Spooks and Saints

Ever since that first post-Katrina Halloween when a bunch of the neighbors got together on a front porch and spent the night drinking wine and hoping to see a trick-or-treater (none ever materialized), it has been kind of a tradition to have a Halloween night porch party. And so we had our annual little "open porch" Halloween party again this year. Unlike 2005, this year we saw lots of costumed children running about from house to house where there were generally ample supplies of candy for the kids and Cabernet for the parents. Things finally wound down around 11 pm, and when I got up to ride out to the Giro Ride this morning my head was still a little foggy from all the wine.

It was warmer today, but riding out to the lakefront at 6:30 still felt rather chilly thanks to the little patches of fog along the way. I was riding a little faster than usual thanks to a somewhat late start, but I was easily on schedule to make my rendezvous at the Bayou St. John bridge. Just after I crossed Robert E. Lee Blvd., though, I heard a loud "crack." I thought at first that I had hit something in the road, but quickly realized that one of the spokes on my front wheel had snapped. I was quite surprised, and stopped for a moment to wedge the broken spoke into the rest of them so it wouldn't be flapping around scratching up the fork. I was thinking how odd it is for me to break a front spoke, but then I realized what had happened. It was that spoke that had gotten bent in the crash that took out my collarbone back in May. So anyway, I bailed on the Giro and made my way back home early.

We ended up walking down to Riccobono's for breakfast (one of the sister in laws and her daughter had come in the day before and spend the night at our house). Then, since it was All Saints Day, we decided to go cemetery touring. The plan was to track down the family tombs in St. Louis #1, St. Louis #2, St. Louis #3, and Metairie Cemetery. We end up skipping #3, but found the other three, and also spent hours walking through the cities of the dead looking at all of the old inscriptions. In St. Louis #2 there were a few tombs that were broken open, and inside you could see the remains of their more recent occupants. It was a little creepy sometimes. Over in St. Louis #1, which is closest to the French Quarter and a prime tourist attraction, we saw the reputed tomb of Marie Laveau which was covered with X marks, the traditional inscription of those asking for favors from the deceased Voodoo queen, along with all manner of trinkets, coins and offerings left on the ground. There were a number of people out painting their family's old tombs. Right behind Marie Laveau's popular tomb there was a well-dressed mother and daughter checking out their own family tomb. The woman was telling her child how unhappy her grandmother was about the justaposition and that they always had to check to make sure nobody had scratched Xs onto their tomb by mistake. It turned out to be a pretty long day. Tomorrow I'll be up at 4:30 to catch a 6 am flight to D.C. for a conference. Guess I'd better go iron some shirts.....