Eyebrows raised

I'm on the couch, soaking up a/c while the wind starts periodically gusting outside. I'm not necessarily concerned, per se, about Isaac. He has no eye. He sped up his travel speed, so he isn't even due to hit on August 29. I'm not comfortable with the timing, to be honest. Moreso due to him canceling something I had planned on Wednesday, but it is creepy. I guess I'm just annoyed. Mark has to work. He's bringing a sleeping bag and should be staying for two days. I'll laterally evacuate with Lily to my parents' house. I'm going to bring the important stuff just in case, of course, but I'm mostly going there to avoid being home alone. We had three days of school plus book day, and now we're closed for three days. How irritating. I really miss the days where so long as it was "Just a cat 3," I would stay home and not even flinch. I'd read or play on the Internet so long as we had electricity. Now, I'm taking important things and the cat to my parents' house for a tropical storm, maybe cat 1, maybe cat 2. I'm gun shy. I had something else on my mind which was preventing me for really thinking too long or too hard about the situation, but now I'm starting to think about it. Storm prep did that to me. I'll have a better 7-year post in a few weeks, but I really don't want to jinx something. So, until then, I'm just raising my eyebrows at everything and considering grabbing a string cheese before the fridge goes out.

Stand by your men

I will begin by saying that I love my hometown and things associated with it with a passion. Even if those things play a game I don't care for.

Growing up, my dad would play his "Who Dat" single on game days. I have at least one distinct memory of being forced awake by it. I remember my dad reclining on his bedroom floor in front of the little TV, yelling, hitting the floor in frustration, and teaching me a lot of words I had never heard before in the process. Words that he only said on game days. I remember having to go to my friend's house to play...or if she came over, playing in the backyard due to his reactions. This was the '80s, of course.

In fact, my very pregnant mother and I got in an accident during a game one time. Dad was so frustrated, he threw the phone. And broke it.

Please note that my father is not a violent man by any means. We were not spanked. I got hit once for something, but I had it coming, for sure.

He realized that nothing was worth that sort of reaction and backed off of his team. He had been there for Dempsey's kick. I'm sure it was hard. He didn't quite kick cold turkey; instead, he would relapse from time to time. I'm sure the "Unbelievable" season was hard to stay away from. He followed them, of course, but he would pretend that he wasn't interested.

Eventually, I met and married a superfan. He's not one of those costumer people, but he is the most optimistic Saints fan I've ever met. They can be down 30 points with 2 minutes to go, and he'll say, "They can still pull it off. Watch." I'll be damned if his faith doesn't pull through way more often than it should.

Through his extreme support, I got suckered in. I don't quite remember when exactly I became a fan. I mean, while dad was there for Dempsey, we were there for the Colts beat down. You know the one.

Honestly, let's go to Katrina. Longtime readers will remember my rant that taking the Saints out of New Orleans and moving them to San Antonio was a bad, bad idea. That the city needed something to hope for. You may also recall that when my school was going to close, Reggie Bush stepped up and donated the money we still needed to stay open. You may also remember impassioned commentary on Steve Gleason's block, the reopening of the Dome, the road to the Super Bowl, and my hatred for Brett Fav-ruh. Hmmm. I think being in the Dome for the 2006 homecoming made me a fan. We went to many games that season and later seasons as well. In fact, our presence in the Dome, minus that Colts beat-down, almost guaranteed a win.

And so, while I still am not a football fan, I AM a Saints fan. I AM a New Orleans fan. If you weren't downtown when they won the Super Bowl, or one of the nearly one million people lining the victory parade route, then you just don't know what it did for this city.

For one thing, crime dipped while they were winning games that season.

Thanks, Gregg Williams. I'm holding you personally accountable for the murder rate right now.

When they announced the bounty scandal, I was hurt. But then I was confused. First, I thought they all did that. Mostly because the definition of paying a salary to a defensive player, then giving him signing bonuses and raises and renegotiated contracts is, essentially, giving bonuses for hits. They don't dock salaries if a hit takes someone out. If the hit is illegal, he will be fined.

Look at that Suh guy who essentially attempted murder in front of a national audience. Suspended for two games without pay. TWO GAMES. TWO!!! Indisputable proof in the form of the millions of witnesses who saw him stomp a dude. And that was his punishment.

Look at golden boy Belichick, who had his people SPY on opponents...a VERY illegal action. Fined. FINED!!! That was it!!!

And then here comes the team that no one thought should do anything. A team they wrote off. One of the worst in the league for most of its existence. Under Haslett, they won a playoff game. We get to Payton and Brees, and we go to the NFC championship game, only to have classy Bears fans throw snowballs with batteries at Saints fans, all while holding signs and yelling at their team to "finish what Katrina started." CLASSY.

And then they went 13-3, going undefeated until the very end. And won. And won. And went to the Super Bowl. No one thought they'd win. And then they did. Spectacularly.

While they didn't return, but they came pretty close until choking. But it's okay. "There's always next year" was the only Saints phrase uttered more often than "Who dat."

We were hoping to see them be the first home team to play in the Super Bowl.

And our coach has been suspended for an ENTIRE YEAR. Thankfully, the ringmaster, who ran bounty pools at every team he'd been with, is suspended indefinitely. I feel for the Rams. We took a coach they fired, and they got a guy who can't work in the NFL for a very, very long time. Sucks to be them.

But here's the thing. They should have all been punished for their actions. If it's not something the league allows, and is against the rules, then, yes, they needed to be punished for breaking them. If, as the new argument goes, the punishment is actually for the lies and not the bounties, then why is lying so much worse than illegal spying and malicious and blatant televised injuries? I mean, honestly. Who gets a stronger sentence? A perjurer or an attempted murderer? Apparently, the perjurer.

People are pointing fingers at former Saint Jeremy Shockey as "the snitch." Let's be honest. First of all: What does that teach anyone? It's like a gang....and a gang member just went and cut a deal with the cops and ratted out his boss for murdering someone. And now all of the gang members are up in arms, berating, threatening, burning his jersey, calling for snitches to get stitches.... DISGUSTING. The team was breaking some rules, and he reported it. If it was done in a malicious sense, as revenge, then I could see being upset. That's low to do that after leaving. Have they even confirmed it was him? A commentator says he "heard" it was him, and the whole state began crucifying him. Someone even changed his Wikipedia page to call him an "American football snitch for the Carolina Panthers." Sick. Whether he did it or not, that is sick.

Another big uproar is everyone screaming about how this is the NFL trying to keep us from winning the Super Bowl at home. Seriously? That's putting the cart before the horse, amongst other things. If we had won the NFC Championship already, then, yeah, maybe. But it's not even the 2012 season yet. Does this mean I didn't think they could do it? No. I know they could. I'm just cautiously optimistic.

And now, everyone apparently believes that now, they have no way to win. I was not aware that a football game is won only on the part of one coach. Yeah. It sucks. But I'm taking a page from my overly optimistic husband's book and saying that they can still do it. One day at a time, people.

I know it will get worse as players get their punishments. But it can't get any worse than these fair weather fans taking the Dad of the '80s approach.

Oh ye of little faith, look at this real-life scenario I'm facing: my girls' team will be in the playoffs on Tuesday, and one of the girls can't play. We will have 5 instead of 6 against the one team we can beat so far. I tried to get a replacement, and one girl strung us along for two weeks and told me that she can't do it when it was too late for me to get someone else. I felt so down. They worked so hard, and last year, my girls became the first (and still only) team in the school's history to ever win a post-season game. I wanted them to do it again.

But I realized that they can still do it. If 4 or 5 of them beat their opponents in each match (difficult, but not impossible), it won't matter if the other team's pin count is higher than ours due to having one more person than we do. They just have to bowl their hearts out. They aren't skilled enough to win a game in the next round, especially if they are short one person. One day, they will, but we're still a young team. I'm looking at it in baby steps. They will be good. Right now, they're okay.

And so my mission these past few days has been to convince the girls of this. Because if I rally behind them and reassure them and pump them up, then they will go in confident and may surpass everyone's expectations.

We've done that to the Saints for years. Why quit now? Stand by your men.

Sicks

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.

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.

I am PISSED

Every day, generally, I check into a great "news" website, www.fark.com. They link news articles to sarcastic headlines. It's a great way to kill some time. Well, today, they had this headline, which linked to a story on www.nola.com: "New Orleans continues to make the case against rebuilding it" (this was also tagged "Obvious" by the people at Fark. http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/02/man_fatally_shot_in_lower_gard.html is the article, if you're interested.

What had me upset was, yeah, we're in trouble. Yeah, things aren't good. But it's not the whole city, and it's not everyone, and it's generally crimes committed against people the murderers know and sometimes innocent bystanders. You know, same thing in cities all over the world. Charles Grant, a New Orleans Saint, was an innocent bystander victim the other day. Outside a nightclub. He was stabbed in the neck with a broken bottle. IN GEORGIA.

You can't cover up these grisly stories. That would do everyone an injustice. But for crying out loud. Don't kick us while we're down. I love Fark. I love their headlines. Generally, when there's a story about New Orleans, the headlines are funny. It's not like I got so offended I'll never go back to the site. I'll go back tomorrow to see what else is new. In fact, that headline is NOT what has me so pissed off right now. I got over that quickly.

Why am I pissed? Because of what just happened that has me blogging at 1 a.m. Luckily, since it's Mardi Gras week, I'm off of school all week and don't have to get up early tomorrow. However, Mark, who has a cold, is still up because of this, and he DOES have work in the morning. Good thing he's not at WWL any more...otherwise he'd have to be to work in 4 hours.

I was sitting here at my computer, watching an instruction video for the Cat Genie...you've GOT to see this thing...it's a self-flushing, self-cleaning litter box. My idea of heaven, really... www.catgenie.com if you're interested.

Anyway, I heard four close together popping sounds. We live next to the Interstate, so we're used to weird noises. We just wound up Mardi Gras. We're used to weird noises. People were still shooting fireworks around here as of Endymion and the Super Bowl. For a split second, as I always do when cars backfire and when fireworks go off out of season, I thought, "GASP! GUNSHOTS!" Then I told myself I was overreacting and should continue watching this amazing video. Within a couple of minutes, a loud crashing sound happened. I called to Mark, who was in his office, and we both got up to investigate. We live at the end of a street. There are street signs posted warning of the dead end. Yet since we've lived here in May, we've been at home in time to hear what now amounts to THREE cars slamming through the signs and getting stuck in our yard. Usually, the people can't back up because the signs are stuck under their cars, and they have to pull up into our front yard and go through our driveway. But on two occasions, we've had both cars in the driveway, and they've had trouble getting out.

The loud crash was the sound of a car running through the signs again. And since we were both parked in the driveway, Mark went to see if the driver, who was frantically revving his engine, needed help, i.e., Mark moving his car. The closer Mark got, the faster he revved his engine. It was an old hoopty of a car. He peeled out, leaving a burning smell in the air, and managed to not hit Mark's car in the process. We tried to catch the plate numbers but missed. Our nice next-door neighbor, Brett, was outside on his cell phone calling it in. He also missed the plate. It was dark outside.

We went to talk to Brett, who, it seems, we only see when something weird happens in the neighborhood...like the 5 times trucks pulled down our power and/or cable lines, or when the meth kids across the street got busted and subsequently evicted. But our neighborhood is nice. Our section hasn't been overtaken by mini-mansions yet, and it has a lot of old people. There are rentals closer to the train tracks, but it's nice and quiet. Neighbors talk to each other and wave. In fact, we met another one tonight, who came out to see what the ruckus was.

Anyway, we could tell Brett was on 911. We heard him say, "There were four shots fired, poppoppoppop, and then a few minutes later, a car came screaming down the street, ran into the street signs in my neighbors' yard, got stuck, peeled out, and drove south down our street, then turned right."

Shots fired.

SHOTS FIRED!

It wasn't until we eventually came back inside that the enormity of the situation hit me. We live in a decent area. Mark was going to see if the guy needed help. His car didn't look like it belonged here...a gold four-door late '80s Chevy Malibu (according to Brett)...and the driver was kind of thuggy-looking. Now, we have a mostly white neighborhood, but there are several black families who live further down our street. He didn't look like any of them. Or like he would even be going to visit them. He definitely didn't belong here. Yet, being nice people in a nice neighborhood, he went to see if he could help. Thankfully, he didn't have anyone else in his car. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure we would have been shot at. If he fired four shots, chances are he would have two rounds left, right? Mark. Me. Or Brett, who has two young kids, a wife in the hospital, and his mother staying with him.

Time to feel awful, because the racial divides in this city are ridiculous -- Jefferson Parish cops pulled up within 4 minutes of Brett hanging up with them. At LEAST 5 squad cars passed us. Three blocked our street for the majority of the time. In fact, Mark went to make sure we'd locked up a little while ago, and he said he thinks the cops are patrolling the neighborhood because he saw one pass.

If this wasn't a predominantly white neighborhood, we'd still be waiting for the cops, and they probably wouldn't be patrolling still. Why is this fair that we should get this attention? It's not. It's disgusting. That's yet another reason why I'm pissed and blogging at...well now it's 1:30 a.m.

So here's what we're thinking. Something happened a few streets west of here...no more than about 3 or 4, I would assume. Other reports about shots being fired were from the street and possibly block that my uncle Dennis lives on with his fiancée, Kim. Guy got in his car to make a getaway, in the darkness couldn't see the road signs because they're already a little slanted from the last idiot who ran into them, and slammed into them and the no-longer-connected-to-any-wires telephone pole that's right there. He broke the pole off, pulled it out of the ground, and thankfully slammed it into the tree. It's precariously balanced in the crook of some tree branches right now. There's a gaping hole where it was, and broken wood next to it. He definitely lost pieces of his car, because, despite the darkness, we found them in the grass. The cops have a piece of what may be the thing that holds his headlights. It's metal. I found plastic parts covered in oil. He leaked a trail of oil down the street. I told the old cop to just follow the trail, and they'll at least find the car. It was making far too much noise as he sped away, and smelled like burning, too. He's going to have a lot of front bumper damage, maybe rear bumper damage, and definitely undercarriage damage. He'll more than likely break down, and they'll at least get his car.

But holy crap. We could have been killed, all because we thought he was an innocent idiot who needed help getting out of our yard.

Goddammit.

Anyway, Obama was at Tulane University today. I'm not attaching myself to any candidates just yet. It's too early. And as a registered independent, I can't vote in the primaries, so I'm waiting until I see who gets narrowed down. The man has great speech writers and researchers in his employ. He made a great deal about this area and helping it recover and education, especially here...and now assholes like our yard idiot are just giving people more reason to say, "Fuck New Orleans. They don't deserve to recover."

Editing this to add that Entergy is outside right now taking care of our pole. Again, white neighborhood, fast response.

National news that quotes me.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/AR2007011202169.html

The Dome Reopening

On Monday, September 25, 2006, the Superdome was scheduled to reopen, with the Saints playing a Monday Night Football game. Southern's band was to do the halftime show, Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint were to do the National Anthem, and Green Day and U2 were to sing some songs pre-game. Businesses were shutting down, schools were closing early (ours didn't, but we all got to wear black and gold or Saints clothes). It was a special day.

We tried to get free tickets through WWL. We wouldn't find out about them until a few days before the game.

The game was sold out. The only way to get seats this year is through buying season tickets. Unless we got tickets through Mark's job, we would not be going.

The weekend before, we waited. We heard nothing. Monday came. Mark went to work. He heard nothing. I wanted to go only to BE there. And to see U2. And since Reggie Bush is singlehandedly keeping me employed, I felt I should be there for him. I'm no football fan. I hate that sport. I'm a Saints fan in the sense that I feel happy for them when they win, and sad for them when they lose, but other than that, I know nothing about them. But I wanted "to be in that number when the Saints came marching in."

It would be an experience to remember for eternity, I thought. I was there, watching the roof of the Dome fly off during Katrina. I saw the lines of people snaking around the stadium, before the mists began. I saw them desperately trying to get in as the mists and outer bands started coating the city. I saw the people strolling around outside after the storm had passed. I saw the truckloads of people being carted through the early stages of flooding to the refuge of the Dome. I almost was stranded in the floodwaters between the Dome and the New Orleans Arena. The Dome was one of my last glimpses of the city as Spud drove us to the safety of Baton Rouge. And I wanted to be there as it reopened.

People all over the world criticized us for putting football high on our list of priorities. There are other authors more eloquent than I am, so I won't say much on that subject. I will include links to them at the end of this post if you think that what I say is unsatisfactory.

But first, we have been criticized for using millions of dollars to restore it. Most of that money came from FEMA and insurance. All of you critics in other states -- if a tornado ripped through your town, or a mudslide, or a hurricane, or an avalanche...I don't know what your specific potential natural disaster is, but imagine it happening to your home and your business. Now imagine applying for FEMA and collecting your insurance check. What are you supposed to use it on? Your next door neighbor's house? The grocery store down the street that you don't own? A cruise? (Put aside those who falsely applied for funding after the storm and who were caught..they are scum and do not count.) No. You HAVE to use that money to repair or restore your property. Same applies to the Dome.

Also, we need something for tourism. Our blossoming movie industry is non-existent now. Our convention center has a tainted scar from Katrina, too, and people are afraid to plan conventions here now, especially from June 1 to November 30. We have lost a lot of revenue from tourists and from residents who are too afraid and have packed up and moved on. Many companies have also deserted us in our hour of need. Some, like IHOP and MAC cosmetics have come to us, have appeared since the storm, have put faith in us. But many have left, including the headquarters of Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, which originated here. We need money. Desperately. And if we can get some tourists here for the games, then we'll take it. In addition, these tourists, these football teams with their entourages, can come here and see everything first-hand. They can see and they can go back and share.

And while this may seem even more superficial, we need something to DO. The parks are a mess. The Lakefront is a mess. Stores close early. Restaurants are still on the post-storm limited menus. The Hornets are in Oklahoma. The Voodoo haven't come back yet, but are about to. I have now been to two Saints games this season. I am a football hater. But being there was exciting, and it gave me something to DO. You don't know how important that is.

We also need a unity item. And if a bunch of overpaid athletes can give us something to talk about besides sheetrock, demolition, insurance, FEMA trailers, and places that have closed and friends that are gone, then goddammit, don't take them from us.

I've just given away the fact that we did, indeed, get tickets to that homecoming, er, DOMEcoming game. At 3 p.m. that Monday, I had a text from Mark. He just found out we had tickets. My friend Jen, who teaches down the hall from me, was going. She lives two minutes from school. I parked my car at her house, and the P.E. teacher picked us up there and dropped us off a few blocks from the Dome. We walked to it, then waited for Mark. He left the house at three. He did not get to the Dome and into a parking spot until 2 1/2 hours later. Jen and I met up with Over, who was recording Cowboy Mouth's set before the game. With no Mark in sight, and no other things to do, Jen and I accompanied Over to his car, which was all the way over at St. Patrick's Church, to put away his recording equipment. On the way back, Mark called to say he was there.

I tell you, it was more Mardi Gras than Mardi Gras downtown. People were everywhere. Everyone was in a good mood. Jazz musicians were on several corners. Block party ran into block party ran into block party. Booths were set up all over. Merchandise, contests, media broadcasts, food, the GooGoo Dolls, Cowboy Mouth... it was a madhouse.

At 5:30, they opened to doors and started letting people in. But not before they dropped a big black cloth off the Dome, revealing a sign that says, "Our home. Our team. Be a Saint." There was a huge countdown clock above the banner. It was like New Year's Eve, the way the huge crowd counted down together.

The pat-downs at the entrance were dragging, so by the time we got up there, the frisking before entry stopped.

Waiting in line to walk in was nerve-wracking. The anxiety levels and fear levels and sadness levels were high, but then, as soon as I walked in, it was like a triumph. Reopening the Dome is such a milestone. A small one, but one nonetheless. And I got teary-eyed. It was triumph, sadness, joy, fear, and awe all rolled into one.

We climbed to our free nose-bleed seats. We sat down in chairs that had (possibly) never been sat in before. We took in the view. It was still about half an hour before showtime, and the stadium was quickly filling up. The last Dome game I'd attended was when the Colts handed the Saints their rear ends on a silver platter. It was a dismal season, anyway, and it was so empty.

We saw them wheel out all of the stage pieces. The excitement level in the room was only rising. A voice came over the brand-new soundsystem. The noise level in the room dropped slightly so we could hear what was being said. Suddenly, on the new screens in the end zones, reporter Robin Roberts appeared. She is from the Gulf South, and has made it nationally. When her face appeared, the crowd erupted. If you saw the game on TV, you may have noticed she smiled wide while talking and then started yelling into the mic. This was because the crowd was so loud, you couldn't hear her at all. She introduced U2 and Green Day.

They played "Wake Me Up When September Ends," a song I can't ever hear anyway. Ever since we were evacuating and the song was stuck in my head, I haven't been able to hear it without crying. So, naturally, I did. Then they played their new joint effort, "The Saints Are Coming," which was raucous. Even the old people sitting around us were nodding their heads. They followed that with "Beautiful Day." Then Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint played the national anthem.

And then, after clearing the stage, the Saints arrived. They ran out of an inflatable Saints tunnel and down a line of first-responders from the storm. Again, I cried. And the game got off to an amazing start, staying amazing the entire time. I never thought I'd enjoy a football game. But the mob mentality of enthusiasm was too infectious. It was so loud in there, I was holding my cell phone, which was on vibrate, and I couldn't hear it when I got texts. You could barely hear anything but a roar.

I will spare details of the game. Those can be found anywhere. And you already know they won.

In more ways than one.

For further opinions on the game, go to these articles by columnist Chris Rose. He is amazing. http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1159337420130960.xml&coll=1
http://www.nola.com/rose/t-p/index.ssf?/base/living-0/1159508031169730.xml&coll=1
http://www.nola.com/rose/t-p/index.ssf?/base/living-0/1159890904114050.xml&coll=1

Part 20: It was a day

"Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans, when that's where you left your heart?... The moonlight on the bayou.......a creole tune.... that fills the air...I dream... about magnolias in bloom......and I’m wishin’ I was there" - Louis Armstrong

Yesterday was a rough, rough day. But it was a day. As our school president said at our staff meeting, "People keep saying, 'Do you remember what you were doing a year ago at this time?' And I do. It's all so clear." Here, everyone in the group nodded and murmured noises of assent. "And it raised my anxiety levels. And really, it's just another day."

Yes, my anxieties were raised. But the difference is, it's like what I imagine acid flashbacks and 'Nam flashbacks are like. Most of the people who say these things are not the ones who were here on the front lines. Most of these people don't have to drive through their rotted shell of a neighborhood to and from work every day. Most of these people left the city before, not after, the storm, and did it of their own accord.

This drive is killing part of me every day. It's bad enough that it takes half an hour to get to work in the morning. It's even worse that it takes an hour in the evening to get home. But to have to pass through my neighborhood.... and City Park.... retracing the route I used to take a year ago... and there's no way around it. At the very least, I'd have to pass through the Park or around the Park. My school is on the other side of it. City Park is a ghost of what it was. It looks like undeveloped land. It's not really grass -- it's the rough, nasty weeds that sprouted once things started growing again. The trees, the ones that remain, at least, are brownish. They all have missing limbs. The golf courses are a wreck, and you can see the New Orleans Museum of Art a lot easier than you could before.

The houses in my school's neighborhood are all tainted with X's. The same type of X that appears on my own home: the top bears the date the hosue was searched; the right bears the number of hazards found...or survivors, in some cases; the left bears the squadron which conducted the search; the bottom bears the number of found bodies.

I have not found one of those. I hear of them. I try not to look, but I also do look. My parents know where some are in Lakeview. Apparently, on Canal Blvd., near I-10, there's a house with a 2.

Several of the houses on my block have holes in the rooftops. Rescue holes? Holes people made from inside? Some look like they were from the inside. Others look like they were done with a tool from the outside.

I pass so near to my home, and if I am in the region, I cannot help but pass it. It's not ours any more. We got our deposit back. We pulled everything out. It has been gutted. We do not own the property. It is our landlord's house once more. But if I am driving nearby and I don't pass it, I HAVE to pass it. I cannot miss it. If I do, I get panicky. I have to schedule in a stop.

You know, I keep hearing from people how they admire me and my strengths. They tell me how strong I am. But I don't see it. I can't understand it. If I were stronger, I would be able to avoid the house. I would be able to drive to work without a "happy CD." I had Mark make me a CD of fun songs to listen to so that I can't get caught listening to something sad while I take the misery tour. He offered "Good Life" by Weezer. I love that song and said okay, but then panicked and told him he wasn't allowed to put it on.

"Excuse the bitchin', I shouldn't complain/I should have no feeling, 'cause feeling is pain/As everything I need, is denied me/And everything I want, is taken away from me/But who do I got to blame? Nobody but me...

"…And I don't wanna be an old man anymore/It's been a year or two since I was out on the floor/Shakin' booty, makin' sweet love all the night/It's time I got back to the Good Life/It's time I got back, it's time I got back/And I don't even know how I got off the track/I wanna go back…Yeah!

"Screw this crap, I've had it! I ain't no Mr. Cool/I'm a pig, I'm a dog, so 'scuse me if I drool/I ain't gonna hurt nobody, ain't gonna 'cause a scene/I just need to admit that I want sugar in my tea/Hear me? Hear me? I want sugar in my tea!"

If I am so strong, then why do I feel so down all of the time? Why do I break down in the shower where no one can hear me? Why do I have panic attacks? Why can't I sleep any more? Why do I lash out at everyone? Why can't I just feel happy for one day? That's all I ask.

I am no hero. Those with the boats who rescued even just one person, or as many as 200, those are heroes. The doctors and nurses who walked around on IVs so their patients could eat and drink are heroes. Those who stayed home and climbed into their attics or onto their rooftops, waiting in heat beyond heat for help that wasn't coming? They are brave. Those who stood up to looters are brave. Those who boldly came down here to help, be it gutting a home or serving food or patrolling our streets are brave and heroic.

I sat in a building with power thanks to a generator. I had to have help carrying a cat carrier down pitch black stairs. I had to seek a ride to safety from someone. I had to stand in lines for FEMA and Red Cross money. I had to live with my in-laws. I still have to live with my parents. I had to accept gifts and money from virtual strangers. I had to wear donated clothes. I had to argue with the Insurance people just to get a piddling amount on our renter's insurance. I am no hero. I am not brave.

"You've probably heard that many of us stayed behind. As bad as it is, many of us cannot fathom a life outside of our border, out in that place we call Elsewhere. The only way you could understand that is if you have been there, and so many of you have. So you realize that when you strip away the craziness and bars and parades and music and architecture and all that hooey, really, the best thing about where we come from is us" --Chris Rose, The Times-Picayune

I stayed because I had to. I came back because I had to. It is too scary to go somewhere else. Away from the family and friends who returned. Away from the food and the culture that I know. I cannot imagine a world with white gravy and bland crabs. I cannot imagine a parade where you just watch a float roll by, never interacting with the riders. I cannot imagine a state without politicians named "Junior" and "T-Boy." I am too afraid to meet normal. And so I stay.

We were instructed to keep the day as normal as possible for the students. We had a list of assigned journal topics, all with positive slants. The only special thing that happened was that we had a prayer service at school. It's a Catholic school, so it's almost required of us. We met in our Church at 2 p.m. They sang "Our God is an Awesome God." They read the parable of Jesus calming a storm (or something, I don't know. I'm not a practicing Catholic.). Children got up to read special thank yous in place of their intentions. Some thanked cities that helped them. Some thanked God that they were alive. They sang "Sing a New Song." They had another reading. They ended with some closing thoughts from the high school religion teacher. They closed with "I've Got That Joy." They sent us to the cafeteria for snacks. They gave 200 kids, most with ADHD, cookies and Coke. I don't know whose bright idea that was, but we had 20 minutes left to the day after that, and it was rough.

And that was it.

I went home. Traffic was easy. Many people may have stayed home. I wanted to, but I knew I couldn't. I would sit in front of the TV all day and relive it.

One local station aired 18 hours of continuous coverage. At our staff meeting, one of the teachers said that she thought it was wrong: OTHER STATES should have shown that much coverage. We have daily reminders. We don't need to be reminded.

I'm going to keep chronicling life in the New New Orleans. If I stop, you'll think we've stopped and that everything is okay. But it's not. We have so far to go. In Jefferson Parish, life is almost back to normal. My parents, for example, got their new roof, their bedroom sheetrock, the molding in their bedroom, the walls freshly painted, the den ceiling crack repaired, the fence restabilized, and their sidewalk and driveway replaced. We're pretty much down to waiting on carpet. It took 11 months to get that far, but it happened. Stores are staying open later, and restaurants are bringing back more of their pre-hurricane menus. You may remember I discussed how restaurants have been operating on shorter "hurricane menus."

But east of the 17th Street Canal, it's a whole other warzone. My dad is still pretty much the only game in town. The houses are still pretty much empty. My friend's parents just knocked down his childhood home in Lakeview last week. I can't imagine what that was like. They went to watch it. He said he overheard someone say, "I bet there are a lot of memories in those bedrooms." Dammit. How can you only think of that as you are watching a family's hopes and dreams get bulldozed into oblivion? I bet there were a lot of memories in those bedrooms...and front yard...and porch...and hallway...and kitchen...and den...and bathrooms...and back yard....and shed....and each and every spot of land.

You try watching the sum of your married life pile up on your front lawn, where curious people stop to stare and see what you had. It's all a big soggy pile, taller than you and as long as your house, then wraps around to the front of the hosue. And this is after it's already been picked up once. You find the dress you wore when your husband proposed to you discolored and moldy beyond recognition. You find that book that was your favorite as a child, that is now a soggy cover filled with brown pulp in the muck that was your office/guest room. You find that picture of your brother and brother-in-law still hanging on the wall somehow, but that now looks like a swirl art painting. You find your childhood stuffed animals in a puddle of God knows what. And then you stand there and say "I bet there are a lot of memories in those bedrooms." And then you throw yourself into the lake because you have no soul, so why bother living, scumbag.

We watched, or tried to watch, Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke" last night. We were recroding it. Forty minutes into the first hour, we lost electricity. No reason. Was Entergy trying to commemmorate the day all of the lights went out? Cruel joke if they were. I made Mark bring me to get ice cream. It was one of those days.

But they're all one of those days. I lost 5 pounds immediately after the storm. Then I gained about 25. I don't look like me. I don't like it. I could work out at the JCC. But I can't motivate myself. I am too tired, mentally and physically, and too upset over my long drive home. We get off duty at 4:15, and then I have to drive an hour home. At that point, I just want to be home.

And I turn to food.

I don't want Katrina to define my life. I want to move on. But it is so hard. I want a happy day. I want a blog that's zany. But my life is defined by her, and try as I might, I can't separate from her. I am reminded every morning that it happened from the moment I open my eyes, and I keep it up all day. Sometimes, when I sleep, I move on. Sometimes, she still haunts my dreams. She will be with me forever. My albatross.

I want to go home.

"She is a New Orleans girl and New Orleans girls never live anywhere else and even if they do, they always come back. That's just the way it is." -Chris Rose

.....Interlude.....

I was in the midst of a very good post, if I do say so myself, and it was time for dinner. Crawfish Etoufée, if you must know. So I got up midpost, and then started watching Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke." About 40 minutes into the sob-fest, we lost electricity.

It is now about 11:37, and I still have to shower. I will post as promised tomorrow. Sorry to keep you waiting.

Part 19: The era they call "K+1"

We are, officially, in the era called "K+1." We had a child psychologist speak to us during staff workshop week, and he used this term. It's been popping up everywhere lately. Ad nauseum.

But it's here, and I don't have to like the name any more than I don't have to like those cutesy celebrity coupling names. (Look, I actually have paid attention to some of the rest of the world in the past year...) But it fits what I'm discussing, and so use it I will. Nyah.

Tomorrow is it. 8-29-05. Numbers I will never pick in the lottery. If I ever decide to have a child (and shoot me if I do), and the due date is that date, I will schedule a C-section just to not have it happen. And I'm not a fan of people doing that. But I can never celebrate anything happy on that date whole-heartedly.

I have a friend...a former camper...whose birthday is tomorrow. He said he wasn't even thinking about celebrating this year. He's a senior in high school this year. That made me sad to hear. On the one hand, there's that part of me screaming, "You're young!!! Do something fun!!!" But then there's that other part of me that says, "Hey, I understand." He didn't even lose anything, and his house damage was minimal, and he still feels that way.

What a day to be born.

I have a lot of other friends whose birthdays are this week. Chanukkah and Christmas presents, I guess, haha. Anyway, even they feel down about their birthdays. You have to figure: most lost a fun day. If their birthday was in the week before, they had a fun time. If it was that day, or the couple days before that involved evacuating, that is miserable. And if it was immediately after, then how could you really have fun? Those were horrible days.

One friend is turning 30 this Thursday. She's already not happy because of the Big 3-0. But her birthday also falls on Katrina week. And now, as a weird side effect of this whole Katrina debacle, she is being evicted.

She lives in a studio apartment in Metairie. Not bottom floor. Her patio was damaged heavily, but otherwise, she's fine. In May, they said that they were turning the complex into condominiums. Her 500 square-foot studio is selling for about$87,000. As a single teacher, that is not an option.

She's been searching ever since, but rent is so high, and she needs a roommate but can't find one. She asked us to go in on a house with her, but we cannot do it. We need to be alone again if we are to survive. No roommates for married people who have spent a year living with their parents in a medium-sized one-story house. That can only lead to worse trouble. And for that, I feel awful. But what can you do?

364 days after the storm, and I'm still dealing with Allstate. They gave me money for my poor little car. I signed the check over to the dealership when I bought my new car. I signed all of the Power of Attorney papers involved before my check came. Back in January or so, Allstate called me to say that they didn't have my papers on file, or something, and could I please meet a notary somewhere to resign the papers. At the end of the school year, they called me again, saying that the papers were all so backlogged that they missed sending in the papers by the deadline set for the company, and could I please sing them a third time? I blew up on the phone. I just want to try to move on, but so long as they keep making me sign papers, I can't. I apologized to the lady, letting her know that I know she is the messenger and not the responsible party, but gave her an earful to pass along to whomever. Everytime they called me to do this, it was inconvenient...7/8 class trip...exams...moving schools...starting camp...a Houston trip that ended up not happening....starting school again.... Finally, on my way home from work today, the actual notary called me to say he'd meet me anywhere. I told him I'd be home in an hour, meet me there. Now my car is, hopefully, officially no longer mine and will be crushed and my license will not be flagged.

Again, I'm reliving the loss. I'm not feeling very happy right now.

I haven't been happy in a while again. I'm also taking it out on everyone around me, and I know this. A lot of it has to do with the anniversary. A lot of it has to do with my half hour morning commute that becomes an hour or so afternoon commute, and includes several stops on the misery tour, including City Park, Lakeview, and Mid-City. A lot of it just has to do with our situation in general.

I need a vacation.

We have a prayer service tomorrow at school. (It's a Catholic school, remember.) They are focusing on the religion department's self-imposed theme of gratitude. I know that that is one of the topics for the journal tomorrow. It may be the hardest, yet the easiest one of the three.

I said this wrap-up would be tomorrow. But, as I told my students, I don't give them an assignment until I know I can do it, too. And they gave us a list of suggested journal topics for tomorrow. So tomorrow, I will do the entire list, as opposed to whichever one I assign my students.

Anyway, some of our students will be at a special Mass at St. Louis Cathedral. The rest of us will have a quasi-normal day. I had a few students tell me that they will not be in school tomorrow.

I know it will be hard for me, too. I intend to treat it as a funeral. I will wear a black skirt with a cream and black top and black heels. I will wear my Anniversary Amulet from Mignon Faget. I will shed many a tear. I will try to celebrate the life that we once knew. It will not be to the extreme of my grandmother's Irish wake, but I will try to do as they are instructing us to have the positive come out.

But don't hold me to that.

Some people say, well, it's got to be better, right? Some aspects, yes. Everything west of the 17th St. Canal is coming back. More restaurants are open, and places are starting to extend their hours and menus. Traffic is awful as ever.

But that's all to the west.

To the east, my father is still pretty much the only game in town, which is both good and bad. Good, because he's got a sort of accidental monopoly on Lakeview services. You figure he has $1,300 day sales in soft drinks alone. Each drink is about a dollar apiece, if you average them. Which means he is selling roughly 1,300 soft drinks a DAY. It's a bad thing, though, because of the long hours he's putting in.

It's also a bad thing on a less personal note. Where is everyone? I bought a T-shirt this summer that says, "Lakeview: If you rebuild it, they will come." Well, some of us are trying, and it's just oh-so-slow.

I'm sure by now you've heard the latest Nagin "bon mots." In a national interview, he was being hassled about "why can't we get our acts together and be better recovered?" His reply, and again, I'm paraphrasing, was to the effect of, "Well, in New York, you guys still haven't done anything with just a big hole in the ground, and you've had 5 years."

You know what? I stand behind him on that.

When 911 happened, it was a horrendous national tragedy. I agree there. Many people were affected and killed that day. But it didn't destroy an entire city. People didn't sit there debating the sense of rebuilding New York. It didn't leave people homeless. It rallied a nation around itself and won the Dub some major brownie points.

When Katrina happened, it was a larger surface area. People were killed. People were left homeless AND jobless. It separated families and scattered them across the country. People lost their pets in this storm....and if they survived, they were euthanised in hospitals (as my friend Anne reminded me in an e-mail today), or they were shipped across the country and adopted by other people. People rallied until they lost interest. They said it couldn't be so bad as we made it out to be. They said we shouldn't rebuild. People in high positions lobbied against rebuilding our home, calling us a lost cause. They said it couldn't and shouldn't be done. But most of all, appointing "Brownie" cost the Dub a lot of points.

And we've only had one year, to do it alone. The amount of debris is staggering. I was looking at roadside debris today. Mangled fridges, stained and faded toys, soggy appliance boxes. All still in Lakeview.

Ok, so it cost Dub some brownie points to everyone but this one guy from Chalmette. He made a replica of his FEMA trailor and drove it to DC. People were excited about this. We figured Bush wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. Then I heard the man was granted his audience with the "president." All RIGHT! I thought. Then I found out why he was allowed in: the man is an ardent fan of Bush, and he went up there to THANK HIM. WHAT?!?!?!?!? Of all of the regions to be from to do that, Chalmette would be one of the last places I would expect that.

I'm moving from melancholy to anger, in case you haven't noticed. I haven't even seen the Spike Lee movie yet.

I want to see it, yet I don't. I hear that one of the main "stars" in it is Garland Robinette. Remember him? He's the talk show host who stayed on the air as the WWL windows were blowing out, and he ran through the building to continue broadcasting, even though the ceiling was sucking up and down due to the pressure changes. Apparently, he has a beautifully, painfully moving portion of the movie. I want to see his version of the events. When you watch the movie and see him, remember what you've read here. His story, essentially, is our story back in the first installments of this portion of my blog.

God, I really can't wait to see the day when I can do a totally random and silly blog again. I hope it happens. I want it to happen soon, but I doubt it will. Someday, as the wounds heal. But that day is not today.

Part 18: A summer of fun tinged with trepidation...

June 1 is the official start of hurricane season. So, naturally, a lot of fear crept into the city's psyche. Even though the world's weather patterns don't have an alarm that rings and says, "Oo...June 1. Time to go to work!" we still feared the date more than usual.

When camp started, I was happy yet sad. I was happy because it is my favorite time of year. I also was going to be the assistant camp director. But I was sad because my beloved travel camp was laid to rest, a late casualty of Katrina. I was going to be stuck in town all summer. And, while I was back at camp, it was the first year I didn't have a group.

As camp director, I had to keep track of attendance, create flyers and notes, generate the camp newsletter, take pictures, spend time with the groups, set up and clean up for our morning breakfast staff meetings, handle discipline problems, set up staff functions, visit each group, keep track of schedules, and chaperone field trips.

In July, Pam, the new camp director, who used to be my supervisor for travel camp, asked me to accompany the oldest groups to Houston for their annual trip. However, the Monday before we left, I developed my FOURTH sinus infection since March. I packed and went to work Wednesday morning, and Pam took one look at me before telling me she didn't want me to go. It took a lot of phone calls to the assistant director of the JCC before I was told, one minute before the buses pulled out, that I was to stay back. Pam even drove me home, because my dad brough me to work so that I wouldn't have to leave my car behind all week at work. She wanted me to get in bed and stay there. So I did.

At the same time, I was supposed to be in a murder-mystery-comedy-musical-improv-dinner theater production at my grammar school. My friend is the theater teacher there, and she asked me to do it. I was very excited about it, because I hadn't been in a play since doing Dracula at Nicholls back in 2001 (I was Lucy!), and had found that I missed theater immensely.

But I missed a lot of rehearsals for work, and for illness, and, finally, I bowed out of the production.

It bothered me to have to do it, but along the way, I realized that I did not have the energy or the heart or the state of mind for an almost entirely improv show. I'm not who I was a year ago. None of us are, any more, but I have changed dramatically. I'm even starting to look closer to my age now. I don't get carded any more since "The Thing," as one local columnist calls it.

Come to find out, it was a good thing I didn't go to Houston. I was very sad, as it was as close to my travel camp as I would get. But, between Wednesday afternoon and Friday at 3 p.m, more than 10 kids caught a stomach virus. The last 6 kids? ON THE BUS RIDE HOME. More people ended up sick over the weekend. It then continued to run rampant through camp, knocking out almost half of our staff and many of our campers.

Camp is 9 weeks total: 1 week of staff orientation, 8 weeks of camp. It was so sad to have to end it. Our staff, for the most part, was absolutely amazing. I realized early on that, while I didn't technically have a group of campers, I actually had a group: the staff, which included my younger cousin Kate as a CIT. And she was amazing. She is only 15 (as of this week), and our age gap made us not very close. But I really got to know her and enjoy her.

The end of camp also found us watching, nervously, Hurricane Chris. Luckily, he fizzled out and did not pose any problems for us.

I had the weekend after camp, plus Monday through Thursday, off before reporting back to school. On Monday, Mark and I brought my friend Jenifer to see Houma and Thibodaux. She is also a Nicholls alumna, and she hadn't been back since graduating in 2000. We drove around, ate donuts at "Mr. Ronnie's Famous Hot," went to the Southland Mall, visited Student Publications and the bookstore, had dinner at Pepper's Pizzeria, and went to Rene's Bar. (They both used to love it there.) We met up with brother-in-law Phil, who graduated from Nicholls in May and now works in Thibodaux. We even made a pitstop over at Mark's (then Phil's) old apartment before heading home. It was a lot of fun.

Tuesday was school supply shopping. Wednesday I got my oil changed and did a few things in my classroom. On Thursday, we were supposed to have lunch with Anne and Ricky, who were in town, but that fell through. Friday found me back at school for orientation.

I can't begin to describe what it's like. We're back at the first campus. Every day, I drive 35 minutes to work and over an hour home from work. But I drive through my old neighborhood, which is still pretty much in ruins, and through City Park. It's so very sad. I practically retrace my steps of one year ago. My classroom looks great. I'm teaching 7th and 8th grade reading and writing. My schedule stinks (six classes, plus afternoon and recess duty, plus a club that meets twice a week, and my only off period is 2nd period. Blech.). The kids are fun, and I teach all 54 students in my grade levels this year. I don't have a home room.

But every day....through the desolation. The area around school is coming back faster than Lakeview is, but it's not great. Plus, it sustained less damage. School was fine, if you remember.

I had Mark make me a CD of "happy songs" to listen to on my commute. It's to take my mind off of where I'm going and what I'm looking at.

But it doesn't work that well.

And now today is the anniversary of that last Friday. As I sat in traffic, I couldn't help but think about how a year ago, I was running errands with Melissa, preparing for our class pet, which was to be a hamster. We tried to get Caroline and Keith to get dinenr with us, but they were hungry right then, and we were going to be a while, so plans fell through. We ended up going to dinner with my friends Carol and Sam, from the JCC. Then we hung out at Sam's apartment complex. We were in the courtyard, and my friend Ilyse and her girlfriend Claudia were there, because they lived in the same complex.

That morning on my way to work, a huge raccoon walked out of the park and into Harrison Ave. We had a staring match; not even my horn deterred him. He finally moseyed back into the park. I had my radio on on the local modern rock station. They discussed Katrina having hit Florida, then the theory that she was going to loop back, hit Florida, and leave us alone. That afternoon, our principal, Mike, had gone around to wish us all a nice weekend and see if we had plans.

Saturday, we woke up late, then dressed and went to Lakeside Mall for lunch and shopping. It was closed and we were turned away. We found out Katrina was headed for us, and spent the rest of the day cleaning and packing.

The rest is history. Infamous history. History I wish I could erase.

And now, we are full circle.

But this morning, there was no raccoon. Animals are only starting to return to the park, and none are as large as a raccoon. In fact, there generally aren't any other cars as I drive through.

Tonight, Mike was not there to wish us a happy weekend, as he was at the act of sale for his new house, having lost his home in Arabi last year.

Today, I am wearing my Mignon Faget Anniversary Amulet (www.mignonfaget.com). It's a silver circle with a hurricane in the middle, with a fleur de lis engraved on the front and 8-29-05 engraved on the back.

Tonight, we will celebrate our friend Chris' 21st birthday.

But we will, once again, keep our eyes on the Weather Channel, as Tropical Storm Ernesto continues to strengthen and heads to the Gulf.

Keep sending us goods thoughts.

Next time, I will "close" with a tribute wrap-up. Assuming Ernesto doesn't have other plans, of course.

Part 16: More thrills, chills, and spills than Disney World.

Recap: Last time, we had a smaller, but (mostly) very fun Mardi Gras experience, and things seemed to be looking up.

But now it was April, and we were still moving my dad's reopening date back. He had originally expected to be open by mid-February. And now it was April. Things felt bleaker once more.

And it was my second sinus infection of the year. It was right on the heels of the first. Fun.

April 1 was on a Saturday. Apparently it was a tradition at school to really "get" the principal. He went to Tulane University and is, therefore, a huge Tulane fan. Tulane fans tend to not be LSU fans. So, since his children's school was destroyed by the storm, and they were attending our school for the year, his children were pawns in the game.

One of the teachers had a pet snake in her classroom, and the youngest son loved it. So she had him pose with a picture that said, "Tigers" and wrapped the snake around him. The older son was handed a sign that said, "Geaux."

Quick lesson in south Louisiana culture: Many Cajun surnames end in "-eaux." Boudreaux, Thibodaux, Gautreaux, etc. This letter configuration makes an "o" sound. And so, many people find it "fun" to make words that end in an "o" sound end in "-eaux." One such instance is LSU, which has signs and merchandise labelled "Geaux Tigers!" End note.

The older son was only in 4th grade and didn't know the "Geaux" thing. The younger son was in kindergarten, and he couldn't read "tigers" yet. They had no idea what they were being asked to do.

A big banner, decorated by the teacher's clss was hung outside the building, anf the two pictures of the sons with the signs flanked it. His office was covered in taunting handmade signs, courtesy of that class. He was a better sport about it than his sons, who, upon being told why their pictures were hanging up, went to the teacher and yelled, "YOU USED US!" Haha.

April 6 was our 4th wedding anniversary. I went to work and had a normal day, and then came home. My mom had stayed home from work that day with an intestinal problem. I got home from work and found her car gone. I called her cell and had no answer. Mark and I were going out to dinner somewhere that night, and so I set about getting ready after leaving her a voice mail, accusing her of being a faker.

As I got out of the shower, the phone rang. It was my father, informing me that my mother had been passing blood, and she called the gastroenterologist, who told her to get to the emergency room. She had to drive herself there because my dad couldn't leave work. Something big was going on. He met her there later. Come to find out, all of her digestive problems, which developed in the last month or so prior, were being caused by, not only acid reflux, but an ulcer. Neither condition was around more than a few months. Once more, my family felt the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. My mom was being kept at least overnight for observations, we were not to worry, and we were to have a nice time at dinner.

Mark came home with news of where we would be eating. His radio station is a news-talk-sports format, and they have a food critic, Tom Fitzmorris. He asked Tom for a nice restaurant in a certain price range in Metairie. Tom immediately named Impastato's. What's more, he called in the reservations for us. So at 8, we went to enjoy our evening.

First, they had a nice table ready for us. Then, as we were ordering dinner, one of the staff came over to congratulate us on our anniversary and to present us with a bottle of champagne. It was very sweet, but very good. A little while later, they came over and presented me with a dozen red roses. The food came and was absolutely delicious. It sort of reminded me of Tony Angelo's, a place that was cattycorner from our house. It was a multiple-course Italian meal that was to die for. I still remember my meal: an appetizer of shrimp au gratin, a salad, panéed veal topped with crabmeat, artichokes, and shrimp and crawfish with a divine sauce on it, pasta alfredo, and, for dessert, a slice or Oreo cheesecake. I don't remember what Mark had...I think it was soft-shell crabs with a topping similar to mine. Either way, we thoroughly enjoyed our meal. All night, there was a jazz combo with an elderly man singing for them. While we were waiting for our desserts, the old man came over to our table, carrying a single peach rose, which happens to be my favorite. He greeted us, wished us a happy anniversary, and asked if he could sing a song for us. He asked if we'd ever seen "Sleepless in Seattle," then told us that the song was in that movie. He sang, "When I Fall in Love." It was a highly embarrassing moment, as he made us hold hands across the table. We wanted to die from holding in our laughter. It was all very nice, though, even if I could have done without the serenade. In all, it was a very lovely evening. My dad left me a voice mail asking if we could stop by the hospital to bring my mom's car home, so we did.

My mom ended up with some trouble, so she stayed in the hospital a little longer than expected. She didn't come home until either Sunday or Monday. It was a gloomy period, yet again.

Ah, April. Formerly a month to enjoy, now tainted with my mom's illness, as well as living with my parents, still. And then, when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I almost lost one of the most important parts of my being able to go on after Katrina.

We'd had our observations and performance reviews. We were supposed to have our contracts soon. But the contracts never came.

They called a staff meeting, and things seemed bleak. Through my friend, who was on the high school staff, I learned that the Archdiocese wanted to "restructure" the school, and that the principal for the high school, a man I was excited to be working under the next school year, would be leaving. See, in my evaluation session, I was awarded the chance to stay at the High School's campus. Same president, different principal. And as much as I enjoyed working for the Academy's principal, I'd heard good things about working under the High School's. And now that I knew which campus was employing me the next year, we could look at neighborhoods to move to.

However, a lot of speculation lead to a lot of fear. All we knew was that when the superintendant of Catholic schools came, trouble was ahead. What made it worse was that our administration honestly didn't know what was going to happen to us. They were kept out of the loop.

The day of the meeting finally arrived, and no one was in a good mood. We knew people were getting the axe. But who?

The meeting happened, and it was worse than we thought.

Our president called the meeting "one big, not funny episode of 'Seinfeld.'" She rules. Anyway, it was, as you may have guessed, a meeting about nothing. But it wasn't exactly nothing. It was a lot of bad stuff, but we had almost as many questions after as we did before.

Fr. M started the meeting saying how much he admired us, blah blah blah...and how he loves the program and always supported it 100 percent (note: he called us a program instead of a school, and he used past tense. He continued to use past tense for the first half of the meeting.)

For the first 10 minutes of talking about nothing, really, it sounded like everyone was out of a job. This is where we learned that apparently the administration was telling us the truth, because they had genuine reactions to everything he said.

Then he said that what he was saying wasn't affecting the majority of the room. And we started suspecting that he meant the high school. And he was.

They opened the school this year. No building costs, per se, because they took over an abandoned school. But it needed Internet wiring, phone lines, fire drills, P.A. system, paint, remodeling in places, repairs in places, etc. Plus furniture. Plus supplies. Grand total of opening costs, post-Katrina? 1.5 million. Not bad, right?

Well, in the Post-K world, huge deal, apparently. However, you gotta spend money to make money. Pre-K (Katrina, not the grade level!) the HS had 50-something kids. Post, they had 32. Here's where the president officially stopped liking him: he said, and I quote, "That makes the per-student cost over $57,000. If you can meet the lofty goal of 65 students for next year, and that's if, then you will have a per student cost of $21,000, approximately."

First off, he said we had only 29 students. So, he was wrong there. We had 32. Second, we had accepted 66 students already for next year. I'm not so good at math, but I am pretty sure that that means that we are pretty much above that "lofty aspiration."

Second, when the Academy opened, there were 36 students. The next year, they doubled it to 60 something students. The next year, they doubled it to 120 something students. They decided doubling at that point would break them, so they took in another 60. The following year, they tried to keep it the same, but ended up with 204. This year, Pre-K, we had 230-something. Post, we had more than 100, but less than 200. We even took in a lot of students whose schools were nonexistent Post-K. And when people came back at the end of the school year from wherever they'd evacuated...who knew what would happen. Plus, we always, apparently, end up with new students registering after the first day. My 3/4 class grew by 3 kids before the storm. That was 2 weeks of school. So, the growth potential IS there.

Third, the budget projections had us paying off the start-up loan by the 5th year of existence. They told the Archdiocese that they would have it paid off by year 6, but that was a just-in-case cushion. They were expecting it no later than year 5, but, barring any more major national disasters, possibly year 4.

So he talked in circles, told us that they couldn't offer contracts to any high school employees, that it would take "several" weeks to come up with a solution. Meanwhile, our administration had been kept in the dark about everything. EVERYTHING. They truly did hear it all for the first time that day.

At this point, many people were crying. We passed around a Kleenex box. The rest were seething.

He said they were "looking at several options for a possible solution," but only told us one. And it wasn't a good one:

They wanted to make us a "School within a school" at 5 other Catholic schools in the area. Um, NO. Our kids are with us because they can't hack it in a regular learning environment. They learn differently. They need to be taught differently. And if we're a school within 5 schools, the kids will be divided. Two are single sex schools. So that right there divides them. As does geography.

Plus, where would that leave us? Yeah, we'd all find some sort of job, somewhere, eventually, but what about those kids? Who would help them? They would be labelled and ostracized. Not necessarily by the schools, but definitely by the kids. They would be looked at as special ed. And they are NOT.

So one of the teachers, whose son has dyslexia and was in 6th grade at the Academy, asked what the other options would be, because she had a very personal interest in the school. She made me cry when she asked where her son was supposed to go. She's one of my friends, and she is such an eloquent speaker. She had several people crying.

Only other option was to go K-12. But that wouldn't work. We'd need new space anyway. We're too needed, and our presence is growing in the city.

Did I mention that they cancelled a parents' meeting at the request of the Office of Catholic Schools? They feared the parents. I said unleash the parents on them. They'd see how important we are.

So then he told us he can't really answer a lot of questions and gives us about "10-15 minutes." People ask a lot of questions. The parish priest, a man he called by the wrong name the entire time, got up, near tears, and plead to let us be part of the planning process.

He also, let me note, referred to the H.S. principal by the wrong name the whole time.

He left after 5 p.m., Pres walked him out and came back. No one moved, but everyone was upset and/or angry. She came back and watched out the window as he walked away. She slammed the door on her way in. She was raging. At that moment, I truly loved her.

She said, "I told him I would be e-mailing him corrections for all of his inaccuracies."

Boo and yah.

We talked about how blindsided and hurt we felt. We started thinking of solutions. We raged. We united. It felt a little better.

Then she said that apparently, the Academy is to remain as is. And that anyone hired to teach 7/8 at the High School will slide to the Academy, so apparently, I, too, was safe. Where I'd be, I didn't know. And we wanted to start looking at houses, but couldn't apply for a loan until we knew what my salary would be next year.

As a staff, we followed Dylan Thomas' words.

We left at 6 p.m. Father was STILL THERE. Sitting in what would have been my classroom if I had stayed 3/4. When he left, we learned that the woman he talked to was a REPORTER. We assumed she was with the Archdiocesan public relations newspaper. How ballsy of him to leave us to interview, most likely about us, on our OWN CAMPUS.

They had the H.S. current staff stay behind. There is a letter. I find out later that it is basically a condensed version of what was just said regarding how the H.S. can't get contracts yet because the school and its budget are under review. Something the admin didn't know about until the meeting. Pres's eyebrows shot up when he said that.

This letter was not on letterhead. It was on regular paper. No signatures or seals or logos or anything. They passed out copies to the staff. When they finished, Pres let hers drop to the floor, while the H.S. principal crumpled his and threw it behind him.

I love this administration.

So, we didn''t really know any more than we knew that morning, other than I apparently would be employed...but where?

I was sad and furious all at once.

Jazz Fest is very close to my school, and as it falls on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we use Jazz Fest as a chance to raise money. We sell our parking spaces for $25 per car. This is cheap, actually. We don't have school those two Fridays. We filled 88 spaces in less than 2 hours. We did it again the next Friday. And everyone who was there seemed positive that we would beat this. We just weren't sure how.

So they had the parents' meeting the next Tuesday night, and the parents, understandably, were outraged. They pulled out their checkbooks. A contractor offered his comapny's services to hold a raffle for a house gutting and sheetrocking (this, if it happened, would have been a huge success, as many homes still have not been gutted post-K). By the end of the evening, over $50,000 had been collected.

That day, there was a meeting telling us that they came up with a comprehensive plan to let the Academy return the High School's favor by hosting them under one roof for one or two years. Money was the only obstacle, other than Archdiocesan approval. Then they collected money that night, and donations were in full-force.

At the teacher appreciation luncheon, they announced that money was no longer an obstacle to moving and keeping us operable next year. The only issue is having the Archdiocese okay the plan to move us together. As one teacher said, "He'd better have a damned good reason for teling us no."

However, it would take a few million to keep us at our current site. Sigh.

The next week was the 7/8 grade class trip. Our high schoolers were supposed to go on a school retreat in Alabama near Tennessee at a sleepaway camp. The were scheduled to leave Monday, August 29, 2005. The day Katrina hit New Orleans. Obviously, they cancelled the trip. Thank goodness they were smart enough for that...

Our 7/8 trip was supposed to be swimming with the manatees in Florida -- something I would have killed to do! But they feared parents wouldn't be able to afford a trip like that, so they picked a less-expensive idea: joining the high school in Alabama. Two seperate trips at one location at the same time.

The trip was a lot of fun. We took a train for 8 hours, which was followed by a two-hour bus ride. It was in the mountains, and it was so nic to see green spaces and trees that weren't creacked or twisted or dead from hurricane-force winds. It was like paradise. The last night of the trip, we had a campfire with a singalong, and the rain held out just long enough for us all to have a magical night of bonding as one.

But I'm a little ahead of myself....

Our president and the Academy's president DROVE to the camp to hand-deliver some news.

THE MOST AMAZING THING HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!!!

First off, we were all going to be okay. The parents and several corporations/anonymous donors stepped up. I don't know the total now, but the $100,000 it would take to move the High School to the Academy was no longer an issue. The H.S. would occupy the second floor of the Academy with 7th and 8th. The lower grades will take over some storage space and church-owned rooms downstairs. We would all be together again for one, maybe two years, and then, the Archdiocese said we can pick a campus to move to.

That in and of itself is incredibly amazing. BUT....

We got our very own patron Saint. Yes, I capitalized that one word for a reason. As you may have heard, the Saints drafted Reggie Bush this year. He is committed to helping rebuild our city, and wanted to help a school damaged by Katrina. While our physical campus was fine, our school itself was falling victim 8 months later. One of the kindergarten parents got in touch with the Saints and Reggie, and he checked out our website and talked to people, and came to the conclusion that a school like ours, which was open for a grand total of 8 days before Katrina hit, could not fall victim to her again. He pledged matching funds for most of what the parents have raised, and also a long-term commitment/partnership to our school!!!!!

WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE OKAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May 15 was a special day....Reggie Bush Day....we were covered in ESPN, the Associated Press, MSN.com, Yahoo.com, local news outlets, and other national news outlets. We even had a big mention in the Washington Post over the summer. Reggie came out and presented teh first of what will be many checks: this one for $50,000. He was so humble and so wonderful. We all took a huge group photo with him, and the NFL channel used the positioning as stock footage in a story about him over this past weekend, when the Saints played their first pre-season game.

I hate football. I usually hate pro-athletes. But all of a sudden...I'm a pretty big fan of Saint number 25...

Stay tuned to the month of May...

Mardi Gras...or...bust?

Recap: We had gotten through a fairly solemn Christmas, Mark's stomach virus, and a much-needed New Year's Eve...made all the more sweeter by the fact that none of Geoff's neighbors were back home yet, so we could be as loud as necessary outside as we raised our middle fingers in salute to 2005...

This was followed later in the week by me missing my first day of HRA because I had a much less severe form of Mark's bug. And there we were, hoping that this year would be better than last year.

For Mark's birthday, I wanted to replace his Mignon Faget Fleur de Lis tie tack. We'd found his matching cufflinks in the sludge in our bedroom, but the tie tack was gone for good. However, when I went to buy them, there was an 8-week wait because New Orleans-themed EVERYTHING was in such high demand at the time. I decided to wait...possibly until our anniversary.

January passed otherwise uneventfully. Although, MLK weekend brought me a phone call I didn't think I could survive.

I've discussed already how my "teaching partner" and I were horribly mismatched for each other. Well, she called me that Sunday to tell me that, while cooking broccoli, she burned her face. She singed off hair on her arms and face. It's a horrible thing, really. But I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying with laughter. A freak incident, if you will. She missed the next day. And drove up on Tuesday in a brand new car. Purchase date? MLK Day. Hmmm....especially interesting considering you couldn't really see any major damage unless she pointed it out to you.

February crept up. Then roared to let us know she was here.

February 2, 2006. I woke up, dressed for work, carefully walked down the wet sidewalk to my car, and went to work. When I got there, I saw the principal and many faculty members standing in front of the school. That's where we had arrival and dismissal. I panicked and thought, "OH MY GOD, I'M LATE FOR WORK AND EVERYONE KNOWS!!" I parked in the lot, then walked up, where the prinicpal was telling another teacher some news: The bad weather I'd slept through the night before brought horrendous tornadoes to the area, and we had no electricity and some roof damage. School was cancelled for the day, but we had to stay from 7:20 until 9 a.m. to chase off parents who, like me, hadn't watched the news for the school closure.

I called my parents to tell them, and heard some more distressing news: the tornadoes really hit Lakeview. My former neighborhood. The neighborhood where my father was trying to restore his business. A business my uncle checked out, and discovered damage. A window was broken. The hardware store next door lost its roof. The A/C units up top were gone. And the houses across the street were destroyed. A roof beam from one of them impaled an office upstairs. Houses all over the area, already ruined from flooding, had their coffin nails firmly pounded in them...any chance they had of restoration was gone. My dad made out the best of anything in the area. Driving along, it's easy to follow the tornado's path. A huge satellite tower on Veteran's Blvd. blocked the highway. National news crews flooded the area. Hmm..perhaps that's a poor choice of words...

I got off work, went home, napped, then went with Mark to get lunch. We visited my dad in Lakeview, saw all of the damage, and got the last bit of stuff out of our attic. We were done.

I started classes again at UNO. I quickly realized that I'd overloaded my schedule and was in way over my head. Tuesdays were the worst, with me teaching from 7:20 (morning duty) until 3:30, then grabbing a quick coffee, fighting traffic on Veteran's Blvd., getting a coffee when I was lucky, and then being in class from 4 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. IF my professor remembered that class let out earlier than she kept thinking it did.

It was the first year I've been with a school and been able to celebrate Valentine's Day. Not kosher at the JCC. I was pretty excited and baked some cookies to mark the occasion. I had class that night. That was the big Valentine's Day living with the parents and going to school while Mark worked until midnight. Fun times.

We had spirit week and the Winter Formal. I got into the spirit of Spirit Week, and dressed for all of the special days: from Pajama Day to Dress Like a Rock Star Day. I chaperoned the dance. I got group pictures with my students. I had a blast. It was nice to have some fun things to do in the midst of all of the not-so-fun things.

And we were in Mardi Gras season. We had to attend the Krewe of Hephaestus' ball in Morgan City. Mark's cousin Anne was the returning queen. We had good seats and got to dress in formal-wear. I thought we were in for a night of fun, but it turned out to be a rough night. It all started with a student confessing to me that she had been anorexic for the past 5 years. I knew she was very thin, and I had suspicions, and she decided to let me and another teacher be the first two adults she told. Of course we got the guidance counselor in on it, and we set her up for recovery, but it will be a long and hard journey.

Then, at the ball, all of the Morgan City relatives asked painful question after painful question. The only person who asked questions that didn't sting, and who seemed like he was truly concerned, was Anne's fiancé, Scott. We'd never really had much time to know him. After all, the first time we knew of that they'd gone out was one year earlier, when he was Anne's escort to the ball. I never appreciated him more than that night. His concerns over us and the city seemed truly genuine, and not at all as though he was looking for morbid gossip, or just something to talk about, and he seemed to understand us and the situations.

As the prying questions and the, "Well, gee, why hasn't your father reopened yet and why are you still with her parents?" questions flew at us, I got more and more depressed. The famiy had its own "open bar" setup at the table. I drank a lot of rum and Coke. It only took off some of the edge. I then started drunk texting. It was a not-so-good thing.


That week was a week off at school. On Lundi Gras, I went with Jenifer to the Quarter. We caught a free Better Than Ezra and Bag of Donuts show, walked through the Quarter, and caught some of the Lundi Gras on the River Zulu celebrations. It was amazing. We went to the Orpheus parade and stood in what would normally be a rotten neighborhood. But all of the rotten had evacuated and wasn't quite back yet. There were families...parents with smiling babies. No fear of guns. It was strange, but in a wonderful way.

The next day, we went to Royal Street to Kevin's parents' balcony. We threw beads and befriended an Australian guy, who we dubbed "Rosie Cheeks." We also got hassled by creepy smelly crusty guys. We had a ton of fun. We ended up at Sav-A-Center to buy dinner stuff, then we all hung out at Geoff's. I spent the rest of the week with Mark as much as I could.

It was the first time we'd ever been able to walk down Bourbon Street as a pack, instead of a single-file line that flowed with the crowd, and wherever it spit you out was going to be your destination. It was empty. It was sad. But oh, was it ever wonderful!

And then I started with the sinus infections. The first one, I think, never really went away. Two weeks of antibiotics did nothing. It came back with a vengeance. A woman in one of my classes got up in the middle of the class, walked over to me, and put a cough drop on my desk, casting a sympathetic glance in my direction.

In March, Pam informed me that she would be the camp director of Metairie, and asked if I would be her assistant camp director. Now that I teach, I have every summer off. I am theirs indefinitely. I was supposed to run travel camp again, and we were supposed to go to New York, but they were afraid people couldn't afford it this year. However, ACD was a pretty sweet replacement gig.

The second sinus infection came in March, and then was gone with more antibiotics.

The third one came in April. More antibiotics.

But, April is our next installment. It includes our 4th anniversary, Easter, Sinus infections #3, and an era of panic...