'Cuz Nicky Don't Like No Panties...or Ghosts

(October 04, 2008)

Today, two of the people who stumbled across this diary did so by Googling "commando in a sundress" and "Nicolas Cage's phone number."

Yeah.

More later...

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Sorry about that. I began that entry and then went off to cook dinner, then one thing led to another and yadda yadda. The only thing I was going to add was, about Nicolas Cage, did anyone see him on Letterman a month ago or so?

As soon as Nicolas told Dave he bought "the most haunted house in the United States" and added that he couldn't bear discussing its history because it was so horrible, I knew precisely which one he bought.

The Lalaurie house on Royal Street in New Orleans. If you're into haunted shit, this place is as hot as 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, NY.

I have been there. Not inside, just outside, on a ghost tour. The rumors started in the 1800s about a prominent French Creole family whose matriarch was the beautiful and brilliant socialite Delphine Lalaurie. Eye witnesses whispered of Delphine's twisted dark side given to performing horrendous, tortuous surgical procedures on her slaves. Most believed these rumors after a dramatic midnight exodus by the Lalaurie family, whose hasty horse-and-wagon flight was followed by investigators' reports of a hidden attic room filled with all the missing slaves, dead, half-dead and worse. But some said this was only a form of early tabloid sensationalism and that Delphine was merely a little cruel to her staff. Just an old meany, not a serial killer.

I have this book, Haunted New Orleans that provides a fairly accurate account, although other sources differ on the details, so who knows what is real and what is lost to history? Some say the Lalauries were never heard from again and may have been hunted and executed by vigilantes, others are sure they simply moved to Paris, lived normally and waved off any crazy rumors that followed from back home.

Since the 1800s the house has been a bar, apartments, a furniture store, several times turned into a school, back to apartments again, burned down, the usual New Orleans stuff (everything in New Orleans has burned down at one time or another.)

Nicolas Cage told Dave he hasn't slept there yet. I would! Nicky, call me up, I'll check it out for you. I ain't afraid o' no ghosts.

Funny how ghost stories always come up naturally in October., ain't it?

In other frightful news, how about this stock market? Europe and Asia now feeling it, and today another big drop in the Dow. Hooooo.

What are we gonna DO?

I feel so bad for my friends who have a lot of capital tied up in things like stocks and bonds and home equity, or who are in the middle of buying a house or losing a house or who would like to get out from under a crushing mortgage and can't, or whose desire to own a house drove them out to the boondocks resulting in a work commute that now costs a small fortune due to skyrocketing fuel costs.

Just can't stop watching CNN. Hooooo, boy. Joey and I just keep looking at each other, happy that we decided on a few certainties together. That we do not live on credit cards. Any non-essential we want, we save up for and make sure we can afford first. That we have resisted the sometimes-urge to buy a car (which I can't even see how anyone with our similar income level can maintain.) We are VERY lucky work-wise, by happenstance in jobs that are (knock wood) relatively safe in industries that are, for now, relatively safe, and I know I have the mettle to go dig up any job(s) to make ends meet if something tragic happens. Hey, been there before, hello 2003?

I was thinking about sharing some recipes that are nutritious, filling and cheap. You like rice?