Faces in the Water

Look!

So far 3 visions have materialized in the above photo.
So go ahead & look. Stare, you will see.

It is now nearly impossible to tell
where Lake Pontchartrain ends and the city of New Orleans begins.
The Crescent City is practically destroyed ...

Katrina and the Wave has harshed our mellow.

Don't it make you feel bad
When you're tryin' to find your way home,
You don't know which way to go?

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin' about my baby and my happy home.

Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.


- LED ZEPPELIN - When The Levee Breaks

Cactus Bloom

This is the bloom of a cactus plant, do you know the name?
[see comments: Hairy Giant Starfish Flower, a carrion flower]

It blooms at night, stays open for about 1 day then wilts.
During that time it stinks - hints of low tide, spoiled seafood, dead fish, etc. Some fragrance!

I think I've heard of these in Death Valley, CA.
A backpacker said they awoke to find their desert world alive with beautiful blooms but it took a while for them to connect those flowers to the stinking smell they also awoke to, described as "dirty feet" or "hiking boots with a special Death Valley sauce", and "something very wrong that we must fix right away".

The blossom features tiny hairlike projections (not captured in the photo), very fine and beautiful. Nice pattern and the sort of plant you want to touch.
On the right are 3 pods that will bloom next, one at a time, at night, lasting for one day. Hold your nose! One bloom at a time sounds like Mother Nature doesn't want to stink you out, just wants to broadcast and protect the short lived blossom.

Nice cactus bloom visually and tactilely, but olfactorily it is a real piece of work. What a mechanism to pollinate and defend itself, it stinks!
If only it were that easy for me.
I can stink with the best of 'em.

blue crab boiler

Feeding the masses.

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See how Blue the Blue Crabs are pre-steaming?

We spent hours cooking and eating several tubs of these blue crabs,
along with shrimp, flounder, new potatoes, corn on the cobb, sausages,
and anything else that wasn't nailed down.

Catch It.
Cook It &
Eat It!

Elvis Lives!
He stopped by Saturday night, looked good,
was cutting up with the karate chops in the yard with the kids.
What an appetite!

tray full of food at Lester's BBQ

Write-up to follow, right now I'm too BBQ blissed out
to speak.

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This is a 5 star establishment.

Shut up sammich

This is what you get
when you do not time your lunch right.

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Showing up for lunch at 3pm does not get you into the BBQ buffet (which was our reason for being there).
For now I'm not naming any names of this Q joint because I want to return during normal hours to review this establishment with a post-BBQ-buffet glow.
They are deserving of your business and my off-schedule experience may dampen your enthusiasm for patronizing the joint. It's a family biz and they're good folks.
Founder Big Pappy (BBQ pseudonym) made a leap of faith and tried to provide for his boys by starting a restaurant during the depression by selling the family cow and mule - their source of dairy and veggies.
One son, the proprietor of this place, might have eaten a lot of cabbage cole slaw while growing up.

For you soft handed urbanites:
cow = milk, butter, cheese;
mule = plow, thus = vegetable garden.
Email me for further clarification, including "what's a mule?".
Also welcome are reader comments on "40 acres & a mule", the allegory of dead mules in Southern literature, or covers of "Mule Skinner Blues".

back to the story.
The place has been around a while, they have good food. Seen above are:

mustard base BBQ sauce. Tangy with mustard and vinegar,
this sauce wants to be a symbol of SC BBQ
and it is a metaphor of the economic situation of South Carolina.
It's an isolated sauce, found only in regional enclaves.
While worthy and competitive it is not well known nor much sought after beyond its origin primarily due to unpolished presentation and being overshadowed by more effective communication delivered by the BBQ of neighboring NC, GA, VA.
As goes mustard BBQ sauce
so goes South Carolina's economic indicators.

The one huge onion ring has more batter than the law allows.
But since it looks like the Apple QuickTime logo I like it. I just didn't eat it without peeling off all that fried batter.

The sandwich was good but we came for their buffet with smoked meat, this is some sort of potroasted or oven cooked pork. While tasty and tender it's just a sandwich on a bad wonderbread burger roll, not that fire & smoke-based cooking we've been spoiled by.
Oh! I just realized what this sandwich is made of: Buffet leftovers.

I hung out a while and read the local free rag with the "shut up" hand on the cover. Lunch after 3pm did get me a good caffeine buzz - refills from the self-serve soda stand. Enough so that while awake at 12:45 AM I figured I'd had way too much diet coke 7 hours prior.

Stand by for their full review!

Ol' Snake Boot

Snake Boot / cargador de la serpiente

click to enlarge

Snake Skin boots con Snake Head.
It took at least one snake per boot.
I couldn't decide which profile I liked best so the whole collage gets posted for your pleasure. Can't you just hear the snake rattle?

Hint Hint:
Only 16 more shopping days until my Birthday on the 17th.
Hint Hint:
Snake Skin boots never go out of style . . .
But those heads would soon be kicked loose,
I stub my toes daily.
They wouldn't look so vicious / vicioso
after a few days on my feet.

While daydreaming about wearing these bad snake headed boots I got one mango and one coconut frozen fruit on a stick.
The cashier was busy with a fly-swatter
keeping the place fly-free, which took some faith that it was even possible.
Good for her,
gracious, I mean gracias!