What in the Hell is Going on in New Orleans?

CNN blared from the TV in the bedroom while I stood at the bathroom sink primping and preening. Todd calls my getting-ready-to-go-anywhere routine “primping and preening.” He says I take longer to get ready than anyone he knows. It’s not that I take a long time. It’s just that on some days I have a hard time being quick about it, and that’s what makes it seem like a long time. His idea of getting ready is rolling out of bed and standing under the shower for .5 seconds. Then he whips on some clothing and leaves; I have to go around with the extinguisher to put out the fire left behind in his footprints. And that, too, adds on to my getting-ready-to-go-anywhere routine. So, really the length of time it takes me to get ready is all Todd’s fault.

Todd’s been travelling quite a bit these last few weeks. To fill the house with noise in the morning I’ve had CNN on the bedroom TV. Normally I have it on the living room TV while I am eating breakfast and packing lunch in the kitchen. But now that he’s not still in bed while I am primping, I can put it on in the bedroom and turn it way up. He would probably get really annoyed with me if I did that while he was here.

On Monday morning the newscasters were talking about celebration in the streets of New Orleans. I paused and listened for a moment (which probably added onto the time it takes me to get ready in the morning) because I wanted to know what the residents of New Orleans were celebrating about. I set down the hairdryer I was just about to switch on and listened intently. The good folks in New Orleans have had a rough time of it in the last decade, and I smiled at the thought of them partying in the streets.

But then I thought about New Orleans and how they party in the streets every February. It’s too early for Mardi Gras, what the hell are they partying about now? Do they ever stop partying? And then I grew a bit annoyed at how these people party in the streets when the people of Providence cannot be bothered to have a citywide celebration like that. And what the hell is wrong with the people of Providence that they can’t have a big party like Mardi Gras?

I cut my mental rant short and listened some more and learned that New Orleans’s football team was in the Super bowl* and they won. Oh yeah, the Super Bowl was on Sunday. New Orleans has a football team? How did I not know that? And how has the Super Bowl eluded me once again? I really ought to pay more attention. And I tell myself that every single year and yet I never do.

*Spell check flagged the word “Superbowl.” When I right clicked on it, Microsoft Word suggested “Super bowl” or “Superb owl.” Maybe next year, with my increased awareness of this big football game, I’ll call it the “Superb Owl.”