The PoliticalCat is a true friend of New Orleans who consistently posts stories of our struggle for recovery. Today she posted a truly amazing Katrina animal survival story. Even if you’re not an “animal person” you will be inspired by this horse’s resiliency.

If you live here and find yourself still suffering from the depression, anxiety and just plain grinding struggle of life here, read this story. I believe it will give you a little lift and a smile.

If you’re a normal, well-balanced happy person — still read this story!

Dead Ringer, designer of fine & funky custom made skull rings, dragon rings and Celtica, sent out their e-letter this week announcing a price increase effective Friday, June 13th and the opportunity to score a one-of-a-kind piece while the prices are still at 2005 levels. Skull ring aficionados must visit the website - their skulls are many, varied and awesome, ya hear me? Examples:

Mark and Steve designed a dragon ring for me last year that I still LUV and wear every day. The style I had chosen was too bulky for my ring size so they came up with this:

Notice the beautiful hand-made wooden box the ring came in. The mermaid was free-hand burned into the wood by Steve specially as a happy surprise for me. I was Traveling Mermaid at the time. Click that link to see more pix of the ring and a post about New Zealand, where DR is located.

I’ve been seriously jonesing for their Celtic cross for about a year now. Maybe now’s the time to scratch that itch.

Photograph by me - reflections in a window of my uncle’s barn, Forrest, MS, May 2008

Why is it? Because:
All phenomna are like a dream, an illusion,
a bubble, a shadow,
like dew and lightning.
~~~The Diamond Sutra

Here are a few pix I’ve taken while up here in Mississippi by my mamma’n'em. Click a pix for a single view, then again for a larger view.
It’s a beautiful, sunny (if quite windy) Mother’s Day and the only sounds I’m hearing right now are the sound of the wind blowing through the poplar trees, the tinkling of wind chimes and an occaisional moo.

The pix on the left is of my MaMaw’s red rose that my daddy dug up when my grandparent’s house was sold. I have a photo somewhere of a 16 year old me standing on the front porch of MaMaw’s house next to this rose.

In the middle is spiderwort, commonly known as blue-eyed grass, but we’ve always called it bluebells. This herb/wildflower has always grown in my mamm’s garden and is also found growing wild in the woods and fields of Mississippi. I often see a pink version along the roadsides of Louisiana. The purple is so beautifully vivid and it makes me think of that line from The Color Purple that goes: “I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it.” Yes, indeed!

The pix on the right is my daddy’s vegetable garden. He has tomatoes, peppers, squash, mustard greens, string beans and Irish potatoes. I’m sure other vegetables will be growing there soon. Back in the day little Charlotte spent many an hour picking, snapping and shelling veggies from the garden and mamma would sort and put them up (freeze or can) in the evenings after working all day.

My mamma was (is) a hard worker. She raised three girls while working 8-9 hours a day at an outside job ( when women usually didn’t) then came home and cooked, cleaned, put up vegetables in the summer, oversaw homework, baths and bedtimes during the school year and about a zillion other things I could list.

Today is Mother’s Day and I want to tell my mamma this one thing I’ve come to know as I’ve gotten older and wiser. She is more of a woman than I will ever hope to be and mamma, I’m sorry for all the eye-rollin’ I did atcha!
I love you, mamma!

I’m blowin’ town for a few days……..like Steve McQueen underneath the radar screen…..

Charlotte sez:

Varg — I’m holdin’ ya to that promise!
Y’all go visit Varg Saturday at The Freret Street Art Market. I’ll be there for sure next month.

ReX — Feel better soon, bruh!
Before or after Freret on Sattidy, y’all sashay on over to the NoLA Rising Paint Party. Details here on NoLA Rising Blog.

And check out my man Editilla’s new song below. He’ll be performing here in NoLA (currently a Katrina exilee in Florida) at Neutral Grounds on May 27th at 7 PM. Carve it in stone, people! More on this in a week or so.
Y’all have a great week-end. I’ll try to check in with my Twitter posse while I’m away. You may hear from me here or you may not.

Local musician and my friend LisaPal’s sig other has released a new CD exclusively on da web. 4U/4 ME can be sampled and purchased here. You *must* go and sample Renard’s jazzy funkalicious sounds. His track “We Are The People” is featured on Nation for Change, a site in support of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

“We are the people, we make the world go ’round and ’round and ’round….”

NOLA ARTISTS ROCK!

Recently I was watching Ellie Krieger on the Food Channel and she was making Greek Stuffed Peppers. Well! Greek? Stuffed? and, well, anyway….they looked so good I decided to try them. They were super easy to make (check), looked pretty (check) and tasted really good (check)! I really like Ellie’s recipies because they’re healthy but actually taste good too. Here’s the recipe:

Stuffed Greek Peppers

1 pound lean ground beef
1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 medium zucchini, coarsely grated (about 2 cups) zucchini haters: you don’t really taste it
1 small onion, minced (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup bulghur I substituted rice
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 red bell peppers, halved lengthwise, cores and ribs removed I used green
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans low-sodium stewed tomatoes, finely chopped
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese more if you’re a cheese lover

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl combine the beef, spinach, zucchini, onion, bulghur or rice, egg, oregano, salt and a few grinds of pepper. Mix until thoroughly combined. I used dried oregano but will use fresh next time. Squishing the mixture all together is the fun part - tip: wear surgical gloves to keep the goo from getting under your nails.

Arrange the pepper halves cut side up in a 9 by 13-inch baking dish and fill each pepper half with the meat mixture. Use bigger peppers than I did - these were what I had on hand.

Pour the tomatoes over the peppers and sprinkle with the feta cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake until the meat mixture is completely cooked and the peppers are tender, about 25 minutes longer. Next time I’ll add some of the cheese into the mixture too. Getting a bite with the cheese was esp delish.

This is out of the oven.

Serve on your favorite yellow rose dinnerware with a side salad.

The mixture freezes well too. One more thing I would add to the mix is Tabasco–obviously this is a Yankee recipe as the seasoning is not quite up to N’awlins standards! Enjoy!

TN Chick has chosen “Time” for todays Photo Hunt. I have chosen to interpret the subject as SPRINGTIME! I took this photo of pear blossoms a couple of months ago. Flowering fruit trees are the essence of springtime, doncha think?

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
“Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
“Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
~~~Song, from Act V, Scene 2 of Love’s Labors Lost by William Shakespeare

IT’S FRIDAY, IT’S FRIDAY, IT’S FRIDAY, UH HUH!

I’m looking forward to the week-end but right now I’m gonna look back at the past week in the (my) blogosphere and share some of the blog posts that grabbed my attention. They made me laugh, made me think, made me thirsty and made me dance like those cats up there….’ceptin’ I dance better.

So here are my picks for THE BEST BLOGGERS IN THE WOOOOOOORRRRRLLLLLDDDD!

Fond of Snape posts funny pix and becomes famous as the world’s first “Steak Ho”.

My Friend the Big Brown Bear by A Packful of Candy Cigarettes. If only I had a smidgen of her creative writing ability. *sigh*

Ponchartrain Pete finds luv in a brewery. Now on quest to keep the luv flowing….down his throat. Heh.

2 Millionth Web Log insults Jed and Jethro but it’s wicked funny!

And my favorite story of all The Reverend Al Green at Jazz Fest. No one can touch this man — he is an evolved human being on a higher plane than most of us mere mortals - an opinion I’ve held for a long time. Take a minute to read this story - it’ll make ya feel so good!
I’ve been a huge Al Green fan since way back in the day when he was badass Al Green singing luuuuv songs (as opposed to love songs) and through his conversion to The Reverend that sings the gospel - Amen, brother!
So for Flashback Friday I give you a live performance of my favorite Al Green *gospel * song, “People Get Ready”. This is an amazing and uplifting video - enjoy! (And if you’re into gospel, visit Holy Ghost, Red Kelly’s gospel music blog.
Happy Week-end, y’all!

Witness my shoe fetish. There are few girly things more satisfying than scoring spring shoes on the cheap and I’ve sooo got that lovin’ feelin’ for my two new pair!

Snagging these Sketchers for only $12.99 rocked my world. How cute will they be with jeans or city shorts. I think they make the perfect fashion statement with YatPundit’s blue skin, don’t you?

Luv, luv, luv these hemp macrame-ish espradrilles that only cost me $19.99! You can’t tell but a bonus is that they have 3 inch wedge heels. Being only 5′2″, I really like finding cute shoes that make me taller!
These will look so good with the flippy, flirty skirts and dresses I like to wear in the summer. That reminds me….time to start the self-tanning goo on my legs. I do this for you, the public, to keep the glare out of your eyes. Yeah, I’m an extreme white girl, yo.

Next fetish to be satisfied: Handbags.