The Spill Could Be Double The Size: This morning’s headline update on the oil spill in the Times Picayune. Underneath, a picture of P&J Oyster House on the last day of shucking operations after supplying restaurants in the New Orleans area for 130 years. They’re out of business now–maybe never to return, along with thousands of other small businesses in this area, closing every day. Because of the oil spill.
Eleven men dead and 200,000 gallons a day of oil headed toward the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Florida. BP is supposed to be green! Their signs say so. Their ads say so. Their outlet stations are painted green. Instead of solutions, we get spam. Why doesn’t anyone have a plan?
Last weekend, my husband Jimmy and I spent five days in New Orleans at the Tennessee Williams Festival. We live in the metro area of the Big Easy – north of Lake Pontchartrain, 20 minutes from the city over the causeway. But we stayed at the Royal Sonesta in the French Quarter, where the festival was headquartered because there are parties and plays and all kinds of things going on at night during the festival as well as daytime–music, plays, dress-ups at the New Orleans Historic Collection museum on Royal Street.
It was colder than usual, but beautiful sunshiny days. There were street musicians everywhere, so you almost had to dance down the street. Flowers, balloons, red and white lucky dog carts, crazy hats, mimes, weird costumes. A random food festival popped up all down Royal Street with booths and samplings from every great restaurant in town. We even have the coolest police station in the middle of the Quarter. It’s the only police station I’ve ever seen that has an outdoor cafe attached to it so you can rest and do some people watching, and blues drifting from a speaker in the courtyard, and sometimes BBQ’s and boiling pots of seafood outside!
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