A Day in the Life
Hi, my name is Ruby, and I am 13 and in seventh grade. I’m sure we can all agree that this whole coronavirus thing has been really stressful. From a kid’s perspective it is very difficult. The part I dislike…
Joie d'Eve
Home-School Hullabaloo
Every so often, I get frustrated with some aspect of my life and make stupid, unrealistic pronouncements. “We’re all becoming nudists!” I’ll declare after spending an entire Sunday afternoon washing, drying, folding, and putting away laundry. Or: “We’re just…
Pandemic, Week 1
Well. Huh. We’ve reached a stage where I am scared to say anything because as soon as I say it, it’s immediately dated. Two weeks ago, I was loving the increased emphasis on hand-washing – but still planning to…
Introvert’s Fever Dream
With the first presumptive positive for COVID-19 in the Greater New Orleans area, I continue to live out my introverted, germaphobic fantasy. I can now, without looking as weird as I really am: Refuse politely to shake hands Open…
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
I’ve never really been hip or cutting-edge. In grade school in the ’80s, when the popular kids were tight-rolling their stone-washed jeans, I wore my favorite pair of pastel-striped culottes at least once a week. In middle school in…
Carnival Calories
I got through Hurricane Barry evacuation this summer without eating any of the hurricane snacks. I got through my birthday with only the tiniest piece of cake. I didn’t eat a single piece of my kids’ massive haul of Halloween…
It’s Carnival Time
So for those who might be wondering: I did take Ruby to Krewe du Vieux this weekend, and she loved it. We laughed at the floats, we caught some blinky rings and some…
Krewe du What Do I Do?
Just a few weeks ago, I posted advice for newbie parents, giving my take on things from the perspective of someone who’s been doing this parenting thing for more than a decade. A few days after that, a friend on…
The Nature of Public Grief
As the nation mourns Kobe Bryant, I am as sad as I am when any celebrity dies, which is to say “sad but not sad in the way a personal friend would be.” When Prince died, I listened to…
Chapter & Verse
Georgia has hit a milestone – one that excites me way more than first steps or lost teeth. Georgia has started reading chapter books! Ruby, in her time, hit this milestone with great reluctance, not liking any of the…
Parenting Advice
My daughter Ruby told me last week that there’s a rumor going around her school that I’m a teen mom. She was offended on my behalf; I was wildly flattered. “Do they really think I look that young?” I…
King Cake Conundrum
You know you’re getting old when you get excited about a new calendar, but here I am. I got a brightly colored calendar for 2020 that features hand-drawn pictures of food with hand-lettered recipes (this month is borscht!), and…
Ringing It In, Quietly
New Year’s Eve is right up there with Valentine’s Day in terms of being overhyped and loaded with false significance and forced romance. I don’t hate them, but I try not to imbue either of them with much meaning.…
The Tyranny of the Elf
Christmas is a lot, folks. The shopping, the wrapping, the baking, the parties, the decorating … and throughout it all, the relentless pressure on parents – and these are typically moms – to make everything extra-magical. From minute to…
Christmas Tree, Revisited
When I wrote this almost six years ago, everything still felt kind of new and exciting and painful and raw. I was two years into my marriage. I was four years out from my divorce and the death of…
Daring to Say “Happy Holidays”
I agree with Errol Laborde on many things – although notably NOT shrimp, which I hate and he loves – and he is one of my favorite humans. And I know Errol loves Christmas, traditions, and especially Christmas traditions.…
A Baker’s Dozen
Every year when the calendar page turns over to December, I have the same initial thought that most Americans have – the only significance December held for me for 26 years: “Oh, hey, it’s almost Christmas!” This means buying…
Easy as Pie
It’s almost Thanksgiving, so this is a story about a pie. Well, not just a pie. A pie and a long friendship. Jordan and I, we sometimes joke, met three last names ago (or two marriages each ago) – in…
So Lame
My almost-teen daughter, Ruby, stepped in front of the TV while I was simultaneously pedaling frantically to nowhere on my exercise bike and trying to watch Ina Garten make something obscenely rich and fattening for the holidays. (“My mom…
Getting Schooled
I never really wondered where I’d go to high school. If I got in, I was going to Franklin. If I didn’t, we’d worry about it then. I got in, so that was that – and I had four…
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Tom Robbins famously said: “There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.” I’m not really in my Tom…
Candy Counting
In most things, Ruby is nothing like me. A natural extrovert, she loves parties, people, team sports, cheesy inspirational messages, sleep-away camp, and group hugs – all things that range from making me vaguely uneasy to making my skin…
A Game of Telephone
The internet is fond of telling me that I, born in 1980, am part of a micro-generation known variously as Generation Catalano (for the dreamy Jordan Catalano of "My So-Called Life"), the Oregon Trail Generation (for the ubiquitous video…
Watered Down
Another day, another boil order. As the kids say, “I can’t even.” Two things happened Saturday related to the Sewerage & Water Board. First, I got a bill for $286 for a single month. The typical U.S. family spends…
Joie d'Eve
Living, loving, laughing, and learning in the new New Orleans
about
Eve is further proof, if any is needed, that New Orleans girls can never escape the city. After living here since the age of 3 and graduating from Ben Franklin High School, Eve moved to Columbia, Mo., where she received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism and became truly, unhealthily obsessed with grammar.She had originally intended to strike out to New York City and work in the cutthroat magazine industry there, but after Katrina, Eve felt a strong pull to return home, to her roots, her family, her waterlogged and struggling city – and a much more forgiving work atmosphere that would allow her to skip a routine of everyday makeup and size 0 designer label business suits and enjoy the occasional cocktail or three with an absurdly fattening lunch. She moved back home in January 2008 and lives in Mid-City with her two daughters, Ruby and Georgia; her stepson, Elliot; and her husband, Robert Peyton.Eve blogs about the joys and struggles of living in post-Katrina New Orleans, the unique problems and delights of raising a child in such a diverse and challenging city – including her experiences with the public education system – and her always entertaining and extremely colorful family.Eve has won numerous writing awards, including the Pirates Alley Faulkner Society Gold Medal, the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence award for column-writing and Press Club of New Orleans awards for her Editor’s Note in New Orleans Homes & Lifestyles and for this blog, most recently winning the award for "Best Feature Affiliated Blog."She welcomes comments, advice, empty flattery, recipes, drink invitations and – most especially – grammatical or linguistic debates.
