Heading West

So we are neither going to Savannah nor Dog Island. In fact, I suppose we are going to the Anti-Dog Island which of course would be New Orleans.
Mr. Moon made this executive decision on his own after adding up his Best Western points and finding one of their fine inns right there in the French Quarter. Okay. Whatever. I'm sure it's going to be fabulously delightful and someone else will be doing the laundry and cooking so THERE YOU GO! Plus, there's a bar.

Seriously. I'm happy.

The first time Mr. Moon and I went to New Orleans together was approximately fifteen minutes after we met. We were young, we were crazy, he had a ticket to the Sugar Bowl or whatever bowl it is they play there. He never made it to the game. That's how young and crazy we were. Dang. This was in January, you know, so it was cold. In fact, it was the coldest winter on record for New Orleans and every pipe in the city had burst and there was no running water and we stayed one night in Slidell, LA, and then several nights in the apartment of a friend of a friend. There was no heat. There was no water. It was nasty. We froze the entire time. We couldn't take showers. It was...
WONDERFUL!!!
Do you hear me? We were young. We were crazy. We walked from bar to bar, huddling against walls, just barely making it from one Irish Coffee to the next. I sang in a bar. Don't Get Around Much Anymore. I saw people doing cocaine in the lady's room at Tipitina's. The Neville Brothers were playing. I think Ed Bradly was sitting in with them. We had a shared and very frightening psychic event. We could have died. We did not. We ate so much good food we were swooning from that alone.
We had so much fun that nine months later we got married. (And you thought I was going to say we had a baby, didn't you?)

And we went back to New Orleans the very next New Years. This time it was not freezing. This time we stayed at a beautiful old historic hotel. This time I was, unbeknownst to me, about one day pregnant with Lily. I am not making this up. I didn't want to do a thing in the beautiful antique bed in our room except read and sleep. I did not want to drink. I did not especially want to eat, either. Every time I stood up I got dizzy.
Poor Mr. Moon. I am certain that he was convinced I'd lured him into marriage with false promises of good times. There we were in the city where he'd first told me he loved me, where we'd had the most glorious of glorious times and I was a lump of whiny get-away-from-me-ness.
Seriously. I was.

And that was not only the second time we went to New Orleans together, it was the LAST. That's how bad it was.

But it's been twenty-five years now and I think we're ready to try it again. We're older. We're not as wild. And I am definitely not pregnant.

So I need to get my shit together and do some ironing and figure out what a woman of a certain age should wear in New Orleans and then pack the opposite. I suppose a bra must be involved. That would have been the best thing about Dog Island- no bra necessary.

And I'm excited. I'm just excited to drive over there through the bayous and across bridges and all that wonderful swampy land that touches where I live and New Orleans both. The weather looks to be about the same there as it is here. I'm looking forward to oyster po'boys and I'm looking forward to being in such a beautiful city. I hope my heart does not break when I see what Katrina did to it. It might. My heart might break. And you know- it should.

Anyway, that's our plan. We have one. I think Mr. Moon even map-quested the dang trip. We won't have to take a pound of pot to pay for our travels (I told this story somewhere in this blog at one point, I do believe) and we may not see the Neville Brothers. Dang. I sure wish we could. I don't know what we'll do. But I can tell you this with fierce honesty- we will NOT be walking down Bourbon Street drinking yard-long hurricanes. No fucking way. And I will not show anyone my tits.
On the street.
Unless they ask politely.
And I will be peeking into courtyards because if there is anything on this earth I love more than a courtyard garden in New Orleans, I am not sure what it is. To me, they are the epitome of romantic and mysterious charm.

I wanna get me some of that. Romantic, mysterious charm.

I'll take my camera.

Love...Ms. Moon