Best Conversation EVER...

In 2004 the following conversation took place at The Suie Pub in Kincraig Scotland... much to the shock of the foreign tourists sitting at the table nearby....
(P1/P2 = person 1 & person 2)

P1: "Who do you work for again?"
P2: "Blacks"
P1: "Really? I didn't think there were any Blacks in these parts."
P2: "No, I work for the Blacks in Glasgow" 
P1: "I don't know if I could work for Blacks"
P2: "Aye, I question their ethics a lot of the time."
P1: "I've heard that before... interesting"



BTW... "Blacks" is a sporting goods store.

2010: The Year Of Tying Up Loose Ends... & Retying of Important Knots

This would probably have to be updated much later (like the end of December) this year... but I am fairly pleased with how 2010 is panning out. Usually everyone meets new people, and this has been true for me so far as well. I've met so many new and amazing people so far, and the year isn't even halfway through! BUT... the most amazing part of this year has been reconnecting with old friends that I have not seen in ages.....

It started in Seattle, where I went for my birthday, to see one of my favorite people on the planet, David. We had not stood in each others presence since the late summer/early fall of 1989....

but in January 2010 we could finally sit there and laugh without phones stuck to our ears to do it...

Then came Chicago... it had been 11years since I had seen a bunch of friends there. So I stayed with my friend Barb (& met her boyfriend Thomas) at the apartment that will eternally feel like home since she currently lives in the best damn apartment in Chicago... and it has always been lived in by someone we know...

Also got to see Barb's twin sister Beth.....

.... and my friend Ian (now Beth's husband).....

.... and Jason... who has gone on to become an author (you should go buy his book right now!)









THEN... I got to see my friend Al who I had not seen since our friend Lindsey's wedding in New Orleans in 2006.....

(this picture cracks me up for some reason... 

actually I know the reason... SAME DAMN HAT!)

ALSO... Lindsey! ♥ (hadn't seen her since her wedding either!)

Next up was my friend Derek... we had not seen each other since our sophomore year of high school (1988).......and he just happened to be living in the Chicago area, so he & his wife drove out to the city to meet up with me one afternoon.

Next up was a trip to New Orleans to hang out with one of my dearest friends, Graham. I have now taken to describing his friendship as follows: You know when you are stuck, for whatever reason, in a seemingly endless tunnel of darkness and feel there is no way out? He's the one that not only tells you there is a way, then keeps you company while you find it, but he also turns out to be the one holding the lantern at the other end so you can find that light to follow out.  People should be so lucky to have a friend like Graham.

...plus he's super fun to take pictures with :)

 (ooooh... look how scary!!! haha!)

Annnnnnnnd...... while I was in New Orleans..... I finally got to see the person that was one of my very best friends in college, as well as the reason I got to go to New Orleans in the first place back then, fall in love with the city, and move there....alas... he & I parted ways in 2000 and hadn't spoken a word since. That's all fixed now :)

 (I gotta admit, I missed the scowling face...)

Then came the "reunion" that tends to freak more than a few people out... my ex-fiance & his family. We're still close, and I still adore every last one of them. We don't really get to see each other all that often, in fact I believe the last time I saw most of them was in 2006... but I was beaming from ear to ear and not really giving a shit that people think it's strange I consider my ex one of my favorite people. (C'mon, he's happily married now and the love we have for each other is like that of family.... why can't more people be that way?)

Anyway, I got to see Brett (that'd be my ex) & his sister Brandi

... & his niece Hannah (who is like the coolest girl on the planet and I'm still more than a little sad to know shes growing up so fast.. yet so pleased with what an amazing woman she is becoming)

I even got to hang out with two of Brett's best friends that I always loved, Nick & Abe... and the whole seeing Abe thing was totally coincidence. They (Abe & his wife) just happened to be at The French Quarter Festival and walking out of the French Market just as we were walking in. To say I was pleased would be a HUGE understatement! (hence the really stupid grin on my face in this picture...>>>>>>>>>>>)

and relaxin' in the grass by the river, 

while live jazz music played, with Nick...

Next up is the trip down to Connecticut to hang with my friend Doug, and go to a St Judes Charity event that our friend Kelly helped organize. Now, Doug & I have not seen each other in person since last September...

(he was one of my "hot dates" for my friend Dani's wedding.... see pic to the left of last Sept and you can witness how serious Doug and I are about our pictures being taken.)

BUT... Kelly & Doug hadn't seen each other since High School, so this night was super fun for us... as well as it being a REALLY good cause.

THERE'S MORE!!! I ALSO got to see my friend Nelson. We had not hung out since right before I left for college in 1992 (yes, I took 2 years off after High School, a lot of good that did me... since I ended up staying in college till 1999... that's a whole other mess of stories right there...) Anywayyyy.... Nelson... yeah, Nelson. That guy has been through a lot. Some of it I was around for, much of it we were out of touch... but we're back in touch now and I intend to stay that way 

(PLUS, his wife, Sandy, is freakin' awesome!!)

So.... yeah... as of today (April 26th 2010) I'm thinkin' this year is pretty stellar so far. I've left out so much... (SO MUCH!)... but there's still time! The year ain't even half over and I could write pages upon pages about everything that has happened since January 1st 2010 up until today... but I won't. I am, in fact, going to bed. G'nite!

-Gillian

A Little Lagniappe

In less than a week I will be on my way back to my old stomping grounds in the French Quarter.

go ahead and click "play"... 'cause this blog post has a soundtrack...



This is my old apartment on Madison:

My place was the first balcony ..... that balcony was the PERFECT  height. Every night at 7pm the garbage truck would stop and instead of leaving it all on the street like everyone else, I could just lean over the railing and drop it right in the truck. Loved that! (especially when I ran out of garbage bags and I could just dump the can in there...)

At the end of my street (it was only a block long... which was AWESOME!) was Cafe DuMonde...

 Cafe Du Monde was great.. you could go and snag 3 beignets for $1.10 and a cup of hot cocoa (or chicory coffee, blech!..or just some french roast)

If you didn't cross Decatur... and instead turned right.... there was a lil' Greek restaurant on the corner,  they had yummy gyros (and pronounced it the RIGHT WAY; i.e "year-oss", not "GY-ROE"), and a cigarette machine. Now it's "Cafe Beignet."

(still see my old place, now on the left?... man, talk about location, location, location!)

Now... if you just kept going down the block (you'd be on Decatur still)....

... and walk like 40'.........

TaaDaa!! You're in Jackson Square!... yes, Jackson Square was my backyard....

....and religious or not... St. Pauls Cathedral is REALLY beautiful....

(BTW... that's a statue of Andrew Jackson)

There were so many things I loved in New Orleans...

favorite bar:

favorite drink:

(The "hand grenade" used to come with a pamphlet listing warnings of what happens after you drink some.... and I'd like to point out that the first time I drank one of these was the night I met the man that I was engaged to and with for 5 years... and he's still one of my favorite people....)

It read...

Drink 1: Will lift your spirits and make you happy.
Drink 2: Will give you a nice buzz.
Drink 3: Will result in a complete loss of your inhibitions.  (*trust me this is TRUE)
Drink 4: Will cause you to dance in the streets.
Drink 5: You're on your own. Not recommendable to drink 5!

 I can honestly say... that list of warnings should be taken seriously... no joke. Damn they are yummy! Tastes like a liquid, and very potent, Jolly Rancher®.

Favorite Living Artist:

& then there are a zillion little cafes and places to snag a yummy bite to eat... listing the names 'um of would take all night!

Oh... and also...

the funny stuff like drive-thru daiquiri bars...

 

this video pretty much says it all..... seriously, it's hysterical.

(y'all caught the "keeyaw….Nachos, apostrophe “s” part right? ha!)

I could list all sorts of stuff for hours, but the reality is... you should just go there. It is so much fun...

 

BUT... before you do... heehee... have you seen THIS LIST going around the internet as of late? Right after I saw it, I not only started telling all my closest male friends that if a woman asks them where their last name comes from to say "Oh, it's Cajun," and if they ask for a middle name... tell 'um it's "Bocephus." :) ..but I realized "No wonder I'm going to New Orleans in less than a week....."

 Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

I'm Kinda REALLY Loving Ben These Days....

I started to write a re-cap of last nights episode.. I pulled pictures from the internet.. looked up books and bits of info I wasn't sure about... and then my cell phone made the "Chewbacca" sound (which is what it does when a text message comes through)...so I stopped what I was doing.

It was nothing more than a facebook notification... but it was from someone I like a lot.. so I closed the screen I was on and went to facebook. On the "home" page there were a bunch of statuses that were talking about Corey Haim... so I went to the one website I love for random news and odd snipets (Jezebel.com) to see what all the fuss was about....and the first post I noticed was this one. So I went back and deleted everything I had written and am just giving you the link to it... there is NOTHING I could have written that would have differed from this re-cap... so...

 aside from "cheese curds"... and "are you a cyborg"... w/out further ado... click this link here and leave any comments you like here on the blog, I'll be checking it regularly. Seriously, every damn thing I took note of last night was mentioned in this piece... so... what the hell, they already wrote it and added the pictures! I'm just gonna sit back and enjoy not making my fingers hurt more than they already do. (BTW, I skipped last week because my 'puter's hard drive fried, for real... FRIED... so... I'm on a new one now... and I LOVE IT!)

-Gillian

PS. Hope you don't think I was making fun of the death of Corey Haim... it is sad. He and I are the exact same age... that is freaky to me. RIP dude.

A Paraphrased Recap

Soooo.... Jack wakes up... he's running late....

 

He runs to the bathroom (in his apartment where it seems like every damn thing is either black or white... coincidence, on this show? I think not!)  to wash up real fast...and yet again, just like on the airplane when he noticed the cut on his neck ... he sees the appendectomy scar. (water seems to be the thing that makes Jack go all "huh... that's weird")

hmmm...wonder where he has to get to?

(and does that say "BENTHAM HALL"? (as in "Jeremy Bentham")... nooo... it says "BERTRAM HALL" .....DAMNIT!!

Golly... where IS Jack going? Clearly he is late..(*he's late..he's late...for a very important date...*) 

but for what? and with who?

 

Oh, riiiight... his son, David. Sure... of course! Silly us for not seeing that coming. (WTF?!)

May I just point out that clearly David is in Ravenclaw...

David's got a copy of Alice in Wonderland... (shocking! Not. There are so many correlations between that book and this show it's freakin' scary)

David also seems to really love his iPod...and claims to be listening to music his Dad/Jack wouldn't know... what do you wanna bet it's Drive Shaft? Jack did tell Charlie, in the VERY FIRST episode, that he had never heard of his band... but Kate had.

Anyway.. Jack is all "I gotta run to your Grandma's crib... BRB..."

 So... Jack goes to his Mom's house... and she's all "hey, I know it's not even dinnertime, but you want some booze?"...Jack DECLINES. (So...he's not a drunk in this timeline? Ok, good.) 

 And ol' Mama Shephard goes and pours herself somethin' strong from a decanter ...probably filled with McCutcheons!! DID YOU SEE THE BOTTLE THIS TIME?! Clear bottle, red label, back row, clear as day...)... and then Jack & his Mom search around for Christian's will.

 

  

Apparently Mama Shepherd is totally down with the booze in the afternoon... though.. her husband did just die, so you can't really fault her for that one...

 

BTW... Jack's mama needs to lay off the hair dye & plastic surgery... it's not a good look. 

BUT... they find the will... it's more than a lil' obvious... you know, seeing as how it's marked "LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT" and addressed to Christian... with a return address from his lawyers office. Scooby Doo & his gang were clearly not needed.

 Next up "so...uh.. Jack sweetie, did your Dad ever mention a family with the last name "Littleton"? "

Jack: "no"

*sigh* this story line is starting to irritate me. In the other time line where Claire has gone all feral (I'm calling THAT Claire "Flaire" now) she's waaay more interesting. 

Let's jump over to the island for a moment shall we?

 

Flaire has taken Jin back to her fancy schmancy digs in the jungle...(seriously Flaire? You had three years to create a place to chill and you created THAT? Yeah, you might really be totally out of your tree...)

Jin thinks so too....

I mean COME ON! What the hell is THAT?!?!

wow Flaire, your baby is...uh..really cute... you FUCKING FREAK!!!

"Hi my name is Flaire, and this is my steampunk baby"

Though...Kudos to the special FX peeps... NICE ONE!!! (for real, that was some damn good work right there. Gross as hell.. but REALLY good.)

Oh oh oh AND... the dynamite... the stuff from the Black Rock... Flaire's got loads of it! Oddly enough, so do I.. but that's 'cause my Mom gave me a big wooden box of Black Rock Powder Co. Dynamite fire starters as a b-day present this year...I don't think it's actually LOST related merchandise... 

 

(btw, this is possibly the BEST fire starter product I have EVER used. EVER.)

BUT it did make me look and SEE if it was related. Turns out the "Black Rock" reference on MY box of "dynamite" is related to miners and coal mining... which makes me wonder if THAT is where LOST's writers got the idea for the Black Rock ship name etc. It actually makes a lot of sense. (Do ANY of you ever just randomly Google questions about things the way I do, or is it just me?)

Right.. so Flaire is nutters... and Jin knows it. I think the whole taking a hatchet to Justin's gut might have been the cherry on top. (that has GOT to be a sucky way to go out...)

Right, so Jin asked Flaire if she has been out here all alone.. and she tells him "her friend" is here too... (what?!)

ok.. let's skip over to the temple and stuff....

Jack has more water/reflective moments....

...then has a brief conversation with Sayombie (Sayid+Zombie= Sayombie...my new name for him) who should probably take off the shirt that screams "I was shot in the gut, died then came back to life" and then MAYBE the "others" will stop staring at you like you are gonna eat their brains.

Hurley has seen Jacob (who just keeps getting creepier and creepier, and I am trusting him less and less...) and Jacob tells Hurley he needs him to do stuff.. and (I liked this line..) "get a pen." So Hurley writes it all down, and then tries to follow the instructions w/out going to get Jack (which was apparently a big deal part of the instructions...)

  

Hurley is goin' through the crazy tunnels at the temple...lookin' at hieroglyphics...

  

I have NO freakin' clue what these mean... so if you want to ('cause I don't) figure it out.. just type "hieroglyphics" into google and see what comes up. Even since this scene aired last night I have had that song by The Blood Hound Gang running through my head......

 

....Love the kind you clean up with a mop and bucket
Like the lost catacombs of Egypt only God knows where we stuck it
Hieroglyphics? Let me be Pacific I wanna be down in your South Seas
But I got this notion that the motion of your ocean means "Small Craft Advisory"
So if I capsize on your thighs high tide, B-5 you sunk my battleship
Please turn me on I'm Mister Coffee with an automatic drip
So show me yours I'll show you mine "Tool Time" you'll Lovett just like Lyle
And then we'll do it doggy style so we can both watch "X-Files"....

.........So... Dogen finds Hurley and is all "what are you doing? Get out of here, go back to the courtyard!"

Jacob is there but Dogen can't see 'um... so Hurley totally Jedi mind tricks Dogen and goes "uh..no. YOU go back to the courtyard."

 Dogen says rude shit to Hurley in Japanese (which roughly translated to "if you weren't one of the chosen I'd so rip your head off, punk"... I checked)  and leaves, presumably to the courtyard. Jacob tells Hurley he has HAS to go get Jack... and Hurley's like "hes not gonna go dude." But Hurley tries anyway...

 

 ...and just like Hurley had said, Jack was all "uh, no."

And Hurley was all "I told him you'd say that."

 But they did go... and while wandering through the jungle they see Kate... and I don't know about you, but the whole interaction between them was so odd. it was like running into a friend when you're wandering down the street and being like "hey, we're headed to so-and-so's place, wanna come?" and the friend you're with is like "dude, just us... no other guests... no offense" and the person on the street is all "oh, hey, that's cool, I was gonna go to the store and buy bananas anyway, you two have fun, see ya later!"

Instead it was "KATE! Hey! Fancy meeting you here in the middle of the jungle on this weird island where strange shit keeps happening! Me & Hurley are headed some undisclosed location that a dead dude we cant even see or speak to, except for Hurley, has instructed us to go. You wanna come too?"

And Kate's like "naaa... that's cool. I'm gonna wander around this big freaky jungle lookin' for that chick that you just recently found out is your sister.. you know, the one whose baby I took off the island 3 years ago, and have just now finally come back for her. Man, I hope she's not pissed."....

(WTF?!)

Poppin' back to 2004 now.....

Jack gets home from his Mom's house... David is gone. He's a lil' freaked out... so he goes to his ex wife's house (we still don't know who his ex/David's Mom is... but a lot of people are thinking it's Juliet... whatever.. really NOTHING would shock me anymore. Seriously, you could tell me that somehow Kate is Jack's Mom and at this point I'd just be like "oh, ok."

Anyway.. Jack is worried about David, so he goes to the ex's house to look for him... and lifts up the white rabbit statue (again... "Alice in Wonderland" reference) and snags the house key. (Would have been way cooler if his ex lived in a hatch that he had to use dynamite to get in with... just sayin'...)

  

I'm guessing we should be paying attention to the house #'s as well...

Jack goes in, no one is home, he gets to David's room... and I must say I was more than a lil' disappointed to not see a "Drive Shaft" poster on his walls. The camera pans around and shows us not much of interest outside of some sheet music with some notes (other than musical) on 'um...

and some cute pics taken in a photobooth of Jack & David

Jack sees the answering machine blinking... which did give me pause for a moment... 'cause most kids David's age have a cell phone, right? Then I remembered this is supposed to be 2004... and I don't think EVERY kid in America had one back then... so I'll let that slide. He finds out David has a musical audition THAT night, and clearly that is where David is... only the next message on the machine is Jack calling from Australia... all sad 'cause his Dad just died... awwwww.

So Jack goes to David's audition....

 Oh look at that! "Welcome All Candidates!" haha! Nice one.

So Jack goes in, ....sees David show the ivories who is boss, .... & probably notices this venue is not the hoppin' place tonight...

and then meets this kid...

 

He was all "that your kid?" and Jack is like "yup" and the kid says "he's real good" and Jack is like "pshyeah, no duh!"

Then the kid goes over to his own Dad.. and we just KNOW it's gonna be someone from the island.....

 

in fact I wasn't even remotely surprised by this one...

Dogen... you're still creepy. Even showered and in a suit in 2004, you're still creepy.

So.. Jack meets up with David and is all "hey kiddo, I didn't know you still played! You were awesome!" and David isn't havin' it, he's like "yeah, I missed some notes." Jack tell him it sounded perfect to him..and David warms up a bit.. finally admits that he never told Jack because he didn't want to disappoint him. Jack is totally hurt by that and tells David that he could NEVER be disappointed in him, and that his own father would give him a rash of shit, tellin' him he didn't have what it takes.. and he'd never do that to his own son. (You see why when Hurley told Jack that Jacob said "tell Jack 'he's got what it takes'" that Jack was all, "right on, let's go!"...)

Ok.. back to the island.... 

Jack and Hurley wander some more... come across the old caves where they all sorta lived briefly during season 1, and found Shannon's old inhaler...

  

and they came across ol' Adam & Eve... as if the viewers had forgotten about the mystery of those two! HA!!

They finally get to the end of the directions written on Hurley's arm and find a lighthouse. (Seriously? They (ANYONE!!) didn't see this before? Really? okaaaaay.....)

 

Cool lighthouse though. :)

Jack & Hurley go inside... and climb to the top. When they get there they find a big ol' bunch of mirrors and a giant gear they have to turn to 108˚

As they are turning it...and Jack sees his reflection in the mirrors above... he notices weird shit reflected in the background....and if you line up the mnumbers of the people we know... it makes sense...

 

^ that one looks like a temple...my guess is the pagoda where Jin & Sun got married^

 

^this one is totally the chuch where Jacob first touched Sawer at his parents funeral.^

^that one he said was his childhood home, which kinda resembles his Mom's house that he was at in 2004 world when lookin' for his Dad's will... you know, this place:

Then he notices all the names on the wheel they are spinning... (and YES, Kate is on there... Austen#51)

Jack starts flipping out and wants answers... no one can give him any... so he goes all ape shit and shatters the mirrors....

Good one Jack... fucking head case! Way to be a  hot head.. dumb ass!

Pthfft... then he goes and gets all emo on a cliff....

Hurley waits around for Jacob to show up and give him some answers...

Jacob does show up.. and basically reveals next to nothing ... shocking :/

Back to Flaire:

who is her "friend"?

oh... uh...ok....

Hi "friend"....

See ya next week!

(I'm sure I left out about 100,000 things.... but this damn blog just took FOREVER to type up and find the right pictures... ugh! So.. hope you liked it. ♥