Fish Scales

For most urban public defender offices, drug cases are a large part of the caseload. There are a million reasons why the war on drugs is probably one of the biggest wastes of time, but that's for a whole different post. This will just be a rant about Philadelphia narcotics investigations.

For the most part there are a bunch of different ways police conduct street level arrests of drug dealers. They can (1) use undercover officers buying drugs, (2) simply watch corners in the city, see if they find someone who appears to be selling drugs and arrest them, (3) use confidential informants to buy drugs from dealers, and on and on.

The problem with most of these types of investigations is that they almost always end up relying entirely on the word of the one police officer doing the surveillance; there is nothing to corroborate their testimony. And as history has shown us (Operation Sunrise in Philly, Street Crimes Unit in New York, Ramparts in LA and the guy in Tulia Texas) narcotics units are often where crooked cops end up (or are made crooked). As Chief Burrell (of "The Wire") noted, "In narcotics there are no virgins."

In Philly anyway, the police pretty much show up at trial, make some notes from their police report, and ramble on the stand about whatever they say happened. You ask police, DA's, etc. about maybe somebody, anybody in the investigation wearing a wire, videotaping the alleged sales or hell, even taking a picture of the alleged transaction and you are met with the response: "we don't have the money, we don't have the resources, we can't afford it, blah, blah, blah."

So you can imagine my shock when I get to New Orleans and have my first drug case. There, sitting in the file is a clear black and white videotape with the officer, a clear shot of the face of the person selling drugs and the sound accompanying the whole damn thing.

Let me get this straight. The city devastated by a hurricane that has lost half of its police force and is struggling with solvency at times finds a way to videotape their drug investigations. Meanwhile, the city that is booming with 8 million new condos can't afford even a camera phone for police to take pictures of their "observations."

To be honest, I am not that happy with the use of videotapes, because, well if they have your client on video selling you are pretty much screwed.

But that being said, if you really wanted to make sure the "bad guys" are off of the street, speed up the criminal justice system and make sure cops were out doing police work and not sitting on a witness stand, why not video all of these transactions? You would have a hell of a lot fewer trials (because it would be a lot harder to suggest the officers were lying or made a mistake) and you could save a lot of overtime pay for officers coming in to testify and waiting around all day for their turn on the stand. What does it say about the credibility of these officers that Philadelphia doesn't trust them to video what they say happened?

Of course, if we stopped the war on drugs we could save a whole lot more money, but that's a whole different mess.

Sitting on 22s

Okay, let this be my first “I am new and these locals are weird” post.

I was blessed/spoiled to have lived most of my life in cities with a relatively straightforward grid pattern, making navigation by either foot or by car relatively easy. Philadelphia, easy. Washington, DC, easy. New Orleans, not so much. Some of the major streets sort of wind all over the place.

The lack of the straight roads isn’t so much of a problem as the directions. See, in most places (hell, every other place) people use words like North/South/East and West. Apparently down here, it’s “lake side” and “river side”.

Lake side is north, check.

River side . . . . . well what to say. River side is south, east and west. Yes, ladies and gentleman, you can be driving “towards the river” and “away from the river.”

So, being (1) a little stupid and (2) getting directions like “go towards the river and make a left on X street”, you can imagine the fun getting around this city.

Thank god for mapquest.

I am an Expert Post Digger and a Minorly Good Roofer

I've spent the last three weekdays working with Habitat for Humanity. I've really enjoyed it.

We start ass early - 7:30 a.m. - but I get to spend most of my day outside, in the sun, actually DOING something. Like shoveling or raking or cleaning up or, on one memorable day, roofing. Then we're done at 3:30 and the rest of the day is mine. It's awesome. (Oh, East Coast Friends, being outside all day is a GOOD thing here. It's in the 70s. And I'm getting tan.)
(Please don't hate me. I got enough hate mail from those Eagles fans to last me a lifetime.)

I had originally said I wouldn't work with Habitat. Not because I don't admire their cause, but I thought that no one would benefit from a dwelling I'd helped build. I have few talents - imy near perfect aim being one of them - but construction is not one of them. In fact, I don't think I've ever built anything that didn't come out of an Ikea box before. (And one time, when Jaqui and I built an Ikea dresser, we somehow managed to totally screw up the knobs so they were forever crooked. Which, true, takes some talent, but not the sort of talent you want going into a place where you will live.)

But I had a change of heart, thought, "Why not? Do it a couple days and then I can leave. Maybe they'll just assign me painting duties."

My first day was mostly digging two feet deep holes for fence posts. A lot of them. There were a bunch of us on the job and some people had the fancy post digger things and others, like me, had shovels. We were all newbies. We got our instructions, then went to work.

About an hour later, it's time to put the posts in and add the concrete. Our leader, Allain, is commenting on each hole as he directs the work, "Oh, this is not deep enough.... This one is off center..." And then. He gets to mine. "This one," he said, "is perfect."

(Side note: When I first wrote that paragraph, it ended up sounding pornographic so I went back in to adjust. Use your imaginations.)

I was glowing. Yep, that was my hole. Do you know it? It's the "perfect" one. Perhaps you've heard about it on the news.

On my second day, when they were dividing up workers in the a.m., they said, "Who wants to work on a roof?" And next thing I know, I'm with that group. Our group leaders assured us before hand, "I've been here nine months and only two people have fallen off roofs and they haven't died. One broke his pelvis and the other broke his arm. No big deals." (Which someone can say when it's not their pelvis in question.) Still, I next found myself climbing a ladder and scurrying across a pitched roof that is about half shingled. I got up to the peak of the roof and was like, "My God, my God, what have I done? I will never be able to get off of this roof. This is the rest of my life, here on this roof, unless someone rescues me by helicopter."

Then I stood up. Then I started walking around. Then I was like, "I am on the ROOF!"

It was so cool. Then we shingled. For hours. So I had to take measurements and pound nails and go back and forth across the roof and up and down the ladder multiple times. Who was this person, I thought?

But don't worry: I was still true to myself in my mind. I was working with a group of college kids on Spring Break and one of them got all misty eyed as she hit her nails. "Just imagine," she said, "a baby could be born in this house and it could be the baby who grows up to cure cancer! How amazing would that be!" And I'm thinking, "Or, the baby born in this house could be a Ted-Bundy look-alive who worships John Wayne Gacy and admires the techniques of Jeffrey Dahmer and goes on to be the nation's most prolific serial killer." (I do not say this out loud. No need to crush the young.) (Plus, I was afraid my knowledge of serial killers would cause them to freak out and take the hammer away from me.)

Even the mundane tasks I've undertaken have taken on meaning to me. Like one morning, we spent some time just picking up trash in a neighborhood that still looked like it had been struck by a bomb. I found a pin that said, "Today I am 6" and stopped for a moment because, well, these things have a story. Who was six? Did her family get out intact? Was she able to keep any of the toys she'd gotten for that birthday? Was she even a she?

A short time later, I found a weekly newspaper still rolled in its plastic bag. It was from the week Katrina hit, a reminder how, in many things, life here stopped that week.

I go back to Habitat again tomorrow. I don't know what we'll be doing, but I'm excited to find out. Every day is a different mini adventure.

The only thing Habitat lacks, in my opinion, is that contact with the person or family you're helping. Home owners are required to put in something like 350 hours of "sweat equity" on their dwellings, but none have been around the houses I've worked on.

I had that kind of personal contact this weekend when I joined the Times Picayune's Muckrakers as we gutted a home in Gentilly. The homeowner's name was Anne and she told us her father had built the home in 1946. Her brother was coming in from California to rebuild it later this year.

There weren't many savable items left - mostly dishware and a very warped photo of someone in a cap and gown. I was with Alice in one of the rooms when she actually gasped as she pulled something out of the muck. It was some kind of sword. One of her brothers, who had been in the military, had brought it back from some travels with him. She had been calm and cool all day, sweet as can be, and that was the only time I saw her seem rattled.

Later, we found a Pepsi bottle with what appeared to be Arabic writing on it. Her brother had brought that home, too, she said.

Another thing about that work day struck me: We were a mix of journalists, people from the Pic and Jimmie Briggs from NY and me, and normal folk, like Jimmie's friends. None of us had to be there, on a Saturday morning, shoveling out the remains of someone's life.

But we chose to be there and, looking at the people around me, I wasn't suprised by who they were. I knew them all. They are good people.

Then came my surprise.

The newspaper has a social columnist, a very neat and proper woman who writes about the city's society world. (It's quite intense, with debutantes and all that stuff.) This woman showed up at Alice's house a little later than the rest of us. She had on red lipstick and gold earrings and her clothes were far nicer than anyone else's.

But she came in and, quietly, with a dustpan and broom, she collected the broken pieces of dry wall and trash. I never heard her speak - although I'm sure she did. She's the type of person who can afford to have someone clean for her, yet she was here cleaning for someone else.

Some people have said that the storm showed people's true colors, for good and for bad. People weren't who you thought they were, for good or for bad. I think that's true.

Mardi Gras Deadline

Proof you can celebrate Mardi Gras and file a story with USA Today on time.

It's one, two, three strikes you're out . . . .

As Nat mentioned in the last, I am here working at the public defender's office for the next few months. Criminal courts are very similar the whole country around. Judges with too many control issues, district attorneys who don't have a ton of discretion and sheriffs who seem absolutely bored with the moving of clients from jail to court and back again (to be fair, if I had the sheriff's job, I would be bored too).

The only variable, it seems, it the fate of clients. The legislature of Louisiana, in a move that can only be described as absurd, established a sentencing scheme that borders on Draconian. I could go through the whole rigamarole, but it's easier to keep it simple.

Example: Suppose you are a drug addict, using cocaine. You, as most addicts do, don't really do a good job kicking the habit. You get arrested three times and end up pleading guilty because you were, well guilty. There's not really a totally excellent drug program and your lack of money makes flying off to the Carribbean a la Britney damn near impossigle. As most addicts do, you relapse and get caught again. Bad news buddy, if you have been convicted 3 times for possession of crack cocaine. Under the sentencing laws of the state of Louisiana, you could get up to your natural life in prison. Worse, if you are convicted a fourth time the MINIMUM sentence the judge is allowed to sentence you to is 20 years (no probation, parole or supervised release prior to your 20). So now the citizens of this state have to pay and house a non-violent offender who never really harmed anyone else, but is, well, an addict who maybe didn't have the money or the will to kick the stuff. The addict, meanwhile, gets to spend 20 years at the Louisiana Department of Corrections. In Philadelphia, a case like this is worth probation, maybe a one year jail sentence. In Louisiana, at some point I am going to have to tell a client "Congratulations. If you plead, the DA agreed to only let you do six years on the nickel bag of crack you had."

Now to be sure, there is some times a judge can go lower than that, but my undersanding that is few and far between.

It's the kind of thing that makes you want to punch somebody.

Why We're Really Here

We came here for reasons other than Mardi Gras, although it may not seem like it from our blog thus far. So I'm going to tell a few stories. (I'll let Jordo relate his own courthouse tales. He's already got a few --- dozen.)

Part of helping with the rebuilding is helping with the unbuilding. That means gutting houses, tearing down walls, cleaning up debris and brush, etc.

Last week, I joined a group of people - including friends from The Times Picayune - in helping an elderly man remove a shed from his backyard. The shed, which was packed with everything from bicycles to bolts of fabric to appliances, had been knocked down by the the tornado. (Yes, a tornado.) If you haven't heard, a rare urban twister touched down in the city and its suburbs last week. It did a fair bit of physical damage -- knocking down homes that had just been rebuilt, tossing trees on buildings - and it also did a fair bit of psychological damage. Imagine: It's taken you more than a year to get your house together after Hurricane Katrina, you're about to move back in, and a tornado comes by and rips the roof off. I heard that story from more than one person. One elderly woman died; she and her daughter had been living in a trailer in front of their home, which just needed the wiring finished before they could move back in. Both the trailer and the house were shredded. I went to their former site, with bricks tossed everywhere and the wheels of the trailer dozens of yards from the pipes that once anchored it to the ground.

Another day, I joined a group removing nails -- thousands of nails -- from the ceiling and walls of an elderly man's home. The house had already been gutted and only a frame remained. But before anything could be done to that frame, the nails had to go. It was tedious, sometimes frustrating, work as nail heads disintegrated and some nails just refused to be pulled. At times, I wondered, "Is this really that important?" And then I met Mr. L.

I'm going to call him Mr. L to respect his privacy. Mr. L is an 84-year-old African American man, tall and lean, very handsome. He looks more than a decade younger than he is, and he only used a cane because he'd injured his knee recently.

Mr. L had lived in the house where we now stood for more than 52 years. He and his wife, who died in 1997, raised five children there. The structure had started as a small dwelling, but over the years, Mr. L had added rooms and improvements. A chandelier still hung in one room and the two front doors had been specially made to fit the space. (Mrs. L had only had a chance to enjoy the doors for a few months before she died in 1997, Mr. L told us. He was also upset that the storm had warped the wood, meaning he'd have to get new ones when he rebuilt.) The front porch was paved with light bricks. The house, Mr. L said, had been something he had been very proud of.

Then Katrina came. Mr. L lost his house, four of his children lost their homes, and, for a time, he said, "There was not one house in this city where I could lay my head." He left the city to live out-of-state with his fifth child, but had returned to his neighborhood as soon as he could get a FEMA trailer. As it was, he was the only person living on his street. Without street lights or any glows emanating from any surrounding homes, it was dark, dark at night, and it made me fear for his safety. Mr. L said he liked the day, when he could go about the neighborhood and look at what was once his home and thriving neighborhood, but night was hard for him. "It's a long, long time," he said. "Sometimes it looks like morning's not coming."

Mr. L couldn't stop smiling when he saw what we'd done. "Look how much better it looks without all them nails!" he exclaimed. "I'm going to sleep well tonight."

I started talking with Mr. L about his life pre-K. His name was Wilfred and he'd had a twin brother named Wilbert who died in 2001. I said, "Did they call you Fred and Bert?" He said, "No, my aunt called my brother 'Hart' without the e and they called me 'Dumplin'. I was a grown man and they'd call me Dumplin' and it would make me so mad."

We talked a little longer, joined by my friend Dave, a Dart fellow in town to help both the city's journalists and its rebuilding process. Mr. L could not stop thanking us.

And then he said the words that brought tears to my eyes: "What you did, it's not going to be in the history books, but it'll be in my heart," he said, putting a hand to his chest.

Before we drove away, Dave and I said, "Bye, Dumplin' " He just smiled at us.

Tomorrow I'm going to start a stint with Habitat for Humanity to see how I do with the actual building part. Further updates as events warrant.

Bada Bing; Bada Blah

Quickly, to respond to Natalie's last two points:

1. Whether she threw that hard or not, on the inside it still really hurt.
2. Darth Vader was really talented at using the Force, it doesn't mean it was ok for him to kill all of those Jedi (Matt Parker, back me up on this).

On to more important things. On Sunday we saw the Bacchus Krewe's parade and their very special guest was James Gandolfini from the Soprano's. Though given his lack of enthusiasm for throwing you might have mistaken him for the inert body of Big Pussy Bompasero from the end of season 2. He basically sat on a big chair and lazily tossed out a few coins at a time no more than a few feet from his float (as Natalie has already proven, items from the float can be thrown quite a distance). Yeah yeah yeah, you are a big time actor on a "real" TV show, congratulations. Now get your ass out of the chair and start throwing like the Honorary Marshal should for god sakes.

(Natalie wants to point out that she disagrees with the above. I think that it just because (1) he is italian or (2) she may have a crush on him. Just sayin'

In My Defense

1. I didn't hit him THAT hard.
2. I can't help it if God has blessed me with perfect aim and I am often inspired to demonstrate it, hitting targets both still and moving.

My gutting and clean up work has begun. I'll get to that -- my real reason for being here -- in a later post.

The parade was awesome -- until the float broke down. Riding on a Mardi Gras float is the closest many of us will come to being a rock star: Thousands of people are in the streets, screaming and pointing at you and when you deign to give them attention, they light up. You're masked - it's required - and that little bit of anonymity makes you a bit more bold. You dangle fancy beads and special throws over the edge of the float and work the crowd up into a frenzy before dropping them. You flirt. You dance. It's just a great, great time.

And the Muses of Float 16 were having a great time for most of Thursday night. Huge crowds, friends along the route, wine on the float. I didn't hear all of the special shout outs Jordo arranged along the way, but I did catch the "We hate Brian Tierney" (Inquirer publisher) and "We hate Henry Holcomb" (President of the newspaper guild) ones. (I missed "Derek Jeter loves Natalie," which I would have appreciated.) When I heard those chants, somehow rising above the crowd noise, I spun like a top, found the shouters, and showered them with beads. Awesome.

Then the float broke down. Then they couldn't get it fixed and they pulled us out of the line up and we missed the last quarter of the parade. Then we got to the party late. That kinda sucked.

But it's still Carnival. We're still having a ball.

Show Us Your Wits

The picture to your right is Natalie and her friends from the Picayune Angela and Stephania . . . I think.

I say I think because a combination of running the parade route, the cold and the fact that Natalie found it fun to bean me in the head with bags of beads left me a little disoriented. That, combined with my technological idiocy, allowed me to take possibly the most blurry picture ever on a digital camera (the one to your right).

From the top. In the days leading up to the parade , I had figured that I would start at the beginning of the parade, watch it up until Nat's float, and then tag along the float until the end, trying to get as many beads as I could from Natalie, Angela and Stephanie (since I am a rank amateur at this parade thing, I figured it was best to stay close to people who know me and would pity my lack of beads).

I'll let Natalie get more into the floats, but the basic theme was "Supermuse" a daring female superhero fighting the villians of New Orleans (right wing congressmen, corrupt judges, racist sheriffs all done up as super villians).

Anyway, after Natalie's float passes, I cut behind the crowd and start to try and get ahead to see them. All of a sudden. THWACK!! I get hit in the head by a bag of beads. I look up to see my girlfriend, laughing at me from the 2nd floor of her float. This repeats itself another two or more times and I finally get that she is not throwing to me, but rather AT me.

Wonderful, I am walking along in the cold trying to provide as much encouragement as I can and Natalie is having her fun beaning in the head with cold hard plastic. Nice.

This process repeats itself for another hour or two, until there was an unfortunate breakdown in their float, but I will let Natalie tell that story.

One last thing, throughout the parade I was trying to get people to yell words of scorn about various Philadelphia media owners/union presidents, etc. To the lady in the crown and her boyfriend who screamed "We hate Brian Tierney" at the tops of their lungs, must thanks is given.

somewhere the "blame game" is actually getting played

Wow, I though the John Street - Lynne Abraham feud over Philly's murder rate was bad. You can't listen to the radio in this town without hearing the police rip the district attorneys and vice versa. Apparently the police hate the DA for refusing to prosecute a boatload of cases, the DA hates the police for not getting lab reports and witness information, and both are loathed by the general public for New Orlean's crime rate and abysmal murder clearance. It's the kind of fight that I always imagined was happening, but to see it playing out in public is, well, vaguely satisfying.

Hateful beasts

Bourre cried until 4 a.m., nonstop. Simon's ass issues make him a less than desirable bed companion.

Oh, and our air mattress doesn't hold air. So we had howling cat, smelly cat and hard floor. Not a lot of sleeping last night.

Jordo starts work tomorrow. I will start my side journalism project.

Then we'll go see some parades.

Milestone

Jordo caught his first beads today, thrown from a float in the Krewe of Shangri-La's parade. He played it cool, the one arm up in the air thing, the casual catch. (No flesh bared.) But we're expecting him to become a float-chasing, bead-grabbing maniac who knocks over children and old people by the end of next week. We've seen it before.

NOLA

We're all set up now in my friend Walt's house. It has all the basics - walls, floors, roof, windows, locks, electricity - and compared to what some people have had to live with since Katrina, it's high style over here on State Street Drive. Air mattress, mini fridge, George Foreman grill. Pillow cases used as curtains, doors not attached but propped into place, building materials scattered throughout and now being used as garbage cans, tables, etc.

For those who don't know, Walt was my police reporting partner when I worked at the Times Picayune. He is one of the craziest, kindest men alive. He can be scattered at times, and when we worked together, I was the one who would pull our stories together. (Sometimes, because he has a tendency to wander off topic when telling a story, he would call my phone and start dictating facts the way they did it in the old newspaper days: But we'd be sitting right next to each other. I know. People would walk by and stare and say, "Are they on the phone to each other?" But it worked.)

I could tell Walt stories all day. Like how his car is always filled with, well, everything - blankets, books, trash, crowbars, towels, clothing, newspapers, cereal bowls with remaining milk - and how one time, he came to my house to help me change a tire but first had to get the jack out of his trunk. That involved dumping the contents of the trunk into the street, and among the contents were a rifle, a handgun, various other weapons including something that looked like numchuks, and scores of papers and clothes. It was like the clown car of possessions. I kept saying, "Why do you need this rope? Is that gun loaded? When are you ever going to wear all these clothes?"

Another time, we were working a story about a French Quarter bar owner who had been kidnapped. We found a guy who said he had some information, so Walt invites him to talk. Man's in the backseat, Walt and I are in the front two seats. I was not pleased with this. The man was clearly a scammer, so I kept saying, "Out. I want him out of this car. Now." while Walt would say, "Aw, c'mon, Natalie. He's a good guy. He's going to help us out, aren't you? Come on." Walt later said he thought we'd done a good job playing "Good cop/Bad cop." I said, "Are you kidding me? I wasn't playing!"

Walt also told me one of my favorite Times Picayune stories - and there are many. There was an editor in the 1970's who came to work one day, went home then killed himself. "And," Walt said, "his jacket is still hanging on the coatrack in the back." I was like, "Totally no way!" But we walked to the rack and there was this truly garish 70s style suit jacket with red and white checks. (I checked the pockets, of course. Empty.) That jacket had hung there for decades and stayed there until right before Katrina, when it mysteriously disappeared from its hook.

Then there's the story of the voodoo murder and speaking in code over the phone but forgetting what the code was and the best Valentine's Day I ever had, which involved a dog in eastern New Orleans coming across various body parts Feb. 13, but those are tales for another time. Just know this: Walt is aces.

We're off to the airport now. The cats are arriving from Philadelphia via Continental at 8 p.m. We expect hostility.

Marching In

Finally arrived after two barbecue filled days in Memphis. After the cold of Philly, 70 degrees is a welcome change. Realized my first packing mistake, lots of suit pants, no belts, still searching for ties.

Radio One

Spent the time from Knoxville to Memphis listening to the radio. Aside from a whole lot of Christian stations, there was the ESPN radio station, which as far as I can tell has 4 minutes of programming for 30 minutes of ads.

All of the pop music stations had the weirdest ads. Some serious voice would intone:

"Tonight on a very special episode of Friends,
Joey professes his love to rachel
But What will she say?"

Huh? Am I in some sort of time warp where Friends is just finishing up their seasons. Did I transport to some strange area where they just kept kept NBC at bay until 2007?

Ah well, we're in Memphis now, time to figure out what ribs to stuff our faces with tonight.

Pack it Up, Pack it In

I woke up this morning and started to pack socks and t-shirts. In the middle of it all I was like "wow deja vu" then I remembered that I had already packed them. Twice.

I have this problem with packing. It's just that I always forget when I have already packed some items, so I will pack some more. Then I will forget again, and repeat. I will probably be the only person in New Orleans with two pairs of pants and 32 pairs of socks.

Fat White: A History

I moved into this house in July 2003. Fat White appeared in my home, via the cat door, soon after. Apparently, he'd been around the neighborhood for a while. One neighbor called him "Glock" because his eyes are messed up and it looks like he has glaucoma. Another younger, more innocent neighbor called him "Snowball," and, indeed, he is round. I called him "Fat White" because he is fat and white.

Fat seems to have a special love for my tuxedo cat, Simon. Like you will see them walking down the street together, blocks from home. If Simon is rolling around in the street, Fat is there watching him. My neighbor, Paco, swears he saw them "KEES-ING" in the alley one day. (Bourre does not like Fat and will chase him out when she sees him. But she spends most of her time on the third floor so that doesn't happen often.)

While I think it's beautiful that Simon's found love, I can't help but be annoyed by FW. He invades my home on a daily basis. The minute you walk in from outside or come down from upstairs, you hear the familiar creak of the cat door and if you run to the window, Fat is usually sitting there with his back to the door, operating under the "I can't see you so you can't see me" theory. One time, he led my Dad and I on a merry chase up and down the stairs and into the basement. We ended up in the basement, no sign of him anywhere, and my Dad says, "Maybe we should look up." So we did, and it was like a slow motion scene in a horror film. There he was, in all his Fat White glory, amongst the ceiling pipes. Chilling.

Fat White and the other neighborhood strays seem to think I operate a 24-hour cat buffet. Fat goes the extra mile, though. Like he'll sleep on my black jacket or black suede boots, leaving them covered in white fur the next morning. He'll nestle down in the living room chair or the foot rest, leaving a white trail behind. I have even seen him on the second floor of my house, in the office. He was with Simon.

When we leave for NOLA, we're barricading the cat door so no cats can get in. This has multiple people worried about Fat's well-being while we're gone. I've got to say, I think Fat will be alright. After all, he is the fattest stray cat in existence. He has to be eating somewhere else.

But I'll probably build him a little sleeping shelter in the back before I go anyway. I am weak.