the Labor Day weekend weather curse

I can no longer remember a Labor Day weekend in nola when the weather was nice.  Katrina hit over Labor Day weekend (I remember I was planning on finally going to the Shrimp & Petroleum Festival in Morgan City, but the hurricane put a damper on things).  Then Gustave comes along a few years later, we were all having deja vu, it felt like Katrina all over again.  The storm's path was headed straight for us & gaining strength, due to make landfall over Labor Day weekend.  Fortunately, the city dodged the bullet on that one, but we all evacuated for over a week & I remember having a mini meltdown at the thought of dealing with another disaster like Katrina.  So, as I said in a previous blog, I just hold my breath until we make it past the anniversary of Katrina & then Labor Day weekend.  Not that I think we're totally in the clear, but the further we get into September, the smaller hurricane season gets in the rearview mirror, which is a big relief.

So, it's Labor Day weekend again, & now we're contending with tropical storm Lee…see, we can't escape the Labor Day weekend weather curse!!  Although, New Orleanians hardly blink an eye for tropical storms…been there, done that, yawn.  We're all happy to welcome some much needed rain…it's cooled off temps & given me a break from watering all my outdoor plants.  Plus, it's the perfect excuse to stay in my apartment all weekend chillin' in my sweatpants, catching up on laundry, emails, & crappy tv (as long as the power doesn't go out).  We did have a power outage for about 5 hours in my hood yesterday, that was a bit of an inconvenience, but just as it was beginning to get warm in my apartment, miraculously, the power & AC popped back on…praise the lord!!  All in all, I can't complain, TS Lee has been smooth sailing so far.  I was looking forward to a possible jaunt to Ship Island with friends on Tuesday, but looks like Lee will still be raining on that parade.  There's always next week, we know the temperatures ain't cooling down for a while, so we'll still have beach time.

Rewinding to last week, I finished up the training for the Ken Burns Jazz Event tours.  Unfortunately, I missed the final day for "Jazz & the Story of Survival Today", but I enjoyed "jazz in the quarter" on Thursday.  We walked to Preservation Hall from the Ritz that morning & were greeted with some sort of southern punch (sadly, non-alcoholic).  A staff member at preservation hall gave a brief, but very interesting talk about the history of the space & music club.  During the actual event, the talk will be followed by a live concert, but we skipped that part during the training.  On our way from preservation hall to the Cabildo, us FOC tour guides were finally able to show off our skills to the Tauck folks with a mini tour of our territory, the quarter!  Once in the Cabildo, we were met by Charles Chamberlain, a Louisiana State Museum curator for a guided tour through the museum.  Of course, us FOC tour guides know the Cabildo pretty well, this was more for the Taulk guide directors, but it's always handy to get a refresher course from the expert.  While in the Cabildo, the skies opened up & the first round of hard rain began to fall.  Of course, we all had to walk from the Cabildo to Court of Two Sisters for our jazz brunch & there was no escaping getting wet, but we didn't melt.  And, in true form, I was completely prepared with rain hat, umbrella, & mini towel to dry off in my bag.  Several tour guides laughed at how prepared I was, but I know they were really just overcome by jealousy as they shivered in the chilly restaurant.  We were supposed to enjoy our brunch in the courtyard, but obviously, that wasn't an option.  There was still live jazz & a huge buffet where we all stuffed ourselves until we could barely breathe, again, compliments of Tauck!  This tour is shorter than the "roots of jazz" tour, so the jazz brunch was our last stop.  I had to stick around downtown for a meeting later that afternoon, so I decided the best thing to do while it was still pouring was to head back to the ritz (since our cars were parked in the garage across the street) & get a drink at the bar w/one of my tour guide friends.  All in all, not a bad day in the quarter, finally had my first meal at Court of Two Sisters & learned a little something, too.  

What's on the agenda for the coming week, you might ask?  Well, first we have to get past TS Lee, which should be mostly done with nola after tomorrow.  Then, I'm hoping to make it to the Race exhibit at the U.S. Mint (another Louisiana State Museum site) with some of my tour guide crew.  I also have a FOC "super" events committee meeting on Wednesday morning so we can regroup after the training for the Ken Burns Jazz Event last week.  We have lots to do, & although a month seems like plenty of time, it'll fly right by & we wanna be on the ball for this event.  All of the tour guides will probably be getting together to watch some of the Ken Burns jazz documentary, among other relevant films, compiling research on tour topics, refining our tour routes & talking points, & making sure all tour guides are on the same page.  I'm excited to be part of the committee working to coordinate this event with Taulk and a tour guide for each of the 3 tours, it should be a challenging, but also a rewarding experience.  

Now, I must go put some laundry in the dryer.  Then back on the couch with the book I'm currently reading, It Happened in New Orleans, by Bonnye E. Stuart.  I'm working on collecting more anecdotes to add flavor to my tours.