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?

Finally!

Welcome to ex-CUSA, North Texas! Nice knowing you!

WE WON A HOMECOMING GAME! Cue the 1812 Overture y'all.....



Remember when Nell and I decided last year that we needed to change the name to take off the pressure, and just call it "A Gathering" to reset expectations? Well, mother nature took care of that and forced TPTB to completely wus out and cancel their homecoming village instead.

Except for us. ha ha!

We couldn't be stopped. Our tent did make a sad demise tho from the wind. But hopefully now I can convince Coach Hullabaloo to finally let me buy tent weights already.

We pre-gamed inside the cave and our theme was Oktoberfest. A good time was had by all.

And girl, let me tell you that the menu we came up with was AWESOME. More on that later.

So you'll all be disappointed to learn that I LEFT like a complete wussy in the fourth quarter when Montana got his lights knocked out and we went 3 and out. I just did not have the fortitude that better fans have who stayed for the dramatic conclusion to our Karen Homecoming. Although Coach Hullabaloo did say he was white knuckling it and just dreading in his mind about how we managed to blow the lead and possibly continue our tradition of a) losing homecoming and b) finding extraordinary ways to lose games. Except that we didn't! Because Holy Shizzlemongers, we won.

It is 48 hours later and I'm finally processing it. No kidding, so this is how it feels to win a homecoming. Not to be screaming at refs because your coach can't manage a game clock. No sir.

But hold up, now. This win doesn't make me wistful about South Alabama. Because if certain someone had been on top of things year 3, year 4, and year 4.5 of Toledo ball, that game wouldn't have even been on the schedule, much less that close. And it doesn't make Syracuse fade into the rearview mirror neither, because we should have been competitive like when we played Alabama in 2007. Clemson just humiliated Syracuse at home and we need to aim higher than USA and UNT. I'm not satisfied with being evenly matched with directional schools and I won't apologize for that. So let me set that straight right now.

However, I was so lucky to be there in the flesh and witness Darion Monroe BLOCK A FIELD GOAL and Strozier run it back for a touchdown. Hullabaloo-ray-ray!

Image by Parker Waters
My mind was totally blown. As I was jumping up and down in the stands, all I could hear was Mr. Koozie yelling "FINALLY! FINALLY! FINALLY!" We have waited 120 years to be on the giving end of a play like that.

So anyways, I was outside setting up pre-game late in the fourth. I had turned off the car radio when UNT tied. Even FF Jim packed up Red and headed back to the Northshore. And then I just happened to take a deep breath and decided to just woman up and look at twitter to see the final and read the happy news. It was like the heavens parted and the angel orchestra played the 1812 Overture. Peggy was cracking me up saying that they had given all of the seats button holes by clinching their butt cheeks during the field goal drive.

Image by Derick Hingle for USAToday. Love the look on #85 Duce.
Coach Hullabaloo was very impressed with the two minute offense, as well as with the clock management by Coach CJ. Braaa-vo! No More TimeOut Toledo, thank you. And our friend whom I'll call Buggy, who's been a loyal die-hard since Tulane Football was mentioned in the movie Father Was A Fullback, actually had tears in his eyes after Cairo kicked one for the ages.

Grown Men, crying y'all. This is what it means to be a Tulane fan y'all.

image for the Tulane Hullabaloo newspaper.
So it goes without saying that the post-game revelry was out. the. box. I died laughing when Graff said to not bother calling, because he wasn't in the mood to hear it from the whiners and complainers like me, ha ha!

Us hullabaloo huddlers stayed in the cave for a spell and handed out shots of apple schnapps spiked with goldshlager to passengers as they were being driven out of the dome. It was great. And then we had an amazing dinner at Vincent's with our peoples with a very nice toast.

I was sad to miss Lorenzo Doss's pick 6 though inside the dome. It's no big secret that I am completely neurotic. Sometimes I have kitchen mojo at home, sometimes it's bathroom mojo. For the Saints NFC championship game in 2009 it was bathroom mojo. For the Saints Tampa game a few weeks ago, it was kitchen mojo. Anyways, I take this mojo zone adherence very seriously, as do my friends. If I actually watch a tight game, I literally sometimes get too worked up and I can throw up. No joke. So when momentum was kinda swinging back to UNT, I went and took a mojo break in the powder room. And I could hear the roars and cheering from Doss's pick 6.

So now I have to wait for the replay on Tuesday to watch the fourth quarter winning drive and Doss' pick 6. But at least I didn't have to admit that I was wearing purple drawers like I did after our SMU game. Because that was one of my darkest admissions and something that I am carrying with me to the grave.

The crazy thing is that we are all now getting ahead of ourselves and bickering about which bowl game we would prefer (like we have a say in the matter). My tailgate peeps are now fighting about the merits of Liberty Bowl v. St. Petersburg Bowl. I am holding out for the Bahamas Bowl or Hawaii Bowl if you ask me. It's Christmas/New Years, let a girl dream.

Speaking of dreams, our homecoming spread was fab.

Red brought german chocolate cupcakes. Peggy brought a german fruit salad and a fantastic baked bean casserole with sauerkraut and the recipe is below. We also reprised Circe's German Tater Salad which is always great. And new to our list: the beer cheese dip <- delicious. I was literally almost stupid with the beer cheese dip and ate the whole thing myself.

For our pretzel portion of our Oktoberfest menu I was literally turning myself inside out. Thankfully on Friday, the WWL Unknown Food Critic profiled Gracious Bakery and so that's how we discovered pretzel croissants.

Heavenly.

Coach Hullabaloo found Shiner Bock Oktoberfest too. And we made Apple Strudel shots with half apple schnapps and half goldshlager. Can't wait to reprise this, it was such a success. We are so theme-y, I can't stand it.

So new recipes for proper Oktoberfest tailgating....

Peggy's German Baked Beans

One 15oz can of pork and beans
7 oz of sauerkraut, rinsed and well drained
halfa cup unsweetened applesauce
quatah cup packed brown sugar
pinch of salt
halfa teaspoon ground mustard
nonstick cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400°. Combine all ingredients. Transfer to greased baking dish and bake uncovered for an hour.

Beer Cheese Dip

2 (8 ounce) packages of room temp softened cream cheese
1 (8 ounce) carton of sour cream
1 package of Ranch dressing mix
half a can of full bodied beer
2 cups of shredded cheddar cheease, divided
cooked, chopped bacon - a couple of slices
couple stalks of chopped green onions

mix cream cheese, sour cream, dressing mix and beer. Fold in cup of grated cheese, and maybe a little more. Sprinkle the top of the dip with the remainder of the cheddar cheese. Let the dip refrigerate for an hour or two before serving. You can serve cold, or put it into a crock pot for warm dip. Top with green onions and bacon before serving.

And before we close, I just had to leave y'all with this nugget.

P.S. I am totally NOT judging about the official UNT pre-game. I am an open minded person. I am quite delighted the Mean Green embraced New Orleans and everything it had to offer. Diversity makes the world go round.

Laissez les bon temps rouler, y'all!

Classic Game

{Happy Day}

The 1998 Tulane Liberty Bowl.....and it's not even your birthday y'all!!!!!!

Lucky you that Mrs. Hullabaloo has entirely too much time on her hands to procrastinate on work work. And packing since we leave for Syracuse in 24 hours.

Been looking for this for ages.

Let's all collectively thank the Mormons for our preserving history.



......Oh to be handed a gift on a silver platter.

and word. JaJuan Dawson was awesome.