[title type="h6"]Saturday, September 21, 2013.[/title]
It's a panic attack, I guess. As I tried to remain asleep more than a half-hour at a time, my brain zoomed with the possibilities that grew out the order I have been given by the radio station to move my show from its longtime three-till-six to a noon-to-three.
I seldom experience this kind of paranoia. I wouldn't need all the fingers of one hand to count them all. The first one came when I was twenty-four and editor of New Orleans Magazine. It hit me one lonely evening at home that I had reached all my life goals, and had nothing further to shoot for. The worst attack--its severity is still not fully comprehensible to me--came with 9/11, and lasted for months. (Leading theory: my life is far too good.)
It's a whole-body experience for me. By around four in the morning, I felt it in enough disturbing ways that I thought I'd better check my blood pressure. The reading seemed to indicate a very high number, but I don't think I had the cuff on right. But when I tried to take it again, the bulb that pumps the thing up blew out.
I gave up sleep at five and started putting all my thoughts about the situation on paper. I wrote four pages about why I thought the radio station should reverse its order. That helped.
At seven I went to Walgreens to get a new pressure monitor. (The old one was at least thirty years old.) I was very happy to see 133/78 come up on the screen. That's as close to normal as I ever get. Another good result of weight loss.
I went on the air at noon for a one-hour show. The fact that my symptoms went away was encouraging. I just needed to divert my attention elsewhere.
I wanted to cut the rather high grass, but it stormed ferociously all night long, and the fields were sodden.
Mary Leigh asked me to take her to dinner, since The Boy is busy with ROTC maneuvers this weekend. All the way there and all the way back, she asked about the radio massacree, and patiently listened to the whole sad story. I believe this is the first time I felt my daughter trying to console me. We are both growing up.
Wedge.
Our dinner was at the Acme. Seven delicious raw oysters for me, followed by a salad and a cup of oyster Rockefeller soup. For her, the ever-loved wedge salad. The Acme retained its title as ML's favorite quarter-head of iceberg with a half-ton of blue cheese.
Acme Oyster House. Covington: 1202 US 190 (Causeway Blvd). 985-246-6155.
Sunday, September 22, 2013.
Good Breakfast. Falling. Culinarily Turned-On Young People.
I slept better last night than the night before, but nowhere near well. I'm still roiling with thoughts about the future of the radio show. Mary Ann, who is both sympathetic to my disturbance and full of ideas about how to turn the whole situation to my advantage, began her comforting program by offering to join me for breakfast. At Bella Luna, yet, which she avoids because the food is too good there for her to resist eating too much of it.
We had another of those wonderful morning repasts. Hers was the usual meat-jammed omelette, mine the poached eggs with fried eggplant, Italian sausage and marinara. Vincent Riccobono, the owner, told me that a lot of people had come in recently as a result of my placing Bella Luna very high on the list of best breakfast places in the New Orleans area last week.
Still too wet to cut the grass. I took an extra-long walk instead, and managed to push the radio situation off center stage.
Across the lake to River Ridge I went in late afternoon. I was to give a talk to a group of middle school students and their parents about the history of the New Orleans food culture. They were all in a program focusing on the history of our area as it relates to local geography, geology, and anthropology.
I wasn't sure how my specialty would go over with eleven-to-thirteen-year-olds, or if the three stories I always begin my talks with would even be understood. In fact, almost all of the forty or so young people were fully attentive, and asked excellent questions about local foods and cooking. Not from having read up on the right questions to ask, but because they were obviously very interested. Food cuts across all demographic lines.
The talk took place at St. Matthew's parish center. I was never a student there, but it was closer to where I lived than my alma mater St. Rita's, so I was often involved there. In fact, I was a member of St. Matthew's Junior Holy Name Society, a fun group of pre-teen boys (only!). I still have my lapel pin around somewhere.
