Don’t rebuild.
Those two simple words were heard ‘round the world six years ago. But I’m not hearing them today, the day after Hurricane Irene flooded parts of the northeast.
Vermont, oh Vermont. My heart goes out to you. I know all too well the pain you went through and will go through as you slog through your lives and realize there’s nothing left.
New Yorkers who were not able to evacuate due to some decisions of Nagin proportions, our neighbors hear your frustrations.
People of the Virginia and DC area, I know what it is to have a one-two punch. You could consider Katrina and Rita, or Katrina and the oil spill… your choice… our one-two punch(es). Counterparts to the earthquake and Irene.
And while I empathize with you on levels that no human should ever have to empathize with, I am also filled with self-loathing.
Why is it that, knowing full-well what you all are going through, in many cases on a grander scale, I sat there watching some footage and thought to myself, “Good!”?
How can I, as one of the countless number of people whose lives were unexpectedly changed forever, sit there and think cold thoughts?
There’s a sick satisfaction running through me. And I hate it. I hate it, but I can’t seem to stop it.
Maybe it’s because Washington had two back-to-back natural disasters, and those were the people who spit on us, turned their backs on us, and said we shouldn’t rebuild.
Maybe it’s because people sat there, and said, “I’m so tired of hearing about this coverage.” Well, I’m sick of seeing you whine about a Cat 1 storm, people. Unless you live in one of those hard-hit areas. You can complain all you want. You’ve earned that right.
Maybe it’s because so many people claimed we were worthless and that we were hit for being a den of sin. New York comes to mind. DC. And every other major city that got so much as a drop of rain, for that matter.
Maybe it’s because anyone who sat there and said, “Well, New Orleans is below sea level, and it’s a hurricane prone area, so what did they expect?” might be getting just a taste of “it can happen to anyone.” I mean, a pretty big earthquake on the east coast? A 500-mile-diameter hurricane hitting North Caroline, New Jersey, Boston, New York City, and everything in between? All impossible to imagine, yet in the span of about a week, both happened.
We may be below sea level, and it may be a hurricane prone area, but that doesn’t mean we deserved what we got. And, I was here. On Monday, August 29, my house was fine. Early Tuesday, August 30, the inferior levees broke. And boom. Homeless. Thanks, Corps.
My mother told me that a coworker of hers was on vacation and got to talking to a couple. It came out that she was from New Orleans and had lost everything. For the sake of the story, this woman is white and lived in one of the more affluent areas that was destroyed. The wife turned to the husband and pointed her out like an oddity in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum and said, “Look, honey. She’s from New Orleans, and she lost everything in Katrina.” The husband sized her up and said, “Really? I thought only Ward 9 flooded.”
So many things wrong there. First, it’s 9th Ward, but that isn’t the worst of what you said. You looked at this white woman and assumed that she wasn’t from there. I have an uncle from the upper 9th. He’s pretty white. You also seemed surprised that she was middle class. And most of all, you had your facts wrong. How did you miss that so many areas were flooded? Downtown isn’t the 9th Ward. Old Metairie isn’t the 9th Ward. Mid-City isn’t the 9th Ward. Lakeview isn’t the 9th Ward. Chalmette isn’t the 9th Ward.
Katrina didn’t discriminate. Everyone was affected, no matter the color, the gender, the age, the religion, the education level, the financial status. Mother Nature doesn’t care.
Mark told me a great quote: If life was a sport, Mother Nature would be undefeated.
I’m sitting here with clogged sinuses and itchy eyes. Not from tears, but from a marsh fire in New Orleans East which is being left to burn. They are waiting for the surrounding waters to extinguish it. The winds shifted, and the smoke is all out here now. It’s a bitter reminder of today’s date. It is simultaneously a reminder that Mother Nature doesn’t care who you are or where you’re from (since the winds shifted and the smell has wafted all over the place) and a trigger for memories of smells I hope to never smell again. That Katrina smell. If there wasn’t smoky air irritating my allergies (and if I think it’s bad in my classroom, I just have to walk down the hallway to the gym to be completely unable to breathe), I would have smelled and tasted that smell again. They say smell is the sense with the closest ties to memory. That’s the truth. Aryanna and I went to Greek Fest in May, which was more than 5 ½ years since the flood, and while walking through the Gentilly neighborhood where we parked, there were patches of the smell. You never forget it once you smell it. All I have to do sometimes is think about it for a few minutes. I can do it with the scent of my house, as well as the scent of my parents’ refrigerator.
I can’t help this, and I hate it. I hate it, hate it, hate it. How could I become so bitter and still be so angry? I have always said that I would never wish this upon even my worst enemy, and here I am, smiling smugly. I can’t stop. I’m trying to push these feelings out of my head, and I can’t.
Every time the news shows an area where shingles are missing from rooftops, or the raging floodwaters, or people who evacuated, I can’t help but think of two little words.
Don’t rebuild.
And then I hate myself. But they keep creeping up.
Don’t rebuild.
You said we couldn’t. You said it was pointless. You said we were stupid to try.
Maybe we are all a little mad. Maybe we all went off the deep end 6 years ago. But we had something worth fighting for.
We had to rebuild to keep busy and stop the downward spirals.
We had to rebuild to pick up the pieces.
We had to rebuild because we love this state, flaws and all.
We had to rebuild because that’s what we do.
We had to rebuild because we had to prove those naysayers wrong.
We had to rebuild to prove to ourselves that we weren’t ruined.
Louisiana has been populated with rejects since its inception. The Islenos were sent here to give the Spanish some allies when they took over. The casket girls came over to find husbands. The prisoners, loose women, and convicts were sent here because no one else wanted them. The slaves were sent here to do the white man’s dirty work. The free people of color flocked here for better opportunities. The privateers came here because they were chased out of other ports. The Irish were sent here because their parents needed them to make money for the family during the potato famine. Jews escaped the Holocaust. Natives settled here after being run off by the settlers back east. Italians and Germans and Croats all came here for a chance at a better life. Hispanics came here for a better life and to find work. And the Acadians. Oh, the Acadians. Kicked out of Acadia in Canada because they refused to swear allegiance to Britain, to speak English, and to become Protestant.
Our people have a history of staring down adversity. We don’t laugh in its face (at least, not any more), but it’s what we do. Are we crazy? Probably. But, rest of the world, that’s what you get for casting out your less desirables.
Sure, we had French nobility, explorers, pioneers, Natives, military, “Americans,” and more nuns and priests than you can count. They’re probably the ones who kept the state from going completely off the deep end. Maybe they were voodooed into assimilation and became as mad as the rest of them. I don’t know. Either way, we should have been named Phoenix, for we rise from the ashes (sometimes literally) over and over and over again.
The flood of 1927. Getting traded between France and Spain, then getting sold to America. Yellow fever. The oil spill. The two great fires. The Battle of New Orleans. The Civil War. Camille and Betsy and Andrew and Katrina and Rita and Gustav and…
The list goes on and on.
And we, possibly admirably, possibly stupidly, will continue to rise each time something new is thrown in our direction.
So let me motivate you to do as we did, northeast. Let me give you two little words that lit the fires in our bellies:
Don’t rebuild.
Showing posts with label update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label update. Show all posts
Monday, August 29, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Back into it
I've had several people tell me that I need to get back into this. I had neglected things a bit, but the school year tends to be a little difficult for free time. And once we hit spring, I have my bowling team, and then I go back to camp every few days to prepare for the upcoming summer. My available hours are slim.
Don't let my Facebook presence throw you, though. I keep the browser window open and the FB tab on top, so I see notifications. And I get all ADD and start looking at whatever went up there while I'm working on other things.
Anyway, I hate that all of my posts over the past year or so have been "let me catch you up" posts, but, well, sometimes, that's just how it is.
And, unfortunately, I guess that's what this one will be.
Last regular post I'd had was about my little Nala cat. I think I just couldn't write again for a while after that.
The biggest thing to change in my life was a life-saving moment. My quality of life dropped significantly last year. It started getting worse towards the end of the summer and into the beginning of the school year. I would come home, fight to stay awake, fall asleep on the couch, have Mark wake me up, eat, fall back asleep, have Mark wake me up, shower, go to sleep, go to work, drag all day, go home... and repeat.
It was scary, but I'd also lost my will to care about it. I was shedding like crazy, couldn't stay awake, quick to fly off the handle, and constantly dealing with broken nails. As much as I hate the phrase, Mark tried a "come to Jesus" moment. My annual exam was approaching, and he made me promise to talk to my doctor about it. My mom's theory was that I was having thyroid troubles. That WOULD explain the weight gain I've had over the past few years. I just chalked that up to Katrina, but maybe there was more to it.
Sure enough, I was suffering from hypothyroidism. My levels were dangerously low. A few weeks of trying different dosages, and my quality of life started to improve. I was also given something for the PTSD I've been dealing with the past few years, and that did it, too. I lost about 10 pounds almost immediately, all without changing any dietary or exercise regimens.
What do you know. I wasn't crazy. I was just in physical trouble.
The school year was a very good one. I got to repeat my classes from the year before. This is the first time in 6 years that I've been able to reuse my class materials. What a wonderful, wonderful thing. Of course, adjustments needed to be made here and there, but wow. Just reducing that level of stress was amazing.
I remember being in school, probably middle school, and thinking about how my poor teachers had to teach the same things, year after year after year. Little did I know that one day I would long for that luxury. It's pretty neat knowing what I have coming up for first quarter. I like that I can improve upon what I did the year before. It's funny how your perspective changes as you age.
I still do not see much of Mark. He works nights, I work days, and we frequently worked Sundays, and he sometimes worked Saturdays. It's hard. But we try to find things to do, be it drive around or watch a movie we DVRed two weeks prior.
We do have one project we've tried working on together, though. My father told us that he would help us remodel the front of our house. We hit a huge snafu, though. Well, many of them.
We tore down the paneling in the den. Bit by bit, we worked a little on the weekends. We got some of the sheetrock up, but the holidays started getting in the way. The weekend before my dad's birthday, Mark went to work for 5 a.m. Shortly after 5 a.m., the phone rang. It was my mom. My father had a heart attack, and they were in the hospital. I showered, ran out into the cold early Saturday morning with a soaking wet head, and somehow safely made it to the hospital. While they were working on him, my mom broke the news to me that she was having a lumpectomy that week, and she was only telling me because now I would have to take her in for the procedure.
My world crashed down. That night, my family was supposed to go to 5 Happiness for my dad's birthday dinner. We were happy and excited. He was going to come over to work on the house a little with me while Mark was at work. It was going to be a busy but fun day. And then, there we were. In the Cardiac Care Unit, waiting to hear how my father was after a heart attack, my mom telling me she could have cancer, and all of this being the absolute last thing I ever expected to happen.
The heart attack turned out to be a small one, and Dad went home for his birthday. I spent the night there so that I could get up early and bring my mom to the hospital for her surgery. My aunt, a breast cancer survivor, came to keep me company while we waited. Hours later, I was able to bring her home. That weekend, I spent most of my time chauffeuring them around, putting almost 200 miles on my car. Mom's results were good, no worries. Dad has also made a great recovery.
But then we were stuck. We didn't know what we were doing with regards to home repair. My dad wasn't allowed to do anything for a while. We decided to go through a contractor. He was going to replace our doors, but it took him about a month or so to return the new doors to us. All of our old doors, save for the ones on the bathrooms, were gone. The guys skipped out on a lot of stuff, and months went by. We fired him, got all of our doors back, and tried another guy, who gave us the runaround for a few months. We hired a third guy, who came on time on the appointed days, brought a crew, and had the den sheetrocked and floated in two half days. Booyah.
This was in February/March. We started in October.
We are still not finished. We have trouble aligning my work schedule with Mark's work schedule with my dad's work schedule. We've had another guy do our crown molding, and we'll have other people come in to finish the rest. We'd planned to be done by Christmas. We had no idea it would be June and we still would not be finished.
What we've accomplished:
Painting the range hood and the oven/broiler
Repairing the roof
New A/C and heater
Fixing the ceiling in the den, where the leaking roof ruined things
Removed paneling in the den
Put up sheetrock in the den
Painted the den and the kitchen (we left the paneling there, and deglossed and primed it before painting)
Crown molding in the den and kitchen
Removed the doors to the upper cabinets
Put cabinet contents in boxes in the den (sighhhh)
Deglossed the upper cabinets
Painted, mostly, the upper cabinets
Purchased new hinges for the cabinets
Purchased new drawer pulls/handles for the cabinets
Ordered new flooring which will go in the den, kitchen, and hallway
Had the flooring delivered
Put new doors up
What still needs to be done:
Bottom cabinets
Reattaching cabinet doors
Installing flooring
Finishing the doors
Repairing a kitchen fan
Painting pantry doors
Installing a new countertop
Installing a new kitchen sink
Repainting woodwork and reinstalling it around the windows
Sigh. Mayyybe we'll finish before the first anniversary of this project.
Don't let my Facebook presence throw you, though. I keep the browser window open and the FB tab on top, so I see notifications. And I get all ADD and start looking at whatever went up there while I'm working on other things.
Anyway, I hate that all of my posts over the past year or so have been "let me catch you up" posts, but, well, sometimes, that's just how it is.
And, unfortunately, I guess that's what this one will be.
Last regular post I'd had was about my little Nala cat. I think I just couldn't write again for a while after that.
The biggest thing to change in my life was a life-saving moment. My quality of life dropped significantly last year. It started getting worse towards the end of the summer and into the beginning of the school year. I would come home, fight to stay awake, fall asleep on the couch, have Mark wake me up, eat, fall back asleep, have Mark wake me up, shower, go to sleep, go to work, drag all day, go home... and repeat.
It was scary, but I'd also lost my will to care about it. I was shedding like crazy, couldn't stay awake, quick to fly off the handle, and constantly dealing with broken nails. As much as I hate the phrase, Mark tried a "come to Jesus" moment. My annual exam was approaching, and he made me promise to talk to my doctor about it. My mom's theory was that I was having thyroid troubles. That WOULD explain the weight gain I've had over the past few years. I just chalked that up to Katrina, but maybe there was more to it.
Sure enough, I was suffering from hypothyroidism. My levels were dangerously low. A few weeks of trying different dosages, and my quality of life started to improve. I was also given something for the PTSD I've been dealing with the past few years, and that did it, too. I lost about 10 pounds almost immediately, all without changing any dietary or exercise regimens.
What do you know. I wasn't crazy. I was just in physical trouble.
The school year was a very good one. I got to repeat my classes from the year before. This is the first time in 6 years that I've been able to reuse my class materials. What a wonderful, wonderful thing. Of course, adjustments needed to be made here and there, but wow. Just reducing that level of stress was amazing.
I remember being in school, probably middle school, and thinking about how my poor teachers had to teach the same things, year after year after year. Little did I know that one day I would long for that luxury. It's pretty neat knowing what I have coming up for first quarter. I like that I can improve upon what I did the year before. It's funny how your perspective changes as you age.
I still do not see much of Mark. He works nights, I work days, and we frequently worked Sundays, and he sometimes worked Saturdays. It's hard. But we try to find things to do, be it drive around or watch a movie we DVRed two weeks prior.
We do have one project we've tried working on together, though. My father told us that he would help us remodel the front of our house. We hit a huge snafu, though. Well, many of them.
We tore down the paneling in the den. Bit by bit, we worked a little on the weekends. We got some of the sheetrock up, but the holidays started getting in the way. The weekend before my dad's birthday, Mark went to work for 5 a.m. Shortly after 5 a.m., the phone rang. It was my mom. My father had a heart attack, and they were in the hospital. I showered, ran out into the cold early Saturday morning with a soaking wet head, and somehow safely made it to the hospital. While they were working on him, my mom broke the news to me that she was having a lumpectomy that week, and she was only telling me because now I would have to take her in for the procedure.
My world crashed down. That night, my family was supposed to go to 5 Happiness for my dad's birthday dinner. We were happy and excited. He was going to come over to work on the house a little with me while Mark was at work. It was going to be a busy but fun day. And then, there we were. In the Cardiac Care Unit, waiting to hear how my father was after a heart attack, my mom telling me she could have cancer, and all of this being the absolute last thing I ever expected to happen.
The heart attack turned out to be a small one, and Dad went home for his birthday. I spent the night there so that I could get up early and bring my mom to the hospital for her surgery. My aunt, a breast cancer survivor, came to keep me company while we waited. Hours later, I was able to bring her home. That weekend, I spent most of my time chauffeuring them around, putting almost 200 miles on my car. Mom's results were good, no worries. Dad has also made a great recovery.
But then we were stuck. We didn't know what we were doing with regards to home repair. My dad wasn't allowed to do anything for a while. We decided to go through a contractor. He was going to replace our doors, but it took him about a month or so to return the new doors to us. All of our old doors, save for the ones on the bathrooms, were gone. The guys skipped out on a lot of stuff, and months went by. We fired him, got all of our doors back, and tried another guy, who gave us the runaround for a few months. We hired a third guy, who came on time on the appointed days, brought a crew, and had the den sheetrocked and floated in two half days. Booyah.
This was in February/March. We started in October.
We are still not finished. We have trouble aligning my work schedule with Mark's work schedule with my dad's work schedule. We've had another guy do our crown molding, and we'll have other people come in to finish the rest. We'd planned to be done by Christmas. We had no idea it would be June and we still would not be finished.
What we've accomplished:
Painting the range hood and the oven/broiler
Repairing the roof
New A/C and heater
Fixing the ceiling in the den, where the leaking roof ruined things
Removed paneling in the den
Put up sheetrock in the den
Painted the den and the kitchen (we left the paneling there, and deglossed and primed it before painting)
Crown molding in the den and kitchen
Removed the doors to the upper cabinets
Put cabinet contents in boxes in the den (sighhhh)
Deglossed the upper cabinets
Painted, mostly, the upper cabinets
Purchased new hinges for the cabinets
Purchased new drawer pulls/handles for the cabinets
Ordered new flooring which will go in the den, kitchen, and hallway
Had the flooring delivered
Put new doors up
What still needs to be done:
Bottom cabinets
Reattaching cabinet doors
Installing flooring
Finishing the doors
Repairing a kitchen fan
Painting pantry doors
Installing a new countertop
Installing a new kitchen sink
Repainting woodwork and reinstalling it around the windows
Sigh. Mayyybe we'll finish before the first anniversary of this project.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
What a long 6 months...
So I've finally got some time to sit and post. I return to school on Thursday (the kids arrive on the 11th), and camp ended on Friday. Not a full week off, but I will take what I can get. It's given me time to do this.
First: I've changed the look of the blog for the first time...well...ever.
Second: Here's a preview of topics for this post.
1. Super Bowl
2. Saints parade
3. Greece
4. Portland
5. Oil spill
6. Shazzy
7. Camp
8. St. Petersburg
9. Things that are good.
Super Bowl
My last post was written the day of the Super Bowl. Guess you know we won, right? I was downtown that night, high-fiving strangers (all while pushing aside my inner Howie Mandell), hugging strangers, drinking Dom with my mom, alternately giggling and crying, watching people dance to "Halftime" in the streets, yelling "Who Dat" like an idiot... amazing. I can't properly describe the energy in the city.
My friends and I were reminiscing about it last night, and we were talking about what a long three months of Thanksgiving, Christmas, title games, Super Bowl, victory parade, and Mardi Gras itself. Poor livers. Long, but so very upbeat, positive, and memorable.
Saints Parade
We got out of school early that day. A group of fellow teachers walked to the end of the Carrollton Streetcar line and rode it as far up Canal as we could. We stood out in the (for New Orleans) freezing cold with a minimum of 800,000 of our closest friends. The lines for the streetcar after the parade were ridiculous. We decided to start walking down Canal, because we figured the cars would start emptying out, and we could hop on further down the line. FAIL. We walked the whole way back to school. We stopped at a great pizza place on Canal near Carrollton, rested, re-energized, and made it the rest of the way. My friend Michelle stayed behind because her husband works downtown, and his car was there. Well, our looong walk got us home around the same time their car ride did. Unbelievable.
Greece
Lucky me got to go on the school trip as a chaperone. We went to Greece. I hate flying and thought I would never have a chance to go to Europe, and I was very anxious. But a few Benadryl later, and that trans-Atlantic flight wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
It was an amazing journey. The weather was perfect the whole 9 days. The food was delicious. Being in the presence of the ruins devoted to the mythological beings I've loved since I was about 7 years old was breathtaking, as was the countryside. Athens itself is pretty funky, but the other places we visited: Delphi, Olympia, Cape Sounion, and three islands: Aegina, Poros, and Hydra, were gorgeous. In Delphi and Epidaurus, I stood in ancient Greek theaters. Me, a theatre nerd and drama teacher. I was speechless, especially in Epidaurus, where the amphitheater has naturally perfect acoustics. We rode donkeys in Hydra, an island where donkeys are they only means of transportation. No vehicles are on the island. We ran a race in the original Olympic stadium. Words cannot do this trip justice. And now, I have a travel bug. I want to see so much more of the world. It's so big, and I am so small, comparatively.
Portland
I went to the Journalism Educators Association Convention about two weeks later. It was my first trip to Oregon, and I fell in love with the city. Public transportation in the form of the light rail is amazing and I realllllly wish we had that here. Or if the streetcars had more lines, that would also do. I learned a lot at the convention, but most importantly, I took a very difficult exam: the Certified Journalism Educator exam. And a few months later, I learned that I passed it and am one of 4 CJEs in the state of Louisiana.
Oil Spill
Over 100 days ago, my state was met with more problems when the Deepwater Horizon Well exploded and started leaking no...pouring... oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
I am so tired of people thinking that this is no big deal or that it won't affect them. Well, to you, those same people who complained when our children overcrowded your schools, our people invaded your towns, and our adults looked for work...guess what. Those areas where the oil, fishing, shrimping, crabbing, and oystering communities thrive...most of whom have known only these trades, who have done this for generations, who will lose their livelihoods, their ways of life, their homes...they will move out and invade your lives again. The jobs, the schools, the towns....all endangered. That seafood you eat? Where does it come from? Already, we had dinner at two seafood and po-boy restaurants where oysters were not available. The brown pelican, that beautiful, graceful bird which represents our state, was endangered. Recently, it came off that list. Guess what? This oil spill is sending it right back. Here's 100 days of tragedy, animated: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/08/graphic_brings_together_multip.html
Shazzy
My sweet man, my Shazbot Schmoo, stopped eating and started hiding. Two Sundays ago, he could barely walk and wasn't interested in food. He let out a horrendous yowl and vomited bile all over the hallway. There was so much. I didn't know a cat could have that much vomit...especially when there was no food in his belly. Mark was not home, and I called him, scared. We went to an emergency vet center, and they kept him overnight. He was dangerously anemic, and he needed an emergency blood transfusion.
The next day, he regained interest in food, seemed livelier. We were supposed to pick him up that night, but they diagnosed him with feline leukemia, probably picked up in 2008 when he escaped while we were getting our dishwasher installed. It is a virus, and you can go two years after contracting it.
He was never sick a day in his life until that horrible weekend. He started having respiratory distress and they had to drain the area around his heart. He stopped eating. They kept him overnight. The next day, we picked him up, and immediately knew we didn't have much time with him. They thought maybe he would eat in familiar surroundings, but he didn't. Around midnight, we knew he was in too much pain, was unable to breathe well, and was refusing food, water, and medicine. He'd soiled a duffel bag he'd been laying on under the guest bed in Mark's office.
We brought him to the emergency place again, and the doctor agreed that there was only one way to end it. He was in my lap as it happened. I really can't write about it.
Shazzy was 6 years old when he died on July 22, 2010. I love you and miss you, my little man cat.
Camp
Spent my 15th year at camp. The success of it lies in Jessica, our fantastic returning camp director, who amazes me continually. Even more amazing? Next year will be the official marker of me having been there for half of my life. Zoinks. It was a good summer. We ended Friday, and I can't wait until next June.
St. Petersburg
I also spent a weekend in St. Pete (Florida, not Russia) at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. I earned a spot (one of 22 people in the country) in a workshop on bringing your high school media online. It was absolutely awesome, and I learned so much. I have a million and one ideas for the journalism class I teach, and I am very excited about implementing them. In addition, we had a mini-getaway. We saw the Dali Museum, which was fabulous, ate some good food, and enjoyed being away. We never get to take vacations together, and so this was great and long overdue.
Things that are good
Lily has stopped living in fear. She is playful, highly visible, and using the litter box for the first time in 6 years. This is so very bittersweet.
I am teaching things that I taught last year, all of which I enjoy.
I am looking forward to being with my "school friends" again. I've missed them the past two months.
I'm sure there's more stuff, but I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I'll try to update again faster than 6 months.
First: I've changed the look of the blog for the first time...well...ever.
Second: Here's a preview of topics for this post.
1. Super Bowl
2. Saints parade
3. Greece
4. Portland
5. Oil spill
6. Shazzy
7. Camp
8. St. Petersburg
9. Things that are good.
Super Bowl
My last post was written the day of the Super Bowl. Guess you know we won, right? I was downtown that night, high-fiving strangers (all while pushing aside my inner Howie Mandell), hugging strangers, drinking Dom with my mom, alternately giggling and crying, watching people dance to "Halftime" in the streets, yelling "Who Dat" like an idiot... amazing. I can't properly describe the energy in the city.
My friends and I were reminiscing about it last night, and we were talking about what a long three months of Thanksgiving, Christmas, title games, Super Bowl, victory parade, and Mardi Gras itself. Poor livers. Long, but so very upbeat, positive, and memorable.
Saints Parade
We got out of school early that day. A group of fellow teachers walked to the end of the Carrollton Streetcar line and rode it as far up Canal as we could. We stood out in the (for New Orleans) freezing cold with a minimum of 800,000 of our closest friends. The lines for the streetcar after the parade were ridiculous. We decided to start walking down Canal, because we figured the cars would start emptying out, and we could hop on further down the line. FAIL. We walked the whole way back to school. We stopped at a great pizza place on Canal near Carrollton, rested, re-energized, and made it the rest of the way. My friend Michelle stayed behind because her husband works downtown, and his car was there. Well, our looong walk got us home around the same time their car ride did. Unbelievable.
Greece
Lucky me got to go on the school trip as a chaperone. We went to Greece. I hate flying and thought I would never have a chance to go to Europe, and I was very anxious. But a few Benadryl later, and that trans-Atlantic flight wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
It was an amazing journey. The weather was perfect the whole 9 days. The food was delicious. Being in the presence of the ruins devoted to the mythological beings I've loved since I was about 7 years old was breathtaking, as was the countryside. Athens itself is pretty funky, but the other places we visited: Delphi, Olympia, Cape Sounion, and three islands: Aegina, Poros, and Hydra, were gorgeous. In Delphi and Epidaurus, I stood in ancient Greek theaters. Me, a theatre nerd and drama teacher. I was speechless, especially in Epidaurus, where the amphitheater has naturally perfect acoustics. We rode donkeys in Hydra, an island where donkeys are they only means of transportation. No vehicles are on the island. We ran a race in the original Olympic stadium. Words cannot do this trip justice. And now, I have a travel bug. I want to see so much more of the world. It's so big, and I am so small, comparatively.
Portland
I went to the Journalism Educators Association Convention about two weeks later. It was my first trip to Oregon, and I fell in love with the city. Public transportation in the form of the light rail is amazing and I realllllly wish we had that here. Or if the streetcars had more lines, that would also do. I learned a lot at the convention, but most importantly, I took a very difficult exam: the Certified Journalism Educator exam. And a few months later, I learned that I passed it and am one of 4 CJEs in the state of Louisiana.
Oil Spill
Over 100 days ago, my state was met with more problems when the Deepwater Horizon Well exploded and started leaking no...pouring... oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
I am so tired of people thinking that this is no big deal or that it won't affect them. Well, to you, those same people who complained when our children overcrowded your schools, our people invaded your towns, and our adults looked for work...guess what. Those areas where the oil, fishing, shrimping, crabbing, and oystering communities thrive...most of whom have known only these trades, who have done this for generations, who will lose their livelihoods, their ways of life, their homes...they will move out and invade your lives again. The jobs, the schools, the towns....all endangered. That seafood you eat? Where does it come from? Already, we had dinner at two seafood and po-boy restaurants where oysters were not available. The brown pelican, that beautiful, graceful bird which represents our state, was endangered. Recently, it came off that list. Guess what? This oil spill is sending it right back. Here's 100 days of tragedy, animated: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/08/graphic_brings_together_multip.html
Shazzy
My sweet man, my Shazbot Schmoo, stopped eating and started hiding. Two Sundays ago, he could barely walk and wasn't interested in food. He let out a horrendous yowl and vomited bile all over the hallway. There was so much. I didn't know a cat could have that much vomit...especially when there was no food in his belly. Mark was not home, and I called him, scared. We went to an emergency vet center, and they kept him overnight. He was dangerously anemic, and he needed an emergency blood transfusion.
The next day, he regained interest in food, seemed livelier. We were supposed to pick him up that night, but they diagnosed him with feline leukemia, probably picked up in 2008 when he escaped while we were getting our dishwasher installed. It is a virus, and you can go two years after contracting it.
He was never sick a day in his life until that horrible weekend. He started having respiratory distress and they had to drain the area around his heart. He stopped eating. They kept him overnight. The next day, we picked him up, and immediately knew we didn't have much time with him. They thought maybe he would eat in familiar surroundings, but he didn't. Around midnight, we knew he was in too much pain, was unable to breathe well, and was refusing food, water, and medicine. He'd soiled a duffel bag he'd been laying on under the guest bed in Mark's office.
We brought him to the emergency place again, and the doctor agreed that there was only one way to end it. He was in my lap as it happened. I really can't write about it.
Shazzy was 6 years old when he died on July 22, 2010. I love you and miss you, my little man cat.
Camp
Spent my 15th year at camp. The success of it lies in Jessica, our fantastic returning camp director, who amazes me continually. Even more amazing? Next year will be the official marker of me having been there for half of my life. Zoinks. It was a good summer. We ended Friday, and I can't wait until next June.
St. Petersburg
I also spent a weekend in St. Pete (Florida, not Russia) at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. I earned a spot (one of 22 people in the country) in a workshop on bringing your high school media online. It was absolutely awesome, and I learned so much. I have a million and one ideas for the journalism class I teach, and I am very excited about implementing them. In addition, we had a mini-getaway. We saw the Dali Museum, which was fabulous, ate some good food, and enjoyed being away. We never get to take vacations together, and so this was great and long overdue.
Things that are good
Lily has stopped living in fear. She is playful, highly visible, and using the litter box for the first time in 6 years. This is so very bittersweet.
I am teaching things that I taught last year, all of which I enjoy.
I am looking forward to being with my "school friends" again. I've missed them the past two months.
I'm sure there's more stuff, but I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I'll try to update again faster than 6 months.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
4 1/2 years later...
I got word from the Louisiana Department of Education finally:
They have finished yanking my chain.
They finished processing my June 2008 application for my teaching certificate.
I am an honest-to-God secondary English teacher after all of this time, all of these headaches, and 4 years of jumping through hoops at UNO. Could have had another BA in all this time.
Now for a break, and then maybe I'll finish the master's...
They have finished yanking my chain.
They finished processing my June 2008 application for my teaching certificate.
I am an honest-to-God secondary English teacher after all of this time, all of these headaches, and 4 years of jumping through hoops at UNO. Could have had another BA in all this time.
Now for a break, and then maybe I'll finish the master's...
Friday, December 08, 2006
Results are in...
So, the ultrasound showed that I do not have gallstones. This is a very good thing.
However, my B12 levels are very low. I have to start injections next week, five days in a row. Then I will go once a week for 4 weeks. Then I will go once a month for three months. Then they will recheck my levels and see if I need more.
Also, there are problems with my thyroid. They are referring me to my p.c. physician. If he's no help, then I will be referred to an endocrinologist.
I love aging and my parents' genes.
The good news is that I've got some diagnoses. The bad news is that I've been diagnosed. I'm not going to be able to afford myself much longer. I'm already paying $110 a month for prescriptions, and that's only because I've been skipping my Nasonex. I also will add the Zelnorm, and then who knows what I'll need for the thyroid trouble. Oy vey.
However, my B12 levels are very low. I have to start injections next week, five days in a row. Then I will go once a week for 4 weeks. Then I will go once a month for three months. Then they will recheck my levels and see if I need more.
Also, there are problems with my thyroid. They are referring me to my p.c. physician. If he's no help, then I will be referred to an endocrinologist.
I love aging and my parents' genes.
The good news is that I've got some diagnoses. The bad news is that I've been diagnosed. I'm not going to be able to afford myself much longer. I'm already paying $110 a month for prescriptions, and that's only because I've been skipping my Nasonex. I also will add the Zelnorm, and then who knows what I'll need for the thyroid trouble. Oy vey.
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