Clowns and Cows and Gandhi

After listening to talk radio today, I realize that my previous post may be confusing. Sigh. There's some among us now who are griping about Nagin's win (understandable) and feel as though his Gandhi statement implied that he was "comparing himself" to Gandhi. Sigh. He was not. Lord. It was just a good quote. Really.

So, for the record, everyone in my household voted for Nagin. In fact, I'm pleased to say that my household was nearly 100% in accord with the election results (I voted for Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt; Jas voted for Stacey Head. Head won.).

As far as I'm concerned, some random guy-on-the-street on the evening news explained best why one would vote for Nagin. He said, "I kind of like the fact that he puts his foot in his mouth every once in a while. It just goes to show you that he's not all talking points." Nagin is the most honest politician this city (or state) has seen since I've lived here, and I'm sure the old timers could go back decades before they could find another honest man or woman.

Today I bought a new laptop. For the first time in years, I'm in charge of my own technology acquisitions. After spending an embarrassingly long time researching, I basically impulse-purchased a Gateway MX 3228 at Best Buy. So far, so good. I've named her "Clarabelle." Because she's a Gateway and that sounds like a cow's name-- in fact, I think there was a cow named Clarabelle on some kid's cartoon or something-- and Lew Anderson who played Clarabelle the Clown (above) ... ah, I don't know why I bother to explain these things.

I've sent some emails out to real estate agents in Louisville. We'll see how that goes. It's a little scary, but I'm just about fed up with being a renter. And in L-ville it's almost ludicrous to rent. The rentals are actually more than most mortgage payments-- at least the payments I'd be looking at.

Other than that, I am patently ignoring the fact that I am leaving this city soon. Jason and I had a nice LONG night out on Thursday, hitting a lot of our favorite French Quarter haunts. Cafe du Monde. Flanagan's. Molly's. Coop's for dinner. Crescent City Brewpub. Harrah's (yes, we're both closet gamblers). We even hit a new place-- an all night diner called Huey's. Well, it was new to us. I successfull blocked out the whole "this could be the last time..." dark and drearies. After all, we generally do a late night in the Quarter just about every month or so. Why should this be different? But still.

It's the physical move itself that has me in knots. We are a shockingly packratty couple. Our home is packed to the rafters with stuff. And while I am the messier of the two, by far, Jason is absolutely married to every gram of stuff that he's accumulated. I would just as soon chuck 90% of my stuff than move it. We still have a gawdawful uglissimo silk flower display that he took from his grandmother's funeral in 2002. Okay, maybe he can keep that one. But trust me, there's some crap...

Anyway, back to a safer topic: politics. Yesterday morning Jason joked that we shouldn't vote now that we knew we were leaving. It was a joke, but still, I can't help but think of all those displaced voters-- more than 24K of them, who may not be returning. I'm so glad those absentee votes were nearly perfectly split (Nagin got around 175 more). Otherwise, we'd be in election-challenge hell right now. As it is, there's enough grumbling and griping to go around, but at least things can move ahead.