Saturday, July 1, 2017. 12:33 p.m. Disorientation. I head across the lake to the radio station to do my Saturday Food Show. There is nobody in the facility except Dave Potter, who produces the show on Saturdays.
"Where is everybody?" I ask.
"What are you doing here?" he asks.
"I'm here for the Saturday show," I say.
"It's not Saturday," he says." It's Monday, a company holiday. You're off."
I'm off, all right. But I push ahead. "So this is the Third of July?"
"No," Dave says. "It's the first. Tomorrow is the second. Monday is the third, and Tuesday is the Fourth of July. You have no show until Wednesday."
I wave at him and go to my office to dope this out. It's nothing new for me to get confused about what day of the week it is, especially if a holiday intervenes. The day after a holiday always registers in my mental calendar as a Monday. But this is a bit more confusing than usual. If I get two unusual days off followed by two days of regular schedules, the next day feels like a Friday. All of this is amplified if I'm just coming back from a long vacation--as I am. Two weeks away, returned last night on a crazy-making train. I always talk about this effect on the air, and find that I am not the only one who gets mixed up. Still. . .
"Did you take your meds?" Dave asks, with a laugh. I laugh back.
At my desk, I take the calendar down from the wall and look it over. The graphics help me understand what's what.
This is not a good night to go to a restaurant on the South Shore. The Essence Festival fills the eateries. I head home. Mary Ann finds, when we start calling possible restaurants for dinner, that most restaurants are closed. We get into the car with Mary Leigh, who is also running from the Essence crowds. We try New Orleans Food and Spirits. Forty-five minute wait. Ox Lot 9: over an hour. Meribo: almost an hour. Another five or six places: same general report.
[caption id="attachment_38482" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Fried artichoke hearts and thin-sliced fried onion rings at Crabby's Shack.[/caption]
Finally we call the Crabby Shack, where we are told that there was immediate seating, but that they wouldn't hold a table if somebody shows up before we do. Someone does. In fact, five tables of people beat us there. We decide to tough out our time investment. An hour later, we sit down. Of course, this isn't the restaurant's fault, it's ours.
We devour the usual Crabby Shack goods. Fried artichokes. Big salads. Chicken gumbo. Fried shrimp. Cheeseburger. I eat best of all: blackened red snapper. Excellent.
This is one of those unexpected semi-holidays that nobody expects to find filled up or closed. I will have to compile a list of such restaurants, and possible substitutes.
Crabby's Seafood Shack. Madisonville: 305 Covington. 985-845-2348.
