Midnight Beignet Run

It's like midnite, and I just came back from Cafe Du Monde. Had a craving for beignets, which is weird since I wasn't all that impressed with them when I was there. 

So I'm not working out in the mornings.  I got up today, had breakfast (which is wonderful, btw), then went to a Bible Study taught by Bishop James Walker.  He was talking about Chronicles, and went on an historical journey that ended up making David come to life in a way at which I could only marvel. Then I went to a class on teaching the Bible by Carole Richardson.  It occurs to me that our church is really focused on teaching, on encouraging individuals to explore God's Word for themselves, and that is WONDERFUL news for me!  I just happen to think that if we stick to Biblical literalism we put God into our box; I believe God still speaks.  In order for us to hear God, we must sometimes change our preconceived ideas; we must always make ourselves available to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  By the way, I'm loving this CME Unity Summit -- the teaching gives me hope for the future of our church.

I got my sweat on at noon.  Although I only did about 15 mins of cardio before my sets and about 10 minutes afterwards, I must have really been huffing and puffing.  A woman at the elevator asked me if I was going to be ok. I tried to explain to her that pushing yourself past your limits is part of the fun of working out, but I don't think she bought it.

There was an AWESOME teaching/training for pastors by Rev. Hames from Beebe Memorial in Oakland(?).  During that time, I had the same conversations with my staff that always drive me nuts, and found that I was selected to be the Liberty's Season Subscriber of the Game on Saturday.  Unfortunately, you have to be at the game to win the tix, so the one game I miss is the game where I woulda gotten something. Go figure.

Tonight was a concert by the Williams Brothers.  While much of their singing is sincere Gospel and some of it truly inspired me, there's also quite a bit of showmanship.  I just don't believe people's dancing under the inspiration of the Spirit happens on cue, and club music is club music no matter what lyrics you put to them.  As much as I'm in favor of dancing before the Lord, I think that we can sometimes create a club atmosphere and cross the line into just partying.  And there's nothing wrong with partying before the Lord, but we need to know we're partying, and not be thinking the Holy Ghost has us all caught up.  I hope that doesn't sound negative.  It was a great concert.  And while we did worship God during the concert, it was still a concert.

Anyway.  After the concert I came home.  Kevin called and I chatted with him for a while.  I also chatted with some folks about the very large lady who sat on my during the concert. I used to be a much larger woman, but I hope and think that I was a bit more considerate.  If there's only one seat left and you know you take up more than one seat, DON'T TRY TO SQUEEZE YOUR BUTT INTO THE ONE SEAT!!!!  This lady sat down on/beside me and I literally could not move.  She had more bulk than I do (And I train five days a week; she was kinda square), and though I tried to cross my legs to give her more room, I slowly felt my left side going numb.  My arms were pinned to my sides from shoulder to elbow, so when I clapped, I looked like a seal.  I stood up for a while, both to get my circulation back and hoping she'd take a hint, but she just spread out to the point where I couldn't sit back in my seat.  Eventually someone I knew left early, saw my distress, and directed me to their former seat.  Thanks be to God!

So I came home and talked to Kevin, and the other folks and then I got a craving for beignets.  I knew I shouldn't have them. I think my reasoning excuse is:  1) it's hot and I walked; 2) the Liberty lost; and 3) I missed Grey's Anatomy and don't know if I DVR'd it.  So I took the hike down there. I saw folk outside who told me to be careful, that it's dangerous -- but New Orleans is a delightful place.  The people who are drunk are happily drunk.  Those who are not drunk look you in the eye, greet you, and go on their way.  The crazy people talk quietly to themselves and don't bother anyone.  The puke gets cleaned up relatively quickly, as do the other bodily emissions.  It works for me.

So my midnite beignet run has ended, and I'm going to bed. 

How could one possibly be bored in NOLA?

This morning I decided to sleep through my workout. Well, through my morning workout.  Don't know if I went to bed late or had muscle cramps at night or what, but I didn't rest well. Oh, I remember.  I went out to get ice and mistakenly left my door open.  Even though I inspected the room when I came back, it sorta creeped me out that the door was open.  There went my peaceful night's sleep.

So I got up about 7, went down to the free breakfast, then went off on my tour.  I would have been better off on the bus and streetcar.  This is a town for tourists, and they had this great big Gray Line bus with this guy with an annoyingly southern accent (he said he was a Louisiana native, but he didn't really sound like them).  I thought it was a three hour tour, but once we were on the bus it was only a two hour tour.  They drove us around New Orleans with a pretty constant barrage of facts (which, again, if I were interested, I would have googled before I came here.  Although retention of them would probably be good for Trivial Pursuit, if I had time to play games). 

I could have lived with that, I suppose.  What really annoyed me was that they kept telling us all this stuff and never stopped so we could take pictures.  Wait, now you're telling me this and that and this statue and that house and la-de-da -- and you're not gonna STOP for me to get a picture?  Really?  Although as I look back on it, what's even stupider than the tour was the fact that I took a video camera with me and forgot to use it.  At one point, I actually caught myself nodding out. If you overload me with information and don't allow me to process it, I generally shut down.  Oh, and the other annoying thing was that they kept plugging other tours.  Wait.  So you're gonna tell me about stuff, but not go into a whole lotta depth, and you're going to suggest to me that if I want more I should go on a DIFFERENT tour with your company? I guess that speaks to what they think of their customers.  You must be a real idiot to go on a Gray Line tour...

The one place we did stop, of course, was a cemetery.  Apparently there were a guy and a girl who went scuba diving in Australia, got left by their boats, and ended up getting eaten by sharks.  Their remains are in this cemetery.  There's lots of stuff about cemeteries here in NOLA -- a couple of the weirdest things are that they bury people aboveground because below ground is swampland, but even weirder is the fact that these above-ground burial places are valuable real estate.  They are bought by families.  When people die, they put them in, then when more people die, they remove the previously dead, and put in the most recently dead.  He did speak to how they handled multiple deaths at the same time in one family, but by that time I was just too creeped out. 

Here are pictures from this morning's trip.

So I came came back to the hotel.  Piddled around for a while, then went to work out.  I normally work out in neoprene shorts so I'll sweat more, but I saw a groupon for these things called flares.  They're like full-length neoprene workout pants.  They were half price, so I got them.  I picked them up from the PO the day I left, so I only got to try them since I've been here.  We all know that water weight is just water weight, but if you work out on a regular, you (or at least I)'ll take the loss of water weight.  So I got my flares in an XL, mostly because they're made in Europe and I thought the cut would be a little snug.  And it was, the first day. I know neoprene doesn't stretch, but these things are baggy now. And they absolutely give me the same kind of sweat I get from my neoprene shorts.  All  I know is that I have a pair of pants that had been uncomfortably tight.  (Now, when my size gets tight, I have to rein it in. Once upon a time, I had several different sizes, and if they all got tight, I just bought more.  No more). So anyway, this is a pair of low-rise, euro cut pants that I should be able to wear and which should be form-fitting. Last time I wore them, they were uncomfortable, and I think I wore a polo shirt so I could keep it out.  Today, even though they look horrible, I wore a button-down shirt tucked into the pants.  I don't really care that it looks horrible, I care that it's comfortable.  We'll work on the look next.

So anyway. I came back to the hotel and went to work out. I have on my long flares, my Chuck Taylors, and my NY Liberty shorts and shirt.  I take the elevator to the eighth floor.  Where there is the Women's Missionary luncheon, or something with all these little old church ladies all dressed up looking at me like I'm from mars (oh, and did I say I work out without my glasses and I can't really see without them?) So I'm wandering around the eighth floor looking for the gym and walk right into the middle of the churchladies lined up for lunch. It's times like this that I'm REEEEEAAAALY grateful that ours is a Connectional church -- they may look at me funny, but most of them either know me or know someone who knows me, so they'll hear that yes, she's a little weird, but she's a smart, Godly woman who preaches and teaches the Word of God.  So it's all good.  And more and more, they're getting to know me as the lady who works out instead of going to communal meals.  Maybe that part will rub off....

So I went to work out.  I now start with cardio before my machines, I also incorporate free weights, and I end with cardio. It's not as hard as my kettlebell instructor pushes us, but I have to say I get a much better workout now than I did before I started training with him.  So I got my sweat on, then came back to the room which hadn't been cleaned. That isn't the end of the world, but I'm working out every day.  I took a little breather to get my heart rate back down (when I don't wait for it to go back down, I keep sweating, which makes the church ladies look at me even weirder), then decided to play CME and go into a meeting. 

The first meeting was -- not interesting.  I would have stayed, but there were two guys in the back of the meeting room having a loud conversation.  I thought this was quite rude to the speaker (although I'm sure one of them was doing it because he was too big to move forward and whisper to the other guy), but it also interfered with my ability to hear.  So I left.  I wandered around the meeting rooms for a while until I stumbled into the room with a guy giving a training on how to use PowerPoint.

Geekette stands at the door, listening, thinking (in the smug, semi-elitist attitude that I can't seem to ditch no matter how hard I try) "I'll check him out and see how good he is."  Well.  This brother was AWESOME!!! He went through the creation of a PowerPoint presentation, explaining it simply enough that someone who knew nothing about PowerPoint would be able to understand it, yet adding value for someone like me who thought they knew everything.  I wrote him a note saying "THIS WAS THE BEST THING I'VE SEEN HERE TODAY," because it was.

Went back upstairs, got my wallet, and went to Pinkberry. It was ok, but I prefer Red Mango.  Came back, watched court tv shows for a while, then came down for dinner and discussed church politics with my Elder.  Afterwards we went to a meeting of the Connectional Board, but it was really boring.  All these committees give these reports. They're verbal (don't understand why they have to be done in person, why this all can't be done in cyberspace), and IMHO, many are incomplete -- there does not appear to be a lot of analysis (or if there has been, it's not identified, nor would it be appropriate to identify it in a brief oral synopsis), and there are just lots of areas that leave me going "really?  That's how we roll?"  In at least two separate reports, people identified issues, and the chairs acknowledged that people had identified issues, but did not respond to the issues identified nor provide any indication that the issues raised would be noted, discussed, or in any other way considered.  That occurs for me as rude at best; inept at worst. I think it's probably neither, though closer to the latter, but it then occurs for me as a waste of time to listen to stuff like that -- you're just reporting what you've done, which I can obtain (probably by purchasing) later and peruse at my own leisure if I like.  So the two or three hours you're asking me to spend doing this is basically two or three hours of my life you're going to suck away because -- why, exactly?

Yeah, that's how I'm feeling.  I realize that much of my life is about multi-tasking, and that's not healthy.  While it's not healthy to always barrel along at 110 mph, it's also not healthy to go from 110 to 10 and creep along at that speed.  While there may be good reasons to travel at 110 or at 10 from time to time, the generally accepted speed limit for (people who want to get somewhere and are on a highway) ranges from 55 to 65.  I think it might be good to shoot for that range.

So that was my day today.  At least I went to some meetings.  Tomorrow I'll go to some classes.  Right now I'm going to bed.

New Orleans, Day Two

So let's see... Got up this morning and started the day with a little cardio, some weights, and a little more cardio.  The good thing is that this hotel uses the same machines as the Y, so I know my pace, my weights, and my adjustments.   I don't know if it's the kettlebells or the excitement, but I'm doing cardio before my weight sets, then doing 3 sets of 12-20 reps, at the same or more weight I was lifting a year ago, PLUS more cardio -- and I'm doing the whole set (weights and cardio) in less time than I used to do just weights.  So I think that means I'm getting stronger, even though the arthiritis is pronouncedly worse, and my left shoulder still hasn't completely healed.  Tape it up, suck it up, don't be stupid, and keep it moving.  I LOVE it, and I love the way the guys look when they seem me in my routine. 

So after training a little, I came upstairs and showered, then came down for breakfast.  I went over to the tour desk and booked a combination tour -- steamboat today and City tour tomorrow morning.  The steamboat tour didn't start til 2:30, so I thought I'd head down to Cafe du Monde for beignettes and coffee.

I could barely make it down the street because there were so many interesting things to see.  They are on my fb page here.  I made my way past some church and square that I later learned had historical significance (I'm hard pressed to remember anything when I can just google it if I really want to know), then made my way into Cafe Du Monde for beignettes and coffee.  Beignettes are just fried dough with powdered sugar on them.  They're ok, but I don't have to have them again.

Hooked up with Pastor Jones' friend Daisy, and we sat out on the river talking for a loong time, until time to board the Natchez Steamer.  The reason I went on it was because it's one of the last, if not the only steam-driven paddle boat still in existence in the US.  We went up and down the Mississippi, with the captain telling us interesting facts (the port of New Orleans, in terms of traffic, I think he said is larger than both Amsterdam and New York), and with me really enjoying the convo and the ocean breeze.

Came back, tried to go to the aquarium but it was like 4:45 and they closed at 5. Walked down Canal street. Some lady tried to sell me a 2-liter Coke Zero for $5.00 (Amit, I'm assuming she was Guajarati..).   I walked three or four blocks to the CVS and got it for $1.77. I don't mind you making a buck off tourists, but don't treat me like an idiot.

Came back in time for the free dinner buffet. Dined once again with Elder Belcher and his wife. As they rushed off to service, I thought that maybe I would go.  And am I glad I did!!!

Bishop Theresa Snorton preached on that passage from Hebrews where Paul talks about needing to feed people milk.  Her sermon topic was "Grow Up, Graduate, and Get a Job," and it was all about how we cheapen our Christian walk when we fill it with platitudes and dogma instead of attempting to rightly divide the Word.  She told us how the standard should be Jesus and His love.  She told us (effectively) that if we were to be Biblical literalists, then as Black people, we should still be slaves.  I kept thinking that it would be awesome if someone sitting on the bench were to come clean about things, but she convicted me by telling us how judgemental and juvenile we sometimes are, likening us to people fighting over the remote when we have more than enough TVs for everyone.  She prepared us to make this Unity summit one where we are actually open to Christ still speaking to us, and open to a Fresh Word from the Lord.  I loved it.

Today I also met Rev. V. Williams from my home church, St. Joseph.  We talked about my brother and his amazing voice. I saw Rev. W. Williams, my colleague from NY-NE district who has relocated to the Carolina Conference. I was delighted to see Mrs. Jackson from St. Joseph and Rev. and Mrs. Harrison, formerly of St. Joseph. 

Just on the fellowship alone, it's going to be a wonderful Summit.  Even though I'm not going to a lot of the meetings, I'm getting out to see New Orleans (city tour tomorrow at 8:20, and I have to get a workout and breakfast before then), and I'm loving the fellowship. I have learned that my Chuck Taylors are better suited for the weight room and my sneakers are better suited for walking.  But I have my Rock tape, some good shoes, and a willing spirit.

It continues to be a great trip...

A New City

So I'm here at the First ever CME Unity Summit in New Orleans, LA.  Now, I should be excited because it's the first time in the history of the CME Church that all our connectional meetings have come together in one place -- it's an historic moment.  But quite frankly, I'm excited to be in New Orleans, a city I've never been in before.

The flight was uneventful.  I try to travel from JFK because it tends to be cheaper than LGA, and if I take the SuperShuttle, the difference in transpo costs is negligible.  It was nonstop, and except for the fact that they had a bit of difficulty finding a jetbridge when we landed in NOLA, it was fine. The flight was nearly empty -- everyone got their own seat, just about.  I saw a woman with some earrings that were adorable.  I asked her if they were the Cartier series, since they looked like the little bangle with the screws on it.  She said no, that they were just screws and were made by some designer in NYC. Wish I'd paid more attention.  I really liked them. They were just flat, like a screw, but I liked them.

There were some issues with transpo, but fortunately, I saw a group of people praying and went up to join them.  There was Rev. Regina Reese-Young leading the prayer, and she got me a ride with her friend Vernessa and the Pastor of the church in Detroit(Pastor Gordon?) that my own pastor once pastored.

From now on, I'll always upgrade to a club floor. First of all, I sorta like the exclusivity, but more importantly -- it's cheaper.  You get the same breakfast and dinner buffets that everyone else gets, but you don't have to pay for it.  And you get free use of internet in the lounge (I don't think they give it to you free in your rooms, unfortunately).  But internet is like $14.95 per day, and the dinner buffet alone was $30.00.  Add in the cost of breakfast, and the upgrade is a no-brainer.  Even if I choose to dine out, I still save money!  I tried to explain this to someone, but they declined, then before I even landed, they were texting me asking me to get them a key to the club floor. It appears hotels are getting smarter -- claiming to be "under renovation," they give us access to the same restaurant everyone else has access to, and they give us a check -- they just tell us it won't be charged.  We shall see.  But in the interim, it certainly helps to explain to my friends why I can't give them a hookup.

So I got to the hotel, set my bag down, and went to the "complimentary hors d'euvres" or however you spell it.  I never had finger foods like this:  There was a salad bar, a chicken tortilla soup in which you could actually taste the lime, some sort of andouille sausage, red beans with sausage, rice, corn (I skipped those two), and plates and plates of pralines and brownies. As much as you wanted, no charge.  Unfortunately, I still can't eat very much, but what I tasted was DELICIOUS!  I fell in love from the first taste of the soup!  I'd actually thought that all those years in darkrooms had allowed the acetic acid to ruin my nasal passages and destroy my sense of taste (that's my story and I'm sticking with it...). But I found out today that my sense of taste is completely intact -- I just need food that is seasoned with a little BAM!!

Speaking of which, I do hope to get to Emeril's place for lunch tomorrow. 

One of the cool things about these meetings is meeting people.  In addition to the people who brought me to the hotel, I met a Ms. Johnson from Memphis, who came here by train, I met a Cassandry (yes, Y)from the Ninth, I met another woman from the Ninth I'd seen in Alaska, and I've managed to see many of the people from the Seventh as well as many more from across our Zion.  Between Facebook and our in-person gatherings, I'm loving my CME Church family!  We may have our issues, but when we come together, we are amazing!

Anyway, after the pralines, and to avoid a sugar coma, I went for a little walk.  I went outside and heard music, so I followed it.  The street musicians here play snare drums instead of water buckets (so the drums sound sharper, more rhythmic and not so quasi-melodious), and the beat is a little more jazzy.  Add to that the brass of the trumpets and trombones, and there's a very distinct sound here.  The guys were on the corner of Canal and Bourbon.  Finding myself on Bourbon street, I walked down it. I went into a coupla clubs (no cover), but they were pretty empty. After a while, it just seemed like endless clubs playing almost studio music, and there was a constant smell of pot everywhere, though I never saw any.  It was new and different, but not quite exciting. 

So I turned down some street that was a little less touristy and then turned down another street that used to be the Royal Street when the French ruled Louisiana, and looked at some cute shops with WW1 antiques and intricate masks.  I also saw little hitching posts on the street, then wandered into some praline shop.  But I got out with only a Coke Zero.

Tomorrow I hope to go on the Nanchez Steamer and do some sightseeing. I know it's a church meeting, but I think one of the great deficits of our organization is that we encourage people to come to meetings in all sorts of places, then leave them within the four walls of the hotel.  How in the world are we supposed to do ministry to people if we don't even go out to meet them where they are?  If I got to a new city, I want to see the city!  I don't recall a Commission to go into all the hotels, but to go into all the world, and IMHO, that means OUT INTO the world.

Oh, well.  It's late, I'm in a new city, and I'm having a ball.  Probably should have brought my laptop; while it feels good to write again, I am sitting across from the bar.  I guess that in this town we're supposed to get used to the smell of alcohol, but I still don't like it...  Nevertheless, I'm in a new city and I'm going to enjoy it!