Where the Rest Comes Easy

The scene of the crime

I don't know who started the rumor that Shania Twain stayed at our house last weekend, but I'm here to quash it.  She didn't.  Neither Frau Schmitt nor your humble narrator has ever met Ms. Twain, nor do we expect to meet her any time in the future.  One never knows, though. 

If you were wondering what the main hallway looks like at Auld Sweet Olive Bed and Breakfast, well, your curiosity has been satisfied above.  I don't know how Nancy got the rights to sweetolive.com, but I consider that to be a bit of a coup.  That's a nice url.  The Lookout Inn has a nice web address, too: lookoutneworleans.com.  That's what Kelly and Mark said the day they opened the front door from the inside for the first time: "Look out New Orleans!"  They've been doing good work from that day onward.

When we first opened, we considered calling La Belle Esplanade the Shady Rest Hotel.


It turns out that there already is a Shady Rest Hotel, albeit not in New Orleans, or even in the U.S. for that matter.  It's located in Port Morsby.  Where?  It's a city of over 300,000 people in Papua New Guinea.  It's the 139th most livable city out of 140.  

Do you know what people in Louisiana like to say when we read our state's ranking in any quality of life survey?  They say, "Thank goodness for Mississippi."  No matter how badly Louisiana performs in rates of infant mortality, education levels, drinking water quality, income inequality, cases of incest, unemployment, literacy, FASD, what have you, take your pick, we always have the Magnolia State ranked just below us at #50.  Thank goodness for Mississippi.

That's how the people in Port Morsby feel about Dhaka, which is the capital of Bangladesh, if you didn't know.   The Guardian (a British newspaper, if you didn't know) calls Port Morsby the world's worst city.  Maybe they haven't heard of Dhaka.  ---No, they have; at the time, Port Morsby was ranked the world's worst city, Dhaka was two slots above it, with Karachi sandwiched in between.  Karachi is the capital of Pakistan, if you didn't know.

The one way in which Louisiana beats Mississippi in their mutual race to the bottom of every ranking, and in which Louisiana beats everywhere else in the world, for that matter, is that Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate.  That's right.  More people are imprisoned per capita in Louisiana than any other place in the world.  Some people will tell you that this statistic indicates that it's safer here than any other place in the world.  Makes you want to visit, doesn't it?  

An interesting map

As you can see on the map, Louisiana is the only state to earn a solid dark navy blue color scheme.  Take that, Mississippi.  God bless Louisiana.  


Let's lighten up this conversation a little:




I've been meaning to go to Meyer the Hatter for the past couple of weeks, not because I need a new hat but only because I want one.  Wanting a new hat isn't a very good reason to buy one when a man already owns about twenty hats.  I do wear them all, however.  It's not like I collect them to get dusty on a shelf; I put them to good use covering my head.  A lot of people think I'm bald because they never see me without a hat.  I can neither confirm nor deny this rumor.

Thanksgiving Day is the opening day of horse racing season in New Orleans and everyone goes to the track (which is a ten-minute walk from our house) dressed to the nines.  Many of the men wore top hats this year, as they do every year.  In New Orleans, you can wear a top hat any time of year and no one will bat an eye.  

You can wear a blue homburg and nobody will bat an eye either.  In fact, you might just get a compliment or five over the course of running errands around the city.

You can't be afraid of color

I'll never forget when Eisenhower and Nixon both wore homburgs while toasting each other with tea during the 1953 inauguration, but I digress, as I sometimes do.

This has nothing to do with New Orleans

I haven't purchased a top hat yet because I don't really have occasion to wear one, not that anyone really needs to have a reason to top off an outfit with a topper.  

I've decided that the next time I go to a Christmas party at Auld Sweet Olive Bed and Breakfast, I'm going to wear a top hat.  I've got a year to think about it.  Regular readers will be kept updated on my decision-making process and dithering over the course of the next year.  If that isn't a good enough reason to stay tuned to this blog, I can't think of a better one.  I hope Nancy invites us next year.  If not, I'll just wear my new top hat at a jaunty angle around the city.

I'm biased, of course, but I think you'll enjoy visiting New Orleans. I don't know anything about you, dear reader, but I'm confident making that prediction because everyone loves New Orleans.  We live in a magical city.  From what I hear, it's much nicer here than in Port Morsby in Papua New Guinea.  It's more pleasant than Dhaka, too.  It's no Anatevka.


  
What have we got here?  A little bit of this, a little bit of that.  A pot, a pan, a broom, and more than one hat.

We look forward to meeting you.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade (labelleesplanade.com)