Wendy DeCora.com

There’s nothing like the feeling of singing along with Harry on my iTunes as he covers a George Jones song (’She Thinks I Still Care’) loudly while at my desk at work.

LET THAT SILLY NOTION BRING HER CHEER!

Singing of Harry, to all the people who stop by my cube and make comments like “oh, do you like Harry Connick, Jr?” Shut it. Its not funny. You’re not being cute. No, actually I can’t stand Harry and I just have posters of him in my cube to make the workday even longer and more torturous…

My one gig a year, Alumni Band, is nearly upon us. I dug my marching sax out from behind the couch and found my plastic reed still intact and seemingly bacteria free… at least to the visible eye. I’m so out of shape… this parade is going to hurt. But out-of-shape-fossil high step is still 100% better than the junior “mediocrity is our goal” band. GET YOUR KNEES UP!

its now 5:54am… I’m on my second redbull of the morning… things are starting to be bleary.

I’m ready to get home and go to bed (thank you black curtains) until LOST is on at 7pm. I need to watch that season premiere again… crazy good stuff. TV season… it is upon us. Its like a sport. For Thursday night I have to enlist 3 VCR’s to get everything while I’m out for dinner with Jeff & co… sad, I know. But it will be nice to have on Sunday afternoon when i’m too tired to do anything else. Though I do need to get to see ‘Serenity’ this weekend… i’ve been waiting for that movie forever.

suddenly I feel sweaty and need to brush my teeth. meh.

As I cross into my 22nd hour of continuous waking, I ask the following questions:

• Why do I make filenames so long? They are hard to type repeatedly at this time of the morning.
• Is my cat still sleeping peacefully on her side of the bed at home? Or has she stretched out over to my 1/3rd of the bed in my absence?
• Did anyone see ‘The Amazing Race : Family Edition’ that started last night? Wasn’t Phil’s eyebrow pop at the beginning amazing? Could you believe that woman from Florida kept asking if Pennsylvania was a state? What else would it be? Maybe it was a “town” like SoHo in NYC. Who are these people who got seriously lost between New York and Pennsylvania? Hello… everyone speaks English and there is a gas station like every three miles?! And that first family to be eliminated… how crappy would you feel to be Philiminated less than 500 miles from where you started, still in the US? And the stupid girl who was wearing flipflops at the Roadblock.. FLIPFLOPS? on TAR?! oh the shame and stupidity.
• Why am I considering moving out of my apartment to get away from neighbors that I can hear talking, existing, etc when right now I’m at work and totally freaked out because I’m alone and there is no one around at all?

ok… back to testing…

I haven’t been up past midnight on a weeknight for anything other than Bonerama since a time I cannot recall. But thanks to a web server migration taking place right now, I can make the following observations from my cube at work:

• I’m more tired now that I thought I would be because despite looking at my cell phone, as it was plugged in and charging, multiple times and telling myself not to leave it at home, I left it at home.
• The moon is amazingly cool out right now. I saw it perfectly as I drove around the bend at work. A Halloween-esque orange crescent hanging low in the sky. I would’ve taken a picture, but I forgot my cell phone.
• There are good things on TV in the late late night hours… like 3 hours of the X-Files on TNT or original British versions of ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway?’ on Comedy Central. I thought they’d completely stopped airing that show. I need TiVo
• Speaking of things I need… only 20 shopping days left until my 29th birthday. Celebration plans forthcoming.
• There is no one in Hy-Vee at 2:05am on Wednesdays. The one lone checkout lady looked a bit annoyed that I was even existing.

Its going to be a looooooooooong morning…

comments coming soon

photos available

good friends and good music…

I learned how to spell “bureaucracy” properly.

Not being snide or saying its some person or agency, but I’ve honestly typed that word more in the last 2 weeks than I ever had before in my life.

Hell must have just frozen over…

my company is installing spam filters for our email.

I have a huge post worked out in my head, but I’ve been called into a meeting in a few minutes about my company’s response to the disaster, so I just have time for this:

All my regular readers know that I am beyond a fan of Harry Connick, Jr.’s. For years, I’ve loved his music and his band and followed them around the country. What you may have never realized is a good part of the reason I adore him so much is simply for the amazing person he is.

Actually, at this point, amazing doesn’t even start to do him justice.

In the middle of the insanity, Harry went back to New Orleans because he simply had to see for himself the city that has made him who he is.
Yesterday, he was on the Today show from the French Quarter getting his first glimpse at the destruction, and yet he remained upbeat and the quirky Harry I love.

Soon after that morning interview, he heard word from just a guy on the street that there were hundreds of people at the convention center. The convention center is where the Mardi Gras ball that Harry and his father founded is held every year. I’ve been there. Harry headed over there with the NBC camera crew to see for himself. By now you have probably seen the footage of the people crying out for help and dying in the streets. Harry was there. Trying to do whatever he could just to let the people know he would do whatever he could to get them help. To that point, he was the ONLY person of “authority” to have gone there. And honestly, I’ve been watching and reading everything coming out of NOLA from the local news sources (the ones all the network news gets their info from) and I hadn’t seen ANYTHING about people being at the convention center. I really believe no one of any authority knew that there was anyone there.

By last night, he was in Metarie with Bryan Williams, and this morning he was in Baton Rouge and he was visibly enraged. He could barely speak his voice was so tired, wearing the same clothes he’d had on the day before. They wouldn’t let him go back (I’m sure the last thing NBC wanted was for him to get injured or worse on their watch) and you could see he was just beside himself.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Someone on connick.com found this picture out on the newswires last night and it just shattered my heart. I’m just going to put it in a pop-up, so anyone who doesn’t want to look after reading the photo caption can just skip it.

Singer Harry Connick Jr., a New Orleans native, prays over two dead bodies outside the New Orleans Convention Center where thousands of people are waiting for help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005. Both bodies were of elderly people, one in a wheelchair the other under a sheet. Connick said a friend told him about the desperate conditions at the center and he came to see for himself. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Melissa Phillip)
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My mind reels to what even to do at this point. Harry and other Gulf Coast artist will be on a special on NBC/CNBC/MSNBC tonight at 8pm eastern/7pm central to raise money. Please watch and donate.

And finally, please consider dropping a few dollars to our Hurricane Relief Fund at connick.com. We’re not a not-for-profit, we’re just some fans who care. All the money will go directly to members of Harry’s big band who have literally lost everything they have. We’ve already sent out over $500 directly to those who need it. These are people I know and love. We have direct contact with these people, so we know there is no red tape to get them the funds. Thanks.