Dangermond.org

G called on her way to Angola to say Happy New Year – I was tied up – I took C to the Home Depot to get materials and came back and K still wasn’t at the house. C’s worker S was undoing the entire framing for the shower that K had built earlier. In the other bathroom, he is stripping out the sheetrock that has been taped and floated because Hardee Board needs to go there instead – didn’t I say this two months ago? V was looking for K because he needed the fascia board now so that he could roof the addition – he was about to leave when I called S and K and said what up? SO now they are all up on the roof and after writing an $8520 check I had to come home so I can go to the podiatrist since my foot that I injured at the Madonna concert is killing me. Or is the LaLa that is killing me? Something is really making me go OUCH!

Is there one?

N’s student from Madrid sends her an email that says while she is doing her laundry she thinks of Nancy and the pain she must be remembering on this day, and as she separates her clothes, she wonders how Nancy is separating reality from nostalgia and how her strength comes from having stayed and being here. And N calls me, crying from the kindness that her missives all carry.

Yesterday, I too received many an email saying “you are in my thoughts today” and “this has been a challenging year for you, Rachel, but you’re strong” and I say I/we are strong because while President Bush and his minions didn’t give a rat’s ass about us down here in New Orleans, the rest of the world opened its heart, mind, and soul to us and the outpouring of love filled us with hope to face what lies ahead.

From N’s student:

I spent all day seeing your troubles filtered through a T.V. screen. All day listening to your pain filtered through radio speakers. I know I cannot know truly what you are going through. But I imagine.

I awake, and I imagine you waking, thinking only of the day and its pain. During my morning walk, I imagine with each step you take, you revisit memories that cling to your heels like shadows. While I’m reading, I imagine those feelings piling up inside you like soggy books. I am sorting my laundry, and I imagine you separating reality from nostalgia–a pile for what was before and what is after. I imagine that tonight when I lay down for sleep, that you will still be awake with the sounds of hope battling fear. But I also imagine that tomorrow you will wake up again and go through the motions of another day. I imagine that this will happen many times over and over until you wake up one day and realize that you have something you did not have before. You have power wrought out of suffering. You have the strength that only comes from staying.

You are in my mind and my heart.

–Hol
________________________________________________
May all beings have happiness
and the cause of happiness
May all beings be free from suffering
and the cause of suffering
May all beings never part from happiness
that is beyond suffering
may all beings rest in equanimity
free from attachment and hatred
~Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

I remembered the name of Moron #2 – Ronnie.

Orion and Ronnie, Kim Saunee’s, with Schild Construction, project supervisor and carpenter.

Save us from consumer terrorism!

The commemoration last night was most excellent. We had a good turn out and old friends met new friends and the chilled wine flowed and lots of tasty food was eaten and songs were sung. Bill and Nancy performed their Katrina song with the help of Ernie and Ham. Then Ernie sang his song he recently wrote – which caused everyone to call for an encore – something about he’ll take insanity over anything else – hopefully he’ll post his lyrics on www.ernietheattorney.com and you can read them there. After the party it was over to Pal’s where Amy was there with David and she had a fall on she had gotten from WalMart.

The bayou was beautiful – couldn’t have asked for a better night or company or a better city.

THANK YOU NEW ORLEANS!

Joe just called – he was in jail – that is why he wasn’t returning my calls. I asked him why he was in and he said “interfering with a police officer” – said he was there from 8 to 11 at night on Saturday. I told him, well what do you know I was kicked out of a bar the same time as he was sitting in a jail cell. Whatyagonnado?

He’s coming by on Friday to haul my trash. He uses my truck and I pay him $20 a load. Kim Saunee from Schild Construction charged me $600 a load because I let her rape me blind for several months. Two times this happened. I didn’t know she was charging that and what was being hauled off was the left over trash from her framer Juan – who has a bad nasty temper – let me tell you. Even though he did a good job on the framing – he totally screwed me on the screen porch and it had to be redone. Guess what – she nor he will call me back about it – if that isn’t Consumer Terrorism as Gomez referred to it – then I don’t know what is.

Last night G told me that she was going to try to go clean up the trash can in front of Cabrini on the footbridge because it was overflowing with dog poop bags. The city in its infinite wisdom picked up all the trash cans after Katrina because no one was around to pick them up. So it’s been a real pill. Not to mention no one has cut the grass in the past couple of months making walking on the bayou next to impossible – Arlene refuses since she can’t see over the grass.

I thought G didn’t have time so I was headed over with rubber gloves and a mask, but N drove by and said it is all clean and picked up – so whoever the ANGEL ON THE BAYOU was who did that – thank you.

Joe’s Cobbler on Maple Street Uptown – I brought some shoes in for her to punch some more holes in the straps. She punched four holes and said no charge. “The day I start charging for holes, I quit. It’s my lagniappe.”

On a not so positive note – I called Young Cleaners who used to be the main upholstery cleaner here in New Orleans – they flooded in Gentilly and rebuilt somewhere in Orleans Parish – but they don’t do upholstery cleaning anymore only carpets and rugs. As a matter of fact they said – no one right now in New Orleans is doing upholstery cleaning. Read: business idea?

E and I spoke at length last night about the acute anger I have towards N – main reason being how he deceived me into believing he was someone else. When we explored how I deal with anger, the truth is I am very slow to anger with those I love, very slow, but once angry, the anger simmers till it becomes a roiling boil – picture a turkey fryer and the hot peanut oil right when you are putting the turkey in, before the bird brings the temperature down – that is how hot I burn when mad – and I don’t recover quickly – it takes a long time to bring the temperature down again.

It goes hand and hand with one of my elephant qualities – I don’t forget.

On this day last year, I was in my niece Sara’s house with her husband Michael, her daughter Rylee, my other niece Jana, and her boyfriend David, and my brother Bob, and his wife Barbara, my other niece’s husband’s mother, Jeanine, Nick and Val and Val’s mother Lorrie, Wade, their dog Zeus, and Steve & Arlene – we had arrived at 3AM from a 16.5 hour drive after having to leave under a mandatory evacuation. We were preparing to come back the next day after the hurricane passed through New Orleans. My friends Nancy and Bill stayed behind and didn’t evacuate. My neighbors who I was just getting to know – Ham and Teresa – Harold – had all stayed behind.

Today, Steve and I are divorced and he is living in San Francisco.

Today, Sara and Michael are expecting daughter number 2 and have moved to Houston where my other niece Dana lives with her husband and two children.

Today, I am still living at the American Can Company. The LaLa is further along than it was then, but the road to completion is long.

To commemorate what this one year has meant to us and our city, we are gathering, about 100 of us, on the bayou for the biggest potluck you’ve ever been to and we’re going to rejoice in the wonder of being in New Orleans, with our loved ones (most of them), eating delicious food (sorry Arlington and Texas but your FOOD SUCKS), drinking cold crisp Rose wine or whatever cocktail is brought, and marveling at how lucky we all are on this day August 29, 2006.