11:18 PM |
My journey seems to have legs that center on a theme. As you know, I have become enamored of everything black, having seen a billion battlefields, and equal number of plantations, and having met a whole ton of people who have had a totally different experience of life than I have. I now am on the intertwined theme of war.
Carl (not Sal, not Jimmy) is in charge of the family lock business. It started in 1930-something. His sons are in the business, and now his grandsons. There is a picture of their old locksmith car on the wall. We had a bit of a back and forth on the identity of said car, but agreed that they had a Willys at some point. Just like Joan at Dr. Lock, Carl has a whole lot of blanks. He had even more, even ones for woodies and other weird things. Katrina put four and a half feet of water in Star Lock and Key, and the blanks got moldy and they had to throw them away. I guess I thought that they would be easy to clean, like artifacts that ocean treasure hunter guy does with cannons and pirate coins and ship bells. After some rumination, I came to the conclusion that cleaning off a key blank is a whole lot less lucrative than finding a million pieces of eight. Star Lock and Key does mostly commercial work, by far. Residential next, then auto. I neglected to ask what came after that. Carl is another person who wanted to take off his glasses for his portrait.
This is Cheech. How perfect, huh? I told him my neighbor used to be Mrs. Cheech. He looked puzzled and I explained how Rikki is perfectly tiny and was in all the movies. We moved on. Cheech was taking a picture of my car. He is a badass. I came out from my little yellow vinyl padded stool to talk to him. The rule is always you take Woody’s picture, I take yours. I started telling him the rule and he said I could take a picture of his motorcycle. I didn’t get to say that I wanted a picture of him, not his bike. We got to talking. This is bike 1. I asked him about bike 2. It is a Japanese one. I know nothing about motorcycles, and I told him that. It is a very good, very fast motorcycle. It has 17,000 miles on it. Bike 1 has 54,000 miles on it. I asked Cheech if he rode much. He put every mile on both Bike 1 and Bike 2. Cheech was in the Army for 20 years. In the 101st Airborne. He fought in Vietnam from 1969 until 1973. My ex-husband the SEAL was in 1963-1967 or 1979 or something. We commiserated about how bad that situation sucked. Cheech lived in Erie, Pennsylvania for awhile. For Smuckers, as in If It’s Smucker’s It Has To Be Good. He picked cherries. He said he was a very good cherry picker. I believe that. He also plays harmonica. He jams sometimes and also plays with his regular band the Jefferson Street Gang Blues Band. This is war reference 1.
This is Paul. He works taking care of properties, as far as I can tell commercial properties. He asked where I am going next. I told him Angola. His sister is pen pals with a guy on skid row for murder. I assumed he meant death row. He told me that those guys on skid row get very religious. Yes they do. Paul is also a carpenter. He admired the dovetail joints on Woody. He said they reminded him of those old Chris Craft boats. You know, said Paul, my father worked for Higgins. I didn’t know what he did until later. He was just Dad. Higgins made amphibious landings possible in World War II. Second war reference.
When I was making a dash from the museum to the movie part across the street so that I wouldn't miss that movie too (I was late, but they let me in anyhow), I saw the actual World War II veterans. I found one and told him my father served too. I cried. I cried a lot. He hugged me. He told me that they movie was very real, too real. I did think the movie was great. I wish I had paid attention in private school when they taught us history. Come to think of it, I don't think we made it to WWII. We went along in the book until the school year ended and that was then end of our history lessons. I bet that some teachers actually got further along because they were new teachers and planned well, but our old teacher didn't. We didn't get Vietnam either. Starving as usual. Heard that museum had great restaurant. It is by some celebrity chef I have never heard of. I had a sloppy joe made out of short ribs. It had those crispy onion things that your sister-in-law puts on the green bean casserole at Thanksgiving, but these are organic. I love sloppy joes, short rib or hamburger meat. I don't particularly care for turkey sloppy joes, but I eat them because it makes me feel like I am being virtuous. In particular, I love Manwich. Remember that? They still make it. You just brown a pound of hamburger and stir that sucker right in. I like those soft buns with it, the kind that we always had for hamburgers but are now for people who don't know any better. And why do they call it browning the meat? It looks more like greying it to me. Anyhow, the sloppy joe was good. It was served on a little butcher block thing which was really stupid because sloppy joes are, well, sloppy. It doesn't have a rim, and I felt bad that it dripped on the nice white napkin bartender Billy put down. The other bartender is Patricia. I like to eat at the bar when I'm alone. The bartenders are paid to talk to you, but hey a little company is better than reading the Wall Street Journal on your iPad. Billy reminds me of my wicked step-mother's personal assistant. Come to thing of it, he was a bartender. For decades. This is very helpful when you're having a martini party. My wicked step-mother took my sister's and my pictures out of the silver frame that they'd been in since we were babies, and put in her martini menu. There is a martini named for her, one for her plane, one for her house, and one for her dog. I drank them all. I don't know what happened to the pictures. She put her daughter's up and took ours down when she married our father. She also told us to get our (dead) mother's stuff out of the house RIGHT NOW, or she would throw it out. Back to the bar, the lemon cupcake tasted like it had marshmallow fluff for icing. Now that's my kind of cupcake. Also, the sloppy joes came with potato chips in a tin can. I went to get Woody out of the parking lot and an actual war guy asked what year it was. This is Billy McGee (another one, what're the chances of that?). War reference 5.
This morning I had keys made for Woody’s doors. I have been running with no lockable doors for several weeks, and even before that the locks didn’t turn half the time anyway. Still don’t, by the way. Those suckers have a mind of their own. On the way to the key guys, I freestyled as far as getting there goes. I passed some interesting things. The Oil & Gas Building is still decimated. You'd think that they'd get crucial service going first. It was really weird to see the place all broken and boarded up with a perfect pot of artificial geraniums sitting in the lobby. I also went by what must be some kind of court building. In huge incised letters in the granite above the door: This Is A Government Of Law And Not Men. Then Law on one side of the door, and Order on the other side. Well, Louisiana still has that weird Napoleanic Law where you are guilty until proven innocent. Maybe this has something to do with that. I dunno. So. I went to Star Lock and Key. You meet some very interesting people who have locks that don’t unlock. On the way, I saw a couple of odd signs. One was for live music:
Maps & Atlases
Fang Island
Boy do I need to listen to Maps & Atlases. Swell Cadillac, oh, Sewell Cadillac. I wonder if Swell Cadillac deals with Neat Auctions.
Carl (not Sal, not Jimmy) is in charge of the family lock business. It started in 1930-something. His sons are in the business, and now his grandsons. There is a picture of their old locksmith car on the wall. We had a bit of a back and forth on the identity of said car, but agreed that they had a Willys at some point. Just like Joan at Dr. Lock, Carl has a whole lot of blanks. He had even more, even ones for woodies and other weird things. Katrina put four and a half feet of water in Star Lock and Key, and the blanks got moldy and they had to throw them away. I guess I thought that they would be easy to clean, like artifacts that ocean treasure hunter guy does with cannons and pirate coins and ship bells. After some rumination, I came to the conclusion that cleaning off a key blank is a whole lot less lucrative than finding a million pieces of eight. Star Lock and Key does mostly commercial work, by far. Residential next, then auto. I neglected to ask what came after that. Carl is another person who wanted to take off his glasses for his portrait.
This is Norman. He is working on the lock. He is very grumpy, but very good. He just does his thing. I got two keys that work most of the time (my locks’ fault, not Norman’s).
This is Cheech. How perfect, huh? I told him my neighbor used to be Mrs. Cheech. He looked puzzled and I explained how Rikki is perfectly tiny and was in all the movies. We moved on. Cheech was taking a picture of my car. He is a badass. I came out from my little yellow vinyl padded stool to talk to him. The rule is always you take Woody’s picture, I take yours. I started telling him the rule and he said I could take a picture of his motorcycle. I didn’t get to say that I wanted a picture of him, not his bike. We got to talking. This is bike 1. I asked him about bike 2. It is a Japanese one. I know nothing about motorcycles, and I told him that. It is a very good, very fast motorcycle. It has 17,000 miles on it. Bike 1 has 54,000 miles on it. I asked Cheech if he rode much. He put every mile on both Bike 1 and Bike 2. Cheech was in the Army for 20 years. In the 101st Airborne. He fought in Vietnam from 1969 until 1973. My ex-husband the SEAL was in 1963-1967 or 1979 or something. We commiserated about how bad that situation sucked. Cheech lived in Erie, Pennsylvania for awhile. For Smuckers, as in If It’s Smucker’s It Has To Be Good. He picked cherries. He said he was a very good cherry picker. I believe that. He also plays harmonica. He jams sometimes and also plays with his regular band the Jefferson Street Gang Blues Band. This is war reference 1.
This is Paul. He works taking care of properties, as far as I can tell commercial properties. He asked where I am going next. I told him Angola. His sister is pen pals with a guy on skid row for murder. I assumed he meant death row. He told me that those guys on skid row get very religious. Yes they do. Paul is also a carpenter. He admired the dovetail joints on Woody. He said they reminded him of those old Chris Craft boats. You know, said Paul, my father worked for Higgins. I didn’t know what he did until later. He was just Dad. Higgins made amphibious landings possible in World War II. Second war reference.Next to Woody is William Margot's taxi. It is a very nice taxi. The nicest one I think I’ve ever seen, black and white and clean, clean, clean inside and out. He’s not the chatty type, though. He’s all business. I guess when you’re paid by the minute you have to be all business.
The keys are done. It was $45 and I got two copies. With tax that was something like $48.73. I gave Carl $50. He gave me change. No, Carl, I don’t want that dollar. I’ll give it to Norman, he said. He’ll appreciate that. I decided to go to the World War II museum, then maybe the art museum that has some outsider art too. Third war reference. Carl's son comes whooshing in with a client. It's calling for a 5243, but it's not a 5243. Carl will figure it out. Did you know that some locksmiths can erase the electronic stuff on your key thing that opens the doors and sets the alarm off by mistake when you are trying to get your keys out of your purse? That's what you do when someone steals one of your keys. The locksmith then reprograms your key so that the pesky thief will think he's stealing the wrong damn car. I told you, dumb shit. Can't you see it? I know this because that is what's happening to the lady with the wire-rimmed glasses and bun.
I couldn’t believe that there were so many open parking spaces in the lot in front of the World War II museum. I figured I get ticketed for something if I parked there. Went to next lot. It was one of those deals where you pay in advance at a little kiosk and you put your receipt on the windshield. The guy in front of me was in front of that thing for quite a long time. It took his money and didn’t give him a ticket. It wouldn’t even take my money. I decided to throw caution to the wind and park in the first lot. I spent a lot of time in front of the kiosk. It took my American Express and then just said in its little black LCD letters to wait. So I did. I waited a long time. The guy behind me got bored. I got bored. Finally, after like five minutes (which is a really long time when you're standing in front of a parking kiosk with a guy in line behind you), a ticket came out. I stuck it in the vent in Woody's windshield and prayed it wouldn't slip into something useful. Woody does not have a dash that can hold stuff. Went in museum.
I missed the movie by fifteen minutes. I coulda made it if the damn parking kiosks had cooperated. Got AAA rate on ticket. World War II veterans are free because they made our freedom possible. And, I surmised, because they are really old. Like my dad. My dad wasn't on the front lines like actually shooting people. He was in logistics, getting guns and food and stuff to the guys actually shooting people. I don't know too much more about the whole thing than he scooted around Fontainbleau in his Jeep and the caretaker surrendered it to him, and he cracked some safes and took a German officer's coin collection (it wasn't useful information, and my sister has it because her kid likes coins), played a lot of pool and made a lot of money and bought Cary Grant's car, and was at the liberation of one of the concentration camps. He took a lot of pictures, I think for some official reason. My wicked Aunt June, who my mother hated, has them. I have never seen them and I bet she gives them to her daughter who was adopted well after both her other children who were raised by their grandparents turned out bad. My sister likes my wicked Aunt June, and maybe she'll get to look at them. Aunt June and her husband don't eat dinner past four o'clock. It's a health thing.
I sent a free video email to my family from the museum. Hi guys, I'm here at this museum and I fixed my carbeurator all by myself. Here are my greasy fingers. I went over to the exhibit part. It's amazing. You could spend all day there. The movie is great too. Things I learned: about half a million U.S. troops were killed. A whole lot more Chinese were, like 20 million. The total death toll in World War II was over 65 million. Holy cow. We weren't ready for the war. We didn't want to be in the war. Girls (that's what they called women then) got nifty new uniforms that are blue jeans. They really did say nifty. "Go get them girls." I guess that was the 1940s version of you go, girl. Girls were especially good at welding. They thought they were making parts for transport or something when they were actually making fighter jets (or planes, did they have jets back then?). Do you really think they couldn't figure it out? They all lost their jobs, except some of them didn't, to make jobs for the veterans. They still made less money than the guys for the same job. All that bra burning didn't change anything, did it? There was lots of recycling, like tin cans and stuff, to make stuff useful for war. They even recycled cooking fat. There is a picture with kids standing in line in front of a nice uniformed fat taker. Look! They recycle tin foil. I never did know why my grandmother always saved our tinfoil in a ball by the cookbooks. She saved string too. I wonder what they made with old string. War reference 3.
The most amazing thing happened in the museum. In one of the video exhibits, the one about Higgins, Woody showed up! He is like Zelig. War reference 4.
When I was making a dash from the museum to the movie part across the street so that I wouldn't miss that movie too (I was late, but they let me in anyhow), I saw the actual World War II veterans. I found one and told him my father served too. I cried. I cried a lot. He hugged me. He told me that they movie was very real, too real. I did think the movie was great. I wish I had paid attention in private school when they taught us history. Come to think of it, I don't think we made it to WWII. We went along in the book until the school year ended and that was then end of our history lessons. I bet that some teachers actually got further along because they were new teachers and planned well, but our old teacher didn't. We didn't get Vietnam either. Starving as usual. Heard that museum had great restaurant. It is by some celebrity chef I have never heard of. I had a sloppy joe made out of short ribs. It had those crispy onion things that your sister-in-law puts on the green bean casserole at Thanksgiving, but these are organic. I love sloppy joes, short rib or hamburger meat. I don't particularly care for turkey sloppy joes, but I eat them because it makes me feel like I am being virtuous. In particular, I love Manwich. Remember that? They still make it. You just brown a pound of hamburger and stir that sucker right in. I like those soft buns with it, the kind that we always had for hamburgers but are now for people who don't know any better. And why do they call it browning the meat? It looks more like greying it to me. Anyhow, the sloppy joe was good. It was served on a little butcher block thing which was really stupid because sloppy joes are, well, sloppy. It doesn't have a rim, and I felt bad that it dripped on the nice white napkin bartender Billy put down. The other bartender is Patricia. I like to eat at the bar when I'm alone. The bartenders are paid to talk to you, but hey a little company is better than reading the Wall Street Journal on your iPad. Billy reminds me of my wicked step-mother's personal assistant. Come to thing of it, he was a bartender. For decades. This is very helpful when you're having a martini party. My wicked step-mother took my sister's and my pictures out of the silver frame that they'd been in since we were babies, and put in her martini menu. There is a martini named for her, one for her plane, one for her house, and one for her dog. I drank them all. I don't know what happened to the pictures. She put her daughter's up and took ours down when she married our father. She also told us to get our (dead) mother's stuff out of the house RIGHT NOW, or she would throw it out. Back to the bar, the lemon cupcake tasted like it had marshmallow fluff for icing. Now that's my kind of cupcake. Also, the sloppy joes came with potato chips in a tin can. I went to get Woody out of the parking lot and an actual war guy asked what year it was. This is Billy McGee (another one, what're the chances of that?). War reference 5.The art museum was closed. Shit. I now have to go see the real artist without the prep work. I went to Dr. Bob's. Dr. Bob is a grumpy but brilliant folk artist. Sometimes these guys are called outsider artists, or self-taught artists. I call them happy artists. And why do you have to be taught by someone to do original stuff? Dr. Bob is the guy who paints the Be Nice Or Go Away signs that are so ubiquitous than people are knocking them off. One of them was once stolen by Mariah Carey. He was in Smithsonian magazine. He is also number 300-something on the zillions of lists of 500 things you must do in New Orleans. Mina and her late father are number 400-something. I once dated a Mina. He was Egyptian and died from cancer. I told him he needed to shit or get off the pot as far as our relationship was concerned. I saw him in the hospital and he told me he should have shit. He died the next day and his funeral was in the Orthodox church. I had never been to an Orthodox service. There is lots of gold and they sing all the prayers that we say. It goes on for a really long time. It is beautiful. Anyhow, everybody would give the credit card back to me at the restaurant because Mina is usually a girl's name. He always said, Mina, rhymes with Tina. Mina died a virgin.
I could write for hours about Dr. Bob, so I will do that when I write about Mina. I have a hard time actually putting into words the most astounding conversations I have. I always put it off until the next day, and then I get too busy to do it the next day and so on, until I do it and only put in a little part of it anyhow. I do need to get these on paper as soon as possible, though. Dr. Bob is not a veteran. I guess that is war reference negative 1. I forgot to ask Norman or Carl, so I might actually have war references 6 and 7. I will never know. By the way, blogger spell check thinks iPad is a typo. So does Microsoft Word. A little throw down perhaps?
Went for beignets at Cafe du Monde. Tried to sit at table near sidewalk. Homeless guy smells so bad I have to move. Felt guilty. G, my waiter, is about 6'4" and has dreads under his white cap and a beautiful smile. He works the same section as a tiny asian guy. They fight all the time. G tells me that's just the way they work. It cracks me up. Took a stroll down Bourbon Street. Really depressing. I was hoping to find a sex shop but all there was was a trashy lingerie store. No voodoo. Couldn't find the bar where bartender has a lead on voodoo guy (or lady). Passed over Pat O'Brien's. Last time there, 16. No tattoo parlor. Couldn't find Preservation Hall. Hot. Tired.
Have you ever thought of a witty retort you should have made after you had the opportunity? Well, Woody is a little cranky in the afternoons and his gears sound nasty. Hello, I have been driving Woody 3500 miles, and I know this and I know it is not my driving skills. Was driving through the French Quarter because my GPS made me do it, and it was constant fiiiiiiiirst gear, second gear, fiiiiiirst gear, second gear. You'd be cranky too if you were always promised a happy ending and never got it. Yes, I was using GPS because I have done very well in my last 6 forays through New Orleans just on oral directions and I didn't want to mess up my head by screwing another one up. Anyhow, this drunk guy shouts "If you can't find 'em, grind 'em!" I wish I had said "We need some lubrication, but it doesn't look like you're up to the job."Still hot. Still tired. Now annoyed.
Sign on way home: Newly Renovated 2 Parking Spaces. Store: Chicken Mart. It sells fresh shrimp and tiliapia.
Woody did great today in spite of all that stopping and starting and major potholes, particularly in the poorer part of town where they never get around to road repair. Until we got back to the B&B. Just as I was pulling into the driveway, he stalled. He has done this for the last few days. His rear end is now in the street and he won't start. Decline help from half a dozen passers by. Assumed flooded. Waited. Open tailgate (which I can now that I have key) to get oil. Fill oil in the dark, an interesting task. Later find out I am covered with grease and I am wearing my only top that can't be washed and I really want to wear this one if I see almost-real imaginary boyfriend. Try ignition again. Jiggle ignition. Hot wire ignition. Nothing. Frustrated. Decided to roll Woody down to street because maybe this is only a problem on inclines. Accepted guy's help to do that. Woody starts after two tries. Need to investigate this incline thing because that's what happened in Nashville at Boltons spicy chicken place. Parked on street instead of trying to go up incline of driveway and risk stalling again. Put tail gate up. Except couldn't put tailgate up. Stuck on something on left side. Couldn't find problem. I'm great at fixing if I can find the problem. Still couldn't find problem. Tired, sweaty and cranky from trying to start Woody. Find problem. Can't fix it in the dark. Fender bent up from potholes and inclines, interfering with tailgate operation. Lose patience and leave tail gate open. What the fuck. Take really nice long bath. Get call from nice innkeeper. Someone told him nice car on street with back open. He thinks we should move Woody off the street because kids from bad neighborhood come through and check all the door handles to see if they're unlocked. Thought area was safe. Put clothes on. Finally decide to back up driveway. Bungee tailgate partially shut. Collapse.
New networks to sign up for in this New Orleans neighborhood:
- Hammerballs
- Hammerballs-guest
- Kevin (I think he may have been on my previous list)
- Boobird
- Portland
I really want to meet Hammerballs. Maybe he was a Ranger. Potential war reference 8.