Our Noffensive Juggernaut

Sigh....and just like that, our "bowl season" is over.

Boo Hiss.

Back to our comfort zone: losing our homecoming game and finishing out just playing for pride.

So thank goodness for the rain, right?! I mean we ran Scelfo off and he actually won us some games in the rain. and on real grass fields. But we have been running out of what else to say to defend why our non-existant offense (henceforth "Noffense") isn't working.

Our Noffensive playbook is so square that even UConn has it figured out. Which will make the Army game at West Point even more intolerable, Oy. So thank you rain for your timely appearance.

So yes, it was homecoming this weekend as well as my reunion year. I got to see some of my friends from my freshman dorm. Yes! Our dorm had a reunion at the reunion. Not everyone came, which made me sad, but I was glad to see some of my girls.

Me in 19ninety-something

and Now. Look at us old ladies!

But anyways, on gameday, after fervently praying novenas all week, the weather mercifully held out just long enough to enjoy tailgating with our peeps. I got these new table toppers (from a designer on redbubble) to debut for homecoming. and I just love love l-o-v-e them. I can't wait to tablescape with them again.

We had tailgating classics: burgers, tater salad, cole slaw. Perry Mason grilled for us. I had these adorable cookies made for Mr. and Mrs. Buggy who are in our tailgating group, in honor of their VW Combi truck that they drive to lead the Tulane Marching Band.

Shannon's cousin started a new jello shot business in Metry called Wasted Fruit and they made us these custom jello shots she called The Greenie. They were blueberry something in green and blue, and quite tasty. Go check their facebook page out: Wasted Fruit

As you can imagine, it's usually a little hectic at tailgating for us, but I was able to steal a few seconds with Coach Hullabaloo to take this cute picture.

I love my Coach Hullabaloo.

So sighhhhhhh, the game. What more can be said? At least the Homecoming Court presentations were cute. This is Tulane's official photo of the moment captured by Paula Burch.

Peggy and I lol'd and lol'd during the presentation at halftime. First, our adorbs new Queen immediately started bawling when her name was called like she just won Miss America or something. And then her King ran over and threw himself on her, practically attacking her when he was announced. It was hilarious and just lacking a teeny little bit of decorum, enough to say ermagerd, what is he doing to her?! And then the rest of the Court proceeded to stand there with their umbrellas and left her getting drenched in the rain like they wanted her tiara to rust and mascara to streak.

Peggy and I were hooting with laughter.

So Coach Hullabaloo and I stayed until the very end of the game, just like some of our favorite students!

We stayed, because we are nuts, but also because Coach Hullabaloo was hoping upon hope that they would pull Tanner and put in Jordy Joseph. Jordy knocked our socks off for the Memphis game. Where has he been all of our life?! As Peggy was sayin - we weren't playing a defensive juggernaut in UConn and so even if just for giggles we should have put him in there to see if we could give them just a different read or something.

Nope. denied..... If only the staff took requests from the sidelines, right?

Our fake punt play is still paying dividends though. It accounted for one of the 10 first downs of the game. So there's that positive.

But anyways, Greenies: The writing is on the wall. Not only has Goldring said "No" to upping the ante and Greenbaum wants to re-up Dickson again, but President Fitts went and said at his Town Hall on Friday that he wants to observe this fiasco for yet another year (!) before making any hasty decisions.

So check back at the end of 2016 to find out if something may be amiss with our football program.

Bragging Rights

> > > > WE BEAT AN FCS OPPONENT!! < < < <

photo by Nola Dave of wavefootball.com)

-> Cut to Rick Dickson doing a Tebow in the Glazer Club (and Imagining the possibilities if we play an entire FCS schedule, or at least maybe reconsider to go get back in CUSA where we are most "similar".) TPTB SO be all Oprah on us if they figure out how to get us in the FCS: Wins for you! and you! Wins for errbody!

Ha Ha, I know. I know. I'm the fan of the worst kind. The kind with high expectations.

I'll tell you things I liked. I did really like this intro that ESPN did for the televised game. They showed Mr. and Mrs. Greenwave Mobile's wheels too!



I loved the little Boy Scouts with the big ole flag for The Anthem. Especially the little ones that got caught up in the undertow during the unfurling and were later seen crawling out underneath. So Cute!

Coach Hullabaloo was mightily perturbed about the student behavior during The Anthem at the first home game and went over to stand in the student section yesterday to monitor the signing of The Anthem as his civic duty. Once a Marine, Always a Marine.

And then I was also very impressed with Sherman Badie. Photo by Nola Dave of wavefootball.com)

Anyways, despite the score we still needed to remind everyone that this is still Tulane here we are talking about, ha ha! and so we had some signature touches in effect at the game.

First off, some pretty horrid officials (what is up with that?! are we like a magnet for sketchy officials?!) That was NOT a touchdown on the opening possession, and that Maine returner DID have contact with the ball! The officials were wretched! And then as a last minute finale, we also had us a botched play fumble something or another in the 4th quarter.

Ta Da!

Am I over the start to the season? Um, hell to the no. Never. I plan to annoy everyone with my opinions til the end. or until my team gets its act together.

So.......lemme tell you: in addition to getting a bunch of compliments about my super cah-ute top by Lo+Jo Bands (see, how cute!)

I also got an EARFUL from all across the spectrum of Greenwave Nation. Some were "Thank you for that letter you sent to President Fitts, I hope they hear you" (yeah right after this glorious win over Maine, all is considered right according to plan by TPTB). But THEN I also got the skinny from some flies on the wall with big ole ears in the locker room. Let me just say this: I worked in Washington DC and I am not naive to how the backroom deals work. The backroom is in full effect at the Tulane University Greenwave. Oh yes.

Sigh.....

Anyways, another annoyance was that apparently our University's public relations image would be lagging if Rick Dickson did not do yet another Katrina segment during his halftime interview on ESPN. Yes during a game about Military Appreciation wherein he did not say a word about thanking the military or even Tulane ROTC. Major Eyeroll. I'm presuming he's getting in some practice time to polish off his stump speech for the 11th Anniversary of Katrina.

During the interview he quoted his statistics he's spinning to the Board at this moment to show our marked improvement. We've tripled the number of televised games under his tenure! Isn't that Fantastique? Well, how about these statistics: since joining the AAC and being blamed for the implosion of the Big East, Tulane’s record against FBS opponents is 2 wins, 11 losses. That's after our miracle final season in CUSA when a corner turning had been declared.

So today I am sure that TPTB had them some celebratory oysters at Clancy's.

Listen, I am positively thrilled that Fitts got to savor a victory hullabaloo in a Tulane locker room. He looks happy and the team looks happy. And that makes me happy.



But I won't stop hoping, praying, and prodding that Fitts gets to like post-game wins enough, being as that there have been exactly 3 during his two year tenure, that he up and starts asking questions about how this college football thing works. Let's get us some more victory locker room moments worthy of Vince Gibson or Bennie Ellender's memory. Against real opponents.

I'll even take some ponderings on how Tulane can make ourselves more "similar" to average FBS opponents. So when the "similar to us" excuse comes up again we are talking about what our team and fans deserve.

So speaking of celebratory food, Coach and Mrs. Hullabaloo got to go to Glazer Club. Yes! they actually let us in and we didn't get bounced!

After the start of the season went the way it went, comp tickets were available in droves. So we scored some and I got to see what all the fuss was about.

I'm not so much into the Glazer Club, no. It's totally not conducive to actually paying attention to a football game and what is happening beyond the sound proof windows. It's all about the socializing. No wonder those Board people don't give a flip if we play like crud.

There are a bunch of buffets and bars set up everywhere and big screens. But no desserts! Since I don't eat a lot of junk so I can save room for the important stuff, the only thing I was able to nibble on were the wings. And they were cold and not as good as my favorites from Five Happiness.

Coach Hullabaloo said the cochon de lait sandwiches were comme ci comme ca, but that the hot dogs looked scary (and he loves him some hot dogs). He did enjoy the free beer, and I enjoyed the A/C AND using a little girls room that had proper lighting - which is unlike the ground level powder rooms that have like one naked light bulb so that you are in the stall tinkling in the dark.

Anyways, so back we went up to Westfeldt Terrace where my favorite Cookie Monster ice cream purvyed by Creole Creamery can be purchased. Access to the Creole Creamery stand is worth the $500 TAF donation IMO we made to get tickets in Westfeldt.

I did enjoy shopping the souvenir shop inside Glazer and picked up this new cap that my manpie Marine Coach Hullabaloo needed for his collection of Tulane baseball caps.

And then earlier in the day we had a blast at tailgating with our krewe of peeps. Our theme was Maine food, and we had "Poutine" which is a tradition from Maine. It's basically potato chip nachos with roast beef n gravy with cheese. Except we also offered shredded duck, in addition to roast beef and with assorted toppings.

And to round things out (you know me, all about the themes) I ordered these "whoopie pies" from Wicked Whoopies of Maine. They were absolutely delicious.

Whoopie Pies are basically moon pies, but better. I will knock over children to grab moon pies at Mardi Gras.

Also in the photo was this blueberry beer from a Maine brewery called Sea Dog that was at Fresh Market. Coach Hullabaloo loves Tin Roof Brewery and so we decided to give this Gameday IPA a try since it was in a green can. And it is delicious and perfect for for our Skip&GoNaked recipe which is always a hit.

I also made a lobster dip, brussel sprout slaw, and a maple onion jelly using products by Stonewall Kitchens which is from Maine (ah! Themes!). Preparations are below (I can't call it recipes, because total cheating and shortcuts happened here).

LOBSTER DIP
Can of Lobster Bisque from Fauchon (a fancy schmancy store in Paris)
Stick of room temperature cream cheese
handful of ground parmesan cheese
Finely chopped half a red bell pepper
Finely chopped white part of Green onions (to taste)
a smidge of finely chopped red onion
a few dunks of Worcestershire sauce
Salt

Mush everything together and serve with Ritz Crackers, or another type of butter cracker. Also good with fresh red bell pepper strips.

BRUSSEL SPROUT SLAW
half of a bag of brussel sprouts finely chopped
couple green onion spears chopped
quarter red onion chopped
handful chopped pecans (roasted or not, no matter)
quarter chopped green apple (chopped)
salt and peper to taste
half a dunk of Stonewall Kitchens Maple Balsamic vinaigrette
tablespoon whomp of Stonewall Kitchens Maple Bacon aioli

chop up the veg, whomp the wet ingredients, sprinkle seasonings. lovingly toss together. and voila!

MAPLE ONION JELLY DIP
Half a portion of Stonewall Kitchens Onion Garlic jam
Equal half a portion of Stonewall Kitchens Maple Bacon aioli

Swirl it all together, serve with pretzel sticks in a cute bowl.

Now, my Greenwave friends. One word of wisdom. Don't go dropping your corndogs like Lil'General did. Coach Hullabaloo caught Lil'General taking corndogs out of Glazer Club and warned her about me finding out. He made her laugh so hard, that plop the corndog went on the floor.

WTH is Glazer serving Corndogs for anyways? I had no idea the money peeps ate Corndogs.

Oh Well, see y'all after the Bye!

"Give Me Just One Night"

Give me just one game where we do not get at least 10 holding and/or offsides penalties.....

But seriously. How about that UConn Coach Bob Diaco? mmmmmmmm...MMM!

photos by John Wioke and Parker Waters

and here's one more for good measure....

Anyways, Coach Hullabaloo laughed at me and said he looks like Nick Lachey. Which I vehemently disagree with. But that's how come I chose my title for today's blog post. It's a 98 Degrees song.

Another cutie pie that stole my heart was this puppy!

be still my heart!

....but fer real enough about puppies and hot coaches, back to the topic of this blog: football.

If I were Nick Montana or Sherman Badie I would organize a blanket party for those same players who keep piling up penalties like they were prizes. Dang all that effort to get first downs and then bam! There strike the penalty twins.

But to be completely straight up honest, I can't just blame the serial penalty-makers all on their own. The fact is that they are just part of the machine that is Tulane. And that's the bottom line. It just would not be us if we didn't include a signature something something into the mix to remind the world who we are. It's what makes Tulane special.

I mean, remember when we had that monster 2nd and 3rd quarter against Houston in 2010. We started ramming it down their throat and we're knocking at their door again, we had a first down at their 30 and could just TASTE the lead. Except that 1st & 10 ended up a 4th & 43 because of our never-ending addiction to penalties. Oy! Tulane!

Well, I am happy for the team tho. Especially getting a safety - that's two seasons in a row with a safety, y'all. Photos by Glen Andrews and Parker Waters.

Although didn't we surrender a safety to Duke? Anyways whatever, just look at the players celebrating with the students after the game ♥ (photo by Parker Waters)

Also, I just loved seeing the band go out of the tunnel. First picture is the band members doing the Hullabaloo in a circle before going out.

lol Peggy, so cute

My favorite part of the team running out on to the field is the team going over to the student section. Look at the sunset, how pretty.

And Devon Walker was our lucky charm!

And y'all the most important news of all from the game: DiRocco actually made a field goal! If I wasn't there to witness it, I would have said: noooo...you lyin'!



You haven't seen a crowd as thrilled with a field goal since Garrett Hartley split the uprights to win the NFC championship game in 2010.

So now, you can all put your suspicions away that an imposter is writing this post, because there actually were LOTS of things I couldn't resist to nitpick on. Like the broken jumbotron - umm,hello! and the Cleveland Cavs exhibition game going overtime and bleeding over into our first quarter....and omg the toilet trailers all of a sudden parked in our tailgating spot...and LAWD, the UConn fan who got picked for the dance cam prize?!! And don't even go read the @tulanealumni gameday tweets about how gamedays are like cemetaries (like what?!).

If I didn't nitpick and complain then you wouldn't know it was me LOL.

Anyways, our tailgating was still fun and I love seeing my tailgating peeps. Our theme this week was "Mystic Pizza" in honor of the movie and the actual town in Connecticut that actually has an eponymous pizza joint.

My girl Chardonnay and her man brought us some Mo's Pizza which I simply just loooooove. All yous pretentious Eastbankers who feel so self-righteous and superior that you wouldn't ever do anything so lowly as to cross a bridge, would probably faint that Westwego is the home to some mighty fine pizza. It was Patrick Ramsey's favorite pizza here in New Orleans, so there.

After you pick yourself up off the ground about the pedigree of Westbank pizza, you'll need to grab a chair for this next piece of news: I baked a cake. AND I made icing. see.

in honor of the Nutmeg State, I made a nutmeg cake with grated fresh nutmeg, and apple butter filing. The icing was like a praline royal icing and topped with chopped roasted pecans. I didn't burn anything. Although I was shocked when it came out of the oven OK, because I messed up all of the mixing instructions and my lumpy batter looked nothing like the pretty creamy version from the photos on the recipe.

We also had stuffed peppadews, hoagies, clam chowder dip, Domenica-style roasted cauliflower, Johnny Appleseed bars, and due to a funny mix up we ended up with a platter of sushi instead of lobster rolls. I loved it though, an interpretation of lobster rolls!

I also found this beer and had my girl Julie ship it to me. Two Roads Brewery for a Tu-lane game, get it? Their logo is also a VW bus. It was a good omen

Ok, so next week we are off to Florida for the UCF game. I shall be taking copious notes to see if the UCFers learned themselves some manners since our last trip to Orlando and my run in with their "Town and Gowns." Because lawd, they are something else down there.

Take care my chamudis and this one belongs to the Wave!

Triple Coverage!

photo borrowed from the new orleans advocate newspaper
Thank goodness Perry Mason was with us last night, because we ended up popping the cherry on Uptown tailgating celebrations. We got ourselves towed! LOL

It's officially a party now when the law gets involved! ha ha!

Coach Hullabaloo is SO pissed. He has been a complete bear about it. All I can do is giggle. We have a selection of parking at our disposal - a paid lot, a generous friend's driveway situated on Broadway, other driveway invitations from other nearby friends. But Coach Hullabaloo wanted to tempt fate and got burned.

I will keep you aprised of his legal manuevers on the situation because after rescuing our car from the impound lot over by the cemetaries, he drove back to the ill-fated parking spot and took copious photographic evidence of the curbs, the signage, the parking striping, etc. He spent 3 hours going over all of the parking communiques from Tulane about gameday parking and reading the agreement with the city. He'll be representing his own defense.

Hopefully after his expertise at defending himself to the city, he can go represent this guy who's parents probably want to kill him anyways. Coach Hullabaloo caught one of the streakers on video as he taped the final play of the game.



Coach Hullabaloo can also maybe go try his hand at representing all of the fans leaving the game who got snared in the checkpoint on Earhart. Now that the city of New Orleans has decided what a moneymaker Yulman is for them after that IZD business. Mothercluckers.

So, speaking of defense.....

I missed the heart attack portion of the game last night. Leftover popeyes and my super boss spinach dip were calling out to me and I had to get back to our post game tailgating. I left we were 28-3, but as you know this is Tulane and that's never a sure thing. Listen, in 2011 we beat UAB 49-10 and I was still having heart palpitations going into the 4th quarter.

Tyrone did his best to try to keep me abreast via text, but my phone soon died so all I could go by was the cheering and the announcer's calls from the stadium (omg on the Nimbys! ha!). Tyrone was certain we were going to lose the game, he could taste the loss. Coach Hullabaloo concurred that we were trying to give it away. Tequila said that the players were all dancing and laughing on our sideline in the 4th quarter like this was all a done deal. Oh but noooooo.

I am such a terrible very bad Tulane fan that I went into the game last night convinced we were going to lose another one. Straight out the gate. Speaking of which, I did love how the team ran out on to the field by swinging over to the student section first for some high fives to get them pumped.

We are so prejudiced about how the season is going to go that Coach Hullabaloo and I had already decided we are skipping traveling to the Duke game to witness a potential loss (Well Coach Hullabaloo decided, and I decided not to fight him on it).

Also, I totally fell for all of the pre-game hype about Southeastern being another McNeese or Appalachian State. I had heard so much fabulosity about Bryan Bennett that I have been following him on social media for a year. So I was actually eager to finally see some of this Bennett gunslinging live and in person. Quelle disappointment, Mr. Bennett..... The first half I was like, is there a replacement QB out there? How come we aren't seeing any of this amazeballs quarterbacking I have been hearing so much about. Are you sure this is the right person?

The gunslinging which DID occur was Tanner Lee going all Brett Favre out there throwing into double and triple coverage and Justyn Shackleford coming up with the ball. TWICE into triple coverage. Like Whaaaat?!

Here's one of the "General Lee" to Shackleford connections that got us a touchdown



Peggy and I were screaming "duh nuh nuh! duh nuh nuh!" for our version of SportsCenter play of the day.

I hope that the Greenies don't get all over confident on us about throwing into triple coverage now and decide that we can henceforth commence to do that against Houston or Rutgers. Please Sweet Baby Jesus, No!

So Play of the Day was our tailgating. Look how cute.

I draped seersucker fabric underneath, repurposed an old homecoming tablecloth with a new trim, and topped the table with my tried and true fleur de lis vase which I tucked some cattails into for a Louisiana flair. Our menu theme was Strawberryganza.

We had a ponchatoula spinach salad, strawberry guac, some of Covington Brewery's Strawberry Ale and then South Louisiana favorites: stuffed artichokes, mini muffulettas, crawfish pies. I made some divine spinach crab and artichoke dip which was delicious.

BOSS SPINACH DIP
Package of chopped frozen spinach, fully thawed and drained
Pound of crabmeat, also drained
14 oz can of quartered artichoke hearts, drained
cup of mayo
cup of sour cream
cup and half of shredded parmesan
cup, plus a quarter cup reserved, of shredded jack cheese
4 stalks of green onions, chopped
tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme
half tsp white pepper
half tsp cayenne
half tablespoon hot sauce
dashes of worcestershire sauce
1 garlic clove, pressed
an extra dash of creole seasoning for fun

Preheat oven to 350. Mix everything, except the spinach and crab, until combined. Fold in the spinach and crab and then pour into a baking dish. Top with the reserved quarter cup of shredded jack cheese. Bake at 350 for 30-40 mins until the top is golden.

Make ahead tips for gameday: mix the liquid ingredients, vegs, and the seasonings and refrigerate. Then before baking you can add the shellfish in fresh and top with the reserved jack cheese, etc. Another tip: make sure you squeeze all of the liquid out of the spinach and the crab. The extra liquid will make the dip watery and running and aint nobody likes watery dip.

I also got one of my chickadees who bakes, to make me these fab Louisiana boot shaped cookies and kingcake praline cookies. They taste even better than they look.

So my chamudis, unless Coach Hullabaloo has a change of heart, buys me a private plane, or instant time travel gets invented I shall be homegating or at a watch party next week for the Duke game. I'm somewhat conflicted on not traveling as that is "our thing" - to follow the wave wherever they go. Durham is a fine town and I was glad I got to see Ryan Travis get that pick 6 in 2011 when we played Duke last. But I hope that we aren't at the back end of a lopsided score this go round tho, because that game we didn't score an offensive touchdown until the 4th quarter when the game was already way past saving.

Cheers and prayers for a strong road swing! Hullabaloo ray ray!

Well That Stung

The more things change, the more they stay the same....

Special Teams, Referees, and Penalties, oh my! Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Only difference is we just got a new stadium to do it in. sigh........ Peggy is going to be talking about Picarelli just standing there after that blocked punt for a while. Coach Hullabaloo and I still talking about how Devin Powell does not get the recognition he deserves for managing a game and not making major mistakes. He's our trusty old faithful.

Anyways, I blame our parking passes.

And did I mention that Schott Cowen was there to try and steal more thunder? Bringing his suspect juju to the new stadium. I spied some peeps in the stands "saluting" Cowen with one finger when he took the field to be clapped at. Hopefully that was enough clawing for attention on his behalf and he can be on his merry way now.

So the photo above was me and our friend Baldboy comiserating postgame as we have always done. A Tulane Tradition.

The day started out well. Everyone seemed to be having a ball. I loved my Tulane dress I had made.



Two of my chickadees came by to our tent to say hello. They are so cute, I'm such a lucky Town Mom.

A major highlight is I got to meet Taylor and Gabby who were the Tulane co-eds who got first in line at 4am in order to get student tickets for the game. They contributed these goey frito peanut butter bars to add to our tailgating and they were SO good!! (thanks y'all!!)

I got interviewed by the NY Times who were in town for an upcoming article about the Tulane-Uconn game in October. My friend Tyronne Power jokes that I need to hire his friend Babelicious as my agent after being on TV this week and now the NY Times. .....mmmmkay!

Did you hear I was on TV? WUPL-TV My 54 called up and asked to tape me for a segment of their "The 504 Show" hosted by Sheba Turk. Here is a link of the segment in case you missed it. What fun!

So at tailgating I unfortunately did not get to walk around at all, I didn't get any free giveaways, or see anything other than what was in front of me because as mistress of ceremonies at our tent I didn't even barely get a bite of food. Coach Hullabaloo sez that being the spouse of Mrs Hullabaloo is like having a receiving line at a wedding. a social whirlwind. But Coach Hullabaloo did get to sneak away and went and dove into the mosh pit which was the LBC Quad and reported that it was like being in the infield at the Preakness. Good Times.

Our tailgate set up actually came together better than I expected. Not sure who to send a thank you note to for the mixup, but one of the rare times I was happy when something goes awry at my alma mater. This was our fancy pants tent that literally landed in our lap at the last minute because of some snafu with someone else.

We got a sign and everything!

With work, life, and everything going on this past month I had honestly given the most minimal thought to the actual tablescaping than what I normally expect of myself. My original idea was to theme it "Something Old, Something New, Something Olive, Something Blue" in a nod to our return to campus.

I had ordered the endzone-like fabric over the summer with intentions of glamming it up into a truly fabulous tablecloth. The vintage pennants were supposed to be a breathtaking garland. But I found myself on Friday afternoon with none of it done and no overall tablescaping "concept" - so I was just pulling whatever from my tailgating stash and hope that it was worthy of our first ever on campus tailgating.

I ended up zigzag cutting the fabric right there during set up and ordered Coach Hullabaloo to toss the pennants up onto the tent frame with fishing wire I keep in my tailgating emergency kit. Grabbed our old trusty tailgating banner from throwback days at the Dome, the VW bus, and the leftover napkins from our Pre-Season Tea and I called it a day.

Some tailgating highlights:

We were next to the Glazers in our fancy pants location and Momma Glazer gifted me this! And I absolutely love it. So perfect for tailgate decorating.

Nell brought these cutest cookie cake pops. Seriously, how cute!!

Raven! Don't you just love? She is an adorable Pugle and if I have any say, our future tailgating mascot. How cute is she?

and look, Chardonnay made these adorable condiment dispensers for our tailgating!

and look at these totally caaaah-uuuuute cups from the Scofields. Some of our booster club wave mommas had set up a few spaces over from us for the Football parents to finally have tailgate real estate of their own.

Perry Mason's wife whom I'll call Tequila made the best vidalia onion dip for our "Georgia" themed Peaches, Peanuts and Sweet Tea themed menu and here it is. So easy and really delish.

HOT VIDALIA ONION DIP
2 Vidalia Onions, chopped
2 cups of blended grated cheese mix (like colby/jack)
1 teaspoon of hot sauce
1/2 cup of mayo

Mix ingredients until blended and bake in the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

So next up we finally made our way to the stadium. I ended up missing the entire opening, the team running on to the field, and the video intro which I had really wanted to see.

My girl, Lucy's Mom, posted this great photo of the entrance and one of my sweet sorority sisters texted me this video of the team running out which I uploaded for posterity.

I also missed the fumble and touchdown. Which my friend Tyronne said he thought the stadium was simply going to explode. I would have loved for that to have happened and then rained our happiness all over the NIMBYs. ha.

I did get to partake in a few hullabaloos which was fun.



One thing I absolutely loved was these peeps at the stadium. They were engineering alumni and so they started making these hats for people out of the Advocate newspapers and selling them for $5. How hilarious. It was so blazing hot and this was so enterprising. So very Tulane.

So in the time since we received the hard hat tour of the stadium they made a few changes. I'm neutral on the fabulosity of the stadium. And that's ok y'all. I have high and unreasonable expectations. We ended up with completely covered seats, thank goodness. So that's a plus. But OMG on the Advocate's plastic bags bleeding green all over the seats and onto people's behinds. Talk about snafu.

One glaring thing we noticed - other than the lack of soap dispensers in the bathrooms and warm $5 bottled water - is that the access which the booster section was supposed to have to the "beer garden" appears to have been taken over by a glass enclosed private suite. How awesome. So when those fancy pants people stop coming to games and all of us who normally do, and stay for the duration, will no longer have access to anything fun.

Don't get me wrong: I had fun on Saturday, I loved seeing all of our friends and breaking bread and making friends with new ones. I was glad that out of all of the bandwagon peeps that showed up Saturday there might be a new generation of superfans in the making to carry the torch for us diehards.

And speaking of diehards, I compiled a list of favorite memories from some of my favorite greenies of their opening day at Yulman

Lil General said that she wanted to be the very first person to enter the stadium and she was! "I was first in line to enter in the bag check. Security used my bag to demonstrate to the helpers what to look for and looking ! LOL!! My old Tulane Bag that I decorated many, many years ago and still use it !!"

My girl Luscious and her mom went to visit her daddy's grave to say a prayer before the game. She's had her own season tickets since she was 5 years old. Her dad had been a monster superfan and even wrote a newsletter and co-hosted a radio show. Luscious said that her favorite memory was when the team ran out, she cheered and cried and video taped it.

Tyronne said he loved waiting at the light with Riptide to cross Willow. And of course Tech's first play from scrimmage and the aforementioned explosion of spirit in the stadium.

Prof said his favorite was walking from tailgating to the stadium. And the students chanting/taunting Tech after their fumble. ha.

AJ said "those first 10 minutes right before kickoff. I was just standing there with my friend and we looked at each other and it just hit us that all of it was actually happening. Then of course we had my personal favorite part of every Tulane sporting event, everyone yelling "home of the WAVE!" at the end of the national anthem."

Big Mac said that when he made it out of the tunnel on to the field he realized he "was a part of long and storied history. When Brian Batt sang the anthem, I looked at the flag, looked down to the field, and looked back to the flag and cried. And this coming from someone who opposed the stadium: it's nicer than I ever expected"

Babelicous said that her favorite moment was looking around at the new stadium, she and her dad "smiled at each other and hugged. It was priceless."

StPeteWave said his favorite memory was "Bodies! Many Bodies, students, simply the newness of TU football Uptown. Greatest day for a diehard. What my heart felt: peace and joy."

What was my favorite memory? Doing postgame sitting on our ice chests afterwards, nibbling at leftover tailgating food, and laughing with Perry Mason and Baldboy. The best part of football season, other than the touchdowns and turnovers, is the comraderie with our tailgating peeps.

P.S. wasn't there supposed to be a float? and I remember there was supposed to be a blow up spinning jester for touchdowns....no?