Sometimes you have to look hard to see something odd or different. Walking down a typical street in a typical town, glance at the people walking ahead of you. Besides wondering how the 80s have made such a head-scratchable comeback, you will notice that everyone looks kind of similar. They are rushing from here to there with nothing to recommend what complex and interesting people they are sure to be on the inside. The woman in the classic, sturdy heels with her black bag. The man in his khaki trousers and button down shirt. They are rushing to work, or to pick up the dry cleaning, or one of the thousand other mundane tasks we all take part in.

But. New Orleans. Here the odd seems to be everywhere I turn. New Orleans lends itself to the odd. And what's better, it's not even the flagrantly odd that I am bombarded with. It's the subtle odd, the "one of these things is not like the other" charm that almost everyone here (at least on the ferry!) seem to posses.

Case in point: The man waiting for the ferry with his pet on a leash. Nothing too odd about that until said pet jumped into the crack between two barriers and had to be lifted out by the neck, at which point the howling got my attention and I saw that it wasn't a little puppy on a leash, but a black cat.

Wonderfully odd and a reminder to look closely at life unfolding around me.

Here is the unhappy feline gazing wistfully at the crevice from which he came.