shhh

I'm home alone for the first time in over a week. 

Everyone vacated to my aunt's house to eat gumbo. Yes, gumbo, the cure for all ills in Southern Louisiana.   

I opted out to enjoy the freedom of being alone. And it's nice. 

No one lurking over my shoulders to see what I'm doing online.  I swear to you when I get home everyone flocks to me.  Wherever I go..there they are.  The only place I have privacy is in my room. 

They have confiscated the living room, the bathroom, my backyard swing...

I have 4 cats in residence too.  They belong to my nephew and his girlfriend who are also residing here.  I am not a cat lover but in the face of disaster I have adjusted.  The only thing that bothers me is them getting on my furniture but how do you keep them off?

Yesterday I made a major mistake.  I opened a can of tuna for dinner and within seconds I had four cats attacking me.  They were talkin' some chit to me....wantin' sum of dat stuff!  No more tuna for me until the felines are gone.

My brother has been steadily drunk since he's been here.  He does not have the discipline of a job to keep him sober these days.  I have about reached the end of my rope with him.  Nothing like the intelligence of a drunk to keep the conversation going...By the way did you guys know that if you sip beer slowly you will not get liver damage?  Yep...straight from the mouth of my brother. 

Please do not get me wrong..I like having a drink too.  Well actually I have been known to indulge.  Oh yeah...I've indulged.  LOL

My dad is such a saint...he puts up with them on a daily basis since both of my brothers live right next door to him in their travel trailer and my mother lives with him... Yessiree...a SAINT.   By the way, if I didn't mention it before, all of their homes survived Rita which means as soon as utilities are restored (estimated 1 month) they will be heading west.

My mother...another story ...but we can't coexist together for any length of time and now she is at her sister's house.  She lasted with me until the day after the hurricane.  My dad, the Saint, told me yesterday that after being away from her for a while it's going to be difficult to get back into the groove of being with her again.  I think my aunt has had a full daily dose too.   I love my mother but I have to admit I don't like her.  I respect her ...well that's stretching it...I semi-respect her. 

Okay I could go on forever about her but I will stop while you guys still think I'm a nice person. LOL

postal service

Someone asked me today if the postal service was running here in my town.   Well it is in my little community but it made me think about all the surrounding areas that were flooded and the homes were moved to different locations by the water.  Do you deliver to the house or to the property?   I know of people's houses that are across the street from where they were prior to the flooding. What a nightmare!  Talk about making a postal worker go postal on ya!  LOL

Ass or Elephant?

Saw a bumper sticker today that made me laugh:

 

Democrats are sexy.....

Whoever heard of a nice piece of elephant?

FEMA

Ex-FEMA Chief
Deflects Blame

He Defends Katrina Response,
Calls Louisiana 'Dysfunctional'

 

He's just figuring this out??  Don't we all come from some dysfunctional something or another? 

Ms Rita

Let me live by love, let me die of love, and let my last heartbeat be an act of the most perfect love.

- Saint Marie Victoire Therese Couderc (1805-1885)

 

I did not exactly live by this example this past weekend with my family but I will not speak of the negatives. 

I will speak of the positives of this weekend. 

We are alive.  We are well. 

I have no apparent damage to my property other than the hard work it's going to take to clean up the limbs but at least it's just tree limbs and not life and limb. 

I thank God for life. 

I thank God for the gentle breeze that blew to keep us as cool as possible during our time without electricity.  I am still without electricity but God blesses because a cool front is moving in tonight. 

I thank God for the water we had to shower and get cool when there were no other resources to cool tempers and body heat.

I thank God for the BBQ Pit and charcoal so that we did not have to live off of vienna sausage and cold beans.

And most of all I thank God for my coca cola that did not run out.  Because God help us all if I had run out.  We did run out of ice but hot coke is better than no coke.  My dad had hot hot tap water for his coffee and my brother had his alcohol for his addiction.   My mom had a bed to sleep through it all and my neice had the privilege of listening to the wind when nothing else dampened the tempers.

I feel blessed because so very many in my area did not escape so blessed.  I thank God for Katrina because so many in my area left when before they would not have. 

Ridin' the storm out.

This will probably be my last entry for awhile. 

The winds are picking up pretty steadily.  And the lights are flickering so the electricity will be leaving me pretty soon.

Limbs are flying everywhere.  (that's what I'll be floating out of here on...LOL)  I don't believe it will be as bad as originally predicted but we are being very cautious and staying away from windows. 

I have a nice big attic....it's not air conditioned but it's even got old mattresses for us to recline on.  I jest you...not about the mattresses and big attic but I jest about actually needing to do that.  We are on very high ground where I am and the police department  is a hop skip and jump from my house so I feel safe with the law enforcement right there ready to sweep me off whatever tree I float by on. 

When this is all over I will be bringing you live shots from my very fuzzy wonderfully great camera phone. Well it will probably be about a week from now when they restore power.

I'm not taking this lightly but you have to find humor somewhere since we didn't have anywhere to go.  My daughter is already out of electricity.  They already had compromised equipment from Katrina.  WE WILL SURVIVE.

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts.

And anyone in the mood to help me clean up after this mess...come on down!  LOL

 

Damn Rita!

Obviously Mother Nature did NOT understand my request for a Margarita and not a Rita because damned if we don't have MANDATORY evacuations in my city.  But where the hell do you go?  There is absolutely NOWHERE to go.  My parents are on there way here and I guess we will head east since there is nothing North available from Tennessee Southward.   What to do?  Pray....

The damned thing is taking a more northerly direction...and we are on the east side of it...bad news!

Refugees

Looks like I'll be getting Rita refugees from the west.  My parents  and 2 brothers live 50 miles from Houston....so I think they are all headed this way tomorrow.  That should make for an interesting time.   I can see it now...3 extra men...here comes the lysol in the bathroom and I'm getting a computerized toilet that will be able to detect a male and automatically raise and lower the toilet seat. .  Oh lord it doesn't bear thinking about!  LOL

Rita

 

The only Rita I want is a Margarita.

 

Another visit

My new friend decided today that one date wasn't enough so he asked to visit me today. It's that damned charm of mine!  Gets me in trouble all of the time.  We watched football all afternoon and talked alot. I almost cooked for him but I know what that will lead to so I refrain from cooking until I'm absolutely sure I want him in my life long term...hehehehe Just kidding!  I am most impressed with this young man (he's 7 months younger than me..and I require him to say yes mame' and he does it so well. LOL) He just may be a keeper. :)

Newflash!

Excuse me but I've just returned from my first date since my divorce....I actually went out and had a great time!  I knew I could do it and I had a lot of help from the gentleman I went out with.  These days it's very difficult to impress me but he did and I was pleasantly surprised.  Thank you Lord! :)

P.S.  Sorry, Sam it wasn't a boat captain...LOL

My favorite picture

Greetings

Good Morning America!  How are ya?

Almost Serious

Everyone here in Jland who reads my journal knows I’m been divorced three times...look over there >>>>>>>>it says so in my intro. On my way home today, being me, I had to do a lot of thinking. I do have an hour drive to contemplate things and I contemplate the hell out of things to my wits end. I was driving along minding my own mind when I realized I was justified in all of my divorces. I clicked off the reasons in my head:

1st marriage I was a babe of 16 (yes I wore white in a Catholic Church...I was pure as the driven snow (shouldn’t that be un-driven snow?) So I was too young to make that decision. Justified, right?

2nd marriage - my husband was an alcoholic and gambler. I had a 10 year old daughter...had to provide a stable life for her. Justified, right?

3rd marriage - not ready to disclose the reasons but trust me they were justified. Right?

 

Well here I am driving along with these thoughts in my lil ole mind when I realize WRONG. None of these reasons are justification. It is time to take full responsibility for my own actions. The whole thing that isn’t right and justified is the fact that it was a choice I made knowing full well in all cases that there were far too many issues that I buried in the sand thinking Love would conquer it all. Even though there was love I should have never married in the first place...therefore I am at fault. Too many issues from the get-go. We have to deal with and accept our own shortcomings before we can accept and live with someone else.

So if we all walked around blaming ourselves for our own actions then no one would be walking around pointing the finger at anyone else.

Another Quickie

I was speaking with someone today about looking like a prune in my old age and I decided to share with you the tatoo I would get if I ever decided to put one on my body.  I think it would be a tatoo of a grape...that way as I age and shrivel up it will look natural as a raisin.

A quickie

I don't know what made me think of this today but I just had to share my Dad's humor.  He is such a jokester and a very funny man. He has what we call Joi de Vive.  Well my second husband decided he would be traditional and ask my dad for my hand in marriage.  My dad's response?  "Take her feet too".

 

The Saints

CAN WE STAND IT?  THE SAINTS WON TOO!

911

My recollection of 9/11/01 started out as a joke which turned into the most horrible thing imaginable to happen to the United States of America.  I'm not making light of this event..I'm just telling exactly what occurred in my world prior to the realization of what truly happened.

My best friend Bill was very famous for taking news items and twisting them into something he did. We played this little game often. That morning I had just arrived at my desk and got a call from Bill...

He was whispering "Sharlene, don't tell anyone but I just flew my plane into the World Trade Center"

I said "Huh?"

He said "yeah I got my license to fly yesterday and I kinda screwed up"

I laughed and said "what the hell are you talking about?" because apparently I had missed the news before getting into work. Normally I knew what he was talking about.

Before he could tell me anything I heard the buzz of noise from the kitchen where they had turned on the tv and were all gathered around in horror.  Before I arrived in the kitchen I had a chill run down my spine...I just knew this wasn't a small happening.  I believe the truth of it all reverberated around the world without anyone having to say a word. 

I will never forget and amongst all the images I saw in the media...the one that hurt the most was the one they showed of a doll (I think it was a Raggedy Ann )  left abandoned and broken in the rubble.  To me it symbolized how much we lost that day. 

A nation lost it's innocence.

LSU Won!

LSU 35

ASU 31

too much "beer"...he didn't make it through the game

LSU

Well I'm sittin' here with my lil man waiting on LSU to start there game. Go LSU!!!  Somehow I'm gonna be a little lost watching football without a certain someone in my life but like everything else...I will survive.  Nothing like lying on the sofa with your head on someone's shoulder watching a football game.

Matthew is such a riot! He loves football and his stepdad is the assistant coach for the #1 high school team in Louisiana right now so he sees a lot of football.  We are getting back from mass just now and I am getting him out of his car seat and he sees my small ice chest and picks it up. 

I tell him "No sweetie...leave it here"

He says "Nammy I bring it in the house and sit on it to watch football."

What a man!  I guess he has seen them sit on the ice chests at games.  LOL

Here he is with his "beer" juice and sitting on his ice chest patiently waiting.  I just love that lil bugger!  He is the light of my life and such an angel.  I need a digital camera...this phone camera sucks!

 

I'll leave you guys with the lyrics of a song I heard on a local radio station www.kbon.com  Plays all the cajun, swamp pop and zyedeco music. 

A two liner Zyedeco song:  I damned near choked  laughing when I heard it.

Some one stole my chicken

It was a cookin' in the kitchen

Gotta love it!

 

Horizontal Horizons

I’m going to play the little horizons game that Sam has created for us and Jimmy was so kind to start last night. In doing so I must tell you that the digital camera was something I did not get in the divorce settlement so being the resourceful person I am I created havoc on the highways and byways using my camera phone. I was pointing and shooting my way down the roads at 7 AM this morning. I just know that everyone thought I was an alien who didn’t know how to talk on a phone. These photo’s are not good but I had fun and regardless I will have fun making this entry. I had a video entry but have no clue how to do those so the Polyester Power Hour video entry will have to go untold.

My first shot approaching the first big city is the sun rising in the East (that is where it rises? Eh?) Yeah cause I’m headed in a northerly direction and the sun peeks at me from my right passenger window therefore that would be East.

Passing through the first big city *snicker* I take a picture of one of the 20 bars/nightclubs that I get the privilege of rolling by. I know the picture is a bit shady but it does the nightclub justice. No it is not open at this un-God-ly hour but the lights are flashing to remind us that it will be open shortly.

After cruising through this one horse town I am headed for the really big city of Lafayette and below is a picture of the first traffic I encounter. This is the reason I have to leave an hour early every morning. Katrina has added an additional 20 minutes to my morning trip with the more than 10,000 extra people we have here.

Now it’s is 7:33 and I"m half way to work.  Yeah I drive a Saturn.  It's red..I call it my Red Planet.

 

And what the hell is this?

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about my drive-thru liquor stop before getting to work...after all IT IS FRIDAY.

Just Gotta Laugh

toothbrushes

Just a thought:  I opened a new toothbrush tonight and was brushing my teeth before retiring to bed and I was wondering if the manufacturers of toothbrushes have testers before they package them to sell?  Yikes!  What a gross thought!  What possesses my mind to think such things?

A Surprise

In all of the confusion of Katrina I forgot to mention that my hospice patient died the day after my last visit. I held her hands praying that God would take her soon. She had deteriorated so much. She is now singing with him and his angels and I thank God.

Here I am a week and a half later and God has decided to be funny. I think he is testing me to see how serious I am about this volunteer work and how truly dedicated I am. I think I may just surprise him with my commitment to this worthy cause.

What does my loving God decide to do in his oh so masterful plans? He takes a looney woman like myself who has been three times married and divorced and decides to put me on a bereavement case. He assigns me to a lil old grey haired woman who is 86 years old and has just lost her husband of an almost unprecedented 70 years. (80 years is the oldest I think) Yes I said 70 years! Of course I’m pretty jubilant because I know that this woman definitely has to have something to teach me that I haven’t figured out in three failed marriages but I’m not too sure she has anything in common with me and that I can offer her anything of equal value.

She lives with her daughter who asked Hospice to send someone to visit her mother because her mother just sits there all day long staring out the window doing nothing since her husband died.

Enter Sharlene to this humble abode....I arrive at a modest brick home in the country surrounded by a hurricane fence. I am met by the daughter and her roosters, chickens, 3 dogs (one is a Great Dane almost as tall as I am sniffing around me suspiciously) , and 10 cats. She asked me if I like animals. I look at her and just smile because although I don’t dislike animals I am definitely no Ellie Mae Clampett.

We proceed towards the house and they have a chickens sitting in a jeep underneath the garage and I’m thinking to myself this can’t be happening and God you think you are soooooooooo funny don’t you?

I am shown to a door into the home...no one opens it...I’m expected to just walk into the home unannounced...along with the Great Dane..he has taken a liking to me and decides to become my sole welcoming committee. (Animals just love me..when my daughter was younger her cat "popcorn"  whom I didn’t have the time of day for.. adored me and decided to have her kittens on MY chair...My daughter named one of the kittens "kernal")

I’m thinking to myself as I walk through the door...God I will do my duty with this person but I’m only going to be here 15 minutes and that’s it! I will call Hospice in the morning and ask them for another patient. This is just NOT me. ( You can do that at anytime..be removed from a case if you don’t fit in)

I walk into this home with the aroma of homemade hamburgers and homemade onion rings cooking (mmmmm....delicious smell..they did ask me to dine with them but I politely refused) and there sitting in the kitchen staring blankly out of the patio doors is a little minuscule grey haired lady. I’m speechless and I don’t know what to do so I introduce myself "Hi I’m Sharlene,  a Hospice Volunteer and I’ve come to visit with you".

She stares at me and her daughter decides to inform me that her mother didn’t want this but that she herself did because her mother was lonely. I’m thinking OMG I’m here under protest.

I look at the little lady searching for some conversation to break the ice and I ask

"Miss Lizzie what do you like to do?"

 and she says "Nothing!".

I smiled and said "Perfect! Because that’s what I do best!"

And the rest is history.

Ms Lizzie, the daughter, the Great Dane and all the animals were smiling when I left but most of all I had the biggest smile on my face because God has blessed me with knowing a family that is wonderfully different from me but none-the-less beautiful and I judged them prematurely and HE in all of his wisdom sent me exactly where I needed to be. Her daughter told me that I was exactly what her mother needed and Ms Lizzie decided she wanted to do nothing with me again next week. :)

And they thought I was 25.....so with that kind of compliment how could I not agree to go back?

Jefferson Parish President

There is absolutely nothing to smile about where Katrina is concerned but this is...Honesty in it's purest form with no holds barred.

 

"The government simply did not act quickly and effectively enough."

Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard was even more blunt.

Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area," he said on CBS' "Early Show." "Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."

They've Gone and left me!

Here I am alone again in this house of mine.  The evacuees have left to return home.  Electricity was restored today for them. I'm happy that they can return to some normalcy.  My grandson didn't seem too pleased to be leaving.  He just loves being at his Nammy's house.  Of course Nammy spoils him so why wouldn't he want to stay here?

I went to mass tonight and thanked God for all I have.  I pray that all of the people affected by the storm will soon find some peace.  I do believe a lot of them will eventually see this as a blessing.  Some of them have never been out of New Orleans and the poverty stricken area they lived in. Perhaps this will be a chance for a new and better life for them?  Sometimes we have to sink to the depths of despair before we can rise up to the heights of blissfullness.  I've often said thank God for the bad days so we can appreciate the good ones!

And of course you would know that a bar has already re-opened on Bourbon Street.  That boggles the mind...  Drinking by candlelight..goes to show you that you can't keep the spirit down for too long...no pun intended!

N'Awlins will be back stronger and better with just a little more history added to it and I can't wait to eat a beignet at Cafe Dummond. 

God rest the souls who didn't make it...may they be in heaven looking down upon us with a smile.

The Hand of God through US

However great the work that God may achieve by an individual, he must not indulge in self-satisfaction. He ought rather to be all the more humbled, seeing himself merely as a tool which God has made use of.  

- St. Vincent de Paul

 

And God has made use of many Americans in the face of this tragedy. 

I heard from my friend in Mississippi today.  He is fine and I was so relieved.  Let me tell you about my friend.  Him and I met back in 1971 on  Holly Beach in Cameron Louisiana  when I was a mere child of twelve and he was a teen of sixteen.  We fell in love and never forgot each other.  I was too young but we kept in touch until 1973 when he went off to college.  He always thought he would come back for me but I married at the tender age of 16 and when he found out it devastated him. I didn't find this out until 32 years later.  My heartbroken 14 year old heart only thought he didn't love me. My diary from way back then is proof of my heartbreak.  Many entries of love for him.  Innocence. My mom called to tell him I was getting married and he wanted to talk me out of it but my mother never told me and you know had I known I wouldn't have married BUT God had other plans.   Of course I learned all of this one year ago when he contacted me after 32 years.  He was passing through my hometown and decided to look up my family name to see if anyone was still around and low and behold they were.  My brother answered the phone and gave him my cell number.  We have been talking for a year now and it's as if no time had passed.  It was so amazing to be able to talk and laugh with someone for hours.  He's married and we have now given up the friendship because he does have responsibilities to his wife and family and I don't want to cause any trouble between them and our relationship was getting a bit too close for comfort. It has been a tough thing to do but I know without a doubt it is the right thing to do.  I did hear that Katrina caused a lot of damage for him but he is alright and that's all that counts!

Here we are back then...This was for my 14th birthday 10/28/72

I haven't changed a bit...huh?

K A T

Seems in all of this devastation there isn't much to say that hasn't been already said.  We know what desparation, hunger and fear will do to the human race. I shudder to imagine the horrors these people have experienced.  I went through Hurricane Lily and the only inconvenience I suffered was a lost roof and no electricity for a week.  I thought it was the most miserable time in my life BUT I had food and I still had my hometown to stay in.  I just think that if you have a "mandatory" evacuation and someone can't afford to leave because of poverty...shouldn't they have bussed them out?  Found some way?  I know we can't expect miracles with the relief effort but I truly believe more could/should have been done.  I imagine and I bet everything I own a lot of these people wanted to leave and were scared but couldn't afford it and there was no one there to offer any solutions for them.  A sad situation for America and I don't blame any particular person, place or thing.  As a whole we are good people and we will all come together as Americans and do what it takes to survive it.  God's way of showing us that we are indeed a nation with heart.  You see it all over...the donations.  Everyone doing everything they can to help.  God Bless America!

 

 

If we knew at what time we were to depart from this world, we would be able to select a season for pleasure and another for repentance. But God, who has promised pardon to every repentant sinner, has not promised us tomorrow.... This very day is a day of truce, a day for conversion. And yet we refuse to cry over the evil we have done! Not only do we not weep for the sins we have committed, we even add to them.

- St. Gregory the Great (540-604)