Month: September 2023

“Football’s Back”

This was a relatively quiet week.  Walking or running in the park early most mornings, and back and forth to the new house to check on repairs were the regular activities.  The foundation repairs and all the miscellaneous things from the inspection report were completed.  Diana made sure to get before and after pictures of all the foundation fixes.  The owner of the company said we shouldn’t expect to seem him again in our lifetime – great news.

Jack invited me to join his trivia team at Dat Dog on Tuesday evening.  Kenny and Denny also participated, with McD providing some support.  Dat Dog is a very colorful hotdog restaurant on Freret Street.  Diana and I opted for the vegetarian versions in lettuce wraps.  Those and the tator tots were yummy.  The trivia was all over the map – history, geography, business, sports and more.

I did laugh at the rooster that wandered in and was quickly shooed away by management.  Not something one typically sees in McKinney.

I really enjoyed the competition and we won third place, apparently the first time the team has ever won a prize ($15 gift card to Dat Dog for Jack.)  The group gave me the MVP award for answering a few questions correctly.  “How many pounds in a stone?” was easy for someone who grew up in Scotland – not something Americans know.  I’m hoping this might become a regular Tuesday night event.

I tried Aidan Gill’s barber shop on Magazine street on Thursday afternoon.  I wanted to compare it to the other barber shop I tried during our residency.  Aidan greeted me personally, offering a shot of Irish whiskey, a draft Guinness or a soft drink.  He guessed that I was from East Kilbride based on what remains of my accent.  Not too far off.  Gill is from Dublin and moved to New Orleans many years ago.

Derek, who recently moved from Boston, gave me my haircut.  I think he did a good job, and he was full of restaurant and other recommendations.  I’ll be back to see these guys again soon.  Here’s an article from several years ago that talks about how Aidan led the resurgence in old school barber shops:

https://www.inc.com/best-industries-2011/the-king-of-the-barbershop-resurgence.html

I’ve been wanting to try Turkey and the Wolf sandwich shop for a while.  It has won many awards and has been featured on several television shows, including “Somebody Feed Phil.”  It was right around the corner from Aidan Gill, and seemed to be calling me.  This is the original restaurant from Mason Hereford who recently opened Hungry Eyes – a place near the condo that I really enjoy.

Their most famous sandwich is the collard green melt, and I decided to give it a try.  It was ridiculously delicious – collard greens, coleslaw and Russian dressing come together to create a fabulous combination, with just the right amount of spice.  Here’s the recipe if you’d like to attempt to recreate this:

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/the-collard-green-melt

I was irritated to find I’d left my credit card at Turkey and the Wolf when I got home.  Back across town to pick it up.

I dropped Denny, Anne, Fred and Kelly at the airport on Thursday evening.  They’re off to London to visit Brennen.  The NFL season opener was in progress when I got home.  I texted Campbell saying I thought the Lions were going to beat the Chiefs (defending champions.)  The Lions did win in a large upset.  I’m so excited to have football back.

We kept up our tradition of a late Friday lunch at the Columns on Friday.  It was quiet on the patio and not too hot.  Such a nice tradition.

On Saturday morning, we picked up Kara and drove over to the sculpture garden for early morning yoga.  No, I didn’t participate, choosing instead to do my puzzles and enjoy a coffee at Café du Monde.  I resisted the urge to order some beignets to go with my coffee.

I enjoyed college football and the US Open women’s final on Saturday afternoon.  Deion Sanders is doing some amazing things in Boulder at the University of Colorado.  Coco Gauff rallied nicely to win the Open.  Thom came over on Saturday evening to watch some of the University of Texas versus Alabama.  UT had a nice upset win.  It has been a big week for sports.  I’m currently watching the Saints season opener, and looking forward to the Cowboys game this evening.

I started “The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah this week.  All the sports watching resulted in slow progress.  The book starts in the Texas panhandle during the Great Depression, and is really good so far.  More to come next week.

I’ve been on a bit of a Tom Waits kick lately.  Here’s one of my favourites:

And here’s something that never gets old from Richard and Linda Thompson.  Sublime guitar.

Coexist peacefully, with kindness and compassion from all!

“First Week as New Orleans Residents”

We closed on our new house at 1520 Washington Avenue at 1pm on Monday.  The title company guys who facilitated the closing were fun local characters, with lots of good stories.  Their office was at 1521 Washington Avenue, directly across the street from our new home.

After closing, we met the guy who is going to refinish the floors and an air conditioning guy at the house.  Tommy, the air conditioning guy, was recommended by Fred, who let us know he was a real character who looked like Edgar Winter.  That was all true.  I enjoyed my time with Tommy quite a bit.  The picture is of him in the attic (natural habitat), surveying the duct work and units for improvements.

 

Diana was busy on Tuesday and Wednesday, coordinating the floor guys and a general contractor who is taking care of all the major things from the inspection report – replacing some siding, removing bad insulation, venting dryer and attic properly, adjusting cabinet and other doors, and so on.  The floor sanding is moving along well, and we should pick out the stain early next week.

 

Diana rewarded herself with oyster night (and frozen French 75) with Laura at Superior Seafood.  Well deserved!

Peg, our New Orleans realtor, came over on Wednesday evening with some nice champagne.  We enjoyed hanging out and telling stories for a few hours.

Meanwhile, the Krewe was enjoying the US Open tennis tournament in New York.

If you’re brave you can listen to Kenny performing at a Karaoke club after the tennis:

I received this picture from Amy.  Frankie and Molly look so sweet and calm, some of us know better.

I made the mistake of letting Sabine the cat out on Tuesday night.  Shaking her treat bag at both doors yielded no results and she ended up spending the night outside.  She was anxious to get in when Diana opened the door on Wednesday morning.  Doesn’t she look guilty in this picture?

 

 

I had made reservations at Mamou, a relatively new restaurant on the edge of the French Quarter that I had been looking forward to trying, for Thursday evening.  Then I noticed that John Fohl and friends, with special guest Joe Krown, were performing at the Pavilion of the two sisters in City Park at 6pm.  We love those musicians and especially an early show.

The average age of the audience was at least a decade older than us, and it was so pleasant to see that age group enjoying and responding so positively to the music, which we’re used to seeing in small clubs.  Jon Fohl was quite talkative between songs and shared some great stories.

One of those stories related to his song “The Right Hand of God.”  Apparently a neighbor had stopped in and asked what he was doing.  “Trying to finish up a few songs.”  “Ahh, doing God’s work.”  That gave Fohl the idea for the line, “The left had of Toussaint (famous New Orleans pianist, composer and producer) and the right hand of God.”

He also told a story about a session a few years back with Klaus Voormann.  Voormann was the bass player with all the Beatles members bands after they disbanded.  That’s how Fohl got to sing in the studio with Paul McCartney.  Here’s more about that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sideman’s_Journey

He did play my favourite song of his, “Do or Die”:

This was a such a pleasant and hassle free musical experience.

We followed that with another pleasant and casual affair, dinner at Café Degas.  This is a unique French bistro over by City Park.  Kenzie was our waitress.  She had waited on us when we went there with Tim and Dee and had suggested a wine that McD really enjoyed.  She even had a picture to show Kenzie.  “Sorry, we don’t have that one anymore, but I have an even better one.”

That wine was accompanied by lamb tartare, a pate plate and yummy mussels and fries.  This restaurant is something that would never exist in McKinney.

Campbell and Molly invited Kris and Cat to the Padres vs Giants baseball game on Friday night.  The Giants lost but they had a great time.  It makes us very happy that those guys are spending time together.

Saturday started with a run in the park, a visit to the house to check progress, and a wonderful brunch at Ruby Slipper.  We shared the cochon Benedict and loaded (very) tater tots.  It’s a bit dangerous that this place is a short walk from the new home.

When Mr. Willard finished the lawn on Friday, he asked me if we were going to the Garth Brooks concert at the Superdome on Saturday, as he was working the door.  I told him we were not.  Then, I read that tickets were going for $20 or less on the secondary market.  I took a look online and snapped up a couple for $25 a piece.  That’s a really good deal, and Diana loves Garth and hadn’t seen him before.

That’s how we ended up at the Superdome on Saturday night, with 50,000 of our friends.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band opened, followed by Lainey Wilson (another singer that Diana enjoys.)

Mr. Willard welcomed us at the door:

Garth put on a typically high energy, crowd pleasing show.  At least one member of the crowd was quite happy with “The Thunder Rolls”:

The crowd lights for “The River” were impressive:

Sunday was a lazy day.  I picked up Denny, Anne, Fred and Kelly from the airport in the afternoon, and Diana made a delicious shrimp pasta with cacio e pepe sauce.  I didn’t realize until dinner that they were off to London on Thursday, and then to Portugal from there.  I’m not feeling so badly about our extended stay now.  They’ll return the day before our belongings arrive at the new home.

We were sad that Tim’s daughter, Keeley, and her boyfriend weren’t able to make the trip to New Orleans for the long weekend.  Their flight from Philadelphia was delayed multiple times and ultimately canceled.  We were looking forward to giving them something interesting to look at in the French Quarter – the Southern Decadence festival parade, celebrating all things LGBTQ+:

http://www.southerndecadence.net/

My book this week was “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett.  I really enjoyed this read – kind of a slow burn that you need to settle into.  The story is told as a mother sharing her early life with her three daughters, and that approach works really well.  The last fifty or so pages are quite something.

Here’s the online summary:

“In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

“Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature.” —The Guardian

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.”

I enjoyed this passage about swimming – I agree that it really does provide a good “reset.”

“You said the lake was getting warmer,” Maisie yells. “If all hope is lost we should at least get a decent swim out of it.”

‘The four of us go out straight and strong. We don’t have a swim platform, we don’t have any destination at all; with a little orienteering we could swim to Wisconsin. I drop beneath the surface and open my eyes. It’s as if someone bought up all the diamonds at Tiffany’s and crushed them into dust, then spread the dust across the water so that it sifts down evenly, filtering through the shards of light that cut into the depth. We are swimming through eternity, my daughters’ bright mermaid legs kicking out towards deeper water. I stay beneath the surface and marvel for as long as my lungs can hold.

“Swimming is the reset button,” Pallace used to say. “Swimming starts the day again.”

A great simile – “like a border collie.”

“When I got older, my mother would watch me knitting a sweater at the breakfast table and say she was sorry she hadn’t paid more attention to her own mother’s attempts to teach her things. I tried a hundred times to teach her myself but my mother was like a border collie. She couldn’t sit still for it.”

Describing the rehab facility that Duke ends up in.  Just great writing:

“The room was smoky and crowded with people hunched into corners, trying to exchange sentences without being overheard.

It was the saddest bar in the world, the one in which no alcohol was served and everyone was waiting for the check so they could settle up and go home. Two women with clipboards were making the rounds, asking questions, marking people off. Magazines were piled on every surface and I picked one up because no one could find communion with George Eliot in those circum-stances. The caption beneath the picture of the famous model on the cover said she was looking for honesty.”

Something from the wonderful Joan Armatrading.  I had never heard this very first album.  Such a unique talent.

Another one from that excellent release:

Coexist peacefully, with kindness and compassion for all!