Our New Orleans Wedding and Second Line

If you’ve read this blog’s ABOUT page, then you know that one reason I moved to New Orleans after 18 years in Los Angeles was to find my mate. “I followed my heart here. My gut told me that everything I was looking for, denying myself while I furthered my career, was right here where I always wanted to be.” I met Andy at the Lost Love Lounge (yes, really) 8 months after moving here and we’ve been slowly walking toward the altar ever since. A few weeks ago, we finally tied the knot – New Orleans-style with everything from DancingMan504 and The Roots of Music to the Pussyfooters and “The Dude” (okay, he’s not New Orleans, but he abides everywhere).

NOLA in a Week (Mom’s Visit)

There’s nothing like having a visitor to push you to take advantage of the city as much as possible in a week. My mom  and stepdad came to town and we went to 2 festivals, a number of concerts, a bunch of restaurants and plenty of cool shops. We even visited the set of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. If you’re planning to visit New Orleans or if you’re a New Orleanian looking for some ideas of how to entertain your guests, here are some highlights from our week.

St. Louis Cemetery #1 and Armstrong Park

I’ve spent most of my life in D.C., New York and L.A. That is to say, I’ve spent most of my life in tourist destinations, stuck in traffic behind someone with a map and sharing sidewalks with people looking up and pointing. New Orleans is yet another of these many destinations, a magical and historical place that attracts people from all over the world. Before I left the East Coast, I made a serious effort to enjoy the attractions people came from far and wide to see. I went to monuments and museums. Instead of seeing them through the eyes of a kid who’d “been there, done that” since my many elementary school field trips, I pretended I was from Nebraska and seeing it all for the first time.