Magazines, Trees, Chicken, Levies, & Talk

Highlights today: Hurricane season officially opens. Got our driver licenses, got our new plates, opened a bank account, and I acquainted myself with my new Target when I bought cleaning supplies for the new house.

Highlights tomorrow: Move into and sleep in new house.

A couple things I noticed today:

Do you know that the people of New Orleans have been living without magazines for months? They simply have not been getting them in the mail and I guess that local stores didn’t have the up-to-date mag.s either. It seems kind of like Hawaii when my parents lived there in the 1960s: in Hilo the television shows aired a week or two after they aired in the mainland. New Orleanians have been getting, if at all, their magazines about a week behind the rest of us. Weird thing is, while some Americans may try to disassociate with what happened down here (“that couldn’t happen here”), unlike Hawaii, we’re still attached to the mainland down here. And yet we can’t catch up on celebrity gossip very easily. I can’t find a damn People magazine and Brad and Angelina just had their baby and I want to read about it. (Alex and Julie, save this week and last weeks’ mag for me, please.)

Trees:

Phil and I had to drive to St. Charles Parish to get our DMV stuff taken care of because the lines in and around New Orleans at the DMV can take all day. As we were driving to Hanville, which is “across the river”, I was admiring the green on both sides of the rode. The trees were pretty. Then all of a sudden, I’ve seen this before in Louisiana, the trees changed and I was looking at what seemed to be giant sticks stuck in the ground with thin, light-green moss draped over them. I don’t get that. Phil suggested I have my sixth graders next year figure that one out for me.

Chicken and the Levy:

By the end of our stop at the Hanville DMV, we were famished. Popeye’s seemed like a good solution, so we asked for directions and made our way to the closest one. It was a strictly takeout or drive-up Popeye’s and there was a sign just inside the door that said, “This car isn’t big enough to hold all that Popeye’s flavor.” It took Phil awhile to understand the meaning of this, as he will not eat in our car and believes no one else ever should. Once we got our chicken we had to choices: eat in the car like normal people or sit on the levy, which was across the street from Popeye’s. Phil chose the levy, so with new Louisiana driver’s licenses in our pockets, we sat on the top of the levy and ate some really good chicken and avoided getting too hot by drinking ice cold root beer. And I thought: I live here. I really live here. And this levy is just a seat right now.

Talkin’: Phil saw a vanity plate in Tennessee that read “B-R-I-N-G I-T”. “Look,” he said to me when he spotted it and then he read it for me, “Brang et!” He keeps repeating this whenever I, or anyone else—including bank personnel and bad drivers, try to mess with him. Today he told me to go “git” something and later he announced that he was going to “fetch” something. After years of working to rid himself of his Southern accent, it all comes back so naturally for him.

By the way, there has not been one hurricane that hit New Orleans in June in 150 years (Times-Picayune, front page today). Why then is June still condisided part of the season?

And me.

So we've moved. And I am doing all right.

Those last few weeks in Boston were just how I wanted them to be. There were lots of dinners with friends and people stopping by and taking a few extra minutes to chat. I drank a lot of tea with friends. The packing was not rushed until the very end and I was able to keep a pretty level head about things because I paced myself. And I did myself a favor by doing a bunch of yoga those last few weeks.

I wasn't very sad. That was a weird thing.

I will admit, that at the Corner Co-op when they sang the good-bye songs I got sad and cried at the thought of "moving along", as the song says. I have been to that Co-op three or four times a week for four years. It has been such a supportive a nurturing place for all of us to grow and the things we've all learned there we will carry with us everywhere. (I've considered calling the Co-op several times in the last week as I have been puzzled by Ramona's behavior--usually I'd just ask them what they thought about this or that parenting issue as I dropped her off.)

I also cried when I said good-bye to the house. We can never return to it. It is the only home the kids remember and there are so many good memories in that house. Most of our friends have come there for our social time and it has been alive with people so much of the time. I will really miss it.

But I felt so happy saying good-bye to Boston. Not in a good-riddens kind of way, but it a celebratory way. Boston, the Co-op, JP, the Haley, and even HGSE and HMS have been great for us in this chapter of our lives. I feel that I have grown up a lot. And that makes me so happy. Our friends have been so wonderful. Just wonderful. And I feel so happy to have them. So happy.

So I wasn't sad as we hugged our crying friends good-bye.

Then we drove out of town and headed South. I was still focused on tasks and getting to our destination. At the "log barn" we finally had a chance to relax for a minute and I finally (FINALLY!) was sad. My heart got heavy--it swelled thinking of life going on in JP without us and I cried and then cried some more. I will really, really miss our comfortable community. I will miss knowing what to expect out of the day. Mainly I will miss all you people who I like seeing as I go about my days. No more talking to Amy nearly each day about coordinating kids' transportation. No more Aarti drop-bys or Ara cooking dinner at our house. No more spying on Julie and Aaron and cuddling Moses. No more calling Kira from the car. No more mom's group. No more seeing Sharon at the playground. No more grand entrances into the Co-op with one of the chorus of teachers warmly welcoming us. No more swims at Curtis Hall or overdue books at the library where all the librarians know you and your kids and what you like to read. Oh, it will be hard to let go. I am glad that I had a few days away from the "to do" list to let the reality sink in.

After the stay at the log barn and a visit to Dollywood I started to feel better. The heavy heart lightened. Driving into Alabama, then Mississippi and finally Louisiana felt so right. It wasn't just that a new line of tasks started to form in my head. This is the setting of the next chapter of our lives and I am chopping at the bit to get going on it.

It is going to be different. Really different. It is flat here and hot, damn hot. Oh, and that whole Katrina thing...this city is devastated. But there are signs of life; I can already see a lot of change from April when I was last here. Hope is in the air. At the closing for our house today, two of the people were wearing seersucker suits--for real. Sumner's toenails are painted and a woman asked me today if his father knew that I had done that. And Phil and I noticed when we crossed the Mason-Dixon line that people aren't really into maintenance of some of the public places here as they are in other parts of the country. And Phil’s mom has been saying for year that you can’t find good bread in New Orleans. So maybe in my future there’s a sparkly seersucker suit and a boys’ pedicure business and a public areas maintenance initiative and a whole lot of rice. We will see.

But tonight I am still feeling the excitement of anticipation and peace and confidence that we are where we are supposed to be.

A May Christmas-Cardy Summary

I know. You've been sitting on the edge of your seat. Checking a blog that seems to be dead. Dead as a doornail. The most recently published entries are pathetic. April and May needed some serious help.

Will the blog revive? Yes.

What happened in April and May? We didn't die (althought it has felt that way). The blog isn't defunct (although it has felt that way). We're just in the middle of moving. In fact, for the last 10 days I haven't even logged into a computer. And the ten days before that Philip was monopolizing ours day and night to tie up all the loose ends of our life.

So dry your tears! Start checking my blog again. I'm back. You will not be disappointed.

And this entry...this is the last blog of "The 8th Year". If you forgot, that's the title of my blog. This has been the 8th year that Phil and I have muddled through the world together as a couple. And it has been "a year of digging deep" and I am glad we did so much digging. Even thought we got really dirty and we haven't struck gold, I know Philip and myself better. I feel like we have had the time and taken it to figure out what we want in the next stage of our lives. And I will keep writing about how it all works out.

On June 1 the blog will have a new name and a new look. Do NOT be alarmed. It will still be little me, pecking away at the keyboard, trying to make sense of my life and pursuit of happiness.

Over the last few weeks I have experienced so much. It is more than enough material for twenty entries and then some. I wish I had a keyboard the night Phil and I stayed up all night to finish packing or the next day when Phil tried to talk to the movers and, although they were native English speakers, he could not understand a word of the Boston accents. I wish I had time to write about Ramona saying good-bye to her best friend Kate--they agreed to get married when they grow up and Kate pointed out that they'd have to be married in Boston because boys and boys and girls and girls can't be married in other states. If only I had a moment to paint a picture of Sumner's last day a school. He planted three plants in the school yard; his class toasted to him saying good-bye and good luck in English, Spanish, and Creole, over fruit punch and cheese puffs; they wrote him a book telling him how they remembered him; then they all shook his hand, one at a time, before one boy asked if they could hug him, and they did; Sumner read the class dino jokes while they waited for his bus; and then he chose to ride bus 078 home with his best friend for the last time. And the day that we were supposed to be packing up for our trip and cleaning the house, but we got locked out of our friends' car with Phil's phone on the driver's seat and had to spend our morning retrieving it and then spent the days hugging our friends good-bye. We left the next day seven hours later than planned and made it to Hartford...that's two hours from Boston.

And here I am tonight, writing in a business center in a Holiday Inn Express outside of Birmingham, on our final approach into New Orleans. As we've driven through CT, then PA, onto VA and into Tennessee for six nnights and then through GA and Alabama, I've come to realize that I am moving to the South. I know, I have been saying it for months, but there has been something about the gradual decent into the South that makes it real. Really real.

And how are we doing?

Here comes the Christmas cardy summary...

Ramona: In summary, she has logistics on her mind. She has to work out the logistics of our move and how she is going to manage it. For practice, over our last several weeks in Boston she insisted on carrying a suitcase, which was full of her toys, to school each day to distribute to her playmates. At school she also orchestrated several "moves". To move, she'd enlist the help of four or five of her peers. They'd move all of the toys from the play kitchen/costume area into the Block Room. It was a lot of work, yet Ramona accomplished it several times (with the help of her friends).

On the day we said good-bye to our house she sang a song, through her buckets of tears, that went something like this:

So long it's been good to know you 39 Ballard St.,
So long it's been good to know you 39 Ballard St.,
We've got to be moving along, but we can come back and look at the front of you.
And wave hello, but we won't live inside.
We'll live in New Orleans and live by our gandparents. (SHE'S STILL CRYING HARD AND SINGING)
And we will have sleepovers at their house sometimes.
And we will have sleepovers at their house sometimes.
And I might wake up with a present by my pillow at the sleepover.
So long it's been good to know you 39 Ballard St.,
So long it's been good to know you 39 Ballard St.,
We've got to be moving along.

As soon as we drove out of Boston her next question was: when will we get to the "log barn"? (The "log barn" was the log cabin we stayed in for six nights in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee) Where will Sumner and I sleep? How long will we be there?

And today, when we pulled out of the log barn she started in on the sleeping arrangements in the new house in New Orleans. "Do Mema and Grannabelle know each other?" This has been of grave concern to her. She wants to make sure that her grandparents all know each other so that they can all hang out with her at the same time, "If they do then when Grannabelle comes to visit she can sleep in my bed with me, if she doesn't wiggle, and Mema can have a sleepover too and sleep in my bed. But it might get a little squishy. And if Alex comes to visit she can also sleep with me. But not at the same time as Grannnabelle and Mema..." It goes on and on.

And she can't stand the clothes I packed for her, so she wore nothing the entire time we were in the log barn. When we went out she wore one of two outfits.

And she can't stand it when any of us so much as brush against a towel she if going to use.

And she's demanding a lot more of everyone. As my mother says, "When things are out of control, you need to control what you can."

Sumner: My sweet, sweet boy. He is doing just fine. Sumner doesn't seem to feel things in fits and spurts like Ramona. He is steady. Steady sad. Steady mellow. Steady content. His moods don't flash by they wander thru.

The last few weeks in Boston were stressful because nothing was steady. Each day a few more of his things would disappear into taped boxes. He'd storm around roaring at me for packing them away. Sometimes he'd cry. And refuse and then accept a hug and cry a little harder.

Like most kids, he lives in the now. He doesn't do a whole lot of anticipating. So the last weeks in Boston he went to gymnastics and played with Nikhil and went to school just like he always does. And he didn't think of each event as his last. When he said good-bye to Nikhil there were no kisses or hugs or tears, it was a see-you-tomorrow good-bye.

He's crying more than usual. And we're hugging a lot.

Philip: I won't presume to say how he is feeling and what he is thinking (at least not in print), but he still has a sense of humor.

He had a hard time parting with the homestead. I knew this long before he shared some tears with me and the kids at hour final farewell. He wanted to put our plunger in the dish washer and bring it along with us because "it is a really good one". He would have also thrown our toilet brush in the back of the van if I had let him. We were eating down capers until the last day and Phil was SO pleased to give away of nesting rum and tequila bottles as well as our racks for can food to happy homes.

For comic relief he watched Wedding Crashers about seven time in May and many lines from this fine film have become our anthems. Like, "Let's not take a turn to Negative Town" and "Living the dream" punctuated with some air punches to the sky and "It's be fun" "Yes, I am sure it will be fun for the people who are going [not me]" and "What an IDIOT" among many others.

He's taken care of a lot. For once we tried to divide and conquer and he took the paperwork and I took on the physical packing. This means he also took on the lion's share of worrying about money and bills and closings and mortgages. And he's done a good job. Ballard St. has new own owners and as of Wednesday Nelson St. will be ours.

There have been bad moods. Like yesterday when he had to listen to the Chronicles of Naria and then the tinny Music Machine CDs for about four or five hours straight. At the end of that he started to talk like God/Aslan until Sumner asked him to stop because he was afriad Phil may turn into a lion. Or the day when missed an exit after getting another late start, which led to a thirty minute detour. He bitched an moaned for an hour or two while I stayed cheery and then just as he was rising above it snapped at me for finally getting grouchy.

Mainly he's still laughing.

Me: I'll get to me later tonight. It is 11:01 and check out was a minute ago and I already extended it once. I need to go brush the kids' hair.

Race is a Construct

I'm heard that before. I have theorized about it. I've read it. I know it. But still, people look different and some look similar, so race is a convenient identifier. I often use it as a proxy for class and culture, which in my little world in Boston is sometimes accurate and sometimes isn't.

Sumner has fresh innocent eyes. Last year, he asked us who was white and who was black. We asked him what he thought. He told us that he and I were white. One kid in his class was black. Everyone else he knows was "in between". Ramona, Phil, grandparents, friends, teachers, and so on were all "in between", even though I would identify many of these people as white or black or Indian or Japanese or Latino or something else. He saw “in between” people.

The other day he said, "Mom, I think I may be the only white kid in my class."

"Really, why do you say that?"

"Well, I'm not sure about some people. Like Veronica, I just can't tell with her. And Sally. Mom, I just can't tell." (Veronica is bi-racial and Sally is white. Their names have been changed.)

I didn't respond to this. "How do you know you're white?"

"I know that," He said as if I had asked him the most obvious thing, like how he knew he was a boy. He continued, "People have said so."

People have said so, so he's starting to "get it". He is constructing knowledge about who is who and who he is and he is using his world as a mirror to figure it out. Race is one of his identifiers for himself, but not others. Yet. Race is a construct.

First it seemed to be just ordinary bickering...

Ramona was supposed to be brushing her teeth and Sumner was in the bathtub. Phil and I were sitting at the kitchen table talking. We could tell that they were arguing, but it was benign. We like for them to work these things out.

All of a sudden we hear Ramona's voice rising to a fever pitch. "It is NOT! Don't say that! DON"T CALL IT THAT!"

There was some murmuring from Sumner.

Now all-out, unintelligible shrieking from Ramona. I am a screamer and I could hear myself in her. Phil pushed out his chair and slowly moved to investigate. In less than a minute he had mediated the whole thing and returned to the kitchen.

"Do you know what they were fighting about? Sumner was calling the soap dish a poop boat. Ramona didn't like that."

A poop boat. It puts some of my screaming in perspective.

Fashionista

Ramona just told me, "Change your pants."

Granted, I am wearing post-Sumner-partum pants. I am packing. I am working in the basement today right after I drop her off at school.

"Why?" I asked.

"You look blurry. You look crumpily. You need to iron these pants. And...you look like a boy. I don't like those pants."

But I do and I am going to wear them.

ma

Making Plans for the Future

No one will ever be able to accuse Ramona of not setting goals for herself. She like to plan ahead.

The other day she asked if, when she grows up and moves out of the house, I would let her take her Corner Co-op CD with her.

This morning she asked me if I slept in the nude when I was a little girl. She told me she was wondering because she is trying to figure out if when she is grown up she will sleep in the nude except, of course, for when she has guests for sleepovers.

Haven't packed a thing

Supposed to be boxing things. All I can do is hang out with friends and chill. I am drinking lots of tea and processing everything that has happened to me for the last four, seven, ten years. It's been a good week. I am going to start packing tomorrow.

Job

I have a job. I will be teaching sixth grade Language Arts for half of the day and spending the other half of the day working with parents or teachers...to be determined later, as the school leadership team for next year forms.

Bald...

has never meant a thing to me. My dad is really, really bald. His head is shiny. Since I've known him he's been bald and it never really bothered me. Or him.

Philip, in case you haven't noticed, is bald too. When I met him, at age 19, he had a (just barely) receding hairline. It was a little tough to start losing your hair when you are still a teenager. I think marriage and two kids sped up the process. For a while he tried to slow down the process with some products, but I always thought that was silly. To me, he looks the same with or without hair.

The two main adult men in my life have been my experience with hair loss. I never really understood why people, men mainly, get so hyped up about going bald.

Until it started happening to me. I have this fabulous white streak right at the front of my part. Over the last month I have noticed that this spot is thinning. You can kind of see my scalp there. And I am not happy about it. I am downright troubled by it. I don't want to lose my hair! I think I have to stop wearing a ponytail--it probably puts undo stress on the hair. I wonder if it is too late for Ladies' Rogaine.

Sumner is growing his hair out. He's seven. He better hold onto these precious years of a full head of great hair. For those in our family, these days are numbered.

Jane Goodall

Our family was having an ordinary breakfast. Ramona had her cereal with milk (on the side) and was talking in bright chirps. Sumner was sitting sideways in his chair gorging on his one big meal of the day. Phil was methodically eating his routine breakfast fruit and I was slowly sipping my tea and reading the paper while NPR droned in the background. I vaguely heard one of those NPR-not-an-advertisement-but-really-is-an-advertisement advertisements. It announced that Jane Goodall was going to be at the Franklin Park Zoo to talk about her experiences in Africa living with the gorillas. It registered, but I didn't really note it on a conscious level.

Phil, who usually cannot do two things at once, like eat a piece of fruit and listen to the radio, looked up and said, "Isn't she getting tired of talking about that?" I had to cackle at that. When does one get tired of telling her stories? I don't think I ever will. Perhaps you tire when people tire of listening to you.

Ramona on the Easter Bunny

Sumner is a believer. He is all set to prove to all of his doubting friends that Santa is the real deal.

Ramona is suspicious by nature. She is trusts her brother about Santa, but she's not so sure about the Easter bunny. Before Easter she spent a lot of time trying to figure out if the Easter bunny is a boy or a girl. She then announced that it is neither or both. She also concluded that it walks on its hind legs and doesn't stay on all four like other rabbits.

Then Easter came. She loved the egg hunt. She ate some candy for breakfast. We went to church. She tried Peeps for the first time. She played with some spring stickers and she was happy with her Easter basket pull. Then Easter went.

About three days later she tells me, "Mom, I know the Easter bunny is pretend. It is you or daddy or Santa who hides the eggs."

Then a few days later she tells Phil, "Dad, that Easter bunny is just a paper bunny sitting on Santa's porch. I just know that the Easter bunny is not real. I can't wait until I am grown up and I have my own kids so that I can know for sure if the Easter bunny is real."

Condiments

When I returned from New Orleans, Phil informed me that there was work to be done. "We have to eat down the pantry. There are a lot of condiments that we need to get through." So now we are designing meals around a long-forgotten can of coconut milk and remembering to use that tiny jar of honey mustard on our sandwiches. I'm down with that, but Philip can get a little crazy about these things.

So the next day, it is about 4:30 or 5:00 PM and Phil is just warming up to the idea of making some dinner for us. I am hungry. I want a little schnicky snack. I open the cupboard. No chips. No pretzels. No crackers. The fridge: No carrots. No grapes. On my way to the food safe in the pantry I shout, "Hey, sweetie, I thought you went grocery shopping. What do we have to snack on?" He retorts, "Why don't you get into the freezer? We really need to eat that down."

The freezer? For snacks? Now give me a break. Maybe some frozen blueberries could be a good snack (which we were out of), but other than that I am not eating some sage lentils the we froze 8 months ago or chipping off a little bit of frozen mango brick that I bought at a Latino market the three days after we moved into this house.

Come on.

Then, I few days later, I start bugging him again about the lack of snacks. He looks at me and says, "How about a pepperocini? You know, a salad pepper." I know what a pepperocini is. And I like them. But I am NOT going to get into them when I have a hankering for the munchies.

Our house is very, very, very fine house

So I did find and we bought a house. It is the second time Philip and I have bought a house that he has never laid eyes on. (At least this time I did manage to take a few pictures of the interior for him.)

We are going to live on a street called Nelson. It is a little more Leave-It-To-Beaver than we had hoped for, but the house is fabulous. We won't even need to paint the walls. The dining room set (yes, we have a dining room) comes with the house. I have much of our furniture already arranged in my mind's eye in the house. There are even two full baths and three ("Yes, three," the listing agent told me) half baths. It is going to be a nice place to live.

I am reading one of the Mitford sisters' books, In Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford. The Mitfords are these kind of famous English sisters who lived and wrote novels in the 30s and 40s. Their books are about upper-crusty types and they are just fun and silly. One thing that stands out to me right now in this novel is how Nancy Mitford goes on about all of the houses that people live in. There are the grand country houses of the landed gentry that all stand out in some cute way, her little house in Oxford, the country houses of the new rich, the houses in London that always seem to being rented for a season here or there. It is a lot of fun to hear these descriptions and imagine how my new house and its inhabitants would be described by a Mitford.

I think the high ceilings and airy rooms would be noted by the Mitford sisters. I think they'd like the warm, casual hospitality we exude from our home. I encourage guests to help themselves and we always have good shnicky-snacks on hand. It will be a drop-in-when-you-can type of place.

But what would the Mitford sisters say about the FEMA trailers on the block? And what about the boarded up businesses blocks away? What would they make of all of the people back in their homes going on with the work of living and having a family and doing what you got to do? It just wouldn't be in a Mitford novel.

Complex Things

I was growing weary. My family left New Orleans on our scheduled departure date and I stayed on to turn our house-search into a house-find.

It was down to two houses, both about the same price. One, House #1, was one block from the school we imagine Sumner might attend and it had some deferred maintenance. The layout would have been nice for entertaining and there was even an extra room for guests.

The other, House #2, was in an “iffy” area (as we euphemistically say), but it was “one year young” (as the real estate listing said). It was a gorgeous house with a huge backyard and off-street parking and there was even an extra room for guests.

I decided to go to the “transitional” (as we also say) neighborhood and check out House #2’s hood. I parked my car across from the one story brick apartment building right next to House #2. I stood in front of the house and surveyed the block. I walked towards the river and saw a white guy in a suit standing next to a minivan. White-guy-in-a-suit-next-to-a-minivan usually means that there are going to be some white kids nearby that ride in that minivan. I approached him only to see that where car seats should be there were lots of blue prints strewn about. I introduced myself and asked him how he liked the neighborhood. He told me his first name and pointed at all of the houses on his block and told me who lived in them and who had kids. He volunteered that he does not have a problem with crime. In fact, he often forgets to lock his car. The only downside of living there is that the apartments “get loud” on Friday and Saturday nights and the famous po-boy shop on the corner attracts a lot of people and makes parking hard sometimes. He also intimated that there was a developer who was going to buy the apartments and a few other houses on the block and redo them. I knew that this meant that more white people like me would be moving in and that this would be a “good” investment. He seemed to be a good guy and I would have off-street, gated parking at House #2 and I don’t mind a little music so I was thinking: this is all good. Lots of good. I walked on.

On the other side of House #2 (from the apartments) was a nicely maintained orange house. The gate to the back yard was open and I peeked in when I heard voices. Three African-American men were working with an electric saw. One of the men was older than the other two—the young ones were in their 50s or 60s. I introduced myself and the oldest of the three, who owned the house, introduced them to me. They were all Mr. Somebody and all very warm. I told them that I was from Boston and thinking about buying the house next door. They told me what I great neighborhood it was and to bring them some lobster when I came back down. I walked on.

I moved away from the block the house was on and weaved through the neighborhood. I met another retired African-American woman who was out painting her railing and fence black. She was Miss Someone and very friendly.

I kept walking. I was thinking—this is it. One of the reasons I want to live in New Orleans is because I want to live in an integrated neighborhood. After the storm there have been a lot of questions about who will live in the city and where they will live. The city is whiter than before Katrina. This integration is important to both Phil and I. Sometimes I think we are unsure why we want this. When it comes down to it I think we both have come across people in our lives who grew up in integrated neighborhoods or went to integrated schools and these people have made an impression on us. They seem to have a great sense of connection to humanity in general and they also seem to navigate relationships with all sorts of people with great ease. Of course we know lots of people who have these qualities and didn’t have experiences with integration, but it seems to be a little rarer to come by—so we think.

So I walked and thought about living in the nicest house, which is gated with an electric gate, in this neighborhood. I thought about the fact that there didn’t seem to be a lot of young white families in this neighborhood. I felt the heaviness of making a decision to live somewhere and not live somewhere else. I turned a corner and smiled at several more potential neighbors sitting on their porches.

Then this guy called to me from across the street. He was African-American and introduced himself by his first name. His eyes were bloodshot. He seemed to be waiting, loitering. I didn’t get the feeling that he lived in the house he was hanging out in front of, but I thought he knew the people that lived there. I crossed halfway across the street and talked to him. I don’t remember how we started talking, but as often happens with me, he seemed to tell me a lot. I told him I was thinking of moving in to the neighborhood and that got him going.

He had lived in this neighborhood since he was a little boy. He wanted to make sure I knew that it was dry during the flood. Then he started to tell me about where he was during the storm and flood. I didn’t catch it all and I was getting uncomfortable. I couldn’t really ask him a bunch of clarifying questions. He told me that he was at home on this block during Katrina. I guess after the storm, he headed to the Convention Center to get food and water. When things got crazy there, although he didn’t know how to swim, he walked through the flooded areas back to a Walmart near here (this Walmart was the scene of massive looting or commandeering of supplies—however you see it). He them muttered something about finally getting back home and getting his guns ready because no one could make him leave his home. I thought: guns, mmmm. Maybe I should get going.

By now a shaggy looking, rail-thin guy pulled up on his bike and lurked in front of this house. He was in worse shape than the guy I was listening to and my new friend introduced me to him. I was curious to check out what exactly was going on, yet I was thinking about my safety. Just then the front door opened. A much healthier looking guy, big, tall, strong, and wearing a Saints hat, came out with a worn briefcase. He was tucking a small key on a chain into his shirt. The biker cruised away. My new friend introduced me again to this guy.

I thought: alright, he’s the “iffy” part of the neighborhood. I’m meeting the drug dealer in the hood. For sure there are drug dealers in every neighborhood, but this one didn’t look anything like me and I was on foot. I need to go without offending anyone.

The big guy came off his porch. He deduced that I was looking at the “new house” around the corner. I was pretty evasive about the whole thing and walked on. Now I was really puzzling. Could we live here near those guys? As a result of their circumstances and choices they seemed to be living a pretty rough life. How would that match up with my family and our hopes and dreams? I felt more heaviness. I spotted an African-American grandmother and a toddler on a porch. We waved at one another with big smiles.

Just then my friend and the big guy rolled by me in a beat-up car. They were in no hurry. I thought I better get in a hurry. I said hello to them loudly so that they would know I saw them. They didn’t acknowledge me. I picked up the pace.

I looped around back to the street where my potential house was. Parked right in front of my house was the big guy’s car and he and my friend were leaning against it surveying House #2. My hair stood on end; I heard the three guys from the orange house still in their backyard. I was going to be okay, but I was spooked.

The big guy started to talk to me. I wanted to break into a sprint and I wanted to hear what he was going to say. He asked what they were asking for the house. I tried to avoid the question. He pointed to a green house half a block away and told me that he knew the guy who owned it and two other houses in the block. A developer had offered the owner of those three houses half a million for all three. That was not much more than they were asking for House #2. The big guy told me that he told the owner of the houses that he could get more.

Just then I relaxed. I remembered a conversation I had heard on the radio just a few days before. It was between a couple of DJs, a caller, and a psychic and they all sounded like African-Americans. The caller was asking the psychic to interpret her dream. The tone of the show was very silly. The caller had a dream where she and her husband were camping in a forest with two white couples. One of the white couples seemed to be the kind of people who would let something bad happen to you and do nothing. The other white couple seemed like the kind of people who would kill you. A DJ teased her, saying that she was racially profiling in her dreams. The psychic said that some big change was coming in her life and she was scared. The caller said that white people were moving into her neighborhood and it scared her. The DJs teased her about her neighborhood going to hell when the white people moved in. I laughed while I was listening and so did the caller, but she was also genuinely scared.

Genuinely scared. The big guy, a probable drug dealer, and my friend, his lackey, were really freaked out at the idea of people like me—white people—were moving into their neighborhood. What kind of neighbor would I be? What would happen to their neighbors if me and my children took over?

I said good-bye. I got in my car and drove away. Buying a house is a hard thing. Rebuilding a city is complex thing.

Hard Things

I've been in a bubble this last week and a half. I haven't been thinking about the loss from Katrina or the progress since Katrina or the overwhelming task we have ahead of ourself of putting this city back together. I've been thinking about me. Would this kitchen be nice for my family? Can I see my children at this school? If I had that job, when would I get to be with my kids? How far a commute from this neighborhood to the hospitals?

Last weekend I did go hear a blues show. The songs were soaked in Katrina. I teared and then went on with setting up my life.

Then, today as I was driving by yet another pile of garbage I saw something that cut to my heart. It was a kid's play kitchen. It wasn't just any play kitchen, it was the exact same one that takes up one wall of Sumner and Ramona's bedroom. It was our kitchen. It hit me then. Some Ramona is without her kitchen. Where is she living? What is she playing with now? Will her new kitchen survive the next hurricane season?

There are little people living through this thing too.

New Things

I've started dialing only seven numbers when I go to make a phone call. Last week, when we got to New Orleans, as part of our property search, we were writing down a lot of realtors' phone numbers. Phil and his dad and his mom would read me just seven numbers for each phone number to jot down. I was perplexed each time and thought: no area codes! How cute! How provincial! How country! Of course New Orleans is a huge city, but you only need dial seven numbers to make a call.

Today I picked up my mobile phone to make a call. My phone has a Boston number with a Boston area code. Three times today I tried to call New Orleans numbers without putting in the 504 area code.

I also said y’all today. I think it is rolling off my tongue rather smoothly.

Normal Things

In a post-Katrina world there are some normal things to ask people: How'd you make out? Did your house get water? Where'd you go [when the city was unlivable]? Where are you living now?

It is normal to see lots and lots of construction rubble on the side of the street. It is normal to see block upon block of empty houses. It is normal to bump into someone who is living in another city and is visiting, but plans to return as soon as they can. It is normal for the schools I am interviewing at not to know where their school will be, who their students will be, and if their teachers will be able to stay in New Orleans beyond this school year. Hundreds of businesses are closed for good. There is no more recycling. There are a lot fewer Popeyes. Many of the stop lights are still out and have been replaced with four way stops. There are people living in flooded homes--rebuilding, moving on. This city is going to be okay.

Praise the Lord! Thank You Jesus!

We got an offer on our house. We accepted. We were dancing and smiling and feeling good. In private.

When we told the kids, Sumner was a little unsure. He looked at me with a long face and big eyes. I was trying to act cool when I told him. I hugged him. He saw I was excited despite the fact that I was trying to contain myself and he got a little happy for us.

Later, at bedtime, I asked the kids what they were thankful for. Ramona began listing people she knew. This included our immediate family and several of her friends and their moms. She made a point of telling me that she was NOT thankful for the dads (except for hers). Her monologue went on and on. Sumner finally asked her, "Please be quiet, so I can think." With some coaxing from me she was able to be silent for about 10 seconds. He then said, "I am thankful that we sold our house because I am glad that I know when we are going to move. I like to know the date that our house will be sold."

He's a literal little man. He wears two watches: one because it has a second hand and one because it has an alarm that sounds at 8 AM. While he is sad our house sold, the date we close is somehow comforting.