August 2005 Archives

They're saying on the news that New Orleans was lucky, we missed a direct hit. I can't say we're lucky though. 80% of New Orleans is under water. Jefferson Parish (Kenner & Metairie) is under water as well, no electricity or water. Jefferson Parish president is telling people not to come home before Monday. Mama is in Bush, LA with Robbie & Patsy and no one has been able to talk to them since Monday morning. We think they're okay, just no water or electricity. Janine & Michael and children are at their home in Mandeville and no word from them since Monday morning either. We don't know about their area, whether it flooded or not but Janine's house sits on wetlands so we're very concerned. David stayed in Slidell at a friend's house and no word from him since Sunday night. Slidell was the hardest hit in Louisiana. One news report said that you can't tell where Lake Pontchatrain ended and Slidell began.

Angela and Joey are in Destin, FL and doing fine. They're having no problems there. Joey's entire family is there with them. Katie & Kevin and kids are in Houston and doing okay. Elizabeth & Scott are outside of Orlando with Scott's parents. Mandeville & Madisonville where Katie & Elizabeth live look okay, maybe just wind damage from what we can tell, but for now no power or water so that's keeping them away. I'm in Atlanta with Phil & the boys.

New Orleans is now under martial law. Two levees broke and water just keeps pouring into the city. Who knows when we'll be able to return. We left in such a hurry on Saturday, I didn't pack much. None of us did. I'm sure all of us thought this would be another one of those times that we'd be returning the next day with no damage and no problems.

For now, just keep us in your prayers.

This from Mom

Christina and I, along with the boys and the girls, will head for Robbie's house in Bush at some time today. (Thought I'd give you a heads up, Rob!) I would have preferred to stay at home, but last night's 100 news really frightened me when the Mayor told of talking to the National Hurricane Center just then and the man told him that in his 33 years of covering hurricanes, nothing had prepared him for the vision of mayhem New Orleans would suffer; this was the storm they had warned about all these years. Strong words.

David is riding it out at home, so far as I know. His children will be at their grandmother's in McComb, Mississippi, which is out of harm's way.

Joey entered a triathlon in Destin, Florida, Saturday morning and he and Angela and Samuel are staying put. The storm will miss them there. Elizabeth and her family joined them yesterday, staying at the same condo. His folks have the pleasure of taking their big dog to a motel somewhere since they were baby-sitting her. Fun stuff.

Yesterday Janine thought they'd stay put but I haven't talked to her this morning to see if that has changed. Maybe she'll head for Florida too.

Katie was undecided when I talked to her last night, but she thought she would head for Houston. Kevin was supposed to be sent home from Trinidad today and Houston would probably be as far as he could get since our airport was scheduled to shut down this morning. She wasn't worried about motel vacancies since she has the camper and they could bunk in the back if everything is full.

And that's everyone. I think I'll go turn on the news now and see what has happened during the night. I wish they would tell me it took a right-angle turn and would miss us after all!

From Rob:

We're about 50 miles north of Mom's house and, hopefully, the storm will have weakened by the time it reaches us if it comes this way. This is a very severe storm and we'll expect the power to go out and the phones to go down. There will be tree damage here but, hopefully, none of the trees close to the house are big enough to damage the house if they were to fall. I'll have everything in the yard picked up later today but that's about it. Someone's garbage can lid from five miles away could still blow through a window and accompanying tornadoes, well, let's not think about that.

Update (94AM): Mom, her two dogs, and her canary are coming up. Phil, Christina, Jackson, and Jacob are heading elsewhere.

Michael is off to WalMart for supplies. It's times like these that we think about how nice it would be to have a generator. I need to batten down the hutches at Synchronicity. That place needs sandbags; being three doors from the lakefront and having a history of flooding during just plain old storms. I am not going to worry, but I will watch the news all day. Today is a busy day for me. From 9-1 an expo at the Mandeville Trailhead Market, work until 5, a friend's 50th birthday party for 1/2 hour, and then an art show this evening where I am pouring wine from 6-9 for the "Meet the Artist" reception. I love this art show. It is my 3rd year of volunteering for this job. Katrina may put a wrench in all of these plans. We shall see.

I just upgraded the blog. Let me know if there are any problems, quirks, whatever......

More here.

Continuing with the movie likes and dislikes theme, did anyone see and like Almost Famous? This is also one of my faves from the last 5 years or so and is also a music-oriented film. It depicts my 70s era of music and concerts. I was never a groupie or a band-aid, though. Cameron Crowe, the director, is about my age and this is almost his biography. The DVD pictured is the Director’s Bootleg and is the one I own. It has some scenes that were cut out of the final version. They were pretty good scenes but they made the movie a lot longer than it needed to be so they were best left on the cutting room floor. It also has the film with a commentary track on it. I find commentary to be a nuisance. It’s like being in a movie theater with a person, who has seen the movie 10 times, incessantly talking behind you. I like this one for its little moments like when William turns the Do Not Disturb sign around on Russell’s hotel room door and that very famous Tiny Dancer bus scene.

Samuel is 6 months old today and such a big boy! He started eating cereal 3 days ago and does a lot better with it than I expected. He laughed one time right after I put in a bite and sprayed me with it. Cereal is sticky stuff! Mama was over for lunch today and was playing with Samuel when he put his head on her shoulder. He looked so sweet; I just had to snap a picture. You look sweet too, Mama.

Kind of in a posting mood today. Something Kitty said made me think of High Fidelity. If you’ve never seen this movie, go down to your video store and rent it or set your TiVo to record it. I really don’t think you’ll like it much, Mom, but I think most everyone else who reads this would or already has. It is probably John Cusack’s last decent film and it is easily the best one he’s been in but not particularly because of him. The other characters make the movie, particularly the two lovable losers who work for Cusack at the record store played by Todd Louiso and Jack Black. There’s an exchange between Rob (Cusack) and one of them that goes like this:

Dick: “I guess it looks as if you’re reorganizing your records, um, what’s this? Chronological?”

Rob: “No.”

Dick: “Not alphabetical.”

Rob: “Nope.”

Dick: “What?”

Rob: “Autobiographical.”

Dick: “No ****ing way!”

Rob: “Yep, I can tell you how I got from Deep Purple to Howling Wolf in just 25 moves.”

That still cracks me up.

Mirror, Mirror

Angela gave me an idea. It's her fault.

Happy Birthday to Stephen and Omar

So is Kellie going to continue the tradition that Sue started, fixing whatever the birthday boy wants for dinner? Or instead, is Sue going to keep doing that and just add Kellie to the mix now too? When is Kellie's birthday?

I can't say I remember this day 23 years ago but I do remember coming to visit y'all in England four months later and you were a perfect baby. So easy going and precious. My sister and I fought over you endlessly. You probably weighed more than half our weight but we carried you around anyway.

I do remember your first birthday though. It was at Grandma's house and I think Bobette made a clown cake for you. We have loads of pictures. You were so cute. You dove right into the cake and loved it, it was all over you. The whole family was packed into our tiny kitchen and you did not disappoint. I don't think we could have asked for a more perfect first grandchild.

Have a great birthday, Stephen.

You never know who's looking down on you. I was looking out my window this afternoon when I saw a slight glint of reflected sun coming from between the trees. It was the massive web these two had spun. They are about 30 feet in the air and the trees are about 20 feet apart. The web is not visible here because of the camera angle and the overcast. I think they are Argiope spiders. I watched one here one summer some years ago. I named her Charlotte. She spun a web from the bottom of the garden on the side of the garage all the way up to the roof about 18 feet in the air. It broke my heart to see butterflies and dragonflies trapped in her web but I didn't mind seeing the roaches, June bugs, and love bugs in there.

If you want to live in the country, you will simply have to come to terms with spiders. There are entirely too many of them, they get in places you can't get to, and they are more determined than you.

This picture of Samuel Joseph was in today's mail - 4 months

It is the first thing I scanned with my new scanner.

Hey people,

Check out the "This Day on the Family Blog" link for 2003.

We spent the night at Children’s Hospital two nights ago to do another sleep study on Samuel. It was a miserable night! Joey and I didn’t get any sleep. Samuel woke up at 2:30 am and was up for almost two hours, which is very unusual for him. The nurse came in to check on us and when she saw him awake, she said that she would tell the respiratory therapist to extend the study an hour. He fell asleep again around 4:30 am and the R.T. came to prick his toe around 5 am to end the study (they do a blood test to make sure that the oxygen readings on the machine correlate with the oxygen level in his blood to make sure the test is valid). Joey and I both popped up and practically shouted at her to leave him alone for another hour because we had just gotten him back to sleep. We were so weary; we didn’t want him awakened again. She came back at 6 am and pricked his toe and ripped the tape off his face. Joey managed to sleep through his screams somehow, but I was exhausted! His doctor called me today with the results. No more apnea!! We don’t need to use the home monitor anymore. The monitor company will probably come out tomorrow to pick up the machine, so we get one more night of worry-free sleep. I think I’ll have some restless nights for the next couple of days, but I am not that worried about it. I’ve been weaning myself off the monitor already because Samuel hasn’t been on it during the day when he takes his naps. I feel confident that he has outgrown the apnea and won’t have any problems. That’s one less thing to take with us on our next trip.

My little cutie-pie is turning over both ways now. He just mastered the back to tummy flip last Saturday and that little accomplishment was the catalyst to many other discoveries. He looks like he might even start crawling soon. He scoots around a lot and sometimes gets up on his knees and elbows and rocks. I don’t want him to grow up too fast!!

I just finished walking Ray two miles in the neighborhood - just like old times. I brushed him after our walk and then gave him a treat. He seems to be just fine. The animal control officer has called Scott every other week since Ray got in the fight with the raccoon, on June 27th, to check on his status. He told Scott that the time in quarantine is doubled just to be safe. We are relieved he is okay.

On August 11, 1961, I was 26 years old, a young mother of Robbie, Sue, and Janine. And one to come, past due since August 3rd. The summer had gone by nicely. I had a friend living next door who had a baby named Charlene. Charlene had weighed 9 pounds 4 ounces and that was factored into every conversation we had. Robbie had weighed 9 pounds 2 ounces and she (I'm hoping her name will come to me before I'm done; her husband was named Theron) thought that was an okay weight but looka here, Charlene was 2 ounces more and that was even better.

We went to Hotel Dieux to have labor induced at 8 in the morning. There was no air conditioning and I labored until noon in a hot and airless room on top of a RUBBER sheet. My my my. You'd better believe me when I tell you it was extremely warm for that activity.

Katie was born weighing -- get this -- 9 pounds 5 ounces. All babies are beautiful, but she was more so. We came home on Friday and I could not wait for my friend to get home that evening so I could call her over to see what I had done while she was out of town. And listen. I was very gracious about the weight. I didn't even mention it till she asked. Gloat? Not at all.

Incidentally, not only was the hospital not air conditioned: neither was my house! The next year, we had air conditioning and never turned it off from then till now. I could not do without it today.

Happy Birthday, Katie-Girl.

Had a lovely evening at Mom’s with Mom, Christina, Jackson, Jacob, and the girls, Liezel and Gretel. They asked me to do some computer stuff. I got a meal out of it. I’m not sure if its Christina’s, Kevin’s, or Sue’s recipe for Chicken Enchilada Casserole but it was quite good.

This is Jacob and the girls on Mom’s new floor. Gretel is the black one and Liezel is the red one.

Just the floor. Remember the “slope down” of the previous floor? Not there any more. They did a good job.

Our Family Blog is two years old today. We're now 700-plus entries and 3000-plus comments along. When you look at this rather dull entry, you might wonder why anyone would want to participate. I know I wonder. The evolution, growth, and charm of this endeavor was not envisioned or planned. It just happened and I’m happy to see everyone still enjoys it. I hope the 3rd year is as good and as fun as the first two. Take a bow, EVERYONE. You make it what it is. I think its awesome and a treasure.

See you tonight, Mom.

I didn't buy the building, but I did buy everything in it plus the almost 4 years of previous marketing of the place. I have been running it since June of last year - reluctantly, at first. Now, I have put the utilities in my name, got an occupational license, and invested in more merchandise. It is the ideal spot to run my other business "Kindred Spirits...an astrological dating and human relations resource" or so the ad will say when it comes out August 15th. I have bought 3 months of advertising with this alternative newspaper here and have plans for more marketing with other sources. I have a (sort of) trade show this weekend where I hope to sell stuff and market my services. I am currently looking for a match for a couple of people, so this will be a fishing expedition as well.

I took Tuesday off this week so that we could spend a couple of days on the Gulf coast. I love it there. My children and I hung out in the water, swelling, for hours. There were no rip tides, jellyfish swarms, sharks, storms that prevented us from being beach combers, nor E-coli as Michael tried to tell me of prior to our making the snap decision to go. On the only whole day we had there, Michael napped and then came in the gulf for about 10 minutes. It is not his idea of fun. He likes water that he can see through, such as a pool, and only then for a little while. His idea of relaxing is puttering around our house. While we played putt putt our last night there, he circled the place and every now and again would stop at whatever hole we were on to see what our status was. The man needs lessons in relaxing. He watched Synchronicity for me one Saturday for a couple of hours, months ago when it was slow. He said it was the most boring place on Earth. I love it there too. I always have something to read if there is nothing else to do. What I love about him is that he will help me fix up the store; there is painting to be done and handyman stuff. He is on vacation this week and next, so I will have the advantage of his help in a lot of ways. Yesterday, he went to the grocery and cooked dinner for the family. I wouldn't trade that in for a relaxed man.

I'm finally getting some pictures posted of our trip . We bought a new/used boat in Sturgeon Bay, WI and brought it "home" to Bayfield, WI via the waterways. We traveled almost two weeks(July 2-July 15 2005) and saw some awesome sights and met some interesting people. And, we all got along (for the most part). Our brother-in-law Jim came with us and that worked out well. It was nice to have another hand on deck when it came time to dock at the various marinas. We swam in all the lakes we traveled through, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and finally Lake Superior. The water was chilly (averaging 65 degrees) but still nice on the hot, humid days. We had windy weather the first two days which proved to be a challenge for Capt'n Dan, but he managed wonderfully and we arrived safely into each port. The remainder of the days were hot on land but required a sweatshirt on the boat as the wind off the lake was cool. Ashley and Nicole had a great time on the trip and enjoyed all the scenery,towns and history. We were all ready to get back home at the end, but once home, we were ready to do it all again. I guess that's a good sign. Hopefully the pictures work out, otherwise I'll have to have Rob post them for me.

Standing in front of the Mackinac Bridge.

Ashley & Nicole enjoying a dinghy ride.

Beaver Island Marina.

Border Patrol Sault Saint Marie.

Entering the locks at Sault St. Marie.