Pandemic Diaries - Year 3 - A Winter in New Orleans

26 April 2024




We decided to spend late fall through mid spring in New Orleans, thinking that would be a nice warm place for the winter. We could avoid cold weather, we'd miss hurricane season, and there were all kinds of things to do.


We were mostly right.

Our faithful readers likely notice that I haven't posted since October or so. It's been busy. Plenty to do, and I tend to create my own projects to keep myself busy.

On the other hand, it has been quite
rainy. With a cold cold winter, or at least some very cold spells.

But this is a really pretty city, with unique architecture and unique events. And its own cuisine, which of course we sampled and enjoyed.

It's been a fun place to spend eight months.

Most people in the US know that New Orleans was founded in the early 1700 by the French. For a while, the Spanish colonized the region. The French won it back. And then, in 1803, the US government purchased Louisiana from the French.

So there's a very strong French influence here. Well, and pirates too. Real pirates, like Pierre Lafitte, smuggling in all kinds of contraband. He's something of a folk hero, and even has a state park named in his honor.

But New Orleans is also the birthplace of jazz, and some people would also say this is the birthplace of rock and roll. The melting pot of cultures and music grew into a unique blend
that sounds like the sultry
climate and swinging Spanish moss hanging from the trees. Or maybe more like the slow and wide Mississippi that winds through the city like a lazy snake. The music defines
this city as much as foods like beignets and muffulettas. 

There are also architectural styles that are typical of New Orleans, small "shotgun" houses or double shotguns, narrow houses with rooms lined up so that, in theory, one could shoot a gun through the front door and the bullet would go
straight out the back door. Most shotgun houses seem to have wonderfully carved trim in the best tradition of gingerbread houses, and are painted a variety of pastel to vibrant colors.

This city is not subdued - it is colorful, loud, spicy, and vibrant!

It also seems that everything is done in a big way. Whether it is welcoming seasons or celebrating a holiday, a whole lot of people decorate their houses. I
don't mean the typical strand of Christmas lights, or even an array of of those Christmas blow up characters.
No, I'm talking six to eight foot long spiders on the house for Halloween. Complete with comparably sized webs! Or a collection of pointy witch hats hanging from front
porch ceilings. Fiberglass or styrofoam gravestones in the front yard. Half buried skeletons in the front yard. Plastic skull heads impaled on fence posts.

I have to admit that had I been a child in New Orleans, I likely would not have gone trick or treating. Seriously, those humongous spiders are really scary after sunset! They look like they could eat any and every child who comes close!

Someone even had a Halloween wreath on their front door! Yup, a black wreath with skull and crossbones, presumably fiberglass or plastic or something. Rather piratical, but that fits with the history of this city.

Actually, those giant spiders reached out and grabbed me, and rolled me into their webs.  They threatened to eat me like a giant fly unless I took photos and featured them in our travel blog.  

Okay, we all know that didn't really happen.  But it could have, they were so gigantic!  I easily could have succumbed to one of those spiders biting my neck like a vampire.  Or have become tangled in those giant webs, and never seen nor heard from again.

 

Of course, the houses were decorated for Christmas.  And Carnival.  Easter.  Spring.  We won't be here for Memorial Day or the Fourth of July, but I imagine there are special decorations for those holidays as well.

 

I didn't take photos of the fairly usual Christmas decorations.  But I found those Halloween decorations to be so unique, they just screamed out for their own photo shoot! 

 

We have a cute little apartment that is under a larger house, in an area called Uptown.  This is a slightly elevated part of town - as in maybe fourteen to sixteen feet above sea level, as opposed to other parts of the city which are closer to exactly at sea level, or maybe a few feet above.

 

Our apartment is on the lower level.  Many older houses in this city were built with an open ground floor, just posts and beams rising out of the foundation, but no walls, or only partial walls.  This was to allow flood water and heavy rains to just flow through and not impact the house itself.

 

But in recent years, people have this open ground floor portion enclosed and turned into rental property.  So that's where we're living.

 

Anyway, when we first arrived, we had a series of problems with the apartment.  Or more accurately, problems with appliances.   Our landpeople were in California visiting family, so we dealt with everything long distance.

First, the stove top didn't work.  This is a gas stove, and there was the usual spark and clicking noise.  But no flame.  The oven worked.  The burners didn't, even with a flame held right next to the burner.  Our landlady had a realtor friend come by to see if she could figure it out.  Nothing.  

So our first few days, we cooked food in the oven or the microwave.

By the time the electrician came to the house, I had noticed that the dryer vent was not attached.  And there was just the very beginnings of the smell of a gas leak from behind the dryer.

Well, it turned out that there had been a brief power outage, and that triggered the child lock on the stove top.  The friendly electrician showed me how to unlock this, so YAY, we had working burners!

He also hooked up the dryer vent, but had to order some parts for the gas leak.  He showed me how to turn off the gas main as well as that particular pipe, just in case the leak got worse and we smelled more gas in the house.

 

The internet and television both weren't working initially, likely due to the same power outage or the storm that caused that power problem.  More calls, more texts, and another repair guy who did things outside with the wires, things inside with the wires, and voila, suddenly we had wifi and TV.  Yay!

 

Then there was the water turned off for a day because the city was repairing fire hydrants in our neighborhood.  

 

Yes, all of that was within our first two weeks here!

 

But eventually everything was in working order, and we started exploring the city.  We aren't too far from the St. Charles streetcar, and that was the easiest way to get into downtown New Orleans, much more
convenient than driving and parking.  Also much much less expensive - the streetcar is all of $.80 for a senior day pass, as opposed to parking which begins at $4 per hour!

 

We had company, as usual.  First, a friend from St. Thomas came to town, and I met up with her.  We wandered along the river and had a jambalya lunch.  Then Richard's brother and his wife came for five or six days.  They found a lovely and affordable hotel about six blocks down the street from our apartment, and that became the family hotel for visits.  Our apartment isn't tiny, but it is a bit small.  And the guest room has a door directly into the bathroom, so it isn't the most private set up.

But we had a fun visit, despite getting stuck on a streetcar that couldn't continue on its route because a sheriff's vehicle was blocking part of the rails.  Our streetcar driver had to wait for a supervisor to come and assess the situation to make a report, so we sat and chatted with him, watched other streetcars come and go along alternate routes.  It gave me a chance to take photos of the streetcars stuck along the way, though!

 

We managed to explore a bit of downtown, as well as the French market.  Ate at a variety of local places and enjoyed gumbo, beignets, po'boys, all that.  My sister-in-law and I spent a day at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), and that was a lot of fun for me!  Really turned out to be a great museum, with a café full of delicious food!

My sister and my eldest niece came for a short visit, and enjoyed the hotel.  I think they liked the fried catfish and hushpuppies the best!  We explored the French market, and spent one day wandering around half the sculpture gardens at the art museum.

Most recently, my eldest nephew and second youngest niece also came for a short visit.  By the time they arrived, we knew more parts of the city, so we drove along Bayou St. John, which is right in the city.  (We didn't see any alligators, though we've heard that they've come out of hibernation.)  We drove down to The Fly, an area on a built up jetty overlooking the Mississippi.  We also spent a day at the Jazz Museum, which was much more fun than I anticipated!  LOTS of music to listen to, especially Fats Domino, one of the music icons born here in NOLA.  We also visited the other part of the sculpture gardens.  And enjoyed more coffee and beignets.  Because, this is New Orleans. 

 

In addition to all of our visitors, I found an old friend from New York on the local online bulletin board!  Really, one of those people I hadn't thought about in 50+ years, but I recognized her name and we got together.  Actually, we met up several times - she's a studio artist, and we had a great time going to an exhibit at the art museum and spending half a day really looking at each piece, discussing it as only artists and art teachers want to.  In depth both from the artistic viewpoint as well as the historic and sociological viewpoints.  It was great, and really nice to suddenly have a friend in this city!

 

In December and January, we had some really cold weather.  The high temp might have been 19º F one day!  We were freezing, we really were not prepared for weather like that.  But we bundled up, slept under two quilts plus afghans, and survived.

 

Knowing we'd be having some cold spells as well as rainy weather, I bought some yarn and started crocheting scarves for people.  I met someone on that bulletin board website, and he was able to distribute scarves to people in need.  I also donated some to the Salvation Army for their shelter, so they can give out scarves as needed next winter.  I probably crocheted some twenty to twenty-five scarves - something to keep me busy during those cold cold weeks.  (I like to do things that help out wherever we are.  A sign in New Jersey, scarves in New Orleans - it's all good.)

 

Plus I finally finished the leaf afghan I started two winters ago in Tucson.  I had to take a pause, what with the arthritis making my thumbs shift inward, and then the corrective surgeries.  But I packed the yarns and parts, and finally finished the afghan.  (That kept us warm too.) 

I noticed that the wind was blowing down our chimney and coming out through the fireplace.  Which likely meant that the heat in the apartment was also going back out the chimney.  I put some boxes into the fireplace area to try to keep the wind out.  And I located a nearby art supply store.  A sheet of corrugated plastic, a few tubes of paint, and two paintbrushes - presto change-o, we now had a two-sided fire screen!  Yes, one side has an image of a cozy warm fire, complete with logs.  And a swirling smoke background.  

The other side is the classic fleur de lys, the symbol of this oh so French city.  In the classic Carnival colors used here.  Although there should have been some green, but my blue and yellow made a yucky green color, so I just went with an orange bar instead.

Spring came and things finally warmed up.  We had some seriously flooding rains - not so flooding here, but just a few blocks away there was enough water to cover car tires and flow into some businesses.  Rain here is intense.  One particular afternoon, we received three or four alerts on each phone, warning us not to leave our houses unless we were escaping flood waters!  Um, okay!  We definitely did not go anywhere that day, and both cancelled appointments because it just did not sound like it would be a good idea to drive anywhere!

Then there was Carnival, and Mardi Gras, but those will be other blog posts.

 

You may have noticed that I'm having some issues with getting the photos and narrative to align.  I'm not sure what's going on, but I've tried and tried, and the blog website is winning.  We'll pretend things are properly lined up.  Even though anyone with eyes can see that they obviously are not.

 

Oh, with spring came some flies.  Actually, we had baby flies climbing into the apartment from under a wall.  Very biblical plague and all, but not what anyone wants to live with.  Although a magazine as a swatter and a mini-vac made it fairly easy to deal with them.  But the exterminator came, and that pretty much cleared up the problem.

 

It's been an exciting and interesting winter, to say the least!

 

There will be several more blogs about New Orleans to follow - LOTS more about Carnival, because it turns out there is so much more than just the Mardi Gras we hear about.  Plus a few more things we did.  Or maybe that I did, anyway.

 

So stay tuned!  And enjoy the photos at the end!