Hurricane Rita Revisited

One year ago, Hurricane Rita slammed into the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast and rocked my world. Most media outlets covering the anniversary of Hurricane Rita are focusing on the recovery efforts--very much ongoing in most places.

Today, instead, I find it therapeutic to revisit my memories of Rita's aftermath. I can still hear the roaring wind and rain of that night; it went on and on and on for many hours. I could hear the roof groaning under the strain. I slept about 2 hours, sure that the next massive gusts would take it off. But ever-so-gradually the wind slacked up, and weak daylight struggled through the cloud cover, and this is what we saw:


















We chose not to evacuate. And as bad as things were for us without power for seven days, we considered ourselves lucky--we never lost our running water or phone service.

And, all of the trees that fell missed the house. Others were not so lucky.

This contractor's trailer
flipped.
A storage shed. Everything
inside was intact. The walls
were just peeled off.



The (formerly) covered stage
at our local park.










This storm was "forgotten" by the national media outlets. Today, I choose not to forget.

The Good Weekend

I was way overdue for a good weekend, and this was it. My daughter came home from college (first time this semester) and seems so happy! She is still enamored of the older guy from Illinois, the one who has had some recent battles with drug use, but I have faith that God will bring her safely through this. She appears to be focused on having a successful semester and committed to putting her education ahead of any personal goals, right now. We had a really pleasant visit with her.

The other turbulence which has rocked our world in recent weeks seems to be calming somewhat. My sister-in-law is still really screwed up, but at the moment still has a job. Not the one she was hired to do, but a job. Her school board held an administrative hearing to determine what action to take and chose to remove her from the classroom for the rest of the year, placing her instead into an ISS (In-School Suspension) position. So she might still pull out of the nose-dive she has been in this past year. I'm not optimistic. And there is still the matter of Child Protective Services taking custody of her son and placing him in his father's home. But he (my nephew) seems happy , because he is getting to know a half-sister that he hasn't been able to spend much time with.

Tomorrow, it's back to the grind. Monday: Up at 5 am, work two jobs, come home, eat supper, clean the kitchen, check email, bed. Tuesday: same. Wednesday: same. Thursday: same. Firiday, however, NOT the same! Hubby and I have a ticket for a steak dinner, at which there will be drawing for $10,000. I went in with 9 other folkds at my office , so if we win we'll each get to bring home $1,000! But at the very least, we will have gotten a steak dinner out of the deal, right?

Ciao!

[dis-fuhngk-shuhn]

Can you say "dysfunction" ? [dis-fuhngk-shuhn]

When you look it up in the dictionary, there it is...my family photo.

My family had a long love affair with drugs. All drugs. Alcohol, pot, cocaine, crystal (meth), anti-depressants, codeine/pain meds. By the grace of God, almost all of us are now clean and sober. Except for my poor sister-in-law. She's the last one still in the steel-trap grip of addiction. But, she is just about to hit the proverbial "rock bottom", where she will finally find help.

Which is what has to happen.

My husband's parents blame themselves, since they were heavily into the "party scene" when my husband and his sister were teenagers. They even did some "swinging". So they beat themselves up a lot over the poor example they feel that they set. But they realized where the road they were on was leading and they turned themselves around. Both have retired now and are active in their church family.

My husband and I specnt many years in "pursuit of the perfect high", like "Baba Fats". (See http://www.banned-width.com/shel/works/high.html, for more into) Finally, he found himself trying to feed an insatiable addiction to painkillers--which eventually got him arrested. He went into an intensive inpatient treatment program and came out a new man. Clean now almost 18 months! We are still living with his parents for financial reasons, but he is doing well in college, looking forward to a new career as a clinical laboratory technician. Once he completes all the terms of his probation, his record will be expunged.

Sister-in-law....wow, what can I say? Her third marriage is ending as a direct result of her continuing involvement with alcohol and drugs, as did her two previous marriages. She lost her previous job, due to excessive absences...caused by, you guessed it, alcohol and drugs. And she is now on administrative leave pending a hearing from her current position, due to...wouldn't you know it?...alcohol and drugs. Her son has been removed from her home--yep, alcohol and drugs, again--but also because she let a convicted felon move into the house. And her husband cleaned out her bank account he left. So, she has no job, no son, and her money is about to run out.

Yeah, I'd say she is almost ready to ask for help. But will she take the help that's offered?? My husband's parents say they will only help her if she goes into the same inpatient treatment treatment program her brother went into. It's a real tough program, but by God, it works!

Did I hear somebody mention "dysfunctional"? That would be us!

Please remember us in your prayers.

Where Were You on 9/11?

I have seen so many websites asking for input about where people happened to be on the day terrorists brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, assuming of course that it was terrorists and not our own government, as is alleged by the conspiracy-theorists.

I was at the home of my best friend. I had left my husband (again) because I just couldn't deal with his being f***ed up anymore. I stayed with her a week or so and then went to a women's shelter for another couple of weeks. (I eventually went back to him, and the rest you know if you read my first few posts.)

I turned on her TV, it was about 7:00 am CST or so, and one of the towers was on fire. Regular programming had been suspended. I said "Hey, look at this. One of the twin towers is on fire!" Just moments later, a second plane had slammed into the other tower; and shortly after that, all hell broke loose. Both towers collapsed, killing thousands, other planes were hijacked and crashed. The United States entered a state of shock.

For the first time ever in history, all flights were grounded. Worldwide.

CNN will be broadcasting their 9/11 coverage on Monday. All of it. Uncut. As it happened.

Please watch. We need to be reminded of why we are in Iraq.

Where were you on 9/11/2001?

And Life Goes On

It's been about 3 months since I wrote. I almost feel that I have abandoned my blog. I still have both of my jobs; and in fact I should be going to one of them, now. I can set my own time to do the work I have to do, as long as it gets done today, which is a perk of this particular job.

The last three months have been full. My daughter was home for the summer, meaning that we had to go to Baton Rouge and empty her dorm room. And my husband successfully completed his second semester of college. Then daughter had to be moved into her off-campus apartment just a few weeks ago. And husband started his third (and hopefully next-to-last) semester of school.

And I worked, ate, and slept. Not necessarily in that order, of course.