electric mist

autism speaks

My friend, Tamar, has an absolutely wonderful essay up on the prestigious website, Autism Speaks. If you or anyone you know is affected by autism, I think you'll really appreciate her essay and the helpful information available via her efforts in her blog, Hidden Laughter, which chronicles their very successful trip in helping their son after his diagnosis (all the way through mainstreaming him in school); there's a great deal of information on the Autism Speaks site itself. Please pass along these links to anyone you know who'd benefit!

killer year blog -- grand opening

Forgot to publish the "moving day" post below until just now... so please change your bookmarks to my new digs.

And...

Please do go over and see the grand opening of our brand-spanking new blog -- Killer Year. We are the Class of 2007 of crime/thriller/mystery writers, and with the enthusiasm and talent in this group, I think it really is going to be a Killer Year. We'll be blogging on all sorts of topics, so come on over and bookmark us!

moving day...

Hey everyone, check out my new digs over here. I needed a fresh look, a place to put all of the writing related entries (writing, business, PR, etc.). I'll still do odd stuff (essays, humor, observations) over there. Please change your bookmarks to:

http://tonimcgeecausey.wordpress.com/

still busy

Still have lots going on, not the least of which is prepping to shoot this weekend. Have the location, the actors, the props, all of the equipment lined up. Need a sunny weekend. More on what all of this is about later, when I'm sane. (Hey. I heard that. I may be sane one day. You never know.)

Having a ball with book 2.

More soon. Well... eventually.

Wow! Look what I won!

The only thing I ever won was a cowboy hat when I was 17, and it didn't really fit all that well (hey, hush up, cowboy hats were "in")... but there'd been a contest over at the fantastic Murder She Writes last month. Now, I would have participated in commenting anyway because these writers rock -- they always have excellent posts about the writing business or the craft and they're a fun bunch to hang around. Besides, I never win anything, so I didn't even think about the contest. When I clicked on the site this morning, this is what I saw! What a haul! I have to admit I was very very confused when I saw my name at the top as the winner. I had to double-check and read through twice!

This totally rocks! Thank you to all the terrific writers over at Murder She Writes.

memorial day...

I think this is one of the sanest, calmest, most level-headed, well-reasoned posts on supporting the troops that I've seen. If you support this current administration, if you believe that you're supporting the troops by doing so, then please read all of the way to the end. This is not one of those posts aimed at trying to vilify conservatives, or vilify liberals. This is one of those smart, rational posts that looks at what really matters and defines our actions around our responsibilities as patriots.

(Original link via Diane.)

loads and loads of fun...*

Okay, so last year, I went to the dentist, who sent me to the endodontist, who sent me to the periodontist. I even had an orthodontist in on the act. It was team tooth time. And it was imperative that I get something done, they all said. I totally agreed.

But.

I had to finish the book, then there was Christmas and loads of projects which had to be done which had not been done while I wrote the book, then going to NY to meet everyone, and then a few other things thrown in the mix, like starting book two, editing book one and there's a family around here somewhere who kinda wanted some attention, and before you know it, it was May and I still hadn't done anything about the tooth. It could wait, right? It wasn't infected, wasn't hurting. Nada.

Until last Wednesday, I started feeling something scratchy inside my cheek and looked at that molar and saw what looked like bone protruding a little from above my tooth. My beloved, expensive, tooth. (sigh)

A couple of hours of oral surgery later, and the tooth / crown is now removed. There were nasty things like fractured roots and a fractured jaw line and bone grafts (yes, really... I was kinda floored), and eventually, you'll never know it had to be operated on, but right now, I have a bunch of stitches and I look like I'm trying to store a squirrel in there. They are making me a temporary, which will go there until my jaw heals enough to put the permanent tooth back, and I feel like I ought to be on some hillbilly show, although I realize that you cannot actually see the location of the tooth unless I stood in front of you with my mouth wide open while simultaneously pulling my cheek back. So not going to happen, so don't worry.

The real bummer? The pain pills weren't even any fun. Oh, they got rid of the pain well enough, but they didn't make me loopy or happy or even sleepy (damnit). In fact, my thoughts ran amok while on them and I had a hard time sleeping, so I'm off them.

* I may have exaggerated the fun part a bit.

the thing about guns...

I wanted to shoot a Glock, since a couple of characters in my book shoot one, and shoot really well. I've shot a 22 before at the range and was a pretty good shot, but I knew handling a Glock would be different.

What I am aware of is how dangerous handguns are, and yet, even knowing this intellectually, I didn't expect to feel so squeamish handling a more powerful handgun than what I've held before. We met our oldest son at the indoor shooting range, and had to don the safety equipment, and by the time we got into the actual range, I was feeling nervous. My son taught me how to hold the Glock (watching out for the slide) and when I took it, my first shot was dead center in the bullseye. No kidding, dead center.

But.

The recoil surprised me. It was a 40 caliber Glock, and while the kick was nothing compared to some bigger handguns (I'm told), I just hadn't expected it to be as much since, when my son shot it, he didn't seem to have as much recoil. And then I started thinking a lot about aiming and that these were real bullets going out there and through the target and them zooming to the back wall, and the more I thought, the worse I got. I finally went and rented a compact Glock (much smaller), which was also a 9mm (slight smaller bullet than the 40 caliber), and it was a little easier to hold and aim, and I started doing better.

Still, I was nervous the entire time.

Later, we ate lunch and Luke told us a bunch of facts he'd learned in his gun classes (he's applying to be in the FBI, he's taking gun classes)... and one of the things he talked about was how a 40 caliber bullet could go through something like 17 layers of sheetrock. 17. So all of those times in a movie or TV show that we see someone dodge behind a wall or a corner in a house and bullets riddle the wall? That person would have been dead on the other side.

I'm going to go back for more lessons, just so I know more about what I'm writing about when I have Bobbie Faye shoot at something. But I don't think I'll ever actually get used to it; I think that fear will stay with me. At least, I hope so.

sludge, part deux

So remember my old friend, the sludge? Well, it's baaaaaaaaaaaaaack. I thought on Monday that I was getting pink eye because Carl had it all last week and when I woke, my eyes were all red and scratchy. But no, didn't have pink eye. That was just the sludge's opening volley for round two, otherwise known as "tortue for fun and profit." By today, I was battling a fever, which hadn't gone too high until this afternoon, when it decided that it had toyed with me enough, and it jumped up. In spite of the Tylenol I had taken, it was over a 100.

So, off to the doctor we go (since Carl has it, too), and we see him and hear how awful this stuff is. He'd taken several rounds of medicine himself trying to kick it about a month ago, and he didn't want to prescribe the Z-pack antibiotics, because they weren't strong enough. So he precribes this new antibiotic (new-ish, I dunno) that he said would really kick butt. Carl went to fill it and called me from the pharmacy. The antibiotics alone cost more than $400. That's with our insurance Rx card, which gives us steep discounts. (It's not a co-pay card, but then again, the rates can never be raised.)

$400? For antibiotics? What the hell is in that pill? A miniature Ahnold? mixed with an Uzi carrying Taz? For $400 for 20 pills, that thing better not only kill the damned bacteria causing this sludge, it should make me taller and younger.

I called the doctor, who was already home, who answered my page somewhat warily (he thinks I'm fiesty. I don't know why he thinks I'm fiesty. Can't imagine where the hell he got that idea.) I asked, "Just how sure are you that the Z-pack wouldn't work?"

"Um, well. It might work. Why?"

I told him about the cost of the meds. He said he'd call in the Z-pack, though I might have to take two rounds of them instead of one. Even with that, I'd still be way ahead of the cost of the other one.

"Damn straight," I said. And I heard him chuckling.

"What?"

"Well," he said, "I only see you when you're sick and exhausted. I'd hate to see how fiesty you can be if you're feeling really well."

Ha.

Pulitzer winners, and well deserved

I knew the reporting coming from the Times Picayune during and after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina was spectacular. They reported even when they didn't know where they were going to live, even when they each had major personal losses, both family and homes. I am so incredibly proud that they have won two Pulitzers. This is so greatly deserved!

Beautifully done.

anomalies

I just wanted to let you know that if the world ended abruptly today, I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO IT. Okay? Good, just so you know. Because I not only went to sleep before 4 a.m., which is the usual time (except it's been moving back toward 5a.m. then 5:30 a.m. for the last two weeks)... I actually went to sleep.... by 11 p.m. I know. Scary. And! I woke up this morning at 7a.m.! Awake. Actually opened my eyes, couldn't fall back asleep, the whole "get up, it's morning" sort of thing." Wow. The sun comes up in the morning. Did you know that? Kinda cool. What is it you normal people do in the mornings? Besides go to work, I know that part, but this whole wide awake thing is kinda weird. And! I have energy. I know. In the morning. Very scary. I'm expecting meteorites to hit the earth at any minute now. Really sorry about that.

In other random news, I have squirrels in my attic again. No, that is not a euphemism, thank you. Real squirrels. Or, at least, I think think they are squirrels, unless it's like last time, and a mama raccoon got up in there (I have no idea how) and we ended up rescuing her four baby raccoons and feeding them for a couple of weeks until a rescue place could take them in. (They were adorable... until they were able to climb out of the box. Then, they were cute, but the whole pooping everywhere diminished that a bit.) So... I think it's squirrels again, because this time, there are a lot of running sounds during the day time (squirrels) rather than at night time (raccoons). Last time, we caught the mama raccoon in a wire cage trap (very safe and humane) and moved her (didn't know she had babies at that point, hence the rescue operation later). I suspect we'll have to do the trap thing again. I wish we could find where the little buggers are getting in. We checked the spot we thought they were originally getting in and it's closed up.

Anyway. Squirrels. Are noisy. Very busy, with the running, to and fro, right over my head. I kinda expect to hear cheers and the scream of "home run!" any minute now. See, when I was asleep in the morning, I didn't know they were up there. They may have been there for a year, hell if I'd know. But now, it's me against the squirrels. Because I cannot write while they are going to and fro, with the thumping and bumping and rearranging up there, building a stadium or whatever they are doing. Driving me nuts.

I know, not far to go.

I believe...

I believe in long lazy naps on rainy afternoons, the healing power of a hug, the comfort of a warm bubble bath, and the sensuality of skin on skin. I believe in turning off the TV and talking until midnight, sharing what I have, even if it's only a little, and I believe in the incredible power of listening to the heart as well as to the words. I believe that it's easier to be cynical than it is to be positive, that honor is something worth striving for, even at cost to oneself, and that sometimes letting someone know you need them is the greatest gift you can give them. I believe in friends who tell the truth when you need it and are quick to distract you when it hurts too much, and I believe in laughter as the magic elixir for long term relationships. I believe that we already contribute to the culture, each of us just as we are, just who we are, and that the greatest gift of contribution is to be honest with that, to give what we love back, whether that is laughter or serious prose, limericks or Elvis on velvet, because the point is not to try to live to some standard of others, but to find our own and to enjoy living to the one we feel in our souls.

What do you believe?

do they have a union for that?

random observations for a Thursday...

Every afternoon, now that it's warming up (it was over 80 today), there is the typical rite-of-passage, the one moment when I know spring is upon us and winter is over: I am bombarded with the tinny clanging of music from the ice cream man. In a world where we have amber alerts, where kids are snatched, where we don't let them talk to strangers or go to a friend's house without double-checking the background of all adult units who may be present, we still let our kids chase down a painted and decaled van where they can buy a bar of ice cream for $2.50 instead of getting it at the grocery store for a fourth of that price. I have often seen kids zooming by on bicycles, trying to catch him, because they weren't quite ready with their money as he sped by (this guy drives way too fast), and they practically race their bikes in front of his truck to get his attention. This is a disaster waiting to happen, and I feel like one of those crochety old 80-year-olds we used to make fun of as kids... the ones who said, "Well in my day, sonny...." yikes.

Even so, it makes me wonder, who checks out the ice cream man? I mean, there's not exactly a union for that, is there? Are there background checks? Someone making sure this guy isn't wanted in a few states? What? I'm always amazed at how schizophrenic our trust is... if we had it as a kid, it must still be safe.

My dog, Dee Oh Gee, has long been housebroken, but we now don't have a fence up in part of our back yard and she can easily wander to the front. To encourage her to not wander off, I started giving her treats every time she came back to the door to be let in. It took her a couple of months to catch on, but man, she loves those treats. Well, I'm out. And I'm not going to the store in the middle of the night. But if there's anything that would make me do so, it's the sight of that very confused face, big brown eyes just not understanding.... "What? I went! I peed! I came back! No treat? Don't you still LOVE me? My heart is breaking!"

She doesn't have many tricks, this dog, but she is an expert at the broken hearted expression. I can almost see her holding back the tears. oy.

And in other pet news, apparently the "sick" cat has finally decided to forgive me my transgressions of daring to rearrange my own office. She spent a week sulking in another room, and when that failed to gain her sympathy any longer, she moved into a room closer to me. I would only pet her when she came out of the room and joined the family, and she's finally given up the pouting and has resumed being her normal, loveable self. Only now, she's trying to make up for lost time by being more aggressive about sitting in my lap or somewhere on my body 24/7; preferably in any position which most hinders me writing.

She has also decided this meowing thing is pretty cool. She used to never make a sound. Ever. Oh, she was capable, but she just didn't. I can't get used to her meowing for every little thing, now. Who knew cats could do the terrible twos?

conned (wherein I learn just how not-smart I really am)

Last week, my cat started acting a little weird. Nothing too off, but she usually gets allergies this time of the year and I thought she was starting up with allergies again. Except... she didn't have any of the allergy symptoms, just a spate of odd behavior. By Friday, she was crying when I walked into the room. This cat almost never meows (except when we get in the car, then she tunes up like a diva soprano). However, now, I'd walk in the room where she was lying and there were these horrible, plaintive little meows that sounded like she was in pain. Real, terrible, horrible pain.

When she wasn't lying there crying, she was hiding and starting to freak me out. I can't tell you how weird it is to know the cat is most definitely in the house and to turn the house upside down for more than two hours and not be able to figure out where she's hidden herself. And man, was she creative. Worse, in addition to the hiding, she didn't seem to be eating much (unless I was sitting there with her and then eating only if I had spooned up the very bestest soft catfood to be purchased). She wasn't drinking much, either. I tried to take her in to her vet, but he's remodeling (and thus, closed) and I didn't think it was an emergency, per se, so I didn't want to take her into the animal hospital. She freaks out at the animal hospital but seems to tolerate the vet's really well, and I hated to traumatize her needlessly. Still, I resolved that if she wasn't better by this morning, I'd take her in to the vet's substitute.

I saw the cat at midnight. When I tried to find her this morning, she was nowhere to be found. I mean nowhere. I looked for three hours. Carl then looked for an hour. We sat and listened to see if we could hear something. Nada. Finally, Carl went back into the exercise room and decided to look underneath the treadmill. There is maybe, at most, two inches of clearance space, and somehow, the cat had gotten under there. I cannot fathom how, or what would have happened if I had started to walk this morning like I had planned.

She went into the cat carrier without fussing or seeming to care, until it closed, and then she just cried.

Everyone who saw her this weekend asked me if she was dying. I started to feel like I was the worst pet person in the world, because I didn't think she could be that sick that suddenly, and then I knew if it turned out that she was really sick and I hadn't taken her in earlier, I was going to feel horrible for her suffering.

We got to the new vet's office and she was still very docile. This cat has always been extraordinarily laid back. She's a calico and tolerates even hordes of kids vying for her affection really well. As I was signing her in, she perked up a bit, looking around. Then the vet's assistant walked in and at the moment she took her from me, my cat turned into the Evil that Satan's really really really bad seed aspires to.

I could not believe that was my cat. I've never seen her do that, never. She growled and meowed so loud, I would have thought she was a little mountain lion; she flipped and hissed and tried to bite the assistant multiple times. I've handed her over in the vet's before and there was nothing like this. I knew, then, she had to be dying to be reacting so badly. I told the woman to put her down and I'd catch her and calm her (because of course she loves me and was going to be calm) and the woman let her go. I cornered her under a bench and she reacted to me with the same fury she'd used on the assistant.

Finally, the assistant brought me a towel, which I tossed over my cat and she settled down on the spot. I wrapped her up, handed her over , went home and awaited the phone call.

A couple of hours later, the vet called me and said she'd gone over the cat pretty thoroughly and frankly, she hadn't seen a healthier cat in a long time. She wondered why I thought she was sick, and when I described what had been happening, the vet asked me if anyone had moved into or out of the house in the last couple of weeks. I said, "No."

"Any major changes in your household?"

"No, nothing."

"Did you move any furniture?"

"Furniture? Well, yeah. We just painted my office and moved out a big credenza and moved in my favorite reading chair. Why?"

"Does your cat like sitting with you in that chair?"

"Well, yes. Every evening. Why?"

"I think she's upset that you've made changes in the house and she's acting out. And since it's working and you're giving her more attention, she's keeping up the act."

"So you're telling me that I have been completely conned by a nine pound animal with a brain the size of a large walnut?"

"Yep. Pretty much."

Yeah, that university degree has done me a world of good.

sludge

There is this moment when you start to appreciate the simple things in life. Like breathing. Breathing is pretty cool, and kinda necessary, and you know, we just don't appreciate breathing enough. There should be Oscars for good breathing, best breathing in a flu-like situation, deep breathing when angry, and so on. Because beathing? Kinda nice.

I really missed it this last couple of weeks.

I had the sludge. I don't know if it was officially the flu or just a really bad cold gone over-achiever or what, but I had the sludge. It moved into my lungs last weekend and I couldn't talk until last Monday or so, and I thought I had gotten over it, I was getting all better, see, and then Sludge said, "Oh, hell if you think so, Bitch, we're just getting started," and it proceeded to kick my ass all over the map. By Tuesday, breathing was really a lot of hard work as the goopy stuff wheezed in and out of my lungs and by Wednesday, I was pretty much prone on the sofa, moaning to anyone who'd listen, and by Thursday, I had a high fever and I sort of wanted to die, because I also had that horrible cough -- you know the one -- the one where your body cavities turn themselves inside out with every lung-rattling barking rhythm. Yeah, I was fun to be around, let me tell you.

Wednesay and Thursay nights, my husband ended up building a tent over me and turning the vaporizer on so I could breathe. He used a big golf umbrella (no idea where the hell that thing came from at two a.m.) and then draped sheets over it and had me sitting up against a pile of pillows, with more under my knees. Only the coughing? Made me have to go pee on a regular basis, so I'd climb out of the precariously balanced "tent" and then had to try to climb back in (because it took so long to set the damned thing up, but it really did help) and then of course, the umbrella closed on me and the sheets all fell and I leaned over trying to open the umbrella back up and get the sheet to drape just right over the chair that held the vaporizer so the steam could go inside the tent instead of outside (which was the whole point of the tent) and then I leaned too far and fell off the bed, knocking over the glass of water my husband had lovingly placed beside the bed and knocking over the vaporizer and crunching the umbrelling and bruising myself on the chair and it would have been fucking hysterical if I wasn't stuck on the floor upside down in a golf umbrella, my legs waving in the air and STILL NOT ABLE TO BREATHE. I'm not sure if I saw a camera flash just then or not, but if my husband ever needed to blackmail me, that was the photo to do it.

By Friday, I called my doctor and begged for mercy, and she prescribed the antibiotics I needed without making me go in to see her, and I think it was maybe the, "Please don't make me get dressed and come in, I'd rather kill myself at this point," that did it. I highly recommend that for a doctor-avoiding strategy, by the way. I spent all of Friday and Saturday extremely busy... I had to move from the bed to the sofa and then back to the bed again, and I'm here to tell you, that was a helluva lot of work. But today? I woke up feeling about a thousand percent better. So much so, I repainted my office and ended up cleaning and doing some other things that had been ignored for too long. But mostly, I just took these really long, deep breaths. I highly recommend them. Because you just never know -- that could be you stuck upside down in the umbrella next.

"that wasn't you in here"

Over on The Lipstick Chronicles, guest blogger Nancie described how she was teaching women to shoot safely with guns. I loved her entry, and it reminded me of the first time I learned to shoot, which was after this particular event: (this blog entry was once posted on an old site, so a tiny few of you will have seen it before)...

... "that wasn't you in here"...

Something had awakened me. I pulled myself out of a deep, heavy sleep, the kind you have with feeling ill at seven months pregnant; a thick, smothering feeling of ache. I was lying on my back, buried in a comforter, hidden to the world and I turned my head slightly to see the time.

The clock glowed red: 10:04. I will always remember that. 10:04.

I had gone to sleep early, something I almost never did. Carl had wanted me to go with him while he helped a friend move, but I felt like a slow, meandering whale, enormous at seven months, more-so than anyone would have expected. And tired. I remember that -- so very tired, like I'd traveled across the universe and had to still make the trip back, somehow. I'd begged off and put Luke to bed, happy that, at four, he was finally willing to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.

And something had awakened me, at 10:04. I half-rose, knowing Luke was going to be standing by the side of the bed, touching my elbow, “Mama, can I have some water?” He wasn't there; I blinked the sleep away, still half-rising, realizing that what had actually awakened me was the ceiling fan ceasing to turn and the heat of the July room already pressing down on me with just the first stillness of air.

That, and the hall-lights were on. I had turned them off, turned everything off, before going to bed.

A soft yellow light streamed across the foot of the bed and the man standing there, hand still in the air, reaching for the chain-pull to try and turn the over-head light (on the fan) on; only there was no over-head light on those old antique fans.

I swam up through sleep, groggy incoherence, shifting lights and darks and swelling-stomached illness and saw the man there and reflex won first and I said, “Carl, is that you?” just as logic and reason kicked in, a slow lagging second to say to myself, that's not Carl.

It was plain to see, if only my senses trusted themselves to see what was out of place here, in that sort of desperate, half-step two-step logic does when it tries to reconcile what it's seeing with what it should see. Though roughly the same build, this was, plainly, a black man, and not my husband. I had given away that I was in the bed ; he couldn't have seen me there in the dark with the light shining only at the foot of the bed where he stood. Carl, is that you? hung in the air and he waited a beat and said, “Just a minute, I have to go to the bathroom.”

And he turned and walked out the bedroom and shut the door.

I blinked, adrenaline rushed, and stared. He had shut the door and I could hear him walking around the house, mumbling something, to whom, I knew not; he was somewhere between me and my four-year-old, between me and the life of my child and I sat, still half-risen, in disbelief.

Thoughts ran and slammed against me, none of them coherent, none of them near the basket, personal foul, walking, jump shot, out-of-bounds. Had I imagined it? Was I dreaming? Was I still dreaming, only thinking I saw someone, only thinking I heard someone, only conjuring up the voice in the other room, the soft padding of his tennis shoes on my hardwood floors, straining to hear if he had gone to my child's room, straining to hear if my child was breathing, feeling the baby at seven months kicking in gear in my stomach, mom's awake, oh good, let's play. I had to get in there, to my four-year-old. I had to move, but I had no clothes in my room, with all of them piled in the dining room while we remodeling my closet. No robe, and the gown I had was so short, nothing was left to the imagination, esepecially at seven months, but that didn't matter, I needed to get to Luke... and the baby kicked again, another child to protect.

I stood. I'm not sure how I got out of the bed, because I know it took two eons and a crane to move me, but somehow I had pulled myself up to almost-standing; almost; not quite able to stand all the way up, not sure what else to do, semi-hunched over as if I was somehow hidden like that, not knowing where to go, how can I be such a coward and just stand here while my child is in the other room? and how can I risk this one?

I knew, finally, the term “frozen in fear.” Everything locked up, everything ceased to function, and then as if my brain knew that I had ceased in reality, I heard a voice, a distinctive voice in my ear saying, “Move.” Move where? I asked the voice. “To the office.”

I eased over to the door which stood exactly opposite the one which entered the hall; it looked like an exterior door and once, long ago, had been, until someone had tacked on a porch spanning the back of the house, the bedroom and the kitchen, a narrow room which we had converted into an office. I silently cursed the remodeling project and my near-nakedness.

The office was little comfort. Pitch black, but there was a phone.

I remembered the gun.

I had never held it. Only seen it, knew it was there.

Carl had a 22 pistol he'd kept to shoot snakes when they coiled under the house (it was built up on piers, old construction) and when Luke was still a baby, Carl had hidden it up on a top shelf, taller than he was, and nearly impossible to reach.

Fear said to get it. Get it now. Right now, don't wait, you don't have time to think about this.

In the pitch black, I climbed on top of my desk, sliding on paperwork I couldn't see, shifting my awkward weight, pressing my pregnant belly against the shelves, straining to hear what was going on in the other room, as I felt along the dark of the top shelf to rake my fingers across the smooth leather of the holster and the cold butt of the gun. I thought it would be reassuring. I thought having a weapon in my hand, something to even the odds would make me feel like I could handle this intruder into my world.

My mind screamed with what ifs.

what if it's really Carl and you're dreaming and you shoot him just like the next-door neighbor's son died? what if it's really Luke? what if you don't know how to shoot the gun? what if he takes the gun away from you and uses it against you or Luke? what if what if; what if what if it's the only thing that stops him? what if you put it back and it's the only way you could have saved your child? what if what if

I climbed down, still holding the gun, shuddering, shaking, desperate.

The sound of the man moved away somewhere and I went for the phone, tried to dial 911. I kept getting a busy signal (busy signal? how can that be? how can emergency be busy over and over and what's wrong here? why won't this work? why can't I get through?). I cannot remember when I realized what the problem was and furiously cursed Sony up and down for making a phone with numbers flush to the housing because you cannot feel the difference between the “8” and the “9” in the pitch black. I managed to get 911 dialed and just as they asked what I needed…

The light snapped on in the bedroom. I could hear his mumbling, and knew he was all the way in the room, not content to just stand at the foot of the bed.

I hung up, afraid he'd hear me, afraid he'd head in my direction. I heard him open the closet door, saying, “I know she was in here, man, she was in here. Where'd she go?” The door I was hiding behind would be plainly lit now, not fifteen feet from where he was standing, looking in my empty closet, wondering how I had gotten out of the room. It was the only other door. There was no lock. He would be heading my way.

I had one option.

There was another door in the office, which led to the back of the kitchen. It was a new door, not even a knob on it yet; I decided to scurry through there and go to the kitchen while he was in my bedroom. At least, once he entered the office, I'd be gone. I eased open the door, about to tiptoe the three feet to the back kitchen door when the kitchen light blinked on.

How many people were in here? What did they or he want?

There was nothing worth robbing. New babies and bad economies and young marrieds do not make for a combination of yuppie-dom and there were only the bare essentials, and most of it a tad worn already, at that.

I was beyond calm. I hit a plane of where's Luke where's Luke where's Luke what if what if what if what if ohmygod what if ohmygod my baby, oh please let Luke be asleep, please don't let anything have happened to him, I have to get to him, I have to, I don't know how to, and then what? what if what if what if ohmygod…

It was harmonic motion in thought, pinging at light speed, screaming for attention, screaming for me to do something, anything, while other parts screamed that “anything” wasn't an option, be smart about this and still other parts fiercely battling for getting in there to Luke.

The light that had snapped on in the kitchen cut me off from that escape, and I hung there in that new door frame, not sure whether to go forward or back.

Someone was at the back kitchen door. So far, no one had come through the bedroom door into the office; I backed up, eased the new door-knobless door closed, listened with the intensity to hear breathing on the next street and tried not to let my thoughts be sooo very loud that he could hear them.

He pushed open that kitchen door, and I stooped to watch him through the hole where the door knob should have been. I felt the weight of the gun in my hand, the cold heaviness of it, the firm steel, the trigger, don't touch the trigger! you don't know how this works, it might be a hair-trigger, just hold it, holding it isn't going to do any good, it'd be a lot scarier to him if you took it out of the holster, how do you take it out of the holster? can't see it, it's pitch black in here, is that a snap? I don't know, what do I do, I don't know what to do with this, take it out, hold it, point it, don't point it, what if it's Carl? what if it's Luke? ohmygod, Luke, what do I do?

It didn't matter that I could see him, see it was a black man, see his mustard yellow shorts and converse tennis shoes with no laces, see the bulge in his pocket, like a knife or something, see the red bandana tied over his head, the white muscle shirt, all illuminated from the streetlight shining in the back door... my brain had ceased to any reason and thoughts criss-crossed in a hysterical race to send me over the precipice. I kept trying to convince myself that what I was seeing was really real, that he was really there, walking toward my office door, which had no knob, much less a lock, and that I really ought to move, ought to shoot, but didn't know how, but still ought to, and another part of my brain kept flogging the story of how the next door neighbor's son had come home early one night and so startled his wife, she'd shot him and had slowly driven herself insane with the guilt afterward and what if what if what if.

As I hunched over to watch through the open knobless hole, I could smell him, acrid sweat; he was about a foot away, looking at my door, saying, “Where the hell does that go?” and reaching for it, dirty fingernails, when he stopped.

Frozen. A moment. Backed up, looked through the kitchen door and turned to the back door. A deadbolt lock, requiring a key to get out and the key was nearby. He walked out and I watched him, through the window, memorizing everything about him, seeing him in the light, seeing him walk past my car and turn up the alley, moving toward the front of the house.

I wanted to move. Go find Luke, make sure he was okay. I was so afraid of what I would find, I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, trying to convince myself it was over.

Another light snapped on in the bedroom.

I turned toward the bedroom door, heard a voice approaching fast, heard someone saying something, demanding something and nothing was coherent for me then. I just lifted the gun and pointed it at the door, an inch away from whoever's chest who opened it, maybe that would teach them something, maybe I would pull the trigger and it would all be over, and the door swung open and there was a man's chest and there was the mouth of the gun touching it and there was the trigger and something waited, paused a moment and his hand pushed the gun down toward the floor as his other one pulled my chin up to look into his eyes.

Carl was home.

I tried saying something, tried explaining that as we spoke, or rather, as he was asking questions, there was a man walking up the alley who'd been in the house, a man who'd turned on every light, who'd tried to find me, ohmygod, Luke, and the only coherent thing I could manage to say was

that wasn't you in here

I broke and ran for Luke, who had, miraculously, slept through the entire thing, even though it was his window the man had broken into and his floor that had the trail of muddy footprints strolling across it, heading into the rest of the house, apparently alone, staying for more than forty minutes before hearing Carl come in the front door and so choosing to go out the back.

I ran back to the bedroom, stood in the corner of the room, tried to press my entire pregnant self into the wall-paper and screamed into my hands, afraid of waking Luke up, afraid of everything, that wasn't you in here that wasn't you in here that wasn't you in here.

I'm not sure when or how Carl finally made sense of what had just happened. I'm not sure when I got dressed, or how, but with every light on and with me armed with a CB base radio (and him with the other in his truck), he decided to cruise around the neighborhood, trolling through just in case he found the guy. He must have radioed back every three seconds to make sure I was okay.

He found someone lurking which matched my description and had me call the police. They got there immediately, stopped the guy. Had me look at him; wrong guy. He also happened to be wanted for being a peeping Tom, but still, the wrong guy.

A week or so later, they would call me and tell me they caught the guy; he had raped and beaten an 80 year-old lady in another house in our neighborhood with a large stick -- like a limb from a tree. Someone had caught him, however, and they wanted me to ID him.

I would later remember a limb that had been just outside that window and wonder why I had gotten so lucky.

He would later get off with a short sentence, two years, I think.

working

Apologies for the lack of content here. I'm in the process of working with a designer for a new site, plus regular work, plus some travel, plus a couple of family things. More updates soon, and then when we go live with the other site, there will be regular content. No, really. I promise. Quit looking at me like that, I'm serious.

New Year's resolutions I know I will keep.

I never really bother with New Year's resolutions. For one thing, I tend to forget whatever it was that I resolved by the second or third week of January, which makes adhering to them a little difficult. And honestly, I don't believe in making a bunch of resolutions of difficult things to do all at once, because if they're difficult enough so that I'm having to make a big fat honking resolution for it at the first of the year, then odds are, I'm not likely to do it anyway -- especially if there's more than one. But there's all this pressure at the beginning of the year to make resolutions, like you're not a good person if you don't have them (or you're shallow, because you think you don't need improvement) and why the hell do we do that to ourselves anyway? Do we really want to start off a new year with a buttload of guilt and a side-order of dread? No. No we do not.

So, keeping that in mind, I decided to make a New Year's resolution list I know I will keep so I don't have to worry about them, don't have to feel guilty because I'm not all that likely to break them, and I will have bragging rights even by July when the everyone else will be hiding their list. Feel free to use and adapt to your needs.

I hereby resolve to:

1) breathe. This is a handy little resolution I'm pretty sure I can keep, except when my head is spinning around in fury. (Given that this is when my husband usually reminds me to breathe, apparently there are some moments where it is remotely possible I might break this rule.) I especially like this one and feel it is my greatest candidate for "Most Likely To Keep."

2) eat. Whatever the hell I want. This is probably my second favorite category, although the third one competes heavily.

3) sleep. Especially naps. Long naps. Long naps where the phone is turned off. I'm liking this one better and better.

4) love my family except when they're being really stupid and I'd rather smack them. This may possibly be self-explanatory. (See note on #1.)

5) chocolate. If it enters my house, it is mine. If the kids don't get it out of their stockings and inadvertently leave their stockings here overnight, the chocolate will migrate to my room. All by itself. Magically. I don't know how this happens or why, but I accept that it does and that this means it is mine to eat whenever I damned well want to.

6) have convenient lapses of memory. (See #5.)

7) procrastinate. I feel this particular resolution gets short shrift at the first of every year because so many people make resolutions about being all industrious and shit when WHO ARE THEY KIDDING? My particular method of procrastinating is farting around on the computer. So far this year, I'm doing extremely well.

8) I think napping needs a second entry. Just because.

9) buy more shoes. (Feel free to substitute "tools" or "computers" or "gadgets" or "clothes" or "toothpicks" or whatever you like. This is an equal opportunity vice.)

10) write, read, talk to friends, e-mail, watch movies, HAVE FUN, do whatever it is I feel like doing to fill in the time between all of the above resolutions. Which may only be five or so minutes a day, between the napping and the procrastinating and the chocolate. In fact, I think the have fun part of this entry is going to be the most important of all. Because what the hell is the point of living if we aren't having some fun?

Well, I think I can keep that list. It might be a bit rough fitting in the napping and the procrastinating all in the same day every day, but it's worth a shot, and I will give it my best effort.

tap tap tap...

Is this thing on?

Sorry to have disappeared. Thank you to everyone who's written and clicked through and wondered if I was going AWOL again.

I'm not. Just was absolutely beyond exhausted, and I hadn't really even realized how much. I had signed up for Holidailies, thinking it would get me back into the groove, and instead, I just stalled completely. Apparently, finishing up a novel completely robbed me of words. I owe e-mail! I owe phone calls! I owe cards!

On the very good news / family front, both my sons graduated this month: Jake, (youngest), went through Firefigher training school and made Firefighter II. And we didn't know until they mentioned it at graduation, but it turns out that the school he went to was one of the top three in the nation. Wooo! Luke (oldest), graduated from college with a Criminal Justice degree, and his college is rated one of the top six in the nation for that degree. He's worked his behind off, and we're very proud of him. Of both of them.

There were a few times when they were younger that I wondered if they'd survive (each other as well as peer group stuff). Only a few times. (3,462,198 times.) It's amazing to see these... these men of mine. They're men. How in the hell did that happen? I can't be old enough to have men as my children. This is too bizarre.

At the same time, to sit around together at family events and everyone is laughing and cutting up and going off on riffs that has the rest of the family rolling, to see the grandparents sitting there with the kids, to know that this won't last forever, but we've got it, we've had those moments, they're ours... we got there, the magical "there" you hope and pray for as parents and as a child yourself. To know we had this, especially this year, is the greatest gift I could have received.

Hope you all have a wonderful New Year, where you have those magical moments for yourself, where your dreams come true, and where disasters do not strike. We're gearing up for the annual 'tater launch party. See you next year!

dance-y wigglebutt thing

A conversation with Carl:

"She had that dance-y wigglebutt thing going on."

"Dance-y wigglebutt thing?"

"Yeah. You know."

"Is that the technical term?"

"Yeah. But only if you're at the graduate level of dance-y speak."

"Somewhere a long time ago, this conversation was making sense."

"See, that's what happens when you inadvertently spring graduate level dance-y speak onto an unsuspecting person."

I am almost done with the editing, and will be wrapping up the book and turning it into the agent and the editor in about two weeks. No time for meatier entries, but they will return.

Meanwhile, two funny links:

The thing to buy that person who's just gone through a bad break-up.

And, the thing to have back at your place when you're bringing that party from the restaurant and everyone's had a little too much to drink. Tell 'em it's perfectly normal and you don't see why they think something's wrong.

no fast moves

Someone in my family, whom I adore, is a bit of a neat freak. (cough) The first time I ever visited her home, she kept warning me that it was messy, and when I went inside, I could not find a single piece of lint, not a single solitary item out of place. It was as perfectly designed as if it were going to be a magazine layout. Every. Single. Room. (I didn't look into cabinets at the time, but knowing her better five years later, I'm pretty sure they would have been perfectly organized as well.)

When we were out tonight for a friend's birthday, this otherwise brilliant woman confessed to what she'd done yesterday: a particular favorite blanket which had been used on a sofa had caused the sofa to pill... and she spent two hours shaving the sofa.

She. Shaved.... the sofa.

I am so going to mock her from now on. I may buy her a shaving kit for Christmas.

(I have warned her that this one's going in the next book. And it's not going to be flattering.) (heh)

halloween costumes

Lots of people have been googling costumes for Halloween, of course, but it sort of worries me that a large number of people have landed on this entry about the girl who was going to shave (completely) and go as a roll of duct tape. The employee in question lost track of the date that night (I suggested that she'd had to go to the bathroom and couldn't reassemble her costume from the sheer pain removing it had caused). Weeks later, he ran into her and she'd been out of school due to, ahem, severe rash. I'm not sure if I blogged about that at the time, but geez, you'd think somone in college would have been able to predict the consequences.

For laughs, here's the Halloween costume entry I wrote about a briliant idea I'd had when Luke was a kid. And if you didn't read my ghost story, that's there for your perusal.

(For my regular readers, sorry for the repeats. Fresh insanity tomorrow.)

the definition of 'frustrating'

A comment which may or may not have been uttered by someone I know:

"You know what's really crappy and annoying? Exercising and dieting and being all excited because the blue jeans you're currently wearing are finally loose and you've lost about ten pounds, and then you have to get dressed for something fancy and you go to your closet and look around for what baggy thing you own that will look the least craptastic on you, and you put it on and the sucker fits... because you have now lost down into your fattest dress clothes. After all that work."

"How much do I want to bet there's not a single drop of anything chocolate left in the house after that discovery."

"Damn straight."

dancing drunk video (redux)

I didn't realize so many people were coming into my site looking for the Dancing Drunk video. (I learned it when I switched to statcounter.com, a much better tracker of web stats). Anyway, the video is actually a group of actors from the show Reno 911 Kids (according to one of the comments on that old entry) and it can be found:

here

team tooth

So, I went to the endodontist yesterday. Where it turns out that I have a molar which is completely split in half. The only thing holding it in, apparently, is the crown. My tooth does not hurt. Functions fine. Looks completely normal. But for reasons I have no fucking clue about, has decided to vacate the premises.

The endodontist starts talking about how she's going to call my regular dentist for me, and then they'll conference call with the woman who's going to be my periodontist and the person who'll be doing the actual surgery, and while they're at it, they're going to consult with an orthodontist just to make sure that when we do all of this fun work, we don't mess up my smile. She (the endodontist) explained (with great enthusiasm) that they didn't want me to have to try to explain to each of the other dentist types because that was too complex, so they were all going to consult with one another and for me not to worry, because they were going to coordinate like a team.

People. My tooth has a team.

Next thing I know, it's going to want royalties.

Chertoff's firm grasp of the obvious

No, duh.

So, FEMA needs to be retooled. I have a couple of suggestions.

1) remove head from ass

2) no no, not just Bush's ass. Your own, Chertoff.

3) Remember America was founded on people who have a helluva lot of initiative. Pay attention to what the volunteers can do. Make a plan which has an organized system to coordinate volunteer efforts -- on the fly -- in large disasters which will work as a stop-gap effort before the "official" response can determine what's needed

4) move FEMA out from under your paper-pushing, ass kissing thumb and let it be the independent agency it's supposed to be. Clearly the extra layer of bureaucracy did not work.

5) pretend like that was your family out there in the Ninth Ward sitting on a roof. Yeah, I don't think it would take you six or seven days to coordinate efforts.

marc broussard

If you're not listening to Marc Broussard, you're missing the boat. A south-Louisiana boy from Carencro, LA, he's got a soul/R & B funk style that sort of defies description, and the smoky voice of a pro twice his age that will blow you away. My favorite is Home -- that link is to a snippet using Window's Media Player. Google his name for other links to his music via other players.

(That snippet doesn't even do that song justice. Seriously. An addictive song.)

oops

Accidentally deleted two comments from the "my louisisana" entry below, and have no clue how I managed to do that, as I was not even editing that particular entry. To Kitty and G. -- my apologies. The comments were much appreciated.

I'm going to be taking down this entry in the next day or so because I'm editing it for another purpose. It may be back up later, so there will be a placeholder here.

my louisiana

I always knew we were close when we got to the silos on highway 190. Tall, white, built to house the predominate crop of rice, their domes gleaming in the sun, they were a sign that we were almost to my paternal grandparents' home. I thought of the silos as the three soldiers, guarding a gateway to a different place in time. We would have been driving west two or so hours by that point to get to Kinder, Louisiana, -- just northeast of Lake Charles -- all the way from Baton Rouge, where my parents had moved so my dad could find a job.

My very first memory is of me sitting in the middle of my grandparents' living room on the hardwood floor in their small house, the attic fan rattling, dragging in muggy air from the hot spring day outside the screen door. Aunts, uncles, cousins were standing, leaning or seated in stiff ladderback chairs around the perimeter of the room. Most of the ladies wore cotten print dresses and flat shoes; the men had on slacks and short sleeve shirts, and cowboy boots, of course. A few of the men had their dress straw hats propped on their knees. My Paw Paw (for that's the common term there, Maw Maw and Paw Paw) usually had the nicer chair next to the door. It would be years before I would realize that worn, green, stained-armed, sagging seat, broken-back chair wasn't a throne.

Hazy cigarette smoke swirled above our heads, sucked into the attic fan and the evening light dappled through the open windows (always with screens to keep out the mosquitoes). Something played in the background, a crackly radio sawing out Cajun music, and the quiet room would ebb and flow with stories. Always the stories. Sometimes, the story tellers would be quiet, somber, sometimes picking up to a lively jaunt. Cajuns thrived on the telling, passing along reminiscences, which in turn, passed along heritage. Tales which gained in fame and embelishments with every incarnation. Cajuns loved good practical jokes, crazy lore, and it was more about the event of telling and hearing the story than the facts, anyway. It was, as my friend Kitty says, the 'supped up version. And sometimes, in the telling, they would switch over to Cajun if they didn't want the kids to understand, saddened, though, that they knew the kids wouldn't understand. Most of us grandkids were far flung from our heritage already.

Like my dad, I was born there, in pure Cajun country. Unlike my dad, I would never know the language, not in its full, rich glory, neither French, nor a corruption of it, but an altered language, spoken still in old caf�s with threadbare linoleum and formica countertops in small towns, dim and dusty and far from the interstate. My dad spoke only Cajun until he was in the first grade, when the teachers had been instructed to force all of the kids to speak only English, and stabbed a heritage in its soul without a single blade falling.

I remember spending time in Kinder, sometimes a week in the summer, and exploring the creek in the back, watching the crawfish build their mud huts, "fishing" for them with a piece of bacon tied to a string, running barefoot through grass and always getting stickers embedded in my toes, never wanting to put on shoes in spite of that because the loss of the feel of fresh, cool grass between my toes was a greater loss than the annoyance of the stickers. I remember watching the ceiling fans, listening to the rhythm of the attic fan, and always smelling the dark, loamy aroma of coffee brewed so strong, it practically sat up and had a conversation. I remember my Maw Maw hanging the white sheets on the clothesline that was strung from a post near her back door out toward the edge of the lawn near the creek, and the game we'd make of dodging around them, and the sweet, sunny smell we'd breathe in from them at night, as if they'd absorbed our happiness. I remember the spicy food, the rice with every meal, the constant ribbing and teasing and arguing. I remember the nights so quiet, I'd get up and walk around just to make sure I was sill alive, and I'd sit on the front porch, listening to the crickets and the croaking bullfrogs and the grunts of other animals not far away, sometimes still seeing fireflies dancing in the dark. I remember the biggest treat was hand-cranked ice-cream, which usually signalled our last night there, and I remember the voices in my dreams.

I haven't kept the accent, though I fall back into it as soon as I'm around my cousins or friends back there. I haven't kept as many of the customs, though we do have our own version of a fais do do (party) here every year, with everyone knowing what date and time and if they ever cross my threshold during the year, they have a permanent invitation to return for the party. I haven't kept as many memories as I wish I had, though I can still see my Paw Paw, strong as ever, approaching the porch and taking off his hat before he entered. My dad told me that since I was the oldest granddaughter and we lived with them at the time, my Paw Paw loved to come in from work and chat with me, only I'd cry as soon as he'd approach. It broke his heart, because apparently, I hung the moon, quite a feat for a two-year-old, but I was always an ovearchiever. And then one day, he took off his hat first (a straw cowboy hat), and I laughed and went straight to him. My dad said that he never had a memory of his father without a hat on prior to that, not once. I have no memories of him wearing one.

I'm usually amused by what people think of when they think of Cajuns, or horrified (may Adam Sandler die of a thousand paper cuts from the atrocity that was Water Boy, and no, I'm not even giving it the courtesy of linking to it... in fact, if you substituted any other ethnic background for that main character in that film, there would have a full-on battle cry of discrimination.)

I digress.

Cajuns are not just about the food and the accent, the fais do do, the playing hard. Yes, the food is important, because it was the social gathering. Yes, it's spicey, and full of flavors, as befitting a people who had to flee a country and hide out in a land and learn to live off it, best they could, and use what they had to hand. No, we won't eat everything, though many eat a few things I think are weird. Believe me, we're pretty freaked out over you eating (drinking?) wheat grass and tofu (which I have yet to understand) or go purely vegan.

Cajuns are stuborn, ornery, argumentative, ornery, muleheaded, ornery, determined, bossy, ornery, and in case I didn't mention it, ornery. They each are one hundred percent certain they are right, except when they're not, and it's your fault they weren't anyway, so what are you arguing about? At the same time, we'll work hard to go the extra mile, give whatever needs to be given. I grew up with people who thought it was normal to give whatever they could give and not count it as favors which needed to be repaid. It was just a matter of course that if they needed something in return, it would be done. Part of that came from being a people desperate for survival, clinging to their own cultures and traditions, knowing that to survive, they needed each other as well as their neighbors.

When we'd drive back home to Baton Rouge, the time travel reversed itself as fields fanning out to the side of the car gave way to small towns and industries and then the scary red Old Mississippi River bridge and finally into the suburbs of a city. There was a campaign here not so long ago, and the pithy slogan someone came up with to encourage city pride was, "We are B.R." Each time I'd see that slogan, I'd feel a disconnect, and then I realized, one day, that no, I'm not. I live here, and it's been my home most of my adult life and the few years I spent in Cajun country shouldn't have had such a profound lasting imprint.

But it did.

My Louisiana is a place of swamps and rivers and lakes and eating crawfish out at the fishing camp and drifting in a bateau with my dad, fishing early in the morning for the big bream. My Louisiana is a place of flavors and seasonings, a place of coffee and heat, of mosquitoes at sunset and screen doors. It's a place of hard work, intense play and loyalty beyond life. It's a place of belly laughs and counting on your neighbor.

And I'm glad it's mine.

Hurricane Rita, 1 p.m.

Things here are still gusty, some rain, but for the most part, not bad. At least, in our neighborhood. We just heard from a few family members around the area and they're still without electricity. I haven't been able to reach my oldest son, but I suspect that's more a function of the cell service being down in his area, which wasn't hard hit.

Hurricane Rita, 4 a.m.

For a while now, the wind has howled, then died down, then thrummed again. Several times, I thought there was some sort of engine running outside our window, only to realize again that it was the wind.

The electricity just came back on, though. Pretty amazing, given all that those workers must be having to do.

I'm worried about Lake Charles. I've got family there, and lots of friends. I'm pretty sure they all got out, but still.

I really wish my prediction (below) would have been wrong.

Hurricane Rita, 11 p.m.

We lost power about eight o'clock, and the generator developed problems immediately afterward. I'm operating the laptop and DSL off a converter which we've run to Carl's truck -- mostly so I can go online occassionally and look at the visual reports. We have a radio, plenty of supplies, so we're fine. Carl will fix the generator in the morning, if they don't have power back up by then.

The wind is gusting impressively, but so far, nothing severe, except a few limbs down.

More, later.

Hurricane Rita, outer bands

We're getting the outer bands of wind and rain now. There've been sightings of tornadoes south and east of Baton Rouge.

Carl got extra gas today, and they were changing the prices of the gas as he was filling up. (You know they didn't just get an extra shipment, so they're raising prices in anticipation. Which seems wrong, to me.)

Of course, the national news is covering the new water going over the levees in New Orleans. No big surprise there (sadly).

Hurrican Rita, shifting eastward

I've been up all night, writing, and occasionally checking the weather. By four a.m. this morning, a couple of the stations were reporting that the new projected landfall would be closer to Port Arthur, TX, which is just on the Texas / Louisiana border. I'm looking at the jet stream, and I think it's still going to shift more during the day.

Look:

There's a small pressure system off the coast of Texas where the jest stream is pushing toward the east, and it may be just enough to funnel the hurricane into the northernly flowing jet stream. If so, probably sometime late this evening, we're going to see it shifting more north/northeast than it has been so far, which means that places like Lake Charles are going to take a phenomenal direct hit, and places like Lafayette and Baton Rouge, which will be on the east side of those winds, will get a pretty strong impact, gusts-wise.

Baton Rouge has areas which tend to flood pretty badly, but the majority drains decently well, even in heavy downpours. It's going to be the wind that's going to create problems with downed trees, etc.

Of course, I am so clearly not a weather person, I will be delighted if I'm completely wrong. I certainly don't wish this storm on anyone, but I'm not sure how much more Louisiana can take.

Hurricane Rita

I wrote this last night, then pulled it back down when the weather link I had looked at for the jet stream mentioned below was replaced with a different jet stream pattern. I just watched the weather and they are anticipating changing the track to a more north-easterly direction, which is what I had feared. I suspect we're going to see a continued notheasterly shift toward Louisiana. We're already going to get those east-side winds.

Here's what I wrote last night:

Right now, it looks like Rita is going to hit the Texas coast with a hellish slam, and I dread seeing what it's going to do to Galveston and Houston. I'm also worried about the west Louisiana coastline and places like Lake Charles, which will get the east side of the hurricane. As we've seen, re: Biloxi and Gulfport / Waveland area, being on that east side is deadly.

Not helping matters any is the shift I'm seeing in the jet stream. The front that was pushing the hurricane away from Louisiana and sort of forcing its movement toward Texas looks (to me, a total lay person) to be shifting and sucking air from the Gulf straight north. The hurricane should enter into that northernly flow by tomorrow, and I'm wary of that changing the direction to a more direct hit to the Louisiana coast. (Not that there's going to a single place that's good for it to land.) The national weather media aren't calling it like that, so maybe there's nothing to worry about. Then again, we're in construction, and I've spent 23 years looking at things like the jet stream and how fast the storms move so that I can predict when it's going to rain somewhere. I can usually watch the maps, call Carl and tell him just exactly how long he has before it rains on him. But I haven't ever really tried predicting a hurricane's path, other than to watch the newscasters. Let's hope they know a helluva lot more than I do.

the new normal

I'm having a really hard time even trying to contemplate people talking about another hurricane right now. I want to put my fingers in my ears, squeeze my eyes shut, la la la la la, I can't HEAR you. Because, you know, that always worked when I was a kid.

If Rita strikes toward west Louisiana, it's going to mean the entire southern part of our state will have been harmed within weeks of each other. We still have many many people here who are without homes (and will be so for probably a year or more).

It's a little weird to say things were getting back to "normal" here, because there is a new "normal." We spoke with a realtor the other day (not for ourselves, for a family member) about values / sales around here, and it's a little insane. Property values have jumped, sales have jumped, all sorts of businesses are buying up real estate downtown -- it's just crazy. It was already pretty fast-paced around here prior to the storm, and values have continued to go up every year, but they jumped, according to the realtor, by another 30% after Katrina. He said that while Baton Rouge did double in size after Katrina, the real news is that at least half of those people will stay here permanently. He also said that every rental out there was snapped up within 24 hours of Katrina and big companies, like Exxon, are offering big deals to people to buy out their leases because they have to relocate their executives to Baton Rouge.

This place is forever changed.

I've never lived through a life event where the actual landscape around me altered radically. I've moved, I've had traumatic things happen which will forever be a benchmark of change internally, but I've never had the world around me shift on such a large scale.

On the other hand, the people here seem to really be rallying and pulling together. There's a great determination to at least use the disaster to improve things in the state -- including the politics. I don't know how well that will be accomplished, but I hope it can improve. It certainly can't get much worse, though, right?

But, in the midst of all of this, I am writing, working on the book, keeping an eye on that deadline coming up. And wonderfully, in spite of being in shock and profoundly changed on some levels, this novel has brought me great joy. I'm writing a story about a kick-ass Cajun woman who battles incredible odds to try to save her brother. She's a little bit Terminator, a little bit Tazmanian Devil rolled into one, and mostly, she's a lot of fun. I love this character, and I love that it's set in south Louisiana (not, ironically, New Orleans, but in Lake Charles / Lafayette and Baton Rouge.) It's a crazy, funny, raucous world I can escape to, and it energizes me. It also helps (greatly) that I have an amazing agent and an equally amazing editor. They each called and wrote and were incredibly supportive. It's made me feel protected, which helped make writing the book exciting and fun. It's hard work, of course, but it's what I thrive on. I can't imagine how other people have coped without having this sort of outlet. I hope to blog more about this process and what I've learned in the near future. Meaning, I really hope there aren't any more hurricanes or bad news to keep reporting. I crave normal. Whatever that's going to be, I guess, I'd like to get there.

(I never was terribly patient. I was really tired of being pregnant by month four and ready to boot the kid out by month five. Wiser heads prevailed.)

As for the hurricane(s)... I'm still delivering lots of supplies and books to various shelters and families who need the items. I don't know what affect the new hurricane will have on this, but right now, the need has shifted away from needing supplies or clothes and into other more long-term needs (educational supplies for the schools, for example, which have taken on nearly 7000 new students in this parish alone). I'll be making a run tomorrow to lots of places and will update on what I learn from them. If you've asked me what you can send and I have your e-mail, I'll try to respond directly. Many of you sent things already, and I've tried to make sure you were thanked directly... but at one point, there were so many boxes and deliveries happening, I may have missed a few of you. For that, I apologize -- I really wanted to make sure everyone knew where their gifts went and that they were greatly needed and appreciated.

I'm off to write on the book. Bobbie Faye has some butts to kick, and that, I assure you, is going to be a blast.

where grace lives

I passed a man at a shelter the other day. He was tall and lanky and sunburned, dressed in cut-offs and a soaked blue t-shirt, with a grubby baseball cap shoved on top of muddy curls. There was something about his lean, sinewy body that made me think of the shrimpers I've seen down in Cocodrie -- it's a hard life and it makes for no-nonsense, self-sufficient men.

He was sitting in a metal folding chair, slumped forward, his elbows on his knees, and the exhaustion in his shoulders made me ache. Between his feet was a medium sized box, and he was staring down into it. The box held some basic necessities: toiletries, canned goods, a pair of socks, and a pair of underwear. I realized, then, that he was barefoot -- the grime around his ankles marked him as having abandoned his shoes somewhere along the way. His large feet were probably too big for any of the donated shoes stacked up at a one of the neaby tables.

When I looked back at that box, I wondered what he must be thinking. My first thought, without seeing his face, was that this wasn't much to give a man after he'd lost everything. This wasn't much to hold onto for a man like that, and maybe he was angry at having lost everything, or frustrated that this is what he'd been reduced to. I had no words that would be of use, no words which could do any good, and I began to turn away when he suddenly looked up and caught my eye.

He had tears on his cheeks. When I stood there, not sure what to do, he shrugged and said, "I can't believe how generous people are. I can't believe total strangers would go out of their way to help so much."

I mumbled something about it being the least we could do, as neighbors, and I moved off into the crowd, feeling wholly inadequate and humbled in the face of such grace.

A few days later, we located a guy and his family who'd had to evacuate New Orleans. Their home? Right near where that levee broke. It was under ten feet of water.

I wish you could meet Keith. We'd hired him before as a sub-contractor when we had work in New Orleans, and Carl had always been impressed with him as a very hard worker. He is one of those rare, wonderful stories, where the guy grows up in the ghetto, makes a choice to change his life and better himself, works hard, has a family, and is slowly climbing out of the pay-check to pay-check rut. We'd gotten a phone call when he was evacuating, but couldn't receive the call (it went to voice-mail) and then couldn't find him afterward. Finally, after a few days, his phone was working again and he got in touch.

When Keith and his extended family complied with the forced evacuation, they believed they'd be going back the next day. After all, they lived in the inner city, in an apartment. There might be wind damage and a little flooding in the street, but they'd be home by the next day. They took nothing but the clothes on their backs. It was an extended family evacuating -- cousins and their families all hitching rides together -- and there simply wasn't much room in the vehicles to carry anything extra with them. They never dreamed they'd see their street on the TV News, completely under water.

Keith told Carl where he was staying. They'd run out of money, there was no room in the shelters, and no place to go except for the home of one lovely, wonderful aunt, who took them all in. All of them -- cousins, spouses and kids. All 45 of them, in one house, which has maybe a thousand square feet of living area. They were living in tents in the back yard, completely unsure what to do next.

We brought a few supplies from our home, and a couple of boxes someone had generously sent me which had diapers, baby wipes, new underwear, toiletries and a few toys inside. Keith's wife was careful to count the toys and remove the extras for us to give to other kids. These two boxes probably could have made a family of four or five slightly more comfortable, but this big family of 45 carefully shared everything and made it seem as if we'd given them manna. One mom picked up a bag of diapers and underwear for her kids and clutched them. She turned and gave me the biggest hug, the warmest smile.

For the kids, the one new toy they had was like Christmas. They finally had something to do,, instead of wondering why they couldn't go home, why couldn't they have their bike or their doll. Not understanding that everything back home was still under ten feet of water that was growing ever more toxic by the minute.

We stayed a while, listening to their stories, listening to the kids play, taking photos (the cutest kids ever). Most of the adults didn't know what was going to happen to their jobs. Several had seen their place of business destroyed by winds or water; others couldn't reach their bosses and had heard they weren't going to move back and try again. In the midst of all of this pain, in the midst of the stories, there was a moment where they all stopped, looked at one another. Then the aunt said, "But all my family is here. We're all alive. We're the lucky ones." And they all nodded.

I was in awe.

By the next day, more boxes were showing up here with supplies. More and more people wrote to ask what we needed. More and more people were as outraged and frustrated as we were here, and they wanted to help. I know many donated to charities, but these boxes -- they keep showing up, filled to the brim with things people need, with supplies damned near impossible to find in some of these areas. I get to bring them to the shelters and to the people who need them, and the recipients treat me like a hero, but it's not me. It's you. It's every single one of you who sent a box or a prayer or letters of support.

I don't know how to explain it. There is the immediate help, of course. So many things needed by so many people. Baton Rouge has doubled in size from evacuees, and for those who can get to the stores, they're crowded and often stripped of goods. I've seen clerks stocking shelves only to have items plucked out of their hands before they could even set it down. I've had to go to four or five stores sometimes to find things that we need, though that's easing up a bit now. And while it's helpful and useful and much needed, it's more than that.

It's that we're not alone.

The rage I feel right now is palpable (and Miss Alli expressed it so freaking well). I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that we live in a country that can put men on the moon, which can help build an international space station, which can go to other countries with every sort of aid, but we could not get water to people trapped on an overpass for days. I cannot wrap my mind around why they were trapped in the first place, since there were trucks passing them by. FEMA trucks, who wouldn't stop. I don't understand that. It's just one scene of so many, and it makes no sense. People died on that overpass, when help just drove right by them.

I cannot understand how we can have media crews showing the devastating events down at the Convention Center and the Superdome, and FEMA not "know" they're there. How do we live in a country which can drop aid to everyone else in the world, and no one could drop water and food to the people trapped there? How can we handle going in to war-torn areas and get aid to people there, but a few thugs prevented us from helping Americans? How?

And how is it that now, more than two weeks later, I'm still getting reports from the outlying areas that FEMA still hasn't shown up?

Still. Hasn't. Shown. Up.

Even with all of the publicity, even with all of the realization of the screw ups, even with all of the common knowledge of the devastation, there are still shelters where there are elderly and families with newborns and they have only gotten help from people like you and me and, in some cases, the Red Cross. Four days after the hurricane, when I had discovered that neither FEMA nor the Red Cross had made it to Covington, I cornered the FEMA guy in charge over at the LSU / Triage area and told him about the need. He really didn't look interested. I badgered him. (I am good with the badgering.) He was a big guy, hulking over me, and I had the sense that he was barely refraining from swatting me like an incessant fly, but I kept up with the badgering and only when I mentioned that the people were in a depressed (read: somewhat poor) area did he actually start paying any attention. Well, "attention" is generous. The man had me write down the information in a notebook, promised me someone would get out there soon, especially to evacuate those with medical needs. Then he clapped the notebook closed, turned to another person standing there and started chatting.

When I went to the shelter Saturday, I asked the Red Cross Volunteer (who'd arrived on day seven, three days later) if FEMA had shown up. She said they had driven by once and dropped off some ice (which was gone in an hour) and they hadn't been back. At that point, it was day twelve.

The newspaper, the following day, showed another city entirely forgotten: Bogalusa. No one had been there, no one had called, no supplies, lots and lots of damage.

I don't understand these things. I know I live in America. Well, last time I checked, Louisiana was still in America. Maybe something happened somewhere that someone forgot to mention to us, but yeah, pretty sure we're still in America. And the magnitude of the inept response (including local) is staggering.

It was like watching someone I love get gutted and lie there bleeding and knowing that help was standing a few feet away, talking about golf scores.

So when I say to you that you've made a difference, I don't mean it lightly or in any sort of frivolous way. When it suddenly became clear that we were the ugly, unwanted step-child of the government, or worse, the beaten, neglected child of the local officals who were hastily trying to cover up their long-term abuse with loud excuses, you made us feel human again. So many of you -- giving, calling, writing, trying. Feeling the outrage on our behalf. Knowing it belonged to you, because you were us, we were a part of this country, and you cared. We needed you, and you were there, and the outpouring of that grace and hope helped to get us through the worst of the days when we were watching in horror as our own people died, as our friends and family were left, as people were treated worse than we'd ever ever treat an animal.

You made a difference. A big difference. And I thank you.

soon...

I haven't posted since I've been bringing things out to shelters and others who need help. And those things were so generously donated, I am blown away. Completely. Blown. Away. by the kindness and generosity of people who asked if they could send things. So many have... and it's been a real help.

There will be an entry on this and photos tomorrow.

Katrina / Slidell, Covington, Triage

Slidell area people -- if you haven't been reading the comments on the two or three Slidell entries below, various people have been reporting news as they've found it. (For example, the Slidell Memorial Hospital did not collapse as was reported in comments earlier, but is still standing.) Also, there are still requests for information on missing people. In at least one case, someone in the comments is trying to reach someone else who left comments about information requested -- so check, please, if you left a request.

Slidell / Covington shelter -- I was not able to get back to the Covington shelter as I had hoped. The first two days after posting that plan, I was completely thwarted by the fact that there was absolutely no gas to be found in my area. It was eerie how every single gas station was empty. Finally found some yesterday, but had a lot of other things I had to do. However, my son went and discovered two good pieces of news: the Red Cross finally showed up and there is at least a nurse there, and sometime yesterday the shelter got its electricity back, so they at least have the ability not to sit in 95+ degree heat. We did not get their names (no time to do so), and there are at least 30 to 40 people there from the Slidelll area. This shelter is the William Pitcher (spelling?) High School in Covington, if you're trying to track someone down there.

LSU Triage -- to my shock, LSU made an abrupt decision yesterday to close down the triage at the P-MAC. The ER / Trauma doctor who was staying with us was very concerned about this because they were still getting in busloads of patients, in spite of the fact that the FEMA people stamped this "Mission Complete." According to our wonderful volunteer doctor (who is so highly qualified, Louisiana was extremely lucky he showed up, paid his way here, wouldn't accept donations or anything for his help) -- anyway, according to the Doc, this is the worst time to shut down a triage after this sort of disaster. Especially with the news coming out of New Orleans about how dangerously bad the toxic levels of the water are. (Mere exposure to the water -- not just drinking it -- will cause a host of severe illnesses.) The Doc said that within the next few days, we were going to get many people getting sick from having been exposed (and it takes a few days for some of these things to incubate), plus many volunteers / rescuers were starting to come in will illnesses. In addition, many many of the elderly and nursing home people will have had enough time to become septic or have the more serious complications develop from being deprived of their medicines or in such severe conditions. In fact, after the LSU / FEMA people made this decision to "go dark," and declare this "mission: complete," there were two busloads of patients who arrived. On one bus, was a little boy, whose mother only knew that he was going to be at the P-Mac. The doctors were extremely frustrated that their hands were tied and they had to send the busses on to Lafayette (a full hour away from Baton Rouge). Our Doc assured the driver that the child wouldn't be lost -- he'd be in the system. It might take the mom a couple more days to find him, but she'd be able to find him. But still. There's no way to get back in touch with the mom from this end, and the thought that yet another family is separated, that another mom is going to have the extra and unnecessary stress of having to find her child in addition to the fact that the child was sick (hence sending him to the P-Mac... it's just ludicrous. I don't know what the hell the FEMA / LSU people are thinking.

(Well, I suspect what they're thinking is that they want to get things back to normal, which sadly, just can't be done in time for the home football schedule, so they're forcing the issue.)

I asked the Doc what would happen to all of the emergency patients who now aren't going to have a triage to go to, especially since there's a fairly large volume of people, still, and he said they'd be dumped on the local hospitals, who are already over-extended. It's a wrong-headed, crazy decision, and one that the local press isn't likely going to comment on. (Most people don't want to dis the home team, especially since they did put themselves out and spend so much money and effort establishing the triage in the first place.) I'm proud that they set it up, and proud that they did so much good, but this is a bad decision. Even I -- so not a medical person -- can see there's going to be a big need for a little while longer. Why not just move it to one of the other facilities they just set up? I dunno, but it's distressing.

Katrina / LSU Triage

When you drive up Nicholson onto the southern end of the LSU campus, rising to your right is the enormous stadium (under even more expansion), with its parking lot a construction lay-down yard. To the left, Alex Box Stadium, with all of the national championships proclaimed proudly on the exterior walls.

If you look a little past the stadium on the right, you'll see the Pete Maravich Center or P-MAC for short. (It's what many of us old LSU grads still refer to simply as the "Assembly" Center.) Its white dome and curved concrete ramps will always hold a special place in my heart -- it's where I officially became an LSU student, years ago. Back before there was computer registration, we all "walked through" registration, where we battled and jockeyed in lines on the floor of the Center to claim a "card" for the class we wanted -- a slender 3 x 7 card with "chads" punched out, indicating the class for which we'd just enrolled. We'd take the cards and climb to the second level and walk around the corridor, stopping at the various tables set up for each task required and then finally, on to pay our fee bill.

It was exciting to be a part of that crowd. It was fresh, it was hope, it was a beginning into all potential. It was a promise of something bigger to come.

Yesterday, Carl and I drove onto campus and parked in the Alex Box parking lot, took the crosswalk and headed back toward the P-Mac. There was the white dome gleaming in spite of being overshadowed by the behemoth stadium. There was the newly renovated Mike-the-Tiger cage, a luxiourious enclosure complete with rocks to climb, a waterfall, a very large pool and plenty of space to run and play. It was a far far cry from the sad little cage he used to have. Good for Mike. Next came the concrete ramps which had long ago made me feel like I had been racing up up up toward a future.

Then there was the fence. A fence. There had never been a hurricane fence preventing access to the ramps. Or military standing outside said fence. So around the P-MAC we went, getting to the LSU campus side, making a sharp left turn to walk up the street. There's a large white posterboard sign on the guard's gate in hasitily written print which says, "Ambulances" and has an arrow.

The P-MAC is still on my left, and now as I look across the fence and beneath the mezzanine, there are tables set up. There are many people who prove to be volunteers behind the tables and many evacuees in front, having just gotten in from New Orleans. There are tables of clothes and shoes (which run out just as soon as the volunteers can get some in), tables of water and food to eat right then, as well as canned goods and other supplies to take with them... for many of them will try to bunk with family for the night, and that family may not even know they're coming. There's a table set up with laptops so the people can send a message.

As we keep moving around the P-MAC, I can tell we're reaching the serious part of this operation, where there are nurses and techs taking medical information, where higher priority (read: in grave danger) patients are taken in immediately to the triage center and where those in dire need but less life-threatening are interviewed by nurses and their stats recorded on brand new files. Nurses and doctors and all sorts of techs ebb and flow through this space. Thre are Guards with guns (wholly over-kill, but they're there). There are volunteers of all shape and sizes -- from LSU students to firemen to police to little grey-haired church ladies.

We sign in at the non-medical volunteer station and go in to see what their needs are. We are there to volunteer our home to medical staff, now that extended family and friends don't need it. We've heard the staff is working twenty-hour shifts and some of them have no place nearby to just crash and relax.

When you walk inside the entrance, you walk down a slight slope until you reach the wide, round base of the P-MAC. Purple seating has been pushed up against the walls. The last time I stood at floor level like that, I was seventeen, and I remember I stood for a moment in awe of the swarm of people, the organized chaos, the feeling of a small city set to work on one task. It was, in many ways, the same. But this time, that small city was made of white temporary screens to give the patients some privacy, there were rows of I.V. bags.

There is a M*A*S*H unit in my campus. A field unit triage on the floor of our basketball arena. There were doctors and nurses and plenty of techs, and helicopters beating overhead and a row of ambulances, sirens blaring, on their way in.

There is a M*A*S*H unit. In Louisiana. In my university.

In the USA.

I am still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the necessity of that. That we had so many people wounded in a major catastrophe, that we've lost an entire city, that we're still finding and rescuing people, six days later. That there are so many families who can't find loved ones, so many families who were crying with gratitude because they were able to put on someone's cast-off shoes.

In the USA.

There in front of me was a little city of survivors, and they were being helped by some of the hardest working people I've ever seen.

To my immediate left was the staging area for the medical supplies, and there were many volunteers working and busy. They were, I learned, completely out of thermometers. I asked the supply person what she had left when I overheard this fact, and she held up a huge thermometer -- the kind they'd use on a cow or something. I think I flinched. I checked out what else they needed and then we went out and bought some thermometers (not an easy find). When I brought them back a dozen later, she practically hugged me and cried. You'd think I had brought her gold.

What concerned me was that all of the supplies were in brown cardboard boxes or black plastic containers, and they were all on the floor. Which, though it wasn't insanitary (they were all individually wrapped), it was an extreme difficulty for the staffers to find anything. I showed Carl.

Carl went to Lowe's, which was closed already. When he explained what he needed and why, they let him in and sold him the wood below cost. He went back today and a wonderful group of New Orleans people who were displaced and staying with family volunteered and helped him build the shelves. They built five large sets, so now most of the supplies are up and organized and easy-to-find.

They were, however, out of thermometers again. They had had five hundred people go through that very morning, and were expected more bus loads that evening, and no more thermometers in the surrounding area to be purchased.

Carl came home with a doctor from Tennessee who'd been working an ungodly amount of hours. He's sleeping now, and will go back on duty in a little while and we hope he makes this his home-away-from-home. I have a friend of Pooks' on her way in -- she's a nurse -- and she'll work from here, too, I hope.

I went back today, to check on the needs, got information, volunteered, saw the shelves Carl had built get put to good use.

There were more helicopters and ambulances when I left. I looked back over my shoulder and saw a helicopter landing on the side, on what I think is the tennis court area.

There is a M*A*S*H unit at my university.. The doctor staying with us said it was now the largest emergency room in the country. And the sad thing is, they think it'll be needed there for three or so more weeks.

I am very proud of all the people working so hard there who are trying to make that possible. Maybe, hopefully, to the people coming in there, the white dome will have been a sign of hope. Of possibility. That there will be a future. I don't know, and I don't know it's enough.

I took a few photos of the shelves and the triage area. To my knowledge, they weren't letting media in there at all, but they let me take these photos:

The supply situation prior to the shelves.

After the shelves.

Triage during a quiet moment. There are more than 300 beds in this arena, though it's difficult to tell from this angle.

Jake, then Carl, then our wonderful volunteers. I wish I had thought to get everyone's name! If they read this -- thank you!

Katrina / Slidell people...

I've learned this evening that there are about thirty or so Slidell evacuees in the Covingtong shelter. This includes the elderly and some families with kids as well as two people with newborns. I am going there tomorrow morning to get all of their names and to take photos of them so we can get their info out to their families. I will be blogging their names and photos (for those who allow me to) and I will also put all of their names into the Red Cross database. In addition, anyone from other areas, I'll also be getting all of their names, too. There's about 65 people at that shelter. I understand there's another shelter somewhere near this one; I'll try to find it and check on them, as well.

FWIW, I cornered a FEMA hancho and told him about the shelters and that no FEMA people had shown up there, yet. He didn't seem to care. I badgered him, because there are elderly there, they are sleeping on the floor on cardboard, they need to be taken out of there. When I emphasized the word "elderly," he finally seemed somewhat interested. It wasn't until I mentioned that the second shelter was in an impoverished area that he asked me to write down the information so he could check to see if anyone is going out there to them.

There was a Red Cross doctor there today, for the first time. I am extremely upset that the only volunteers they'd been having had been members of my family. My son and his girlfriend brought all sorts of supplies, paid for by funds from many friends, especially a big-hearted group of people over on Knife Forums.

More tomorrow.

KATRINA / SLIDELL HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGES

My wonderful, amazing friend, Ed, sent me this site which has high resolution images of Slidell. You can zoom in on neighborhoods.

NOW BEFORE YOU CLICK -- read this:

You will first get a pink and blue graphic. You will need to click on the Slidell area box. You'll get another weird graphic which has areas of Slidell outlined in green -- and and first, I thought I was supposed to click one of those areas. Nope. You'll see a bunch of little black boxes... that's what you click on. It's not clearly organized yet (meaning, I can't tell where that black box corresponds to on the pink map), but those of you from there may well understand it much better.

Slidell High Resolution Photos

Here is the link to the Master Map for other areas of the state. MANDEVILLE PEOPLE -- YOU CAN'T SEE ANYTHING much -- seriously, it's mostly of the lake, so I don't want you to get your hopes up:

Louisiana High Resolution Map

PLEASE PASS THESE LINKS ALONG TO OTHER SITES SO MORE PEOPLE CAN SEE THEIR HOMES.

Katrina / News from Slidell

Dawn posted this in the comments, and I thought I'd move it here (with her permission) since it has a lot of Slidell news:

I live in Tanglewood, my house is fine, no water. I lost all trees but they did not fall on the house. My parents live off of Thompson Road on Le Fleur, they had water 2 feet and trees on house, through the roof. My in-laws live off Thompson Road on Ranch Circle, they had water and lots of tree damage. My husband and father have been in Slidell working on homes. It is very scary with armed guards with guns and people frantic for gas. If you go to Slidell, make sure you have enough gas to make it back to Baton Rouge, there is no gas around. Cars are being stolen by people who are stranded. Pharamcies have been robbed. It is not a place for women and children now. My mother and I are in North Louisiana with family until electric power is restored and it is safe to return to our homes. I was born and raised in Slidell, from what I understand it does not look like the same place. I have friends on North Blvd that were fine and did not sustain any damage.

Westchester and the south side of town was heavily damaged. Water was high to Fremeaux. Most properties on Hwy 11 were lost. Most property on Lakeview/Rat Nest Road was lost. Most of Eden Isles is covered with water and now mud. Boat Stuff on Front Street had 6 feet of water. Rescue workers drove boats over the fence to get additional boats to use in rescue efforts. Many lives have been lost, however many survivors have been located.

Katrina / Hammond & surrounding area

My son went through Hammond today (9/3) and there are some places (mostly commercial) which have power. Word is that it's still going to be days before they can get power up elsewhere. There was some cell phone service there.

Downed trees all over (Covington / Mandeville) getting cleaned up, but a terribly long way to go. No word yet on when power might go back on. Covington nursing homes in real need for some items, particularly personal hygiene, fans (very hot in there, and the floors sweat and are slippery).

Jefferson Parish people will be allowed back in their parish and into their homes starting at 6 a.m. Monday morning. The line to get into the parish starts at 6 p.m. the night before. (I don't know where this forms or what routes you'll be allowed to take. WBRZ will announce it. Let me know if there's a need for me to report here, but they'll probably put it up on their website.) The parish president warned that you needed to have enough gas to get you there and home again, because there was absolutely no gas to be had in the parish.

Plaquemine Parish got fed up because they just now got a FEMA representative to show up there today. That's just insane. (See the Plaquemine photos below.) They asked for permission to break through their levee two days ago -- the water in their city was much higher than the water in the river, and there was no way to drain it, and no one would call them back. They finally took it upon themselves to blow the levee so they could drain the water and start finding bodies... this is not supposed to impact the water in New Orleans.

Carl and I volunteered at the LSU Triage and I have much positive news from there, they are doing an amazing job. There are some needs. More about this in the morning.

Katrina / self-employed and unemployment relief

The Department of Labor just announced a new initiative: If you are self-employed or you are a recent hire and you wouldn't ordinarily qualify for unemployment benefits, you now do. They have set up a disaster-relief fund and they are aggressively looking to sign up anyone affected by Katrina who needs the income help.

Call: 1-866-4-USA-DOL (1-866-487-2365)

Katrina / helpful links

WJBO has been compiling all of the Missing Persons Links.

Josh Britton, who has been doing a great job getting information out from LSU, blogs that a lot of vounteers here are going around to the shelters and trying to record and then log onto the computer all of the evacuee's names. They think this may take them a week to do because there are so many.

Also, Josh is asking for brainstorming help to make this process better. There really needs to be one sort of database without having to re-enter all of the information already entered. A lot of well-meaning people started up websites, but the information is spread out. Any suggestions?

If you're looking for information on a location, this site is where you can go. If you HAVE INFORMATION about a location, please go fill it in. The site is extremely easy to use. If you have any confusion about how to post there, write to me and I'll walk you through it. I am happy to help.

If you want to donate to a local effort, I highly recommend The Healing Place. 100% of your donations will go to the relief effort and they will provide you with a tax receipt. They are highly ethical, hard-working, down-to-earth people, and they are helping numerous sheltes here.

Katrina / how it should have worked

There are two posts in the comments section to the last blog which are excellent. I want to emphasize that I was exhausted when I posted the Mayor's rant and neglected to mention that I still believed, in spite of his passionate outbursts, that his incompetence was a huge cause of all of these problems. I was about to list all of the ways, and then beloml posted this in the comments. I've linked to the blog beloml references, but if there is a more direct link and someone knows it, please e-mail me and I'll correct it. I think it's worth moving up to the top (as is the other comment, which I will do later):

Actually, this comment in Donald Sensing's blog makes a lot of sense to me:

Disaster preparedness is the responsibility of State and Local authorities � in this case LEMA (The Louisiana Emergency Management Agency).

There is a state-wide director for disaster relief in every state � that person is called the Governor. There is a local director for disaster relief in every municipality � that person is called the Mayor.

FEMA is a coordinating body that assists State and Local authorities in getting the resources they need.

Because they are the �go to� people most folks are under the impression that they are in charge, and in fact if the State and Local authorities abdicate control over a disaster area they will take over.

Typically after the initial response to a disaster the local guys do just that, leave FEMA in control. That�s because they have the experience and personnel to manage disasters of this scale.

Disclosure: I�m a volunteer coordinator for MEMA (The Missouri Emergency Management Agency), I�ve been through three major floods and a few big storms that generated enough tornado damage to get the affected counties disaster relief � believe me when I tell you what we are seeing from FEMA now is lightyears ahead of what I�ve seen from them in the past.

Typically it took two to three days just to get the disaster declaration, then another two to three to get FEMA deployed � of course by then the local guys had been on the ground working around the clock for five or six days and we were more than happy to dump everything in FEMA�s lap. That�s the way the system is designed.

Bush saw that and tried to skip a few steps to speed things up, he pre-declared the areas disaster areas. So what we are seeing in NO is the result of a convergence of factors:

First, the storm damage was bad, but the flooding has made relief efforts ten times harder than anything they could have imagined.

Second, Mayor Nagin�s performance has been pathetic. This is the worst case of poor planning and criminal incompetence I�ve ever seen.

Like I said, Bush declared the gulf coast area a Federal Disaster area on Saturday � two days before Katrina hit.

That freed up FEMA resources for local and state coordinators and allowed for the pre-positioning of supplies so they could be rapidly deployed to the affected areas.

Mayor Nagin waited until the last minute to call for an evacuation of the city, but the poorest people could not evacuate � why weren�t school busses used to get them out of town?

Mayor Nagin made the last minute decision to declare the Superdome and COnvention centers as refuge relocation points � why weren�t they stocked with water, food, bedding, generators, and fuel? Why weren�t hospitals offered additional resources by the Mayors office?

Mayor Nagin made the decision to allow looting and told the police to focus on Search and Rescue � but looting hinders S&R efforts (as we�ve seen) and no one I know could believe that decision � it�s emergency management 101, preserving order preserves life.

There�s plenty of blame to go around � Blanco deserves her share too � but the real culprit in the aftermath here is Nagin.

Katrina / Mayor of New Orleans rant

For everyone who didn't get to hear the full version of the rant by the Mayor of New Orelans yesterday (and wow, isn't is just a little miraculous that all of this federal help finally started showing up?)... here's the link, thanks to my friend Pooks.

The Mayor's Rant

A commenter over on Diane's blog named Todd made an excellent point when he said:

"You know the part that creeps me out about this? The department responsible for much of the response to this is Homeland Security. Yes, the one that is supposed to protect everyone in the event of a tragedy bigger than 9/11 (you know - the one that the republicans