Advent

Guess where I went today. Can’t? I went to…

…St. Louis Cathedral!

I was in the French Quarter because I had business at the French Market this morning. Do you know what monkey business is?

This wasn’t going to be a photo essay, but I apparently took a lot of photos as I went along. It will be whatever it is, the way today will become whatever it is meant to be. This is New Orleans. It is a state of mind.

Today is a beautiful day, tee shirt weather. People who don’t live in New Orleans are unfortunate. I particularly pity them on a day like today. The breeze from over the levees smells like April freshness and we are still in Advent.

Easter is on April 5th, next year. April freshest towards its beginning unless Easter falls late that particular year.

Back to the St. Louis Cathedral, Louis is not pronounced like the city in Missouri but like the orangutang king in the Jungle Book. St. Louis was King of France, Louis the IX. He really is a saint.

I spend a lot of time in front of statues of St. Louis. I don’t know what it’s like in Slidell (some paid subscriber may want to leave a comment as to this), but in New Orleans, statues of St. Louis King of France are common. There is a parish in Old Metairie of the same name.

Old Metairie is not part of New Orleans, as anyone from Old Metairie will be happy to tell you. Old Metiarie is not part of New Orleans but the people who live there envy the people who live Uptown (which is part of New Orleans). People who live in Old Metairie have formed their own, ersatz, nouveau riche Carnival Class.

I am sure our paid subscriber in Spokane is following all of this. I have no idea who it is. Maybe they are homesick. If I lived in Spokane, I would be homesick, too.

You just pronounced Spokane wrong.

I was in Jackson Square on fortuneteller business, but that is a story for another day. Never one to turn down the opportunity to say a prayer of thanksgiving to the appropriate authority, I detoured into the cathedral. No moment of a busy day is wasted.

A close-up of the altar:

A closer-up of the painting over the altar:

It is Advent, if you don’t know. There is a creche set up on one side of the cathedral:

The creche is empty. O come, O come, Emmanuel.

After I left the cathedral, I stopped into Central Grocery, which is open, finally, since after Hurricane Ida. Central Grocery sells to the tourist trade but they still have things a man like myself may want to enjoy.

I can resist anything but temptation. More behind the paywall.