Carefree Times in New Orleans

Mother-in-Law Lounge, view from under the Claiborne Overpass

I've been thinking about getting a bat house to put in our garden.  There's one in the Couturie Forest in City Park that I've been admiring, a double, and I've been thinking it would be nice to have bats swarm out of our backyard every night.  They're harmless.  They'll eat the mosquitoes.  It will be something to see, especially for our goth guests, of which we've had none.

I don't know why we don't have a lot of gloomy types choose to stay with us.  Maybe it's all the color and whimsy we fill the house with.  We have had a few Ann Rice fans, but not too many.  We aren't located in the Garden District, and that's where I think most die-hard Ann Rice fans stay.  Lafayette Cemetery is there, across the street from Commander's Palace on Washington Street.  That's where the "cemetery scene" from the movie was shot.  I have no idea what happened in the scene because I haven't seen the movie.

I was going to post a clip from Interview with a Vampire, but I don't want to watch it.  I decided to post a clip of something else instead:

It might surprise you to learn that I'm not a big fan of the movie Gigi, either.  I thought it was boring.  Frau Schmitt and I saw it at the Prytania Theater, uptown.  I do, however, enjoy watching Maurice Chevalier.  He was very good at playing himself.  Much like your humble narrator.  He had something else in common with your humble narrator.  He knew how to wear a hat.

One of New Orleans nicknames is, "The City That Care Forgot."

Frau Schmitt and I went to the Ooh Poo Pah Doo Bar last week to watch Kid Merv play.  We're big Kid Merv fans.  It was our first time at the Ooh Poo Pah Doo Bar, even though it's only about eight blocks from our house.  Is is safe to walk to the Ooh Poo Pah Doo Bar?  Not if you read this discussion on Trip Advisor.  We walked.  I just told a young couple from Scotland to walk there from our house.  Everything in New Orleans looks crummy and run down if you aren't from here (except the Garden District, of course) and if you aren't from here, you're excused for feeling nervous.  If you feel nervous, take a cab.  If you're from Glasgow, you'll probably feel comfortable.  No worries either way.

If you want to know if I think Esplanade Avenue is safe, it's the subject of the second-most popular post on this blog.  You can usually find it in the column of popular posts to your right.  Our most popular post?  By far, it is "How Much Do Cigarettes Cost in New Orleans?"  You can usually find it in that right hand column, too.  You can find a lot of useful information in our blog archives if you have enough time to kill.  It's full of surprises.  

Sitting in the Ooh Poo Pah Doo Bar, I had a conversation with a fellow patron while we listened to Kid Merv.  It went a little bit like this:


Other than my plans for the bat house, there isn't much to report, if you can count that as something worth reporting.  I've been meaning to replace the pump in the fountain in our back yard, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  I've had the replacement pump for two weeks.  It gives me something to talk about, as if I don't have enough to talk about.  By the time you get here, maybe I'll have the fountain working again.  Plugging in the pump while my feet are calf-deep in water is one of my least favorite chores.  Luckily, I only have to do it once a year or so.

The goldfish in the fountain survived the winter.  There are six of them.  They've all grown about 2 inches over the winter.  It was a fat December followed by a carefree February.  They are now about three inches long.

I'm like a proud papa, happy to show them off.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.