Strange Encounters

I'd just about convinced myself that I didn't want to do a levee walk last night. Around 5:00, after an active day with the little man, I figured I deserved a little 'old fashion' relaxation. The tug of my waistband, however, nagged at my conscience (yeah, same kind of thing she talked about in her recent blog). The push to regain an earlier, smaller shadow of myself keeps me indentured to the exercise master. And, like those other women, I don't think he'll ever grant me absolute freedom from servitude, no matter how many acres of fried chicken, bourbon and coke and ettouffee I plow under while consuming broth, diet drinks, grilled patties without a bun, or even, gasp!, nothing for supper (yes, I know that's not effective strategy, but sometimes faced with a choice of cereal, lettuce or nothing, nothing begins to taste good).

Anyway, back to the encounter. The best thing about my walking exercise is that, once motivated to leave the house, the routine is usually anything but. Choose either direction on the levee and one is almost bound to come across something that makes the walking and jogging but a means to an interesting end. Thursday was no different. Doggie and I wandered briskly to the area of the levee under the Crescent City Connection, an enormous, twin-span over the river, right at the place cruise ships dock across the way. I'm always wary of unsavoury characters who might be wandering around, even though, until absolute darkness, there are still people near by: the shipyard crews, tugs docked with their barges and, lately, the Blain Kern barns are rockin' and rollin' with the push to ready floats for upcoming parades. This evening, I noticed a lone woman walking slowly toward me, watching the river, stopping to study the scene, and turning to retrace her steps for 30 yards or so. She didn't appear especially threatening, but hey, lots of things in this city aren't what they seem. As I stopped at my usual perch to look for anything interesting in the currents, as well as observe a new, gigantic cruise ship now docked in place of the former 'dormitory' one, this slight, middle-aged lady approached me, stopping alongside us. "Well, we were filming here today," she began, by way of explanation for her aimless walking. "We needed an 8-foot, dead alligator, so we had one built. Well, someone picked it up to take it back to the set, but nobody will say who has it, so I came back to see if it had been left down here." She had used the right button to get my immediate, undivided attention: filming. Of course, I asked her what, who, when, etc. She told me Keanu Reeves was at the levee earlier, taking part in the scenes about an exploding ferry, which explains the need for a dead alligator, except that a live alligator beneath the Crescent City Connection would supply all the publicity needed to make THAT film successful!! The movie is Deja Vu (sp); I think I read something about it. She said they were set to film in August, but, well.... Later they thought about moving the production site(s) but decided to return here and take part in the city's recovery. Nice gesture, that. And no, we didn't find a fake, dead alligator, but, again, the levee yielded more than a convenient place to engage the fitness devil: it gave me a renewed sense of "place". A place where anything might happen, and does!