b.rox

Isaac is gone, but his odor lingers on. Seriously. There’s a smell in the air, a certain peculiar smell I can’t describe. I’m not sensitive to smells. I often think if I was more tuned in to my sense of smell, I’d have a radically different way of being in the world, more animalistic perhaps [...]

It wasn’t until after Labor Day that I passed by the bayou and saw what Isaac had done to my favorite tree. This is the tree where my daughter got her name back in 2008. Throughout the 2010-2011 school year I stopped at this tree almost daily for a moment of contemplation. This tree survived [...]

I’ve also been reflecting on our decision to stay in place for Isaac. Was it the right choice? There’s room for disagreement even in our house. Over the past week Xy has repeated “Never again!” whereas I’ve found myself saying I’m glad we stayed. So what were the pros and cons of that decision? It’s [...]

I’m still thinking about Isaac. My writing hasn’t been able to keep pace. They say every storm is unique, and certainly Isaac was very different from Katrina. Yet comparisons are inevitable, despite being problematic. One headline put it this way: Drenched New Orleans passes big post-Katrina test The US Army Corp of Engineers has done [...]

So the storm came and lingered. Like us, Isaac dithered. Someone described him as the drunk Louisiana uncle who crashes on your couch when you were really thinking the party was over. Eventually he left. We weathered the storm with no damage. Bit of a leak in the ceiling of our kitchen addition, but nothing [...]

So remember how I said we were heading out — buggin’ — evacuating? That didn’t happen. We were planning to go, but the hurricane parties here were just too good to resist. Actually the real reason is that our anticipated path was looking worse and worse for a return drive. Of course we could have [...]

Isaac cometh. Looks like he’s headed our way for sure. Forecasters say he won’t be superstrong, “only” a Category 1 hurricane when he makes landfall on the anniversary of Katrina. But then forecasters aren’t so adept at predicting hurricane strength. And it’s looking more like we’ll be on the wet side of this storm. To [...]

When I arrived in Bloomington, people were already complaining about the heat. “You must have brought this heat up with you from New Orleans,” they joked. I wondered what they were talking about, because as far as I could tell the weather was pretty nice. If anything I found it a little chilly, especially in [...]

Mix for Lee. Update: Figured I might as well stick all my related Tropical Storm Lee observations here. On Friday, as I prepared to ride home through a gentle sprinkle, I was approached by a pair of slightly nervous students. “Are you from around here?” They were not. They wanted to know what to expect [...]

Hot on the heels of my “Streets of New Orleans” mix, I get this e-mail with the subject line, “New Orleans Streets to Avoid During a Storm.” Apparently this was released by the NOPD. I have to say in all my years of living here I’ve never seen such a list. New Orleans Police Department [...]

So yesterday I was over at Dr. Tim T’s office in the music building, helping the good doctor sort through some video issues. Midway through our session it started to rain, and Dr. T and I both agreed that it was nice to be back in the pattern of afternoon showers here in the summer. [...]

Kalix, April 28, 1986 (twenty-five years ago today) All of a sudden Sweden melted and I found myself in the Garden of Eden. No kidding. Today it got up to +10ºC. There’s still snow on the ground in lots of places, but much of it has melted now. Parched-dry streets streaked with rivulets of flowing [...]

Damn, it’s cold today. How cold? I think it may be 32ºF right now. The high is projected to be 44ºF. That’s the high, not the low. That is absurd. After riding around in the cold too much yesterday, I wised up and pulled on the long underwear this morning. Some people are surprised that [...]

An interesting pair of celestial events is in the offing. In addition to the solstice (Tuesday 5:38PM central) there’s a full lunar eclipse which should be visible in North America all night after midnight tonight — weather permitting. Unfortunately, here in New Orleans we’ve got a good chance of cloud cover all night. But it’s [...]

It’s been cold in New Orleans lately. The last two nights we’ve had freeze warnings. I don’t think it actually froze, though. Fortunately the new insulation under our house seems to be making a huge difference in terms of our general comfort level. The energy savings remain to be seen. I still find cold weather [...]

Another cold front passed through our area this weekend. On Saturday it was unseasonably warm, on Sunday unseasonably cold, and all day long Sunday I felt out of sorts — not quite right — like my body was out of tune. Nothing severe, but a tiny headache, a touch of fatigue, a slightly upset stomach, [...]

Our equinox celebration was a little chaotic, because the guys who are re-doing our driveway showed up somewhat unexpectedly to pour concrete. Nevertheless, we persevered. We had a few friends and neighbors over. I invented a simple cocktail of champagne, Sence rose nectar and wild hibiscus flowers in syrup. The flavor was probably more appropriate [...]

Instead of strengthening into a named storm, Tropical Depression #5 petered out and dissipated into nothing but a bunch of rainy weather. If it had played out differently, school might have been cancelled, but as it was today was the first day of classes at Xy’s new school. Yes, she’s teaching again, as I mentioned [...]

The dry spell was broken at last this morning. Purple (and Black) Rain by Editor B