Vacation

Decades Old Fantasy Fulfilled

Gillian AndersonBACKGROUND:
In the early Aughts when the X-Files was on TV every Sunday night I developed a little crush on Gillian Anderson. Somewhere in there I started a minor little gallery of photos that I culled from the internet. Everything from her early modeling days to then current magazines to show screen captures. If any of you were around then, and I can’t fathom that any of the tens of people of might see this now were, at one time I thought it might be fun to add one of her pictures to each of my posts. There was no correlation to whatever I was writing about to whatever picture, but anyway, it was fun for a while.

I would point you to that era if I could, but in a move from one blogging platform to another or one server to another I opted not to put the pictures back in place. The picture collection is long gone too, probably dumped in the bit bucket on a PC move or due to hard drive space requirements. I don’t have the compunction to blog stalk her with photos anymore, but somewhere deep inside my addled brain is the thought that if I wasn’t married to Donna and she wasn’t married to whoever, I’d have a chance.

THE EVENT:
I got to sleep with Gillian Anderson. Not in the same bed. Well, I don’t know, it might have been in the same bed, but it definitely wasn’t the same time. It was the same house though, well, it might have been the same house. It was on the same property, well, maybe it was the same property, but I definitely slept in the same B & B that had an autographed picture of her on their brag wall downstairs.

Using the same logic, I also got to sleep with Shirley MacLaine & Hugh Jackman. It is kind of hard to tell, but that is Shirley in the pink jacket in the photo above and to the left of Gillian and Hugh is the photo above and to the right.

Big Easy

One of the parties planned for Adele’s 90th birthday celebration was to be a champagne & chocolate fete thrown by her eldest daughter Susie. So I thought I had it made with the Hammond B&B being practically next door to the birthday girl’s house and all. This way if I had a flute or two too many, I could walk home afterwards not risking a DUI. I was also hoping not to have to drive into New Orleans and thought maybe I wouldn’t have to, as Donna was not to pleased after our last trip in 2012 to the town where she last lived before joining Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club.

Sunday afternoon, not long after arriving in Hammond both hopes are dashed summarily when I was informed the Champagne & Chocolate party was going to take place in the Big Easy’s Garden District. Susie and her husband John were renting a house in New Orleans so they had a place for them and their two adult daughters that was a little more cosmopolitan and more to their liking than Hammond. And when I say house, its not just any old house, it is owned by a native New Orleanian artist and decorated in a style that would probably be too funky in any other town in America. It is kind of over the top, but so far over it worked. VRBO Listing

The party was slated to run from 1-4 PM, so we decided on a 2 o’clock arrival. We left Hammond about ten o’clock and instead of taking I-55 due south, we opted to take the somewhat scenic route of LA-22 west around Lake Maurepas before catching I-10 east into the city. We had three goals in the French Quarter to take care of before making our way over to the party. First up was lunch real Louisiana gumbo for Donna and red beans and rice for me. Then we needed to make our way to Aunt Sally’s for pralines, one for dessert and a box to bring home as souvenirs. Last up were some beignets from Cafe du Monde. This one didn’t work out so well. Because it was mid-day the place was jammed with tourists1 and the line was real long for a table. We then though maybe we’d just get an order to go, but that line was even longer…maybe next time. We did get a chance to stroll along river on the Moon Walk for a bit and I took the obligatory photo of the St Louis Cathedral and one of the Mighty Mississippi.