New Orleans Doesn't Worry. New Orleans Endures.

I can't even remember the last time I saw Margarette.  I dunno how long it's been since last I wrote about this adventure.  My whole world has become a crazy, hazy doozie of a daze.  Love in the time of Covid-19.

Love in the time of Covid-19.  The Immaculate Heart hidden in the bushes.

New Orleans is eerily quiet.  It's quiet like St. Roch Cemetery No. 2.  There is nobody on the streets, not even Margarette.  I thought I saw her but it turned out to be Adrienne.  One's an heiress and one's a painter.  They probably know each other.

I don't know what day it is.  I know Easter is coming but that's about it.  I know there's no comparison but I feel like Charleston Heston in The Omega Man.  Luckily, everyone on the street is even more super-friendly than usual and New Orleanians' natural, by-nature, neighborliness is second to none.  It's the world standard.  The standard has doubled over the past couple of weeks.

Stay 6 feet apart.  I'll tell you a story.

Having nothing else to do, I've been reading Wikipedia.  

The neighborhood I live in, our zip code is 70119.  Did you know that Louisiana shares the first zip code digit, 7, with Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas?!?  Wha-a-a-a-at!?!

Certainly, Shreveport is more Texan than Creole.  The northern parishes of Louisiana are very different from the southern parishes. New Orleans is an island unto itself, 200-proof Creole.  Acadiana is Cajun.  Louisiana is a patchwork state of sugar cane and cotton.  

Then, there's the crawfish.  Rice or potato salad?  Meat pies with tartar sauce or cayenne?     Catfish or drum?

New Orleans is cosmopolitan.  It always has been.  It always will be.  We nurture a polyglot population of gumbo and mumbo-jumbo.    Don't forget the French bread.  Leidenhiemer's is good to the last crumb.  There is no place so nice as New Orleans.

Coat-of-arms of the Porky Chops Social Aid and Pleasure Club.

In a New Orleans state of mind angels come home to roost.  When you love New Orleans, the city will love you right back, doublefold.   We who live in New Orleans, we're home.  

It has never been easy to live in New Orleans.  You know how a big man is nicknamed Tiny?  That's the Big Easy.  

New Orleans, forever beset by plagues, exists in a world of its own. New Orleans, like Atlantis and Camelot, endures.  New Orleans isn't going anywhere any time soon.  We're all in this together.

302 years and still kicking up, high stepping, free styling, and dancing like nobody is watching.  If you sing from your heart in New Orleans, everyone will harmonize with you.

In a New Orleans state of mind, you suspend your worries and your strife.  New Orleans will take care of you.  We are all in this together.  New Orleanians won't bow down.  "Our Lady of Prompt Succor, hasten to help us."  Have a great New Orleans day today, wherever you happen to be.

Wherever you happen to be, be well.  

À votre santé.

A word from our sponsor:   

   La Belle Esplanade.  

When you are ready to visit New Orleans like you mean it, there is only one B&B hotel where you should stay.  It's La Belle Esplanade, the small hotel that will respect your intelligence.  You belong here.  Here's the link to La Belle Esplanade's blog.  This New Orleans State of Mind blog is good but La Belle's blog is "The Best Written Blog in New Orleans."  

Visit New Orleans like you belong here.

The #1-ranked small hotel in New Orleans since April 2014.