work, play, work, work, play

Keeping myself pretty busy these days. Work is going well, but it can be stressful and pretty fast-paced. We have a lot of new projects going on, but thankfully there are also a lot of new staff members. I'm enjoying the challenge of helping guide the organization in its growth, and now we're getting some good media coverage, which will help with donations and volunteers. People from out of town always comment that it must feel great for me to do the kind of work I'm doing - helping families get back into their homes - and I guess if I stop to think about it I am making a contribution, although most of the time it feels like we're just inching along a marathon course. There are years and years to go before New Orleans really recovers, and it will never be as it was before. That doesn't mean we should stop and let the city die.

I've instituted a new rule in my life - "No talking or thinking about work on the weekend" - in an effort to focus more on having fun and relaxing. So far it's been great, and gives me the freedom to spend time doing my photography and writing and museum-going and catching up on my reading.

Memorial Day was a fun and much-needed getaway to Pensacola, Florida, which is total mullet-land. As much as I'm loving the city, being out of New Orleans was great for my mental health. Me and my friends did a pretty good job of implementing a "No talking or thinking about Katrina or the recovery or FEMA" rule for the weekend. Enjoyed some tasty crawfish and snapper and Waffle House and lazy time on white sand beaches. Saw a bluegrass band called "Bubba and Them"that made me almost want to learn the fiddle. Bubba, the lead singer, is a middle aged woman in a mumu and Birkenstocks. I hope to go back to Pensacola (on the panhandle, just 3 hours away by car) to do some diving sometime soon.

This weekend was the Creole Tomato Festival and the Seafood Festival in the French Quarter. Of course there were bands (zydeco, country, Mexican, and rock), and a cooking demonstration by Paul Prudhomme. While the 95 degree heat beat down on the crowd, and I walked through the streets as though wading through humid soup, shiny streams of sweat poured down my legs, arms and back. Smells of bar-be-qued oysters and crabcakes and etouffe and fried green tomatoes and daquiris and boiled crawfish and bread pudding tempted me from every direction.

The evening was spent at a local institution called Rock 'n' Bowl, which is exactly as it sounds: bowling with live music (and alcohol, of course). A brass funk band was up on stage groovin' it out as the bowlers hurled balls down the lanes. Dancers of all ages and colors boogied in front of the stage. Some 12 year-old kid got up with the band and brought the house down with his trumpet playing. By day he was just some pudgy 7th grader in the back of the class, but by night the throngs waved their hands in the air and cheered at each solo he wailed out. Crazy cat.

A final stop before heading home was the local bar "Le Bon Temps Roule", which always has a live band in its dingy, stuffy backroom, and tonight the variety was honky-tonk. Music spills onto the streets and college students mingle with retirees and alterna-freaks. The beer is always cheap and the doors are open until at least 4am.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Roule, baby...