On Sunday, my friend Dawn, her daughter Devyn and yours truly drove to New Orleans to take in a Psychic Fair at The House of Broel on St. Charles Avenue. I was actually there because of the Dollhouse Museum mentioned on their website, but because it was a psychic fair I signed up to have a nice young woman pick out some gemstone beads and chips for me (without asking me any questions but I guess she "read my aura" when I sat down). She then thumbed through a book on stones and read to me about the stones' properties, and then fashioned the beads and chips into a nice little bracelet. My stones were citrine, jade, rainbow obsidian and moonstone. Before she put the bracelet on my wrist, she "reiki'd" it to cleanse it. And yes, I sat there thinking that I could have made the bracelet myself and then read about the stones myself and saved $25. Oh well, when in Rome . . .The Dollhouse Museum was totally worth the price of admission to the Fair ($10 a head at the door) -- one entire floor of the mansion was devoted to Ms. Broel's lifelong passion and it was incredible!
Fair attendees also received tips on staying healthy: don't drink carbonated beverages, don't heat up food in the microwave but if you must, don't use plastic containers, and of course, drink lots of water. Preferably out of the $5,000 pH-something machine they were hawking. I tasted that water. It had NO taste, which I guess was the point. Then the demonstrator started talking about the water curing cancer, arthritis and numerous other diseases. Time to go. Oh yeah, attendees were also offered a mini-Snickers bar and a Fig Newton. I can't remember if the ad for the Fair mentioned anything about refreshments but if it did, I really don't think that a Fig Newton and a tiny candy bar washed down with pH-heavy water qualifies. But then what do I know?
After we left, we drove up Magazine Street to grab a pre-dinner bite to eat. As I was ejecting myself from Dawn's car, my little camera bag flew off my lap and landed right in the gutter. YOU DO NOT WANT ANYTHING YOU OWN, INCLUDING YOURSELF, TO LAND IN A NEW ORLEANS GUTTER. We all went "Ewwww, it went in the gutter! Ewwww!" and I carried it into the restaurant holding it in front of me like it was toxic and full of poisonous spiders. Thank the lord it didn't fall into a gutter on BOURBON STREET!
Our last stop was at Foodie Heaven, a/k/a Whole Paycheck, a/k/a Whole Foods. Being situated in uptown New Orleans, its main clientele are white college students (Loyola and Tulane are close by), white yuppie moms, and the occasional hick from Mississippi. I realize that everything is outrageously expensive, but where else can I get Thai BBQ Tofu? Or Seeduction bread? Or fresh Parsley & Garlic Hummus? The Thai Tofu alone is almost worth having to deal with the incredibly rude and unfriendly white shoppers, ALL of whom are chatting away on their cell phones and ALL of whom are in a huge hurry. I'm always in their way, of course, since because I usually shop at Walmart the WF products are virtual "things of wonder" to me.I used to live in San Francisco! I wasn't the kind of person who ooo's and ahhh's at stuff like Thai BBQ Tofu. Thank god I'm still the kind of person who will EAT said tofu!
