“Eclaircissement”
Monday was what I call an “administrative” day – taking care of a variety of things on the phone and the computer. I booked tickets to see Marc Cohn in Kansas City (he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 5 years ago and won’t be able to perform much longer), plus hotel and flights. And then did some research on restaurants in what is known as the “Power and Light” area of downtown Kansas City. Then on to buying tickets to see Curtis Stigers at a new to us venue in New Orleans. Next was the really fun stuff – transferring billing for my phone from my old work to a personal account. That took two separate 45 min phone calls. Finally, I worked on seeing when our COBRA health care coverage would kick in – hopefully next week. All of that took the best part of the day and left me feeling like I was back at work. Oh, almost forgot catching up on close to a month of blogs – I have no idea how I got so far behind. I suppose I’ll blame it on travel. And I also forgot about troubleshooting 401K contributions after I had transferred everything out – the joy of automatic contributions and being paid for unused vacation. Hopefully that’s all the admin stuff for a week or more.
While I was doing all that nonsense, Diana met Julia for a walk in the park. As hot and humid as it is, that would have been preferrable.
Diana asked me, “have you noticed the random trash on the side of the house?” I had not. “Well I finally found out where it’s coming from. The crows pick stuff off the street, take it up to the roof and then drop it, like fast food sauce packets.” I know – it’s the silly little things that entertain me.
A swim at the New Orleans Athletic Club (NOAC) started my Tuesday. The steam room wasn’t working, so I had to settle for a pleasant sauna after the swim.
In the afternoon, we enjoyed $6 Tuesdays at the Broad theater and the new “Superman” movie. Diana had fun picking out all the cameos – Bradley Cooper and the guy who was the star of Castle. The movie was better than either of us was expecting. The director was the same guy who did the “Guardians of the Galaxy” series and he brought the same sense of fun and humour to this movie. Krypto the dog was also a fun addition, and showed up as a trivia question later in the day.
The New Yorker had an interesting review of the movie:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/07/21/superman-movie-review
I joined the krewe for trivia in the evening. Ozzy had died earlier in the day, and Tom (quiz master) was clearly saddened by the news. He played several of his songs and told us that he had been on the road with him many years ago. I had started studying up on Greek mythology in the afternoon but we didn’t get any questions about that. We did get one ridiculously arcane question. “What’s a word beginning with “E” that means “the clearing up of something obscure” and was “the final word in the Scripps spelling bee this year.” “Eclaircissement ” was the answer. No surprise that none of the teams knew that.
We were in 1st place going into the final question, the only one where you can wager (and lose) up to 20 points. This was the correct answer:
“Light years in a parsec.” Really? After that “E” word. Tom was really pushing it this week. Interestingly Alex guessed 3 as the answer, and Nina knew that the Weekend song had been number one for the better part of a year. If we had only listened and wagered a bit. Instead we wagered zero and ended in 4th place.
Relaxing after the stress of that trivia experience, I watched the Saturday Night Live episode with Harry Styles as the musical guest. I remember being very impressed with his performance when seeing the original airing of this episode. Here he is flying around the Isle of Skye:
I made the mistake of reading this New Yorker magazine article on Wednesday morning. Made me angry for quite a while. Kids playing baseball? Where does it end?
ICE agents invade little league field – New Yorker
The guys arrived to restore the marble counters in the kitchen. They were so much quieter than I expected, and did a great job. All the rings and stains are gone and the marble is sealed up. We’ll see how long it lasts. Diana called the set up to protect against dust blowing around their “playpen”.
Thursday was time for another swim at the NOAC. This time the steam room was fully functional. The bar was also open – seems to be a new feature as we haven’t seen it open before. I had a coffee and a frittata for a very reasonable price. Nice!
We saw three “DiMarco plumbing” trucks on the drive home from the NOAC. This is the name that Adamo gave to the combined entity of Diana and Marco when we were planning Clorinda’s funeral and services. The two of them were quite something.
In New Orleans you don’t “go to the grocery store”, you “make groceries.” We “made groceries” on Friday afternoon. Diana complemented me on being a much better grocery shopper than in the past. Must be a positive feature of retirement. I’ll take the compliment and see if I can keep it up.
We met Anne, Denny and their plus one (Jack) for Happy Hour at the Red Dog Diner. This is next door to and owned by the same folks who run the Rum House, one of our favourite quick and easy restaurants. We’ve passed it hundreds of times and always thought it was some greasy spoon divey place. Not at all – when you go in the back you find a lovely place with very good food, drinks and service. Why am I just finding out about this now?
Diana decided to try a Moose’s Magnificent Mimosa. It’s like an Orange Julius with Strawberry jam vodka. I know – it sounds way too sweet, but was remarkably good.
I got a kick out of Denny ordering snacks. He did not take any input from the girls and ordered up exactly what he thought everyone needed. Easy for me and I’m not sure how he gets away with a lot of his behaviors – I would have been in all kinds of trouble for not asking for input.
The bar manager and another guy were working in the corner to decide on a wine pairing dinner that they will host in August. They gave Anne and Diana a bottle each of what they had been sampling. Such a nice place that we’ve avoided for so long.
I watched a movie called “The Penguin Lessons” on Friday night.
This movie stars Steve Coogan. Sometimes I think he’s really good and other times I don’t care for his performances at all. This was a good movie and he did well. His penguin costar did even better.
I had a final swim for the week on Sunday morning. We followed that with a delicious brunch at Paladar 511, just a short drive from the NOAC. Anne texted Diana during brunch to invite her to meet up with the girls and Mary on her way back to San Diego. I thought I would meet up with Denny and Thom while the girls were doing their thing. Both of them replied that they were planning on taking naps after a very hot tennis session. I decided to join the girls. Guess where they were going. Red Dog Diner. I haven’t been there in all the years I’ve been coming to New Orleans, and then went twice in the same week. May was late leaving Navarre and wasn’t able to join us before she needed to go to the airport.
I started “King of Ashes” by S. A. Crosby this week. I really enjoyed his last few books and have been waiting for this one to become available. I got a few pages in and decided I was in the mood for something different. It’s probably the nightmare of the book that Kelly recommended last week, coming back to haunt me.
I decided to try a book by Mick Herron. I’ve loved the “Slow Horses” series starring Gary Oldman and decided to check out the original books. Wow – I should have done this a long time ago. It’s like a Le Carre book but with better descriptions and language. Right up my alley.
I enjoy Chris Hillock’s guitar playing. I think he learned a lot from Mark Knopfler:
Some great rhythmic entertainment. I need to listen to some more of their stuff:
The great Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy, and I suspect Gary Moore on guitar but haven’t looked it up yet:
Coexist peacefully, with kindness and patience for all.