First Bratwurst and the Duct Tape Song!

Like a Parish Fair, But Not....
Tonight I ventured out to the Festival of the Little Hills in nearby St. Charles. As Cajuns would phrase it, a good time was had by all. It was a good combination of arts/crafts, historical flair, and carnival food(!).

As part of my new cultural experience, I had my first bratwurst. I would describe it as a cross between a hot dog and sausage, but minus the sausage spices and flavorings. Pretty neat.















The Duct Tape Song
Thanks to Stacy, one of our great readers, I'm happy to report: The Duct Tape Song. It's a jewel!

Soldier Requests Duct Tape

Today's post is special because of a letter from a friend in Louisiana whose son is among those serving overseas. Take a look:

Lee Ann,
My son in Iraq recently sent me an e-mailed wish list, and I quote:

"Mom keep prayers going, we need everyone of them & please send black duct tape."

That's my boy. Does anyone know where I can find black-duct-tape and a lot of it, for the Boys in 2-3 Brigade, Stryker HHC Scout Platoon (in the thick of it in Iraq)?

Give my regards to St. Louey,
S. Pittman

Here are some links for ordering black duct tape:

http://www.nextag.com/black-duct-tape/search-html

http://paint-and-supplies.hardwarestore.com/50-279-duct-tape/duct-tape-230433.aspx

http://www.crlaurence.com/ProductPages/C/C5292_3298.html?Origin

http://schoolstationers.stores.yahoo.net/ductapcol360.html

I hope all readers will join me in taking a moment to say a prayer for the Stryker HHC Scout Platoon, as well as all of our military personnel serving at home and abroad.

LSU Football and St. Louis Cops

16 Days to Kickoff!
Next in the list of priorities is addressing LSU football. The distance poses a threat to maintaining ultimate fan status. Audio of games is available online… for a price. Meanwhile I’m thinking no one recognizes the LSU Fight Song currently selected as my cell ringtone.

A Brush with the Law
A new cultural difference was discovered tonight in an encounter with a local law enforcement officer. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, I can only report that certain ninetyandnine staffers including myself undertook a legal experiment for the sake of education. Our conclusive findings are that St. Louis traffic citations are much more detailed, informative, and helpful than LA citations. In an admittedly small study sampling, St. Louis officers seem remarkably accommodating. And now off to traffic court we go to report the differences between the LA and MO judicial systems!

Duct Tape Contest Countdown
Don’t forget that you only have nine days left to submit your entry for the super duper duct tape art contest!

Countdown = 9 Days

Eating and Fishing in the Midwest

Boxes boxes everywhere….
And so the process of unpacking begins. For some reason God designed me with a hoarding mentality, and I’m staring at boxes crammed with everything you can imagine. I wouldn’t be surprised if a pony came trotting out any minute. Actually it’s not God’s fault I’m a packrat. And it’s probably a metaphor for my spiritual life. One of my fellow Sunday School teachers started a great lesson along those lines recently.

First Things First
Amid the priorities, next on my agenda is to locate the following:
1. Tasty Mexican restaurant
2. Tasty Sushi
3. Tasty Greek restaurant
4. Tasty Chinese restaurant
5. Tasty Barbeque
How about that food. What’s that part about gluttony again?

A License to Fish
With the food topic squared away, the next great priority in my life is to figure out the fishing around St. Louis. Pretty safe to say I won’t be doing much saltwater fishing. However, I did bring my fly rod…..

Good News!
The Missouri Conservation Dept says that fishing licenses are only $35 for non-residents! This compared to the $95 LA charges non-residents is exciting! I do have to buy a $7 trout tag, which is basically like a duck stamp, but it’s still a steal. And I’ve found a trout park less than two hours away, so I’m set!

Duct Tape Contest Countdown
Don’t forget that you only have ten days left to submit your entry for a super duper duct tape art contest!

Countdown = 10 Days

Grocery Shopping in a New Place

I have safely arrived in my new domain. First things first—I kicked my evening off with a grocery run.

I should tell you that I’ve only been in a true grocery store about three times in the last year. Louisiana is a Wal-mart hatchery apparently; we have super Wal-marts on practically every exit, which I frequent tri-weekly for everything. Turns out St. Louis is a big union town, and Wal-marts are scarce; super Wal-marts, almost unheard of. So I’m experiencing a traditional grocery store visit revival.

To begin, I was extremely impressed with the spices section. This particular grocer had Zatarain’s, Louisiana Fish Fry, and Tony Chachere’s products. (Imagine “I Will Survive” blaring in my head.)

The three major crises (in order of criticality) were rice, blue bell, and sausage:

Rice
1. Where’s the rice? I never realized how under-appreciated rice is. (This from someone who admittedly would rather have rice and crackers as a meal than almost anything else.) As opposed to the half-aisle devoted to rice in LA, rice here has a 4’ span on the bottom shelf of a non-descript aisle. Tsk tsk. I won’t comment on how much attention the blessed potatoes received. Oh, the injustice of it all!

Blue Bell
2. I hope this is a quirk of the particular grocer I visited tonight, but… there was no Blue Bell ice cream. Conspiracy theories welcome.

Sausage
3. Not a lot of pork sausage. I guess hoping for Savoie’s or Richard’s (pronounced Ree-shardz) sausage was a stretch. But then my eager eyes spotted a “Cajun Style” sausage. Victory! And then the “proudly made in Ohio” byline. I literally laughed out loud (not the most brilliant way to meet new people) in the meat section. So we’re going to see what red beans and jambalaya taste like with a generic pork/beef/chicken blend.

My guess is that I covered the major cultural adjustments tonight. That and the weather. It’s 82 and the wind is blowing. It feels like October in Louisiana!

Another New Arrival
I’m not the only newbie in the city. St. Louis Zoo has welcomed a new baby elephant. I voted for its new name to be Jaya, and I’m planning to visit the critter soon.

Source: St. Louis Zoo

Address Change Notification

Once upon a time there was a little girl who said she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. Her Mom was a teacher, and her Mo-Mo and four great-aunts were post-graduate scholars who dedicated their lives to education, too. So it seemed like a good idea to the three year-old. Life happened and the little girl went a lot of directions. In the middle of it all, she earned English degrees but ended up working in the commercial sector. Then one day a door opened. Six months later she posts her last blog from her native Louisiana.

[Breath] The interpretation of all of that is an announcement to my blog friends that in the morning I am moving to St. Louis to teach English at Gateway College of Evangelism. I have always heard fantastic things about Gateway, and I’m excited to add my hands to the plow and join in the mission. God has made Himself so real to me over the last few months, and it’s going to be incredible to see what all He has in store.

I have a lot of emotions splashing around right now. The plan is to leave at 8 a.m. in the morning. If you saw my room you wouldn’t bet on it. I’ve worked on getting everything together all week, and I’m still not exactly finished. It is AMAZING how much stuff a person can accumulate over the years. And instead of tackling the 3 storage bins from the attic, I find myself reorganizing my bobby pin collection for the fourth time. What can I say? I have a weird way of addressing change.

In the middle of it all, I have been very humbled by the gestures of my Louisiana family and friends. We have had four going-away fetes this week. To all of you homefolk out there reading, thank you. What I’ve learned this week is that no man is an island. We all matter, and it’s been beautiful to see one branch of my church family saying Goodbye as a new branch says Hello.

My next post will be from Florissant. Louisianan that I am, I keep pronouncing it Floor-riss-awn, just like I call Charbonier Road, Shar-buh-nay. Oh well, part of the learning curve, right?