It’s now almost 5 PM and the city is shutting down. I went to get the boys from the W around 11 and the National Guard was blocking most of the streets downtown. I took them to Elizabeth’s for the breakfast of champions (shrimp and grits, biscuits and mimosas) and K bought a Dr. Bob “Be Nice or Leave” sign and then we went by the Country Club where as I told T, I was…
This weekend which was supposed to be about moving on and showing tens of thousands of visitors that New Orleans is back instead is now a hotbed of anxiety and fear. Our friends checked into the W last night having had their bags lost by Southwest and the desk clerk told them they have to be out today so we are picking them up to bring them over here this morning. I hear the pounding…
Here we are on Friday, the third year anniversary of the Katrina, and things are iffy. We have Gustav as a giant unknown causing a lot of agitation – some people are packing and going, some are packing and staying, some are packing and riding it out unless it’s a “mother fucker”, some are staying and not packing, some are just walking around in circles. My neighbors on either side have already put up on…
Our yoga instructor said the vibes were growing edgy in the city and we had to do everything possible to ground ourselves in something stronger. We have to make ourselves as big as the storm approaching. This whole month has been an instruction in Lila – the folly the gods enjoy as their divine pastime – if we are as big as the storm, we can see how we won’t be undone by it. We…
Last week, I was thinking of this day approaching and what we might do to commemorate. But life changed so much in the last three years. And in the last three days, I am grieving for a friend’s child who is dying and simultaneously have been looking forward to an old friend arriving for Southern Decadence weekend. My friend is from another life I lived – the one in California – which ended on or…
Who knows if Gustav is as big and bad as it could be, but we’ve made our preparation list. We have Plan A and Plan B. We’re headed to stock up on water and can goods. And then we’re going to have a cocktail and watch Obama accept the nomination.
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…