A Tidings of Magpies

by Peg Lauber The grass here is strange paradise to northern feet. Stiff, it explodes into green when we aren't expecting it remembering it as greening up much later. All over town they turn the fountains on again. If there's one thing they've got enough of, it's water. Dig down a foot and you have it, even though brackish, and in the summer no cold water comes out of the tap no matter how long you run it. In every yard there's another explosion in January, camellias, pink, deep red, white, and we not a month past Christmas. But up north the frigid season crawls on, takes its time; even in April and May it's still snowing and sleeting, then comes hail as winter turns to summer in one day: 90 degrees. Here, however, people eat sack lunches on the dull green trolley with red touches still bearing Christmas garlands over the controls at each end. The riders open the windows to put their elbows out while they take the...

Just to give a brief summary, I did go to New Orleans to see my baby girl and had a great time. It's truly a beautiful city, the food is so unbelievable and there's music on just about every street corner.Trying to coordinate all our days off around September/October and find cheap flights so Hubby can go with next time. The WWII Museum is there. Bestowed upon the lovely city due to the importance of the Higgin boats--the landing crafts at Normandy--designed and built by Andrew Higgins of New Orleans and originally conceived to traverse the waterways and bayous for the oil companies. Truth be told, MissNewOrleans and I were searching in the corners for crumbs of food  got a little hungry around the D-Day invasion and saw the rest of the war fairly quickly. Could certainly go through the museum a time or two more. Came home for a day and left for the lake. Better planning than I realized since my luggage had lingered in North Carolina. Hot and humid eve...

from one shore to another... Back in ten days, but until then please try to put your fat feet on the ground...:) (a cappella group singing "Mustang Sally" on Toulouse Street in New Orleans. A great time was had and MissNewOrleans is doing great.)

Well, MissNewOrleans Grrrrl is unpacked in her new apartment and sent us a pic of the orange tree outside her kitchen window. That seems a good omen to me for a sweet home.  Live Oaks, New Orleans by Jennifer Maier They square off along Napoleon avenue, opposing armies of dark women, leaning out so far their branches meet at the top, like hands grabbing fistfuls of tangled hair; and some of them are old, with the thick, scarred trunks of Storyville madams, and roots so strong their suck heaves up the sidewalk like so many broken saltines. And some are young, with the straightbacked bodies of girls who dream of horses and the brown arms of the neighbor boys, but underground the red roots grow together, fuse in a living circuitry spun deep and stronger than the whims of emperors, as if they've known all along that earth's the right place for love, as though, planted in battle lines, they incline toward the circle, and hold it open...