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 not 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.

I could take the easy route and say that Hurricane Katrina happened in August and yeah, that did suck and so damn you August! But I’m not convinced it’s that. The hurricane hit so late in the month that my life didn’t really turn to shit until September. And I have no ill feeling about September. If anything, I like September more because it means August is gone. Goodbye August, don’t let September hit you in the ass on the way out!

Last August jparks and I moved into our house, and I feel like I should be able to look back on it and remember August of 07 fondly. We bought a house! It’s the ultimate adult purchase! It’s the foundation I needed to start building my family! And yet, it doesn’t make me like August any more than I did previously. In fact, when I look back on August of last year all I can remember is getting really frustrated with various painters and puking while movers slowly packed my apartment into a van. I bet none of that would have happened if I had moved in October. (which is my favorite month. Yay October! I love you like a fat kid I love cake)

The moral of the story is that August just sucks. It sucks for no good reason, other than the fact that some month has to be my least favorite and August won that title. I guess I better starting planning now to not get pregnant in December because dammit, I will not have an August baby. That child would be a cross between Damien, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Problem Child and, seeing as how it’s going to have some of jparks DNA, my child will not need any extra help being a handful.

After my morning of running, jparks and I headed to a birthday dinner for a friend’s daughter. I warned our hosts that I might eat them out of house and home and I don’t think I let them down. They had a lovely heirloom tomato salad and I think I ate about half of it. And it was meant for 9 people. I probably should have been embarrassed by my rapid consumption of all the food but HUNGRY.

After eating myself sick, the hunger was replaced by TIRED. Not like, “gee, I could take a nap” tired, it was more like “I can’t function as a human, please come lower me onto the toilet and then lift me off of it, because that much work is too much” tired. Once we got home I resisted sleep as much as possible and, like a toddler, I got myself all worked up about something and started the irrational kind of crying that jparks can’t help but laugh at. I’m fairly certain I was all worked up because I realized I had been giving Lily exactly half as much medicine as she was supposed to get and that’s why she’s still sick. Hi, I suck as a dog mom, imagine how awesome I’m going to be as a human mom. And that thought was enough to make me cry big, wet, can’t catch my breath tears.

After much sobbing and “waaaa, I suck! Dog protective services is going to come take Lily away!” jparks knocked me out with some tylenol with codeine (my prescription is about to run out and it is seriously good for the night after a long run. How do I get more without seeming like a junkie? I mean, you can’t really ask a doctor for more tylenol with codeine, can you?) I slept a full night, dead to the world, but still woke up this morning feeling like I could sleep some more. I got through my day at work with no additional caffeine, but it was a long, tedious day and I routinely felt like I was about to fall asleep on my keyboard.

I’m home now and, after about two sips of wine, I feel like I’m about to pass out on the couch. I’ve given Lily her correct dose of medicine and cleaned up the dinner dishes so I see no reason not to go to bed, even thought it’s still early. (8:30 early to be exact) This is definitely the one side effect of running I never saw coming, the constant exhaustion. Who would have thought long distance running would take so damn much out of you.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

jparks: “Those cookies you bought don’t taste good.”

me: “What cookies?”

“The ones in the plastic bag on the counter”

“Hon, those aren’t cookies. They’re dog treats for Lily.”

“Oh, well that explains why it tasted so gross”

“Are you still hungry? Should I grab Lily’s kibble, put it in a Cocoa Puffs box and let you have some cereal?”

“Leave me alone!”

“If I put a frilly toothpick in a Snausage will you eat it for an appetizer?”

“Ugh”

Kidding. I’ll cut that shit out now. It was even annoying to me.

Today has been a little bit better. Lily went to the vet and was diagnosed as having an upper respiratory infection. She got a shot, which I had to hold her during (okay, I lied, will whine one more time. She was so pathetic when she got the shot. She yipped and cried and it broke my heaaaaart) and some medicine to take for about a week. I bribed her with peanut butter when we got home so she would forgive me for holding her during the shot. That dog owns me.

Then jparks went to the doctor for a mole and the doctor was all “You might have cancer” so that is fun. I’m totally not freaking out about this yet, I’m waiting until they slice a piece of his leg off and do a biopsy on it. Then I might freak out, so if you see a post that’s just “ejhrgniwrotnviegwhcwng CANCER cwioehfcngoegurghn JPARKS neirncgovtbcrnfoxewg!” you’ll know what’s going on.

After that bit o’fun I went to the doctor (we were all about medical treatment today in the Parks household) and had an xray done of my knee. Since falling at BlogHer last month, I’ve had some pain in it when I run. And then the day after running. And then anytime I encounter stairs. The xrays showed nothing and now the doctor wants me to spend money, out of pocket, for an MRI. When I asked how much money we were talking about he said “Not too bad, about $1000. A real athlete like Mr. Phelps would spend that on his knee in a heartbeat.” Uh, Mr. Doctor, I am not Mr. Phelps. I do not have enough money to fill a swimming pool, then do laps in it to break the world record for fastest 100m butterfly in a pile of $100 bills. Mr. Doctor told me to think about it overnight. Do you guys think that if I concentrate really hard, a spare $1000 will appear in my checking account? Also, can I concentrate and get a pony?

I also wore cute shoes today which helped lift my emo mood and I had this:

You might say eww, but I say yum.

Also, my hair is looking awesome and the guy at the Border’s coffeeshop gave me an extra shot of espresso in my latte. I’m fairly certain it was thanks to my cleavage. So, yay for boobies!

Some switch was flipped in me last night and I woke up this morning feeling an awful lot of disconnect between how my life is and how I think my life should be. I know it’s normal to feel like your life should be more fabulous than it actually is and while I normally say “yes, please more fabulous!” this time it’s not that.

It started when, over the weekend, Lily got sick. She seems to have some sort of cold complete with sneezing and spraying jparks’ laptop screen with doggie snot which is way cute, but needs to be stopped. I want to take her to the vet, but when do I have time for it? Oh yeah, that’s right, I don’t. I could take her to the emergency vet after work, but really, for a cold? I don’t even want to think about how much that would cost. I went ahead and made her an appointment for tomorrow morning, which yay she’s going to get medical treatment, but boo my boss isn’t going to be happy when I come in late and then leave early for my doctor appointment that afternoon.

Today I had a hair appointment during lunch. I wanted to get to work on time so I wouldn’t feel guilty about taking a long lunch (hair stylist is 45 minutes, round trip away, from my office) but of course, I overslept and was late to work. Now I have to work late to make up the time I was gone, which means that I’ll be late getting home, which means that I’ll be so hungry when I get home that I’ll end up getting take out instead of cooking.

Which brings me right to my next complaint: I am so sick of take out. Since buying our house, jparks and I have been strapped for cash. One thing that would really help us save money is if we cooked at home, but I don’t have time for it. I’m sure someone outside of my mind and body could look at my schedule and tell me how I can fit in cooking (hello, crock pot) but right now it seems impossible. This take out thing has been gnawing away at me for some time, but I keep my mouth shut because sometimes the internal gnawing is easier than fixing the problem. Jparks will only eat sit down restaurant take out; fast food is out of the question. And while I see his point, fast food = big ass, I can’t help but cringe every time we spend $20 to $40 on dinner. It should not cost this much to feed two people.

Some other little things that I feel like I should have time for but I just don’t are: having the carpets cleaned, putting away the laundry (the pile is currently worse than ever before), taking the dog for a walk that lasts more than 5 minutes, watching the three netflix movies that we’ve had at our house since April, moving the pictures from the sd card to the computer, actually opening Photoshop, going to Costco to buy toilet paper, and, oh my god, so many more.

I am just feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by how much time work takes and how little time I have left over for my life. Overwhelmed that I want to have a kidlet, but how am I supposed to do that when I can’t even find time to take the dog to the vet? Overwhelmed because I feel like I’m some how mismanaging my time, when I don’t honestly think I am. Overwhelmed that I’m not getting to enjoy life, that I’m just trudging through it, working for a prize that I won’t ever win.

Right now, I’ll pass on the fabulousness if I could just have some success. Something that could confirm that all of this time spent at work isn’t pointless. Something that makes the growing pile of laundry worthwhile. Something that tells me I shouldn’t just come to work tomorrow and quit. “Hi bosses, I need to turn in my two weeks’ notice. The reason? Well, my life, it sucks and I blame you. Also, this job is a joke.” And I’ll take a small success, even just a week’s worth of home cooked meals. Or some clean underwear in my drawer.

I don’t need more fabulous, I just need more manageable. Is that an unreasonable request?

Please don’t get the wrong idea about jparks. Yes, he could cook, clean, and walk the dog but he works more than me. And if one of us really needs to be focused on work, it’s him because he is our family cash cow. Moo, honey, MOO. Also, in a month you’ll be all “wasn’t she just whining about how her life sucks? I quit this blog!” I apologize now for it. I am lame. Regular broadcasting will return tomorrow.

“SON OF A BITCH I DID IT AGAIN I HAVE DELETED A WHOLE FUCKING BLOG POST.
MY HEAD IT IS EXPLODING”

But my head, it did not explode. It is waiting for jparks to give me the “You should be typing your posts in google docs where nothing can go wrong ever and your life will be perfect and you will shit gold coins that you can use to buy shoes” so that it can explode all over him and he will have to clean it up. Serves you right jparks, keep your mouth shut and stop using your damn words. Go scrub my brains off the living room wall.

Here’s the last part of the post that somehow didn’t get deleted. It is the most boring part. Figures.

Hey, you know what’s fun? Putting your husband up against one of your best friends in a “who can make the most accurate looking avatar of me” contest!

Whitney made the avatar on the left, jparks made the one of the right. Well, which one looks more like me?

I just can’t tell.

Watching all of these incredible athletes has really inspired me to want to go to the Olympics someday. And, while going as a spectator would be awesome, going as an athlete would be even better and I think it’s totally doable. I say that with total respect to the real athletes because I’m going to go as a heart warming story that the sportscasters will laugh about and say “Can you believe she’s here! That’s a true Olympic dream coming true!”

Here’s what I think needs to happen for me to go to the Olympics:

I could be talked into a team event if I can find others that want to go to the Olympics with me but don’t want to win. Maybe we could form a rowing team. Or a synchronized swimming team (BEST IDEA YET). We could have the best bathing suits and do synchronized swimmers perform to music, because we could perform to something fun and awesome. I’m open to suggestions.

Who wants in on my brilliant plan?

“I am no lolcat” by Molly Parks

I am no
lolcat
happy, carefree, captioned
I am aware of
the pain of living
and I know
I will never nom a cheeseburger

I have no invisible bike
no invisible sandwich
You’ve never offered them
to me
How do you know that
I wouldn’t love to have them?
Why do you hate me?

I has no flavor
No catnip taste left
on my pink tongue
No kitty treats
lingering in my teeth
Now I has a flavor
it’s salty from my tears

This monorail cat
is leaving the station
I’m heading to a place
with fewer stupid animals
This monorail cat
isn’t accepting riders
Alone suits me just fine

I am no
lolcat
don’t mock me
by laughing at my pain
it’s impossible to be
me
you’ll never understand

My ovaries and tear ducts were screaming “TAKE THE PUPPY!” so loudly I barely could my brain saying “slowly back away from the puppy!” Thank god common sense took over and I was able to step away from the cutest pile of tan fur who would have made an excellent sibling to Lily dog.

On a related note, I can’t be held accountable if you bring a baby near me today and I make a mad dash for the nearest exit while holding it.