“Watch out for cabbages”
We made a fun trip to City Hall on Monday afternoon. In order to get a homestead exemption for property taxes, both homeowners need to show up with driver license and an electric bill (water bill doesn’t work.) A lot more work than in Texas. We entered the building via a side door and chuckled when walking past all the metal detectors and security at the main door – typical New Orleans. Once we sat down, the whole process took less than five minutes.
I had my teeth cleaned at the new dentist we found through Kelly on Wednesday. I was pleased with the thorough job. Kenny met me for lunch afterwards. We tried Mint on Freret (Vietnamese) and I was very happy with my lemongrass chicken banh mi. The French bread was wonderful. Cooper Manning was having lunch there – making it two sightings of him in a week.
I finally dropped off the four bags of Mardi Gras throws that have been in the trunk for a while at Whole Foods for recycling.
I watched the Netflix series “The Gentlemen” by Guy Richie over a couple of days – didn’t love it but it was entertaining.
We picked cousin Colin up at the airport on Thursday evening and fed him jambalaya to welcome him back to New Orleans.
I worked on Friday morning and then we took Colin for the Commanders Palace lunch experience – including the 25 cent martinis. They had a corned beef special for St. Patrick’s day – served on brioche bread with a poached egg on top. Colin wasn’t able to pass that up and really enjoyed it. I had my usual turtle soup, stuffed quail, and bread pudding soufflé.
In the afternoon, Diana and I worked on preparations for our St. Patrick’s parade watching party. Three full trays of cottage pie, haggis, dips, etc.
We had a great turnout on Saturday afternoon for the Irish Channel parade. There must have been thirty or forty folks through the house.
They still drop cabbages from the floats:
Some of the silly boys thought they would entertain Diana with hats decorated with silverware – reminding her that they swapped the drawers around on their last visit, and causing a squeak. Kenny appears to have fixed the squeak for now.
It has been very rainy so far today, so we just gave Colin a quick driving tour. Very few people out at the Tracey’s and Parasols block party so far.
I started a collection of Flannery O’Connor short stories this week. The first one is “The Geranium”, a pretty controversial story due to the racist views held by Old Dudley who moves from the South to stay with his daughter in New York. I ready strong articles for and against the story. It was originally published in 1946 and was part of O’ Connors’ Masters thesis.
Let’s start with the Irish classic:
Charles Lloyd released an excellent new album this week, at the age of 86. He has such a massive discography.
Coexist peacefully, with kindness and patience for all!