Escape from Grey Gardens

Thursday 9/4 12:30 PM

We got to Lucky Louie’s (the gas station attached is called TMI) around 7:30 AM and exited with car tank topped off, one 5 gallon can and one 1-gallon, around 10:20 AM. So almost 3 hours, during which I went in and out of dizzy from fumes and had to keep getting out of the car. At one point I had to pee badly so I asked & the same green-hat guy from yesterday, now in a neon green shirt maintaining orderly gas line, told me just to go into the casino. Um, that is open? The most surreal pee I ever took (okay, TMI is for Too Much Info as well). Inside it was coolish—not full Ac, but coolish and very dim except for a bar all lit up and around the corner—whoa, a Disneyland, a Christmas tree light explosion, a carnival midway—I am reaching for what this looked like—lights, jingling, flashing. What the? And then a woman across the room pushes toward me with a vacuum cleaner, cleaning the casino carpet. People were in the bar eating hot food. The bar was all lit up. I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t see the ladies room for a full 2 minutes. And the ladies was downright cool, clean, smelled fresh. A woman came in behind me and said “Dag.” I stuck my head under the cool tap before I left, back into dizzy fumes under the old bridge, people taking their old time filling up 8 gas cans and ambling into the station to pay.

Now we would have had more cans except that last night a neighbor came by saying he & friend were going to Jennings near Lafayette to get gas and stay overnight. So Gary gave him half our cans, plus we returned to him the other neighbors’ cans we were trying to fill up if we found anything. So all that and we bought 6 hours of generator time, and another 1/3 tank to get out of dodge or siphon. Forty bucks.

I feel sick today—didn’t sleep much and am too hot, but other than that I am afraid the kidney thing is not over. I seem to have to pee (TMI I know) frequently, back hurts again. I hope I am wrong. I hope it is just drinking a ton of water to keep hydrated and back hurt from working. I have another day to go on antibiotics. Will call doctor this afternoon if I don’t improve after a cold shower and some rest. It is 86 and the sun has just come out full, so it will be a hot one. Last night we had thunderstorms and a lot of rain, terrifying Hattie who kept getting up and bellow barking then when I got her and calmed her jumping on top of me on the bed, with her hot body and breath. I love that dog but she was a trial last night.

During wait at Lucky Ls I had a good cell signal so I called Gary’s sister. His mom is fine but her 2 friends will not leave and she feels obliged to stay and host them—although she would like to go stay with Gary’s sister’s family. There people have a nephew with a big house oand a good generator so this is absurd. I apologized that we are not helping with Mom since I feel awful about that but honestly getting across the river doesn’t seem smart and she’s a long way on the other side. They seemed concerned about some damage to her house but it is only to a garden structure—got that sussed anyway. In sum she is in better shape than us by far, and I’m glad, and some guilt & worry allayed. Complicated family politics.

Got call from G’s son & he & wife got out, they are at a motel in Jackson Mississippi. Good for them. Yesterday during DSL time I got email from a couple of folks but I think the LSU server isn’t working well. There were a few posts to the dept list-serv, mainly from out of town asking how we were, but one from grad students saying they had heard from most of our GA gang and they were all okay so far and looking out for one another. That is a huge relief, I love those young people so much.

Elsewise frustrating, because I go on the NY Times site for instance and it’s all about the republican convention with a little coverage of Gustav that is all focused on New Orleans. They are asking people to come back so everything is rosy. But many of those folks are here and they are sucking up the gas to get home—they don’t say that. And almost nothing about BATON ROUGE THE CAPITAL CITY AND MOST POPULATED and power lines are still draped on roads here.

I want to say something about what I sense will happen if it isn’t already happening—I saw a tiny evidence of this on a quick website tour. People blaming us for not evacuating. Okay, fine, but BR has never ever ever been this hard hit—we have been a place people evacuate TO not FROM, and in fact that’s what we were for this storm too. Look at a map. We are inland so no surge; some of our rivers and canals and bayous flood, but it is nothing like the bowl of NO and that flood. The Mississippi does not flood here because the levees are good and we are not below sea level. When the lower parishes and NO evacuate, as they did this time to unprecendented amounts, we are told to stay off the roads and we do. The roads can’t handle BR mass evacuating too. We are also a staging place for rescue operations south, east, and west of us. If I had it to do over I would stay again because that’s how it is here—it is generally considered far more dangerous to leave. I would be better prepared—but again, we were as prepared as we were for Katrina and Rita, but this time it wasn’t enough, plus we have more property, trees, animals, etc. to deal with and are much more cut off. Make no mistake we will fix that as soon as we can. Last night sitting on the porch getting chewed alive we made a plan, and if we need a second mortgage to put it in place we’ll do that. But if people start saying You Chose This so Shut Up to us I may need to get my English Longbow out.

I worked some of that sermon out while cleaning inside a bit—sweeping up billows of dog hair, bits of leaf and dirt tracked in, re-sprayed for fleas (please, please no), packaged up the wet recycling as garbage (sorry, but it stank, and as the recycling truck routinely skips us in the best of circumstances, no hope there), tidied and trimmed the electrical cords running from our generator hook-up, did dishes, cleaned kitchen. Thought about Virginia Woolf passage about “imposing some order on my raked, my disheveled soul.”

Gary just went to neighbors to see about the Jennings gas mission. The grandchild staying there had a nasty spill on bicycle this AM and they are assessing, but it looks like he & his mama will go back to NO as they heard they have power, and get the kid cooled down and bandaged better, stitches if he needs them. He’s a great kid, at dinner the other night told us he sometimes lies awake at night wondering various things like why God made mosquitoes. A 12-year-old child excited about a potential Scrabble game and hanging on the every word of all the adults, acting very adult himself—well, if they decide they don’t want him I’ll take him.

We saw electrical workers out on route 1 but that was where lines were down on the road so I have no idea if that will bdo anything toward getting us back on. Listening to WJBO—there should be a press conference re electricity at 3 PM. Crossing fingers.

Gary back with 7 more gallons gas and a chest of ICE!!!!!! Generator on again. Tomorrow I suppose we will do the gas mess all over again but we have around 14 hours of fuel now and we can make that last 2 days easy.

Gary restless wants to go over the river to refill his propane tank for the forge to do some work. WHAT???!! Is he in his right mind? I think he is worried about money. I may use the Enlgish Longbow yet today.

It is about 90 in my upstairs garret where I have to hook into DSL since the wireless won’t work—I think I fried it, who knows. Add it to the list of hurricane preparation---another DSL downstairs. Posting this bit, then cold shower and lie in the fan for me.