The third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is this weekend and Mother Nature seems to think that the best way to celebrate this is to throw another hurricane at New Orleans. I’ve been watching this storm probably just as much as the actual residents of New Orleans, and other than the fact that I haven’t run to WalMart in a frenzy to stock up on candles and tuna, I feel exactly the same as I did when I lived there and had to make the big decision of to evacuate or not to evacuate.

When I meet people and they find out that I left NOLA because of Katrina, many ask why so many people didn’t evacuate. “If they knew it could be bad, why didn’t they leave?” “Isn’t it just irresponsible to stay?” “How could they just not go?” These are all valid questions and, honestly, I would rather people ask and get answers rather than just assuming that folks in NOLA are stupid and that’s why they didn’t leave. And trust me, some people do believe that NOLA residents are just dumb and have no problem telling me that. They usually follow this sentiment up with “People shouldn’t be allowed to live in New Orleans in the first place.” I usually follow this up with a polite “Fuck you, you arrogant asshat. I hope your hometown falls into a sinkhole soon.” Bonus points to me for saying it with a big shit-eating grin on my face.

But honestly, deciding to evacuate is a huge decision. One I’ve wrestled with many times as an adult and I can say that coming to a decision never is easy. Yes, evacuating for every hurricane that is even a mild threat to NOLA would be the correct move, but in reality that will never happen. Evacuating is a huge expense. It’s a hassle. It’s time consuming. And a lot of the times it’s totally pointless. Katrina has been the one time in my life that evacuating was the correct decision. Every other hurricane I experienced in my 25 years in NOLA either missed the city at the last minute or didn’t bring with it more than a heavy rain and some wind. You can imagine how this would make you think twice about evacuating for every hurricane gunning towards the city.

The other problem with evacuating is the expense. Hurricanes can happen multiple times a summer, seriously there is no limit. If you evacuated for every one you’re looking at huge amounts of money spent on all kinds of things: hotels, gas, food, and many other various expenses along the way. And let’s not overlook the fact that if the hurricane misses the city, you could be out a day or more of work. That’s money lost for many residents, especially ones that work on hourly pay scales. And for many of those people, that’s money they can’t afford to not make.

But losing a couple of days of work is really a small concern, considering that you could lose your job for evacuating. Many retail stores and restaurants are not sympathetic to people’s needs to flee. If the business does not shut down for evacuations, you could be faulted as a “no show” for any shift that you’re scheduled for. Same thing after evacuating; if the business opens and you’re on your way back from Houston and can’t make your Tuesday morning shift then you could be out a job. It’s not fair, but it happens. I worked at a business that said we would be fired for not showing up if we chose to evacuate and didn’t make our shifts. And when you need that income desperately, sometimes the easy decision is not to head out of town. Or to send your family and stay behind, hoping for the best.

Has this become an unfun blog post about a depressing topic? ding ding ding, we have a winner! Yes it has! Sorry. Go get a cookie if you’ve read this far. And go get me a drink because, dude, I neeeed one. And I swear I only have like one more point to make.

Right now Hurricane Gustav is just entering the Gulf of Mexico but if you started to call hotels in the typical cities people evacuate towards (Houston, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, etc) I bet you couldn’t get a room anywhere. And if you could get a room, I bet they would only hold it for you for a couple of hours. One time, before Katrina, a hurricane was heading our way. I called Houston and booked a room, but the hotel told me they would only hold my room until 6pm on the day of the reservation. Problem was, I was not going to make it to Houston in that time frame. I offered to pay for the whole reservation up front, but they wouldn’t allow it. The hotel staff told me that they can’t hold reservations during times of evacuation because of such high demand. If I couldn’t be there by 6pm, my room would go to someone standing in the lobby. I called a few other hotels, but no one else had rooms open. I decided not to evacuate because where would I go? I would have had to sleep in my car in Houston and that wasn’t an option. And going past Houston wasn’t an option because I needed to be able to get back to the city quickly to get back to work if the hurricane didn’t do much damage. For many people that don’t have family willing to take them in, leaving is hard. You don’t know where you’ll end up, you don’t know if there will be room for you. You just don’t know and sometimes that stops people dead in their tracks.

For Katrina jparks and I went back and forth about evacuating. We had friends in Houston to stay with if needed (and we ended up doing just that), and we had the money to evacuate, but still we thought long and hard about it. At first we weren’t going to leave our house. Then we were going to stay with my mom in the suburbs. Finally we decided to get the hell out. Had we stayed in our house, bad things would have happened to us. Had we stayed at my mom’s, we would have physically been fine, but without power or water and we would have been forced to leave anyway. Getting out for Katrina was the right decision and one that many people just couldn’t make.

I hope that people continue to watch Gustav and take the hard lessons from Katrina into account when making their plans. It’s not an easy decision to leave, but if Gustav stays on it’s path (which it might not. there’s plenty of time for it to turn. turn, you bastard TURN), it will be the correct one.

But what do I know? I’m just a New Orleans girl stuck in California.

Today is the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I’m not sure how to mark this day as I’m no longer in the city and some say that I turned tail and ran from the problems that followed the storm. On the other hand, I know folks that say I did the smart thing by leaving, that I was protecting myself and my future. I don’t like to spend much time thinking about which group of folks are right, because I feel like a true New Orleans resident and the thought that I jumped ship hurts my heart.

Leaving was not an easy decision. And I know that, if it were possible, I would return to the city to do my part. I also know that jparks will hear none of this and has vowed that we will never live there again. He’s not evil for saying this, just concerned for us. The truth is that the city has not recovered. Two years after being ripped apart, life is not back to normal for the majority of residents and the little bit of recovery that has happened is just waiting to get ripped apart again. Repairs to the levees and to the pump stations aren’t enough to protect the city from another storm and the level of repairs that need to be made are too much for the city to take on alone. And sending aid seems low on the to do list for the government.

Today I was driving along 101 when I noticed a billboard asking people to help Free Vietnam. Right now the Gap wants us to support (Product)Red: the Global Fund. And everyone in Hollywood wants us to help Darfur. But who wants us to help New Orleans? Where are the billboards asking people to save a city within our own continental boundaries? Where is the clothing line that supports rebuilding the 9th Ward? This country is concerned with saving the world but could not care any less about saving one of it’s own. Is this really the message we want to send to the rest of the world, especially since we’ve been saying for years that our goal in Iraq is to help them rebuild? I’m thinking it’s not, but what do I know, I’m not in politics.

New Orleans deserves our country’s attention. It deserves our support and help. It’s a city worth saving. It’s worth more than we are currently putting into it. Before Katrina the city had so much to offer; so many opportunities for its residents and for itself. Now people there have little hope and few are optimistic for their futures’ or for the city’s. And this is not the New Orleans I remember. This is the New Orleans that we need to work hard to make disappear.

And before I get ripped apart like a city by a hurricane (what, inappropriate?) for saying these things, I want to clarify that I know volunteers are in the city helping. Those people are amazing individuals for offering up their time and energy to help rebuild the city, a city most of them have never experienced before. They are one of the few reasons I have any hope that New Orleans will rise again. Thank you volunteers, your help has more of an impact on the residents and former residents of New Orleans than you will ever know.

We need to never forgot how amazing New Orleans was, how amazing it could be again, and how amazing its residents are for never giving up. We need to never forgot because that’s the most painful thing we could do to New Orleans.

Since the hurricane I’ve had a hard time adjusting to the fact that I no longer live in New Orleans. I pause when people ask me where I’m from; do they mean where do I currently live, or do they know I’m not local and want to know where I came from? The past few times I’ve been asked this question I just stood there with my mouth open, puddle of drool gathering around my feet. People assumed I was from Mississippi, based on that puddle of drool and my inability to answer a simple question.

I’ve slowly started to accept that in certain ways California is home. I voted here, I’ve got a CA driver’s license, and I drive a yuppie car. I’m very Californian in those aspects.

But in other ways I’m having trouble becoming Californian. Whenever jparks mentions buying a house here, I clam up and won’t even discuss it with him. I think that some part of me isn’t ready to own property in this ridiculously over-priced area. Or maybe it’s just that as long as we don’t own property here we can leave at any time; head back to a land below sea level where I feel more comfortable.

Right now we think nothing of heading back to NOLA for the holidays. But once we have kids, flying halfway across the country will no longer be an easy feat and holidays will have to be spent here. But without Celebration in the Oaks, Cajun Night Before Christmas, and Benny Grunch and the Bunch I’m not sure how the holidays will ever feel right.

And at what point in time do I need to stop feeling like it’s my right to have time off of work for Mardi Gras? When will I stop feeling like something is not right if once a year I don’t stand in the middle of a street with a beer in one hand, cold Popeye’s chicken in the other, and yell at men on floats to throw me some long beads?

I guess what I’m wondering is how long do you have to be gone from a place before you stop thinking of it as home? I need to know so that just a day before I hit that amount of time I can move back to NOLA.

I’ve never been interested in football. I used to think the best, and only, reason to go to a game was for the big cups of beer and the giant pretzels to soak up some of that beer. But tonight is the home opener for the Saints and the first game in the Dome since Katrina and I’ve got to say that I’m really interested in football at this moment.

I hate to admit it, but I want the Saints to win. But it pains me to admit that because over the years I’ve rooted for the Saints, only to have my heart broken by their loses. And I think the city needs a win. It needs something positive to focus on while it still struggles to move towards normalcy.

For the first time in 40 years all the home games are sold out. That may not sound like anything special, but it’s a huge deal for New Orleans, especially considering how much of the population has moved on to new cities.

My family used to have season tickets to the games. They really were great seats, right at the 50 yard line, about 10 to 15 rows up, on the away team’s side. Most of the people around us had their tickets forever, just like us. Some of these people could remember seeing me as a little kid joining my Grandad at the games, and because of this it was more like hanging out with friends than going to a game. I wish that we still had those tickets and that I still lived in New Orleans. I really wish I could attend this game and pretend nothing has changed.

U2 and Green Day playing half time are definitely fueling my desire to want to attend, but really it all boils down to pride for the boys in black and gold.

Geaux Saints!

A friend of mine, Mr. Mike Schleifstein, is doing a 24 posts in 24 hours, blogging marathon today to honor the Katrina-nniversary.

In one of his many posts Mike talks about the Katrina diet and how many people lost weight during the past year. I so wish someone had told me about this Katrina diet because it sounds so much better than what I did over the past year, which was gain weight, and then gain some more weight.

While camped out at our friends’ apartment in Houston there wasn’t much for jparks and I to do besides eat. The levees broke? Hand me another pop-tart. The roof is coming off the Superdome? I’m going to need another piece of cake. Looting? All over the city? At hospitals where I have friends stuck? And the looters have guns? I’m going to need another full meal. With some extra dessert. And maybe a milkshake to wash it all down.

Once we moved to Austin I started a baking phase. “My life isn’t that bad, see I made cupcakes! 4,595,861 cupcakes! And now I’m going to eat all of them!”

Thankfully I’m busy enough now that I don’t have time to cook or bake. And I’m working out pretty frequently. Hopefully I’ll be back to my Pre-Katrina weight by the second anniversary.

Katrina hit a year ago today, meaning a year ago my life began to take a bizarre loop I never planned for, never saw coming, and am still trying to deal with.

To recap, first Jason and I hauled ass to Baton Rouge where we spent a few hours getting some sleep for the long trip to Houston. Did I mention that we got lost in the contraflow? You know it’s not as easy to navigate as our local government led us to believe.

We then got back on the road to Houston where a very nice couple let us stay with them. Us and our animals. For quite a long time. Did I mention this couple is a couple of saints? Looking back I don’t know that I ever thanked the saints for letting us crash in their spare room. Thank you Dan and Erin for tolerating Jason, myself, Lily, and the two cats. I’m especially thankful since Jason and I sat around all day watching CNN and getting pissy with each other since we had no idea what was going on at our house and in our city. I have to admit we weren’t exactly the most pleasant houseguests, but you guys never made us feel unwelcome. My saying thank you will never express how truly wonderful you were to us and how we would have been up Shit Creek without you guys.

After camping out at Dan and Erin’s for a bit we headed to Austin, which was to become our semi-perminant home. We stayed there for 8 months before moving to the golden state of California.

When people would ask how I was doing after the hurricane my stock answer was “Well, we lost everything, but Jason and I are alive and our animals are safe so we are pretty lucky.” But I can now say, thanks to some therapy, that although we are safe, I am upset and feel robbed by Katrina. Why did it take therapy for me to admit that? It seemed so greedy to me, so ungrateful, and so disrespectful towards people that suffered more than me. Jason and I might have lost our possessions but so many others lost so much more, what right did I have to be upset? It turns out, a lot. I didn’t ask to be whisked away in the middle of the night to not be able to return home for almost 2 months. I didn’t ask to lose my job. I didn’t ask to leave New Orleans. And I have every right to be upset and angry and hurt. And still, a year later, not a day goes by when I don’t ache for New Orleans more than I will ever be capable of explaining with words.

I miss snowballs. I want to walk down Magazine Street. I want to be able to go to the French Quarter because I have nothing else to do. I miss magnolia trees. I miss CC’s and PJ’s iced coffees. I miss that no other place ever makes me feel like I’m home and I belong there. I miss being a local and knowing how to say Tchoupitoulas (see I can even almost spell it). I miss the people. I miss the culture. I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss knowing my way around town.

At first I felt like I had abandoned the city when it needed it’s residents the most. And some days I still feel like that. But other days I know being there would be more difficult. Having to see how slowly the city is being rebuilt, seeing how many restaurants are still on limited menus, how many stores have closed up and moved on. But if I were given the chance to go back tomorrow I would take it. I would go because since I’ve left New Orleans it’s like a piece of me is wrong. The piece is not missing, but it’s also not fitting comfortably in its place. My heart aches for something it used to take for granted.

Yeah, I am a little homesick.

It’s very weird to have a tropical storm about to enter the Gulf and I am not freaking out, running to Wal-Mart to buy candles and canned goods. I am concerned and I don’t want it to head towards New Orleans (what a horrible way to celebrate Katrina’s anniversary, having to hunker down and deal with another hurricane) but it’s still really bizarre to know this hurricane can’t hurt me. I know my stuff won’t be lost again, that I won’t have to grab my animals and head to Texas, and that I don’t have to worry about finding a new home when I don’t even know if my old home still exists.

I think it’s even more weird that I kinda miss preparing for a hurricane. It’s better than living in constant fear of an earthquake.

How many people have I been avoiding for the last month or so? 4 or 5? Or was it 5 or 6?

1. Jennifer
2. Bonnie
3. Holly
4. Emma
5. please feel free to insert your name here

so 5. It could be worse, I could be avoiding my blog too. Oh hell, I have even been doing that.

So what’s with the avoiding people? This whole “where is my life going, what am I planning on doing, where am I planning on living?” has really been getting me down. Am I staying here in Austin or moving to California? Am I going to find a better job or will I continue to quietly loath every customer I help at Barnes and Noble? “Yes, we do have the newest Oprah book club title and no I don’t really care that Oprah says it’s the best book she’s read since last week when some other publishing company sucked her huge Hollywood owning balls to recommend one of their books” See, I’m not bitter at all.

I’m just terrified of not knowing where my life is currently headed and it feels like as long as I keep that to myself I’ll be okay. But the second that I have to say out loud that I don’t have a plan I think I might fall apart.

So please don’t take my silence as I’m ignoring you. And no, I don’t deserve to have friends that try tediously to contact me only to be seemingly snubbed with no return calls or emails. But I do love you all and hope that you can stand about another week of me being horrible and not contacting the outside world.

Not a deal you’re willing to make? Okay, how about another week and I’ll start emailing everyone but until then I’ll make some more posts on my blog. No more big gaps of laziness and taking the fact that I have a public arena to bitch on for granted.

I promise, I’ll be a much better friend soon.

In case I haven’t sent you the link to the pictures from my house you can click here to see them. Not only did the house get about 3 feet of water, but the roof came apart over the back two rooms and the ceiling fell down. Stuff from my attic now covers the bed.

The best part is that thanks to possibly having the wrong insurance policy I will be getting no money for the damage to my personal property (I rented so I really could care less about the house damages). Wonderful.

I went back, and it wasn’t pretty. Pics coming soon.