No More tears:
I realize I've stopped crying. I hope I'm making some progress, but I think I'm just out of tears. We have stopped watching the local news feeds on the computer and the nationial news on TV. Well. at least some of the time. My husband and I picked up my grandson, Tyler, from day care and took him to see "Sky High." He loves that movie and has already seen it twice. But he really enjoyed telling me who were the nice kids, and who were the mean ones. When we brought him home we had a nice dinner and a good visit. For a while everything seemed normal. Then Tyler said to me, "I love your house Mimi. Did the hurricane break it?" I had to be honest here so I simply said, "yes, it did." Then Tyler brightened up and said, but Paw Paw can fix it." I looked at him with a smile and confidence and said, "yes, Paw Paw can fix it."
I now have more resolve, to "fix it." As every grandmother knows, anything can be done if one of your grandchildren wants it done.
LSU Wins! The Saints Win!!!!!
I am a major LSU Tiger fan. My husband and I have season tickets. Normally we would have been in Tiger Stadium Saturday night with friends watching the game. But, because of the circumstances we were at my sister's house in Houston watching the game with the friends who are here also. We cheered, danced, and kept in touch by cell phone with the rest of our friends who would normally be with us. The game, orginally scheduled to be played in Baton Rouge, had to be played in Tempe. The people of Arizona were good to us. They did as much as possible to help the LSU Tigers get to Tempe for the game and we are very grateful to them. We needed to have something positive to focus on. The game was a college football at its best. Two great teams in a close game. In the end LSU pulled it out with a score of 35-31.
The people of Louisiana love football. Even though the game was moved to Tempe, there were 5000 fans in Tiger Stadium watching the game on big screens. The positive energy coming out of that is powerful.
There were some interesting stories that came out of the game that gave me a smile. Consider that our quarterback, JaMarcus Russell has Fats Domino as a house guest. JaMarcus no doubt lost some concentration on the game since, I heard he spent some time the day before getting Fats' medication from a New Orleans pharmacy to a Baton Rouge pharmacy.
So we went to bed feeling a little better. Then we wake up to a Saints game. We are also big Saints fans and we are always hopeful at the beginning of the season. But yesterday I woke up with even more hope than usual. I really need them to win, but I felt guilty putting that much pressure on them and for worrying about a game when so many people were suffering much more than I. But, I couldn't help it. So, we cheered, danced and yelled at the Saints game just like we did for the Tigers. And both my teams pulled it out in the end. I think that's a really good omen.
Comic Relief:
Sometimes, just when you feel that you have been forgotten, something happens to make you realize that the universe isn't finished laughing at you yet. A couple of days ago, Sharon and I (Patricia) moved, along with our husbands, to San Antonio for a few days away from the hustle and bustle of Houston. We checked into our hotel and discovered that a steam room was available to the guests. Sharon and I thought we might really need a session in there to detoxify ourselves after weeks of comfort food that had found a happy home on our hips. We also really needed the relaxation effect after constant tension trying to keep in touch with loved ones, and finding out the conditions our homes are in, etc.
Well, we went to the steam area and undressed, putting on some robes and happily anticipating the enveloping mist of the steam room melting away some stress, not to mention the fat. We no sooner had undressed, than a fire alarm went off in the hotel, sending us all scurrying into the streets outside dressed only in our bathrobes. We had tried to hide in the bathroom, really reluctant to leave the hotel, but once again, were forced to evacutate. It was surreal. Here, we had just escaped the massive flooding of New Orleans, and in attempting to re-group, now we were threatened by a possible fire. So out to the steets we went, much to the amusement of the construction workers and other passers-by.
We were, well--unlovely, looking more like prizefighters about to enter the ring than like Southern ladies. I couldn't stop laughing. Sharon was a little less sanguine about the whole thing, but we managed to survive anyway, getting back inside eventually. I must say, the steam room may be detoxifying, but it doesn't seem able to reverse that little weight issue. I am still wearing clown pants. It could be worse. At least we can still laugh at ourselves. We are resilient, perhaps less so then most of the other evacuees. But one way or another, we will make it through.
Read more of the saga.