Parrots in New Orleans

New Orleans parrot

I sit in the gardens behind our house all the time, but I rarely meet with guests there.  We live in New Orleans.  When people stay with us, they are usually out and about, exploring the city and all the things this mesmerizing metropolis offers.  You know: jazz, son-balls, muffalattas, sazaracs, the French Quarter, the art museums, the ferry, those kind of things.  While our gardens are lovely, there is so much to do in New Orleans, most people don't hang around our house when they visit.  They're welcome to, of course, but most don't.

Hello, friend

   
I was sitting in the back garden when a colorful parrot landed in the oleander tree.  I've never seen a bird so beautiful.  He was tame, but he kept his distance, keeping to the branches around our patio until Belfast Billy showed up.

The parrot loved Belfast Billy, who was our guest at the time, along with Billy's lovely wife.  We sat at the table under under the sun umbrella and fed the parrot sunflower seeds and drinks from our fountain.  The parrot, as well as everyone else, was good company.

Angie asked me, "What is your day like?  I mean, what do you do over the course of your day?"  I looked straight at the colorful parrot and I said, "My days are like this.  I never know what's going to happen."  

The parrot had escaped from a house two blocks away, in Tremé.  The owners called over the back fence to fetch him.  They heard his cries from the corner, where Barracks Street intersects with N. Tonti Street.  Turns out the parrot is a she.  Her name is Parsley.  She's a lovely bird.  I enjoyed the time I spent admiring her colors and, while I don't hope she escapes again, I hope that if she does she'll know she is welcome here.  Everybody is.

Traditionally, there are four beers associated with New Orleans.  You can find evidence of them everywhere.  Not the beers, mind you, but signs, coasters, shirts and souvenirs stamped with their logos.  These four local beer brands, which commanded 80% of the New Orleans market in their day, are: Regal, Dixie, Jax, and Falstaff.

Dixie is still brewed, albeit somewhere far outside the city.  The Jax brewery building is now an odd shopping mall next to Jackson Square.  The Falstaff brewery building is now apartments, but the Falstaff sign still stands in Mid-City, still a landmark.  The Regal brewery building was torn down.  On it's foundation the Royal Sonesta Hotel was erected.

Parsley loves Regal Beer

I was looking at some old commercials for Regal Beer, the Never-Hurried Beer.




This video's notes say this is Harry Owens.  I know Harry Owens and this chap looks nothing like the Harry Owens from Nebraska who transplanted to Hawai'i and wrote songs that Bing Crosby sang.

Unless he's wearing a toupee for that Regal Beer commercial, this is what the Harry Owens I'm thinking of looked like in 1958:

Sit through that second clip long enough and you'll figure out that the guy in the first clip isn't Harry Owens.  

This is like people who go to Disney World (the one in Florida) and think they are getting a true Hawaiian experience by staying in the Polynesian Resort.  I've been to the Polynesian Resort, I enjoyed it.  We saw the luau show.  It was okay, especially the last twenty minutes.  Was it authentic?  Well, Neither Frau Schmitt nor I have been to Hawai'i but we're guessing the answer is no.  Maybe I should write that in capital letters: NO.

If you go to Disney World (the one in Florida) you can also stay at the New Orleans Resort.  Is it gonna be anything like New Orleans? We didn't visit it, though it was tempting, but we're guessing the answer is no.  Maybe I should write that in capital letters: NO.

If you want to experience New Orleans the way it is lived by the people who call this magical city home, we can recommend a place to stay.  It's on Esplanade Avenue.  You'll still be a tourist, but our inn will be your home for as long as you are here.  Our job is to be ambassadors.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

If you want to hear der Bingle sing Sweet Leilani by Harry Owens, here is your chance:

Top Choice in the New Orleans Lonely Planet Guide

Une belle fille de l'Avenue d'Esplanade

I have some interesting good news to share.  Before I do that though, I'll tell you about how my writing today's entry came about.

First, I cracked my knuckles and I limbered up with a few rounds of calisthenics.  Then I sauntered over to the hi-fi and picked some appropriate music to accompany today's literary endeavors.  Here's what's spinning today: Leroy Anderson.




Pretty appropriate, eh?  Leroy Anderson was born in Massachusetts but after serving in WWII, he got wise and settled down with his wife in Woodbury, CT.  Besides being a very successful composer, he served on the boards of the Hartford and the New Haven Symphonies.  I've always thought his crowning achievement (outside his many, many compositions) was his stint as the manager of the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra.  Waterbury is one of my favorite cities in the whole world.

In case you don't know, and it has long ceased to surprise me that some people don't know this, the CT above stands for the great state of Connecticut.  Hartford is the state capital.  New Haven is the home of Yale University.  Waterbury is known as the Brass City.  I could go on and about Connecticut, my home state, but most people aren't as interested as I think they should be and I assume you aren't, either.

So, with the Typewriter Song playing in the background, I saw on the right hand side of the YouTube screen from which I cribbed the above clip a related clip that I thought will be of interest to the kind of folks who enjoy wasting their time reading our blog.  I'd like to thank you for stopping by today.

A lot of our guests, Europeans mostly, ask if many New Orleanians speak French anymore.  I'm sorry to disappoint them, but the answer is: No.  Nobody speaks French anymore.  Graves are inscribed in French, but nobody is sitting around the breakfast table saying, "Pouvez-vous passer le miel, s'il vous plaît?"  [Can you please pass the honey?]

This disappoints some people, especially people from France.  They've heard that New Orleans is the most francophone and francophile city in the United States.  That is true, of course, but, still, nobody speaks French.  

After digressing and noodling about, I ate half a shrimp po' boy left over from lunch and I decided it was finally time to share with you some news that I find very exciting.  Frau Schmitt finds it exciting too, and she is usually right about these things.  

I was on the Lonely Planet website last night and guess what inn is a TOP CHOICE in the next edition of the Lonely Planet Guide?  If I'm writing about it, you probably don't have to guess.  Here's the link to proof.

Some people will think we paid to get that little blue ribbon in the upper left corner of the screen.  Nope.  We had no idea.  We didn't ask for it.  A few months ago, I reported that a writer from Lonely Planet had contacted me and I gave her a tour of the inn.  We chatted for a long time.  She saw every room.  She saw the kitchen, which is usually off limits, and we had a long discussion about breakfast.  She told me that how we serve breakfast is becoming, more and more, the more desirable way to go about it for people seeking an authentic destination experience.

"An authentic destination experience."  See?  I can sling the industry lingo just like the pros do, when I want to.  

La Belle Esplanade, a boutique New Orleans B&B inn

Only four bed and breakfasts made the Top Choice in the guidebook's latest addition.  We are the top choice for Tremé and Mid-City, our part of New Orleans.  We find this very flattering because there is some stiff competition, especially Ashton's Bed and Breakfast, just one block away from our house.  When we are fully booked, I always tell people to check at Ashton's.  If we're full, they usually are, too, but it never hurts to look.

Also making the Top Choice list is our friend, Nancy, at Auld Sweet Olive Bed and Breakfast.  A tip of the fedora in Nancy's direction, which I always do anyway.

This is the second guide book in which we appear.  The other one, ironically enough considering what I just wrote above, is published in French.  We love French guests.  Frau Schmitt is taking French lessons and she can speak conversationally, which is the best way, with our French-speaking guests.  

Needless to say, but I will anyway, Frau Schmitt also speaks German like a native German-speaker with our German-speaking guests.  Her English is impeccable, too; she did earn her Master's Degree in the U.S., after all ....AND, she know a smattering of Spanish!

Me?  I play charades and draw pictures to get my point across.  Sometimes it works.

The giraffe's head in our lobby

Our schtick, if I may borrow a word with which Jerry Lewis would be well familiar, is that we tend to steer people away from places that are listed in the guidebooks.  Not all the time, mind you, but often enough that we're getting a reputation for that.  Now that we are showing up in guidebooks, what will people think?

If I worried about what people think, this blog would be very different, wouldn't it?  I would have spent today telling you about the seafood festival that's going on in City Park this weekend, or about Southern Decadence, a big gay pride festival that happens in the French Quarter every Labor Day weekend.  Instead, in the middle of August, which happens to be the month in which Leroy Anderson wrote this composition, I offer you this:


Christmas and New Year's Ever are coming!  Make your reservations early!  Remember we are a Top Choice place to stay in New Orleans.  You can do a lot worse.  Believe me.  I know.  I've been to your other options.  You can do a lot worse.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade.

President Obama in New Orleans

A shadow on our house

I think I can safely speak for Frau Schmitt when I say that neither of us would mind if President Obama stopped by our house, even if he didn't spend the night.  As I write this, he's behind our house right now.  He's not in our back yard holding a beer summit.  He's five or six blocks behind us.  

I was running an errand and all the streets were blocked---policemen everywhere.  I figured it was the president so when I got home, I looked it up.  Sure enough, President Obama is in Tremé.

We have some guests from England who were very interested in seeing the president.  They were planning on having lunch at Dooky Chase's today so they may have gotten their wish.  The president ate there the last time he was in town.  No one called to ask me, of course, but I would have suggested he have lunch at Cafe Dauphine in the Lower 9th Ward, where he's going to be anyway later in the day.  

Now, to get on with what I wanted to write about today.


While I am interested in New Orleans transportation system, something caught my eye just after 1:56 in the video above, something very familiar.

That's Kathleen's el Camino parked on the street.

I always say, I wish I'd get a nickel for every time somebody takes a picture of our house.  I don't know how many times images of our house have been used, I only know the times I've seen it or what people forward to us.  Nothing I can do about and I don't begrudge anyone.  It's a compliment for a paint job well done.  Not that we painted the house ourselves.  It was this guy, who is the nicest contractor you'll ever meet.

As long as we're sitting around watching Convention and Visitors Bureau videos:



City Park, of course, is at one end of our street.  The English couple I just mentioned walked up there this morning.  The weather the past couple of days has been unseasonably mild.  It's been a real joy to walk around.  

Crescent Park is at the other end of our street.  It's very new so it doesn't have as much shade as I would like.  Give it a few years to grow into itself and I'm sure I'll enjoy it more than I do now.  Unlike the narrator, I can't get all excited about seeing the Mississippi River close up.

Armstrong Park is probably about the same distance from our house as the other two.  Walk down to Rampart Street and hook a right, in the uptown (upriver) direction.  Armstrong Park is a very interesting urban space.  This is another place that we don't visit often because there usually isn't much going on.  That said, when Jazz in the Park is going on, which is weekly in season, it's a good time.  

La Belle Esplanade

So, what did I want to write about again?  Who cares?  We've covered enough ground for today.  If you haven't stayed with us before, we look forward to meeting you.  If you have stayed with us before, we're looking forward to seeing you again.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.


P.S.  I just looked at the "Most Popular Posts" in the sidebar to your right.  For the first time since I can remember, "How Much Do Cigarettes Cost in New Orleans?" isn't listed there.  That, by far, is our most popular article.  

I think it's going to be knocked down in the rankings by "Ode to Golden Flake Potato Chips."  Everyday people are tweeting and retweeting links to it.  If you haven't read that one, check it out to see what all the excitement is about.  It's solid gold, I promise. 

Les Pêches Suite

Bedroom in Les Pêches Suite

I haven't mentioned it, but we've made some changes to Les Saintes Suite---so many changes that it's got a new name.  It's now called Les Pêches.  That's French for fish.  It's pretty fishy in there now.  If you're patient, maybe you'll find Nemo.

We didn't repaint the bedroom.  I've always been partial to the orange in that room and I think it makes a nice contrast with the sitting room's new color.  Wanna know what color that is?  You can either be patient or look through the door in the picture above.

Another bedroom view, Les Pêches Suite

I don't appear in the mirrors on that wardrobe because I'm standing right in the middle, where the doors meet.  I'm not a vampire.  Here's the proof:

Your humble narrator

We've put a new bed in Les Pêches Suite.  The old antique bed (all antiques are old by definition), we moved into La France Suite.  The new bed in Les Pêches is a queen bed.  We get a lot of requests for a queen bed.  The antique plantation sized beds we have in La France and Le Pelican are beautiful, but some people don't like to sleep close to each other.  In my line of work, I don't ask too many questions.

Bed in Les Pêches Suite

You'd think I could straighten out that picture over the bed before I took the picture, eh?  Just before writing this, I hung a new painting under the marlin.  I didn't hang the picture to cover up the spot you see in this photo.  That circle is a water spot on my camera lens.  I noticed it and wiped the lens with my shirt tail, just the way the pros do.  The new painting is a beauty.  It's by our favorite artist, Whalehead King.  You'll have to make a reservation to see it.

So, all of this is pretty mundane.  What about the sitting room?  Fasten your seatbelts, folks:

Sitting room, Les Pêches Suite

Sitting room, Les Pêches Suite

Sitting room, Les Pêches Suite

We've hung paper lanterns from the ceiling.  Yes, the ceilings are green in this suite.  I'm fancying the idea of making the decor more three dimensional and immersive, the way we did in Les Fleurs earlier this month (go back a couple of posts).  It works really well in Les Pêches.  When you turn the ceiling fan on, the lanterns spin.  I hope they stay up.

Sitting room, Les Pêches Suite

Of course, there are fish all over the walls in the sitting room, even more so than in the bedroom.  I'm very pleased with the results.  So is Frau Schmitt, who is usually right about these things.  This article gives you the slightest hint of what the suite looks like.  It doesn't smell like fish, of course.  We keep everything German-tidy; it smells like April freshness, the same as the rest of our inn.

You know what Ben Franklin said.  If you don't, he said that guests and fish stink after three days.  We don't think that about our guests.  We like people who stay for four, five, seven nights.  They really get a better idea of what it is like to live in New Orleans that way.  We know you have lives to get back to at home, but you won't regret staying for a longer time rather than a shorter.  Nobody is bored in New Orleans.

I should point out that Les Pêches Suite has it's own private bath with an antique clawfoot tub equipped with a shower head.  It has a balcony of its own that overlooks Esplanade Avenue.  The cast iron railing around the balcony is strung with white fairy lights you can plug in if you choose.  It's very romantic.

Les Saintes suite was always a favorite suite of mine, now that it's Les Pêches, it remains a favorite.  With only five to choose from, though, they are really all my favorite.  We are very proud of what we've created here at La Belle Esplanade.  I think justly so.  Frau Schmitt agrees, and she is usually right about these things.

If you are thinking of visiting New Orleans, you can do worse than staying with us.  We aren't the least expensive, but we try to provide good value for the dollar.  We're all about lagniappe and what hotel can you stay in and jawbone with the owner for an hour every morning?  None.  

If you want to see what the suite looked like before the renovations, here's the link to that.  

We look forward to meeting you.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.