Saturday, August 21. She's Leaving Home, Bye-Bye. Byblos At Tulane. Martini Maker. Mary Leigh ended her last regularly-scheduled night of sleep in her bedroom at the Cool Water Ranch at six in the morning. She got right to work, eagerly loaded the car with her stuff. By the time Mary Ann was awake, most everything was out there, and it was clear that it all would fit into the Pilot--as long as I didn't travel with the girls in that vehicle. This was actually a relief. It was looking as if we'd need all three cars to carry the load.
The girls backed down the driveway, then stopped. Mary Leigh jumped out to retrieve something from her Audi. The car will be left behind. Resident freshmen may not keep cars at Tulane. MA saw a funny look on ML's face as she walked back. MA got out of her car to see why our daughter was crying. ML jumped into her mom's hug, and they rocked that way for a minute or two.
This was the first upwelling of emotion that managed to erupt during our daughter's full-speed-ahead move into her new life. She's leaving behind the only home she's ever lived in, and with it the dog, the trees, her hundreds of stuffed animals, and her parents.
I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think the separation from any of these was what upset ML now. It was the Audi. Mary Ann said that I should travel with her, so Mary Leigh would drive her cherished automobile one last time to her new life. She looked much brighter when she climbed into her car, turned up her music, and headed south.
Mary Ann's parking voodoo found a spot just outside the campus, about a block away from ML's dorm. I realized that my small hand truck--which I was planning to use to lug all ML's stuff into the dorm--was back in my car at home. The switch in cars made it necessary to carry the hundreds of pounds of stuff by hand. One suitcase weighed, I am sure, a hundred pounds all by itself.
The delivery required seven round trips for the two of us. (Mary Leigh was too busy arranging everything where it went to do any lugging.) The distance from the car to the room was about two blocks, plus a five-story ride on a slow elevator. As it always is on days after a tropical storm passes, it was unbearably hot and humid.
Did I mention that I woke up this morning with a bad flare-up of the gout?
We finished the moving at around eleven. I had a radio show downtown at noon. Mary Ann and I left ML and her roommate (a classmate from McGehee), and walked (limped, in my case) across the quad to the University Center. It has a food court, with Quizno's, Baja, Panda Express, Einstein Brothers Bagels, and Byblos. Byblos was clearly the place to go. It was like their delis on Veterans Highway and in Lakeside Mall, with one important difference: the food wasn't very good. A platter of chicken shawarma had the texture of frozen and badly thawed. Where was the great garlic sauce of the Byblos Market? Inedible tabbouleh. It must be the curse of captive clientele.
After lunch, I had no time to get wistful. The girls were occupied in designing the dorm room. I waved good-bye and drove the Audi to the radio station. There Dave Potter--the producer on duty for my show--told me that he had also moved his daughter into Tulane's dorms this morning. There really are only five hundred people living in New Orleans.
The show finished, I just went home. I felt a little guilty about leaving my daughter behind. But I knew she didn't want me or Mary Ann there. I was happy to see Mary Ann already home before I was, for the same reason. Our roles in our daughter's life have suddenly been reduced by eighty percent. It felt funny.
Fortunately, we had something to keep us from thinking about this too much. George and Margo Bragg invited us over for cocktails. The other guests were all family. Margo said that Mary Ann had been so sympathetic and in touch after the Braggs' son Ben died last year that she thought of us as family. The feeling is mutual. Ben was one of the core members of the Boy Scout unit in which Jude and I had ten fantastic years. All the boys and their parents became close friends, and we remain so.
George asked me what I wanted to drink. A martini would be perfect, I said. "Great! All the stuff is over there on the counter. You can probably make it better than I can. Help yourself!" I did, and when I shook the shaker, the sound grabbed the attention of everyone in the room. Several guests drifted over and asked if I could whip up a few extra martinis in my next batch. I made many martinis and struck up as many conversations.
One of the people in the room turned out to be a key person in Tulane's financial aid office. We have been talking with this man a lot lately. Again I tell you: only five hundred people live in New Orleans.
One of Margo's friends made the food. Perfect eats for such a party. My favorite item: pinwheels of puff pastry with mushrooms and onions between the layers. I will try my hand at making those next time we have a party.
"Their house is stunning," said Mary Ann when we left for home. "I wonder why ours doesn't look as good as that."
"Because our priorities are elsewhere," I said.
Sunday, August 22. Jazz Brunch At ML's Place. A New Book, Page One. Zea's Ribeye. We went back across the lake on this Sunday morning because a) Mary Leigh forgot a few things for her new dorm room at Tulane; 2) we needed to bring her new bicycle over (there had been no room for it in yesterday's haul), and iii) a jazz brunch was being served in the residents' dining hall for new students and their parents.
After we registered the bike and locked it up on the rack outside, we made our way to Bruff Commons for the brunch. It was a buffet, managed by Bruff's food service contractor Sodexo. That's a French company that bought into the American market by merging with Marriott's food service arm, Dobbs House. Dobbs House was one of the early providers of food on airliners. What does that tell you?
Nevertheless, the brunch was reasonably decent. They had grillades and grits, for one thing. And some spicy meat pies so good that Mary Ann's mind began working on a plan by which Mary Leigh could smuggle a meat pie or two to her room every day, and MA would pick them up once a week for her own eating pleasure. (ML would have no part of that scheme.) The eggs and bacon and waffles and such were hotel-quality.
They really did have a jazz trio. On a trip for more mediocre coffee, I spoke with the musicians, who were on a break. They all knew who I was, and we had enough of a conversation that I asked them to let me sing "Sweet Lorraine" with them. I acquitted myself reasonably well, but that was still too much for Mary Leigh, who left the dining hall in mid-song. Parents are so embarrassing. But I doubt any of the students knew I was her dad. And what's one more old guy giving forth ancient jazz anyway?
We reconvened in the dorm room. The girls have made it up nicely. ML was having trouble connecting her printer to her computer. That's something I could have helped if I had any idea how Mac computers work. But I'm just a fossil.
The college girls were clearly itching for us to leave. So we did. En route home, the emotions that I knew would be triggered by this major milepost in our family's history finally emerged. It felt a lot like the way I feel while driving home from my retreats at Manresa. That's such a joyous place that, even though I leave it full of inspirations for my life, a feeling of freefall fills my chest. It also felt like coming to the end of an exceptionally enjoyable book, and know that you must now pick up a different book.
Our final child has relinquished her integral connection with our lives. And she has not done so gingerly, but flown away gloriously and fearlessly. I am so happy for her. Mary Ann and I can rightly take pride (and thank our good luck) in having raised such children. But now what will we do? What's our goal? Other than raising the annual fortune these tuitions amount to, I mean?
At home, I got back to work for a few hours, then we went to dinner at Zea. Mary Ann wasn't really hungry, but I was able to tempt her with half of an entree that would be too much for me after the tuna sashimi stack. (That's what I really came here for.) Zea has a rotisserie ribeye that I don't remember seeing on its menu before. (It probably has been there all along.) It sounded good, and Mary Ann is a buff for roast prime rib of beef. As I expected, it had the soft, juicy interior of that cut. But they finish it on the grill, so the exterior was like that of a ribeye steak. Sides of roasted potatoes (those have changed, and not for the better) and red beans completed a very ample meal.
Near the end of it, Dr. Doug Swift happened by. He and his wife Karen are good friends, their son having been at Jesuit the same time as Jude was. He's attending a meeting on the North Shore. We tried to arrange dinner with the Swifts tomorrow, but the logistics wouldn't work out. Another time.
The two of us returned to our quiet house. That's it, all right. Just the two of us, from now on.
Zea. Covington: 110 Lake Dr . 985-327-0520. Eclectic.
Click here for the Dining Diary entry before the ones above.
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