Gee... what's going on now?





Why is that police car driving the wrong direction...





A mobile home fell onto the Beltway?? For real??





More detours... sigh...

And we're going out again this weekend, the same exact route, with the husband in the car.

Too tired to write tonight, but I did take pictures...

I hardly ever go anywhere, especially during rush hour traffic. I'm usually pretty lucky when I do, though, I'm normally going against traffic, and I know the back streets to take, I drove downtown and back daily for years, no problem. I can go all over town in a couple of hours normally. I had some errands to run today, the first of which was to pick up our taxes from our accountant on the far west side of Houston. Being me, they closed at 5 pm so I left the house around 3:30 (that's early for me).

My list was to make a swing past several places that close earlier than I'm usually out - check on a new box of contacts I ordered almost two weeks ago, make a bank deposit, pick up some steaks for us and my parents at Omaha Steaks, get some more shampoo and some hard to find facial moisturizer (I'm after more of the Clinique CX stuff), I had my list and I was off...

First stop was at the optometrist because it was on the way to the freeway. I'm on my last pair of my normal strength contacts, which makes me nervous, so I ordered a new box when I put in the new ones, but for some reason they hadn't arrived when I checked at the end of last week, they had to be in by now. First freak bad luck of the day - no, they were part of an order that had gotten lost and had been reordered, they might come in later this afternoon. Crap, I don't want to go another weekend with no backup contacts and mine are almost at the two week limit, so I left my cell phone number in case they came in with today's shipment.

So I drove around to the back of Meyerland mall and made a deposit at the ATM, and then jumped on the 610 loop heading north to run across town and pick up our taxes (at i-10 and Dairy Ashford for anyone that knows the city). According to Mapquest it's a little over 19 miles from my house and/or 25 minutes (at 3 in the morning I guess). I was going along nicely till I noticed one of the flashing signs that read 'freeway closed at Memorial Dr.', which was two exits before where I needed to to turn off onto I-10. A few seconds after I read that I came up over the overpass just before the Galleria and.. everyone was stopped. So I did what some of the other idiots were doing (I was in the right lane, though) and just got off at Westheimer, I'd go ahead and get my steaks, there was a store on the corner of Westheimer (and one in the area I was going to in West Houston), so maybe traffic would be cleared up in a few minutes (ha!).

So one successful errand marked off the list, with three boxes of steaks in the freezer bag in my trunk, I headed north again. And everything was just stopped. Not the normal afternoon rush hour(s) traffic jam, something really bad. OK, I went up the feeder to the next intersection, and there were cars stopped on the next entrance ramp too. So I decided to make a u-turn and head down one of the westbound streets and bypass the whole two freeway interchange. Happily for me I had grabbed a new CD I'd just gotten in the mail from Amazon on the way out the door (the original Nena self-titled German CD, I always had the English version), so I'd get to listen to it while I waited in traffic. And waited. and waited.

After about half a dozen light cycles, I made it under the freeway. People were backing up on the feeder, stopping in the middle of the intersection, preventing us from crossing. That should have been my first clue something was really, really bad in the Galleria. And then I sat, and sat, and there was nowhere to turn off but residential streets and into business parks and I am not at all familiar with the back streets on San Felipe, I inched along with everyone else, surrounded by construction, concrete barriers, passing overheated cars and just thinking 'Oh my God, what the fuck is going on??" alternating with, "my husband is never going to believe the traffic was this bad".

But he called (I was afraid to pick up right away, this was just too crazy), and left a message that there was some sort of huge mess on 610 and he 'hoped I had avoided that area'. Good, at least it wasn't just me. So after the fourth playing of my Nena CD, and inching along about three miles I gave up and called him back and told him I'd try again tomorrow, and headed south down Voss. At least I got my damned steaks.

The news reported there was a fiery crash on the West Loop earlier in the afternoon involving an 18-wheeler and four other cars. Don't I have the best timing? But at least I was alone in the car. I would have rather have my cat in the car with me (bouncing off the walls and yowling, she hates riding in the car) than my husband, he would have just gone bananas. I spent years sitting in traffic, and I know sometimes it's bad for no apparent reason but I don't think I'll be going to the Galleria area for a while... And yet another reason I love shopping online.

I have to make another attempt to drive out and pick up the taxes tomorrow. I'll be heading out the opposite direction, straight west to Beltway 8, hope nothing happens that direction. And I'll be leaving a few hours earlier, just in case. And bringing a different CD to listen to. I really like 99 Luftballons but I think I'll be having nightmares in German tonight.

my rear view mirror... and this was on the way home in the good traffic...

I know, this is 3 days late, but it's just too weird. Just when you think the world can't get any fricking stranger Dick Cheney shoots a 78 year old man in the face. And he was a friend of his. Then he has a heart attack (the victim, not Cheney), but it's just a minor heart attack (caused by the buckshot in his chest).

And then Cheney runs away back to his bunker. The first thing I thought when I heard that was that all of the hunters I used to know when I lived in Austin really liked to drink when hunting, somehow it made killing the little animals more fun. Listening to Randi Rhodes' show tonight, she and some callers actually suggested the idea that maybe that's why Tricky Dick went missing for like 18 hours afterwards. Either that or they were waiting a few hours to see if he was going to live before letting anyone know.

I have to admit I'm enjoying the (liberal) media's take on this. Jon Stewart actually took an International Foods Flavored Coffee break to 'celebrate the moment' (remember those commercials?), and David Letterman is on a big roll.

Honestly, what the hell else do we need to hear from these psychos before we turn on them? Brownie has been squirming and whining about being a scapegoat... Scott McClellan (another proud Texan, yea!) has been dodging reporters questions and actually walked out of the briefing Tuesday. Why do they think they can just not answer questions, ignore us and deny everything and they can get away with it?

Oh yeah, because it's been working for six years? I'd say I give up, but that's what they want us to do.

But it's hard to ignore 11,000 FEMA trailers all sitting together in a swamp in Arkansas rotting while the Katrina victims were all kicked out of their hotels this week. Especially when my very stable friend in New Orleans is mentioning asking her doctor for antidepressants because the daily hassle of fighting her mother's insurance company, the government inspectors, contractors and more is driving her crazy.

I went commando grocery shopping last night and hit four different places and got four very different slices of life. I actually brought my new little mini camera with me and I wished I could have snapped actual pictures of some of the scenes that registered in my brain, but I didn't want to be arrested. I'm a shy photographer, unfortunately, unless I'm at an event where photography is expected. At my local Sam's Club, though, besides looking like a bit of a pervert, there is also the concern that my brand new little candy apple red camera might be stolen also.

I hate grocery shopping, I used to actually order food online back when we had a service that would do that and it was wonderful. I don't really mind getting the little things, but hauling cartons of soda, gallons of water and 12 packs of toilet paper gets old really fast. And it fills up my cart and my car.

I started out my evening expedition with Sam's Club first because I had four prescriptions to pick up and their pharmacy closes at 7 pm, and I didn't leave the house till 6:40. (Yes, I hate people like me also, but at least they were called in way ahead of time) The Sam's Club we use is the one across the street from the Astrodome, which is also probably the busiest and most ethnically & economically diverse one in Houston. There are several others that are only a few miles further, in nicer, safer neighborhoods, but I like the Dome one. I can drive 2 or 3 miles and jump on the freeway against rush hour traffic and I'm there. And I get to drive past the Dome. I used to get to see Astroworld also, but it's being dismantled to build high-rise condos, and all I can see of it after dark are some beams jutting over the fence that are the remains of the big roller coaster and an occasional bulldozer. So much for childhood memories, memories are all you're allowed to have growing up in Houston, nothing lasts more than 20 or 30 years max.

So I arrive just in the nick of time, so close I didn't even dare stop to pick up a shopping cart on the way in, I just ran straight across the store to the pharmacy to grab a place in line before they turned the lights out. There was only one person on doing double-duty as pharmacist and cashier, poor thing, but she moved as efficiently as possible and I managed to get my $140 worth of prescriptions (I don't have any insurance) and then I had to trek back across the store to retrieve a shopping cart for the half other dozen things I also needed, several of which were frozen. I can't hold anything cold, my hands go numb in about 30 seconds. A man of what looked like Middle Eastern descent sat at one of the picnic tables, scarfing a pizza down with a palette parked beside him stacked above my head with canned drinks and pre-packaged foods. A grinning little Hispanic girl dangled upside down from the handle of a shopping cart like it was a jungle gym, her long black hair streaming out beneath her.

I found an abandoned cart near the check out lanes and started off back across the store to get my packing tape and frozen items. Sam's is not a place to go when you're in a hurry, or if you have difficulty walking as I do, but where else can you buy six pound bags of meatballs? I'm usually one of those people who is in a hurry, though, and navigating the clumps of families stopped to admire the giant bags of potato chips and cases of green beans without hitting anyone with my cart is always a challenge, but I have many years of experience from working in retail environments so I'm actually very good at it.

I got my meatballs, frozen hamburger patties, my box of little deli spirals hors d'oeuvres that I've been snacking on lately, a six-pack of mailing tape for my Ebay packages, a party sized box of croissants, and a box of Prilosec in a huge plastic package, and packed all the cold stuff in my little thermal storage bag in my trunk and headed off to my next stop.

But first I had to get to the other side of the freeway, which doesn't sound difficult, but we have a new Metro light rail train that runs through the intersection I have to cross coming and going. After about five trains came through, (which is one of the reasons I brought my camera, see below) I finally made it through the left turn light and shot onto the freeway.

I actually planned my errands in a sort of a circle, but the exit ramp I needed was closed for construction, so around the loop I went back north towards the Galleria, exiting at Bellaire Blvd., where some sort of major police activity was taking place because half of the Bellaire PD had turned out with lights flashing on the other side of the intersection, but I was turning so I didn't get to rubberneck.

My next stop was Whole Foods in the middle of the very yuppie, very nice upper class Bellaire/West University part of town, which are actually little incorporated cities within Houston. In Whole Foods all is peaceful and polite, voices are kept low and no one races through in a hurry. Not everyone is wealthy, most of the employees and many of the customers are working class, even the expensive cars in the parking lot usually have at least one bumper sticker (John Kerry for President is the most common), there is even an occasional homeless person hanging out in their eating area, but you feel very safe shopping there. The sheriff's officers that guard the store are very alert.

My shopping list for this store consisted of two items - a dozen bottles of Tazo Iced Green Tea and a new bottle of Bach Elm Flower Essence (helps you when you feel overwhelmed by responsibilities). It's very easy to get distracted in Whole Foods, so I headed straight for the tea aisle. I buy a dozen bottles at a time to get the big 10% case discount and also because they're hard to find in stock. Some sadistic stocker had moved them to the very top shelf, though, so an employee (who was as petite as I was) had to hand them down to me from a stool.

Then over to the vitamin section to get my Flower Essence. I am one of those people that actually uses homeopathic remedies (in additional to my 'real' pharmaceuticals) and they seem to help. At least they make me feel like I'm doing something positive, who knows. I decided to get two different ones, I already had a full bottle of Rescue Remedy and of Olive (helps you when you feel utterly tired both mentally and physically), so I stood there for like ten minutes reading the descriptions on all of the bottles. I would have bought several, but they're $13 a bottle. I only had to fend off two helpful salespeople, they are accustomed to people standing and staring at their shelves with a glazed look. I settled on Mustard, which helps you when you get depressed without any reason, I actually have reasons to be depressed but figured what the hell.

Knowing I had two more stops, I purposely avoided the bakery and their wonderful (cold & perishable) desserts, and went straight to the checkout, where I was actually called over by a clerk who could take me right away, and had a sacker that packed all of my bottles in little individual bags.

Then it was back to my neighborhood for the last two stops. Our two major neighborhood grocery stores, Kroger's and Randall's, sit facing each other across a freeway. They used to be pretty much the same in style and patronage, then Randall's upgraded their furnishings, flooring, became a little more gourmet, dimmed the lighting, added a Starbuck's, a bigger Kosher section and put themselves in the slightly nicer category. The prices are about the same, but you feel a little classier walking through Randall's. The crime stats seem to be about the same for both stores, though. I've been at Kroger's when a woman was robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot, and arrived at Randall's just after an elderly woman who refused to let go of her purse was dragged to death behind a van.

Kroger's does have one thing that Randall's doesn't, pre-popped popcorn in bags (my husband's nightly snack), so I went there first. I also had hoped their customer service would still be open because my car plates expire in a few days, but no luck. I'm more familiar with the layout of Kroger's, so I got my popcorn, some Ritz sour cream & onion chips for me, Starbuck's latte, then filled up the cart with bottled water, 12 packs of toilet paper, boxes of kleenex, cereal, and all the bulky things I usually can't buy in multiples. They had no Diet Mountain Dew for Sparky, though, that stuff goes fast for some reason. Then I grabbed a few small things, just in case Randall's didn't have them - a bag of cat treats, a bottle of contact drops, and on a whim, a tube of Preparation H, which I've never bought before, but I've been having some problems lately so it seemed like a good thing to have around.

The shoppers were mostly very typical of the neighborhood. The store sits on the edge of several older, established neighborhoods, and is bordered by some rather dangerous low-income apartments. There several women pretty much like me - middle class, 30 to 40-ish, with ponytails, jeans and sweatpants. There were a few men the same age, shopping alone, wearing yarmulke's. An older man moved out of my way as I came around the corner, but he didn't move far enough and I had to actually say excuse me to avoid bumping him because he was standing between two carts and apparently had bad depth perception.

Usually I grocery shop a little later in the evening when the more raucous groups are shopping, but tonight it was very quiet. My little slice of Southwest Houston (from South Main up to the Westpark Tollway) got a big chunk of Katrina evacuees from New Orleans (around 23,000 people), and I've noticed they tend to be more nocturnal than most Houstonians, grocery shopping late into the night, and hanging out at the 24 hour Walmart across the street like it was a social club after everything else has closed down for the night. But that's one of the things I love about New Orleans, is all of the night people like myself.

There were actually two checkout lanes open, later in the evening there is usually only one, and I got in line behind a couple of cute little teenaged girls who were buying their two or three items. They had no sense of grocery store etiquette and one of them stood in front of me ogling the magazines instead of moving forward as her items went up the belt, so I just started unloading my bulging cart right in front of her. She didn't move. Toilet paper, kleenex, popcorn, water, Starbucks's, crackers, cat treats, contact drops... oh hell. Come 'on, girl, move forward. Oh good (quickly stuffing the hemorrhoid cream in the middle of the bags of popcorn).

Somehow I managed to put everything neatly into the cart, but the sacker just could't put it back together again, he's stood there looking at it like it was a Rubik's cube, trying to balance heavy things on top of light things, and then finally gave up trying to sack the last few items. Whatever, it's all going straight into the trunk, just give it to me...

Then the final dash back under the freeway to Randall's to get the fresh foods. They have a better bakery and, for some reason, much healthier looking produce. The store was virtually empty, I got a parking spot right in front of the Starbuck's entrance (closed for the evening, though). I browsed through their little gourmet foods section near the entrance, then onto the bakery where I bought way too many carbohydrates. And for some reason every time I go to Randall's I feel like I have to buy a slice of their German Chocolate cake. It's some sort of masochistic thing because I really don't like it that much, just the top layer with the coconut, because it's usually filled with that oily brown icing, but I have to get one and I'm disappointed if they don't have any. On through to the produce to get salad stuff and hamburger fixings, and down the aisle to the canned goods looking for mushrooms in a jar.

At the end of the aisle stands a male model - tall, dark and handsome, just a little too well dressed, looking over the display of imported olives. And as I reach the end and am trying to make the corner, I'm blocked by his girlfriend - even more overdressed in her acid washed jeans, expensive heels, leather jacket and carrying a very large, very tacky handbag with the word Prada emblazoned across the front in huge letters. Well, at least he's not gay. I'm wondering what these very spoiled, screaming wealthy, beautiful people are doing in this neighborhood. Maybe they need olives for their martinis, the man has a little hand basket with nothing in it. The woman looks like someone dressed her and carefully blew her hair straight for a society event, very casual chic. The guy looks like he gets regular manicures. Neither of them even looked up at me as I almost ran over here with my cart trying to take the corner without knocking over any of the floor displays. She didn't even move as I scraped the wheels of the cart sideways, just stood there smack in the middle of the aisle.

Normally I would have given her an excuse me, but I was afraid I'd laugh out loud. No, I don't hate you because you're beautiful, maybe because you're extremely high maintenance, but I do dislike you because you're so obviously not in touch with reality or anything that is happening around you. We have a lot of beautiful people in Houston, but you don't run into them in grocery stores very often, especially in my neighborhood at 9 pm.

I got my soda, and went to the far end of the store for the dairy section, where I stood searching for 2% milk among lots of unfamiliar labels (I usually get my dairy stuff at Kroger's), and our of the corner of my eye I see a hand reach out past me and grab a carton of milk off the shelf, then holler across the store 'I got the milk'. I turned to see a young teenage boy with long greasy hair, his arms pulled out of his oversized shirt, wearing it like a poncho, go skipping back across the store. Yikes, I must be tired, I didn't even hear him coming.

He and a gaggle of other odd looking teenagers, and what looked like their adult guardian were buzzing around the checkout like bees when I got up to the front, laughing and shouting and bouncing around with way too much energy. None of the checkout lane lights were on, so I pulled up behind them only to have the checkout person shout out 'I'm closed' as he waved me on to the next lane, where two cartons of ice cream sat on the end, just off the belt. Should I move them? No, I just started unloading my cart around them. About half way through, a young black woman wandered over and plopped a couple of items next to the cartons of ice cream. Whatever, I already had a bunch of stuff unloaded, she lost her place by wandering off. About that time I was up, and handed the checker my discount card and said loudly 'paper please' to the sacker, and hurriedely finished placing the rest of my items on the belt.

Somehow I had managed to collect another basket full of grocery sacks, and pulled my cart out into the parking lot, dodging the speed bump and opened all my doors and trunk to awkwardly stuff the new backs in with the other three store's worth of items. I pushed the cart behind the car next to me, and then when I'd gotten in and closed my door, I noticed the car when I went to grab my seatbelt. It was very sleek, very new & shiny, well maintained and I recognized it as an obviously imported German Mercedes two seater. A lot of the execs at the department store I used to work at would display their expensive trophy cars on the ground floor of the parking garage in the reserved spaces created just for them.

I guess the male model would actually have to touch a shopping cart to get his car out. I didn't put it there on purpose, I was just too tired to push it all the way back to the ramp and onto the sidewalk. But it did make me laugh out loud again as I backed my car out and headed home.

Well crap, my husband has had several friends who have committed suicide since we've been together. And several more who have died suddenly. Most of our friends are artists and fanboys and fangirls, perhaps there's more drama in our crowd than most. I actually had the misfortune of being with Sparky when we went to check on one of his friends, years ago, whose out-of-state family was worried about his well-being because he had AIDS, and so my husband had a key to his apartment and when we went to check on him, he'd shot himself in the head.

Earlier this year, another friend of his, who had moved out of the city several years before, had intricately planned her own demise on the anniversary of her failed wedding, down to leaving notes and wills, and slitting her own throat in the bathtub. She was a brilliant yet unappreciated artist and had designated who would get each piece of her artwork in her notes.

Now today we find out that the big story from Monday's news turned out to be about another old friend of his, whom he hadn't seen in person in years, but had apparently been depressed enough to coax the Houston Police department into shooting her after a car chase, news copters on scene and all. She was a very sweet, quiet and kind girl, she came to our house to visit during the 90's then drifted away when we moved. Sparky had known her since the 1970's, meeting her through the fan and convention circuit, she was a fellow movie collector and she actually gave him quite a bit of her collection over the years, he never understood why and would make videos for her as a "trade", but apparently she wanted her things to go to a nice home.

She worked for the Department of Public Safety in the driver's license bureau, we had spoken several times of our mutual desire (and failure) to become police officers. The news reports said she had been hospitalized, not shown up to work and had stopped taking her medicine, so her employer sent the Houston Police looking for her, and they found her driving around in her truck with her sister. They tried to stop her, she out ran them, they spiked her tires and as she pulled over, her sister tossed a gun out of the window.

And Angie jumped out of her truck, retrieved the gun and raised it towards her sister and the police shot her, she was dead on the scene. And that's all we know so far. The news reports say there are rumours that she was suicidal, if that was true she was successful. She certainly went out big, the incident created a huge traffic jam in the area during rush hour, and she was the top story on the evening news. She was 48 years old.

The few times I've mulled over the idea of suicide, I've always leaned towards the non-painful methods. I have a gun, but would not like to be shot, with my luck I'd end up being paralyzed or something worse. I don't like knives, if anyone ever finds me dead of anything other than an overdose of something sedating, please consider it a homicide. I used to drive so much in my work I always figured if anything unnatural happened to me it would be a major car accident. Lord knows I've had enough of the things.

But even at my most depressed, I wasn't selfish enough to leave my parents, pets or husband behind. And my biggest fear is I'll have to come right back and start all over again. I believe in reincarnation, and the idea of starting over scares the hell out of me, especially in today's screwed up world.

This morning's paper has the story Group Question's Motorists Shooting. That's nice - I hope someone does. But from my years of law enforcement experience, if someone really wants to kill themself they usually do it. The people that threaten and whine about it constantly don't.

I hate drama. I don't ever want to be on the news, for anything, good or bad. I can't believe what's going on all over the world now, and everyone knows and sees every detail. And no one does anything about it. We all just hide in our homes, hoping it won't touch our little lives.

Related links:

ABC Houston News
CBS Houston News
NBC Houston News

As of this Monday, my friend is back in her home in New Orleans after over a month on the run. Her home survived, though it did get the mandantory spray painted government symbols on their newly painted front door (why not on the plywood over the windows she wondered), and they did have to replace their refrigerator which sat idle with the electiricity off for weeks (did you know they are not actually airtight, flies & bugs can get inside, yuck). But it was not a good refrigerator anyway and was leaking on my last visit. They have elecricity and air conditioning, and running water but it is still not drinkable (she says it smells like dirt). Her cats don't understand why they can't drink from the faucet or play with ice cubes, though.

The city is under a curfew of 8 pm, so they're sort of trapped in their own home. And my friends are "going out" kind of people - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Shopping and movies. At nights the city is silent, only a few neighbors have returned, the few businesses that have been able to reopen have to close early. The streetcar line runs right in front of her house but the streetcars and buses are not running. An occasional military vehicle will drive down the street, spotlighting the houses (oops, last call for the corner bar which is open).

The last time I visited was in July, a few days before Hurricane Dennis. I slept on an air mattress in their upstairs study which faced the street, and I had forgotten my Ambien and lay awake for like four hours even though I was exhausted. The lights and noise from the street never stopped. Constant cars flying by, the streetcars clanging till late in the night, tourists and college students walking in front of the house laughing and talking, music drifitng in from the businesses less than a block away...

The swamp is trying to reclaim the city. In tropical climates like New Orleans and Houston, we get trucks regularly spraying for mosquitoes, nightly in the peak of summer. But the mosquitoes are swarming, breeding like crazy from the standing water. My friend grew up in a little town just outside of New Orleans, she said it's like being in the country. Quiet and dark and still except for the buzz of the insects. This summer they built a fountain in their back courtyard and this week she bought some goldfish to eat the mosquito eggs and other critters which have been moving into the pool since they left, it seems to be helping.

Her handyman brother came in from Germany to help with her mother's house, which got about three feet of water inside of it even though she's just a few miles away, most of her mom's furniture and personal belongings were upstairs. He and her husband have been over there during the day starting on the cleanup and trying to repair her mom's brand new generator (bought in anticipation of Dennis), which also got water in it. Her mom is staying in another aunt's house near the airport (where everyone seems to be judging by the traffic), with another of her brother's who has not been able to move back into his home. The water is drinkable there, she says she's having to take her baby there to bath her safely. She has two mini storage rooms she has been unable to get into (one first floor and one upstairs) because the company that runs them has not reopened yet. She knows the downstairs one was flooded, but in early August they moved a bunch of furniture they had been storing while the living room was painted back into their home, but she says there is still a lot of stuff in there.

She said the entire city looks like a child's play set that has been kicked around - a couple of houses will be fine, then the next one the roof or the second story will be torn off. Massive trees are still down all over, when I was there in July there were still some trees down from the storm just before Dennis... How are people supposed to keep up? (And how the hell do people manage to live in Florida this time of year?) I asked her where her mail was being forwarded to and she said she hadn't even gotten around to forwarding it yet. She was going to forward it to Beaumont, but then Rita chased them back into Louisiana.

Through it all, though, she says her baby is actually sleeping pretty well, now. She's going to have the most resilient child after all of this. I told her baby Arianne will think she's a gypsy from all the moving around. Hopefully they're back home for good now...

A normal day in the French Quarter...

I spoke with my poor gypsy friend today, she only had a cell phone to communicate with and last time I spoke with her she was trying to conserve power because they had no electricity so I haven't called her in a few days. Turns out they were only out of power for like half a day, and Rita didn't damage her grandmother's house, which is where she, her husband, her baby, three cats, two cousins and now her brother and grandmother are all currently staying. Her mom and her aunt and uncle are still holed up in Shreveport with no word on whether their Beaumont home survived the storm or not. She's hearing that it may be possible for them to return to New Orleans soon, another brother of her's is actually going to fly in from Germany to help repair her mother's flooded house, he's an all around handyman guy also, which will be much needed because getting a contractor to do anything in New Orleans in 'normal' times is difficult enough.

On a good note, her baby is getting used to being driven all over the state and sleeping in different places constantly, so she apparently has her mommy's adaptability genes. For some reason my dad always marveled over how "adaptable" I was as a child when things went differently than expected, but I think I was just the peacemaker and hated to see anyone argue. I'm not at all adaptable compared to my friend Mary, she has so much stamina and has that Creole "life goes on" trait to the max, I really admire her for it. She's been learning to be a mom while having to travel with a newborn across two states. She and her husband are great travelers, though, Sparky and I are not. There are a lot of places I want to see... but the comfort of my home is very hard to leave. We both love our home, just give us our electricity, cable TV/internet, AC and running water and it's hard to find a reason to leave.

Some friend of ours in North Houston lost their power for four days, and got a lot of tree damage from the winds, they live in a heavily wooded area. They said it got so hot in their home that five of their fish died. We had actually anticipated losing our power at the very least, possibly the water also, but our neighborhood was virtually unscathed. There are rolling blackouts around the Houston area, which combined with an abnormal heat wave, is making life hell for a lot of people here.

I ventured out of the house tonight to drive to the ATM and make a deposit and took a quick tour of our area to see what was open. It looked like most businesses had opened back up, but I know a lot of them are still very understocked and understaffed. My dad is buddies with the manager of our local Kroger's and he told him that they tried opening up on Sunday for part of the day but had to close the store early because they were basically mobbed and ran out of food. I'm very glad I managed to get at least the basics (which thankfully didn't spoil from a power outage) so we still have milk, eggs, bread and way too many cocktail croissants (from Sam's Club). I noticed people were still driving semi-hysterically, and there were a lot of people walking (people won't walk here) so that was a little weird.

But we're already making our list of things to still get for the next storm, and there is a brand spanking new one brewing already. Can this one please go somewhere else, maybe to Mexico? Just give us a chance to pick up a little, get everyone back home and drain New Orleans again?

A disturbing theory about the New Orleans levee break had been rattling around my head, nothing is too strange to be true these days, and I did a Google search and apparently I'm not the only one who this grotesque idea occurred to.

After listening to the horsie man testify today, I'm about ready to believe anything about these evil bastards.
And I also heard tonight that for some strange reason that even though Governor Blanco asked for emergency assistance for the entire state, that Orleans and Jefferson Parishes (i.e. New Orleans proper) were not included on the President's emergency declaration, curiouser and curiouser...

One more note, FEMA ran a Hurricane exercise (Hurricane Pam) last summer anticipating a storm surge topping the New Orleans levees and their own report says they would have the situation all under control.

It is very weird here in Houston. Still very quiet. It sort of freaks me out to think I can't go to the grocery store, book store or even the bank if I need to. At least the post office was opened today (we got mail - yea!). We didn't get a newspaper for several days, then we got three at once. My husband's bank was still closed today. The cable and my internet connection went out last night for hours and there was no one to call... spooky.

Normally none of these things would disturb me after a hurricane, except we never got any rain. There's not even any wind damage. It's all very Twilight Zone, I hope I don't break my glasses...

I'm still using up the food in the freezer, but Sparky's not using the ice quickly enough, we've still got way too much. Next hurricane I'll have to stock up on TV dinners, I bought a bunch of soup this time, but I'm saving it for the next one. It's hard to be in the mood for soup when it's 100 degrees outside.

We've been on a home improvement kick this year, a friend of the family is a certified electrician and also a plumber, carpenter and painter and my parents and I have been alternately employing his services. He just installed a new light fixture over my desk to replace the hideous original chandelier (which had 2 of it's 5 lights left working besides being grotesquely ugly), and was supposed to come over last weekend to replace the plumbing hardware in my bathtub, but we've rescheduled because the Home Depot needs to be open when he comes to get parts. We've been getting vintage 50's & 60's light shades to replace the cheapie stuff the previous owners slapped up to sell the house. And to replace the ceiling fan over our bed, besides being shiny, tacky brass with glaring tulip lights, I don't like to sleep under a fan, and just having it hovering over my feet all day is bad Feng Shui.

We also ordered a new range hood from Lowe's a few weeks ago that should have been here by now, the knob snapped off our old noisy one we're getting a pretty new black one that should suck the cooking smells out a lot better and be quiet enough I can hear the TV when I'm cooking. Sparky's going to have him add shelves to the closet where he stores his 16mm projectors and films, getting everything off the floor in anticipation of a flooded house prompted him into putting that project at the top of the list. I had my dream closet shelving installed a few months ago in my office and my Ebay closet, I still haven't figured out what to do with the bedroom closet. Someday my dream is to knock out the master bathroom and closet and add on to that part of the house, but that's way in the future (along with Sparky's movie screening room).

Just rambling tonight... going to bed now, it's past 6 am (oops).

Something I did not think I'd be doing 24 hours after Hurricane Rita came through - sitting in the air conditioning, with the lights on using my computer. How bizarre...

All week our local newspeople have been doing pretty much 24/7 broadcasts telling everyone that Rita was heading right at the Houston/Galveston area, that it was bigger than Katrina, even bigger than the turn of the century hurricane that flattened Galveston Island, and that we were all basically SOL and it was time to flee in a blind panic as far away as possible. At least 31 people died on the highways trying to escape, but no one died in the storm itself.

We spent last night watching historic buildings in Galveston burn to the ground, and sitting around waiting for the gale force winds and rain to come out way. The power and cable blinked, but never went off. We got about ten minutes worth of rain, some pretty hellacious winds which rocked the house and kept me awake till dawn (and some pretty brisk winds that continued most of the day), but that's all. Rita veered off towards the Louisiana border as it got near and we were spared.

I've watched the news sporadically today, mostly to see who did get pounded, and it looks like the whole area from Beaumont, Texas to Lake Charles, Louisiana got the worst of it. High winds and flooding, even poor New Orleans lost one of their levees all over again and part of the Ninth Ward filled back up with water.

My friend called me early this morning to let me know they were OK, she hadn't spoken with her mom and brother yet, though, who had evacuated into the storm's path to Shreveport. They still did not have electricity. I just drove to Beaumont last week to see her for her birthday (and to meet her new daughter). I hope when the power comes back on they are more comfortable in their new temporary home, they were very cramped in her aunt & uncle's home, though at least they were in a decent sized town with a few things to do and some nice restaurants. They're much closer to New Orleans now, which is good, but I've been to her grandmother's house in Franklin and there's not much to do there. I know they're dying to get back to New Orleans, and her poor mom's house got several feet of water in it so they have lots of work that's waiting for them. Her mom had been wanting to move anyway, but not like this.

Houston is a ghost town. We live on a busy through street and Sparky only saw one car go by yesterday. I've heard a few go by today. Everything is closed down, even though we barely got any rain. The post office, gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants... Part of the city are still under a curfew. The people in charge are trying to get all of the people who fled north to return on an orderly schedule over the next few days, but the influx has already begun. I can't blame them, I'm so glad we didn't have to leave our home.

Sparky has gone from panic attacks to giddy relief, thank goodness. I'm exhausted, my Multiple Sclerosis has flared up from all the running around and the whole apocalyptic thing day after day, when I woke up this afternoon I thought I'd be spending the day in bed but I had a little burst of energy. My skin is really broken out too, which it never does. We're going to stay sequestered in our nice, cool, dry house eating out food reserves till the city gets somewhat back to normal. My parents were lamenting the fact that they couldn't order Italian delivery tonight, and I have to admit I'm missing my usual weekend Mexican food delivery, but it sure beats the alternative - scooping water out of our house or worse. Sparky wanted to replace the carpet in the den, he's decided to wait till this year's hurricane season is over.

So we're just sort of sitting around waiting for the rain to start and the power to go out. Sparky is hoping it will stay on till at least 11 pm so we can watch Bill Maher's show tonight. The winds have been whipping around pretty energetically since late afternoon, glad we had the trees trimmed back. The local weather guy has been taking frantic phone calls from people non-stop, as well as the mayor and some other city and meteorology officials, but I'm tired of watching them all.

The streets (and apparently the freeways also) are now clear, it's very eerie not t see cars going past our house, we live on a pretty busy through street.

I just spoke to my NOLA friend who evacuated to the town of Franklin, Louisiana, she has the most amazing cell phone, mine barely works in good weather. They're without power and it been raining all afternoon, but so far so good. Looking at the latest satellite pics, Rita is just sort of skimming the coast of Louisiana on it's way to knock out the Golden Triangle of Texas, home to a large number of oil refineries and a huge port operation.

We've cooked up as much as we could from the freezer, eaten the rest of the ice cream (that's what my friend was doing also when I spoke with her). I wish I were hungrier, out of habit I bought some Hershey's Milkshakes that will go bad if the power is out too long (Vanilla Cream, yumm), and some yoghurt.

Our bathtub is filled with water (we had to manually plug it up, we both forgot the stopper is broken dammit). We have several recycling bins full of water byt Sparky insists on leaving them outside (he's afraid they will spill). We've got our flashlights and a couple of those little touchlights stationed around the house. After the last power outage I actually an Energizer portable lamp (so I might be able to actually read in the dark).

The cat is normally calm during storms but even she can tell this is not a normal storm coming. She perches on the back of the couch, listening to the house creak.

I've answered all of my Ebay emails I could and put a little banner on my storefront to let people know if my email bounces or I don't answer, to please be patient with me for a few days. With all this preparation, my hope is that nothing at all will happen. I tend to overprepare for things, I overpack like crazy for trips, but I know the one time I underprepare I'll be screwed. Better to look like an idiot with too much stuff, IMHO.

Sparky just saw on the news where all of the FEMA trucks are arriving at Reliant Park (aka the Astrodome area) so they'll be ready to move on into the storm damaged areas. Got to make it look good this time, though I would think that would only just piss off the Katrina victims more. We had our first major Rita-related catastrophe today, a busload of senior citizens, evacuating from my part of town (my aunt had stayed at the same nursing home before she died), were basically burned alive when their bus caught on fire and all of their oxygen tanks blew up. That was the first news I heard when Sparky woke me up this morning (can he possibly be the bearer of GOOD news for a change???).

I'm making "to do" list to keep for the next killer storm. Things we should have but don't - an Igloo cooler (we thought we had one, but I think it was tossed several years ago), some duct tape and heavy plastic in case of glass breakage, more snacks that don't require heating (more PopTarts, maybe some cookies, pastries), more HandiWipes, some sort of protein (beef jerky or something), and even more flashlights and batteries.

Oh well, gotta go, probably getting close to time to unplug the computer...

OK, it's not calm at all, it's chaos. But tonight it finally seems a little less 'end of the world'.

Things I didn't think I'd be doing the night before a Category 4/5 hurricane - prying the bell off a cat collar. Our cat is indoors and doesn't wear a collar, it wouldn't last a day on her, but I bought one anyway at Petsmart earlier this week, along with a makeshift tag and extra cat food. Just in case. The collar is black and has stars and moons on it. And a black bell. They all had bells (is that a law or something?) but with the help of a pair of jewelry pliers I managed to get the damn thing off. A collar is bad enough, but a bell would drive her completely insane. One of the first things I did get when we brought her home a few years ago was a nice, comfy carrier (my husband used to transport his cats in pillow cases), so at least we've got the cat covered for the storm.

When we found out this weekend that Rita was most likely coming for us, I went out hurricane shopping Monday night. It seemed pretty busy, and they had a lot of your basic survival stuff out in the main aisles, but then I went to the Walmart closest to the Astrodome. After 9 pm, at which time of night there may as well be a disco ball in the store because that's where the party is always happening. But even more so the last few weeks. There were lots of disoriented and very exotic people strolling the aisles looking for basics and bargains. I went there to get a waterproof, fireproof filebox ( knew they had them) and Sparky asked me to get a little battery operated TV ("they're only about $15).

I found the filebox ($37 bucks and weighs a fricking ton), then went and looked for handi wipes (on the hurricane preparedness list and I needed some anyway), but the shelf was wiped clean. I wandered down to sporting goods and found a cheapie big flashlight to add to our collection for a mere $3.50, then went towards electronics. They had a big kiosk full of batteries, $4.87 a 4-pack... hmmm, I could probably find them cheaper as Sam's Club, but figured I'd better grab some anyway, we were low. Just for the heck of it I picked up a package of paper plates, one of paper bowls, but they were sold out of plastic utensils. Oh well.

Around the corner to electronics and they had a floor to ceiling display of little cheapie DVD players, boomboxes and portable TV combos. Wow, the storm was just announced and they've already got a huge display (of course it occurred to me later that they had been selling this kind of stuff for weeks to the evacuees, duh). They only had one style with a TV (radio & CD combo), damn, it's $35. I was very short of funds Monday night, I hadn't been doing as many auctions on Ebay as usual because of all of the Katrina depression, and Sparky hadn't given me much cash (he decided to pay the monthly bills a few weeks early and I owed him half of that amount), and I needed to go to the grocery store this evening also, but OK, we'll need a little TV if the power goes out.

Then onto Kroger's to get real food... all of our normal backup canned stuff had been donated to other causes the last few months (and some of it was near expiring from last year), so I got some soup, veggies, tuna (bleecch, only for emergencies), some Jelly Bellies (they had buttered popcorn flavor, yeah!), crackers, blueberry Pop-Tarts, a box of granola bars, and some real food. I figured we'd eat up some of our frozen food this week in case we lost power. All of the gallons of bottled water were already gone (happens every hurricane), but they had my Evian so I grabbed a couple of six packs and also some Starbucks Frappuccinos. And a box of cat litter and two 12 packs of toiler paper.

But when I got to the checkout I decided to unload the small items first in case I didn't have enough money, and of course I didn't. So for some stupid reason, I put back one of the Evians, plus the cat litter, Starbucks and one of the toilet papers. I was sending Sparky out for his own bottled water tomorrow anyway, I'd just add that to the list. Wow, big mistake. The next day the hurricane panic really kicked in here in town. Sparky got lucky and actually found some bottled water (no Evian, though) at the dollar store, but that was all he bought.

Out I went again Tuesday after dinner, but now it truly was chaos. Wide-eyed fear and panic everywhere. The first stop was Petsmart, where people were panicking and buying crates and carriers (and cat collars and even cat leashes), and huge bags of pet food. Next came Sam's Club, to get a couple of prescriptions and things like batteries (my parents had asked me to pick some up for them also), but when I turned the corner onto Fannin, the cars were backed up just trying to turn into the parking lot... which looked like Memorial City Mall at Christmas time. There were no carts, of course, but when I walked through the doors I realized I wouldn't be carrying anything heavy because a herd of something had tramples and ransacked the big battery display, which now consisted of only empty boxes strewn all over the floor. Crap. Lots of AAA and 9-volts, but that was all that was left. And all of the lanes were open, but there every single lane had people waiting with full baskets as far as I could see. So I grabbed some croissants and a box of cheesesteak sandwiches and went to check out at the pharmacy, which had all three of my prescriptions ready. My doctor's office had woke me up that morning to tell me they needed to "see me" before they could refill my asthma inhaler, to which I replied "you know there's a hurricane coming this week, could I see her next week instead?".

So then it was back to Kroger's, which had almost as many people in it. I could barely maeuver through the store, but at least they had some carts left. I grabbed another toilet paper, my unscented cat litter, the Starbucks again, but the entire water aisle was empty. No Evian, no Perrier, not even that stuff in the blue bottles. So for some odd reason I picked up a case of cream soda for me (yeah, that's a good substitute for water), which is weird because I hardly drink sodas, but in retrospect Coke would have made a lot more sense, and I got more Diet Mountain Dew for Sparky. He had said the dollar store had "tons of batteries this morning" (why the hell didn't he get any??), so I went there, but they were all gone.

I was getting sort of shaky from not eating, and all of the waiting in line, and just people everywhere, but I decided to make one more try at batteries at Home Depot, which was on the way home. They actually had some AA's, which both me and my parents needed, but no D's or C's of course. And people were buying plywood (this is Houston, no one boards up their windows, how weird...), and all of the flashlights were also gone...

I finally got home (damn I forgot to buy ice, more errands for Sparky) and just kept thinking of more things we needed. Monday night it had been "just another hurricane", but Rita was growing bigger and bigger and predictions were now for a Category 4 or even 5 storm. I've been through lots of hurricanes, even worked through Alicia as a security officer, but never anything that big. We have all new storm windows in out house, we're up pretty high, Sparky even had the forethought to have the trees trimmed, and a dying one (which stood next to the house and the power lines), but still... a Category 4? Yikes.

By Tuesday night, poor Sparky, who had been watching the TV coverage all day ("worst storm ever... bigger than Katrina!") was just a bundle of nerves. And he kept asking me questions like I was God, "What will happen? Will our house survive? Will we flood? Where are we on the map on TV? Are we all going to die?"... I don't know, no one knows!!! Please take a Lorazepam (I got them refilled also) and calm the fuck down. But we never considered leaving, we love our house too much. We've got way too much stuff. And our parents are in town, mine just down the street.

He went out Wednesday and found some ice and enough C batteries (at yeat a different dollar store, he likes thos joints) to make me and my parents feel better (his damn TV takes 10 of the things), then came home and woke me up every half hour (sigh). Wednesday night he refused to let me go out foraging for more food (and Evian) again, and I was too tired to go anyway. By this time all of the streets (and freeways) were full of people panicking and/or leaving town it was too dangerous anyway. So I packed the rest of my Ebay packages for him to mail the next morning. Now the storm was moving a little more towards the east, which was good for us and Galveston, but bad for Beaumont and Louisiana. I spoke with my friend on the phone who told me they were going to have to evacuate Beaumont now, and had to do it tonight before they closed off I-10 East because they were planning to go back to Louisiana and stay at her grandmother's house.

Thursday he woke me up to tell me the post office was closed down (what?? it wasn't even raining), and that our trash had not been picked up (dammit), and that the storm was moving a little bit more towards the Texas-Louisiana border, which meant my friend would be on the far east side of the storm and we would be on the far west side of it. But Sparky was much less hysterical today. I've gathered up all of our important papers and put them in the monster file box, we've put all of our ice into big gallon ziplocks bags (my genius friend suggested that to keep them from leaking as they melted), and we've picked up a lot of things off the floor, and taken lost of photos of the house, just in case.

I understand why my normally indifferent neighbors are panicking, they've seen that if something horrible happens to you, no one is coming to help. People are running out of gas right now, trying to get out of the city, but the traffic isn't moving. I hope all of this is a false alarm and this is just a 'normal' hurricane. But I know next time we're going to be a lot more prepared in advance. There's still two more months left in hurricane season.

Some real horror stories from people stranded in New Orleans by FEMA... um, by Hurricane Katrina...

Escape from New Orleans, the harrowing tale of two San Francisco EMS workers in town for a convention

How We Survived the Flood by Charmaine Neville (yes, of the Neville family)

Rescue worker and evacuee diaries:

The Blog of a Socialist Worker's journey through the storm damaged areas

Dispatches from Tanganyika, New Orleans author Poppy Z. Brite's journal including her ongoing efforts to save her menagerie of 26 pets that had to be left behind at her house (14 recovered so far)

The Shattered Prayer, a very literate weblog of another displaced New Orleanian

Truth in Media... finally?

The government was attempting to block the US Media from covering any of the body recovery in New Orleans and Mississippi, but CNN stood up to them and won

It's amazing how much people start to care when they actually see the truth and not just scripted propaganda on their TV screens

And it's heartening to how citizens really react when not hand picked and made to sign loyalty oaths before "viewing" the royalty

Comment on yesterday's post:

Eek -- that article about the Pope chilled me to the bone. I'm sure it's because the idea of it is in itself a revelation, so to speak; it rings so true, makes so much sense -- despite all rational thought to the contrary.

The time has come, perhaps, to abandon all rational thought.

That's what we have come to... this is one of those situations that the emotional and illogical James T. Kirk must solve... Spock's logic is obviously not working. Maybe there is a great vampiric monster that feeds off of chaos and despair, just sucking up the emotions of the world. But so many in this world, especially in America, have just become emotionally dead instead of panicked and paranoid. Your mind and body can't stay on high alert forever, eventually you just go numb. I didn't use to be a conspiracy theorist but I've even wondered if maybe they put something in the Viagra, or the Prozac to numb us all, muddle our thinking and keep us quiet while they raped and looted the world right in front of us, and told us not to believe our own eyes and ears. That everything they're doing is "for our own good" and is necessary.

I'm a very literal, logical person.. I'm a Capricorn. I've always been that way. I'm not comfortable with high emotions, they fray my nerves and drain my energy. When someone does something seemingly irrational, I can almost always think of some motivation to explain "why" from their warped perspective. A lot of violence is motivated by anger, which often comes from fear. One of many reasons I thought I'd be good at law enforcement was because I could view things very objectively - dissect the emotions from the action and see past the immediate distractions. My Aquarian husband sees things through his emotions first, and always from his own point of view. He takes everything personally, and thinks other people react the way he does. Not a lot of grey in between. His perspective is actually the norm for most people, and is usually not the best way to deal with problems. I've spent my life seeking out the grey areas, but now I'm beginning to focus on the black and white ends of the spectrum, it's the only way I think I'm going to remain sane.

Sorry... I'm rambling. But the more I analyze the world of today, the more I'm realizing that the mess we're in right now really is a matter of black and white. And not skin color, but just basically good and bad. And the bad is going to destroy the white and all of the shades of grey if we don't do something to stop it. And it's so obvious what is going on. We need to believe our eyes and hearts and shut off the nagging voice in our heads that says "no one would let people starve... let people die... kill people... just for money and power". Yes, apparently they would.

The German people thought "no one would commit genocide in these modern times", but they did. As long as we keep believing "they wouldn't really do that" they'll keep doing it. As long as we let them. What have they got to lose? We need to refind our sense of righteous indignation and self-worth and learn to just say NO, you can't do that. And ignore all the distractions they are throwing at us to confuse and disorient us, just focus on the elephant behind the curtain.

And stop believing just because someone on TV says something is right, it must be (they must be smarter than us - they're on TV), when we KNOW it's wrong. We need to stand up for ourselves and not just nod and say nothing when we disagree. We still know what is right and what is wrong, and if we keep saying nothing and "going along" it won't make it better, it will just keep getting worse.

Mural on the front of a voodoo shop, I believe this is Island of Salvation Botanica

OK,, if they're not evil cyborgs, the only theory that makes sense is...

... George Bush really is the Antichrist and is here to bring on the end of the world.

Apparently he's competant at something. I mean, really, he's got all the money, all the power, what else can he possibly want?

Hmmm, if he can control the weather, maybe that means Texas will be safe...

Wow, even the Pope suspected...

I've spent the night editing the scans I did the other night of my extra New Orleans postcards, I have over 50 of them... this one brings back memories of visiting with my parents, looking at it fullscreen just made me want to cry...

And the only logical theory I can think of to explain the insanity that's going on in our country is...

...the Neocons are actually evil cyborgs from Mars that are here to take over the planet.

No actual human being could behave like this during a time of such crisis, even accidentally.

Royal at Esplanade Street -- click image for larger view

OK, I think the digestive problems I had the other day were not caused by food poisoning but by an accumulation of nerves and stress. I have a hiatal hernia and my entire upper abdomen has been swollen, painful and feels like there is a large rock in there, especially when I am moving around. I haven't had problems much in that area lately and I'm trying to remember what the hell to take for it. I used to take a generic anti-spasmodic called Hyoscyamine (sp?) but I think when I went to the doctor for my physical last I got a version with Belladonna in it, which I took once and had head to toe hives afterward so I dunno... It's been hurting for three days now, I might call my stranded friend and see if her husband can call me the old prescription in... I hate to bug him for something silly like that, but he's helped me out with antibiotics and things before.

Speaking of, I haven't talked to my friend Mary today. We tend to be late night chatters and I hate to think I'm going to wake up her baby, husband, and other relatives by calling too late. She's been mostly using her cellphone, but since her former household is all in one room now I think I'll let her call me.

I made a grocery store run tonight, we were starting to run out of "important" things like Sparky's Diet Mountain Dew and popcorn. And I was down to one minibag of Watermelon Jelly Bellies, my current sugar addiction. I actually like the Buttered Popcorn flavored ones better, but the little kiosk in my grocery store has only had Watermelon, Cinnamon and now Licorice (and several little multiflavor bags, I may have to get one of the Tropical Asst. next). I've falled off the sugar and candy wagon again... I'd like to start drinking again but I've been having too many bladder related problems and really don't want to deal with that right now.

I went to the store after dinner because I had to get some DVDs up on Ebay if I want to have any money at all this weekend (my commission people need to be paid), and I didn't get hardly anything done this past week. The store was full of unfamiliar faces, and a few yuppies trying to get their stuff and get out as fast as possible. I have to admit to one actual moment of being a little worried when a group of black teenagers got a little too excited in the back of the store, which I was headed to. They didn't sound violent, just way too excited to be in a grocery store at 10 pm on a Monday night. There were lots of young people shopping tonight, not at all the normal clientele. And some of the young men who worked there were discussing an episode of someone being robbed for flashing too much money, nice...

Last week's shopping trip was actually much more dangerous, and that was several days before the storm even hit. A young woman was robbed at gunpoint while I was in the store shopping, and because the way the place is laid out (it's a huge maze after a recent remodel, bad idea guys), all I could hear was someone screaming and cursing and them a lot of banging around. When I got back up towards the front of the store, I saw a young black female bodybuilder that I had passed earlier (she was beautiful, you had to notice her), pacing back and forth at the front of the store, screaming into her cellphone, and there were some displays of bicycles and things laying on their sides in her wake, which would explain the crashing sound. I had to sideline one of the sackers to escort me out to get the story of what actually happened.

I got an escort out tonight too. Besides feeling like crap (I had to load and unload all of the groceries once already), Sparky had heard some stories from the convenience store in our neighborhood that they were going to such extremes as not selling money orders after 4:00 pm for the safety of their customers and themselves, because there were a lot more people than normal walking around the area. So as my sacker is helping me out the door, and I'm trying to balance the cart (I stuff as much as possible into it each time, I hate to grocery shop) three police cars with lights and sirens fly down the street, in a huge fricking hurry. When I was a few blocks from my turn-in, I saw where they all were... right at the end of my street, great. There must have been eight police cars, two ambulances and I'm sure some wreckers in the melee, I turned in a few blocks early because it appeared the street was blocked in both directions. They were all out there for about an hour, so it was probably an auto accident.

There's just too much drama, I hate drama. I could live the rest of my life without any more drama, but there's just no way to avoid it. I think I'm going to channel some of my energy into ransacking my wardrobe and looking for things to give to charity. It looks like there are a few clothing donation centers that aren't too far away that I can give clothing to the hurricane victims, Star of Hope and Goodwill. I used to give to the Houston Women's Center a lot, but they stopped accepting donations directly. Purging with a cause makes me feel better, and I still have a lot more clothes than I wear working at home. I've given several cash donations to the Red Cross, Noah's Wish, the Houston Humane Society, and the Houston Humane Society (which I give to fairly regularly anyway), every little bit helps.

Excerpts from today's New York Times op-ed article:

Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?"

Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.

I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

Royal Street at night.. click on the image to see the larger photo in a new window


I have lots of photos of New Orleans (B.K.) that I've taken over the last few years that I've been meaning to put up on the New Orleans page of my main website, so I'm going to post some here just to give myself something positive to do. I've also been meaning to change the focus of the page away from Anne Rice and more towards New Orleans in general. I haven't read an Anne Rice book in years (nothing personal, too busy), and the annual parties are (were) mostly very small private affairs that I did not attend. And Ms. Rice has finally moved away from her beloved NOLA (did she know something we didn't?).

People write me occasionally to ask me what to do, where to go in New Orleans, and want details on the disbanded fan club, but alas, I don't live there, I'm just one of the many people who worship the city. I grew up going on vacations there with my family, went there many times as an adult to visit, attended quite a few of the ARVLFC balls, and my best friend (who grew up in the area) moved back there at the turn of the century.

It's always been my dream to live there, I figured I'd probably move there when I was older and my family in Houston no longer needed me. I even considered joining the police department back during a solo 1989 trip, but the salary was so low it wasn't really a practical option.

To those of us who grew up on the Gulf Coast, this is our 9/11. Except imagine the buildings burning for days on end, instead of hours. People stood in the gaping, broken windows for five days, pleading and screaming for help... At least they have finally cleared the Superdome and Convention Center, that was just too heartbreaking to watch. Especially when celebrities and news crews didn't seem to have any problems getting in, but the government seemed to be completely baffled, as if they had never seen water before.

I've been listening to Cassandra Wilson's Belly of the Sun on repeat this evening, Songs like "You Gotta Move", "Darkness on the Delta" and "Shelter From the Storm" are even more poignant and moving than usual.

And an added note, before Sparky went to bed he was flipping channels and we saw Celine Dion's hysterical outburst on Larry King (I think she was also one of the few that spoke off script in the 9/11 concert, I'm not a fan, but I admire her heart), and Kanye West's complete comments from the Friday night Hurricane Concert. (Poor Mike Myers) But I must disagree, Dubya doesn't just hate black people, he hates all Americans (except the very elite, and those in the Federalist Society I suppose).

Latest hurricane Katrina news from my friends (I would have written last night, but I got deathly ill to my stomach, another story... bad food or just nerves?):

The hospital my friend's husband had gone back to work at decided with no electricity or water to evacuate the patients and close down. Her husband had been told that there was nothing left but rice and tomato sauce before he arrived, but when he got there the local police had gotten into a grocery store and they were having barbecues in the parking lot instead, so at least they had food to get by with. Armed guards patrolled the perimeters to keep away looters that were after drugs, he said several were persuaded to "turn back, and walk away" at gunpoint. Apparently, people were being allowed to walk across the Mississippi River bridge at first, but after a mall near the bridge was set on fire, through traffic was stopped.

So her husband has been reassigned to another hospital near the Louisiana/Texas border, and he was given an armed escort to their home in Uptown to retrieve his car, which had been left behind. There was no flood damage to their home, thank goodness, though the upstairs french doors had blown open during the storm and gotten some water had gotten in the master bedroom and dripped down to the kitchen below. The other side of the house had just been hand painted and stenciled, so fortunately it was undamaged. He secured the house once more, and headed his Land Rover back to Texas. After another nightmarishly long drive, 18 wheelers had run into each other on I10 in one of the wetland "no exit" areas in East Texas, he finally made it back to his wife and child and the safety of Beaumont. My friend Mary feels she is so incredibly lucky to have escaped the wrath of the storm without harm to her family or her home.

An interesting image he saw that hadn't made it to the AP newswire - a woman walking through the floodwaters in a full-length mink coat carrying an automatic rifle (apparently Sak's was looted before it was burned down). Also the story that guns were stolen from a Walmart by looters is untrue, the police actually removed the guns before the store was looted.

Also per my friend, while Dubya was getting his photo op at the New Orleans airport, all other (i.e. rescue) activity was brought to a halt. People were dying stuck on the runway while he chatted and waxed nostalgic about the Big Easy.

From the truly horrifying end of the spectrum - a friend of my husband's had called and left a message last Sunday that he had gone to the Superdome to wait out the storm. He is unfortunately (fortunate in retrospect?) basically homeless and was actually planning to come back to Houston over the last few weeks because of the difficulty of keeping a job in New Orleans. He called this afternoon to report that he was now in Fort Worth, where he was ironically evacuated to after spending what he describes as a week in Hell inside the dark, damp and violent Superdome. He said (these are his words alone) he had seen people killed in fights right in front of him, seen people urinating on the dead bodies that were strewn about, he said he'd never really been around dead people before, but they were everywhere. He hadn't eaten or slept in may days, but he had helped out when the rescuers did come, and had been finally put on a bus to Texas, where he stated they "were treating him very well" now. My husband and I had been seriously wondering about his fate, because he is also one of those people who tends to say the first thing that comes out of his head, and had gotten in arguments and fights regularly here in Houston. But he is also a NOLA native, so apparently some survival instinct to keep his mouth shut must have kicked in.

Today's news (OK technically yesterday)...

Word came early this morning that my friend's house in New Orleans seems to still be OK. A co-worker of her husband drove through the area and said it looked like the house had not sustained any water or major storm damage. Her husband has been unable to actually get to the house himself, he is currently staying at the hospital he works at in Gretna.

At 11 pm Thursday the Astrodome had apparently reached capacity and the emergency management people decided they weren't going to let any more of the waiting bus passengers in. Somehow they had not counted correctly and realized they were over their fire code limit (which is nuts because the stadium has held over 75,000 people). Bad move, people started freaking out. The local news stations came back on the air, their poor hapless reporters wandering the parking lot, asking the poor police officers what was going on. Cameras were no longer allowed inside because of the chaos, already one person has died (of natural causes supposedely), and several were arrested (men sneaking into the women's shower areas).

Then they decided 'OK, they can come in, we'll figure something out' and began slowly letting the evacuees in again... after searching them and sending them through a mock triage. One of the doctors that was volunteering grabbed one of the newspeople and begged for more medical help, he says many of the doctors who were supposed to be there had not shown up, but there were some Baylor medical students there. It was announced that part of the precious new Reliant exhibition hall would be opened up for the overflow. And I guess the rest of the people will go on to San Antonio and Dallas. What a mess...

Dubya flew over the hurricane devastation (and waved?) from a plane (don't blink) and pointed out that a church was still standing. Down on the ground it was Escape from New York, oops, New Orleans. Groups of stranded NOLA residents were actually chanting on TV tonight "Help Us, Help Us"! But he did have to finish up his golf before leaving for Washington. Speaking of "Escape" maybe someone could toss him into the melee like in the movie, see if he loses more than an ear.

Meanwhile, Condi is actually out buying new Ferragamo's (I guess she's not planning on going anywhere damp anytime soon). And U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R) was quoted by the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., saying it makes no sense to rebuild New Orleans where it is. "It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed." he said. Yeah, that's the spirit, bulldoze it and build condos! Or maybe Walmarts and Starbucks cafes. To hell with all that history and beauty. And the beautiful people who have lived there for many, many generations.

I can't think of those idiots anymore... they make my head hurt with their complete lack of empathy. My husband was asking aloud why the government hadn't done anything more to help... because THEY DON'T CARE! Maybe if it was a bunch of young blonde, upper class white girls. (Quick, somebody toss one in... then they'll have to go find her)

Last thing, a charity called Noah's Wish is in Louisiana trying to save some of the lost and injured pets that were left behind and misplaced from the storm. So next time you pet your dog or kitty, think of all the homeless ones on the Gulf Coast and give them a couple of bucks. And be glad you're warm and clean and dry.

There really are no words for the horror that is going on just east of me, my favorite city in the entire world has been transformed into a watery hell. My best friend's valiant husband actually returned to the city to help and work (he's a doctor), but there is no word on the fate of their home yet. She, her baby, mom and three cats are staying in Beaumont with an aunt and uncle. Beaumont is not too far from Houston, maybe I can make a day trip over and see her and the new baby, it sounds like they're going to be there for awhile. At least her aunt's house has two extra bedrooms so the cats can have their own and there is room to set up the baby's crib. I spoke with her on the phone Tuesday night, but she is cellphone-less now, and she was out running errands when I called earlier. Her aunt said that they had not heard from her husband since he'd gone back to New Orleans. He was going to try and get to their house, and if it was not underwater, stay in it. I hope he's still got his shotgun with him...

Sparky has been saying it's the end of the world (oh and Dubya got his happy ass back to work today, what a lousy vacation he must have had), and now he is seriously freaking out because they are moving 20,000 or more hurricane refugees from the Superdome to the Astrodome. People have already been trying to get into the Dome, a stolen school bus actually made it to Houston tonight before the official buses arrived, they were going to turn them away but finally relented. The reason Sparky is worried is because we live maybe 7 or 8 miles from the Dome, I actually went to that area today to pick up several prescriptions from Sam's Club before the chaos descended on the Astrodomain (now known as Reliant Park, blecch). Sam's was busier than usual and there were several extra HPD officers in the store, looking a little alarmed. I looked at all the gas station prices when I was on the way to Sam's, I was down to half a tank, and actually tried to fill up at Sam's discount gas pumps. The SVU in front of me's bill was $74.14. But my membership card must be scratched up or something, because the machine told me it was unreadable and spit it back out.

What the hell, their gas was the same price as the Chevron in my neighborhood, $2.89 a gallon for premium, so I decided to just go back there on the way home. I pulled into Chevron, which is busy most of the time anyway, but it was a fricking circus tonight. People coming from all directions to try and get to the pumps. I got mister "too cool to walk fast, pay inside then go get his change" guy (he got change back?), and while I was sitting in line, trying not to get rear-ended by the cars whipping in off the street behind me, mister "crazy end of the world street preacher" began making his way towards me. I used to see these guys all the time when I worked downtown, but this guy seems to like to hang out at the Chevron. He has a nice captive audience. Luckily he went over to one of the sisters, who was merely amused by his ranting about "there's no more money" and "the pretty women with makeup", I think he was calling her a prostitute, he kept poking her in the arm to make his point, but she just smiled and nodded.

She was finishing up just as change guy ambled back to his car and left. And the street preacher began looking around for someone else to scream at. But when I worked downtown I got pretty good at the "leave me the fuck alone" stare, which amazingly worked through the car window, because he wandered on off to rant at some people waiting with their car windows down. Usually when I'm in the car, dodging windshield washers, I have to violently shake my head and yell NO to keep them away from my car. I guess I just didn't look like I'd be any fun. And I also have a handgun in my purse, which seems to magically help. Too many years working security to look like the unarmed innocent. Good.

My little half tank was $25. I usually get a full tank for a little over $30 with the Maxima. Wow, that means it would take over $50 to fill it up now. I'm surprised people aren't rioting in the streets. Somehow I really don't think Katrina caused the oil prices to actually go up in just a few days, she was just a convenient excuse to fleece the already broke American people.

I hope I hear from Mary tomorrow... I've gone back into 9/11 mode, I've looked at every single photo gallery of the hurricane devastation I can find, I feel like I HAVE to, I can't stop looking at them. I know New Orleans so well I look at every photo for some sort of landmarks, I feel so helpless just sitting here 350 miles away. I know I'm obsessive compulsive, but I have some sort of masochistic streak also that won't let me look away. I did give to the Red Cross (specify Hurricane 2005). I don't have the physical health or stamina to do much else, but every dollar helps. The country should have plenty of money for natural disasters, but all of our surplus has been sucked into the pockets of Halliburton and friends. OK, I don't want to go there...

Wow, even though I'm in SE Texas (which is still hurricane country) I've been obsessed with Katrina this weekend. My best friend Mary and most of her family live in the New Orleans area... which is currently the projected bullseye for Category Four Hurricane Katrina (which was a Category 5 just a few hours ago).

I called Mary the other night, before Katrina turned into a giant monster, and asked her if they were planning on staying and they were all prepared and ready. After the last big storm in July they had bought generators for their house, plus her mothers house. They had most of the storm shutters already up on their 100 year+ home. And this week her husband even went and got her mom a shotgun (just in case).

But Sunday morning the mayor issued a mandantory evacuation of the entire New Orleans area and people began fleeing. But there aren't that many routes to get out of the New Orleans area, and all of them became instant crawling traffic jams. Mary had called and left a message this morning that she and her husband, mother, three cats and her new baby (three weeks old) would be leaving as soon as they finished securing their house. My husband wandered into my darkened bedroom about every hour or so just and gave me an unwanted update of what the storm was doing and announced each time that it was basically the end of the world (or at least the end of New Orleans as we know it). I figured I'd better get as much sleep as possible if we would be having houseguests, and after his 1:30 proclamation that she had just called and said they had just got on the road I figured I'd have plenty of time.

Finally the apocalyptic cuckoo clock (known as Sparky) took his afternoon nap and stopped bothering me and I finally got a bit of uninterrupted sleep. I got up, fiddled around some, made salad for Sparky, ate some coffeecake (it was weird food day for me again), and then decided I'd better try and give Mary a call on her cell phone to see how close they were. After five hours in the car, they'd barely made it out of the city - they had given up on getting to I-10 and were taking the 90 alternate and were almost to... Houma? Yikes, that's all? Their caravan consisted of Mary and her husband, their baby, and three alternately yowling and hissing cats in the back of the car, with her mother following them in another car. So the revised plan was to try and at least make it to Beaumont and stay with a relative. The normal, light traffic commute from New Orleans to Houston is six to seven hours, so Beaumont sounded a little saner. I asked her to call me anyway to let me know everything was OK. This was sometime around 6:30 pm.

So I spent the evening checking up on the storm on the Weather Channel online, the National Hurricane Center, and aimlessly flipping around between the various live cams on Nola.com just to see what was really going on. Couldn't concentrate on my Ebay work, didn't get much accomplished at all. By about 11:30 I thought perhaps I should try and call Mary's cell again, but I figured they'd probably made it to Beaumont and were tucked in for the night. With the new baby she's not really a late night person as she has been, but more of a crack of dawn person (not by choice). I washed some clothes, nice brainless activity, but at least it's one chore done...

3:34 am, the phone rings. Sparky is snoozing in the next room but I'm still puttering at the computer. 504 area code on the caller ID, New Orleans, wow it's Mary! Are they in town? No, they are just now approaching Beaumont (which is a few miles inside the border of Texas), OMG! They have been in the car, inching along for like fourteen hours. The baby has been quiet, apparently she likes the motion of the car. One of the cats has been nonstop meowing pretty much the entire time, resulting in occasional hissing from one of the other cats. But, bless her little heart, Mary is still in a decent mood, she really is one of the most resilient people I know. And she's got an abnormal amount of endurance and apparently patience. And her husband was now driving her mom's car until they made it to a stopping place. Mom's got a lot of pep too, but it's 3:30 on the frigging morning...

Well, at least I know where they are now, it's 5:30 am now so hopefully they are in bed by now. Now if Katrina will behave and just move on through without stalling or destroying too much property. Did I mention Mary and her husband just spent the last three years or so non-stop renovating their Victorian home? It's really beautiful. And it actually sits in one of the higher areas (for New Orleans) where serious flooding is rare... Fingers crossed, and now I lay me down to.. sleep?

More fuel for the spammers to send pings to... I've got to start writing again regularly, between the bizarre (for Houston at least) streaks of cold weather, taking a few weeks off from eBay for a vacation, and the usual January malaise I haven't been too motivated lately to do much of anything.

And as much as I'm trying to keep informed of what's going on in the world around me on a semi-daily basis, which lately has been mostly comprised of watching at least the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Randi Rhodes (her shows are archived now, thank you goddess!), I need to get back to more trivial stuff (in addition to the horrors of this current world) just to get it out of my head and maintain some sort of balance. I think I need to switch antidepressants also, my OCD has just been out of control since last fall and the generic Prozac is just not doing it. My poor little kitty brain is just overwhelmed with things to do that it's difficult to get anything useful done.

And to be really hypocritical of myself, January is always my shopping month. Because my birthday falls at the beginning of the year and my parents are usually kind enough to give me some money, so I usually have a year's worth of wants and needs by the time the holidays roll around each year. So, yes, I go out and buy a bunch of stuff (and pay off bills also) annually, but I have to admit it's normally a very well thought out list. So that's also been keeping me busy. I get things I actually need and fill up the big empty hole I try and ignore the rest of the year.

My biggest problem with shopping is that I'm a really scarily efficient shopper. I worked in retail for most of my life, I've ran up thousands of dollars in credit card bills with the efficiency of the Neocons (which are paid off now, by my husband, and chopped up and destroyed, also by my husband). Being obsessive compulsive, though. buying a lot of things in a short time period can get really scary. While my husband goes and looks at the same big screen TV over and over again, I just walk in and buy everything I need and leave. Just checking things off the list, you know? Not that I don't appreciate getting them, it's just become such a weird routine for like the last 20 years, in January I buy a years worth of stuff.

And then I have a panic attack and feel like I have to get rid of a lot of things. Binge and purge. So I've been overdosing on organizing stuff, though I haven't managed to get half as much as I'd like done. I did manage to give away some more clothes to charity, though I really need to part with more. They cost so damn much, though. And clothes don't really sell that well on eBay, even fairly new ones, but it's hard to give away Liz Claiborne and Jones NY clothing even though I work at home now and rarely go anywhere I'd actually wear them to now. And even though it's cold, I hardly ever wear any of my sweaters any more. But they're merino and cashmere, dammit! (OK, mostly May Department Stores brand, but still nice stuff) But I'm so lazy now I don't want to wear anything I can't hand wash, I make it to the dry cleaner maybe once a year.

It's actually a good thing it's cold here in January because any kind of cold weather just freaks me out, I really do go into hibernation. I don't want to go outside, hell, I don't even want to get out of bed. (I have dry laundry in the garage right now, but I haven't worked up the nerve to go out in the cold and get it yet) I've got no coordination, no energy... and it's only in the 40s here, I can't imagine what it's like to live somewhere it actually snows! I froze my ass off in Austin, Texas during the three years I lived there, but that was during the coldest winter in recent history where it actually got down into the teens and there was black ice everywhere. The coldest place I've personally been in my life, though, was Kansas in February. OMG, my dad went through basic training for the army in Kansas in the winter time... I just spent a few days there and both me and my warm blooded hubby just about died.

Ok, so what did I buy for myself? I never know how much I'm going to get each year, but this year I did quite well so I managed to check most of the items off of my list.

Number one - an electric piano. I've been obsessed with getting one most of this year when I realized how good they sound now and that I'd probably actually be coordinated enough to learn to play. And it's a good project to maintain what little coordination I have left, the multiple sclerosis has taken a lot of it away. I got very discouraged musically growing up because I really sucked at playing guitar. I always wanted to learn to play an instrument, but I was never good at playing guitars, yet somehow I had three of them during my life. Even a pretty candy red electric one. I always wanted to learn piano, though, and/or drums. But of co