It was 80 degrees on Monday, warm enough that I walked along the river and sat in the sun in a few places to try to bake the head cold away. I think the bagpiper practicing was probably more effective than the sun. I can’t imagine a better place to practice the bagpipes than across the tracks on the levee playing out toward the big river, but still the music must be an acquired taste. It was a good long walk through the Quarter. I went over to Buffa’s to watch a little football and get some red beans, but they had run out of beans on a Monday.

On Tuesday it was 40 headed for 32 overnight. A cold snap in New Orleans shuts the city down. Walking the neighborhood was like walking in a ghost town. I had a monster 4 1/2 hour tattooing session with Jamie Ruth, finishing one chest panel with the orcas and pumped a lot of color into the back. It is starting to look good, and you can see the plan coming together. It was hard for me to imagine from the line work, but the color completion of some of the major elements is making the art pop.

The longer tattooing sessions are tough, with the pain increasing as time goes on. The first hour or so is good except on sensitive spots(you have no idea how big the subcutaneous male nipple is), and after that it just gets worse. The sharpie used to sketch out detail starts to hurt, and then when the ink pen starts to work it gets hard to sit still. I know I am done when I start uncontrollably shivering, with the skin just saying “no more”. If all goes to plan, we will be done before Christmas, then let it heal solid for six or eight weeks, then go back and re-color those spots that need it and do some highlighting, and do that again next fall.

I rewarded myself with a oyster po-boy at Bamboula’s. Frenchmen Street was deserted, with less foot traffic than I think I have ever seen there. A few bands were playing their late afternoon gigs to a couple of people. I heard a nice set from a hard jazz quintet, all younger black guys. They looked like the geek squad from a local HS grown up a bit, and played well, with a clarinet leading the band. I didn’t recognize the songs played in bop style, which means they were probably mostly original. New Orleans is a great place to be when a sandwich and a beer at 5 pm means fried oysters and great music.

I was able to keep up with the cold overnight with the space heaters, around 60 in the condo, and it is supposed to warm up over the next few days.

The cold day meant a good day to walk the Quarter, staying on the sunny side of the street. I took advantage of the empty streets to explore Bourbon Street a little farther uptown than I usually do, cementing the location of The Old Absinthe House and Belle Époque in my mental geography. The Belle Époque is a speakeasy style absinthe bar through a “hidden” door in the main bar of the Old Absinthe House. It is run by a chef and bartender who designed the SouBou bar program, and features 1890s absinthe fountains originally from France. It will be a fun place to check out.

I picked up a couple of packages and made groceries, as they say, before the head cold caught up with me making the cold night not inviting for anything other than a mellow evening.

I’m learning more about banana trees, successfully dropping a healthy large leaner that was endangering the back fence and another that was a little too close to the neighbor’s roof. It is fun playing with the cutlass, and I filled a couple of trash cans with banana parts. It was pushing 80 degrees, a good thing for November.

Susie had a package of dog food delivered too late as she had left for Florida, and asked me to take it down to Harry’s for Beverly. I walked it down, and handed it over to the bartender. I had a good conversation with a woman who had grown up in Gonzales, LA in the 1960s and was bubbling over with stories about the first integrated schools. She was impressed that the bar would hold packages for people, and exclaimed that she liked living in the Quarter because it was more like a village than the small town she had grown up in.

I had a boudin at 13, my first this visit. It was worth going back for this one. It is a sausage casing filled with rice and pork with a good mild spice served with tots for $8. The beer is too expensive, but that is a good meal on Frenchmen Street for less than $10.

Last week I was watching the World Series and the woman sitting next to me said she was excited about the Cuban band coming to town to play at Snug Harbor and several other venues over a long weekend. I bought tickets not knowing a lot about the band, the Roberto Carcasses Quartet, and then read a good piece in Offbeat about their trip. They are on one of the last approved cultural exchanges from Cuba, the flip side of Preservation Hall going to Cuba, and they chose New Orleans for the music culture. He plays in several configurations, with the quartet playing more improvisational jazz and the bigger ensembles playing more dance and party music.

I appreciate Snug Harbor as the best place to hear serious music on Frenchmen Street, with a lot of good music out there. I got lucky and found my second favorite seat in the room in the back corner, and found myself seated next to a reporter/reviewer for Jazz Times and Bobbie Carcasses, Roberto’s father and a singer. The quartet itself is all rhythm instruments, piano, congas, drums, and bass. Roberto is a large man, tall with big hands, and he plays the piano in the Chucho Valdes style. He opened with a couple of original solo piano pieces, and then brought the band up to add the rhythm. Bobbie got up and opened with scat singing after singing the praises of New Orleans, and sang with the band for a couple more songs. A female singer singing salsa rounded the night out. It was a great show.

Lying low fighting off a head cold, but Shawn Williams was playing in the afternoon at Cafe Negril. I see her all the time at the coffee shop, and thought I should go see her play. She is a country-rock guitar player and singer/songwriter who throws in an occasional Springsteen cover or 70s-80s pop medley. She has a drummer and a fiddle player who adds a lot to the singer-songwriter sound. It was an odd time of day to seek out music so I was not entirely surprised to see an almost empty bar. There was a group of about ten 30-something frat boys looking like a bachelor party ordering their first drinks of the afternoon, each wanting a recitation of the beer list from the bartender and paying with a card, and then each bought a shot, for a total of 20 transactions when they could have bought two pitchers of beer and a tray of shots. Anyway, when they finished and left after not listening or tipping the band, it was me and one other old guy in the bar. Shawn conversed with us from the stage, recognizing me from Envie, and played some originals she was working on. It was kind of awkward for half a set, and then a couple of groups of tourists walked in filling the place up. It was a good set of music, not in my favorite genre, but it is worth paying attention to her schedule.

People take football seriously here. The LSU/Bama party at Ellen’s porch was a big one, with about thirty people gathered around a couple of televisions on the porch and in the yard. The Alabama fans sequestered themselves in the house to avoid the razzing. It was a good game, but if they had played another 5 minutes LSU would have lost. The Saints did lose the next morning in a lack-lustre game that put the whole Quarter in a funk.

A couple of re-enactors of the slave rebellion of 1811 walked by the football party, and Kappa Horn stopped by to talk about her gallery opening. There is so much going on that you can’t possibly do all the fun stuff, but there is a creeping fear of missing out. The best plan is to just keep my ears open and make the effort to do something new when it catches my eye.

A roach, one of the little brown ones, also caught my eye-the first I have seen in our place. Time to be a little more serious about food storage and cleanliness. I haven’t yet done the deep clean of the kitchen this Fall, and maybe it is time to do that and add some insecticide to the program. Another couple hours of tattooing tomorrow, and Victoria from Craig arrives later in the week for a long weekend, and her impending arrival is making me think about some of the stuff I know about but haven’t done yet like Muriel’s Seance Room or the M.S. Rau antique shop and private collection.

I took the lazy man’s way out of a tech problem by upgrading the iPad to an iPad Pro with more memory. It will put off the day when my memory fills up and I can’t load photos anymore. I didn’t consider the amount of memory Lightroom uses locally, figuring I had solved my storage problem by storing the photos on the cloud. Just the cached local files in Lightroom, about 8 gigs worth, froze my old iPad.

I braved the trip out of the old city and into Metairie and the mall. It is a culture shock to go from the French Quarter and Marigny to the modern world, with all of consumer America fully on display. It was good to walk through the Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware and sit in the chairs I don’t quite want to buy. I found the Apple store, and joined the queue to talk to a salesperson. Apple has it figured out, and I got my questions answered before pulling the trigger on a Pro with a middling amount of memory, but 8 times what I had before, a keyboard and a pencil. Now I just have to do a better job of learning what this thing can do. It does have a USB port but supports limited accessories, and I will have to do some research before figuring out how to use it.

I rushed back to join Susie’s quincinera for her dog, Fred. The birthday party was a thinly veiled excuse for a going away party on Susie’s last day in town for a while as she heads to Florida for the winter. She had arranged for a stilt walker, had decorated a cart to pull the dog through the Quarter, and brought party hats. Beverly joined in spectacular makeup, including feathered eyelashes and a fur hat We met at the Original Johnnie White’s, joined by Susie’s regular customers from years past, and had a very small second line down the sidewalk, with Susie walking the dogs in front, followed by Alison the stilt walker, me carrying the boom box, and the decorated dog cart with a tub of margaritas. Locals on Bourbon Street got the idea, but tourists appeared bemused, some entertained and some irritated by the frivolity. We marched down Bourbon and Royal Streets, trying to keep moving so we didn’t get arrested(somebody blow the whistle), and ended at the Abbey on Decatur. We went into the back private courtyard, another great spot I had no idea existed, and were joined by more of Fred’s fans, including the owner of the bar, Joan.

I sat for a set, okay two, at the Madison, sitting a couple of feet from the stage as Aurora Nealand and the Royal Rounders played. She is definitely one of my favorites, and friends of hers with small children came and danced in the doorway as she played. I ran into Seker and Roscoe on the way home, and made too late a night of it following him from the R Bar to the Apple Barrel and back. An action packed day!

It was a great weekend. Friday evening, the official Day of the Dead, I got some more ink. This time Jamie Ruth worked on the octopus with lots of red and orange. As has been the pattern, the area to be tattooed overwhelmed the time we had available, and we pumped lots of color into about half the critter before wearing out. Another three or four hours next week, and Jamie Ruth thinks maybe three more sessions after that. Getting close, but I think she is an optimist. The tattooing kicks up a histamine reaction as the skin rebels and I’m a little out of it for a couple of days. Friday night was a burger at Buffa’s and chilling.

Saturday was a clear cool day, and I took advantage to walk up to the grocery store and do some yard work. I filled a garbage can with leaves and sticks from the sidewalk along the building and sawed down some palm fronds that were banging against the side of the building. The highlight of that was banging my head hard against the air conditioner as I shoveled the leaves. Not a lot of blood, but a headache for a couple of hours.

Ken invited me to come out with the Touro Street crew to see James, a neighbor, play in a band at Bamboula’s on Frenchmen Street. Bamboula’s is a restaurant that has live music all day with a small jazz and blues oriented stage in the front of the house. I met with folks on Ellen’s porch, and they were dressed in glitter and sequins, wigs and makeup. I was a little more subdued. We got to the venue, and were directed down a side alley to a back room that I had not known existed. The band name was Glamarama, and the seven piece band covered glam rock, a lot of David Bowie. The lead singer was a man in his 60s, wearing heavy makeup and glitter who seemed to change costumes every three or four songs. His last and flashiest costume included a black and gold sequined tuxedo jacket like the one in my closet. I was almost ashamed to have missed the costuming memo. James, the Touro Street chef, played lead guitar, and Blythe, another neighbor, was a backup singer. She was dressed in a skin tight glittered and patterned jumpsuit, quite a change from her mild street persona. It was good to see a different side of all these folks.

I stopped in for a set from Big Sam’s Funky Nation at the Blue Nile in part to hear a different style of music before calling it a night. It was not too crowded, and a good show but a late night.

Sunday I walked over to the other end of the Quarter with my camera to take some photos of the the collapsed Hard Rock Cafe hotel on Rampart and Canal. The streets and streetcar lines are blocked off around the area, and it will continue to be a traffic problem for a while. It will be interesting to see how they deal with the mess as the lawyers get involved. I imagine the legal wrangling will last decades, but they can’t really leave the hazardous building up for long. Already people are getting frustrated with the disruption. I took the tour down to the new Sazarac House, closed on Sundays, but probably worth a return visit. The Chart Room was full, so I continued on to Johnny White’s where I ran into Ken and Cindy who were also on a stroll through the Quarter. Ken insisted on trying a Skrewball whiskey, a peanut butter flavored whiskey. The bartender suggested a layer of that with chambord for a peanut butter and jelly shot. I see a future happy hour concoction. Cindy is a fortune teller and general all round mystic, and as we worked our way back to the neighborhood she stopped in a voodoo shop for pieces and parts. I’d never been in a voodoo shop with a practitioner, so it was fun to see her skip right past the dolls and shrunken heads to sort through the incense to get just the right one for the altar.

I ran out of motivation, skipping the Frenchmen Street music scene for the evening in favor of wrestling with the photo management programs on the IPad. It is a little frustrating, but I think it will work okay eventually. Another tenant meeting this afternoon, hopefully finalizing the termite tenting, and a ticket to hear a band from Cuba at Snug Harbor on Thursday, followed by LSU vs. Alabama on Saturday and the Saints on Sunday on the Touro Street porch on the weekend.

IIt was a cool day to take a camera for a walk around the Quarter in the sunshine. I walked past Jackson Square to the CVS. A third or so of the people were in costume already, another third looked like they were working on one, and some folks just looked perplexed by the whole Halloween thing and were carrying on with their Thursday. I bought a coffee from a barista with a huge pink wig, every bit of three feet tall, and sat for a few minutes in front of the Cathedral. There was a magic show with recorded music and a large crowd, right in front of the church, but I was able to find a good spot between two fortune tellers.

A wedding procession came from the square into the plaza in front of the church, all dressed in skeleton outfits and playing music. The ceremony was short, and hard to distinguish from the programmed show, but the wedding party immediately broke into a second line headed through the plaza towards Bourbon Street. If your wedding didn’t include costumed skeletons playing brass instruments, I guess you just missed out. There were a couple of apparently professional pirates hanging out at the entrance to Pirates Alley, soliciting tips for photos with their elaborate costumes. I thought perhaps they were very good Halloween costumes until I saw them putting the arm on the tourist crowd.

I had a beer at Harry’s, and there was a presentation on the street in front of the Voodoo Authentica store and museum. The presenters were dressed in white, explaining the tenets of Voodoo, playing drums, chanting and dancing. The crowd was a mix of school kids in costume-zombies and superheroes, adults in various stages of costuming, and apparent Voodoo adherents singing along and participating in the dancing. Halloween and All Saints Day, or the Day of the Dead, are apparently the highest holidays in the Voodoo system, and the faithful were there to explain it.

I got dressed for Halloween, reprising the dark cape, deer bone vest, and a mask over dark clothes, and took a walk. I started at Tujague’s with an old fashioned with Melissa. A ghost tour was starting there at the time I got there, and there were 50 people milling about waiting for drinks poured out of a plastic jug-hurricanes, perhaps. As i walked out the bathroom with my hood pulled over the black mask, I startled a man who said “Jesus Christ” and dropped his drink. I’m guessing it was scary enough.

I wandered towards Molly’s and by now everyone was in costume. The band at the Checkpoint Charlies, The Bad Sandys, was a really good rockabilly band with a female lead singer and a guitarist playing the surf guitar sound. There was a woman out for Halloween just standing silently in a corner. She was bald with scarification ridges along her skull above her ears and pierced cheeks, through which she had attached elaborate jewelry, kind of a cross between a necklace and earrings. I’m guessing Halloween is her high holiday as well.

I walked Frenchmen Street and listened to the brass band for a few songs, and saw a mirrored percussion wagon being played by 8 or ten costumed musicians. It was on wheels, and they slowly pulled it along the street playing all sorts of drums, bells, cymbals and homemade stuff. I stopped for a short set from Meschiya Lake(I think-it is hard to tell with the costumes) at the Spotted Cat, surrounded by a group of 50ish Debbie Harrys who were a little put off by the scary costume-they were enjoying the role play of black tights, leather jackets, and blonde wigs. The R Bar was spilling over into the street as I passed on the way home. It looked like the night was just starting for some folks.

As they say about party season in New Orleans, it is a marathon not a sprint. Tonight, Halloween proper, will be mid-way through the Halloween fortnight, beginning with the Krewe of Boo parade two weekends prior, Halloween parties and shows the weekend before, and ending with the Day of the Dead second lines the weekend after.

As Halloween approaches, it gets harder to play the costume or street clothes game. Is the man wearing camouflage trousers, a National Park Service parka and carrying a camera playing some obscure character from a movie-the villain from Jumanji, perhaps? Or are these the warmest clothes a real tourist brought with him? Is the woman with heavy makeup, elaborate hair, and glitter wearing a cheerleader dress in costume as a burlesque dancer or is she the real thing? Black and gold sequined jacket over black tights and a gold top hat-flashy costume or Saints fan on the way to work? Dressed like a punk rocker or gutter punk or working musician? Sometimes there are clear giveaways, like a punk wearing a blanket as an outer layer or pumpkin-themed attire, but the skulls and bones are common enough daily wear that you have to look close. It’s a good game you can play almost year round, and perhaps a photo project inspiration.

I overheard a young woman dressed like a gutter punk, in all black, showing a lot of skin and piercings, describing the difference between being a traveler and a hobo(on her iPhone, which I’m thinking throws her clearly in the poseur category). “We choose to be homeless.” I had John Travolta in my ear saying “Isn’t that just a bum?”

I finally made it to the newly renovated Historic New Orleans Collection museum. It is a beautifully restored three story townhouse with a huge courtyard that has a nice cafe and gift shop. They went for museum modern rather than period replication, but some of the architectural details were maintained, including the well in the courtyard. The old paving stones were still present, and the round well, about a foot under the modern floor of the courtyard showed the water table that rises and falls with the Mississippi-currently about 18 inches under the city. I enjoyed the maps and an exhibit of colored drawings of the city and river life from the early 19th century. In general, I think the collection would be hard to understand if you did not have a good grounding in New Orleans history, but they do have a large staff and offer frequent tours.

I watched the World Series finale at Buffa’s over a plate of red beans. Buffa’s red beans are the straight down the middle comfort food version, just right without being showy. I’m glad the Nats won, but it carried none of the emotional power of a Cubs win. It was like hearing your neighbor won the lottery-good for you, but…. I ran into our former tenant Pam in the courtyard as she was visiting the upstairs neighbors, and she is in person lie she is long distance-scattered and apologetic, very interested in trying to make it seem like she is doing the right thing without actually doing it. She told some stories about our problem neighbor Steve, and explained that she had locked herself out and he had “helped” by trying to break in to our house with a pipe wrench on the door knob. I was glad to hear that it wasn’t a burglar in the courtyard, and had a suspicion that Steve had something to do with the scratched up door. I’m glad to no longer be in a business relationship with her. I think running into her on the street every now and again will be plenty.

I need to develop a better plan for Halloween this evening, but I’m sure it will fall together. I will be out in full photographer mode for the Day of the Dead second line-a nice warmup for Mardi Gras.

As I was sitting in Envie, writing the last entry, I was next to young woman who looked vaguely familiar. We had pleasant “pass the hot sauce” kind of conversation, and then as I left I saw that she had placed a flyer on the bulletin board. She is Shawn Wiiliams, a country-rock performer who I have seen a couple of times on Frenchmen Street. Now I will have to seek her shows out. Gotta love New Orleans!

I had a nice afternoon of yard work after walking up to Mary’s to buy a machete. It would make a great cutlass for a pirate costume but I’m guessing I might get arrested if i carry it into the bar. It was nice to have a sharp one instead of the dull and rusted version that had been living in the courtyard. One slice through a 10 inch banana tree. it felt like Kill Bill. It was too bad that the tree that broke in the storm was the one bearing fruit. I was looking forward to the experiment, but glad to get the fallen bananas out of the yard before the critters figured it out. The neighborhood cat patrols the back fence but does not have much intimidation value for the squirrels and possums.

I sat at the bar at dba just prior to the John Boutte show and ordered a drink. John came down from the performer’s lounge above the stage to shake my hand. It is good to be recognized. dba is a magical place, a small room with great music. It is probably a function of going deaf, but I really appreciate being able to feel the live stand up bass and piano played by world class musicians in the intimate setting. I saw several people I recognized, and there were some clearly local folks singing with the correct responses to some of the more obscure songs, and reminding John from the audience that his birthday was coming up. He was in good voice, and started out with softer ballads ramping up to more up-tempo songs as the set built. The show reminded me, if I needed it, why New Orleans is the place to be. it was so much better that trying to decide what to watch on Netflix.

I walked Frenchmen, and tipped a couple of guys playing a parlor guitar and accordion. As I got close I could see the guitar player had badly burned lips from a meth or crack pipe. he flashed the “white power” upside down “OK” sign, and asked if I knew what it meant. I told him no, and he said ominously “You will.” I really don’t think of Frenchmen Street as a redoubt of white nationalism so this was a little disconcerting, but I guess street people are odd everywhere.

We had a condo association meeting, hosted in our place because the courtyard was a little wet. The change in Airbnb regulations has put a lot of things in flux, with several of the units changing hands and others going on the market soon. The paperwork is a mess, with the last president of the association beginning to formalize the association and stopping in the middle when he sold his unit. I’m hoping the current president has her stuff together enough to jump through the required hurdles for banking and insurance. The termite situation is scary, with our regular termite contract lapsing for non-payment last month, but being renewed, and still no action on tenting and fumigating for the carpenter termites. Theoretically it is going forward soon, but I thought it was going to be done in April or May. I’m colossally ignorant about termites as only a Uber-yankee can be, but am afraid that there may be a lot of damage that we will find on inspection, and not a lot of interest among the current owners group in dealing with it. I understood we were buying location, and that there might be structural problems that decreased the value of our place as an investment, but it is harder to stare it in the face. I never have thought much like a businessman and sometimes romanticism costs. We will see how it plays out, with a big bug bomb soon and the status quo being a good outcome.

I got sucked into the baseball vortex, watching the Nats win the next to last game of the World Series at the Great American Sports Saloon, known among the Touro crowd as the Ass bar, or the Great Ass bar, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing. New Orleans is not a baseball town, with just a couple of out of town Houstonians interested in the frigging World Series at a sports bar. This is the place where no businesses are open during LSU or Saints football unless they are hosting a football party. I was the only Nats supporter in the room, and the Houston fans were surprisingly polite and good baseball fans, meaning they were knowledagle about the game and their team, and actually paid attention to the important parts of the game.

I walked back through Frenchmen Street through the rain, and it was hard to walk by those swinging doors with brass bands playing, but it is probably better to plan for a late night. Next week, but first Game 7!

I walked through the Quarter to the hardware store, seeing Katie Leese selling art in Jackson Square on the way. I went to Mary’s and then home to pick up a piece of fish to give her. The storm had broken and the tourists were out in force. I wound my way through the Quarter, re-acquainting myself with the sights and smells. It is a good place to be.

I delivered the smoked salmon, but Katie was busy selling( a good thing) so we didn’t have time to chat. I went to the drugstore for more stuff-it seems like, even with a fully furnished place, that you are always missing something silly, this time a micro sized screwdriver to replace the battery in a thermometer. I was dragging my haul back, trying an alternate route home, and was flagged down by Vince and Tayja from the third floor balcony of the Four Points. They rent out a couple of rooms with balconies overlooking Bourbon Street for Halloween. I walked up and had a nice conversation with the neighbors for a little while, enjoying the not too crazy early afternoon vibe on the street. They planned on partying on the balcony all night, and invited me back for the evening show as long as I was properly costumed. They were definitely in the pirate theme, with Tayja overflowing her wench outfit and Vince rocking a pair of high boots.

On the way home I stopped at Ellen’s porch for a few minutes of the LSU game(you gotta do what you gotta do) and got to watch James, the neighborhood chef, put together a keto-friendly gumbo on a convection plate on a folding chair on the porch while watching football. He was using fresh okra, no roux(apparently too many carbs in the flour?), andouille, chicken, the trinity, and Ro-tel tomatoes, one small can. He was able to control the heat well with the convection plate, simmering things the way he wanted. I tasted it before it cooked down for the four hours before party time, and it was just about right, although I haven’t met too many gumbos I didn’t like. The fun part for me was watching go together in the absence of a kitchen. Apparently I have been overthinking the whole thing.

The main event was the Touro Street costume party at Jill’s house. Everyone was in costume, and Gypsy was particularly impressed with the energy that came from my deer spine walking stick. It was good to connect with the Touro Street Irregulars and to meet some new folks, but it not a great aid to the memory to have everyone in costume and some people adopting the persona of their outfits on the first weekend back in the city. There was great food, red beans and rice, gumbo, sandwiches and lots of cookies. It didn’t help I walked through the Quarter to the hardware store, seeing Katie Leese selling art in Jackson Square on the way. I went to Mary’s and then home to pick up a piece of fish to give her. The storm had broken and the tourists were out in force. I wound my way through the Quarter, re-acquainting myself with the sights and smells. It is a good place to be.

I delivered the smoked salmon, but Katie was busy selling( a good thing) so we didn’t have time to chat. I went to the drugstore for more stuff-it seems like, even with a fully furnished place, that you are always missing something silly, this time a micro sized screwdriver to replace the battery in a thermometer. I was dragging my haul back, trying an alternate route home, and was flagged down by Vince and Tayja from the third floor balcony of the Four Points. They rent out a couple of rooms with balconies overlooking Bourbon Street for Halloween. I walked up and had a nice conversation with the neighbors for a little while, enjoying the not too crazy early afternoon vibe on the street. They planned on partying on the balcony all night, and invited me back for the evening show as long as I was properly costumed. They were definitely in the pirate theme, with Tayja overflowing her wench outfit and Vince rocking a pair of high boots.

On the way home I stopped at Ellen’s porch for a few minutes of the LSU game(you gotta do what you gotta do) and got to watch James, the neighborhood chef, put together a keto-friendly gumbo on a convection plate on a folding chair on the porch while watching football. He was using fresh okra, no roux(apparently too many carbs in the flour?), andouille, chicken, the trinity, and Ro-tel tomato’s, one small can. He was able to control the heat well with the convection plate, simmering things the way he wanted. I tasted it before it cooked down for the four hours before party time, and it was just about right, although I haven’t met too many gumbos I didn’t like. The fun part for me was watching go tether in the absence of a kitchen. Apparently I have been overthinking the whole thing.

The main event of the evening was the Touro Street costume party at Jill’s house. Everyone was in costume, and Gypsy was particularly impressed with the energy that came from my deer spine walking stick. It was good to connect with the Touro Street Irregulars and to meet some new folks, but it not a great aid to the memory to have everyone in costume and some people adopting the persona of their outfits on my first weekend back in the city. There was great food, red beans and rice, gumbo, sandwiches and lots of cookies. It didn’t help much to soak up the whiskey, but it was a valiant effort.

I took a walk down Bourbon Street with Seker, who had a performative kind of costume, a blazer labeled “Fake News” and a microphone. He mock-interviewed people, recording 30 seconds at a time. Surprisingly, he only got punched once. The crowd was a bit much at 10PM on Bourbon, wall to wall people, and the balcony had been abandoned. I went up and knocked, but it was a swing and a miss on the balcony party. After getting separated a couple of times in the crowd, Seker and I made it back to the Touro Street party to be chastised for not drinking enough of the liquor. I made it home to find that someone had tried to jimmy the gate lock, apparently unsuccessfully, and to run into Vince and Tayja who had given up on the balcony in favor of the Dungeon( a new one for me) but were also out of steam around midnight.

Sundays in New Orleans mean Saints football, and I was given the chair of honor on Ellen’s porch, right in front of the television, because the usual occupant was at the Dome for the game. One of Ellen’s or Judy’s nieces brought over a Doberman, which politely greeted everyone seated on the porch, and then set up shop in the living room of the side hall shotgun house. No one got past her to bathroom or the refrigerator without permission from her owner. Nobody got bit, but she was in full on stiff legged, hair raised, low growling protecting her space mode. There was no misinterpreting the communication, and it interesting to see how differently different dog breeds are wired. I can’t imagine a border collie doing that.

The Saints won big, and the food left over from the Halloween party was as good the second day. Jill’s friend Jenna showed up at halftime, a large woman in a little gold sequined dress, and hooted and hollered for a solid two hours. Everybody walking down the street got a full share of Who Dat, or perhaps a little more than they wanted.

I left after the game to walk to the store, fix the gate lock, and get a nap in before the World Series. I returned to Touro Street to find the party still going, 24 hours by my count, with football game number three on the tube and a slightly different cast of characters rooting loudly, mostly against the Packers. I am not sure football was the main attraction. Miss Jenna was gone, but I was still being chastised for not helping with the oversupply of hard liquor.

This was not a bad first weekend back, although I have not been out for live music other than street music here and there, but with more social interaction than months in Craig, most of it good. And Halloween isn’t until Thursday…

I had a weekend in Ketchikan, helping Deanna with medical stuff. This meant a long ferry ride and hanging out for a few days. I turned around and got on an Island Air flight, on which I knew everyone. Despite a mechanical, we were the only flight of the day to make it into Ketchikan ahead of a big winter storm. It was a long layover in Seattle. The airport is being remodeled, and Anthony’s, the big restaurant that was a go-to spot, is no more. They haven’t quite replaced it yet, so this may be the only airport in America with not enough bar space.

I made it into New Orleans, and a chatty cab driver welcomed back as a resident rather than a tourist. As we drove through the the Treme, she remarked about how quiet it was as compared to pre-Katrina when everyone would be out on their porches, cooking and eating and drinking all the time. The water didn’t come until after the hurricane left, and everyone was partying in the street, celebrating the end of the hurricane when things got bad. The neighborhood is like a ghost of itself. She talked politics and road construction, and stayed as I fumbled with the lock box. I wasn’t able to open it or the new gate lock, but the other gate was open and I was able to squirm along the side of the house in the dark to the courtyard. A tree had come down in the walkway, but it only snagged my luggage. The condo looked clean and nice when I got in, and I’m ready to unpack.

As I type at Envie, it’s a strange feeling to be familiar with the place but not yet a regular. The staff has turned over, and there are a few faces I remember but a bunch of new people mixed in with the tourists. It is fun to walk through the French Quarter as home, even with the gap of months away. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with friends as the week goes on, with Halloween weekend and football coming right up.

After the first disorienting hours, based mostly on the long travel, things are falling into place. I walked up to the Robert’s to stock the house and ran into Jamie Ruth, my tattoo artist, and saw a few familiar faces. Susie arrived back in town for a few days, and got the condo association together, or at least Susie, Vince, Tayja, Kristen and Susie’s handyman, Tim. we toured the Johnnie White’s establishments on Bourbon and St. Peter, and then on to Harry’s Corner and Buffa’s. A pub crawl on the first night back was just the ticket.

I spent the afternoon with Jamie Ruth, and added a bunch of color to my chest and tied the sleeves into the chest pieces. I swore I wouldn’t get tattooed in the armpit again, but it was hard to say which was worse-nipple, collarbone or armpit. The first hour is kind of mellow and relaxing, and it is downhill from there. After hour three or so, everything hurts and I just don’t want to sit any more. We pumped a lot of color, but it was time to quit.

The shop was busy, with four artists going at once. The house phone rang, and apparently somebody asked about piercing. Walter, a 50-something biker looking guy with neck tattoos, not inappropriate for a tattoo artist, told the woman on the other end in a whiskey and cigarettes voice, “Sorry, we don’t pierce, we only penetrate.” It was a short conversation.

I met with Chris for a sandwich at Buffa’s in a huge rainstorm, the remnants of Olga, hopefully the last of the tropical storms. It is still the shoulder season for hurricanes but hopefully the weather will turn for good in the next couple of weeks. I headed for home and saw a twenty-something woman walking up the street in the downpour, dressed in tall rubber boots, jeans shorts, and a t-shirt. She saw me pull out my keys, and asked if I had a car or house nearby, complaining that she was cold. I walked away because you can’t save the world, but she was definitely not in place she wanted to be.

Baseball and tattoo recovery occupied the rest of the rainy night, and the desire to hear live music did not override common sense this time.

This was the last full weekend for the season in New Orleans, and I tried to get a full bite. Thunderstorms threatened on and off, but Friday and Saturday were beautiful.

After some house chores on Friday, I took a walk through the Quarter. It is interesting to me how the crowd ebbs and flows over the course of a week, with not only the numbers of people but the nature of them changing. Today it was bridal party weekend, apparently, with roving bachelor and bachelorette parties competing for attention, meaning that there were a lot of 30 something folks in groups of 8 or 10 reliving college days and mannerisms. De gustibus, I suppose, but both men and women were buying drinks for folks freely at the bars they took over the day. I hope they were tipping well.

I had an excellent old fashioned at Tujague’s with Melissa and a foodie tour group not quite understanding that a brandy alexander has a fair amount of liquor in it. I wandered from there to Checkpoint Charlies on the hot day for a shot and a beer in a place too scary for all but the most intrepid tourists. I sat with Chris on his porch for a while talking through the block party, and then we went to the R-Bar for a couple of games of pool. I took a small break, and then off the Buffa’s to watch the Cubs and to improperly use the ATM. I must have guessed the wrong numbers in the dark, and was locked out temporarily.

i went to dba for the late show, the Soul Rebels who were playing with a traveling group from Cuba called CIMA. It was really fun to hear the more modern brass band playing some songs with a rumba beat, and others with their rapper. It looked like there were 20 people up on the little dba stage, and they were all bringing it. The eclectic music cleared out the folks not there for the music after a few songs, and it got better and better. There was a $15 cover, high for Frenchmen Street, but the bartender comped me two glasses of whiskey as a familiar face, so it came out in my favor. It is good to have friends. It was late when the band stoped playing, but I was still pumped from the music so sat in Checkpoint Charlie listening to a loud rock band for a bit. Loud was good.

Saturday was a slow start, but I took an early afternoon stroll to Harry’s Corner, where I sat next to two hilarious Scotsmen who were bantering with Beverly across the bar in almost incomprehensible English. It would take a bit to get used to that dialect. I instantly had two best friends, who were busy buying drinks and attracting a crowd with their storytelling and rude jokes. I was saved by the bell before they bought more than one round by Seker calling to ask for help with the oysters at the block party, or Touro Street Armadillo Festival. I flashbacked a little to Northwestern’s springtime Armadillo Days, but in a good way. I saw some good bands on that long gone piece of lakefront.

Chris had purchased 4 small sacks of oysters, which is how they do it here, looking like 20 dozen or maybe more. He bought half small and half large, and the large ones were huge, looking like a quarter pound of oyster each. They were dredged wild oysters, so had a little more variation in shape than the farmed oysters of SE Alaska, and were covered in dirt that had to be washed off. They had been soaking in clean water for a few hours, and did not have dirt inside. Chris had hired a local barback to shuck oysters, and it was immediately apparent that he had never shucked an oyster before. I demonstrated on a couple, but refused to be Tom Sawyered into shucking 20 dozen oysters. It was kinda of funny to watch somebody trying to learn a new skill, having the right tools and instruction, and all kinds of time to practice, and just giving up. He would have learned after the first 10 dozen or so, but eagerly gave up the knife to a guest from Lafayette who was more than willing to show off his skills. I did end up hosing them off and toting shucked oysters across the street and shells back.

Mike was in charge of the grill, and cooked the large ones the Drago’s way and with Gouda cheese and bacon. We will have to try that at home. It was nice to have someone else in charge of the cooking. Ellen and Judy set up their house to eat, and we invited passersby to join us. A unusually cool group of bachelor partners were looking for a place to eat the 10 pounds of crawfish they had bought at Cajun Seafood, and shared by dumping it out on the table. Often those groups are insular and not interested in talking with folks, but these guys as well as several visiting couples mixed right in to the neighborhood party. It was good to see visitors getting a full on NOLA experience. Oysters three ways, crawfish, muffulettas, and lots of sweets made for a great party.

The whole day was filled with music, with two separate second lines walking by on Royal Street, musicians walking down the street, and good music being played on the stereo. The topper was the Riverbend Ramblers. They are two members of four-person band, the Lost Bayou Ramblers, who won a Grammy last year for roots music, and they set up and played on the porch. They played accordion and guitar, and sang in Cajun French as people danced in the street. It was truly excellent, and a great way to celebrate with friends.

Cecile missed the party, doing house business in Bay St. Louis, but Chris inducted himself as a native New Orleanian on his ten year anniversary of being in the city, and I got presented with a Team Touro pin.

On Sunday, I watched the Cubs game at the Great American Sports Saloon with Chris over a sandwich and a beer. I intended to go to the late show at dba to see the Iguanas, but the threatened thunderstorm passed over just as I was headed out. It takes a lot of energy to be a bon vivant, and I couldn’t summon enough to walk through a downpour to the 10 pm show, even on one of the last nights for live music for a while.

I’m ready for final packing and cleaning today, planning to fit in a visit to the newly renovated Historic New Orleans Collection museum and an appetizer meal at the Hermès bar at Antoine’s for one last fancy meal before the travel day from hell Tuesday. I have an evening flight from New Orleans to LAX, midnight from LAX to Seattle, early morning from Seattle to Ketchikan, afternoon ferry to POW Wednesday. Door to door 30 hours or so, and I am glad it was a mileage ticket.