10 things i hate (& love) about louisiana

so i am back in seattle again. why do i do this to myself. well, in memoriam of this past trip home for christmas, i composed a list of things that made me sad while in louisiana. and then i thought, what the heck... there is a ton of stuff that made me happy, so i should really intro each one of these bad things with something good. so here it goes, my list of ten things, happy and sad...

1. no need to tell yall, but one of the best things about louisiana is the food!!!! zapp's potato chips! gumbo! po' boys! cane's! jambalaya with beans and shrimp creole on the side! biegnet's at cafe du monde! wooo hooo! really ain't nothing like it:

2. nothing can live forever, but i don't often think about that in terms of trees. well, my home in baton rouge has lost a lot of trees over the years, and this is one of the most recent, knocked down during a storm. i liked this one a lot. raccoons used to live up inside it. sad:

3. look at this thermometer! temperature right about 74 degrees just 4 days before christmas. that is a reason to love louisiana right there:

4. along with trees dying... a lot of stores and shops and malls and what-have-you have shut down. economic downturns, shifts in the population of the city... a lot of reasons. but none is sadder to me than this one right here. the broadmoor theatre. i seen so many movies in this theatre. my mom would drop us off on a saturday and we'd spend the afternoon watching re-releases of jungle book or song of the south. and that little old lady that worked there - i miss her too, may she rest in peace... well here it is:

for more on this, see this blog:
http://abandonedbatonrouge.typepad.com/abandoned_baton_rouge/

5. we went to new orleans the friday before new years and had a great time. street performers were everywhere, and i got a kick outa hearing this very loud band in the french quarter right under the nose of the st. louis cathedral with it's no noise sign:

6. i'm sad to see the crime in new orleans still going up and up post-katrina. and not just in new orleans, but baton rouge too. and with all the convictions of police officers for unjustified shootings after the hurricane, trust aint very high, as you can see from this graffiti. there was another one that was much more succinct scrawled on the pavement by this one; it had much courser language, so i'm posting this one here:

7. of course, probably the best part of a trip home to louisiana is when you get to see family... so here are my nieces right here:

8. and of course, the worst part of a trip home is that you have to see family... so here are my nieces right here:

9. something else i loved about being in louisiana - seeing real rain and real thunderstorms - like this one brewing to the west. don't see nothing like that in seattle:

10. but the saddest part of all... leaving. here is the view of my plane out the lobby window, readying itself to take me to atlanta where i got a connecting flight back to seattle:

so until i make it back there again, i have this blog post to look at. louisiana: you're the best. and the worst, apparently.