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Email From NOLA IIp
People are referring to that contiguous strip of New Orleans that more or less follows the Mississippi River, and escaped the flooding caused by negligently constructed floodwalls (the failure of which caused the greatest civil engineering catastrophe in the history of America), as "the island." So Bywater, parts of Marigny, all of the French Quarter, and the majority of Uptown (which includes the Lower Garden District and Garden District proper, and all the mansions of St. Charles, and surrounding streets) are The Island, and if you go out for a drink or a bite to eat and then reach a reasonable point of satiation, someone might say--are you ready to leave the island? and for me the answer is almost always, yes, vote me off, let me off, are you using that pirogue?, see you when next the tide is right.
I suppose at some point it won't feel so weird to be on that strip of commercially viable earth and in fact I should be grateful for it and I am ocassionally, and try to be the rest of the time.
I've had my electrical work done and am now just back to waiting, for inspection, and power up, and later maybe, gas service. It could be the end of January when all that happens.
I saw yesterday that my check for seventeen hundred dollars, mailed to Allstate three weeks before Katrina, for resumption of a 70k homeowners policy with a half million dollar renters liability rider attached, cleared (over two months later), and so presumably I am insured against further catastrophe, if that catastrophe is fire, or some mishap befalling my renters, who are no longer here. That seventeen hundred dollars is almost three times the amount of the previous year's bill. So, thank you Allstate Insurance Louisiana. Apparently, criminals have been allowed back in the New Orleans area.
The head guy from the Pentecostal church came by the other day and broached the subject of selling my house to the church, to replace their flood damaged parsonage. We discussed no price and even if I don't end up staying here I just don't know if I can see myself without some physical connection to New Orleans. Of course, there is so much that I can't see that will eventually happen, with or without my heartfelt consent, so, I said we can keep in touch, and we exchanged phone numbers.
The levee board is saying that even though their post levee inspection lunches are better planned than the actual inspections, which cover 125 miles of levee in 5 hours, that their maintenance crews are out there almost every day and can recognize problems so we should all feel safe. They're talking about those guys mowing the grass, who, correct me if I'm wrong, aren't invited to the fancy lunches, twice a year. Apparently, criminals will always spew ridiculous bullshit in the New Orleans area.
I was sitting on my porch having a Red Cross lunch with a couple of the electricians and the one guy, from Florida, has been here since about three weeks post-K and is making decent money and said he couldn't eat his Red Cross lunch because he had been spoiling himself with filet mignon every night for the last week, so he gave his hamburger/mac casserole to me. About thirty minutes later a friend drove by and dropped off for me and the friend of my choice, two oyster po-boys. I went across the street because the electricians are working on the sculpter's house too, and I said to the Florida electrician, sometimes payback is a mthrfker, and sometimes it is an oyster po-boy, and gave him the white butcher paper wrapped extra sandwich, dressed, no pickles.
In another state, previous to his moving to Florida, the electrician had been married to a woman (mother of his two children) who was running a meth business out of their home and one day the feds came and busted down their door, and he is on record as saying--"It's about time." He sat in jail for five months while the state tried to figure out if he was a willing or unwilling participant, and then was released, with probation, which he has already finished. His wife got 18 years. You could tell he needed to tell the story more than he has told it thus far, and it was a compelling story, much more so than this brief description of it. I said to him--you must feel great overcoming that part of your life and he said great was just how he did feel about it.
Relatively speaking, there aren't too many people here, still.
I guess I'm guessing this won't be the last national catastrophe which I experience and am toughing myself up for it, which is the reason I'm giving for not accepting the kind offers of hot showers from a couple of sources, but expect it will be the first thing I do when I return briefly to Rappahannock County, VA. later this week. I will end by plugging the JOEY WIPES company, with their patented "molecular odor encapsulator" synthetic cloth wipes. Thanks Joey, great product.