Yes. I have now seen the tackiness that is New Orleans. Good grief, what heavy food they've got there. I have to agree with Jen, who commented on the total lack of vegetable matter being served at every meal we had there.

(full photoset is on flickr)

Bad news: it appears I've come down with something. Throat infection, most likely—I haven't been able to stand swallowing much more than just liquids since Sunday afternoon. And tired—I write this from home today, having [wisely] chosen to not go to work today. As soon as I'm done (because I know now that some of my friends use this page to find out what's going on in my life) I'm going to retire to the couch to let the cats help me take my second or third nap of the day.Needless to say, witty and biting commentary isn't the order of the day. More along the lines of whimpering, "Why does the house seem so hot?" "Feeling cuddly today, aren't you, kitty?" That sort of inane feverish chatter.

I did a lot of thinking on the drive home yesterday—kind of hard not to when you're in a car for six hours, driving in and out of thunderstorms. I saw a lot of cloud-to-cloud lighting and pondered the character I'm writing about and yawned a lot and wished I could get home in time to see the Iron Chef New York Battle.

(No, Andy, I won't tell you who won until you get to see it for yourself.)

As always, complaints, praise, suggestions, or money orders can be sent to my email address.