Christmas with Aaron Neville

(I meant to post this soon after the concert, but with a couple of pastoral emergencies in my congregation, all the details of the Christmas Eve service to take care of, and preparing for the Holiday Open House Party Big Man and I were throwing for the church and family, I ended up without a free 5 minutes to string thoughts together until right now.)

Sunday night, December 21, 2008

Along with about 998 of Aaron Neville's biggest fans, Big Man and I squeezed ourselves into the House of Blues Sunday night for a rare live concert. "Standing room only" does not do justice to the size of the enthusiastic crowd -- it was like Mardi Gras, or one of the big stages at Jazz Fest, folks were packed together so close that when you raised your arm to take a sip of your drink, you perforce brushed against another person, or possibly several. Until the concert began, you could clearly hear every word of conversations said in a normal tone of voice by the people immediately around you. Enforced intimacy.

Normally, I'd say I've outgrown this sort of thing. At my age and stage of decrepitude, I need more personal space and the occasional chair or bar stool to drop into to rest my poor busted-never-to-properly-heal left ankle. But this was AARON, who's performed about 3 times in the city since Katrina, and we had (or thought we had) free tickets from 'OZ, and I wouldn't have missed this for the world. So I strapped on a serious ankle brace, gritted my teeth, and went.

Turned out there was some kind of snafu between House of Blues and WWOZ about those free tickets. Somehow, word didn't get from the station to HOB, and we were not the only disappointed couple in the box office area. The girl behind the ticket window showed me that my name didn't appear on her comp list, and told me that House of Blues had not heard *anything* from WWOZ, and that the concert (of course!) was totally sold out. We trudged back to the car, and I phoned the station from the warmth. (One of the reasons I won the tickets in the first place is because I have 'OZ programmed into my cell phone. What? You mean *you* don't??) The harried volunteer alone at the station that night for her shift on the air knew from nothing, and couldn't help me; she said she had already said as much to the first couple who called. I was disappointed, and a little mad at 'OZ, but I was undeterred. There had to be a way.

I sat in the car and thought, and then rallied Big Man back to the box office. I spoke again to the girl at the window, telling her I was sure it would all be straightened out on Monday morning, so how about letting us in, getting our contact info as a kind of surety? She explained again that the show was not only sold out, but there was a capacity issue (like someone had called the Fire Marshall maybe?). I asked to speak to a Manager, and she said he was on the phone with the Marketing department, trying to straighten this all out, and I said we'd wait. When he came to the window, he was somewhat apologetic, and seemingly wanted to head off any tears on my part. (Believe you me, I certainly was ready to cry.) He said he was waiting to hear from the head of Marketing about our tickets, and invited us to stand near the box office.

Big Man was dubious about the whole thing, but he agreed to wait (glowering like a bear). A short while later, a reporter came by and got his free tickets for the concert, and noticed us there. We briefly recapped our situation, and he said, "Well, I've got 2 and only need one, so take this, and then you'll only need one more." We thanked him profusely. One down, one to go. We continued to wait. Another guy came by, and picked up his will-call tickets. He also noted our forlorn presence, and asked if we were waiting for tickets. We went over what had happened as quickly as we could, and he said, "I've paid for 2, but only need one -- I'll sell you one for $20, even though they cost me $35, plus the Ticketmaster charge." We hastily agreed to that, and walked to the front door with 2 tickets clutched in our hands. I tried to think of plausible circumstances where a man could ask a date to go to Aaron's Christmas concert and the date would not show. Bad break-up? Surely the other person would've waited til after the concert. Maybe they were coming in from out of town and got snowed in? That seemed more likely.

On our way in the door, we bumped (almost literally) into Jason Neville, Aaron's son, all dressed up. Jason greeted Eric and they exchanged a few words. (Big Man has worked with Jason on Russell Batiste gigs.) We then pushed our way (quite literally) into the concert room at House of Blues. Big Man bought us drinks, and we wound our way to a patch of floor that had good sight lines and could *almost* fit us. (Like I say, enforced intimacy with strangers.) The room buzzed with anticipation.

Around 8:40 pm, the musicians came onstage, Charles and Aaron, a drummer, a bassist, a keyboard, and another one of those totally amazing Japanese guitarists that New Orleans seems chock-full of. Aaron was in a tight-fitting T-shirt and jeans and sported a backwards Saints cap. He looked buff as usual, but his face seemed to have new lines, indicators of pain, maybe. As the crowd just screamed and screamed their welcome, Aaron stepped to the mike and said quietly, "For Joel," and the band swung into something like a retrospective of Aaron's solo career, beautifully arranged, astoundingly well played by the musicians, and Aaron's voice a gift of tenderness, passion, and sadness. I wasn't the only one there wiping away tears.

There were Neville Brothers hits, done Aaron's way, and new covers I hadn't heard before. Charles had some absolutely amazing solos, especially the trading off between him and the Japanese guitarist on "Yellow Moon." (Charles also did a knock-your-socks-off version of "Besame Mucho," a favorite for both Big Man and me.) That guitarist was so tremendous, in fact, that a couple of times, Aaron was moved to do air guitar -- something I had never seen him do in all the years I've been his avid fan. They did a group of Christmas songs, with the audience singing along on the chorus of "Let It Snow." Artie came out, moving slowly and with the aid of stagehands, to play keys and sing on a few numbers, the brothers grinning at each other. (Charles seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood, smiling wide, and at one point, so gracefully signing song lyrics in ASL that it looked like dancing.)

Then Artie left and Jason came on, and Big Man and I hollered his name, delighted to see him up there with his dad. (Jason's behavior and substance abuse had caused a rift between them in the past, and Aaron's calling him up to the stage that night seemed a validation if not a reconciliation.) They did a killer version of Bill Withers' "Use Me" (Aaron *loves* Bill Withers), and we hollered some more. A young couple near us was like, "Who is that guy?" and we were glad to fill them in that Jason was Aaron's son. We were so proud, you'd've thought that *we* were related.

Aaron did "Sarah Smile" in a particularly soulful and emotional way (we learned later from the Times-Picayune that Aaron is now engaged to famous New York music and sports-figure photographer Sarah A. Friedman, and all I can say is, she better damn well make him happy, and be happy living with him where he belongs, in New Orleans). He did "Ariane" which I hadn't heard him do in years and years, by that time I'm pretty sure all the women in the audience were melting into little pools of Aaron-adoration. (I know I was.)

Then it was over, and the crowd went nuts, screaming and stomping and pounding our hands together til the palms were tingly and bright red. We waved our hands in the air, making the ASL sign for "I love you" and hollered "We love you!" for good measure. They left the stage (doing the necessaries, getting bottles of water, whatever) and then came back out, to more screams, whistles, clapping, stomping, and so on. Aaron sang "Amazing Grace" and it was better than church and then "Good night" and then, for kicks, just like the Brothers used to do to end a night at Tipitina's back in the day, they sang a goofily soulful "Mickey Mouse Club Theme." More screaming, pounding, stamping of feet, waving of hands, and the night was over.

Big Man and I talked about our favorite bits all the way home, and in the days that followed. A wonderfully memorable night, that we'll always remember and treasure. One of our best Christmas gifts.

It's Snowing in New Orleans (chaos to follow)

I woke up early this morning, because my cat Smokey Robinson was acting nervous and jumpy. He miaoued a strange cry, like I've never heard before, and kept leaping onto the bed, disturbing our sleep. I finally gave up and got up, and trudged downstairs to make coffee, Smokey sticking close to me and still crying. I went to the front porch to see if the package I'm expecting today had arrived (maybe the delivery had upset the cat somehow?), and lo and behold, it was snowing! Pouring snow, almost like up North! I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing.

A few cars were making their way slowing through it on my street, which was slick and wet, but not icy or snowy. (It would have to be a lot colder for the street to freeze, and it was only in the 40s and 50s yesterday.) There was not a lot of wind, so the snow was just coming down, almost straight, and piling up on the cars and trash cans and trees. It looked beautiful, and crazy.

Back in the house, I turned on the TV and found about what I expected -- all regular programming suspended so that it could be all snow all the time. Schools and businesses announced closings across all the metro parishes. People being urged to stay off the roads unless it was an emergency. Some flights have been cancelled at the airport, and those that are still set to go are being deiced. Parish officials being interviewed about their preparedness for these "dangerous winter conditions", and the officials assuring the reporters that they had lots of sand, salt, and chemicals to take care of snow and ice. (Those supplies might well be 4 years old, since the last time it snowed in greater New Orleans was Christmas of 2004.) Children are calling the stations and asking if there will be a White Christmas. Sadly for the kids, the answer is a firm No -- the forecast is for temperatures in the 60s by this weekend.

But it's sure snowing now. I went upstairs and gently woke Big Man and said, "It's snowing in New Orleans -- chaos to follow." It'll be a crazy day, all day, and a lot of fun.

*2nd* Annual Po Boy Preservation Festival

I have written in this blog before about the New Orleans tendency to do something once, and then declare it a yearly tradition. Last year, there was a Po Boy Preservation Festival held on Oak Street (subtitled deliciously, "Save Our Sandwich!") and it was the first time it had ever been held, so of course it was immediately dubbed "1st Annual Po Boy Preservation Festival." That makes Sunday's iteration of the festival the 2nd Annual -- so now it's permanent, a regular tradition, and we gotta hold one every year. Yeah you right.

The first po boy fest was a victim of its own gigantic success -- approximately 100,000 people smushed into a few blocks of Oak Street -- so this year, the festival's physical length was extended all the way to Joliet and beyond (the second stage was at least a block beyond Joliet), and was broadened onto a half-block of several cross streets. In addition, logistics were improved by providing barricaded-off areas to stand in line without clogging up the flow on Oak Street. More food and drink booths were added to improve wait time.

Big Man and I arrived shortly before 2 pm; the fest had begun at 12 noon. (We had a meeting at church that prevented our getting there right at opening.) The line for charbroiled oysters -- not, strictly speaking,a po boy, but they did give you French bread to soak up the amazing juices -- was really long, so we decided to fortify ourselves before tackling that. This year's fest had an additional innovation to encourage grazing -- tasting-size portions for only $2-$3. Great idea!

We started with tasting sizes of the hot sausage, melted cheese and special sauce po boys (mmm, what was in that sauce??), and shared a plate of what was advertised (correctly, as it turned out) "serious stuffed shrimp." We moved on to crawfish sausage po boys, which we munched on while waiting in the charbroiled oyster line, which actually moved faster than we had feared. (Drago's had prepared well, and had boxes filled with trays of already-shucked oysters, ready to lay on the hot grill while one grill man dotted them with garlic butter and another threw handfuls of grated cheese at them.) We stood on the sidewalk and people-watched the throngs teeming by in both directions as we let the oysters cool enough to eat without burning our tongues and palates, and shared a conversation with a couple from New York, who were marveling at all of it -- the day, the gorgeous weather, the incredible food, the music, the way people here talk so easily to strangers and think nothing of it.

As we stood there, reveling in the oysters and the ambience, we heard brass band music, and soon we could see the top of a shiny tuba above the heads of the crowd. The Pinstripe Brass Band made their way slowly through the big crowd in the middle of the street, and (amazingly!) a large group of secondliners, waving familiar paper-wrapped loaves of Leidenheimer's po boy bread in the air instead of handkerchieves. (There was an actual Leidenheimer's booth up Oak Street that we hadn't seen yet.) It was so cool and so funny, people all around us were laughing and taking pictures with cameras and cell phones. Now, I've seen everything, I thought to myself.

Music was terrific at the fest, as if someone had thought that the fabulous food would not be enough to bring people in. One stage held Rebirth Brass Band, blowing their hearts out, a big crowd of folks of all colors and all ages dancing hard in front of the stage. At the other end of the street, at the Carrollton corner, young Amanda Shaw was charming and sweet and powerful and sexy as all get out. It was impossible at either stage to keep your head from nodding and your feet from tapping, if you weren't already dancing. Great stuff.

We came to a booth that said "Original One-Handed BBQ Shrimp Po Boy" and that sounded so intriguing we had to stop. Turns out they had sliced a po boy loaf in half horizontally, and then scooped out most of the soft white part from the inside of the uncut half. Then they took fresh hot BBQ shrimp -- already peeled. of course -- and stuffed that inside the 1/2 loaf, the juices from the spicy "BBQ sauce" (it's not THAT kind of BBQ sauce, those of you folks reading this from "away") soaking into the surrounding bread, but not so much that it fell apart. You could, as we did, quite literally walk away, holding the BBQ shrimp po boy with only one hand and not lose a drop of the sauce or one single shrimp. It was one of those brilliant ideas that makes you say to yourself, "Why didn't *I* think of that??"

At about this point, we were feeling pretty stuffed, so it was with chagrin that we came to a booth staffed by attractive Vietnamese-New Orleans women, whose sign advertised "Vietnamese meatball po boy." Wow! The marriage of 2 cultures! Our favorite! We loved both the idea and the look of it, but we were way too full by then to eat any. (Next year!) But it is so good to know that the familiar and traditional New Orleans po boy is being enriched and expanded by these New Orleanians of Vietnamese descent.

We found the crowd to be really large and really friendly, and very navigable, except for the block of Oak Street that holds the Maple Leaf, where a clump of people had stopped in front of the bar and thus impeded the flow of the traffic. The longest line was the one for the charbroiled oysters, and it moved pretty fast. We did not have any real trouble getting around, but then, neither of us is crowd-averse or get panic attacks from claustrophobia, so maybe you can't judge from Big Man and me. The craft booths looked good but I don't know if they made any money -- seemed like most folks were there to Save Our Sandwich and not buy stuff they couldn't eat or drink.

As we walked back to the car, we passed a hibiscus bush in full glorious scarlet bloom, and we agreed that we'd always want to live in this magical place where tropical flowers bloom and pretty girls wear sundresses past mid-November, and where a major street festival can be held to save the sacred tradition of our local sandwich.

Preserve our po boys! Save our sandwich! And see you there next year.

Mirliton Festival

(That title should be read phonetically: "melli-tohn" festival.)

Who knew there were, or even could be, so many ways to eat mirliton? That beautiful, pear-shaped, light green vegetable of the squash family, called chayote in other parts of the country, but beloved as the humble "mellitohn" here in New Orleans. When my sister L informed me last Saturday that she, her husband, and some friends were heading out to the Bywater Mirliton Festival and Arts Show, I knew immediately what Big Man and I were going to do for our time together. ("Our time together" on a Saturday means the time from whenever Big Man wakes up from the gig the night before to whenever he has to leave for that night's gig -- I usually write my sermons while he's at the nightclub.) I came home and announced, "We're going to the Mirliton Festival!" and he told me about a television program he saw when he lived Up North, long before we met, when he didn't even fantasize about living in belle NOLA, that was all about the many different food festivals we have in South Louisiana, and he had thought to himself, "Those people are CRAZY!" Crazy or not, we were going to the 2008 Mirliton Festival.

It was another gorgeous day, and I've described enough of them that you know exactly what I mean. When we got out of the car, Big Man said, "You gotta love a place where you can get sunburned in November!" And it was true that you needed a both sunhat and some good sunblock to combat the brightness of that cloudless sunny sky. It was kind of hot, too, low 80s.

The crowd was well mixed -- black and white, young families, older people, Baby Boomers, kids running around -- and not overwhelming in numbers. There were booths set up all over the playground in Bywater that hosts not only the annual Mirliton Festival, but also the monthly Bywater Art Market. (It would have been almost unthinkable in previous times, but Bywater is now a hotbed of creative artist types, opening foundries, studios, and galleries in converted factories, grocery stores, and houses.) The booths housed drinks, crafts, art work, baked goods and produce (fresh mirlitons, naturally), a children's play area, and food, most of which featured mirliton in some way as an ingredient.

My mother used to make two kinds of stuffed mirliton for us when I was little, chopped shrimp and ground meat. In either case, you bake or boil or steam the mirliton, and mash the pulp with sauteed holy trinity (onions, celery, and bell pepper of course), spices and bread crumbs, and then add whatever you're using, like the chopped shrimp or the ground beef, then you bake the whole thing with seasoned bread crumbs as a crust on top. That's basically how we ate it. So I was surprised to find such entrees as gumbo with mirliton, shrimp chowder with mirliton, Indonesian curried mirliton, slices of brisket on paneed mirliton, and of course stuffed mirliton with crabmeat, shrimp, sausage, and/or ground beef. All of this is well and good, and while it was new to me, it did not freak me out.

What freaked me out was the dessert mirliton. Yes, that's right -- dessert mirliton. I went over to the booth that was selling the concoction (along with some very nice gourmet coffee) and asked them about the unusual dish. "Try it!" they wheedled, "just TRY it!" From their tone, I judged that a lot of people were freaking out. I asked them about the dish, got all the details, and I just shook my head in disbelief. "Y'all," I said, "my mama is rolling over in her grave." (That was just a figure of speech, as my mother was cremated, at her wish, after her death. But still, I was thinking that my mother would have just gone crazy at the idea.)

So here's what caused all the consternation: It was a square of puff pastry, covered in a rich and dark home-made fudge sauce, and topped with a mirliton marshmallow, toasted to a golden brown. Yes, don't look at it like I'm the one who's crazy -- a MIRLITON MARSHMALLOW!! They had followed a recipe for home-made marshmallow, added slivers of cooked mirliton to the batch, and then toasted it to a golden color before cutting it into little squares.

I hate to be a chicken, and I pride myself on at least tasting "new food." So we bought one, and the thing was absolutely delicious, although wildly improbable. (A little while later, over at the Phoenix Recycling booth, we were raving about it to a young woman and she exclaimed, "I feel like I've been punked! I just had a brownie for dessert!" Before we left, we caught her over at the mirliton marshmallow booth, rectifying her situation.)

So thanks to the creative folks who dreamed up such an innovation, and thanks to the weather gods for the lovely day. I may not ever make mirliton marshmallows at home myself, but at least I can say I've tried 'em.

Beautiful Green Sky

I spent Election Night at the home of a parishioner -- ironically, the same parishioner at whose home I watched the election returns 16 years ago -- surrounded by a group of folks from the church. A HUGE widescreen TV had been set up, covering up half the room, and a bountiful spread of refreshments and adult and child-friendly beverages had been laid out.

We channel-surfed among NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN (for some reason, skipping past the Fox Channel!), comparing and contrasting the differing points of view, coverage perspective and commentary. Every time a channel went to commercial, someone shouted for the channel to be switched. We were all a little tense, a little anxious, and when 9 o'clock rolled around, we were relieved to ask for the Comedy Channel. We laughed and laughed at the antics of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, gleefully spoofing the staid coverage on the "straight" networks. We were really enjoying the routines, and then, about an hour after we had switched, the two co-hosts solemnly called the election for Obama.

"Change the channel! Change the channel! Go to a 'real' channel!" screamed several folks in a near-panic as the poor host scrambled for the remote. Reaching NBC, we were all amazed to see that the network, using polling data combined with actual returns, had declared Obama the next president. (We learned later that the Comedy Channel had gotten the information that the networks had called it, and had fed it immediately to their co-hosts so they could make their announcement.)

Oh my God what a moment -- what a delicious, emotional, spiritual moment! We screamed and hollered, we laughed and cried, we jumped up and down, we hugged each other. And then the moment got even better, as more and more electoral votes were added to Obama's column. We could hardly believe our eyes. Our emotions swung from incredulity to exhaltation, from joy to stunned amazement, from near-hysterical laughter to tears and sobs. Nearly everyone in the room whipped out their cell phones and called faraway loved ones -- adult children, spouses, siblings, friends -- needing to expand the circle of happiness and excitement.

More and more votes resulted in more and more screams and shouts and exclamations, and more happy tears. By the time of McCain's concession speech (a good speech, which he should have given earlier in the campaign, and it was sad to hear so many of his riled-up supporters booing even the mention of the new president's name, a natural result of the ugly campaign they had run), and Obama's great speech later, at midnight, we were all pretty well wrung out, drained and yet still strangely exhilarated.

As I drove home at about 1 am, I had a mad desire to blow my horn, or even to run up to the doors of people I didn't know and ring their doorbells, just to blow off steam and share with the world my sense of excitement. I didn't, of course, but still, it was hard to wind down. I went to bed about 2 am, exhausted but still feeling the tingle that something wonderful had happened.

I woke the next morning with a sore throat (!) and a strange intuitive sense that everything, everything, had changed in some fundamental way -- as if I could go to the window and see a brand-new sky, as though the sky was going to be a gorgeous shade of green from now on. Later that day, all over New Orleans, white and black folks were just glowing with the newness, the joy of it all. A musician friend of mine said to me at a celebration in the Marigny last night, "I feel like a new man, I really do. I feel like I could do anything."

So here's to wonderful new beginnings, dawning new days, the ability to do anything, and of course to beautiful green skies.

All Saints, All Souls, and The Day After

Once again, the Saturday of November 1st, the Feast of All Saints, dawned as another gorgeous day in the Crescent City -- perfectly clear blue skies, light breeze, warm temperatures, low humidity. I joked to Big Man, "This is getting boring!" but it really isn't, it's wonderful. (I can remember All Saints Days when heavy coats were in order, so this weather was a blessing indeed.)

Our first errand on All Saints Day was to purchase the pots of chrysanthemums. This year, I wanted purple, and these were easily and quickly obtained from our locally-owned grocery store, right in the front of the store. (But it wasn't quite like the old days, when starting on October 30th, the grocery stores would set up tents in the parking lot to sell the mums to you so conveniently, you practically didn't have to get out of your car, and could just head to the cemeteries.) We got 6 pots, for, as you will see, we had a lot of stops to make.

Our first cemetery visit was to historic Cypress Grove, in the old cemetery neighborhood at the lake end of Canal Street. (Our drive took us past The Mortuary, a stately hundred year old former mortuary that is now a seasonal haunted house with many special effects and scary happenings. We have plans to go next weekend, during its final offering of the Halloween season. Big Man and I love that sort of thing and were big devotees of the haunted Eastern State Prison, former home to Al Capone, in Philadelphia.)

We had pots of mums for our founding ministers, Theodore Clapp and Sylvester Larned, who are buried together in the crypt for the Volunteer Fire Fighters, in the gated right corner of Cypress Grove as you enter through the giant Egyptian-inspired entrance. Luckily, the gate was unlocked and we went inside, placing our mums on the ground in front of their names. I spent a little time asking for their blessings on my congregation -- er, their, OUR congregation -- knowing that they'd understand our challenges, having themselves faced quite a lot (epidemics, wars, bankruptcy) during their ministries here. Their tomb was well-kept and needed no clean-up or trimming of weeds. We spent just a little time there, visiting a few of our favorite tombs, such as the Chinese-American Association vault, which combines elements of Christianity and Buddhism. (Inside the arched vault, it smelled strongly of recent incense.) Very few other tombs at Cypress Grove were decorated or seemed to have been visited.

The next stop was one of the oldest burying grounds in the city, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Two pots here too, for we came to honor two black Creoles who have had, in their respective times, enormous influence on New Orleans. Members of either the diocese or the cemetery preservation group had set up a table at the entrance, with books and pamphlets to sell, and when they saw Big Man and me carrying in pots of mums, they thanked us for coming. That felt funny to me -- I wasn't bringing the flowers to be thanked, or for recognition by living people. But I'm sure they meant it in good spirit. (Maybe I just should have said, "You're welcome" but I didn't, since it didn't feel right.)

We cut around their table and made a hard right a few tombs in. (This path is so familiar to me I could probably do it in my sleep, or blindfolded.) This brought us right in front of the tomb of Mayor "Dutch" Morial, and of course there were already mums there, a beautiful bright orange, probably brought by Morial family members. I put my purple mums on the other side of the ledge, and placed my hand on the "Keep the Drive Alive" inscription in the shiny granite. "Dutch," I whispered, "you would be so excited right now, this presidential election. Looks like it's really going to happen, and even if it doesn't, nobody's ever come this far before. You'd be proud." (Although I did have to wonder to myself if it would have bothered Dutch that it was somebody else getting this historic first.)

Then we turned to our right, where Marie Laveau's tomb sit neighborly next to Dutch's. Her tomb was marked, as always, with myriad triple Xs, and had laid out in front of it the diverse and various offerings of Mam'selle's diverse and varied followers and fans -- Mardi Gras beads, lots of dimes, glasses and bottles and cups of alcoholic beverages, flowers real and silk, notes from petitioners, food items, cigarettes. (This time, there were no marijuana joints as I have seen in the past.) A Creole Voodoo priestess dressed all in white and with a white tignon on her head was answering questions from a tour group, ironically standing next to the rather new metal sign declaring it a crime to mark or deface any tomb. (As if that would stop anybody!)

Big Man and I put the Lady's flowers on the side of the tomb, next to all the assorted stuff, and I pressed my forehead to the left side of her tomb. I thanked her for bringing us home, for finding Big Man a musical job so fast, for the well-bring of my family and church. I asked for her future care, not really as a petition to her, just to be kept on her mind. Then I made my way to the other 3 sides, repeating the prayers in the traditional "4 Corners" ritual, ending in front. People were arriving, most of them the curious, but we ignored them. We pushed a little to get past them, and got to the exit gate, where we quickly turned and walked out backwards (so as not to turn our backs to Mam'selle). Whether the ladies at the table there thought that was strange or not we can't say.

The next cemetery was St. Vincent de Paul, in the upper Ninth Ward, my father's family tomb, where my grandparents, one uncle and one aunt -- my father's older sister who died as a teenager in the great flu epidemic in the early 20th century -- are all buried. My father's ashes were not interred there -- in fact, we scattered them at City Park, on the golf course where he spent so many happy hours after his retirement -- but being there always brings him to mind since the All Saints ritual was something we used to do together, along with my son when he was little. To my disappointment, the face of the family tomb was marred by some black substance (mold?), some ugly discoloration of the aging white marble. I told Big Man we'd have to come back with cleaning supplies in a few days. The black gunk was so thick on the little triangular plinth that marked Daddy's sister, engraved "Our Beatrice" (pronounced the New Orleans way, "be-ATT-triss") that it was unreadable. This would not do. I felt badly about having to leave it in that condition, but was reassured that we'd be back soon. Big Man stood on a concrete vase to place the pot of mums up on the shelf in front of the family tomb. (We had to remove the full bottle of beer from it in order for him to use it as a boost, but we were careful to replace the grave offering when we were done.)

Two days later, we were back, with a step stool and cleaning brushes and some cleaning solvent, hopefully strong enough to remove the gunk without harming the marble. Unfortunately, we couldn't get high enough, and had to tip-toe to reach as far as we could to scrub the discoloration off. We made some progress, but we found that the marble face plate was loose and so the whole effort was precarious. Big Man handed down to me Beatrice's little marker and I scrubbed it hard, so it was readable, if not totally pristine. Since we had extra cleaning water, we did a few of the other graves around the family, just to be neighborly.

Last errand of this year's All Saints/All Souls was Lakelawn Metairie, to pay our respects to music legend Louis Prima, who in a way was responsible for bringing Big Man and me together. With exquisite courtesy, an elderly lady employee walked us around the combined funeral home/office building, til we got to the person who could give us a map and directions. He marked the map for us, and asked us if we knew what was the inscription on Louis's tomb. In unison, Big Man and I both replied, "Just a Gigolo," and the funeral director smiled.

We found Louis, with the angel Gabriel on top, blowing a trumpet. Big Man called an Italian friend back in Jersey, a GIANT Prima fan, and we took pictures, and vowed to come back soon. We noted that Louis's last wife Gia had apparently "expunged" Louis's previous family, had with Keely Smith, and the list of children did not include any of Keely and Louis's kids.

Interestingly enough, the Prima tomb is located in what could be called an Italian neighborhood in Metairie cemetery -- Louis was surrounded by several Italian societies, and tombs of all kinds of folks with Italian surnames. I was tickled to find his next-neighbor was the Brocato family, better known in New Orleans as the Moran family of Moran's Restaurant fame. Diamond Jim and his older son Jimmy. Wow. Brought back all kinds of memories of the alredo made at your table on chafing dishes, and the gigantic, "diamond-studded" meatballs they were so famous for.

We did a little touring around, which you have to do while you're there, there's just so much to see. The Civil War monuments, Mrs. Moriarity, the exquisite and heart-breaking Hyman memorial, with the beautifully carved marble angel collapsed in grief, the many mini-mausoleums with artistic stained glass, the numerous historic families and individuals. The founding family of the old New Orleans newspaper, The Picayune, has a bronze newspaper on their elaborate tomb. Two famous New Orleans hotelier families, the Grunewalds and the Monteleones, buried side by side. By chance we came upon the family tomb of the Chinese Lee family and saw, in addition to the name of Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee, Mort Sahl Jr., listed as "beloved son, grandson, nephew." I had completely forgotten that comedian Mort Sahl had been briefly married to Playboy Playmate China Lee, who was Harry's sister. One of those strange only-in-New-Orleans things.

Since we love to poke around in historic cemeteries so much, we know we'll be back to all four in the days to come. But we felt good about doing our duty for All Saints. The traditions must be observed!

Halloween in the Crescent City

It's October 31st and it's another gorgeous fall day in New Orleans, perfect blue skies, soft breezes, rather warmer than usual, about 75 degrees, and you know what that means: more nudity in the French Quarter tonight for Halloween once the sun goes down. (I said that to Big Man, and his reply, "Oh, that -- it started last night actually.")

Halloween in the Crescent City starts early in the day, to make it last longer. And it's not just little kids who jump the gun and put their costumes on in the daylight -- all over the city, otherwise respectable grownups gleefully don wigs and silly outfits and cutesy Halloween vests and earrings the morning of the 31st. Or even earlier -- several women in the "One Book, One New Orleans" discussion group last night sported fluorescent green, pink, purple, and blue hair swatches as we talked and cried over Tom Piazza's "City of Refuge."

The women behind the counter at Rocky & Carlo's in Chalmette were dressed as witches as soon as they opened this morning. (God bless them for the reopening after Katrina, and for having the most wonderful New Orleans-style comfort food on the planet.) A young man in the his 20s leaned nonchalantly and unself-consciously against the railing at a local bank, waiting to use the ATM machine while wearing Peter Pan green tights, brown elf-boots, and a ragged green tunic (he was either Peter Pan or Robin Hood, hard to tell). A middle-aged black woman emerged form a store on St. Charles Avenue, snazzily dressed in outrageous day-glo tie-dye skirt and top, accented by a belly-dancer style scarf replete with dangly coins around her ample hips. She laughed and waved and wiggled as a car going by beeped its horn at her. As I've written before, normal for here.

The Rouse's had an all-day trick or treat for little kids in costume in the store and so the parking lot was full of cars unloading tiny princesses, turtles, tigers, bears, kitty cats, and lots of superheroes. A young mother walked past me, holding a little daughter by each hand, one a princess and the other, as she proudly called out to me in response to my Happy Halloween greeting, a Little Mermaid. Inside the store, a woman was on her cell phone seriously discussing the price of various cuts of meat with someone on the other end, while wearing a low-cut red dress, a black cape, and a headband with devil horns.

It's perfectly normal here to go way overboard in decorating your house, and you don't have to justify it by having children. (We don't, and you should see the front of our house!) One of our next-door neighbors has decorated her house, and she's not even going to be home tonight for any trick or treaters. Of course, some people do the whole decorating thing, and are on everyone's must-see and must-visit list for Halloween. The Bergers on St. Charles Avenue have gone all-out with about 2 dozen skeletons posing all over their expansive front yard, ghosts dangling from the sprawling old oak trees, and various tombstones, ghouls, and other appropriate decorations all over the front of their lovely home. Plus, they are known for their high-quality hand-outs -- no cheap hard candy for them!

This year, New Orleans has its first annual (remember what I said before about doing it once and then it's annual?) Halloween Parade by the self-proclaimed Mr. Mardi Gras, Blaine Kern (with the bad rug on his head). Big Man and I got a preview of some of the floats a few months ago when we visited Mardi Gras World with our nephew -- they are large and scary and decorated with the new kind of LED lights that change color. Kern was interviewed in the media, and he was great. (No one's a bigger NOLA booster than Blaine Kern!) He said, "We got voodoo, mojo, gris-gris, zombies -- we should be the Halloween capital of the country!" Which was really funny, since he made it sound like all that was on every other street corner of New Orleans every day -- which, I guess, is not far wrong.

Gotta love this place.

Perfect

There are days, whole weeks even, in the month of October where everything seems perfect. It is as though all the elements -- the weather, the breezes, the smell of the flowers, the clear true blue sky, the gloriously mild temperatures, the sweet sunshine -- have conspired to make New Orleans the most beautiful place on earth. Your body receives the coolness like a gift, and somehow your mind almost forgets the heat and humidity of just a few weeks before. Natives think longingly, "If only it could always be like this!"

I always think to myself that folks who visit New Orleans for the first time in October (or its counterpart in spring, April) must wonder what all the hue and cry about the weather in the Crescent City is all about. "Why, it's absolutely perfect here!" they must exclaim in wonder.

Big Man and I have been making the most of these perfect days -- long walks and long drives, sitting on the seawall at the Lakefront, picnicking under a shelter and watching the sailboats scud along, their colorful spinnakers bellied out. Even yard work is no real chore, and Big Man cleared the oleander that was threatening to take over our little brink courtyard in the back. Up North in the fall, folks have to clear fallen dead leaves -- we have to chop back bushes and plants that continue to grow and thrive well into November and even December.

Flowering plants that had wilted in the appalling wet heat so recently past are now jauntily holding their bright heads up. The city is still full of flowers, who seem very happy not to have to cope with high temperatures and humidity.

Magazine Street is once again thronged with strolling shoppers and in the French Quarter, the "season" (tourist and affluent conventioneer season, that is) has started in earnest. Locals mildly complain about how "cold" it is once the sun goes down, but everyone from "away" knows this is not cold at all, it's just like having air conditioning outside.

Sunny, breezy days and cool, clear nights -- it's perfect.

In Praise of Doberge Cake

My sister L and I are one year and nine days apart. (Some would call that "Irish twins.") When we were little, our mother used to pick a day in between the two birthdates and would throw us a joint birthday party. Then we grew up and wanted our own birthdays, and did not celebrate together. And now, years have passed, and Katrina has happened, and all of us siblings are back together, and celebrating our united birthdays is just fine.

For this joint birthday, the family cook-off was scheduled. (See previous post on my winning the cook-off for the first time. Since, I won a second time.) While it may seem strange that the two birthday girls would buy their own cake, we knew what we wanted, and L and I went insies on a half and half doberge cake inscribed "Happy Birthday" in icing with our childhood nicknames.

Half and half doberge is very popular in New Orleans -- where, of course, more is more -- but most other people pick chocolate and lemon. That combination is so popular, in fact, that Gambino's keeps those ready-made in their cooler. But ours was special, put together just for us: half chocolate and half caramel. Ohmygod, caramel doberge -- is there a better sweet flavor in the universe??

For those of you "not from here" who do not know what doberge is, first of all, I'm so sorry for you. Really, my heart goes out to you. Anyway, here's what it is: 6 thin layers of butter cake (baked individually, not cut) alternating with a rich flavored custard, covered first in butter cream and then finished with fondant icing. Doberge cakes come in chocolate, lemon, or caramel, and half-and-half combos. Commonly thought to be descended from an old Alsatian dessert ("dobos") by a German immigrant to New Orleans, and then renamed to fit Creole sensibilities, doberge cakes are made only by old New Orleans bakeries Gambino's () and Haydel's, which makes theirs with 5 layers and only in chocolate ().

The night of the cook-off, even though we had all eaten royally, if not piggishly -- the theme was seafood, and dinner consisted of seafood gumbo, shrimp and eggplant beignets with remoulade sauce, scallops carbonara, shrimp and crabmeat casserole, and mixed lettuce and tomato salad -- there was still a mighty clamor when the birthday candles were blown out. How full could they have felt, if they, each of 'em, every one, asked for a slice from each side, so as to get both heavenly flavors?

I give thanks to Mrs. Beulah Ledner, often given credit for bringing the doberge cake to New Orleans, to Gambino's, for so excellently carrying on the tradition, and to my family, for providing the excuse and the context for this doberge-eating orgy. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate our birthdays!

Gator Fest

When Big Man asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I had a ready answer, one which surprised him. I think he was expecting that I'd request another visit to one of chef John Besh's temples of fine dining, or maybe a walk down Annunciation to the terrific Creole-Italian at 1179, or maybe someplace in the French Quarter with clubbing afterwards. All of those are good things, very good things, for sure, but I had something different in mind: I wanted to go to the Alligator Festival.

The Gator Fest has been held under I-310 at River Road outside of Boutte on the West Bank for years and years, but it had been a long, long time since I had been to it. During the week, Channel 6 had promoted the festival, by showing one of the food vendors at the fest stirring a gigantic bubbling cast-iron cauldron of alligator sauce piquante with a big wooden paddle, the chunks of meat swirling in a rich, thick brown gravy with onion and bell pepper bits, and I was totally hooked. I wanted nothing else but to put on a sundress, pack a bottle of hand sanitizer, plunk on a sunhat, and head out to Cajun country.

We set out right after Big Man woke up, after playing late on Bourbon Street the night before. (I asked him if he wanted breakfast at home first, but since it was about 12 noon, he said he just as soon have alligator for brunch.) The day was beautiful (see previous post) -- another gorgeous September day, no clouds in the deep blue sky, a light breeze blowing, temperatures in the low 80s -- and the drive was easy and pleasant. We knew it must be a great festival when we arrived and were directed to the gigantic parking area, spread over acres, car after pickup after van after car, sharing space with the St. Charles Parish school buses. The crowd was about as diverse as you could ever want -- white and black families with small children (many of the little boys of all colors wearing Drew Brees jerseys); white bikers; older Cajun couples; teenagers in clumps, eying each other; aging hippies in faded tie-dye; handicapped folks in different kinds of wheelchairs (saw one person in a chair that had BALLS instead of wheels, like a Dyson vacuum -- I'd never seen one of those before). I have to say, it was NOT a crowd that advertised physical fitness -- most folks carried a fair-sized tummy or a bigger belly. South Louisiana festival crowds are not there to show off perfect bodies -- we're there to EAT, cher, and we ain't ashamed of it.

There was a large area set aside for carnival rides, for little kids as well as grown-ups, including a short Ferris wheel. There was also an area set aside for carnie-type games -- shooting galleries and knock-down the milk bottles and all that kind of stuff, with the usual giant stuffed animals of indeterminate species. But we knew what we were there for, so we headed straight to the food ticket booth to load up.

The food choices were amazing. It was very difficult to make choices, but we were up to the challenge. We decided on a gator burger as an appetizer -- ground gator grilled and dressed on a seeded hamburger bun, with special "hurricane" sauce instead of mayo. Yummy! We ate that right up. Next, we shared a sublime combo dish of perfectly fried catfish, sauced with lump crabmeat bisque -- which was so creamy, so well-seasoned, so absolutely good, that we kept making these ooh and aah sounds between bites. Next, we thought we'd share something easy while we walked and did recon, so we got fried alligator chunks on a stick. Yum! These were SO tender and delicious, we knew we'd have to go back there before we left.

We sat for while by the music stage, listening to Allen Fontenot and his Country Cajun Band. (I was actually a little surprised that Allen was still alive, since he seemed pretty old to me 15-20 years ago.) Those old guys can really play! There were couples Cajun waltzing and other people in folding chairs brought from home, and a small crowd on the stands on the side. We sat there, going back and forth with the gator tenders and enjoying the music, the dancers, the crowds, and the day.

OK, enough of that, and time for more eating. We got a bowl of "Cajun stew" which was a dark brown roux-based sauce filled with andouille, shrimp, crawfish, alligator, and crabmeat, served over rice. (There may have been some vegetables in there too, but who noticed?) A real taste treat. Our next course was that famous alligator sauce piquante, which was every bit as good as it had looked on TV. In fact, it was so good that we were kicking ourselves that we had not brought an empty Folger's coffee container to bring some home with us. (Next year, we are so definitely bringing take-home containers!!)

We walked off a few of the calories we'd imbibed by checking out the crafts booths -- wallets and belts and purses made out of alligator skin (naturally); soy candles with wonderful scents (I bought a chocolate chip cookie candle, and seriously, that is exactly what it smelled like); dried flower arrangements; sand art; collectibles of various kinds (including stuff I had no idea anyone was collecting); and a booth for scrapbookers.

After all that, we were hungry again (I know, you can't believe it, and I can't either), so it was back to the food booths and another fried gator stick, as we picked up food to bring home with us. We got 2 gator sausages on a stick (Big Man was sure his would not make it home, and sure enough, it didn't). And I got a slice of chocolate ooey-gooey cake to have later at home with cold milk. (If you've never had ooey-gooey cake, you just haven't lived -- but you can't eat one right after munching your way through the entire Gator Fest.)

So, replete, sun-struck, and deliriously happy, we made our way back home by a different route (we like to do that, and it helps Big Man get more oriented to his new home) and fell on the couch, put our feet up, and napped on and off with the Sunday paper. Pretty much a perfect day.

Birthday Weather

Ever since I was a little girl, I've looked on the change of the weather toward fall in September as my "birthday weather." With a birthday near the end of September, as the time neared for my special celebration, the weather always got nicer. With the self-centeredness of childhood, I allowed myself to think something nice was happening just to please me. Of course, I can't still consciously think that, but somewhere deep inside, I feel secretly personally pleased by the weather's improvement.

Folks "up North" might laugh, but some time in September -- whether it's the second week or later, or, when we New Orleanians are lucky, earlier -- the weather breaks, and we know it's fall. The air dries out, the temperature dips, even if just a little, and the cloudless sky is a bright, dark blue. The lower humidity makes the outside air feel sweet and light, and though these temperatures may not be considered "cool" further north, anything lower than 90 degrees feels mighty good to us. Since we in New Orleans don't get turning leaves and really chilly weather, this is what passes for the coming of autumn here. And we welcome it.

New Orleans started feeling the change this year in the first few days of September. Going out in the morning to get the newspaper or to leave for work, the air was noticeably cooler on our skin. We'd leave the a/c off in the car, rolling down the windows to enjoy and savor the sweetness. The sunlight dappling through the oak trees looks as though screened through a green filter, and instead of wilting and strained in the heat, the folks waiting for the streetcar seem cheerful and energetic. The idea of a long, long walk down Magazine Street with Big Man no longer seems like torture, but something to be eagerly looked forward to.

Of course, this being New Orleans, September doesn't mean the hot weather is completely over (it never is -- don't get me started on those Christmases where you have to turn on your a/c just to keep your Christmas tree from frying in the living room). Big Man and I still find a day hot enough to go over to my sister's and swim. It still gets hot enough that folks at outdoor festivals seek out the shade.

But we have this tantalizing hint that cooler weather, really cooler weather, is truly coming, and we love it. And for me, it always means by birthday is coming.

And Now, Ike

Thursday, September 11, 2008.

Starts windy and rainy and does this, back and forth with muggy partly-cloudiness all day, until late afternoon when the weather settled down for good into wind and rain and the occasional flash of lightning. Looks like we're getting the bands of Hurricane Ike sooner than expected, but then it's a big storm.

Lots of feeling with folks here towards the folks of Texas -- people say things like, "Well, I'm sorry for Texas, but at least it's not us." In what feels like an ironic twist, my church and our co-religionists have offered evacuation space to our congregations in South Texas. Ike is predicted to make landfall early Saturday morning, so it looks like another 2 days of this weather.

Big Man and I told ourselves there was no point in putting the outdoor furniture back in the courtyard, and so there's nothing else to batten down for this storm. We'll just wait and see what happens...

Friday, September 12, 2008

A crazy day, with intermittent sun and white clouds alternating with dark clouds and spates of rain, wind the whole time. Gusts of over 40 miles-per-hour, with steady winds over 20. Everything not nailed down or tied down is blowing like crazy -- and now it's clear there should have been an accelerated clean-up after Gustav. Stuff piled up helpfully after the last storm is now shifting with the winds; lines not yet repaired whipping like lassos. Kids in schoolyards laughing with the power of the wind, letting themselves lean into it.

Even driving is a chore, the car physically pushed around by the wind gust. Big Man and I run a couple of errands, amazed at the trees bending over and the way he has to work to keep the van straight on the road. He's also nonplussed at how we can have this much wind and clouds, and it's still HOT. He says, "Up north, weather like this would cool everything down." I explain that the wind is coming straight off the Gulf, and that hot wind is why there's so many storms right now.

I'm glad it's a sermon preparation day -- a good excuse to stay indoors the rest of the day. Of course, I have a Board meeting tonight, and one can only hope things won't be any worse. The forecasts are for the storm to make landfall to the west of us late tonight/very early Saturday, and so, once again, it's wait and see...

Saturday, September 13, 2008

A rainy day, of course, with times that the sun tries to break through. No real impact here in NOLA, just the bamboo screening on the fence in my back courtyard ripped free and blowing like a sail. Driving around, we see more "tree trimmings" and other debris, a few more houses and buildings with some roof damage. More houses that were badly wrecked by Katrina but still (somehow) standing have collapsed, one 2 blocks or so from the church I serve.

By afternoon and early evening, it's not even raining any more, just muggy and warm and a bit more windy than usual.

Let's hope and pray that that "conga line" of storms in the Atlantic is done and we won't have any more unwelcome visitors.

Aftermath

Gustav gone, the all-clear signal given, and the mayor, under considerable pressure, calling "Ollee-ollee-oxen-free!", New Orleanians returned from a week of evacuations in Birmingham, Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Memphis, Houston, Oxford, Jackson, Mobile, Florida, and even further away. (The folks coming home from Baton Rouge were especially relieved, since it turns out that our capital city was hit much harder than was New Orleans.) In fact, so many people tried to get home on Friday that parts of I-10 West were turned into a giant parking lot and accidents were common.

Big Man and I stayed at my brother's in the mid-panhandle of Florida until Friday morning, and took I-10 all the way to the junction of I-59, I-12 and I-10 north of Slidell. At that point, we got off and took Highway 90, which was blessedly (and amazingly) clear and free from traffic. We saw A LOT of damage from Hurricane Gustav -- boats in the road (we drove around them), tree trunks and tree limbs, lots of electric wires down, damaged cars, fences knocked over, some fishing camps knocked off their pilings, a lot of detritus from what must have been a storm surge. There were many utility trucks out and about, putting things right, but no traffic. Our biggest hold-up was the little Bayou Sauvage bridge, at the back of Venetian Isles, which was down to one lane, with each side taking turns. It took about 20 minutes for us to cross, but once over, it was a breeze getting home. Meanwhile, we kept hearing on the radio how bad things were on I-10. (Hm, maybe I shouldn't blog about the Highway 90 route -- there's a small chance that local folks will read this and then clog the artery during the next evacuation.)

Friday late afternoon as we entered the city, we saw what Gustav had done. Tree limbs, branches, and piles and piles of twigs and leaves were everywhere, and in the inhabited neighborhoods had already been swept and raked into heaps at the curbs. Lots of people lost bits of siding, roof tiles and shingles, gutters, and window panes from their houses; even more commercial establishments had their large signs busted, twisted, or knocked down. Lots and lots of power outages and traffic lights not working at all. A house on St. Charles Avenue had a giant old magnolia tree leaning on the front porch and part of the roof. We held our breaths as to what we might find when we got home.

As we pulled up, our street was littered with roof shingles -- on the sidewalk, in the neutral ground, in the street, and even on our front porch. Luckily, they were not from our house. Our next-door neighbors, in the 1840s mansion that has been converted to condos, lost some boards from the side of the house that faces ours, and at least one window was broken. Our electricity was on, thank god, but there was no cable or Internet connection. (You know you're hard up when you're walking around your house with your laptop, trying to see if you can pick up a wireless signal from any of the neighbors.) We were ecstatic to find all cable service restored on Monday night (yesterday, as I write this) -- we were even more excited to learn that Cox Cable was going to credit us for that week of non-service. Every little bit helps.

Around New Orleans, approximately 50-odd houses, damaged by Katrina, were done in by Gustav and have collapsed completely, after sagging progressively for 3 years. One, on Magnolia and Upperline near Baptist Hospital, hasn't finished falling yet and looks like it could crash down any second. Another house in Central City, had been carefully gutted with someone putting in a new subfloor when Gustav hit, collapsing what was left of the walls, and plunking the roof, all in one piece, onto the floor. I felt bad for the person who had been doing the work, only to have this happen.

I've blogged before about how the neutral ground signs are a barometer of Life in the New Big Easy -- by the Saturday after Gustav, neutral grounds sprouted signs saying, "Tree Removal", "Repairs", and "Debris Removal." You also started seeing home made signs everywhere saying, "Welcome Home" or "Welcome Back." At banks, at cafes, at churches, at the Salvation Army returning evacuee center, at the drugstore, the signs recognize our shared plight and our shared relief at being back home. A sushi place on Magazine Street near our house had a blackboard menu outside on the sidewalk with a list of offerings that included a "Welcome Home roll." On Sunday, we greeted each other at church, "Welcome home! Welcome back!" One local radio station is running a promo with testimony from New Orleanians on why this is home and how much they love this place, hurricanes be damned. Makes me choke up a little every time I hear it.

The church sustained minor damage. The large plexiglass windows in our Fellowship Hall blew out and lots of water came in to pool on the tile floor -- but luckily did not hurt the floor. A window in a storage area also broke. The sign out front was completely blown away, but then we were planning to replace it anyway. Lost power for a time, but the refrigerator had been emptied, so nothing was lost. We were lucky.

Most of my parishioners are OK. One or two have minor roof damage, or lost power for a number of hours, but most had transferred food to ice chests, and thus did not lose any perishables. Most either had an OK evacuation experience, and a few, like Big Man and I, actually had FUN evacuations (which a parishioner of mine described as "hurrications"), and a smaller number of my folk rode out the storm at home or at a neighbor's house. No injuries, thank god. Emotions and spirits are another story. If folks are fragile, to have a hurricane threat right during the Katrina anniversary is a hard thing.

Sunday after services, we brought the church computers down from where they had been stored for safekeeping, and hooked everything back up. I changed the message on the church machine and removed all the hurricane signs from the church doors. A larger congregation on Sunday than I expected, but no Order of Service. But we were all together, and able to share what happened to us, how we felt.

And so we return to whatever is normal for us, for this place, for this time. What else is there to do, but cope and move forward?

Hurricane Gustav

As we watched Gustav in the Gulf, it began to get more and more obvious we'd almost certainly have to evacuate. The proposition started to shape itself as WHEN will we have to leave, and not WILL we have to leave. By Wednesday, I was pulling together clothes for both Big Man and me, and thinking about what else we'd need to bring. Unfortunately, lulled into a false sense of security by Hurricane Faye, and bothered by an empty cupboard since our return from vacation, Big Man and I went out and made groceries on Monday -- BIG groceries, filling the house, the fridge, and the freezer with something like $350 worth of food, both perishable and nonperishable. My sister L hollered at me when she found out, "What were you thinking??" and the truth was, I wasn't thinking. I guess those 15 years I spent away from the city made me forget about hurricane season and how you always have to be on the alert, keeping your larder low and easy to pack.

Thursday I had planned to loan my car to my sister L, but that was abandoned when we discovered I had yet another flat tire. (With all the debris, New Orleans is flat tire central since Katrina, and my car is a case in point: I've had *3* flat tires in the year I've been home.) Our favorite quick and cheap repair and used tire place is across the river, and we headed there after Big Man got up. While we waited for the repair, we had a conversation with the Creole gentleman next to us, who showed us what he thought was an essential piece of hurricane preparation: a gas can full of gas to help you get through the chaos of evacuation. It was an "aha" moment for us.

After getting the tire fixed, we headed to Academy to get a large ice chest so we could do our best to preserve all that meat and all those frozen veggies. Academy, a favorite store of ours, had moved hurricane items -- giant water jugs, gas cans, ice chests, lanterns, battery-operated fans, crank radios, waterproof match holders -- to the very front of the store. We got the ice chest we had originally come for (debating for a LONG time over relative merits and sizes), a 5-gallon water jug, as well as the gas can recommended by our new friend, and a new pair of athletic shoes for Big Man. We were surprised that Academy was not as crowded as we had feared, but it turned out that most folks were vacillating over preparing for the storm, and that all the Academy stores were jam-packed just a few days later.

We could not decide where to evacuate. Our choices were above I-12 in Slidell, where my one of my sisters and her family has relocated after the loss of their house in Chalmette after Katrina, and my brother and his wife's house a few miles east of Pensacola, Florida. Ironically, we had been planning for some time to spend Labor Day weekend at the latter place, but as Gustav approached, we went back and forth, back and forth, over where we wanted to go. Ar first we settled on Slidell, it being closer and my brother-in-law having a couple of back-up generators, in case they lost power. But more and more, as the storm got closer, it seemed to make more sense to go further away.

Or maybe it wasn't exactly that it made sense. Maybe sense didn't have much to do with it. It was the Katrina anniversary, and everyone was on edge, anxious, jumpy, close to tears. I made the mistake of reading Tom Piazza's City of Refuge, his Katrina novel that was chosen for "One Book, One New Orleans", and it upset me quite a bit. By the time Saturday rolled around, I had had enough. I wanted to leave town and I wanted to leave like *yesterday*. My preparations grew more and more frantic and almost panicked. In the end, I wanted to be as far away as we could go, and I wanted to be with loved ones. So Big Man agreed to Florida.

I spent Friday alternately looking at the hour-by-hour news reports about Gustav's dawdling in the Caribbean, packing, and trying to tie up loose ends at the church. Big Man went with me to the church office, and we moved my desk away from the window (in case the glass broke), picked up the hard drive, grabbed a couple of the more beloved art work from the walls, changed the outgoing message on the answering machine, and posted signs around the building canceling everything until Thursday. We unplugged things, and looked around, trying to decide if there was anything else to be done. We left with a funny feeling. What would all this look like when we returned?

But we could not leave town until Big Man was assured that he was not needed at the nightclub, and we did not get that assurance until he got home from work early Saturday morning. So our plan was to leave Saturday as soon as Big Man woke up.

I woke that morning, as usual, before Big Man and continued with packing, but it's true I was getting more and more upset, and even frightened. I wanted to be AWAY. Big Man finally woke up and we loaded the van with 10 gallons of water, the new ice chest absolutely full with just about everything from the fridge and freezer, a box with unperishable food items, 2 laundry baskets full of clean clothes, Big Man's horns and keyboard (practice goes on even in a hurricane), and the cat carrier with a mad-as-a-wet-hen Smokey Robinson (he hates his carrier). We checked the house and made it as secure as we could, propping open the doors of the empty refrigerator, per instructions from our landlady, reluctant to buy more appliances after another hurricane's power outages. We were on our way by 2 pm; with noises being made about "encouraging" evacuation, we decided Highway 90 was our best bet.

The drive along 90 was an exercise in nostalgia and patience. Nostalgia because I don't think I've driven that route in 30+ years; patience because of all the traffic. (Although it wasn't near the gridlock that I-10 was.) The drive to Pensacola, which should have taken 3 hours if done under normal circumstances on the interstate, took us fully 7 hours. (To be fair, however, it must be noted that we stopped for a half-hour in Biloxi so that Big Man could swim in the Gulf for a little bit.) The same drive took my older sister B 12 hours to do. She arrived all frazzled from the traffic and the long drive.

We unloaded all our stuff from our refrigerator into the fridge in my brother and sister-in-law's rec room. Then B did the same. Later, my sister-in-law's brother and his wife arrived, also with the contents of their kitchen, and then her dad, with the stuff from HIS. All told, we ended up stuffed with the food from 4 families, some of it defrosting. We've been eating royally -- we began with pork tenderloin and pasta on Saturday night, hot dog for lunch and red beans and rice with sausage for dinner on Sunday, and Labor Day we ate hurricane thanksgiving, with roasted turkey and crabmeat stuffing and macaroni and cheese. Monday is barbeque pork shoulder, since that was also defrosting. (Big Man and I were lucky -- the new ice chest worked great, and none of our food had defrosted or was in the process of defrosting when we arrived.)

Hurricane Gustav's bands moved into this section of Florida early Monday morning -- along with tornado watches. The wind was terrific, the rain pounded periodically as the bands went through, and the water rose in the boat canal behind the house up to the sidewalk. The metal roof in the sunroom/rec room began to leak like crazy, all of us moving the furniture around to avoid the wet spots. The closest tornado to us passed 10 miles from where we were. The sky remained heavily clouded all day, with rain becoming increasingly less frequent. Tuesday there was still tornado warnings and predictions of heavy thunderstorms all day.

We spend our time reading, doing jigsaw puzzles, playing computer solitaire (the house is now home to 4 laptops), watching TV, arguing politics, and playing Scrabble -- things we might have been doing anyway on a rainy Labor Day weekend, even without a hurricane.

News on the TV tells us that power is out in widespread areas in the city, and there's scattered reports of wind damage to roofs and buildings. We are expecting to get official word of when we all can go home sometime today (Tuesday), and it is expected to be some time on Thursday or maybe Friday. Schools in NOLA are closed until Monday, when hopefully, things will be back to "normal."

Things could have been way worse. We are thankful for the near-miss, for the love of family, and for all the pretty-well organized preparations back in the city (unlike 3 years ago). Our family "evacuation center" has great food, 2 bathrooms, 4 working TVs with cable service, and electric power. Things could be much worse.

Third Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

As the Katrina Anniversary approaches, emotions are running high in the church I serve and in the greater New Orleans area. What happened to us would be unreal if it weren't that we have to look at the evidence of it every single day. There are still neighborhoods even Uptown -- not just Lakeview, Gentilly, and the Lower 9 -- with ruined boarded-up houses, streets with no street signs, blue FEMA tarp everywhere, and Grand Canyon potholes in the streets (even major arteries). You can always tell experienced native drivers, because they're the ones automatically making wide swerves around the known road hazards, while the newbies plow straight ahead, dropping off "cliffs" and falling into big gaps in the road. Things that ought to be fixed RIGHT AWAY are left to rack and ruin -- like the smashed wooden utility pole looming dangerously over the corner at Felicity and Simon Bolivar, apparently held up by nothing except the electric wires.

Amazingly, proving the old saying that you can get used to anything, we begin to be inured to these sights and experiences.

I was asked by the Mayor's Office to participate in the city's interfaith Katrina Memorial in Jackson Square on Friday evening. My disgust with the poor performance of the incumbent Mayor and U.S. president over Katrina made me think twice about accepting. (I wasn't sure I wanted to share a platform with the Mayor.) In the end, I decided it was more important for me to be there than to make some kind of flimsy, ineffective protest by staying away. It's been a REAL challenge, trying to compose something that doesn't indict, even if only by implication, the Mayor and the president and the Corps of Engineers and the insurance companies and .... (Well, you get the idea.) I'm sure I'll have all these feelings under control (mostly) by the time the event rolls around at the end of this week.

My church will hold its 3rd annual Katrina Dinner on Saturday night, along with the ritual based loosely on the Passover seder that was developed by Justin Lundgren, a New Orleanian, soon after the Storm . We eat our favorite New Orleans foods (pralines for sweetness, dill pickles for bitterness), the youngest children present ask ritual questions, and we always keep an empty chair for all those New Orleanians who have not been able, or have not been allowed to, come home.

The rebuilding and recovery of our poor building goes very, very slowly. (If it went any more slowly, it wouldn't even be happening.) I'm still preaching from a flimsy and rusty music stand, trying to be a good sport about it. The floor in the Sanctuary is still scarred and pitted bare concrete, the water line is still visible above the new paneled wainscoting, and the ceiling shows missing and drooping acoustic tiles (which weren't attractive even before Katrina). The chapel has no electricity, but at least now has a new bamboo floor. The RE wing, with the exception of the new admin and minister's offices, has no floor, except for painted (pitted) concrete. The area where the kitchen and old board room used to be has at least been cleared and gutted, and is ready for the construction of the planned commercial kitchen that will be shared with a local AIDS agency. We hope to begin construction this fall, as soon as engineering plans and permits are taken care of.

So much of church life seems on hold -- we can't easily hold regular potlucks or dinners or social gatherings without a kitchen, and the unfinished, even ugly, appearance of the Sanctuary requires a suspension of feelings and awareness for a good worship atmosphere. Sometimes it all seems overwhelming.

And yet...

And yet there are many hopeful, happy signs. The people who live here, who've always lived here or who've moved here since It happened, are determined and committed, and absolutely united in their/our love for the city. As Ned Sublette wrote in the coda to his new book, "The World That Made New Orleans": "They refused to cooperate in their own erasure." He was writing about Mardi Gras Indians, but it now stands as a fitting declaration for all of us New Orleanians.

We refuse to cooperate in our own erasure, our own Disneyfication, our own irrelevance. We stand together, united in our affection for our culture, our music, our food, our way of life, our beloved, still beautiful city. We will not be erased or removed.

We are New Orleans. We go on.

Drink and Draw

Add this to the long list of "Only in New Orleans" stuff:

The Circle Bar, St. Charles at Lee Circle (the one in the gorgeously decaying old house that was once, I believe, the home of the first woman physician in the city), has a new offering to attract customers on Sunday afternoons. It's called, appropriately enough, "Drink & Draw," and it features a live nude model and Happy Hour pricing on all drinks. You pay $20 for two hours, bring your own drawing pad, stretched canvas, or illustration board (or, knowing how folks are, blank typing paper or an old legal pad) and your favorite drawing and painting media (ball point pens, anyone?), and sketch away. For slight extra fee, there's an actual art teacher to help you improve, if you're that interested.

Regularly, there's a "show" of the works produced at the weekly Drink & Draw, at places like Surrey on Magazine (the food there is divine, but don't try to go for brunch on Saturdays and Sundays -- the waiting line practically goes around the block). From what I could observe, the finished works of "art" are pretty much what you would expect from folks who are drinking and drawing on a Sunday afternoon, but what the hey, most people are definitely NOT going to Drink & Draw because they are, or have aspirations to be, Great Artistes.

Only in New Orleans. Sit in a decadent old mansion on a Sunday afternoon, look at a naked woman, drink low-priced drinks, and draw or paint (or pretend to draw and paint). How can you beat that?

I love this city.

No Such Thing as a Private Conversation in NOLA

Big Man leaned across the restaurant table to the transplants from Tennessee, his eyes alight with merriment. "I'm serious," he said, "Unless you're in your car with the windows rolled up, or in your own home, there's absolutely no such thing as a private conversation in New Orleans." Our guests were already agape since a few minutes before, our waitress had "butted in" to the table's discussion of the exact boundaries of the Irish Channel, and given us the benefit of her opinion and experience. The good folks from Tennessee had never before experienced such a thing.

It happened to us again on Sunday, during the Satchmo Festival. We had taken refuge inside Coop's on Decatur for a seat, a restroom, and air-conditioning (drat the heat!), and had stayed to eat from their excellent fare. (You gotta love those lamb ribs! Man, I could eat like 5 orders!) We were seated at the long table that faces the entrance, and since there were only two of us, another couple was already seated at the other end. It didn't take more than a minute for us to be in conversation with the people at that end of the table, after the male half of the couple overheard part of our conversation and joined right in. When they were finished and left, and as the place got more crowded, more people were seated at that end, and the whole thing started up again.

I do not know of any other city where this is true, that strangers so readily talk to each other, where "eavesdropping" in order to join a conversation already in progress is so widely accepted, where at any moment in public you have to be ready to respond to the remarks of someone who, up to now, you didn't know at all. Big Man says you're likely to get comments from passersby while you are making groceries ("Oh, that's good stuff, we use it at my house" or "Honey, don't buy dat, it's a rip-off) and if your car windows are rolled down, somebody is apt to comment if they can overhear any part of your conversation, or even if they can just hear your radio.

This is SO characteristic of New Orleans. One time, the year after Katrina, my sister L accompanied a friend to Manhattan for a buying trip for furniture and decorating fabrics to rebuild the friend's flooded family home. I joined them just for the day from where I was living in suburban Philadelphia. At the end of our day-long "forced march" -- my sister does not believe in taking the subway, a bus, or, God forbid, a taxi, when you can just as well walk and "see more" -- we ate dinner at a little Spanish restaurant in Greenwich Village. While we were there, it began pouring rain, trapping us inside with the staff and the few customers from the neighborhood. The three of us were talking about New Orleans and the recovery process, and my sister noticed a man seated near us who seemed (to her) to be listening to us, and she began including him in our conversation. He was at first uncomfortable, but soon warmed to our Big Easy style. L ascertained that the man was from the neighborhood, and ate in this little restaurant several times a week. Spotting the only other customer in the place besides us and our new friend, L asked, "Do you know that guy?" Looking over, the man said, "I don't know him, but I've seen him in here before." "That's ridiculous," declared my sister, and she marched over to where the second man was seated, and introduced herself to him. "We're from New Orleans," she said, as if that explained everything, "and we can't stand to see people eating alone." She then introduced the two men to each other, and admonished them not to be strangers to each other. "Y'all see each other in here all the time," she chided them, "you don't have to be strangers."

I still get a little teary thinking about that incident, how three women from New Orleans, in the immediate wake of the Worst Thing That Could Happen, could still represent the spirit of our beloved city so well, introducing these New Yorkers to each other. I often think about those two men and wonder if they ever sat together after that, or if at least they nodded in a mildly friendly way to each other, remembering those crazy women from the Big Easy and how they spoke so easily to strangers.

There is no such thing as a private conversation in New Orleans because we're all just dying to get in your business, to contradict, to embellish, to share a clue about a restaurant, grocery store, or music club you haven't heard of, to give you directions, to offer unsolicited advice, to become your new best friend. We talk to people in elevators -- now how crazy is that? (A young adult parishioner of mine said she was so glad to home, where, she said, no one would think she was a bag lady if she greeted them on the street or in an elevator.) We don't know why Yankees think you can't say "good mornin'" on the street or "hey y'all" on elevators; we feel sorry for their self-imposed isolation.

Us, well, we've never met a stranger. There's just folks you haven't spoken to yet.

New Orleans' Beach(es)

I've had occasion several times this month to drive to Pensacola, where my brother and sister-in-law live, for family visits. On one drive, Big Man commented on all the Louisiana license plates surrounding us on the interstate. I laughed. "Don't you know," I said to him, "that Pensacola is New Orleans' beach?"

When I was a girl, along the Gulf of Mexico from Bay St. Louis to Biloxi was New Orleans' beach. It was an easy drive along Highway 90, and a family could do as a marathon in one day, there and back, sunburned and sandy, or take a more relaxing weekend and stay in one of the then-innumerable beach strip motels along the way. (Sadly, so much of this strip was totally and completely destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and only now, almost 3 years later, are they just starting to sputter back to life with hotels, shops, and restaurants. Lots of rebuilding going on, which is a good thing.)

When Interstate 10 was finished, the drive to the even-better beaches along the Alabama coast and the Florida panhandle became more accessible, and individuals and families from New Orleans began staking their claim from Gulf Shores to Destin.

It is not quite as segmented as the Philadelphia-Jersey connection, where it has been truthfully said that if you learn what neighborhood in Philly a person is from, you can immediately guess which South Jersey shore town they go to in the summer. But it is true that many New Orleanians would cheerfully argue the relative merits of Gulf Shores vs. Orange Beach, Pensacola vs. Navarre, Fort Walton Beach vs. Destin ad infinitum.

Pensacola, kind of the center of the New Orleans-oriented part of the Florida panhandle, has an ambivalent relationship to the Crescent City. In Pensacola, I saw a Florida license plate spelling out "SAINTS," and there were hundreds of Florida cars sporting Saints bumperstickers, decals, and black-and-gold fleur de lis. Restaurants all down the coast advertise gumbo, etouffee, and even red beans and rice. "Authentic New Orleans Sno Balls" can be found in every beach town as a cooling treat.

A "Tail of Two Cities" is a souvenir that can be purchased in many places in Pensacola; it depicts a nattily dressed pelican, wearing fleur de lis on one side. It is supposed to represent downtown Pensacola and Pensacola Beach. But the artist is a New Orleanian and seems to have captured instead a linking between NOLA and Pensacola.

The relationship between the two is not always close and happy. In last weekend's Pensacola newspaper, there was an article about a night of gallery-hopping that involved both live music and the serving of adult beverages. The article emphasized that this year the police would be enforcing local ordinances about no drinking alcohol on the street, even in non-glass containers, so that gallery-hopping participants in the Arts Night would have to drink up or discard their drink before leaving one gallery for another. There was some protest about this -- apparently, in previous years, law enforcement had turned a blind eye to the strolling gallery patrons with their go-cups. (Me, I can't see why this is an issue, but then, I'm a New Orleanian.) A Pensacola city councilman, interviewed on the little brouhaha, declared firmly to the reporter, "This is not New Orleans, you know!"

Anyway, it was a surprise to Big Man to feel so at-home in the Florida panhandle, until he realized that it's almost, but not quite, New Orleans Far East.

Our plans for the rest of summer include explorations to New Orleans's "old beach" along Highway 90, gas being so expensive and the bay St. Louis-Biloxi arc of beaches being so close. More reports from New Orleans' beaches then!

A Big Thank-You to Essence!

The Essence Festival returned to New Orleans for the second year after Katrina July 4-6, and once again, it was a boon for the city as well as a heck of a good time for the close to 200,000 festival-goers who came to the city for the event. (Some say higher, some lower, but that's the figure I'm going with.) The hotels were full, the casino was jumping, and every night Bourbon Street was nearly impassable.

There's talk in some circles that Essence participants do not spend their money as they might in the city's shops, restaurants, and businesses, and that fest-goers aren't the world's biggest tippers, but there can be no doubt that a group of such magnitude coming to the city is a bottom-line positive thing. We can always work with the Essence folks to do better marketing and promotion of the many other attractions the city has to offer, and help educate ALL our visitors on the etiquette and necessity for tipping. (So few other cities have nightclubs with live music where it is expected that the band has to be tipped, for example. But in New Orleans, if the band doesn't make good tips, they can't pay bills.)

One thing that particularly struck me about Essence -- and had to occur to any person who saw the thousands of Essence guests on the streets -- was how gorgeous, absolutely stunning, the Essence women are. It was like a case study in How Many Ways Are There to be a Beautiful Black Woman. The apparent answer to that hypothetical question is, "About 100,000."

The beautiful black women at Essence were very young, youngish, middle-aged, and oldish, into their 70s. Their skin color ranged from pale olive and coffee with lots of cream to tan and dark beige to rich chocolate and dark coffee to nearly ebony. They were reedy slender, skinny, shapely, curvy, REALLY curvy, classic hourglass, and large. They dressed to the nines, wore beautiful jewelry and accessories, and walked with style and grace. They held their heads high, looking this way and that at the sights of the city -- while providing quite the feast for the eyes themselves.

While during Essence New Orleanians might have lamented the lack of on-street parking, the high prices of parking lots (I saw $30, $40 and even $70 prices posted on private lots and hotels!), the closed-off downtown streets, and the challenge of walking in the French Quarter day or night with around 200,000 new folks -- in the end, as always, The Party With a Purpose that is Essence was a gift to the city.

Thanks, Essence, and a big NOLA shout-out to all the gorgeous sistahs who graced our city that weekend.

In Praise of Creole Tomatoes (especially heirlooms!)

This past weekend (June 13-15), there were *3* incredible festivals in the French Quarter -- the Cajun and Zydeco Festival, the Seafood Festival, and the Creole Tomato Festival-- and Big Man and I were there for 2 of the 3 festival days. (Apparently there was also a Latino Festival going on at the same time, as an add-on or sub-festival. Oh well -- the more, the merrier, we always say.)

It was all fabulous, as you might imagine -- incredible music, interesting crafts, terrific people-watching, great sense of community, topped off with wonderful, well-priced food. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously, feeling even that the rain on Friday and Saturday was a welcome addition, as it cooled things off and, as Big Man said, thinned out the crowds a bit. The food we sampled, from the things we paid for -- the crab and crawfish cakes, the boiled shrimp and crawfish (complete with corn, potatoes and sausage, naturally), the fantastic chargrilled oysters (yikes!), the shrimp on a stick, the homemade lemonade -- to the chef's tasting freebies -- the local ceviche, the shrimp and bean salad, the incredible seared tuna with black sesame seed crust (holy toledo!) -- were uniformly off-the-charts marvelous.

One thing, however, stands out above all over foods at the fests. In a week with saturated media coverage of an e. coli scare from tomatoes imported from Mexico, our Louisiana Creole tomatoes were not only certifiably safe to eat, they were fabulous. On Friday, we bought several fat red Creoles as big as a newborn baby's head (at $1 a piece!), and couldn't wait to eat them that night at home. Sweet, tart, acidic, meaty, juicy -- they fulfilled everything you wanted in a tomato, and put me in mind of the Creoles my mom used to include in our brown-bag lunches at elementary school (Our Lady of Prompt Succor in Chalmette, if you must know) back in the day, with a little packet of salt for us to add as we bit into them. So great a taste, that you would gladly make a meal just of tomatoes (with a little Blue Plate, of course).

But then, the next day, we came across the booth selling *heirloom Creole tomatoes.* What's the difference?, you ask -- well, it's like night and day. If regular Creole tomatoes can make you hate and despise store-bought tomatoes (or maybe I should say "tomatoes"), then these heirloom Creoles are on a different plane altogether, like food the gods get to eat.

First of all, they were GORGEOUS -- bright golden yellow, orange with yellow streaks, and this strangely beautiful brownish-reddish-greenish color. We bought 4 of the biggest ones, which were packaged upscaled in a nice white paper rectangular takeout box. When we got home, I washed them, sliced them thick as steaks, and arranged them on plate with some fresh boiled shrimp. I sprinkled some sea salt, added a little mound of Blue Plate mixed with Creole mustard, and we went to it. The whole time Big Man and I were eating this simple cold dinner, we kept *moaning* "Ohmygod" and long-drawn-out "Woooowwws." It was heaven on a plate.

So now we're kicking ourselves: WHY didn't we ask that tomato farmer where we could find his heavenly heirloom Creole tomatoes when the festival was over?? (If anybody knows, please let us know. We're willing to drive.)

Stuff They Say on 'OZ

File this under "Only in New Orleans" (after all the other stuff already there!) --

Like other die-hard New Orleanians, I listen to WWOZ religiously. Whenever I'm in my car, in the kitchen, in my office at the church, 'OZ is on, filling my hours with wonderful music that can be heard nowhere else. 'OZ is one of the blessings of living in NOLA.

Sure, sure, of course -- I know you can listen to 'OZ online, no matter where you live, and I do recommend doing just that. But there's a drawback to doing that, as I discovered while living in Jersey -- long-distance listeners have to tolerate hearing about all the terrific and cheap live local music playing in New Orleans while you're unfortunately too far away to get there. Can't tell you how many times I'd be listening to 'OZ online, and I'd have to go running into Big Man's studio to moan and cry about all the great music we were missing. On a Monday, or a Wednesday, or some other crazy weeknight, when you couldn't hear ANY decent music in the darn city you were living in. That's all I'm saying.

But it's not just the music. It's the patter, the conversations, the outrageous opinions, so freely expressed by 'OZ's dedicated staff of volunteer DJs. Sometimes, the listener wants to shout, "Yeah, you right!" (and maybe some listeners do) to express complete agreement; sometimes the listeners just have to shake their heads and smile wryly, hardly able to believe that anyone could or would get away with such shenanigans; and sometimes you just gotta laugh and say, "Only in New Orleans!"

The following vignettes are just tiny samples that I treasure:

Back during the kick-off to the French Quarter Festival, when long-time NOLA musician and "establishment" figure Ronnie Cole was awarded a place in the Bourbon Street Legends Park, 'OZ DJ and jazz musician Bob French went off on the air, repeatedly referring to Cole as a "no-talent outsider" who was really from "Illa-noise" and complaining bitterly about the absence so far from Legends Park of such acknowledged greats (and New Orleans natives) as the Neville Brothers, Dr. John, Eddie Bo, Deacon John, et al. Poor Bob was so bent out of shape by the unwarranted honor that he went on and on before and after at least 3 different records. Where else in the world of commercial radio could such a thing have happened? (When you consider that the Jazz & Heritage Foundation, which runs WWOZ, is also a sponsor of the French Quarter Fest, it's even more remarkable.)

Every Friday, WWOZ welcomes Julie Posner, of LouisianaFestivals.com, to come over and preview the weekend's offerings of what I call "fest with no rest". I do not know Julie, nor do I know what she looks like, but her voice is always full of affection and enthusiasm for all the festivals and events she talks about. She makes it sound like each and every one of these minor and major events is worth going to (and you know? they probably are). You know how it is with radio -- she sounds like a great person, and I look forward to her reports, even when the upcoming weekend is already spoken for and I know I can't go to anything she recommends. On a recent Friday, the DJ announced sadly that Julie would not be able, for some reason, to come to the studio to do her festival promotion spot. Then he said, "I know y'all are disappointed, and I am too. While this next song plays, let's all just sit and think about what Julie is wearing. Here's some music to think of Julie by." I laughed out loud.

The other day, a DJ played a terrific number by "Pops" -- Louis Armstrong to the rest of you -- from an album of songs written by Dave Brubeck, done by various artists, called "Brubeck Encounters." When the song was done, the DJ came on, read the credits, and then said, "This is a definitive album. You need to have this record in your collection. In fact, if you dare to call yourself a lover of music, you HAVE to have it. I'm coming right now to y'all's houses and make sure it's in your collection!" The DJ laughed himself, realizing it was a kind of crazy thing to say, but then he added, "Seriously, you gotta have it." Now, that's an endorsement!

Rock on, 'OZ!

Fest With No Rest, Part 2

Sometimes you get a weekend in the New Orleans area that can make going back to work the next week a relief. This past weekend, May 24-25, was one of those.

Friday kicked off the madness with the Bayou Boogaloo in Mid-City along Bayou St. John and the first day of the Greek Festival held at Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. It was also the night of the Rehearsal Dinner for the wedding I was to perform on Saturday in the Hermann-Grima House courtyard in the French Quarter. With so much to get done in so little time, we settled on the dinner, held at the private swim club on the corner of Camp and Pleasant (and thus named "Camp Pleasant").

I had been told it would be a crawfish boil, and had worn clothing I thought appropriate for sucking heads and squeezing tails, but it turned out I was a bit under-dressed, considering the other guests (or maybe they just didn't care about getting crawfish juice on their clothes). The crawfish wasn't ready right away, so there were trays of hors d'oeuvres being passed, things like perfectly fried catfish, shrimp, and oysters, and little spicy spring rolls. It was hard not to fill up on those, they were scrumptious.

But then they came out with giant baskets of hot crawfish, fresh from the boiler, and poured 'em out into a metal pirougue. There were ears of corn and new potatoes too, but (to Big Man's disappointment) no hot sausages -- possibly a concession to the Yankee guests, for many of whom the crawfish were too spicy anyway, so they needn't have worried. The mudbugs were good size and well spiced, juicy and "fatty." Yum! Two trays were more than enough.

For dessert, Plum Street Sno-Balls had set up a table with a limited number of plain and cream flavors. I indulged myself with a Mounds-like mixture of both coconut and chocolate creams, and while I was thoroughly enjoying that, the servers came around with these perfect little sugar cookies, artistically iced to look like crawfish, shrimp, lemons, potatoes, bay leaves, and mushrooms -- they were crawfish boil cookies! I was completely charmed, and even though I shouldn't've, I took one.

Stuffed to the gills, I made my way home to rest up for the next day's multiple festivities.

Saturday was almost too full of a day. Big Man and I drove to Lakeview to drop something off at a local church, and then made our way down Robert E. Lee to the Greek Festival. The crowd was ENORMOUS, parking, even with the shuttle service, was crazy, and we decided to bag it til Sunday. (A miscalculation, as it happened that by the time we got there on Sunday, they had run out of roast lamb. See below.) We then drove down the bayou to the Boogaloo and managed to find free and legal parking a reasonable walking distance (Big Man has great park-ma).

What a pretty sight! Young parents with babies and toddlers in strollers, other little kids running around freely, teenagers, Baby Boomers like ourselves, older folks, under a bright blue sky and sunshine, the waters of the bayou sparkling, a few rental canoes dotting the surface. (A nice touch, that. Next year we'll have to rent one.) Two stages of music, a tent for kids, a book tent to benefit the Mid-City branch library (of course, Big Man had to buy some science fiction), and the obligatory row of food booths. We had alligator sausage on a stick with mustard sauce, squid salad, and Middle Eastern meatballs. Oh my God.

Checking our watches, we saw it was getting on to the time for the Farewell Party for two parishioners moving out of state. We drove back up the bayou and arrived in time to find out that THAT was a crawfish boil too! (Good grief!) We stayed for a while, chatting with guests and the dear folks who are leaving, then it was back to home for showers. (Festivals and parties are hot work.)

The wedding in the French Quarter courtyard was set for 6 pm, which unfortunately is still hot and sticky time in the Crescent City. I actually brought my little spray-fan thingy from Jazz Fest to the wedding, thinking I might look silly but at least I'd be cool. (Later, when other women spotted it at the reception, they all wanted to know where I got it.) It was a lovely ceremony, and the waiters from Broussard's (bless them!) started serving the hors d'oeuvres immediately afterwards. There was more fried shrimp and tasty little duck spring rolls with plum sauce. Yum! The buffet was terrific (crab cakes, roast beef, caesar salad, stuffed new potatoes, asparagus wrapped in prosciutto), but I managed to skip both the bananas foster and the wedding cake (like I hadn't already eaten enough calories for an ARMY).

I walked off some of it by going down the 2 blocks to Big Man's Bourbon Street club and catching a set before heading home to finish my sermon for the next day. (Hope it was none the worse for the big food hangover.)

After church duties were completed on Sunday, Big Man and I finally made it to the Greek Fest, where we were informed on entering that the roast lamb was completely sold out. Since that was, in fact, one of our major reasons for attending, I thought for a moment that Big Man would either cry or leave, but we made the best of it. After all, they still had TONS of great food. It was an overcast day, which lowered the temperature somewhat, a small blessing. They too had rental canoes in the bayou, a big kids area with all kinds of activities (including a giant sand box with hidden treasures in it, called "Archaeological Dig of Ancient Greece"), an agora/market with nicely priced Greek groceries, gifts, jewelry, clothing and art objects -- and 2 giant food areas, one inside and one outside.

Believe me, despite the lamb being sold out, there was PLENTY to eat, and we were more than satisfied with the Greek dinners, the souvlaki, the gyros, and of course the obligatory baklava (Big Man's favorite sweet in all the world). We not only got enough to eat, we bought stuff to take home. I resisted the baklava sundae, which, even to me, seemed like too much.

We enjoyed the music stage, where a young Greek band swung into their version of the famous theme from "Zorba the Greek" and a crowd of beautiful young Greek New Orleanians danced in a row, and then, faster, in increasingly tighter circles, their heads held high as their feet moved so fast in unison, smiling, proud of themselves and their heritage. It was a sight to see.

Later, we drove to the lake and watched the sun set with fishermen and other couples and families. Beautiful. On the way home, we made a few groceries at the renewed Robert's on Robert E. Lee (great store! go shop there!) to be ready for Memorial Day at home, because by that point we had had enough. Fest with no rest is great for the belly and the eyes and ears, but hell on middle-aged bodies. But still, it was a great weekend, even though we were relieved when it was over.