"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!

The Scarlett O'Haras

yes, y'all... I am calling out Tulane "fans" for wearing purple on purpose - for the love of yahweh - and actually thinking it was a good idea. OMG Tulane alumni, my lost little lambs..... where did we go wrong? Didn't we teach you anything?! Olive and Blue <-- Theeeese are our school colors.
I told Tyrone that this season feels like Toledo Year 4. No special teams coach (omg, that one kick off where the ball hit a Greenie on the head? LOL), head scratching DoddmentumTM-esque play calling. He agreed....

"Badie to the Bone" tho. I love his effort.

photeauxs by Parker Waters
And Teddy Veal! What great players. Our flickers of promise.

Obviously, I would rather be winning. But I can tolerate an occasional moral victory: like remember when we almost came back against Syracuse in the dome in 2011 and thought we were gonna get the ball back on that 3 and out which ended up (boo hiss) a bogus pass interference on Dezman Moses? or when we had Alabama back on their heels in 2008? or OMG being up against the Corndogs the first half with that safety of Matt Flynn and then the beer shower on Andre Anderson after his touchdown? FUNNNN!

Tell me that's not more fun than losing to Rice like we did in uninspiring fashion in 2013. Or our Benny Hill interpretation last week in Durham. I have infinitely more respect for playing a stronger schedule. You learn more from challenges than easy successes, which is why I hate lazy scheduling and booking teams like flippin Army and Southeastern. Because it doesn't do anything for us except mask our problems, or give us another big glaring L, like a scarlett letter.

So speaking of Scarlett, we actually made it to Rutgers! Only Mrs. Hullabaloo would have a compilation of travel stories. Fer real. It's always something when I fly. This particular trip, the FAA tower in Chicago caught fire so our connection to Midway was cancelled. It was like Planes, Tranes, and Automobiles across the country. Coach Hullabaloo and I ended up flying into different airports on Friday. I luckily sat with a Greenie on my flight to the East Coast, but we had the craziest time getting her rental car. Getting lost, getting on the wrong airport tram, finding out at the first car rental counter that the reservation wasn't valid, going back to the airport, and then finally being told that the only available rental was a pick up truck. OMG, we were laughing and crying. My girl was like, puh-leeeze tell me it's a quad cab! Because could you like imagine our luggage flying out the back of the truck on the NJ Turnpike? Lawd.

Gameday was early because the game was scheduled for a noon kick-off for TV. Even though some question my sanity for passionately following Tulane football - I was not about to spend $45 per person (!) for some cafeteria-style burgers at the Tulane Alumni Tailgating (completely crazy, amirite?!) which was set up out in Pennsylvania practically. If that's not enough, it was an additional $65 per game ticket through Tulane's allotment.

We opted instead to meet up with my girl whom I'm calling Eaglette, and her adorable family for their tailgating in the park across the street from the stadium. We also found walk up game tickets for $20 and $30. Between parking and all, we were out $80, instead of a potential $210. The cost savings elicited just minimal amount of complaining from Coach Hullabaloo following yet another loss. Following Tulane Football is, after all, a past time. We aren't completely nuts.

Anyways, Eaglette's family are the sweetest! This is me with her cutest niece on the planet. Santa brought her this very cute cheerleading outfit so she can properly cheer for her cousin who is on the team. And she spiral curled her beautiful hair for the occasion. I wanted to teach her the Hullabaloo. so cute.

Eaglette and her family made buffalo chicken pasta, pizza bread with red sauce, and NJ-style muffulettas - which were actually a very tasty interpretation. They made them with ciabatta bread, sun dried tomatoes, some olive salad, the italian meats, and then a thicker slab of cheese which actually tasted creamy like a brie. They were delicious.

I also loved the concept of buffalo chicken pasta. I think I'd like to interpret that with thin chopped slices of celery garnished on top, matchstick carrots, and some blue cheese crumbles. Remember Kokopelli's buffalo chicken burritos?! Or maybe a buffalo chicken dip with fried bowtie pasta? yum-o....

Anyways, before heading in to the game, the younger adults did beer shots.

We had tailgated in the park literally across the street from the stadium, so it was an easy uphill walk. Coach Hullabaloo taking a breather as we watched the Rutgers marching band and mascot on horseback march by before the game.

Yes, the sky really was that beautiful and blue. Gorgeous.

Below is from a tailgating group nearby us, omg on the head dress. Kinda cute, right? Since the head dress was just like the mascot's, I wanted to share the photo.

But speaking of dresses, Rutgers fan-ettes and tailgatresses don't wear gameday dresses. Coach Hullabaloo noticed and made a comment about the absence of gameday dresses. I do not understand. I do not speak that language. I am from the South and we love our gameday and jazz fest sun dresses. It was 83, sun was blazing, and all of the ladies were wearing jeans or jean shorts and t-shirts. I cannot be in heavy restrictive clothing on hot game days. Plus the farmer tans? no.

So wearing a dress at Rutgers definitely makes you stand out and earns you some brownie points. I was able to get in to the stadium sans bag check because the security guard was caught off guard by my dress and was so wrapped up fawning over it that he waved me through.

Coach Hullabaloo and my $20 & $30 tickets ended up being in the same section as the Tulanians who paid $65. This was our view.

As you can see, this year they put us up on the upper deck of the stadium, which I wasn't so much a fan of. It was like we were in time out and not allowed to have any fun. Our cheerleaders were a thousand miles away down on the field. I never saw them. In 2010, Rutgers had put us in the lower corner endzone next to the student section so that I could ooh and ahh and squeal over their totally cute student section traditions. I still love their air guitar on opponent's third downs. And the Rutgers band was exceptional. Their drum line does beats like an oncoming train after first downs, which was really really cool. I love college football traditions! I don't understand why we can't import any cute and fun ideas of our own.

Another fun/funny tradition is that Rutgers (as does every college football team in America, except for Tulane because it doesn't fit our model for some unspecified reason) is they do a video montage of their pro players. So we were all yelling RAY RICE! WHERE'S RAY RICE? when Rutgers did their video this year. lmao. Honestly, I hope that us cat calling the video annoyed the one Rutgers fan in our section who was brought by a Tulanian to watch the game. He was being THAT disagreable fan with low self-esteem and small man parts who felt the need to whiplash everyone in the section about our misfit team and lack of accompanying displays of school spirit like mascots and bands that other schools bring. Thanks for pointing out something we don't already know!

Mr. and Mrs. StPeteWave and Coach Hullabaloo and I did our best to lead cheers in the section. We got everyone to join in after first downs to Mr. StPeteWave's "WHATS THAT?! TU-LANE! FIRST! DOWN!" and my version of BC-Wave's "2 LANE, 4 LANES, 6 LANES A HIGHWAY! DRIVE! WAVE! DRIVE!"

Anyways, I did leave the game with a memento. TSA took away my sunscreen lotion at the airport, so Coach Hullabaloo is sunburnt like a crawfish, and I ended up with a sunburn around my Mignon Faget pelican charm on the middle of my chestbone LOL. Like a pelican tattooo. Except that I kept calling it a beaver tan, uhhhhh, hellooo....instead of a racoon tan. We totally LOLd on my slip of tongue there. Ha Ha Ha!

Later that night we met up at Due Mari for dinner in New Brunswick and look at our menus. How olive and blue!

I was very impressed with how all of the businesses, including our fancy restaurant which we were at, put flags up for gameday. Oh Greenieees....Dare to dream y'all, right?!

So now we have a bye and I am praying, praying y'all, that the UConn game is an afternoon or evening game. Otherwise, I shant be tailgating at home until November and that will make me very sad.

Buh-bye my chamudis! Catch you after the bye

TulanepocalypseTM

Coach Hullabaloo is SO glad we didn't spend money to go to Durham and watch us embarass ourselves at Duke in person.

As much as I loathe the corndogs of Bataan Rouge, Coach Hullabaloo, equally if not more so, wishes evil juju upon Duke. It stems from his alma mater having to play them in basketball. Because they are both in the same region, it usually means his college gets mowed down in the first rounds of March Madness by Duke whenever they make it to the party. So that's that story. But can you believe it's already been over 20 years the last time Tulane has made it to the party? Time flies.

Anyways, Coach Hullabaloo and I went to watch the game at Rock-n-Bowl at a Watch Party hosted by the Tulane Alumni Club and the Gumby Social Aid & Pleasure Club. I had a great time visiting with other greenies, it was a fun event. I also finally got to try the duck nachos served up by the Rock-n-Bowl kitchen and it was a tasty concept. But y'all knowing how uber bossy I am - my head was totally thinking of ways to jazz up this gameday dish.

Rock-N-Bowl Duck Nachos
duck confit in gravy
pickled jalapenos
blue cheese
cherry tomatoes
scalloped fried potatoes

Mrs. Hullabaloo's version would have pepper jelly instead of the pickled jalapenos, or bing cherries, and goat cheese crumbles instead of blue cheese crumbles. But otherwise an interesting gameday treat.

The game? Lawd, please do not make me talk about that game. Thats what Fear The Wave blog is for.

Lazedrick Thompson tho.....

photos by Parker Waters
LT pounded out a 124 yards and a touchdown. Sam Scofield also did awesome.

However, after the infamous "hot potato play" I ended up focusing on spending time chit chatting and socializing with my greenwave peeps at Rock-n-Bowl.


It is curious why Picarelli's immediate reaction to plays going awry is to stand there.

Something more curious to me though... I am trying to figure out what exactly about inaugurating Yulfogelmevlin took priority over addressing our pitiful special teams situation. Heaven forbid the fancy pants people have to be patient about something. That would be such a debacle. (rolling my eyes). Us fans have been waiting decades, decades, for our "young team" to finally grow up. If you are searching for Neverneverland, well just cool your heels and put down some stakes y'all.

I already know of two social media friends who are either going to try to walk-on to the team as kickers themselves, or who have brothers who are doing so. It just frightens me how much this is like the days of yore under Teevens. The call for walk-on players, talented team with no discipline, an incredibly nice coach who recruits well.... Anyways, I plan to do my part by packing my checkerboard tablecloth to take to Rutgers to lay down in our endzone so that our team knows which direction to score in. Hopefully that will make them feel more at home.

After the game mercifully came to its conclusion, Coach Hullabaloo and I went and drowned our sorrows over sushi and then God showed us a rainbow when Mississippi State hung on to beat the corndogs in Bataan Rouge. Coach Hullabaloo and I have learned the hard way that pre-emptively celebrating a win for the Wave, or a defeat for the corndogs prior to the end of regulation, will most certainly bring doom. So we were chewing our nails right along with the bulldogs. Coach Hullabaloo was on his knees in prayer for that hail mary. And we were ever grateful the game swung our way in the end.

Because as any Greenwave fan knows, our losses are so much more bearable when the corndogs go toe up too.

And sigh, hopefully next week we'll reprise our 2010 visit to Piscataway

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!

Meanwhile In the Bunker

This morning I was JUST thinking about the so called "Million Dollar Par-tay" that the fancy pants people had at Mardi Gras World last week to pat themselves on the back over Yulfogelmevlin. You know, while our football team chugs along sans special teams coach and sans proper kickers. And how us little people were left to fend for ourselves in the heat with out proper access to hydration.

And then this brilliance came along.....



LMAO.

Glad I'm not the only one who sees the absurdity of our situation. Could we at least get us some room to move our elbows in the stairwells, or lights in the water closets so I'm not tinkling in the darkness?

Anyways, onwards to Southeastern! Get back in line Tulane fans, mooosh!

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?