Cold Spaghetti

A STICK to the New Orleans’ Waste Management division/Office of the Mayor for the RIDICULOUS trash system we now have. We have all been issued HUGE trash cans that are suppose to facilitate automatic lifting. Has the person who made that decision ever been to New Orleans? Seen pictures? Even thought about what a 100-year old neighborhood might look like?
Show me a New Orleans neighborhood where every home can get a GIGANTIC trash bin into a side alley or back yard and has the street space for 5 foot of clearance on either side for trash day — show me this and I’ll show you monkeys flying out of my butt. Seriously, people! As if! The result: trash cans on the sidewalks and in front of people’s homes. Oh, and if that unsecured trash can gets lost — it’s a $75 fee to the homeowner. STICK STICK STICK!

And a BIG FAT CARROT to me for forgoing the antibiotic for Kate’s last ear infection! She had a stellar check-up today — two healthy, good-looking ears! Hooray for wait-and-see and hooray for me for having the gall to do it! CARROT!

Step One: Bleach Hair.
Scare neighbors.
Make calls. See who can guess your hair color.
Step Two: Decide to make it more interesting. (We couldn’t find green and settled for pink because I liked it.)
(Extra bonus: your wife decides to show support by tinting hair, too.*)
Scare neighbors again.
Attend Board Meeting for kids’ school.
Visit with lots of friends and neighbors. Go to the store for wife.
Just to make sure enough people have noticed, arrange to have a flat tire away from home.
Have you ever seen a man with pink hair changing a tire?
Then go out to dinner and gelato. That’s a lot of hair to loose tomorrow!
* I used “light red” henna. Rinsed way too soon out of concern for us being late for the Board meeting. No real red look… unless you have really good eyes and know what to look for…

Email from Emmy, Abeona’s Director…

—

…and a maniac.

Or, as said by her teacher, Ms. Gladys, “Kate is different.”
I’d be concerned if she didn’t say the same thing about Kate’s best bud, Stella. Stella is 5 days older the Kate and equal in her rough-and-tough, into-everything, early-mover style. They play peek-a-boo at school, stopping to glare at anyone who tries to get involved and then moving to another side of the room to continue. They tag-team tearing up the changing table, so that a teacher is dealing with the mess one made in the front without seeing the other one re-making a mess at the side. They wake up sleeping babies (actually, this one could be just Kate). They blow kisses and screech to each other across the room (to be fair, Stella blows kisses. Kate screeches.)
So Kate is 10 months old. She’s been struggling with an ear infection diagnosed last week. The pediatrician prescribed an antibiotic… a serious antibiotic (Omnicef… the one that caused all the problems for Will last year where I swore I’d never do antibiotics for ear infections ever again).

After careful consideration, research, and deep thought, I decided to forgo the script in favor of wait and see, using Motrin, warm compresses, and nursing to treat pain. She seems to be doing much better, although she still has a cough (improved, though) and her nose is still a bit runny (particularly in the morning… allergies?) At 10 months Kate…
– Weighs about 17 1/2 pounds
– Walks across the room (15 or so steps), but then remembers how much faster she can crawl and gets back on all fours
– Adores her big brother
– Practices gymnastics while nursing
– Babbles and babbles and babbles
– Strongly favors her right hand
– Loves to wave!

During Violet’s visit, we took a walk in the park, enjoying the neighborhood fiddle player practicing his tunes and taking in the egrets and ibis that were nesting along the park’s interior island. On Sunday, we took the kids to the park to feed the ducks, see the birds, and just generally enjoy the beautiful day. Thank goodness for wagons! Perfect for the occassion.
The morning was overcast, so it is harder to make out the many birds against the white sky. They were everywhere!
Seagulls, too.
Ducks everywhere, as usual… even in hidden spots!
Will took over pulling the wagon for awhile. Kate LOVED it.
Will was sporting a straight-outta-Boca look of bermuda shorts, palm tree top, white socks, and dark sandals. Oh — and Superman shades.
Looking to Oschner Island.
Will insisted on taking the path through the Audubon Golf Course.
Loyola’s chapel rang and played tunes while we walked through.
Will found a golf ball! (And Paul pointed out the mini-cache hidden under the bridge.)


The tree (below) lost one of its enormous branches in Katrina’s winds.
Houses along the park.
Crazy Kate, chattering away at her brother. (One of her teachers has decided that Kate sounds like a “pterodactyl”).
Egrets were flying all over the park. Hanging out in people’s yards on the parks edge, flying through the walking paths, getting in the way of golf carts. This one is flying out towards Magazine Street at Audubon Zoo.
Egret and golfers.
More egret and golfers.
What a lovely morning!

On Saturday, our friend Reilly turned 2 — and super parents Dora (an owner of Frock Candy and Shoe Nami) and Paul (Irish Furniture Maker) set the bar for awesome kids parties! Using Paul’s warehouse, they set up a huge chalk-friendly floor, enormous space jump with attached ball pit, and bubble machine. It was like kid heaven.
Both of my kids were into the bubble machine.
While Will loved throwing himself in the ball pit, Kate just loved the balls that fell out.
Will was especially into the cakes — yes, TWO cakes! When it was time for cake, Will was the first one at the table, positioning himself right across from Reilly. Friend and teacher Renee saw him and instantly saw those wheels turning… mentioning to me how Will was sitting completely erect, still, and at the ready, watching those cakes. I had to check it out myself. I saw him just as Reilly’s aunt was encouraging her to take a finger to swipe some icing. After a few go-’rounds with Reilly (who was hesitating to put her finger on the beautiful pastry), Will crept up on the table, reached over, and swiped a hunk of corner icing before I could even breathe to stop him. (His audacity was met with applause from Reilly’s family so we escaped that one!) Now I know what to discuss when we talk about going to parties!
We all had a great time!

Of the 17 Wards that make up Orleans Parish, the 9th has become it’s most well-known. In the 1920s, the Industrial Canal was dredged through the city’s largest ward, creating the “Upper” and “Lower” sections; “upper” referring to the section upriver from the canal to the west and “lower” as the downriver section to the east. In New Orleans, one tells direction based on the flow of the Mississippi, not the direction of the sun.
Much of the 9th Ward sits above sea level along the natural levee built by the Mississippi River. It is home to historic buildings, million dollar mansions, famous musicians (Fats Domino, Kermit Ruffins, as examples), and the famous Jackson Barracks. Like most of New Orleans, the streets of the Lower 9 are tree-lined, with corner stores, beauty parlors, and small restaurants.

The last census showed that the majority of the inhabitants owned their home and that more than half of them were retired. Of the homeowners, few held mortgages. They simply owned their home outright, having grown in that home and lived there for many years. One of our teachers at Abeona describes her home, flooded in the Gentilly neighborhood in the Upper 9th Ward, as “the pride of her family, her family home” and talks with a tear in her eye about how hard her parents worked to make it a home for her family.
(Note the water line on the stop sign above.) The picture was taken from the Holy Cross neighborhood in the Lower 9th Ward, between St. Claude and the River. Families must gut their homes in a timely manner in order to save them from demolition. Here, someone had gutted their home (from the appearance, this happened many months before). There are so many obstacles to overcome before rebuilding, yet the signs are clear that this area is loved and people want to return home.
In the Florida Avenue area (between Florida Avenue and St. Claude) — where the levee breach was so huge that a barge floated in and where water pushed in so fast and so hard that homes splintered off their foundations and cars were thrown like toys — all that remains are footprints. There are blocks and blocks of empty lots.
There may not be a house sitting on this land. But it is still someone’s home.
Photographs of what this area looked like after the storm may be viewed on Charlie Varley’s website. Click here to see his year after Katrina collection. Here are “then” and “one year later” shots. Note that the white house a few pictures above is the same one in his before and after collection (page 12); it is still sitting, collapsed, in the same position it was in after the flood.
A homeowner has made a sign to signal that this empty space is still 2026 Tennessee. The lot looks out to the newly constructed levee (the white wall) the St. Claude Drawbridge and the city skyline beyond. The Lower 9 has, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful views of the city.
A mailbox, labeled clearly for mail delivery, in front of a destroyed home.
A home sitting several feet off of its foundation.
This home has “do not demolish” signs on it at the request of a film crew.
Violet and I discussed the time frame for which the “HELP” was written. Finally, we decided that it didn’t matter when. Writing help on one of these destroyed buildings is just as relevant today as it was on August 29th, 2005.
A community reaches for faith to survive.
What would it mean if this were the only home you’ve ever known, the center of your family, the one thing that you own?
An open gate and open door, leading to…?



Entergy at work (below).

Paul spent the last week in Sierra Vista, Arizona, leaving me as a single mother with two children and no bathtub. Lucky for me, our friendly neighbors were more than willing to let us use their tub. Even luckier for me, Violet spent a few days here during her vacation tour of the Gulf Coast.Violet was our neighbor in Michigan and she and her husband, Millard, are friends and role models. It was a bummer that Paul missed her visit, but frankly, she came at the perfect time. As a research-minded, academy-familiar, professional mother of two, Violet is just about the only person I feel completely comfortable talking to about my professional endeavors because She Gets It. I found out Monday afternoon that my Wenner Gren application did not get advanced, mostly because the reviewer felt it lacked in “theoretical anthropological significance.” Considering my committee chair, a Wenner Gren reviewer for several years, felt it was easily one of the top he’s read, I felt a bit wounded by the letter. But after an evening of licking my wounds, I was able to brush it off and move on.

So Tuesday, I had a meeting with another committee member, who was shocked at Wenner Gren’s decision, but felt it a good thing for two reasons: my focus is so much changed that it may have been worth taking a new funding direction and increase the budget. Current literature on RDS suggests using a Deft (design effect) greater than 2, greatly increasing sample size. That, combined with recent changes in focus, was putting things in a different light. I felt better after discussing all of this with Beth. But I felt even better after talking it over with Violet, who immediately advised brushing it off and going for more. *sigh*

Wednesday, I spent the day with Violet. We went to a local gym, where I oogled the FOUR outdoor pools (two just for kids) and contemplated how many organs I’d have to sell for a summer membership to take the kids to the pool. We enjoyed breakfast at Oak Street Cafe while Charlie entertained in the background. In the afternoon, we toured the 9th ward (particularly the lower 9, downstream from the industrial canal) — my first time in going post-Katrina (more on that in another post). In the evening, we left the kids with favorite babysitter and friend Michelle and had an UH-MAZING dinner at Dick and Jenny’s. And each night, Violet helped me get the kids bathed and in bed. It was wonderful.

Thursday, we took a walk in Audubon Park. We noticed the egrets and ibis (and maybe others?) mating and nesting in the trees at Ochsner Island, passed the violin player practicing under the oaks, and regrouped. Before leaving, Violet came to Abeona to take a few pictures with the kids.
Thanks, Violet, for a wonderful visit!

Soundbites from Will on the confusion between Daddy’s business trip this week and Manx’s death (and other things)…

“Manx is on a business trip.”

“Mommy, why did Daddy put bricks on Manx?”

“I have two kitties, just like Abeona has two potties… a white one and a brown one.”

“Is Daddy going to get Manx?”

It’s been two days since he’s said anything. I actually think he understands the concept, but asks about it just to test that it’s legit.

Life has been full of so much adventure that I missed posting some pictures from Kate’s first bathtub experience. It was last weekend, in Mobile, with her brother.





They had a BLAST. Now Kate does her best to throw herself into every bathtub she sees. We REALLY need to get a move-on with renovations so that we can have a tub, too!!