I forgot to mention this before, but you may not be able to get through on my phone. I can call out, but it's pretty much impossible right now to call into the 504 area code. Also, my two school emails are down (as are both schools' entire websites), and I can't check them. So if you want to contact me, leave a message here or email me at my hotmail address.
This is just to let everyone know that I got out. Mike and I left at about 3:30 Sunday in his car. (I left mine parked in our driveway, which is a couple feet above sea level, so we'll see.) We were sitting in traffic on I-10 and the bridge (both of which are now underwater/gone) until about 9 PM. By that time it had started raining and the water along the road was starting to rise a little, which was making us nervous. We made it to Hattiesburg, MS by 11:00, and stopped above Tuscaloosa, AL to sleep on the grass at a rest area from 3:00 to 6:00. By 10:00 AM Monday, we made it to Aunt Carol & Uncle Doug's house in Nashville.
Last night we heard that New Orleans had been spared a direct hit, but from the news that's coming in today, at least one levee was breached and massive sections of the city are under 20 feet of water. My neighborhood is OK from what I've heard, except for a lot of trees down and structural damage. The roof on my house was new, having been destroyed in Tropical Storm Cindy, so I want to say it may have made it... but these winds were about 50 mph higher, and I am not confident about it. I am bracing myself to come home and have nothing. But right now we don't really know when that will be-- they aren't allowing people back into the city, and the road we took to get here is gone. I tried to call into work this morning, but I just got a busy signal. From the news I've seen this morning (the Times Picayune isn't producing a paper edition at all, just in .pdf form online-- as of a couple minutes ago, the water was rising at their building and they announced they are evacuating, so this may in fact be the last paper), water is still coming into the city and areas that were dry last night are flooded today. Spared? I don't know... Certainly it seems rude and presumptuous to say it was spared, when several low income neighborhoods are completely underwater and gone. A lot of these people are on the roof because they don't own vehicles and can't get out.
It seems like everyone was optimistic yesterday because the worst case scenario didn't happen. OK, the worst case scenario was a disaster and loss of life on the scale of December's tsunami. So while I'm glad that didn't happen... New Orleans is not fine. From the news I've seen this morning, the water is still rising, there may not be power for months, and martial law was just declared.
So we will sit here and wait. As the water trickles in.
This morning we woke up to sun shining through the slats of the blinds. The palms and magnolias on my street are swaying with the strengthening breeze. The heat bakes the slate roof tiles on the house next door. I look out over roofs that have been there for a hundred years. The cars are parked on the neutral ground. The streets are ominously empty.
We meant to ride it out, but...
Mandatory evacuation of Orleans Parish. It's a Category 5 storm with winds of 175 miles per hour. The officials are saying there's no longer a question that the levees will be overcome by the water. It's so strange, really. It just seems like a pretty Sunday. Last year they said Ivan was going to be The One, and it wasn't. They said the city would full up like a giant fish bowl. They said this was the price of living in the past.
I don't know. I know I don't want to leave, because, no matter how I want to deny it, there is a very real possibility that it won't be here when I get back. I suppose at a moment like t
his what you feel is admiration and wonder: at the persistence of the people who settled here, who braved malaria and ungodly heat, who watched the river swallow their homes and then improbably built again in a swamp, at the women of two hundred years ago who did it all in floor length skirts. At least that's what I think about. Goodbye to my green streetcars. Goodbye to the sweet still air that smells like flowers. Goodbye to my newly redone little garret upstairs that I was going to write in. Goodbye to the grand old ladies of St. Charles Avenue, with their iron lace and graceful tall shuttered windows and delicate porches, to whom my heart belongs. If this is your end, I am glad I won't see it. Stubborn old city. It's funny, somehow I see it making it... It's very quite outside now. I've taken the pictures down from the walls. We're evacuating north to Nashville.
Goodbye, city. Good luck.
Current Occupation: Holding down the fort.
Location: The fort.
It's now a Category 5. We may not be here much longer... in other news, I am going back to bed.
Have just received in my email a party invitation which includes the following line:
"If you're still in town, it could be your last party, so come ready. Beginning Sunday night...until the roof comes off. RSVP!"
Also, in case you were worried, never fear: my neighborhood is in fact 2-5 feet above sea level. We on the high ground here, bebe!
In today's tropical update, it is currently 91 degrees with blue skies in metro New Orleans. And I am going to lie out with a beverage. In the meantime, here is some light reading.
Will this be The Big One That Submerges the City? Or will it be The Day The Worst Didn't Happen, Redux? Do we really care?
Ha, wouldn't it be ironic if, thanks to Ivan-- the Storm That Cried Wolf, no one leaves this time and the levee breaks and we all end up 20 feet under Lake Pontchartrain?
What does This Blog think? This Blog was born in Tropical Storm Cindy. This Blog says bring it!!
"... I'm not going to let something tear it apart!"
- Han Solo
Which means, loosely translated into context, that my roof is back on, my room is gorgeously redone, and if Hurricane Katrina hits on Monday (doubtful, but true to character people are freaking out already) I ain't moving from New Orleans. Nope. Here I stay.
First week of dual work/grad school... it seemed like the longest week of my life. Hopefully this will get better once I get used to the schedule. I am mostly moved into my new and improved (with beautiful hardwood floors! no more nasty rug!) room. I changed around the furniture and it seems like I have twice the space.
Part of the reason I haven't posted in so long is I didn't like the idea of putting another post on top of Jane. Poor Janie. I have to admit to crying twice on the plane to Albany. I put a flower on her grave, but she wasn't there to pet. Just rocks. I didn't really know what to say... so I just said, "I'm sorry, Janie. I was coming home. I would have come home."
Re-reading:
Robin Hobb, Ship of Magic. First book in the Liveship Trilogy. I cannot stress enough the excellence of this series. (Gee, nautical fantasy. I wonder why that would appeal to Sarah... HA! It ought to be its own genre!)
So today on the phone my dad told me that our cat Jane died yesterday. This is not a surprise. Jane would have been 19 in October. But I started sobbing anyway. I've been saying a special goodbye to Jane each time I've left home ever since freshman year of college, because I knew she was old and she might not be there when I came back on my next break. I last saw her the day after Christmas. I was scheduled to fly home this Thursday for a 5 day weekend. She died on Monday.
Here are two pictures of Jane that I think really give you some perspective on how long she lived. On the left is my brother Bryan with Jane in 1987. Below right is Bryan with Jane in 2004. 
Jane's full name was Jane T. Cat. (The T stands for "The".) But we just called her Jane T. We adopted Jane and her littermate Lucy in January 1987. I was 5, and my brother was 4. Jane managed to outlive her sister by ten whole years, which makes her a pretty impressive cat. 
Isn't it strange how the way we feel about our pets can't truly be understood by anyone outside the family? And isn't it strange to wonder how they feel about us? I mean, what did Jane think? Did she remember being with us the whole way? Or was it like my mom always jokingly maintained (owing to a car accident in her youth that resulted in her disappearing for 2 days, having to have her jaw wired together, and developing a drooling problem for several years afterward), that Jane didn't really have any particular thoughts at all, besides being in the sun and an adamant love of sleeping on the dinner table ? I believe she recognized us when we came home to visit, if only because strangers usually made her run upstairs and hide under the bed. I believe she was happy with simple things.
Here are some things about Jane you might not have known. Jane never killed a mouse in her life. She was, however, an opportunistic eater of already-dead mice, since Lucy and our other cat Groucho were talented hunters. Jane liked to play with Construx. They were these plastic building toys from the 80's, sort of like Legos. The structures were held together by these square light blue connector pieces. Jane was obsessed with them. Probably up until the last week of her life, if you rolled one across the floor she would perk up and run insanely after it, bouncing her head off the wall. We always kept a couple around for her. Jane liked to sleep in people's crotches, more specifically directly between the knees. This meant if she fell asleep on your bed, you would not be able to move your legs the entire night, and when you got stiff you would eventually have to kick her. Jane did not like to have her stomach touched. It was the only time she would bite you. Jane liked to sleep on top of the computer monitor. Jane had a beige streak running down the right side of her nose; her sister Lucy had a mirror image streak on the left side. Jane had kind of a stubby tail. It was 8 inches. I know this because at some point we measured our cats' tails on a ruler. Jane's favorite spot was on her blanket on the radiator. The fur between the pads of her toes was very soft. She was pretty, with owlish yellow eyes.
When I go home the day after tomorrow, for almost the first time since I can remember, there will be no gray cat to meet me. And I am sad. Because maybe Jane wasn't a good conversationalist and didn't have any deep thoughts. But I loved her. And I think she loved us too.
He also took this neat one of me walking along the edge of the steps and then made it sepia toned. You can click on it to see it big. (I'm not a narcissist! I just think it's a cool shot. Also, it proves that, contrary to what the above photo may indicate, I do have a top on...)
I hate New Orleans drivers so much I actually almost followed some guy in a black Jeep home today. Luckily, the idea of dinner appealed to me slightly more than the satisfying mental picture of painting his car with pink hearts (or something equally humiliating) overnight, and so I was saved from a psychotic act of road rage. I did, however, drive the entire length of St. Charles between Louisiana and Napoleon with my middle finger out the window.
I should just let these people hit me... he was blatantly at fault. But a Jeep would hurt my baby! A Jeep is bigger than us! Cringe. So inevitably I throw on the brakes hard, then seethe the whole way home about how lame I am.
DEDICATED TO BLACK JEEP CHEROKEE WITH LOUISIANA PLATE MIG###: YOU SUCK.
It is a greatly triumphant feeling to come home one day and suddenly have a ceiling in one's bedroom where once there was a gaping hole. It gives one hope for humanity, really. It is just a special, special experience that I hope you will all have one day.
