Hello Everyone! It’s been cold here in Washington this week, but we’ve been celebrating the beginning of the Mardi Gras season so we’ve been staying warm, festive and well-fed. While the cold weather makes me want to get out of here and start heading south, the news from the states I’m headed for hasn’t been very good this week. Record case numbers, doubled hospitalization numbers and staff shortages are what I’m reading. While New Mexico has ramped up their public safety campaign, Louisiana and Arizona have both declared a state of emergency. Texas is still holding back, even though they are asking the federal government for more testing facilities and treatment doses. As much as I believe we should provide as much assistance to all of our fellow citizens as we can (and to everyone around the world when possible), Texas sure could start by helping themselves. As much as I’m loving spending time with my family and friends here at home, I’m also ready to be back on the road and heading for new adventures. It seems prudent, though, to hold tight for a while and see what happens. I’m not interested in getting sick on the road or getting turned back again. I will spend the next couple of weeks getting my plans together and my van packed, though, so that when the time is right, I’m ready to go. Hopefully sooner rather than later. While I’m here, I’m going to make the most of it, keep hitting the gym every day and spend as much time with my family and friends as I can.
This past Thursday was Twelfth Night, the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas and the first day of Mardi Gras. Twelfth Night is also called Epiphany or Theophany in different traditions, but it commemorates the visit of the three kings or the “magi” to the baby Jesus and also the day of His baptism. In Louisiana, it’s the first day you can buy King Cake in the stores and bakeries and in New Orleans the Phunny Phorty Phellows kick off the Carnival season with a ride on the streetcar. This year, Mardi Gras will fall on March 1st, making the season almost two full months long. I do love Mardi Gras season and while I sincerely hope to be much further west than New Orleans by March 1st, I do hope to pass through there on my way to get some crawfish and king cake. Here in Washington, we celebrated beginning Thursday and went straight through the weekend. The Christmas decorations are down and the Mardi Gras decorations are up. My mom baked her first King Cake of the season on Thursday, and it was her best one to date.
Friday night, my folks and I headed back to the basement, a space we utilized almost every Friday during the heart of the pandemic. During the year plus that I was home last year, we weren’t going out anywhere and we needed some way to mark the end of the week and the start of the weekend. It was nice to use a different space than the ones we used the other six days of the week, and the basement became our little retreat. As cases climb here in Washington, it seemed that the basement was once again a good option. We drank some Abita beer, enjoyed some good Louisiana music and I cooked up a loaf of Crawfish Bread (which is more of a Jazz Fest tradition, but it sounded delicious in my head, and it was). We chatted, played some games and had an enjoyable evening. It was just like old times, but hopefully this outbreak will be short-lived and the basement can go back to just being a basement.
I started off our Saturday by throwing a batch of buttermilk biscuits in the oven and whipped up a delicious breakfast for the three of us. Then we cleaned up and got started on dinner. My stepfather chopped up a whole mess of onions, peppers and celery (the “trinity” of Louisiana cooking) while my mother cleaned and cut the collard greens and I reviewed my recipes and got out our ingredients. We cooked up a beautiful pot of jambalaya, some truly tasty black-eyed peas and some magical greens. My friends James and Kara and Pete and Katie came over with their kids, Mason and Zsofi, and we had a much-smaller-than-originally-planned party in the parlor. The food was a definite highlight (if I do say so myself), but it was great to have our old “Pandemic Pod” back together, again hopefully for a limited run. While I’ve been seeing Mason on the regular since I got home, I hadn’t seen Zsofi in six months and she’s really grown into a sweet two year-old. We chatted and laughed and had a merry old time of it, but parties these days can only last between the end of nap time and bed time, so it was an early night but a good one.
On Sunday I went over to watch the last football game of the regular season at James’ place with Pete and young Mason (who joined us after nap-time). Our Washington Football Team, who will thankfully be getting a new name before next season, were even able to pull out a decisive win for us. I spent the rest of the evening watching TV with my mom in front of the fireplace, which was a nice way to round out the weekend.
The new week started off cold. Even though the temperatures hovered around freezing, the wind chill made it feel colder. I spent the afternoon trying to catch up on some work and then headed downtown to meet up with some friends of mine from New Orleans who are here for a conference. I met Estilla way back in 2007 when we were both a part of the TeachNOLA contingent which reopened New Orleans’ public schools after Hurricane Katrina. We’ve been friends ever since and I had the honor of attending her wedding a few years ago. She is also one of my only friends from New Mexico, so it was good luck that she was in town and I could hit her up for some info on her home state. We met up at the classic Capitol Hill haunt Tune Inn for a few beers which was great.
After the gym on Tuesday morning, I read a little too much news and fell into a bit of a funk. I really should know better, but I needed a firm understanding of what was going on in the states I’m aiming for. After realizing I probably wasn’t going to be getting out of here in the next week or two as planned, I didn’t feel like doing much for the rest of the day. So I didn’t. I watched some TV and cooked up a pot of chili with the rest of the black-eyed peas from the weekend and enjoyed a couple of quiet beers. Sometimes it’s best to just take it easy and give yourself a break.
Today was a little bit warmer and sunny and my folks and I decided to get out of the city for the afternoon. We headed up Route 29 all the way to Ellicott City, a nice historic mill town on the Patapsco River in Maryland. We’ve been there before, but it’s a nice little place and we enjoyed the afternoon. Ellicott City has a neat little historic district with some cool old churches and one of the oldest railroad stations in the country. It’s a particularly hilly region for that part of Maryland and our brakes definitely got a bit of a workout. I rounded out the day by going over to the weekly jam-session at my friends Don and Molly’s house which I’ve written about a few times over the last few weeks.
That’s about what’s been going on here this week. I wish I had more exciting news to talk about, but calm and quiet seems to be a good idea right now. Everything I read seems to project the worst of this wave will pass in just a few weeks, leaving me the rest of the winter to explore the desert southwest as planned. Time will tell, though, as it always does. Please stay safe out there and watch out for yourselves and those around you. Have a great week and I’ll see you back here same time next week. Thanks for reading.
-Mike