Re-viewing New Orleans

Well, I just watched the finale of Celebrity Fit Club and the seemingly impossible has happened. A contestant spent 100 days on a television show devoted to losing weight and ended up gaining four pounds. True, she was going through a divorce at the time, which would obviously have an impact on your body and mind, but that is still an achievement. Though I have to give props to Kelly LeBrock, the “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” woman, who had the guts to come on the show and really put on a good showing. I’m bummed that the show is ending, now I won’t have anything to compare my efforts to.

(Yes, I am in a weight loss process. I’ll talk about the results when I hit my first big milestone, which in really good news is probably only a few weeks away.)

I’ve watched some of the coverage of Mardi Gras from New Orleans and I am pleasantly surprised by what I have seen. It does look as if the touristy parts of town have come back and are at least functional. Meaning that Bourbon Street looks like it is back up and that a good portion of the restaurants in the Quarter are open for business. Some of the other businesses are hurting. Saw an interview with an owner of one of the galleries that I think I may have bought some pictures from and she said that business is really bad. These are the art galleries with the really high quality photos of the city and they rely on the older, wealthier tourist crowd and that group hasn’t returned to the city yet. Those places are going to have a hard time since that tourist crowd is going to be very slow to return. The even higher end art galleries on Royal probably haven’t reopened at all.

Still, while the touristy areas are running a huge portion of the city is still uninhabitable and this includes places like Mid-City and Gentilly and this is where the story really lies. It will be a long time for those neighborhoods to return and until they do it will truly be a different place. That said, at least New Orleans still exists. I watched some of the news footage from Gulfport and Bay St. Louis and those towns really were washed off the map by Katrina. That still stuns me, I can’t imagine that one storm could take out entire towns.

All in all, this does have me thinking that maybe I will be making a trip back to New Orleans this year. Have to do my part to help out the economy and I owe a return visit to Pirate’s Alley based on some promises I made there last year. It won’t be the same but still, in a weird way it is my home and I can’t stay away for too long.

Not much else going on this weekend. Illinois won, Duke won, Kansas lost, Kansas State lost so everything is all right in that end of the world. I had the major accomplishment of getting my apartment cleaned (though I still have a basket of laundry that should get put away some time in the next week). Consider it an early spring cleaning, I just couldn’t stand the state that my apartment was in. You know, that point where you realize that there is a week’s worth of mail on your coffee table and dishes from Tuesday in the sink and nothing is horribly wrong but everything just looks slightly oft kilter. Hopefully that is taken care of and I’ll be of a clear mind to take on this week because it is going to be a long one. I’ll let you know what I mean as the week goes on.

The five random CDs of the week
1) U2 “The Joshua Tree”
2) Shannon McNally “Jukebox Sparrows”
3) Terrance Simien “Positively Beadhead” (thank you random number generator)
4) Julie Delpy “Julie Delpy” (thanks again)
5) Iris DeMent “The Way I Should”