-i woke up this morn haunted after getting home from new orleans last night. i've gotten to go on many, many trips --- so lucky in that & many other ways -- but've never experienced THIS, the feeling i should still be there or left part of me there. went to new orleans once before & didn't leave with that sense... james, sometimes such the pragmatist, said simply, "oh, you got jetlag."
-so for now i'll just write about what i ate bc too much more would overwhelm me again, & i'm sitting here in bakersfield (angie & mama picked me up so i could be here w the family while james is down south tomorrow, i hope w/his!), sitting here at mama's computer NOT feeling haunted, so wanna not go there...1. at LAX, shake shack burger & black & white shake (gave james half the burger, which was delicious)
2. on plane, the "tapas" box, which was filled w/stuff like almonds & hummus & a fig bar...
3. once in new orleans, we ate at praline connection on frenchman st (more live music -- most of it pretty good! -- in one place than we've ever seen, including at sxsw!) & i had file gumbo, little slices of gator sausage on bed of lettuce (which we shared), buttered bread, & a real rootbeer (not diet!)
4. next morn i ate plane leftovers (little crispy cookies) while waiting for james to wake up
5. at nearby who dat coffee house, a cup of grits w/cheese & a buttered biscuit w/jam... & coffee
6. beignet with powdered sugar at cafe beignet in french quarter
7. apple, some jambalaya, some fancy salad from matassa's market (owned by cosimo matassa's sons!)
8. a snickers ice cream bar (i went to get james some medicine & stopped off at dollar tree)
9. late-night grub ordered in from verti marte on suggestion of house mom marlene: broccoli w/fettucini alfredo
10. then next day 2 buttermilk donut drops from mardi gras zone, now my favorite place in the world... and community coffee, the best on earth
11. then i don't remember... it rained like hell that day... braved the buckets to get pix of rampart & dumaine (from prof longhair's song "go to the mardi gras," of course) as well as cosimo matassa plaque
11. oh yeah; another beignet & coffee from cafe du monde, then two bites of gator on a stick before i gave it to james
12. we tried to go to elizabeth's in the bywater, but it was closing, so we went to liuzza's on the track & i had a cup of gumbo & garlic bread w/butter
13. that night after seeing nathan & the zydeco cha-chas at rock 'n' bowl, we went to camellia grill (disappointing this time w/o the burly cadre of loud-talking, loud-joking handsome waitstaff) & i had red beans & rice & white toast w/butter (shared w/james) (haunted to see a waiter from last time on a large poster w/many other waiters reading "rest in peace"... what happened to them all??? i was last there in 2009, which was after katrina... what happened?!?! how could so many of them have passed away in the last 8.5 years???)
14. next morn, two more buttermilk donut drops & coffee from mardi gras zone
15. we visited fats domino's house in the lower ninth ward, set to be a museum, & cried & rampaged together due to the reality of this place called new orleans (in addition to all the wonderful, it's segregated, gentrified, & home to the horrific & horrifically-handled tragedy, hurricane katrina). then we had lunch at joey k's on magazine street, which reminded me unpleasantly of west LA (specially after where we'd just been, felt like spitting on the affluent-looking white tourists & garden district rich people), but we enjoyed our last hurrah meal: shared appetizer of breaded fried eggplant smothered w/creole white sauce & topped w/shrimp & my dish, appetizer portion of shrimp remoulade salad
17. on plane home, hummus w/crackers
this morn... prunes.
i could write a whole lot more, but don't think i will. yet rereading this, i see i was unable to keep the haunted feelings from creeping into this post. that is as it should be.
next time we go, which i hope will be soon, there will be so much more to see... hope i will reconcile my feelings about stirring, romantic, devastated, & indelible ville de nouvelle-orleans before then. i've only been there one other time, but palpably so much had changed since before: geographically, it was less ruined, the piles of hurricane debris & destroyed houses long-gone, but where were all the locals this time, the ones male or female who called you "baby" in that heart-breaking drawl? where were the people mingling freely, irrespective of age or race?
"a person would have to have no heart to see this & not feel something." - james
