Yesterday was very hot, so my neighbor only wanted to walk in the morning. I ended up walking inside in the air conditioning the rest of the day, and then in the evening I went downtown to meet Tiffy. We had dinner at Himal Chuli, eating inside (which is unusual for us), then she got bubble tea but I didn't want any. We went to the roof of her sister's apartment building, but sitting inside because of the heat, and after a while I did want some bubble tea, so we went back down to get some. I probably should have headed home at that point, knowing the storm was coming, but honestly I wanted to watch it from that vantage point. At first it was very cool, with lots of lightning, but then the wind really picked up, and the construction cranes working on a nearby building started spinning around, so we got a bit freaked out and went down to the ground floor. We sat in the lobby, which has large windows but somehow felt safer, and we watched what looked like a hurricane outside. When the wind died down a bit, we went to her sister's apartment and sat in the dark, watching the storm until it seemed to have died down. I went to my car parked at the church, not even a block away, and by then there was just a light drizzle and some intermittent lightning flashing in the distance. There were flash flood warnings, but I didn't even encounter any standing water on my drive home. Travalon had said the power was out at our place, and it still was when I got there. We couldn't shower, and I had to grab a bottle of water from the fridge to brush my teeth, but we went to bed and slept for almost six hours.
I'm not totally sure when the power came back on, but I woke up about a quarter to six this morning, and Travalon had gotten up to turn off the lamp in the living room and apparently the TV, which came back on but was muted. I showered and tried to get back to sleep but couldn't, so eventually I just got up and started my day. We met Tiffy, Rich, and Jilly Moose for coffee downtown, sitting in the back garden because the day was a much pleasanter temperature. Rich headed for home while the rest of us went to the Union Terrace, where we found a perfect table in the shade. Jill had to leave for work just before one, while Travalon, Tiffy, and I had some lunch and then headed to the Edgewater Hotel for their free music festival.
At first when I saw the setup at the Edgewater, I thought, "Man, we gave up our perfect table at the Terrace for this?" Only the stage was under a tent, while all the chairs were set up in the sun. It was too loud in front of the band anyway, so we found a lovely place to sit along the side, among the shrubs, where we could see the band from the side so they weren't so loud. There was a refreshing lake breeze, and we were safely in the shade in a spot that would only get shadier. We got there midway through the set of the first band, the Jimmies, who are very popular locally. I'd never heard them before, but they have a horn section called the "Brassholes," and they played all sorts of stuff, like Latin tunes and New Orleans style tunes.
The second band was Panchromatic Steel, a local steel drum band. They are always good, and I got up and danced a lot in front of my chair. Lots of women were wearing tropical prints, and I wished I'd dressed more tropical instead of New Orleans with Mardi Gras beads. Though the weather was perfect, we did need to stay hydrated, and waters were $3. Fair enough, there was no cover charge so they had to make their money somehow.
The third band was Natty Nation, a local reggae band. We got some expensive but very fresh and delicious grilled shrimp, and Travalon got the Mideastern platter, but I ate all of his olives because he didn't want them. I felt mesmerized by the backbeat of the reggae, but Travalon needed a break, so he got fish and chips at the Boathouse, the restaurant on the water. I had a bite of his fish, and the breading was so good, almost like an apple pie crust. Tiffy said she was "dotty" because she has a lot of spots on her arms from the sun, so I said I should call her Dotty on the blog, but she said, "Then nobody will know who you're talking about." Anyway, she got her blog name from Evil Cherry Minnie, and who am I to argue with an evil, fruit-scented Disney character?
The last band was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, all the way from New Orleans, and they were as awesome as you are imagining they were. It's all about the dialogue between the trumpet and the trombone while the rhythm section lays down that syncopation. We saw a dog that looked like a friend's dog, so Tiffy took a photo of it. We also saw a guy coming toward us who looked like one of those Venetian Carnival clowns or something, with a white face and red spades painted on his cheeks, and red harlequin pants. He set his bag of juggling pins down right in front of us, then he took three, turned them on because they lit up, and went over to an open area and began juggling. I took a photo, but it hasn't downloaded from the Cloud yet. That was maybe not even the weirdest thing we saw there today, because earlier there was a big group of people who all seemed to be best friends but didn't go together at all, including what looked like a man in a dress and a guy "Pseudo-Bro" who looked kind of like Tiffy's brother. Pseudo-Bro convinced them all to go to the Union Terrace just before the headliners came on, which seemed crazy. I guess they weren't there for New Orleans jazz.
It was such a beautiful night. Just before we left, we went to gaze out over the lake at the remnants of the sunset, and the breeze had picked up. A boat docked below us glowed in the sequence of the colors of the rainbow. I could have stayed there for hours, but we are tired due to our shorter sleep last night, so I will wrap this up and go to bed.
Famous Hat
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