Esta Susanna En Bolsa?

The Netherlands Checks In

Someone from the Netherlands looked at this blog (30 pages, even) at about 7 p.m. last night (Central Time.)
It would have been about 2 in the morning there. What kind of person reads my blog at 2 in the morning?!?
I suspect that it may be my brother, Jim, there on business. He goes to places like the Netherlands...

So That's Where The Netherlands Is...

Spiritual Tuesday
My decision to focus upon a different area each day, has so far yielded Money Monday, and Spiritual Tuesday.
I haven't designated Wednesday through Friday yet, but am considering spotlighting personal relationships one day, and maybe a "flashback friday" where I pull a story or anecdote from the recesses of past memory and feature it. This might lend more of a sense of order to the blog, or it might be unsucessful if I'm not in the mood to write about a particular day's focus topic...
Sunday morning, I had a conversation with one of the Occupy New Orleans people. A guy from Beauclair, Wisconsin.
I had asked him for the time, and then commented that I still could make it to church.
"If that's the kind of thing you like to do," he said.
I told him that I've had about as many complaints as there are churches which I've visited, which established a rapport between us.
We then discussed religion in general, myself telling him of my "religious experiences," and my theory about the year 2012 (that the earth is revolving around the sun, which itself is in a galaxy which is revolving, and that the whole thing is similar to an amusment park ride called "The Scrambler," and during 2012, the speed of the earth is going to increase drastically, causing time to slow down and people to begin living 800 years, like Noah.)
Then, after that interesting discussion ended, up walked a guy who played guitar (Joe), and his younger brother (Brandon), who also played guitar. We wound up jamming a bit and much fun was had.
This was my first real interaction with any of the Occupy New Orleans people, other than asking for hot water in the morning, and I was pleasantly surprised to find, at least the ones I talked to, to be intelligent and interesting.
A Blessing On Sunday
Then, a guy walked up and said that he had a backpack, a sleeping blanket and a pair of boots for sale, all of it Army stuff and all of it for 15 bucks. There had been a "stand down," at the Veterans place, where veterans were given things like the above items. Their slogan is "'Homeless' and 'Veteran' should never appear in the same sentence" or something like that, but, since it often does, I guess they figured the guys could use the stuff, or sell it for 15 bucks...
I had woken up with 24 bucks and change on me, that morning, along with the goal of getting a bigger backpack that day. I was actually going to try to find the Army Navy Store and part with 20 bucks for one. I was tired of having some of my stuff (dirty laundry, mostly) hidden in various places, and tired of wondering if it was still there.
The boots were a size too small for me, (and who knows how many sizes too big for Sue) and I already had a backpack, so I offered him 8 bucks for the backpack, then wound up giving him 9, after looking at the bag and meeting the group of people that he was camping with, and figuring that they were all going to reap some kind of benefits from the money.
I played guitar for about a half hour, which they seemed to enjoy, and told me so...

Why, there I am, enjoying my new backpack
(photo by Sue)

Monday Night
Monday night turned into a "Sue" kind of occasion.
In the evening, as I made my way to the spot on Decatur that I like to play at, I ran into Sue.
She had been looking for me at that spot. This is a pretty long walk for her, made more difficult by all the stuff that she carries. It was kind of flattering that she had gone to that length.
She sat with me, as I played. It was a slow night.
I asked her to go to the store (on my bike) for a beer and gave her two dollars, knowing that they are $1.35 at that particular store. She went (after testing the brakes) and came back with two cans of beer, thinking that I had wanted two, but also saying that she wanted one.
I played for about an hour, with modest success, then, putting Sue and Kooky on the handlebars of the bike, rode to the other end of the quarter, where I played more on Canal, with Sue by my side when not running to Unique's, where beer is only one dollar.
To make a long story short, I made about 17 bucks for the evening, which was about comensurate with the amount of pedestrian traffic.
At one point, a guy came up and told us some kind of story of which I only garnered that he was in some sort of state of emergency; that there had been a death in his family, and that he needed 17 dollars.
"I've only made 17 bucks all night, but, do you want it?," I asked, testing him in some way.
"I hate to ask, but this is really an emergency!" he said, ready to take every penny that I had made all night.
He was a skinny black guy, but that is not central to this story, only factoring in when things almost became violent.
I tested him further by saying "Well, we need to eat off this money and do laundry, we really need it."
When he persisted, I snapped and ran him off.

After donning her newly washed pants, and
a purple shirt which I found and gave to her,
Sue allows me to take a picture of her
for the first time, in Louis Armstrong Park
(No, he wasn't an astronaut, Sweetie; that was
Neil...)

I had to get in his face, whereupon he asked "Are you gonna do something?" which is colloquial for "Are you going to fight me?"
I was ready to fight him. He had gotten over his grief over the loss of his loved one pretty quickly, I was glad to have helped him out that way...
I think he needed our 17 bucks to pay for a coffin, or some other example of crack-addled thinking...
Esta Susanna En Bolsa?
Sue and I returned to our sleeping spot, right behind a billboard which reads: "Welcome to Downtown New Orleans." -(find your own bush)-I get a kick out of the satire of that...
Two mornings earlier, Sue insisted that we vactate that spot early in the morning. I wanted to sleep more, but she was adament.
"If someone sees us coming out of here, they will come back looking for me!"
She said that she wished that they would come there looking for her and instead find someone who would (beat them up), but said that "No one is going to fight for me.."
That was my cue to say that I would fight "anyone" who messed with her, but I held my tongue, knowing how cheap talk is. They are having a fire sale on it here in New Orleans, by the way...
The next night, Sue slept somewhere else, and I got to sleep in late behind the billboard.
This night, however, Sue accompanied me, and we lay down next to each other.
I started to rub her shoulders, but could feel the tension in her.
I told her "We're not going to have sex," citing our visibility to people in the apartments across the street who might have magnified night vision goggles...
This brought about  an immediate relaxation in her, and she became very cuddly and affectionate...
"I can't believe you yelled at that guy who wanted money," she said, while in my arms.
I guess I had passed her test to see if I would fight for her...
The next morning, we went, with she and Kooky on the handlebars, to the laundromat, where Sue was happy to wash her pants and her socks.
It was the laundromat called Clothes Spin, a very clever name for a place which used to be a recording studio which recorded the likes of Ray Charles and Fats Domino and Little Richard, to name just a few. Sue wrapped a towel around her lower half while her clothes spun....