First, and absolutely most important, thank you Allison for the gift (idea) you gave to Joyce and me. Exciting!
JDT has suggested it might be a good notion to slow down on my number of posts. She’s almost always right. AND how do I turn off my brain. I’ll compromise. I’ll write AND leave them as drafts and trickle them out. At least it feels that way to me.
Streets, it seems to me, are big things in the cities I have visited. You have your famous streets, your streets of commerce, and your neighborhood streets. I’ve heard people say, “oh! you lived on Del Playa?” (shut out to my Isla Vista friends).
We are “staying” quite near the intersection of Dauphine Street and Governor Nicholls Street. As you know, this is on the edge of The Quarter adjacent to Treme and The Marigny. Both of these run through The Quarter with Gov going into Treme and Dauphine heading into The Marigny. Two wonderful and very different neighborhoods.
So, why the quotes on “staying”? I struggle with how to label our time here. We jumped in an Uber on our way to dinner (Irene’s) last week. AND as always I made some quip to the driver (Charles) with the intent to fuel a conversation. Boy did this one work. It started with us “out positive mind setting each other”. Took a turn or two and I asked, “Charles, may I ask you a question?” What ensued landed this “ride” in my top 5 of our seemingly endless (50ish) Uber rides here in NOLA. First, a bit of a u-turn. Most of our rides here average 12 to 15 minutes. This really leaves little time for the conversations. So, best not be wasting. Back to the ride. I told Charles (most of my questions require an introductory explanation – duh!) we were in NOLA for 51 days. And that I was struggling how to label. Charles was game for my little game and we played tennis with our words. It was a blast. WE LANDED ON STAY. We were then about 1/2 way to our destination. Somehow we got on the concept of genius and I brought up Robin Williams – we agreed. Charles then told JDT and me how he had spent 2 hours with RW during an earlier stage of Charles life. At the end of the time, RW handed him some money as a gratuity in an environment where a tip was unexpected. AND Charles proceeded to find three separate homeless people (not hard to find here in NOLA) and handed each a crisp new Benjamin. Charles realized then the value of that 2 hours was so much more than the $300 and wanted to pay it forward.
One of my favorite improvements made to Uber over the years is the ability to provide a tip to the driver. It isn’t sufficient for me just to click 5 stars. I now rarely give nothing. It is almost always at least $3 on these mostly $10 to $15 fares. And quite often $5. For Charles, my tip? Let’s just say it exceeded the fare, by some margin (yet, I’m no RW). I know the chance that my path ever crosses Charles again is slim (however, I can stay hopeful). AND I AM 100% CONFIDENT THAT CHARLES KNEW WHAT I MEANT WITH MY TIP.
I’M SURE OF IT!
Can We? Will We? 