As I mentioned, returning from Dallas, we spent a night in Natchitoches (pronounced Nack-a-tush not Natch-i-toe-chis).  I was tired, CS was hungry.  I was content to call room service, but there was no restaurant in the hotel.  Instead, the hotel recommended a whopping two restaurants, Ryan’s and Mariner’s.  We don’t like Ryan’s so we headed to Mariner’s.  All I wanted was a cup of soup, so my expectations were pretty low.  I kept thinking it’d be funny if we ate Fried Green Tomatoes recalling that the movie was filmed here.

We drove up to a bucolic scene of the restaurant nestled on Cane River Lake overlooking fishing camps:

We walked in to a room whose wall facing the lake was all windows.  It was dusk.  It was lovely.

The menu gave a brief history of the city, and offered an extensive array of food choices.  I settled on a grilled shrimp salad.  CS was torn between the Stuffed Cajun Catfish (baked fillet with Rosetta’s seafood stuffing) and the Acadian (Tilapia fillet, blackened or baked, smothered with their award-winning crawfish etouffe).  He went with the waitress’s recommendation, the Acadian.

First they brought CS’s soup, lobster and crab bisque.  I love lobster and crab and a good bisque.  I didn’t order this myself, though I wanted soup, because I wasn’t sure it’d be any good and it would be too rich in any event.  It was rich, but was like silk.  The seafood was perfectly cooked and the seasonings were spot on.  It was a very good start.

Then they brought the entrees.  My grilled shrimp salad was your typical greens and dressing.  But those grilled shrimp were some of the best I’ve ever eaten.

Let me back up a minute.  I don’t eat seafood out of New Orleans very often.  It tends to be stereotypical, overpriced and quite disappointing.  Now, getting into Cajun land, Lafayette, Shreveport, Natchitoches, I ease up on my don’t-eat-seafood-out-of-town rule.  But you need to take care that you are in a good place and not been taken.  So, I was a bit cautious about eating at a seafood restaurant, especially leary of bad seafood.

So, these shrimp were grilled to perfection.  Something that is often not done in New Orleans.  These shrimp had grill marks on them!  And they tasted as good as they looked.  They were just the right size, not too small but not so large that they should be butterflied.  As good as they were, I could not finish them nor my salad.  CS would finish my shrimp, which is something he rarely does–finish my food–but these were just that good.

And then there was his Acadian.  This dish, even in my frail condition, was platonic.  No question this was remarkable.  Again, a little background.  I am not a fan of crawfish etouffe.  It tends to be a bit gritty to me and just something I don’t prefer.  As a matter of fact, when it comes to crawfish I like them boiled (well) the best.  I don’t like them cooked otherwise; I don’t like crawfish bread or crawfish Monica; I don’t like crawfish sausage or crawfish pasta.  These dishes just don’t do it for me.  So, I would have passed on a fish dish with crawfish etouffe covering it.  I’d have been missing out.

Mariner’s offered the best crawfish etouffe I have ever eaten.  In my life.  In my entire southern-Louisiana, 38 year long, life.  And CS agreed.  It was what etouffe is meant to be: spicy and hearty but not heavy and overly rich.

My skin absorbed the quiet and solitude this restaurant, this oasis, offered to me as I was convalescing.  I half wished to stay at this very spot for a week and enjoy the cool breeze that blew on the dock that we stood at after we ate.  It was so relaxing and picturesque.  On the dock, a father was standing with his two children and they were feeding catfish and turtles fish food.  I was informed that if you feed a catfish at the same time every day, you can train him; he’ll return day after day at the same time.

I have this dream of one day owning a fishing camp of my own.  I don’t think I want the dream to come true because then taxes would have to be paid, grass cut, floors cleaned, windows to board in hurricane season, etc.  But I have this vision in my head of owing a little place like the one just across the lake from Mariner’s (in the picture above).  And now I know where I’d like my imaginary camp to go, too.

We drove from Natchitoches to New Orleans today.  I slept much of the way.  Well, rested, I should say.  I didn’t sleep all that much.  I lay in the back seat next to Sun in her carrier while CS drove.  I had my eyes closed and made every attempt to sleep, and I am sure I dosed here and there.  But most of the time was spent thinking about (and occasionally gazing with my glasses off at) the microcosm that is my life: my husband and child.  All that matters to me in the world fits snugly in my car.  With room to spare.  God or Fortuna or The Fates have been good to me giving me such a caring husband and an easily-tempered baby.

I write wills and trusts and living wills for folks all the time.  I also handle estates of clients when they die.  Which they do, we all do.  And although my chance of dying this past Monday was slim(ish), it existed.  It always exists when surgery is performed.  And laying on the gurney moments from being taken off for surgery, I had the talk with CS about my living will and what my wishes were should something go wrong.  How do you NOT think about such a thing when you are about to be put under and cut?

He didn’t try to stop me or think I was being macabre.  I had little to say on the topic, and he already knows my wishes but I needed to know he’d be doing what I wanted done because of quality of life issues not matters of money or guilt.  Then I had a split second thought about Sun growing up without me.  I wouldn’t let myself think about that.  I simply told my husband to call on our friends and family if that were to happen–to LET them help.  He agreed.  Then I was rolled off and fell asleep and woke up hours later with things having gone very well.

Today I am elated.  I am filled with joy.  And gratitude.  And love.  And sadness too.  I am sad that I had to think about my mortality; that my body is aging and showing chinks in the armor; that I am tattered and bruised and have racked up scars like crazy for the past five years; that one day Sun will live without her mother as will I; I thought a lot about my grandmother and the time we all spent visiting her in the hospital during her last days.  Hospitals are depressing places.  Even sick, I am usually the healthiest person there.  Unless you are on the maternity floor where life is celebrated, you are moving among folks that are sick or on the mend, but not always healing.

I feel weird that I don’t have a piece of my body, an organ, with me anymore.  My gall bladder is in Texas.  Being biopsied.  Then they’ll toss it, I guess.  I don’t care what they do with it.  I feel different without it, though.  Ironic that the removal of the organ that stored bile in my body seems to have removed a lot of negative energy with it as well.  I am a better person having released my gall bladder, having observed the unyielding support of my husband and family (more than one member volunteered to drive 8+ hours each way to come get me and allow CS to leave to get back to work), and the complete support from my friends too.

So as we left the hills and curves and smooth highways of Texas and came to the straight, flat lands of Louisiana, passing towns with funny names, bayous and cypress trees with their knees jutting out of the water, signs for Boudin and andouille and swamp tours, and Spanish moss hanging in the trees waving in the traffic’s breeze, I never felt more welcomed, more at home, than I did today.  I know where I belong in the world and I know how I fit into this life I have confected.  And I couldn’t feel better about it or be more grateful.

Our trip to visit some of Captain Sarcastic’s family had gone well.  His entire family welcomed me into their hearts the second I met them years ago.  So it was as good for me to see them as for CS.

We stayed at CS’s paternal grandfather’s house.  Being 90 (or 92, there is a debate about his age), he keeps his house warm.  As in no A/C.  In Texas.  In the summer.  Ninety degree summer.  My husband did manage to get Poppy to turn on the air at night (but not during the day!) but it took most of the night to cool down.  Fans blew in every room.

Our last evening was spent with Poppy and his son and wife.  We had dinner at the lake.  I don’t recall which lake–like a lot of things in Texas, the lake is named after someone.  The meal was mediocre BBQ (and to me that is bad).  The view and the company were delightful, even if the meal wasn’t.

We ate around 6pm.  Then we all headed back to Poppy’s and visited.  Aunt and Uncle left around 9pm.  About when they were leaving, I began to have a stomachache.  I felt overfull and blamed it on the bad BBQ.  I’ll leave out the copious details (you’re welcome), but I was up all night, yakking all of what I had eaten Sunday.  My ribs were hurting terribly–front and back.  The back rib pain was concerning.  I’d never experienced that before and rattling in my memory was something about it being a sign of a problem with some organ.  I am a wealth of medical knowledge

Around 4am, I woke CS (well, I am sure I was waking him all night long) and told him I was really concerned that maybe I needed to go to the ER.  He asked if I wanted to go right then.  When he asked, I doubted myself.  Surely this wasn’t serious and we’d have to wake the baby and Poppy and make a big deal.  Instead, I asked CS to go to the pharmacy and get me some meds.  He did.  He got up at 4am and drove around a town he does not know to get me meds without one word of complaint.

The meds did nothing.  Time passed slowly, I continued my trek to the bathroom, den, bedroom, all the while grateful of Poppy’s bad hearing and the noise of the fans drowning out what CS would otherwise have heard.

At 6am, Sun woke up.  And so did Poppy.  My bad situation just got worse with a little person who needs attention and an onlooker.

Finally, I knew our plan to drive 7+ hours to get home was not going to happen.  I was going to screw up CS’s work.  I was going to have to stay in Dallas until I was at least medicated enough to not yak or roil in pain.  I was going to be imposing on all kinds of family.  I was not happy.  And I continued to think it was a stomach virus that I was just going to medicate so as to get on the road.

We called Uncle No. 2 who recommended we go to Baylor Hospital.  I checked in and was seen relatively quickly.  Initially, the ER doc, too, thought I was dealing with a stomach bug.  But they ran a battery of tests that abdominal pain warrants to be sure my symptoms weren’t masking anything serious.  First, they took my blood and gave me an IV of saline to rehydrate me.

And in the meantime, they started me on morphine.  Ah, morphine, my old friend.  I had you with my delivery of Sun and with my wrist surgery.  It did not take away all the pain (and I really thought it would), but made it bearable.  I asked for ice chips but they wanted to see the results of an upcoming CT scan before I had anything in my stomach.  On the off chance surgery was needed.

The bloodwork came back.  It showed an accelerated white blood cell count.  “What’s that mean?” I asked, really scared for the first time.  What with my wealth of medical knowledge, I thought they were concerned about it being cancer.  “It is a sign of an infection,” my nurse told me.  My male, hot, straight, soon-to-be-a-daddy-of-a-baby-girl-too nurse.  I loved Nurse Tim.

“Oh,” I said, thinking we were back on track of a stomach virus.  You know, a viral infection.  Nurse Tim knew we were on a new track.  He switched me off morphine.  So as I was swimming in concern and self doubt, in pain and not dealing well with the big imposition I was being on, em, everyone around me, Nurse Tim injected me through the IV with dilaudid.  And before the syringe was out of the tubing, I was seeing clouds.  And my body was immediately light as a feather and heavy as a sinking stone all at the same time.  My muscles decided to release.  I could HEAR my head turn to look at CS.  I could see my head moving in slow motion while it was already turned to face my husband.  And all the while that cloud I had seen was now beneath me and I was floating on it.  I still felt some pain, but I no longer cared.

I was in good hands.  And I was beginning to suspect the CT scan was going to show whatever it was for which they there were now looking.  And it did.  It showed my gall bladder was quite infected.  Acute cholecystitis to be exact.  What caused it?  My diet (the word “cholesterol” was mentioned)?  Something I did or neglected?  He said it probably wasn’t my diet; that I am not overweight (take THAT Wii Fit!); that it occurs more in women in there 40s who are still fertile.  Well, I am not quite 40 and did have fertility problems, but I tend to fall in that group, I guess.

In talking to us, the ER doctor showed a look of surprise.  He said that he’s usually good at “seeing” that a person is sick when they come through ER.  And not that he thought I wasn’t feeling well, but he didn’t think I “looked” as sick as I was.  How sick am I?  Why are you saying this?  I worried. He explained that my gall bladder needed to be removed.  Standard procedure and all, but one that I’d prefer to have back home, but one that couldn’t wait nor endure the drive home.  “Sooner than later,” he said.  “This afternoon.”

Then a resident came to talk to me about the procedure.  This doc was hot, too!  As was another resident that attended the surgery.  Girls, if you must spend time in a hospital, find one like Baylor with all the male hotties!!  Where was I?  Oh, right, the procedure.  He drew my gall bladder, liver, pancreas and small intestines on a wet board.  With the gall stones they were certain I also had, his rendering of my gall bladder looked curiously like the head of a cartoon mouse.

The standard procedure is to cut four incisions around the gall bladder, locate the gall bladder, snip it, and remove it through one of the incisions.  See? Straight forward.  Unfortunately (and due to all the lawyers), they need to tell you every potential risk.  This list was harrowing to hear.  But doing nothing was just not an option as it could lead to some of the same risks and others far worse.

Then we waited to meet with the surgeon.  During this time, CS made calls to key family and friends.  And rubbed my back.  And assured me the work he was delaying was not a concern for him in the least.  That he wanted the best care for me and we were where we needed to be.  He outshone all the male Baylor hotties.

So after coming to terms with it in my mind, a second dose of dilaudid, and meeting with the surgeon and anestheaologist, we proceeded with the surgery.  Me, with much trepidation.

Then I woke up in recovery.  I was told that things went well, nothing but the standard occurred.  The doctor told my husband he was surprised I was not having problems prior to the day before because the gall bladder looked really bad and had several large stones in it.  He also said two very small stones are still in me and should go away on there own, but for me to otherwise follow up with my primary care physician in six months.

They sent me to my room around 11pm.  And finally, for the first time in the day, I was able to put something in my mouth, my belly.  Ice chips never tasted so good.

Captain Sarcastic here. I just wanted to check in and let everyone know that Nola’s emergency gall bladder surgery was a success. The short story is that at 9:00 last night Nola started experiencing sharp pains in her abdomen followed by vomiting. By 7:00 this morning we decided to go to the hospital. Did I mention we are in Dallas visiting family? The surgeon described the largest stone by making an O.K. sign with his hand (and he had big hands). Anyway, Nola is recovering and will probably be posting about it tomorrow and she appreciates everyone that Twittered support for her.

CS and I are driving to Dallas today to visit family.  I have been looking forward to this mini-vacation.  But I got news last night that the place in Dallas that made the best Frito Burger I ever ate (ok, so it was the only Frito Burger I ever ate, but it was so good I never wanted to eat one elsewhere) is now a *gasp* 7-11!  And if that news isn’t bad enough, CS then told me that our new laptops don’t have the slot to accept the internet card we’d used for years when travelling.  So, in addition to no Frito Burger, I will have no internet.

No internet.

No internet to check e-mail; read blogs; look up local yarn stores; read news; and do all the other things I do online all the time without even thinking about it.  And though I do have the internet on my phone (and can still twitter, thank God for that), it isn’t fast or accessible enough to have “real” internet.

So have a lovely Memorial Day weekend.  I’ll be shaking from withdrawals in just a few short hours.  I can do this, can’t I?

Captain Sarcastic is many things.  For one thing, he is good at getting the latest gotta-have electronic item.  Today, he asked me to help him unload the car.  I assumed there were groceries.  I was wrong.  Wii Fit was sitting in the back of the car.

So, after determining that I am overweight (not a secret–still gotta lose that baby weight), I jumped on my Wii Board and started to hula.  And what did it show?  That I FAILED!  Wha?  Screw hula hoops.  Let me balance.  I have GREAT balance.  I took yoga for years.  Well, according to Wii Fit, my balance is off, way off.  So, what’s a girl to do?  I broke for dinner out with a friend.

But after dinner, we returned to the Wii.  And I did the hula hoop thing over and over until I finally “passed.”  Then we hit soccer balls (and the occasional shoe and panda head) with our heads.  Then we moved to the slolum.  I had trouble getting between the flags but got the hang of it about the fourth time.  And we ski jumped.  And I eventually passed each task I started.  And it was a lot of FUN.  And a good bit sweaty.

So if you don’t see much of me here for a while, don’t worry.  You can find me on my Wii Board.  And maybe the next time I am here, I’ll have a BMI or Fit Age of 21!

Tonight I was on deck to get Sun down for bed.  I took her to her room to give her a bottle and rock her.  In college, I dated a guy who had a really nice rocking chair, and he told me once, “Everyone should own a rocking chair.”  A few years later, I was in a flea market and saw a rocker and coffee table that I loved.  I bought both for $75 days before I graduated from law school. Upon getting the rocker home, I realized that one of the rocker blades had been replaced; this causes the rocker to have a slight bump in its rocking.  So every time I rock in the chair, I am reminded of its imperfection.

I love rocking Sun.  Tonight, we listened to her American Lullabies CD.  This was a gift Sun received during French Quarter Fest some five weeks ago.  I love the songs on this CD and have played it every night since we got it.  I haven’t even gotten to the second CD that was also given to her that day.

Our rocking went something like this:

Saddle up your pony,

Rock, rock, bump

Sandman’s here
To guide you down the trail of dreams

Rock, rock, bump

Tumble in bed, my tired,
my little sleepyhead

Rock, rock, bump

To a Prairie Lullaby

In no time, Sun was all but asleep.  I struggled tonight to put her in her crib.  Usually, I am more than happy to have her get drowsy and settle into her crib.  But tonight, tonight I wanted to hold her forever and never have her grow up.  I thought of my grandmother rocking me as a baby, and my mother and aunt rocking me too.  And all the other mothers all over the land for generations that have rocked their babies.  I could feel the string tying us all together.  It was powerful.

So, to you mothers out there, ROCK ON!

The thing about doing cool stuff with other bloggers is, well, they BLOG about it before you get the chance.  Yesterday’s food orgy is captured by Pontchartrain Pete better than I could have captured it.  So click here to read about the best oyster po boy I’ve ever eaten followed up by the best sno-ball I’ve ever had (and that is saying a mouthful!).  Truly a grand eats day!

And then for breakfast, I had one of Katie’s Caramel Oat Chocolate Bars.  She gives away her secret recipe.  Go get it.  Now.  I’ll wait. . . . Back?  These bars are the perfect blend of sweet and salty and chewy and crunchy.  They feel homemade yet are rich and decadent.

So, as long as my friends keep posting great posts, I am left with nothing to do but give out the linky love.

So what have I been up to? I’ve been busy with a teething Sun (three teeth in one day!), buying patio furniture I just love (peanut shaped teak bench, coffee table and two chairs), making plans to visit with Katie and Pete at Parasol’s this afternoon (after attending SoMo’s daughter’s birthday party).  Oh, and hunting streetcar art; click here to check out the awesome pieces I’ve been seeing pop up around town for YLC’s Streetcar Named Inspire project.

The loss and devastation currently playing out in Myanmar cannot but remind us here in New Orleans of Hurricane Katrina.  I’ve previously mentioned the loss of my grandparent’s fishing camp in Katrina.  This was a colossal building — two stories, over 3,000 square feet, exterior walls all cinder blocks.  But not all was lost.  In the rubble was this:

This elephant lamp was on the second floor.  How it survived in one piece, I can only imagine.  The only thing more remarkable than its survival was that an identical black elephant lamp in another second-story bedroom of the camp also survived in one piece.

We recovered both lamps.  My grandfather took them home and cleaned and rewired them.  The black one went to my aunt, and the green one came to live with me:

If you shake him, you will hear one large, very solid clump of mud rattling inside.  My grandfather, try as he might, could not break down and remove that last clump of evidence of Katrina from the elephant.  I am kinda glad he couldn’t.