Weekend pictures from Holy Cross

When the weather is as positively perfect as it has been this weekend (dry, sunny, and in the seventies), Simon and I make our way to Holy Cross as often as we can. Yesterday we drove down to check in on our friend Mark, who's working on a home on the Jackson Barracks side of Holy Cross. While he and Simon talked shop, I swung on a swing set as the sunset.

Afterwards, we drove to our end of the neighborhood to see this lovely end to the day:

We met Mark for tapas at Mimi's in the Marigny, and watched from the balcony as a Halloween parade passed by on the street below. I was remembering two years ago, our first Halloween back, when the same parade occurred.

That year, the parade's Grand Marshall was dressed as "Katrina--That B*tch!" and the amicable and then very present National Guard joined in the fun.

We were losing power regularly back then, and just as the block party was really getting going, a transformer blew, and we were plunged into relative darkness--forced to toast Halloween by candlelight.

How odd that I am almost nostalgic for that time! Back when our hopes were still alive and the National Guard's presence felt like icing rather than necessity.

Our trips down to our future neighborhood are what give us hope, now. Today we took a camping table and some lawn chairs down to the levee to grade papers. We're both up to our ears in grading, as usual, and the task is never exactly fun. But, well, when you're setting looks like this, grading papers simply cannot suck:

That object on the horizon in the upper right is a massive freight ship--the kind of traffic we get to watch go by!

Later, we took a break from grading to walk down to the site of the Global Green Holy Cross Project. We noted that the material that we'll use for a radiant barrier in our attic covers all of the exterior walls on this house. That's some insulation!

Still, I hope that it begins to look a little less space-aged as it takes on more siding. In spite of its staying "true" to shotgun-style architecture (and energy-efficiency) in being a line of rooms (topped by another line), it's got some not-so-attractive features.

Like the hulking concrete whatnot with the metal antennae that supports the front roof. Uh, okay... That may have something "green" going for it, but we agreed that it's about as lovely as a pair of TV rabbit ears. Maybe we're just spoiled by some many lovely old New Orleans homes--like our own!

This week, we'll meet with the contractor, and hopefully finalize the layout and the financing. In the meantime, I'll be grading, and grading, and grading papers... so for now... Good night Holy Cross!