My turn

This one's for Jack and Uncle Earl.

When Jack died, just a few days before Christmas, I was lucky to have the support of friends. My friend Scott helped me by carrying Jack's 65 pound body out of my house and putting it in my car to take to the vet; my friend Linda helped me by driving me to the vet, taking me out for food, cleaning my house and putting away all dog-reminder items while I showered, and then taking me out to Vaughans's Lounge and getting me drunk.

The kindness of strangers

My next door neighbor, a young man who moved here from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, just came over and weed-whacked my tiny little back yard, where the grass had grown up past ankle- high.

He and his girlfriend are staying in a rental where her grandmother used to stay. They have a connection here. And a new puppy, now - I hope Jack will be able to play with it in the park soon.

When he cleared my lawn, I had to remove the pink flamingos. They've been reinstalled in the street planter box, where they'll gain more visibility.

My little container garden is thriving, despite the heat.

Sending them off easy

Last night in the Bywater, the 800 block of Lesseps Street was rocking. When we arrived at Vaughans, on the corner of Lesseps and Dauphine, there was a band playing in the front room. The band was fronted by Butch Trivette, an older man in a wheelchair, playing some serious roots music, country and blues. He was getting a little down and dirty with the tune "Who were you thinking of when we were making love last night?"

Bring in the new

Click any photo to "embiggen"

Happy New Year, everyone!

Last night The Heart Attack played at Vaughan's Lounge, scheduled to go on at 10:00 pm but really they didn't start up until after 10:45. No matter - everyone was having a good time. There were red beans and rice in the back room, and the drinks were flowing.

Katie May at the bar

We bailed out of there before midnight, and zipped up our jackets against the cold wind. All through the neighborhood, you could hear firecrackers and cherry bombs going off. Clutching our plastic go-cups from the bar, we walked to the Mazant Street Wharf on the Mississippi River.

 There was a crowd there already - neighborhood folks mostly, but also a couple of tour buses full of tourists, or maybe party buses. We clustered up to the edge of the wharf and looked toward the city lights upriver. The paddle-wheeler Creole Queen rolled by, its lights amber in the night.

At midnight, the fireworks started, bursting in the air and reflected in the water.

There on the pavement stood a huge champagne bottle - was it a Jeraboam? A Nebuchadnezzer? a Salamanzar? I don't know, but a man in a white linen jacket offered me some, hefting the thing up to pour into my plastic cup. It was real champagne, and awfully good, too.

(My son says the guy who brought the champagne "was on the party bus. And he was definitely on the party bus.")

Happy New Year!

On Bartholomew Street

Unlike past mornings, today the sky is overcast, with thunderclouds to the southeast. The dog and I have already been around the block, and are turning the corner at Bartholomew Street and Royal to head home when I see this person striding down the sidewalk waving her arms.

I stop, thinking she’s talking to me. “What’s he giving away on the corner? Is that scaffolding?” she says.

Gifts

Glass watering globe

New Orleanians are generous people. Perhaps it's something about being in a city where resources are dear; people feel compelled to share what little they have.

We've already been gifted with small kindnesses from people we barely know, in a way that would never happen in Los Angeles.

On our third morning in town, around ten o'clock, a knock came at the door. It was Tom, the man around the corner we'd met as he drank a beer at the tailgate of his pick-up truck the previous evening. I'd mentioned I wanted to go look at a neighborhood thrift store to look for a small table to add to the bathroom.

Tom held a little, wrought-iron plant stand. "You said you needed a table. I thought this might work for you," he said.

It would and it does. The next time I encountered him while walking the dog, I told him how perfect it was.

I talked with our next door neighbor Jera about the hanging baskets on the porch. "You need those glass watering globes," she said, "to keep them moist."

This morning when I came home from an errand, there were three pretty glass watering globes on my porch next to the bag of potting soil.

Our other neighbor lent us a screwdriver when we needed it. "Don't worry," he said. "Give it back when you're all done."

Of course, when you receive, it's always good to give back in return. Today, another neighbor asked if we had a computer and printer. Could we print him a picture of something he wanted to make a painting of?

Of course we could. We just hand-delivered it to his door.