What A Good Friday!

I was off work yesterday due to Good Friday in the largely Catholic south Louisiana which made for the start of a long weekend. We already had plans to drive to Houston for a concert in the evening but we got an added bonus in the afternoon before we left Lafayette. As she has written on Grope For Luna, Roxi has been working hard on her dissertation and not really reading anything but articles for reference. She did however recently read a book for pleasure by local author Greg Guirard called "PsycoTherapy for Cajuns." She especially liked a story dealing with a cultural miscommunication between a group of Cajuns and a Hollywood film crew filming a movie in Acadiana. She wanted to quote the story in her dissertation about communication but needed permission so she emailed Guirard on Thursday. He quickly emailed her back and invited us to Pie Day at his house on Friday.

I grew up in Lafayette and felt like I knew quite a bit about Cajun culture but I have never heard of Pie Day. Apparently, Pie Day is a very old tradition to break the fast of Good Friday. Friends and family gather for their only meal of the day and only eat pie. At first I was worried that all the sugar would make me sick, but after reading the article, I was happy to see that they also eat "salty" pies with crawfish, eggplant, etc.

So at 11:00 AM on Friday, we made to drive to Greg's house on Mercier Bayou on the Atchafalaya Basin levee. We arrived right about noon to a yard full of people and a delicious assortment of pies. After introducing ourselves to Greg, we dove right into the pies. We started with the salty pies and filled our plates with various crawfish and shrimp pies, quiches and eggplant and mushroom pies. They were delicious but we couldn't wait long before going to the dessert table. We loaded up my plate with pecan, strawberry, cherry, pudding and key lime pies. After finishing off the plate and cleaning up our dishes, we laid on the hammock to let ourselves digest before our drive. After a short while, we thanked our host and got on the road to Houston.







We made our drive to Houston to see TV on the Radio. I have been enamored with the band since Roxi included one of their songs on a mixtape for me and when we saw that they would playing in Houston on a Friday night we just had to be there. The opening band, The Noisettes, were good but TV on the Radio were fantastic.



I wasn't sure what to expect from the show since most of the music on the recordings is electronic but was pleasantly surprised to see the band play all the songs with live instruments. The songs were faster and louder than the recordings which lead to a very energetic show for the sold out venue. They played for about ninety minutes and closed with a raucous version of "Staring At The Sun." Needless to say, Roxi and I really enjoyed the show.



So at 12:30 AM, we made it to my parents' apartment a few miles from the venue to get to sleep. We reflected on our day and how in the span of twelve hours we ate lots of pies with a big Cajun family in Catahoula, LA and saw a great show by TV on the Radio in Houston, TX. I'd say that classifies as a Good Friday!