Arrived in New Orleans yesterday, just as they were issuing tornado warnings for the area. The rain was sleeting down, literally in sheets, with gale force winds. And it was humid. There went my damn hair blowout.

The weather was an ideal metaphor for the day to come. The things that The Queen Bee and I needed to accomplish seemed daunting, but we plodded through them. Pieces came together, the whole flow of events and last little details fell seamlessly into order. By 6 pm, we called it a day. We were both running on the three hours sleep we'd enjoyed the night before so we agreed to hit the French Quarter, find a nice little dive to get some seafood, have a martini and call it a night. Our intentions so often don't reflect the reality of what we do, despite our best intentions.

The place we wandered into was located on a quiet side streets. It was small and the walls were painted a faded teal. It was ratty and well worn, but nearly all the tables were filled by people who looked respectable and non-touristy--usually a sign of a good eating place. They seated us at the back of the joint, near the double doors of the kitchen. We ordered our martinis--classic vodka for The Queen; a Bombay Gin version for me and a couple of plates of fish.

During the course of the meal, we witnessed a knock down fight between two of the waiters (which resulted in one of the waiters being pushed straight through the kitchen's swinging doors which brought down a whole shelf of glassware). We heard the whole repertoire of a musicians' tribute to Jethro Tull using only a flute and a Roland keyboard. We struck up a conversation with a vacationing Habitat for Humanity volunteer from Virginia. He was rebuilding houses that had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. For all his selfless efforts during the day, his evening goal seemed to involve a proposed threesome, a notion which we politely declined.

Now, there's an old saying about martinis. Martinis are like breasts. One is not enough and three are too many. Well, we had three. Suffice to say, I don't think I'll be having another one anytime soon. Evil gin--it sneaks right up on you. And well, the Queen and I violated one of the items on the "Don't Do This" list that I cited on the last post. And it had nothing to do with drugs or voodoo. Yeah.

And that was only Day One.