MS sponsored a training ride through Tammany Trace and the back roads in Tammany Parish. Our route took us along horse farms and rolling hills. I noticed a preponderance of lawn statues – Jesus, angels, Virgin Mary’s, rabbits, dogs, deer, and birds and even a bouquet of flowers, not to mention horses – stone statuary is all the rage on the North Shore. We ride almost 62 miles and my roadkill count is: 2 dead…
In the last weekend, there were overlapping parties and I realized that the season is getting off to a little bit of a late start because Hurricane-interuptus. A friend observed that there is some trend going on – Hit Louisiana first, Hit Texas (Katrina then Rita) and three years later (Gustav then Ike). Officially, we’ll have the party of the year on November 30th when hurricane season shuts down for one year.
For years and years, I’ve longed to create a family. Now one would really have to wonder why I would want to do anything like that considering my family, but you know how it goes, it’s almost an urge that has no logic. I came back to New Orleans in 2005 thinking I was coming back to be close to my family only to realize my family is moribund. My brother told my mother that…
Last night, I was speaking to someone and realized I had confused what she said in her email and thought she meant she was pregnant. From that misunderstanding, I created an entire backstory about when she got pregnant and why. So when she said, no I was calling you baby, not saying I am with baby, I just had to laugh. Today at lunch at Houston’s on Vets with mom, she said she had something…
I went to get gas today and the Shell Station at Causeway and Vets was out of most gas. Then I went to the Shell Station on Moss and Esplanade and the electricity was out. Finally found a Chevron that looked like it might have both gas and electricity and the credit card services was out. Blech.
Okay, maybe it was more like 10 Turks who came to Swirl to celebrate the end of summer abroad and a return home to our own little oasis in the world – the electricity had been out all day and so the event was held with generators and candlelight and a boom box playing Turkish dance hits. So nice to have our little extended family grouped together again even as a storm brewed in the…
Ike is losing steam and I still can’t get news from NPR or wunderground about how much damage it did to Galveston, and it was a bad storm, but was it the bad ass storm everyone was making us think it was.
Hurricane Ike is closing in on Texas, and stands poised to become one of the most damaging hurricanes of all time. Despite Ike’s rated Category 2 strength, the hurricane is much larger and more powerful than Category 5 Katrina or Category 5 Rita. The storm surge from Ike could rival Katrina’s, inundating a 200-mile stretch of coast from Galveston to Cameron, Louisiana with waters over 15 feet high. This massive storm surge is due to…
We keep getting squalls from Ike that is now headed to Galveston – if this is just the fingertip of his wrath, I am sending my best and most positive wishes towards Texas right now. So far Ike has ripped one of my gutters off, and is causing white caps on the bayou, and just the howling sound makes me want to take a Xanax.
A friend writes that she woke up wishing she were somewhere else. I told her it is the storm (Ike is wrecking havoc over New Orleans as he skirts us) because I woke yelling from a dream where I was trapped in a beer pub in the suburbs somewhere and one of my friends had braided her hair in cornrows and I was screaming “I WANT OUT! OUT! OUT!” When I opened my eyes, Loca…