the road home.

looking towards the mississippi river from the second floor balcony of oak alley plantation house. vacherie, louisiana.








so i've been in nola for about two weeks now. time for an update.

1. work. was painstakingly boring at first since i couldn't help out a whole lot. the lab is studying human dendritic cells and cholera toxin. dendritics are super cute when activated--go pseudopodia go! eventually i was able to do more and now i'm learning new techniques: how to work in bio hood (which is a little more involved than a chem hood), how to count cells, how to make standard curves without having a nervous breakdown, how to swallow my chemistry pride and pipette from stock, and how to not upset my grad student by paring down the number of stupid questions i ask daily. it's good to exercise my int lab skills. yesterday, i was allowed to attend grand rounds (read: fancy-pants name for a lecture about some clinical topic) then shadow the infectious disease staff at their clinic from 9-noon then follow one of the id residents on general rounds. saw some pretty heinous stuff: a tiny 6 month-old in the picu with a severe case of mrsa (methicillin-resistant staph aureus) who was miraculously still alive, many kids with central line infections, and one awful bedsore which was so far gone it ate through bone. not fun.

2. last weekend's adventures. on friday, i went to snug harbor jazz bistro to listen to dr. michael white and the liberty jazz band. what an outstanding show. true to its name, the venue was indeed quite intimate--i was only maybe 25 feet from the stage even though i sat on the second floor balcony. they were a six-piece classic new orleans jazz ensemble: clarinet, trumpet, trombone, banjo, cello, and drums. check them out on itunes, you will not be disappointed. :o)

i started listening to jazz when i was about twelve or thirteen years old. we'd received a free jazz cd with the purchase of some household item, and so i popped it in one snowy evening. ironically, the first track happened to be the theme from 'mama's family'. from there i tuned into wduq, pittsburgh's jazz station. when i'd stay with my oldest sister during the summer, we used to paint while listening to jazz on the radio, eating chips with homemade pico de gallo, and drinking sangria. i might have been a little too young to be that old, but whatever, it was a good time. mind you, i like piano jazz and classic jazz. no kenny g. terrible. F.

by chance i discovered saturday's grand opening celebration of the community center in st. bernard that we'd worked on over spring break. i was nearly moved to tears when i saw the place. i immediately began placing calls to those who'd been part of the team, telling them in my little-kid-can't-get-the-words-out-fast-enough voice how great it turned out. operation blessing had a ribbon-cutting ceremony to thank the donors and volunteers. temple med was listed among the organizations who sent people to help--woot woot! the corps was also out in fine style, being mostly useless--but of course, tucked in. as for the renovations went....the gym itself converts from a boxing ring to a basketball or volleyball court, and now has two locker rooms, a weight room, and a concession stand. the rear lot now has three swing-sets and a bike path and the field is complete with a scoreboard and soccer goals. brilliant. i love it.

sunday was church and lunch at la madeleine with the roomie. after that we headed out to oak alley plantation for a little bit of tourism. save the redwoods of california, i'd never seen so many beautiful trees in one place. definitely worth the trip if you find giant trees and large expanses of land therapeutic. land, shannon...land! fun fact: it was also where 'interview with a vampire' was filmed.

3. life in general. running has been going well. and it turns out that when you feed the ducks in the park, you also end up feeding the turtles. herds of red-eared sliders will surface and join in the general frenzy. turtles like bread. who knew? vegan chocolate chip cookies from whole foods are incredible. everyone here owns crocs. i had pretty wicked sunburn last weekend. i met sydney, our mail delivery person at the hospital, while riding the st. charles bus down into the quarter. the houses along st. charles are....unbelievable. the whole neighborhood of uptown is straight up normal rockwell america. i walk around at night and the only thing that scares me are the giant bugs. i can handle that.


.....god i love it here.

essentially the best place ever.

yesterday i arrived in new orleans. :oD

while it's impossible to fully describe how amazing this place is, i will attempt to provide you with some of my favorite sights, sounds, smells, and stories each day.

bartholomew was my driver from the airport. at eighty years old, he has six children, eight grand children, and seven great-grandchildren. prior to working thirty years for greyhound, he served in the air force. he didn't believe me when i told him that my suitcases weighed only 50 lbs. a piece. i apologized on behalf of my luggage. he was reluctant to drop me off anywhere but in front of my building. i live at loyola university in the uptown neighborhood of orleans parish in a dorm room with another girl from chicago. she works at loyola's free law clinic and is indeed very pleasant. i spent last night and the majority of the afternoon today wandering aimlessly--one of my favorite pastimes--around uptown.

here's a few reasons why i would drop everything to live here forever:

1. audubon park. i live across the street from the Nicest Park Ever. there are hundreds upon hundreds of magnificent forrest gump trees. yeah, you know, the dangling kind. they're actually oak and serve as homes for rather large cockroaches. ick. then there are the tiny lizards!! ::insert excited little kid gestures here:: the squirrels here are much feistier than those in pennsylvania. they're turbo-charged. must be eating the giant bugs. as i was walking home i saw what appeared to be a tail-less squirrel. then i said, 'wait, oh, that's a rat, doofus.' but it wasn't a gross rat...it seemed happy to be frolicking in the Nicest Park Ever. it's much better if i just believe that it's a Rodent of Unusual Size. around the perimeter of the park runs a fabulous 1.8 mile track for biking and jogging. (nb: for running junkies, check out Gmaps-Pedometer. a great blessing for those anal souls who run wherever their feet take them and still want to know their mileage but are too cheap to buy an actual GPS thingy. thanks sara! huzzah!) while walking on said path, i came upon ochsner island in the middle of the park's lagoon. it must be home to at least a thousand--if not more--water fowl. snowy egrets, great egrets, night herons, anhinga, chinese geese, whistling ducks, and....turtles! (more little kid gestures) it was at the island that i met Irina, a young russian woman whose husband is a professor of physics at tulane. turns out they used to live in pittsburgh (who knew?) and were both very fond of it, especially zelienople. she let me use her binoculars to see all the baby birds in their nests, and we chatted for a bit about the birds and other things. i saw her again today after my run. :o) and last, but not least, the park doesn't have.....garbage! it's completely clean! woohoo! ::clicks heels::

2. i can walk to whole foods. i get so excited whenever i get to go there. they have vegetarian things. free range eggs. warm bread. at least ten varieties of soup. homemade salsa. i almost cried whenever they put all my groceries in one brown bag. finally. i spent nearly an hour in the store. it's just a change from having to schlep all the way down to reading terminal market or stock up at acme. i can walk to whole foods. yes. i win.

3. i can walk to work. tomorrow i start my internship at the research institute for children at children's hospital new orleans. it takes me a half hour to get there on foot. left onto st. charles. right onto henry clay. 1.5 miles. my legs are loving every step. after eight months of studying-induced atrophy, this is certainly a welcome change.

4. i can walk to octavia bookstore. at 513 octavia st. it's a very small, very neat local book shop. it was here that i picked up chris rose's 1 dead in attic--an autographed copy, no less. as it is out of print, please let me know if you'd like to borrow it.

5. i can walk to cafe luna. yummy peach smoothie + blueberry and cream cheese muffin. great place to read and study.

6. everyone says hello. this is profoundly awesome. plus no one has said 'run, forrest, run' yet. excellent.

7. the uptown homes are infinitely beautiful. i love the porch swings, the gas lanterns, and the front gardens. pictures soon.

8. hats off to bruce and company for a little saturday night revelry at fat harry's (napoleon at st. charles) and the columns hotel.

as you can see, i really enjoy the fact that everything is in walking distance. it's how people were meant to live. free-roaming. :o)