Yesterday our good friend Adam called from Holy Cross. He was standing outside our house, where he confirmed the reports of several other friends: all is well. There were several cars on the street, and the drone of a generator provided the afternoon soundtrack. Mr. Taylor sent a hello to us from his porch, where he was seeking relief from the heat in his home. Was there anything we could bring him when we returned from Atlanta, Simon asked (via Adam)?
"Yeah. A generator and a case of Heinekken."
"That could get expensive," Simon said. "How about we bring you one or the other?"
"Okay, then bring me a generator so I can keep my Heinekken cold."
Yes, the power was--and is still--out in our neighborhood. In other areas, electricity has been coming on fast. On Twitter, a friend posted, "all sitting in the dark and stuff and woof! The power comes on."
I remember how that happened all the time when we returned after Katrina. We'd be just settling in to have no power for several hours (again), and then it'd startle us when it returned.
Being home right after that storm (I feel like I can't call it "The Storm" anymore, now that there's Gustav) had an adventure-ness to it. We cooked on our Coleman stove with the doors and windows open. We drove to friends' houses to take showers. We talked about where we'd been, who we'd lost, and how we hoped the city would move on. At night, when the power went out, we emerged from our houses onto our stoops and watched the moon turn slate rooftops silver. Or at least this is how my memory colors it now, and that's probably just because this time around I am much less enthused about returning to the outages, to the heat, and to the iffy future.
In Atlanta I've been playing Auntie Sarah. Auntie Sarah has the mojo when it comes to her nephew. She sings him R&B songs about "nekkid time" when she changes his diaper. She puts his ass to sleep, like pronto. Auntie Sarah loves being Auntie Sarah. She'll miss it when she goes back to New Orleans tomorrow.
I've also been trolling the internet for any kind of useful news and finding none. Nola.com has posted an "Entergy updates" page which tell me nothing specific about my neighborhood. Today it says that all of Orleans Parish should have power by tomorrow, but it said the same thing of Saturday two days ago. I hope Adam will return to Holy Cross to give me updates.
In the meantime I have gotten a message from my employer that reports that they are "excited" that power has been restored to the UNO campus, and then, "You must report to work at 8 a.m. on Monday, September 8th." Is it too much to expect my employer to acknowledge our not having power yet--too much to ask the Chancellor to express some gratitude for my returning without A/C, hot water, or refrigeration? Or am I being a whiner?
Also in the meantime: Hurricane Ike watching. New Orleans is now in Ike's "Cone of Uncertainty" (or "Cone of Error"). I feel like that would be a better name for this blog: "Blog of Uncertainty," especially now that I am realizing that I'm writing in a post-K and post-G era, not just a post-K one.
I worry that folks won't evacuate if we stay this way--in the path of Ike--after having had such a hard time evacuating for Gustav. Here, in fact, is an editorial about what many see as a botched evacuation: http://www.nola.com/living/index.ssf/2008/09/the_next_time_my_family_will_s.html
...The girl from across the street just came over. Her cat died last night and she wants to see ours... My next post may be from New Orleans, my home of uncertainty.
Tomorrow: generator shopping. 
Simon called me and asked if I'd heard the reports of gridlock on I-59 and we thanked our lucky stars we'd not gone that way. "We're charmed," he said. I wouldn't call fourteen hours for a seven hour trip a "charmed" journey, but we are here and safe, and even if I can't sleep and have wine-tooth, I am grateful we have a place to go.
This is our house, waiting for what our clown of a mayor has called "The Mother of All Storms." Tomorrow we will leave her behind, and I am so, so sad about it. Also, I have realized that we will likely be gone for a long time. There's this, too: because we are separated from the city by the St. Claude and Claiborne Avenue Bridges, and because there is likely to be very bad damage in St. Bernard Parish to our east (and perhaps again to New Orleans East), we will probably not be allowed to come home for a long time. 
Later, at the beginning-of-the-semester faculty meeting, everyone was talking about the uncanny echoes of three years ago. That meeting had been held the Friday before Katrina's landfall. Three days later it was the way it was--the way it now is. Tomorrow's department party is cancelled. One colleague, whose husband directs a suicide hotline, says they will leave tomorrow. I didn't hear from anyone else yet.
This is the guest room door, as seen from the kitchen (the dark brown is exposed bargeboard, the grey to the left is the plaster covering the brick chimney). Most of our doors are lifeless new ones, but we have reused old ones when possible, and I asked that they be sanded but left unpainted. When they sanded, the workers left the original paint in the "grooves," and I really love how it came out. The trim is Sherwin William's Extra White, and I think it will all look really wonderful once it's cleaned up (they do scrape all the out-of-the-lines painting on transom windows, right?)
Here I'm not so sure I like the unfinished look as well. This is the mantel in the guest bedroom. I'm thinking it could look nice if I clean up the sanding a little and then paint the plywood in the middle the same color as the trim. I'd REALLY like to get one of those pretty wrought-iron screen-thingies to cover the center part, but money ain't gonna let that happen. I don't know what the heck will happen with the hearth... I can't tell what it's made of, or what it was meant to look like. This is where a preservation-person would be helpful.
Here's the mantel and door in the master bedroom. I still love the color we chose for the walls (SW's Waterscape). Since this mantel isn't a particularly nice one (it lacks the pretty flower-thingy and all that detail), I'm thinking I'll ask them to paint it the trim color. I definitely want to get one of those iron screens in here. (I'll have to find a picture). No one else seems to be a fan of the leftover wallpaper on the chimney, but I love it and have asked them to leave it. I'll try to clean up the torn edges so they're a little less jagged, but I just love it. I guess I like elements of the house that tell a story of its past.
The guest bathroom, which I once thought was the smallest bathroom ever, now looks much, much better and bigger with the tub and toilet in. The tub will have a shower kit attachment soon. Here's a question: should I use a clear vinyl curtain that hangs inside the tub, alone (which would allow you to see through to the rear wall) or cover it with a fabric one that hangs outside? I've always thought the fabric ones hide the tub and make the whole operation seem like a giant shower curtain on legs rather than a clawfoot tub with a shower-attachment, but I have strange design notions (like painting everything practically the same color... I'm already thinking I'd like this bathroom to be a more lively something.) 
It's hard to believe that the tub you see above is the same one you see below...
Finally, here is the dining room, with our Pottery Barn "Cassandra" chandelier and a lonely IKEA Ogla chair. Once we have a dining table, we'll lower the chandelier, but there was some bad news, so most furniture may have to wait... You can see the wood ceilings we exposed here. I love them. I worried they'd be too dark or "lodgy," but the 12-foot ceilings seem to have taken care of that.
