Days 9 and 10

The last two days.

Took me a while to get around to finishing this; I'm glad I did the rest of it "as I went" otherwise it'd never get done.

Day 9, Thursday. We got up and, after coffee, went to the NO Museum of Art. Aside from the usual stuff they had on display, they put together an amazing Katrina photo display. It was amazing. (Just as a side note, they still don't have phones there at NOMA. For entrance into the museum, they can't take credit cards; for the museum store, which obviously collects much higher sums of money, the woman who runs the store takes home the credit card machine every night and runs it from home. ONE YEAR LATER.)

Sigh.

Anyway, after that, we headed to the Quarter to finally get a meal at the Gumbo Shop. Love that place.

That evening, to the Shakespeare Festival at Tulane to see the first preview of ROMEO & JULIET. There to see my friends Randy and Sean and Donald and director, Gary ..... it was old home week. It was nice. I didn't know everybody, but I did enjoy surprising some people. Reall good production, although it did make me flash back to our college production quite a bit. Back when Randy played Benvolio (and here playing the Friar). :)

Afterwards, we headed back to Cooter Brown's, where we were joined by Sean's girlfriend (who I'd been hearing about for years, and was so thrilled to finally meet!) and of course, the fabulous Michael Sullivan, with whom I was able to squeeze in one more night.



It was so nice, just hanging out and talking over a beer. Or two. It really sort of forced a flashback of my life. I mean, this really used to be my life. And it still fits, kind of. I cannot begin to tell you how weird that is. Because it IS still comfortable. It's the one thing I'm missing here. After a show, people go home. Sometimes, maybe, to a restaurant that MIGHT still be open. But there aren't any good quiet talking bars. I miss sitting for hours after a show and dishing everything.



And in particular, reconnecting with both Randy and Sean was pretty fabulous. :)

Day 10, the final day.

Bittersweet.

Happily saying goodbye to the crappy little motel room (it turns out that they're clearly refurbishing the place, and we were in an unrenovated room ... grr.) ... out we went into the world. Lunch with dad ... I even got a hug. (Impressive, as you may have gathered, he's not your warm and fuzzy guy).

From there, one more drive through the city to see a few more sights. We started with Lakshore Drive, where most (if not all) of the palm trees are on what look like crutches. Or maybe more like the equivalent of dogs being in those cone collars.



Next, a quick drive onto my college's campus, where there were so many new buildings I could barely recognize the place!


From there, one more jaunt into NO East, where I wanted to get a shot of the gas station(s), frozen in time (gas was $2.35 there in August 2005!) ... it's got this sort of ghosttown quality to it.



While we were there, we saw a stairway that led to nothing ... with the house it was presumably once attached to many feet away.



We contemplated going to the Ninth Ward, but ultimately decided not to go. From my perspective, I didn't know that part of town terribly well so I wouldn't know what I was looking at. Plus, I feel that the media has covered the Ninth Ward so thoroughly that I suspect that the average citizen of the US would not be familiar with the destroyed neighborhoods of Lakeview, Lake Terrace, New Orleans East - to name but a few - and that's what I wanted to document.

On our way back out of the city, we passed something in West End that kind of caught my eye. Somehow, as many times as we'd passed it over the previous week, it finally just hit me. A drive-through fast-food burger joint (Checkers) ... where everything was standing (signage, menu, picnic tables) EXCEPT the actual building. Mind-blowing. Still.



We concluded we were done with the sight-seeing portion of the trip, and stopped in for the final family "obligation", a visit with my aunt. I have to say, in spite of her difficulties with aging (she has trouble finding her words ... she can describe what she wants to say, but can't remember the actual word) it was one of the most deightful visits we've ever had. We've never been close. Actually, that's probably an understatement. A vast, vast understatement.

But yet, here we were. In watching my father and her in the same day, I finally - for the first time - viewed them as siblings, with simiar speech patterns, attitudes and mannerisms. And I saw a woman who had a much harder life than she'd signed on for, and yet survived. And I saw a woman honestly trying to reach out to me.

I'm glad we went.

That's true of both the visit with my aunt, and New Orleans as a whole.

I do love my city. I'd forgotten how much.