Annals of Sickness--An Airbnb in Mid-City NOLA While Sick with a Virus

Annals of Sickness--An Airbnb in Mid-City NOLA While Sick with a Virus

Well, it is a very good thing I got an airbnb for this leg of the trip instead of going back to stay with Florence, whose office is the guest bedroom and who is super-busy. It would have  been a dreadful imposition if I had stayed with her and spewed germs on everything, and I would have been very uncomfortable knowing I was doing so. I've been sleeping all day, except for sallying forth this morning to get something to eat. I have an app called "I want" and you can choose restaurant, cafe, gas, laundry, and many more, or "custom." So I found a cafe just a few blocks away called Good Karma Cafe, vegan, and they were super sweet, with various pictures of Hindu gods adorning the place, Wi-Fi, energy bars made of dates nuts and cacao, mysterious spreads based on chickpeas, a plethora of nut butters, and a yoga studio in an adjacent room. I felt at home, and, besides, dairy is supposed to increase mucous production, so vegan is good. Everything works out for them as loves the Lord, as Mutz used to say.

The place I'm in is in "mid-city," an area I never heard of before. It's an established neighborhood on a wide boulevard with a green strip in the middle running between two major streets, Jefferson Davis Parkway and Broad St. Houses are traditional and nice, on the modest side; there are two shotgun houses I noticed within a few blocks. It's integrated - black, white, and Spanish-speaking people all live here, and sit on their porches in the late afternoon. I walked to Broad street yesterday evening to hunt and gather food in whatever stores I could find, and people seeing me pass waved or said hello if they were close enough and our eyes connected; on the way back, two older black guys sitting on a low fence greeted me "how ya doin', baby?" "FAHN" I answered cheerfully. Every few houses, the denizens have decorated their porch railings or banisters with mardi gras beads or flags; one had both mardi gras beads and Mexican paper flags, though I didn't study its theme. Quite a few houses are brightly colored, evoking the Caribbean. About every fifth house is newly painted with tidy trim and square everything, in sober colors--a sign of creeping gentrification, I presume. For now it all lives together nicely.

The apartment is nice, with remodelled kitchen and bath, hardwood floors, multiple fluffy pillows and good bed, very nice. It's elevated with I think a garage apartment below and has a balcony, where one can sit and catch the soft breezes wafting through the oak trees and hear the traffic noises from Jeff Davis Parkway. I threw open multiple windows last night and found they all have screens, so I left them open and locked the front screen door but opened the solid door to get some nice cross ventilation, and it worked out fine.

I've been sleeping most of the day, except for getting food and coffee for breakfast (with almond milk and coconut cream froth, oh well), which tired me out, and I have hopes I'll feel chipper tomorrow. I feel dizzy, and woozy, with lots of phlegm and a tickling scratchy throat, but I'm dealing with it head on. I take Delsym to suppress the cough, and got a NeilMedi nasal rinse kit that I'm using several times a day. It's like a neti pot but it's a plastic squeeze bottle. Seems to work well, and it feels like less trouble, I don't know why. Also drinking water, made palatable with Emergen-C which makes it taste like Kool-Aid, but that's better than the flat flat flat New Orleans tap water.

The area is connected to everything - it really is mid-city. Apparently (according to the gently enthusiastic young man at Good Karma Cafe) you can walk along the levee and in fifteen minutes or so you'll reach City Park, where NOMA (modern art) is. A few blocks away you can catch the Canal Street streetcar and go downtown and to the Quarter. From there you can catch a bus named Desire to penetrate the Quarter, or go in the other direction up St. Charles to uptown, reaching Florence and Audubon Park, passing by the Garden District houses, some with blooming azaleas in front.

But for now, I'll just go to bed again. I alerted Sally that tonight's not a good time to go out, as I might infect her, would not be fun, and might relapse to boot. So all in all this was a good decision.

Update. I went alone to Mona’s, a middle eastern restaurant just about five blocks away, and had red lentil soup and fatoush salad. It wasn’t especially good, but it was simple and wholesome, which was what was needed in New Orleans, where  if you don’t pay attention they’ll serve you creamed shrimp on a bed of fried eggplant, surrounded by hollandaise sauce.