November: My Birthday and Zoom Thanksgiving

First off, some randomness: an ironic casualty of Hurricane Zeta right across from the Hurricane Tree statue on Power, a beautiful sunset that I went out for a walk just to see, camping with the Scouts, swimming in November, an unexpected sleepy Bean, and bike riding to Nola's.

I turned 41 on November 12. I was also in quarantine because of COVID exposure on Halloween night, so I had the day all to myself. After enjoying a leisurely morning, Nola, Nopsi, and Kenny took me to lunch on Magazine Street. We tried a new pho place, Pho Noi Viet. It was good, but I still like Pho Bang the best.

That evening, Kenny honored my two birthday requests: we went to a local art exhibit and then out to eat. JAMNOLA is a collaborative, 12-room, interactive art experience. It's all about our local culture and traditions, and it contains all locally inspired and produced art. It was really cool; I'm glad we got to see it.

Our next stop was Gris-Gris. I had been trying to at least get take-out from them for months, but it just never worked out. They had to shut down and then reopened, but only for private dinners. Then they finally resumed normal, limited service a few days before my birthday. I was SO ecstatic to be there.

We sat downstairs at the counter so we could see all of the action happening in the open kitchen. The owner and head chef, Eric Cook, was there, and we got to chat with him a few times throughout the night. I told him it was my birthday and how I had been trying to get back to his restaurant for so long and that I was so happy I was finally there. He ended up gifting us two glasses of champagne to enjoy with our meal and two extra sticky bun bread puddings to take home. It was SUCH a wonderful birthday night. Thank you, Baby!

Oh, and my sub sent me a picture of the kids in the first grade class I spend a lot of time with, and in fact, the whole first grade made me birthday cards, which I discovered on my desk when I got back to school. So sweet!

A couple of weeks later was Thanksgiving, and it was our year with Kenny's family. After much debate, we decided to do a virtual gathering over Zoom. And since that decision was only made the day before, all of the food was already at our house. So Kenny packed up servings of everything for his mom, his dad, and his brother and Zac and drove to Metairie then to Mandeville then to Prairieville to deliver Thanksgiving dinner to them. He is the epitome of selfless, and I love him so.

We got our Christmas tree the very next day. :)