Prairieville: Wedding day I

I slept fairly well the night before my wedding. Rolled out of the quiet hotel room with a plan in mind for the day. First of all, my belt was really not fitting. Saori and had I both lost a fair amount of weight leading up to the wedding. Saori’s yoga studio couldn’t beleive she looked the same after skipping yoga for a season. Nothing like too much stress and too little sleep for a few months to shed the pounds.

I remembered an H&M not far from Cafe du Monde so I slipped out of the hotel and hiked over. Picked up the new, right sized belt, and a few other things before Tay texted to see what I was up to and if he could help me with anything. I invited him out and we met up outside of the H&M.

Next step was to the groomers for the groom. I’d had my hair less than month before but my hair and beard both needed a trimming. I googled a barbershop which turned out to be in a large luxury mall on the third floor behind a bank of bathrooms. It was a small place, but nearly a stereotypically perfect barbershop of the type regularly visited by regulars in their 70s and served by two barbers who had been plying their trade a long time. Lino tile floors, bright light, beat up chairs from the 70’s in the waiting area, lay-in tile ceiling.

The barber settled me in the chair and asked what I would like. I told him I was getting married today and needed a light trim for my hair and beard and just to dapper everything up. It ended up a rather lengthy affair, but really interesting since its the first time I’ve had something like this. He trimmed up my hair and then leaned me back and put some weights on my eyelids to keep them shut before going to work with shaving my neck and trimming and grooming the beard.

While he worked, I asked Tay about his home intruder, which is an interesting story with many great lessons like: get to know your neighbors, don’t turn a blind eye in your community, and if you’re going to commit a flagrant crime with a good chance of getting caught by the police, don’t carry your entire stash of illegal drugs with you.

Anyway, the barber did a great job but it a little spendier than I would have imagined- $35 without tip. But then I am realizing lately how much I tend to devalue everything based on how much I’ve paid at the cheapest, most exploited places. $7 haircuts from BudgetCuts contractors without benefits in the most abysmal strip malls. In short, fueling and driving cheap crap work and cheap crap jobs in cheap crap buildings making cheap crap neighborhoods. And I also said “wedding” which probably bumped the price up $10.

Anyway, afterwards we ran over to Minon Fagot (?) a local famous silver jewlery and accessories boutique featuring designs by a woman with a long creole family history. In fact, all the shop keepers spoke French. They things like crawfish tie bars and okra pendants and fluer-de-lis earrrings. Nice stuff, but expensive. We went back to the hotel afterwards, since it was time to resolve the great sock debate.