Shout outs – Americana

“Pizza – now that’s what I call a taco!”

It’s 15 great tastes all rolled into one.

I adored the Andy Samberg SNL skit lampooning Taco Bell’s endless quest to stuff more junk into the taco trunk, but really, a taco wrapped in a deep-dish pizza and a blueberry pancake and deep fried and submerged in chili? Totally exists. Check out thisiswhyyourefat.com.

Sometimes it makes me want to puke. Sometimes I just get really hungry or inspired. Take this Rubix Cubewich for example. How ingenious! All in all, this website is Americana. What do we do best? Fry, batter, deep fry, eat!

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That leads me to this next website, which is absolutely the epitome of Americana:

Turtle time

There’s a baby box turtle wandering around our living room. He’s a fast little dude.

Summer

I just wanted to say I love summer, lazy, long, delicious summer. I’m enjoying every minute of this one. I know, it’s not even summer yet!

At this particular moment, I’m the only one in our gorgeous beachy Bay St. Louis house for at least another 24 hours if I so wish. Today in my swimsuit and a sun dress, I rode my dad’s rusty bike (with milk crate tied to the back) to return a Faulkner compendium to the library trailer and request on inter-library loan “Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant.”

One-Eyed Girl

The best things in life are ragged. So is One-Eyed Girl, a post-Katrina documentary about Bay St. Louis put together by some guys from Texas. It has just the right amount of history and scenery to capture what I wish everyone could experience of Bay St. Louis. Somehow I trick myself into thinking we are our Wal Mart and our hideous Highway 90 strip. Or worse, we are only as FEMA and State Farm will describe us, not much different from Florida or South Carolina or any other hurricane-prone area. But this film really got behind that to the damage and the debris and the gorgeous old oak trees, the locals, why we stayed, why we rebuilt, and who Bay St. Louis is. It paints us in that Big Fish light that I love. The hazy mornings, the Spanish moss, and so many steps to nowhere.

Homesick on Halloween

I’m homesick.

There's my French pumpkin (left - spider).

I miss my mom with her endless chatter and her delicious warm meals and a woodstove keeping our house all toasty.

I want to be wherever Lindsey and Andrew are. Guys, I wish so much to be in one of your many former or current apartments doing something really mundane like playing a board game and talking about journalism politics or grad school or whatever.

Hurricane Gustav outcome: very good

In case you’re still wondering about my Hurricane Gustav adventure, it all turned out well. I arrived in D.C. and made it to France after that. My parents lost power at our house for a while, but I believe it has been restored. We even have mail delivery still.

Let’s just hope Ike doesn’t get any bigger.

Gustav stirring fears on Katrina anniversary

Welcome Knoxnews.com visitors.  I thought you might also be interested in my Katrina anniversary column about Gustav for my student newspaper, The Daily Mississippian.  It’s from Friday.

Here’s an excerpt:

Perhaps it’s fitting that on the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, another hurricane churns away, poised to enter the Gulf.

Here on the coast, we’re not ready for round two, not mentally, not structurally and certainly not financially.

Gustav could switch directions, disappear due to wind shear or cause my flight out of New Orleans to be canceled Sunday.  I’m worried that I won’t be in Paris on time to start school abroad.

Fleeing Gustav at the New Orleans airport

I started to think things were getting a little weird yesterday when the National Guard drove through my neighborhood in Bay St. Louis and set up camp outside town near the Silver Slipper Casino sign.

Is it just bad luck that I have a flight out of the U.S. to study abroad on the same day a hurricane is coming?

Today I got up at 3:45 a.m., threw my stuff in the Corolla and headed toward New Orleans with my dad.  Somewhere in Waveland we started to see long lines at gas stations … at 4 a.m.  My dad said something was terribly wrong.  I thought the cars were from Waveland people gassing up.  Wrong.