About seven years ago, my niece (an absolutely delightful person) asked me what changes when we get older. She wasn’t being flip in any way. It was a completely sincere inquiry. And because of that, I wanted to give a meaningful answer. Something that would help prepare her for what lies ahead.

I was daunted. I wanted to give her actionable intel. Here was this young adult looking for some nugget of wisdom from her aunt. But the scope of the question seemed too vast. 

Then, in a flash of inspiration (you may call it “desperation”) I landed on something. I felt it might set her up for success. Not in her career, or relationships with others, but in her relationship with herself. 

My insight? [drum roll…] OK. Ya know those stupid things you do when you’re young that cause you to say something like, “Well, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m never doing THAT again.” Chances are you will do them again.

Did I have an example for her? Why yes, I did. (In truth, I had a ton of them, but let’s not scare the girl.) I selected something simple, relatable, and really stupid.

After an epic evening of drinking-down-the-lane in Los Angeles and then becoming all too enamored of my bathroom’s floor tile, I declared to myself and the universe that I would never again drink that much. “Ha-ha!” said the universe. (And my niece.)

I explained to her that years later, I found myself equally enamored of the tiles on the bathroom floor of my rented house on the Gulf Coast. I was so not proud of myself. But there it was. My wisdom. You will repeat many of your stupid mistakes. 
Yes, the saying is, “Fool me once.” Guess what? It’s just a saying. Forgive yourself. We all repeat foolish things multiple times during our lives. My niece seemed pleased and somewhat relieved with her nugget of life truth. I’d done my job. 

But had I done a good enough job for myself? Did I learn anything? If you read last month’s blog post, you may recall that I spoke about how I’m now drinking a lot less. Typically, one drink a week, if that. So, here comes irony to this. 

Last week for Mr. Parker’s birthday we spent two nights in New Orleans. (Yes, you’ve already guessed the punch line.) Neither of us were planning on overindulgence. Just a nice glass of wine to complement our charcuterie board at Cochon Butcher. Well, that nice glass was followed by one more nice glass. After our monster charcuterie board we split a lamb gyro for dessert. More wine just made sense.

On to music in the park. I drank nothing. But the atonal jazz was getting on my last good nerve, which was now soaked in red wine. So when we got to our next stop, the pump was primed. And that next stop was Erin Rose, “Home of the frozen Irish coffee!” (Order yours with a Jameson Irish Whiskey float. You’re welcome.)  We split a roast beef debris po’ boy and chased our Irish coffees with a pint. (So much more responsible than a second Irish coffee.) We made friends with folks at the bar who were celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary. I honestly don’t remember if we had a second pint. I want to say no, but…

We had one more scheduled stop on the way back to Le Richelieu Hotel. (That’s where we were married one fine Bastille Day some years earlier.) The scheduled stop was Harry’s Corner Bar, a total dive with an excellent jukebox. It was there that a nice man pointed out how happy we looked. We ordered two bourbons and began a conversation with him and his friends. Turns out this man was the brother of a friend of ours. (Of course.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I now present the “I thought I’d learned my lesson” moment. The nice man disappeared then reappeared with shots of Jägermeister for all. And by the way, I can already feel your judgment. (And your judgment is flawless.) Fool me once? Nope. Twice? Nope. To celebrate my man’s birthday, I went for a third round of stupid. We left the bar promising to see them all the same place, same time, the next evening.

We now had only one possible move. A preemptive strike on the legendary Verti Marte. (As it says on the sign, “A truly local experience. The BEST food in the quarter. 24/7 but we do have to clean sometime so call ahead if it's late!”) If you know the French Quarter, you may know the Verti Marte. It’s small corner market with great sandwiches, fried catfish and all mannner of bagged salty snacks. I went with White Cheddar Cheez-Its and an off-brand, Cheeto-like item. 

The goal was to let these treats act as little sponges to soak up what I had slogged down before it decided to exit through the door by which it had entered. I’m pleased to report that with a fair amount of determination and concentration, it worked. There was no visit to the tiles in the middle of the night.

I’m even more pleased to report that “Fool me thrice” is all I required. The next night, after a day filled with great flavors (The crazy good Turkey & The Wolf for lunch and glorious Bacchanal for dinner), a good museum, many miles of walking, excellent music, and great conversations with fine folks, we were again headed to Harry’s Corner Bar to fulfill our promise to our friend’s brother and his krewe. 

Halfway there, I stopped walking. I turned and said to Mr. Parker, “I don’t think I can do it.” 

“No?”

“I don’t think it’s wise.”

“You did say you’d be there.”

“I lied.”

“Fine with me.”

We each turned on our heel, breaking our promise to the nice man and thereby keeping a promise I’d made to myself years earlier. I’d learned my lesson. Finally.  Apparently, Mr. Parker had learned his as well.

Yay, team!

Sadly, I know that in a previous life, the amount that I’d had to drink stretched over so many hours would not have crushed me. I say “sadly” because that amount of hooch should leave a mark. But between being out of practice and not carrying as much weight as I used to (the irony of losing weight by consuming less alcohol is you can no longer consume as much alcohol), I just can’t play. 

Now, my question to myself is, have I truly learned? I’ll let you know.

Cheers,
Honey

I did it. I left the country.
 
We were invited to visit an old friend of Mr. Parker’s in Mexico. The two hadn’t seen each other in about 25 years, and I’d never met the man. But, they both seemed to think it was a swell idea. Also, this old friend had told my husband that we should come for at least two weeks. “So much to see.” So, a plan was made. Plane tickets were purchased. Careful-ish-ness cast to the wind!
 
With travel being open-ish, then closing again somewhat, then kind of relaxing again, we had no idea if we’d actually be able to travel when the time came. But, as luck would have it, Mexico had no travel requirements for Americans to enter the country other than a vaccination card. We had those. Plus, we’d both caeful-ishly gotten boosters. The only catch: the U.S. would require us to show proof of a negative COVID test 72 hours or less before returning home, and that was easily attainable.
 
But, what to expect when we got there? Who knew? We weren’t going to one of those places that Americans typically go to for long sessions of lounging on a beach with umbrella drinks. We were headed to Cholula Puebla. This is where Mr. Parker’s friend, John and his wife own and operate a craft brewery. Oooooh. The friend has a brewery! It’s called Cerveceria Crazy Moon. Ulterior motive? We can stay home and drink beer, ya know. No passport required.
 
The flight to Mexico City was on one of our favorite carrier’s older planes. That was bummer number one. (Not that I’m counting.) We tried to not let it get us down. We whipped through immigration and dashed for the motor coach (see: nice bus) for the two-hour ride to Puebla. While we got to the counter in time, sweaty and panting, the bus was sold out. We had to wait another 90 minutes. Bummer number two. Once aboard our bus, it turned out they had a movie. A movie! Yay! Except—loud audio throughout the coach. We got to hear Peter Rabbit starring Rose Byrne and Sam Neill dubbed in Spanish. Loud. Bummer number three. And that, my friends, was the end of the bummers. These are first-world problems.
 
Arriving in Puebla, John greeted us with open arms. And his wife, who neither of us had ever even spoken to, treated us like old friends. We brought a bottle of craft bourbon as a gift, shared it alongside some craft beer, then promptly passed out.
 
The rest of the two weeks featured tours of beautiful old towns, a visit to the largest pyramid in Mexico, enjoying various kinds of street food, learning much about Day of The Dead, and enjoying the company of our friend’s friends. Truly, that latter part was the best. Everywhere we went, we felt like we were upping the U.S. population by 100%. It was a rich dive into someone else’s culture. Warm and fascinating. I could go on too long.
 
But what of COVID? The Mexicans have a much different approach to COVID than we do in the U.S. Everyone was wearing a mask, even while walking down the street. All public places, restaurants, churches, museums, all of them take your temperature before you can enter. There are hand sanitizer pumps everywhere. And no one had a problem with it. No one. When we asked about their mindset, our friends told us that everyone was determined to do everything possible to keep businesses open.
 
Speaking of business, we visited our friend’s tasting room and brewery. And I’m not just blowing beer foam when I say: the product is exceptional. The Munich-style Helles lager reminded me of Oktoberfest in Munich. The IPA was easy drinking without being overtly bitter. And the stout was rich without being heavy. It’s a bourgeoning craft brewery, and I can’t wait until they export to the U.S.
 
It was a magical time in Mexico. We’d been there long enough that we acclimated. It all just began to feel like home. That is, until it was time to leave. We’d gotten our swab-to-the back-of the-brain COVID test, which was comical. My Spanish left me as the very nice nurse with the foot-long swab up my nose kept laughing and saying, “¡Gracias!” And, of course, we were COVID-negative. All good.
 
Our flight out of Mexico City was very early, so we’d decided to spend the night at the Airport Hilton. Smart, right?
 
Wrong. Good luck finding the Airport Hilton at Mexico City Terminal One. Mr. Parker had seen online that it wasn’t easy to locate, but it’s literally in the airport. So come on. How bad can it be?
 
Bad.
 
We walked the length of the terminal four times, getting wrong directions from multiple airport employees. Yet, find it we did. Next, our very fine dinner in an airport steakhouse cost us more money than any other meal during our trip (yet half the price of a comparable meal at home). After that, we returned to the hotel bar for an adult beverage. That’s where we heard all the stories of people whose flights had been cancelled the previous day due to bad weather in Atlanta.
 
Realizing that we’d be getting home well before people scheduled to leave before us, I let it all go—until the next day, when the non-VIP treatment in the airline VIP lounge let us know that the best part of our trip was well over. It was filled with entitled passengers and surly staffers. But, two uneventful flights and we were home—home where no one was wearing a mask.   
 
The bottom line? Traveling during COVID is just plain weird. The being-someplace-else part is fine. Allow yourself to adopt their rhythm of life and it all seems normal. Then, traveling back breaks the spell. It was the trip of a lifetime with people I hope to count as friends forever. Will I travel again in the near future? Mmmm…we’ll see.

Stay Careful-sih
Honey