What I Did Today

Besides driving to Dallas & back & watching the Oscars I mean.

Today was the 16th Annual Mardi Gras Gumbo Party, a benefit for KNON, at which I volunteered.  Seeing as I don't eat any animal products at all, & that the gumbo prepared by I think eight cooks was all pretty meaty, I didn't get to sample any gumbo, but that was fine.  I stood at an entrance, making sure the people who came in that way had wristbands &, if they didn't, I directed them to where they needed to enter.

A fellow on a bike with a big backpack (someone there suggested to me he was homeless) asked me what was going on at the event.  I said it was a Mardi Gras Gumbo Party.  He said, "Can you hook a brother up with some gumbo?"  I told him I couldn't because the cooks hadn't set their stands up yet.  I probably would have, though.  I suggested he come back in an hour but he didn't.

Since it was at a bar, there was drinking; since I had to drive, I didn't drink.  But surprisingly, two women - both smokers, who came to near I was standing to smoke (I was outside) - had in a short period of time consumed a good deal of alcohol, & chatted with me.  I asked them lots of questions & found out lots about their lives.

One of them told me she was a therapist & began to give me therapeutic advice.  She told me she knew why I was volunteering.  75%, she said, was because I believe in the cause of the station; the other quarter percent, she insisted, was because of a sense of obligation.  I told her that first part was probably true, but the other 25% was because I was hoping that, if I put it lots of work for KNON, I might one day get a show.  But I'm probably more selfish than that - it's probably 25-75% the other way around.  She got offended in that drunken way when I joked to a friend that she was psychoanalyzing me.  But at least I got her name!

The other person (who never told me her name) was a chef, a food critic, & one of the judges of the gumbo (it was a competition) (I didn't stay long enough to find out who won).  She complained that she got no protein in her samples, just "rice & beef broth."  She was very nice & very engaging, but when another judge came up to us, she repeated her complaint to him, & was disappointed when he told her he didn't have the same experience.  "One of my bowls," he said, "had an entire crawfish in it.  What're you supposed to do with that?"

The vegan didn't have any response for him.