Friday’s Adventures: A Busy and Wet, Yet Unfruitful, Day with a Nice Interlude.

Last Friday saw another one of Pete’s excursions from the Northshore to the Big Easy. The occasion was meeting my sister and the plumber who is supposed to work on her condo out by the lake.

Now, Thursday’s weather forecasts were all doom and gloom for Friday. Flash floods! Twisters! Hail the size of canned hams! In fact, sleep was difficult from about 2-4 in the morning, lightning and thunder at the rate of about 1 per second kept even me awake. I got up around 7:30, not knowing how long the normally 1 hour or so drive to the city would take, given the possibility of street flooding and accidents on the roads.

I had plenty of time to catch the morning news and weather while having coffee. No really bad reports, just some power outages on the Westbank. Radar showed the city clear, although there was major rain to the west outside of Baton Rouge. That chunk was moving towards the Northshore. The weather girl said the city was clear, and that it looked like it should be over for New Orleans proper.

I decided to avoid the Causeway and headed west to Slidell and entry to the city from New Orleans East.

So far, so good and long story short: the sky stayed clear, I picked up my sister, we got to the condo at the appointed time, and there was no plumber. After waiting an hour, we took time for lunch at the nearby Russell’s Marina Grill, home of the original Onion Mumm (Outback’s menu once recognized their Bloomin’ Onion as a creation of Russell’s, I don’t know if they still do).

Lunch is a misleading term, we both had breakfast dishes. Mine was the house special with pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon; hers was two fried eggs, toast and fresh fruit salad. High spot of the meal: fresh orange juice, squeezed right before my eyes (but only because we sat at the counter where the juicer is).

We left the restaurant to return to the condo to see if the plumber had shown up. It was raining when we left and starting to rain pretty hard. I thought this was odd as the rest of the day’s rain was supposed to stay to the north.

I drove her back to her French Quarter apartment, dropped her off and decided that going back to Covington and the office was foolish at this point. I gave Nola a call, who said Captain Sarcastic was abandoning Jazzfest due to rain. I was pretty close to the Fairgrounds and said, “It’s not raining that bad” and hung up.

That’s when the bottom of the sky fell out. Traveling up Orleans Avenue I could barely see ten feet in front of me. I got to Bayou St. John and decided to head to the nearby New Orleans Museum of Art for shelter, enlightenment and clean bathroom facilities.

After a visit to the Femme, Femme, Femme! exhibition (83 paintings on loan from 45 French museums–Picasso, Manet, Monet, Degas, etc.—a must-see) I went upstairs to the New Orleans Arts and Crafts Club exhibit. It’s NOMA’s first joint exhibition with the Historic New Orleans Collection and is well worth a visit. One painting from the 1940’s depicted an outdoor art show with works hung on the fence at Pirate’s Alley. It could have been painted a couple of weeks ago; the French Quarter Festival and other events still feature outdoor art shows in the alley.

After spending an hour and a half or so at the museum, I decided to brave the elements and drive on out to see Nola and CS. The rain had dwindled to a drizzle. But when I turned on the radio in the car it was people calling in to report flooded streets, closed streets and power outages all over the city. The storm I drove through to get to the museum dumped 5-8 inches of rain, depending on what part of town you were in.

Other than almost getting stuck in some street flooding at the Tulane/Airline/I-10 interchange area the rest of the day was uneventful, with a return home to Northshore later in the evening. A busy, yet unfruitful day with a nice interlude.

Oh, and did I mention another Nor-Joe’s muffaletta found its way to Nola?

2 Responses to Friday’s Adventures: A Busy and Wet, Yet Unfruitful, Day with a Nice Interlude.

  1. www.nolanotes.com on May 6, 2007 at 3:10 pm

    You forgot to mention yet ANOTHER Nor-Joe’s muffaletta was brought to my house.

  2. Pete's Mama on May 7, 2007 at 9:49 am

    Thanks,Pete! You truly are a wonderful brother!

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