Igor’s Lounge, Game Room and Laundromat
Jackson and St Charles, New Orleans, Louisiana
I am sitting under a live oak, the tree of the South, and the tree has few if any bulging muscular roots exposed above the ground. I have no idea why this tree looks so neat as most live oaks look lively because of the exposed roots, thick as branches, appearing like pythons writhing on the ground. Surrounded by a thigh high rectangle of wrought iron fence, a patch of myrtle covers up what roots might be above ground. A dog might water into the myrtle, but no dog parent can use the base of this tree as a litter box.
I moved not less than fifteen minutes ago, hoping to escape the full sun and sit in the shade outside Igor’s. In the shade, the chill allows me to enjoy wearing my corduroy blazer. I see that I am foiled in my efforts to keep the full sun off my screen. Ducking into the dim interior of Igor’s might help, a dim interior illuminated by the big windows and the red light sconces that never turn off. However, I came for the climate, and might set out for another table on St Charles, a table with a promise of a few hours of shade.
Today, the Forty-Niners take on the Kansas City Chiefs and I cannot help but enjoy the scent of barbecues in the Garden District. I’m off the meat today. On the largest feast of barbecuing outside the Fourth of July, I am off steak, chicken and seafood. I hope I make a friend who has learned how to roast tofu. I have no idea who to cheer on in today’s contest, but I might cheer the Forty-Niners because I have spent more time in San Francisco than Kansas City.
Breakfast at the Episcopal Church featured pancakes, sliced baked ham and roasted pork sausages. I asked for the pancakes and the pancakes alone. However, last night, my friend made me spaghetti and meatballs featuring a few fine links of a devilishly hot sausage.I partook of the meats and awoke with swollen knuckles and sore knees and tender toes.
I had to really work to put my left loafer over my left foot. I guess we have identified meat as my trigger food. Does the meat proteins remind my immune system of my personal proteins and force the immune system to begin to hunt down all the similar proteins? I have to call the study team to see if my blood tests and gut samples have given the scientists any clues into what happens on a biological level.
I went for a walk on Magazine Street, a pleasant street that proceeds from west of downtown and continues all the way to Audubon Park and the Mississippi River levee. I passed by what looked like a barracks, totally under renovation. A sign said, “St. Vincent Guest House”. I made a short video of the hard working crews gutting the interiors. I went to post the video on TikTok, which taught me why a guest house had sprung up in that location. Guests stayed in the barracks while visiting their loved ones at St. Vincent’s Asylum. I have no idea where stood the building of the asylum. Most asylums had been closed in an effort to put the severely mentally-ill into halfway houses and community homes.
This morning, walking to church, I saw a man sleeping on the sidewalk, face down. I could see his pants, right on the bum. He had filled his brown trousers with crap and urine during the night, and maybe had not accessed a washer machine in days. For reasons known only to himself, he had refused the comfort of a nearby shelter where he would have a meal, a sermon, a shower and a change of clothing for sleeping on the clean sheets. Hopefully, he has arisen from his firm, concrete mattress and begun asking for change. I saw a party tray of olives and fermented vegetables and cheeses, partially consumed, nearby. Maybe it had given him nourishment before he had fallen asleep. Would someone have placed him in St Vincent’s in the day where these issues were solved by asylums. The man obviously has little control over his life and cannot take care of himself.
Just past St Vincent’s, I found a place where young women and the people who love them have found a measure of sanity. I had intended to find the Imbolc celebration at Tea Witch Cafe, and the music arising from the corner of Magazine and Terpsichore, named for the muse of chorus and dance. I talked with a tea witch as she ground fresh herbs for a cup of tea in the apothecary, and she let me film her work with mortar and pestle for TikTok. A woman who made handbound journals with tooled leather covers showed me a volume embossed with a message: This Is It. I added, “And I’m satisfied”.
We brainstormed an idea where she could teach women how to journal and then protect their journals from the urge to destroy them later in life. “This is a service you can offer, for a price. I have met so many women who have consigned their writing to the flames when a life change took place. A marriage. A move from a house to a condo. Even my mother destroyed the journals she kept during the years her children inhabited her home. She called it dejunking. I call it sad”. My new friend promised to look into it and promised to never destroy her works on paper for as long as she lived.
#Tofu
#Superbowl
#Asylum
#Fermented
No comments:
Post a Comment