Ok, SO I realize I don't post quite as often as I should, but Rayne is a pretty boring town and for the most part the highlight of my day is going to the gym in the evening. That being said, some funny things happened this week.
We had a pretty typical week at the office, same colds and routine check-ups as normal, but one day this week we had a chief complaint of "Belly Button." You see, we have all of the patients for the day written on a schedule and then next to each patient states what they are coming in for. This guys just said "Belly Button." He was also going to be the last patient of the day.... SO, naturally all of us girls in the office started theorizing about what possibly this belly button complaint could be. Was he Superman and he just didn't have one and it took him this long to figure this out? Did he lose a beat and have to get his belly button pierced and now it's infected? Perhaps he just electively chose to get it pierced and it's infected? Perhaps he just cleaned it out for the first time and was wondering what that lint was?
Anyways, long story short, our Attending totally called him out and it was the cleaning one... really!? So we all completely lost it. Needless to say, he went out the back door. I don't know, I thought it was hilarious... and as you can see, not much goes on in Rayne...
Thursday night my barnmate and I decided to go "hit the town." So we went to the "fancy" restaurant in Rayne called Chef Roy's. Let-me-tell-ya this place was DELICIOUS. It was all cajun type of food. We got shrimp gumbo, shrimp etouffee and coconut beer shrimp. They definitely know their shrimps. But, in the fancy restaurant the servers wore t-shirts and people wore baseball caps and had just come from the gym... my kind of fancy! Afterwards we decided to go 'into town,' (meaning go into Lafayette) to Jefferson Blvd, where all the bars are. Well, I am pretty sure Michele and I crashed some sort of music video shoot. We walked into a bar called, The Office (clever.), because we heard some live music warm up thing. So, we walked in and grabbed a couple beers and then sat down. This is when we finally noticed our surroundings. There were about 13 people inside the bar, pretty much all dudes and they all knew each other and the band. On stage was the band as they sound-checked their stuff... Off stage was a few ladies setting up some pretty serious looking camera and lighting equipment. But, we both had brand new beverages, so as uncomfortable as our crashing felt, we decided to stay to drink them.
The band began to play, probably my least fav kind of music might I add (whining emo-type of music, yes Ashley I know I USED to like this according to you.). After playing for about 14 seconds they would stop and readjust and play more. My barnmate and I decided to chuck the remainders of our beers at this point and scadattle out of the bar... And that concluded our night out. We are old 25 year olds.
So, I am BACK in New Orleans for the 3rd weekend in a row. More to come about this weekend soon I am sure. Also, I have a bunch of pictures from frog fest and such so I will put those up when I can.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Who dat Frog!? Shy Baby...
The more time I spend in this part of Louisiana, the more its charm rubs off on me. I love everything about the cajun culture, especially the way they talk and their slang words (aside from the use of axe for ask). Everyone in this town is damn proud to be from here and everyone is incredibly open and friendly to me.
So this past week was pretty boring at the office, just your typical outpatient stuff for the most part, however the beauty of working somewhere that is 20+ miles from the nearest hospital is we get to do EVERYTHING. I did an incision and drainage on two people in one morning one day this week. I am getting to be a pro at suturing and administering lidocaine... It is really fun! It does seem that A LOT of people here get Staph infected abscesses, perhaps a hygeine lecture would be a proper thing to do? Or it is just the kind of work a lot of them do. Many of the men here work offshore (I think drilling) or do other manual labor. People are much different here. They are less concerned with money and material things, rather then spend time with their families and are always outside. I kind of feel like I've gone back in time. It's refreshing.
The Frog Festival is in Rayne from Wed-Sun. Wednesday night, my barnmate, Michele, and I went to 'family night' at the festival, which was just being able to ride all of the carnival rides for very cheap or free. So, naturally, we still thought we are 12 and would LOVE these rides. NOT.SO.MUCH. The first ride we went on was one of those rides that takes you straight up a tower and then drops you. I love this ride at a legit theme park, probably because you never feel as though you are plummeting to your death because it has sturdy hydraulics. Well, I think deciding to try this ride that was fresh off of a truck bed and being operated by drunk/drugged up carnies was probably not one of my finer moments. Basically it took us up a tower, incredibly slowly I might add, and then just dropped us from the thing connected to the tower so we were 'gliding' (really FALLINGGGGGG) down the contraption. I have never felt so close to death in my life, nor have I ever made the scream noise I made during this ever in my life. Needless to say, we didn't go on anymore of the carnival rides. Instead we thought we'd just walk around and admire the strangeness of the Carnie operators... which were not from Rayne. By 'strangeness' I really mean utter and complete creepers. We couldn't walk by one of their poorly put together game booths without being harassed by a toothless, smoking dude who's skin looked like a football's. But, it was definitely an experience, and on a brighter note... there weren't any clowns. Thank God.
Friday night I decided to venture back to New Orleans since one of my best friends, Erin, was there for the AMA conference (American Medical Assoc). Every time I return to the city, I fall in love with it. It is a totally dirty city, but the charm is unreal. We went to dinner on Bourbon St and ate fried alligator and Boudon Balls (Cajun hush puppies...) which were delicious. We got to watch all the people on Bourbon as we were eating, which, if y'all know me well enough, you'd know people-watchin is my thing. The most notable person who walked by was a dude (yes, DUDE) dressed up like the Queen of Hearts from Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland. Not only did he/she/it walk by but it also came into the restaurant for dinner. Weird.
We did the typical Bourbon St going out, hung out w some weirdos and then went home... pretty uneventful but incredibly fantastic as well. (Oh and we went back to the Dungeon... naturally).
So today I attended some more Frog Festival activities. I went to the Frog race/jumping competition and also the Frog Derby pageant. The Frog jumping contest was cute. Little kids rented Frogs and then were all excited watching them race. I didn't feel as though I should've competed because if I lost to a 5 year old child I wouldn't be able to show my face at the clinic anymore. On the flip side if I totally dominated the competition I still wouldn't be able to show my face because I would be the ass that didn't let the cute little 5 year old win... you see my dilemma. The Frog Derby pageant was where teenaged girls dressed in jocky outfits and then dressed up their frogs (yea, actual living frogs) into costumes of their choosing and those costumes were judged. After all the queens were crowned they had a Grand Parade on the Blvd (the main street in town). That also was an interesting experience. The whole parade pretty much was just all of the different pageant winners in cars, throwing candy, wearing their GIANT crowns. Pageants are huge here.... it's like toddlers and tiaras, but worse because they keep doing it through high school... yea. Ok, so let's talk about the candy throwing... I am pretty sure some of these "queens" were intentionally chucking lollies and jawbreakers at people. I had a tootsie pop nail me in the back of the neck. No idea how it hit the back of my neck, but you get my point.
I decided to go to the festival tonight to watch some of the bands. My barnmate is still in NOLA and my other coworker (who I went to the parade with) was busy with her baby girl and husband, so I was flying solo... but Oh man I am glad I went. I didn't last long, partially because I got creepily hit on by a 50 some odd year old man who also attended this fine gathering by himself. I did, however, get to walk around and admire the festival. They have an area for campers and tons of people were camped out and BBQing. The music scene here is insanely awesome. They had their Cajun music and also this type of music called Zydeco, which I must say is pretty awesome and y'all should all look it up. Anyways, I am really glad I got to experience even just a little of it. Anyways, that's all for now...
Oh perhaps I should explain my title... for some reason people often respond with "Shy Baby," usually when referring to a cute child or something but also in response to someone saying something ridiculous or in a comforting way. It is almost like an "oh hunny" I think, but I like it.
So this past week was pretty boring at the office, just your typical outpatient stuff for the most part, however the beauty of working somewhere that is 20+ miles from the nearest hospital is we get to do EVERYTHING. I did an incision and drainage on two people in one morning one day this week. I am getting to be a pro at suturing and administering lidocaine... It is really fun! It does seem that A LOT of people here get Staph infected abscesses, perhaps a hygeine lecture would be a proper thing to do? Or it is just the kind of work a lot of them do. Many of the men here work offshore (I think drilling) or do other manual labor. People are much different here. They are less concerned with money and material things, rather then spend time with their families and are always outside. I kind of feel like I've gone back in time. It's refreshing.
The Frog Festival is in Rayne from Wed-Sun. Wednesday night, my barnmate, Michele, and I went to 'family night' at the festival, which was just being able to ride all of the carnival rides for very cheap or free. So, naturally, we still thought we are 12 and would LOVE these rides. NOT.SO.MUCH. The first ride we went on was one of those rides that takes you straight up a tower and then drops you. I love this ride at a legit theme park, probably because you never feel as though you are plummeting to your death because it has sturdy hydraulics. Well, I think deciding to try this ride that was fresh off of a truck bed and being operated by drunk/drugged up carnies was probably not one of my finer moments. Basically it took us up a tower, incredibly slowly I might add, and then just dropped us from the thing connected to the tower so we were 'gliding' (really FALLINGGGGGG) down the contraption. I have never felt so close to death in my life, nor have I ever made the scream noise I made during this ever in my life. Needless to say, we didn't go on anymore of the carnival rides. Instead we thought we'd just walk around and admire the strangeness of the Carnie operators... which were not from Rayne. By 'strangeness' I really mean utter and complete creepers. We couldn't walk by one of their poorly put together game booths without being harassed by a toothless, smoking dude who's skin looked like a football's. But, it was definitely an experience, and on a brighter note... there weren't any clowns. Thank God.
Friday night I decided to venture back to New Orleans since one of my best friends, Erin, was there for the AMA conference (American Medical Assoc). Every time I return to the city, I fall in love with it. It is a totally dirty city, but the charm is unreal. We went to dinner on Bourbon St and ate fried alligator and Boudon Balls (Cajun hush puppies...) which were delicious. We got to watch all the people on Bourbon as we were eating, which, if y'all know me well enough, you'd know people-watchin is my thing. The most notable person who walked by was a dude (yes, DUDE) dressed up like the Queen of Hearts from Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland. Not only did he/she/it walk by but it also came into the restaurant for dinner. Weird.
We did the typical Bourbon St going out, hung out w some weirdos and then went home... pretty uneventful but incredibly fantastic as well. (Oh and we went back to the Dungeon... naturally).
So today I attended some more Frog Festival activities. I went to the Frog race/jumping competition and also the Frog Derby pageant. The Frog jumping contest was cute. Little kids rented Frogs and then were all excited watching them race. I didn't feel as though I should've competed because if I lost to a 5 year old child I wouldn't be able to show my face at the clinic anymore. On the flip side if I totally dominated the competition I still wouldn't be able to show my face because I would be the ass that didn't let the cute little 5 year old win... you see my dilemma. The Frog Derby pageant was where teenaged girls dressed in jocky outfits and then dressed up their frogs (yea, actual living frogs) into costumes of their choosing and those costumes were judged. After all the queens were crowned they had a Grand Parade on the Blvd (the main street in town). That also was an interesting experience. The whole parade pretty much was just all of the different pageant winners in cars, throwing candy, wearing their GIANT crowns. Pageants are huge here.... it's like toddlers and tiaras, but worse because they keep doing it through high school... yea. Ok, so let's talk about the candy throwing... I am pretty sure some of these "queens" were intentionally chucking lollies and jawbreakers at people. I had a tootsie pop nail me in the back of the neck. No idea how it hit the back of my neck, but you get my point.
I decided to go to the festival tonight to watch some of the bands. My barnmate is still in NOLA and my other coworker (who I went to the parade with) was busy with her baby girl and husband, so I was flying solo... but Oh man I am glad I went. I didn't last long, partially because I got creepily hit on by a 50 some odd year old man who also attended this fine gathering by himself. I did, however, get to walk around and admire the festival. They have an area for campers and tons of people were camped out and BBQing. The music scene here is insanely awesome. They had their Cajun music and also this type of music called Zydeco, which I must say is pretty awesome and y'all should all look it up. Anyways, I am really glad I got to experience even just a little of it. Anyways, that's all for now...
Oh perhaps I should explain my title... for some reason people often respond with "Shy Baby," usually when referring to a cute child or something but also in response to someone saying something ridiculous or in a comforting way. It is almost like an "oh hunny" I think, but I like it.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Vampire Bars exist, and they are located in New Orleans... down an alley way off of Bourbon Street
Hey Everyone! I apologize for the delay in writing another post... I spent last weekend in New Orleans with my barn-mate and wasn't around enough to write.
SO, let me start off by saying, New Orleans is a beautiful/funky/sketchy city full or life, culture, and some weirdos. I feel as though I may stick out due to my normal clothing choices and non-hipster look, but I am ok with that (ESPECIALLY the "non-hipster" part. Barf.). Everyone there is an individual in there own right. I feel as though many of the NOLAians, if in a regular town or city, would actually be committed to a mental hospital for acute schizophrenia or psychotic behavior, but in New Orleans, THEY are the normal ones. Scary, huh? I found it intriguing.
Also, apparently there is more to the city than Bourbon St. and flashing your boobies for beads! WHO KNEW!? On Friday night I went out with some of the medical students to a few swanky bars in the town, keeping it as classy as one can in the great city of New Orleans. However, we still ended the night in a bar called "The Saint" which had blacked out windows and reeked of cigarette smoke. Hey, at least we tried to keep it classy?
Disclaimer: there may be one too many TrueBlood references in the remainder of the post...
But.... now we get to the meat of this blog post... VAMPIRES EXIST! No, I am not "shitting" you. I know that is what you are thinking. I went to a bar called "The Dungeon," which was located off a side street from Bourbon St. First, to get into the bar you have to creep your way through a narrow passageway and over a little man-made creek to get to the front door. So basically, picture this, your only way out is the same passageway and you are currently behind a stone wall and located in a bar full of people who could quite possibly try to bite you... First, you are greeted by a bouncer who has dark, coarse hair down to his shoulders and a scraggly beard. When he grabs your I.D. his slightly too long finger nails graze your hand. I am pretty sure he is a Werewolf at this point. Chilling. Anyways, clearly the first thing I needed to do when I arrived at the night-crawlers bar was use the ladies' room. But, I couldn't find the bathroom... when I was directed to where it was I just saw some book cases with a bunch of old books on them. A closer look revealed that these were actually fake book cases and the bathroom door was hidden among them. This was a bit curious... (those who watch TrueBlood know that the vamps take victims into the bathrooms to feed on them... convenient that these bathrooms were hidden).
Obviously, I made it out of the bathrooms with all of my blood. Inside the bar I find my friends sitting in a booth that is surrounded by a dungeon cage. They try to take a picture of themselves in the cage only to have the bouncer (aka a werewolf) yell at them and say, "NO PICTURES ALLOWED!" WHAT!? That's weird. One would think at this point I would leave this bar, but no... I am entirely too intrigued and want to go upstairs and see what else this bar has in store. Upstairs they have angry, screaming, metal blaring and even more of those weird cage surrounded booths. But, oddly enough there were mirrors behind the bar, which I was too afraid to look into, afraid I may not see some of the attendants reflections in the mirror. On the walls were some weird S&M paintings and dragon heads... Then, my friends and I meet Ace. Ace has lived in the French Quarter for 30 some odd years. Ace also had long, silky. black hair to his shoulders and a much more trimmed goatee. I believe Ace was the "Eric" of this bar. (for those of you who don't get this reference, Eric was the owner of the bar Fangtasia in TrueBlood).
Anyways, we made it out of there scratch and bite-free. Needless to say that was the COOLEST bar I have ever been too! Haha
The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, but very fun. I am definitely enjoying my time in Louisiana. The Frog Festival is in Rayne this weekend and I am sure that will be another experience all-together. I will write more tomorrow.
I think my imagination has gone a little too wild :)
SO, let me start off by saying, New Orleans is a beautiful/funky/sketchy city full or life, culture, and some weirdos. I feel as though I may stick out due to my normal clothing choices and non-hipster look, but I am ok with that (ESPECIALLY the "non-hipster" part. Barf.). Everyone there is an individual in there own right. I feel as though many of the NOLAians, if in a regular town or city, would actually be committed to a mental hospital for acute schizophrenia or psychotic behavior, but in New Orleans, THEY are the normal ones. Scary, huh? I found it intriguing.
Also, apparently there is more to the city than Bourbon St. and flashing your boobies for beads! WHO KNEW!? On Friday night I went out with some of the medical students to a few swanky bars in the town, keeping it as classy as one can in the great city of New Orleans. However, we still ended the night in a bar called "The Saint" which had blacked out windows and reeked of cigarette smoke. Hey, at least we tried to keep it classy?
Disclaimer: there may be one too many TrueBlood references in the remainder of the post...
But.... now we get to the meat of this blog post... VAMPIRES EXIST! No, I am not "shitting" you. I know that is what you are thinking. I went to a bar called "The Dungeon," which was located off a side street from Bourbon St. First, to get into the bar you have to creep your way through a narrow passageway and over a little man-made creek to get to the front door. So basically, picture this, your only way out is the same passageway and you are currently behind a stone wall and located in a bar full of people who could quite possibly try to bite you... First, you are greeted by a bouncer who has dark, coarse hair down to his shoulders and a scraggly beard. When he grabs your I.D. his slightly too long finger nails graze your hand. I am pretty sure he is a Werewolf at this point. Chilling. Anyways, clearly the first thing I needed to do when I arrived at the night-crawlers bar was use the ladies' room. But, I couldn't find the bathroom... when I was directed to where it was I just saw some book cases with a bunch of old books on them. A closer look revealed that these were actually fake book cases and the bathroom door was hidden among them. This was a bit curious... (those who watch TrueBlood know that the vamps take victims into the bathrooms to feed on them... convenient that these bathrooms were hidden).
Obviously, I made it out of the bathrooms with all of my blood. Inside the bar I find my friends sitting in a booth that is surrounded by a dungeon cage. They try to take a picture of themselves in the cage only to have the bouncer (aka a werewolf) yell at them and say, "NO PICTURES ALLOWED!" WHAT!? That's weird. One would think at this point I would leave this bar, but no... I am entirely too intrigued and want to go upstairs and see what else this bar has in store. Upstairs they have angry, screaming, metal blaring and even more of those weird cage surrounded booths. But, oddly enough there were mirrors behind the bar, which I was too afraid to look into, afraid I may not see some of the attendants reflections in the mirror. On the walls were some weird S&M paintings and dragon heads... Then, my friends and I meet Ace. Ace has lived in the French Quarter for 30 some odd years. Ace also had long, silky. black hair to his shoulders and a much more trimmed goatee. I believe Ace was the "Eric" of this bar. (for those of you who don't get this reference, Eric was the owner of the bar Fangtasia in TrueBlood).
Anyways, we made it out of there scratch and bite-free. Needless to say that was the COOLEST bar I have ever been too! Haha
The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, but very fun. I am definitely enjoying my time in Louisiana. The Frog Festival is in Rayne this weekend and I am sure that will be another experience all-together. I will write more tomorrow.
I think my imagination has gone a little too wild :)
It says, "Repent."
"Too late."
"It's never too late."
Weird for a bathroom toilet paper dispenser (in the DUNGEON!)
This is a creepy cemetery outside of my Barn-mates NOLA residence.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Cajun=Ebonics
I have discovered that the Cajun language makes no sense. Apparently one can choose how to pronounce their last name, whether it makes sense or not, and that is "Cajun prerogative." For example, the last name Leger, which to me would be pronounced 'ledge-r' is pronounced lay-jay... REALLY!? And then I get laughed at for saying Ledger... ok, whatever. Also the word ask=axe here, which still and forever will make no sense to me since literally only ONE letter is the same. It is like saying ask and ate are the same word. Clearly they are not, but I digress...
I did, however, learn a little about Cajun history. Apparently Cajuns are descendants of Acadian exiles. Where the heck is Acadia you ask? Well, don't fret, I wikipedia-ed it and apparently Acadia is now a part of the Canadian Maritimes (didn't know what this was either, but whatever it's part of French-speaking Canada). So basically the area of Louisiana I live in is like the Australia of the United States. Yes, I used to think Cajuns were from France, but in fact they are Canadian... but also Southern Louisiana was occupied by French settlers during the 18th century. History can be F-U-N!
Today my roommate and I came to New Orleans. I haven't been here since 2008, so I am really excited to hang out here this weekend. I am sure I will have plenty of things to write about during the weekend. As most of you know, there is a big football game this weekend (LSU(no.1) vs. Alabama(no.2)). I promised my co-workers I would wear purple and gold, so in the spirit of my Cajun friends, GEAUX TIGERS!!!
I did, however, learn a little about Cajun history. Apparently Cajuns are descendants of Acadian exiles. Where the heck is Acadia you ask? Well, don't fret, I wikipedia-ed it and apparently Acadia is now a part of the Canadian Maritimes (didn't know what this was either, but whatever it's part of French-speaking Canada). So basically the area of Louisiana I live in is like the Australia of the United States. Yes, I used to think Cajuns were from France, but in fact they are Canadian... but also Southern Louisiana was occupied by French settlers during the 18th century. History can be F-U-N!
Today my roommate and I came to New Orleans. I haven't been here since 2008, so I am really excited to hang out here this weekend. I am sure I will have plenty of things to write about during the weekend. As most of you know, there is a big football game this weekend (LSU(no.1) vs. Alabama(no.2)). I promised my co-workers I would wear purple and gold, so in the spirit of my Cajun friends, GEAUX TIGERS!!!
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
SHUT THE DOOR! Do you think you live in a barn!?
In fact I do reside in a barn. Now not a red barn like you'd think, nor is it a barn like Patrick Swazyee occupies in Roadhouse, but yes, horses live in it. So my doctor renovated 2-3 horse stalls into a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment, which, surprisingly, is really nice. There is a horse named Alfalfa who hangs out outside our kitchen window all day and he has some buddies in the lot next to him but I don't know their names. I have a roommate from Tulane Med school who is pretty awesome. We have 4 channels on TV but thank god we have internet.
So, the clinic I work at is a Family Med/Pediatrics, so we see literally all 15 people who live in this town, but many of them are the typical "I have had this angry looking second head growing out of my face for about 6 years now and I am NOW just coming into see you" type of people. Also, the accents portrayed in the movie, The Waterboy, are pretty spot-on accurate as most of them sound like Bobby Boucher however plenty sound like the mush mouth coach, Farmer Fran. Also everyone calls everyone else, "Baby" or "Boo," but EVERYONE I have encountered so far has been really awesome and nice and I think this will be a very enjoyable few months.
Tonight, my roommate and I decided to go into town (aka Lafayette) to grab dinner, so we asked a co-worker where we should go and her suggestion was this place called Coyote Blues which she said "Is kind of a Mexican restaurant, but not really..." (btw-it's TOTALLY a Mexican restaurant). It was awesome btw with homemade tortillas and everything. Her second suggestion though was the Olive Garden, and don't get me wrong that place is the jam, especially their all-you-can-eat soup, salad and breadsticks for $5.99, but she also defined it for us as "Its an italian restaurant." Thanks, I was unaware, but a sincere thank you for the suggestions, she is a sweet elderly lady.
OH, and how could I forget, the Annual Frog Festival (remember, I said Rayne is the Frog Capital of the World) is next weekend and we are definitely going to everything. Apparently, you can rent a frog for the frog jumping contest. I.CAN.NOT.WAIT. (plenty of stories to follow I am sure).
Meet Alfalfa, AKA-sweetest horse ever.
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