One day

July 31, 2009 in Reflection

And then there was one…

I will miss… morning walks to Audubon Park to see the giraffes. This summer I lived about a 10 minute walk to the edge of the backside of Audubon Zoo. In front of the zoo there’s a golf course circled by a 1.8 mile paved running/biking path. Behind the zoo is a park up on the levee (the Badger or Fly) and the Mississippi River. If you drive around the zoo and through the Fly, you end up on the other side of the zoo where, if you look left, you can see the back of the giraffe exhibit.

When I woke up earlier than I wanted to, I walked down to the park and watched the giraffes. They were always there, usually eating. They weren’t always there at other times of the day but I could count on early mornings. I love them. Giraffes are so awkward and foreign, yet graceful and poised. They aren’t as cute as pandas or as entertaining as monkeys. They’re so different from what we see everyday that I can’t help but watch them.

But if you didn’t know they were there, you’d miss them. New Orleans has almost too much to do. A weekend here is guaranteed to be a blast. A week is enough to visit the really good places, the places New Orleanians go. Even people who have lived here for years and years miss events, forget the festivals, take traditions for granted.

One of the quotes I’ve come to live by is “Bloom where you are planted.” Make the most of what you have in front of you. For me, that means exploring a new place — learning it, living it and loving at least some part of it.

I can do without… crappy roads and people who don’t know how to drive on them. I was expecting a flat tire or two. I was not expecting to replace three tires due to wear and one because it was going to explode. (Everything checked out A-ok for the drive north.) Potholes, giant cracks and steep shoulder dropoffs do not make driving interesting — they make it dangerous. For the longest time, there was a rectabgle the size of a coffee table missing from the road a few streets down. Instead of fixing this gap, someone had stuck a dowel rod in the hole and tied a neon pink cloth to the top.

Illinois has bad roads, but I’ve never experienced such bad driving in one place. No signals, driving too slow, speeding through red lights, turning in front of buses. Those happen everywhere but more so in Louisiana than other places I’ve lived. Crazier things happen. On Wednesday a truck crossed the street but had to stop in the middle of the road in front of me because there were cars ahead of him. Instead of waiting or reversing, the driver drove up on the median into the grass and turned so he was going my way. Then he pulled through the intersection and did a left turn.