15,000 Hawaii football fans swarm New Orleans
Almost ran over a couple yesterday on the way to the Bywater. After a two-week interlude of not driving while in Europe, followed by the car wreck and another hiatus from the whole driving thing, D let me borrow his baby, his precious almost-vintage Cadillac, to meet with fellow KduVers at the den yesterday. Although friends, D and I are going to the Somestates Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, I’d completely forgotten that the madding crowd was once again upon our fair Quarter and drove right into the stupid-surreal experience.
Pulling up to the intersection of N. Peters and Bienville, I noticed a little old white lady clutch her purse tighter who later peered into the passenger’s side of the Caddy, probably wondering what a young brown woman with bright red lipstick was doing driving the pimp-mobile. I wanted to roll down the window and say, “Ma’am, this is 2007, allow me to point out the man from Georgia driving the gigantic Hummer to my left while yelling loudly into his cellphone. It’s them tourists running over you with their big cars that you should be terrified about, not a local in a powder-blue Cadillac.” Grabbing the huge steering wheel, I drove on, however, not wanting the old lady to keel over from a heart attack as she thought, “My god, these New Orleanians, they can talk.” What would that say about our hospitality?
Decatur St. in front of Jackson Square was, in no uncertain terms, a zoo. I wondered if Adrastos had his store open and, if so, what dumb questions was he entertaining? Were visiting shoppers already urinating on every stationary item like he predicted they would? Back to my own personal nightmare: what is up with half-naked, pot-bellied old men jogging their way or young women behind giant sunglasses walking their little drop-kick dogs between stumbling tourists and inch-an-hour traffic? Right across from Cafe du Monde, a Hawaiian couple decided to run in front of the Caddy because they … just … had … to … get … a picture of whatever it was on the other side. You – scrawny Asian-American. Me – just-driving-again lady in a giant luxury vehicle produced by General Motors back in 1990, back when the Big Three in Detroit were still respected, no raw material was spared in automobile creation and cars were but extensions of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. What, people, do you not understand about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and … momentum? Luckily, I’d already divined their intentions half a block in advance and slowed down to let them cross. Tourist Paste avoided.
What I haven’t told you about the Smooth Ride so far is its boat horn, which makes all the cats in the neighborhood and me jump in unison each time D employs it in our presence. This drive gave me a chance to use it when a woman stopped in the middle of the street across from the French Market to mix her drink and pick up her stirrer off the ground. HONK! followed by a startled scurry across the street. Rule 1: The street is not the sidewalk. Rule 2: Unless it is a purse or a much-loved child, if you drop anything on the streets of the French Quarter, do not attempt to reclaim it. Nice shoes have been sacrificed to the garbage gods after a long day’s night in The Big Unsanitary.
Speaking of which, does the fir tree adjacent to the Joan of Arc statue look like it was tp-ed with silver-spraypainted toilet paper to you, or is that someone’s idea of trimming?
As for the Sugar Bowl itself, I’m of two minds about going. Friends were decent enough to give us free tickets, albeit in the Georgia section (M graduated from Georgia while the rest of us are mere taggers-on). Allstate has some nerve picking up the naming rights for this game and the BCS national championship, after giving the people of New Orleans the royal shaft (and overbilling the National Flood Insurance Program) following the hurricane and federal flood. Channel 6 played footage from yesterday’s pre-game parade, replete with local brass bands and Indians. Sure, it’s a way for local entertainers to make a living, but how many of those folks were stripped off home and hearth thanks to Allstate? How many parades do they have to work and for how long before they can pay off those new hiked-up rates? As I think too much on it, I’ve decided to wear my usual winter black, silently root for the Rainbow Warriors (to avoid taunts and punches from drunken Dawgs fans) and then go home.
The Superdome should be fun – D and I haven’t been in it since the post-Flood reparations. I’ll have the trusty camera(s) with me, so await photographic evidence. Two weeks later, it’s back to the Frozen Tundra we go for the NFC divisional playoff game. Travel. Travel and football. Travel, football and Carnival season. Travel, football, Carnival season and Krewe du Vieux parade on January 19th. Travel, football, Carnival season, Krewe du Vieux parade on January 19th and Mardi Gras on February 5th. These are the things insanity is made of.
Go, Pack!!