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.

oh my god, this vacation WILL NOT END. I can has flight home, plz?

Last night it started raining right as jparks and I went to bed. The raindrops heavily hit the roof and trees outside our window creating a soothing noise I hadn’t heard in awhile. In the distance you could hear thunder but it never got close enough to rattle the windows. I feel asleep listening to it and it led to dreams of being at Girl Scout camp where the sound of rain is the absolute best. There it falls through pine trees onto the canvas coverings of our tents and sounds hollow and heavy. It lands on the pine needle covered ground and creates a soothing white noise that makes everything feel comfortable.

California rain just isn’t the same, it falls fast and cold, never with thunder. It’s nice to be back home where rain takes its time, as it should.

Jparks, Lily, and I are all safe and sound in New Orleans! The flights were long, but Lily was a trooper, only whining a bit, and making tons of friends in the airports. Guys, if you ever want an easy way to pick up girls, might I suggest borrowing Lily.

We’ve only been here a few hours and jparks’ niece has told him he’s picky and he laughs like a girl. Ah, good times!

Jparks and I are finally heading back to Cali tomorrow morning, and as much as I love being in New Orleans with friends and family, I’m very ready to get back to my shit-hole apartment. We’ve been on ‘vacation’ since the 23rd and I miss my animals, I miss my bed (stupid air mattresses that deflate in the middle of the night), and I even miss my job. The reason why we’ve extended our stay hasn’t made it any easier either.

We’ve decided that the additional time we’ve spent here this trip has made it impossible to come back for Mardi Gras. Well, impossible unless we win a lottery between now and the end of February. Which is totally possible. I’m kinda planning on it happening. There’s no way this plan can go wrong, right?

I realize now that I posted a rant about getting bumped from my flight into New Orleans, but then never stated that I did make it onto the plane. It’s amazing what a teary eyed girl can accomplish.

I’ve been home for about a week now and I’ve been busy running around, seeing family, and visiting some places I miss greatly. Here’s photographic evidence:

And here’s the best picture from the whole trip; jparks getting his ass beat by his younger brother:

Jparks and I are home from NOLA and as a thank you for letting us stay with him, we left Jeremy, jparks’ brother, some new man panties. And took all of his boxers back with us to California. And boy, are those man panties something special. We left an assortment in lavenders, pinks, neon yellows, oranges, and teals. Some had unicorns on them, some rainbow colored butterflies, and some had cute sayings like “I love my mom” or “Just call me tiny” right across the crotch.

Man, when Jeremy goes to get dressed in the morning and finds his new man panties he is going to be sooo grateful. I bet he won’t even be able to come up with words for how happy he is.

…because waiting for me at home are my Moo Cards. I’m tragically unhip since I’m currently without Moo Cards. oh to be cool, it’s all I ask for out of life.

I’m also ready to go because I’m tired. Being here has worn me out more than our trip to Disney. It’s been a constant go go go of visiting friends, seeing my grandfather in the hospital, and hanging out with family. I’m sure last night’s trip to the Quarter, where I consumed more alcohol in one night than I have in the past six months, has nothing to do with me being completely and utterly pooped.

I’m so tired that jparks has had to resort to other women for loving. And if I’m going to be perfectly honest, his new women are real bitches.

One of the things I wanted to do while in NOLA was walk around town and take pictures. Uptown, City Park, the French Quarter, all places I wanted to visit. So far I’ve been Uptown, but the only pictures I took were these:

Today we are going to the LA Renaissance Festival and, while I’m sure I’ll take plenty of pictures there, they won’t be of things I think are uniquely New Orleans. I have enjoyed everything I’ve done, nothing beats talking with friends about shoving frozen Twinkies up your loved one’s butt, but maybe next time I visit I need to come without a to do list.

Since I’m flying out of San Jose at 4:30 in the morning, I’m again, pre-writing my post for the day.

I’m heading home to NOLA and in honor of that I’m creating my to do list while there:

1. see family (duh)
2. see friends (again, duh)
3. eat red beans and rice
4. eat gumbo
5. eat beignets
6. go to a Saints game (I know this is impossible since the whole season is sold out, but darn it, I want to go to a game)
7. drink iced coffee from PJ’s
8. drink iced coffee from CC’s (NOLA sure does love its two letter coffeehouses)
9. visit Magazine Street
10. eat a praline
11. eat at Slice
12. go shopping at Chi-wa-wa-ga-ga (small store for dinky dogs)
13. take a ton of pictures

So, apparently I’m going to be eating a lot while I’m home. hmph.