Series : Living in NOLA, part 1
Ugh! I'm taking a break. It's a sweltering day. And I have spent HOURS this afternoon turning our apt upside-down looking for our marriage certificate. It's not with the other official docs, and I need it to document my name change for my passport. What bites, is that this is our second marriage certificate. The first one was lost ages ago, and now we've lost the replacement. It's not like we get it out periodically to gaze in wonderment that we're legally married. This is SO frustrating!!!
But anyway...The title of this entry. In a recent entry, the following comment was made by my friend Rebecca: "New Orleans seems like just a place in my imagination." Indeed, it was pretty much a place in my imagination, too, until I moved here. I had a vague idea where Louisiana was, and an even more vague one where New Orleans was. I knew there was Cajuns and Mardi Gras, and that's about all I new. This city seemed to belong to the category, "long, long ago, and far, far away."
I'm going to begin a series for the summer about living in New Orleans (or NOLA, that is New Orleans, LA), at least living in it as I do, which, I promise you is more on the boring side of things compared to the general populace. So the pictures I show will be how I've discovered this city through my eyes. This place has definitely become my home these past 3 years, but there are still times when I feel like Alice and wonder in what strange, exotic place I've landed.
Hopefully you'll enjoy my little tour through the city. I'm sure it will be more interesting than my ranting about lost official items. And it'll give me something to write about.
Okay, the picture for today is of the palm tree in the neutral ground*. Palm tree, yes, we're that far south. (We're in horticultural zone 9, the hottest spot in Louisiana.) The palm tree is one of the main features of the view from our porch and houses a vocal parrot community. Yes, parrots. A whole flock of brilliant green parrots lives in the tree. They especially like palm trees, I think, because there are natural compartments, sort of like an apartment building, and they like that. Any birds you see sitting on the telephone wire in the picture, tiny as they are, are parrots. It's hard to get a good pic of them. Almost the whole year round, the squawking and shrieking of the parrots accompanies the rumbling of buses, the thumping of Gmobiles, and the wailing of the fire engines. Ah! The sounds of the city. Living in New Orleans, parrots just blend right in.
You may notice in the picture the beautiful clouds. We've just had a daily afternoon thunderstorm that southern climes get. Today it was the particularly weird kind that we get in NOLA; while it was raining heavily, it was still as bright, sunny, and blue-sky-y as in the picture. Maybe the humidity just exploded. Who knows?
NOLA vocab:
*neutral ground--the median. Back in the day, the median of the broad avenues really was the "neutral ground."
Comments
Awesome! I can't wait to read these entries. You know, someone once told me that the parrots and the parakeets were all people's birds that people had let go, and they'd begun to breed. Sounds made up to me.
We lived on S. Tonti, right off of Nashville. Where do you live again?
Posted by: scott cunningham | June 11, 2004 7:07 AM
New Orleans is a great place. It makes me sad that it's reputation is so tarnished. I love the open markets- I've gotten the coolest stuff there from artists just like me! Preservation Hall is also worth the sweaty crammed experience. The little old lady pounding on an out of key honky tonk piano was the best!
Posted by: katiek | June 11, 2004 8:46 AM
I know! I HATE how NOLA has such a bad reputation, because it's not nearly as bad as people crack it up to be. In fact, the worst part are the tourists, and most of it is just confined to parts of the Quarter. Locals don't really hang out in the Quarter as much.
Yea, Pres. Hall is definitely worth the experience. But there's SOO much music out there, I, sadly, don't/can't take advantage of it all.
Scott, we live on Fontainebleau, so not too far!! AND no, it's true. Parrots aren't indigenous to NOLA. I read in a bird book, that any parrots, etc., living in this region are escaped/freed pets from ages and ages ago. Now they live and breed in the wild like ordinary wild parrots.
Posted by: Jeannette | June 11, 2004 9:11 AM
How fun that some random comment of mine sparked this series! What a great idea to write about NOLA. Hmmm... Think folks are just crazy with wonder regarding Lincoln, NE? Nope, didn't think so. ; )
Palm trees, parrots, neutral ground... Keep it coming!
Posted by: Rebecca | June 11, 2004 10:41 AM
On Sat. and again today I saw green-yellow parrots in the big oak tree in my neighbors yard.
I had heard that the parrots were in palm trees in St.B. and I final got to see them. How exciting. Do they ever come in backyard and eat bird food?
Posted by: Sidney | August 2, 2005 8:46 PM