Soooooooo....... We dun did screwed up.
Pretty sure Squeakers broke her toe.
Good news: there was a vet down the road. Skippy's mom drove me over and we were able to get in within minutes. Bad news: They only dealt with cats and dogs. Despite that, the vet did his best to treat her.
His assistant held Squeakers down while he finished trimming her nails. I know velociraptors weren't his specialty and all, but I do wish he handled her more with care. There's this thing called the quick and they almost always catch it on Squeakers. The usual remedy is to pat some cornstarch/flour on it and it'll clot, but this guy's solution was to "cauterize" it with the dremel. That meant he kept sanding the damn nail down.
Me (internally): "Umm, excuse me, doctor, but could you fucking kindly NOT?"
Me actually: "Can you please just use the kwik-stop? LIKE NOW?"
He probably would've grinded her toe off if I didn't speak up. I wasn't convinced the toe was simply "irritated", but we had to hit the road for our big trip to San Diego. If it didn't improve in the next 24 hours, we'd find the nearest exotic pet hospital.
So next morning, we're at an animal hospital in New Orleans.
She really did. Even the New Orleans vet was like, "Yeah, raptors jack up their toes all the time. It's not your fault."
There was one time Squeakers was trapped in the towel and she was so desperate for freedom, her tail fell off so she could squirm out. Yes, she is willing to rip off her ass to get away from me. That is a deep hatred.
We drove back to our hotel in the French Quarter and got her settled in.
I ain't gonna sugarcoat this like a beignet, New Orleans smells like shit. It is a mixture of sewage, weed, old shrimp left in the sun, and liquor. Garbage everywhere, mysterious brown puddles all over the roads, if you can even call them roads. Hurricane Katrina tore the city up and they are still repairing after all these years.
Based on actual people.
Rewinding- We'd actually made it to New Orleans the previous night and did a quick venture down Bourbon Street solely to find food. It was uber late and I felt like I was gonna die. There was a guy standing outside a place at the tail end of the street claiming the kitchen was open late and beer was cheap. The drinks were lumberjack quality: tall,strong, and inspired you to climb a tree.
Everything on the menu sounded really good so I ordered "A Taste of New Orleans". It included three of Nawlins' specialties: seafood etouffee, gumbo, and red beans and rice.
The gumbo was pretty good too. The rice and beans were a little bland. But dat etouffee tho. I tasted that and knew instantly what I would title this chapter.
But it wasn't. There was a quick, but disappointing trip to the Acme Oyster House but everything else I sampled was of the liquid variety. The accurate title is...
Note: Once you've had New England oysters, you don't go back. Quality over quantity. And no one outside of Boston knows how to make a proper oyster shot. That is a fact!
Fast forward- We got back to the hotel, got Squeakers settled, yadda yadda. We set out for a full day out on the town. By that time I was ready to get my draaaank on.
My first beverage choice couldn't have been poorer.
Skippy went back to the hotel after the first bar to drop off souvenirs and take a quick nap because his stomach was aching. Poor choice #2: I stayed on Bourbon Street when I should've called for a timeout too. I was already feeling that hurricane... and the mojito, wait, was it two mojitos and a hurricane or a hurricane and two hurricanes and a mojito?....
I should not have been left unattended.
I bumbled up and down the streets until my dad texted me,
A mellow place to chill out, sip on a beer and enjoy Nawlin's life? Hellz yeah!
BIG NOPE.
ALL THE NOPE.
I get to the place whose name sorta rhymes with "Bing-Bing's" and find a hole in the wall with the bass booming so hard, it rattled my intestines. I feared I might crap myself.
The fish bowl monger wasn't too chipper with me. Then again, I wasn't too sober. I simply stated the fact he had false advertising and should soon correct it. He shrugged and told me, "Pffft, don't like it? Tell the manager."
Dear Eyebrowless Fish Bowl Monger,
I just ate a dozen oysters, I've had my intake of saltiness for the day.
Good day. :D
^ Hey look, a typo! ^
Yes. Yes I did. I marched directly across the street to the tequila bar (no mixing, just straight up), and made it clear to Fish bowl monger he'd lost my business.
I took a seat at the bar and could tell Tequila Guy was judging me, which I understood. It's a party town and I looked young and stupid. I also looked like I was walking with one foot already in the bag. And I was. I can't even call it a nice brown bag you'd stow baguettes into, it was a wet plastic bag metaphorically tangled around my ankle.
But then I ordered up a glass of George Clooney's Casamigos reposado with a lime wedge and sipped on that baby with my pinky up. He realized, "Oh good, a drunk with some class."
Two tequila shots and a --some other drink I shouldn't have had-- later,
http://giphy.com/gifs/pee-wee-herman-tequila-national-day-YhqAgNnSiwCs
Skippy texted me saying he's feeling better and ready for round two.
He arrived and drunk me realized, "so the turns have tabled". Twas I with the sour stomach now. I nursed glass after glass of water while he made friends with Tequila guy.
He drank tequila like agave was going extinct. I don't remember how many he tried, but I knew we were there for five hours and got the bartender's email address.
Poor choice #3: I didn't eat.
Poor choice #4: I may or may not have tasted his drinks. And Skippy may or may not have beat some guy in a drinking contest. "It was only beer," he said. "It was easy," he said.
Then we got the hookup,
I can neither confirm nor deny there were 6-7 nurse sharks and/or "bitches" involved that night. I will say we went to an aquarium, it rained in some way, and I woke up smelling like perfume. Was it in that particular order? Maybe, maybe not. That's up to your imagination.
And a grapefruit did save me. My grandparents gave us a few from their backyard before we left Florida. We kept them packed in the cooler with the road beer.
....That didn't sound right. It stayed in the bed of the truck!
The hangover wasn't too bad. No headache or nausea--well, actually there was that moment before bed,
I had it under control until that gut squeeze. I don't blame you, Skippy. I blame the hurricane that started it all and the vodka that ended it all.
Lucky for me we only had oysters that day.
We booked the hotel room an extra night just to recover. My stomach was doing cartwheels all day. Keeping down half a gator burger was near impossible. What I really wanted were Cheerios but apparently God was still ashamed that I peed in the men's bathroom and was not done delivering his punishment!
But I did get my coffee from Cafe du Monde. And I did make an offering to Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen's shrine in one of the voodoo shops. I washed away all that bad hoodoo.
So what did I learn about New Orleans?
You can tell the real bums from the fake bums by the smell. If you look between the cracks in the sidewalk, you'll see old beads and broken beer bottles. Every building is haunted. Cafe du Monde is open 24/7. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT get the Hurricane if you plan on drinking more. In summary, the New Orleans French Quarter is a filthy old hole full of drunk weirdos and quite possibly vampires.
And I'd go back in a heartbeat!
See you in Pt. 3!
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