My birthday ... Monday August 29th. Chris will never again forget my birthday (I don't think so anyway).
Early Monday morning everyone slowly moved into a spot to sleep. Chris, the kids and I slept in their oldest daughter's bedroom, with the TV set to the news. I woke up and was watching some of the continuing coverage when the lights went out. We lost power sometime around 6 in the morning. The wind was really strong, but there was not much rain. Jim had a large generator and we were able to connect tv’s, the microwave and fridge, and a window unit air conditioner in the living room.
My Dad called me a little later that morning to wish me a Happy Birthday and to make sure that we were managing ok. Birthday? It was my birthday? Oh yeah, in all of the excitement I’d forgotten. What a way to spend my birthday. It will certainly be one that I never forget.
For the most part, we all hung out in the living room (with the sole air conditioner). Though at some point during the day I disappeared into the bedroom where we had been sleeping and took a nap. I woke up to the smell of hamburgers and French fries. Jim had fired up the grill and cooked lunch. We had comforts that I know we would not have had at home. Still, I could not help but wonder how our house was doing and if we should have stayed home.
As news reports came out of New Orleans, things did not look good. There had been a lot of damage, and there was flooding. But it was not as bad as some predictions where levee breaches could have occurred in a category 4 storm. We still knew that we would not be able to return immediately. Jim's house was welcoming, but a little crowded and we did not want to wear out our welcome.
So, after talking with Chris’s mom we decided to head farther west to Chris’s grandmother’s house. Chris’s grandmother had been in a nursing home for about 7 months. Her house was sitting empty. The electricity and gas had not been turned off. We were warned that it was dirty, but still neat and organized. And it had a roof and beds.
Monday afternoon we made the 2 hour drive out of Baton Rouge to Washington, Louisiana. Washington is a small town, population around 1,200. Just outside of Opelousas (which is just outside of Lafayette), it is a typical small farm town in the Cajun area of Louisiana. The house is a small farmhouse on a country highway, with no telephone (it had been disconnected months before), an old barn, and lots of spiders in the trees just outside of the house. The bees of Chris’s childhood had returned. One wall of the living room was filled with bees. Chris remembers that years ago they had to remove parts of the wall to remove the bee hives and the bees. They are back so the kids had to be careful when playing outside. But, we had a roof over our head, with electricity and running water.
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