Back to reality

Well Arnold and I have dragged our beignet bloated bellies back to Sac. and it is strangely comforting here. Sac is not exactly famous for having great summers but I think they are fantastic! There is no humiditiy and in our new house we have only used the air condtioning once. Hopefully it will stay this way for our Housewarming party next weekend. :) And in more exciting(for us) news we got a new couch! It was delivered! I felt like a rich girl watching movers deliver my couch. :)

Nola Part 2

The tricky thing about being here is that neither of us was ever here pre-Katrina so we don't really know if the city looks different or feels different. Also we are not visiting areas that were hardest hit. I have noticed there are a lot of freshly painted buildings, I wonder if that's because they were stained by the water in the floods? According to our awesome Pakistani cab driver, I say Pakistani specifically because I asked him if he was Indian. Arnold was laughing his ass off seeing as India and Pakistan are like total enemies. The cab driver was nice about my faux pas, that's why he is "awesome Pakistani cab driver". Anyways, actually he was awesome cause he told us all about New Orleans, New Jersey and Pakistan. According to him he feels that people in New Orleans used to be a lot more exuberant pre-Katrina. Today we had an alligator sausage-shrimp cheesecake and charbroiled oysters. Quite frankly, both were freaking amazing. Also I tried a hurricane, it was okay.

Things I love about New Orleans:

1) The FOOD
2) The beautiful architecture
3) The friendly people and their cool accents
4) There is music everywhere
5) The concierge at our hotel
6) Beignets, beignets, beignets
7) The Mississippi river, it is not that pretty but mesmerizing never the less.

Things that are surprising about New Orleans:

1) Not as many people have accents as i thought
2) The food in the French quarter is really expensive
3) Pope John Paul the II came here
4) 80% humidity is not as horrible as it sounds
5) There was a huge boat that ran into a mall once, very strange
6) It seems very similar to Cartagena, Colombia

Things that I do not like about New Orleans:
1) The porn on Bourbon Street
2) Voodoo-enough said, freaky, freaky
3) Taxi drivers who almost kill us on the way from the airport

If you do decide to visit NOLA, I highly recommend it, remember to eat at...

Cafe du Monde - for Beignets, eat there every day
Jacques-Imo - So good, that's where we had the alligator
Dragos-the charbroiled oysters were out of this world

Honestly, we haven't even scratched the surface of this city but those are my favorites so far.

Laterz y'all!

Live from NOLA

So we've just completed day 1 in NOLA where Arnold and I are currently for a work conference. And I have to say, it's very unusual, the humidity hasn't been as bad as I expected, but it does really tire one out quickly. While the plane was landing last night I got this creepy feeling as I imagined the whole city submerged under the flood waters, I guess that's the spookiness that accompanies places where great tragedies have occurred. The fact that we flew in at 1:30 a.m in the morning probably added to the ambiance. But anyways, I have to say that new Orleans so far kind of reminds me of Latin America, it has interesting history, kind people and lunatic taxi drivers, speaking of which... I was seriously afraid that our taxi driver was going to kill us on the ride to the hotel, both in the "Maybe he might be evil sense" as well as the "ohmigod he is driving off the road" sense. Normally I would attribute this to my innate wusineses, but when we got out of the car Arnold said "I thought we were going to die."
All adventure aside we had the opportunity to walk around a little today and saw the French Quarter, Cafe du Monde etc. The French Quarter is beautiful, it's picturesque, full of awesome restaurants, balconies overflowing with flowers and colorful characters. My one exception to my glowing praise is Bourbon street, Bourbon street was a libidinous cesspool, and I don't mean libidinous in that fun "woo-hoo party" way, I mean it was libidinous in that disgusting pornographic way. I walked all the way down to give it a fair chance, but honestly it was just really, really gross. So there ya go, that's the review so far! Food and beautiful buildings. Good! Bourbon street and lunatic taxi drivers. Bad!

Distinctive Names

As mentioned previously my cousin Sage recently added another member to a family in the form of an apparently robust baby boy, but what I didn't mention is that she and her husband named their baby Bison. I am of the camp that people should be free to name their children pretty much whatever they want but apparently little baby Bison's name has been causing some controversy/confusion . But here is what I have to say about the whole thing. I was born a Maghanoy, and if you want to see people get confused about how to pronounce/deal with a name, just throw a Maghanoy into the mix and you will see people practically have anxiety attacks trying to pronounce your name. I have always known when people got to my name on a list because they stare at it for a long time... there is always a long, agonizing pause, I say agonizing because the people attempting to wrap their minds around Maghanoy always seem a little distressed about the situation. But you know what? I don't care, I have always loved being a Maghanoy. Instead of feeling burdened but my apparently confounding name I always have felt that it is something that makes my family an exclusively awesome bunch, we are no ordinary dime-a-dozen Smith's or Jones, we are FREAKING Maghanoy's! And... it's totally awesome. So Baby Bison, take some advice from your Tia Amelie who you've yet to meet. Enjoy your name, I'll be looking for a blog at http://www.bison.com/ sometime in the distant future.

And... speaking of awesome...Arnold and I are flying to NOLA tomorow! Woo-hoo!

Breaking News!!!

I just got word from my abuela connection that one more has been added to the familia! Apparently Dora's life has been changed forever as yet another great-granchild has been introduced. Very exciting indeed! And an awesome excuse for a trip up to the Pacific NW! Congratulations to my cousin and loyal maghanoy.com commentator Sage! Here is my excitement level about this news! This is the "Congratulations Sage, Randy and Dora" dance!

In other not-as-exciting-but-still-fun news Arnold and I have a temporary addition to our family, my cousin's dog Anubis has been our first houseguest. Of course he is sleeping outside, which is not something that other houseguests will have to do... seriously, I promise. :) Anyways, it is very strange, three weeks ago Arnold and I were hysterical students living in a 10000 degree apartment and trying just to make it thorugh finals. Now we are homeowners blissfully spending our weekends cooking, cleaning, watering lawns and walking our temporary dog. V. strange indeed.

Joys of Homeownership

Well two weeks into homeownerships we have already gotten to call... THE PLUMBER! After an unfortunate experience after trying to run the washing machine we decided it was time to call in the professionals. Luckily for us we have a one year warranty on our house. I am just hoping that anything that is going to break will do it within the first year. :) Now as promised here are some more pics in the "before" and "after" home series...


Before... the kitchen is very, very dark blue. I like dark blue, but for pants and sailboats not for kitchens. Also this room is the room that made me officially hate wallpaper.
















After - The kitchen is happy and bright! Much like the clown pants Justina once bought me! Sorry for the poor pic quality!

Every once in awhile something so wonderful happens that I find it impossible to be snarky or cycnical. Moving day was like that. 15 people volunteered to help us move to our new house, and when I say volunteered, I mean actually volunteered to help us without us asking. My friend Elizabeth brought her mother-in-law whom I have never even met! My friends Dahlia and Mark drove almost an hour to come help us move. Personally, I hate moving with a passion, so having this many people volunteer to help moved me in a "the grinch's heart grew 3 sizes that day!" sort of way. The best part? We moved everything in 2 1/2 hours! It was so awesome! Of course after the move our group of volunteers was a little tired....