What Goes Up...

Removal of temporary classrooms

It is just shy of a year ago that I posted a photo of the temporary classrooms going up on Tulane's uptown campus. This morning Tulane News posted a photo of them being taken down. It seems like it's been much longer than a year, but unless one of the newer COVID-19 variants like B.1.617.2, combined with people too stupid to get what is probably the safest vaccine on the planet, makes us all have to backtrack, I think things are looking pretty good here in the States. While there are still a number of precautions in place, they're pretty much on the honor system unless you happen to be in a hospital or something, where one might imagine mask-wearing might become a permanent thing. Although I am still tracking COVID cases daily, I've recently added more detailed tracking of vaccinations, at least state-wide and within New Orleans. Here in town we are currently at 46.2% of the (2018) population having completed their vaccinations. You'd have thought it might be higher by now considering how many people died when it first hit and then when there was the summer surge. Even so, New Orleans has about the highest percentage of its population vaccinated unless you count West Feliciana Parish where most of the population is comprised of prison inmates who probably didn't have a choice. For comparison, the state as a whole is at only 33.9%, and some parishes are below 20%. 

After a pretty good WeMoRi yesterday, I went out this morning knowing I'd get wet. The radar was not looking good at all, so I stuffed my brand new father's day Assos rain jacket in my pocket before hitting the road. As I climbed up the levee I saw Rich and Scott starting to return home. They had both arrived a couple of minutes earlier and had seen the rain falling just half a mile upriver. They yelled down to me that it looked like it was pouring down rain up ahead. I just smiled since I was looking forward to trying out the rain jacket. Granted, there is practically no need for a rain jacket if you're riding in cycling kit in the summer in New Orleans since there is no chance at all that you will get cold. I ended up riding all the way out to Destrehan, mostly in a light rain and almost all on a wet bike path, and it was fine. The rain jacket worked fine. I put it on and took it off a couple of times during the ride. On the plus side, there was a rainbow in front of me for the whole outbound ride.

What a mess.

Meanwhile back at home they are tearing up even more of the street on my corner. Yesterday they told Candy they were going to have to relocate our water meter because of the Oak tree roots that had enveloped it. It looks like they started that and then stopped when yesterday's rainstorm came through. This morning it looked like they had abandoned that project and were focused on ripping up more of Pine Street. I can only hope that the Oak trees don't all die as a result of the significant damage being done. The street floods pretty badly now when it rains since they have removed all of the storm drains and it doesn't look like they will be back in operation for quite a long time at this rate. Just in time for hurricane season. Candy had a pre-op appointment yesterday for her second hip replacement that is scheduled for July 23. She was kind of depressed reading the notes from the CAT scan about all of the degeneration in her hips, knees, etc. 

Getting old is not for sissies.