Gloria's Household Hints

1. Never substitute regular dishwashing detergent for the gel or powder designed for use in an automatic dishwasher. We did this today as we began packing to move. It was a stopgap measure, since we were out of gel and I did not want to buy a new container so close to moving day.

Result: the kitchen floor was flooded with suds.

2. Short on no-wax floor cleaner? Have a dirty kitchen floor? Ignore rule #1.

Millie Bush Bark Park

Houston has more off-leash dog parks than any other city in America. Lately we had been taking our four to Ervan Chew Park near our apartment, but we finally made the trek across town to Millie Bush, known as the Cadillac of dog parks.

We left home rather late and arrived at shortly before dusk. The dog park was immense. Not impressively pretty, by human standards, as there were few if any mature trees. All the better for throwing balls. But enormous--and that was not even including the part of the park set aside for smaller dogs weighing less than 25 lbs. Lots of wide-open grassy space for running unimpeded. Best of all was the pond.


Jesse was the first to discover the pond. We had never taken her to a swimming venue before, but we suspected that she would enjoy it. I have never seen her looking so jubilant and non-neurotic. This is a dog who--even at the other dog park--returns to my side every few minutes for petting, and who "works" the crowd with urgency, leaning against strangers and then sitting blissfully on their feet as they pet her head. At Millie Bush, Jesse shone. She ran at top speed in no particular direction, flirted with other dogs, and dashed into the water again and again.


Simcha enjoyed the park, but as usual, went off in his own direction much of the time to explore. As anticipated given his mixed heritage, he declined to submerge more than his feet in the pond.

Elliot's behavior fell between those two extremes. He happily entered the water, but did not go out of his way to re-enter it. He and Simcha argued with a Husky. Boogie seemed less comfortable in Millie Bush than he had at the much smaller Ervan Chew; he avoided the water entirely, and spent most of his time as close to Katie as possible.

We never ventured into the small-dog side of the park, where Boogie might have been more comfortable. On the big-dog side, Millie Bush was so vast as to allow avoidance of other humans. Some seating was available, but it did not encourage friendly conversation as did the chummy circular bench at Ervan Chew. My local park had its own ambience that varied slightly by time of day and day of the week, depending upon who was there. Even with others present, watching the playful dogs had a soothing, meditation-like effect on me. I did not feel this effect at Millie Bush. Still, Millie Bush's size, facilities, and grassy substrate were a hit with our big dogs. Ervan Chew, on the other hand, is carpeted in wood chips that are sometimes uncomfortable for a running dog.

Time and the sunlight passed far too quickly. We were sad to leave, but glad that we had squeezed in a last-minute visit to what would become one of my favorite memories of Houston. As I marvel at the variety of dog park facilities offered by the Greater Houston area, it makes me want to become active in the effort to develop dog parks in Greater New Orleans.

Houston Friends, Metairie Friends

Yesterday I found myself crying in the carpool line at Katie's school.

When Joel and I had chosen a date for our move back home, we immediately told Katie, so she'd have as much time as possible to accomodate herself to the news. She told her new friends by phone and by Instant Messaging, and then announced it at school yesterday. Her best friend here, Samantha, went out on a shopping trip to buy Katie a small mountain of mementoes. No tacky Texas souvenirs for this girl: she bought her friend a fluffy new pillow, a couple ultra-soft blankets, and some cuddly stuffed animals. True creature comforts, and accompanied by a handwritten card and more than enough cash to buy the "Sims 2" game that Katie had been drooling over for months. How much love was conveyed in that pile of plush! That a twelve-year-old girl would show that degree of generosity toward my daughter, even now brings me to tears. I wish that I could be that sort of friend.

So I was telling this to one of the teachers in the carpool line, and the tears started. I pulled myself together, but a few minutes later, as I described the conversation to Katie once I had picked her up, they resumed. "Oh, Mom, don't cry again!" Katie teased, rolling her eyes in a good-natured way.

But the tears are recurrent, and they pop up at odd times. The first time I cried after we evacuated was when I wrote an email to cancel my Jazzercise membership. Communicating directly with the corporate powers out in California, I felt compelled to say something about the remarkable instructor, Debby Haddock, who had gotten me off my "Jabba the Hutt" tuchis (Yiddish for tush or butt) to exercise for the first time in twenty years. As I wrote that letter, I fought back tears, not wanting to cry in our motel room about something so seemingly trivial as the loss of my Jazzercise class.

Last night I found out that Debby is moving her business to TN after 16 years of teaching in New Orleans. I certainly understand both the desire and the financial need to leave. Still, I am moving back just two days late to miss her going-away party. It hurts. Debby is one of those people in my life who has guided me through shark-infested waters. She ranks up there with Sandy Braver at Arizona State, who miraculously shepherded me through Multivariate Statistics. Don't most of us have a hero or two like these in our pasts? Someone we knew (intellectually) to be only human, but who somehow seemed to pull us firmly and safely through difficult times?

I marvel at the strength of my emotional reaction to losing Debby. Being in Houston, I found that there were not that many aspects of New Orleans that I really missed, but Debby was one of them. One would think that the live music and theater, the incredible food, or even the infinitely entertaining political corruption would be the most memoriable parts of the Crescent City. Now that I am out of town, however, it's the humble, women-only things that I have missed most of all: my mah jongg games, going to my favorite nail salon, and attending my Jazzercise Lite class. My heart is tied to places where panty hose would be out of place.

More Pictures

Here are a few photos of Lakeview, the New Orleans neighborhood in which we lived before we moved into our house in Metairie. Lakeview is a wonderful neighborhood with charming small houses and bumpy roads. It was immediately adjacent to the famed levee break, and took the brunt of Lake Pontchartrain's swell onto formerly dry land.
We always considered Harrison Avenue to be the main street of Lakeview. It was hit very badly. An unknown female saint stands in the neutral ground (that's what New Orleanians call an island) parking area in front of St. Dominic's Catholic Church. What New Orleans lacks in traffic signals, it makes up for in makeshift signs.


Roughly across Harrison Avenue from St. Dominic's, the sign at the Rite Aid Pharmacy urges us to "Live Well." The trees in the parking lot seems to have had some difficulty doing so, having been under eight feet of standing water.

Continuing east on Harrison Avenue, on the same side of the street as Rite Aid, one comes to the Coral Reef Pet Shop and the Sneaker Shop. These storefronts were utterly devastated.

This street could be any street in Lakeview. The houses, for the most part, look okay from the outside, except for the waterline at shoulder level (most easily seen on the house at the far left.) Below eye level, the vegetation is all brown from submersion. Inside, every home is destroyed and uninhabitable. Several of our dearest friends lost their homes to a sea of toxic sludge that buckled their flooring, brought down their ceilings, and saturated their walls with filth and mold. One such friend tells me that everyone is holding off on trying to restore their homes because they are so far gone that there is a significant likehood that the neighborhood will be bulldozed. All they can to is to salvage an item here or there. From my own perspective, all I can add is that no human being should be forced to wait, day after day, week after week, wondering about the fate of his or her house. How can you heal, when you cannot even imagine where your home is?

The Lakeview townhouse where we used to live, had always been prone to flooding in its front yard (but never inside). It was still disturbing to see it and its neighbors spray-painted by rescuers who had checked it for bodies and survivors.

This condo a few doors down had always been particularly striking, and I fondly remember trick-or-treating there with Katie, and admiring the freestanding pond they had placed in their fenced-in front yard. Now the condo looks like the Third World backdrop from a "Save the Children" commercial.

Imagine coming home to see your backyard so exposed. It is like a nightmare about going out in public, but forgetting to put on your pants.

This last photo, taken back in Metairie, has a particular poignancy when viewed after the destruction of Lakeview.

More On Metairie

Upon my return to Houston from my first visit to Metairie since Hurricane Katrina, I felt too overwhelmed to convey the myriad feelings that I experienced back in LA.

How can I express the joy of playing a normal (albeit three-handed) game of mah jongg with my friends Lisa and Amy? How giddy we got, how we kept forgetting whose turn it was, even though we were drinking nothing stronger than Diet Coke? To be able to laugh together over shared jokes, to lament the damage to Amy's condo after the weeks and weeks of painting and work she had done on it since she moved in? To curse the storm that had sent my family scuttling like crabs, even though our house was just fine?

I saw other friends too, and each time I went to where I expected to see them, I took my digital camera to make sure that I'd have a photo or two to remember them by. What is striking to me is that it took me a VERY short time to decide I wanted to be in LA, and STILL I kept carrying the camera everywhere. I told myself, "No, I don't need to get a photo of Big Dog Steve, for I'll be back...I don't need a shot of Lisa, or of Anne. I know where I will see them from now on, when I am back here, settled." So I kept checking my camera, to make sure I'd have enough room on the card to get a nice shot of Robert and Bugsy, a nice shot of Val, etc. but I never took a photo of anyone!

Everywhere in Metairie were Help Wanted signs. It's a (low-level) jobseeker's paradise. After the tsouris (Yiddish for agony, stress) of trying to get hired by the Houston PetWorld as an animal trainer, I visited the PetWorld closest my house on Sunday afternoon. It looked as if it had not been open for a long time. I thought of visiting the more distant PetWorld in Elmwood, but I remembered how once before it had flooded badly, just from heavy rain. I assumed it could not possibly be in operation.

I drove to my regular veterinarian's office, where friends had seen a banner announcing the acceptance of job applications. Working either the front desk or cleaning cages was not likely to pay well, but I held out hope that perhaps once in a while, I could talk shop with the wonderful Dr. Watts. Perhaps, given the extraordinary nature of the Metairie job market, they would consider hiring me. I caught him meeting with building contractors at the clinic that Sunday, and pleaded my case. He said that one of the female office employees was actually in charge of hiring, so I'd have to see her the next day. For the first time in many months of job-hunting, I felt hopeful.

The next day I visited the PetWorld near Elmwood, despite my expectations of flooding there. They were allowing folks to come in and to apply for work. I found out they already had two animal trainers, but I was referred to the PetWorld near my house directly south of me on Veterans. I told the manager, Ben, of my efforts to be hired in Houston, how I had wanted to stay in Houston, but how my heart had taken a 180-degree turn as I drove into my neighborhood. They hired me, contingent on my passing the urine test, background checks, etc. I didn't have to lie about being a licensed psychologist. I was buzzing with excitement.

I start November 7th. Finally someone in this family has an income that doesn't come from FEMA, insurance, or the Red Cross. I get medical, dental, vision, 401K, even pet insurance! I can't wait to undergo my training as a Pet Training Specialist I (it's all positive reinforcement, much like the Bob Bailey workshop I flew to Seattle for three years ago) and to start work.

I didn't want to leave Metairie, and cleaning up the house a little and packing the car went very slowly. As my mah jongg friend Lisa says, everything takes infinitely longer to do here than it used to: one day her sole accomplishment was buying a mop. You'll be in a store, and you'll see someone you used to know-- not very well, but a passing acquaintance--and you'll be full of desire to learn where that person had been during the hurricane, and how his or her house had fared, and where that person was currently living... Yes, it seems excessive and sappy, but I remember my elation when I recognized a worker at the C's Pharmacy on Veterans, who used to work at the branch we frequented on West Esplanade. A middle-aged woman with a loud voice--the familiarity of her face was the visual equivalent of comfort food to my home-starved eyes.

So you add in the requirement of catching up with friends at the store or at the Solutions Club each day, and you have a recipe for SLOW progress. I discovered I had a broken headlamp and it took hours to get it fixed (mechanics are busy, as are construction and home repair people), and the urine test and further application paperwork at PetWorld took longer than expected, so I needed to postpone my departure by one day. Joel was angry and hurt by the delay, even though it had nothing to do with him.

So, anyway, I am home again in Houston, the dogs are happily underfoot, and I am surrounded by the noise and mess generated by a family crammed into a two-bedroom apartment. Katie's detritus is everywhere, even though Joel and Katie tried to clean up in honor of my return.

Because of Ethernet routing limitations, Joel and I are forced to place our computer desks side by side, so he is all of six feet from me. All day long, and every evening. At night--in the same room--I lie next to him on the floor, holding the sound machine at an angle so it will blast wind and storm noises at me to drown out his snoring. I have to go to bed earlier than he does, in the hope that I'll be asleep before he starts to snore. During the day, he leaves the television on for company, so even when he's computing in our bedroom, I can hear it--it sounds like it's right in this room. The sound pollution grates on me.

I realized that my situation was dangerous when I was in Metairie alone. I felt happily free. The stillness was disturbing but still liberating. I had room to breathe. And now I am back here, and it is stifling. One morning back in Houston I had the frightening realization that it was crammed together in a ONE-bedroom apartment that saw the demise of my marriage to my ex-husband, Roger. (He couldn't find work in LA, so stayed in CO and visited in short, very painful bursts.) Overwhelmed with this cabin fever, I have taken to sleeping many extra hours everyday, just because when I am asleep I need not interact with Joel or Katie. Katie stays online in her room, claiming to be grouchy and wanting to be alone, but just happy not to have to interact with her boring, demanding parents. Were we back in Metairie and she acted this way, I would worry more, but I think it is understandable that we're trying to each find our own private space.

Joel has tried to make all sorts of contacts here in Houston, and is STILL waiting to hear from a couple of possible employers/collaborators. He said he wanted to stay in Houston (although he acknowledged feeling the desire to stay in Metairie during the time he was back there a few weeks ago). Supposedly they would tell him at the end of October. Nothing to do, and no plans can be made. He felt ambivalent about my job--happy for me, but still wondering, I'm sure, how we'd make it on a non-professional salary. Should he continue to put out feelers in Houston?

Katie's school in Metairie is supposed to re-open in January, but there are no guarantees. If we were to return to Metairie before then, she could do home schooling with her math tutor who is a fully certified teacher, attend the local public middle school, or attend the public magnet school in Old Metairie that many of her old classmates from the Jewish Day school are attending. My family of origin has a longstanding tradition of staunch support of public schools, whereas Joel's background has been entirely in private schools. I never fought him on it before because it was a luxury we could afford. Now, who knows?

Joel was talking to the synagogue manager today and getting excited for the first time about our moving back. Although he still holds that if a million-dollar job landed in his lap in Houston, that he'd plant his feet here to stay, he is now describing his Houston job search as full of nice people but NO substantive offers. He says that he appreciates that trying to arrange the sale of our Metairie house while adapting to a new city AND a new job might be more than he can take.

Today he said to me, "I guess we could do it in two trips--the first could be as soon as this weekend" and then he got online to figure out if renting a truck and towing his car would enable us to do it in one trip. (It looks like it would.) I've been waiting for this level of activation on Joel's part for so long! Now I feel like I finally have a reason to be awake. I wish we could pack up today. Unfortunately, we have to give a full 30 days' notice on this apartment, but if we leave soon, they'll have lots of money to cover the carpet shampooing and cleaning crew needed to repair after us.

Crowding

"Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again."

-Frances Rodman

For many months before Hurricane Katrina, I was using this quotation as part of my online signature. It seemed particularly apropos after Joel was injured last October when we were t-boned in a car wreck. Again, I resonated to it, when Joel's kidney stone attacks began, and I began to realize the extent to which I had taken him and his health for granted. Now I would amend that quotation as follows:

"Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again." And now think of how it would be if all of it were crammed into a telephone booth with you. Every part of it: all the adolescent tantrums, the canine housebreaking mishaps, the job-seeking insecurities, the hardware and software incompatibilities, the spam and viruses...I love my family, but I need to get away.

My Visit to Metairie

Katie and I were at each other's throats the day before our scheduled trip back to Metairie, so I ended up making the trip alone. For selfish reasons, I am glad that I did so. Entering Metairie alone I was able to react from the gut to whatever I saw, without having to concern myself with what sort of "spin" I would want to put on it for Katie's sake. Having already passed through Beaumont TX, I had become accustomed to seeing the bright blue tarps covering so many roofs. The most striking feature of the post-Katrina landscape is the mass of uprooted trees and brush that lines each road. Here is a shot of the corner of Severn Avenue and West Esplanade, looking west. Much of the groundcover is brown because the grass--while well-watered--was deprived of light. Realize that I was driving into town from the west, so I did NOT pass through devastated Orleans Parish. Still, many buildings had piles of ruined furniture, discarded moldy sheetrock and insulation, piled in front of them. Small signs were everywhere, announcing the re-opening or moving of various businesses. Occasional signs addressed Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, who earned the wrath of thousands by evacuating the workers who ordinarily operated the flood pumps--leaving the pumps turned OFF, and thereby leaving the parish to drown! (You may remember a tearful Aaron Broussard on CNN, tearfully relating the story of someone's mother being left in a nursing home, day after day, waiting for rescue.)

Our house looked much as Joel described it. The small crape myrtle adjacent to our front walkway had fallen southward, missing the house. Helpful neighbors had apparently swept up palm fronds and debris into a small pile on the driveway. The woman who mows our lawns had obviously mowed the lawn. One pair of decorative shutters on our porch had detached from the house, but someone had retrieved them and leaned them against the building where they belong. The television that had died in the weeks before the hurricane remained on the porch where we had left it. (See the cat hiding under the PapaSan chair?) Inside our house was the usual clutter. Small stains marked the laminate flooring under the refrigerator. I taped it shut with bright blue tape to remind myself not to open it.

The house and the neighborhood were QUIET. Joel had left the air conditioning on, to keep the house ventilated. As I walked through the house, I would start to greet the birds as I entered the room where the large flight cage is: I had to keep reminding myself that the animals were gone. It felt eerie to empty the van, carrying items into the house, WITHOUT having to close the doors firmly behind me on each trip to keep dogs inside. Although the house was intact, the floors and windows unsullied, the atmosphere was funereal. I felt as if I should cry because of the gravity of the scene, but then I decided that I should not, because we did not have enough damage for me to have earned that right.

As I sat alone in my silent house, I realized that I loved it, and that I did not want to leave it. As lovely as the Houston housing listings are, they are full of white-painted cupboards, tiny kitchens, and wall-to-wall carpeting--features that cry out to be destroyed by dogs. To move away from our hardwood floors and our remodeled kitchen with its granite counters and spacious oak cabinets would feel crazy and disloyal. Why take on such aggravation when we already have a doggie door and a giant, grassy yard in which the dogs can run and play? I was amazed to see, that for as much as I berate Louisiana, calling it a Third-World country, that at least our little corner of it is truly my home.

Grandkids!

We just got word tonight that Joel's son Josh and his wife Amy are in the process of adopting two boys from the Ukraine. We've known about their Ukraine trip for many months, but it was just tonight that we heard about the boys themselves. I shall omit their Ukrainian names and photos until I get their parents' permission.

Andrew, the older brother, is eight years old. He loves math and has an adorably sly smile and short, dark, straight hair. When Josh and Amy met him, he was wearing a Batman t-shirt. He took the initiative of starting to fill out some of the adoption forms in neat Cyrillic script.

His little brother, Caleb, is four. Caleb probably has a different birthfather than Andrew. Caleb is very blond and could easily pass for Josh and Amy's biological child. He has a grin that stretches from ear to ear. He started to cry when he realized he could not go home immediately with Josh and Amy.

The boys, who are half-brothers, speak both Russian and Ukrainian, but not a word of English (except maybe the name, Batman). They have lived in a small orphanage for two years. Most of the other 23 residents there are older than they are, so Caleb especially has been spoiled. Josh and Amy are extremely lucky to have found boys whose own and whose mother's medical histories are available. The boys are both in excellent health.

At first the verbal description of the boys and their situation made me happy, but it did not really grab me--not till I saw their photos. Now they are real to me, and I cannot wait to meet them. Katie will be ecstatic.

Another Contrast in Living Spaces: Katie's Room

When we were planning the repainting of Katie's room back in Metairie, I ran into a wall border on eBay that featured a photographic-style image of leaping dolphins centered against sea and sky. We were not able to find enough border to encircle Katie's room completely, but knowing that her computer and desk would cover part of the wall anyway, we bought it. We decided to match the upper wall paint with the cerulean blue of the sky, and the lower part of the wall paint with the aqua of the water. We carpeted Katie's room with a neutral green that looked like the ocean bottom. The result was spectacular. I would claim this room in a moment, for my own use, were there not competition for it.

Admittedly, the shots above do not reflect Katie's room in actual use. But this is Katie's room in our Houston apartment. The blue plaid sleeping bag (lower left) and primary-colored striped quilt (lower right), along with four pillows and a pillow-like dog bed, comprise her bed, which moves from room to room with her, depending upon her activity.

I Miss Our Wood Floors

When I entertain my fantasies--or occasionally, think of the realities--of moving, I lament the loss of various aspects of our house in Metairie. Most of all, I would miss the hardwood floors. They were installed during the summer of 2004 by a skilled craftsman who was down on his luck at the time. Homeless, he spent most of every day at our house for many weeks--he and his two dogs. As well as laying down the hardwood floors in our living room and dining room--and we're talking the real thing here, not laminate or anything the slightest bit prefabricated--he painted four rooms and a hallway, and recarpeted one room. He did it all singlehandedly, which made the process last forever, but the end results were beautiful in my eyes.

Here are two shots from the living room of our Houston apartment. Joel is sitting on a media lounger from Target, assembled by Katie. It is the only chair in the apartment that does not fold up. Across from him (out of camera range) is the television. Amid the white built-in shelves is a pass-through window to the kitchen. In the background of the first picture is the dining room, which is entirely empty. The lower apartment photo with the windows and the bird cages shows the entryway, where one of the van's seats is stored.

Delaying My Metairie Visit

I'll finally see Metairie firsthand this weekend. I had hoped on leaving here on Friday, and taking Katie with me. The possibility exists that we'll kill each other en route, but we figured we'd risk it. Katie says she wants to come, and Joel finally decided that if Katie were his patient, he'd certainly encourage me to take her along with me on the Metairie trip. It turns out, that they changed the school schedule after Rita, in order to keep enough school days in the calendar. Now Katie has school on Friday after all. So we shall schlepp on over on Saturday, coming home on Monday. While in Metairie, I hope to see a few friends, catch a couple of meetings, visit with a real estate agent, and interview a couple who might take care of the house till sale. Yeah, that and PACK! But I don't have any boxes, so it'll be just the sort of packing that I can do with luggage, garbage bags, and an empty van.

Poor Joel is depressed and achy today, and not just from Yom Kippur blues. He even decided to skip shul altogether, which is very unlike his behavior before the accident. A contributing factor: The guy who was his leading contender for work associate/boss sounds more interested in a generalist than in someone with Joel's interests and skills. It's tough to decide whether or not we should stretch to fit ourselves into these Procrustean-bed jobs, or whether we should hold out for something more immediately compatible with our interests. Joel is even sending his license to the chief psychologist at a psych hospital near Metairie. If Joel and I both get work in New Orleans, we'd even come back to stay (against our better judgment and hatred of hurricanes). That would be SO much expense and tsouris for nothing! But at least we'd have our pretty (and hard-won) wood flooring, doggie door and large fenced yard, and Katie's dolphin-painted bedroom.

One day I am ready to buy a house in Houston, and the next I
acknowledge that we may be stuck in Hurricane Land indefinitely.
Aaugh! The uncertainty induced is very much like some of the seemingly
sadistic animal studies that have been performed to study stress.

Planning My First Metairie Visit

Evidence strongly suggests that it will probably be a long time before the NOLA economy can support us. Joel and I have both focused much more on diagnostic testing than on therapy, and even if we were hardcore therapists, it's hard for a psychologist to get a paid therapy gig, given that MSWs, LPCs and such are in abundance. (Granted, state and national professional organizations have encouraged us to DONATE our services to help the flood-affected multitudes, but that's a lot easier to do when you can afford your mortgage payment.)

I'd really hoped that the Jeff Parish Sheriff's Office would hire Joel to work with their staff, since he'd handled many of them in the past. Unfortunately, the officer now in charge of overseeing psychological issues among the deputies, reportedly does not believe that psychological services are useful. (I wonder how that officer explains the NOPD officers who committed suicide during Katrina.) So Houston, with its giant medical infrastructure, is far more viable, both immediately and over the long haul.

It's gotten to the point that I just want something permanent--almost anything permanent. I so wish we could buy a house NOW, rather than waiting for our own house to sell. It seems like such a long process, and the thought of keeping the Metairie house in presentable shape for visiting agents and potential buyers is incredibly aversive to me. To do so with four dogs, birds, and a housework-impaired pre-teen in residence truly sounds impossible. If we can manage to sell the house without concurrently living in it outselves, that will be a miracle.

A friend of mine has recommended a semi-retired couple who lost to Katrina their home and several rentals they owned. We think they might live in our place for free and help supervise getting sand pumped under the house, patching and touching up where our recent leveling caused cracks in walls and ceilings, etc. We haven't finalized the negotiations, nor have we confirmed with an agent to represent us in Metairie. But at least we've started the process.

I plan to visit Metairie this coming weekend. We haven't decided whether or not Katie will accompany me. I think that seeing the destruction firsthand would help make the non-viability of Metairie clearer to Katie, so she could stop hanging onto fantasies of everything going back to the old normal--but, given the way our daily interactions typically run, we might kill each other during the trip! I (or we) will have everything available at the house, except for the unusable--and yet unopened--refrigerator, so I anticipate sleeping there for a couple nights. Without dogs and with few neighbors, it should be very quiet. Do they still have a dusk-to-dawn curfew?

My Dogs in the Apartment Kitchen

Here they are (clockwise from front): Elliot, Jesse, Boogie, and Simcha.

I'm Still Without Job Offers

Joel brought back a Ridley Pearson novel about participants and protectors of the Witness Protection program. There are so many parallels between their lives and those of evacuees: not being able to put down roots, having reservations about getting close to people or institutions because you think you may have to move on... I can't wait to feel a sense of rootedness again.

Not having felt as confident a job applicant as I would like to be, I had really hoped to work as an Animal Trainer at PetWorld instead of as a psychologist, but PetWorld did not call me back. I visited the PetWorld operations manager yesterday in the context of a shopping trip and asked him flat-out if I had been ruled out for being overqualified. The manager told me that the primary reason I had not gotten a call-back was the tentativeness of my family's plans. He did not want to invest a month on training me, only to have me leave. Even sending me off to a Metairie or other PetWorld location would be unacceptable in his eyes. (The current full-time Animal Trainer says there have been a few part-time Animal Trainers who quit after as short a period as a few months.) He said he WOULD be comfortable with hiring me as a regular cashier, with the possibility (NOT certainty) of moving me over to animal training once our family's plans are firmed up. I haven't worked retail since 1973, but I guess I'll give it a shot. Someone in this house has to earn some money, and at least I'll get 15% off pet supplies, even if it means being on my feet all day.

Or so I thought till I spoke to him today. Since I first contacted PetWorld on September 12, they have hired three or four cashiers and related associates. Now he tells me he must wait to see how those employees work out, before he considers me! With my typical drama queen mentality, I immediately decided that I should start selling my blood plasma as I did in graduate school. It has, after all, been a year since I had my permanent eyeliner applied, so I now qualify as a blood donor. Or do I? Will they accept the blood of a former Metairie resident? Are we now off-limits, like Haitians and Africans?

Joel's Visit to Metairie

Immediately after Rita, the streets had a weird, post-apocalyptic feel to them, and I fully expected to see Mad Max come barreling around the corner. I drove the wrong way for several blocks on a major boulevard one night, and lived to talk about it. Ordinarily, the Loop is a very demanding and unforgiving driving environment. I feel lazy about driving too far across town. Taking Katie to school is a one-hour round trip and requires a level of alertness that I ordinarily don't possess, particularly early in the morning.

Last week Joel drove the van back to Metairie to check out our house firsthand. Katie had school, and we and the dogs stayed in Houston. Joel loaded up his schedule with constructive activity. He met with an insurance adjuster and his regular urologist, and picked up stuff to hold us over here in Houston till Katie’s regular school, the Jewish Day School in Metairie, opens (or later). He's also getting opinions on whether or not it'd be too soon to put our house on the market.

For my part, I'm already looking at the MLS listings in Houston. I start to get excited about the potential when I see a nice house, but then I remind myself that once Katie and the dogs hit it, the house will never look really nice again. Then I think that--even if it weren't a hurricane--there's always the very real possibility that the house could be taken away completely. There's a stoic or ascetic part of me that says such detachment is a good thing—but in my gut it feels more like learned helplessness and looming depression--so I shake it off as fast as I can.

In the past I have read about survivor guilt, but it wasn’t until the last few years that I experienced it firsthand. How were we spared? Why were we spared? I am not complaining about our fortune, but how does one handle seeing one’s friends’ homes, memories, and most treasured possessions destroyed? I don’t know what to say.

We were thrilled to hear that the house was just as intact as my friend Val had described on the basis of his looking through windows a couple weeks ago. Joel said that everything was just as we had left it, only he was afraid to open the refrigerator because of the likelihood that the stench of rotten food a month old would permeate the house. Joel said that the house itself smelled musty, but that is to be expected after its being locked up untouched for a month. (We will schedule the visit of a mold expert, just to make sure that there isn’t storm-related mold damage that isn’t behind the odor.) Not all of our neighbors were as lucky as we were; many of them had moved fallen branches, destroyed carpeting, and upholstered furniture to the curb. However, all on our street appear to have electricity, potable water, and (where applicable) intact cable service. Joel sneaked out of the immediate neighborhood, and filmed outside views of his office in Audubon Park, and the homes of several friends. He said that experiencing the utter devastation of New Orleans directly is much more disturbing than via television. Of course, that is to be expected.

While Joel was gone, I did four loads of laundry, swept our entryway and porch, vacuumed two rooms, and cleaned the dogs' ears. Katie and I returned a Blockbuster DVD that had come from the Metairie store. Repeated surprises postponed Joel’s return to Houston from mid-Friday to late Saturday. It was a relief to have him back--both to have him here to share the childrearing chores, and to see all the stuff he brought back. I am happy to have my Golden Retriever puppy slippers back. Now that we have the "real" computers, we had to go to Target to buy computer desks. Three cheap matching maple laminate computer desks--it makes the apartment look like the office of a fly-by-night company. J & K will be working for hours to put these together. But they will triple the table- and counter- space of the apartment.

Joel has made many contacts in the last week and has a second potential referral source lined up. I had really hoped to work as an Animal Trainer at PetWorld instead of as a psychologist, but PetWorld has not called me back, so it looks like I might need venture back into the land of pantyhose and managed care. The PetWorld operations manager made a strong point of discouraging us from telephoning the store to follow-up on the status of our applications, but I am likely to visit him in the context of a shopping trip and ask him flat-out if I have been ruled out for being overqualified. In the weeks since I first considered the job, I have become more and more convinced that the instruction they would provide me, the experience I gain on the job, and the joy of working with animals will more than offset the decrease in potential salary. Morever, if I am training dogs for a living, I shall be more highly motivated to train my four—which would be a definite contribution to our family’s quality of life. Having only two folding chairs, no beds or mattresses, and using a video lounger and an ultra-thick dog bed as our only sofa, we are down at dog-level most of every day. If I could reduce Jesse’s compulsive licking, she and the rest of us would be far happier.

We like the smaller Conservative shul here in town (Brith Shalom), but I have not gone back since they had the nice dinner for us. It will feel better now that I have the requisite spouse, clothing and tallit. Of course, for the High Holidays, Shir Chadash is holding services at the Houston JCC. I don't know how they plan to do it without Harvey, the cantor usually hired for High Holidays. I just wish the holidays weren't here already: Katie has missed far too much school to be able to afford yet another vacation. On the other hand, she's picking up some weird stuff at this Orthodox school: she has painted her nails black and wants to dye her hair to match to be Goth!