Where Are They Now?

It's been a while and plans have changed. It's about time for an update on the Hess'!

In February I moved into the basement studio apartment of the house I nanny in. I love it here! The neighborhood is adorable, nestled on Capitol Hill. It's a 20-minute walk to downtown, which I make a lot when I visit G at work! It is tiiiiiiny though. Giuseppe and I shared a twin-sized bed for the longest time, though we finally upgraded to a queen-sized air mattress. Haha.

Giuseppe got a new job as an assistant manager at Tumi. He looks so cute dressed in his nice black clothes every day. He works full time AND he's taking 12 credits at LDSBC. Go G! 

I finished the semester in April and I am already missing school. After school ended, I started working at the airport part-time in addition to my part-time nanny job. Working at the airport is.... The worst? Hilarious? Not a reality? Character building?

Haha I don't know what to choose. I clean toilets. I wear hideous shoes. I wake up at 4:45 am to get to work on time. 

My thoughts on my job usually go something like this:

4:45 am waking up: Oh my gosh I'm going to DIE, this is the WORST, why on EARTH did I take this job?

5:40 am sitting in the car in front of the airport with G: (close to tears) I can't go in! I can't face another day here! Pep, can I just sit here and cry on your shoulder?

6:10 am cleaning my first of many, many toilets: (Vivint bro "beast mode" kicks in) I'm Grant freaking Cardone. I'm a hustler. These toilets don't know what's coming for them.

9:50 am approaching my lunch break, cleaning up something particularly nasty: Okay this is just hilarious. What is my life? WHO am I??

12:50 pm: The day is almost over. I. Will. Finish. 

2:00 pm: DONE. I DID IT. I cleaned toilets for eight hours. I am a magnificent human being. 

You may be wondering, "WHY would you ever work there?" The thing is, I just needed something temporary that I could do after school got out and before I go to France. I needed something I could start ASAP, that would work with my nanny schedule, and that I wouldn't feel bad quitting after a short amount of time. And this was the only job that fit that criteria.

Interestingly, the pay is HORRIBLE. I get NINE dollars an hour. Isn't that pathetic?! A job that awful should pay a lot more. And the "raises" are pathetic. After working there for an entire year, you get a thirteen cent raise. And it really doesn't get much better than that.

Not all of my coworkers have the same mindset as me, unfortunately. Many of them have been there for years, putting up with the low pay. I spoke to one yesterday about how unfair the wages are. She completely agreed with me. "I know! I mean they should start us out at $10 an hour!" Where is her vision?! I told her she deserved to have a job she loved and that paid her well. Ten dollars an hour is still not fair. 

Another coworker of mine didn't even seem to mind the low pay! He said, "Nah, I'm not out looking to make a whole lot of money." Prior to this odd statement, this man shared with me his life story. We'll call him Pete. After graduating high school, Pete applied to a promising company with his friends but was the only one who didn't get hired on. He applied and applied, but was never hired. His friends went off to work for this company and found success, and Pete began cashiering at a 7-Eleven. As the years went by, Pete transferred from one 7-Eleven to the next. He also cashiered at Target, K-Mart, various grocery stores, and even more gas stations. He is now in his sixties. A whole lifetime of cashiering! Looking for a change, Pete began working at the airport a few months ago. I asked him if he had a family. He told me that when he was younger, the doctor told him he'd never be able to have children. "Women want babies, so I never even tried to date. And I knew I'd never make enough money to adopt." SAD. This man has no self-worth. I told him he deserved to find happiness, and then he went on and on about Star Trek. I told him I had never seen it, but he carried on the conversation as if I were familiar with the characters and plot. He told me how much happiness Star Trek brought to his life. You do you, Pete. 

I put in my two-weeks yesterday, and I told my manager the reason I was quitting was because the pay was so low. When I filled out my resignation form, he said, "please make sure to put the reason you're quitting! If we get enough people complaining, that's the only way to make real change." So basically, I performed a great service by working at the airport and quitting. You're welcome. 

I LOVE my other job, however. I started watching little Vin Saint in November, and it has been the best. He is almost one now, and he is just the absolute sweetest thing in my life. I love this little boy with all my heart! 

In December I took him to a meeting with the IRS. He totally charmed them.

What's next:

I am going to FRANCE in 2 weeks. I'll be there for a little over a month and man oh MAN I'm excited. French is my passion. I want to be able to speak it fluently sooo bad. So I'm off to the Alpes to study in Grenoble and immerse myself in the language and culture. 

Giuseppe is going to stay with his friend Ethan while I'm gone. 

When I get back, we're moving into family student housing on the U campus! 

Au revoir!

La Nouvelle-Orléans

I typed up this post months ago and I'm barely getting around to posting it... Yikes.

But anyway, back in March I had the greatest spring break in the world!

I flew into New Orleans on Thursday afternoon. G picked me up from the airport, and of course it was a pretty wild reunion.

On the car ride to our hotel, he told me he had gone to World Market and bought some surprises for me. (Surprises are the BEST).

When we got to the hotel (which was hilariously WAY more ghetto than the already ghetto pictures online) he presented some of our favorite treats: grilled seaweed, Asian gummy candy, and old fashioned sodas. My cute boy has the best taste.

That night we ubered to the beautiful French quarters. Oh how I missed this place!

We had dinner at the Royal House Oyster Bar. I ate delicious cajun shrimp, he had shrimp tortellini (of course), and we shared a brownie for dessert.

Afterwards we walked around the quarters and shopped. We spent hours in gift shop laughing over the alcohol-obsessed vinyl-quotes-on-wooden-blocks. One of my favorites (unrelated to alcohol): "Pilates? Hell no, I thought you said pie and lattes" hahaha. 

We found two little guidebooks in a shop, one called "how to be the perfect husband" and the other "how to be the perfect wife." In the Wife book, there was a section called, "how to give the most unforgettable kiss." I followed the instructions perfectly and it was pretty unforgettable. 

It was so great to just be together again! I'll never forget it.

The next day we went to cute café for breakfast. I about peed my pants when Giuseppe asked the employee what "pain perdu" was, pronouncing it like the word 'pain' as in, "Yeah doc, ever since the accident my neck has been in a lot of pain."

'Pain' is the French word for bread, and it's produced like: 'pah' with a little nasal sound at the end. I had never realized that it is spelled like the English word pain.

I realize that it's not that funny, but I found it hilarious.

He wasn't the only one confused by the cajun menu. I asked what about grits, and they were shocked that I didn't know what they were. They let me sample some. LOVED IT. 

The café owner chatted with us for a bit and told us that he grew up with Ellen DeGeneres. Apparently she's from New Orleans.

Giuseppe planned for us to go to the zoo that day and it was SO fun.

Loup Garou

I found the most gorgeous photograph of the French Quarters in this kitschy swamp souvenir shop that I will frame and keep forever and ever.

I loved the swamp section of the zoo. I legitimately thought that I was looking at a foamy-floored children's playground until I noticed a gator swimming in the substance! Crazy nature.

Wandering Peacock

After the zoo we were kind of exhausted but didn't want to drive through the traffic to our hotel, so we rested in the car. We fell asleep listening to the Book of Mormon and I had the longest, weirdest dream about King Lamoni's slumber.

That evening we went to a restaurant called Café B. They offered carbonated water and you better believe we went through carafe after carafe.

I tried TURTLE soup. It was okay. It just tasted like a beefy stew, and I'm not really into that kind of thing. Giuseppe's fish and sweet potato meal was amazing though. I was jealous.

That night we drove into the French quarters and of course struggled for what felt like hours to find a parking space. After drinking my weight in carbonated water at dinner, I had to pee SO bad. The second we found a spot, we ran out of there and Giuseppe took me to the closest bathroom he knew of. I ran to it only to find it was gated and locked up! A mean security guard was all, "didn't you read the sign? This bathroom closes at 8!" What kind of system is that?!

I ran out to Giuseppe, interrupted his conversation with some man and yelled, "The bathroom is CLOSED. We have to go NOW."

Haha the following account is pretty embarrassing and probably TMI:

We ran over to the Mississippi river (which borders the French Quarters) to find a little grove of trees, but I couldn't hold it in any longer- I mean I drank a LOT of carbonated water. I was standing on trolley tracks, and I just went right there, skirt lifted and underwear in Giuseppe's hands. Well of COURSE the jam-packed Trolley came by just then with the biggest and brightest spotlight I've ever seen in my entire life, so I had to put my skirt back down. Obviously I couldn't stop mid-stream and so yes, I got pee on my skirt. I didn't think it was that gross though because my pee was like 99% water.

Anyway, after that little fiasco, we went to Café du Monde and had beignets and chocolate milk. YUM! And more window shopping of course.

I love the culture of the french quarters. EXCEPT Bourbon Street. That place is nasty.
The rest of the french quarters is filled with random little parades (Giuseppe was quick to remind me- "even though this is just a one minute parade, it is still a PARADE. Unlike Heber's 'parade' of people in pickup trucks promoting their business." hahaha he's never going to let that go.), live jazz music, street performers, ancient and eerie buildings, and so much FRENCH. I love it.

Also, there are tons of local art shops. We went into a lot of them, and I wanted to buy so many photographs and paintings. I found the most gorgeous photograph printed on canvas of a misty swampy morning. Didn't buy it, it was a couple hundred dollars. But I can't stop thinking about it.

On Saturday G took me on a tour of the St. Louis Cemetery, which is right outside the French quarters. It was AMAZING. I was on cloud nine the whole time. The history of that place is FASCINATING!

When the original French settlers created the cemetery, they buried people underground just as they did in Europe. But during flooding season, the bodies would come out of the ground and flood the quarters! So they started burying people above ground in mausoleums. These little mausoleums are SO old and most aren't taken care of anymore because the family line has died off.

And they're slowly sinking into the ground.

Some of them are nothing but a few bricks in the ground now!

Most of the tomb stones are written in French.

The future burial spot of Nicholas Cage. We spent a good six minutes of the tour just chatting about Nicholas Cage. Haha

You wouldn't believe it, but most of these mausoleums contain around 70 dead family members.

City of the dead.

When a person died, they paraded the coffin through the quarters in a second line (jazz music!) and into the cemetery. They stuck the coffin in a crevice inside the mausoleum and bricked it up. Because it's so hot and humid there, the bodies only took one year to decompose completely! After the year mark, they'd take out the rotting wood coffin and stuff the bones under the base or throughout the walls of the mausoleum. Then the space was free for another body!

Apparently back in the day when this cemetery was in frequent use, the stench of the decaying bodies would last up to six weeks after entombment. Consequentially, there are no residential areas around it.

Fascinating stuff.

Italian influence.

After the cemetery tour we hung out in the Louis Armstrong park. I pretended to give a tour to Giuseppe- it was mainly about Ellen DeGeneres.

We found a cool- and freeeee- museum in the quarters that afternoon. It was full of original maps and law books and letters from the original French settlers. AND there were original paintings of the early town and its inhabitants, mainly royalty! It was fascinating.

We went on a GHOST tour that evening. The stories (100% historically accurate) were SO captivating. The history of the French quarters is so fascinating. And disturbing. I'm so glad we decided to do the tour. I was kind of "eh" going into it because my feet were soooo sore but the tour was so great that I forgot all about my aching feet. That rhymes. 

That night we had the MOST AMAZING MEAL OF MY LIFE.
The Palace Café.
It was recommended to us by one of the museum volunteers that afternoon.
Giuseppe and I sat across from each other in a half-booth thing. We're not used to sitting across the table from each other, we usually sit side-by-side. 
Giuseppe stretched across the table to kiss me. He had his cute little lips all puckered and his eyes closed, waiting for me to lean over and smooch him.
At that moment, our waitress came and placed my napkin on my lap. She tried to do the same to Giuseppe but he was pressed against the edge of the table, eyes closed and lips puckered, leaning forward. For some reason I couldn't remember any words. I just sat there and watched. Finally she said, "excuse me sir," and he opened his eyes and realized the embarrassing situation he was in. Too funny.

We ordered this divine appetizer: pecan-encrusted crab cheesecake. It was AMAZING. (It's savory, not sweet). The best thing I ate in New Orleans, let me tell you. I highly recommend it. And the little crab claw on top was delicious too. I could have eaten a whole bag of those haha.

Seafood is the greatest.

I ordered drum fish with grilled vegetables. I hate red onions but the way they prepared these red onions had me in tears. Food is art.
Giuseppe's steak was ridiculously delicious too.
We still had room for dessert, so we ordered an amazing bananas foster (a New Orleans original), which they flamed up right in front of us. Of course it was absolutely amazing.

I would go hungry for two days if it meant I could eat one meal at the Palace Café. 

On Sunday we slept in and drove to a church we found online. We were only a few minutes late to church, so we were really disappointed when we realized we'd missed the sacrament. It wasn't until the closing prayer when someone mentioned the close of priesthood and relief society that we realized we had accidentally come to the last hour of church. Haha. We have the worst luck with using the LDS church locator website. Better luck next time.

We drove to Baton Rouge that night to stay in the Vivint apartment. 

The next day G took me to the outlets and told me I could buy one thing. Of COURSE I ended up in G.H. Bass & Co.

I bought these PERFECT shoes for my trip to France this summer. 

The next part of the day was the besssssssst. We drove back to New Orleans for a COUPLES MASSAGE. Neither of us have ever gotten a massage before. It was a 90 minute hot stone full-body massage and it was AMAZING. I think this will have to become a regular thing for us. ;) 

Post-massage giddiness

That night I was just craving Raising Cane's. They don't have one in Utah, it's a fast food chicken place that sits on pretty much every block in Louisiana. It's sooooo good! Giuseppe was like, "Really? Raising Cane's, that's what you want?" Yes. Always.

While in Baton Rouge, we also ate at a delicious sushi restaurant (no pictures were taken) and Joe's Crab Shack where we ordered the Orleans: Shrimp and CRAWFISH. I have been dying to try crawfish ever since Giuseppe told me about a cool crawfish shack he had gone to in one of his neighborhoods. I wish I took pictures because crawfish are soooooo creepy looking! Giuseppe taught me the proper way to dissect/eat a crawfish. You rip off their tails, remove the pincers, pull of the little tail at the end of that tail, and then smoothly pull out the delicious, tender meat. They are actually extremely delicious. Better than shrimp, in my opinion. The spicy cajun seasoning was pretty intense and left Giuseppe wailing about his burning cuticles and me drinking a dozen glasses of water, but overall it was a good meal haha. I will definitely eat crawfish again.

Aside from that, our time in Baton Rouge wasn't very fun. Giuseppe went out with the team on Tuesday and Wednesday for a long day of knocking and I stayed in the nasty apartment and did homework. I will never forget how gross that apartment was. There were like 17 guys staying in a 3 bedroom/2 bath, and nobody picked up after themselves. And I wasn't about to do it. Also, I don't know how I didn't get athletes foot showering there.

And that was my wonderful spring break! Thanks Pep for spoiling me :) Love you.