What's So Good About Good Friday?

Well, in addition to being able to post this picture of this cute little church boy playing Jesus in the passion play, it's Boy Ginger's last day of work before a week of "staycation"! Miss Ginger has a honeydo list a mile long for him, and she has a list of her own to get accomplished! By the end of next week, Chez Ginger will shine like the top of the Chrysler Building, soon to be known as the Hyundai Building at the rate we're going! ( I stole that joke from Sands and have to give credit since he may be a reader!) There's errands to do, gardens to clean, closets to sort, and naps to be taken! MBC is coming on Thursday with a load of mulch, which is my FAVORITE gardening activity of the year. Having fresh mulch is like getting new carpet for the yard! It looks so clean and uniform! I can't wait to post B&F photos of the "transformation"!

TTFN- gotta get to the office and hope my boss take the afternoon off so I can too!

The Pink Dolphin!

No, it's not some tragic drag club near the beach in Galveston, although it certainly sounds like it could be!

Actually, this is really, really, really cool!

When Boy Ginger was a kid, he and his brothers used to go out fishing with Daddy G just about every weekend in the summer months. We would take the boat down to Hebert's Bait Camp in Big Lake, Louisiana and fish until Daddy and the older boys ran out of beer. We had a great time back then, and to this day tell "Big Lake" stories about the time we ran the boat aground in Lamberts Bayou, or the time we drifted into a school and caught 110 fish on one trip!

This pic is actually "pre-boat" days. In fact, it's pre- Ginger days! Must have been taken about 1960, when Miss G was just a twinkle in Daddy's eye!

ANYWAY, FABULOUS reader "Inthehouse" told me he heard on the Today show that a pink dolphin was spotted in Big Lake. Sure enough, it's true! A charter guide spotted a school of dolphins (porpoises, really... they are mammals) in Lake Calcasieu, which is the real name for Big Lake. It's pretty unusual to see porpoises that far inland, anyway, so I'm sure they caught the guides attention. Then, there it was, as pink as can be!

Isn't it ADORABLE! I want one!

Click this link for more pics, plus credit to the photographer, Erik Rue!

It's hard to believe this actually happened in Miss G's childhood home!!

Les Jardins de Ginger!

Miss Ginger has been gardening her little tail off, and she finally has pictures for you to see!
You know she's a "before and after" kinda girl (guess it's that whole "transformation" thing?!) so here's the side entrance to the house "before".
Here in south Texas the winters are so humid that almost any outdoor flat surface will become covered with dark mold, so after Boy Ginger went crazy with the power washer, Miss Ginger came behind and planted birds of paradise to brighten things up!


The drunk driver made a mess of the azaleas, but Miss G got a few good flushes of blooms anyway! That bright pink color is almost flourescent it's so bright!

Miss Ginger found these great planters at Sam's Club, so she made this cool fountain out of them. Next week when he's on vacation Boy G will have to run a buried conduit out to it so she won't have to use an extension cord.













When Texas's favorite department store became America's Favorite Department Store, there was all new Christmas trim bought for every store, and somehow Miss G ended up with these giant wire kissing ball frames in her yard. They've been on the side of the house under a pile of magnolia leaves for God knows how long, so Miss G pulled them out and planted them as hanging baskets. There's ivy planted in them that she intends to train aound the curlycues.



By this point there's barely a bare spot left, but Miss G wanted to plant tomatoes (or tamaduhs as they call them in Texas!) There was no where to go but up, and Miss G had seen this clever way to grow tomatoes upside down in a catalog, so she decided to give it a try. One of the toughest parts of vegetable gardening in Texas is fighting back the weeds and bugs, and with them up above ground like this she's hoping to avoid both problems!

Nog seems quite happy that his room is all clean! He even got his furniture power washed!

And Miss G is tuckered out and ready to crawl up on the porch with Nog and take a nap!

Miss Ginger Forgot the Most Important Parts!

Yesterday had so many fabulous bounties that Miss G forgot a couple!
While she waited at the airport for her flight, she got a call from Boy Ginger's boss letting him know that he WILL officially be "going forward" with America's Favorite Department Store! He wasn't too worried, but you know how a loose end hanging can make you uneasy, especially when it's hanging longer than expected! So that's official, and the job actually should become a bit easier and more focused on the parts he enjoys the most!
And then, when Miss G went through the mail, she found her income tax return had come back from the accountant, and she's getting a world record refund, for her at least! Woohoo!
And now she wakes up and it's beautiful day for gardening!

Great day!

Didja ever have one of those days when the stars and moon aligned, and great things happened? Miss Ginger did today!
Her day started relatively normal, and after breakfast at the hotel she packed, loaded the car, and headed to the store, where the day was very productive, and quick. She and the store team came up with great actionables for all the opportunities, and the recap was done by noon... just in time for Miss G to get a "trip alert" letting her know that her 3:30 flight would be late due to a late arriving aircraft. "No sweat" thought Miss G. "If I leave now I may be able to catch the 1:30 flight." When Miss G checked in she was number 16 on standby, but as luck would have it, she got the last seat on the plane, so instead of arriving 2 hours late she got home an hour early! Must be livin' right! The weather was gorgeous today, so on the way home Miss G got Veronique washed (she was covered with airport parking scuzz) and tomorrow Miss G is looking forward to a productive day of errands and gardening! Ain't life grand!

Headin' to the House!

Tomorrow Miss G heads back home to H-town when she finishes work. It's been a good trip but she'll be glad to get back home to the kitties!

The stay in Metairie has been much nicer than in Baton Rouge. Instead of a freeway view, this time Miss G got a lake view. As many times as Miss G has stayed in the Marriott in Metairie she has always had the city view, and this time she got the lake view, right at the foot of the Causeway. Stunning!

The rest of the regional team ditched her ass this afternoon and headed back to H-town early, so the ever resourceful Miss G called her oldest and dearest friend John, and we had dinner at a New Orleans institution, Casamento's Restaurant. Casamento's is an amazing place that everyone simply must visit in their lifetime. It is so cool! The place is over 80 years old, but it is so spotlessly clean you would think is was built yesterday, except for the art deco bent to the decor. You see, it was built in the days before refrigeration, when the likelihood of contracting ptomaine or something even worse from improperly handled seafood was much greater than it is today. So the folks that built Casamentos covered virtually every conceivable surface with porcelain tile, which was quite pricey in the day. This way, it could be effectively cleaned and disinfected to prevent contamination. Also, because there was no source of shellfish outside of the Louisiana oyster season back then, Casamento's simply closed during the summer months, and reopened with the oyster season again in September. Casamento's still follows the tradition to this day, even though they could easily have oysters flown in from other parts of the world. The heritage in Louisiana is that one only eats oysters in months with the letter "R" in the name, which means you don't eat oysters in May, June, July, or August- the hot summer months when the water was too warm and cholera, ptomaine, and other microorganisms could too easily contaminate the shellfish. Today, the Louisiana seafood industry has discovered ways to pasteurize shellfish to prevent contamination, but Miss Ginger prefers to follow the tradition- it just seems to make them taste better!

So What is Blogging all About?

Tonight over drinks after dinner at Acme Oyster Company in lovely Metairie, La., Miss Ginger's work buddies starting peeling off one by one as they began to do their nightly "accomplishments" before retiring. When Boy Ginger told the group he was going up to "blog" before he went to bed, they were all quite interested!
"What is blogging?", they asked. "Do you do it every night?" "Who reads it?" "Why do you spend your time doing that?"
When I explained that there is a whole blog "community" that keeps up with and "knows" each other, they felt insulted: "So these are people you know?! But we're not invited to read your blog?!" "How well do you know them?" "What do you tell them?!" "Do you talk about us?!"
So the answers were: yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.
Miss Ginger "knows" the people who read her very well! Nutwood Beth calls it like it is, and Ken is always there to support her! DD has all the latest celebrity gossip, and Mistress Maddie knows what's going on with every drag queen in the world. Northwest Dan covers gay politics, Sissy Mark covers gay lifestyle, and "Auntie Flame" Joy is the online Mom we all wish we had! Miss Alaineous is there to almenac an "alternative" spin on things, Tugboat gives us the trucker viewpoint, and Kaycee makes the whole world seem delicious! I've forgotten hundreds of you I'm sure, but my point was that we all share the important parts of our lives that we think are worth sharing!
So then the question was... "so you're not really yourself, you are some "character" you have created for these people?!"
Ouch, that cut close to the bone, because I think you all know that, in fact, Miss Ginger is quite the character, and does exist for you to enjoy and appreciate.
But she is VERY real, and she loves her blog friends and her tangible friends with the same fervor! And NOTHING happens on her blog that hasn't happened in real life!
The point is that Boy Ginger and Miss Ginger both surround themselves with people who matter, and more importantly, to whom they matter!
So, thanks to the boy's "work friends", Miss G feels compelled to say "thank you all for caring! And thank you for making me matter!"
I think Miss Sheria summed it up for me when she commented "Miss Ginger, you are the breath of fresh air I needed today!'
Thanks, Sheria!! It feels good to be needed!