There's Good News Tonight

Work day was fun though more challenging than usual.  I am amazed by mood swings of some of those with whom I work daily and how those moods affect their customers and co-workers. Drama Queans, be they gay or straight.  Let's just say, it is not a positive atmosphere. So I'm called upon to salvage a negative situation.  Once or twice is OK, but doing this repeatedly can be exhausting. We got through it.

Found the replacement parts to one of the bathroom shelf units on the doorstep (go here for the back story) when I got home, so after making a festive cocktail and shedding the work drag, got down to the business of final assembly. Took less than a half hour and the unit now resides in the bathroom where it ought to have been living for days.  Still, better late than never.

I hope the parts for the other shelf/rack thingy arrive as quickly so I can get that monster off the living room floor and into the place of honour in the bathroom, and be done with these assembly projects for a while.

Finally talked by phone with the sister - after almost 3 months - and filled her in on all my news, the move, the long hours, the work week, and all that. She has been evacuated from her apartment (on the 9th floor) twice in the past 2 months because the fire sprinkler system malfunctioned - once on her floor, then again two floors above. Flooding her apartment both times.

This isn't healthy for one who lost everything to the floods following Katrina.

Background: Her lovely brick home in Chalmette was swept off its foundation during the flooding while she was evacuated to Houston, where she remained for the better part of a year before returning to NOLA and finding an apartment in Metairie sponsored and subsidized by the RC Diocese of NOLA.(How did that become one sentence?)  Many of her friends from Chalmette who also lost their homes are now her neighbors once again.

We talked about the BP mess and how locals are being bought off or threatened not to speak out. How extended family in Delacroix and Grand Isle have lost their livelihood/business over-night, after more than a century. We both cried a bit knowing that the world for those people has changed forever.  For all of us, really.  She is feeling the change daily. We (and she) have yet to feel the full impact of this mega-disaster.

She is still living without baseboards, kitchen floor tiles and little furniture.  As we spoke the repairmen were installing the new tile floor in the bathroom. How much more can these people take?

Her tone was a bit muted and tired, but there was that sense of humour that kicked in as I told her of my life over the past months since we last touched base. The conversation ended on an up-beat. We needed this contact, if for nothing more than to spew a bit of anger and share the good that's come our way.  The update and conversation were shared blessings for us.


A thunderstorm front has moved in and is dumping needed rain on the area. However, that could also mean power surges or outages, so I'll end this and post it now.

And so it goes.
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