The Hermits' Rest

Celebrating Friends and Kindness

Yesterday was Kindness Day, in honor of Fred Rogers. While I didn’t wear a cardigan, I thought of him and of my efforts to be kind throughout the years. Sometimes it isn’t easy, as I have painfully discovered over the past few days, but it’s worth it. Please, friends, even when you are displeased with someone, let them know with kindness and empathy.

Friends?

Yes! One of my long-time (and I mean long…at least 25 years) email friends was in Austin, and Anita and I went to have dinner with her. Andi has always been a great participant in a group of women who started out as feminists who chose to stay home to raise their children. We’ve been together through ups and downs, starting and restarting careers, divorces, and triumphs. So, it was great to see her in person.

Andi and I had clashing Overtone hair colors.

We went to a new place right across from the JW Marriott in Austin, called Fareground, where a number of nice restaurants have places you can order food, and then take them to tables to eat. A bar server wanders around to see if you want wine or anything. The setting is really pretty, and it must be a lot of fun when you can sit outdoors.

The food court table area.
Looking the other way. This is in some fancy office building.
Sushi and ramen! Healthy!

Pharmacy Museum: So Glad I Missed the 1800s

Kathy P., one of my roommates on the trip, and I were up bright and early on our last day in New Orleans, because the pharmacy museum she really wanted to see would finally be open (she’s a lactation consultant and wanted to see the birth-related stuff). It was mighty cold but off we went through the freezing streets of a city just waking up (many food delivery trucks for all those restaurants). Brr, it was cold and windy.

Many of the French Quarter houses have beautiful hidden courtyards. I’m glad to have seen this one.

We then discovered the museum opened at 10, not 9, so we found a coffee shop and warmed up. It was a PJ’s. Their theme is that they invented the locally roasted beans and pastries idea long before Starbucks. It was good coffee, anyway.

This is the “sick bed” display. To the right are ancient urinals, shown in detail below.

I made a quick stop at the yarn shop to get a printed copy of the complicated pattern I bought (PDF on phone was not cutting it). The lady was great about it, and we had a nice chat. Then I joined Kathy at the cool 1825 house where the pharmacy museum was.

There was display after display of some awful things they used to do to people, like amputation saws and HUGE things they stuck in your nose for reasons I don’t know. And a lot of poisons in jars, which you can see below.

Even if you aren’t interested in drugs and potions, this place is cool. The display cabinets were gorgeous, and there were amazing windows in the stairway going to the second floor.

The windows looked out on one of those typical New Orleans courtyards, which is apparently maintained by some courtyard maintenance group.

In Which Suna Pays for All Her Fun

Yesterday was a beautiful day in New Orleans. It was mostly sunny and in the 70s outside. Too bad I did not step outside the hotel until after dark, and then it was just to go across the street to eat dinner. Guess what I had?

The reason I stayed in the hotel all day is that the fun trip was over, and it was time for our annual Board meeting. In the morning, trip attendees joined us to give us input on how the trip went and suggest places to go next. It was great to hear how much fun people had and how smoothly everything went. It was a HARD slog planning this trip, but in the end, the trip planners (with a lot of help by the Board President) got it done.

I’m very glad I am not a professional trip planner, and tip my hat to my friends who are!

I Found The Tacky Stuff. Still Fun.

Yes, yes, I’m still in New Orleans with the Friends of La Leche League on their bonding trip. Today was the day of less history and more typical tourist stuff. However, I managed to have fun.

Me having fun and trying to not get sunburned. Failed.

In the morning, people mingled and bonded until time to walk (if you were fit) to the Steamboat Natchez, which is the only steam-powered paddle-wheeler in use in New Orleans.

There, we were treated/blasted to an actual steam calliope concert. It was fun to watch the steam coming out for each note.

On the boat, we had a brunch, which was adequate, and good jazz music (though one DOES weary of “When the Saints Go Marching In” around here). Since you couldn’t see a dang thing during the meal, I got out of the dining room as fast as I could to see the river.

It’s Okay to Be a Tourist

When I was a teenager in a tourist destination (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida area), I sure didn’t like tourists. They showed up and drove strangely, got horrible sunburns, and asked ignorant questions. Grr. They filled “our” restaurants.

Get off our stairs! Tourists (our group) milling around).

I currently spent half my time in another tourist destination, where natives carefully avoid downtown or our beautiful parks during certain times of the year, since so many people show up to party and have fun at festivals. We grumble, but know the economy needs it.

Right now I’m the tourist in New Orleans. I have done tourist activities like bus tours that crowd the streets, and walking tours that crowd the sidewalks. I sure wouldn’t want to live where my house is photographed by people like Suna all day long. Certainly living in the French Quarter would require a special patience.

With all this good food, the economy can’t help but do well.

I see tourists wandering around getting blitzed and screeching about things, and they are contributing to the economy, I guess.

Then I see our group asking question after question to learn more about the area. I see us making connections in local shops (I bought yarn!). This is good tourism, as far as I’m concerned.

Local yarn to celebrate the yarn shop’s 50th anniversary. Also there was needlepoint. Ah.

New Orleans. Old. Less Tacky Than I Feared.

Not a lot of time to write today. I’ll share that I am more charmed by New Orleans than I anticipated. And it’s not just noise and drunk people. Whew.

Random parades were fun. Someone is making a lot of money doing these.

We went on a walking tour of the French Quarter today. Our guide was great and we learned a lot from her.

Stacy the tour guide entertaining our group.

But, no time to go into details. Just enjoy all these buildings. More later. Hope you’re having an okay weekend!

More Architecture! It’s Old Here.

Not much soul searching to report today, though I think some of my colleagues tried to get me to do so. That’s even AFTER I said I am really doing well and coping with whatever challenges may come up. Oh well. What did I do today?

Mostly I looked at a lot of buildings and some darned impressive old oak trees. Our trip planners did us all a favor by setting up a bus tour of Greater New Orleans this morning, which makes it a lot easier to figure out what we’ll want to do in our free time tomorrow.

Our tour bus driver is usually a swamp tour driver, so I enjoyed listening to him try to remember all his NOLA facts and figure out how traffic has changed.

Of course there was the odd sighting of a wookie.

There Is Architecture in New Orleans. Duh.

I was so busy focusing on the prospect of getting all peopled out, that I didn’t think about where I was going! I think that is for the best, because I got to enjoy pleasant surprises on my whole trip.

I just got all tingly at how beautiful the earth is.

The minute I got to the New Orleans airport I remembered it just opened yesterday! It had that sorta plasticky “new airport” smell, and it was all shiny. There were zillions of windows everywhere (including the women’s room, which needed more stalls).

So much light making the shiny floors sparkle.

And of all things, the baggage claim was pleasant as heck! I loved the mosaics on the walls and the lovely planters with benches all around them.

Look at all those plants, and lights, and brightness. Not the usual dingy baggage claim.

I waited an hour for a colleague to arrive, and it was really fun. Sadly, the taxi/Uber situation is not so good, and as the day wore on it got harder and harder for people to get transportation out. Luckily, we only had to wait ten or fifteen minutes.

This Is a Call for Super Introvert!

I’m sitting in the Austin airport again. This time I’m also going somewhere fun, but not for relaxation. I’m traveling to New Orleans to participate in semi-annual Friends of La Leche League trip. Since I’m on the Board, my role will be to help make the trip fun for the participants.

I have to go back to my Super Introvert mode that I used to get in at the large conferences, where I had to be on and available 24/7. Usually I handle conferences by getting a room to myself. But, this is a nonprofit, so we share!

It’s fun sharing rooms with old friends. You catch up, tell funny stories, etc. I just hope note that we are all older, we will sleep some.

This is a group of wonderful people, and I am hoping everyone’s issues and infirmities don’t prevent everyone from having fun. And I hope I don’t collapse from being my busy LLL persona for 5 days. I’m not the same person I used to be.

Luckily I’m in a great mood and looking forward to some fun and good. Yes, I will eat a beignet! Moderation in everything.

Recipe: Suna’s Cornbread Oyster Dressing

A friend asked me if I had found an oyster dressing recipe when I was in South Carolina last week. No, but I make it every year at Thanksgiving! So, here, in my general and not-for-real-cookbook fashion, is how I make the dressing every year. Back to introspection soon.

At right are two large pans of dressing. One omits oysters, for the squeamish. ZZZZZ.

This is actually my mother’s recipe with a few little tweaks by me.

Ingredients

1 stick of butter, or more
1 large onion, diced or cut into small pieces
1 cup or more of sliced celery
1 9-inch cornbread, made however you like, though best to omit sugar
2 cups bread stuffing; I use the seasoned kind
Additional herbs that you like: rosemary, sage, tarragon, poultry seasoning, etc.
Options: 1 cup of nuts (I like pecans) or diced tart apple.
2 eggs, whisked
1 pint raw oysters and juice
1 box chicken broth (you may not need it all)

Method

Melt butter in a large pan. Add onion and celery and cook, stirring, until onion is clear. Smell it. MMM. Smells like Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, crumble cornbread into a large bowl. Add breadcrumbs (or just use two cornbreads). Add seasonings and other optional dry ingredients. Mix completely.

Add onion mixture, eggs, and oysters, plus all the “oyster water” (gives flavor). Stir gently, and add chicken broth until evenly moist, but not soppy wet. Sprinkle paprika on top to make it pretty.

Spoon dressing into a large greased (PAM) baking dish, or smaller ones, whatever you have.

Bake 45 minutes to an hour at whatever temperature your oven is on for other stuff you are baking. If all alone, do 375 degrees. Dressing is done when it browns along the edges.