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My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post Ninety-One: New Orleans In Less Than Seven Hundred Words

20 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by duckykoren in bugs, Jazz, Louisianna, New Orleans, Travel

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Anne Rice, beer, beignets, Books, Bugs, cafe du monde, cemetaries, Coffee, Earnest Hemingway, gumbo, hurricanes, Jimmy Buffet, limo, Mardi gras, mask, New Orleans, read, rose, Travel

It was the strangest thing.

Even though I had never been to New Orleans before I knew how it would look, I knew how it would sound, and I knew how it would smell.

And how did I know this?

A few years earlier I had voraciously feasted on Anne Rice’s novel…

“The Witching Hour”

…and when I finally closed the cover of that 900 page book, there was no doubt in my mind that it would only ever exist for me exactly as she had written it.

I would not have it any other way.

It was 1991 when my husband brought the hardcover home to me after one of his business trips.

He gave me two instructions.

The first instruction was to read the first three pages of the novel. If those three pages had not peaked my interest then I was to read no further and put the book away.

His second instruction was to listen to Chris Isaac’s album “Heart Shaped World” as I read the book.

This album is best known for his first big hit: “Wicked Games.”

I am very glad that I did just that.

Decades later, every time I listen to that album, I am overcome with the sounds and smells of New Orleans.

I was able to travel to New Orleans in August 1997.

It was as if I had been there before.

Anne Rice did not skip a beat in any of her descriptions.

Offhand, there were two things that did surprise me about New Orleans.

With every few steps, the fragrances carried by the balmy breezes changed.

Steps 1-2-3-4 would be gumbo.

Steps 5-6-7 would be beer.

Then you would smell cleaner, coffee, beignets, then garbage.

It caught me off guard at how a shanty in a slum-like setting would have a limo parked in the driveway.

I watched a woman dressed to the nines in a full length fur coat and expensive sunglasses as she waited at the traffic light while another woman stood beside her bent over as she rummaged through a steel drum that served as the refuse container.

Even the insects were enigmatic.

Never before had I seen bugs stop to mate in mid-air. And then they would fly away still stuck together.

No word of a lie, even after we arrived home there were lots of post coital pairs of once amorous bugs baked onto our front hood courtesy of the hot Louisiana sun.

We didn’t get them off for months.

Most memorable moments in New Orleans was the Cafe Du Monde, and the Mardi Gras Mask shop.

I enjoyed getting my Earnest Hemingway on as I tried to place myself back into his time and see if I could maybe get his bead on things.

My husband never had adventurous taste buds and so we compromised on dining at Jimmy Buffet’s ‘Margueritaville.’

Indeed, it was an iconic moment when his song, ‘Margaritaville’ came on the restaurant Muzak at exactly the moment they placed down my cheeseburger in Paradise.

The scariest moment of the visit was when a vagrant tried to sell my daughter one of the roses that he had obviously scoffed from the nearby cemetery. The look of horror in her eyes said it all. I just told her to back away slowly while I handed the beggar all the one dollar bills in my pocket.

It’s hard to pack in a day’s experiences of New Orleans in a single blog post.

I highly recommend you consider visiting there yourself.

If that is not possible in the foreseeable future, you might try reading Anne Rice’s book…

“The Witching Hour”, which easily makes the shortlist for my favourite books.

If neither of those are possible, get yourself some Hurricane mix, pour yourself a tall one, put on some Lois Armstrong, close your eyes and take it all in.

There…

That’s better isn’t it!

Memories Of My Mother… Post 36: Thank You For The Rose So Sweet

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by duckykoren in Uncategorized

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#joy, Blessings, blogs, Breast Cancer, Cancer, daughters, Family, Fragrance, gifts, God, grateful, grief, hospice, life, loss, mourning, respite house, rose, roses, Stories, thankful

image

It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon on Mother’s Day when I found myself in the Respite House kitchen helping myself to a cup of coffee.

That was when I was approached by a volunteer.

“Have you received one of our brunch bags?” she asked me.

I asked her what ‘brunch bags’ she was referring to.

She reached into a box beside a kitchen counter and the next thing I knew was that I was being handed a medium-sized brown paper shopping bag.

Although I could not see what was inside the bag I did notice that the bag held two long-stem roses.

They were lovely and hard to miss.

One rose was white, the other yellow.

“We’re giving these to all of our mothers today for Mother’s Day,” she said as she handed the bag to me.

“How lovely,” I said as I accepted the offered brunch bag.

“Thank you!”

It was an extremely kind gesture from the Respite House. I considered this an unexpected and deeply appreciated token of goodwill.

With my brunch bag in one hand and my coffee in the other, I return to Mother’s room to find that the nurses had done a fine job of tending to her needs. They had changed her into a fresh nightgown, made the bed, and had even fluffed her pillow. A small fan in the corner kept the air cool and comfortable.

I leaned over the bed and kissed her cheek. She smelled wonderful.

Seeing that her eyes were open I held up and showed her the brown paper shopping bag.

“Look what I got,” I said with a smile.

A pleasant look of surprise came over her face. I noticed that her cheeks looked a little flushed.

I was curious as to the contents of the brunch bag. However, there was too much tissue in the way to see what was at the bottom of the bag. I would have to wait until later to see what culinary goodies awaited.

Since the volunteer had called it a brunch bag it was safe to assume that the contents included edibles of one sort or another.

Goody, I thought to myself…

Dinner!

Earlier, I had been thinking about what I would have for dinner that night. Mother’s fridge lacked fresh fruits and vegetables. The only item of interest was a jar of expired spaghetti sauce in her cupboard and a package of dried pasta.

Pass.

Maybe, I could go to the local Friendly’s or even the pizzeria. However, I knew that by the time I left the Respite House I would not have the strength nor will to go and order dinner.

Rest was most important right now.

Whatever was inside the bunch bag would be my dinner.

And thankfully so…

Problem solved.

As I put the bag down, I took out one of the roses, the yellow one, and held it out towards Mother.

She smiled at the sight of it.

As I held the rose closer to her nose, she inhaled the fragrance as deeply as she could.

She conveyed the sweetness of the rose’s fragrance with an unmistakable…

“Ahhhh… ”

Once again, I brought the flower closer to her so that she could enjoy the fragrance of a rose for a second time…

…and most likely, the very last time.

I was keenly aware that this was another Mother Daughter moment that I would remember for the rest of my life.

It was a precious moment.

It was a joyful moment.

And I instinctively knew, that this moment…

Was yet one more gift.

And there were still many more yet to come.

 

 

 

 

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