After a week of going away events, we hit the road Saturday, driving along the Gulf Coast to Destin, then hitting Savannah, and now reaching Williamsburg, where we're staying with my friend Lisa. A good trip so far, us in our packed cars, harassing each other by walkie-talkie.
The cats are already home. We put them on a plane Friday. As you can imagine, they were not happy to find themselves shoved into their cages and tossed into the backset of the car for yet another plane ride. (Thus, the title.) Simon, the veteran traveller, was silent, accepting of his fate. Bourre? Not so much with the silent or accepting. A lot of whining. A lot. At the cargo place, there were at least six other animals in cages and they were silent. Bourre? Screaming. I felt like the mother of the bad kid at the park.
It's not cheap to ship them this way. Plus they have to go to the vet and get shots before you can send them. And I had to express mail their medicine and ship a supply of their special food to Philly ahead of me. But it's worth it. One, because I would have killed them after hours together in the car. And two? People like me, we are suckers for our pets.
(Sidebar: Pet suckerage is big in my family. This Thanksgiving, the big conversation around the dinner table was, "If your loved one killed someone, would you help them hide the body?" ((Side sidebar: This is after dinner with Jordan's family, where the main conversation was national politics in light of the recent Democratic sweep into Congress. I'm willing to bet some Pompilios didn't even know there had been an election.)) Pretty much universally, we agreed to help each other hide evidence. Except for my sister. She was adamant that she would rat us out to police because killing was wrong, a stance that actually infuriated my mother. To torture my sister, I kept coming up with options where maybe killing was OK, like someone attacking you with a knife. She said, "Well, if someone was attacking Max (her cat) with a knife, I would kill them." I said, "And then that would be OK?" She said, "Yes." She will do anything for those cats. I can't wait to see that case in court. )
A lot of people will tell you they didn't evacuate before Katrina because of their pets. Shelters weren't accepting animals. (And, in one case, I had journalist friends who evacuated BECAUSE of their pet. Because they didn't want to leave her home alone. She repaid their love a few days after the storm, when they were trying to get back into the city, by eating the only food they had when they were out of the car. Go, Stella!) I witnessed some heart-breaking scenes as National Guardsmen separated people from their pets, leaving the animals on the streets and herding the people into trucks. (There was one photo that ran in the Inky of a man named Tom Cruise, his face in pure anguish, clutching his dog as the Guardsman waited. I always wondered what happened to him but I lost his email address after the storm.) One day, a week after the storm, I was downtown when a man wearing a fire department shirt came up to me with a brown ball of puppy fluff. He'd found the dog wandering around New Orleans Centre, a mall next to the Superdome. He asked if I could take the dog and I said no. I've always regretted that.
Also during the second week, I was working on the porch of my friend Steve's house when I was assaulted by a hungry black cat. She literally jumped on my lap, on the computer, and began purring and nipping my hands. I had to call my story in when she was there and the receptionist at Knight Ridder Washington quickly dubbed her "Knight Ridder Kitty." "You have to bring her home," the woman told me from the luxury of her desk in her air conditioned office where they probably had fancy things like "boxes" that could transport an animal. I left the cat, but not before generously sharing my photographer's packet of tuna with her. (He wasn't pleased.) (Whatever.)
Even now, when you drive around NO, you notice the markings on homes that refer to pets. Almost all of the houses are marked with the familiar X which details when and how the house was searched, by which unit of the military or policing agency, and if any human bodies were found. Others have additions like, "ASPCA 10/1, one dog inside" or, on one house in the Upper 9th Ward, "Two dead dogs inside" or, like a house in the Lower 9th Ward, "Dog on roof," or on another house nearby, "One dog, one cat, one bird inside." There are "Cat outside, 10/12, left food" scrawlings and "No dog found" notices spraypainted on walls, turning some houses into noteboards. (My sister: "Don't tell me these things! They make me so upset." Meanwhile, i'm cruising by houses where the numbers indicate two human bodies were found inside.)
Some people left their pets in their homes because they'd gone through hurricanes before and they figured they'd leave with a few days belongings, hit the beach or a friend's house elsewhere, then head home. As a former New Orleanian, I can't count the number of times I was told -- by the media and meterologists -- that the city was doomed. And every time, that storm didn't hit or it wasn't bad and the experts were wrong. I was on the plane, going to NO before Katrina, reassuring people that things would be fine, fine. To be on that plane, I had to cancel what might have been my first date with Jordo, a movie outing he probably saw as innocuous and I saw as the start of a great romance. I told him, "No big. I'll be back in a few days." And I wasn't home for two weeks.
I wrote a story about an elderly woman who was displaced by the storm. A story I didn't tell was about her beloved cat, Poupon. She went to stay at a hotel during the storm, something a lot of people do because they're high and seemingly stronger. She left her baby behind, convinced he'd be fine. Then the levees broke. Poupon survived in the house for weeks, apparently floating around on her piano when the water filled their Gentilly home. When a friend finally got into the house weeks later, Poupon was alive, but weak and ailing. The friend called Poupon's mom, who was in a Texas hospital, on the phone and she sung him a Brahms lullaby as she'd done every night they were together. Poupon died soon after. As she says, he heard her voice and knew she was OK so he could let go.
One of the last houses I helped gut before I left was in the Lower 9th Ward. My friend Vikki was with me and we were working for Rhino (Rebuilding Hope In New Orleans) again. (Hey, Vik! Great work!) Before we went to the house, Katie, our leader, was telling us a little about the homeowner. And, she added, the family had had a dog named Katie, which she thought was cute. It was a random, side comment but foreshadowing like no other.
So we're emptying in the house of its contents, Vikki and I in one of the front rooms, when Vikki stops and tells me to look. And there's a dog skull. And dog's collars, one I think was red and the other was one of those white flea fighters, were still there. And there was the rest of the dog, including the skeleton and a stretch of skin with short brown fur. We just kinda looked at each other and the dog and were like, "Oh God, what do we do?"And what we did was pick up the dog's remains and throw them out, adding them to the pile of debris with all the furniture and the clothing and knick knacks. The collars jingled when I picked them up, a familiar sound to anyone who has pets. (Later that day, Vikki dangled my car keys near my ear and I turned with a jump, thinking she was dangling Katie's collars. I think finding that dog upset me more than I realized.)
Did we do the right thing, just throwing the dog away? Should we have saved the collars for the homeowner? I don't know. We weren't sure if the homeowner was going to come by as we worked, but I practiced scenarios in my head if she did. If she asked something like, "Did you find any of my dog's things?" I planned to say, "A lot of dogs ran away once the water went down," allowing her to think her dog had fled and not died a probably horrible death. It was a lie but I was ready with it.
From what I understand, my cats -- safely home in Philadelphia, awaiting our return -- are two pissed off balls of fur. I can't wait to see them.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Odds and Ends
A few things I'd written down but hadn't posted:
I love paper. Of course, there are newspapers. I save them, not just the ones I have stories in, but historic ones, too: the Rangers 1994 Stanley Cup victory, the Yankee 3-peat, beastly Pedro Martinez manhandling Don Zimmer, 9/11, Katrina, etc. I love writing paper and can spend hours in stationery stores. I love finding old calendars and notebooks that tell you stories from someone's life -- including my own.
While gutting, I've had such fun with the puzzles of paper, like half-written grocery lists and, one random afternoon, boxes of checks from 1965. (Yes, '65!) There were payments, like $10 to the energy company and $5 for monthly insurance. On eweekend, we were doing a street clean-up and I kept finding documents from a local funeral home, like a pricing guide and a cancelled check. I also found other types of paper on that median -- straw wrappers and sugar packets and napkins, the archeologist's clue that a McDonald's was nearby.
One day, I went to a gutting assignment in New Orleans East with a group from the Episcopal Church. We didn't know what to expect as we'd been told the house was "mostly empty" of contents. Lies! It was filled, and it was deceptively large. The occupants had been musicians and we found an organ -- and old fashioned one with tons of pipes, made somewhere in the Mid-West, leading someone to joke that today, such a thing would be made in China -- that we had to take out in huge hunking pieces; two upright pianos; a box filled with triangles and cymbols and wood blocks and Glockenspiels. (Remember those from elementary school chorus and how exciting it was if you were chosen to be the one to play the Glockenspiel?)
There were boxes of sheet music, too, lots of old time stuff. And interspersed we found newspapers, old ones: Ones detailing the struggle for "negro rights" and the Kennedy assassination. They'd been so carefully saved and now they were moldy. I wanted to save them, thinking maybe the family could put them in frames or do something to preserve them. (This is unusual for me, as I'm usually the one who wants to throw everything out if there's a hint of mold on it.) My gutting companions told me no.
But I did take down a framed, oversized proclamation, still hanging on a wall, that was signed by former NO Mayor Dutch Morial. It was in honor of a Baptist Church. It was moldy, true, but we all agreed there was something special about it. A few hours later, we met Yvonne, 78, and her nephew Luis. This had been her family home. The proclamation had been given to her father. How happy she was to see it! She thanked us over and over again and said, like so many other homeowners have, that God was good and she knew it because we were there helping her. She couldn't stop smiling. She insisted we take a photo of her and Luis with the frame.
It's nice to know other people appreciate the power of paper.
Some more tidbits/advice from our favorite storyteller (See below and "It's All in the Way You Tell the Story"):
1) Keep extra copies of your "skinny" photos. Because if there's a flood and they're all in one place, you'll never have proof of those glory days.
2) Some people have questioned the idea of private companies offering "disaster tours" of the city. Not everyone. "I would have charged $5 a head if people wanted to tour my destroyed home. Hell, I would have let them take a piece of sheetrock as a souvenir. Busses, stop here! I could have quit my job."
3) In the days after the storm, there were tears, of course, but many other emotions. What really made her cry, however, was when someone from The Salvation Army gave her a $25 gift card. "I could buy underwear!" she said. "I could handle anger. I could handle frustration. I couldn't handle compassion."
Another story from another fine storyteller:
Two of her friends, brothers, decided to stay in their NO home for Katrina because it would be too difficult to move their elderly mother. (Either they didn't have transportation or it was a pick up but there was some reason they just couldn't drive out of the city.) Confined to a wheelchair and suffering from Alzheimer's, she was fragile, often unresponsive, although sometimes they'd see a light in her eyes when they spoke to her. She liked watching "Golden Girls" and, although she didn't speak, she did laugh. Sometimes, her sons would see her rocking slightly and laughing, "Hee hee hee hee" during the show.
Their house didn't flood during the storm. They didn't have electricity and it was hella hot, but they couldn't leave. Worried about their mother, they moved her outside to the front porch where they took turns fanning her. They were out there when a National Guard truck came by. It saw them, stopped, and dropped off some water. They were thrilled.
The next day, the brothers were on the porch. Their mother was inside. One Guard truck rolled down the street and the brothers waved, expecting it to stop and leave food or some supplies. It rolled on. A second truck passed later. Again, they waved but the truck kept on going.
They knew what they were missing.
"Ma," they said, "We've got to bring you outside again. Because people will stop for you. Nobody stops for us. We're sorry."
And she just laughed, they said, her little "Hee, hee, hee, hee," head shaking. She loved being useful and needed. She went outside and -- sure enough -- someone stopped by with MRE's later that day.
She died a year after the storm, her sons by her hospital bed.
I love paper. Of course, there are newspapers. I save them, not just the ones I have stories in, but historic ones, too: the Rangers 1994 Stanley Cup victory, the Yankee 3-peat, beastly Pedro Martinez manhandling Don Zimmer, 9/11, Katrina, etc. I love writing paper and can spend hours in stationery stores. I love finding old calendars and notebooks that tell you stories from someone's life -- including my own.
While gutting, I've had such fun with the puzzles of paper, like half-written grocery lists and, one random afternoon, boxes of checks from 1965. (Yes, '65!) There were payments, like $10 to the energy company and $5 for monthly insurance. On eweekend, we were doing a street clean-up and I kept finding documents from a local funeral home, like a pricing guide and a cancelled check. I also found other types of paper on that median -- straw wrappers and sugar packets and napkins, the archeologist's clue that a McDonald's was nearby.
One day, I went to a gutting assignment in New Orleans East with a group from the Episcopal Church. We didn't know what to expect as we'd been told the house was "mostly empty" of contents. Lies! It was filled, and it was deceptively large. The occupants had been musicians and we found an organ -- and old fashioned one with tons of pipes, made somewhere in the Mid-West, leading someone to joke that today, such a thing would be made in China -- that we had to take out in huge hunking pieces; two upright pianos; a box filled with triangles and cymbols and wood blocks and Glockenspiels. (Remember those from elementary school chorus and how exciting it was if you were chosen to be the one to play the Glockenspiel?)
There were boxes of sheet music, too, lots of old time stuff. And interspersed we found newspapers, old ones: Ones detailing the struggle for "negro rights" and the Kennedy assassination. They'd been so carefully saved and now they were moldy. I wanted to save them, thinking maybe the family could put them in frames or do something to preserve them. (This is unusual for me, as I'm usually the one who wants to throw everything out if there's a hint of mold on it.) My gutting companions told me no.
But I did take down a framed, oversized proclamation, still hanging on a wall, that was signed by former NO Mayor Dutch Morial. It was in honor of a Baptist Church. It was moldy, true, but we all agreed there was something special about it. A few hours later, we met Yvonne, 78, and her nephew Luis. This had been her family home. The proclamation had been given to her father. How happy she was to see it! She thanked us over and over again and said, like so many other homeowners have, that God was good and she knew it because we were there helping her. She couldn't stop smiling. She insisted we take a photo of her and Luis with the frame.
It's nice to know other people appreciate the power of paper.
Some more tidbits/advice from our favorite storyteller (See below and "It's All in the Way You Tell the Story"):
1) Keep extra copies of your "skinny" photos. Because if there's a flood and they're all in one place, you'll never have proof of those glory days.
2) Some people have questioned the idea of private companies offering "disaster tours" of the city. Not everyone. "I would have charged $5 a head if people wanted to tour my destroyed home. Hell, I would have let them take a piece of sheetrock as a souvenir. Busses, stop here! I could have quit my job."
3) In the days after the storm, there were tears, of course, but many other emotions. What really made her cry, however, was when someone from The Salvation Army gave her a $25 gift card. "I could buy underwear!" she said. "I could handle anger. I could handle frustration. I couldn't handle compassion."
Another story from another fine storyteller:
Two of her friends, brothers, decided to stay in their NO home for Katrina because it would be too difficult to move their elderly mother. (Either they didn't have transportation or it was a pick up but there was some reason they just couldn't drive out of the city.) Confined to a wheelchair and suffering from Alzheimer's, she was fragile, often unresponsive, although sometimes they'd see a light in her eyes when they spoke to her. She liked watching "Golden Girls" and, although she didn't speak, she did laugh. Sometimes, her sons would see her rocking slightly and laughing, "Hee hee hee hee" during the show.
Their house didn't flood during the storm. They didn't have electricity and it was hella hot, but they couldn't leave. Worried about their mother, they moved her outside to the front porch where they took turns fanning her. They were out there when a National Guard truck came by. It saw them, stopped, and dropped off some water. They were thrilled.
The next day, the brothers were on the porch. Their mother was inside. One Guard truck rolled down the street and the brothers waved, expecting it to stop and leave food or some supplies. It rolled on. A second truck passed later. Again, they waved but the truck kept on going.
They knew what they were missing.
"Ma," they said, "We've got to bring you outside again. Because people will stop for you. Nobody stops for us. We're sorry."
And she just laughed, they said, her little "Hee, hee, hee, hee," head shaking. She loved being useful and needed. She went outside and -- sure enough -- someone stopped by with MRE's later that day.
She died a year after the storm, her sons by her hospital bed.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Our Final Weeks
I'm so bummed, in advance, about leaving that I haven't felt like blogging.
We've begun to make leaving preparations: The cats have a flight back home. We're talking about what route we'll take. We're making arrangements to return out kick ass mattress. My copious amount of Mardi Gras beads have a place to stay until Mardi Gras '08.
We've also made a list of things we have to do/people we have to see before we go. This list includes eating at Todd English's restaurant because my mother requires it. Apparently, she is madly in love with Chef English and doesn't care if his restaurant has garnered mediocre reviews. (I don't know but she may expect me to slip him her phone number. I might, because it would be cool to have a cook in the family. Dad especially would enjoy that, despite the weirdness of it all.)
Otherwise, life is pretty much the same. We had Jazz Fest for the past two weekends, so that was awesome. I continue to be a gutting master. Today, we did a house Uptown that hadn't flooded but had suffered roof damage in the storm and it looked like it had had water up to the rafters, so gross and destroyed it was. It was dirty work, with plaster walls and so much dust you couldn't see at times, but a good gut. This is the second time I've worked for the owner, George. (The house is a double and last time, we only finished emptying and partially gutting one side.) Last time, George gave us drinks and snacks. This time, he did that -- and more. He fried a whole turkey and made a vat of jambalaya. It was the best turkey I've ever eaten. I mean, I've had fried turkey before, but this was so juicy and flavorful -- he fries it in peanut oil -- that I could have eaten it for all three meals.
George was modest about his food but told us that when he rebuilds, he's putting in a super big kitchen because he loves cooking. He was naturally a quiet man, the kind who looks down when he smiles, and so sweet. He introduced us to his girlfriend and one of his oldest friends and I really got a glimpse into his life. Of course, he invited us back when things were finished, even if it was years in the future. I wonder if I'll ever see him again.
And then I got to thinking that, at one point, I was spending a lot of time at a house about two blocks from George's. But if the storm hadn't hit, I never would have met him. And I never would have met Mr. L or Gloria or Heidi or Suzanne or all of these wonderful people that have filled our lives these past few months.
So Katrina, you bitch, thank you. I've had a lot of people tell me that good things always come from bad and I'm almost believing them.
We've begun to make leaving preparations: The cats have a flight back home. We're talking about what route we'll take. We're making arrangements to return out kick ass mattress. My copious amount of Mardi Gras beads have a place to stay until Mardi Gras '08.
We've also made a list of things we have to do/people we have to see before we go. This list includes eating at Todd English's restaurant because my mother requires it. Apparently, she is madly in love with Chef English and doesn't care if his restaurant has garnered mediocre reviews. (I don't know but she may expect me to slip him her phone number. I might, because it would be cool to have a cook in the family. Dad especially would enjoy that, despite the weirdness of it all.)
Otherwise, life is pretty much the same. We had Jazz Fest for the past two weekends, so that was awesome. I continue to be a gutting master. Today, we did a house Uptown that hadn't flooded but had suffered roof damage in the storm and it looked like it had had water up to the rafters, so gross and destroyed it was. It was dirty work, with plaster walls and so much dust you couldn't see at times, but a good gut. This is the second time I've worked for the owner, George. (The house is a double and last time, we only finished emptying and partially gutting one side.) Last time, George gave us drinks and snacks. This time, he did that -- and more. He fried a whole turkey and made a vat of jambalaya. It was the best turkey I've ever eaten. I mean, I've had fried turkey before, but this was so juicy and flavorful -- he fries it in peanut oil -- that I could have eaten it for all three meals.
George was modest about his food but told us that when he rebuilds, he's putting in a super big kitchen because he loves cooking. He was naturally a quiet man, the kind who looks down when he smiles, and so sweet. He introduced us to his girlfriend and one of his oldest friends and I really got a glimpse into his life. Of course, he invited us back when things were finished, even if it was years in the future. I wonder if I'll ever see him again.
And then I got to thinking that, at one point, I was spending a lot of time at a house about two blocks from George's. But if the storm hadn't hit, I never would have met him. And I never would have met Mr. L or Gloria or Heidi or Suzanne or all of these wonderful people that have filled our lives these past few months.
So Katrina, you bitch, thank you. I've had a lot of people tell me that good things always come from bad and I'm almost believing them.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Eastern Market
My favorite job was when I was under the age of 12. I was really good at selling Christmas trees. Living in a rapidly gentrifying area in the middle of a city full of people who didn't want to drive out to the burbs to buy trees can be a goldmine. That, plus Christmas trees are a little hard to price. I think as long as you know the name of the tree and tell someone it will hold water well through Christmas, you could charge an arm and a leg and no one would be any the wiser (this may be the closest I ever got to sympathizing with Kenneth Lay). I worked for a farmer who would bring the trees in from West Virginia and people often thought I was his 12 year old son (in reality my mom had finagled the job probably in violation of a million child labor laws). It was, in my life, the best sales job I had ever held (though honestly the only other sales job was hawking tomatoes, apples and apple cider from same farmer in the non-Christmas months).
I got to do all that because my parents had been smart enough to buy a house near the Eastern Market, a farmer's market stuck in the middle of Capitol Hill.
My two younger sisters ended up working there as well on the weekends, working for one of three farmers who brought their fresh produce for sale (at a hefty markup, Christmas trees not being the only thing you can overcharge city folk for).
There was the old Greek family who had a produce stand where my mom swears that the wife of the team would peel grapes for me (I don't doubt that I would make such a ridiculous request as a kid, just that it is really possible to peel grapes).
There was also the guy who every Thanksgiving would sell my mom a turkey that weighed far more than the eating ability of the assembled.
It's a wonderful place and hopefully this well be a brief hiccup in an otherwise great history.
I got to do all that because my parents had been smart enough to buy a house near the Eastern Market, a farmer's market stuck in the middle of Capitol Hill.
My two younger sisters ended up working there as well on the weekends, working for one of three farmers who brought their fresh produce for sale (at a hefty markup, Christmas trees not being the only thing you can overcharge city folk for).
There was the old Greek family who had a produce stand where my mom swears that the wife of the team would peel grapes for me (I don't doubt that I would make such a ridiculous request as a kid, just that it is really possible to peel grapes).
There was also the guy who every Thanksgiving would sell my mom a turkey that weighed far more than the eating ability of the assembled.
It's a wonderful place and hopefully this well be a brief hiccup in an otherwise great history.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Job Conditions, Pt. 2
I recently helped gut a house that hadn't been touched since the storm. That's not that unusual. What was unusual was how pungent the house was.
In the days and weeks after Katrina, the city smelled. Bad. It was like something rotten and stagnant and unclean. (Could have been me. I didn't shower for days on end and it was 1,000 degrees.) But that smell gradually went away and the flowers came out again and New Orleans was returned to a normal city smell, except at night Uptown, when the flowers always smell deliciously sweet. (Bourbon Street never smells good, even though it is only blocks from beignet-making heaven. The overpowering smell most mornings is pee and cleaning fluid. Delicious.)
Some houses I work in, everything's OK -- just generally moldy smelling -- until you pull out a hollow closet rod that's still filled with water and it spills on you. You're grossed out for a while, but you move on. (And smugly congratulate yourself for your thrift store shopping prowess.) You're wearing a mask, which helps, and you breathe through your mouth until the odor dies. (I also employ this technique around the seafood part of the Italian Market. Or I hold my breath. I'm like Houdini in my breath-holding abilities.)
But this one house overpowered the second you stepped inside. You wouldn't think that, after 20 months, rotten food would smell anymore. Wrong. Or that flood water, still sitting in bowls and cups, would still prove gaggable. It does. Or that there would even BE flood water after so long. There is. In the bedroom, the mattresses were still dripping wet and bags and bags of adult diapers proved their absorbency, expanding to triple their size. (God, they were heavy and rancid.) The living room had a wet couch and a china cabinet filled with water-bearing objects, all smelly.
The kitchen was particularly heinous, with black slime covering the floor, but for some reason, I made it my pet project. I attacked the cabinets, still filled with food, and the dozens of scattered cans, bottles and jars on the floor. When you're gutting, you're supposed to separate out the food from other items and the food pile for this house was one of the largest I've ever seen-- huge jars of salsa with floating mold and rotted and rusted canned vegetables and tons and tons of spices. It was ... gross. Just gross.
There were moments in the Kitchen of Rankness that I asked myself why I was in there. Usually, I avoid kitchens, partly for this very reason. (And there's usually tile there, which you already know I hate, and cabinets can be a pain.) And on later reflection, I realized it's because of how much I liked the daughter of the woman who had owned the home.
Her name was Gloria. Her mom -- who had one of those great old time names, like Odette or Odile. I found a paper napkin that had been saved from her 80th birthday party -- had lived here but had died right around the time of the storm. Gloria hadn't been able to go into the house since her mother's death so it had sat and ripened.
Gloria was tough and funny and positive when she was talking to us -- "The water washed away everything but the chance to rebuild," she said at one point. She was upbeat when she talked about her mother, a diabetic who had lost both her legs years ago and used a wheelchair to get around. Her mother had insisted on her independence and on living alone and taking care of herself. She had been a native New Orleanian and she loved the city and its festivals and that showed in her house, where windows had been covered with strands of Mardi Gras beads and her glassware collection included glasses from Jax Brewery and the racetrack. When she finally go so sick that she had to go to the hospital, she brought some of her beads with her.
While hospitalized, Gloria's mother began hoarding the free booties/slippers the hospital gave to patients. Gloria said she couldn't understand it: Her mother didn't have legs. But as the end grew closer, and her mother seemed content and accepting of her death, she finally got it: Her mother was going to Heaven, where Jesus would make her whole again, and she wanted to have something to wear on her new feet. (This comment led to a later discussion with Jordan about God's apparent inability to provide footwear. I mean, he can give you legs and feet but he can't throw in a pair of Aerosoles? We're not asking for Jimmy Choo's here, Lord.)
Gloria just charmed me. She was so thankful to us volunteers for being there, asking us for our addresses so she could write thank you cards and promising us a big BBQ if we ever came back to New Orleans. One of the volunteers said, "Can I give you a hug?" and she said, "Can you give me a hug? Hugs for everyone!" and she hugged all 20 of us in turn, never losing her smile.
I asked Gloria if there was anything special we should look for in the house, anything she wanted us to save. It was the only time her face crumpled. A catch in her voice, she said, "Anything, anything of my mother's you can find." She left in tears.
That's why I do this, even when I can't breathe.
In the days and weeks after Katrina, the city smelled. Bad. It was like something rotten and stagnant and unclean. (Could have been me. I didn't shower for days on end and it was 1,000 degrees.) But that smell gradually went away and the flowers came out again and New Orleans was returned to a normal city smell, except at night Uptown, when the flowers always smell deliciously sweet. (Bourbon Street never smells good, even though it is only blocks from beignet-making heaven. The overpowering smell most mornings is pee and cleaning fluid. Delicious.)
Some houses I work in, everything's OK -- just generally moldy smelling -- until you pull out a hollow closet rod that's still filled with water and it spills on you. You're grossed out for a while, but you move on. (And smugly congratulate yourself for your thrift store shopping prowess.) You're wearing a mask, which helps, and you breathe through your mouth until the odor dies. (I also employ this technique around the seafood part of the Italian Market. Or I hold my breath. I'm like Houdini in my breath-holding abilities.)
But this one house overpowered the second you stepped inside. You wouldn't think that, after 20 months, rotten food would smell anymore. Wrong. Or that flood water, still sitting in bowls and cups, would still prove gaggable. It does. Or that there would even BE flood water after so long. There is. In the bedroom, the mattresses were still dripping wet and bags and bags of adult diapers proved their absorbency, expanding to triple their size. (God, they were heavy and rancid.) The living room had a wet couch and a china cabinet filled with water-bearing objects, all smelly.
The kitchen was particularly heinous, with black slime covering the floor, but for some reason, I made it my pet project. I attacked the cabinets, still filled with food, and the dozens of scattered cans, bottles and jars on the floor. When you're gutting, you're supposed to separate out the food from other items and the food pile for this house was one of the largest I've ever seen-- huge jars of salsa with floating mold and rotted and rusted canned vegetables and tons and tons of spices. It was ... gross. Just gross.
There were moments in the Kitchen of Rankness that I asked myself why I was in there. Usually, I avoid kitchens, partly for this very reason. (And there's usually tile there, which you already know I hate, and cabinets can be a pain.) And on later reflection, I realized it's because of how much I liked the daughter of the woman who had owned the home.
Her name was Gloria. Her mom -- who had one of those great old time names, like Odette or Odile. I found a paper napkin that had been saved from her 80th birthday party -- had lived here but had died right around the time of the storm. Gloria hadn't been able to go into the house since her mother's death so it had sat and ripened.
Gloria was tough and funny and positive when she was talking to us -- "The water washed away everything but the chance to rebuild," she said at one point. She was upbeat when she talked about her mother, a diabetic who had lost both her legs years ago and used a wheelchair to get around. Her mother had insisted on her independence and on living alone and taking care of herself. She had been a native New Orleanian and she loved the city and its festivals and that showed in her house, where windows had been covered with strands of Mardi Gras beads and her glassware collection included glasses from Jax Brewery and the racetrack. When she finally go so sick that she had to go to the hospital, she brought some of her beads with her.
While hospitalized, Gloria's mother began hoarding the free booties/slippers the hospital gave to patients. Gloria said she couldn't understand it: Her mother didn't have legs. But as the end grew closer, and her mother seemed content and accepting of her death, she finally got it: Her mother was going to Heaven, where Jesus would make her whole again, and she wanted to have something to wear on her new feet. (This comment led to a later discussion with Jordan about God's apparent inability to provide footwear. I mean, he can give you legs and feet but he can't throw in a pair of Aerosoles? We're not asking for Jimmy Choo's here, Lord.)
Gloria just charmed me. She was so thankful to us volunteers for being there, asking us for our addresses so she could write thank you cards and promising us a big BBQ if we ever came back to New Orleans. One of the volunteers said, "Can I give you a hug?" and she said, "Can you give me a hug? Hugs for everyone!" and she hugged all 20 of us in turn, never losing her smile.
I asked Gloria if there was anything special we should look for in the house, anything she wanted us to save. It was the only time her face crumpled. A catch in her voice, she said, "Anything, anything of my mother's you can find." She left in tears.
That's why I do this, even when I can't breathe.
In Dreams
Remember my comment a while back, how Jordan doesn't feel he should be responsible in his waking state for crimes he commits in my dreams?
So last night, I had a dream that he was a two-timing jerk. I told him of his shocking misbehavior this morning.
Well, he said, I had a dream last night, too. Do you want to hear it?
No, I said.
I'm going to tell you anyway, he said. In my dream, you were selling nuclear weapons to Kim Jong Il, to fund the genocide in Darfur, which you were aiding with your boyfriend, country music star Toby Keith.
(He did not add his standard, "And you loved Toby Keith so much you were going to marry him and rename yourself Natalie Toby Keith." He pulls that one out anytime I say I hate someone (male).)
Really? I said. I don't believe you.
And really, dear readers, do you believe that dream?
At least my dreams are real.
So last night, I had a dream that he was a two-timing jerk. I told him of his shocking misbehavior this morning.
Well, he said, I had a dream last night, too. Do you want to hear it?
No, I said.
I'm going to tell you anyway, he said. In my dream, you were selling nuclear weapons to Kim Jong Il, to fund the genocide in Darfur, which you were aiding with your boyfriend, country music star Toby Keith.
(He did not add his standard, "And you loved Toby Keith so much you were going to marry him and rename yourself Natalie Toby Keith." He pulls that one out anytime I say I hate someone (male).)
Really? I said. I don't believe you.
And really, dear readers, do you believe that dream?
At least my dreams are real.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Job Conditions, Pt. 1
I hate roaches, especially NOLA roaches. They're big and they fly and if you smoosh them, they crunch. (Tell me, what is the evolutionary benefit of putting wings on these things?) On "Fear Factor," they had a stunt where contestants had to lie in a clear box for a minute while hissing cockroaches swarmed their bodies. And let me say this, no way. Not for $1 million. Not for $2 million. I just couldn't do it. No other non-stinging insect has such an effect on me. (But I am a hater of the stingers, too. I once spent four hours at the gym. Not because of any love of fitness, but because I had woken up at my parents' house to find dozens of wasps flying in the air above me. They had built a nest into the wall of the house and into my room. Instead of dealing with the wasps, I screamed repeatedly, grabbed a gym bag, and took aerobic class after aerobic class to avoid going home again.) (Maybe someone needs to unleash some wasps in my bedroom now. Or maybe they can be trained to swarm around my fridge.)
Let me tell you my most terrifying personal roach experience: It was 1998. My notably unreliable boyfriend at the time had failed to fully close a box of -- I think it was pasta or cereal -- before he put it in the cabinet. I came home from work and was on the phone with my friend Sue. I decided to take out said box and pour it into a bowl or pot or whatever it was. I can't remember, because all I can remember were the roaches that came tumbling out of the box. I threw the box on the ground, screaming for all I'm worth, then I grabbed the can of Raid and sprayed, sprayed, sprayed at each and every roach as it scurried out of that box. There were complete roach families in there. They kept coming, I kept spraying and screaming. I sprayed until the can was empty and I screamed myself hoarse. I sprayed so much that I couldn't stay in the house. I screamed so much that I was surprised my neighbor didn't call the police. (I asked him if he'd heard me and he said no. That didn't make me feel safe.) (Sue, by the way, escaped unharmed save for ear pain and some emotional scars.)
To this day, my first reaction is to put everything that's opened - cereal, baking products, chips, bread, etc - into the fridge. My sister mocks me for this. We'll see who is laughing when she is attacked.
But I knew, coming here, that I would have to face my roach fear. Before I arrived, one friend told me a gutting story that went like this, "Blah blah blah, blab blab blab, and then I pulled down the ceiling tile and DOZENS of roaches fell on top of me. Blah blah blah." He could have added, "And one of the roaches had the face of my wife and it opened its mouth and told me to pick up milk on the way home," and I wouldn't have heard it. I was lost in the horror of that moment, being showered in roaches.What if one of them got in my pocket, liked it, decided to make it his home? (True story: Friend of mine goes and buys a few pounds of crawfish. His wife, a great hater of seafood like myself, kindly allows him to bring it into their home ... where the paper bag promptly breaks, sending cooked crawfish all over the room. OK, that's gross enough. Now fast forward a few weeks. My crawfish-loving friend is at work. He reaches into his jacket pocket, at random, and what does he find? A shriveled up crawfish. "It didn't even smell that badly," he said.)
There are days when I'll kill more than a dozen cockroaches. I've forced myself to get above my crunching horror and just kill them: With my feet, a crowbar, a hammer, whatever is handy at the time. Infant in arms at time of cockroach onslaught? Doesn't matter. The roaches must die. One recent day, for example, I was so proud of myself because I didn't flinch -much - when we were pulling down sheetrock and I kept uncovering hoardes of roaches that would then scurry off and hide before I could slay them. It made me nervous, knowing they were in there, watching, but I kept going.
So roaches are one less-than-ideal aspect of what I do. Another? The smells. I'll get into that on another post
Let me tell you my most terrifying personal roach experience: It was 1998. My notably unreliable boyfriend at the time had failed to fully close a box of -- I think it was pasta or cereal -- before he put it in the cabinet. I came home from work and was on the phone with my friend Sue. I decided to take out said box and pour it into a bowl or pot or whatever it was. I can't remember, because all I can remember were the roaches that came tumbling out of the box. I threw the box on the ground, screaming for all I'm worth, then I grabbed the can of Raid and sprayed, sprayed, sprayed at each and every roach as it scurried out of that box. There were complete roach families in there. They kept coming, I kept spraying and screaming. I sprayed until the can was empty and I screamed myself hoarse. I sprayed so much that I couldn't stay in the house. I screamed so much that I was surprised my neighbor didn't call the police. (I asked him if he'd heard me and he said no. That didn't make me feel safe.) (Sue, by the way, escaped unharmed save for ear pain and some emotional scars.)
To this day, my first reaction is to put everything that's opened - cereal, baking products, chips, bread, etc - into the fridge. My sister mocks me for this. We'll see who is laughing when she is attacked.
But I knew, coming here, that I would have to face my roach fear. Before I arrived, one friend told me a gutting story that went like this, "Blah blah blah, blab blab blab, and then I pulled down the ceiling tile and DOZENS of roaches fell on top of me. Blah blah blah." He could have added, "And one of the roaches had the face of my wife and it opened its mouth and told me to pick up milk on the way home," and I wouldn't have heard it. I was lost in the horror of that moment, being showered in roaches.What if one of them got in my pocket, liked it, decided to make it his home? (True story: Friend of mine goes and buys a few pounds of crawfish. His wife, a great hater of seafood like myself, kindly allows him to bring it into their home ... where the paper bag promptly breaks, sending cooked crawfish all over the room. OK, that's gross enough. Now fast forward a few weeks. My crawfish-loving friend is at work. He reaches into his jacket pocket, at random, and what does he find? A shriveled up crawfish. "It didn't even smell that badly," he said.)
There are days when I'll kill more than a dozen cockroaches. I've forced myself to get above my crunching horror and just kill them: With my feet, a crowbar, a hammer, whatever is handy at the time. Infant in arms at time of cockroach onslaught? Doesn't matter. The roaches must die. One recent day, for example, I was so proud of myself because I didn't flinch -much - when we were pulling down sheetrock and I kept uncovering hoardes of roaches that would then scurry off and hide before I could slay them. It made me nervous, knowing they were in there, watching, but I kept going.
So roaches are one less-than-ideal aspect of what I do. Another? The smells. I'll get into that on another post
Crazy, but not that Crazy
Defendant was in court the other, not my client but was there for an evaluation to see if he was competent enough to stand trial. After hearing from the doctors who evaluated him, the judge made a clear finding that client was unable to understand what was happening to him, that he was unable to assist his attorney and that he had a best a tenuous grip on reality. Given that, the judge ordered client held until they could place him in a mental institution.
Client erupted, screaming that he was being railroaded, that this was unfair and he didn't know why this happening?
Judge: "If you can't control yourself I am going to find you in contempt and give you six months in jail."
Client: "Well didn't you just have a hearing where you said I didn't know what I was doing."
Judge: "Sir we determined you were incompetent."
Client: "So I can't go to trial because I'm crazy, but I am not crazy enough to avoid getting in more trouble."
Well, yeah, I guess.
Client erupted, screaming that he was being railroaded, that this was unfair and he didn't know why this happening?
Judge: "If you can't control yourself I am going to find you in contempt and give you six months in jail."
Client: "Well didn't you just have a hearing where you said I didn't know what I was doing."
Judge: "Sir we determined you were incompetent."
Client: "So I can't go to trial because I'm crazy, but I am not crazy enough to avoid getting in more trouble."
Well, yeah, I guess.
God
Of all of the difficulties in doing criminal defense work, I am becoming more and more convinced that God may be one of the more infuriating ones. I don't mean the actual being (whether they are out there or not) but rather the faith most clients place in God sorting out what is actually a horrible situation.
I had a client a few weeks back who was arrested for a string of violent crimes and in addition to being caught with four or five items corroborating his involvement and five civilians (they don't know the defendant) identifying him, he also gave a videotaped statement confessing to the crime. The judge has already said he would at the very least double the clients time if this case went to trial rather than plead guilty, which would definitely mean that after a trial client would be lucky to get out of jail before he was 75 (if he lived that long).
Horrible situation, and while we certainly could have a trial, it wasn't a case where we were likely going to win an acquittal, and gambling thirty years of a clients life on a case like this wasn't something that I would advise.
Client's response, "I am not worried, God will get me out of this . . . ."
Hmm, so God is going to come down and suppress all of the evidence, get the witnesses not to show up and cause the videotaped confession to disappear? God somehow is going to come down and fix the mess that you are in?
Client: "I am just going to trial and put my faith in god, he will vindicate me at trial"
Two weeks later, same response. "God will provide, I just have to put my faith in him."
This is not an uncommon occurrence, where clients, feeling lost and in a horrible situation, step back from trying to figure out how to get through a horrible situation and instead jump into a wonderful world where nothing can be proved or disproved (maybe god will save them, but who knows). I guess this could be seen as an expression of faith and belief in a world and life greater than that of this mortal earth. I guess that having a belief system in times of stress may allow someone to get through a horrible situation with a sense of dignity and belief in something larger than their current predicament.
But maybe, just maybe, turning to God is a way of avoiding having to make a remarkably difficult decision and pawn it off on God.
I had a client a few weeks back who was arrested for a string of violent crimes and in addition to being caught with four or five items corroborating his involvement and five civilians (they don't know the defendant) identifying him, he also gave a videotaped statement confessing to the crime. The judge has already said he would at the very least double the clients time if this case went to trial rather than plead guilty, which would definitely mean that after a trial client would be lucky to get out of jail before he was 75 (if he lived that long).
Horrible situation, and while we certainly could have a trial, it wasn't a case where we were likely going to win an acquittal, and gambling thirty years of a clients life on a case like this wasn't something that I would advise.
Client's response, "I am not worried, God will get me out of this . . . ."
Hmm, so God is going to come down and suppress all of the evidence, get the witnesses not to show up and cause the videotaped confession to disappear? God somehow is going to come down and fix the mess that you are in?
Client: "I am just going to trial and put my faith in god, he will vindicate me at trial"
Two weeks later, same response. "God will provide, I just have to put my faith in him."
This is not an uncommon occurrence, where clients, feeling lost and in a horrible situation, step back from trying to figure out how to get through a horrible situation and instead jump into a wonderful world where nothing can be proved or disproved (maybe god will save them, but who knows). I guess this could be seen as an expression of faith and belief in a world and life greater than that of this mortal earth. I guess that having a belief system in times of stress may allow someone to get through a horrible situation with a sense of dignity and belief in something larger than their current predicament.
But maybe, just maybe, turning to God is a way of avoiding having to make a remarkably difficult decision and pawn it off on God.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
The Evil Men Do
Not Jordo. Please. (Although I did have a dream recently and he was a real jerk in it but he seems to think that he shouldn't be responsible for the things he does in my dreams. What kind of logic is that?)
I'm talking about the men (and women) who take advantage of people while they're down. The people who flocked to New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm with the soul purpose of benefitting from the misery of others.
People from outside the city will ask me, "What's wrong with the people down there? Why don't they have their lives together yet?" And there are a million answers I can give: federal aid that isn't yet; insurance money that may never be; the incredible, often paralyzing, stress of losing everything, possibly including your job or a loved one; the shortage of construction workers and contractors in the city.
Or, at the least, reliable contractors. The group leader of the organization I was working with this week told me there are hundreds, if not thousands, of homeowners who have found themselves robbed by the people who were being paid to help them.
Now meet Miss Dorothy, the reason for this post.
I helped gut Miss Dorothy's Gentilly home this week. No big. I gut houses all the time. Miss Dorothy's story was sad, but at this point, sad is almost standard. She's in her 80s, born and raised in New Orleans, a mother and grandmother with one true apple of her eye, grandson Paul, in his 30s, who lived on the other side of the shotgun double she bought about a dozen years ago. Before the storm, Miss D was active and mostly healthy and worked at a local nursing home as a "senior helping seniors." She evacuated with them. For a few days, they bounced around Louisiana, at one point staying in a school that partially collapsed during the storm. She didn't have a cell phone and she didn't have all of her children's cell phone numbers. In fact, she was so busy taking care of others that she didn't even realize what had happened in New Orleans until someone told her about it at one of the shelters.
"I said, 'You lying! New Orleans?' and he said, 'You're never going home again," Miss Dorothy told me and the other volunteers as we stood on the street outside her home this week. She was neatly dressed in black pants and a black and white button-down shirt, with silver earrings. gold rings and a gold and silver watch. She leaned on a cane while she spoke until Paul, her grandson, found her a battered lawn chair. "I went to watch the television and I couldn't believe what I was seeing."
She got choked up while she was talking, especially when she described how, for days, she didn't know if her children and grandchildren were alive and dead. It was more than a month before she was finally able to speak to Paul on the phone. She bounched around the country, spending months with nieces in California, before returning to her son's home in Louisiana. She was weaker, sicker than she'd been before the storm and unable to be a "senior helping seniors" any longer, but she was determined to be home again. She had flood insurance. She thought she could rebuild.
She hired a contractor her son had met. He was licensed AND he was a minister in his chuch back in Alabama. He seemed godly and kind.
So she paid him more than $44,000.
It was only later -- after he'd left town, the job about 3/4 of the way done -- that she realized she'd been taken. The work was beyond shoddy: It would have been dangerous for her to live in that house. As we ripped down the sheetrock, we found another layer of mold-covered plaster attached to slats of mold- and sometimes termit-shredded wood.
Miss Dorothy went to Alabama, to the contractor's church, to ask for her money back. She met his wife, his children, and he looked her in the eyes and told her he was sorry if she was unsatisfied but he had no money to refund her and he had filed for bankruptcy. She described sitting in the church, watching this man at the front, with everyone looking at him with respect. And she knew what he really was.
Paul stood next to his grandmother's chair while she spoke. He smiled at her, filled in some details, brought her some water. But Paul, so amiable with us and gentle with his grandmother, got more serious when he and I spoke privately during lunch. I told him I'd had problems with an unscrupulous contractor, too. (Not you, Mike Armstrong, but if you are reading this, that means you are not at my house fixing my moldy ceiling/roof, which could mean a future hostile post about you. You have been warned.) The loss of money was upsetting, I told him, but what was worse was how stupid I felt, gullible, used.
Paul said he understood. His face darkened and grew more tense as he spoke, "I don't know what we're going to do if we can't get that money back. This is going to kill her. The storm was bad but this is going to kill her. And if something happens to my grandma ... she's my heart. I don't know what I'm going to do without her. But I know I'll do something. Nobody's going to get away with this."
I said, "No jury would convict you. Call me if you get in trouble. I know some defense attorneys."
I'm talking about the men (and women) who take advantage of people while they're down. The people who flocked to New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm with the soul purpose of benefitting from the misery of others.
People from outside the city will ask me, "What's wrong with the people down there? Why don't they have their lives together yet?" And there are a million answers I can give: federal aid that isn't yet; insurance money that may never be; the incredible, often paralyzing, stress of losing everything, possibly including your job or a loved one; the shortage of construction workers and contractors in the city.
Or, at the least, reliable contractors. The group leader of the organization I was working with this week told me there are hundreds, if not thousands, of homeowners who have found themselves robbed by the people who were being paid to help them.
Now meet Miss Dorothy, the reason for this post.
I helped gut Miss Dorothy's Gentilly home this week. No big. I gut houses all the time. Miss Dorothy's story was sad, but at this point, sad is almost standard. She's in her 80s, born and raised in New Orleans, a mother and grandmother with one true apple of her eye, grandson Paul, in his 30s, who lived on the other side of the shotgun double she bought about a dozen years ago. Before the storm, Miss D was active and mostly healthy and worked at a local nursing home as a "senior helping seniors." She evacuated with them. For a few days, they bounced around Louisiana, at one point staying in a school that partially collapsed during the storm. She didn't have a cell phone and she didn't have all of her children's cell phone numbers. In fact, she was so busy taking care of others that she didn't even realize what had happened in New Orleans until someone told her about it at one of the shelters.
"I said, 'You lying! New Orleans?' and he said, 'You're never going home again," Miss Dorothy told me and the other volunteers as we stood on the street outside her home this week. She was neatly dressed in black pants and a black and white button-down shirt, with silver earrings. gold rings and a gold and silver watch. She leaned on a cane while she spoke until Paul, her grandson, found her a battered lawn chair. "I went to watch the television and I couldn't believe what I was seeing."
She got choked up while she was talking, especially when she described how, for days, she didn't know if her children and grandchildren were alive and dead. It was more than a month before she was finally able to speak to Paul on the phone. She bounched around the country, spending months with nieces in California, before returning to her son's home in Louisiana. She was weaker, sicker than she'd been before the storm and unable to be a "senior helping seniors" any longer, but she was determined to be home again. She had flood insurance. She thought she could rebuild.
She hired a contractor her son had met. He was licensed AND he was a minister in his chuch back in Alabama. He seemed godly and kind.
So she paid him more than $44,000.
It was only later -- after he'd left town, the job about 3/4 of the way done -- that she realized she'd been taken. The work was beyond shoddy: It would have been dangerous for her to live in that house. As we ripped down the sheetrock, we found another layer of mold-covered plaster attached to slats of mold- and sometimes termit-shredded wood.
Miss Dorothy went to Alabama, to the contractor's church, to ask for her money back. She met his wife, his children, and he looked her in the eyes and told her he was sorry if she was unsatisfied but he had no money to refund her and he had filed for bankruptcy. She described sitting in the church, watching this man at the front, with everyone looking at him with respect. And she knew what he really was.
Paul stood next to his grandmother's chair while she spoke. He smiled at her, filled in some details, brought her some water. But Paul, so amiable with us and gentle with his grandmother, got more serious when he and I spoke privately during lunch. I told him I'd had problems with an unscrupulous contractor, too. (Not you, Mike Armstrong, but if you are reading this, that means you are not at my house fixing my moldy ceiling/roof, which could mean a future hostile post about you. You have been warned.) The loss of money was upsetting, I told him, but what was worse was how stupid I felt, gullible, used.
Paul said he understood. His face darkened and grew more tense as he spoke, "I don't know what we're going to do if we can't get that money back. This is going to kill her. The storm was bad but this is going to kill her. And if something happens to my grandma ... she's my heart. I don't know what I'm going to do without her. But I know I'll do something. Nobody's going to get away with this."
I said, "No jury would convict you. Call me if you get in trouble. I know some defense attorneys."
Thursday, April 12, 2007
I GOT NO PATIENCE, AND I HATE WAITING
If I ever take over the world, one of the first things I am going to do is introduce the “Correctional Officers Get Off Your Ass and Do Some Work Act (of 2007, 2008 or whatever year I seize control)”
For some reason that may be my lack of charm or lack of grit, whenever I go to jail to see a client there must be some special signal that makes the officers delay bringing my client down to see me. It could be 8:00 am on a Sunday, no one else there and my client in the next booth, but for some reason it takes 2 hours for the guard to walk 5 feet over to let him in to talk to me.
Today I went to the jail at about 1:00 pm, ready with a crossword puzzle and a sudoku from the paper. One hour goes by, nothing. Then two other attorneys show up, have their clients brought in within 5 minutes. Two more attorneys show up and their clients are immediately brought down. I am beginning to feel more and more like the last kid to get picked at kickball, watching all the better athletes pass me by.
After about two hours, I have finished the crossword and the sudoku and find myself reading the bridge hand section. (I haven’t played bridge since college and can barely remember how it works. Back in 1995 the main goal of bridge was to get Anne Halsey to go on a date with me, so you can imagine how much I remember about the actual game). I finally go back down to the desk officer and it goes something like this:
Me: “Do you know when my client will be down”
Officer (playing computer pool and totally lining up the shot wrong): “I called, so shortly”
Me: “You called two hours ago, what’s shortly”
Officer (missing the shot on computer pool): “Well shortly”
Me: “Is there anyone who can help get him down here?”
Officer: “You wanna talk to a supervisor?”
Ahh the supervisor, now my heart leaps at the idea of someone in charge getting down here to help me out. Unfortunately, apparently the only difference between the supervising officer and the desk officer is that the supervisor says my client will be down “soon” rather than “shortly.” Such are the perks of authority.
After about 3 hours, having exhausted the paper, contemplated the meaning of life, wondering whether the officer was contemplating the meaning of life, trying to calculate pi to a ridiculous decimal and deciding that maybe Starbuck was really the 5th Cylon, they bring in my client.
After about ten minutes he decided that he didn’t want to talk about the case anymore because it was getting close to food time and told me to come see him tomorrow. I said I wasn’t going to do that given my schedule, so I agreed to meet him over the weekend.
On the way out, the desk officer said “Are you done already? That was a long wait to talk to him (client) that little?”
Indeed.
For some reason that may be my lack of charm or lack of grit, whenever I go to jail to see a client there must be some special signal that makes the officers delay bringing my client down to see me. It could be 8:00 am on a Sunday, no one else there and my client in the next booth, but for some reason it takes 2 hours for the guard to walk 5 feet over to let him in to talk to me.
Today I went to the jail at about 1:00 pm, ready with a crossword puzzle and a sudoku from the paper. One hour goes by, nothing. Then two other attorneys show up, have their clients brought in within 5 minutes. Two more attorneys show up and their clients are immediately brought down. I am beginning to feel more and more like the last kid to get picked at kickball, watching all the better athletes pass me by.
After about two hours, I have finished the crossword and the sudoku and find myself reading the bridge hand section. (I haven’t played bridge since college and can barely remember how it works. Back in 1995 the main goal of bridge was to get Anne Halsey to go on a date with me, so you can imagine how much I remember about the actual game). I finally go back down to the desk officer and it goes something like this:
Me: “Do you know when my client will be down”
Officer (playing computer pool and totally lining up the shot wrong): “I called, so shortly”
Me: “You called two hours ago, what’s shortly”
Officer (missing the shot on computer pool): “Well shortly”
Me: “Is there anyone who can help get him down here?”
Officer: “You wanna talk to a supervisor?”
Ahh the supervisor, now my heart leaps at the idea of someone in charge getting down here to help me out. Unfortunately, apparently the only difference between the supervising officer and the desk officer is that the supervisor says my client will be down “soon” rather than “shortly.” Such are the perks of authority.
After about 3 hours, having exhausted the paper, contemplated the meaning of life, wondering whether the officer was contemplating the meaning of life, trying to calculate pi to a ridiculous decimal and deciding that maybe Starbuck was really the 5th Cylon, they bring in my client.
After about ten minutes he decided that he didn’t want to talk about the case anymore because it was getting close to food time and told me to come see him tomorrow. I said I wasn’t going to do that given my schedule, so I agreed to meet him over the weekend.
On the way out, the desk officer said “Are you done already? That was a long wait to talk to him (client) that little?”
Indeed.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
On Being Nancy Drew as I've Always Dreamed
Back to my strongpoint this week -- destruction.
Most of the time, when you're gutting a house, you don't know that much about the people who used to live there. You might have a name and some details as to where they are now, but you don't know the names and ages of all of the occupants, or if their house was once the gathering point for holidays, or if the home had been newly constructed or a family legacy. You don't know if it was a happy home or a hellhole.
So you play detective, at least in your head, as you work. Or, at least, I do.
We were working at a house in Gentilly today, one of many now-empty homes on a once-busy street. It hadn't been occupied since before the storm. The homeowner had left a note asking us volunteers to try to preserve any molding or door frames that could be reused it in the rebuilding, but the house was way beyond that. About five feet of water had sat in here for weeks, and then the building had sat for more than a year. The only things the family could gain from the gutting was the recovery of some family treasures, and even those turned out to be few and far between.
But I needed a goal and decided it was to figure out the family. The game was afoot, as Sherlock said.
(But first, an aside into my love of Nancy Drew. When I was little, I wanted to be Nancy Drew. I wanted my dad to be a lawyer named Carson and my maid/surrogate mom to be Hannah Gruen and although I found my boyfriend Ned a little dull (even as a elementary schooler, I thought I could do better), I liked my friends George and Bess, but George more because Bess was a bit of a baby (even as an elementary schooler, I blamed that on the fact that she was blond). My mother will tell you I tried to solve mysteries in our house even when there were none. I tried to fingerprint family members with flour, ink, and tape even though I had no idea 1) how to do it, 2) how to read it if I could, 3) how to lift prints off of other objects. My mother will also tell you about "The Case of the Missing Cookies," in which 5 or 6-year-old me tried to determine which family member had absconded with most of a plate of Christmas desserts. Was it Mom? Dad? Gram? Pop? Could Pepe, our toy poodle, or Big Buy, our Great Dane, have been part of the crumb conspiracy? (Clearly, my sister had not been born, or she would have naturally become Suspect #1 even if she couldn't swallow solids.) My mother will say I went to everyone in the house, trying to get fingerprints and questioning them and making a mess and carrying on while wearing a baseball cap and squinting as if through a magnifying glass although I had none ---- and in the end, the culprit was me. I think she's insane and that this is one of her revisionist memories altered for comic effect at my expense, but I do remember the family-wide fingerprinting attempts.) (Or, to put a positive spin on my possible guilt/cover up, I'm like Kaiser Soze before my time.)
The house had four beds: One in what was clearly the master (adult) bedroom, two twins in one room and another full with a canopy in another. A few photos remained: a smiling couple, looking very 1980s; a teenage boy in a Sean John shirt; a boy of about 4; two teenage girls with their faces pressed together. Among the few legible documents I found was a reminder postcard from a dentist.
The master bedroom, where I found some of the pictures, had an ornate, wooden headboard that fell apart as we pulled it out. It was a bed built for two, but other things in the room made me think it was a female-only dwelling: The small closet seemed to only contain women's clothes and TONS of women's shoes. The dresser, which also fell apart in our hands, had lots of lace, no boxers. Lots of make-up and creams and perfumes. A single woman had occupied that bedroom, I concluded. (Of course, I could be wrong. Come to our house in Philly and you might conclude the same as I have the entire third floor closet and some of Jordo's undergarments are just as delicately made and ornate as mi--- never mind.)
One bedroom was movie set teeny-bopper, but teeny bopper from Summer 2005. (Actually, it may have been more 2000. Backstreet Boys, N'Sync AND Britney, still on the walls?) But there was also a "Class of 2005" poster on one wall and a few paintings that looked more elementary school than high school. There were high school yearbooks and cheerleading costume complete with poms, but also a stuffed Elmo and a big collection of stuffed animals, including a teddy bear head. Girls' clothes in the drawers, including one white bra with green mold that had totally over-sculpted cups that would turn an A-cup into Carmen Electra. So daughters, I concluded. Two of them. One in her late teens, done with high school. The other about 11. The stuffed animals belonged to her, remnants of her childhood. The teenybopper posters did, too: After all, she was the little sister and would adopt the likes of her older sister, at least at first, meaning she may still have been clinging to the Boy Band glory days while her sister had moved on. (Did I not turn my sister into the world's youngest Duran Duran fan? Child thought she was actually going to marry Simon LeBon and she was 7.)
The final bedroom had the two twins. The walls were bare except for one alphabet poster. In one corner, we found a bunch of sports trophies and a plaque from a car show at the Superdome. There was a box of those monster cards -- Yu Gi Oh or Pokemon or whatever it is the kids play with today. (I used to play Pokemon with a kid I knew all the time but I could never understand the cards so I'd try to hide that fact with a dramatic presentation each hand. I always lost.) There were boys clothes, lots of little shoes. Brothers, I decided. One teen, based on the photo I'd found in the other room. The other elementary school aged.
So my final deductions: One parent (female), four children - two girls, two boys. When the storm hit, the oldest had just gotten out of the high school, the youngest was just learning to read.
Of course, I'll never really know who lived there. Or where they are now. Unlike the Nancy Drew books, things don't always tie up neatly in the end here. I just hope they were happy.
Most of the time, when you're gutting a house, you don't know that much about the people who used to live there. You might have a name and some details as to where they are now, but you don't know the names and ages of all of the occupants, or if their house was once the gathering point for holidays, or if the home had been newly constructed or a family legacy. You don't know if it was a happy home or a hellhole.
So you play detective, at least in your head, as you work. Or, at least, I do.
We were working at a house in Gentilly today, one of many now-empty homes on a once-busy street. It hadn't been occupied since before the storm. The homeowner had left a note asking us volunteers to try to preserve any molding or door frames that could be reused it in the rebuilding, but the house was way beyond that. About five feet of water had sat in here for weeks, and then the building had sat for more than a year. The only things the family could gain from the gutting was the recovery of some family treasures, and even those turned out to be few and far between.
But I needed a goal and decided it was to figure out the family. The game was afoot, as Sherlock said.
(But first, an aside into my love of Nancy Drew. When I was little, I wanted to be Nancy Drew. I wanted my dad to be a lawyer named Carson and my maid/surrogate mom to be Hannah Gruen and although I found my boyfriend Ned a little dull (even as a elementary schooler, I thought I could do better), I liked my friends George and Bess, but George more because Bess was a bit of a baby (even as an elementary schooler, I blamed that on the fact that she was blond). My mother will tell you I tried to solve mysteries in our house even when there were none. I tried to fingerprint family members with flour, ink, and tape even though I had no idea 1) how to do it, 2) how to read it if I could, 3) how to lift prints off of other objects. My mother will also tell you about "The Case of the Missing Cookies," in which 5 or 6-year-old me tried to determine which family member had absconded with most of a plate of Christmas desserts. Was it Mom? Dad? Gram? Pop? Could Pepe, our toy poodle, or Big Buy, our Great Dane, have been part of the crumb conspiracy? (Clearly, my sister had not been born, or she would have naturally become Suspect #1 even if she couldn't swallow solids.) My mother will say I went to everyone in the house, trying to get fingerprints and questioning them and making a mess and carrying on while wearing a baseball cap and squinting as if through a magnifying glass although I had none ---- and in the end, the culprit was me. I think she's insane and that this is one of her revisionist memories altered for comic effect at my expense, but I do remember the family-wide fingerprinting attempts.) (Or, to put a positive spin on my possible guilt/cover up, I'm like Kaiser Soze before my time.)
The house had four beds: One in what was clearly the master (adult) bedroom, two twins in one room and another full with a canopy in another. A few photos remained: a smiling couple, looking very 1980s; a teenage boy in a Sean John shirt; a boy of about 4; two teenage girls with their faces pressed together. Among the few legible documents I found was a reminder postcard from a dentist.
The master bedroom, where I found some of the pictures, had an ornate, wooden headboard that fell apart as we pulled it out. It was a bed built for two, but other things in the room made me think it was a female-only dwelling: The small closet seemed to only contain women's clothes and TONS of women's shoes. The dresser, which also fell apart in our hands, had lots of lace, no boxers. Lots of make-up and creams and perfumes. A single woman had occupied that bedroom, I concluded. (Of course, I could be wrong. Come to our house in Philly and you might conclude the same as I have the entire third floor closet and some of Jordo's undergarments are just as delicately made and ornate as mi--- never mind.)
One bedroom was movie set teeny-bopper, but teeny bopper from Summer 2005. (Actually, it may have been more 2000. Backstreet Boys, N'Sync AND Britney, still on the walls?) But there was also a "Class of 2005" poster on one wall and a few paintings that looked more elementary school than high school. There were high school yearbooks and cheerleading costume complete with poms, but also a stuffed Elmo and a big collection of stuffed animals, including a teddy bear head. Girls' clothes in the drawers, including one white bra with green mold that had totally over-sculpted cups that would turn an A-cup into Carmen Electra. So daughters, I concluded. Two of them. One in her late teens, done with high school. The other about 11. The stuffed animals belonged to her, remnants of her childhood. The teenybopper posters did, too: After all, she was the little sister and would adopt the likes of her older sister, at least at first, meaning she may still have been clinging to the Boy Band glory days while her sister had moved on. (Did I not turn my sister into the world's youngest Duran Duran fan? Child thought she was actually going to marry Simon LeBon and she was 7.)
The final bedroom had the two twins. The walls were bare except for one alphabet poster. In one corner, we found a bunch of sports trophies and a plaque from a car show at the Superdome. There was a box of those monster cards -- Yu Gi Oh or Pokemon or whatever it is the kids play with today. (I used to play Pokemon with a kid I knew all the time but I could never understand the cards so I'd try to hide that fact with a dramatic presentation each hand. I always lost.) There were boys clothes, lots of little shoes. Brothers, I decided. One teen, based on the photo I'd found in the other room. The other elementary school aged.
So my final deductions: One parent (female), four children - two girls, two boys. When the storm hit, the oldest had just gotten out of the high school, the youngest was just learning to read.
Of course, I'll never really know who lived there. Or where they are now. Unlike the Nancy Drew books, things don't always tie up neatly in the end here. I just hope they were happy.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Friday, April 6, 2007
"God May Not Come When You Want Him But He Is Always on Time."
An unusual week for me, because instead of destroying houses, I joined a group that was rebuilding one. And the people we were working for were there the whole time, living in a trailer in front of their home-in-progress, walking through the house each day and marveling at the work and thanking us over and over again.
Charles and Winnie were the homeowners. Charles is about 70, Winnie about 63. They'd moved out of the 9th Ward and into this blond brick ranch-style house in eastern New Orleans just a few weeks before the storm. (Both their houses -- old and new -- were flooded.In fact, the one in the 9th Ward was knocked right off its foundation.) A group of volunteers had come and gutted the house more than a year ago, but the couple had been unable to rebuild. Instead, they were living in a trailer in the front yard. I've seen a lot of FEMA trailers, but somehow, theirs seemed even smaller than usual: You couldn't stand side-by-side inside the width of it and the bedroom was basically a bed with no room to move on either side of it. But they'd decorated with prayer cards all around the door and in the bathroom so small that it seemed you'd be unable to lift your arms to wash while in the shower, they had a peach shower curtain and a peach scrubber that matched it.
They could live in the cramped quarters, but they really wanted the house to be complete: Winnie's mother is 97 and needed to come live with them.
The rebuilding crew was a good bunch of folks, about 25 strong, mostly from Pittsburgh. Most were teenagers, but there were couples and even entire families there. (Which led me to imagine what it would be like if the Pompilios went on a similar trip: Lou, out buying everyone food, which would be the best thing as his gifts in the home/gardening realm are limited as evidenced by the time he decided to trim the trees in front of our house and managed to kill them. Trimming. And they were evergreens. Those things never die; Mom, with cigarette. In wheelchair. "Supervising." Loudly. As she does now when we help her prepare a holiday meal; Tricia, single-handedly constructing most of the house, her only challenge being if asked to light a fire as the last time she tried to ignite one in her own fireplace she was puzzled that tossing matches on full logs didn't work; me, well-meaning, but really quite clumsy, living up to the "bull in a china shop" description my mother pressed on me years ago. This lack of grace was evident during this adventure, when, while helping install insulation in the attic, I put my foot through the ceiling. It's hard to look/feel cool when your leg is dangling in the hallway and the rest of you is among the rafters.)(Ironically, I was born on a Tuesday and according to the old rhyme, Tuesday's child is "full of grace." Full of something, friends, but it ain't grace.)
Besides the Pitt crew, there were a few strays like myself, including Mark and Tamara from Washington (Hi, guys!) and Beth from San Francisco, one of Jordo's oldest friends -- and our guest blogger, see above or below or wherever it is if she actually follows through and writes us something -- who made a point of noting that she wanted inclusion in any blog entry about this week. (Does this count? Because really, if I have to start talking about you, Beth, that just takes the focus off of me.) (And by the way, I think I'm done mentioning you now, unless I decide to detail your harrowing day dealing with fractions and mismeasured trim or your age-inappropriate crushes on other members of the work crew.)
(Just kidding, reading public. Don't call the police.)
Now back to me.
I missed the first day of work at the house but I caught up with everyone on the second. It was a painting day. I met Charles right out front. "I have no teeth and a Southern accent so I can be hard to understand," he said. He immediately gave me a tour. He was so proud of everything that had been done, and it was far from done. He also insisted on showing me his back yard. A few weeks earlier, another volunteer group had come through and created a little seating area there for him and his wife. They'd used bricks to make side tables for metal furniture that was mostly missing cushions. They'd brought in some potted plants that already looked like they'd seen better days. "This is our salvation," Charles told me. "After being in that trailer all day, this is just so nice." He kept pointing out the tables made of bricks, and the way the volunteers had used some of the other bricks to line part of the yard. "That just makes it so cozy," he said.
Charles was just so friendly, so willing to talk about anything. (And so loving to talk. He later blamed that on being raised Baptist. Kids today, he said, complain about going to church but they don't know what it was like when he was coming up and church was all day and "you'd fall asleep and they'd wake you up and you'd be hungry and then you'd take a break in the afternoon and go back again at night. Lord...") One morning, he was going on about tv programs and "American Idol," one of his favorites, and how Sanjaya should not still be among the contestants. He said that when the show was on, if the phone would ring, Winnie would say, "Who could be calling us NOW?" He liked Simon, he said, because Simon made the show. Just like JR once made "Dallas" and Alexis made "Dynasty" and had we watched those shows too? "Those were some soap operas," Charles said, shaking his head.
I've worked with religiously-affiliated groups since coming here but this week was the first time we started each day with a prayer circle. (We had another one before lunch, which can be annoying when you're hungry and want to eat but you can't get everyone into a circle. One day, Beth and I were about to start gnawing off our own arms because everyone was so slow.) (Second mention, Beth!) I didn't mind it. It was a good way to start off, all joined together. Roger, who usually led the group, was just so up-beat, even when he was giving out work assignments. "Have you walked through there today?" he'd say, referring to the house. "It looks AMAZING in there and that's all thanks to you and your hard work. I can't believe how far we've come in just a few days. But we've also got a ways to go, so let's see who is going to do what this morning..." (Roger was very nice. When my leg busted through the ceiling, he kinda shrugged and said, "To paraphrase a saying, stuff happens." I felt better.) A morning prayer circle was also the sight of one of the cutest things I've seen in a while: There was this crazy little brown terrier-type dog, Angel, that came running over from across the street when the vans pulled up each day. All of the kids loved Angel, as did we, even when Angel's dirty paws marred our freshly painted doors one day. During one morning prayer, one of the girls was holding Angel in one arm, meaning she couldn't join hands with the 14-year-old boy on one side. So he was holding the dog's paw without even thinking about it, just standing there. (I only wish Beth could have gotten a photo.) (Third.)
Charles led us in the prayer on a few of the days. His sentences were often punctuated by the words, "Oh Heavenly Father" and "Thank you." He always remembered to give thanks for the U.S. troops overseas and the fathers and mothers who let their children go so he could have his life in New Orleans. In part, it would go something like this, "Thank you, oh Heavenly Father, for another day you have given us, oh Heavenly Father and for bringing these wonderful people here from far and near here to help us, oh Heavenly Father, because you are so good and loving, oh Heavenly Father. And thank you for your sons and daughters overseas, oh Heavenly Father, who are risking their lives so that we may live these blessed lives, oh Heavenly Father. Keep them safe, oh Heavenly Father, and give them shelter, oh Heavenly Father, so that they can come home again, oh Heavenly Father Father. And thank you for their parents, oh Heavenly Father, because they have let them go so we can be free, oh Heavenly Father." Despite his lack of teeth and his Southern accent, Charles wasn't hard to understand when he prayed aloud.
So the work we did: Painting and windows and doors and trim and closets and floors and sanding and spackling and plumbing and insulating. We were volunteers, working for free, but you never got that idea. It was a professional work site, and everyone was trying to do the best job they could. (Thank God we had some professionals among us.) It wasn't just, "These people are lucky to get help at all. Let's just slap something together." It was careful, detailed. Beth (And here's number four.) and I devoted ourselves to caulking one afternoon and we took our job very seriously. There was something so satisfying about going into a room and making it look right and neat, and then having Charles come in behind us and say, "Oh, beautiful, just beautiful. Oh, Lord, thank you."
Charles and Winnie were often asked what they wanted and their wishes were granted, even the ones that seemed, well, odd, like her request for bright yellow pillars and front door with dark gray trim. (Basically, Saints colors, but I don't think that was intentional.) Charles wasn't shy about saying he wanted the original lanterns that had hung from the porch redone and replaced, so he joined a group sanding them for painting. (It was great to see this 70-year-old man surrounded by teenagers, all intent on the same task, chatting away.) Winnie wanted the group to pick a name for the house and they chose "Amazing Grace," inspired by an earlier evening when one of the church members had led them in the song, with some modified lyrics. One of the volunteers, an artist, painted the name in yellow on the gray trim around the front door, surrounded it with yellow flowers and vines. She painted a small gray cross in the middle of the yellow door.
On Good Friday, we gathered in the front room for a sort of dedication - almost all of the major work was done and the group would be returning to their homes in the next few days. We were joined by others who had been volunteering but working on another home. People sat on benches made from planks of wood and oversized plastic containers or on the floor or they leaned against the walls. One of the Pittsburgh pastors led the services, strumming a guitar and leading the group in song. Winnie and Charles sat next to him, with Winnie singing harmony each time, her voice always distinct from the others.
The pastor pointed out how appropriate it was we were gathering that day. Like so many New Orleanians after the storm, Jesus had felt forgotten and forsaken when he died. It was a dark day, he said, but the best part about that was knowing that things were going to get better: New Orleans, like Jesus, would rise again.
He asked the question, "When have you felt that God has forsaken you?" And Winnie, through tears, began telling their tale: How'd they just moved into the house when the storm hit, and they'd moved so they could have a place to bring her parents. The 11-hours they spent on a bus to Baker, La. The realization that they'd lost everything "and it's not the material things but why did this have to happen?" She talked about losing her father after the storm and how it had felt to be homeless, crammed into a shelter with dozens of others -- "I know what it's like to be hungry. I know what it's like to go to bed at night listening to the crying and moaning of the people around you. I know what it's like to be in pain and to think God has abandoned you."
Her soft sobs sparked tears around the room. Both men and women dabbed their eyes with coarse paper towels. I saw one woman lean into her husband, and it struck me because I hadn't even known they were married before, they'd seemed to disconnected.
Charles, who rubbed his wife's neck with one hand, while she spoke, took over for his wife at some point. He said he knew they suffered some, but he considered them blessed. He may have had arthritis pain in his shoulder but at least he could lift it and there were so many people who were unable to walk when "Uncle Arthur" visited. So many people had lost loved ones in the storm but he hadn't had to bury any of his children or grandchildren. He may have lost everything, but people came forward to give. "Everything I've got on, someone gave me," he said, tugging at his baseball cap and looking over his pants and shirt. (He actually made the comparison that if he were a man without shoes, at least he wasn't a man without feet. This is also one of my dad's favorite expressions. Like when I complained about losing my job, he said, "Remember, 'I felt bad because I had no shoes and then I saw a man with no feet.'" I replied, "Are there a lot of people with no feet around? Because I haven't seen any.")
God was good, God was good, Charles said repeatedly. He knew this because God had sent so many wonderful strangers to New Orleans to help his family get their lives back together.
"God may not come when you want him," Charles said, "but he is always on time."
Charles and Winnie were the homeowners. Charles is about 70, Winnie about 63. They'd moved out of the 9th Ward and into this blond brick ranch-style house in eastern New Orleans just a few weeks before the storm. (Both their houses -- old and new -- were flooded.In fact, the one in the 9th Ward was knocked right off its foundation.) A group of volunteers had come and gutted the house more than a year ago, but the couple had been unable to rebuild. Instead, they were living in a trailer in the front yard. I've seen a lot of FEMA trailers, but somehow, theirs seemed even smaller than usual: You couldn't stand side-by-side inside the width of it and the bedroom was basically a bed with no room to move on either side of it. But they'd decorated with prayer cards all around the door and in the bathroom so small that it seemed you'd be unable to lift your arms to wash while in the shower, they had a peach shower curtain and a peach scrubber that matched it.
They could live in the cramped quarters, but they really wanted the house to be complete: Winnie's mother is 97 and needed to come live with them.
The rebuilding crew was a good bunch of folks, about 25 strong, mostly from Pittsburgh. Most were teenagers, but there were couples and even entire families there. (Which led me to imagine what it would be like if the Pompilios went on a similar trip: Lou, out buying everyone food, which would be the best thing as his gifts in the home/gardening realm are limited as evidenced by the time he decided to trim the trees in front of our house and managed to kill them. Trimming. And they were evergreens. Those things never die; Mom, with cigarette. In wheelchair. "Supervising." Loudly. As she does now when we help her prepare a holiday meal; Tricia, single-handedly constructing most of the house, her only challenge being if asked to light a fire as the last time she tried to ignite one in her own fireplace she was puzzled that tossing matches on full logs didn't work; me, well-meaning, but really quite clumsy, living up to the "bull in a china shop" description my mother pressed on me years ago. This lack of grace was evident during this adventure, when, while helping install insulation in the attic, I put my foot through the ceiling. It's hard to look/feel cool when your leg is dangling in the hallway and the rest of you is among the rafters.)(Ironically, I was born on a Tuesday and according to the old rhyme, Tuesday's child is "full of grace." Full of something, friends, but it ain't grace.)
Besides the Pitt crew, there were a few strays like myself, including Mark and Tamara from Washington (Hi, guys!) and Beth from San Francisco, one of Jordo's oldest friends -- and our guest blogger, see above or below or wherever it is if she actually follows through and writes us something -- who made a point of noting that she wanted inclusion in any blog entry about this week. (Does this count? Because really, if I have to start talking about you, Beth, that just takes the focus off of me.) (And by the way, I think I'm done mentioning you now, unless I decide to detail your harrowing day dealing with fractions and mismeasured trim or your age-inappropriate crushes on other members of the work crew.)
(Just kidding, reading public. Don't call the police.)
Now back to me.
I missed the first day of work at the house but I caught up with everyone on the second. It was a painting day. I met Charles right out front. "I have no teeth and a Southern accent so I can be hard to understand," he said. He immediately gave me a tour. He was so proud of everything that had been done, and it was far from done. He also insisted on showing me his back yard. A few weeks earlier, another volunteer group had come through and created a little seating area there for him and his wife. They'd used bricks to make side tables for metal furniture that was mostly missing cushions. They'd brought in some potted plants that already looked like they'd seen better days. "This is our salvation," Charles told me. "After being in that trailer all day, this is just so nice." He kept pointing out the tables made of bricks, and the way the volunteers had used some of the other bricks to line part of the yard. "That just makes it so cozy," he said.
Charles was just so friendly, so willing to talk about anything. (And so loving to talk. He later blamed that on being raised Baptist. Kids today, he said, complain about going to church but they don't know what it was like when he was coming up and church was all day and "you'd fall asleep and they'd wake you up and you'd be hungry and then you'd take a break in the afternoon and go back again at night. Lord...") One morning, he was going on about tv programs and "American Idol," one of his favorites, and how Sanjaya should not still be among the contestants. He said that when the show was on, if the phone would ring, Winnie would say, "Who could be calling us NOW?" He liked Simon, he said, because Simon made the show. Just like JR once made "Dallas" and Alexis made "Dynasty" and had we watched those shows too? "Those were some soap operas," Charles said, shaking his head.
I've worked with religiously-affiliated groups since coming here but this week was the first time we started each day with a prayer circle. (We had another one before lunch, which can be annoying when you're hungry and want to eat but you can't get everyone into a circle. One day, Beth and I were about to start gnawing off our own arms because everyone was so slow.) (Second mention, Beth!) I didn't mind it. It was a good way to start off, all joined together. Roger, who usually led the group, was just so up-beat, even when he was giving out work assignments. "Have you walked through there today?" he'd say, referring to the house. "It looks AMAZING in there and that's all thanks to you and your hard work. I can't believe how far we've come in just a few days. But we've also got a ways to go, so let's see who is going to do what this morning..." (Roger was very nice. When my leg busted through the ceiling, he kinda shrugged and said, "To paraphrase a saying, stuff happens." I felt better.) A morning prayer circle was also the sight of one of the cutest things I've seen in a while: There was this crazy little brown terrier-type dog, Angel, that came running over from across the street when the vans pulled up each day. All of the kids loved Angel, as did we, even when Angel's dirty paws marred our freshly painted doors one day. During one morning prayer, one of the girls was holding Angel in one arm, meaning she couldn't join hands with the 14-year-old boy on one side. So he was holding the dog's paw without even thinking about it, just standing there. (I only wish Beth could have gotten a photo.) (Third.)
Charles led us in the prayer on a few of the days. His sentences were often punctuated by the words, "Oh Heavenly Father" and "Thank you." He always remembered to give thanks for the U.S. troops overseas and the fathers and mothers who let their children go so he could have his life in New Orleans. In part, it would go something like this, "Thank you, oh Heavenly Father, for another day you have given us, oh Heavenly Father and for bringing these wonderful people here from far and near here to help us, oh Heavenly Father, because you are so good and loving, oh Heavenly Father. And thank you for your sons and daughters overseas, oh Heavenly Father, who are risking their lives so that we may live these blessed lives, oh Heavenly Father. Keep them safe, oh Heavenly Father, and give them shelter, oh Heavenly Father, so that they can come home again, oh Heavenly Father Father. And thank you for their parents, oh Heavenly Father, because they have let them go so we can be free, oh Heavenly Father." Despite his lack of teeth and his Southern accent, Charles wasn't hard to understand when he prayed aloud.
So the work we did: Painting and windows and doors and trim and closets and floors and sanding and spackling and plumbing and insulating. We were volunteers, working for free, but you never got that idea. It was a professional work site, and everyone was trying to do the best job they could. (Thank God we had some professionals among us.) It wasn't just, "These people are lucky to get help at all. Let's just slap something together." It was careful, detailed. Beth (And here's number four.) and I devoted ourselves to caulking one afternoon and we took our job very seriously. There was something so satisfying about going into a room and making it look right and neat, and then having Charles come in behind us and say, "Oh, beautiful, just beautiful. Oh, Lord, thank you."
Charles and Winnie were often asked what they wanted and their wishes were granted, even the ones that seemed, well, odd, like her request for bright yellow pillars and front door with dark gray trim. (Basically, Saints colors, but I don't think that was intentional.) Charles wasn't shy about saying he wanted the original lanterns that had hung from the porch redone and replaced, so he joined a group sanding them for painting. (It was great to see this 70-year-old man surrounded by teenagers, all intent on the same task, chatting away.) Winnie wanted the group to pick a name for the house and they chose "Amazing Grace," inspired by an earlier evening when one of the church members had led them in the song, with some modified lyrics. One of the volunteers, an artist, painted the name in yellow on the gray trim around the front door, surrounded it with yellow flowers and vines. She painted a small gray cross in the middle of the yellow door.
On Good Friday, we gathered in the front room for a sort of dedication - almost all of the major work was done and the group would be returning to their homes in the next few days. We were joined by others who had been volunteering but working on another home. People sat on benches made from planks of wood and oversized plastic containers or on the floor or they leaned against the walls. One of the Pittsburgh pastors led the services, strumming a guitar and leading the group in song. Winnie and Charles sat next to him, with Winnie singing harmony each time, her voice always distinct from the others.
The pastor pointed out how appropriate it was we were gathering that day. Like so many New Orleanians after the storm, Jesus had felt forgotten and forsaken when he died. It was a dark day, he said, but the best part about that was knowing that things were going to get better: New Orleans, like Jesus, would rise again.
He asked the question, "When have you felt that God has forsaken you?" And Winnie, through tears, began telling their tale: How'd they just moved into the house when the storm hit, and they'd moved so they could have a place to bring her parents. The 11-hours they spent on a bus to Baker, La. The realization that they'd lost everything "and it's not the material things but why did this have to happen?" She talked about losing her father after the storm and how it had felt to be homeless, crammed into a shelter with dozens of others -- "I know what it's like to be hungry. I know what it's like to go to bed at night listening to the crying and moaning of the people around you. I know what it's like to be in pain and to think God has abandoned you."
Her soft sobs sparked tears around the room. Both men and women dabbed their eyes with coarse paper towels. I saw one woman lean into her husband, and it struck me because I hadn't even known they were married before, they'd seemed to disconnected.
Charles, who rubbed his wife's neck with one hand, while she spoke, took over for his wife at some point. He said he knew they suffered some, but he considered them blessed. He may have had arthritis pain in his shoulder but at least he could lift it and there were so many people who were unable to walk when "Uncle Arthur" visited. So many people had lost loved ones in the storm but he hadn't had to bury any of his children or grandchildren. He may have lost everything, but people came forward to give. "Everything I've got on, someone gave me," he said, tugging at his baseball cap and looking over his pants and shirt. (He actually made the comparison that if he were a man without shoes, at least he wasn't a man without feet. This is also one of my dad's favorite expressions. Like when I complained about losing my job, he said, "Remember, 'I felt bad because I had no shoes and then I saw a man with no feet.'" I replied, "Are there a lot of people with no feet around? Because I haven't seen any.")
God was good, God was good, Charles said repeatedly. He knew this because God had sent so many wonderful strangers to New Orleans to help his family get their lives back together.
"God may not come when you want him," Charles said, "but he is always on time."
Cheesesteak 2.0
For those who aren't aware, one of Philadelphia's greatest culinary acheivements is the cheesesteak, a relatively simple combination of meat, onions and cheeze whiz on bread that is sooo much more than the sum of its parts. As a sandwich that is already a heart attack waiting to happen, I always wondered if someday someone would find a way to make it worse for you. Leave it to my temporary city to find that way.
Last night we went to a restaraunt up the street named Jacques-imos. They had the genius idea of taking a whole roast beef po-boy and frying the whole thing. This may be the greatest change to the sandwich since, well, I don't know when. Philadelphians, take note, if someone can figure out how to fry a cheesesteak they may very well destroy Pat's and Geno's over the next few years.
Last night we went to a restaraunt up the street named Jacques-imos. They had the genius idea of taking a whole roast beef po-boy and frying the whole thing. This may be the greatest change to the sandwich since, well, I don't know when. Philadelphians, take note, if someone can figure out how to fry a cheesesteak they may very well destroy Pat's and Geno's over the next few years.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Let Lying Dogs Sleep
Interviewing clients right after their arrest can sometimes be a tricky proposition. Some clients clam up, not knowing their new attorney and not necessarily trusting them. Others, overcome with emotion, can't stop crying, and any attempt to get even the slightest bit of information will lead to an outpouring of tears that nothing can get through. Some of course, are all to willing to share their side of the story, which often boils down to "everyone's lying on me."
Tell a client they were arrested for a burglary and they will say they weren't there. Tell them there is a videotape of them inside the house burglarized and they will say the tape was doctored. Tell them that they gave a statement confessing to the crime and they will say they never said anything. Tell them and show them the statement recorded on videotape and they will say that they didn't really mean it. Everyone and everything is lying on them.
I thought had heard some of the most ridiculous versions of the "everything's a lie" interview until today. A colleague of mine just got a new client who is charged with assaulting a police officer and assaulting a police officer's dog. In the course of explaining the charges to him, said colleague explained that he was being charged with assaulting a police officer.
Client response: "Those cops are lying, I never touched them."
Okay, fair enough, on to the next charge. Colleague explains that client is charged with assaulting a police dog.
Client response: "That dog is lying, I never touched that dog."
Colleague: "The dog is lying?"
Client: "Yeah, that dog is lying if he told the cops I hurt him."
I must admit, I have absolutely now idea what to say to a client who believes in talking (and lying) dogs. If anyone has ideas, let me know.
Tell a client they were arrested for a burglary and they will say they weren't there. Tell them there is a videotape of them inside the house burglarized and they will say the tape was doctored. Tell them that they gave a statement confessing to the crime and they will say they never said anything. Tell them and show them the statement recorded on videotape and they will say that they didn't really mean it. Everyone and everything is lying on them.
I thought had heard some of the most ridiculous versions of the "everything's a lie" interview until today. A colleague of mine just got a new client who is charged with assaulting a police officer and assaulting a police officer's dog. In the course of explaining the charges to him, said colleague explained that he was being charged with assaulting a police officer.
Client response: "Those cops are lying, I never touched them."
Okay, fair enough, on to the next charge. Colleague explains that client is charged with assaulting a police dog.
Client response: "That dog is lying, I never touched that dog."
Colleague: "The dog is lying?"
Client: "Yeah, that dog is lying if he told the cops I hurt him."
I must admit, I have absolutely now idea what to say to a client who believes in talking (and lying) dogs. If anyone has ideas, let me know.
Monday, April 2, 2007
It's All in the Way You Tell the Story
Someone I'd just met told me her storm story this weekend. She and her roommate/aka gay husband (Patrick) didn't evacuate because they each had a dog, so they watched, and photographed, the rising water that eventually engulfed their one-story home, forcing them to seek refuge on the second floor of a neighbor's home. They were rescued by boat. They spent nights sleeping outside in the sweltering heat before being evacuated across the state to Cajun Country, where they landed with some clothes, a few key documents, and little else. Their New Orleans house is now a shell as they keep waiting to find out how much money they'll get to rebuild. Despite the fact that much of the city is a disaster zone, city officials had given the woman a formal warning about cleaning up the jungle that her yard had become. (Which is how I met her. I was there to pull weeds and clean up her yard, armed with -- God help us all -- a machete.)
Yet despite her sad and sometimes horrifying tale and the general feeling that life and insurance companies and government officialas aren't fair, I can honestly say I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time.
It was how she told the story.
Let me put it this way: When the most important bit of storm advice you get is, "Make sure you're wearing a bra," you know you're talking to someone special. As in, "And they're pulling these 70-, 80- year old women in their nightgowns off the roofs of their houses and putting them in the boot with us and I was like, 'Good Lord, gravity is not kind!' And I know we all have to deal with it some day but hadn't we been through enough at that point? I was like, 'Patrick! Take off one of your six shirts and give it to that woman right now because I can not look at that!" (Later, we discussed the bra rule: Does that mean that, if you think a natural disaster is coming, you have to wear one to bed? Or is having one handy good enough? Does a bra join your wedding ring and insurance papers and photos in the "Bag of Things That Must Be Saved"?)
I know I can't do this woman's story justice. The funny just won't translate. You just had to see her, sitting on the floor of her gutteed house, showing photos of the flood and its aftermatch on computer. You had to listen to her incredibly self-deprecating way of describing things, and get excited and sad as she did as she yelled and laughed and pulled us along through late August and early September, 2005.
Some bits and pieces:
Her tale began the day before the storm. She lived in Lakeview, a part of the city that had never flooded before and two nervous friends were coming to ride out the storm with her and Patrick. So when the water started filling the streets, her house was clean. As it kept rising, she still insisted her friends go outside to smoke so the cigarette smell wouldn't infuse her belongings. "We kept going outside! And I'd cleaned all day the day before! And what did that matter?" she laughed. "We lost everything anyway." (Her friends had brought a bunch of their stuff over as well. As it turned out, their home didn't flood. More bitter irony.)
(Pictures: the two women smiling, one wearing a headlamp; smoking outside; water in the street; the pecan tree that toppled and destroyed the back deck.)
She described how the water took its time reaching her first floor, but once it was there, it seemed to pick up speed. It didn't come gushing through cracks in windows and doors. It seemed to come from below, gaining inches rapidly , covering their feet then their ankles. She said she could understand why so many people drowned in their homes. There just wasn't time to get out.
But she and her roommate and friends did manage to get out. They had a key to the neighbor's two story home. There, they watched the water rise, "She had a floating floor and it really was floating! Then we're on the second floor worried the dogs are going to pee in the house, the same house that was taking on 6 feet of water. We were so worried, my roommate went on the balcony and peed in certain places hoping the dogs would follow the scent."
(Pictures: Smiling on the balcony after marking one's territory; the floating floor and floating furniture; her house, below them, which water high on the first floor.)
So they're trapped on the balcony of the neighbor's house and firefighters come by with a boat. They're at least five feet from the boat and are told to jump in. "And I'm like, 'Oh no. I can see the headline now, "Fat Woman Kills Firefighters While Jumping into Boat.' It'll be on the front page of the Times Picayune with a big picture of my fat ass." I was a mess. I was like, 'Please, Jesus, don't like me tip this boat over.' And the firefighters are telling me to jump, jump. So I wrap my hands around this board and lower myself as much as possible and then plink! Barely a ripple. They were very impressed. Then Patrick was about to hand me my dog and the firefighter put his arms up like, 'I'll take him.' And I said, "No! No! He's such a jerk!" and just then the dog went crazy in Patrick's arms, biting and barking and the firefighter was like, 'Whoa. OK.'"
(Pictures: Sadly, none of cute firefighters, but one of the group after they'd been rescued and were standing together on the bridge. Evil little dog was hiding his face in the shot, though.)
The firefighters ferried them to a bridge near City Park where about 90 other people were huddled after being rescued. There was no food or water or any kind of comforts. As the hours passed, the water surrounding them got deeper and deeper. Three times, a Coast Guard helicopter flew overhead and seemed to assess the situation before flying away. The third time, they dropped down a harness and tried to put an elderly woman in it. But she'd had some hip surgery and they couldn't get her in, so they just pulled up the harness and flew away. "I don't agree with those people who opened fire on the Coast Guard at the Superdome, but if I'd had a gun, I would have let loose that third time they circled overhead and didn't do anything. It would have just been like, 'Everyone out of my way' and I would have fired."
They all spent the night on the bridge and it was dark and eery and hot. (But in a tribute to American decorum, the group decided that one side of the bridge was the men's bathroom and the other side was the ladies'. They sang songs and tried to be sleep but the helicopters (see above) kept waking them up.
(Pictures: Some lovely ones of City Park under water, with the trees climbing out of the water; others of the group against the bridge and, amazingly, still smiling; the two restroom facilties.)
The next morning, Patrick swam back to the house and got some food and water to share with everyone on the bridge. Everyone, that is, except the man who was tooling around in a boat and who had refused to let Patrick use it to get food.
(Pictures: One of Patrick, looking tough, which she joked was going to be used for his next personal ad.)
They decided to try to walk out of the city. They were along the railroad tracks when they looked back and saw somone had started rescuing people by helicopter. Patrick yelled at her, "We could have had a helicopter rescue!" Instead, they kept walking, eventually ending up on another overpass in Jefferson Parish, from which they were rescued.
When they got on the bus, they weren't given food or water. They were given Old Spice deoderant sticks. "We smelled so bad! We're just rubbing those sticks up and down our arms and all over our bodies and we didn't care."
They could have been placed in "gen pop" at Thibodaux, a big room with crying babies and musty air. But because they had their animals, they had to be separated and, as it ended up, they got the much better end of the deal."That's another trick to evacuating: have your animals. We ended up at the Taj Mahal comparatively."
(Pictures: General shots of the gen pop area and the Taj, as well shots of individuals they'd met: the woman from Minnesota who said, "I don't know what I'm going to do about a job. I don't think Pet Smart is going to be open again." Which prompted them to say, "It's a national company. Go home to Minnesota and work there;" the elderly man, about 80, who had his back to the camera. His wife had evacuated without him, leaving him home with his dog and cat. When he got to the shelter and called him, she told him she wanted a divorce. He spent a lot of time crying.)
After a few days, they made it to one of her cousin's houses.
(Picture: Patrick in two layers of boxers borrowed from a teenage boy, smiling but looking ridiculous. "The first pair he put on, you could see right through it and I said, "No way are you going to have dinner with the family wearing those.' So then he put this other pair on top of it and it had these little snowmen on them and he would kill me if he knew I was showing you this picture.")
Eventually, they made it back to New Orleans.
(Pictures: Her parents' house, destroyed; her cousin's house, destroyed; her house, destroyed; some random pictures of some local libraries, taken because she'd used her city worker i.d. to get back in the city early and wanted to have some sort of proof she was there working if she was stopped. (She wasn't really working.))
It was a horrible story. It was a hysterical story. She made us cringe when she told us how she and her family had lost everything, then made us laugh as she described her big subterfuge, sneaking into the city weeks before normal folk were allowed in. She made us feel the heat and misery of sleeping on the bridge while making us roar as we imagined her poised to jump into the rescue boat.
it's all in how you tell the story.
Yet despite her sad and sometimes horrifying tale and the general feeling that life and insurance companies and government officialas aren't fair, I can honestly say I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time.
It was how she told the story.
Let me put it this way: When the most important bit of storm advice you get is, "Make sure you're wearing a bra," you know you're talking to someone special. As in, "And they're pulling these 70-, 80- year old women in their nightgowns off the roofs of their houses and putting them in the boot with us and I was like, 'Good Lord, gravity is not kind!' And I know we all have to deal with it some day but hadn't we been through enough at that point? I was like, 'Patrick! Take off one of your six shirts and give it to that woman right now because I can not look at that!" (Later, we discussed the bra rule: Does that mean that, if you think a natural disaster is coming, you have to wear one to bed? Or is having one handy good enough? Does a bra join your wedding ring and insurance papers and photos in the "Bag of Things That Must Be Saved"?)
I know I can't do this woman's story justice. The funny just won't translate. You just had to see her, sitting on the floor of her gutteed house, showing photos of the flood and its aftermatch on computer. You had to listen to her incredibly self-deprecating way of describing things, and get excited and sad as she did as she yelled and laughed and pulled us along through late August and early September, 2005.
Some bits and pieces:
Her tale began the day before the storm. She lived in Lakeview, a part of the city that had never flooded before and two nervous friends were coming to ride out the storm with her and Patrick. So when the water started filling the streets, her house was clean. As it kept rising, she still insisted her friends go outside to smoke so the cigarette smell wouldn't infuse her belongings. "We kept going outside! And I'd cleaned all day the day before! And what did that matter?" she laughed. "We lost everything anyway." (Her friends had brought a bunch of their stuff over as well. As it turned out, their home didn't flood. More bitter irony.)
(Pictures: the two women smiling, one wearing a headlamp; smoking outside; water in the street; the pecan tree that toppled and destroyed the back deck.)
She described how the water took its time reaching her first floor, but once it was there, it seemed to pick up speed. It didn't come gushing through cracks in windows and doors. It seemed to come from below, gaining inches rapidly , covering their feet then their ankles. She said she could understand why so many people drowned in their homes. There just wasn't time to get out.
But she and her roommate and friends did manage to get out. They had a key to the neighbor's two story home. There, they watched the water rise, "She had a floating floor and it really was floating! Then we're on the second floor worried the dogs are going to pee in the house, the same house that was taking on 6 feet of water. We were so worried, my roommate went on the balcony and peed in certain places hoping the dogs would follow the scent."
(Pictures: Smiling on the balcony after marking one's territory; the floating floor and floating furniture; her house, below them, which water high on the first floor.)
So they're trapped on the balcony of the neighbor's house and firefighters come by with a boat. They're at least five feet from the boat and are told to jump in. "And I'm like, 'Oh no. I can see the headline now, "Fat Woman Kills Firefighters While Jumping into Boat.' It'll be on the front page of the Times Picayune with a big picture of my fat ass." I was a mess. I was like, 'Please, Jesus, don't like me tip this boat over.' And the firefighters are telling me to jump, jump. So I wrap my hands around this board and lower myself as much as possible and then plink! Barely a ripple. They were very impressed. Then Patrick was about to hand me my dog and the firefighter put his arms up like, 'I'll take him.' And I said, "No! No! He's such a jerk!" and just then the dog went crazy in Patrick's arms, biting and barking and the firefighter was like, 'Whoa. OK.'"
(Pictures: Sadly, none of cute firefighters, but one of the group after they'd been rescued and were standing together on the bridge. Evil little dog was hiding his face in the shot, though.)
The firefighters ferried them to a bridge near City Park where about 90 other people were huddled after being rescued. There was no food or water or any kind of comforts. As the hours passed, the water surrounding them got deeper and deeper. Three times, a Coast Guard helicopter flew overhead and seemed to assess the situation before flying away. The third time, they dropped down a harness and tried to put an elderly woman in it. But she'd had some hip surgery and they couldn't get her in, so they just pulled up the harness and flew away. "I don't agree with those people who opened fire on the Coast Guard at the Superdome, but if I'd had a gun, I would have let loose that third time they circled overhead and didn't do anything. It would have just been like, 'Everyone out of my way' and I would have fired."
They all spent the night on the bridge and it was dark and eery and hot. (But in a tribute to American decorum, the group decided that one side of the bridge was the men's bathroom and the other side was the ladies'. They sang songs and tried to be sleep but the helicopters (see above) kept waking them up.
(Pictures: Some lovely ones of City Park under water, with the trees climbing out of the water; others of the group against the bridge and, amazingly, still smiling; the two restroom facilties.)
The next morning, Patrick swam back to the house and got some food and water to share with everyone on the bridge. Everyone, that is, except the man who was tooling around in a boat and who had refused to let Patrick use it to get food.
(Pictures: One of Patrick, looking tough, which she joked was going to be used for his next personal ad.)
They decided to try to walk out of the city. They were along the railroad tracks when they looked back and saw somone had started rescuing people by helicopter. Patrick yelled at her, "We could have had a helicopter rescue!" Instead, they kept walking, eventually ending up on another overpass in Jefferson Parish, from which they were rescued.
When they got on the bus, they weren't given food or water. They were given Old Spice deoderant sticks. "We smelled so bad! We're just rubbing those sticks up and down our arms and all over our bodies and we didn't care."
They could have been placed in "gen pop" at Thibodaux, a big room with crying babies and musty air. But because they had their animals, they had to be separated and, as it ended up, they got the much better end of the deal."That's another trick to evacuating: have your animals. We ended up at the Taj Mahal comparatively."
(Pictures: General shots of the gen pop area and the Taj, as well shots of individuals they'd met: the woman from Minnesota who said, "I don't know what I'm going to do about a job. I don't think Pet Smart is going to be open again." Which prompted them to say, "It's a national company. Go home to Minnesota and work there;" the elderly man, about 80, who had his back to the camera. His wife had evacuated without him, leaving him home with his dog and cat. When he got to the shelter and called him, she told him she wanted a divorce. He spent a lot of time crying.)
After a few days, they made it to one of her cousin's houses.
(Picture: Patrick in two layers of boxers borrowed from a teenage boy, smiling but looking ridiculous. "The first pair he put on, you could see right through it and I said, "No way are you going to have dinner with the family wearing those.' So then he put this other pair on top of it and it had these little snowmen on them and he would kill me if he knew I was showing you this picture.")
Eventually, they made it back to New Orleans.
(Pictures: Her parents' house, destroyed; her cousin's house, destroyed; her house, destroyed; some random pictures of some local libraries, taken because she'd used her city worker i.d. to get back in the city early and wanted to have some sort of proof she was there working if she was stopped. (She wasn't really working.))
It was a horrible story. It was a hysterical story. She made us cringe when she told us how she and her family had lost everything, then made us laugh as she described her big subterfuge, sneaking into the city weeks before normal folk were allowed in. She made us feel the heat and misery of sleeping on the bridge while making us roar as we imagined her poised to jump into the rescue boat.
it's all in how you tell the story.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
10 More Random Things
1. With no TV, we watch a lot of TV courtesy of borrowed DVD's of the British Office and downloading shows on I-Tunes. The good of that is that you can watch the most hilarious points of The Office over and over again. The bad of that is that you can get stuck on one of those serialized vaguely mysterious shows (Lost, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica) over and over again looking for clues. Battlestar Galactica concluded its season last week and I have seen the last episode now 4 times trying to figure out exactly who the final cylon is.
2. Simon's digestive system continues to amaze. I swear if you compare food consumed to what he leaves around the house, the poop outnumbers the food by a factor of at least two. With no TV, these are the things I notice.
3. Humidity is not, nor ever has been, my friend. I somehow imagined that a bunch of wool suits would be the perfect court outfits for the south. I may start winning cases only because the jury is worried I am going to pass out from dehydration.
4. XM radio's customer service stinks. As in you are on hold for 45 minutes and then they tell you to unplug the machine and plug it back in again. As I was on hold for 45 minutes I had already done that like five times. Their follow up advice? Umm, get a new one. Thanks XM.
5. The judge I am in front of is convinced that I am going out of town to celebrate Easter, and I don't want to tell him that I never really did much for celebrating the re-birth. It's kind of like the time in law school my Constitutional Law professor assumed I celebrated passover and when I told him that I wasn't Jewish he looked like I just told him the Bill of Rights was for wusses.
6. The office down here decided to have a softball team. In the spirit of getting to know my officemates I decided to play. Except most of the team showed up in cleats with their own bats and batting gloves and were, well, much better than I was. Next time I am going to be the designated mascot.
7. The beignet should absolutely take over as the post-cheesesteak dessert. Pat's and Geno's should sell it in the booth with the cheese fries and drinks.
8. I have never seen more people out in suits on a Saturday night. You could be at some random divey bar and some guy is going to walk in wearing a blue suit, white shirt and broad striped tie. Not in an ironic "I am a southern gentleman way". More in a "no really I am an unironic southern gentleman" Maybe there's a story out there about how Katrina limited the drinking options so much that everybody's gotta share the same bar stools, but it's kind of weird to see.
9. They have praline encrusted bacon topped with brown sugar. I have no idea why this hasn't taken over the country. Then again I am the guy who is CONVINCED that if you had bacon flavored candles they would sell like mad.
10. If there was a way to combine TV shows the wire and battlestar galactica, I would never watch any other TV.
2. Simon's digestive system continues to amaze. I swear if you compare food consumed to what he leaves around the house, the poop outnumbers the food by a factor of at least two. With no TV, these are the things I notice.
3. Humidity is not, nor ever has been, my friend. I somehow imagined that a bunch of wool suits would be the perfect court outfits for the south. I may start winning cases only because the jury is worried I am going to pass out from dehydration.
4. XM radio's customer service stinks. As in you are on hold for 45 minutes and then they tell you to unplug the machine and plug it back in again. As I was on hold for 45 minutes I had already done that like five times. Their follow up advice? Umm, get a new one. Thanks XM.
5. The judge I am in front of is convinced that I am going out of town to celebrate Easter, and I don't want to tell him that I never really did much for celebrating the re-birth. It's kind of like the time in law school my Constitutional Law professor assumed I celebrated passover and when I told him that I wasn't Jewish he looked like I just told him the Bill of Rights was for wusses.
6. The office down here decided to have a softball team. In the spirit of getting to know my officemates I decided to play. Except most of the team showed up in cleats with their own bats and batting gloves and were, well, much better than I was. Next time I am going to be the designated mascot.
7. The beignet should absolutely take over as the post-cheesesteak dessert. Pat's and Geno's should sell it in the booth with the cheese fries and drinks.
8. I have never seen more people out in suits on a Saturday night. You could be at some random divey bar and some guy is going to walk in wearing a blue suit, white shirt and broad striped tie. Not in an ironic "I am a southern gentleman way". More in a "no really I am an unironic southern gentleman" Maybe there's a story out there about how Katrina limited the drinking options so much that everybody's gotta share the same bar stools, but it's kind of weird to see.
9. They have praline encrusted bacon topped with brown sugar. I have no idea why this hasn't taken over the country. Then again I am the guy who is CONVINCED that if you had bacon flavored candles they would sell like mad.
10. If there was a way to combine TV shows the wire and battlestar galactica, I would never watch any other TV.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Ten Random Things
1. We're still crashed in the shell of Walt's house, but now we have a REAL BED so we think we're all fancy. No more waking up on the floor with a deflated air mattress around us. We're big time now. We'll probably stay here, in the House of No Kitchen Appliances/No Furniture/No TV/No Internet/Etc, until we come back. It's just easier.
2. George Foreman is a genius. Without his grill, we'd be starving.
3. The cats are FINALLY adjusting. That said, they'll be going back to Philadelphia as changed animals. Bourre, for one, is twice her size now that she doesn't have steps to climb up and down or a backyard to play in. Her newest nickname -- and she pretty much has a new one every week -- is Tubbles, as in "Tubby who is Double her size." (Jordo is pretty good with the cutting cat nicknames. She was "Whiny McTubbs" earlier this month, when her screaming kept us awake at night.)
4. Don't hate us because the weather here is beautiful. Sure, we don't have snow or ice or even the hint of cold, but we suffer sometimes, too. Like earlier this week, I was working with a gutting group that insisted I wear a spaceman-type suit and a 9/11 respirator while working. I thought I would die of heat stroke. (Which really bummed me out, for multiple reasons, one being that that would be an unglamorous death. If you're going to die young, either go 1) Noble, like saving orphans from a burning building or 2) Vaguely Cool, like totalling your Porsche while speeding on a California highway or 3) Mysterious, like Amelia Earhart-esque but involving - instead of an airplane - Brad Pitt, a yacht and a missing diamong necklace.) (On a more positive note, if I were to die of heat stroke now, at least I have a tan so I'd look good at the wake.)
5. I'm in a minor panic about baseball season starting with me out of NY radio range. Do I get an air card for my computer? Satellite radio? I can't miss a game, especially as Carl Pavano may actually pitch an inning or two. (Hate him.) (Speaking of baseball, the other night, Tubbles was whining in the early a.m. hours and I just got so irritated that I began throwing random things at her, like clothing, pillows, etc. The next morning, Jordo said, "Yeah, you were like Curt Schilling with that aim." Do you see how how cruel he can be? He knows how I hate C Schilling with the burning passion of a thousand suns. He even insisted on the CS comparison after I offered more appropriate pitchers like Ron "Louisiana Lightning" Guidry.)
6. Philadelphia thinks it knows potholes. It knows nothing. There is no stretch in the world like our section of State Street Drive, which is more off-road than the Grand Canyon.
7. I still can't believe I went to a Justin Timberlake concert. True, the ticket was free, but really. I almost started a riot in the auditorium when I asked if Justin had been with Backstreet Boys or N'Sync. (I still think this is a legitimate question and does not deserve the mockery/shock it garnered.) It was an experience akin to the time I took my sister and cousin to see New Kids on the Block at MSG one Thanksgiving. Tricia maintains I had a good time because she saw me clapping. I maintain I was clapping because the show was finally over.
8. I'm on my third cell phone since moving here. I am a technological black hole.
9. During the St. Patrick's Day parade, we (including guests Dave and Amy) caught cabbages and carrots as well as assorted beads and flowers.(Getting flowers required kissing strangers. I got mine legitimately. Jordo said the clerk in his court just happened to be there and just happened to give him one. Sure.) Jordo also ended up in possession of a racy green thong. I have now planted that among his belongings and am waiting for it to reappear at the most inappropriate of times -- in court, at the gas station, during a family meal. (It could be anywhere at this point. Good luck, friend.)
10. Fun food facts: Snowballs are a poor man's Italian ice. It's OK to give up BYOB's when your drinks are $3 each. You can't eat too many beignets.
2. George Foreman is a genius. Without his grill, we'd be starving.
3. The cats are FINALLY adjusting. That said, they'll be going back to Philadelphia as changed animals. Bourre, for one, is twice her size now that she doesn't have steps to climb up and down or a backyard to play in. Her newest nickname -- and she pretty much has a new one every week -- is Tubbles, as in "Tubby who is Double her size." (Jordo is pretty good with the cutting cat nicknames. She was "Whiny McTubbs" earlier this month, when her screaming kept us awake at night.)
4. Don't hate us because the weather here is beautiful. Sure, we don't have snow or ice or even the hint of cold, but we suffer sometimes, too. Like earlier this week, I was working with a gutting group that insisted I wear a spaceman-type suit and a 9/11 respirator while working. I thought I would die of heat stroke. (Which really bummed me out, for multiple reasons, one being that that would be an unglamorous death. If you're going to die young, either go 1) Noble, like saving orphans from a burning building or 2) Vaguely Cool, like totalling your Porsche while speeding on a California highway or 3) Mysterious, like Amelia Earhart-esque but involving - instead of an airplane - Brad Pitt, a yacht and a missing diamong necklace.) (On a more positive note, if I were to die of heat stroke now, at least I have a tan so I'd look good at the wake.)
5. I'm in a minor panic about baseball season starting with me out of NY radio range. Do I get an air card for my computer? Satellite radio? I can't miss a game, especially as Carl Pavano may actually pitch an inning or two. (Hate him.) (Speaking of baseball, the other night, Tubbles was whining in the early a.m. hours and I just got so irritated that I began throwing random things at her, like clothing, pillows, etc. The next morning, Jordo said, "Yeah, you were like Curt Schilling with that aim." Do you see how how cruel he can be? He knows how I hate C Schilling with the burning passion of a thousand suns. He even insisted on the CS comparison after I offered more appropriate pitchers like Ron "Louisiana Lightning" Guidry.)
6. Philadelphia thinks it knows potholes. It knows nothing. There is no stretch in the world like our section of State Street Drive, which is more off-road than the Grand Canyon.
7. I still can't believe I went to a Justin Timberlake concert. True, the ticket was free, but really. I almost started a riot in the auditorium when I asked if Justin had been with Backstreet Boys or N'Sync. (I still think this is a legitimate question and does not deserve the mockery/shock it garnered.) It was an experience akin to the time I took my sister and cousin to see New Kids on the Block at MSG one Thanksgiving. Tricia maintains I had a good time because she saw me clapping. I maintain I was clapping because the show was finally over.
8. I'm on my third cell phone since moving here. I am a technological black hole.
9. During the St. Patrick's Day parade, we (including guests Dave and Amy) caught cabbages and carrots as well as assorted beads and flowers.(Getting flowers required kissing strangers. I got mine legitimately. Jordo said the clerk in his court just happened to be there and just happened to give him one. Sure.) Jordo also ended up in possession of a racy green thong. I have now planted that among his belongings and am waiting for it to reappear at the most inappropriate of times -- in court, at the gas station, during a family meal. (It could be anywhere at this point. Good luck, friend.)
10. Fun food facts: Snowballs are a poor man's Italian ice. It's OK to give up BYOB's when your drinks are $3 each. You can't eat too many beignets.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Screams of My Father (Alternative Title: David Flynn is a Jerk)
I promise this is my last post about the US Attorney purge (seriously, go to www.talkingpointsmemo.com, they found this story and have by far the best coverage). But all of this brings me back to somewhere between 1982 and 1987 (a little hazy on the exact time).
Back then my dad was still alive and working at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, the main area for federal enforcement of various civil rights laws that had developed. He had worked in a bunch of the sections there but had ended up as Deputy in the Appellate Section. The job wasn't especially glamorous. Pay was fine but far below what the private sector paid, but he loved the work and more importantly thought it was important (Mom: If you are worrying that your kids are generally fine taking relatively low paying jobs doing work they find important, you have only yourself and Dad to blame).
Back in 1980, however Reagan got elected and slowly but surely the priorities of the Civil Rights Division changed. The Department started cutting down on enforcing voting rights, stopped pushing cases against segregated school districts and totally reversed their stance on affirmative action. In addition to orders from on high, they also appointed new section chiefs who were, how shall we put it, less concerned about making sure people weren't discriminated against.
Or as my friend Mike put it once, they were very very very concerned about the rights of white people to get into college and that was about the extent of their concern.
Anyway, now that we now the Attorney General lied and that the Civil Rights Division was getting stocked with right wing cronies whose main concern was making it harder for poor black people to vote, I am happy my Dad doesn't have to see it. It might have made him angry enough to buy one of those guns that Bush's Court of Appeal says DC residents can buy now.
Back then my dad was still alive and working at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, the main area for federal enforcement of various civil rights laws that had developed. He had worked in a bunch of the sections there but had ended up as Deputy in the Appellate Section. The job wasn't especially glamorous. Pay was fine but far below what the private sector paid, but he loved the work and more importantly thought it was important (Mom: If you are worrying that your kids are generally fine taking relatively low paying jobs doing work they find important, you have only yourself and Dad to blame).
Back in 1980, however Reagan got elected and slowly but surely the priorities of the Civil Rights Division changed. The Department started cutting down on enforcing voting rights, stopped pushing cases against segregated school districts and totally reversed their stance on affirmative action. In addition to orders from on high, they also appointed new section chiefs who were, how shall we put it, less concerned about making sure people weren't discriminated against.
Or as my friend Mike put it once, they were very very very concerned about the rights of white people to get into college and that was about the extent of their concern.
Anyway, now that we now the Attorney General lied and that the Civil Rights Division was getting stocked with right wing cronies whose main concern was making it harder for poor black people to vote, I am happy my Dad doesn't have to see it. It might have made him angry enough to buy one of those guns that Bush's Court of Appeal says DC residents can buy now.
Monday, March 19, 2007
The Music Man
Before I begin, let me just note that not every homeowner I work for is an adorable elderly man who you just want to put in your pocket and take home with you.
There have been two homeowners among the many I've now met who were demanding/bossy/unhelpful. One, I think, was mentally handicapped. The other was just bitchy. She basically watched us work -- for free, I might add -- and looked grouchy while doing so. At first, I was miffed. Then I realized she'd pretty much lost everything she owned and, if I were in her shoes, I'd look more than grouchy. "Grouchy" would be a good mood for me under those circumstances.
But there is a high percentage of adorable old men.
I've been working with RHINO recently (Rebuilding Hope In New Orleans). Excellent organization, very together, good works. I'm a big fan. Each week, I've joined groups of college students and one or two locals in our gutting/tear down missions. On the most recent gutting, I met the Music Man.
He must have been in his late 70s at least, appearing healthy at first glance, with a young face and full head of gray hair, but if you looked more carefully, you could see one side of his body was slumped and he sometimes shook uncontrollably. He had not entered his home since the storm. This, despite the fact that he has been living in a trailer right outside his own front door. He couldn't bear it, he said
We all gathered on the street to meet and talk to the homeowner. He immediately started crying. He said he couldn't thank us enough.
We hadn't even gone into the house yet.
As we stood there around him, I asked about the license plate on his car. It said something like, "MUZIKMAN" or "MUZIKMN." Whatever the letters, it was clear what it stood for. So I asked him, "Why are you The Music Man?"
And he was off. He'd been a producer and promoter, he said, and began listing name after name of musicians he'd worked with. I didn't recognize one -- not a jazz fan here -- but it was clear he was proud. (And if I didn't know these names, the rest of the group definitely didn't. Honest to God: One girl, about 17, came out of the house, carrying a stack of records, and said, "I've never even seen one of these before. What do you play them on?" I thought about beheading her with a well thrown album.) He just went on and on, a little less than 10 minutes, I'd say, but it felt like longer as the group was kinda awkward and itchy to get to work and this conversation hadn't been planned.
It just made me so incredibly sad. Even writing about it almost makes me cry. He just wanted to talk to someone.
Then we started emptying the house. As I'm an old hand at this now, our group leader put me in charge of a group working in the back rooms. (Never give me power. I was all, "You! Blond Ponytail! Get over here and help me carry this dresser! Red Baseball Cap, you start emptying the closet." One group of my minions -- that's how I like to think of them -- were all hung up about how to get an air conditioner out of a window. "Where is it attached?" one girl said, looking at the house and the unit. I came over: "Just push it. Push it out of the window." They were like, "But we'll break it!" I said, "It's already broken. Push it." And they pushed it out the window and cheered when it hit the ground.) (You'd be amazed by what sheer force can accomplish. Sometimes, I'll be trying to take a door down by the hinges and they're rusted and I just get fed up and swing at the hinge with all my might and it breaks. V. satisfying.)
But even being an old hand doesn't make me immune to emotion when we do this. We had to throw away all of his jazz posters and music books and credentials from different music festivals. We pulled out hundreds of records, which we saved because someone thought they were still usable. Someone found the paperweight he specifically asked we look for, but pretty much every thing else was ruined. We basically dumped his memories on the curb, then went back and tore his house apart.
Throughout the day, The Music Man walked around outside, trying to smile as he examined the glassware we'd saved and the ever-growing pile of records. But it was a shaky smile.
A lot of people break Katrina down by color. Black and White. But it's the elderly, of any color, who suffered the most. At least that's what I think.
I've been worrying about The Music Man these last few days, as I worry about Mr. L living alone in Pontchartrain Park. I don't think I'll be able to leave New Orleans without a final check on them.
There have been two homeowners among the many I've now met who were demanding/bossy/unhelpful. One, I think, was mentally handicapped. The other was just bitchy. She basically watched us work -- for free, I might add -- and looked grouchy while doing so. At first, I was miffed. Then I realized she'd pretty much lost everything she owned and, if I were in her shoes, I'd look more than grouchy. "Grouchy" would be a good mood for me under those circumstances.
But there is a high percentage of adorable old men.
I've been working with RHINO recently (Rebuilding Hope In New Orleans). Excellent organization, very together, good works. I'm a big fan. Each week, I've joined groups of college students and one or two locals in our gutting/tear down missions. On the most recent gutting, I met the Music Man.
He must have been in his late 70s at least, appearing healthy at first glance, with a young face and full head of gray hair, but if you looked more carefully, you could see one side of his body was slumped and he sometimes shook uncontrollably. He had not entered his home since the storm. This, despite the fact that he has been living in a trailer right outside his own front door. He couldn't bear it, he said
We all gathered on the street to meet and talk to the homeowner. He immediately started crying. He said he couldn't thank us enough.
We hadn't even gone into the house yet.
As we stood there around him, I asked about the license plate on his car. It said something like, "MUZIKMAN" or "MUZIKMN." Whatever the letters, it was clear what it stood for. So I asked him, "Why are you The Music Man?"
And he was off. He'd been a producer and promoter, he said, and began listing name after name of musicians he'd worked with. I didn't recognize one -- not a jazz fan here -- but it was clear he was proud. (And if I didn't know these names, the rest of the group definitely didn't. Honest to God: One girl, about 17, came out of the house, carrying a stack of records, and said, "I've never even seen one of these before. What do you play them on?" I thought about beheading her with a well thrown album.) He just went on and on, a little less than 10 minutes, I'd say, but it felt like longer as the group was kinda awkward and itchy to get to work and this conversation hadn't been planned.
It just made me so incredibly sad. Even writing about it almost makes me cry. He just wanted to talk to someone.
Then we started emptying the house. As I'm an old hand at this now, our group leader put me in charge of a group working in the back rooms. (Never give me power. I was all, "You! Blond Ponytail! Get over here and help me carry this dresser! Red Baseball Cap, you start emptying the closet." One group of my minions -- that's how I like to think of them -- were all hung up about how to get an air conditioner out of a window. "Where is it attached?" one girl said, looking at the house and the unit. I came over: "Just push it. Push it out of the window." They were like, "But we'll break it!" I said, "It's already broken. Push it." And they pushed it out the window and cheered when it hit the ground.) (You'd be amazed by what sheer force can accomplish. Sometimes, I'll be trying to take a door down by the hinges and they're rusted and I just get fed up and swing at the hinge with all my might and it breaks. V. satisfying.)
But even being an old hand doesn't make me immune to emotion when we do this. We had to throw away all of his jazz posters and music books and credentials from different music festivals. We pulled out hundreds of records, which we saved because someone thought they were still usable. Someone found the paperweight he specifically asked we look for, but pretty much every thing else was ruined. We basically dumped his memories on the curb, then went back and tore his house apart.
Throughout the day, The Music Man walked around outside, trying to smile as he examined the glassware we'd saved and the ever-growing pile of records. But it was a shaky smile.
A lot of people break Katrina down by color. Black and White. But it's the elderly, of any color, who suffered the most. At least that's what I think.
I've been worrying about The Music Man these last few days, as I worry about Mr. L living alone in Pontchartrain Park. I don't think I'll be able to leave New Orleans without a final check on them.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
If You Outlaw Guns, only Outlaw's Children Will Shoot Themselves Accidentally
This post is horribly late, I know . . .
Apparently the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has now ruled that citizens of the District of Columbia can keep gays in their house. This is a direct affront to the will of the people of the city. They have repeatedly confirmed that in the District it should be illegal to have gays in their house and all of the elected leaders of the District of Columbia have echoed this feeling. These unelected judges have once again disregarded the will of the people and shown themselves to be nothing more than judicial activists. These tyrants in black robes must be stopped. They must be impeached immediately.
What, they said we can have GUNS in our homes. Oh well, never mind, I guess Frist, Dobson and the Federalist Society have no problem with that one (unless of course the guns are gay, which is a whole new problem).
Haven't read the case, but I see that already my temporary state Senator David Vitter has proposed a DC firearm law (the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act). Hmm, David, big bad federal government going to certain area of the country and telling them what to do with their laws? Didn't your region lose a war and about 8,000 court cases over the same sort of thing.
Growing up in D.C. there are always these incredibly annoying moments where the federal officials seize upon something to try and push some new development in D.C. Back when a congressional aide was shot there was a big move to reinstitute the death penalty (despite opposion from the actual residents of the city), and if memory serves at some point Ollie North showed up at Lincoln Park calling for a repeal of the handgun ban and said he was packing heat (my line of work disclines me from snitching to the police, but that was a time where I would have made an exception).
These sort of glorified photo ops with the backdrop of actual (ie. non-federal) D.C. always annoyed me. Be it Ollie or Dick Armey, I always imagined that they would get lost going near the SE-SW freeway and spend hours going in circles around the Kapper dwellings until they ran out of gas.
Apparently the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has now ruled that citizens of the District of Columbia can keep gays in their house. This is a direct affront to the will of the people of the city. They have repeatedly confirmed that in the District it should be illegal to have gays in their house and all of the elected leaders of the District of Columbia have echoed this feeling. These unelected judges have once again disregarded the will of the people and shown themselves to be nothing more than judicial activists. These tyrants in black robes must be stopped. They must be impeached immediately.
What, they said we can have GUNS in our homes. Oh well, never mind, I guess Frist, Dobson and the Federalist Society have no problem with that one (unless of course the guns are gay, which is a whole new problem).
Haven't read the case, but I see that already my temporary state Senator David Vitter has proposed a DC firearm law (the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act). Hmm, David, big bad federal government going to certain area of the country and telling them what to do with their laws? Didn't your region lose a war and about 8,000 court cases over the same sort of thing.
Growing up in D.C. there are always these incredibly annoying moments where the federal officials seize upon something to try and push some new development in D.C. Back when a congressional aide was shot there was a big move to reinstitute the death penalty (despite opposion from the actual residents of the city), and if memory serves at some point Ollie North showed up at Lincoln Park calling for a repeal of the handgun ban and said he was packing heat (my line of work disclines me from snitching to the police, but that was a time where I would have made an exception).
These sort of glorified photo ops with the backdrop of actual (ie. non-federal) D.C. always annoyed me. Be it Ollie or Dick Armey, I always imagined that they would get lost going near the SE-SW freeway and spend hours going in circles around the Kapper dwellings until they ran out of gas.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Mornings
Jordo and I both have to be at work by 8 a.m. so we get up and get ready at about the same time.
He takes a shower, shaves, and puts on a pressed suit.
I roll out of bed (easy because it's the low air mattress), yawn, find the dirtiest clothes I have, ignore all make-up, and stick on a baseball cap.
Then we leave the house, The Dirtbag and The Lawyer.
Yes, my work down here doesn't require much in terms of personal appearance. I have gone days without blow drying my hair, at least a week without a hint of make-up. Instead of showering before work, I shower after, when I'm covered in dust and grime. Instead of going to an office, I travel to different locations every day. I'm never quite sure what kind of work I'll be doing: could be knocking down walls, could be pulling up floor boards, could be general clean up of someone's trashed yard.
But you can guarantee I'll be wearing ill fitting clothes, (I had a rule during my pre-trip shopping venture at thrift stores: No more than a $1 for tshirts, no more than $3 for pants. As you can imagine, these guidelines have led to some interesting ensembles. The one word that consistently describes me? H.O.T. I have to beat off the male admirers with my faithful crowbar.) I always wear a baseball cap. I spend 90 percent of my day wearing leather gloves and a dust mask that covers most of my face.
It's just ... funny. It's so different.
Yet also similar. As with any job, I've developed favorites and routines. But I never thought I'd be telling you I had a favorite crowbar. (I do.) I have a preferred shovel. (I call him "Pointy," as in, "Are you using Pointy? That's my shovel. Find one of your own.") If given a choice between taking out tile or pulling out walls, I'm going to go walls every time. (I generally hate tile. Hate, hate, hate it. Much of it sticks and requires Herculean strength to remove. One day, we were getting killed by the tile because it just wouldn't come up and as my friend was about to give in, I inspired her with, "Don't let the tile win." Tile and terrorists, terrible.) (Oh, and sometimes, tile is a little dangerous, as in, "I could kill you." : In one house we were gutting, we got through two separate layers of kitchen tile to find a third. We started the prying. Then someone turned the tile over and it said, "Asbestos tile," because apparently, that's how you made tile back in the day. One friend said, "One fiber of this and you'll have cancer in 5 to 10 years." We stopped working on that house. I think it has to be classified as toxic now.) I love swinging a hammer and having the pieces of wall pile up by my feet. I enjoy shoveling them out of the house and into a wheel barrow or a garbage can.
Before I left the Inky, I'd been having pains in my hands, probably from too much typing, they told me. Now, I sometimes suffer from what I call "Hammer Hand." You can get it from holding a hammer all day. My right hand frequently catches HH. I try to balance things out, giving the left hand a shot at breaking things, but that doesn't last for long. (The joke is that I'm going to go home with really buff arms. Or arm, as my right arm gets all the work out. I'm going to be walking into bars and restaurants right side first. All photos must be taken from the right.)
At the Inky, at the end, I felt mentally battered. Here, I am physically battered. My arms and legs are covered with cuts and bruises. It's really quite gross. I know I bruise easily, but this is just ridiculous. One friend said to me, "People are going to think Jordan beats you." I said, "Have you met me? Have you met Jordan?"
She should see us in the morning.
Oh, and before I sign off: For those who don't read The Times Picayune, check out our latest media star:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-20/1173422078209920.xml&coll=1
He takes a shower, shaves, and puts on a pressed suit.
I roll out of bed (easy because it's the low air mattress), yawn, find the dirtiest clothes I have, ignore all make-up, and stick on a baseball cap.
Then we leave the house, The Dirtbag and The Lawyer.
Yes, my work down here doesn't require much in terms of personal appearance. I have gone days without blow drying my hair, at least a week without a hint of make-up. Instead of showering before work, I shower after, when I'm covered in dust and grime. Instead of going to an office, I travel to different locations every day. I'm never quite sure what kind of work I'll be doing: could be knocking down walls, could be pulling up floor boards, could be general clean up of someone's trashed yard.
But you can guarantee I'll be wearing ill fitting clothes, (I had a rule during my pre-trip shopping venture at thrift stores: No more than a $1 for tshirts, no more than $3 for pants. As you can imagine, these guidelines have led to some interesting ensembles. The one word that consistently describes me? H.O.T. I have to beat off the male admirers with my faithful crowbar.) I always wear a baseball cap. I spend 90 percent of my day wearing leather gloves and a dust mask that covers most of my face.
It's just ... funny. It's so different.
Yet also similar. As with any job, I've developed favorites and routines. But I never thought I'd be telling you I had a favorite crowbar. (I do.) I have a preferred shovel. (I call him "Pointy," as in, "Are you using Pointy? That's my shovel. Find one of your own.") If given a choice between taking out tile or pulling out walls, I'm going to go walls every time. (I generally hate tile. Hate, hate, hate it. Much of it sticks and requires Herculean strength to remove. One day, we were getting killed by the tile because it just wouldn't come up and as my friend was about to give in, I inspired her with, "Don't let the tile win." Tile and terrorists, terrible.) (Oh, and sometimes, tile is a little dangerous, as in, "I could kill you." : In one house we were gutting, we got through two separate layers of kitchen tile to find a third. We started the prying. Then someone turned the tile over and it said, "Asbestos tile," because apparently, that's how you made tile back in the day. One friend said, "One fiber of this and you'll have cancer in 5 to 10 years." We stopped working on that house. I think it has to be classified as toxic now.) I love swinging a hammer and having the pieces of wall pile up by my feet. I enjoy shoveling them out of the house and into a wheel barrow or a garbage can.
Before I left the Inky, I'd been having pains in my hands, probably from too much typing, they told me. Now, I sometimes suffer from what I call "Hammer Hand." You can get it from holding a hammer all day. My right hand frequently catches HH. I try to balance things out, giving the left hand a shot at breaking things, but that doesn't last for long. (The joke is that I'm going to go home with really buff arms. Or arm, as my right arm gets all the work out. I'm going to be walking into bars and restaurants right side first. All photos must be taken from the right.)
At the Inky, at the end, I felt mentally battered. Here, I am physically battered. My arms and legs are covered with cuts and bruises. It's really quite gross. I know I bruise easily, but this is just ridiculous. One friend said to me, "People are going to think Jordan beats you." I said, "Have you met me? Have you met Jordan?"
She should see us in the morning.
Oh, and before I sign off: For those who don't read The Times Picayune, check out our latest media star:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-20/1173422078209920.xml&coll=1
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
DA's like to keep cops off of the streets
Anyone who has worked in the criminal justice system knows that the majority of cases are resolved short of trial. Cases get dismissed, motions to suppress evidence get granted and people charged with crimes plead guilty.
It is the last one that allows the urban criminal justice systems to actually function, avoiding lengthier delays between arrest and trial. "Plea bargaining" is generally a give and take. DA's will make an offer, clients with either accept it, reject it or make a counter offer. Often there is a meeting of the minds and a deal is worked out. Sometimes not.
Here is where it has gotten tricky in Louisiana. Given the ridiculous mandatory sentences for some cases, a clients only option to avoid a 10-15 year jail sentence is for us to try and work out some sort of deal with the DA. IF we can.
The IF part of that is much bigger here than in Philadelphia. You see, as I learned today, the DA's generaly policy is that if they have a strong case, they will not even consider a sentence less than the mandatory minimum.
Example: I have a client who is 25. He has one prior arrest, for which he was found guilty. He know has been arrested again for distribution of cocaine. Because of his prior felony conviction if he is found guilty after trial he has to serve a MINIMUM of 15 years at hard labor, with no parole, probation, etc. I don't know many 25 year olds who think past 30, much less 40, so staring at that number it seems reasonable to try and resolve it without a trial and spare him that amount of time.
The DA does have an exceptionally well put together case. 10 police officers, video and audio surveillance and a ton of other circumstantial evidence.
DA's position: We have such a good case, we can't lose, he's gotta do the 15 years.
My position: If you are not going to offer less than he would get after, what is the possible reason to plead guilty.
I'm not going to rant again about the unfairness of mandatory minimums, but the problem with the DA's attitude is the actual effect on law enforcement.
We are going to have
-10 police officers spending.
-1 police officer bringing over the alleged narcotics.
-1 police technician bringing over the video and audio surveillance.
So we end up with 12 police officers spending a day or more in court waiting to testify in a case. 12 officers who could be, I don't know, patrolling the streets. 12 police officers who could be out investigating the backlog in unsolved homicides this city has. 12 police officers who could be writing up their arrest reports. You get the point.
So instead of this case being resolved short of trial and offering something that a client could live with, we are going to have what in all effects may be a long and drawn out guilty plea where the net effect is taking 12 police officers off of the streets. Crime prevention indeed.
It is the last one that allows the urban criminal justice systems to actually function, avoiding lengthier delays between arrest and trial. "Plea bargaining" is generally a give and take. DA's will make an offer, clients with either accept it, reject it or make a counter offer. Often there is a meeting of the minds and a deal is worked out. Sometimes not.
Here is where it has gotten tricky in Louisiana. Given the ridiculous mandatory sentences for some cases, a clients only option to avoid a 10-15 year jail sentence is for us to try and work out some sort of deal with the DA. IF we can.
The IF part of that is much bigger here than in Philadelphia. You see, as I learned today, the DA's generaly policy is that if they have a strong case, they will not even consider a sentence less than the mandatory minimum.
Example: I have a client who is 25. He has one prior arrest, for which he was found guilty. He know has been arrested again for distribution of cocaine. Because of his prior felony conviction if he is found guilty after trial he has to serve a MINIMUM of 15 years at hard labor, with no parole, probation, etc. I don't know many 25 year olds who think past 30, much less 40, so staring at that number it seems reasonable to try and resolve it without a trial and spare him that amount of time.
The DA does have an exceptionally well put together case. 10 police officers, video and audio surveillance and a ton of other circumstantial evidence.
DA's position: We have such a good case, we can't lose, he's gotta do the 15 years.
My position: If you are not going to offer less than he would get after, what is the possible reason to plead guilty.
I'm not going to rant again about the unfairness of mandatory minimums, but the problem with the DA's attitude is the actual effect on law enforcement.
We are going to have
-10 police officers spending.
-1 police officer bringing over the alleged narcotics.
-1 police technician bringing over the video and audio surveillance.
So we end up with 12 police officers spending a day or more in court waiting to testify in a case. 12 officers who could be, I don't know, patrolling the streets. 12 police officers who could be out investigating the backlog in unsolved homicides this city has. 12 police officers who could be writing up their arrest reports. You get the point.
So instead of this case being resolved short of trial and offering something that a client could live with, we are going to have what in all effects may be a long and drawn out guilty plea where the net effect is taking 12 police officers off of the streets. Crime prevention indeed.
The Things They Saved
First, a shout out to all my pals from Eastern Michigan. Stay warm!
And now to the news....
I was with a group gutting houses yesterday and I was thinking how much you can learn about someone by their possessions. The person who had lived in one side of the double house we were working on had been elderly, as the "Sexy to Sexty" joke book, a few canes and the general look of the clothing showed. She was religious, as evidenced from the crucifixes and saint statutes from the muck. She had a sense of humor which occasionally was a bit on the risque side, something demonstrated by some of the mugs she had in her cabinet and some other items we found. (I made her, in my head, be an Italian Catholic. Then I found her mail and learned I was right.) She was an old time New Orleanian who saved copies of The Times Picayune and had glasses from the defunct Jax Brewery and a fair share of Mardi Gras beads.
So I was very philosophical as I dumped this woman's life's possessions on a curb. (Yes, it had sat untouched since Katrina. Glasses and such still had water in them.) What would someone say about me if Philadelphia flooded and a team had to come in and empty out my home? (Thank God Philadelphia will never flood like that, by the way, because I just imagine the absolute horror I would feel at having people all over my stuff. On another gutting outing a while back, we were tearing down the closet shelves in a teenager's bedroom when we noticed that the flood waters had glued a photo of a barebreasted woman to the bottom of one of them. We carried out the shelf, woman intact. "Nobody has any secrets anymore," one friend observed.) I was very philosophical.
Then we started emptying out the other side of the double.
A man had lived there, an elderly one who had served in the military. He liked his guns, as evidenced by the boxes of ammo and many guns we found. He was a cop or a pervert, as the handcuffs and dirty magazines we uncovered showed.
Standard stuff, right?
Now imagine you're me, in a closet, pulling out boxes. And you open one and find these metal things shaped like grape clusters. And being me, and Mardi Gras minded, you immediately think this must be a souvenir from the Krewe of Bacchus or something like that. Then you look closer. And you're holding a hand grenade.
An entire box of them.
I remained calm. "Oh, my," I said to the college students working around me. "I believe these are hand grenades. I think I will carry them out of the house now. La la." One girl shrieked. The boys just looked intrigued. I gingerly transported the box outside and walked up to one of the project coordinators.
"Hand grenades," I said.
"Put 'em by the truck," she replied, unfazed.
I would later learn that such finds were common. In fact, a special crew later came out to collect the guns, ammo, and the grenades. (Which, it turned out, weren't live. They were practice grenades from WW II and Vietnam, the experts told me. They were the exact weight of live grenades so the grenade tosser could practice the craft. The guys told me I was lucky they were just practice ones, because the salt water that flooded the city could have eaten away at the pin and, without the pin, I would have 3 to 5 seconds before the grenade would explode. "Would it at least tick?" I asked. "No," they said. If I heard anything, it would be the blast, and then it would be too late.)
I went back to work emptying the closet. More guns, more ammo, some knives. La la. Things are going smoothly.
And then I saw something that terrified me more than any explosive could: God's. Biggest. Roach.
This thing was big, Africa big. It could have stood up on its little roach hind legs and had a face to face conversation with me. Only my face would have been contorted in horror while the roach would have calmly described ways it could bury itself in my hair.
I didn't remain calm. With a "Hi-YA!" type shout, I slammed my foot on the ground, aiming to hit Sr. Cucaracha. He nimbly avoided me. I tried again, and missed again.
And that told me something: Get out of that room. Escape while you still can.
All in all, I think I had an easier time handling the grenades.
And now to the news....
I was with a group gutting houses yesterday and I was thinking how much you can learn about someone by their possessions. The person who had lived in one side of the double house we were working on had been elderly, as the "Sexy to Sexty" joke book, a few canes and the general look of the clothing showed. She was religious, as evidenced from the crucifixes and saint statutes from the muck. She had a sense of humor which occasionally was a bit on the risque side, something demonstrated by some of the mugs she had in her cabinet and some other items we found. (I made her, in my head, be an Italian Catholic. Then I found her mail and learned I was right.) She was an old time New Orleanian who saved copies of The Times Picayune and had glasses from the defunct Jax Brewery and a fair share of Mardi Gras beads.
So I was very philosophical as I dumped this woman's life's possessions on a curb. (Yes, it had sat untouched since Katrina. Glasses and such still had water in them.) What would someone say about me if Philadelphia flooded and a team had to come in and empty out my home? (Thank God Philadelphia will never flood like that, by the way, because I just imagine the absolute horror I would feel at having people all over my stuff. On another gutting outing a while back, we were tearing down the closet shelves in a teenager's bedroom when we noticed that the flood waters had glued a photo of a barebreasted woman to the bottom of one of them. We carried out the shelf, woman intact. "Nobody has any secrets anymore," one friend observed.) I was very philosophical.
Then we started emptying out the other side of the double.
A man had lived there, an elderly one who had served in the military. He liked his guns, as evidenced by the boxes of ammo and many guns we found. He was a cop or a pervert, as the handcuffs and dirty magazines we uncovered showed.
Standard stuff, right?
Now imagine you're me, in a closet, pulling out boxes. And you open one and find these metal things shaped like grape clusters. And being me, and Mardi Gras minded, you immediately think this must be a souvenir from the Krewe of Bacchus or something like that. Then you look closer. And you're holding a hand grenade.
An entire box of them.
I remained calm. "Oh, my," I said to the college students working around me. "I believe these are hand grenades. I think I will carry them out of the house now. La la." One girl shrieked. The boys just looked intrigued. I gingerly transported the box outside and walked up to one of the project coordinators.
"Hand grenades," I said.
"Put 'em by the truck," she replied, unfazed.
I would later learn that such finds were common. In fact, a special crew later came out to collect the guns, ammo, and the grenades. (Which, it turned out, weren't live. They were practice grenades from WW II and Vietnam, the experts told me. They were the exact weight of live grenades so the grenade tosser could practice the craft. The guys told me I was lucky they were just practice ones, because the salt water that flooded the city could have eaten away at the pin and, without the pin, I would have 3 to 5 seconds before the grenade would explode. "Would it at least tick?" I asked. "No," they said. If I heard anything, it would be the blast, and then it would be too late.)
I went back to work emptying the closet. More guns, more ammo, some knives. La la. Things are going smoothly.
And then I saw something that terrified me more than any explosive could: God's. Biggest. Roach.
This thing was big, Africa big. It could have stood up on its little roach hind legs and had a face to face conversation with me. Only my face would have been contorted in horror while the roach would have calmly described ways it could bury itself in my hair.
I didn't remain calm. With a "Hi-YA!" type shout, I slammed my foot on the ground, aiming to hit Sr. Cucaracha. He nimbly avoided me. I tried again, and missed again.
And that told me something: Get out of that room. Escape while you still can.
All in all, I think I had an easier time handling the grenades.
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