Paul And Mimi

Paul looking handsome and Mimi looking like a deer in the headlights.

Paul, the Byzigenous Buddhapalian, who lives in Albuquerque, is working in New Orleans for a month or two, but poor baby, he is working such long hours, that he won't have much time to whoop it up and party in New Orleans. This weekend seemed to be the only time we could squeeze a meeting into his busy schedule. Since his birthday is on May 8, we made it an early birthday celebration, too.

Last night, Grandpère and I made our way through the highways and the byways of Jefferson Parish to pick up Paul to go to dinner, and we only made one wrong turn, finding his apartment rather uneventfully, since he had given us very good directions. After our last encounter with another vehicle by our vehicle, I said that Grandpère would not be driving my car in New Orleans. However, because of my knee problem, we had no choice but for him to drive, since it's my driving knee that is hurting. (My knee is, by the way, much better, although not back to normal, yet.)

Paul is TALL. I had no idea. His photo on his gravatar is ten years old, but he looks pretty much the same, except that he's a bit thinner in the old picture. We drove on to the restaurant, Andrea's, which serves northern Italian food, which was not far away with the only usual amount of bickering between GP and me. Either I don't give good directions, or GP doesn't follow directions well.

Paul is quite the gentleman, doing all the polite things that GP has long ceased to do, if he ever did them, (I can't remember) like opening car doors and holding the chair in the restaurant. Paul is handsome, charming, and funny. We had a lovely dinner with wine, dessert, and what I thought was good conversation. But once we'd dropped Paul off at his apartment, GP said I had talked too much and monopolized the conversation. At least, he didn't embarrass me by saying that in front of Paul. If I did that, Paul, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.

Paul is so classy. The proprietor and chef came to our table to greet us, and Paul spoke to him in Italian, and then they had a brief conversation in Italian. He's classy all around. How lovely to meet him in real life after our internet acquaintance. GP is still mystified by blogging and a little spooked by my hooking up with folks that I meet on the internet. Once we were in the restaurant, I asked GP, "OK, is this scary? Are you afraid of Paul?" He admitted that he was not, even though Paul is much bigger.

On the way home, GP and I sort of lost it with the bickering about driving and directions. There was poor Paul in the back seat, taking it all in. At one point, I turned to him and asked him, "Can you believe that this marriage has lasted 46 years? Can this marriage be saved?" I made him PROMISE not to reveal how much like the Bickersons we really are. We lost our way and had to do some doubling back to get Paul back to his place, but we finally made it there and dropped him off. He gave us directions for getting out of the huge apartment complex, but we found the gate he directed us to locked, so we circled and circled around trying to find our way out of the place, where all the buildings looked alike, and finally, finally we did. We were on our way back to Thibodaux, with only one wrong turn. Folks, I tell you, we are directionally challenged, pitiful, damned near hopeless. It's a wonder we have made our way through life.

The picture came out red. I believe that the lighting in the restaurant was reddish. If any of my PhotoShopping pals can copy the picture, fix it, and email it back to me, I will post it.

I seem to have succeeded in making it better myself. Yay!