If you're looking for people you can't contact by phone who were in Katrina's Ground Zero, here are some bulletin-board type links you can post a message to, and/or check for messages from those living there. There doesn't seem to be any centralized contact forum (yet) so it's a bit tedious, and naturally you may want to write a message first and just copy it into each site.
Please let me know if you find any broken links below, because I haven't checked them yet.
Good luck to us all.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/4202042.stm
Craigslist: New Orleans Lost & Found
Nola.com's forums
WWL-TV's forums
WDSU-TV's message board
Hurricane Katrina Survivors
N.O. Pundit bulletin boards
Now Public's missing persons board
Salvation Army information request form
Slidell Hurricane Damage Blog
Find Katrina
U.S. Next of Kin Registry
Hurricane Katrina message boards
Katrina Family and Friends
The Sun Herald "Reach loved ones"
http://www.wwltv.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=15
http://chat.wlox.com/eshare/server?action=190&PAGE=3&EXPANDFULLY=0&EXPANDBRANCH=0&ASORT=65536&BSORT=2&AEXPAND=&BEXPAND=&BOARD=42
*Many newspapers in the South, including some of The Spectrum’s sister papers — Lafayette and Alexandria in Louisiana and Jackson and Hattiesburg in Mississippi — feature community forums on their Web sites to aid in the search for survivors. Visitors to these sites can post an entry asking about the condition of a specific city or even an individual or family.*
Lafayette: www.theadvertiser.com
Alexandria: www.thetowntalk.com
Jackson: www.clarionledger.com
Hattiesburg: www.hattiesburgamerican.com
Other area newspapers can be located by visiting http://www.newslink.org/.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query katrina. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query katrina. Sort by date Show all posts
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Levee breach floods Lakeview, Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park
Here's the story of the levee breech in Bucktown, via Desert Cat. http://desertcat.blogspot.com/2005/08/levee-breach-floods-more-parishes.html
Levee breach floods Lakeview, Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park
By Doug MacCashand James O’Byrne
Staff writers
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html#074994
A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north. The breach sent a churning sea of water coursing across Lakeview and into Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park and neighborhoods farther south and east.
As night fell on a devastated region, the water was still rising in the city, and nobody was willing to predict when it would stop. After the destruction already apparent in the wake of Katrina, the American Red Cross was mobilizing for what regional officials were calling the largest recovery operation in the organization’s history.
Police, firefighters and private citizens, hampered by a lack of even rudimentary communication capabilities, continued a desperate and impromptu boat-borne rescue operation across Lakeview well after dark. Coast Guard choppers with search lights criss-crossed the skies.
Officers working on the scene said virtually every home and business between the 17th Street Canal and the Marconi Canal, and between Robert E. Lee Boulevard and City Park Avenue, had water in it. Nobody had confirmed any fatalities as a result of the levee breach, but they conceded that hundreds of homes had not been checked.
As the sun set over a still-churning Lake Pontchartrain, the smoldering ruins of the Southern Yacht Club were still burning, and smoke streamed out over the lake. Nobody knew the cause of the fire because nobody could get anywhere near it to find out what happened.
Dozens of residents evacuated to the dry land of the Filmore Street bridge over the Marconi Canal were stranded between the flooded neighborhood on their right, and the flooded City Park on their left, hours after they had been plucked from rooftops or second-story windows.
Firefighters who saved them tried to request an RTA bus to come for the refugees, but said there was no working communications to do so.
Ed Gruber, who lives in the 6300 block of Canal Boulevard, said he became desperate when the rising water chased he, his wife, Helen, and their neighbor Mildred K. Harrison to the second floor of their home. When Gruber saw a boat pass by, he flagged it down with a light, and the three of them escaped from a second-story window.
On the lakefront, pleasure boats were stacked on top of each other like cordwood in the municipal marina and yacht harbor. The Robert E. Lee shopping center was under 7 feet of water. Plantation Coffeehouse on Canal Boulevard was the same. Hines Elementary School had 8 feet of water inside.
Indeed, the entire business district along Harrison Avenue had water to the rooflines in many places.
Joshua Bruce, 19, was watching the tide rise from his home on Pontalba Street when he heard a woman crying for help. The woman had apparently tried to wade the surging waters on Canal Boulevard when she was swept beneath the railroad trestle just south of Interstate 610. Bruce said he plunged into the water to pull her to safety. He and friends Gregory Sontag and Joey LaFrance found dry clothes for the near-victim and she went on her way in search of a second-story refuge further downtown.
The effect of the breach was instantly devastating to residents who had survived the fiercest of Katrina’s winds and storm surge intact, only to be taken by surprise by the sudden deluge. And it added a vast swath of central New Orleans to those already flooded in eastern New Orleans, the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes.
Beginning at midday, Lakeview residents watched in horror as the water began to rise, pushed through the levee breach by still-strong residual winds from Katrina.
They struggled to elevate furniture and eventually found themselves forced to the refuge of second floors or, just when most in the neighborhood thought they had been spared.
“It would have been fine,” said refugee Pat O’Brien. “The eye passed over.”
But his relief was short lived, O’Brien said. “It’s like what you see on TV and never thought would happen to us. We lost everything, cars, art, furniture, everything.”
Scott Radish, his wife Kyle and neighbor Brandon Gioe stood forlornly on their Mound Street porch, where they had ridden out Katrina, only to face a second more insidious threat.
“The hurricane was scary,” Scott said. “All the tree branches fell, but the building stood. I thought I was doing good. Then I noticed my Jeep was under water.”
The water had risen knee-deep during the storm, but despite the clearing skies, it had continued to rise one brick every 20 minutes, according to Kyle, continuing its ascent well into the night.
“We were good until the Canal busted,” said Sontag. “First there was water on the street, then the sidewalk, then water in the house.”
Officials of the Army Corps of Engineers have contingencies for levee breaches such as the one that happened Monday, but it will take time and effort to get the heavy equipment into place to make the repair. Breach repair is part of the Corps’ planning for recovery from catastrophic storms, but nobody Monday was able to say how long it would take to plug the hole, or how much water would get through it before that happened.
In Lakeview, the scene was surreal. A woman hollered to reporters from a rooftop, asking them to call her father and tell him she was OK – although fleeing to the roof of a two-story home hardly seemed to qualify.
At around 5 p.m., almost as if on cue, the battery power of all the house alarms in the neighborhood seemed to reach a critical level all at once, and they all went off, making it sound as if the area was under an air-raid warning.
Two men surviving on generator power in the Lake Terrace neighborhood near the Lake Pontchartrain levee still had a dry house, but they were eyeing the rising water in the yard nervously. They were planning to head back out to the levee to retrieve a vast stash of beer, champagne and hard liquor they found washed onto the levee.
As night fell, the sirens of house alarms were finally silent, and the air filled with a different, deafening and unfamiliar sound: the extraordinary din of thousands of croaking frogs.
Still wondering if he would spend the night on the Filmore Street bridge over the Marconi Canal, Gruber tried to be philosophical.
“I never thought I would see any devastation like this, and I’ve lived here more than 30 years,” Gruber said. “But at least we have our lives. And that’s something.”
Staff writer Mark Schleifstein contributed to this report.
Levee breach floods Lakeview, Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park
By Doug MacCashand James O’Byrne
Staff writers
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html#074994
A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north. The breach sent a churning sea of water coursing across Lakeview and into Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park and neighborhoods farther south and east.
As night fell on a devastated region, the water was still rising in the city, and nobody was willing to predict when it would stop. After the destruction already apparent in the wake of Katrina, the American Red Cross was mobilizing for what regional officials were calling the largest recovery operation in the organization’s history.
Police, firefighters and private citizens, hampered by a lack of even rudimentary communication capabilities, continued a desperate and impromptu boat-borne rescue operation across Lakeview well after dark. Coast Guard choppers with search lights criss-crossed the skies.
Officers working on the scene said virtually every home and business between the 17th Street Canal and the Marconi Canal, and between Robert E. Lee Boulevard and City Park Avenue, had water in it. Nobody had confirmed any fatalities as a result of the levee breach, but they conceded that hundreds of homes had not been checked.
As the sun set over a still-churning Lake Pontchartrain, the smoldering ruins of the Southern Yacht Club were still burning, and smoke streamed out over the lake. Nobody knew the cause of the fire because nobody could get anywhere near it to find out what happened.
Dozens of residents evacuated to the dry land of the Filmore Street bridge over the Marconi Canal were stranded between the flooded neighborhood on their right, and the flooded City Park on their left, hours after they had been plucked from rooftops or second-story windows.
Firefighters who saved them tried to request an RTA bus to come for the refugees, but said there was no working communications to do so.
Ed Gruber, who lives in the 6300 block of Canal Boulevard, said he became desperate when the rising water chased he, his wife, Helen, and their neighbor Mildred K. Harrison to the second floor of their home. When Gruber saw a boat pass by, he flagged it down with a light, and the three of them escaped from a second-story window.
On the lakefront, pleasure boats were stacked on top of each other like cordwood in the municipal marina and yacht harbor. The Robert E. Lee shopping center was under 7 feet of water. Plantation Coffeehouse on Canal Boulevard was the same. Hines Elementary School had 8 feet of water inside.
Indeed, the entire business district along Harrison Avenue had water to the rooflines in many places.
Joshua Bruce, 19, was watching the tide rise from his home on Pontalba Street when he heard a woman crying for help. The woman had apparently tried to wade the surging waters on Canal Boulevard when she was swept beneath the railroad trestle just south of Interstate 610. Bruce said he plunged into the water to pull her to safety. He and friends Gregory Sontag and Joey LaFrance found dry clothes for the near-victim and she went on her way in search of a second-story refuge further downtown.
The effect of the breach was instantly devastating to residents who had survived the fiercest of Katrina’s winds and storm surge intact, only to be taken by surprise by the sudden deluge. And it added a vast swath of central New Orleans to those already flooded in eastern New Orleans, the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes.
Beginning at midday, Lakeview residents watched in horror as the water began to rise, pushed through the levee breach by still-strong residual winds from Katrina.
They struggled to elevate furniture and eventually found themselves forced to the refuge of second floors or, just when most in the neighborhood thought they had been spared.
“It would have been fine,” said refugee Pat O’Brien. “The eye passed over.”
But his relief was short lived, O’Brien said. “It’s like what you see on TV and never thought would happen to us. We lost everything, cars, art, furniture, everything.”
Scott Radish, his wife Kyle and neighbor Brandon Gioe stood forlornly on their Mound Street porch, where they had ridden out Katrina, only to face a second more insidious threat.
“The hurricane was scary,” Scott said. “All the tree branches fell, but the building stood. I thought I was doing good. Then I noticed my Jeep was under water.”
The water had risen knee-deep during the storm, but despite the clearing skies, it had continued to rise one brick every 20 minutes, according to Kyle, continuing its ascent well into the night.
“We were good until the Canal busted,” said Sontag. “First there was water on the street, then the sidewalk, then water in the house.”
Officials of the Army Corps of Engineers have contingencies for levee breaches such as the one that happened Monday, but it will take time and effort to get the heavy equipment into place to make the repair. Breach repair is part of the Corps’ planning for recovery from catastrophic storms, but nobody Monday was able to say how long it would take to plug the hole, or how much water would get through it before that happened.
In Lakeview, the scene was surreal. A woman hollered to reporters from a rooftop, asking them to call her father and tell him she was OK – although fleeing to the roof of a two-story home hardly seemed to qualify.
At around 5 p.m., almost as if on cue, the battery power of all the house alarms in the neighborhood seemed to reach a critical level all at once, and they all went off, making it sound as if the area was under an air-raid warning.
Two men surviving on generator power in the Lake Terrace neighborhood near the Lake Pontchartrain levee still had a dry house, but they were eyeing the rising water in the yard nervously. They were planning to head back out to the levee to retrieve a vast stash of beer, champagne and hard liquor they found washed onto the levee.
As night fell, the sirens of house alarms were finally silent, and the air filled with a different, deafening and unfamiliar sound: the extraordinary din of thousands of croaking frogs.
Still wondering if he would spend the night on the Filmore Street bridge over the Marconi Canal, Gruber tried to be philosophical.
“I never thought I would see any devastation like this, and I’ve lived here more than 30 years,” Gruber said. “But at least we have our lives. And that’s something.”
Staff writer Mark Schleifstein contributed to this report.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Hurricane du Jour
It's beginning to feel like a hurricane is simply one installment of a story published in a series, like in an old-time magazine. This installment's titled: Rita.
So far she's still only Tropical Storm (TS) Rita. And she looks like she belongs to the Lower Keys, not us. She has a fairly tight cone of error, which is good, and the dirty side is north like it should be. (Katrina was so ill-behaved in those ways.) Still and all, no use pretending we actually know where it's going to hit, so prep we do.
Serial or no, they all have their unique personalities. Just like in humans, some of those characteristics are fairly common. You can kind of group them, label them. This one's a Sneak Up On You When You Aren't Looking hurricane. Like Katrina was. Fast Moving, too. Distinctly different from, say, a Frances.
Now: we've all watched in horror as Katrina demolished New Orleans, and the help that poured in there from Florida topped the charts by several methods of measuring aid. We don't want to say one word about how long our electricity and phones were out, or the fuel problems either. There's just no comparison. Survivor guilt maybe plays some part in that feeling too.
But the fact remains, we haven't finished cleaning up from Katrina yet. There really was a huge mess of trees downed, a stunning amount for a Cat 1 storm, and bad flooding in Dade that slowed down the cleanup. So there's all these piles of debris, mostly branches and chainsawed trees, still sitting by the side of the road turning brown. Waiting for either the chippers - working diligently away, they are - or to take on a new career as a Rita Projectile.
And she snuck up so fast I'm not sure I can tidy up the loose stuff in my own yard before it's too late. It was gusting, bad, at noon already. I had just enough health today to keep my pain doctor appointment, do my shopping, catch up on Rx's, and fuel up. I'm tired. Tomorrow is Hurricane Day already. The worst is supposed to be over by tomorrow night.
Huh! If I miss my chance to make some Hurricane Baked Goods it just won't feel right.
I sense an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie binge coming on. Walter may be home to eat some soon and Jeff likes cookies too. And perhaps a little experiment with dinner rolls is in order...
So far she's still only Tropical Storm (TS) Rita. And she looks like she belongs to the Lower Keys, not us. She has a fairly tight cone of error, which is good, and the dirty side is north like it should be. (Katrina was so ill-behaved in those ways.) Still and all, no use pretending we actually know where it's going to hit, so prep we do.
Serial or no, they all have their unique personalities. Just like in humans, some of those characteristics are fairly common. You can kind of group them, label them. This one's a Sneak Up On You When You Aren't Looking hurricane. Like Katrina was. Fast Moving, too. Distinctly different from, say, a Frances.
Now: we've all watched in horror as Katrina demolished New Orleans, and the help that poured in there from Florida topped the charts by several methods of measuring aid. We don't want to say one word about how long our electricity and phones were out, or the fuel problems either. There's just no comparison. Survivor guilt maybe plays some part in that feeling too.
But the fact remains, we haven't finished cleaning up from Katrina yet. There really was a huge mess of trees downed, a stunning amount for a Cat 1 storm, and bad flooding in Dade that slowed down the cleanup. So there's all these piles of debris, mostly branches and chainsawed trees, still sitting by the side of the road turning brown. Waiting for either the chippers - working diligently away, they are - or to take on a new career as a Rita Projectile.
And she snuck up so fast I'm not sure I can tidy up the loose stuff in my own yard before it's too late. It was gusting, bad, at noon already. I had just enough health today to keep my pain doctor appointment, do my shopping, catch up on Rx's, and fuel up. I'm tired. Tomorrow is Hurricane Day already. The worst is supposed to be over by tomorrow night.
Huh! If I miss my chance to make some Hurricane Baked Goods it just won't feel right.
I sense an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie binge coming on. Walter may be home to eat some soon and Jeff likes cookies too. And perhaps a little experiment with dinner rolls is in order...
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Open the Floodgates, Close the Schools
Katrina's not a hurricane quite yet. But she probably will be soon, and so we act accordingly. Headed straight for Ft. Lauderdale no less. She'll hit us late tomorrow or in the wee hours Friday morning.
She's picked up strength and speed, she's over warm open water, she's bulked up to the west, and the Bermuda High is keeping her steered toward the west, not north. She's a slow mover still and has lots of rain, perhaps 15-20 inches just for us. This is all bad news.
They think she'll only be a 1- or 2-force storm. The only other good news is, if it goes just a little bit to the north, we'll take much less water. The north/northeast side of the hurricane - called the "dirty" side of the storm - has the most rain and tornadoes.
What you really don't want to be in is the center, in the eye. Unfortunately, unless she changes path, Katrina's eye will go right over my house.
Here's lookin' at you, kid.
The Water Management District has opened the floodgates to lower the water level in the canals and help prevent flooding. Here in Broward County, schools are closed tomorrow and Friday, and non-emergency workers are off. Me, I'm all supplied up, and I'll head to Mom's condo tomorrow to pull the furniture away from the windows.
Dade County better not make up a bunch of phony FEMA claims again. They're crying over the Video Music Awards show this weekend, they'll lose a lot of business. Most people in Broward and Palm Beach counties don't feel much sympathy this time. Sticking the garden hose in the living room window to "flood" yourself. Honestly!
Well, well, here we go again, huh?
Katrina cooked up from a long-meandering nothing wave, to a rather sudden intensification only 230 miles from shore.
She surprised us.
Andrew surprised us, because he came barreling along on a straight path and intensified. He was actually pretty little but boy was he mean.
The No-Name Storm of a few years back surprised us by forming very suddenly right off land, starting up in SW FL.
Charley surprised us by taking a sudden turn into the coast, instead of heading up north over water like so many planned he would.
Then, of course, we had Floyd. The scariest looking hurricane I've ever seen, bar none. Millions were evacuated, setting records. Floyd surprised us by not hitting Florida at all. Not that he didn't run amok through our friends to the north. However! No longer as powerful as he might have been. That's a very good thing indeed.
I love hurricanes.
The only thing is, I wanted to go to Yeehaw Junction.
l like Yeehaw Junction, too.
This time I like it extra, because Walter is there on a little layover. We had plans for me to drive up and bring him supplies, and go road tripping about in Florida together.
If I were his employer, I'd want my big rig out of there. Like yesterday. Hurricanes have a way of going where ever they want, and there's no reason Katrina can't eat Yeehaw Junction - and Walter's rig - as she goes over the state. Still, I need to take Walter his stuff, and who knows? Maybe we can drive around hurricane-hunting just a bit. I think the bar-b-q plans are off though.
So...We'll see. I do know that I can't go leaving the house unattended in the middle of a hurricane. Gracious! The poor cat!!
Maybe I'll run up to deliver Walter's things, visit a bit, and turn around and head back home. We're both exhausted just now. Time to sleep. We'll see what the hurricane news is tomorrow. Then we'll know what we can and can't do for fun.
*sigh*
This is one of those situations where a person has too many good things to choose from.
She's picked up strength and speed, she's over warm open water, she's bulked up to the west, and the Bermuda High is keeping her steered toward the west, not north. She's a slow mover still and has lots of rain, perhaps 15-20 inches just for us. This is all bad news.
They think she'll only be a 1- or 2-force storm. The only other good news is, if it goes just a little bit to the north, we'll take much less water. The north/northeast side of the hurricane - called the "dirty" side of the storm - has the most rain and tornadoes.
What you really don't want to be in is the center, in the eye. Unfortunately, unless she changes path, Katrina's eye will go right over my house.
Here's lookin' at you, kid.
The Water Management District has opened the floodgates to lower the water level in the canals and help prevent flooding. Here in Broward County, schools are closed tomorrow and Friday, and non-emergency workers are off. Me, I'm all supplied up, and I'll head to Mom's condo tomorrow to pull the furniture away from the windows.
Dade County better not make up a bunch of phony FEMA claims again. They're crying over the Video Music Awards show this weekend, they'll lose a lot of business. Most people in Broward and Palm Beach counties don't feel much sympathy this time. Sticking the garden hose in the living room window to "flood" yourself. Honestly!
Well, well, here we go again, huh?
Katrina cooked up from a long-meandering nothing wave, to a rather sudden intensification only 230 miles from shore.
She surprised us.
Andrew surprised us, because he came barreling along on a straight path and intensified. He was actually pretty little but boy was he mean.
The No-Name Storm of a few years back surprised us by forming very suddenly right off land, starting up in SW FL.
Charley surprised us by taking a sudden turn into the coast, instead of heading up north over water like so many planned he would.
Then, of course, we had Floyd. The scariest looking hurricane I've ever seen, bar none. Millions were evacuated, setting records. Floyd surprised us by not hitting Florida at all. Not that he didn't run amok through our friends to the north. However! No longer as powerful as he might have been. That's a very good thing indeed.
I love hurricanes.
The only thing is, I wanted to go to Yeehaw Junction.
l like Yeehaw Junction, too.
This time I like it extra, because Walter is there on a little layover. We had plans for me to drive up and bring him supplies, and go road tripping about in Florida together.
If I were his employer, I'd want my big rig out of there. Like yesterday. Hurricanes have a way of going where ever they want, and there's no reason Katrina can't eat Yeehaw Junction - and Walter's rig - as she goes over the state. Still, I need to take Walter his stuff, and who knows? Maybe we can drive around hurricane-hunting just a bit. I think the bar-b-q plans are off though.
So...We'll see. I do know that I can't go leaving the house unattended in the middle of a hurricane. Gracious! The poor cat!!
Maybe I'll run up to deliver Walter's things, visit a bit, and turn around and head back home. We're both exhausted just now. Time to sleep. We'll see what the hurricane news is tomorrow. Then we'll know what we can and can't do for fun.
*sigh*
This is one of those situations where a person has too many good things to choose from.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Still Holed Up in Missouri, Watching the Hurricanes
One thing about being a lover of reality is, it's incumbent on us to truly understand what we're like inside. Who we really are.
That's hard to do. Harder to do it without flinching, of course. But just like a technique from our high school creative writing class, it helps if one starts with the positive critiques before heading to the negative ones. There's nothing wrong with knowing what you're good at, and what's good about your own character. In fact, I'd argue there's plenty wrong with being deliberately blind to any of one's attributes.
Another? If we think about it, most observations about ourselves are, or should be, neutral. Who cares if I love broccoli and someone else hates it? I hate it when everyone is all alike. How boring! But it's surprising how often people take differences of taste or opinion as judgmental - whether they're the ones saying *I don't like broccoli,* or hearing *I don't like broccoli.*
This happens to me more than I wish. I choose my words with care, but people are sensitive, and words are too easily misunderstood. In mentioning some difference between us, it makes me sad when it's misinterpreted as criticism, as words or thoughts I never said or intended.
Of course, if someone says *How can you EAT that stuff?!? that is SO disgusting!* - or even, in an irritated voice, *Why do you eat broccoli, anyway?,* I don't think we'd be in error to perceive that as judgmental. Yuck.
So I'm sitting here holed up in Missouri, sickness pinning me down in the room and mostly in the bed, watching our hurricanes go by back home. As much as I love to travel, I get homesick.
Now why in the world are these blasted hurricanes making me homesick?
Revelation!
I think I love hurricanes best when I'm there for them.
When they run around somewhere else, they aren't nearly as fun. They can even upset me. As blogson SeaPhoenix pointed out, it's the glorious power of nature I admire, not the harm it causes people. Seems like those furriner hurricanes make me notice the harm.
After Katrina, which did cause some damage in my little Ft. Lauderdale-area town, we didn't talk much about our own hurricane problems. Except among ourselves. The damage we took from Katrina, in context with New Orleans, was nothing; and we didn't want to hear ourselves complaining one tiny bit about what we experienced, except a little between ourselves. Privately, among family, if you will.
I drove through the eye of Katrina, coming home from ferrying supplies up to Walter when he'd parked his rig in Vero Beach, then was ordered out of Florida by his employer. Barreling home at 80 MPH, the hurricane picked up my car and put it halfway into the next lane - and me, I kept shooting pix out the windshield the whole way. Shooting blind. heh! Fun.
When Wilma dropped the trees on my roof I was still live-blogging the hurricane. The trees didn't come all the way through the roof, or through my home office window, so that was all right. But five minutes later I was nearly decapitated when the other home office window blew, and the glass flew right by my left ear. Lucky for me, the big ancient TV parked in front of the window stopped the glass that would have taken my head off. Saved by a TV.
I got some injuries, that one. And I've realized since then that there's some lingering PTSD in me from Wilma. That's life; I can deal with it. But like everyone else, I can't deal with it if I don't understand it's there.
Emails and comments arrive from folks saying how glad I must be to be out of Florida just now, out of the hurricanes' paths. So they must be people who feel that way themselves, see? Being away would be happier for them, that's how their taste or needs run. So I do appreciate those well-wishes; they're kind, and kindly meant.
But we're all different.
So here I am, stuck in this hotel room, watching these very interesting hurricanes pass me by...and Lord above, do I feel cheated!
TS Fay, making its record four landfalls, doing a twirly loop around Florida. I love the weird ones. Hurricanes have a mind of their own, they go where and how they want to. Forwards, backwards, sideways. Hah! Upside down.
Gustav. I'm so glad it did as little damage as it did. I'm so disappointed I didn't get to sit at home, safely far from the eye, but smack dab in its huge trails, watching the wind thrash my trees around. And now TS Hanna would be fun the same way, although it's not nearly as majestic.
AND I MISSED THEM ALL!!!
This newest one, Ike, is still pretty far out. It's too early to pinpoint its path. But it's a big one, Cat 4 already, and Walter's been thinking it might come visit us at home.
As of tonight, late Thursday night, it's turned enough west to point the center of the cone right at Ft. Lauderdale, making landfall around a week from today.
If that's the case, we'll be heading home, whether Walter's worker's comp case is finalized or no.
So I'm going to make sure we have some fun here in the next few days. The pollen count is starting to drop. The leg infection is still getting better. And there's neat stuff to do out here before we leave.
There's a lot more to this Missouri business than you might think.
That's hard to do. Harder to do it without flinching, of course. But just like a technique from our high school creative writing class, it helps if one starts with the positive critiques before heading to the negative ones. There's nothing wrong with knowing what you're good at, and what's good about your own character. In fact, I'd argue there's plenty wrong with being deliberately blind to any of one's attributes.
Another? If we think about it, most observations about ourselves are, or should be, neutral. Who cares if I love broccoli and someone else hates it? I hate it when everyone is all alike. How boring! But it's surprising how often people take differences of taste or opinion as judgmental - whether they're the ones saying *I don't like broccoli,* or hearing *I don't like broccoli.*
This happens to me more than I wish. I choose my words with care, but people are sensitive, and words are too easily misunderstood. In mentioning some difference between us, it makes me sad when it's misinterpreted as criticism, as words or thoughts I never said or intended.
Of course, if someone says *How can you EAT that stuff?!? that is SO disgusting!* - or even, in an irritated voice, *Why do you eat broccoli, anyway?,* I don't think we'd be in error to perceive that as judgmental. Yuck.
So I'm sitting here holed up in Missouri, sickness pinning me down in the room and mostly in the bed, watching our hurricanes go by back home. As much as I love to travel, I get homesick.
Now why in the world are these blasted hurricanes making me homesick?
Revelation!
I think I love hurricanes best when I'm there for them.
When they run around somewhere else, they aren't nearly as fun. They can even upset me. As blogson SeaPhoenix pointed out, it's the glorious power of nature I admire, not the harm it causes people. Seems like those furriner hurricanes make me notice the harm.
After Katrina, which did cause some damage in my little Ft. Lauderdale-area town, we didn't talk much about our own hurricane problems. Except among ourselves. The damage we took from Katrina, in context with New Orleans, was nothing; and we didn't want to hear ourselves complaining one tiny bit about what we experienced, except a little between ourselves. Privately, among family, if you will.
I drove through the eye of Katrina, coming home from ferrying supplies up to Walter when he'd parked his rig in Vero Beach, then was ordered out of Florida by his employer. Barreling home at 80 MPH, the hurricane picked up my car and put it halfway into the next lane - and me, I kept shooting pix out the windshield the whole way. Shooting blind. heh! Fun.
When Wilma dropped the trees on my roof I was still live-blogging the hurricane. The trees didn't come all the way through the roof, or through my home office window, so that was all right. But five minutes later I was nearly decapitated when the other home office window blew, and the glass flew right by my left ear. Lucky for me, the big ancient TV parked in front of the window stopped the glass that would have taken my head off. Saved by a TV.
I got some injuries, that one. And I've realized since then that there's some lingering PTSD in me from Wilma. That's life; I can deal with it. But like everyone else, I can't deal with it if I don't understand it's there.
Emails and comments arrive from folks saying how glad I must be to be out of Florida just now, out of the hurricanes' paths. So they must be people who feel that way themselves, see? Being away would be happier for them, that's how their taste or needs run. So I do appreciate those well-wishes; they're kind, and kindly meant.
But we're all different.
So here I am, stuck in this hotel room, watching these very interesting hurricanes pass me by...and Lord above, do I feel cheated!
TS Fay, making its record four landfalls, doing a twirly loop around Florida. I love the weird ones. Hurricanes have a mind of their own, they go where and how they want to. Forwards, backwards, sideways. Hah! Upside down.
Gustav. I'm so glad it did as little damage as it did. I'm so disappointed I didn't get to sit at home, safely far from the eye, but smack dab in its huge trails, watching the wind thrash my trees around. And now TS Hanna would be fun the same way, although it's not nearly as majestic.
AND I MISSED THEM ALL!!!
This newest one, Ike, is still pretty far out. It's too early to pinpoint its path. But it's a big one, Cat 4 already, and Walter's been thinking it might come visit us at home.
As of tonight, late Thursday night, it's turned enough west to point the center of the cone right at Ft. Lauderdale, making landfall around a week from today.
If that's the case, we'll be heading home, whether Walter's worker's comp case is finalized or no.
So I'm going to make sure we have some fun here in the next few days. The pollen count is starting to drop. The leg infection is still getting better. And there's neat stuff to do out here before we leave.
There's a lot more to this Missouri business than you might think.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Brains Vs. Brawn: Ladies Haul Ass
I just checked in on Livey, and saw the most hilarious pix on how she hauled her wood.
She used to have this POS truck. She used it for pulling down trees and plowing snow off her roof and chasing bears, but she sold it. She still had a lot of wood to haul and stack before the winter snows set in. What to do?
Well. She tried a wheelbarrow.
It worked okay. But since she had like 1800 cord of wood to haul, and the wheelbarrow doesn't hold that much, and required a disproportionate amount of physical labor, and she's been getting tired and sore - she thought some more.
She has an ATV.
She has a couple sled-type things you can attach to the back of the ATV, and slide stuff.
So she attached one of the sleds and tried that. Much better!
As projects tend to do, it kind of grew. Eventually, she had both sleds attached to the ATV, and then - she figured out a way to attach the wheelbarrow too.
HA!
Maybe it looks silly, but hey, it works. She's almost done.
This sounds exACTly like something I would do.
As a matter of fact...it sounds exactly like something I DID do.
I've been trying to figure out how to do a sort of hurricane retrospective. Wilma was a year ago October 24, and Katrina two months before that. GrannyJ said she'd like to see some links for the hurricane posts. But when I realized it was like half of my archives, I just couldn't figure out how to put it together - except to say: for Wilma, begin reading October, 2005; for Katrina, start at August 24, 2005. Some great pix in there for Katrina, when I was driving my car through the eyewall of the hurricane - and shooting pix through the windshield the whole way.
After Wilma I went on a Plant Rescue spree. We had all these plants downed and stacked by the side of the road, mixed in with the hurricane trash. I mean, these were continuous debris piles lining both sides of all streets, around 5' high and 5' deep. They were there for weeks and weeks. Many contained plants that could easily be rooted - plumeria, bromeliads, *air plants,* Peruvian cereus - that's a cactus that looks like saguaro but isn't.
Day after day after day I collected plants and wood and all sorts of things in the Saturn, and hauled them home. I kept on until one day I just dropped from exhaustion. Fortunately, this was right around when most of the good stuff was already hauled off by The Claw.
One of my last big plant rescues was right down my street, just a block away. Really a half-block, by city standards. My neighbors had a huge amount of this Peruvian cereus downed, and wanted me to take it and plant it if I could. Hey. Twist my arm.
I thought it was some kind of euphorbia, not a true cactus. I was wrong. Not only is it a true cactus, blogdad Desert Cat has one like it in his yard. We had some simultaneous blooms this spring.
The biggest piece turned out to be 16' long - I measured it. I thought it was 12-15 feet and weighing 100 pounds, but it was 16 feet and around 150-200 pounds. A very fine find indeed.
But...how to haul it home?
Answer: Story and pix below!
PS - The original text post is November 23, 2005. Since I didn't know how to post pix very well at the time, each pic was a different post. So if you want to see the original text and pics, visit the archives for November, 2005, and go to November 23. After that are the pix - keep paging down just like reading a continuous post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The One I Got; The One That Got Away
The one that got away was a picture.
A couple days ago, setting out on errands, I saw a car turning into my neighborhood dragging something behind it. This car was maybe a little SUV - excuse please, I have a missing part where most people's Car Knowledge goes.
Anyway, it had no trailer hitch. Instead there were a couple of light chains hooked up to its bumper. On the other end of the chains - with no trailer, no container, no packing, just its own unadorned self - was a very nice big stump.
Someone had scarfed the stump and was dragging it home. Bumping its butt on the street as it went.
I found this sight quite funny.
Me, I didn't have my camera ready. I got it out and turned around and tried to chase the thing down, but they ditched me. I passed by the retired Police Chief, an excellent observant witness, and stopped. I know, absolutely, that he wouldn't have missed it if it went by. Did you see them? I asked hopefully. Did they come this way? Nope.
No pic.
It did, however, give me an Idea.
The initial intense Plant Retrieval phase of Operation Plant Rescue (Wilma) is nearing an end. The best vegetation debris has been removed, and my back yard is crammed full. There did remain one last important bit.
This consisted of several 10-15 foot lengths of "cactus" down the street at Tom and Norman's house. They were good enough to give them to me, if I could retrieve them. They thought I could cut them up into smaller pieces. Small enough to handle.
Ha! Think again.
As much as I can, I'm leaving plants big. We all lost enough big stuff.
So yesterday morning, I carted home several shorter lengths, and one quite long one. The shorter ones I strapped to my upright 2-wheel dolly - aka hand truck - and walked them home. The long one I ended up balancing on my bun and walking it home, too.
Buns are useful.
I think I read a bit much National Geographic as a child. I grew up with great admiration for those ladies native to interesting foreign lands, where they balance big loads of water or food or wood on their heads. Such excellent posture they have.
In finishing school, all they use to teach posture and balance and grace is a book on the head. Cheap dumb pointless substitute. Why in the world would anyone need to transport a book on one's head? Are modern "civilized" ladies so weak they can't carry a book in their arms like a normal person?
Huh!
On the way home, gracefully balancing my load on my head and walking with fine posture, I happened to pass a nice English couple walking their dog. With true British phlegm, they politely nodded Hello and carefully ignored my fifteen foot long head cactus.
I said, Okay. I know this looks silly. It's all right, I don't mind.
They laughed and visibly relaxed and asked, How do you root it?
Well, you just stick it in the ground and up it goes. It looks like saguaro cactus but I think it's some kind of Euphorbia. It's really easy to grow. In a couple of months I'll have a big Plant Sale, come on down!
No sense passing up a little marketing opportunity.
Today, I had one last piece to retrieve, the biggest, fanciest, prettiest one of all.
It's 12-15 feet long, has several nice branches, and probably weighs at least 100 pounds. Too much for even MY powerful bun.
I thought and thought. I thought about that stump, bumping along behind a car. And decided.
A couple of houses down I saw just what I needed sitting in a debris pile. This was a large child's pool, hard plastic, with sections cut out of each end. In the furniture shipping trade we called this sort of thing a "slide." I scarfed it and took it down to Tom and Norman's.
I put the top end of the cactus in the tub, the bottom end in the back of the Saturn, and bungied the tub to the car.
And wouldn't you know it - right then, a cop cruised by. I sat in the driver's seat not moving, looking as innocent as I could. I really don't want to get a ticket that describes illegal cactus-hauling activities in a child's pool bungied to the car.
Sheesh. I'd find myself on an Oddly Enough news page. With like an $18,000 fine, and a judge cracking up at me. Putting me out on the street wearing a cardboard sign that says, I UNSAFELY DRAG HUGE CACTUS DOWN STREET BEHIND SATURN IN CHILD'S WADING POOL!!!
I'm particularly vulnerable since I have a medium truck driver's license and they expect us to know better. I duck down a little lower.
hee hee! He's gone. I peep in the rear-view mirror. I see he's really only hiding by the fire station. He left the car's behind sticking out like a cat hiding under a rug, tail out, thinking he's invisible. I figure he's probably hitting up the firemen for donuts and won't bother me till after breakfast.
I start the car. Will the bungies hold? Will the tub slide?
YES!
I tool down the street at 1 mile per hour. It's working so well I ratchet it up to 2. Whee!
I'm trying really, really hard not to giggle out loud. My neighbors think I'm strange enough as it is.
Uh-oh. Turning into the driveway is a bit more complicated. These plants like to break in half when you bend them. I stop the car, move the Supercan out of the way, and push the tub through the curve so I can drive pretty much straight in, without the car turning the tub.
It works!
I proudly view my accomplishment. I take pics. I declare Break Time. So here I am.
I got it.
Another exceptional Plant Rescue, completed.
Buffy Walks Away... Tom and Norman's Buffy the Cat looks like my Babycat's brother. Baby brother. Buffy's only 15. Baby's 21.
Buffy's in the middle of this pic, walking away. He detected Nefarious Human Activities That Could Endanger One's Tail, and wisely relocated himself.
...And Settles in to Watch the Show
From a safe distance, that is.
Assemble Your Ingredients
Tub on left. Plant on right.
Render Spines Less Deadly
Just because it's not a true cactus doesn't mean it can't bite.
She used to have this POS truck. She used it for pulling down trees and plowing snow off her roof and chasing bears, but she sold it. She still had a lot of wood to haul and stack before the winter snows set in. What to do?
Well. She tried a wheelbarrow.
It worked okay. But since she had like 1800 cord of wood to haul, and the wheelbarrow doesn't hold that much, and required a disproportionate amount of physical labor, and she's been getting tired and sore - she thought some more.
She has an ATV.
She has a couple sled-type things you can attach to the back of the ATV, and slide stuff.
So she attached one of the sleds and tried that. Much better!
As projects tend to do, it kind of grew. Eventually, she had both sleds attached to the ATV, and then - she figured out a way to attach the wheelbarrow too.
HA!
Maybe it looks silly, but hey, it works. She's almost done.
This sounds exACTly like something I would do.
As a matter of fact...it sounds exactly like something I DID do.
I've been trying to figure out how to do a sort of hurricane retrospective. Wilma was a year ago October 24, and Katrina two months before that. GrannyJ said she'd like to see some links for the hurricane posts. But when I realized it was like half of my archives, I just couldn't figure out how to put it together - except to say: for Wilma, begin reading October, 2005; for Katrina, start at August 24, 2005. Some great pix in there for Katrina, when I was driving my car through the eyewall of the hurricane - and shooting pix through the windshield the whole way.
After Wilma I went on a Plant Rescue spree. We had all these plants downed and stacked by the side of the road, mixed in with the hurricane trash. I mean, these were continuous debris piles lining both sides of all streets, around 5' high and 5' deep. They were there for weeks and weeks. Many contained plants that could easily be rooted - plumeria, bromeliads, *air plants,* Peruvian cereus - that's a cactus that looks like saguaro but isn't.
Day after day after day I collected plants and wood and all sorts of things in the Saturn, and hauled them home. I kept on until one day I just dropped from exhaustion. Fortunately, this was right around when most of the good stuff was already hauled off by The Claw.
One of my last big plant rescues was right down my street, just a block away. Really a half-block, by city standards. My neighbors had a huge amount of this Peruvian cereus downed, and wanted me to take it and plant it if I could. Hey. Twist my arm.
I thought it was some kind of euphorbia, not a true cactus. I was wrong. Not only is it a true cactus, blogdad Desert Cat has one like it in his yard. We had some simultaneous blooms this spring.
The biggest piece turned out to be 16' long - I measured it. I thought it was 12-15 feet and weighing 100 pounds, but it was 16 feet and around 150-200 pounds. A very fine find indeed.
But...how to haul it home?
Answer: Story and pix below!
PS - The original text post is November 23, 2005. Since I didn't know how to post pix very well at the time, each pic was a different post. So if you want to see the original text and pics, visit the archives for November, 2005, and go to November 23. After that are the pix - keep paging down just like reading a continuous post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The One I Got; The One That Got Away
The one that got away was a picture.
A couple days ago, setting out on errands, I saw a car turning into my neighborhood dragging something behind it. This car was maybe a little SUV - excuse please, I have a missing part where most people's Car Knowledge goes.
Anyway, it had no trailer hitch. Instead there were a couple of light chains hooked up to its bumper. On the other end of the chains - with no trailer, no container, no packing, just its own unadorned self - was a very nice big stump.
Someone had scarfed the stump and was dragging it home. Bumping its butt on the street as it went.
I found this sight quite funny.
Me, I didn't have my camera ready. I got it out and turned around and tried to chase the thing down, but they ditched me. I passed by the retired Police Chief, an excellent observant witness, and stopped. I know, absolutely, that he wouldn't have missed it if it went by. Did you see them? I asked hopefully. Did they come this way? Nope.
No pic.
It did, however, give me an Idea.
The initial intense Plant Retrieval phase of Operation Plant Rescue (Wilma) is nearing an end. The best vegetation debris has been removed, and my back yard is crammed full. There did remain one last important bit.
This consisted of several 10-15 foot lengths of "cactus" down the street at Tom and Norman's house. They were good enough to give them to me, if I could retrieve them. They thought I could cut them up into smaller pieces. Small enough to handle.
Ha! Think again.
As much as I can, I'm leaving plants big. We all lost enough big stuff.
So yesterday morning, I carted home several shorter lengths, and one quite long one. The shorter ones I strapped to my upright 2-wheel dolly - aka hand truck - and walked them home. The long one I ended up balancing on my bun and walking it home, too.
Buns are useful.
I think I read a bit much National Geographic as a child. I grew up with great admiration for those ladies native to interesting foreign lands, where they balance big loads of water or food or wood on their heads. Such excellent posture they have.
In finishing school, all they use to teach posture and balance and grace is a book on the head. Cheap dumb pointless substitute. Why in the world would anyone need to transport a book on one's head? Are modern "civilized" ladies so weak they can't carry a book in their arms like a normal person?
Huh!
On the way home, gracefully balancing my load on my head and walking with fine posture, I happened to pass a nice English couple walking their dog. With true British phlegm, they politely nodded Hello and carefully ignored my fifteen foot long head cactus.
I said, Okay. I know this looks silly. It's all right, I don't mind.
They laughed and visibly relaxed and asked, How do you root it?
Well, you just stick it in the ground and up it goes. It looks like saguaro cactus but I think it's some kind of Euphorbia. It's really easy to grow. In a couple of months I'll have a big Plant Sale, come on down!
No sense passing up a little marketing opportunity.
Today, I had one last piece to retrieve, the biggest, fanciest, prettiest one of all.
It's 12-15 feet long, has several nice branches, and probably weighs at least 100 pounds. Too much for even MY powerful bun.
I thought and thought. I thought about that stump, bumping along behind a car. And decided.
A couple of houses down I saw just what I needed sitting in a debris pile. This was a large child's pool, hard plastic, with sections cut out of each end. In the furniture shipping trade we called this sort of thing a "slide." I scarfed it and took it down to Tom and Norman's.
I put the top end of the cactus in the tub, the bottom end in the back of the Saturn, and bungied the tub to the car.
And wouldn't you know it - right then, a cop cruised by. I sat in the driver's seat not moving, looking as innocent as I could. I really don't want to get a ticket that describes illegal cactus-hauling activities in a child's pool bungied to the car.
Sheesh. I'd find myself on an Oddly Enough news page. With like an $18,000 fine, and a judge cracking up at me. Putting me out on the street wearing a cardboard sign that says, I UNSAFELY DRAG HUGE CACTUS DOWN STREET BEHIND SATURN IN CHILD'S WADING POOL!!!
I'm particularly vulnerable since I have a medium truck driver's license and they expect us to know better. I duck down a little lower.
hee hee! He's gone. I peep in the rear-view mirror. I see he's really only hiding by the fire station. He left the car's behind sticking out like a cat hiding under a rug, tail out, thinking he's invisible. I figure he's probably hitting up the firemen for donuts and won't bother me till after breakfast.
I start the car. Will the bungies hold? Will the tub slide?
YES!
I tool down the street at 1 mile per hour. It's working so well I ratchet it up to 2. Whee!
I'm trying really, really hard not to giggle out loud. My neighbors think I'm strange enough as it is.
Uh-oh. Turning into the driveway is a bit more complicated. These plants like to break in half when you bend them. I stop the car, move the Supercan out of the way, and push the tub through the curve so I can drive pretty much straight in, without the car turning the tub.
It works!
I proudly view my accomplishment. I take pics. I declare Break Time. So here I am.
I got it.
Another exceptional Plant Rescue, completed.
Buffy Walks Away... Tom and Norman's Buffy the Cat looks like my Babycat's brother. Baby brother. Buffy's only 15. Baby's 21.Buffy's in the middle of this pic, walking away. He detected Nefarious Human Activities That Could Endanger One's Tail, and wisely relocated himself.
...And Settles in to Watch the Show
From a safe distance, that is.
Assemble Your Ingredients
Tub on left. Plant on right.
Render Spines Less Deadly
Just because it's not a true cactus doesn't mean it can't bite.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Hey! People! Come ON!
.
Listen to me. Listen up good.
I've been through...I think it's now 22 hurricanes. I've driven between the trails as I moved from Gainesville to Orlando. Got hurricanes twice in one week in Louisiana. Drove through the eye of Katrina. Live-blogged Wilma as it brought two trees down on the roof and nearly decapitated me with flying glass.
And I'm telling you, Nancy is facing up to a very serious, huge, dangerous hurricane headed straight for Houston tonight. They have complications with water surge that will make things even worse.
Please send her all the prayers, good thoughts, positive energies, and anything and everything else you've got, all right?
This is going to be a long hard night for a lot of people out there. And despite the compassion fatigue and post-Katrina irritation that a lot of Americans have come to feel, no one deserves getting hit with a natural disaster.
No one.
UPDATE:
I almost forgot. Nancy's husband 'Pup just came down with an infection, probably staph. Luckily, he was able to get a good shot of antibiotics, and fill a prescription for more, just as they were hunkering down.
Dealing with hurricane preps when you're the kind of sick an infection like that makes a person? Boy, that's really not any fun at all.
I've been IM'ing with her since I got back from taking a little drive. As of around midnight Central time, she started getting off-and-on power outages as the storm approached, and getting knocked offline each time. Last time it happened she said she'd probably power down the computer next time it happened. She went offline again, and it looks like that's the last update we'll have for a while.
She's tired out, but seemed to be in good spirits, all things considered.
Now for the hurry-up-and-wait. Ike will make landfall in another hour or two. After that, it'll take more time for the eye to approach Nancy's area; she's about 100 miles inland.
That sound pretty safe? It isn't.
I'm hoping they makes it through will relatively little damage. Only time will tell.
.
Listen to me. Listen up good.
I've been through...I think it's now 22 hurricanes. I've driven between the trails as I moved from Gainesville to Orlando. Got hurricanes twice in one week in Louisiana. Drove through the eye of Katrina. Live-blogged Wilma as it brought two trees down on the roof and nearly decapitated me with flying glass.
And I'm telling you, Nancy is facing up to a very serious, huge, dangerous hurricane headed straight for Houston tonight. They have complications with water surge that will make things even worse.
Please send her all the prayers, good thoughts, positive energies, and anything and everything else you've got, all right?
This is going to be a long hard night for a lot of people out there. And despite the compassion fatigue and post-Katrina irritation that a lot of Americans have come to feel, no one deserves getting hit with a natural disaster.
No one.
UPDATE:
I almost forgot. Nancy's husband 'Pup just came down with an infection, probably staph. Luckily, he was able to get a good shot of antibiotics, and fill a prescription for more, just as they were hunkering down.
Dealing with hurricane preps when you're the kind of sick an infection like that makes a person? Boy, that's really not any fun at all.
I've been IM'ing with her since I got back from taking a little drive. As of around midnight Central time, she started getting off-and-on power outages as the storm approached, and getting knocked offline each time. Last time it happened she said she'd probably power down the computer next time it happened. She went offline again, and it looks like that's the last update we'll have for a while.
She's tired out, but seemed to be in good spirits, all things considered.
Now for the hurry-up-and-wait. Ike will make landfall in another hour or two. After that, it'll take more time for the eye to approach Nancy's area; she's about 100 miles inland.
That sound pretty safe? It isn't.
I'm hoping they makes it through will relatively little damage. Only time will tell.
.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Quixotic
One fine day, an old friend of mine decided he wanted to lose weight.
Actually, the way he put it to me was: --I'm FAT! (Although he isn't.)
I think he also decided he was pissed off at blood cancers, since it looks like they're kind of chasing after his friends and family.
So instead of going on some run-of-the-mill diet and/or exercise plan, he decided to join a group that trains people for marathon events as a conduit for raising funds to battle these cancers. It's called Team in Training. They run around in big long circles and dash by on bikes and stuff.
I learned about this novel approach to weight loss when - by snail mail, taking me back - he sent around the funniest call for donations that I've ever read in my life.
Which kind of figures. He's a funny guy. He's funny for a living. And makes a living at it, which usually doesn't happen that way.
So I'm sitting there in one of the financially challenged phases of my life, watching time go by, wishing I had $10 to send them. Plotting and scheming to put the touch on the neighbors. Wondering how he's doing, considering how the entire world has donor fatigue after the 2004 Florida hurricanes and the tsunami and such.
And not long after I got that letter, Katrina came.
And then a Pakistan earthquake that killed a huge number of people.
Then Wilma.
These things surely affected Team in Training's ability to fundraise for its more steady sort of plight. Cancer is all about being vicious and relentless. Natural disasters have a very different life cycle. A different donor response, too. When we see so very many people suffering so badly, and so suddenly, we tend to empty our pockets to help. It's a good thing. But it may not leave much for donating to other worthy but more day-to-day needs.
I started to notice that long ago, when my friend and I developed a habit of calling each other with Disaster News & Announcements when disasters occurred in our neighborhoods. We'd do this no matter how pressed for time, or for long-distance phone call money, we were.
So I wondered how he'd deal with the donor fatigue issue. I mean, continuing on such a drive after Katrina struck me as a bit quixotic. Charmingly so, yes. Maybe hopelessly so, too.
But no.
Being who he is, he goes blithely on, not changing course one whit.
He's been doing all these practice runs, getting geared up for a big old marathon run in Hawaii. Don't worry. He's buying his own ticket. Plus he's running there, but not TO there, he's definitely flying over on a plane like a normal person. (Straightened that out with his wife, I did.)
As luck would have it, our worst financial surprises are behind us - just for this paycheck I mean, don't want to tempt fate here!!! - medical events like anaphylactic shock and a brown recluse spider bite, plus hurricanes eating the house, you know the drill. Suddenly, with that marathon fast approaching, it's this Saturday so time's running out - suddenly, oh finally, I have that $10 I can spare on hand.
I sent it in. Just now. Here's the link: http://www.active.com/donations/fundraise_public.cfm?key=tntglaJMcCann
Oh happy day!
This guy who's worked so hard, against such odds, to make his goal has earned it.
Earned it. It's not like he's just asking for donations here. Guy's sweating his butt off, cheerfully keeping on, and courteously ignoring any hint of difficulty presented by too many innocent people needing too much help just now. It's not that he didn't notice, I'm sure. He doesn't miss much. He just chooses to keep on keepin' on.
So I hope you'll send something too.
Actually, the way he put it to me was: --I'm FAT! (Although he isn't.)
I think he also decided he was pissed off at blood cancers, since it looks like they're kind of chasing after his friends and family.
So instead of going on some run-of-the-mill diet and/or exercise plan, he decided to join a group that trains people for marathon events as a conduit for raising funds to battle these cancers. It's called Team in Training. They run around in big long circles and dash by on bikes and stuff.
I learned about this novel approach to weight loss when - by snail mail, taking me back - he sent around the funniest call for donations that I've ever read in my life.
Which kind of figures. He's a funny guy. He's funny for a living. And makes a living at it, which usually doesn't happen that way.
So I'm sitting there in one of the financially challenged phases of my life, watching time go by, wishing I had $10 to send them. Plotting and scheming to put the touch on the neighbors. Wondering how he's doing, considering how the entire world has donor fatigue after the 2004 Florida hurricanes and the tsunami and such.
And not long after I got that letter, Katrina came.
And then a Pakistan earthquake that killed a huge number of people.
Then Wilma.
These things surely affected Team in Training's ability to fundraise for its more steady sort of plight. Cancer is all about being vicious and relentless. Natural disasters have a very different life cycle. A different donor response, too. When we see so very many people suffering so badly, and so suddenly, we tend to empty our pockets to help. It's a good thing. But it may not leave much for donating to other worthy but more day-to-day needs.
I started to notice that long ago, when my friend and I developed a habit of calling each other with Disaster News & Announcements when disasters occurred in our neighborhoods. We'd do this no matter how pressed for time, or for long-distance phone call money, we were.
So I wondered how he'd deal with the donor fatigue issue. I mean, continuing on such a drive after Katrina struck me as a bit quixotic. Charmingly so, yes. Maybe hopelessly so, too.
But no.
Being who he is, he goes blithely on, not changing course one whit.
He's been doing all these practice runs, getting geared up for a big old marathon run in Hawaii. Don't worry. He's buying his own ticket. Plus he's running there, but not TO there, he's definitely flying over on a plane like a normal person. (Straightened that out with his wife, I did.)
As luck would have it, our worst financial surprises are behind us - just for this paycheck I mean, don't want to tempt fate here!!! - medical events like anaphylactic shock and a brown recluse spider bite, plus hurricanes eating the house, you know the drill. Suddenly, with that marathon fast approaching, it's this Saturday so time's running out - suddenly, oh finally, I have that $10 I can spare on hand.
I sent it in. Just now. Here's the link: http://www.active.com/donations/fundraise_public.cfm?key=tntglaJMcCann
Oh happy day!
This guy who's worked so hard, against such odds, to make his goal has earned it.
Earned it. It's not like he's just asking for donations here. Guy's sweating his butt off, cheerfully keeping on, and courteously ignoring any hint of difficulty presented by too many innocent people needing too much help just now. It's not that he didn't notice, I'm sure. He doesn't miss much. He just chooses to keep on keepin' on.
So I hope you'll send something too.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Searching for Jesus' finger
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html#075458
Searching for Jesus' finger
Wednesday, 2:10 p.m.
In the garden behind St. Louis Cathedral on Royal Street lies an incredible tangle of zig-zagging broken tree trunks and branches, mixed with smashed wrought iron fences.
But right in the middle, a statue of Jesus is still standing, unscathed by the storm, save for the left thumb and index finger, which are missing.
The missing digits immediately set off speculation of divine intervention.
New Orleans has a long history praying to saints for guidance and protection in times of great peril. In fact it was Our Lady of Prompt Succor who was said to be responsible for saving the Ursulines Convent in the French Quarter from a raging fire that consumed the rest of the city centuries ago.
Since then, New Orlenians have prayed to the saint for protection from natural disasters. On Saturday, Archbishop Alfred Hughes read a prayer over the radio asking for Our Lady's intervention to spare the city a direct hit by Hurricane Katrina.
Many in the Quarter are now saying it was the hand of Jesus, the missing digits to be precise, that flicked the hurricane east just a little to keep the city from suffering a direct blow.
And the search is on for those missing fingers.
Shortly after Katrina passed, several men went to Robert Buras, who owns the Royal Street Grocery and told him they know who has the finger. Buras said he'd give them all the water and beer they need if they bring him the finger.
They told him they'd find it and asked to be paid upfront. But Buras told them he wouldn't take it on credit.
"I'm going to find Jesus' finger,'' Buras said. ''I've got a lead on it.''
Searching for Jesus' finger
Wednesday, 2:10 p.m.
In the garden behind St. Louis Cathedral on Royal Street lies an incredible tangle of zig-zagging broken tree trunks and branches, mixed with smashed wrought iron fences.
But right in the middle, a statue of Jesus is still standing, unscathed by the storm, save for the left thumb and index finger, which are missing.
The missing digits immediately set off speculation of divine intervention.
New Orleans has a long history praying to saints for guidance and protection in times of great peril. In fact it was Our Lady of Prompt Succor who was said to be responsible for saving the Ursulines Convent in the French Quarter from a raging fire that consumed the rest of the city centuries ago.
Since then, New Orlenians have prayed to the saint for protection from natural disasters. On Saturday, Archbishop Alfred Hughes read a prayer over the radio asking for Our Lady's intervention to spare the city a direct hit by Hurricane Katrina.
Many in the Quarter are now saying it was the hand of Jesus, the missing digits to be precise, that flicked the hurricane east just a little to keep the city from suffering a direct blow.
And the search is on for those missing fingers.
Shortly after Katrina passed, several men went to Robert Buras, who owns the Royal Street Grocery and told him they know who has the finger. Buras said he'd give them all the water and beer they need if they bring him the finger.
They told him they'd find it and asked to be paid upfront. But Buras told them he wouldn't take it on credit.
"I'm going to find Jesus' finger,'' Buras said. ''I've got a lead on it.''
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Katrina's First Landfall
I've been looking over the times Katrina first made landfall on the Broward County coast, the 50-mile diameter of the eye, and the time I arrived home. When I drove back from Vero Beach into the hurricane last Thursday, the eye was just making landfall where I was driving as I finally got back.
It seems I either drove through the eyewall itself, or through the last rain band next to the eyewall. That's the very dark pictures toward the end.
This series of pictures was shot blind. The viewfinder on my digital camera was broken. Even if it weren't I wasn't about to take my eyes off the road. They were shot through the windows of my car, mostly through the windshield ahead, holding the camera in the air as l drove, often at 80 miles per hour.
So overlook, please, the reflections, rain, salt, and dust on the glass, and the bits of car that got into the pictures. I left them uncropped, unlightened, unstraightened virgin pix.
The pictures begin shortly after I left Vero Beach on the 110-mile drive home, and continue to the ficus tree that totally obstructed the street a half block from my house. They finally cut away enough tree limbs to reopen that road earlier today, Tuesday, five days later.
It seems I either drove through the eyewall itself, or through the last rain band next to the eyewall. That's the very dark pictures toward the end.
This series of pictures was shot blind. The viewfinder on my digital camera was broken. Even if it weren't I wasn't about to take my eyes off the road. They were shot through the windows of my car, mostly through the windshield ahead, holding the camera in the air as l drove, often at 80 miles per hour.
So overlook, please, the reflections, rain, salt, and dust on the glass, and the bits of car that got into the pictures. I left them uncropped, unlightened, unstraightened virgin pix.
The pictures begin shortly after I left Vero Beach on the 110-mile drive home, and continue to the ficus tree that totally obstructed the street a half block from my house. They finally cut away enough tree limbs to reopen that road earlier today, Tuesday, five days later.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Leaky Roofs are Nervewracking
You probably saw news coverage of the 2-mile line of people waiting to get searched and questioned so they could take shelter in the Superdome. These are the poorest of the poor, the sick and frail, the elderly. They had no car, or maybe no family to help. Many of them brought a little package of their most treasured possessions for safekeeping, since the city will be largely destroyed by Katrina.
There are about 10,000 people there. The air conditioning gave out.
Now, the roof is leaking. Leaking quite badly and in numerous places, although there's no breach visible yet. That roof is 250' high, about 25 stories, so it may be they just can't see a breach from the ground.
On Good Morning America a reporter in the Superdome said the sound of the leaks was like a marching band overhead, like the beating of massive drums. Another said it sounded like a waterfall. No one is allowed on the field any more. The people are in the stands and they're trying to move everyone into the end zone areas and concourse for safety.
Update: Part of the roof has peeled back and the holes are showing. The wind is forcing the rain in and it's streaming down.
The leaks are so bad that everyone's terrified. A lot of them are soaked, too. So are those little parcels of keepsakes and food and medicine they've been holding close.
Katrina's center hasn't even reached them yet. They still have another couple hours of the worst of the storm to go through.
Their place of refuge is not safe. There is nothing anyone can do but wait.
There are about 10,000 people there. The air conditioning gave out.
Now, the roof is leaking. Leaking quite badly and in numerous places, although there's no breach visible yet. That roof is 250' high, about 25 stories, so it may be they just can't see a breach from the ground.
On Good Morning America a reporter in the Superdome said the sound of the leaks was like a marching band overhead, like the beating of massive drums. Another said it sounded like a waterfall. No one is allowed on the field any more. The people are in the stands and they're trying to move everyone into the end zone areas and concourse for safety.
Update: Part of the roof has peeled back and the holes are showing. The wind is forcing the rain in and it's streaming down.
The leaks are so bad that everyone's terrified. A lot of them are soaked, too. So are those little parcels of keepsakes and food and medicine they've been holding close.
Katrina's center hasn't even reached them yet. They still have another couple hours of the worst of the storm to go through.
Their place of refuge is not safe. There is nothing anyone can do but wait.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Powerless? Not Quite.
Friday, 8/26/05
Around midday, I went out looking for fuel.
A mistake.
I blew about 1/8 tank looking for fuel and didn't find it. The power in my little community is so badly wiped out that no pumps or stores or anything or anyone has any electricity. If there's no juice, then there's no working gas pumps. I thought some power would be back on by now but it isn't.
And of course, I need the fuel not just to get supplies but for my home's electricity.
Most traffic lights were still out, and people were still blowing the intersections instead of doing 4-way stops. Seemed to me they knew they were doing wrong, too. Very wrong. We had several deaths last year due to exactly this behavior. Today I got so I'd move (slowly and carefully) into the intersection, blowing my horn, not letting 50 cars whiz through not their turn. I told Walter. He was shocked. "YOU were blowing your HORN?!?" --Yeah. I had to look around first to find it. Didn't know where it was.
Watching the outpouring of generosity and sweetness and helpfulness of ordinary humans in natural disasters is really uplifting to me. Seeing them blow those intersections like that is so disheartening.
And my usual Walgreen's got ate by the hurricane. Seriously so. It not only didn't have any power, the parking lots were covered with downed trees. I'd refilled everything I could, but I missed picking up my anti-inflammatories - which I ran out of yesterday - and a special anti-MRSA antibiotic. Not good. Especially when I'm seriously low on funds from unexpectedly refilling all the others so soon. (Hurricane tip: Have at least 2 weeks of rx's on hand.)
All phones are so dicey I can't even blog. Ok. Write now, post later. Emails are weirdly logjammed. Bear with me, folks. Don't stop sending them. I'm getting most of 'em, after a while; and they mean a lot to me just now. I'll answer as I can.
FPL tells us they are Assessing. Until Tuesday. 8/30. Tuesday they hope to have 90% of us restored. Till then: don't get your hopes up. After then: the remaining 10% by Friday, they hope.
Which doesn't mean they aren't quietly fixing power problems while they Assess. Broward now has almost half the outages restored.
Not mine.
I'm so crushed about my digital camera. I loved it and it seems to be totally gone. I got out my treasured old Nikon FM2 but somehow it broke my heart and I couldn't use it. What an awful time to be without a camera. Maybe I can get over it enough tomorrow to get some pix...
For the first time in a long time, I got depressed, suddenly and sharply. Hurricane fatigue. So I went to sleep.
At night I woke up feeling some better. With only a hair of fuel left, I let my fingers do the walking. I found a place that swore they had fuel only a few miles up the coast.
Oh no! By the time I got there they were pumped dry. I watched a man milk about $.70 worth out of a pump. It took several minutes.
Such suspense, watching that fuel trickling into his tank. I found I couldn't leave. I was riveted, staring, until it was all over.
He told me to head up Dixie Highway. And lo and behold, not far from my mom's condo, I found Gas.
They even had REGULAR.
The nice man even PUMPED IT for me!
Filled my tank ALL the way up!
THERE WASN'T EVEN A LINE!!!
I told him he should have a line around the block. --You need to Get the Word out. Put out a Sign! Send Emails! Call the Local News Channels!
Oh, so cheerful.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 8/26/05
Condo Check
The road to Mom's condo was blocked off, flooded, cop car there flashing its lights. I went around another way, not flooded, and squeezed the car in to check the place.
I hadn't pulled the furniture away from the windows but everything was fine. No electricity though. Last hurricane season I'd packed her freezer full of gallon jugs of water. There they were. Frozen solid, looking all nice and hurricane-ready.
The cell phones and land lines are only working sporadically. I got Mom on my cell phone and she told me where all the candles were. Told me to take all I needed. Oh, lucky!
And went home.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday afternoon, 8/27/05
Coffee and a Fan
A lovely morning.
It started with my usual morning espresso. I missed it Friday morning, we were worried about whether the 1000-watt inverter ("max load 2000") could handle the 1000-watt espresso maker, and the 1000-watt nuker for my milk and cream. I shut down all other appliances, everything. I made the coffee. The electricity held. I nuked the milk and cream. Still no blowout. I drank it and it was sooooo good.
I picked up Geoff and took him with me to Sam's and Walmart and Walgreen's and Mom's condo. No traffic lights. Good for Geoff, he didn't go white knuckle on me. Not so's I could see anyway.
When you don't have a car you may not realize how isolated you become. And for such a proficient cook, to have to pay retail for food - only middling-quality food no less - is just awful.
He got a kick out of Sam's. And maybe got a little embarrassed at how much fun he was having window-shopping and riding around town. I said, No. When I get stuck in the house sick for two or three months, I call it being in jail. When I can finally use my Get Out of Jail card, I feel like a little kid at Christmas. Isolation does things to you that you don't fully feel until it stops.
I had about $23 cash left after fueling up last night. I got a no-cost advance on my meds at Walgreens, hooray! The store Katrina ate had already filled them, just before the storm. So the other Walgreen's couldn't pass it through the insurance, see? Neither could they contact the dead store to say, Put that filled rx back and we'll fill it here! So, they'll supply me up until that dead store wakes up again. A very nice pharmacist, swapping hurricane war stories with me on the phone.
I got milk, cream, and eggs at Sam's. At Walmart I got butter, super cheap candles, and - a FAN.
This is South Florida in late August. No juice, no A/C. I have edema and it hurts and without A/C or air moving over my swollen hands and face and feet, it's just...awful. My $6 fan is indescribably wonderful. Finally I can clean house.
I had $6 left. $5 went into my gas tank.
Now I have 3/4 of a tank and $1 to my name. Monday I'll have at least $20, maybe I can even fill up. I get about 30 hours of electricity on a tank of gas.
Question: Should I spend some of that fuel cruising around tomorrow with my plant sale partner-to-be? It's not just for sightseeing. There are thousands of dollars' worth of plants sitting by the side of the road waiting for garbage pickup on Monday. I'd rather root them and sell them than see them die. And post-hurricane is the best time to do such scarfings, bar none. This is a truly exceptional opportunity that won't last.
It would mean losing power before Monday.
OTOH: Any reasonable thing I can do to support myself, I will.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday evening, 8/27/05
Help. However You Can.
Now y'all have listened to a tiny slice of the gory details on what a minimal Cat 1 hurricane does to a big swath of land and all those people on it. Sure, I know you see all this on the news too. But maybe reading about it from one small person's perspective makes it a bit more personal. I hope so, anyway.
Not so much because I want to keep blathering on about my life.
I want people to think about this:
Katrina is now heading to a place that's been battered and battered and battered by one major hurricane after another, all still within one year. She's a strong Cat 3 as I write this, and will probably be either a Cat 4 or 5 when she strikes again.
I love the Gulf Coast, tremendously. I've lived and traveled on many parts of it. I would not want to be any Gulf Coast resident, anywhere, just now. I can't imagine how all those people can still endure.
Whatever your religious or other type persuasion is, please include those people in your thoughts, prayers, your positive energies, your compassion. If there's a way you can help them after it hits, please do. This can get tiresome, surely so many Americans know what disaster fatigue feels like now. But please - don't go that route. Don't stop being giving people.
We need help in South Florida too, don't get me wrong. A hurricane's a hurricane. But wherever Katrina hits next, those people will need help far more than we do here.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Around midday, I went out looking for fuel.
A mistake.
I blew about 1/8 tank looking for fuel and didn't find it. The power in my little community is so badly wiped out that no pumps or stores or anything or anyone has any electricity. If there's no juice, then there's no working gas pumps. I thought some power would be back on by now but it isn't.
And of course, I need the fuel not just to get supplies but for my home's electricity.
Most traffic lights were still out, and people were still blowing the intersections instead of doing 4-way stops. Seemed to me they knew they were doing wrong, too. Very wrong. We had several deaths last year due to exactly this behavior. Today I got so I'd move (slowly and carefully) into the intersection, blowing my horn, not letting 50 cars whiz through not their turn. I told Walter. He was shocked. "YOU were blowing your HORN?!?" --Yeah. I had to look around first to find it. Didn't know where it was.
Watching the outpouring of generosity and sweetness and helpfulness of ordinary humans in natural disasters is really uplifting to me. Seeing them blow those intersections like that is so disheartening.
And my usual Walgreen's got ate by the hurricane. Seriously so. It not only didn't have any power, the parking lots were covered with downed trees. I'd refilled everything I could, but I missed picking up my anti-inflammatories - which I ran out of yesterday - and a special anti-MRSA antibiotic. Not good. Especially when I'm seriously low on funds from unexpectedly refilling all the others so soon. (Hurricane tip: Have at least 2 weeks of rx's on hand.)
All phones are so dicey I can't even blog. Ok. Write now, post later. Emails are weirdly logjammed. Bear with me, folks. Don't stop sending them. I'm getting most of 'em, after a while; and they mean a lot to me just now. I'll answer as I can.
FPL tells us they are Assessing. Until Tuesday. 8/30. Tuesday they hope to have 90% of us restored. Till then: don't get your hopes up. After then: the remaining 10% by Friday, they hope.
Which doesn't mean they aren't quietly fixing power problems while they Assess. Broward now has almost half the outages restored.
Not mine.
I'm so crushed about my digital camera. I loved it and it seems to be totally gone. I got out my treasured old Nikon FM2 but somehow it broke my heart and I couldn't use it. What an awful time to be without a camera. Maybe I can get over it enough tomorrow to get some pix...
For the first time in a long time, I got depressed, suddenly and sharply. Hurricane fatigue. So I went to sleep.
At night I woke up feeling some better. With only a hair of fuel left, I let my fingers do the walking. I found a place that swore they had fuel only a few miles up the coast.
Oh no! By the time I got there they were pumped dry. I watched a man milk about $.70 worth out of a pump. It took several minutes.
Such suspense, watching that fuel trickling into his tank. I found I couldn't leave. I was riveted, staring, until it was all over.
He told me to head up Dixie Highway. And lo and behold, not far from my mom's condo, I found Gas.
They even had REGULAR.
The nice man even PUMPED IT for me!
Filled my tank ALL the way up!
THERE WASN'T EVEN A LINE!!!
I told him he should have a line around the block. --You need to Get the Word out. Put out a Sign! Send Emails! Call the Local News Channels!
Oh, so cheerful.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 8/26/05
Condo Check
The road to Mom's condo was blocked off, flooded, cop car there flashing its lights. I went around another way, not flooded, and squeezed the car in to check the place.
I hadn't pulled the furniture away from the windows but everything was fine. No electricity though. Last hurricane season I'd packed her freezer full of gallon jugs of water. There they were. Frozen solid, looking all nice and hurricane-ready.
The cell phones and land lines are only working sporadically. I got Mom on my cell phone and she told me where all the candles were. Told me to take all I needed. Oh, lucky!
And went home.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday afternoon, 8/27/05
Coffee and a Fan
A lovely morning.
It started with my usual morning espresso. I missed it Friday morning, we were worried about whether the 1000-watt inverter ("max load 2000") could handle the 1000-watt espresso maker, and the 1000-watt nuker for my milk and cream. I shut down all other appliances, everything. I made the coffee. The electricity held. I nuked the milk and cream. Still no blowout. I drank it and it was sooooo good.
I picked up Geoff and took him with me to Sam's and Walmart and Walgreen's and Mom's condo. No traffic lights. Good for Geoff, he didn't go white knuckle on me. Not so's I could see anyway.
When you don't have a car you may not realize how isolated you become. And for such a proficient cook, to have to pay retail for food - only middling-quality food no less - is just awful.
He got a kick out of Sam's. And maybe got a little embarrassed at how much fun he was having window-shopping and riding around town. I said, No. When I get stuck in the house sick for two or three months, I call it being in jail. When I can finally use my Get Out of Jail card, I feel like a little kid at Christmas. Isolation does things to you that you don't fully feel until it stops.
I had about $23 cash left after fueling up last night. I got a no-cost advance on my meds at Walgreens, hooray! The store Katrina ate had already filled them, just before the storm. So the other Walgreen's couldn't pass it through the insurance, see? Neither could they contact the dead store to say, Put that filled rx back and we'll fill it here! So, they'll supply me up until that dead store wakes up again. A very nice pharmacist, swapping hurricane war stories with me on the phone.
I got milk, cream, and eggs at Sam's. At Walmart I got butter, super cheap candles, and - a FAN.
This is South Florida in late August. No juice, no A/C. I have edema and it hurts and without A/C or air moving over my swollen hands and face and feet, it's just...awful. My $6 fan is indescribably wonderful. Finally I can clean house.
I had $6 left. $5 went into my gas tank.
Now I have 3/4 of a tank and $1 to my name. Monday I'll have at least $20, maybe I can even fill up. I get about 30 hours of electricity on a tank of gas.
Question: Should I spend some of that fuel cruising around tomorrow with my plant sale partner-to-be? It's not just for sightseeing. There are thousands of dollars' worth of plants sitting by the side of the road waiting for garbage pickup on Monday. I'd rather root them and sell them than see them die. And post-hurricane is the best time to do such scarfings, bar none. This is a truly exceptional opportunity that won't last.
It would mean losing power before Monday.
OTOH: Any reasonable thing I can do to support myself, I will.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday evening, 8/27/05
Help. However You Can.
Now y'all have listened to a tiny slice of the gory details on what a minimal Cat 1 hurricane does to a big swath of land and all those people on it. Sure, I know you see all this on the news too. But maybe reading about it from one small person's perspective makes it a bit more personal. I hope so, anyway.
Not so much because I want to keep blathering on about my life.
I want people to think about this:
Katrina is now heading to a place that's been battered and battered and battered by one major hurricane after another, all still within one year. She's a strong Cat 3 as I write this, and will probably be either a Cat 4 or 5 when she strikes again.
I love the Gulf Coast, tremendously. I've lived and traveled on many parts of it. I would not want to be any Gulf Coast resident, anywhere, just now. I can't imagine how all those people can still endure.
Whatever your religious or other type persuasion is, please include those people in your thoughts, prayers, your positive energies, your compassion. If there's a way you can help them after it hits, please do. This can get tiresome, surely so many Americans know what disaster fatigue feels like now. But please - don't go that route. Don't stop being giving people.
We need help in South Florida too, don't get me wrong. A hurricane's a hurricane. But wherever Katrina hits next, those people will need help far more than we do here.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, August 26, 2005
Home
Packing Walter's supplies this morning involved baking 4 loaves of bread (the dough for 4 more I put in the fridge) and several dozen Sin Rolls. He needed three loaves of bread. The Sin Rolls? Maybe k needs to bake them more than Walter needs to eat them.
Unwittingly, a tradition has developed. k bakes while the hurricane approaches and delivers surplus to select neighbors, to the mutual glee of all.
Hurricanes make people a bit giddy.
Since this was my first Hurricane Baked Goods stop at neighbor Geoff's, I stayed to talk for a bit. He's English, a very fine cook, and a very fine gardener. It looks like we'll be doing some plant sales together.
So I left late for Vero Beach. Walter moved there to get his trailer worked on - and be closer to me, making it the employer's fuel bill, see? - and closer to I-95. Like good smart business people, his company canceled his layover and told him to head north asap. And the hurricane speeded up towards my home. So we had no time to visit at all.
I left Geoff's, baked the loaves, and raced out of there. Traffic was a bit thick but moving, and I went most of the way at around 80 MPH. I'll readily confess to certain, mmm, sub-optimal driving habits. One is a lead foot. Today, it came in handy.
People were passing me like I was standing still. Most of them were exceptionally courteous, some a bit nervous. I left huge following distances ahead and behind, moved away from tailgaters quick, made way for everyone I could, people who wanted to pass, whatever, yes including those who rode my bumper. It was not a day to stand on one's rights. IMO.
Since we were going away from the storm, all those drivers seemed logical to me. Even if the emergency authorities were telling everyone to get off the road. See, those were probably all mobile home owners. Right?
I went through a few patches of absolutely blinding rain - not at 80 MPH, no - but the amount of clearer parts between rain bands was gratifying.
Birds were being blown around, helpless, in the air. Small pieces of trees and road debris flew by. Once, I saw a long, long line of the orange "Asplundh" trucks that FPL uses for tree trimming around power lines, heading south, back into the hurricane.
I didn't want to miss all the action. When I finally saw Walter and we knew we had no time together at all, he said, You can see me any time. A hurricane this close to home is special. Go.
The drive back was not the same.
The first third or so was okay. Me, I pay special attention to lane position and I knew I had to be careful of gusts, and that they'd push me to the right, to the west.
I guess I just didn't expect the first one to be that strong. It picked me up and put me halfway into the next lane. I was very lucky. No one was there.
Not 80 MPH any more. 74. Then 70. Then 60, 50. Focusing on keeping the car in the lane, watching out for debris, sensing the grip of the tires vs. hydroplaning, took total concentration. Add on: making sure there were no cars on either side. I wanted to get home to the action, not get delayed by another car blown into me, or me them.
And here and there, seeing the Van Gough skies all around me, I held my camera up and took pictures blind, through the window glass, still concentrating on driving, thinking maybe one or two might come out.
I'm crazy. I already know that. I didn't do it when the gusts were bumping us around. But...do it I did.
The radio told me all the hurricane news. Traffic is surprisingly heavy, bad accidents everywhere, trees and power lines down, PLEASE get off the road unless you really HAVE to drive - k did have to, yes. They put on some new pop song called Home. Home. Yes.
Then they interrupted it for more hurricane news.
Like, that the eye had already touched the coast. And south of us. This confused me.
I must confess it also disappointed me.
I've been through so many hurricanes but I've never been through the eye. And surely this minimal hurricane would be a fine one for that.
It was all true. Katrina jogged south and the exact center of the eye didn't go over my house. But with a 50-mile wide eye, I'm pretty sure part of it did.
I missed it.
I won't cry.
There'll always be another hurricane down the road.
And that road was getting wilder by the minute.
By the time I was only a few exits from my own, the skies were jet black. The flying debris was coming about almost constantly. Little stuff mostly, leaves, things that at that speed can break glass. Distracting too.
Power out everywhere, a million and more customers out. Even the huge standards lighting up I-95 were out. The rain was coming so thick and fast, sideways, that people were pulling over on the shoulders under the overpasses like a tornado was coming. Making me look around for a tornado. Distracting my attention.
Almost home.
Oh, can't see, can't see. I changed lanes for my exit and for the only time the whole trip, I accidentally cut someone off. That he barreled up behind me to my bumper, then cut over to pass me on the right makes no difference. I'm just glad we're both okay and not dead.
Off the highway, on my exit. All the traffic lights are out.
All those exhortations about making such intersections a 4-way stop got seriously ignored.
I made my turn and again I was safe.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, all powers that be.
Trees down everywhere, branches, bits of buildings in the middle of the road. You know. The usual stuff. You've seen the pictures.
We're a couple of miles from the interstate. So close. So far. concentrate, concentrate.
Almost home.
A half block from home a huge ficus was down in the middle of the street. I had to turn around.
But! Ah, home! And driving slow, finally, again. The squall line was passing and the skies were lightening up. My neighbors were out, sitting on porches watching the show, wandering about taking pictures and videos. All smiles, everyone, friendly waves and Good Luck!'s.
Home. Home. Home.
I called Walter and fed the cat and checked for damage - none - and grabbed that last loaf of bread, and drove down the block to Geoff's again. He'd invited me to dinner. First I twisted his arm into getting in the car for a short ride, just very close, a few blocks around. More friendly neighbor-hallooing. Such a mess everywhere! And suddenly my camera gave out.
So we headed back to Geoff's, and he'd made a superb roast pork supper that I was suddenly ravenous to eat, sitting at his beautifully laid table in my sandy feet. And had a very nice visit too, talking away as the electricity flickered and the wind thrashed about. I greatly enjoyed myself.
And went home. No electricity, but a very glad cat.
All the neighbors across the street have juice. They're probably thumbing their noses at us. Giggling.
I set up the little inverter on my car engine and plugged in the fridge, TV, computer, and a light.
And put my feet up, and soaked up hurricane coverage, and checked into the blogosphere to say hello to you all.
Contentment.
Katrina. Such a fine hurricane, in the end.
Unwittingly, a tradition has developed. k bakes while the hurricane approaches and delivers surplus to select neighbors, to the mutual glee of all.
Hurricanes make people a bit giddy.
Since this was my first Hurricane Baked Goods stop at neighbor Geoff's, I stayed to talk for a bit. He's English, a very fine cook, and a very fine gardener. It looks like we'll be doing some plant sales together.
So I left late for Vero Beach. Walter moved there to get his trailer worked on - and be closer to me, making it the employer's fuel bill, see? - and closer to I-95. Like good smart business people, his company canceled his layover and told him to head north asap. And the hurricane speeded up towards my home. So we had no time to visit at all.
I left Geoff's, baked the loaves, and raced out of there. Traffic was a bit thick but moving, and I went most of the way at around 80 MPH. I'll readily confess to certain, mmm, sub-optimal driving habits. One is a lead foot. Today, it came in handy.
People were passing me like I was standing still. Most of them were exceptionally courteous, some a bit nervous. I left huge following distances ahead and behind, moved away from tailgaters quick, made way for everyone I could, people who wanted to pass, whatever, yes including those who rode my bumper. It was not a day to stand on one's rights. IMO.
Since we were going away from the storm, all those drivers seemed logical to me. Even if the emergency authorities were telling everyone to get off the road. See, those were probably all mobile home owners. Right?
I went through a few patches of absolutely blinding rain - not at 80 MPH, no - but the amount of clearer parts between rain bands was gratifying.
Birds were being blown around, helpless, in the air. Small pieces of trees and road debris flew by. Once, I saw a long, long line of the orange "Asplundh" trucks that FPL uses for tree trimming around power lines, heading south, back into the hurricane.
I didn't want to miss all the action. When I finally saw Walter and we knew we had no time together at all, he said, You can see me any time. A hurricane this close to home is special. Go.
The drive back was not the same.
The first third or so was okay. Me, I pay special attention to lane position and I knew I had to be careful of gusts, and that they'd push me to the right, to the west.
I guess I just didn't expect the first one to be that strong. It picked me up and put me halfway into the next lane. I was very lucky. No one was there.
Not 80 MPH any more. 74. Then 70. Then 60, 50. Focusing on keeping the car in the lane, watching out for debris, sensing the grip of the tires vs. hydroplaning, took total concentration. Add on: making sure there were no cars on either side. I wanted to get home to the action, not get delayed by another car blown into me, or me them.
And here and there, seeing the Van Gough skies all around me, I held my camera up and took pictures blind, through the window glass, still concentrating on driving, thinking maybe one or two might come out.
I'm crazy. I already know that. I didn't do it when the gusts were bumping us around. But...do it I did.
The radio told me all the hurricane news. Traffic is surprisingly heavy, bad accidents everywhere, trees and power lines down, PLEASE get off the road unless you really HAVE to drive - k did have to, yes. They put on some new pop song called Home. Home. Yes.
Then they interrupted it for more hurricane news.
Like, that the eye had already touched the coast. And south of us. This confused me.
I must confess it also disappointed me.
I've been through so many hurricanes but I've never been through the eye. And surely this minimal hurricane would be a fine one for that.
It was all true. Katrina jogged south and the exact center of the eye didn't go over my house. But with a 50-mile wide eye, I'm pretty sure part of it did.
I missed it.
I won't cry.
There'll always be another hurricane down the road.
And that road was getting wilder by the minute.
By the time I was only a few exits from my own, the skies were jet black. The flying debris was coming about almost constantly. Little stuff mostly, leaves, things that at that speed can break glass. Distracting too.
Power out everywhere, a million and more customers out. Even the huge standards lighting up I-95 were out. The rain was coming so thick and fast, sideways, that people were pulling over on the shoulders under the overpasses like a tornado was coming. Making me look around for a tornado. Distracting my attention.
Almost home.
Oh, can't see, can't see. I changed lanes for my exit and for the only time the whole trip, I accidentally cut someone off. That he barreled up behind me to my bumper, then cut over to pass me on the right makes no difference. I'm just glad we're both okay and not dead.
Off the highway, on my exit. All the traffic lights are out.
All those exhortations about making such intersections a 4-way stop got seriously ignored.
I made my turn and again I was safe.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, all powers that be.
Trees down everywhere, branches, bits of buildings in the middle of the road. You know. The usual stuff. You've seen the pictures.
We're a couple of miles from the interstate. So close. So far. concentrate, concentrate.
Almost home.
A half block from home a huge ficus was down in the middle of the street. I had to turn around.
But! Ah, home! And driving slow, finally, again. The squall line was passing and the skies were lightening up. My neighbors were out, sitting on porches watching the show, wandering about taking pictures and videos. All smiles, everyone, friendly waves and Good Luck!'s.
Home. Home. Home.
I called Walter and fed the cat and checked for damage - none - and grabbed that last loaf of bread, and drove down the block to Geoff's again. He'd invited me to dinner. First I twisted his arm into getting in the car for a short ride, just very close, a few blocks around. More friendly neighbor-hallooing. Such a mess everywhere! And suddenly my camera gave out.
So we headed back to Geoff's, and he'd made a superb roast pork supper that I was suddenly ravenous to eat, sitting at his beautifully laid table in my sandy feet. And had a very nice visit too, talking away as the electricity flickered and the wind thrashed about. I greatly enjoyed myself.
And went home. No electricity, but a very glad cat.
All the neighbors across the street have juice. They're probably thumbing their noses at us. Giggling.
I set up the little inverter on my car engine and plugged in the fridge, TV, computer, and a light.
And put my feet up, and soaked up hurricane coverage, and checked into the blogosphere to say hello to you all.
Contentment.
Katrina. Such a fine hurricane, in the end.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Request to Waive Late Fees
I'm a very deliberate person. Most everything I do or say is done for a reason. Sometimes this is hard for others to understand, from my casual air and refusal to display things like anxiety, if I can help it. Maybe the reason is a strange accommodation for my health needs - got a lot of those, and to the uninitiated, they can seem silly or odd or unnecessary.
They aren't. Well, odd, yeah.
Walter called this a very clever letter. Very high praise from that man. Oh, I was so pleased! Perhaps you can figure out some of why he said that, reading between the lines.
Of course, he's known me well for 14 years, both as a life partner and a business partner. So he's got a leg up on all y'all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are requesting Chase consider waiving the accrued late fees of $887.25 in our repayment plan. For a number of reasons, we don't believe late fees are owed.
Our recent mortgage modification request (8/27/07) was not our first request, but the second. The first one began by telephone in 8/06. We were specifically instructed not to make payments during the approval process. We were also specifically told we were not delinquent.
We understand that when borrowers are 3+ months delinquent, then for legal reasons, the bank will refuse to accept partial payments. However, our own case was entirely different from that.
First, the request - not a refusal - was initiated by Chase. Second, the only reason Chase requested this was because Chase was offering 45 special "hurricane" customers a chance to request a mortgage modification covering the period after our hurricane forbearance expired. Third, Chase made that specific "don't pay" request on 9/1/06, and only our 8/1/06 payment was unpaid at the time. We were not 3 months delinquent at all.
Here's what happened.
We were in Ft. Lauderdale's Ground Zero for Hurricanes Katrina (8/05) and Wilma (10/05). The eyes of both hurricanes passed over our house. Wilma especially caused significant damage to our house, land, possessions and income, and Wilma caused bodily injuries to me. The recovery period was very long.
Working through Chase's Disaster Department, then with SB in [Workouts], we were placed on a 12-month HUD hurricane forbearance program, ending 8/06. In 3/06, following its program requirements, HUD filed a "partial claim" lien of $9878.16 against our title.
In August 2006, PMG became our new [workout] representative. She had 45 "hurricane" customers she felt may be eligible for post-hurricane forbearance mortgage modifications due to continuing special circumstances. Our "circumstances" were numerous, including my chronic serious medical issues. The modification would start with the payments due for 8/1 and 9/1/06.
On 9/1/06, Ms. PMG specifically requested that we not make payments during the approval review period, because then she'd have to rework her paperwork. She also asked us not to call in very often, as the 45 simultaneous mortgage modification requests meant the process would be very slow. While it wasn't guaranteed, and she didn't want us to get our hopes up, she estimated a 90% chance of approval.
We submitted a down payment of $1024.02 in postal money orders. I don't have the date at my fingertips, but it was very early in the process. A portion of that was to be applied to premiums for an "optional" product, $100,000 term life insurance for borrower [Walter].
Chase misapplied that down payment. The insurance premiums were paid by us to Chase, but Chase didn't remit the premiums to the insurance carrier. The policy was cancelled. I eventually discovered this, called the insurance company, and explained it was Chase's error not ours; but they refused to reinstate the policy.
Months passed. We periodically called Chase about our modification request and were always told it was still pending.
In early 2007, a letter from Chase said we were delinquent on our mortgage payments. Very concerned, I immediately called Ms. PMG.
She explained that HUD rules required Chase report all 45 of us as 2 months delinquent, no matter what the delinquency period really was, or even if - as in our case - we weren't actually delinquent at all. She said that letter was a mass mailing, it shouldn't have been sent to those of us in this special modification process, it was in error, and to ignore it.
Around April 2007, to my great relief, Ms. PMG called and left a message saying the life insurance had finally been reinstated. She didn't mention the mortgage modification. Naturally, we assumed it was still in process and there was no news to report. I returned her call to verify that, and to thank her for successfully reinstating the insurance.
In late May, 2007, I went out of town. My health issues clearly improved in the different environment. I'd only planned on being gone a few weeks. Staying with a friend with health problems of her own, it was mutually beneficial for us to extend my visit.
However, I hadn't arranged to have my mail forwarded to me. And since I'd communicated with PMG shortly before I left Florida, I didn't call her again for some time.
So I had no idea she'd transferred to a different department. One or both of our cell phone numbers were in Chase's records, yet no one called to inform us of the change in personnel, or of any change in the mortgage modification request. I continued believing, as I'd been told over and over, that we were not delinquent and our modification was in process.
Imagine my shock this August when a neighbor called to tell me someone was looking for me to serve legal papers for a pending foreclosure on my house.
I made numerous calls to Chase, and was finally told we were indeed in foreclosure, and that our mortgage modification request had been cancelled for non-response.
Every single action we took was because Chase told us to.
We didn't make payments because of the pending mortgage modification request, as instructed.
We called for updates, but infrequently, as instructed.
We didn't expect news on the modification by mail since we were communicating by telephone, as instructed.
We believed we were not delinquent, as instructed.
On hindsight, of course I should have had my mail forwarded. However, I believe my error is understandable under the circumstances.
And under those circumstances, I don't believe we should be charged late fees.
They aren't. Well, odd, yeah.
Walter called this a very clever letter. Very high praise from that man. Oh, I was so pleased! Perhaps you can figure out some of why he said that, reading between the lines.
Of course, he's known me well for 14 years, both as a life partner and a business partner. So he's got a leg up on all y'all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are requesting Chase consider waiving the accrued late fees of $887.25 in our repayment plan. For a number of reasons, we don't believe late fees are owed.
Our recent mortgage modification request (8/27/07) was not our first request, but the second. The first one began by telephone in 8/06. We were specifically instructed not to make payments during the approval process. We were also specifically told we were not delinquent.
We understand that when borrowers are 3+ months delinquent, then for legal reasons, the bank will refuse to accept partial payments. However, our own case was entirely different from that.
First, the request - not a refusal - was initiated by Chase. Second, the only reason Chase requested this was because Chase was offering 45 special "hurricane" customers a chance to request a mortgage modification covering the period after our hurricane forbearance expired. Third, Chase made that specific "don't pay" request on 9/1/06, and only our 8/1/06 payment was unpaid at the time. We were not 3 months delinquent at all.
Here's what happened.
We were in Ft. Lauderdale's Ground Zero for Hurricanes Katrina (8/05) and Wilma (10/05). The eyes of both hurricanes passed over our house. Wilma especially caused significant damage to our house, land, possessions and income, and Wilma caused bodily injuries to me. The recovery period was very long.
Working through Chase's Disaster Department, then with SB in [Workouts], we were placed on a 12-month HUD hurricane forbearance program, ending 8/06. In 3/06, following its program requirements, HUD filed a "partial claim" lien of $9878.16 against our title.
In August 2006, PMG became our new [workout] representative. She had 45 "hurricane" customers she felt may be eligible for post-hurricane forbearance mortgage modifications due to continuing special circumstances. Our "circumstances" were numerous, including my chronic serious medical issues. The modification would start with the payments due for 8/1 and 9/1/06.
On 9/1/06, Ms. PMG specifically requested that we not make payments during the approval review period, because then she'd have to rework her paperwork. She also asked us not to call in very often, as the 45 simultaneous mortgage modification requests meant the process would be very slow. While it wasn't guaranteed, and she didn't want us to get our hopes up, she estimated a 90% chance of approval.
We submitted a down payment of $1024.02 in postal money orders. I don't have the date at my fingertips, but it was very early in the process. A portion of that was to be applied to premiums for an "optional" product, $100,000 term life insurance for borrower [Walter].
Chase misapplied that down payment. The insurance premiums were paid by us to Chase, but Chase didn't remit the premiums to the insurance carrier. The policy was cancelled. I eventually discovered this, called the insurance company, and explained it was Chase's error not ours; but they refused to reinstate the policy.
Months passed. We periodically called Chase about our modification request and were always told it was still pending.
In early 2007, a letter from Chase said we were delinquent on our mortgage payments. Very concerned, I immediately called Ms. PMG.
She explained that HUD rules required Chase report all 45 of us as 2 months delinquent, no matter what the delinquency period really was, or even if - as in our case - we weren't actually delinquent at all. She said that letter was a mass mailing, it shouldn't have been sent to those of us in this special modification process, it was in error, and to ignore it.
Around April 2007, to my great relief, Ms. PMG called and left a message saying the life insurance had finally been reinstated. She didn't mention the mortgage modification. Naturally, we assumed it was still in process and there was no news to report. I returned her call to verify that, and to thank her for successfully reinstating the insurance.
In late May, 2007, I went out of town. My health issues clearly improved in the different environment. I'd only planned on being gone a few weeks. Staying with a friend with health problems of her own, it was mutually beneficial for us to extend my visit.
However, I hadn't arranged to have my mail forwarded to me. And since I'd communicated with PMG shortly before I left Florida, I didn't call her again for some time.
So I had no idea she'd transferred to a different department. One or both of our cell phone numbers were in Chase's records, yet no one called to inform us of the change in personnel, or of any change in the mortgage modification request. I continued believing, as I'd been told over and over, that we were not delinquent and our modification was in process.
Imagine my shock this August when a neighbor called to tell me someone was looking for me to serve legal papers for a pending foreclosure on my house.
I made numerous calls to Chase, and was finally told we were indeed in foreclosure, and that our mortgage modification request had been cancelled for non-response.
Every single action we took was because Chase told us to.
We didn't make payments because of the pending mortgage modification request, as instructed.
We called for updates, but infrequently, as instructed.
We didn't expect news on the modification by mail since we were communicating by telephone, as instructed.
We believed we were not delinquent, as instructed.
On hindsight, of course I should have had my mail forwarded. However, I believe my error is understandable under the circumstances.
And under those circumstances, I don't believe we should be charged late fees.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Sadness and Bad News
A *gore alert* on this post, too, okay? Plus there's graphic medical stuff, without links or definitions, and I didn't even link the references to older posts.
Thank you all so very much for those wonderful comments. Once you've read this post you'll understand why they mean especially much to me right now. While I haven't written back my responses yet, I certainly have answered them in my mind.
I'm sitting here quietly, calmly, listening to the strong but muted rumble of thunder in the distance. I love that sound, I love the way it rains and storms here in Florida. When I first moved to Charlotte Harbor in 1980, I'd sit outside on this bayside patio at the secluded little motel where I lived. The harbor was just a few yards away from my door, and I'd lie on a lounge chair at night and watch the lightning overhead. It would strike from cloud to cloud for hours at a time, never once hitting the ground, and I'd watch it for hours, let it fill my shattered soul with peace.
Well, well. Today is so far away from that past. Now I'm lying, instead, in this hospital bed, here in my first and only very own house. My sanctuary. My shelter. Not even Katrina and Wilma broke through it, two trees on the roof and still it held me safe and secure.
But those were just hurricanes. Terrible, yes. Of course. But there's lots of other scary stuff out there too.
So much for all my fine bite-the-bullet type talk about just do it, just say it...It isn't that I've changed my mind in any way at all. That's absolutely not it. I was just hoping for a little breathing room, I guess, before having to dive right in to the sort of current hard news I had been avoiding blogging about. So much for thinking time might give us a small reprieve if we just talk to it the right way, huh? ha! Well, well.
For what it's worth, at least I feel I truly wasn't in denial about it. That matters to me, because where denial can be a useful temporary ploy, it can't be adopted as permanent strategy without getting into real danger. IMO, at least.
Here's some backstory.
Among the things that have kept me so sick for so long are the Big Awful Major Abdominal Surgery in March, 2010; and a years-old systemic infection by a germ called mycobacteria chelonae abscessus. It's set up some rather spectacular housekeeping in my upper right arm, where it occupies nearly all of it - the upper arm, I mean - in a huge, deep, complex, multi-layered abscess. On the surface it doesn't look like much. But it's had three surgeries, and has multiple openings where it volunteers, decides to drain on its own at unexpected intervals. Uh, I did post that goriness alert, I hope. This surely qualifies. Even for me, it can be unsettling to feel something wet rolling down your arm, and look over to see pus flowing out of your bicep and dripping off your elbow.
I go on regular and super-antibiotics for these things. Sometimes, as the myco and various other germs become resistant, we switch the permanent antibiotics, or make a cocktail of several different kinds, or stick me in the hospital again with IV antibiotics for bad flareups. Various types of infection are behind many of those 30 or so hospital admissions in the last couple years.
A couple months ago we got some blood test results showing it was time to change antibiotics again, and did. Now most of you probably have some experience with antibiotics and their side effects. One way they impact me has to do with that 2010 abdominal surgery.
See, it all started with really severe diverticulitis, which led to a really bad three-way fistula, a sort of tube, connecting my bladder, large intestine, and various female parts to each other. This isn't good. Among other awful things, my bladder filled with feces to the point of nearly rupturing. Which, in turn, left me two or three days to live unless I did the surgery.
But the docs only gave me about a 30-50% chance to survive the surgery, as near as I could force them to admit. I was way, way, way too sick with other things for such an operation. Surely my heart would fail. I explained to the doctors that those odds were still better than a three-day life span, and besides, I knew I'd survive their table. So they very kindly and sweetly said "goodbye" in various ways, and family gathered round, and of course I did make it after all.
By a hair's breadth, yes. Minus several inches of gut, my appendix, my left ovary and fallopian tube, and a big garbled clump of tissue the surgeon tossed into the bucket for the pathologist to sort out. Plus another ICU stay, a ventilator, food by IV, a long-time foley, loads of stitches and staples in great variety of type and place - and a long term temporary opening in my belly, which they still haven't closed yet.
Back to now: Now add back the good old immunocompromised condition, the recent change in antibiotics unsettling the digestive tract bacteria balance; toss in a previous bout with c-diff, plus the right arm abscess acting up lately (setting up a sicker-and-weaker, feverier row to hoe) and you can get...a messed-up abdominal condition which could be another c-diff infection, a thing not to be messed with; then throw in a bunch of blood and other gore I'll skip for now, AND, a patient who's been running around refusing to go back to the hospital even One. More. Time.
That would be me.
So I didn't.
Instead, I talked to a bunch of doctors and such on the phone, and almost called 911 twice; but after six days it seemed the new antibiotic had battled the New Problem back for a little while. Long enough to see my Infectious Disease doc and get some tests run; and next Monday, see a new GI doc.
Okay. Lots of old news on that March 2010 surgery. Today's New Problem, too. And it was all just background, because today's news doesn't actually pertain to my own health at all, really.
It's not about me this time. It matters for a whole different reason than me being sick and being stubborn about the hospital.
I truly heal better and faster at home. I have more energy. I can hang around with Walter, who is much less depressed if I'm at home when I'm sick, instead of at the hospital when I'm sick.
That's very important right now, because of the results Walter got last week of a routine follow-up cat scan on his left lung. That's where they removed the small lung cancer tumor ten months ago. They declared it 100% removed, and small, Stage 1; but it contained not one but two forms of lung cancer that rarely appear together. At the time, his pulmonary doc pushed very hard for a full battery of radiation and chemo. He'd had personal experience battling the same unusual cancer combination in a few other patients, and believed he knew what to expect and what the treatment should be. But the Cancer Board turned him down, which apparently carries great weight; and the doc couldn't do what he thought was necessary to keep the tumor from regrowing.
He was a lone voice in the wilderness. And -- he was right.
The current routine follow-up cat scan, then pet scan, showed not one but several new tumors. Big. Virulent. They'd grown from nothing as of a few months ago, when another routine CT scan and biopsy showed a small unidentifiable lesion. Suddenly, today, the biggest tumor is 45 x 37mm; the next biggest is around 22 x 22mm, and there are several smaller ones nearby. They take up about a third of his lung. This is fast growth. A bad thing.
Walter has a very important factor on his side: it hasn't metastasized.
Tuesday, we go to the oncologist. His radiation and chemo may start as early as next week.
So this is why I need to stay home from the hospital. You see? I can't take care of him. I'm too sick. But if I stay home and stay as strong as I can be, I can do some things: I can keep him company, I can help some, and most of all I can manage. I can try to put together all the insurance and social services help available to him. He'll need nursing care, and aide care, and for my own aide care to be increased so he won't worry about me not eating again. Things like that are what I can do to help him the very best that I can.
Now you know.
.
Thank you all so very much for those wonderful comments. Once you've read this post you'll understand why they mean especially much to me right now. While I haven't written back my responses yet, I certainly have answered them in my mind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm sitting here quietly, calmly, listening to the strong but muted rumble of thunder in the distance. I love that sound, I love the way it rains and storms here in Florida. When I first moved to Charlotte Harbor in 1980, I'd sit outside on this bayside patio at the secluded little motel where I lived. The harbor was just a few yards away from my door, and I'd lie on a lounge chair at night and watch the lightning overhead. It would strike from cloud to cloud for hours at a time, never once hitting the ground, and I'd watch it for hours, let it fill my shattered soul with peace.
Well, well. Today is so far away from that past. Now I'm lying, instead, in this hospital bed, here in my first and only very own house. My sanctuary. My shelter. Not even Katrina and Wilma broke through it, two trees on the roof and still it held me safe and secure.
But those were just hurricanes. Terrible, yes. Of course. But there's lots of other scary stuff out there too.
So much for all my fine bite-the-bullet type talk about just do it, just say it...It isn't that I've changed my mind in any way at all. That's absolutely not it. I was just hoping for a little breathing room, I guess, before having to dive right in to the sort of current hard news I had been avoiding blogging about. So much for thinking time might give us a small reprieve if we just talk to it the right way, huh? ha! Well, well.
For what it's worth, at least I feel I truly wasn't in denial about it. That matters to me, because where denial can be a useful temporary ploy, it can't be adopted as permanent strategy without getting into real danger. IMO, at least.
Here's some backstory.
Among the things that have kept me so sick for so long are the Big Awful Major Abdominal Surgery in March, 2010; and a years-old systemic infection by a germ called mycobacteria chelonae abscessus. It's set up some rather spectacular housekeeping in my upper right arm, where it occupies nearly all of it - the upper arm, I mean - in a huge, deep, complex, multi-layered abscess. On the surface it doesn't look like much. But it's had three surgeries, and has multiple openings where it volunteers, decides to drain on its own at unexpected intervals. Uh, I did post that goriness alert, I hope. This surely qualifies. Even for me, it can be unsettling to feel something wet rolling down your arm, and look over to see pus flowing out of your bicep and dripping off your elbow.
I go on regular and super-antibiotics for these things. Sometimes, as the myco and various other germs become resistant, we switch the permanent antibiotics, or make a cocktail of several different kinds, or stick me in the hospital again with IV antibiotics for bad flareups. Various types of infection are behind many of those 30 or so hospital admissions in the last couple years.
A couple months ago we got some blood test results showing it was time to change antibiotics again, and did. Now most of you probably have some experience with antibiotics and their side effects. One way they impact me has to do with that 2010 abdominal surgery.
See, it all started with really severe diverticulitis, which led to a really bad three-way fistula, a sort of tube, connecting my bladder, large intestine, and various female parts to each other. This isn't good. Among other awful things, my bladder filled with feces to the point of nearly rupturing. Which, in turn, left me two or three days to live unless I did the surgery.
But the docs only gave me about a 30-50% chance to survive the surgery, as near as I could force them to admit. I was way, way, way too sick with other things for such an operation. Surely my heart would fail. I explained to the doctors that those odds were still better than a three-day life span, and besides, I knew I'd survive their table. So they very kindly and sweetly said "goodbye" in various ways, and family gathered round, and of course I did make it after all.
By a hair's breadth, yes. Minus several inches of gut, my appendix, my left ovary and fallopian tube, and a big garbled clump of tissue the surgeon tossed into the bucket for the pathologist to sort out. Plus another ICU stay, a ventilator, food by IV, a long-time foley, loads of stitches and staples in great variety of type and place - and a long term temporary opening in my belly, which they still haven't closed yet.
Back to now: Now add back the good old immunocompromised condition, the recent change in antibiotics unsettling the digestive tract bacteria balance; toss in a previous bout with c-diff, plus the right arm abscess acting up lately (setting up a sicker-and-weaker, feverier row to hoe) and you can get...a messed-up abdominal condition which could be another c-diff infection, a thing not to be messed with; then throw in a bunch of blood and other gore I'll skip for now, AND, a patient who's been running around refusing to go back to the hospital even One. More. Time.
That would be me.
So I didn't.
Instead, I talked to a bunch of doctors and such on the phone, and almost called 911 twice; but after six days it seemed the new antibiotic had battled the New Problem back for a little while. Long enough to see my Infectious Disease doc and get some tests run; and next Monday, see a new GI doc.
Okay. Lots of old news on that March 2010 surgery. Today's New Problem, too. And it was all just background, because today's news doesn't actually pertain to my own health at all, really.
It's not about me this time. It matters for a whole different reason than me being sick and being stubborn about the hospital.
I truly heal better and faster at home. I have more energy. I can hang around with Walter, who is much less depressed if I'm at home when I'm sick, instead of at the hospital when I'm sick.
That's very important right now, because of the results Walter got last week of a routine follow-up cat scan on his left lung. That's where they removed the small lung cancer tumor ten months ago. They declared it 100% removed, and small, Stage 1; but it contained not one but two forms of lung cancer that rarely appear together. At the time, his pulmonary doc pushed very hard for a full battery of radiation and chemo. He'd had personal experience battling the same unusual cancer combination in a few other patients, and believed he knew what to expect and what the treatment should be. But the Cancer Board turned him down, which apparently carries great weight; and the doc couldn't do what he thought was necessary to keep the tumor from regrowing.
He was a lone voice in the wilderness. And -- he was right.
The current routine follow-up cat scan, then pet scan, showed not one but several new tumors. Big. Virulent. They'd grown from nothing as of a few months ago, when another routine CT scan and biopsy showed a small unidentifiable lesion. Suddenly, today, the biggest tumor is 45 x 37mm; the next biggest is around 22 x 22mm, and there are several smaller ones nearby. They take up about a third of his lung. This is fast growth. A bad thing.
Walter has a very important factor on his side: it hasn't metastasized.
Tuesday, we go to the oncologist. His radiation and chemo may start as early as next week.
So this is why I need to stay home from the hospital. You see? I can't take care of him. I'm too sick. But if I stay home and stay as strong as I can be, I can do some things: I can keep him company, I can help some, and most of all I can manage. I can try to put together all the insurance and social services help available to him. He'll need nursing care, and aide care, and for my own aide care to be increased so he won't worry about me not eating again. Things like that are what I can do to help him the very best that I can.
Now you know.
.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Hurricane Preps
WELL! Here we go again.
The cone has shifted, and it's now putting the eye right over my house.
Third eye in 1 year. Katrina anniversary time, no less.
Such fun!
Those of you who haven't already figured out I'm nuts, will now. See, I love hurricanes.
I don't like death and destruction. It's the power and beauty and awesomeness of this force of nature that grabs me.
This looks to be a pretty *nice* one, as hurricanes go. The island mountains will chew it up to some extent, and those poor beleagured people in Haiti and Cuba will take a beating for us. I don't ever wish hurricanes to move away from me and into someone else's patch. Not nice. I'm sorry for them. Their lives are hard enough as it is. Moving onto open waters, spinning off to oblivion, that's the only valid course change I'll ever advocate.
It's already disorganized a bit, and will become more so. Then it's pretty likely to beef up again, feeding off the warm waters once it leaves the islands.
After that...we'll see.
I'm always pretty well prepped. I'll try to get some *extras* done tonight and tomorrow am. But I feel pretty secure.
For now - I have some bricklaying to do.
Ta!
The cone has shifted, and it's now putting the eye right over my house.
Third eye in 1 year. Katrina anniversary time, no less.
Such fun!
Those of you who haven't already figured out I'm nuts, will now. See, I love hurricanes.
I don't like death and destruction. It's the power and beauty and awesomeness of this force of nature that grabs me.
This looks to be a pretty *nice* one, as hurricanes go. The island mountains will chew it up to some extent, and those poor beleagured people in Haiti and Cuba will take a beating for us. I don't ever wish hurricanes to move away from me and into someone else's patch. Not nice. I'm sorry for them. Their lives are hard enough as it is. Moving onto open waters, spinning off to oblivion, that's the only valid course change I'll ever advocate.
It's already disorganized a bit, and will become more so. Then it's pretty likely to beef up again, feeding off the warm waters once it leaves the islands.
After that...we'll see.
I'm always pretty well prepped. I'll try to get some *extras* done tonight and tomorrow am. But I feel pretty secure.
For now - I have some bricklaying to do.
Ta!
Sunday, March 12, 2006
The Claw! It's The Claw!
I just LOVE The Claw.
The Gold Standard of Disaster Recovery, the Great State of Florida, has been seeing a lot of The Claw. It's an effective and charming technique.
The huge debris piles were picked up with the aid of little front-end loaders. They'd shove the pile together, and The Claw would grab a handful and put it in the truck.
The trash goes to one of many Mt. Trashmores dotting the SoFL landscape. The vegetation gets chipped and given away for free mulch.
Unfortunately, we got so much of it that they've been forced to burn a lot of it, too. A few fires have gone out of control. Oh well.
As we continue to chainsaw away, trimming or taking down trees damaged by Katrina and Wilma, we'll get to see The Claw in action for some time to come.
This is across the street from BB's house. I was working in the front yard, weeding, waiting (in vain) for the Cable Guy, as Walter required a nap. When I realized the big truck with the inexplicable Queen Palm hanging out the back had stopped and was about to load up a pile of wood, I ran for the camera...just as BB was looking out her front door, wishing she had a camera.
It's so nice when stuff comes together like that.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Hurricane Blizzard
I'm sitting here huddled inside against the cold. Of course it's nothing like they're having in the NE right now, but hey. It's all relative.
Watching the weather news on cable TV, I see how this nor'easter formed an eye, just like a hurricane. The wind gusts are approaching hurricane force, too.
Hope LMA's ok. This may be her first experience with serious snow - if Washington, DC gets it hard, anyway. New York, Boston, they're getting eaten alive.
Don't think I don't know snow. After living in sunny Southern California until age seven, I finished growing up in the Far North Suburbs of Chicagoland. I was there during the three record-breaking winters at the end of the 1970's. In fact, one of those winters, I spent most of my working time outside. I could tell you snow and ice and way-below-zero cold stories all day and all night and not run out.
I really, really, really hate that stuff. Those people have my heart, today.
What we're having here is bad enough. It's in the 50's. Sure, I still feel it. Worse, in some ways. Between the cold air pouring in the imperfect seals and the hurricane-broken windows, and the hideously expensive HVAC heat, it's zonking me out.
Maybe it's some sort of cold-weather flashback.
Some of those people would probably be traumatized by a hurricane. Since I love hurricanes, that's hard for me to understand. (I mean, leaving out death and destruction horrors like Katrina killing New Orleans.)
An old friend, JP, sometimes tells me, Yeah, but all that cold and snow made you tough, didn't it?
Nope. I already was tough. Still am. The cold didn't do that for me. It only made me run away to somewhere warm, like any sensible person would do.
And I'll do the sensible thing now, too: shut off the budget-eating HVAC, curl up in my nice warm bed, and take a nap with my cat.
'nite, all
.
Watching the weather news on cable TV, I see how this nor'easter formed an eye, just like a hurricane. The wind gusts are approaching hurricane force, too.
Hope LMA's ok. This may be her first experience with serious snow - if Washington, DC gets it hard, anyway. New York, Boston, they're getting eaten alive.
Don't think I don't know snow. After living in sunny Southern California until age seven, I finished growing up in the Far North Suburbs of Chicagoland. I was there during the three record-breaking winters at the end of the 1970's. In fact, one of those winters, I spent most of my working time outside. I could tell you snow and ice and way-below-zero cold stories all day and all night and not run out.
I really, really, really hate that stuff. Those people have my heart, today.
What we're having here is bad enough. It's in the 50's. Sure, I still feel it. Worse, in some ways. Between the cold air pouring in the imperfect seals and the hurricane-broken windows, and the hideously expensive HVAC heat, it's zonking me out.
Maybe it's some sort of cold-weather flashback.
Some of those people would probably be traumatized by a hurricane. Since I love hurricanes, that's hard for me to understand. (I mean, leaving out death and destruction horrors like Katrina killing New Orleans.)
An old friend, JP, sometimes tells me, Yeah, but all that cold and snow made you tough, didn't it?
Nope. I already was tough. Still am. The cold didn't do that for me. It only made me run away to somewhere warm, like any sensible person would do.
And I'll do the sensible thing now, too: shut off the budget-eating HVAC, curl up in my nice warm bed, and take a nap with my cat.
'nite, all
.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Burke's Orchid in Bloom
This was post-Katrina, pre-Wilma.
The pic was taken with my treasured old super-fast manual Nikon FM2. It was among around 100 negatives I recently put on disk for virtually no money. This has opened a whole new avenue of happiness for me.
Thanks, Dad. This one's for you.
The pic was taken with my treasured old super-fast manual Nikon FM2. It was among around 100 negatives I recently put on disk for virtually no money. This has opened a whole new avenue of happiness for me.Thanks, Dad. This one's for you.
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