How to make groceries in a pirogue

After waiting a little too long, Chris and I have our new, very own place. We got a great place in Mid-City that will save us some money compared to the place we had been waiting for with our friend Stephanie. It’s adorable, and ours. It’s also the first time we have lived by ourselves since Katrina. I can’t describe how good it feels!! It’s also been like Christmas to see all of our things again that have been in storage in Alabama. We have stuff, I had almost forgotten. So here’s an open invitation–we have one bedroom, but we do have a sleeper sofa. Maya the cat is quite excited about her new digs. I’ll get some pictures up eventually.

Well, this is it. It has been a year since all of our lives have been turned upside down and we all learned the true meaning of what it is to miss New Orleans. I, luckily, don’t miss it anymore because I’m back home, and I’ve trained myself to look at potential rather than loss. I’m not sure if it’s denial or optimism, but I can look at flooded out houses at this point and think, “Isn’t that cute, I would fix this and that, get a porch lantern and put up the cutest white picket fence.” I think it’s certainly better than driving around in touch with the fact that a lot of the city still looks like Hiroshima.

There are certain things the storm has taught me: Show Up; Pay Attention to lessons that have heart and meaning; Speak the truth without blame or judgement; Be open to outcome but not attached to outcome; family and friends are the only things that matter in the end; looking to the future is endlessly more hopeful than lamenting the past; my husband and I can make it through anything; don’t take one moment for granted-you don’t know when life can turn on a dime; and I love New Orleans more than I ever realized.

I’ve got both jobs to go to today, but against better judgement I’m planning on going to see Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf tonight. I’m not going to feel good at work tomorrow, but that’s o.k. I’m young. Besides, I can’t think of a better way to reflect on the past and look to the future than dancing the night away while Rebirth blasts out jazz that you can feel through your whole body. It’s really, really good to be home.

Next week New Orleans will experience its one year post-Katrina anniversary. There will be a special mass, some ceremonies at the multiple breach sites, and a special second-line. I’ll be commemorating the day by working at my two jobs, but it is probably good to stay busy.

Last night I went out for drinks with a friend, and we talked about how important it was for us to be there for our friends who have lost everything. She lamented that she actually offended someone at work for suggesting that Katrina be a day of thanksgiving for our friends and family and mentioning that she and her mother were planning on exchanging presents. I’m not sure what is offensive in that, but I suggested we say innappropriate things all the time, and this was in no way one of those instances and she shouldn’t worry about her uber sensitive co-worker.

Which brings me to some funny and offensive things that had me cracking up over breakfast this morning. Chris and I went out for crab cakes benedict at Rickabono’s, a fabulous Uptown breakfast hot-spot, and I picked up “The New Orleans Levee” a comedic pseudo news journal whose catch phrase is “We don’t hold anything back”. It had an article in it poking fun at the mayor’s initial anniversary plan which included having a comedy show and fireworks display until he came under fire for planning events unbefitting of our tragedy. Well, “The New Orleans Levee” jests that it is exposing other anniversary plans the mayor had made that didn’t make the news. These included: An Army Corps of Engineers sponsored reflooding of the city to create a “Ninth Ward Dunk Tank.” A disaster themed carnival with rides including the Gulf Coast Scrambler and the FEMA sponsored Tilt-a-Whirl; A spirited “Chop Your Way Out of the Attic” contest; Free Coast Guard helicopter basket rides; A storm-themed, city sponsored character to be known as Katrina the Clown.

I laughed all through breakfast. Hey, our innapropriate sense of humor is part of what makes us New Orleanians, and this is no time to lose our sense of humor. Another article quips “FEMA has ear-marked its second-largetst grant ever to help finance mental health counseling for people it has helped drive out of their minds.”

As a side note, everything here is going fine. Chris has been down for a while now and we are staying with our fabulous friend Stephanie and are quite comfortable. The FEMA trailer I mentioned in my last entry is still as of yet not hooked up with utilities so Maya the cat remains in Alabama. We don’t have the key to the FEMA trailer yet either, but that’s not a big deal because we’ve learned that most of the trailers use the same key so we should be able to just copy a friend’ key–I laugh, but Jesus Christ what’s wrong with the feds? Bush actually has the nerve to show his face down here as part of the anniversary festivities and I’m hoping our folks don’t give him the satisfaction that silly Rocky Vacarella did with his mock FEMA trailer and praise, and meet him with the protests he deserves.

Well, I’ll have to sign off as I am joining friends at Marconi meadows who belong to a bar sponsored kick-ball team to watch their game. Bar sponsored kick-ball teams are just one more hillarious reason that I love this town!! I love this town.

I’ve awoken out of some strange hibernation since I’ve been back home. I kind of feel like, oh yeah, this is who I am…some strange needlecraft hibernation. This may be the most vulnerable city in the U.S., but I feel like I know more than ever that it is worth it.

I have gone back to work part-time waiting tables at Venezia’s, a different location as the mid-city one is under renovation and should be up and going at the end of the summer. It is bringing in a nice little second income for an extra 15 hours worth of work per week. It’s a fairly social experience for me as well. Venezia people have been my second family and largely what put me through college, I have been knowing them for at least 8 years. (”have been knowing” is a New Orleans verb tense.)

Friday evening I met my friend Heather at the house where I’m staying. We went out and got three pounds of boiled (also pronounced “burled”) crawfish and fried shrimp po-boys from Smitty’s, a little hole in the wall- which are always the best. Those of you who knew my aversion to sea food growing up would be impressed to know that I can tear through some burled crawfish. You rip them in half, suck the seasoned water from the head, and then pop out the meat from the tail and eat it. Delicious!! Heather brought a couple really good bottles of wine as she works at a wine cellar- fabulous. It’s so good to hang out with good girlfriends. I really missed that.

Saturday morning, I met a friend to go see her house in Chalmette, or what was her house as she had just found it had been bulldozed. Can you imagine how strange it must be to stare at an empty lot where your life used to take place less than a year ago? Later that day she got cable installed, and basic services are pretty exciting here.

Today, my friend Molly and I got together for lunch. She is four and a half months pregnant with her second baby. We are quite excited. Her three year old Fiona is the child that appears in the blog quite often. From being around Fiona I’ve learned one thing about kids: two year olds-not fun, three year olds-very fun. Fiona cracks me up. Her imagination is so incredible, you can’t trust anything she says. She is in a fairy land, and it seems to be a pretty fun place.

I think ” advocacy” is the biggest word I have on my mind right now. The levees are currently not fixed to pre-Katrina strength. Obviously, quite a number of things are on the to-do list here. There are a lot of dollars coming into the state, and quite a few that were approved in Congress just last week. Louisiana has all kinds of hurdles to jump right now, and I think it is going to be imperative for the citizens to keep a close watch on the dollars coming in and be organized to make our representatives accountable for how those dollars are spent.

To be perfectly honest, we are all just a little bit crazy right now. I think the people in my immediate little circle are doing great. We all have little areas, though, where we are having a hard time. I went out shopping the other day with some extra money from taking a bartending shift and was excited to find out that size 8 is roomy on me. 50 lbs in about 8 months is a crap-load of weight to lose. That’s how much lighter I am. It’s strange, though, to have that kind of weight loss without trying for it. I feel like I could put it back on at any time without any control over it. At the same time, I’m super hot!

We actually may be having a real true to form Katrina live experience, in that my friend Stephanie called yesterday and said she had a FEMA trailer delivered that she needed months ago, but no longer needs and Chris and I are welcome to stay in it so that we don’t have to leave Maya (the cat) in Alabama for an extended period of time. So, we are going to be moving into a FEMA trailer in a flooded out part of the city and quite possibly renting a place that is getting renovated whenever it is ready.

The idea of leaving rural poverty behind and now living in a trailer is quite hilarious to me. I’ve been hollering about wanting a Fema trailer for months. Now I pretty much have one.

As far as I know, Chris should be coming down in about a week with the essentials. His equipment, kitchen stuff, etc. The people I am staying with are in Japan, so I’m getting some me time-hence the big blog entry. Anyhoo, I have started keeping a journal. Gary made the suggestion, and I thought it was a good idea. Therapeutic, too. I’ll leave you with Chris Rose’s ending word to his column this weekend-and this is about as much wisdom as I can muster-”I went with the foot-long fried oyster, melted havarti and bacon po-boy, drenched in mayo and Crystal Hot Sauce. A wondrous spactacle to behold. A truly ludicrous thing to eat. Such a New Orleans thing.”

In case anyone is having a hard time getting a hold of me, my phone is doing crazy things. I don’t know if it’s being in New Orleans, or if it’s some kind of problem with Verizon. Also, I did start a second job on M,T, W nights that keeps me off the radar from about 7am ’til 11pm on those days. I’m not saying I’m back on the radar after 11pm, though, as I come home and sleep. I apologize if I’ve been out of touch, I’m fabulously busy though. No more time for needle crafts–and guess what? I don’t miss them. I love being around my friends again, I love being back home. I love having a wealth of things to do. I love New Orleans.

I thought I would just blog a quick entry to let everyone know I’m doing well. It’s feels so natural to be home, but strange at the same time. Katrina is on the tip of everyones tongue and still a major topic of conversation. Hurricane season starts June 1st, and as my friend Jananne says, “There is a palpable, underlying level of terror.” To address this, by the way, she thinks we should change the name of hurricane season to “Weather Fest” and have a slogan “Let the good times contraflow”. She’s hysterical!! In fact, her and I are planning on starting a knitting gang. We read about a group of women who call themselves the “Knittas” and are tagging statues in there community with scarves and such. They have given themselves nicknames like “P-knitty” and “Loop-Dog”. We thought if we started doing that, it might do something to raise morale, at least put a smile on passers-by faces. I’m having dinner at my friends house tonight who is a chef, so I best not let the food get cold. I’ll keep posting- I didn’t pack my camera, so it might be a while before a picture entry.

I am moving tomorrow…I am moving tomorrow…Somehow, I know it will happen, but I can’t quite visualize it. Oh, scary scary hurricanes. Hopefully, they’ll stay away. It’s kind of crazy how life just picks back up. I got someone cooking me dinner on Saturday when I get in town. I’m babysitting Sunday. Sunday evening someone is cooking for me… this is maybe why I got fat in New Orleans. At this point I’ll take fat and happy any day over skinny and stressed to the gills. Have I told y’all I’m pretty much skinny again? Who knew, it wasn’t about exercizing and eating spinach, it was about staying so stressed that your stomach is in knots and you can’t imagine putting food in it?

And of course, I can’t be pleased. I am so excited to be going back home, but so sad to be leaving the area. Cheryl and Adam are two and a half hours away, it’s been great getting to spend this time with my in-laws, and I dare say I won’t have any Klan rallys to protest. There are some drawbacks, obviously, to New Orleans right now. Still, I told Chris from here on out we’re going to be like those crazy Cajuns on Grande Isle and just rebuild year after year after year. Hurricanes are one of your kinder disasters if you have the means to evacuate. They say they aren’t going to keep us out of the parishes any more, like with Katrina when we had to wonder about our home for a month before we got to see it with our own two eyes and then leave it indefinately.

Well, I’ll leave you with a link that I think is interesting, it goes through the timeline of just how exactly New Orleans and it’s surrounding areas flooded. Check it out.

Guess who I met…Guess…Ray Nagin!! He was at Jazz Fest and came right up to talk with my friend Molly and I. I wish I would have thought to take a picture with him, but I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t because I took a picture of him walking in the crowd:
Here are a few other pictures of the fest. New Orleans children got to make their own houses and put them on a map of the city:
Here is a picture of the crowd, watching Bruce Springstein: I have had the biggest smile on my face ever since I found out we were moving back. I start my new job in New Orleans on May 22nd. Chris is planning on coming down by June. It’s all coming together. I feel like I’ve been in some kind of weird hibernation and my life is finally starting again.

Chris came to me the other night and said it’s time to go back home. The home he speaks of is New Orleans. So, we’re going back. Those of you who know where my heart has been know this is no small victory for me. Chris has apparently given this a lot of thought, but hadn’t told me he was considering it so as to avoid getting my hopes up. He said that it is sad when even a flooded out, destroyed and corrupt city is better than Alabama. I know what he means, but the truth is, there is something about New Orleans that gets under your skin and seeps into your soul. It’s like no place on earth, so flooded out or not, I’m heading back down…in time for hurricane season of course. I’ve got work all lined up and a place to stay. I figure I’ll be back down in about 3 weeks. Chris has said it would be about 3 months for him, but that estimate shrinks by about a month every day.

Two cross-stitch, one embroidered pillow (I didn’t think I would finish that one before I was thirty), two scarves, and one and a half shawls. Here are a few pictures of how I spend the vast majority of my free time in North Alabama: