Rebuild or Leave

Last night we went to Hip Stix – finally got the name right – to have dinner – the pad thai and dragon salad is delicious, and the guava cosmopolitans can’t be beat. Then we came back for a nightcap to La Vita. I was speaking to I, one of the new young Turkish girls who has moved here, when this woman came in and G began speaking to her. She said she moved to Norfolk and that she was only here getting her kid through Sacred Heart, who has two more years of school, and then she is never coming back. She said you folks are in denial here. This city is going down.

Because it is F’s restaurant, I didn’t say immediately to get the fuck out of here. But instead I tried to give my version of the story – the one where my neighbors have purchased a riding lawn mower and they cut the grass in City Park and on the bayou – they call themselves MOWRONS – I didn’t get into how Katrina has given us all sudden wisdom, something that only years can usually give an individual, but for many of us, it became crystal clear how not to live our life and how to stop and enjoy it. I tried to explain these things to her but she became beligerent and I do not suffer fools gladly, so I said, bye bye and left and came home.

This morning, walking Arlene, I ran into B and his dog and told him about the evening and he said, I wish I would have been there because I would have started my list of all the positive things that have come from Katrina – the fact that my 7 year old son last night said he wanted to buy some plants for his teacher, who now that the school term is over with, is finally moving from her FEMA trailer into her house, and my son wants to bring her some flowers and plants for her garden.

I told him that yesterday Bud came over and hung my sign over the threshold of my house that says BE NICE OR LEAVE – the Dr. Bob sign I bought at the MidCity Art Market last weekend – he said he has a sign in his office that says “I have no time for fear or hate.”

I marvel at the arrogance of that woman – that while we are all here treading water, she wants to place her hand on our head to keep us under, bless her heart.

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