Gustav is headed a little away from a direct hit on New Orleans and hasn’t actually been classified a hurricane even but Tulane decided today to close its campus and hospital till Thursday next week to give students a chance to evacuate.
The New York Times piece from Dowd is worth reading:
August 20, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Two Against The One
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
In the dead of night in a small hideaway office in the deserted Capitol, a clandestine meeting takes place between two senators with one goal.
They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya.
“Our toast to The One,” they say in unison, “is that he’s toast.”
“Obama should have picked you, Hillary,” John McCain tells her. “It isn’t fair, my friend. But it just makes it easier for me to whup him.”
“Don’t worry, John, I’ve put it behind me,” Hillary replies. “I’m looking toward the future now, a future that looks very bright, once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench.”
They chortle with delight.
“He’s a bright young man, but he got ahead of himself,” McCain says. “He needs to be taught a lesson, and we’re the ones to do it. Have you seen the new Bloomberg poll? Obama’s dropped and we’re even again. The Bullet’s getting all the credit, but you and I know, Hillary, that it’s these top-secret counseling sessions we’re having. And thanks again for BlackBerrying me the Rick Warren questions while I was in the so-called cone of silence.”
“Oh, John, you know I love you and I’m happy to help,” Hillary says. “The themes you took from me are working great — painting Obama as an elitist and out-of-touch celebrity, when we’re rich celebrities, too. Turning his big rallies and pretty words into character flaws, charging him with playing the race card — that one always cracks me up. And accusing the media, especially NBC, of playing favorites. It’s easy to get the stupid press to navel-gaze; they’re so insecure.”
“They’re all pinko Commies,” McCain laughs. “Especially since they deserted me for The Messiah. Seriously, Hill, that Paris-Britney ad you came up with was brilliant. I owe you.”
Looking pleased, Hillary expertly downs another shot. “His secret fear is being seen as a dumb blonde,” she says. “He wants to take a short cut to the top and pose on glossy magazine covers, but he doesn’t want to be seen as a glib pretty boy.”
McCain lifts his glass to her admiringly. “If I do say so myself, while the rookie was surfing in Hawaii, I ate his pupus for lunch. Pictures of him pushing around a golf ball while I’m pushing around Putin. Priceless.”
“I have a little secret to tell you about that, John. Bill made it happen. He loves you so much. He called Putin and told him that if he invaded Georgia, he could count on being invited to the Clinton Global Initiative every year for the rest of his life.”
“Wow. Should I call him? I saw your husband’s kind words about me in Las Vegas on Monday, saying I’d be just as good as Obama on climate change.”
“I think he’d like that,” Hillary smiles. “He’s still boiling at Obama. And you don’t have to worry about my army of angry women. We’ve spread the word in the feminist underground — as opposed to that wacky Obama Weather Underground — that ‘catharsis’ is code for ‘No surrender.’ My gals know when I say ‘We may have started on two separate paths but we’re on one journey now’ that Skinny’s journey is to the nearest exit.”
“But Obama’s says he’s finally ready to hit back,” McCain says, frowning. “He’s starting a blistering TV campaign and attacking me for attacking his patriotism.”
“Now, John, you know that every time he tries to get tough, he quickly runs out of gas. Sometimes in debates, he’d be exhausted by the third question. He must use up all his energy in the gym. He doesn’t have any stamina, and he certainly doesn’t have our bloodlust. Besides, you can throw that Mark Penn stuff at him that I couldn’t use in a Democratic primary about how he’s not fundamentally American in his thinking and values. While he’s up on his high-minded pedestal, you’ll scoot past him in your Ferragamos.”
“How can I ever thank you, my friend?”
“You can announce that you won’t be running for re-election because you’d be 76, and you can pick somebody really lame to run with, like your pal Lieberman. That means one term for you, and two for me.”
“It’s a deal,” McCain says, sticking out his hand to shake on it. “That was inspired to snatch his convention away — makes him look so weak. Listen, why don’t you stop in Sedona on the way to Denver? Wear a black wig and I’ll spirit you up to the cabin for the night. I’ll catch a catfish in the mill pond and grill it for you. It will be an adventure.” There’s a knock on the door. Jesse Jackson sticks his head into the meeting.
“Is it over?” he asks his co-conspirators.
“Yes, he’s over,” they respond in unison.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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Last night at dinner, we were talking about losing things and losing interest in things. I was telling about how when I left my first husband I was living in an apartment on General Pershing uptown and I had put all the precious dishes and serving ware that I had collected or received through our five year marriage into cabinets over the sink. I came home one day to find that the cabinets had fallen off the wall and everything was smashed to smithereens. Since then I don’t own anything precious by way of dishes. Not that my dishes or glasses or vases aren’t nice, or that I don’t like them, but every piece I have is expendable.
A friend sitting at dinner lost everything in Katrina and we talked about how when I lost my clothes in Croatia, that it has made me not care about those things either. She said she knows – pointing to her tee shirt and jeans, she said she hasn’t been able to care about clothes since then.
Earlier at Pilates, I was talking to my duet partner who was feeling low about how Gustav among other things was weighing on everyone. She said she had been reading about how most illnesses are manifestations of emotional or mental states. I told her about my back pain, which came about from stress that I wasn’t articulating.
When we got on the reformers to start our class, the teacher asked us how we were feeling. My partner said, not too good. And I said, well, I feel blessed to have this body, to have my health, and I’m ready to bliss out on Pilates.
The mood changed in the room. My partner said she felt better instantly. And so we did, we blissed out on Pilates and how strong and precious our mind and bodies are. These are the factors in life that are not expendable.
As the bayou has gone down, with boats hanging from the iron rings, people have jumped down into the banks and been beach combing, or bayou combing. It’s eerie to see the water level so low especially with the impending doom that Gustav has brought.
Yesterday afternoon, the neighbor kids found a bunch of bones and bleached them out and laid them all out on a towel to inspect. The little boy said, “Ms. Rachel, one of the bones had a big gash in it as if someone stabbed it!”
Act III – Scene 1
Mother calls and says she woke up on the floor and couldn’t stand up for an hour.
[This raises more questions than might be answered in one daughter’s lifetime.]
Act II – Scene 1
Loretta Lynn has a song entitled God Makes No Mistakes. I went to say goodbye today to a little girl who has infiltrated our hearts and is leaving much too soon. Is this really happening?
Act I – Scene 1
The LaLa
Everything is in its place at the LaLa. T’s found her spaces while minimally impacting mine. Books are on shelves. Clothes are in drawers. Toiletries are in the bathroom.
Act I – Scene 2
New Orleans
Knock, knock
Who’s there?
Gustav
Gustav who?
Are we going to evacuate?
No.
Plan A
Plan B
Plan C
Act I – Scene 3
Pan the bayou
The water level down about four feet in preparation for a storm – a voice over says: “As the city prepared to begin its annual kickoff to party season after commemorating the three year anniversary of Katrina, a Category 1 Hurricane had just flooded Haiti and was on its way to Cuba. Our protagonist walked her dog as usual that morning through the park. Neighbors stopped to inquire if she knew why the bayou was so low. In the park, the lagoon was higher than normal. She observed a woman standing in Pops Pavillion taking photos of a great white heron posed on a stump in the middle of the lagoon. She wondered if moss was good for trees. Gustav flashed across her mind, but she don’t hold onto the thought.”
Got a text and didn’t know what the G stood for and then had an ah ha moment – Gustav.
Got a call just now – “get ready, if it hits, it will be bad” – are you staying or going?
Landfall is supposedly Sunday or Monday.
GO AWAY GUSTAV!!!!!!!!! Fuck A Bunch Of Gustav!
The doorbell just rang and someone was asking me what the heck is going on with the bayou – “I’ve never seen it so low!” – I told them the Sewerage and Water Board had lowered the level in the bayou by opening the locks to prevent it from spilling over due to the heavy rains we’ve had and are expected to have because of Fay.
It’s been raining here every day and day before yesterday it never stopped raining – there are mushrooms growing everywhere, the park looks like Emerald City with its supernatural green-ness, the grass is hard to cut because the ground is so wet but it’s growing like mad, and worst of all the BUGS are obnoxious because mosquitos and no-see-ums thrive in wet warm weather.