b.rox

We got back home late last night. I thought I’d try to round up what remaining thoughts I have on our Gustavian evacucation. (Photos here.)

Spotted this thing behind the hotel where we stayed in Thomasville, Alabama. I have no idea what it is, but I’m sure some astute person out there can enlighten me. (More detail in the larger version.)

Part of me wanted to get back home to New Orleans and gloat over the fact that we appear to have power while most of the city does not.
But I didn’t relish the idea of sitting in traffic with two million other evacuees all trying to get back home at the same time.
So when we [...]

We made it to Jenny & Herb’s house in Tuscaloosa yesterday morning and had a chilled-out Labor Day. Their kids Marlon and Leroy seem to love Persephone, especially Leroy (4), who regaled us with many tales of, “When I was a baby.” We had a nice tour of the downtown area and campus.
No cable TV [...]

We cleverly avoided the I-10 while getting out of New Orleans, but our cleverness ended there. We got caught up in traffic on I-59 North, averaging about 10 mph until we finally got off at Exit 19 (despite a sign which said the exit was closed except for local traffic and took rural routes. Ironically [...]

I’m nearing the end of my project of excavating old images from the depths of my hard drive. There have been some interesting discoveries along the way. A few days ago, I found a set of photos I thought had been lost, from March 23rd, 2002. That’s when I made a road trip to Shreveport [...]

The internet and this old world can still blow my mind. Browsing through a random Wikipedia article I discovered that before the Cuban Revolution there was a ferry that sailed twice daily between Havana and New Orleans. This bears further investigation.

Thanks to Carol G for getting me in touch with the very helpful Christopher Elliott. He’s the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. Today he published my case. I found it in the Arizona Daily Star, though not, strangely enough, in our Times-Picayune which usually carries his column in the Sunday Travel section. I [...]

Today’s my mom’s 70th birthday. I usually call her on the telephone but I can’t because right now she’s in Cambodia, part of a short-term mission team with the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. I’m somewhat envious, but hopeful that when I’m 70 I will have the means and health to visit faraway places. Many [...]

It’s not all drudgery. We’ve taken some very pleasant breaks from working on the house to visit friends. Today we went to Li’l Red’s wedding in Madisonville. Li’l Red is one of Xy’s co-workers, a young Teach NOLA recruit slugging it out through her first year as a teacher in our public schools. I’d never [...]

By late Friday night it was evident that Depression #10 was not a serious threat to the Gulf Coast, so Saturday morning we hit the road and headed out to Orange Beach, Alabama. Better one night that none at all. We drove through bands of rain and sunshine to get there. We were able to [...]

I thought it would be nice if Xy and I got out of town to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Nothing fancy, just a day at the beach. After our trip to Vero I resolved that we’d get out of town every few months for the mental health benefit.
So last week I booked a couple nights [...]

Over the past week I’ve found myself obsessively reading up on Dominica, an island nation in the Caribbean. I don’t know why, exactly, but I have been fantasizing about visiting or even moving there, and the more I learn the more attractive it seems.

photo by stevenhouse
I’m not alone. Yesterday, USA Today ran a story [...]

Lots of things happened while I was on vacation and generally disconnected.

Congressman William Jefferson was indicted. No big surprise there, since he’s been under investigation forever. It was big national news however. It even made the Daily Show, which we were able to watch because our condo had cable. It’s always a treat to see [...]

I ran a screen of partially pre-written posts last week because Xy and I were on vacation.
Herewith, a brief memoir of our week in Vero Beach, Florida.
We arrived (after driving thru Tropical Storm Barry) at the tail end of a love bug swarm. Supposedly these insects are prolific all along the Gulf Coast, but I’ve [...]

This was my first trip outside New Orleans since we returned from our evacuation some 17 months ago. I joked that I would have been happy sitting in a cardboard box, just knowing that I was out of the disaster zone. The stress of being in New Orleans was really starting to get to me, [...]

Funny, I started this weblog with the notion of recording a true journal of my real life. But as I’ve gained a readership and some people (however few) are actually paying attention to what I write here, I find myself more constrained. Case in point: I’ve just gotten back to New Orleans after a week-long [...]

Imagine picking up a newspaper and scanning through all the stories on the front page and finding no reference whatsoever to Katrina, no reference to the Federal Flood, no reference to the so-called recovery.
Somewhere on the planet there are places where the newspaper is full of other stories.
I wonder what that’s like.

There were snow flurries when we departed Indiana this morning. Yikes. Looks like we’re getting out while the getting is good.
We are renting a second car for this trip, just for the sake of getting all our crap back home. I’m driving the rental; Xy has the cats with her.
This arrangement provides an unexpected advantage: [...]

Just as the rebuilding of New Orleans is a puzzle, so are the logistics of our return trip, albeit on a much humbler scale.
It seems I “rescued” a few too many items from our home in New Orleans. I should have left them there. Instead, I brought them to Bloomington, and now we have to [...]