Nancy 2 of 2

The other Nancy in my life is my friend from New York City who is interning at a women's home in Alabama. She is the same Nancy as from New Orleans but not the same Nancy whose parents I stayed with. This Nancy is Nuyorican and drinks coffee. Light and sweet. She was the inspiration for my heading to New Orleans in the first place as I wanted to visit her and as she was scheduled to be in Nola, to Nola I went.

But I also wanted to see her in her new-as-of-September existence as intern in rural Alabama. It was wonderful, being a guest, I should say. The residents (who are there as an alternative to incarceration and who all qualify by having some sort of life-controlling addiction) varied in their opinions of the program, I'm sure. I didn't ask any of them directly. But I heard tons of stories and suffice to say that there is a true work of God going on to help the workers stay sane and to set some of the women free.

We went to the Waffle House and Auburn University campus. We watched a matinee of "He's just not that into you" and had sushi. All sorts of regular life stuff that Nancy had kind of forgotten about in a haze of rides and doctor's visits and court dates and medications and chores. We even made beignets from the Cafe Du Monde mix I brought from New Orleans. We laughed, we cried. We drove around. It was a great visit.

Among the more ministry-related activities, we attended bible study at Miss Kim's house where she served us taco soup and a frozen creme/berry dessert, quite lovely. The next morning, I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Kim in attempt to help Harvest Evangelism with their web presence. I would post the new blog I helped her start but it's still under construction.

Nancy 1 of 2

My former colleague Nancy grew up in Alabama and her parents were nice enough to host me for a day. They drove me all around Selma, the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement, looking at houses and telling me terrific stories about women hiding jewelry and silverware in their houses to prevent those damn Yankees from stealing them. This is the house that Miss Juanita lived in where Mr Lonnie drove past every day until they finally met. This house is amazingly (to me) two houses down from the house Mr Lonnie lived in when he was a child. Fascinatingly intact family history to a west coast daughter of immigrants.

They also took me to dinner at the Tally Ho where the waitress Annette (photo: center) told me a joke that I should probably not post here involving a Baptist preacher. I did promise to tell it to Nancy as this was their usual repartee. Miss Juanita presented me with an "I'm an Auburn fan" t-shirt and also picked up an Alabama map to aid on my drive to Opelika the next day. Isn't she sweet? Not to be outdone, Mr Lonnie fixed me some sausage and bacon for breakfast the next morning ("I didn't cook you breakfast, I cooked breakfast for MYSELF and there are leftovers," or something like that was his response to my thanks) and let me eat a slice of his pineapple upside-down cake. :)

Photos from New Orleans

Finally got some substantial alone time with a regular computer (uploaded these using Joyce's laptop so want to acknowledge that service donation as well) so here are some photos related to the Po Boy post:

My hotel room had this awesome umbrella stand furniture piece. Feel free to let me know what these are really called. And it's my first picture of Mooch. Not a famous place but significant to me. I don't know how many famous attractions he'll get to visit as that's not usually on my agenda.

A particularly striking house in the Garden District. Down the street was the house where Jefferson Davis (the Confederate president, for those of you lousy at US history like me) died.

Yes, I am foodie, hear me munch. Beignets and au laits. It's a rhyme! And these particular ones were courtesy Nancy. Thanks, friend!

The first oyster po' boy I tried in NOLA. The last day I was in New Orleans I had another oyster po' boy and bit into a tiny pearl! I saved it in a sugar packet and am going to try to do something with it once I get to NYC.

This is Nancy at Radosta's Famous Po-Boys waiting for hers.