Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

We've been back to New Orleans many times, especially since I reconnected with my friend Greg who I met at Dungeons and Dragons Summer Camp in eighth grade . Greg has lived in NOLA for thirty years at this point. So now when we visit, hell yeah, we're those tourists all excited to tag along with the locals and pretend we're all cool like that. Greg told me he likes to OD on Mardi Gras parades. The whole month is an event. It's a thing. There's three parades a day and a whole lingo too, for example: Parades roll. If you're in a float, you're rolling in the parade.  There's also throws. This is the beads, or etc, they toss out of the floats. There's good throws and bad throws... meaning the quality of the items getting chucked out are evaluated based on a metric I couldn't quite discern.  The locals, however, are very clear on what's a good throw and a bad throw. They have a keen eye for bead quality, creativity, and adherence to the alleged th...

The first time I encountered New Orleans, it was a family trip at least twenty years ago. We all went, meaning Mom, Dad, Tom, Me, Sethie, Mary and Grandpa and Grandma. The selection of New Orleans as the family trip destination of choice consisted of one major factor: Mom and dad taken a weekend trip to NOLA earlier that year.... and they came home with a timeshare. ... yes, exactly. If you know my parents, this is extremely out of character. My eyebrows went through my hairline and stayed up there for a week.  My major memories of that trip were being blown away by the sprawling lantana flowers (which I love) and the ironwork (which I might love more). Lantana and Ironwork in New Orleans I also have a distinct recollection of the evening of our arrival. Tom and I shared a suite with Sethie and Mary. Someone suggested going out for a hamburger and I begged off. I was tired and I don't eat hamburgers anyway. This all transpired before cell phones, let's keep this in mind. Anyway...

 This whole thing started maybe last year. I joined a Facebook group for Swedish women in NYC. Agreed for sure that my whole application to join (ie "Answer these three questions") was semi-disingenuous since I'm not actually Swedish and I did omit this probably important bit of information. Also, I enlisted a legit native-born Swede to double check my grammar and spelling before I hit submit. But anyhoo, they let me in. Fast forward however long between my visits to Facebook, and I saw a post someone named Anna had put up there asking if anyone was up to meet for a coffee in Chelsea. The post was several days old and no one had replied. Of course no one had replied.  Swedes in general don't just go gallivanting off and have coffee with strangers. They like the idea of socializing, but really have no interest in meeting anyone. Lucky for Anna, Americans such as myself are totally cool with this whole meeting up with strangers thing, and so, a few hours later, I met h...