\r\nA lot has happened since I last dropped a note. This has the\r\npotential to be a pretty long and poorly organized note (aren\'t they\r\nall), as I\'ve got a bunch of thoughts juggling around in my mind. So\r\nread at your own peril.\r\n\r\nWe\'ve now moved twice since I last sent a note. At last report, I was\r\nfearing the move to a new house in Baton Rouge. That was far less\r\nproblematic than I thought - moving about a mile is actually pretty\r\neasy, since you can just keep driving back and forth. This weekend,\r\nwe moved back to New Orleans - for this, we had to rent a truck. So\r\nno back and forth trips - load it all and go. After we unloaded all\r\nthat we had accumulated in Baton Rouge, we returned to our New Orleans\r\nhouse and retrieved almost all of the remaining furniture and moved it\r\nto the apartment. So for the first time in 3 months, I have drawers\r\nin which to store my socks and (can you see it coming?) my\r\ndrawers.....\r\n\r\nYes, I know, bad jokes abound.\r\n\r\nWe\'re pretty well settled into our cozy little apartment. We\'re just\r\noff of St. Charles Avenue, the main Mardi Gras parade route. There\r\nhas been a lot of rumbling in the last 2 weeks about just how big\r\nMardi Gras will be this year - initial press conferences from mayor\r\nand/or police chief were suggesting 6 days of parades - down from 11\r\nin a normal year. They are very rightfully concerned about the load\r\non an already stressed and stretched police force. But apparently 30\r\nof the 34 \"krewes\" have expressed their intent to parade, and there\'s\r\nno way they can get that many parades into such a short time. Hard to\r\nsay what will happen, but we\'ve already assured the kids: whatever\r\nparades there are, they are free to stay as long as they want to watch\r\nthem. No bed time, I\'ll let \'em skip their homework, whatever they\r\nwant for those 6 (or 11) days. This is probably their one chance as\r\nkids to live on the parade routes, and its not like they\'ll really be\r\nable to sleep when we\'re only about 100 feet from the bands and crowds\r\n(if there are any crowds).\r\n\r\n\r\nToday was a day of firsts for all of us: Carrie and Robert were back\r\nat their schools, Noel went to her Entergy office, now located in the\r\nsuburbs since their downtown office is still uninhabitable, and I went\r\nto my office downtown. Both Noel and I noticed that it was\r\nunexpectedly hard to work back in a regular work environment. After 3\r\nmonths of working while surrounded by in-laws, kids, spouses and a\r\nmyriad of distractions, it was very hard to work when there was\r\nnothing to do *but* work. The kids were both suffering from some\r\nserious mixed emotions - I think they were thrilled to be back in a\r\nfamiliar environment, but I think they also had grown to like their\r\nschool in Baton Rouge. Robert, in particular, was crying as we left\r\nBaton Rouge.\r\n\r\nI\'d been back to my neighborhood several times, but this was my first\r\ntime downtown, so I went out for a walk for a while. I work across\r\nthe street from the superdome; normally, I park in the Superdome\r\ngarage. I can\'t now, though - the garages are still underwater. I\r\nread something about that - and if I recall, the superdome commission\r\ncould drain the garages but is choosing not to right now. I think\r\nthey have enough other problems so that parking is not high on the\r\nlist. But not to worry - there are so few people downtown that\r\nparking is not a problem. Parking enforcement is lax, if not\r\nnon-existant (thought the local news last night said that today was\r\nthe day parking tickets would start being issued). Cars were parked\r\nup and down the neutral ground (fancy souther term meaning \"median\" or\r\n\"boulevard\") of some of the big streets downtown. I guess you just\r\npark wherever you feel like - as long as there\'s another car there, it\r\nlooks like its fair game.\r\n\r\nThe Superdome plaza itself - where you saw the massive crowds\r\nlingering outside the dome while they waited and waited and waited - I\r\ndon\'t know what I expected when I went to see it, but I was surprised:\r\nEverything was dirty. Not covered in trash - unlike most areas of\r\ntown, the trash was all cleaned up. Very little paper and lose debris\r\nlying around. But the ground was filthy - just mud and dirt ground\r\ninto the concrete and stones. Nothing a good power washing wouldn\'t\r\nclean up, but it was everywhere. But no people. It was a little\r\neerie looking at all of the remnants of this disaster and remembering\r\nthe pictures of all the people crammed up there surrounded by water -\r\nand looking around and seeing no one. On a normal day, there are\r\npeople walking around the dome. It connects to a mall with a food\r\ncourt, its across the street from City Hall and some courtrooms.\r\nThere\'s enough stuff around that there are always people walking - but\r\nnot today. Just some construction workers on their lunch break\r\nlooking at me looking at them - like they couldn\'t quite figure out\r\nwhy I was there.\r\n\r\nI walked down to Canal Street - the edge of the French Quarter. Here\r\nthe streets had flooded, but some of the buildings hadn\'t. Again,\r\nthere was trash everywhere.\r\n\r\nI digress.... I can\'t say this enough - everywhere we go in this town\r\nis trash. Loose trash like garbage bags ripped open and spilled,\r\npiles of trash in front of houses that have been gutted, trees that\r\nhave fallen down, even houses that have collapsed. Trash, trash,\r\ntrash. Some areas of town have their normal weekly garbage collection\r\noperating, but most don\'t. FEMA is collecting trash from\r\nneighborhoods and depositing it in a \"staging\" area in Lakeview - last\r\ntime I drove by it looked to be a half mile long 40 foot high pile of\r\ntrash. Then there was a matching half-mile by 40 foot pile of trees\r\nand branches. In between was a field of a hundred flooded cars. It\r\nwas obvious that the cars had been put onto the field since it was the\r\nhighest ground in the area - people must get used to putting their\r\ncars there to avoid street flooding in heavy rains. But that didn\'t\r\nhelp in the flood - all of the cars had been entirely underwater, and\r\nnow they sat waiting to get towed to wherever.\r\n\r\nBut back to Canal Street - the trash piles were smaller (I think they\r\nhad less flood waters, so fewer buildings needed to be gutted), and\r\nthe smell was no where near as bad as I feared. It almost smelled\r\nlike a normal town - and for Canal Street on a hot day, that\'s saying\r\nsomething (good). But no people. I\'ve talked to some friends who are\r\nworking downtown and one common gripe right now is the lack of food -\r\nvery few restaurants are open. There aren\'t enough workers to staff\r\nthem, and I\'m not sure there are enough people working downtown to\r\nwarrant opening them. Normally, Canal Street at noon is bustling and\r\ncrowded. But not today. Most of our friends are planning on coming\r\nback in the next two months, but right now it looks strangely like a\r\nghost town. I still can\'t put forth a reasonable guess for what New\r\nOrleans is going to be like in 6 months.\r\n\r\nWe took the kids to our house when we got here Saturday. We\'ve\r\ncontinued working on demolition - it seems that this is a never ending\r\nproject. After we ripped up some flooring, we found more flooring\r\nunder it. After ripping up that floor, we found - yep, another floor.\r\n After that, we found concrete. After that we found another floor.\r\nThen finally we hit the subfloor - which is rotten and probably needs\r\nto be replaced. Same story with some walls - rip out the wall and\r\nfind another wall hiding behind it. We\'ve really learned a lot about\r\nour house and the various additions that have been done over the last\r\n50 years. We\'ve got some plans from an architect now, and we\'re\r\nmoving forward with the first steps of rebuilding.\r\n\r\nBut anyway - on Saturday, the kids got to see the house for the first\r\ntime. We had been cautious in how much we had told them, as we were\r\ntrying to avoid unnerving them. But during 3 months, they had picked\r\nup enough tidbits so they had some idea what to expect. Fortunately,\r\nabout an hour before we got there, the FEMA guys had finished picking\r\nup the latest pile of trash in front of our house (they\'ve been buy 3\r\ntimes, and each time we produce more trash for the next go round).\r\nBut at least when the kids got to the house, the outside was\r\nreasonably tidy. At least all of the bags of their toys were safely\r\ndisposed of.\r\n\r\nWe\'d tried to prepare them by making a game of it - telling them how\r\nmuch fun it would be to get to walk through the walls. Carrie wanted\r\nto play hide and seek, but I assured her there would be no place to\r\nhide. When they walked in - they were both very quiet. Robert asked\r\nto see his room - he needed to know that it was ok. Carrie was quiet\r\nfor a bit, and when we looked at her she was just staring at the wall\r\nwhere the closet of their toys used to be. I think she knew that the\r\ntoys were gone, but I don\'t think she really got it until she saw that\r\nthe toys, the closet, the *wall* were all gone. But she went upstairs\r\nto her room and collected a few of her treasures (things like bandaids\r\nand an empty bottle of toothpaste that she\'s saved since she was 3),\r\nand seemed happy.\r\n\r\nAnd somehow in the flood, a pumpkin vine has taken root in our\r\nbackyard. Over the last couple of years, we had tried in vain to grow\r\npumpkins. Somehow (and don\'t ask me how, cause it makes no sense),\r\nthe flood pulled some seeds out from over there and deposited them\r\nover here and instead of drowning them, the combination of sludge and\r\nsalt water served to fertilize the seeds. When they first appeared, I\r\nthought it was a weed but it was green and everything else was grey,\r\nso I let it grow. Later, I meant to pull it but forgot. Then lo and\r\nbehold, flowers appeared and I realized what we had. So we took the\r\nkids to see it, and they were thrilled by it. Still no pumpkins on\r\nthe vine, but we\'ve got 2 10 foot vines covered in flowers.\r\n\r\nOur neighborhood is really moving quickly in rebuilding. About a\r\nthird of the houses had no flooding damage, and another third had\r\nfairly minor damage. Many of those families are already back in their\r\nhouses. Of the badly damaged houses (us included), many are moving\r\nquickly to fix up. But I find the most depressing sight is the total\r\nlack of greenery. The flood waters killed just about everything -\r\ngrasses, shrubberies (anyone know where I can find a shrubbery\r\nsalesman?). Big trees survived, except Magnolias. I\'d be interested\r\nif anyone knows a horticulturist - or anyone who may offer an\r\nexplanation for the demise of the Magnolias. Everywhere in the city,\r\nhuge magnolia trees are turning brown and dying. I don\'t think its\r\njust the leaves, as the branches seem to be dead too. But oaks and\r\nothers have done well. But - in the flooded neighborhoods there\'s\r\nnothing green. I think this weekend I may go and buy flowers to put\r\nin the yard. They\'ll probably die soon, but at least for a little\r\nwhile they\'ll offer some color besides brown and grey.\r\n\r\nAnd I\'ll end with two more water stories - my parents rode out Wilma\r\nin Naples. I tried to gently encourage my parents to evacuate (thanks\r\nT!), but they were a wee bit stubborn. After all, they know so much\r\nmore about hurricanes from their vast experience in Wisconsin. My Mom\r\nsaid that about 5 pm the night before it arrived, she started to think\r\nthey made a mistake. At 4 am while it was arriving, she *new* they\r\nhad made a mistake. I asked her what my Dad said at 4 while the winds\r\nwere howling and her response (expressed in anger at the shear\r\naudacity of him): \"He had taken out his hearing aids and he slept\r\nthrough the whole thing!\". But they and their friends and their\r\nhouses all survived, though I think they were all a bit shaken by the\r\nwhole experience. Not a good year for Christmann\'s and hurricanes.\r\n\r\nAnd finally - we moved into our apartment on Saturday. Sunday, we\r\nwent to a picnic at my son\'s school. When we came home after a brief\r\ndownpour, we discovered that our apartment roof leaked. Water all\r\nover the floor, on our suitcases (fortunately they had been unpacked),\r\nand the puddle stopped about an inch away from one of the rugs that we\r\nhad salvaged from our house and had just retrieved from the cleaners.\r\n\r\nOh well, each day is a new day - when we got to our house on Sunday,\r\nwe had some plans from our architect. Tomorrow we\'re meeting with one\r\ncontractor with those plans - hopefully our first step towards\r\nactually rebuilding!\r\n