The Good, The Bad, The Peace Corps

Things have been kind of crazy! We'll do the annoying things first:

Annoying:

1) Saturday, it rained in my bathroom. Almost literally--I had to hold an umbrella above my head to pee. Of course, the only part that wasn't leaking was right above the bath tub, nobody was home in the unit upstairs, and the landlord took forever to get there. The water running down the wall with the window was so bad that it was pouring out the window onto the ground outside--a neighbor stopped by to inform us of this. He was going to help us break down the door upstairs if the landlord hadn't finally shown up. They fixed the pipe to the toilet tank (which was broken apparently?) but didn't even come look at our bathroom, which still smells pretty badly of mold/mildew, especially where it leaked behind a very improperly installed shower surround.

2) Sunday, my roommates and I planned to go out to lunch and then shopping, but her car wouldn't start. She called AAA and they replaced her battery--apparently it was the wrong kind?

3) Yesterday I left work a little early to try to beat the rain, and failed. I got stuck biking in a downpour and couldn't see anything, so I had to stop and stand underneath a random little awning until it stopped. When the sun finally came out, it... started raining even harder!! This lead me to conclude that the sky in New Orleans is, in fact, broken.

Ok. Enough bitching. My weekend was still awesome because:

1) I finally made it over to Frenchmen Street on Friday and saw Good Enough for Good Times (awesome awesome brass band) at d.b.a. It was a really great time, I'm very glad I went.

2) Saturday I went downtown for Satchmo Summerfest--my first New Orleans festival! I ate shrimp remoulade, a crawfish egg roll (New Orleans meets Vietnamese?) and a chocolate hazelnut crepe, all of which were really delicious. And I got to watch the kids from the Freret Neighborhood Center day camp perform their Second Line dance, which was super adorable.

3) That same night, while we apparently missed the White Linen Party, I tried oysters for the first time--it was definitely a day for interesting sea food--and then we wandered around Bourbon Street, which, while kind of insane/excessive, was still a good time.

4) I found out today that I was nominated for the PEACE CORPS!! Water and Sanitation Program in Central/South America or the Caribbean, starting in August 2010! Now I just need to fill out all kinds of medical forms before I can actually be invited for a placement... but still! w00t w00t!!

Tonight is the Night Out Against Crime and tomorrow is the kickoff for Circle Food 4 Thought (the campaign to reopen Circle Food store in the 7th Ward). This post doesn't say a ton about work, but all this community action also makes me really happy to be here--the work comes down to a lot of making phone calls and handing out fliers (re: not that interesting) but I'm exciting to see how things play out.