Cajun Adventure, Post-Hurricane Rita
(continued)
As evening grew dark, we passed Jackson Square and I looked for candles and card tables. What a shock to see not one fortune teller in the giant square! There used to be card table after card table set up for the tourists. There weren’t any tourists walking through the square, either. It was positively ghostly.
Everywhere we walked, we saw businesses emblazoned with signs reading “NOW OPEN!” Harrad’s Casino had a sign saying it would open in a month. After we walked for a time, we ducked into a Middle East restaurant to eat dinner. Grape leaves wrapped around rice and meats and vegetables, other foreign delectables. Strange food to eat in New Orleans, but it hit the spot.
We wandered for a while on residential Bourbon Street, but never reached the heart of the French Quarter. We never heard any music. But it was enough for us. We needed to be on our way – we were workers this visit, not just tourists.
It was about 8:00 pm when we finally left the Quarter, and 8:30 by the time we found our way to the expressway. It took us a long time to find our preferred entrance, which was blocked off by a semi that got stuck. We puzzled our way to another entrance. Finally on the freeway, we were buzzing along just as Walter and Freeman had directed us, when Anna and I got into a conversation about nose piercing.
“I think the nose rings are actually cute on some people, if they’re really tiny,” I admitted.
“I should get one!” said Anna, enthusiasm unbounding.
“No, you should NOT get one,” I said with conviction, as the sign for “Boute” flew by me on the right.
NO! We were on the way to Baton Rouge.
DANG! There was no turning back, and there were probably 100 miles between us and the next exit.
Freeman was right. You can get stuck forever on that causeway. After rolling along at top speed for about an hour, we came to an almost-dead stop.
DANG!
I reverted to an old trick of mine that I often use at the post office, especially around Christmas time: I noted the time. Often, a slow-down is much shorter than I perceive it to be. This one turned out to be a half-hour, though it felt like two. It was caused not by an accident, but by construction that closed off the right lane. We all had to merge.
When I read the “Merge left ” sign, I merged immediately. For the next 15 minutes, I watched cars, trucks, and even a great lumbering SEMI whiz past me on the right, even though the drivers must have seen the same “Merge left” sign. Grrrr!
When the end of the right lane came into sight, I said, “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I let those f---ing f----heads into this lane.”
Anna furiously wrote that quotation into her journal, apparently amused at my non-momlike utterance.
And I had to eat my words, or let a guy in a red sports car bash into my car. I let him in.
We got home about 11:00 pm, and went fast to sleep for our last day of work.
Friday: Huey and Dolores again
By our last day I was almost an expert finding New Iberia. Anna and I had taken exactly one work day to adjust to Southern Time, so we never again rushed to work as if we were punching a clock. However, we got to Dolores and Huey’s respectably early. We were hoping the two final coats of mud would have been dried and sanded on the drywall, so today could be painting day.
We were dreaming.
The seams were dry all right, but they all needed to be sanded. So Anna and I armed ourselves with dust masks – I even used goggles – and we started to sand. Kirsten was home from school, and after a little instruction from me, she joined our effort.