Friday Quiz (not)

So.... Since my first attempt at a quiz was a disaster I will skip it this week and ponder trying again next week.

Today, I will list things I love about New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

And hopefully I will be able to see and experience these things again. Soon. Well, most of them.

1) Sitting on the bank of the Mississippi eating Toblerone and Muffalettas from Central Grocery.

2) Going to see Romeo & Juliet (the ballet) with Tangerine, spotting the hottest dancers a couple of hours later in the French Quarter and then stalking them around the Quarter for ages before giving up in a fit of giggles.

3) The first time I ever caught a crab in a crab trap down in Montrose (Fairhope), Alabama.

4) Casting the net with the official "Mullet Man" of Fairhope (it IS official, I have the certificate) off various piers; catching lots and lots of mullet for him to smoke and give away.

5) Eating a crawfish po-boy at the Fairgrounds at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

6) Being confronted with a Natchitoches Meat Pie and being powerless against it. Years of vegetarianism out the window. And it was so worth it. Especially when later eating a Muffaletta.

7) Running around the USS Alabama like a demon child with my cousins almost every Easter when we'd go to visit my grandparents.

8) Watching tons of ParrotHeads at the NO Jazz & Heritage Festival acting like awesome dorks while Buffett sang onstage.

9) Sitting right outside the Gospel tent at the Jazz Fest on a Sunday morning with my iced coffee and my beignets listening to the Nevilles - best Church Service in the world.

10) Aw hell, ANYTHING at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

11) Sand crabs on the beach in Gulfport.

12) Purchasing a stuffed crawfish that I later named Cheeto.

13) Riding the streetcar past all the pretty, pretty houses.

14) Eating dinner at the Commander's Palace on prom night with my folks, way before I was old enough to go to Prom. Back before Emeril's name was a household one.

15) Spending Easter Weekend at Nottaway Plantation with my parents and grandparents, during my Gone with the Wind obsession, pretending I was Scarlett O'Hara with flouncy skirts and a billion potential boyfriends. I was about 11, it was a totally acceptable fantasy.

16) Eating black olives and cottage cheese from the Fairhope Yacht Club salad bar and then polishing off a huge steak to please my grandfather.

17) Sitting on the lower level of my cousin's pier house in 'bama while he showed me glow-in-the-dark jelly fish in the water right below us.

18) Riding in a boat with my family down in Alabama and seeing dolphins swimming next to us.

19) Sitting on the porch at my cousins' house. My grandmother had died and we had all gathered together for her memorial at the church. After that we went to my cousins' place and watched the sun set talking about family and my grandmother. And it helped me deal with losing her. Being there and being with my family, remembering her in a place that suited her well.