The girls gather to sage. We talk witches, ghosts and New Orleans. And I run to my car at night’s end. Two things learned. I can, in fact, haul ass when I’m scared and cocktails with the girls never loses its charm.
Actually, the girls have cocktails. This gullet has cocktail. But still. Accomplishment comes in different measures after cancer. We’re at the home of the Lido Deck. It’s a bit chilly so we gather round the kitchen island. Contractor Girl, Realtor Girl and Busty Blonde join the fray. Busty Blond requested her own name last year. I go with the flow. You can guess for yourself whether the doll is busty or not. What we know for a fact is the girl hates the word, “panties.” Go figure.
We are swept to New Orleans via American Horror Story Coven. Three of us admit to odd happenings in the land of voodoo and jazz. The fourth of us hasn’t been there. At the time, we weren’t scared, just a little creeped out. Except for tonight. Something about the sinister Delphine LaLaurie circles my brain causing the run to the car. Breathless I lock the doors and turn on the lights. Every single thing about Ms. Delphine involves ghosts. Locked doors and floodlights won’t keep them away. No matter. I run. I even run in my lit underground garage, unfazed by the derision of my neighbors.
Madame LaLaurie was known throughout New Orleans as a gifted hostess and socialite until a fire revealed the abuse of slaves like none had seen before. Bodies chained to walls, corpses mutilated and body parts filled the private sections of the home. The Creole mansion stands to this day and is known as the most haunted and frightening location in the French Quarter.
NOLA is a place that captures the soul. Perfect life would include a little house in the Garden District writing the days away on the porch. My southern drawl and I would follow all the weddings and funerals, parasol perched above our head, hanky in hand. I call on Marie LaVeau, voodoo priestess and granter of all wishes to make it so. And rid my mind of the damn ghosts girlfriend.
Busty Blonde recounts that her dead husband haunts their home and sometimes messes with her. Again, I bring The Norwegian to task for never visiting. Realtor Girl reports a voice spoke to her in a museum in NOLA. Contractor Girl agrees shit is just strange. Myself? The Norwegian booked a hotel that felt creepy. Seems the place was a brothel and one of the girls came to her demise in the very room in which we slumbered. He slumbered. I prayed to the Ghostbusters.
We gather to sage and sage we do. Don’t sage? Try it. Used by Native Americans, it is believed to release negative energy and bring renewed good feelings and outcomes. Contractor Girl is in need of an attitude adjustment concerning work—aren’t we all? Each of us holds a lit sage stick. We circle her, her workspace, her client folders and her kitchen wishing her only positive energy, eschewing the negative.
On the way home, I ask Marie LaVeau to send some good voodoo her way. No wonder I scare myself.
The Duchess Diaries 