April Morning Ritual
Through his forty windowpanes, the apartment building opposite squints
and twitches as the sunrise smears each eye with a slow, pink, sticky light.
Equalities
On Passover, Elijah’s goblet glows red with wine. Miriam’s holds just water. No slight, however.
A magic well shadowed her for forty wandering desert years. Even prophecy must quench its thirst.
“A good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.”
—James Boswell
Breakfasting at a spot I “discovered” somewhat off the beaten track, though it turns out that the Rough Guide to New Orleans has marked it as a bargain, too. They serve semi-decent croissant vaguely reminiscent of the real Parisian phenomenon) and much better raisin brioche and cinnamon roles. They’re closed on Tuesday, unfortunately.
The Asian women and her family (Vietnamese?) who runs the place are quiet and polite, if a bit harried. She does a brisk take-out business in an old ice-cream parlor. The inside is a gorgeous international hodge-podge. Plasterwork along the ceiling swags in ice-cream-colored garlands a la romana featuring pink roses and yellow daises. There are vaguely Turkish bathhouse tiles on the walls and Moorish archways, which open onto an interior courtyard.
My mug of hot chocolate features real chocolate shavings in hot milk, instead of Hershey’s syrup.
Outside, a girl in black smoking a cigarette chats on her cell phone and prepares to ride off on a turquoise-green, sparkly bicycle. Her hair is a bright fuchsia. Two thick braids hang down from a furry black hat on her head. She has a pair of sunglasses parked on top of her hat. She’s rolled the hat brim up in front and wears a whistle. There’s an old-fashioned wire basket between her bike’s handlebars, and she’s wearing high-heeled boots (they must be a bit awkward to bike in) with thick soles.
Across the street, as in front of the Old U.S. Mint, there are some examples of the now incredibly boring ornamental pear trees that have been plunked next to urban sidewalks all over the country. Here, though, in imitation of the French, they have pollarded them to a fare-the-well.
The savaged trees seem to develop a few multiple forking branches that all group almost vertically, their horizontal growth having been stripped away. I’m not normally a fan of pollarded trees, but it makes the ornamental pears seem more interesting, sort of S.&M., which is hot. It’s November and they’re still totally green, without a hint of autumn color. Don’t they have to shed their leaves at some point?
Overheard, outside, one man greeting a friend and saying that he had had bad nightmares last night and had to go somewhere to see if he could figure them out.
Then, arriving from around the corner, two young slightly funky women, one with a baby, the other with a young blond girl in tow. The little girl is wearing a short yellow dress, purple shirt underneath, pink tights, and scuffed, white, cowgirl boots. One woman is very tall and thin and wears Doc Martin type boots with an orange flame pattern.
The tall woman turns around, and it turns out she’s a man with long (“Cher”) hair and a beard. He’s slung a dirty-white canvas tote bag over one shoulder that reads “Squirrel? It’s What’s For Supper!”
Could he be a New Orleans version of a punky metrosexual?
Later, he drops a small, plated spinach quiche while juggling his baby and his tote bag. Several of us come to his rescue and help pick up the fragments. He apologizes to us profusely.
Bird, Jamaica Bay
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