Posts Tagged ‘summer’

Last time I floated the North Platte with Carol, our floats stopped floating. The old-school innertubes deflated about an hour into the trip, and we ended up walking a mile through neighborhoods and on the bike path back to the car.

We made sure this time not to repeat our prior experience. We rented a raft. With oars.

The yacht seated 12 (we were 6) and included a cooler to hold beverages, snacks and dry clothes. The heavy-duty sides protected us the few times we bumped into cement bridge supports.

I got to row!

We floated about six miles down the river, which included the whitewater adventure park.

Rapids!

The last time I rowed anything was November 2003, before the fall crew season ended and the Genesee River froze over. I liked rowing but didn’t like how cliquey the team was. It was college — time to branch out and meet all sorts of people. And I joined the newspaper, which cut into 5:30 a.m. practice on the morning the paper came out. Although I stopped in between seasons, I still consider it the only commitment I’ve ever quit.

“Rowing” the  raft made me remember why I used to like it. Rowing is hard work that looks easy when it’s done well. I loved getting into a rhythm — slipping the blade in the water just enough, reaching forward and pulling with one clean swoop to glide across the water — and repeating it 2,000 meters at a time.

Last weekend’s outting can hardly be compared to competitive rowing, but it was a little reminder that it’s something I could return to someday.

New Orleans set a new record for hottest day last Wednesday. A 104 degree temperature was recorded at Audubon Park. That afternoon my car’s thermostat read 109. After driving for 10 minutes, it only went down to 102.

Even in this heat, there are things to do, places to go. At yesterday’s Palmer Park artists market, I spotted an older lady who was showing signs of heat exhaustion (thank you, 6 years of First Aid/CPR certification!) and got her to a cooler place with cool water and air. I only stayed about 30 minutes.

Like I said last week, air conditioning is a necessity. Another is the snowball. A snowball is not a snow cone; it is better. Finely shaved ice is drenched in flavored syrup and best when topped with condensed milk. There are dozens and dozens of flavors, but plain strawberry is my favorite.

I had a pink lemonade snowball at the market and it was so hot we went for seconds in the afternoon. However, the line outside Hansen’s Sno-Bliz was too long, so we went to the supermarket down the street instead, bought a watermelon and ate half of it. It did the trick, but it will be a few days before I eat watermelon again.

The average high temperature forecast for this week is 97. The humidity won’t dip below 70%. The UV index is “10+ Extreme,” which I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before. The ice in my glass melts in a few minutes. And that’s inside the house, which is cooled by two central air conditioning units.

I realized if I want to be comfortable on my jogs I either need to wake up at 5 a.m. or wait until 10 p.m. when it cools down to about 80. The third solution, which I chose during my days of funemployment, was to wake up at 5, skip the jog and go back to sleep until 9. Now that I found a summer job, it looks like I’ll be up at 5 and stay up.

Air conditioning is a strange addition to New Orleans. I’ve concluded that southerners aren’t used to the heat; they’re used to the air conditioning. Every home and store is freezing cold — or at least it feels that way after leaving the 100 degree heat. After living in a house with poor insulation for 18 months, I don’t know what to do with myself in constant coldness. It doesn’t feel right to sit in a 79 degree room on a sunny summer day. But I’m definitely not going outside.

I finally got out and had a real weekend. My college friend Monica who was in town for a bachelorette party. She invited me to tag along for lunch at John Besh’s Restaurant August. The service was solid and the meal was fabulous: to start, a salad with crawfish and citrus fruits and for the entree, braised lamb with eggplant ravioli and heirloom tomatoes. We also tasted five desserts: chocolate doberge cake with blood orange sorbet, peach upside down cake with blueberry ice cream, fruit ambrosia with lemongrass sorbet (which was excellent), chocolate napoleon with dark and milk chocolate layers and a blackberry flan-like custard blackberries — my fave. Chef Michael even came out to thank us.

There were three festivals going on at the same time, which is no unusual feat for Louisiana. However, this weekend all three were lined up in a row along Decatur Street in the French Quarter. Treats from the Louisisana Seafood Festival and Creole Tomato Festival were supported by the sounds of the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival. Louisiana wins for best festival/fair food. No corn dogs, but instead Creole tomatoes stuffed with shrimp remoulade, crawfish, blue cheese, whatever you want. In between volunteering and finishing my bike, I stopped at the festivals. They were a good stop for lunch and time with Monica.

On Saturday night, the band I wrote about, the New Orleans Moonshiners were playing at dba on Frenchmen, followed by the Zydepunks. Alex and I went, watched, unwound from the week — he worked and I looked for work — with summer brews and a giant burrito from the taco truck. The bachelorette party met us there on their way to forgetting the upcoming wedding. Sunday was lazy, with the Sunday Times, coffee and brunch, capped off with a cookout with my roommate’s college friends.

A full, varied weekend — another example of the neverending options in this city. Bourbon Street is easily accessible but so is everything else, if you can just remember when and where it is.

Technically, I moved downtown, directionwise, but my new house is nearby boutiques, coffee shops and restaurants on Magazine Street.

The house is a three-bedroom renovated shotgun, so each of us has our own bathroom. I moved in on Monday and am still adjusting to the fact that I have three closets instead of one. The roommates are great: Sharon, a second-grade teacher from New Jersey and Rachel, a lighting set designer originally from Illinois, who is working on the Shakespeare Festival at Tulane for the summer. Rachel brought a 4th housemate, her dog Alvin. He’s big, but he’s a sweetie.

I arrived in New Orleans with a cold, which finally has faded enough where I feel like I can function. Time to find a job!