Legally Back
Today was the first day I was legally allowed back to my uptown New Orleans neighborhood, so I pointed the old Volvo in the general direction of the Crescent City and rolled into town unimpeded around 10 a.m. Despite the passage of an entire month, the area around my house was still a long way from ready for prime time. The house itself looked pretty much exactly like it had when we had visited it a couple of weeks ago. There were piles of branches on one corner, and on closer inspection I could see that they were not victims of the hurricane. They were victims of the power company’s tree-trimmers. In fact, while I was there, they were coming down Pine Street toward my house. It was like a parade. The first float was the tree-trimming truck. This was manned by Mexicans and they were lobbing off the branches of beautiful live oaks, magnolias and pine trees with reckless abandon. The pine tree across the street from my house that I had watched grow for the last 15 years was unceremoniously chopped off about 20 feet up. The oak tree across the street was practically destroyed. For all that, I still have no power at the house and from the looks of things it will be a while yet before most houses do. One thing that surprised me was how few people were there working on their houses. Perhaps there will be more tomorrow, since it’s a weekend?? I was the only one on my block.
Anyway, all of that Hurricane Rita rain last week had no effect, as far as I could tell, on the water marks that decorate my kitchen and hall ceilings, so my sense of urgency about the roof pretty much evaporated and I decided to concentrate instead on cleaning up the sidewalk and then starting the nasty work of tossing out the junk in the basement. Even after all this time, there were still a lot of wet things down there, most of which were now hosting a thick crop of mold. The only things that were really, really bad were the books. I had four or five boxes of books on the floor, and they were quite nasty. I filled up quite a few huge heavy-duty plastic bags with old textbooks, the originals of my master’s thesis and research notebooks, a full set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica from the 40’s, etc. I guess I got about a quarter of the way through before coming up for air, and rather than spending the night in the house, I headed over to my dad’s place in River Ridge where I knew there would be air-conditioning. Tomorrow I’ll be back early to meet The Wife, after which we’ll go check out Dr. W’s house which will definitely make my soggy basement problem look like a walk in the park.
Today was the first day I was legally allowed back to my uptown New Orleans neighborhood, so I pointed the old Volvo in the general direction of the Crescent City and rolled into town unimpeded around 10 a.m. Despite the passage of an entire month, the area around my house was still a long way from ready for prime time. The house itself looked pretty much exactly like it had when we had visited it a couple of weeks ago. There were piles of branches on one corner, and on closer inspection I could see that they were not victims of the hurricane. They were victims of the power company’s tree-trimmers. In fact, while I was there, they were coming down Pine Street toward my house. It was like a parade. The first float was the tree-trimming truck. This was manned by Mexicans and they were lobbing off the branches of beautiful live oaks, magnolias and pine trees with reckless abandon. The pine tree across the street from my house that I had watched grow for the last 15 years was unceremoniously chopped off about 20 feet up. The oak tree across the street was practically destroyed. For all that, I still have no power at the house and from the looks of things it will be a while yet before most houses do. One thing that surprised me was how few people were there working on their houses. Perhaps there will be more tomorrow, since it’s a weekend?? I was the only one on my block.
Anyway, all of that Hurricane Rita rain last week had no effect, as far as I could tell, on the water marks that decorate my kitchen and hall ceilings, so my sense of urgency about the roof pretty much evaporated and I decided to concentrate instead on cleaning up the sidewalk and then starting the nasty work of tossing out the junk in the basement. Even after all this time, there were still a lot of wet things down there, most of which were now hosting a thick crop of mold. The only things that were really, really bad were the books. I had four or five boxes of books on the floor, and they were quite nasty. I filled up quite a few huge heavy-duty plastic bags with old textbooks, the originals of my master’s thesis and research notebooks, a full set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica from the 40’s, etc. I guess I got about a quarter of the way through before coming up for air, and rather than spending the night in the house, I headed over to my dad’s place in River Ridge where I knew there would be air-conditioning. Tomorrow I’ll be back early to meet The Wife, after which we’ll go check out Dr. W’s house which will definitely make my soggy basement problem look like a walk in the park.
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