catelin

Made it back from New Orleans last night...just in time to escape the absolute pandemonium that was beginning. It was a very good trip, though. We got all that needed to be done on the case wrapped up and then spent the rest of the time wandering around the French Quarter with all the other turistas. My brain's still not functioning well enough to coherently piece everything together so I'm resorting to the list of highlights.
1. Got called "honey" and "sweetie" by almost everyone I spoke to...and didn't mind it at all.
2. Lit a candle for my grandmother in St. Louis Cathedral.
3. Had the obligatory one-sided (they talk, I nod my head) conversations with the freaks sitting next to me on the plane (I attract those sorts when I travel and am usually too polite to tell them to fuck off...I'm convinced, however, that businessmen belong to a secret society of the most perverted humans on the planet.)
4. Wandered through old cemeteries.
5. Talked to a guy who paints tits & asses on Bourbon Street for a living.
6. Met a nice pagan boy and left him smitten.
7. Caroused with some of New Orleans' Finest.
8. Graciously fended off drunken dickheads of varying degrees.
9. Harvested a bunch of Mardi Gras beads, whooped and hollered with all the parade-goers.
10. Decided against having my tarot cards read, but purchased a new set for myself.
11. Got to bed at a semi-decent hour almost every night.
12. Drank lots of good coffee and ate lots of good food.
13. Let my hair kink and curl in the humidity with no apologies.
14. Admired all the Goth kids in their self-conscious attempts at casual finery. Something poignantly sweet about that--trying so hard to look like you're not trying.
15. Smelled the flowers.
16. Missed my babies.

It was really a wonderful trip, aside from the business part of it. I am glad to be home and looking forward to napping with my kids for the rest of the weekend.

Somebody got me thinking about cops today. Not that I don't think about them everyday since I work with them, but I was thinking more about them today after reading something that's so full of the stereotype cop bullshit that I won't even bore myself repeating it. Maybe I take it too personally. My experience with cops has been, for the most part, good. That doesn't mean some of them aren't shitheels...I've known a few of those too. Overall, though, I've found law enforcement to be an under-appreciated and noble profession. My dad was a cop for most of my early childhood. He got out of it and went back to school. He had a partner named Jack. I don't remember much about him other than that he laughed a lot and was always nice to me. You can find him here. I work with honest, kind-hearted, straight-up decent people everyday who happen to be cops. I like them, I laugh with them, I cry with them, and I worry about them. It hasn't been very long since the last cop's funeral that I went to...so pardon me for not laughing at the fucking donut jokes.