis used to be the ultimate New York City luxury. Raining? Take a cab. Cold? Take a cab. Tired? Take a cab. I used to take a taxi home from work any Saturday or Sunday morning. It's about a 15 minute walk from the subway to the hospital, and the weekends invariably bring unannounced trackwork resulting in long waits and sometimes no trains at all. Spending $12 (including tip) to get home in 10 minutes vs. anywhere between one hour and this-side-of-never always seemed worth it. After the big fare hike in 2004, I've really needed to take my city driving habit down a few notches. Only the pouring rain or being frightfully late can get me into a taxi these days. That trip home from work is now around $16. That's a pretty steep considering that for the same money you can treat yourself to the OTHER ultimate New York City luxury: the manicure/pedicure.

Now, I haven't done a great deal of U.S. traveling, but other major cities don't seem to offer the same wide range of extremities services that New York does. There are, quite literally, ten nail salons within ten blocks of my house. And I'm only counting those on my nearest stretch of avenue. If you throw in the avenues to my immediate north, you can triple or perhaps quadruple that figure. For those of you who don't measure distance in "blocks", ten blocks is about 1/3 mile. That's a lot of local acetone.

The price of a manicure has barely changed in 15 years. I had my very first manicure with my boss at a salon around the corner from the TGI Friday's where we worked. It cost $5...$7 with tip. These days, the same manicure (actually, a new and improved one) costs me $6...$8 with tip and sometimes $9 or $10, depending. The real bargain happens when you throw in a $13 pedicure and you get a discount for both: $16...$21-$25 with tip**. Why spend $16 on a taxi when you can spend it getting spiffed up, lacquered, softened and massaged? And if you really feel like treating yourself to something special, you can always upgrade to the mysterious "European" manicure or pedicure. I'm not sure what's European about being coated with turquoise goo and then wrapped in Saran for 20 minutes, but it's only an extra ten bucks. In more expensive neighborhoods you will find mani/pedis for more money, certainly. And I suppose you can go to a department store or any of the super fancy*** nail salons and spend upwards of $50 on just your toes...but why? I guess environment draws some women to the fancier places. I'm just not put off by fluorescent lighting, fake wood panels, plastic plants and Lite FM. As long as your salon sports big cushy vibrating pedicure chairs and a UV Quick Dry machine, I'm there!

With so many places to choose from, competition for your business is fierce. When one salon introduces a new add-on say, like hot lotion, quick-drying top coat, higher-grade polish, mineral soak or exfoliating scrubs, everyone else up the avenue has to do it, too. The latest innovation is the 5-minute head and neck massage which can range from sublime to abusive depending on whose hands you've been left in.

Nail salons in New York City are overwhelmingly Korean-owned, or, at least, Korean-staffed. My neighborhood is wildly diverse so even in these shops you'll find the occasional Brazilian, Croatian, Central American or Estonian nail tech. The salons are often named after their owner (or, more frequently, the manager-who-is-the-owner's-wife). There is Anna Nails, Suzie Nails, Hannah and Her Sister Nails, Christine Nails and my new favorite nail haunt: Pema Nails. Pema is from Tibet.

All the familiar budget-salon trappings can be found at Pema Nails. Wood paneling, harsh lighting, outdated magazines. But what makes Pema Nails special is the framed poster of The Dalai Lama draped with golden scarves with a mini-shrine complete with incense and flowers. There is a giant back-lit lightbox image of The Great Wall of China next to a smaller picture of The Himalayas. There is a small tv that is perpetually tuned in to The Game Show channel. The radio is blasting WKTU. There is a very out-of-place poster for "Footballers Wives" next to the autoclave. Pema herself is always smiling and chatty. As much as I loathe WKTU, I love it in there. All the manicurists are relatives of Pema's with one exception: Erica.

Erica is a pint-sized, nose-ring-wearing, Love's-Baby-Soft-smelling, gothy-dressing, softly-smiling, giggly, punk-rock slip of an Ecuadorian girl. She has a different primary colored streak in her hair every month, and she insists that she's 20 but I don't believe her. Her English is pretty darn good, she wants to go to college and she likes to make conversation, which I like. I find it difficult to sit through such an intimate activity without talking. How can you not converse with someone massaging cream halfway up your arm? She makes fun of me for making faces during the foot scrub and for giggling throughout her tweak-tweak shoulder massage (I'm ticklish--it's sweet torture). She responds by switching to an as-yet-undocumented massage method I like to call "Toddler Temper Tantrum". She just balls up her teeny fists and beats all over my back with them. It's not exactly relaxing, but it's not altogether unpleasant. It always ends in more laughter.

All of this should be written in past tense as I have not seen Erica for several weeks. I'm not sure where she's gone to and when I asked after her, Pema looked wounded--as if her feelings were hurt thinking that I didn't want her to do my nails. I'm hoping Erica has moved on to a better job with a better pay scale. These ladies make anywhere from $35 to $65 a shift, with tips on top of that. Those shifts are long, and most people tip only $2 per manicure, and each one can take an hour. Not a great rate. Tipping is a curious thing: even if you want to overdo it, you don't want to look ostentatious. To tip $5 on a 6$ service just looks...show-offy, but for Erica, I always did it anyway.

My first and by far most petty concern about leaving New York is this: who is going to do my nails?

Coming Soon: Things I Will Miss About NYC #2 (because by 2007 I'm moving)--"Where can a girl get a decent borek around here?"

**You gotta up the tip when you start adding feet into the mix because...well...it's feet.
***That salon is owned by a different old restaurant boss of mine...and she yelled at us a lot, too. I like to describe her as "hyperefficient".

A break from my workstress

First off, a thousand thank yous. A million. I was totally overwhelmed at the outpouring of caring and warm wishes in response to my last post--just bowled over and deeply touched. I now feel a whole lot more comfortable writing/filming posts about work; the good as well as the not-so-good. Again, manymanymany thanks.

Secondly, I find myself missing New Orleans. I miss my honey and I miss my dog. They're both still down there working on the house. Well, BigB is working on the house. Maisie is mostly lying on the porch. I miss the warmer weather and I miss my Raspberry Pearl Baby.

Being from New York City, I never did learn how to drive a car.

2001: A Space Odyssey
Bluegrass 2001
12 Great Instrumental Recordings

Became a Nurse

This is a long one. About 6 minutes--three minutes over my self-enforced limit. Sometimes limits were set to be broken. Click the pic or here to see the state I was in when I came home from work this morning. I was unsure of whether to post it, so I hurried up and did it anyway lest I change my mind. No titles. No editing...hence the length.

I only hit around 40% of the points I wanted to make, but that's what happens when there's no script. There's a fair amount of rambling here, and I just kind of plotzed. Inspired by Monika, I meant for this to be a post about why I became a nurse and why I enjoy it so much and instead the post turned out to be something else altogether.

A detailed work-related text post will follow offering clarifications, definitions and more fleshed out ideas...maybe tomorrow. I'm really very drained.

NOPD=?

No, I didn't get arrested in New Orleans. But a friend of mine did, and under bogus charges. Click here or above for his story, click here for other similar stories and/or read below for details. A brief glossary:

OPP as in Orleans Parish Prison (not as in this)
ICE as in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (not as in this)

Having a videocamera in your hand at the wrong time is not a good thing in New Orleans, particularly when you are, in fact, filming your surroundings in order to maintain a certain level of safety from the police. I filmed him telling his story on Canal street as we waited for a Mardi gras parade to reach us. The next day we all planned to meet up for some more Mardi Gras fun, but alas, he had been arrested again. Something about "interfering with a police action" when in fact, he was taping run-of the mill French Quarter Mardi Gras madness and a police car drove into the scene, presumably to break it up a bit. Except they didn't, really. They just arrested him. Add a side of "resisting arrest" to that order, please.

Introducing The Simpsons: LIVE!

I didn't make this video, but I sure wish I had. If you're a Simpsons fan, or even if you aren't, you gotta love this. You can either click on the "Play" prompt in the center of the picture and watch it right here, or click on the YouTube logo and and go see it there. Watch it while you can, before Fox's lawyers get ahold of it...

Oscar? I don't even KNOW her!

Acadamy Awards? Jon Stewart? Comments? Questions? Concerns? Seemed to me that the first half of the opening monologue plotzed, but he picked up speed once he got to the Gay Cowboys Through The Ages montage and became progresively more comfortable as the evening wore on. The Acadamy has once again cast a wry, witty, small-screen East Coaster to host the show (think Letterman, think Rock) only to recoil in horror when they take jabs at Hollywood. The movie industry takes itself way too seriously. People: you work in entertainment. Entertainment.

Hollywood should actually be jabbed at more often. Those creepy production numbers were reminiscent of the infamous Rob Lowe/Snow White song & dance fiasco of 1989. I liked Jon Stewart. I don't think they'll ask him back next year, but I think in the end he was pretty damn funny. Not as funny as Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep, though--you think any of those new big-eyed startlets could have pulled that off? Keira and Reese, perhaps? Or maybe Jennifer and Jennifer? I seriously doubt it.

I liked the faux smear ads. I liked Uma's dress. I like that luminous little Chinese actress whose name I can't pronounce (can I use her as a Christmas Tree angel next year? She's just so teeny and adorable and glowing--is that messed up? Wanting to use a human being as an ornament?) and I liked that Three 6 Mafia won for best song. Not the competition was fierce, or anything, but they were just so darn psyched about it. I really liked the South African winner for Best Foreign Film. Everyone else seemed bored.

And, really, so was I.

The cable box gets turned in tomorrow. I wish my last tv hurrah could have been a little more thrilling. Maybe I should wait a week.

"It's a mixed message town right now."

Click on the photo (or here) for further insight into New Orleans' current mixed message. Here's one last Mardi Gras video for posterity--well, maybe not the last. It's a sampler platter of characters I ran into on Mardi Gras, each one more outrageous and memorable than the last. Where else can you enjoy an "airplane" taxiing down a city street? Or Colonel Sanders surrounded by giant-sized chickens? Or a dapper older gentelman dancing with an Outer Space mermaid? A man sporting a permanently wind-blown tie? New Orleans, of course. A place where it's possible--likely, even--for traffic to come to a dead halt due to spontaneous dancing in the streets.

What else is there to do but hop out of your car and join in?

Where else can you get away with traipsing around the city dressed as Gene Simmons when it's months away from being Halloween? Needleess to say, The Three Genes were a big hit. People screaming everywhere we went "You wanted the best, you got the best!". We even got called out by Peaches at her show at One Eyed Jacks. You simply haven't lived 'till someone yells "WE GOT KISS IN THE HOUSE!!!" in referrence to you from the stage of their own concert. It rocked. Next year we plan to add spandex.

I wanted so very much to have some coherent footage of The Three Genes but, alas, it was not to be. So instead you get incoherent footage of the Three Genes. Too much wine, too much giggling and way too much of Gene #3 pushing the buttons of the ridiculous "Mayor in Your Pocket" key chain trinket he aquired on Decatur Street, duplicating his tendency to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.

One last Mardi Gras highlight was not caught on film...I'll write about it later. It's a doozy.

Yes, Virginia, There IS a Mardi Gras

MARDI GRAS UPDATE: RESPONSE TO COMMENTS LEFT ON PRIOR POST:

(click on the picture or here for some brief Quicktime parade silliness...note that the older woman in the video had, just seconds earlier, nearly wrestled a girl half her age to the ground for a string of cheap green beads...and won)

Interestingly, the dissenting voices re:"should there be a Mardi Gras" have been overwhelmingly non-local. Truth be told, it does leave a strange taste in one's mouth to be so overindulgent when there has been so much tragedy. Indeed, the concept of Mardi Gras in general may seem a bit odd to some, but many cultues around the world have a pre-Lent blow out in one form or another. What people don't understand is that Mardi Gras is as ingrained in New Orleanean culture as Carnival is to Brazilians, Carribeans and Venetians. Mardi Gras is most certainly NOT just a night of drunken frat boys and squealing co-eds flashing their boobs on Bourbon Street. It's two solid weeks of parades, costumes, concerts, dancing in the streets and family fun all across city and the surrounding area. This is not the Superbowl, people. Nor is it the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the 4th of July or even New Year's Eve . It's much bigger and it's roots are far deeper. Mardi Gras is a big, fat deal.

Tourism is one of NO's main moneymakers. Tourism + Mardi Gras =$$$. Big $$$. Big desperately needed $$$. In the pre-Katrina days Mardi Gras generated millions for the city. This year? Who knows. This year the theme, however unofficial, seemed to be "New Orleans is Open For Business and Can Handle Tourism So Get Over Here, Already!".

Floats and parades are organized and run by various Krewes and social clubs. Aside from the permits, the government is not particularly involved. The big government involvment comes in the form of NOPD overtime costs, and those costs are quite high. Glad (as in trash bags) donated an unspecified six-figure sum to help defray those costs, and other donations from Krewes were added to that pot. Was it enough? I have no idea. Was money diverted from assisting Katrina victims? Please. I highly doubt it.

Anyone who has any doubts about what Mardi Gras really is, or what is really means to the people of New Orleans has obviously never been there.

Or they never got off Bourbon Street to find out.