Act of kindness or act of madness? Freshly implanted in New Orleans, I took the notion of “southern hospitality” a little too far my first Mardi Gras. When an enterprising young man selling t-shirts came to my door, somehow “would you like a slice of King cake” became 5 nights on my couch. I thought he would never leave. Since then, my own couch-surfing karma has been superb!

It took me two full evenings to pack, and I managed to squeeze everything into only two bags.  Give me some credit; I cut down from six pairs of shoes to five. I’m sure I’ll have extra room when coming back as half of one bag is filled with tampons and pads to accommodate the period which was obliged to start the day before the trip, naturally.

I can’t believe what an idiot I was when clearing US customs.  Word of advice: do not choose the line which leads to a 21-year old American lad whose testosterone is fueled by the power he relishes as being a proud Yankee protecting his blessed homeland from the extremely dangerous vacationers seeking a little sun and respite in the very holy land he holds so dear to his heart. This dude grilled me obsessively on why I was going to the USA until I finally snapped in response to his question why I was going by myself from New Orleans to Florida.

“Because I Couldn’t Find Anyone to Go With Me!!!”

Satisfied, you fucking gun-toting, Waco-emulating little twit?!! Of course, this may not have been the brightest approach, but I made it through, the dangerous, subversive sun seeker I am.

Going back a few months, when things ended with Mason I was rattled. My social life stagnated as I retreated to a corner to lick my gaping wounds.  Then I decided to do something I never dreamt I would do.

When I was speaking with my buddy Yogi before he took off for a quick terrorization of the Australian continent, he mentioned that he had met a girl on line and was going to have a date with her when he returned.  On the same token one of my oldest friends, Aria, confessed that she had signed up on a Jewish singled Internet service called “JDate.” Yogi suggested I set up a totally anonymous Hotmail account and give it a try. I decided to take the plunge.

I had a stroke of inspiration when entering my Hotmail details.  While I had briefly entertained “cool female” as a handle, I figured with millions of people preceding me in the cyber evolutionary chain someone was bound to have considered that one already. (This concept – that others may already have claimed common handles – was lost on Aria as I patiently sat through her attempts at creating over 40 permutations of user names, all of which were taken.)  I selected “Catalina de Erauso”, thenunensign@hotmail.com, after the 17th century cross-dressing Basque nun warrior I discovered during my Master’s studies. (I thought it was the perfect handle until I got tired later of explaining what a “nunen” sign wasn’t.)  With my new account in place, I gingerly entered the mysterious world of JDate.

With my social life on track, I reflect on my professional state. Taking on the new international manager position is fun, but the handover with my predecessor is driving me bonkers.  If bad grammar were a felony she would be locked away for life. Her use of the comma is criminal!  For example, instead of writing

Apples and oranges are two objects that should not be compared or sliced.

She would write

Apples, and oranges, are two objects, that should not be compared, or sliced.

Proofing her documents, is driving, me crazy! But now I am on holiday, leaving all commas, semi colons and split infinitives behind.

I engaged my plane neighbour in conversation. Alice was living in New Orleans but was moving back to Chicago after 30 years because she hated the drugs and crime.  Well, no wonder! She lived on Apple Street across from a crack house (we shared a cab from the airport).

Coming back to New Orleans was like coming home, and very little has changed.  In fact, if anything the city is gentrifying. Kind of nice to see!  The taxi dropped me off at Matt and Patsy’s cute shotgun way down Calhoun above Tchoupitoulas, and I was greeted by Jack, the ultimate anti-guard beagle. He came up, sniffed, and otherwise showed very little interest in the stranger in his midst. Once I settled in I decided to spend the afternoon walking around Tulane University campus and, seeing as I was going for a walk, took lazy Jack with me.

Ambling under the giant oaks in Audubon park, I chuckled at the ghosts of my former rollerblading self, recalling how I would wobble and rumble along the uneven path, defiantly forcing grad student exercise. I winked at the turtles sunning themselves in the pond and tried to dissuade Jack from marking every single item which crossed his path. There isn’t an animal on earth that has as much urine as Jack thinks he has.

Crossing St. Charles to campus, it felt like I had never been away. The staff remembered me instantly. Sue joyfully caught me up on all the gossip.

“Darryl got married.  Huck is getting married this weekend. Laura is married or will be soon. Helena got married.  Steve and Cameron ended up together. Peter is engaged. Drew is engaged…”

And Amy is lining up blind dates in the Internet. I felt like a romantic retard.

That evening Patsy and I jumped the Magazine bus to Bacco for our pre-theatre meal. After a meal of corn and crawfish bisque, oysters, seafood ravioli and apple cake, we took the “Baccomobile” to the Saenger Theatre to see Rent. I have never been more depressed. When the main character read his girlfriend’s letter that said “we’ve got AIDS”, I was overwhelmed with sadness and couldn’t focus on the rest of the play. If there was any optimism I missed it.

We headed to the Quarter, grabbed the requisite Muffaletta from Progress Grocery and grabbed a couple of drinks at, where else, but Patty O’s, where Matt ran into his former casino friend Toby, Queen of the Quarter. Ah, good ole’ Pat O’Brien’s.  Hazy memories of Mardi Gras debauchery tugged at the corners of my mouth.

With Patsy at an awards dinner that night, Matt and I continued our bon temps at Jacquimo’s on Oak by the Maple Leaf Tavern. Mmm, jambalaya-stuffed quails with corn macquechou and brussels sprouts (never willingly ordered those before.) Matt knew Jacques, so after our meal we shared a shot of some wicked Czech liquid with him and our waitress Eve.  Next stop, Henry Butter at the Bons Temps. Of course Matt knew the bartender, and I chatted with him while Matt got progressively more soused. Yes, I admit it – my chauffeur was shitfaced and I knew it. Earlier in the day I had forgotten how hard Matt drinks. Nice reminder.

Our next stop (and, as it were, final, thank goodness) was the legendary F&M patio bar where we hung out with Matt’s friend (!) Sean the bartender, a “nice Jewish boy” who allegedly didn’t have much luck with the ladies.  Unfortunately, Sean was in a grumpy mood because he was out of pocket from someone swiping $40 off the bar, but he was a good sport about keeping my glass constantly filled… with water.  I had been slowing down since the third hurricane earlier that evening, and by 3 am I was quite content with New Orleans’ Best Tap. Matt, however, knew no limits until finally he exclaimed, on probably his 30th drink of the day,

“I’m finally drunk.”

Hoo boy.

When he was telling me an interactive story about a guy grabbing him around the neck, I wasn’t too pleased about the headlock in which I found myself.  Then he insisted I get up on the now-covered pool table and dance.  I tried desperately to dissuade him but – shwooop – I was hoisted onto the “stage”.  Fortunately, Matt didn’t try any wild moves for which I was grateful seeing as I was wearing a short miniskirt with verrrry small underwear.

While I was on the pool table trying not to flash my booty I noticed a rather attractive guy standing close by. When I saw him looking at me (I think… I hope?) with a slightly-cocked head and dreamy bedroom eyes, I was rather flattered if not somewhat aroused. But alas, I was too shy and did not speak to him, even when he ended up standing next to me at the bar (by design?). Regrettably, he ended up in the arms (well, actually passed out on the shoulders) of another woman, and a night of salacious sexual awakening was snuffed out.  At 4 am I finally dragged Matt out of there and made it home, virtue and limbs intact.

I almost succumbed to a really cute light yellow chenille shirt with the unadorable price of US $95, but I resisted, proving that I had some self control when it come to my own indulgences. That was short lived.

I found myself in a crowded folk art shop where I purchased two dia de los muertos shadow boxes. I accelerated my spending frenzy by picking up my favourite hot sauce (green Cajun Chef) followed by the sign that now greets visitors to my home in Toronto,  “Beware pickpockets and loose women”.  I then spent $110 on a new belly button ring and walked to Simon’s studio on Magazine Street (after dishooving my now painful new shoes) where I acquired three Catholic iconographic pieces and a painting by Simon himself of an orange cat celebrating Hallowe’en in Uptown.  At this point I stopped before completely spiraling out of control.

For fun I dropped by my neighbourhood, the 4600 block of Carondelet, right by Sacred Heart Girls’ School. As I was hanging outside with my old neighbours, one of the tenants of my former residence came home and kindly indulged me in a walk down memory lane. Holy shit, were those guys pigs.  My beloved walk-in closet was out of control. My old bedroom… I have never seen anything like it. The western wall was a cordillera of soiled, rumpled, dirty clothes. Every inch of floor space was covered with some sort of crap – paper, garbage, old food cartons. It was a blessing that the light switch no longer worked. Downstairs I noticed a dust pile on the floor which, on closer inspection, proved to be a pile of dead cockroaches. Why would you go to the trouble of sweeping the cockroaches into a pile but not get rid of them? But it got worse. My host recalled the time he was siggint in the living room when a huge rat went skittering by. (In New Orleans, rats are the size of small elephants.)  He added for good measure that one time the dishes were left so long in the sink that maggots took up residence. Time to go!

That night I met up with my friend Dan at Casamento’s, home of the oyster, followed by the Galactic show at Tipitina’s.  We ended the night at F&M’s where my new friend Sean plied us with drinks and Dan plied me with scandalous gossip from our class. Who knew Laura was such a slut?!

The best part about this time of year in New Orleans? Jazz Fest. If you love music, food, happy people, creatively decorated tall poles and sunshine, there is no better place for it.

One of the most coveted treats at Jazz Fest is the crawfish bread.  From the moment I awoke, I talked about how excited I was to get crawfish bread.  As we biked for an hour to the fairgrounds, I extolled the virtues of crawfish bread to Matt and Patsy. As we locked our bikes and entered the park, I mused earnestly how psyched I was about the pending crawfish bread. Matt and Patsy then deliberated about how to acquire both the rosemint iced tea and the crawfish bread, and before I could do anything, poof! Patsy disappeared, Matt disappeared. Luckily I found Matt at the ice tea stand, but when we found Patsy she had bought crawfish bread for Matt and herself, but not for me.

“Oh, did you want crawfish bread?” she asked, mildly surprised.

Patsy was more self involved that I had thought.

Happily I soon procured my own crawfish bread and mandarin iced tea, to be eventually followed by fried alligator po boy, BBQ oyster po boy, bread pudding, sweet potato pone, seafood au gratin, spinach artichoke casserole, crawfish beignets and mango freeze. The music had a tough time competing, even if it was Cassandra Wilson, Santana, Ray Charles, Rockin’ Doopsie and the Zydeco Rollers and Cowboy Mouth. But the best surprise was the final act of the day in the Gospel Tent. The show was behind schedule, but the energy in the air made it clear that this was going to be a BIG show.  Every time the crowd caught a glimpse of the “band” backstage, they screamed.  Not just cheered, but screamed. When Fred Hammond and his 12 teenage Radical for Christ ensemble finally came on, the place exploded. Every single person leapt to their feet and started belting out the lyrics to an infectious blend of gospel, hip hop, R&B and pop. I was swallowed by the music and I allowed it to eat me whole.

That night we hit Reginelli’s for a muffaletta and, for old time’s sake, Pat O’Brien’s patio where the theme was banana cocktails. Matt drove us around trying to find the Saturn Bar, but despite cruising St. Claude to Chaumette, no joy. But so the night should not be a total failure, our last stop was Fleur de Lis, a new bar on Lee Circle opened by one of Matt’s friends.

Lingering over my Abita turbodog, I realized how much I had missed New Orleans, and that no matter where I would go in the world, it would always retain a piece of me.

Let’s see if Florida has the same effect.

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The following night I called Karen to give her the disappointing news: no phone call.   However, before I had a chance to say anything she excitedly burst out:

“You are not going to believe where I’ve been for the last two hours.”

When she told me I freaked.

She had been grocery shopping at the Winn Dixie on Tchoupitoulas when she happened to notice a tall, red headed fellow leaning over the pay phone.  She recognized him as Jim Creeggan, the Barenaked Ladies’ bass player. She went up to him, exclaiming “what the heck are you doing here???”  Turns out he had gotten a cab to drop him off at music venue Tipitina’s so he could buy tickets for the Subdudes show that night. However, as the tickets weren’t on sale until much later, he wandered along till he found the supermarket.  (And what a site it must have been to see a lanky, naïve , white carrot top Canadian loping along one of the roughest, most poorly lit roads in the city.)  He suggested that Karen and he go out for dinner, which they did.  He then tried to talk her into going to the show that night at Tips, but she demurred.

“You said what???” I asked incredulously.

After hearing this amazing story of destiny, we rowed back and forth for almost an hour until I finally wore her down, convincing her to “carpe diem”. Karen picked me up and when we arrived at Tips, the scene was just crazy.  People spilled over the sidewalk onto the street, everyone was drinking and enjoying the mild weather (gotta love the South in February), and there was a constant flow in and out the main doors. As luck would have it, when we peaked our head in the outside bar window, we saw Tyler, the Ladies’ drummer.  We got his attention by frantically waving our arms and yelling repeatedly that we were looking for Jim, JIM!  He finally understood us and returned shortly with his bandmate. With a big smile and wave in our direction, Jim headed towards the front door to meet us.  As luck would have it my rugby friend Shaun was working the door.  He introduced us to the other bouncer Bill, and we got in for free, saving us $11 a piece.  During the course of the night I went back and hung out with Shaun and Bill, and somehow Bill managed to score me a backstage pass. Conveniently, Jim spotted an “all access” pass on the floor, so all three of us were able to go back stage. Rumour had it that Jimmy Buffet was in the house, but he was nowhere to be found.  Oh well; someday I will track him down and give him salutations from my old rugby coach.

What a crazy night of dancing!  Jim was really cool, had a great sense of humour and loved to dance.  Not too many people recognized who he was, so the scene was pretty relaxed.  Tyler didn’t stick around too long, but before he I suggested he check out Rock ‘n bowl before leaving town.  To this he asked,

“Oh, were you the ones who left that note for us?”  to which I replied, aghast,

“You mean you actually got the note?”

Strange how life works, eh?

In between the sets we went outside for air.  The former owner of Tipitina’s came up because he had recognized Jim from the show.  Then this other, familiar-looking dude came up.  After he gave his greetings to Jim (sorry I missed your show, blah blah), I just had to ask him where he was from.  He was from Toronto and we had overlapped two years at McGill and knew people in common.  With the kind of night we were having I wouldn’t have been surprised to see my mother walk through the door.

The dancing continued. Karen preferred the safe refuge of backstage, but Jim and I tore it up on the manic dance floor. At one point a woman came up to me, gushing in a thick New York accent,

“Oh, he is sooo romantic!” referring to Jim.

I said that she should tell him, which she did.

“You are so romantic!  I married an Italian for 25 years and pffft.  She [me!?] is so lucky to have you, [turning to me], and I’m sure he knows how lucky he is!  You make such a nice couple!”

Like I said, Jim had a good sense of humour (fortunately).

Karen petered out around 2 am.  I offered to drive Jim back to his hotel, so Bill and I walked Karen to her car and Jim and I danced until the music ended.  After saying our good-byes (to Bill, Shaun, Rob, Michael, Noah the bass player in Phantom of the Opera, the bartenders, the cleaning staff, etc.), we walked the 15 minutes up Napolean to my place on Carondelet. The whole experience was sort of surreal; our conversation covered Toronto, my father’s concern for the band’s success, the music business, and the city of New Orleans.  I invited him in for some Cran-blueberry juice (I am not making this up), and we both marvelled at the magnificent accommodations you could rent for $700/month.  We ended up on my balcony where we sat and chatted, keeping a respectful distance.  I showed him my Mardi Gras beads, and when he admired the one with the hand-painted moons how could I not give it to him? I offered to give him a driving tour of Uptown and the fancy homes on St. Charles.  So we hopped in the car (after he snagged one of my perfect bananas en route through the kitchen) and drove down the road.  When we ducked into Tulane University campus I suddenly realized how tired I was. I drove him back to his hotel, we said goodbye, and I asked him if he had Karen’s number and that if he still wanted to we would take him out on Friday.

Turns out we never heard from him before he left town.  But a little over a month later, a surprise package arrived. As you would expect from a polite Canadian rock star, he sent us a thank you note, along with a CD.