Last December 30th, I paced the length of my house full of guests from far north and nearby, making sure everyone had what they needed before nights and days hitting the streets of the then-destination city of New Orleans. Did I have an inkling of a clue that a full third of my 2005 would be spent living in Houston? As the NOPD police horse bit down on my wrist and my heart did a number on me in the throbbing pain, might I have believed that my friends and I would experience a lot more pain than that only 8 months later? As we drove to the R residence in Lakeview for our pre-Quarter-warmup party, could I have imagined that entire beautiful neighborhood submerged in filthy floodwater for days and, thus, almost completely destroyed?

My vision for September 2005 (a lot of which I don’t mention on this blog) had a big, fat goose-egg to do with reality. If time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once, nature must have done overtime on August 29th and then gone on vacation because everything did happen all at once right after that. Or that’s what it feels like. Maybe it’s our penchant for thinking in terms of nice, round numbers, but I’m glad this year is done with.

Anyway …

2005 was also a year of exhilarating firsts, each month only piling onto the last in fun and new experience:

* January – As one of the newest members of Krewe de C.R.A.P.S., I marched in my very first Krewe du Vieux parade. 2005′s theme “What Would Krewe Du Vieux Do?” was answered by our “We Support The Right To Arm Bears!” This was an honor, after two years of watching from the sidelines and marvelling at the New Orleanian capacity for creative, colorful and raucous sociopolitical satire. To say that txyankee, my cousin BJV, her boyfriend AF, D and I had a great time that night would be a major understatement.

txyankee & Me At Krewe Du Vieux 2005

* February – Mardi Gras Madness was only beginning. D rode in the Krewe of King Arthur parade, after which my cousin, SDV, flew down from D.C. to see us through to Ash Wednesday. SDV, D, and I joined our friends, Louise and Michael, in the St. Ann’s Parade bright and early on Mardi Gras morn. It was fun, but walking from the Bywater to the Quarter is quite brutal on a season-wrecked body. [Don't you worry none, a remoulade-oozing, fried shrimp po' boy fixed me right up!]

* March – After I received the asked-for assignment at work, Machelle and I threw ourselves a pirate-themed birthday party, with the best pirate costumes (Dr. Frye as Superstar Swashbuckler and Morgan as Captain Morgan), rum and big messes that can only happen after a pirate-themed birthday party. It was so much fun, the cops showed up twice. [Apparently, members of Sen. Breaux's clan lived next door to Mac, and had a very low tolerance for "kids these days." I still blame Ray for inviting his Tulane undergraduate "proteges."]

A month of parties it seems, with more food and friends at a crawfish boil in Bruno’s Gentilly home and, everyone’s favorite, the Irish Channel St. Patrick’s Day parade!

* April – Mostly spent sleeping in preparation for Jazzfest. My very first blogger meetup, with the famous Tilotamma, went beautifully and we are still friends to this day. As much as I haven’t recently taken the opportunity to tell her so, I read her work almost daily and love the western sensibility and experience she brings to writing about South India, Chennai in particular. Definitely a winner in the East Meets West department!

* May – First Annual Tulane Law vs. Shell Kickball Battle To The Death. Boatraces, beer czars, balls and more at the Audubon Park Fly! Tulane won by a technicality; apparently, their lot is a little more athletic than we are. Just wait until next year, you … lawyers!

* June – June 1st marked the beginning of our arduous descent into HurricaneLand. After 2004′s evacuation for Hurricane Ivan and the rather wimpy effect of Tropical Storm Arlene, Tropical Storm Cindy and Hurricane Dennis on southeastern Louisiana in 2005, I cockily decided that hurricanes are things that only happen to other people. Quite ironic considering that, in 1989, this ex-resident of Kuwait thought war and bombs are things that happen to other people. Do me a favor and keep this thought in the back of your mind, please.

Tropical Storm Dennis In New Orleans

* July – All I seem to remember is sweltering heat, humidity and cooking for a bunch of people. What’s new about this? I made a whole South Indian meal, was unaided, and was successful enough to now crave my own cooking. We Tamilians have a saying that is uttered when someone does the unthinkable, much to everyone else’s pleasant surprise: “It’s raining outside!” With the amount of interest I paid to kitchen work, singing and exploding nothing, I’m surprised my friends didn’t see a hurricane headed our way.

* August – Annie and Edu visited from Barcelona for the first time and had a lot of fun walking around the Quarter, taking in some of Satchmo Summer Fest, visiting the D-Day Museum and eating a lot of good food.

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Ave.

D and I also had some wonderful and strange parties go down this month. Our jobs were going well, we looked forward to the fruition of some exciting projects in September …

And, without further ado, The Year Of The Rooster decided to cock up. Given the amount of fun we had all year along, it was probably the “bad eye” of the envious that got us, as opposed to the wrath of a vengeful god, as some hatemongers seem to think. Be it an act of god, the bad eye, the eye of the hurricane or some abominable, atrocious, inadequate, substandard and rinky-dink levee construction (guess which one I believe in), everything went wrong (except for an exceptional evacuation by state and local authorities, and don’t you dare give them hell about that).

Or did it? To be sure, I’ve shed more tears in the last four months than I can remember having done in my life up until then, but some of them were tears of utter joy. When txyankee told me, in no uncertain terms, that I could stay at his house as long as necessary, I thanked goodness for a friend like him. Blogger words cannot express the safety and comfort I have felt living in his home, which is a lot more than a bachelor pad. To have full reign of and responsibility in this place filled with loving cats and dogs, cozy non-rental furniture, that lived-in smell and shared OCD tendencies is a real blessing. One loyal friend is truly worth ten-thousand relatives.

Getting to know ByTheBayou, a warm, funny and erudite person, and his neck of the woods has me convinced that Houston is not such a bad place after all.

Mom, Dad, D, Julie, Anne, Joel, Scott, Laura, Kurt and my cheerleaders in Madison, Door County and C-U (you know who you are) have held my hands and wiped away my tears through this time. Without them, and the southern chapter of the Daughters Of The American Hurricane, viz. Machelle, Beth, Wenni, Anastasia, Keerthi, Colette, Kavita and Stacey, life would have been beyond post-Katrina-unbearable, there is such a thing. I love you, too, Carole, Jorge and Ms. Viviane! To know who your true friends are (and who aren’t) … aaah!

The consideration I’ve received from all of you in BlogLand, people I’ve never met, is amazing. When some pooh-pooh the need and effectiveness of blogging, all I have to do now is show them this. The power of the internet shines in the outpouring of love and support that has followed disasters like the Southeast Asian tsunami and earthquake, Katrina and the Pakistani earthquake. You on my blogroll, especially Alan, brimful, Chai and Mimosa, I salute you. A special place in my heart has been carved for Alan, who has been helping me fix programming bugs in my WordPress blog because he thinks of it as a valuable resource, and Mimosa, who just made and mailed me 2 CDs of 97 glorious songs, with the longest handwritten card ever. Tracks And Trains Trailing My Red Tape, chock-full of Tom Waits, Mark Mothersbaugh, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson and many, many talented more has now permanently fused with my growing playlist. Music makes this world go ’round; never forget New Orleans that gave it much to sing with and about.

Tracks And Trains … and Maybe This Christmas, Baby?

I believe that children are our future, to borrow a line from a contemporary junk … ummmm … songstress. Life can’t be all that bad when we have the growth and achievements of my beautiful nieces and the brand new heavies, Jonathan, Otto, Lily, Devin and Jemma to look forward to. And Cyril.

Allow me to close by vouching for this life and the paths it has taken me down. What will The Year Of The Dog bring? I don’t know, but my prayer is that it guides all of us deftly through the new road we embark on as a city and, I hope, as a nation. It’s going to be scary and exciting at once; we have no choice but to take it as it comes. In fact, we have a responsibility to our spirits and the town to give it the best go we’ve got.

What’s New Orleans when it isn’t a party? It’s home. And if not forever, it’s only polite to give back what you got from her.

Happy New Year, dear friends and readers! May the delicious aroma of my chana masala and sangria, R’s German meatballs, Ismael’s Mexican cooking, and the mirth and goodwill generated at our small gathering tomorrow evening, reach you all. Peace.