Thursday, April 9

New Orleans Experience

While Lum and Donna were at the hospital getting Lums first chemo treatment Butch and I held down the fort at their place AND went to New Orleans with Dutch, a longtime friend of Lums and Dutch's relatives visiting from Holland, Jelmer and Alie Kuipers. We had met Dutch at Snow Mountain Ranch where he is also a volunteer.
We had a great time getting acquainted with the city. It is charming, no two ways about it. The people are friendly and outgoing and the streets are clean. There is evidence of the homeless but that is a nationwide thing.

Katrina's aftermath is still in evidence but they have come a long way from the dreadful scenes we all saw on tv. One of the things Donna told me was that the birds left after Katrina and they returned just this year, four years later!

We noticed a street musician trying to herd a young injured bird into a box before it was run over on the busy street. The young musician told me that Jesus says we will be judged by how we treat the least among us so he wanted to do something for the bird. I helped him herd the bird into the box and he decided the least he could do for it was to move it to a location less traveled and asked me to watch his CD's while he did so. I was happy to do that.
In the cathedral I noticed a shabby man saying his prayers and wanted to get his photo. I did but unfortunately he caught me doing so. I hope his prayers were answered.
We had cafe au lait (coffee with boiled milk) and beignets (pronounced bin-yay) early in the day. A beignet is a doughnut/sweetbread type dough that is deep fried then doused liberally with powdered sugar.
For lunch we had red beans and rice with Italian sausage. It was a house specialty of the restaurant and a typical New Orleans meal.
Still later we had a pralines...hey, we were on vacation!!!
Lum is home now and resting and so are we from our big day.

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