Diary 7|15, 16|2016: Dinner With Coincidental Friends. Two Kinds Of Showers.

Friday, July 15, 2016. Dinner With Two Levels Of Friends.

This is one of those stories in which a few people show up in a several roles each, bringing them together in coincidences that strain logic. It's our friends the Fowlers, whose son was in Scouts at at the same time our son Jude was. The Fowlers moved from Mandeville to Washington, D.C. before Katrina. Their daughter went to the same school where our daughter Mary Leigh matriculated temporarily after the storm. Veronica Fowler often drove these and a few other kids around to their schools. One morning, a boy named Dave was in the car with Mary Leigh and others. Flash forward to 2012. Dave is enrolled at Loyola in New Orleans, and Mary Leigh is going to Tulane. They find themselves in the same group of friends, and only after many months is it discovered that they'd sat in the same car pool years earlier. And now the two of them are set to be married in the next couple of months. Meanwhile, the Fowlers moved back to St. Tammany. We reconnect and often go out to dinner with them, or we cook at our place or theirs. Also among their friends are Dave's parents, who still live in the Northeast. Dave's mother is in town for the bridal shower tomorrow, and staying with the Fowlers, who were friends back in the Katrina days. Again I tell you, this is too much coincidence for me. Or I like it. We have dinner tonight at the Fowlers' house, with Dave's mom also at the table. Veronica outdoes herself with a marvelous salad, some big, roasted salmon fillets, and a loose sort of potatoes au gratin that is so good that I will get the recipe from her. I bring a couple of Zinfandels from California. The wines present a major contrast: One is from Sterling, and the other is Barefoot. The Sterling is certainly better, but there's nothing wrong with the Barefoot. It may have been better with the fish because of its much lighter body than that of the Sterling. We have a fascinating conversation about the American monetary system. And a little about the coming together of the young couple, and the improbability of that. [divider type=""]

Saturday, July 16, 2016 No Man's Land.

Today is Mary Leigh's bridal shower. All the ladies involved gather at ML's cousin's house. No male animals are there, of course. My day is wide open save for the two-hour radio show on WWL. Mary Ann tells me that if I get hungry, I will find two halves of two hamburgers from The Chimes--a restaurant that ML, MA and Dave will attend at least a half-dozen times in the week and a half ML will be here--in the refrigerator. I do get hungry, and I look and look for the burgers, but don't find them. Which is just as well. To dinner late at Tchoupstix. It's next door to the five-fleur Pardo's, and owned by the same guy, Osman Rodas. It was a multi-Asian restaurant when he took over, but he and his chefs have turned it into almost entirely a sushi vendor. They make beautiful rolls here, with excellent raw materials. But MA lost her interest in the place when the Pan-Asian part of the menu left. I greet the Marys when they return later from their all-day party. ML comes away from the shower with four toasters, two of them identical. In one of my major victories of the day, I apply my new pipe wrench in unbending the guard around the lawnmower blades. Last time, I slammed into a big root and bent the thing so that the blades hit the guard metal on every rotation. The new pipe wrench is $25. I have to buy one only because my tool box has disappeared, with all my tools in it. I wonder if this was a theft. More likely: it's under a pile of junk in the carport.

Tchoupstix. Covington: 69305 LA Hwy 21. 985-892-0852.