I have a daisy in my lapel’s buttonhole today. A little nosegay brightens everybody’s day. I thought that this morning when I was walking Mrs. King’s dog on Ursulines Avenue. Follow men’s eyes as they look to the skies. As the old song says, the shifting shafts of shining weave the fabric of their dreams.
I wish I had come with that line first. Instead you are stuck reading this letter to you. This is my day.
Python Lady has connections. Wherever we meet, she and I, at a new place, she contacts the general manager first. She phones ahead to warn them.
“Really?” I said when she told me her modus operandi. I know what modus operandi means because I used to read old Batman comic books when I was a kid. It is the habitual way criminals commit a crime. Thus was my eduction in how adults handle real world situations begun, criminals do the same thing over and over.
What do honest people do?
Every day is a variation on a theme. The Rhinestone Dandy wears a different arrangement of rhinestones around his right orbit every day. No room lights up when a schlub who fished his outfit out of the dirty laundry hamper. A gentleman both owns clothes that require an iron, he also knows how to use it. This tidbit of knowledge will get you far in New Orleans.
Fake it until you make it.
“Well, sure,” Python Lady elaborated.
Then, I went to do a good deed that needed doing. I like to average one good deed every two hours between 10:00AM and 10:00PM. Your man-in-New Orleans works twelve hour shifts. The course of events is always unpredictable but I do what I can
When I came back, Python Lady was eating an apple and reading the Wall Street Journal that I left for her. I recently learned that Python Lady subscribes to the New York Times. I do not know why it has taken a year and a month for Python Lady to tell me that she reads the New York Times.
Another puzzle piece has fallen into place.
Python Lady and I just discussed why she does not read the Wall Street Journal. I see, said the blind man. I have not told her why I do not read the New York Times. Python Lady already knows me. I am all business and no pleasure.
Now, I am finally going to talk about Jack Dempsey’s restaurant. I know it is about time but all of this of a piece. Free subscribers get the introduction. Everything makes much more sense behind the paywall.