The bitch...the bitch....

the bitch is back....for at least a day or two...

Yesterday I flew to Jackson MS and was reunited with my roommate Jeff and my two doggies, Dash and Chase. All three were excited to see me and I was excited to see them as well. The dogs and I rolled around together on the floor in a frenzy of petting and stomach rubbing. It was a lot like many of my first dates.

After the excitement had worn off I had dinner with Jeff's family, including an aunt and uncle or two. These are good old Mississippi people and so the conversation centered mainly around church services and why they all seemed to dislike the baptists. I shared stories of my more bizarre family members churches (the holy rollers and the Nazarenes) and after dinner excused myself fairly quickly and went to bed. In the course of the night I had two different and sometimes both greyhound pups in the super small bed with me but by the middle of the night I was spooning with Dash and Chase had given up and moved to Jeff's bed across the room.

This morning we took Chase to the vet for his shots and then were off to New Orleans. Jeff had been here last week and warned me of some of the more shocking things, mostly being the dog park across from our house. He said most of the trees were knocked down and much of the fencing was damaged. I had borrowed a video camera from my sister and used it to film as we drove into town. What I saw was upsetting, lots of blue tarps and piles of rubbage everywhere. We got into the quarter and the biggest thing you see are refrigerators. I read somewhere last week that you weren't supposed to just leave your frigidaire out on the sidewalk because they didn't have anybody to pick them up...obviously no-one listened to this instruction as there were many of them on the sidewalks. Our house was, and let me knock on wood and push a few christians down on their knees to offer their thanks, completely fine.

Jeff and I walked down to the pub and then around the quarter...I can and will probably have a lot to say about the topic but suffice to say that today was heartbreaking. I was so upset to see my city in such a way, so beaten down. The optimism I see in some is mirrored by the defeat I see in others. Most everyone seems to be in a state of confusion, undecided about their future, the future of New Orleans and Jesus Christ, is the ice safe to put in our cocktails? There is optimism, businesses are open and the most unbelievable thing, today in front of St. Louis Cathedral today was a couple getting married on the steps of Jackson Square Park. There was a military humvee 30 feet and the other direction there was a CBS news crew preparing for their nightly report. I have no idea of the circumstance of why these people chose to marry there or when but it was probably the only uplifting thing I saw all day. We stuck around for a minute to clap for the couple (something I despise at church weddings, people clapping.) Today it seemed appropriate.

We went back to the house and rested a bit, I made my bed and put DVD's away in a travel bag for return to Indiana. We went back out to the bars to have a few drinks. The local police have decided to enforce the curfew so the bars had to close at 11:30 pm and we were home by midnite. Tomorrow we are going to drive around for a bit, hopefully taking in lakeview and uptown or at least as much as I can stand.

Ciao for now....