The New Orleans Chronicles

Thursday, January 7 … Greetings from New Orleans. I am writing this blog entry on my Palm Pilot while eating dinner at a little Cuban restaurant in the Warehouse District. It helps that the restaurant is in my hotel. It has been a long day of conferencing and my friend has returned home to her husband and children. My day started early enough, with the alarm going off at 5 a.m..  Tell me, please, who plans panels at 7:45 a.m. in the Big Easy? How evil is that? UGH!!! I was up late last night, reading papers for the panel, seeing how I was the discussant and needed to make comments that sounded relatively important. I had thought about reading the papers on the plane, but two Dramamine and turbulence kind of kept that from being an option. Yes, it was like flying to the Big Queasy. [LOL] 

So, where to begin? Let me just say that I am a nervous flyer under the best of circumstances, so when I saw the weather map in the Memphis Airport I took the extra pill. Honestly I thought they would delay the flight, but they loaded us on the plane, packing us in like cattle on the way to slaughter. We sat on the plane for a while before the announcement came: “The weather in New Orleans has deteriorated. We are taking on more fuel in case we have to circle for a while when we get there.” Ack! Fortunately, the storm had run out of energy when we got there. All I had to do was catch the shuttle and get to the hotel. I have to say, if you are a tourist being dumped in the Quarter, then you probably wouldn’t think the city looked bad at all. Of course, that’s not the case. 

My friend came to see me and we went to dinner at this place called Tommy’s. We split a $45 bottle of pinot grigio and talked and laughed and generally had a good time. I had a great dish made with crispy duck. Yummy! After our early bird dinner – yes, we ate with the old folks – we managed to make it back to our fancy hotel before the rain started. Well, fancy might be a bit of an overstatement because there is mildew in the bathroom – but the hotel is funky, cheap, and an easy three blocks’ walk to the conference. 

After a late night, I got up at the buttcrack of dawn to go to the panel. After picking up the conference program, I found out that my paper panel – the one that was supposed to be moved to Saturday – was actually today at 4 p.m. WTF? After a brief freakout, I went and did my discussant duties. Blah. Meanwhile, my friend was gambling at Harrah’s and losing money. We met back up, went for breakfast at Mother’s where I had never been before. The women behind the counter are hysterical! And the food was wicked awesome. I loves me some grits and ham. After breakfast, we went on a mission to find LSU Sugar Bowl shirts. I picked pralines for the other two people in my department and then ended my shopping spree at Faulkner House Books. 

My friend left, so I had ample time to prep for my panel. Woot! It’s a good thing I did because I was the only panelist to show up — That would be me!!! Ten to one, the other panelists show up tomorrow at the time the panel was supposed to be rescheduled. At any rate, my discussant was one of the top names in this particular field so I got good feedback. That brings us to dinner tonight at the Cuban restaurant with two-for-one margaritas. More tomorrow…

2:35 p.m. Saturday … Ah, a foggy Saturday in New Orleans. I slept in pretty late today, then ate a Luna Bar in my hotel room. Now I know that I could have gotten up earlier and trekked into the Quarter for beignets, but I was running low on cash and didn’t feel like running out to the ATM. Plus it’s a bit dank outside and I’ve eaten enough beignets in my lifetime that it is no longer mandatory that I hit Café du Monde every time I come to the city.  I also had another problem to deal with. Oh yes, this esteemed professor forgot to bring the return part of her tix for the Airport Shuttle. Or rather, I thought I had the return tix but all I had was an error message from the printer. Damn! Now, you try calling the shuttle folks on a Saturday morning in New Orleans when there are three different academic conferences in town. It’s impossible to get through! Fortunately, the Coach was at home and he booked me a new ride. By the way, the freaks over there didn’t even have a record of my reservation. Blah. 

I decided to be a good junior professor and went to my colleague’s paper presentation. I tell you what … these panels have had the worst turnout that I have seen in 5 years of “conferencing.” Of course, I can’t say too much because I cut out after his panel to go shopping. Every time I come to New Orleans, I buy something expensive. I’ve bought paintings in the past, but that wasn’t going to work this time seeing how I flew down. This time, I bought an expensive pin, a sterling silver Fleur de Lis pin from Mignon Faget.

10:29 p.m. Saturday … It’s an Ann Rice kinda’ evening down here along the Mississippi River. It’s beautiful when it is all misty outside. It mutes the neon lights of the touristy areas, makes the historic buildings go backwards in time, and (thanks to the slight chill in the air) adds a creepy feel to the night. Add a bit of Cuban music floating out of Azul, and you have a perfect night. Too bad the Coach had to go back to work a week before I did. I am almost packed for my flight tomorrow. I don’t know how much more I can fit in my carry on (which I am checking for the flight, but that’s besides the point) because the bag was stuffed to begin with. I lighten the load a bit by chucking the conference papers and giving a book to my friend D. Of course, I bought two books and those shirts so … well, you know how it goes. 

BTW, I ended up eating a po-boy from Mother’s for dinner. Good god, but that thing was huge and loaded with ham, roast beast … I mean, roast beef … and debris. If you’ve ever seen that Discovery Channel special on the Everglades where the Boa Constrictor swallows the alligator and then the ‘gator opens its mouth, basically exploding the snake … let’s just say that’s how I felt after eating that sandwich. I see a serious diet in my future to compensate for all the good meals I’ve had over the past few weeks. Luckily I haven’t been sitting on my ass this whole time or else my clothes would be in need of expansion!

Now I’m going to relax for an hour then make my way back to the conference to do my last duty of this conference.

11:30 a.m. Sunday … All drugged up, sitting outside, and waiting for the airport shuttle. Let’s hope that they actually arrive, eh? And let’s hope that their service is a little better than the service at my hotel too. Checkout time was interesting. First, they tried to charge me for three days’ worth of valet parking. That’s a nifty trick, seeing how D. only parked here for one night. Then, they tell me that they cannot give me a receipt showing the nightly room rate because I paid for the room through Orbitz. I feel a travel office nightmare coming on. I guess I should feel thankful that they charge a daily resort fee so I have some evidence that I actually stayed in the hotel. Too bad that resort fee didn’t cover cleaning the mildew out of the corners of the bathtub in my room. 

1:37 p.m. Sunday … Damn, but the airport smells like piss, or maybe it’s just the carpet at this gate. I spent too much money to get a fruit plate and a soda behind the TSA defenses. Ugh! I predict that there will be annoying parents on this flight. I mean, seriously, does everyone at the gate need to know that Jack needs to eat his hot dog? And, really, should Jack be crawling around half-naked on the floor? Oh wait. Maybe that explains the special odor of piss?

5:58 p.m. Sunday … Thank god, little Jack was going to Detroit and not Memphis! That’s all I really have to say about that. Yes, I am now in the Memphis Airport, full of BBQ … Well, a BBQ sandwich, that is. Now I have a two hour wait for the flight to Sorta’ Cosmopolitan. And that’s after the delay we had out of New Orleans due to electrical problems. [Ugh - We had to sit in a fully packed plane while they checked out everything. Seriously, I wish that this had been done before they loaded us on the plane!]

10:04 p.m. Sunday … One word: turbulence. I. Hate. It. But, hey, now I am home and in need of a shower.