"Well, you see, we've had a hurricane."

Thanksgiving was good with Mom and Dad. We ate ourselves silly because even though it was just the three of us this year, Mom cooked like there were twenty three of us. I went on long walks with Dad to make up for it though.

Orange was really ugly (enter Caron making hand sign for ugly) after the storm. I never noticed how ugly most of the houses are and how a lot of people don't have grass in their yards... why make pretty houses that will just get covered in pine sap and why landscape with something attractive when the pines give all the shade you need? So now, with WAAAY less trees, all you see is ugly sap-covered houses set back on lots with sandy yards and big sinkholes in them where trees used to grow.

I suspect that many of the damaged businesses will sit crumbling and rotting for years to come. There is no real incentive to make it sparkle. Economic development wasn't exactly streaming into town before the storm. After all, it is Orange, and it hasn't sparkled since it's shipbuilding days.

Now, if you spent any length of time with my family, you'd know that we have a tendency to latch on to comments and use them for the rest of our lives. (Similar to Cole thinking things are funny forever.) There have been several real winners over the years that just won't die. Out of context, they aren't funny, so I'll spare you. Our newest one is, "Well, you see, we've had a hurricane." It is now the multi-purpose excuse for why something has not been accomplished. People are actually already using this crutch, er, legitimate explanation to absolve themselves of all personal responsibility for their actions or lack thereof. Amazing how a hurricane prevents students from completing assignments that were due before the hurricane ever formed in the Gulf. This weekend, the hurricane prevented me from making up my bed, putting dishes in the dishwasher, and ironing my clothes for church. Instead, the hurricane made me take naps, eat a second slice of oreo cheesecake, and watch cable tv all weekend.

more pictures

these squirrels kept running up and down their respective trees at the same speed, looking at each other the whole time.

in my next life, i'm going to be a photojournalist. i want to write and play outside and take pictures. can you make a living at that?

what if

i am one month shy of having lived in nashville for one year. i have been in quite a reflective mood lately, and partly i have been thinking about my decision to move out of abilene. wondering what my life would look like if i had moved to another city or if i hadn't even moved at all.

recently i had a conversation with a friend who was pondering several questions about his own future, which wandered into questions about mine. i was thinking about all the things that are up in the air for me that i would love to have settled and how its complicated because many of those things are intertwined, of course. what i kept coming back to was that i am confident i made the smart career choice by moving to nashville. after that, who knows. i have done what i came here to do - find a job in my field that causes me more joy than stress - and so i am happy about that.

i wonder which question will be answered next.

more hands, cont.

This weekend I went back to Slidell, Louisiana for another clean-up trip. When we arrived late Friday afternoon, we drove on in to New Orleans to take a peek. It was getting dark just as we crossed the bridge. Very few lights were on. No one was home for miles. The westbound side of the I-10 bridge is finished, so one lane goes westbound and the other goes eastbound. I had no idea just how much of the eastbound side had been completely washed out - not just missing concrete sections, but supports and all. As we entered New Orleans it felt empty. There were people milling around downtown, but it felt empty. The outskirts of town were dark and still. Very creepy. Not in a criminal way (well, kinda) but more in a ghost-town way. Made me remember how many people must still be in shelters somewhere and how many of them are probably not coming back.

On Saturday we put the primer coat on the walls of two homes that had been flooded. It is neat to see how many people come through a house helping to put it back together. One group gutted it. Another group hung new drywall. We slapped on primer. Someone else will paint the walls. Someone else will lay the floors... At our first house of the day, the family of two parents and four children who once had separate rooms were all living only upstairs. At the second house, the family of a single mom and four boys were living in a FEMA trailer in the front yard. Driving around, we could see such progress. It still looks terrible - scrambled homes, mangled trees, demolished vehicles - but it is better. Some of the debris has been hauled to the landfill. Streets are passable. Some of the damaged homes have signs nailed up that read, "Building Permit." A few more businesses are open and keeping regular hours. I wonder though, do they even see the progress? I recognized progress because I was there weeks ago, went home to normalcy, and came back again. Some people seem to feel better, but some are still very deeply disturbed by the chronic stress.

On a side note, you should check out the latest issue of National Geographic. It is full of pictures and stories related to Katrina. And one of those photos was taken by Ted Jackson, father of Jeremy Jackson whom you all met in a recent post of mine. Congrats, Ted!

Right this way, folks.

Today I gave my first tour of Second Harvest Food Bank. Considering my location on the staff org chart and my short length of employment at SHFB, you get an idea of how many other staff must have been unavailable for them to get allllll the way to ME as a tour guide.

First, you should know that we have quite a facility. We look nothing like your church food pantry, though that is what every tour group expects to see. Distributing seven million pounds of food each year to half the state of Tennessee requires a little more than a back room with a few shelves and barely ambulatory;) ladies.

A group of thirteen fifth and sixth grade Girl Scouts came at 2:00pm. My supervisor gave this tour as I tagged along to learn the path for the tour I was in charge of at 3:30pm. As we walked around, the girls paid almost zero attention. They thought it was dumb that they had to wear nametags. They talked to each other. They wandered from the group. They played with each other's hair. They played with their clothing, most of which I doubt met the school dress code. They sat on railings. They stepped on empty pallets. They asked their troop leaders, who were busy chatting with each other, why they even had to be there. I spent more time worrying that one of them would pull a box onto her head than I did learning how to guide a tour. They asked almost no questions, because after all, they hadn't paid enough attention to need clarification on anything.

Dreading the 3:30 tour group, I waited downstairs ready with my cheat-sheet-notes prepared to endure another group of the same type. However... in walked the most well-behaved children on the planet. Twenty 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders filed into the lobby without a peep. They neatly printed their own names on sticky name tags, which they wore with pride. A school administrator asked my name, then turned to the students and said, "Ms. Laura is in charge while we are here. Listen to what she says. Remember to walk behind her, not in front of her, because she knows where we are going and what is safe."

We started in the Culinary Arts Center. "This is our kitchen where Mr. Mark, our chef, cooks all sorts of special food." Mr. Mark went on to tell the students how he does cooking demonstrations, food safety classes, and catering. The kids thought he was really cool because he cooks dinner for the Titans coaches three nights a week.

Then we went to the Emergency Food Box room. "Have you ever done a food drive at your school or church?" (Yeeees.) Well this is where all that food ends up. These volunteers sort it into stacks of peanut butter, rice, vegetables, etc. Then they help us pack it all into these boxes. (They ooh and ahh over the conveyor belt.) Sometimes people are hungry and they can't afford to go to the grocery store. They can go to a community center near their house and get a box of food like this." The students' hands shot up to ask a plethora of questions like, "What if I know someone who needs food?" "How much food can one person take?" "Is it free?" "Do you feed more kids or more adults?" "Do you deliver the food?" "What happens if you run out of food in this room?" They even asked follow-up questions to my answers.

Then we went into the warehouse. "Do you see all these boxes of food and stacks of cans? Most of this food is a mistake! How many of you like to cook at home? (They all smiled and raised their hands.) How many of you have ever made a mistake when you were cooking? (A few kids told me what they accidentally did.) What did you do with the food? (Threw it away, fed it to the dog, etc.) Well, when food manufacturers make mistakes, we love it! Sometimes they make too much of a certain food, or stores order the wrong amount, or trucks deliver to the wrong places. One time, the cereal factory that makes Froot Loops accidentally spelled something wrong on the box. They produced thousands of boxes with mistakes before they realized it. But instead of throwing away those boxes of cereal, they gave them all to us!"

On to the Project Preserve room. "In this room, we take raw ingredients like fresh veggies and meat and we make beef stew. We can make macaroni and cheese, chicken and rice - just about anything. We cook everything, then seal it up in plastic bags or cans before we ship it out to other places." A second grader raised his hand to ask in amazement, "So, when you make soup in here, do you guys get to put the Campbell's Soup label on the can?" A great question - and the answer is that Second Harvest puts its own label on the cans of food we produce. We are the only food bank in the country to do so. We sell this product to other food banks as a source of revenue for local programs.

Then to the cold storage. This is every kid's favorite part. We walked through a giant refrigerated room and I told them what we keep in there. I asked if they wanted to be colder, and they giggled and shivered as we took a quick walk in and out of the freezer room, which is 10 degrees below zero.

Back in the regular warehouse, we watched a worker forklift a full pallet of boxes waaaaay up to the top shelf. The students were SURE he was going to drop it. They applauded and cheered when he finished.

Then a student said, "In the summer, I go to a community center and they feed us breakfast. Do you guys do anything like that in the summer?" I said, "Actually, the food you eat at that site come from right here in this building. It is part of our Kids Cafe program." Suddenly all the little voices said, "Kids Cafe! Yeah, yeah! I go to that too! The food is good and the people are nice and its so cool and I love it!"

We wrapped up the tour with group pictures. I even gave them cool Second Harvest magnets that are shaped like plates, forks, spoons, and knives. One kid said, "Can I have another one so I can put it on my grandma's fridge? She'll want to know about this."

I was nearly hugged to death as they left. That second group made my day. I didn't think there were any students left in the world who were as well behaved, curious, thoughtful, and respectful as they were.

Birmingham, Nashville, Houston, Chicago... Boise.

Jeremiah Jackson's galavanting with Southwest Airlines brought him to Nashville on Friday! I tell you, the flight attendant life is not for me. They have to be up - and personable - at unreasonable hours of the morning. They change time zones too much. They deal with obnoxious passengers. Some people love it, but it makes me tired just to think about that lifestyle. Have you MET me? I like routines. Jeremy knows that when we get married, (that is, according to our arrangement if we are both still single at 30) he will have to stop with the galavanting.

Anywho, we had a fabulous time at Radnor Lake with the fall colors, deer, and racoons. I have several cool pictures, but for some reason on this post, I have had extreme technical difficulties. I'll keep trying... but you may just have to come visit me to see the pictures.

A nice couple (with a British accent!) took our picture. We met up with T.J. and Holly McCloud for dinner at the new Ted's Montana Grill. And folks, guess what they serve at Ted's, besides the bison? Cherry lemonade. I was a happy camper.

Pack yer bags!

I'm going home for Thanksgiving! The flight credit that has been burning a hole in my pocket has been put to good use. Unfortunately, Southwest does not fly into Beaumont (and certainly not into Orange) so my folks will drive all the way to Houston to pick me up because they love me so much.

Things I am looking forward to about the trip:
current events catch-up with Dad
cooking with Mom
sleeping in the greatest bed ever in my old room
going to my home church
surprising a friend or two in town (no more than two. i only HAD two.)
helping with some hurricane clean-up left to do
sitting around in my jammies (except when i'm at church, i guess)

By the way, I talked to Jeremiah Jackson tonight and put in a request for Beaumont and Abilene to be the next Southwest cities added to the route. He said he'd get right on it.