Friday, October 14, 2005

Return to Normalcy!

Yesterday was the tipping point. It was the first day that I felt alert and awake all day without being seized by an overwhelming need to curl up into a ball and take a nap. Yay! I have energy! And it's not just me, everything is growing more and more normal, minute by minute.

We have had POWER for two nights! So in very normal fashion, last night I watched Survivor, my one favorite ridiculous reality show! We can now accomplish things at home after 7 p.m.! I vacuumed yesterday-one of the joys of having electricity- and cleaned the whole house, just in time for our insurance adjuster to take a tour. So that's another task that can be checked off. Shaw continued to restore our yard. And our ROOFERS -- yes ROOFERS!-- are currently installing fabulous new shingles on our home.

In the late afternoon yesterday, our neighbors returned (more normalcy!) just in time to watch this incredible vehicle come up our street -- it has a giant claw on one end like the ones you use to catch stuffed animals in those games in the lobbies of grocery stores -- only instead of catching stuffed animals, you catch refrigerators! This operator was good -- he caught a refrigerator every time, then he placed them neatly side by side in a gigantic truck. So no more refrigerators on our street! Moments later, who should arrive but the MAIL LADY!!! Wow -- MAIL!!!

Ok -- I don't sound normal at all, being excited about mail -- but it's just one more way that life is feeling hopeful, pleasant, and routine in a good way. I think it's time to go back to writing in my own personal journal about the minutiae of my life. If I decide that anything is particularly fascinating, I may continue to post here occasionally, perhaps to chronicle the continued rebirth of our city.

Thanks again to all who have been so caring and supportive throughout this crazy journey. When the power came back on a couple of days ago we were finally able to listen to the many messages on our answering machine from across the country checking on us, hoping that we had already evacuated, offering places to stay, offering to rebuild our home if necessary, all on the Sunday before Katrina. We are grateful for an incredible network of friends and family. Keep in touch!

Sunday, October 09, 2005

We're HOME!

And it is so good to be here.

Still no power, but that's ok. We have gas, water, and plenty of light during the day. We have a cooler full of food, ice is available at multiple locations within a half mile of our house, and candles work pretty well for general visibility in the evening. And yes, we are being careful not to set our home on fire. We also have friends to visit when it's dark, and our local movie theater about 8 blocks away is open, too.

Last night we headed up to the Prytania Theater to see In Her Shoes; it didn't really matter what the movie was -- we were just happy to have a diversion. And it worked marvelously. For two solid hours, I completely forgot about all Katrina-related information. It was actually a shock to emerge from the theater and see giant tree trunks chainsawed into piles by the side of the street. The last time I remember a movie having this effect was toward the end of September during my very first year of teaching. I emerged from Enchanted April with this incredibly rested feeling -- the longest block of time that I had not thought about my students and my struggles with teaching and planning new and exciting content every day-- first year teaching is tough! Makes you realize why happy escapist movies were such hits during the Great Depression. They really work.

Happily, each day life feels less stressful. We still need to get a roofer, deal with getting power restored, repair our fences, etc., but we have cleared, sawed, and piled up most of our downed trees. The weather has been lovely -- breezy and cool enough in the evenings to be comfortable while sleeping. Our cats are thrilled to be home. They have gone right back into their old routines. And as Judy Garland said in that great happy escapist depression movie, there's no place like home.

Last night we sat on our front porch with two of our neighbors, enjoying wine and cheese and fruit, talking about our visions for the rebuilding of New Orleans. And already there's a lot of normalcy. The Walgreens looks totally normal -- full of Halloween candy as promised -- the Winn Dixie is practically fully stocked, there's beer, gas, ice, restaurants, movie rentals -- all of the basic amenities.

Plus, if you spend enough time outside doing yard work, eventually the Salvation Army will come along and offer you a hot meal. Beef stew, a slice of white bread, apple sauce, and a giant Gatorade. So that's kind of weird, along with the streets lined with taped up refrigerators. Some folks have taken to writing clever phrases on the outside in permanent ink -- "Eau de Katrina #9" , "Surprise inside -- don't open until Halloween", "Free Food!" Ok, not so clever.

Gotta go. time to leave here and go home and light candles. But know that we are happy and safe and life is good.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Happy news -- mostly!

We're back in Birmingham for a few more days. Overall, the outlook for us is very good. The only reason we did not stay is that we won't have power for at least another week -- the storm completely ripped our meter and breaker box from the house, even taking parts of the weatherboards with it! So no electricity until we have that repaired. Our neighbor who drove in with us is in the same boat, so we decided pretty early in our day to do a few things, deal with the refrigerators, and head back to B'ham the same day. We left the places boarded up -- they are dry inside, and removing so many screws without power tools just didn't seem to make sense. They will also be a bit more secure until we can return.

All of the happy news:

  • Traffic -- very minimal -- no giant lines of people coming into nola. No trouble on the Causeway, no trouble anywhere!
  • Interior of house -- as if we had just left, almost. A little stale, but not smelly. Bathroom smelled like soap. Closets smelled like clean clothes. Everything just where we left it. No spray paint on outside of our house (did see it in the neighborhood, though) -- no breakins, no looting. Same for our neighbor.
  • Tap water -- looked great, smelled normal, no weird odors, colors or anything. Looked like you could bathe with it; we did not try, however.
  • Neighbors and businesses -- people on our street, cleaning up, mowing lawns, dealing with debris. Lots of signs of life uptown -- businesses opening up or preparing to open, little signs on the neutral ground advertising clean up services, or stores open -- our vet is open, a few food establishments open -- just real hope for renewal.
  • Our school looks just as we left it with the exception of my favorite magnolia tree. Even some exterior bulletin boards still had paper and letters on them! My classroom is a time capsule of August 27. No smells. Fish even surviving. Fed them and watered the plants.
  • We finally met the guy down the street from us (a former board member at our school, with a granddaughter there in second grade) -- he is a contractor, and he had an electrician at our house that day to assess the damage -- we feel very lucky to have an electrician lined up so quickly!
  • No signs on our street of unsavory behavior or looting of houses. Did find two abandoned still packaged Speidel watch bands on our sidewalk. Someone must have dropped them after fleeing Wal Mart, perhaps?
  • The air smelled great. No weird odors -- unless you are within a few feet of an abandoned refrigerator, and the breeze is blowing your way.
  • No packs of abandoned animals, no corpses, no rats, no death and destruction, no crying by me!

And a very magical moment for me -- as we approached the house for the very first time, I saw a red bird in the bent-way-over tulip tree. I thought it was a cardinal at first, which would be cool enough. But it turned out to be a summer tanager, a much rarer bird. It stayed for a minute or two. It looked a bit confused. Tanagers like to stay high in the treetops -- maybe it was surprised at how many high treetops in the city were no longer there. The first picture I took was of that bird. It's not a great shot, but I will always remember the kind of child-like happiness I had at discovering this cool bird in the yard, before I paid close attention to the loss of most of our trees.

Less happy news, but none devastating:

  • Our yard took a beating. Back yard fence down. Fence poles sheared off at the base. Wow. Two out of three palm trees gone, redbud dead, tulip tree fallen over, all shade trees in back yard out of commission -- basically every large thing we ever planted in our yard is in bad shape. Giant timber bamboo all fallen down. Jasmine arbor twisted and busted. However, flowers were blooming, lots of stuff was green, the grass is fine of course, and the pine tree is still standing. The key lime lost a major limb, but looks like it will survive.
  • Ceiling fell down in one small part of the house. Did not cause damage to anything below it, though.
  • One window with a small part of the pane broken.
  • Bunches of shingles off of the roof, some small patches of daylight coming into the attic. We have lots of work to do with the roof. But hey, it's still there.
  • A lot of trees in the city are down. The ones that are up lost a lot of limbs and leaves. I hope that they recover. Part of what makes uptown so appealing to many is the shade. It is significantly less shady right now.

Ok, the refrigerator deserves its own tribute paragraph - or two. The air within a foot of the fridge had an awful, putrid smell. There were fruit-fly sized pupae (like little cocoons) on the outside of the fridge. Probably a couple hundred of them, clustered in clumps here and there. Lots of 'em in the nooks and crannies in the rubber gasket around the doors. These tiny maggots are apparently able to work their way in and out of the refrigerator. Maybe the adult flies are small enough to find their way inside too, to begin the whole life cycle process. Maybe they get in through the ventilation system. Maybe our food is not pre-egged after all.

We did not open it. At all. Ever. We duct taped that sucker shut, loaded it onto the hand truck and wheeled it out. On the way out it had a terrible bout of fridge diarrhea. And that's exactly what it looked like and smelled like. Extremely watery, with a few lumps. Dark brown, almost black. Like something died, which I guess it did. Unbelievably foul. There was no way that I was going to open that fridge and deal with that odor further, and have that odor ingrained in my smell memory in association with the place where I keep my food. Two work guys helped us move it out onto the street. Goodbye, fridge.

Our day passed quickly. It was hot, even with the slight relief of a "cool front". It took a while to remove the refrigerator liquid from the deep spaces between the wooden floorboards in our kitchen. It took a while to take pictures of everything. It took a while just to soak in the scene. We got hungry, but we didn't eat. Shaw propped up the outside fence and took care of a few other yard things.

We didn't drive around that much. We didn't go to the devastated parts of the city, the parts that took on water. We didn't feel right about driving around gawking at people who lost so much. We didn't drive by houses of friends -- I don't know why. In fact, on the drive home that night, I was kicking myself for not checking on friends' houses so close to ours. Maybe it was a subconscious way to avoid ending up being the bearer of bad news? Maybe it was a way to avoid looking at some but not others? At the time I didn't think about it in terms of making a decision. It just happened that way. Part of it, I think, is being mentally overwhelmed. I forgot to do just about everything that I did not have written down. It was like nothing was sticking in my head.

So, what now, Post-Katrina? We go home, we do a ton of yard work, we rebuild the fences, we repair the roof, and we go back to being teachers. I have no trouble any longer picturing myself riding my bicycle to school and having a "normal" day. I know in my head that the hard part is not over, and just because our little swath of the city looks so great doesn't mean that there isn't major loss and difficulty elsewhere, but right now it's enough for me to have hope and envision a return to a place I love. We are so grateful for the outpouring of offers from so many friends and family of places to stay, help of all kinds, and general good wishes during this tough time. Part of me would love to be traveling the country to see everyone, but I think it's time to go home.

So, let us know if you'll be in town for Jazz Fest or Mardi Gras. You can stay with us. You still get your own bathroom, the TV and the stereo. Or come back and see us sooner. If you like to do roofing or fence repair, we'll see you next week!