Fleur de Aleta

Today is my Dad's birthday. I remember Mom saying a month ago, "All Lester wants for his birthday is to feel better." Dad got his wish and right on time. He's doing so much better, back to normal and then some. He went through 3 surgeries in 30 days. And for Dad's birthday, we had good news from Mom's eye surgery (yesterday). The eye doctor had to reroute the blood flow to Mom's eye to decrease the pressure in her eyes. It was either that or go completely blind. What little sight Mom has, she wants to keep, naturally. Today, the doctor tested the levels and she went from 29 pressure to 20. Considering the doctor said Mom's eyes are unique, a situation he's never dealt with before (he's a specialist)... and he couldn't guarantee the results... well, 20 is good news and right on Dad's birthday. My parents continue to teach me by their examples. They both went through so much (Mom was awake during the 2 1/2 hour surgery). Throug

Yesterday, Greg and I had supper at Emeril's restaurant in the New Orleans arty Warehouse District. Danny and his wife, Kathy, treated us, along with Matthew and Cindy. Seeing the group together is a treat in itself, because everyone enjoys laughing and sharing stories. It's friendship at its best. This was the first time Greg and I have ever been to Emeril's. The minute Greg heard our destination, he yelled out, "BAM!" We walked from Danny and Kathy's condo to Emeril's, which was only 2 streets away (on the corner of Julia and Tchoupitoulas Street). (I read that during Katrina, Emeril moved as many of his staff to other restaurants so they could have a paying job until they were able to return to New Orleans, thus earning a lot of loyalty from his New Orleans staff. It's things like that ... well, it makes a difference. I also read when Emeril Lagasse looked at the warehouse, instead of seeing a building falling apart, he saw the "magic of

New Orleans is a great place to live, an even better place to visit. And it appears to be the place to go when you turn a certain age. For the sake of keeping confidences, I'll not mention the specific age. Two different bloggers that I've written to online via blogs, emails, texts, Skype, came in town to celebrate birthdays. Ok, heads up - if your birthday falls in the summer time, do not come to New Orleans on your birthday. Natives stay inside with the AC, while tourists melt. I won't go into a lot of detail or many pictures of my fellow blogger friends, because I don't want to give out too much personal info. The first bloggers to visit were T&C from Philly. (My first bloggers to meet IRL - Woot!) They got engaged in Paris, France. How romantic! They are a sweet couple who fit right into the laid back atmosphere of the South. T calls me a Southern Belle, which is great and partly comes from the poetry forum I used to run years and years ago before bloggi

I bought a name tag for Penny. It has a sunflower on it and her name and our home phone number. I ordered it from Etsy. Love to get stuff from Etsy. Well, the tag was umm, a little larger than I thought it would be, but I still like it. We put it on her collar at night and the next day, I received this email from Greg: "Your daughter is obsessed with her new name plate… i would call it a dog tag.. but its more like a name plate. She works and works and works to get it in her teeth and then she wont let go and walks around with it in her mouth. We may need to alter this thing in some way so she cant grab it in her teeth." I like to think of the tag as being another thing that entertains the dog :) Greg suggested that we use the name plate as an ornament for the Christmas tree!! (Maybe I'll get one for Tigger too :) You can see the name tag in the picture, toward the corner of her mouth, it's copper colored, round but then, it might be difficult to see it, given

Sometimes you get an email and it just makes your day. I rarely blog about work, but I've had some rough days of late. This puts things into a different perspective though :) Enjoy! I LOVE MY JOB If you don't laugh out loud after you read this you are in a coma! This is even funnier when you realize it's real! Next time you have a bad day at work think of this guy... Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana . He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2 FM in Ft. Wayne, Indiana , who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won : Hi Sue, Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happen