Richard Martin and I went to New Orleans Thursday via a gambling junket.  It is a pretty neat package and very inexpensive.  For $99.00 we each got a round trip ticket to Biloxi Mississippi, two nights in a very nice hotel.  Also included is transportation to and from the hotel Casino Magic and the airport, and meal tickets for their fabulous buffets for three meals.  Any time you are in the casino you are waited on hand and foot with complimentary drinks ( I wonder why) and Bay St. Louis is only an hour’s drive from New Orleans.  We rented a Dodge Stratus for $20.00 per day and drove to New Orleans on Friday.

 

We drove around the streets and I admired all of the French iron work decorating the battered balconies of the overcrowded upstairs housing.  It looked like something from a movie set.  It is hard to believe people can live so closely crowded together and under such poor conditions.

 

Parking was just non existent as were things like plants and flowers.  The trees were much like our grandfather oaks here with their gnarled and twisted branches.  The drive from Bay Saint Louis to New Orleans was worth making the whole trip for.  An hour of driving along pristine beaches complete with sand dunes and sea oats on the south side and beautiful homes of every sort of design, but mostly the Victorian I love so much on the north side.

 

The weather was the kind you would custom order and yet only two people were taking advantage of a nice brisk walk on that entire length of beach.  The shrimp and oyster boats were lined up on the horizon and the sun was like diamonds on the lapping tide.  There were numerous docks, some leading far out into the Gulf, but most were deserted except for the occasional fisherman.  This is the sort of place I could pull off the road and run as far as I could run, gulping in the salty sea air;  running until all I could do is walk and then I would walk until I could walk no more.  What greater reward then but to flop down in the sugar white sand and take in the beauty all around me until the moon would rise up over the water and the stars would pierce through the black velvet sky?

 

Richard Martin wanted to go shopping at Goodwill and Hudson’s (a little discount store) and as always we argued over dressing to look like every other yuppie or showing some sense of individualism.  Fortunately we were able to carry this argument further than before and Richard Martin said that he recognized that he is argumentative and that he really enjoys a battle of wits, provided “it reaches some sort of resolution.”

 

I take that to mean, as long as I always tell him he is right and he gets the feeling that he won.  He claims that he could be wrong, but I really find that to be no more than lip service based upon past discussions.  I do enjoy arguing and don’t take his approach as hard as I did initially.  I admitted to him that I will argue just for fun as long as I am not stressing him out, but that I am not inclined to believe that all issues will have a resolution as many things are just a matter of personal opinion.

 

We talked about the heavy stuff that we often do whenever we are alone together.  I told him that I believe I am the best thing that will ever happen to him, but if he isn’t capable of recognizing that and seizing the opportunity, then perhaps he is not the best thing that has ever happened to me.  He said that he wanted to be cautious because he wants to be sure before jumping into a relationship that could really hurt him.  He said that because he chose to be with me this weekend, his relationship with Zena was pretty much over with.

 

I don’t believe it, but I didn’t tell him so.  He’ll prove me right or wrong.  When we got back to the room there was a message from the desk saying “Meir Lansky will take care of this” and a message on the phone that sounded like a woman impersonating a male gangster saying”  Meir Lansky will get you for this”.  I thought the person was saying Myra an