New Orleans

I am back from an all too brief trip to New Orleans. The weather was fab, even HOT!!! and of course the food really really good. The big biennial art show was interesting and some of it was quite delightful. Long story short, it was a great trip, I love New Orleans, and I will be going back there for sure.
One of the take home messages was TALK TO STRANGERS! No one passed on the street without greeting one another. At least a "good morning", and if you lingered even a second they would talk as long as you wanted. I found that to be really comforting somehow. I want to take that up as a habit, even in my own town. Here I am talking to a stranger...well actually it's a statue...

Here's Nancy talking to a stranger, well it's a statue too....

Now here's an actual stranger that we did talk to. His name is James May. He is a street musician and a pretty entertaining guy. He told us of his escape from the city, after Katrina, with his stuff in a boat. He left town in a truck with an "eccentric friend, his pit bull and pot bellied pig" wow. He sang us a song, "Do you know what it means, to miss New Orleans" oh yeah.

travel time

I'm getting ready to go on a trip to New Orleans. As is my custom, I'm asking everyone I know for suggested activities and advice. I've got a couple guide books too. So one thing I keep hearing over and over is that "New Orleans is a dangerous city, BE CAREFUL". One of the guide books had two paragraphs devoted to the safety tip of "avoid wearing beads!!" Now I personally think that may be taking things too far, being that I'm a fan of jewelry. Why, I think most events require beads of some sort. So in addition to reading up on the history and sights of New Orleans I thought I'd better brush up on my Robert Pelton Young while I'm at it.
I'm still very interested in people's suggestions. I'm not leaving til early Thurs morning, so if you've got ideas for me send on!!

Happy New Year!

I had the best New Year's day. It was sunny and warm and along with a few pals went to Santo Domingo Pueblo for a special lunch and to watch the ceremonial dances. First of all the red chile was either tied with the best I ever had, or maybe even the best. A bit of a bite to it but no too hot, creamy and over meat. The woman who made it made beans in case we didn't eat chile. Couple that with home made bread from the horno OMG the best ever. There weren't that many visitors there. So we were of about a dozen non-natives watching the dances. You can't take pictures so imagine this: There's a block of about 30 or 40 men surrounding the drummer. They are singing mostly what sounded so me like "ah way, ah way" and the beat of the drum is steady like boom boom boom boom and every now and again there's a pause just long enough to be like a long taking of a breath then again the boom boom boom. There are about 200 people dancing. They have bells around their ankles and shells tied to their clothes. The women have on black dresses and turquoise painted head dresses, they are carrying sprigs of evergreens. The men have rattles. so along with the drumming and singing there is the rhythmic pulsing of the bells, shells and the rattles are shaken every now and again. There was a man who held this banner that was probably on an 8 foot pole. the banner had a picture of corn on it, and was long and skinny, topped with a yellow doo dad and red feathers. He waved it around like a blessing on all of us. The dance was held in the plaza between the two kivas, and the sound echo'd off the adobe houses and reverberated inside of my body. I was so ready for this without knowing it before hand really. It was very moving and felt like just the thing to be doing on the first day of the new year. The dances went on all day. We didn't stay that long, but I feel it still ...

Here are some cattle. it has nothing to do with anything except a preview of the year of the ox