It was 12 o’clock and I needed a battery for my camera.  I’d spent over an hour looking for the digital, then, just as I was probably five inches away from finding it, I decided it was too bulky, and that my tiny Stylus would do much better.

While I was at the Best Buy I couldn’t help getting the Silverado and Krull DVDs… they met the basic under $20 rule.

At 2pm Kim showed up at my doorstep red as a lobster.  She’d taken a B12 pill and forgot she needed to have something in her stomach.  The ramifications of an empty one were pretty obvious.

So I popped a couple of waffles in the toaster oven and while we waited she showed me a manila folder entitled “New Orleans 2001″ – a file she’d written up with a list of restaurants, tours, and places with music.  I found it scary.

She ate her waffles and soon after we were in her gas guzzler SUV heading for LAX.

We parked at a long term lot and shuttled over to the terminal, where she had a Sam Adams and I quaffed a rum and coke.

Continental’s hub’s at Houston, but we’d just had lunch on the way over and the connection left in an hour.  So we just repeated our drinks then got underway.

We’d nearly finished the in-flight crossword puzzle when we arrived in New Orleans at midnight.  A short cab ride over to the Comfort Inn and we were doing the hugs thing with Katri.  Kris couldn’t make it… an exam kept him in St. Louis.  This meant spare space, so I’d offered it to Brian Miller, an archaeology grad student of Lothar’s at UCLA.  He showed up a half hour after we did and at 1am the four of us went off on a walk, thinking we could foot it to the Cafe du Monde on Decatur for some beignets and coffee.

Brian demonstrated his ability to lose his sense of direction, and it took us an hour to get there instead of the 30 minutes it probably would have taken us.  Which meant he shot himself in the foot, since he had to lead a panel on East Asia at eight in the morning.  All I had to do was sleepily get up and hang a poster on a board.

Three and a half hours of sleep was all we got.  The alarm thundered on and I slapped the machine a few times until it finally turned off.  I wasn’t sure if I’d only snoozed it, so I turned on the light, much to Katri’s chagrin, and tried to silence the thing forever.  I turned it back on before turning it off.  The groans from the ladies meant I was going to hear about it later when they’d gotten to their feet.

At seven fifteen Brian and I arrived at the Marriot on Canal.  He disappeared to try and write up an introduction in forty-five minutes.  I was in Geoff’s room watching him haft my jade axe to its handle.  I’d snuck the handle inside the hollow of the rolled up poster while the blade was in my backpack.  This was just in case the airline wanted to call attention to the big stick I was carrying on board their airplane.

From eight to twelve I stood in front of the poster, answering a few questions, wishing I had a chair.  It was termed a success.  People dig huge posters that take up the entire alotted space and dot it with big pictures of weapons of death and destruction.

After that I was officially a tourist.

Lunch was at the Riverwalk, a mall that strings along the Mississippi, though you can’t see it since it’s indoors.  I parted ways with the scholars and Kim, Katri, and myself went over, grabbed some fudge from the Fudgery, coffee and beignets from the mall’s Cafe du Monde (begin to sense a trend), then decided to head for the French Quarter.  But first we had to find a restroom for Kim that was not gross like the mall’s.

Enter Harrah’s, the sole casino on Canal.  Kim goes, Katri and I wait.  Katri puts in a dollar on a 5 cent slot machine.  She makes $1.20.

“I doubled my money!”

Wonder what the cashier thought when she changed a handful of 5 cent coins into two dollars and two dimes.

We got to Jackson Square, where I snapped a picture of the French Quarter Festival just getting under way.  I was pleased to look at the scene, with the St. Louis Cathedral in the background, looking pretty much the way I knew it … from a 320×200x256 resolution game called Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father (neeeeeerd!!).

Next to the square was the Bourbon French, a perfume shop that apparently was a local landmark.  Kim got her Voodoo Love perfume, I picked out a set of six fragrances stored in tiny, bourbon-bottle-like glass containers to send over to Japan.

A short jaunt over lay Bourbon Street.  In the bright of day, you could still smell vomit.  Popped into a voodoo shop so Kim could by some love charms (what the hell is she planning!?), then to a street bar where the three of us got mint juleps in plastic cups.

A nice touch: the ability to walk around in public with a drink in your hand.

We walked around a little more, looking for a candy shop where Kim wanted to get sweet and spicy pralines that could not be bought elsewhere.  Didn’t find it.  Good thing I had a julep to keep me happy.

Back at Canal Street I went back to the Marriot to try and get my axe and backpack out of Geoff’s room.  I’d left it there, not wishing to walk around New Orleans with a stone axe.  Though the idea holds a certain appeal, I didn’t want to push my luck with the NOPD.  Geoff was going off to dinner, told me to come back later.  Right.

In the meantime, Katri and Kim were at Sak’s.  ‘Nuff said.

We went back to the Comfort Inn to change.  In daylight, it became very clear that we lived in a dump.  My efforts to find a cheap room are much appreciated, but even so, the place was a dump.  Nowhere else have I come face to face with a soda machine shorter than me.

We waited outside K-Paul’s for ten minutes, then were let in.  Now here was a place where getting fat is unavoidable.  The bread before dinner was an assortment that was described to us in detail by our server.  The best of the bunch was the jalopeno cheese bun.  This I wanted more, but I restrained myself since there was the actual dinner itself to consider.

Kim had the twin beef tenders.  Katri got a trout.  I had the lamb chops.  I liked mine the best.  At this time, I also note that Kim now professes that the golden touch I had with food on my plate no longer applied.  Someone tell my sister.  She keeps eating my pickles.

I tried the Marriot again, making Kim and Katri wait while I scoured the place for Geoff.  Found him, got my bag and axe, done deal.

We walked around Bourbon Street with my carrying an axe in my backpack… I figured nighttime-wise, it was probably not a big deal.  We checked Storyville’s live jazz music (the only place on Kim’s music list).  The guy let them go in but carded me.  He found it hilarious.  I was worried about the axe.  There weren’t any seats and our feet were aching from the afternoon hunt for the candy store, so we left and ended up at the Absinthe bar.  We all had drinks and hung out.  I was apparently slightly drunk at a certain point, since I left them in mid-sentence to go to the bathroom.

There was a man there, you know, the guy who hands you stuff you could’ve gotten yourself.  He figured me for nineteen, and wondered how I got in the place.  Told him I was almost 28.  Guy next to me, hair graying, snickered and said he was almost 28, too.  This became the conversation topic of the restroom during my duration.  I had flashes of my life years from now, enduring the same tired jokes over and over and over again.  Yet another one to add to my list of heard-it-before-will-hear-it-agains, of which No. 1 is “Where’s your blanket?”

At this point it was coming on 2am and I was dog tired.  The girls were, too, so we all decided, well, to go to the Cafe du Monde on Decatur to have some beignets and coffee.

Then we went back to the motel.

Brian stumbled in sometime when the sun had already risen.  I discovered this when I snapped awake at 8am looked around and noticed he was there.  Thirty seconds later my wakefulness died and I was back in slumberland.

At 11am we all got up.  Katri showered first, during which time Brian opened his eyes and told his tale.  The night before was Chris Needs’ birthday.  Chris was the fellow I bunked with back in 1998 in China on Anne’s dig.  He was Anne’s student in Chicago, but will soon be Lothar’s at UCLA.

Brian and Chris stayed up to the wee hours drinking to his 30th.  A woman had come up and tried to bum a cigarette.  Brian told her sure, if she gave Chris a lap dance.  “Okay,” came the quick reply, and sooner than you could say “Armageddon” she’d popped up her shirt, jumped on his lap, and buried his face in her bosom.

Ah, New Orleans.

The four of us went to Petunia’s, a crepe shop decked out with pink walls, pink napkins, pink menus, and servers who would all fit quite nicely in West Hollywood.  Two meaty crepes and two dessert crepes were ordered and shared amongst the four of us… and that was lunch.

Back on Jackson Square at the Cabildo, the state museum, I bought a rough guide book and figured out where St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 was located.  On the way over, we passed Bourbon and I had myself a poor example of the Hurricane.  Brian got a Hand Grenade.  Other than the explosive nature of their names, I can’t say much about them.  They looked like chick drinks.

A store named The Funky Pirate caught Brian’s imagination, particularly when we were on Rampart heading for the cemetery and we spotted a pool hall looking place called The Funky Butt (located, like Petunia’s, in New Orleans’ West Hollywood).  The idea festered in his head while we discovered that the cemetery had closed a short thirty minutes ago.  Who closes cemeteries at 3pm, anyhow?

I scoped the place, seeing if I could vault the wall.  I was discouraged by my companions, and by the NOPD District 1 Station across the street.

We decided to head back to the French Quarter and get some po’boys from the Market Cafe.  On the way, the festering idea in Brian’s head culminated with him christening me The Funky Butt Pirate.  Other meanings may be suggested, but none of them would mean much as the name was entirely arbitrary in assignment.  Regardless, I accepted his christening and used it for the rest of the time in the Crescent City.

On the way to the Market Cafe, we finally found Kim’s candy store.  It was on Decatur, and we’d probably passed it every time we weren’t looking.

The Market Cafe boasted the best music we’d heard yet from a live old time jazz band.  Instead of po’boys, we ended up with a muffellata split four ways along with an appetizer of battered crawfish.  I wanted to try alligator, but had the minority vote.  Our server was a smiling woman who described to me the adventures of my rum and coke.I’d ordered one, the bar gave me a coke.  She took it back and told them to lose some of the coke and put a shot of rum in.  The bartender just put the shot in, meaning I had a weak rum and coke.  She objected, dumped some of the watery rum and coke, then decided to leave it to my discretion by giving me the lessened watery rum and coke and an extra cup with a straight shot.  I dumped the entire shot in and had a really strong rum and coke, which I didn’t mind at all after several sips.

On the way back to the Marriot, as Brian wanted to see if the archaeologists were there waiting to go to dinner.  Right then, I got a call from Gwen (Gwen from China Gwen and also Lothar’s student… in fact, his first) seeing if we wanted to go to dinner.  So yeah, I guess they were waiting to go to dinner.

The party was Gwen, Chris, Minna, and Brian for the archaeologists, all Lothar’s students, two of whom I’d known well back in China.  Plus us three.  We headed to Acme Oyster, but the place had a line out into the vomit-filled streets (yes, welcome back to Bourbon Street).  So across the way was Felix’s Seafood Restaurant, which had a table for parties of six or more right there.  So we went there.

We ordered two dozen raw oysters for the table and I got myself a turtle soup.  Minna went off on a rant about how the crawfish were too small to eat and how, in Finland (yes, we had two Finns in the party), it was a “big deal.”  She got kinda carried away with that one.

The oysters were nice.  I’ll stick to uni as my gross raw food of choice, though.

I got up to go to the restroom and as I walked along the hall separating the dining room from the standing oyster bar, this girl was walking towards me.  She’d coifed her hair into that Ashley-Judd-short-wavy-locks-like-rays-of-the-sun thing, but it was still Bea Yang.

Eyes wide in surprise, quick hug, exchange of stories, Oxo workmate takes a picture, okay great to see you, wow, that’s crazy, bye.  Oh, and hi to Jo – sure, will do.

Hey, Jo.  Bea says hi.

Turned out we needed to leave so the Oxo group could sit.  So that was interesting, Bea watching as we finished up and paid for dinner.

Bye, again, see you in LA or New York, okay, yeah, ciao.

The seven of us walked to the waterfront, too little too late to watch the fireworks.  They did make a nice sound echoing about the buildings that surrounded us, though.

Minna, Gwen, and Chris broke off to go home.  The remaining four?  We went to Cafe du Monde for beignets and coffee.

The Storyville bouncer asked for my id again, but see, it was a joke – he’d remembered me from the night before.  Funny.  Ha. ha. ha.

A woman sang for us while we had drinks.  Then the place closed!  At one in the morning!

What the hell!?

So we walk again.  And walk and walk and walk until we’re at Harrah’s.  This time I go to use the restroom.  And here’s what happened.

Katri plays on the quarter slot machine.  Three quarters.  One.  Nothing.  Two.  Nothing.  Three?

She makes $60.

I make her buy us drinks at the jazz cafe in the casino and make it a point that if I was ever in Vegas with her I would give her my standard $100 and tell her to do with it as she pleased.  The worse thing that could happen would be that I’d lose it – which is what happens anyway.

It hits 2am and it’s time to go back to the motel.  At 4am, we said goodbye to Katri as she boarded the airport shuttle.  At 6am, Brian left much the same way.  Kim and I slept till ten.

The first thing we did that Sunday noon was to head for St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 before noon when it closed (Sundays are special, aren’t they).  Because of the water table, burials were above ground.  Also because of the water table, burials tended to sink.  The remains of the tops of mausoleums look quite odd poking out of the ground.

We found Marie Lavaeu’s brick mausoleum.  Triple X’s dotted the exterior.  Ah, the need for love.  Again, very accurately depicted in Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father (sooooo a nerd).

Lunch was at the Napolean House (the third and last Gabriel Knight spot I wanted to hit – hey, the bust IS there!).  Named so because it was intended to be his house once his ex-generals rescued him from St. Helena… of course, he died three days prior to the ship setting sail, so what can you do?

Cheeseboard, spread plate, and a roast beef po’boy filled me up, and afterward we visited the state museum and learned us some culture.

Then we went to the Cafe du Monde on Decatur for beignets and coffee.

We idled at the riverfront for a bit, then got into a cab.  A quick stop at the motel to pick up our luggage and we were on our way to the airport.  Kim got some magazines and I got a book to read.  I had my last drink of Abita draft, the local beer, and soon enough we were on our way back to lala land.

In Houston we had Popeye’s for dinner.  Nope, not once did we visit the place in New Orleans, but in Houston, there we were.  The cashier looked like she was about to keel over and die from exhaustion.  Somehow or other, my two piece order had three.  Didn’t complain.

I finished the book I was reading, “Sick Puppy” by Calr Hiassen, on the plane back to LA.  Not bad… but nothing spectacular.  Good enough to read on a three hour flight.

We got to LA around 11:30pm, Sunday.  A record was set once we touched down.  Every single plane ride, from LA to New Orleans and back, had been early by 5 to 10 minutes.

The shuttle to the parking lot arrived soon enough, and a little after midnight I was back home, opening my mail.  On the way to get a glass of water, I noticed with horror that, when I’d toasted Kim’s waffles, I’d left the toaster on “stay warm”.  The damned thing had been on for three and a half days!  I quickly pulled the plug, inspected the surroundings, breathed a sigh of relief, called myself stupid for about an hour.

Climbed into bed and marveled at the comfort of my own pillow.  And that was that.