Walk Of Total And Complete Innocence!

So just to remind everyone I was in New Orleans about 2 weeks ago for the wedding of my dear friend Ash. Most of this post is just a chronological memory log for me to read in 10 years because by this time next week all I'll remember is who got married there and the color of my dress. Most details won't be of your interest, but so far I have thought that to be the case of all of my posts, and you're still reading. So, there.

FRIDAY
I woke up at 5 to pack and get out the door for my 8:45 flight. I am not capable of packing until the day of a trip, seriously other than having a capable body I can not capably do it. So, up at 5, fold a load of white separating out items I'll be packing and gather other items on my packing list. (See this is my secret weapon to packing procrastination. The only kink in this is that if you can't find something, you're screwed. I like to look at those situations as the travel gods letting me know that I can survive a trip with out my purple suede headband or whatever the accessory of the week is.)

I got to the airport and used my passport because my license is expired (way back on 7/7/08…if you don't see a theme, see: procrastinator). The TSA guy was joking with me about using a fake passport. Isn't that against the rules? I didn't know if I was allowed to chuckle or not. I can't joke about that kind of stuff why can he? I arrived in NOLA and met up with Beth, a co-bridesmaid who came from NYC and landed 10 minutes prior to me in the gate across from mine. We hopped in a cab and headed to the Omni Royal, checked in. Ash was having brunch with family so Beth and I browsed a few shops on Royal, got a cup of tea and learned how to pack our own tea bags. I bought a gold ball-y necklace to wear that night and we ran into some of Ashley's fam on the street. Beth has no luck finding eel skin purse/wallet for her mom.

Around noon we met Ashley and some other ladies in the lobby to go and get our nails done. Finding a nail salon in the French Quarter is not an easy task. We poked our heads in one salon but we had too many people for them to do. I was kind of glad because that salon was scary. We finally found the Relaxation Salon they popped the bubbly and we were set. It was right next to the Aloha Salon which had a locked door and secret doorbell. Hmm...? I went out for Subway and black tights while waiting for my turn and nearly died while illegally crossing the street. I got called out by the "Smile Police" who I thought were real and ticketing me for my illegal street crossing, but he was giving me a citation for being too beautiful. I know I am very gullible and usually find humor in stuff like that, but I had just nearly died and was not in the mood to be humored. Side note, eating subway while having someone rubs your feet is gross. Got ready for the rehearsal, met downstairs, rehearsed. It was very very cold in the courtyard. Walked to Mr. B's for dinner. This was my first official break of WW Points. I had Shrimp & Grits. It was fabulous and the shrimp was wrapped in bacon which was an added diet breaking bonus! Slide show, speeches, wine, champagne. I can't remember dessert?? Wine, champagne?? Headed to Pat O's to meet up with peeps that weren't at the rehearsal. Saw some girls I hadn't seen since Spring Break 2000 in Padre. We did not speak of that trip, husbands were present. Hurricanes taste grosser than I remember. I had also forgotten about those awful spiral stairs that lead to the bathroom. Headed home at a decent hour to be in good shape to perform my bridesmaid's duties.


SATURDAY
We headed to Parker Paris Uptown and were there from 10am to 2:30pm! We had Whole Foods boxed lunches delivered; of course they messed up the bride's order. I was told my eye makeup was "smokey", to me they just looked too gray and kinda like I had two black eyes but still probably better than I could do. Babette got Ronald McDonald hair, they had to wash and redo it.


Got back to hotel, got dressed which was quick and easy because hair and make up were already done. Pics with Ash, then pics with Chris. Ash's dress was stepped on and got NOLA grime all over the bottom, it wiped right off, crisis averted. I ended up putting the flowers and ribbon on the cake, still don't know if I did it the way Ash envisioned, sorry!?

Ceremony starts, one BM down the aisle the speaker playing the live music starts screeching. Gets taken care of , crisis 2 averted. Beautiful ceremony. Officiate had a top 10 ten list and my mind wandered to Letterman. Chris had the biggest smile the WHOLE ceremony, so sweet! At the end of the ceremony I walked down with wrong groomsman, thought maybe I screwed something up, I didn't, whew! Pics again.

PARTY STARTS! Wine, Cajun seafood, champagne, Cajun seafood, vodka, Cajun seafood, back to champagne, red velvet cake.

BOUQUET TOSS! Let's all be honest here, at this point I was drunk off cajun seafood and who knows what else. They did not play my predicted "Single Ladies", but instead stuck with the tried and true "Girls Just Want To Have Fun". I still think it'll happen at one of my '09 weddings. I'll keep everyone posted. As for catching the flowers, Ashley had crushed me earlier in the weekend by letting me know she had promised them to someone else. I don't remember the actual toss but I know the flowers went to my left, my best guess is that I went to the right.

We then tossed flower petals and saw the newlyweds off. And this my friends, Saturday night at 11:45pm, is where my weekend started and I suddenly realized I'm in NEW ORLEANS for Pete's sake. I was officially off the clock as a bridesmaid, and the New Orleans air had finally permeated through the armor I had on to get through this point without screwing up my friend's big day.

So we're all in the hotel lobby everyone was throwing out destinations, Cat's Meow, Tropical Isle, Big Daddy's (don't ask). It was all the same to me so I jumped into an almost full cab with people I half recognized from the wedding. The cab doors shut and I looked around and though, Crap, I totally got into a dud cab. It was me, groom's bro, groom's bro's girlfriend, groom's aunt and groom's former roomie Kyle. Just as I thought the night was going to be a bust because I landed in the dud-mobile I asked where we were headed, and in unison I heard Harrah's. AWESOME. I love casinos and had never actually been the NOLA Harrah's.

So we roll in, lose the groom's relatives at the slots and Kyle and I end up at a black jack table with some old men from North Carolina. The one next to me has major whiskers growing off the top of his nose and I tell drunk Kori not to comment about, or try to touch, them. I am also sitting at the dealers first hand which makes me nervous because that means I control others cards. I announce a disclaimer that, I will not take the blame for any bad hands, to make myself feel better. The following convo ensues,

Them: "Fine but if we get a good hand you're gonna have to show us your boobs to celebrate."
Me: "Um, no."
Them: "One boob?"
Me: "No."
Them: "You'll grab you boobs?"
Me: "Deal."

I thought I was already winning having widdled a flash down to a self-grope.

We sit there and play a while and it's going pretty well, then it's going really well then it is just freaking hot. There was "celebrating" with pretty much every hand. I think the dealer appreciated it and was dealing better because of it. I really did not find it as morally wrong as it may sound. After a while I had tripled my money and Kyle had at least quadrupled his. They closed our table and we moved to a new one, just as hot. Finally we went to play roulette for a while, snore. Back to blackjack. This table was ok, but nothing like our other tables. Someone gets up and mentioned the time being 4:50. WHAT? No way. We decided we had taken our fair share from Harrah's, plus Kyle was about to get kicked out for licking his $500 chips. So disgusting, I reminded myself that he had been drinking, for free, since probably 4 that afternoon and to just let it slide.

We wandered out of Harrah's and back towards the quarter. Kyle was starving and we were supposed to be getting something to eat. (Here is also where everything is going to sound worse than I mean for it to and it's going to sound like I'm hiding something or lying, but I'm not. It's my blog and all about me and yall already know me, so trust me, there wasn't anything that happened that I'm too scared to disclose here.) Since I had no clue where I was I was just following Kyle, yes the guy that moments earlier was so drunk he almost got kicked out of the casino. We ended up at my hotel, and looking back maybe he was trying to ditch me, but we had a drunk conversation about food and walked back out of the hotel and around the quarter for a while. Eventually we ended up at his hotel without eating. I was hitting a wall and wasn't about to try to walk back to my hotel alone. His room had 2 beds, perfect, but Kyle, can I borrow a t-shirt? I don't want to sleep in my BM dress. (Oh, yes and all the while he had been in a tux and I was in a cobalt blue full length bridesmaid dress. Those details come into play soon.) He offers me a muscle tee styled shirt. It was once a basic Hanes Hefty-T, but he had not just cut the sleeves out but had cut huge gaping holes down the side of the shirt. Really Kyle? Is this the only T-shirt you have, I feel like I might be a wee bit exposed in it. That was apparently my only option at now 5am. I crawled into bed and passed out.

SUNDAY

I woke up around 7:30 and looked over at the other bed and saw that it is still perfectly made, I thought That crazy guy went back out last night (last night being 2 hours ago...I was in New Orleans!). I got up to use the rest room and there, wedged between my bed, a dinette table and the wall, is Kyle. Fully dressed, bow tie perfectly in tact sleeping on his back looking like a very dapper corpse. I literally watched him for a second to make sure he was breathing. He was.

After all of that I got back in bed and started thinking, Oh crap. I have to get back to my hotel, I only have my bm dress to wear. The sun is out. Crap! I started to remember what time everyone said they were leaving on Sunday and decided later in the morning would be better because the early birds leaving for the airport would have filtered through by then. I text the bride to update her on whatever ridiculous text I had sent her in the middle of the night and confirm check out time to avoid another big rush of people. (Ash, sorry for texting you on your wedding night, although really the texts were in the morning) I knew I had a late check out so that was no problem for me. I dozed off for a while longer and got up around 11. Kyle had made it into the other bed by then and I decided now was as good a time as any to make a run for it. I got back into my bright cobalt blue BM dress and pulled out the dangling bobby pins from my hair. I found one lonely piece of gum in the bottom of my purse and felt ready to go. Kyle was on the phone making plans to go back out, I threw up in my mouth a little bit just thinking about it.

I got downstairs and there was a lady at the front desk. Front desk? I don't remember a front desk. I ask her what the quickest way to get to my hotel was and she gave me perfect directions. I walk out into the brightest, most sunny, beautiful day and turned left and speed walked straight with my head staring at the ground. I turn left again and I could see my hotel! Yay, so close! I quickly analyze that I could stay on the sidewalk I'm on which is crowded and slower, or go across the street to the less crowded and quicker sidewalk. I decided to stay on the crowded thinking all the people would help hide me, right? WRONG! It was at that point, I had just bowed my head for the rest of my walk, of total and complete innocence, that I hear "Kori? Kori! Koooori!?" On the third call I realized I had to stop and look up and low and behold there was Ms. Lorraine Hughes, mother of the bride. With Ashley's Uncle Moat and Aunt Lulu. Seriously?Really? Could God not humor himself with something else that morning?

Apparently she had heard about Kyle's and my night at the casino and she simply asked What were you playing last night? I had already retreated into being 15 years old and busted for sneaking out of Ashley's house and replied with Oh, uh, Kyle's hotel was closer to the casino! I don't know my way around the quarter! It was all Ashley's idea! I'm so sorry! Are you going to tell my Mom? I really have no idea what else was said but at some point I was able to scurry on towards the hotel, I rounded the corner into the elevator banks and hear Well look what the cat dragged in! Oh how sweet, Chris and Ashley had pried themselves from their bed of wedded matrimony to watch me walk in, don't mind that it was lunchtime. She said she just had to see this one. I got a chuckle out and pressed the elevator button 20 times in a row. Now as a cherry on the top of all of this, you're going to have to follow closely here. The girl on the elevator when the doors opened had really hit it off with Kyle at the reception. I had actually wondered at one point in the night why they didn't go out together after the party. The doors opened she looked me up and down, looked at Ash and said Where did she stay last night? I shoved her out of the elevator, hit my floor and was FINALLY out of the clear.

The rest of my day consisted of lunch with Ash and Chris, helping them move hotels and a painful trip to the airport and back home to Houston.

End of blog, it was a long one, I barely edited it and I'm not gonna do a wrap-up.