Jambalaya

I am down to my last few hours in New Orleans, and I am perched at the little cyber area in the exhibition hall, so I will make this quick. Last night I went to Napolean house and pretended to read Como Agua Para Chocolate in Spanish in the little courtyard. I descended further into gratuitous touristica when I went to Cafe du Monde and at three (count them three) beignets. I was on the phone with a friend of mine who was horrified by the possibility that I might return to my hotel room at a decent hour, and wanted to me get in a cab and go to some bar that might be called Rubyfoo or might be called Rubyfruit Jungle in the West End or "no, wait," he said "it is West Town." I did in fact call information but only found Ruby Tuesdays. I didn't want to wander to far afield and end up on my own, looking for a bar and coming up with nothing. So I stayed in the French Quarter. I went to hear some jazz in the Palm Court Cafe, which was very entertaining, they had Dixieland jazz and this gospel singer, who even sang some Hank Williams. Most of the people in the bar seemed to be locals and perhaps even regulars. There was this one woman who was particulary fun to watch because although she was likely around 73, she was dressed in this seafoam green dress and strappy high heeled red sandals. She was totally drunk and sort of weaved and bobbed around the restuarant, pulling the busboys and dishwashers out of the kitchen to dance with her. I met this nice woman, about my age, who talked to me about the weather in August and French Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest.

After the jazz place closed, I was heading down Decatur towards to hotel at a pretty close to decent hour and kept peering in little places to see if they might be worth going for a drink at. But I was getting sleeping and the fun of sitting by myself in a bar, looking expectantly for someone to talk with had exhausted itself for me, so I mosied on home. I was entertained all the way by the string of goth kids dressed in black leather bustiers and mesh, with big chunky boots that were obviously all headed for the same night club.