The Rest of the Story

The last post regarding Baton Rouge was made on Sunday afternoon. I did make it to that graduation party Sunday evening and saw all people I thought I would see minus Jill. I did see Jill's mother that night, though, so we arranged to get together later in the week for happy hour one day. It was so strange but so natural to be back in the midst of those old friends. I know they are like part of my family by how easy it is to hang out with them even after years go by without nearly enough communication. In fact, when I finally saw Jill on Tues evening and met her new husband, we decided it had been about 10 years since we had seen one another. I'm not sure how that happened, but I certainly hope it doesn't stretch that long again. I could go on about details of the evening on Sunday, but mostly it was just good old-fashioned catching up with people. Aunt Mary's house is still as great as I remembered. I always thought that they rented a frozen margarita machine for the annual Cinco de Mayo party, but I am happy to report that they actually own it. So I didn't miss all the Cinco fun after all. I unfortunately did not get any photos that evening, but I did get one with Jill and Mark on Tuesday night. Here we are atop the LSU Museum of Art downtown overlooking the Mississippi Bridge:

The restaurant/bar atop the museum is a sushi place called Tsunami and is a refreshingly cool place, with an obviously great veiw, for Baton Rouge.

Also, I mentioned Sarah's wedding previously but did not include photos. The first one below is of me, Sarah, and our friend Brandi. We were all friends starting at about age 4. Brandi and I played T-ball together, and we were all in girl scouts together. Brandi, sadly, moved when we were 14. It was great to get together again. The second photo is all of us from McKinley High that were at the wedding. From left, it is me, Kimee, Sarah, Cindy, and Amanda. We of course recounted the good old days and lamented the tragedy of working life. I was happy to report that I don't work anymore, though I think I will find soon that school may be harder than work was for me. We will all see each other again in July at our 10-year reunion.

The remainder of my visit, I tried as much as possible to pretend I was at the beach. Despite the lack of water, it worked pretty well. I ran every other day, walked the dog on off days, read a book, worked on my tan, etc. Tuesday morning I played Canasta with my mom's card group, which was fun. My last night, Wednesday night, my parents took me out for a very nice dinner at a place called Juban's. I got kudos because I ate everything on my plate, which included two veal chops served over mashed potatoes with crabmeat on top and some sort of asparagus-broccoli vegetable on the side. I also had a drink called "The New Old-Fasion", which was pretty good. A nice final meal (for this trip) in the greatest culinary state of these United States.