Free?!

We are in a recession. We have been in a recession for quite some time now. Pretty much my whole adult life has been under that black thunder cloud of despair and worry about the future that might not be possible for me anymore because of the previous generations mistakes.

Everyone and their mother is pinching pennies and trying to save as much as they can in order to have a little cushion for their future. No one is offering deals anymore. Prices are crazy high to offset the lack of spending on non-essentials. Basically, nothing is free.

However, in NOLA, I'm finding that a lot of stuff is free. Fun stuff! Stuff that you actually would pay money for any other time, happily! 

It all started with a little thing called Wednesday's at the Square. Every Wednesday for a month they had a free concert series that you could attend.  Great musicians and a nice fun and relaxing Wednesday evening all for free. Now they did have beer for sale and food for sale if you wanted it. But the music was free and anyone can attend.

After Wednesday's at the Square ended (will be back next spring) I found out about the free oysters and piano music offered EVERY Friday at Les Bons Temps on Magazine St. "This is too good to be true!" I said to myself. "All the oysters are probably gross and probably go within the first hour that they are being served."  So out of curiosity and boredom and a hankering for some oysters, my boyfriend and I headed down to Magazine
St. to test this out. To our amazement, there were about 10 people in the bar and the most fun rag time music I've heard in a while. I walked up to the bar and saw a plate with 3 oysters on a half shell and asked the bartender if they were available.  We took the plate of oysters, ordered some drinks and sat down.I figured that this was the  last of the oysters so I savored every last bit of the very fresh oysters. The man from the back came out once he saw the plate gone and replaced it with another plate of 3. No one else was taking them from the bar, so we decided to. As soon as he saw us take that plate he replaced it with another, and again and again. We walked out of there having eaten 2 dozen oysters each. For free. The only thing we paid for was the 2 beers and 1 Bloody Mary we ordered, plus one massive tip for the oyster shucker.

Just when I thought NOLA couldn't get any cooler on the free front, I went to a free yoga class last night at Wild Lotus Yoga on Prytania St. Every Wednesday at 7:45pm they offer this class. You can go completely for free or you can leave a donation to keep the class running and the teacher teaching.  I usually attend Shanti Yoga Shala on Magazine St. but this free class worked me harder and challenged me in ways that my usual yoga class ever has.

For instance, this flying squirrel position is one of the poses that I did last night. Very proud to say that out of a class of 20 people, I was one of the only to be able to successfully execute it!

My point here is this: NOLA is crazy and restless. But so are the people. The city is starting to notice that. If you don't throw a dog a bone every once in a while, they will stop coming to you when you call them.

Goodbye, USPS!

I purchased three books, two sets of flash cards and 20 practice tests to help me study for the LSAT. After I decided not to take the LSAT anymore I was stuck with all these books collecting dust on my already crowded book shelves. My coworker showed me how to sell my books on Amazon.com (shout out) and I had managed to sell back every single LSAT item.

This is where the story begins.

This past Friday I sold the very last LSAT item. A set of flash cards to help with the logical reasoning section of the test. I printed out the postage, packaged it all up nicely in a padded manila envelope. Saturday morning I put it in my mailbox to be picked up and carried away by the USPS. This is something that I have done many times before so I figured that it would be just fine doing it this time.
Boy was I wrong. I knew I moved to a not-so-nice neighborhood, but when I came home from work and discovered my neatly packaged manila envelope ripped open and thrown onto my front stairs, I was a bit taken aback. The funny thing about this was that the postal bandit didn't even take the flash cards. Of course not, I thought to myself as I brought the shredded package into my house. I looked over my shoulder up and down my street wondering if it was someone in one of the houses I was looking at who did it.

It's a weird thing. I know that New Orleans is supposed to be this scary city that sucks you in a swallows you whole, but it hasn't done that to me yet and I just keep waiting for it to happen. There are days, weeks even, that I can't stand anything about the city and yet here I stay. In a city this crazy I guess you just need to stick around to uncover it all; good and bad.