August 30, 2008

I met a fellow Bonanza fan for lunch today.  Turns out we live pretty close to each other.  It’s great to have someone else to talk about Bonanza with who understands exactly what is so appealing about a suffering Cartwright or having story ideas suddenly pop into the head.

There have been numerous press conferences since yesterday about turning the interstates into contraflow routes to evacuate southern Louisiana.  The last official word I heard was it would happen tomorrow morning.  When I left the restaurant (which was about 40 miles to the east of where I live), I had to travel south on I-55 to get to I-12 so I could get home.  I noticed that the northbound side of I-55 was already congested yet traffic was moving slowly.  That might partly be due to a large police presence to get stalled vehicles out of the way and to stop traffic on the mainline every so often so cars on the ramps can get onto the interstate.  Traffic heading west on I-12 (the direction I had to go) was flowing along at a good clip but more traffic was headed east.  Maybe that’s because the LSU game had ended an hour or so earlier or folks had decided to evacuate to Alabama or Florida since hotels are full in north Louisiana and are probably filled up in Houston (Texas), Jackson (Mississippi), and Little Rock (Arkansas).

An announcement was made on the radio that contraflow would officially begin at 6 AM tomorrow.  That means no southbound traffic will be allowed on I-55 from New Orleans to some point in Mississippi, no eastbound traffic will be allowed on I-10 so traffic can move westward towards Texas, and no eastbound traffic will be allowed on I-12 towards Mississippi so traffic can move west towards Baton Rouge. 

Seeing the traffic on I-55, I don’t think people are taking any chances with Gustav like they may have with Katrina.  It was only 3 years ago that people were thinking why bother evacuate–every time I do, it’s as if someone cried wolf (that certainly happened with Hurricanes Ivan and Georges).   The news has shown people without personal transportation in New Orleans getting onto buses to be evacuated.  Pet shelters began announcing a couple of days ago that they would make room for pets and many hotels are allowing pets to be brought for a fee.  With Katrina, pet owners left their animals behind because they thought it’d be like every other storm–leave for a few days and come home after the threat was gone. 

Gustav is forecast to hit southwestern Louisiana, which was hit hard by Rita (the forgotten hurricane) 3 years ago.  Rita slammed into Louisiana a couple of weeks after Katrina had done so much damage.  The media was so focused on New Orleans that no one seemed to know that the Cajun Riviera had just been wiped out and the town of Cameron had pretty much been erased from the landscape (only the courthouse “survived”).  We here in Louisiana speak of “Rita amnesia” because of Katrina or lump the two names together as Katrita. Resourceful Cajuns, cattle farmers, crawfish farmers, and other folks out there realized from watching TV that the federal government wouldn’t be of any help, so they pulled on their shrimp boots, got out their boats, and began rescuing their friends and neighbors.  When the floodwaters receded, they began rebuilding without waiting for insurance adjustors or FEMA to say they could. 

Depending on just where Gustav comes ashore, I may be located in the worst quadrant (the northeast) and will have to worry about storm damage.  My power went out for a week after Katrina, which was a small price to pay for having my family safe, a standing house, and all of my possessions.

I asked Mom this afternoon about Cat Mama and where she might weather out the storm.  She told me that the cat has stayed close to the house today.  I know Cat Mama probably has a nest/den somewhere in the woods, but I still worry about her.

All I can do is hope and pray that all those who are about to be affected by Gustav make it to safety and to pray for all those people in the Caribbean who have already felt the effects of this storm.

August 24, 2008

Looks like I’d better take advantage of the weather caused by Fay and get some writing done.  The power has been out once today (a tree limb probably came down on a power line), so, if that happens again, I really won’t have any distractions to use as an excuse.  Drat!

We’re supposed to get up to an inch of rain today and up to 3 inches tomorrow.  That’s not a whole lot when parts of Florida got over 30.  We really need the rain, so hopefully it will soak into the ground.  Hopefully all of the rain in Florida will help with the drought they’ve been experiencing.

August 17, 2008

I was doing fieldwork last week with 2 co-workers who are at least 10 years younger than I am.  We had to drive about 4 hours to get where the project was and I had to take a nap after a couple hours of driving.  Handed the keys over to a co-worker and promptly fell asleep. 

To me, the young ‘uns’ stamina is amazing as my back was sore after the first couple of shovel tests.  One of the young ‘uns worked with me and she did the digging while I did the screening.  Didn’t take long for me to fall asleep on the way back to the office at the end of the day.  I can remember the days when I could walk for miles with a 20-pound pack on my back, digging shovel tests and screening the dirt.  Was that really so long ago??

Anyway, while I was screening dirt, I had this plot bunny hop into my head.  We occasionally saw Ben working with the cattle but not too often.  Adam, Joe, and Hoss were usually the ones driving the cattle to market.  What if Ben went along on a cattle drive with his adult sons?  I’m sure he’d be feeling some serious aches and pains and wondering where his sanity went.  I set aside the other stories and began working on this one.  Maybe I’ll actually finish a story soon.

August 14, 2008

Cat Mama reappeared for her breakfast this morning and I’m told she was very hungry.  Wonder where she’s been?

August 13, 2008

My parents feed a feral cat I call Cat Mama (my mom calls her Miss Kitty).  She first appeared last year a week or so before Thanksgiving with her little kittens in the “banana plantation” (the parents have bananas planted along the ditch to screen the sight of it from their backyard; across the ditch is woods).  Mom began feeding Cat Mama not so much to keep her around but because she wanted the kittens to have a chance.  Dad fussed and fussed until the day Cat Mama killed and partially ate a squirrel; then she was okay in his book.

One day in March, Cat Mama and the kittens disappeared.  A couple of weeks later, she returned with one of her ears looking torn.  I asked my vet if he would have notched the ear if he spayed a feral cat and he said yes and then described how he marks it.  He didn’t spay Cat Mama but someone did and for that I’m grateful.  Mom began feeding her again and now she’s pretty much adopted my parents as her humans.

She’ll disappear every once in a while for a day or two but always returns.  My parents were out of town last week babysitting the grandchildren so I tended to Cat Mama in the evenings (I didn’t have time to go by the house in the mornings on work days to give her breakfast).  The parents got home Monday evening and the cat wasn’t around.  Since the weather forecast was for storms, Mom and I figured that she’d gone to her nest somewhere to hunker down.  She didn’t show up for breakfast or supper today.  Hopefully, she’ll reappear tomorrow. 

She’s become more trusting of Mom and me and will come within a foot of us sometimes when we’re putting kibbles in her bowl.  Mom is retired and spends a good part of her day in the yard tending to her many flower gardens; Cat Mama keeps her company and will lay close by and “supervise.”  She’s wary of Dad but will keep an eye on him when he’s doing something outside.  I know he wouldn’t admit it, but he does like the cat. 

Sure hope Cat Mama is all right and will reappear very soon.

August 12, 2008

My house keeps getting invaded by ants and sometimes I wonder if my house was built on one giant ant hill.  Fortunately, these aren’t fire ants but they’re still super annoying.  It’s usually the kitchen that gets invaded and the darned things usually seem to come in to escape the wet yard after days of rain.  Lately, it’s been my office and I can’t figure out how the darned things are getting in or why this room.  I sprayed around the outside of the house over the weekend and got some serious ant poison to use too.  I’m hesitant to use something too harsh since I like to watch the wild bunnies that come to graze in the yard and there’s a feral tomcat who likes to sleep on my back porch and on the picnic table. 

The weather-stripping around the bottom of the backdoor has been a problem since I moved in 6 years ago so I’ve gotten used to all sorts of beetles and roaches getting in.  Normally, the cats happily play with their little “friends” and I don’t mind–it’s natural pest control.  Mazique (my recently deceased cat) and Tripoli (aka 3-legged kitty) used to have lots of fun playing roach hockey on the kitchen floor–they’d bat a roach back and forth between each other until I felt sorry for the bug and put it out of its misery. 

One evening, I came home from work and went to check the messages on the answering machine.  Glancing down, I saw what looked like a piece of ribbon on the floor by the phone stand.  I started to walk off but decided to give the ribbon a closer look since that isn’t something I’d leave out for the cats to get into.  Turns out it wasn’t a ribbon on the floor–it was a garter snake.  I picked it up and noticed tooth marks on it and thought the cats must have had quite a bit of fun with their little “friend.”  The cats were getting excited, thinking there was going to be more play time with this fantastic toy.   Poor snake seemed dead and I set it down on the floor just to make sure.  Then it came back to life and started to slither away with three excited cats pawing at it.  I quickly grabbed up the snake and let it go in the flower bed in the backyard.  The cats were pretty grumpy with me after that. 

Don’t know how people cope with bugs and other critters being a daily part of their lives.  Guess it’s all in what a person is used to.  I just want an ant-free home.

August 8, 2008

Blogging is a whole new experience for me.  Hopefully, this will help me get back to writing fanfiction.