When life gives you lemons...
Oh, lordy. Is life really starting to settle in to place? But I was just getting used to change as a constant! Oh well, I guess I can handle stability, but I might seek intensive therapy : ) So, the hurricane was peanuts for Houston- I slept through it! Meteorologist Bliss (about as trustworthy as the Weather channel's 'experts') would classify it as a "mild windstorm with scattered showers." We bought excessive amounts of junk food at the only convenience store we could find open and took all the fancy paintings off the walls, bracing for a monster hurricane. Well, better safe than sorry but all that fuss for nothing. We should have gotten the hint when we took a wrong turn in to a cemetery at the start of the evacuation. And by that I mean the fact that we sat in bottlenecked traffic for 6 hours. And went 6 miles. (Another "6" for ya- we only lost power for 6 hours) And used 1/4 tank of gasoline. And it was so hot we were in our unmentionables for the ride, trying to put up towels to hide from nasty truck drivers.
Long story short, we would have been stuck on the highway, so we headed back, a bit scared. Call us crazy, but bring it on Rita! We ain't scared of ya- we already beat one hurricane! And then, a mild windstorm with scattered showers after all the fuss. Alas. We couldn't get out for a day, so our diet consisted of gatorade and bag after bag of Combos (half pretzel/half cheesy filling), which is officially my new favorite snack. Oh, I forgot to mention that a random guy in the Whole Foods parking lot gave us four containers of sushi for our car ride. Sushi for breakfast and Combos for dinner. One random experience after another: the life of a TFA New Orleans corps member. On a more melancholy note, a friend from institute died in a car accident earlier this week. I've barely been able to process it due to all the other nonsense, i.e. escaping my second natural disaster in less than a month. But she was a beloved member of 209 CMA group, the 18 of us who were ever so close, and my heart aches for her, she was fabulous. I will teach in Eva's memory.
The last few days have been semi-surreal, as everything was shut down and the entire city was out of gas. We mostly did lots of puzzles and laid around the house being lazy. We report tomorrow to KIPP New Orleans West (NOW) school for staff development. And kids come later this week or first thing next week. I am very excited. And on top of everything else, my family in Ecuador called me today. I almost cried, I hadn't talked to them in 6 months or more, and I still think about them everyday. Next summer will take me to South America, for sure. We have an apartment lined up to move in to imminently, and things really are falling in to place, despite all the daggers thrown my way during the last month.
Yours,
The Professional Hurricane Target and Evacuee Extraordinaire
Long story short, we would have been stuck on the highway, so we headed back, a bit scared. Call us crazy, but bring it on Rita! We ain't scared of ya- we already beat one hurricane! And then, a mild windstorm with scattered showers after all the fuss. Alas. We couldn't get out for a day, so our diet consisted of gatorade and bag after bag of Combos (half pretzel/half cheesy filling), which is officially my new favorite snack. Oh, I forgot to mention that a random guy in the Whole Foods parking lot gave us four containers of sushi for our car ride. Sushi for breakfast and Combos for dinner. One random experience after another: the life of a TFA New Orleans corps member. On a more melancholy note, a friend from institute died in a car accident earlier this week. I've barely been able to process it due to all the other nonsense, i.e. escaping my second natural disaster in less than a month. But she was a beloved member of 209 CMA group, the 18 of us who were ever so close, and my heart aches for her, she was fabulous. I will teach in Eva's memory.
The last few days have been semi-surreal, as everything was shut down and the entire city was out of gas. We mostly did lots of puzzles and laid around the house being lazy. We report tomorrow to KIPP New Orleans West (NOW) school for staff development. And kids come later this week or first thing next week. I am very excited. And on top of everything else, my family in Ecuador called me today. I almost cried, I hadn't talked to them in 6 months or more, and I still think about them everyday. Next summer will take me to South America, for sure. We have an apartment lined up to move in to imminently, and things really are falling in to place, despite all the daggers thrown my way during the last month.
Yours,
The Professional Hurricane Target and Evacuee Extraordinaire
posted by MissBliss at 4:30 PM
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