Nu Awlins

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In a couple days Lloyd and I will be on our way to New Orleans (oh yeah!)

Neither of us have ever been.  I received my Visitor's Guide in the mail about a month ago and it has since been dog-earred and has those colorful tabs you use in your college books to mark the real interesting stuff.  I have pulled up my packing list.  This is the list I started years ago when I would visit Lloyd in England.  It has all that stuff that I just MUST NOT  forget.  And my organized self has it in a folder in my documents called "To Pack".

I got to cross one item off that list this week.   My glasses.  Got lasik last year.  BOOM! No need for those things anymore.  Right on.

I have been excited to see New Orleans for the last 15 years.  I remember my dad and brother Chris took a spontaneous road trip there once.  And they came back with a picture of my dad dangling his pale feet in the Mississippi river.  He looked so happy. 

It was a funny picture to me because my dad was always really funny about exposing his feet and legs.  My dad was super dark complected, but his chicken legs and feet never saw sun.  As some folks round here tell it, he was born in trosuers and socks, but I guess some mysteries and legends just aren't meant to be solved.

And No.  Despite being a native East Los Angelean, Californian he wasn't a flip-flop wearer.  He traded off between his caballero boots and the occassional sneakers.  The closest he ever got to wearing sandals was when he wore those Miami Vice type slip-ons that he rocked, with socks, sometime in the late 80's.  Oh daddy. 

So now as I segway back to present tense I am just super amped.  Super excited.  I have loved jazz and blues music since I was a kid and my dad would pump up the volume in the house.  He would pull out his saxophone or trumpet and play, and it was lovely.

I look forward to walking down Bourbon street, Decatur and Frenchmen.  I am looking forward to passing through the French Quarter and hearing the musicians in all their lively glory.  I look forward to eating beignets and Cajun food and feeling guilty afterwards.  I look forward to taking an old-fashioned steam boat down the river, and most of all, I look forward to a chance to dangle my feet in the Mississippi. 

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