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.
So two weeks ago, after BBQ and several beers, we crashed the rooftop pool at the Woodward apartment building in the Warehouse District. We've been swimming and drinking awhile when this older guy comes out, all by himself, and kind of latches himself onto us. Our basement neighbor Brandon somehow ends up getting sucked into talking to him. After about an hour, he swims over to Mike and me in the pool and goes, "Sorry to interrupt, but that guy was starting to freak me out. I needed to escape."
Then for some inexplicable reason, when the guy (who has become our best friend) says he's going down the street to the gas station to buy some beers for us, Brandon offers to go with him. At around 11, we want to go home and he isn't back. We realize he's been gone for over an hour. Marissa calls him on his phone... only to hear his cell ringing on the table by the pool. We are like, HOLY SHIT HE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED BY THE CRAZY MAN! HE'S THE VICTIM OF A GAY KIDNAPPING! We are debating whether to leave without him when the stair door opens and there he is, with the crazy man in front of him carrying a bag of 40s. The guy goes, "You're leaving? But I got you all some beers!" I look behind the guy and see Brandon, in a plaid flannel shirt, making frantic gestures and with the most sketched out look I have ever seen on his face. "Actually," I said, "we're going home. Have to work tomorrow." Brandon comes over and says under his breath to me and Mike, "Holy shit, I'm wearing his shirt. I'm wearing his shirt. He gave me his shirt. GET ME OUT OF HERE."
It turns out he went to the guy's apartment to get his wallet, and the guy made him put on one of his shirts. He was pretty skeeved out by that, then they get in the guy's Buick, but the gas station is closed. So the guy says, "It's OK, I know another place, you drive because I'm not sober, but I'll give you directions." Then somehow they end up on the bridge. Brandon is like, "Um, are we supposed to be crossing the river?" because he just moved to New Orleans but is pretty sure he shouldn't be crossing the Mississippi to buy beers, and is thinking, where the hell are we going, I am going to die, ew I'm wearing his shirt, ew help. The guy's like, sure, sure, it's fine. And they end up in Gretna, and it takes them like an hour to get back and on top of being kidnapped and taken to the Westbank the guy is like, "Oh by the way, I hope you have a dollar for the toll so we can get back."
So last night, we're at Polynesian Joe's and I realize the guy behind us looks familiar. I'm trying to figure out where I would have seen an older, kinda strange guy before when suddenly it hits me: IT'S HIM! Then I remember we're right across the street from the Woodward apartments and I was like, "Oh my god, it's totally him!" He gets up and goes in the other room, and I say to Mike and Marissa, "I think that's the guy who kidnapped our neighbor! Did you see him?" They hadn't. In five or ten minutes he comes back in and Mike says, "Oh yeah that is definitely him." Then he comes over to the bar and sits next to us.
The conversation goes like this:
Guy: Hey, you girls like to smoke?
Us: Uhhhh...
Guy: Cause I got some weed. And some rock.
Mike: Really, dude.
Guy: Yeah you know, we could mix it all together in a blunt.
Mike: I think we're OK.
Guy: I was just kidding! You thought I was serious! Ha! But I do have $500 in my closet.
Mike: Um, cool.
Guy: Oh, just to let you know, I'm 100% straight.
Mike: (sits there looking sketched out as Crazy Guy proceeds to reach over and touch his shoulder)
Bartender: (to Marissa and me) Let me know if that guy's bothering you girls. 'Cause he's, you know, not all there. Somethin missing if you know what I mean.
Marissa: We know. We've met him before.
Bartender: Oh! OK then. 'Cause once we had this beach party in here, and he kept coming up to all the girls and trying to buy crack, so I had to throw him out.
Guy: Hey, I'm gonna go play you guys some tunes on the jukebox. Have I seen you somewhere before?
It was one of those supreme moments when a wacked-out silence falls upon the group and you look at each other and realize that you need to leave. Now.
When you are in a two lane street and YOUR LANE ends, the term for this is a "merge." This means that the vehicle in the lane that is ending "merges" with the traffic in the other lane. Contrary to New Orleans drivers' opinion, or at least the asshole who flipped me off in my rearview mirror today (though it was a nice sneaky little "hands on the wheel" casual flipping of the bird), a merge is NOT accomplished by riding the center line and trying to thereby insert yourself between two vehicles moving at 35 mph with less than 10 feet of space between them and expecting the rearmost vehicle to slam on the brakes for you. No. Just no. That vehicle (in this case, we'll call it "me") has what is called the "right of way" which means that it is moving with the flow of traffic that you ARE NOT IN, since your lane has ENDED. Perhaps if you'd put on a signal, I'd have let you in. But see, it's my prerogative. Because I AM THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC. Bitch. Which means it is your job to slam on the brakes and wait, not mine. Which furthermore means that if you hadn't done so, and had in fact hit my vehicle, you would be placed at fault for failure to yield. So I wouldn't flip me off if I were you. I work for 40 personal injury attorneys.
This has been your New Orleans Traffic Lesson of the Day. Thank you.
Read the new Harry Potter book in 6 hours, did some nightswimming with interesting developments, got a perfect score on my Praxis exam, crashed a rooftop pool in the Warehouse District with a jug of daiquiris and a handle of vodka (and lost the Boy Who Lives In Our Basement when he was kidnapped by a sketchy man and taken to buy 40s at a gas station on the Westbank), went on a date, registered for fall education classes, and got very little sleep.
It's been a notable week. But since I've been up since 5ish (I had been to the airport and to UNO before I'm usually even awake-- how infinitely depressing), I'll have to save any more incriminating details for later.
To the Calypsos, fellow lurkers in the woods and namers of hills! Eaters of Stove Top stuffing in a large pot over a campfire with weird canned vegetables added, rowers on ponds, and residents of Edgewood! Killers of giant late night spiders on tipi walls, stalkers of uncles, builders of huts in the Bush! A salute, to my two fellow pirates: B.T. Jap and Versicolor, known in meeker circles as Bryan and Heidi. We are the carriers of pack baskets, the explorers of Buff Cochins, Machallie, the South Ridge, and the bridge down by the pig. All flee before us because our gear is very dirty and we can do semaphore.
We are the mighty Calypsos. Long may we reign on Edgewood. ;-)
Currently working through a massive re-read of the 12-volume Swallows and Amazons series. For those not in the know, these are British children's books written in the '30's about two groups of kids who go off camping and sailing by themselves and becomes pirates and explorers and all sorts of good stuff. I finished The Picts and the Martyrs the other day, and am about 3/5 of the way through Coot Club (obviously expressing my inability to read in any particular order at all). You could almost learn how to sail from these books without ever having been in a boat, the detail is that painstaking. I'm glad that reading them at the age of 24 instead of at the age of 11, I still feel the same thrill of adventure. I would be disappointed if I didn't. It's the same thrill I felt even last summer when I was standing barefoot on the sun-warmed benches of a sloop-rigged camp dinghy, pant legs rolled up and face sunburned and hair blown back, splashily bailing brackish green water out of the boat and loving every single grimy second of it. There's something about sails and water and the smell of wet rope that just gets me. Being on the water is an adventure in itself. You can tell Arthur Ransome knew that.
I was obsessed with Swallows and Amazons when I was 10-13. We even drew maps of the land around my house and named everything. We also spent summer nights sleeping in a Native American tipi instead of in our house which had no A/C... sometimes I get the feeling my childhood was a lot cooler than other people's. Not that they thought so at the time; they just thought we were slightly weird. I guess I've always been weird. I think it certainly makes me a more interesting person than someone who grew up in the mall.
Reading these now, I think the part I love most is Arthur Ransome's Author's Note, which reads:
"I have often been asked how I came to write Swallows and Amazons. The answer is that it had its beginning long, long ago when, as children, my brother, my sisters and I spent most of our holidays on a farm at the south end of Coniston... No matter where I was, wandering about the world, I used at night to look for the North Star and, in my mind's eye, could see the beloved skyline of great hills beneath it. Swallows and Amazons grew out of those old memories. I could not help writing it. It almost wrote itself."
An IM conversation between me and my mother:
Toasterfreak: is dad there?
rowingmom: no, at camp
Toasterfreak: tell him his package was very eclectic
rowingmom: yes, he was telling me what he put in there
Toasterfreak: an ice scraper, a freakout thumb, one packet of oatmeal...
rowingmom: he forgot a package of smarties that you received in a tube for a loan consol deal
Toasterfreak: ohhh sad. he sent red hots though
rowingmom: the oatmeal was a joke
rowingmom: old red hots, nice gift!
Toasterfreak: and i assume i am supposed to read the first five wheel of time books in preparation for the new one
Toasterfreak: and exchange them for 6-10 when i come up
rowingmom: ??????
Toasterfreak: he sent the first half of the series
rowingmom: i stay out of that
Toasterfreak: the new one is out in october. it means he must have already re-read them. he wouldnt send them if he hadnt
rowingmom: no wonder the package cost 10.00 to mail
Toasterfreak: yes. there were six extremely large paperback books in the bottom.
Haha! My dad and I are nerds. :-)
Six days till Harry Potter. Last weekend I was like, I need that book now. I absolutely cannot live without Book Six. I have read all the previous books about twice apiece in the last month as preparation. I have even delved into some of the internet Harry Potter smut to stave off the craving. Some of which is actually OK, and some of which is scary and written by sexually disturbed pedophiles. For example: Particularly good piece of Harry Potter fanfic I recently discovered, with original characters, a plot, and an excellent premise. On the other hand: Why I don't blame authors for getting pissed off about fanfiction.
But you know, the whole ceiling collapse thing was probably good in that it provided a distraction.... For three whole days, I completely forgot about the upcoming advent of Book Six. But now it's going to arrive, in the flesh (or page as it were), on my OWN DOORSTEP, in under a week. Eeeeeeeeeee! And yeah, did I mention I need it NOW?
Thought of the Night:
Greedo does NOT shoot first.... I'm sure everyone who overheard that conversation at Byblos martini night enjoyed it...
... formerly known as my ceiling, AKA the Gaping Hole. Just think, a scant 24 hours ago, this was my room. Filled with my stuff. The sky is falling... and next time it could be you on that futon! Scary, isn't it?
Well, I was sitting alone in Tropical Storm Cindy...
At 1:00 I felt a drop, got pissed and moved my mattress to the floor.
At 2:00 I panicked because water began streaming through the ceiling. Mattress was drenched.
At 2:10 I grabbed all the coolers, trash cans, and pots in the house. Then called Marissa and told her to come back and bring more coolers.
At 2:15 I called Peter and asked what to do if my roof caved in. He ignored me, thinking I was exaggerating, and told me to go to bed.
At 2:30 I started picking up my belongings by flashlight and tossing them in a giant pile in the walk-in closet.
At 2:40 I fell asleep in Heidi's bed downstairs.
At 3:40 I woke up, ran upstairs to find all my buckets overflowing with nasty brown water.
(Emptied, and in the process wound up soaked in brown water, which smells suspiciously like pee. Which means at this point I smell suspiciously like pee. As does my room which holds all my worldly goods.)
At 5:00 the storm is over. Yet I feel the urge to go upstairs... to find a NEW leak with water pouring down onto my mattress, and an ominous buckling of the ceiling plaster.
At 7:40 --the crash! - of a drywall avalanche and broken glass.
And as I rushed up the stairs and to the door...
I saw what used to be my ceiling...
Lying damply on my floor.
Soaking insulation, broken plaster, and crumbly chunks.
A giant piece of ceiling and about 500 pounds of wet insulation covering my bedframe where, mere hours before, I had been about to fall asleep.
Also, I smelled suspiciously like pee.
Dear office manager, this is why I'm calling in to say
That I hope you understand why I am not at work today.
Thank you.
Look at me! I'm starting a blog in the middle of a Tropical Weather Event. I will always remember this as the night my roommate ditched me and all the windows blew out. Well, hopefully not that bit about the windows but it is looking dire. Here I am. That's me under the red spot.
Here is where I provide you with some statistics. Whether these statistics provide a helpful picture of me is an entirely different question.
Also, on forums I usually go by the handle Duru Antilles.
Name: Sarah
Birthdate: June 6th
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 115
Hair: brown
Eyes: blue
Place of birth: Portland, ME
Place of residence: New Orleans, LA
Neighborhood: Uptown
Occupation: starving artist
Astrological sign: Gemini
Cats: two
Tattoos: two
Siblings: one
SAT score: 1430
Shoe size: 7.5
Bra size: 34B
Major(s): English and Philosophy
Alma mater: St. Lawrence University
Relationship status: taken
Right or left-handed: right
Number of major surgeries: one
Allergies: mango
Drug: coffee (black)
Drink: Tanqueray and tonic
Favorite sports: hockey, sailing
Time it took me to read the last Harry Potter book: 6 hours
Political views: liberal
Favorite food: soup
