Wed 8:15 PM
I am not so anxious now. Maybe a bit of me is accepting things. I’ve never been very good at waiting; when something is wrong I want to charge in & fix it, make it right. Years ago I had a palm reading that I did not take seriously (who does?) but was toild I had the “mark of the justice” which is maybe in theory a good thing, but on the ground it just gives you & your friends& family headaches.I don't want to be one of a nation of whiners or whatever it was the McCain people called us. I don't mean to whine; I just want things to look up for our community. that, and about 20 gallons of gas.
Gary made another gas foray in the early afternoon and came back with nothing. Around 4:30 we tried again on a rumor something was up at Lucky Louie’s casino under the old bridge—not so far, so we went. We queued, we were celebrating, maybe only 30 cars ahead of us. Then a nice young man in a green hat walked up to a car 5 up from us, spoke to them, and they turned away. And the next, and the next, etc. When he got to us he told us they were almost dry and to try Crazy Cajun something or other several miles away. I am not making the names of these places up. We asked would they be open tomorrow & he said yes they would get a refill in the night & be open at 9 AM. Yay! We plan to be there no later than 8. That was enough for me & I wanted to turn around & go home but Gary drove us to Crazy Cajun which had its pumps taped up—a guy there said their generator was broken. So we went back to highway 415 which is in my book the scariest place on earth—busy road, no lights, lots of pissed off people. The lines for the 2 places open, Cash’s casino & Exxon, were horrifically long so we turned around and went home, stopping to look at the Shell and Cheveron on route which are still shuttered.
In between then a friend who just turned 90 but acts younger than both of us compiled stopped by with her daughter, son-in-law, & granddaughter who had evacuated from NO. Sue the 90 yr old sells antiques from the old plantation store at Orange Grove where Gary used to live—long story. Anyway they had gone to check on the store and evidently there is heavy damage—porch ripped off etc. This is dreadful, as that place should be on the historic whatever—it was owned by a free man of color and has quite a history, and Gary loves that place so it hurt to see his expression. We were married in that store in the back office by a tiny little woman JP alomst 10 years ago.
Sad news. It was however lovely to have visitors.
Somewhere right before there visit we discovered our phone was back up but of course all the phones need to be plugged in to work, and charged up. But that meant I had DSL. So we fired up the generator using some precious petrol drained from the tractor to recool the frig and make contact with The World. I posted my blog entries and sent a few emails before time to power down. Discovered LSU is closed for the week—thank god—and they are up to some major spin control (grrrr) and the football is off for this weekend (duh). We were also told to stay off campus—the only power is to the evac centers. I can’t go volunteer even though I would like to because getting there and back would be a huge mess and spend petrol. We are reserving ½ tank in my car to leave if necessary, if Ike comes. I hope we score gas at Lucky Louie tommorw—both of us are pinning a lot of hope on that. Green hat guy looked trustworthy and was polite.
We are making plans to be better prepared next storm (not this season, too late). Natural gas generator with just enough juice to power a room size AC, the frig, and a light or two. Buy a room size AC. Enclose part of front porch with screen and shutters and make it a sleeping porch (it is about 10 degrees cooler out there now, but there are just clouds of mosquitoes so I am inside sweltering. Install screens in dining room and kitchen windows so we can cross-ventilate. Get those windows fixed so they open without crowbars and such.
Hindsight, 20/20. Don’t know how we will afford all this but I have a feeling traveling will be curtailed for some time. I don’t want to be unprepared again.
I still have no idea if anyone knows what is happening. I got through to insulin pump supply place and also sent my sweet sister an email asking her to dog them for me. Apparently even though I placed the order over a month ago and sent them new insurance info (LSU changes providers the way some people change underwear) they didn’t get it together and never sent my shipment. I have no idea why nobody even contacted me. They are on my s&^%t list. They are supposed to send me some samples to tide me over but the issue is how to get them here if UPS, USPS, Fed Ex are not delivering. They won’t send to the post office in Port Allen general delivery—some sort of policy. I’m pretty POed about this whole thing but just before we powered generator down a woman from minimed called to apologize and assure. She will call back in 2 days. Shan’t hold my breath and it will be a miracle if we have power or gas to make power by then to take that call. At least she understood that. We will see.
We need gas, we need electric, and how awful is it that we rely on those things so deeply. It’s going to get into the 90s the next few days and sticky sticky; I am sure some folks will pass away from the heat, which is just so stupid.
I am wearing some sort of organic nontoxic dog flea and tick repellant (yeah I know) because our Off is in short supply and I think I overdid it with it yesterday—nasty necessary stuff. It reeks of patchouli. Ugh. At least Gary likes it. I hope the skeeters don’t.
Hot hot hot—I had 100 fever so I took a cold shower and wound up at 98. Time to repeat that; good night.
11:30 PM
I don’t like the night. Yes it is a bit cooler but in view of mosquitoes we have to stay in and it is stuffy sticky hot & one feels obliged to sleep, redolent of Off and patchouli. Hattie woke us up at 11 and I was so sure it was almost dawn that now I can’t sleep at all. She was by one of the 2 front doors we have open because there are fairly intact screens, barking at no doubt the kitties, bellowing barking. Till tonight she has been a saint through all this.
On my way to the WC after she woke us I noticed my face felt funny, left side by neck all swollen. I poked at it and realized what was happening—years ago it did this, and I went to an MD and discovered I had a blocked salivary gland. Kind of like a bladder stone but in that gland duct. The sure was stay hydrated (I am trying!) and chew gum. Gum. It worked, it keeps the saliva going. I didn’t think we had any gum so I was chewing a bit of paper towel when I remembered the pack I bought for the plane trips to Copenhagen—still had some left, where did I put it? A little hunt turned it up, along with a flashlight I had forgotten about that casts a kind of fluorescent bluish glow and has a kind of kick stand & thus makes a nice low get around the house and prop next to you while doing X light—it doesn’t blind one the way a candle or flashlight can. The gum BTW is Stride which makes me think of Where the Hell is Matt. I will be another spoeesperson: keeps Matt dancing and unswells my face.
Forgot to say about the last big gas trip that southbound 415 is choked with gas traffic as is northbound to the intersection of 415 & Rosedale bnut 415 btwn Rosedale and at least Lafiton lane is closed because there is a while string of electric poles and wires lying across the 2 northbound lanes. Also there is a gas station on that side that looks like someone grabbed it and threw it back down and next to that our produce mart, Po’Folks, looks like someone shot it up with mortars. Byebye close OK produce.
Someone told us Whole Foods is open over in mall land across the river. Jealous, I am so jealous. We’d settle for A Quarter Foods over here.
Left a message earlier during generator time when we had land phone for Jim & Michelle my colleagues & pals in BR. Got a return message on the cell hours later (it never rang, just got the message which I remember well from Katrina—this time though I was surprised I was able to call voice mail since that has been impossible). Anyway it was a funny goofy message & cheered me up,--they are fine, nobody hurt, house not hit, somehow they got a generator Sunday and had just sucked the last gas out of one car to run it a bit more—like us, biggest problem no has to make power. They sounded well-lubricated and said they had 2 cases of wine, to come on over. Tempting but roads not good, it would mean spending gas, unsure of bridge closing or not, so we need to stay over here. A river runs through this disaster and we seem to be on the wrong side of it.
Lights that are outside that I can see seem limited to a couple stars and flares from Exxon across the river—big ones which means they are burning something off prolly cause they had to shut something else down.??? One day I will decipher what the flares mean. There were some at Placid refinery next door to us after the cane field, but we get so used to seeing those I pay them no mind.
Just heard a rustling in a corner of the kitchen. Grrrrr.
Time to try to sleep a bit.
Thursday sort of 1 AM
Simply cannot sleep. Bites itching, too hot, and Gary’s knee hurting him so much he seems to be moaning in his sleep. He is exerting it trying to take care of us and he needs that surgery, to stay off it and rest. Tomorrow we will try to call the doctor. Nothing seems to help—ice, various ointments, ibuprofen. They gave him RX for pain but he didn’t fill it and wouldn’t take it if he had.
He just got out of bed and turned on the generator. This is our very last gas outside of ¾ tank in the ccar which we need for, duh, getting gas if any is to be had, and some on reserve for getting out of here if that becomes necessary. We are rolling the dice on Lucky Louie tomorrow AM.
Going online now for a minute to post this. I hope I am not upsetting anyone overly like my family, but I am trying to be honest. I don’t expect Superman to come with a cape, but I’m not at all assured that folks know we need help and there are some things that should be running better. Lack of faith in dealing with disaster? Um, let’s see, where did that come from?
