Nawlins Spooktacular

The weekend of October 31st is the 3rd craziest time of the year in New Orleans, bested only by Mardi Gras and Jazzfest. October 31st, 2010 was no different.

The hostel was PACKED, we were selling dorm beds in crowded 8-person rooms for $35 bucks or more, and the energy in the city was practically a tangible object. Customers were dashing from room to room to bathroom as they  scrounged up costumes, painted faces, took group photos, borrowed the hostel scissors a dozen times to cut some piece of fabric or another and generally built excitement into the walls.

A group of superheroes (and gladiators) from room 16

We were catching the fever ourselves, because we were going to get to participate this evening! One of our fabulous bosses was giving us part of the evening off to go enjoy Halloween for several hours, so Adam had run to the costume shop that morning and picked out a brilliant set of costumes for us.

It took him a while, probably because he kept trying on wigs. But eventually, he focused, purchased the costumes and came back to join in the hostel bustle of preparations.

Here was the end result of our efforts:

Perfect Halloween irony for a married couple

We actually shaved Adam's head to give him that tonsure, and he had drunk people touching his head all night, to check if it was real or a wig.  :)

It was obviously the right choice of costume - God approved:

Holy beam of light

We hit the town as soon as we were relieved of our duties, squeezing onto the St. Charles Avenue streetcar with an appropriate companion, the Devil, to get to the French Quarter:

He's a pretty neat guy - good conversationalist, friendly, etc... ;)

The first costume we saw after reaching the French quarter was by FAR the most amazing one I have or ever will see in my life. Unfortunately for you, this is how my photo of him turned out:

:(

His/her costume was incredible - it was on stilts, covered head to toe in some sort of Dragon/monster costume, complete with lights running down his spine and glowing eyes. He was super impressive, and Adam couldn't stop talking about him for days after - he asked every single guest who'd been to Bourbon Street that night if they'd seen the Amazing Monster On Stilts. (sadly, no one had)

Anyways, we sauntered the length of Bourbon and then Frenchman Street, gawking at costumes and enjoying the laughs people had when they saw our costumes - some people took pics of us, which was further affirmation that we'd picked appropriate costumes. And then there were all the people who couldn't believe Adam had actually shaved his head. :)

We saw some other really hilarious and well-made costumes, and I tried to get photos of a few of them:

Cheetos guys with body paint

This was a group of Spidermen, including venom and other variations. There were heaps of superheros - the girls all had "sassy" versions,  and we saw just about every superhero on the books at least once

This car wasn't technically made up for Halloween, but it was SO COOL. Those are  matchbox cars lining the rims. And there is a carousel horse on the hood. 

NEAT-O - reminds me of my childhood :)

These vikings had a "vessel" that actually rolled around

Perhaps my personal favorite of the evening: Antoine Dodson

I may have been really tired the next day, but it was totally worth it.

Thanks for the crazy, happy Halloween, New Orleans!


P.S. This post is a request from my Hubbs, and I dedicate it to him. Sorry I took so long, Hon!  <3

HI-TECH

Thanks to the promptings & urgings of my friend Beth (who has her own delightful blog here), I maneuvered through the murky depths of the internet, struggled through several help forum topics with a lot of advanced HTML jargon, and came out on the other side with a BRAND SPANKIN' NEW  subscription widget !  Now you can put your email address in that little box on the right and you will be automatically notified whenever I put up new posts. It's brilliant! It's functioning! It's just what Beth wanted! (Thanks Beth!)

You're welcome, faithful blog readers!

Feeling very satisfied with myself.

Going hunting for chocolate now.

Lazy Dayz off

The Daily Schedule:

07:00 - Anna wakes up, cleans kitchen, tidies common areas, makes coffee + pancakes

08:00-15:00 - Anna runs around, answers phone calls, does laundry, makes reservations, checks people out, checks people in, drives shuttles, puts sheets on beds, cleans up, and occasionally writes blog posts :)  Adam, meanwhile, works out, exercises, and writes, writes, writes.

15:00 - Adam and Anna pass the baton and switch shifts

15:00-24:00 - Adam runs around, answers phone calls, does laundry, makes reservations, checks people in, drives shuttles, puts sheets on beds, cleans up, and occasionally watches movies with Anna. Anna, meanwhile, goes for a run, practices riding JEM, and does her best to ignore the hostel's siren call and stay away from it all afternoon/evening. Sometimes I'm successful. :D  I read a lot of books and diligently procrastinate on keeping in touch with  the people I love (what is wrong with me??).

This comfortable and busy routine is broken once a week: Wednesdays are our days off, and we RELISH them.

Sometimes we do really exciting & fun things like : go on free tours of the swamps/plantations/city, visit Audubon zoo, borrow our boss's car (he's awesome) and go to the movies, have a night on the town with dancing/jazz music in the French quarter, etc.

Sometimes we don't do much of anything. :)  And yesterday was one of those days.

We slept in late. (glory!)

We ate at IHOP. (A change from the usual: Surrey's Cafe & Juice Bar)

We took the trolley to City Park and strolled through the sculpture garden.

I wanted him to go all the way, but he pointed out that there were children around

Gorgeous, metal horse sculpture by Deborah Butterfield - she has an even prettier one in Chattanooga that looks so much like driftwood, it's mind-BLOWING

Creepy, glorious spider

So crazy - the human arms looked INCREDIBLY  real up-close

Appropriate for NOLA, as there are Mardi Gras beads hanging from every tree branch on the parade route streets :)

This safety pin doesn't inspire confidence as to its security...

We laid down on benches and didn't move much.

(Adam's not unhappy, that's his thinking face  -- I'm in a state of bliss because he's playing with my hair while thinking)

We tried on wigs at the costume shop.

One of the Beatles

We ate Indian food for dinner.

We watched the 1st half of "Jean de Florette" and fell asleep again around 10pm.

Happy, happy, lazy day. :)



...

EXCITEMENT! *PLEASE READ!*

Wow, I am so excited.

 

 

Quite possibly the most awesome website ever

Attached below is a message from my older brother Daniel, who lives and works in New York.  He is in a band called Pacific Theater AND he also recently created a record label called Whale Heart Records. (Plus he just got engaged and is getting married in a year!) They have 4 bands signed under their label, all of which are amazing, but 2 of which happen to feature my 4 siblings. Daniel's band has a record out, and my sister Grace just released her debut EP album Tall Shoulders, with her band, Lille. My two other brothers, Rob & Andrew are band members in Lille as well.

I am so proud. They are pursuing their passions/dreams, and making beautiful, beautiful music - two things I love very much, done by people I love very much.

Here is Daniel's message - read it and do as he says:

Friends & Family,

I've been working really hard for the past two years building a record
label called Whale Heart Records with my good friends Dan Ryan and
Todd Buchler. We've poured countless hours, dollars and gray hairs
into building a start-up business centered on the ideas of community
and family and we're proud of what we've accomplished so far.

Today marks a huge leap forward for us. We've launched our new
website, which we believe to be not only a testament to our work, but
also the creativity of the artists we represent.

It's a fully functional (thanks to our amazing programmer Sanjay
Cherubala) and beautifully designed (thanks to the insanely talented
Luke Hughett) home for music in this digital world. And for those of
us who still treasure holding a physical product in our hands, we make
records. And we love making records. But it's not easy to sell records
and that's why we're striving to make a hub where buying music can be
fun and easy.

So this is my one and only plea to all of you. Please check out our
site. Please tell your friends about our site. Please sign up for our
mailing list. Please blog, tweet, post and whatever else about it. And
if you like what we're doing, maybe even buy a song or two.

www.whaleheartrecords.com

Thanks for your support. Much love.
DB
 
 ______________________________________________________


GO crazy! Support the arts and the Bellurys at the same time! :D


Also, if you're in Atlanta, you need to go see Lille perform at the Buckhead theatre on November 13th - they're opening for the Dresden Dolls!

It's a boy!

Meet Jem: the newest addition to our little family of 2.

He's a real gem

He joined our family on the 25th of October, my 25th BD.

I was so happy to meet him.

(red-faced from yelling into my hands)

He seemed pretty happy to meet us, too:

See the smile?

Today Adam and I practiced riding for the first time, and we discovered that Jem is fairly complicated for a male. He's not as simple as a plain ol' scooter, but not quite as complex as a full-on motorcycle. Gears have to be manually changed, but there is an absence of clutch. (It's weird)

As to his name and gender, I have Grace to thank for the inspiration. The make (model?) of the scooter is a Scout, and I said that Scout was too silly, since it's written all over him. Then Grace said, "Well, you could stick with the Mockingbird theme and name it Atticus?" And as soon as she said that, it was settled.

It was a boy (blue, Adam's fave color) and he was to be called Jem.

Come visit me and you can meet him too.  :D