N'awlins

Last week, I went down to Louisiana's fine city with P for its annual cocktail convention, the same one we attended last year.



It was fun, and swampy as hell hot. Sadly, I didn't take any photos as amusing as the one from last year of someone's crutches locked to a parking sign (sorry, Erica). In fact, the only pictures I'd like to share with you, dear reader, are of lampposts. It's not as boring as it sounds. I hope.

The first is of the ubiquitous "Sauce" tag. Mr. Sauce is everywhere in New Orleans. When you're driving into the city from the airport, he's picked several prime locations to shout out his chosen graffiti moniker in a big way. If you ask me, this guy has perhaps unwittingly opened the door for food-inspired graffiti names. When is the notorious Spaghetti going to start competing with him, for instance? SAUCE vs. SPAGHETTI!!! OK, that's kind of stupid.

Drivin N' Cryin is still together, thank god. (Whenever I think of this band's name, which is surprisingly often, it makes me crack up.)

Speaking of the Lord. We found ourselves on the corner of Race and Religious one night. I don't know if there's another street corner in America as intense as this one. P bought an all-natural, very delicious plum snowball on Piety street one day. Or maybe it was Desire street. Desire comes right before Piety in New Orleans. But even those weighty words are no match for this particular crossroads.

Whoa.

We also ate and drank a lot: Parasol's roast beef po boy, fried chicken from the Praline Connection, enormous, cold sweet teas every five seconds, crazy ice cream flavors from the Creole Creamery, kooky cocktails from here to eternity, swam in a lovely pool every day, and peeled out of town to check out the bayou and hike around a little, but didn't see any snakes or alligators (aw). In other words, I have never sweat so much in my life.