Palmed and Quartered

Hello, hello all my friends. Day 3 in New Orleans, day 2 blogging about it. Today could best be summed up by, well, get a visual in your mind - a visual of people walking. That was Mr M and I.

Now granted, we did have a nice sleep in this morning. We were getting calls from all sides of the family asking us where we were, what we had planned, etc etc, and we kept answering the phone and saying "ehhhhhhhhh. still asleep. go away."

We finally got going around noon and after a quick stop at Saks to get some wonder products for my hair (well, hopefully, more on that story as it develops), we headed to the French Quarter. We were looking for Preservation Hall, where the jazz happens. The icy snowy New Orleans turned today into the calm, sunny, and mildly warm New Orleans, and thankfully I was wearing only one jacket instead of the two I donned yesterday.

After winding our way over and back, down this street and across that one, we found Preservation Hall. It didn't open till 8pm, and so we did some more walking and picture-taking. We had lunch, then headed back to the room for a quick rest before going to the movies.

We went to see "Sideways." I made my 150th movie for the year! (I almost made it last night, actually, but we missed about the first 20 minutes of "Pulp Fiction" on cable.) I enjoyed the flick, enjoyed Paul Giamatti quite a bit, enjoyed the fact that the movie theatre sold coffee at the concession stand. It was packed to the gills, but it was a small room. Just odd to be in a theatre where every seat's taken. Doesn't happen much at home.

By the time we got out of the flick it was time to get ready for dinner. My sister and brother-in-law, the Social Directors of the trip, had already made reservations for us at a place called Mulates.

Now, I have trouble giving credit to her sometimes because she can get on my wick with her orders and scheduling, but I had a blast. Good food, seafood, live cajun music, and dancing. And Red Ale on tap.

After dinner Mr M and I caught a cab and went back down to Bourbon St and the French Quarter one last time. We zipped (well, as much as one can zip when walking through a sea of people) to Preservation Hall, only to find it full up and people lined up a block to get in. So we decided to go on a little walking quest to see if we could find some sort of alternative.

This is where things turn quite sad. Apparently the music New Orleans and the French Quarter are famous for seems to be something of a dying art. We may have seen a good Dixieland band yesterday, and a pretty good one hanging around this afternoon, but at night? In clubs? Forget it. Hell, we didn't even hear much of anything live, just rock and hip hop blasting out of speakers. I saw a blues band in a club, and a folk singer in an Irish pub. That was about it.

And so it was getting late and we were getting tired of trying, and we started back to the hotel. But not before I did something I've always wanted to do but never had the guts to - I had my palm read.

My palm reader was a man, I would have chosen a woman had there been one, but this guy was a menthol smoker, so that put me at ease. He was nice, and said all the vague general things fortune tellers are supposed to say, but I still enjoyed it. Apparently I don't need to worry about death or life-threatening illnesses till my late 70s or early 80s. I'm going to come into "a little money" (damn, he didn't even say "some money," it was "a little." I mean, that could be $1.50) quite soon, either connected with work or through a gift.

It all ended with him telling me I was a nice person, and I often got taken advantage of because of it. Well, that part was correct enough. Maybe I had it written all over my face.

And in conclusion, ladies and germs, for tomorrow I'm going back home, here was my tally for today:

* Danced a waltz with Mr M
* Danced a two-step with my dad
* Had a palm reading
* Caught my 150th movie
* Drank cup of coffee #8
* Braved a department store the day after Christmas
* Took a picture of a seriously big-ass accordion

It's going to be a long trip home tomorrow, but I'm ready. It's been fun here, but I'm ready.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* The big tsunami in Asia took place in a town called Phuket? You've got to be kidding me.