Orleans

Home from beautiful New Orleans.

We tripped into town on Friday night. Saturday, Maria and I got crystal ball readings... learned that in our past lives, I collaborated with the Mexican revolution and she was a gypsy on the Adriatic.

We wonder if the crystal ball ever reveals that someone was a fat housewife who smoked a pack a day.

I mean, Mexico and Romania are lovely. But we want to know what happened in Jersey.

We walk... So many neighborhoods... Later, Coleen tells us that things had finally started to get back to something-like-normal after the storm... but then the economy all topsy-turvy. Still so much damage and tourism stalled and there's something beautiful for sale on every block. We imagine lives in the for-sale houses; walk a long way to St. Roch cemetery...

From there, we find our way to F & F Botanica where Felix sells us some fancy oils and candles to take to St. Louis #1 cemetery. We walk more. It's hot and lovely and the baby is trying to be a good sport.

F&F

At St. Louis #1, we look and look for my ancestor's tomb. Finally we find the first wife of one of my ancestors and we search all around that spot for my actual ancestor, but she isn't there. I feel disoriented by the labyrinth of walkways. A headache coming on because I forgot to wear a hat. But we find Marie Laveau's X-marked tomb and leave a candle for her and lucky New Years trinket love we think she'll like.

The next day in the wild & beautiful Voodoo Spiritual Temple, I pick up a little book about the cemetery, open it randomly, and there's my ancestor's tomb! We walk back over to the cemetery with the peace candle we got from Felix and finally we find it--we'd been standing right in front of it, taking pictures of Max and spinning around and wondering where the ancestor could be.

Mightta been those 10-cent martinis.