NOLA November

November is a busy and unpredictable month around here. The weather can be positively spectacular one day, and then the next can be a drippy chilly mess. I always take the weather forecast with a grain or two of salt this time of year. The cold fronts come down in our direction but often as not they slow down and stall out, only to back up and suck a bunch of moisture out of the Gulf of Mexico. This was one of those weekends.

It started on Saturday morning. The forecast was for rain, and lots of it. At 5:45 I looked out the window at the street below and could see it was still fairly dry. I got up and turned on the TV to check the weather radar. It looked really bad. In fact, it looked to me like it should have been raining at that very moment. Everything to the west was green and yellow. Fifteen minutes of contemplation later, I threw in the towel and went back to bed. The Wife and some of the Psych folks were signed up for the Heart Walk charity event in Audubon Park, so I figured I go too and hang around in the drizzle just for kicks. The rain really put a damper on the event, so after standing around in a light drizzle for a few hours, I headed home in search of dry clothes and some plywood. I needed to add about four feet to the dining room table since a lot of family was supposed to be coming over to the house for Thanksgiving. So now the table is ten feet long, which pretty much fills the entire room. The weather remained rather dismal all day, but I was hoping for an improvement in time for the Sunday northshore ride.

Unfortunately, Sunday morning arrived in a cold damp mist. We drove across the lake and, in spite of the weather, had a nice group of fifteen or so for the 65 mile ride. The first ten miles were fairly wet, but eventually the streets dried up a little bit. The ride itself turned out to be pretty good. A bit faster than last week, and including a few fast stretches. The pack split a few times, so I got in some bonus miles by backtracking to pick up the stragglers. Various small groups split off along the way to take shortcuts, so our group kept getting smaller and smaller. On the way back the Watchtower hill split the pack for the final time, so as the others went ahead, I turned around and picked up the next few riders for the last five miles. Overall, I was feeling fairly good.

Less than an hour after getting home, I was showered and on my way to the local Po-Boy festival on Oak Street. Man, it was packed. There was a stage with a band at each end of the street. All along the street were tents of various local restaurants offering their specialty po-boys. You could send in your vote for the winning sandwich by sending a text with the number of the tent where you'd gotten the po-boy. After sampling a couple of them I was getting thirsty, but not quite thirsty enough to spend actual cash for a Miller Lite, so I made my way over to the Maple Leaf thinking I could at least get a decent beer there. Well, I walked into the place about three minutes before the end of the Saints game and couldn't even get close to the bar, so after the Saints won, I bailed. Just after we crossed Carrollton on the way home I heard someone call my name and found Mignon at the St. Andrews school where they were selling food and drinks. Since they were offering Abita Amber for $3 a cup (about half of what it was a block away), I went for it. Better yet, she paid for it since I'd picked up the Causeway toll that morning.

It's been a busy weekend and I have to get up early tomorrow so I can drive to Baton Rouge for a meeting, so I'm officially blowing off all of the things on my list tonight and going to sleep early.