“Domecoming – 20 years on”
After I posted last Sunday, we headed over to watch some football and enjoy Nic’s excellent cuisine. Sandi’s out of town and he wanted to feed us all again. Such a trooper out at the grill in the rain.
Quesadilla, salad, sweet potato, multiple spice levels of steak – what we’re coming to recognize as a classic Nic feast! And a vast supply of leftovers as well.
I’m really not good at this selfie stuff.
At some point in the evening, Nic asked Diana if she had any interest in attending the biggest game of the year at the Superdome on Monday. He had some extra tickets. We were very happy to take him up on that.
Monday was a huge day in New Orleans with a lot of national TV coverage – the 20th anniversary of the “Domecoming.”
The first game played in the repaired and reborn Superdome after Katrina was a Monday Night Football game against the Atlanta Falcons, 20 years ago. Steve Gleason, #37, blocked a punt early in the game that was returned for a touchdown – setting up a huge win for the Saints and the city of New Orleans.
Gleason was diagnosed with ALS in 2011, and has now lived many years more than expected, raising money and setting up programs that have had a huge impact on the community of folks living with the disease. He is as big a hero in New Orleans as Superbowl winning quarterback, Drew Brees.
We met up with Shanie and Bill and walked down to Lafayette square for a 2nd line parade to the Superdome. Gleason was presented with a key to the city and then he led the parade, including Drew Brees to the stadium.
We enjoyed a pre-game tailgate celebration at Grace’s office (Shanie and Bill’s daughter-in-law.) This was a pleasant relaxation outside of the craziness of the immediate stadium environs.
Over at the stadium, we discovered that Nic had lined up some amazing seats for us – 2 or 3 rows back from the field on the 40 yard line – closest I’ve ever been to the action.
Gleason and Brees led the “Who Dat” before things kicked off:
Our friend River and Irma Thomas kicked things off with an excellent rendition of the national anthem:
I love the moment in that video when Brees realizes the sudden volume increase is because the camera is on him.
The Saints played very poorly after all the build up. Turns out the anthem performance was really the highlight. The halftime show with Trombone Shorty and Eric Church was also a bust due to really poor sound at a low volume. We left after the halftime show and watched the embarrassing end of the game at home.
I assisted with some Halloween decorating on Tuesday. The scary spider and purple lights are up now – it only took a couple or maybe three attempts to match reality to Diana’s “vision.” Tony and Britney next door have purple lights and so now we have a theme going.
Trivia was a bit of a mixed bag on Tuesday evening. A big highlight was our perfect score at halftime. I was proud of us for getting maximum points from the halftime question:
Match the states :
- Oregon
- California
- Massachusetts
- Alabama
with the novel:
- Of Mice and Men
- One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
- Little Women
- To Kill a Mockingbird
What do you think?
Our correct answer:
- Of Mice and Men – California
- One Flow Over the Cuckoos Nest – Oregon
- Little Women – Massachusetts
- To Kill a Mockingbird – Alabama
We missed a few hard questions in the second half, and were tied for first place going into the final question. We did not get that correct and wagered 20 points (maximum.) There was a mix up in scoring that we let slide and they had us in second place by one point. The final challenge:
Put these in order from most to least:
- Teams that have won the FIFA World Cup
- Presidents that were Generals in the Army
- States that have one or more cities with more than a million population in 2022 census
- Countries that start with the letter “F”
The correct answer (not our submission – we had several out of order):
- Presidents that were Generals in the Army (12)
- Teams that have won the FIFA World Cup (8)
- States that have one or more cities with more than a million population in 2022 census (6)
- Countries that start with the letter “F” (3)
The Falklands and Faroes are not sovereign countries and so didn’t count. We were shocked at the number of presidents that were generals, and thought there were many more states with 1 million population cities. That was a very hard question.
I drove to the hospital on Thursday for a much awaited MRI. The hospital said the insurance company had not approved the MRI but had no reason why not. We left and I called the insurance company from the car – they had no record of any request for authorization from any doctor or hospital for me. Mind you – this is an appointment that I scheduled in August. So frustrating! I have scheduled an appointment with my primary care doctor to discuss next steps.
Jeff and the girls (Jazz and Cali, his Cavalier King Charles spaniels), along with Bill, Shanie, and PJ (their three and a half year old grandson) joined us to watch the Cowboys play Tampa Bay on Thursday evening. PJ enjoyed light up penguin.
The Cowboys played a typically inconsistent game with really horrible defense, ultimately losing. We enjoyed meeting PJ, a great kid with really good communication skills. At one point he found me on the porch to ask, “Keith, will you turn on the record player so that I can listen to some of the music?”
On Friday, hurricane Isaias made landfall east of New Orleans. We got some wind and a little rain, and that was it. Things were quite different in Navarre Beach where Denny was worried about Carolyn’s condo.
Saturday began with a walk in Audubon Park where I was amazed by the size of the tent being erected by the club house. Apparently for a fancy wedding next weekend – nobody’s saying who’s getting married.
As we were leaving the park, Nina and her boyfriend Nathan were pulling up for a walk. We enjoyed meeting and chatting with Nathan, a very pleasant and thoughtful man.
Reginelli’s (a local chain of pizza joints) was having an Italian cultural festival to celebrate their 30th anniversary and we sampled that briefly after our walk. One had to buy tickets at a central booth to use for the food and drink and we really couldn’t be bothered waiting in the long line and trying to figure out how many tickets we would need. A quick visit was all that was necessary.
It was time for the girls to get their dance on on Saturday night. Where Y’acht performed the music of Abba and The Bee Gees at the Broadside – such a wonderful venue. We picked up Shanie and her friend Christina, visiting from Houston.
There were twelve musicians onstage, including a string quartet called the Electric Yat Quartet. The sound engineer did his usual stellar job with such a varied group of instruments and voices – the mix and volume just right. My Dad would have loved the Abba songs:
Here’s one featuring one of our favourite dancers:
The band did an impressive job with the Bee Gees songs:
The band took a break at 10pm and Diana was not ready to leave. We waited for a few more songs and then I was able to drag her home kicking and screaming.
Diana had 8am tennis on Sunday – part of the reason that I had tried to encourage an earlier bedtime from the Broadside. That was followed by a brunch to celebrate Libby’s birthday at El Pavo Real (a good Latin/Mexican style restaurant.)
Those things standing on end are very yummy mushroom treats. Diana saved me some and Jancy added one – thanks girls.
We Face Timed with Francesca to wish her a Happy 7th Birthday. Diana thinks Frankie looks nothing like her. Hmm.
We made our way to the annual Blues and BBQ festival on Sunday afternoon. The weather was great, albeit a bit too hot in the direct sunshine. You have likely heard me mention how much I love this festival – never too crowded with constant, quality music from stages on either side of Lafayette square, great food, art, and reasonably priced drinks.
I listened to some of Mia Borders with her very large band, before heading into Gallier hall for an interview with Booker T. Jones.
It was nice and cool inside the small theater where DJ Soul Sister interviewed Booker T. .
The interview with George Porter Jr. (most famous as the bassist for The Meters) ran long and I heard a question about why there weren’t more melodies on their first record. Porter explained that was because their producer/manager wanted them to sound like a New Orleans version of Booker T. and the MGs. Soul Sister commented that Booker was coming up next. “Booker’s Here?” – Porter got quite excited. Interesting that he didn’t know who was headlining the festival that day – we’ll assume he was very focused on his own earlier performance.
Booker was very impressive – full recall of dates and names from all phases of his 81 years.
I returned to our spot in the square and listened to some more music. It was going to be a while before Booker took the stage at 7pm and so I suggested a visit to Luke down the street. Diana was all over it. The bar was full but they did find us a table to enjoy Happy Hour.
That’s a good looking Happy Hour menu. We started with the “Chef’s Gulf Dozen” oysters – 6 regular gulf and then 3 each of smaller, more briny ones (the kind that I like.)
McD looks quite happy with her two primary food groups. Still a little hungry after the oysters, we tried the escargots and bone marrow (not a combination that I’ve seen before.)
This was an excellent and unusual dish with at least two dozen delicious escargots. The bone marrow was the best I’ve tasted. We will be back to have this again.
You can tell we loved it.
We returned to the festival in time to catch a bit of Little Freddie King (looking weak after his recent bicycling accident and hospitalization), and then the headliner, Booker T. Jones.
It occurs to me that many of you may not be familiar with Booker T., so here’s some history:
He is best known for the early 60s hit “Green Onions.”
Here are some Booker videos:
My hunger for live music was well sated this week.
Back home, I finished out the week by watching a couple of episodes of the new Brian Williams interview show – Michael Douglas and Roseanne Cash were great guests. Diana thinks that I’ve watched the Roseanne one before, but it all seemed new to me.
I finished up “Good People” by Patmeena Sabit and am sorry to say that it didn’t live up to the great reviews and hype, or to my initial positive impression. The approach of telling the story through entries from friends, school teachers, investigators and the like just became too repetitive and trite after a while.
Here’s one paragraph that I did appreciate:
“Patrick Delaney, Security Director, Theodore Roosevelt High School
I made good progress on the Sylvester Stallone autobiography, reaching the time where he gets serious about screenwriting. I’m looking forward to finishing this soon.
We’ve had a lot of music in this post already, so I’m limiting myself to this one track from the upcoming Steve Gleason album “Rebirth.”