B.K. and A.K., part 2

A little over a year ago, I had a delightful week's vacation in my favorite vacation city, San Francisco. I rode the California Street cable car from my hotel down to the Embarcadero. I toured the new shops in the Ferry Building. I rode the "new" streetcar line down to Fisherman's
Wharf, chuckling all the time about those new-fangled ideas the people in San Francisco had come up with (I live a block and a half from the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line in New Orleans). I toured Fisherman's Wharf. I looked at all the wonderful posters of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Aiplane and Janis Joplin concerts at the Hard Rock Cafe. I rode the ferry to Sausalito. I ruined my pledge to eat healthy when I hit the chocolate shop at Ghirardelli Square. I took a winery tour up to Napa and Sonoma. I shopped till I dropped at Union Square. I had a wonderful dinner with my friends Michael and Eydie Robertson. (It was through reading Michael's blog on blogpot.com that I started my own.)

And by the end of the week, I realized that what I really wanted to do was to be a tourist in my own home town. Every tourist attraction in San Francisco I compared to what we had available in New Orleans, and I was really pleased to see that New Orleans could hold its own in the world tourist market for classy attractions. And so when I left the small-town church this past summer to come back home to New Orleans, I made a vow that I would play tourist at home.

The first week in August, I went with some friends to an event called White Linen Night. On the first Saturday evening in August, an area of town where my family once owned warehouses is now known as the Arts District (or the Warehouse District). The old warehouses have been converted into trendy apartments (quickly going condo), art galleries, a children's museum (in a building my mother once owned), restaurants and shops. On White Linen Night, people dress up in white (linen if possible) and cruise the galleries.

My friends and I rode the streetcar from my house. We wandered around the galleries, toured a glass-blowing factory, ran into friends, and ended up having dinner at the Riverwalk Mall, where you can get redfish courtbouillon in the food court (not your typical mall food court) and a glass of wine and sit outside on the deck overlooking the Mississippi River at dusk and watch the lights come up.

We rode home after dark on the streetcar. It started to rain. The wind blew the cool rain in the open windows at the back of the car (until the conductor walked down and shut them, darn it). Steam rose from the pavements. It was the most romantic scene I had encountered outside of the movies in a long time.

And that was B.K., before Katrina. Three months A.K., the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line is still a jumble of downed poles and power lines. The streetcars, housed in the old car barn off Carrollton Avenue near the river, survived. But the new Canal Street cars, all 24 of them, were housed in an area that flooded and were ruined, to the tune of $1 million a car. Darn, I had planned B.K. to take a ride on them when the weather got cooler.

And I had also planned, B.K., when the weather got cooler, to visit the Aquarium of the Americas, where I had a membership. The aquarium lost all its animals, except for a sea turtle and a couple of others, when the generators supplying oxygen to the tanks ran out of fuel. The Audubon Zoo only lost a couple of animals. The zoo reopened last week, and I was there. The heroic folks stayed with the animals throughout the storm and in the days after. And the cleanup crew that got all the downed branches from the live oaks cleaned up did a remarkable job.

I also had planned, B.K., to take one of those Gray Line tours of the Garden District. I used to see the tour buses, and I would see people lined up outside Anne Rice's (former) house, and I thought this is something I would like to do, (again) when the weather got cooler.

Well, the weather is now cooler (thank God!), but it's now A.K. and everything is different. I have no idea when the St. Charles Avenue streetcars will be running again. And I don't know if they will replace the Canal Street cars. How sad, because the new line had been open less than a year, if I recall. But the Aquarium of the Americas will reopen one of these days, and I dare say the Gray Line tours will be back.

And I can't WAIT for Mardi Gras!

Brace yourself, San Francisco. New Orleans is coming back.

Pastor Kathy