Eleventh Woman

Lawd y'all! I seriously did fly over 1300 miles dragging a cute Tulane seat cushion all the way up to Syracuse and ended up forgetting the damned thing in our parked car. So I literally had to sit through that loss on those stupid metal bleachers.

Yes, I expected to be 2-2 at this point in the season. But I expected a for real 2 and 2. Not two embarrassments, plus two gimmes. The mistakes we were making against Jackson State are, hello, STILL HAPPENING.... Plus we are adding some lagniappe mistakes to our repetoire, in addition to dusting off some oldies but goodies from the Toledo Ball years.

2 blocked punts, one blocked field goal, a sack derby and my favorite: 10 men on the field! Because who needs 11 men? It worked so well for us the 2012 season, so why give it up? I'm fixin to wear a shirt that sez "Tulane, Home of the 11th Woman"

I am serious y'all! If we can't shake it, might as well embrace it.

Tulane: Cradle for
the T Formation
the Spread Offense
and now presenting, The Ten Man Scheme!

Coach Hullabaloo was telling me over dinner in Syracuse that he was so mired in all of other mistakes that the 10 men on the field almost escaped him until he watched the Syracuse offense pointing at our line and headcounting, mouthing "one, two, three" and then doing a double take and counting again. To Ten. And it happened more than once. So I have to stop considering this happenstance. It's gotta be in the playbook.

I did read some of the message boards and laughed my head off at some of the commentary by one of the Brothers B. It's been hours, and I am still busting out in random laughter about his observation that some of the money men behind TPTB must have had a "brain bris." OMG ha! hilarious! And that our only hope is that the New Orleans coroner mistakenly pick up a certain someone in charge due to a dead personality.

Seriously, I needed that chuckle. Thanks Bro B for the comic relief!

I was berated on twitter that I needed to submit my questions to the Coach's Radio Show in order to have satisfactory closure about our performance on Saturday.

So for what it's worth, as a complete hypothetical I'm gonna test drive some questions here first.....If you are catching a ball in the endzone on a punt return or kick off, do you A) run for it if the opposing team is bearing down on you B) pause with the ball in hand, gaze upon it in admiration before coming to a decision C) Take a knee or D) answers A+B.

Or if you are on a kick return assignment and the ball lands and is surrounded by the opponent's players, do you A) get in the mix B) try to pick up the ball C) Stay away from it D) answers A+B

I'll let these question stew a bit.

Another item that chaffed my hide today. The special teams line being responsible for snapping Cairo's streak. Hold the flippin line! If the Good Lord sees it fit for me to live another day, I will never be able to beeee-lieve that they did that to him after he flew 5,000 miles from Sao Paolo to New York, literally from one end of the hemisphere to another, just days after burying his father.

Inexcusable.

Now, about the gameday experience itself.....

Syracuse had a DJ who sat in the student section and actually spun some great tunes. His turntable was blue. I loved that. Could you imagine the apoplexy of the Nimbys if we did that?! Would be cool to get the Fogeldevlin Fieldhouse rockin' though.

Coach Hullabaloo was delighted that Syracuse sold beer.

But OMG on that that train whistle. It was grating my last nerve. I'll spot them the cute idea to memorialize Ernie Davis as a gametime tradition, but it reminds me too much of that stupid cannon at Michie Stadium.

And How does a stadium that is named after an air conditioning company NOT have air conditioning? Since a rainy cold front was moving through outside most everybody was in long sleeves, only to melt in the sauna which was the Carrier Dome. Oy.

Anyways, pre-game we tailgated in practically Canada, that's how far away the Skytop area is from the Carrier Dome. Syracuse is weird about on campus revelry.

This was the sweet tailgating that our lovely Wave Momma organized out in the Skytop. We did have a lovely time and got to meet some SuperFans that drove in from Long Island and New Jersey, as well as other players' families. Thank you Wave Momma for your hospitality!

Meanwhile, back on campus there were these two big official looking tents with this banner for the official "on campus" tailgating.

And that was it. (I photoshopped the quotes around fun, ha ha)

Oh, except for these people.

And here's me with the all of a dozen people watching the Syracuse Band do the official march to the Carrier Dome.

While everybody else was dealing with the shuttle transporation from the Skytop. Quelle Depressing.

In my dreams, I envision gameday at Tulane like the Boulevarding at SMU. With the Band lining up on the Newcomb Steps, all of the boosters and alumni tents spilling out along the Newcomb and UC Quads. All of the student tents along McAllister. For one long continuous revelrous procession cheering Onwards to Yulman!

Sadly, it's probably going to be something how like Syracuse has it set up. It is, therefor, my first order of business is to start a Novena that TPTB finds it in their heart to permit a tent scramble like they do in The Grove (please, please, please, pretty please!). And pray, pray, fervently pray that they do not believe that Syracuse's pre-game is a brilliant flipping plan to follow. Because the on campus areas were completely anemic. Knowing how they think, it will probably end up this way for us whiners and complainers. We very well might be banished to tailgate at Tulane Lakeside Hospital parking lot next year. Because the "brain bris" people that Brother B laughed about, the ones who support all of the bull, do not go to games or tailgate. And gameday will most likely be built around accommodating them.

Ok, so that's that. Next up is a road trip to Funroe. But before I geaux, I am compelled to beat a dead horse. Because this is my blog and I shall do as I please:

P.S. Gimmick schedules do not enhance our gameday preparation.

P.P.S. I'm NOT going to apologize for having high expectations. Some of yous may be satisfied with the excuses, complacency and "right for our situation" empty promises that continually churn out from the excuse factory. But I, however, will not.

That is all. Enjoy the rest of your week.

A Feast For the Eyes

Our super cah-uuuuute tailgating. Ta Da!

Our theme was "Jamaican" in honor of Nico Marley (yes that Marley). "One Love": The Greenwave of course!

And what was super cool, was that Nico Marley's family came by to say hello before going in to the game. They were so tickled that we had red stripe beer and everything.

The menu (recipes below) was: jerk pineapple chicken wings, coconut shrimps (store bought frozen, I was lazy), cilantro lime rice (sooo delish), black bean salsa, plantain and yucca chips, pepper jelly and cream cheese, honeydew with kiwi & blackberries, brownies and a big ole chocolate cake for Mr. and Mrs. Koozie's anniversary. Everything was a hit. Oh, and Preacherman brought hurricanes to share in honor of the anniversary of Katrina as well.

Everything turned out beyond my expectations for tailgating. Especially for being midweek - we had tons of new hullabaloo huddlers come by, including many new female fans who have gotten swept up by our enthusiasm and have now paid dues to officially join our little well-behaved booster club. Even some MrsHullabaloo twitter followers came by to identify themselves. I was so delighted to meet y'all! Thanks for coming to introduce yourselves, please do drop by again and I mean that sincerely.

Our cutest little visitor though was the darling Kepa!

Kepa just came back from his first trip to Spain where he was one of the youngest peregrinos on the "Camino de Santiago" walking pilgrimage across Northern Spain. He has a blog about his adventures and everything. Kepa is our favorite-est little pelican!

So, oh yes. Post-tailgating there was a game.

And if you missed the Jackson State J-settes, word. Those girls are known as the "Feast of a Million Eyes" and they are not kidding. The J-settes held the entire Tulane Nation in complete rapture during their performance. Binoculars and Ipad videotaping was in full effect.



This video is not their performance from the game, but it gives you the idea. The J-settes actually danced to Blurred Lines (hey, hey, hey!) executed perfectly by the Sonic Boom marching band. The J-settes were as, if not more, impressive than the University of Hawaii Rainbow Dancers Dance Team that Coach Hullabaloo and I witnessed two seasons ago. And that left quite an impression on us, let me tell you.

Anyways, about the game itself.....I will be 100% honest that I was lax in the paying attention part. I was too distracted catching up with my peeps and players mommas that I have befriended. What was pretty funny was that when Koozie walked in at the beginning of the game he heard that there was an interception, but his immediate thought was, "We've been interception already dagnabbit!".....ha!

So Bandwagon Fans: please forgive us longtime fans for not immediately already assuming the worst. I do caution that I am purposely reserving any presumptive booty shaking until we can avenge Louisiana Tech and ULM, for reasons which I have discussed previously here. So after the Louisiana Tech game is when I feel that I can commence commenting upon this season for sure.

My favorite picture from the game yesterday. I love the unis, but our ancient fan base complained that nobody could read the numbers.

My favorite play of the game yesterday. Smackdown at the goal line.

(both pictures by Chris Granger, Times Pic photographer)

I do sincerely apologize though that I am unable, at this time, to revel in any post-win glow. And it's not for any lack of effort on the part of the team. I do fervently hope that the team enjoyed their win as they deserve every success for their effort every week and for enduring what the Greenwave Nation has had to endure. And most especially, I hope this guy enjoyed the win: Dante Butler

(Derick Hingle, USA Today)

Dante was a freshman during Toledo's last year. When I first met him in person, he assured me that he was there to help turn things around and that he would be satisfied if we went 10 and 3 that year. Son, if Tulane went 10 and 3, New Orleans would spin off the map or something. But it was a very endearing comment and I hope that he gets to see that this year.

My hangups, of which Coach Hullabaloo can attest that I have many, is that it was a big let down for me to have to observe us play a divison 2 school that was just not very good. Not that I'd want to revisit other D2 nail biters of our recent past like when we opened against McNeese or SLU. But one of our younger Hullabaloo-ettes started calling the JSU QB "groundcover" instead of his last name Ivy because of the amount of time they spent flat on the turf.

What is also nagging me is a very disturbing possibility that following a winning streak, our Athletic Department might seriously consider settling and make us participate in the New Orleans Bowl should we qualify. Oh girl - you know I'll be out there front and center with a tailgate party to end all tailgate parties since Coach Hullabaloo flatly refused to send us to Hawaii in 2003. A sin so egregious I have tortured him about it daily. However, after my misery over this season's schedule and after putting the kibosh on Fan Day, now we gotta get pumped up about more Superdome? Because we haven't seen enough of the Superdome. I mean, we'll be having to park here next season anyways, so we'll have plenty of opportunities to visit the dome and rekindle our fond memories. I get it that the Nola Bowl will be the easiest bowl for them to coordinate. But seriously, just kill me now, ok? So that's kind of zapped my bubble a bit.

But keeping us distracted and entertained in the interim was a gametruck that they booked for tailgating which I had to admit was preeeetty awesome. I know it was for the students, but I had a good time checking it out. This is a similar game truck to the one that was parked outside.

Ok, so down to business of recipes.


The inspiration for some of this was this ah-mazing lunch I enjoyed on a stormy day of shopping in downtown Hamilton, Bermuda last year. There was a food truck with an umbrella for the tiniest bit of shelter from the elements and I decided to give it a whirl. These jerk chicken wings were by far the best thing I ever ate. Made me forget I was eating them in the rain, sopping wet and completely ladled with shopping bags.

Mrs. Hullabaloo's Interpretation of Jerk Pineapple Wings
A bottle of Cattleman's Carolina tangy BBQ Sauce (Winn Dixie sells)
generous quarter cup of soy sauce (eyeball it)
dashes of paprika
dash of cumin
third cup brown sugar
generous dashes of ginger
2 stalks of chopped green onion (reserve half for garnish)
three quarters cup of crushed pineapple (strain some of the liquid)
3-4 lbs of drummettes and chicken wings
Jerk spice (I made my own)


Take the liquid ingredients, pineapple, spices, brown sugar and simmer until blended. Add the green onion. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile I brushed both sides of my chicken wings and drummettes with jerk seasoning and put them in the oven at 425 for about 15 minutes. I took out the pan and drained out all of the fat, turned the chickens to the other side and set them in the oven for another 10-15 minutes until they started to look golden. I took about a quarter to half cup of the sauce and brushed that on both sides of the chicken and then turned OFF the oven and left the rack of chicken to baste a little in the oven with the temperature dropping. I just coated the wings a touch, enough to give them a little something something. I garnished the top of the wings with chopped green onions and set out all of the sauce so that guests could add as much or as little as they wanted.

Mrs. Hullabaloo's jerk seasoning
ground onion
ground allspice
ground cloves
thyme
ground cinnamon
ground ginger
salt
ground cumin
tiniest sprinkle of celery salt
tiniest sprinkle of ground garlic
a quarter of a scotch bonnet de-seeded and minced
two tablespoons of canola oil


Now, I did not use measurements because I was crazy. I could not find store bought jerk seasoning mix anywhere. So I mixed a dash each of the dry spices first until I had a batch that I was happy with the combination. I can note that I added more onion though than the others, and was generous with the salt and with the thyme. Then I took the minced scotch bonnet and let it sit in the canola oil a spell and then added the mixed dry spices in pinch by pinch until I had a sludgy consistency that tasted jerk-ish.

Cilantro Lime Rice from Melissa D'Arabian

Cupnahalf of Louisiana Long Grain Jasmin Rice
half cup of Whole Foods 365 organic coconut milk (I opened several cans to try which one I liked best and this one won)
half cup of homemade chicken bone broth (because this is very healthy for you)
2 cups of water
tablespoon of extra virgin coconut oil
couple of cilantro leaves to keep things honest
zest from a lime
a couple tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
toasted shredded coconut


Add liquids and rice to your rice cooker. Voila, very easy. Once it's done, fluff in the lime zest and chopped cilantro. Garnish with the toasted coconut for a pretty presentation.

Ok, so September is a holy month, not just for Football, but for our Tulane Community as it is Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. So next week our tailgate will celebrate the New Year with a Jewish Menu. We are calling it Challah-Baloo (ray ray)!

Ciao my chamudis!

P.S. I am starting to give credence to this Gus Kattengell El Gato Negro thing. We almost had a shut out until he allegedly said something on air. lol!

It's Spring and I'm giving it a Break

Spring has finally sprung in New Orleans and our festivus season underway. Including, Tulane Spring Formal season and other very exciting developments at Hullabaloo Huddle!

Yes, I continue to be aggravated on a daily basis by the emasculation on continual display you know where, but it's Spring and how can you not just love the beautiful days that our creator has bestowed up on us chosen ones who call Nola home. Coach Hullabaloo has reconciled himself vis-a-vis our dismal baseball conference record by suggesting that we consider checking out tailgating opportunities for Women's Sand Volleyball or Tulane Track, both of whom have been carrying the wins for Greenwave Nation. I hear Tulane Women's Bowling is also kicking ass and taking names. So....who's up for some mad beer pong over at Rock 'n Bowl?

Anyways, I was excited about spring formal season for the first time in 20 years because one of my freshmen town daughter chickadees got invited to her first fraternity formal. I was so excited for her! It's been lots of fun with my latest crop of chickadees because they both rushed and I got to share texting updates with them about their rush outfits and their party invitations and such. Anyways, since I covered the new-ish tradition of customizing coolers for your dates in last football season's blogging, I was able to catch her up to speed. And now lookey here: I get to admire her totally boss cooler.

How awesome is this?


I love that she has the date by hisself on the beach. Mrs Hullabaloo stands very, very impressed with Chickadee's mad Martha Stewart skills and hope to entice her into decorating a wood cooler that Coach Hullabaloo gifted me for the holidays for tailgating season.

So the ECU series this past weekend in Baseball was interesting in that A) Coach and Mrs. Hullabaloo were complete wus fans and B) we had a delightful tailgate hosted by FF and Red. FF was so funny, he notified me that he was relocating our official tailgating area over to the newly christened Peggy's Annex since the construction equipment for "your football stadium" was blocking our regular tailgating digs under The Ineffective Tree in Peggy's Patio.

Speaking of Ineffective, did you know that Coach Jones has now also outlawed as Ineffective the valiant Italian flag waving by BigMac and LittleMac who love them some I-talian heritage. They would furiously wave the Red and Green flag either when we had a fellow paisan at bat or on the mound and in full display over the visiting team dug out so that our dugout could see. Well apparently that's now adding undue juju to our misery, so it's been kiboshed or I think banished to an undisclosed location. Anyways, tailgating hasn't been kiboshed just yet, and so FF made some boss chicken wings and we mooched some truly epic jambalaya cooked up by Bowen Woodson's daddy who tailgates just across the way from Peggy's Annex with the rest of the players fams.

Sadly, Coach and Mrs Hullabaloo are just so over it that in the top of the ninth on Friday when we were still down, we left and missed the tying runs and the subsequent 29 overtime innings (clearly I'm exagerating, I think it was only like 4 more innings). We also just went to tailgate for Saturday and didn't attend the game. Stick a fork in us, you know the drill. But! You'll be delighted to know that I didn't leave on Friday night before snapping a picture of this completely stylish ensemble Project Runway'd by Brandon Boudreaux's momma, Leslie.


Leslie has some mad style and I have always admired her level of creativity when it comes to pairing up Greenwave inspired outfits. Like one year she bought one of the men's Tulane tuxedo vests and wore that very, very chicly with crisp black trouser shorts and an adorable white knit top. Here in this picture she's taken a Tulane pair of Mardi Gras beads and turned it into a bracelet (I mean it helps that they own a Boudreaux's Jewelry, but how cuuute!) and a very cute blue fleece blazer she upcycled from Wal-Mart with an Athletic T Wave patch and paired over this adorbs sky blue gingham oxford button down. It's just all so fab that I wish she had a What Leslie Wore blog so I can admire and pinterest all of her outfits.

So as you can see, the ECU series wasn't entirely doom and gloom. We won one game and tied up all three games. Putting aside my No Moral Victories EVER (!) attitude, the bright side is that I got to catch up with Che and FF about Challah-baloo TM next September. FF claims to make a mean brisket, and if the wings he made Saturday were any indication, I immediately shanghai'd him into committing to make brisket for Challah-baloo TM. Che thought that our theme was genius and mentioned to me about He'Brew from the Schmaltz Brewing Company.


I about fell over I was kevelling so much. As Peggy sez, it was out of control. Seriously, how absolutely genius is this beer? L'Chaim! and "the Chosen One!" Talk about lmao. Apparently there's all kinds of flavors so I am going to do a test kitchen and see if we can make a Skip n Go recipe using a variety of He'Brew.

So the additional injection of ideas for Challabaloo has me pinteresting some more for that event. I really can't wait!

So Shalom Y'all - catch up with y'all for the Houston series and our Quatro de Mayo tailgating.

Be Blessed!

Third Q Mo

This Wave Momma was a trip! She got up and started hollering "Trent! Bring Me That Ball!" or "Come on Defense!! Give Me Seven!!!!"

And then Dominique Robertson got that very exciting fumble touchdown! Which started our Third Quarter Mo. So we have Wave Momma here to thank.

One of the gems she quipped was to Ryan Griffin: "The Pocket Is NOT Your Friend!"

To all our unsportsmanlike penalties, she started screaming: "That's all right! We'll take that flag! You ain't seen unsportsmanlike! It shows some passion! Shows that you care! Hell I wish I had a flag!"

Amen!

So my regrets:

I do regret that this transformation hadn't taken place during the first half, because then it woulda been a different game.

I also regret that the Refs spotted SMU a touchdown, the guy was clearly out at the 1 yard line.

I regret that Big Mike and the Greenbackers weren't there to properly orchestrate The Hullabaloo, because the cheerleaders, adorable as they are, somehow got lost and neglected the leading part of cheerleading. And I seriously had to straighten them out when some of them dared to think out loud at tailgating about rooting for not Alabama. If I had been wearing pearls I woulda clutched them.

Tulane cheerleaders. Talking openly. About rooting for not Alabama. In Mrs. Hullabaloo's opinion: It was very unfortunate. (and one word about The Game Of The Century. Quelle Lame-ness, ok, well two words. But it was in one word: Lame).

And then my final regret: when Coach and I were wandering around trying to locate the Tulane tailgating which had been banished to the opposite side of campus, we ran across some tres "colorful," shall we say, boulevarding happening on the SMU boulevard. and I regret not having snapped a few shots of what we saw.

Firsties: some of the SMU cheerleaders (thank you sweet baby jesus this doesn't happen with us) were smoking cigarettes with their non-cheerleader peeps. Yes. In uniform. Well, not completely in uniform - their hair and make-up was did and they had the skirts on, but white t-shirts on. So I don't know if they were off duty or what, but the big obnoxious hair bows, skirts and cheerleading sneakers with the little socks it is quite obvious they weren't just the garden variety trashy boulevard'ers we encoutered.

And then apparently the theme of the SMU Boulevarding this weekend was to turn it into Bourbon Street, cause we saw some of the SMU co-ed's wearing those Beer helmet thingies. You know the those helmets that have can holders and there's straws that loop down to your face? Yes, soo classy! Very "Park Cities" ...but wait! there's more. This genius contraption allowed them to carry yard-sized hurricane glasses.

Oh how I wished I had captured these moments for posterity. Because while, I am far from one to look at co-ed's sideways for having a good time, I am ever thankful that our NY and Southern ladies at Tulane have decided to pass on this apparent SMU fashion trend of accessorizing with these acutrements. In public. At tailgating.

Anyways, we are weeks away from finding out our coaching destiny and I can't wait for that!