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
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