Getting My Focus Back
Okay, it has been a while since our mayor had his moment of temporary insanity, slipped up and decided our city would always be deemed a "Chocolate City because of God's will", and has now made numerous apologies, stating that he is truely sorry for what he has said, for all the hurt it has caused, and that he did not handle himself or his enthusiasm for feeling like he was finally being accepted by his own race, or as he put it..."there was a stigma that Ray Nagin didn't care about black people and that he was a "white man in black skin".

He'd constantly been putting himself in the hotseat day in and day out, answering residents' questions on everything from levee repairs to concerns over still-broken traffic and street lights, homes hit with such devastation that they still sit vacant and sporting filthy water lines from the disastrous flooding caused by levee failures. When something positive FINALLY came his way, about the first time since August 29th...maybe even since he was voted into office, he got swept up in the moment and said foolish and stupid things. These things unfortunantly reflected not only on him, but also on New Orleans as a whole. That is the part that I am going to let go of now.

There has been too much pain and too much suffering. I need to get back to being focused on what REALLY matters to New Orleans right now. I am beginning to divert my attentions back to where they needed to remain, as far as during this "Re-New Orlean period", at least, and that is on our levee system, or rather, the lack thereof.

You see, we still haven't had a Class 5 Hurricane, but it IS coming. The tragedy of all that happened since August 29, 2005, is that Hurricane Katrina didn't flood New Orleans, it was that the Corp of Engineers didn't build the Levees to their own specifications, something that our Legislators have been fighting for since Hurricane Betsy in the 1960s. The Corp has ADMITTED the Levees weren't built to their own specs. And now we are only 5.5 months before hurricane season starts again.

What is the point in rebuilding anything if the levee system isn't there?

We won't go down without a fight, however. You can see pride on more and more residents, and in more and more ways. Some people sport their "New Orleans Proud to Swim Home" stickers on their vehicles, you see several "Welcome Back" or "Welcome Home" signs on homes or businesses all over Uptown, CBC, Metairie, and Kenner and on the Westbank. Mignon Faget said she couldn't keep anything in her high end jewelry store at Christmas that had a fleur de lis on it, from charms to pendants to stemware. People are sporting t-shirts that read "Re-New Orleans" and "Drove My Chevy To The Levee But The Levee Was Gone" and "Got FEMA?" and "I (heart) NOLA" and more. My own enthusiasm carried over into my living room, where I have an eggplant double camelback leather sofa and loveseat that I bought when I first moved to New Orleans and where I just painted the walls Ralph Lauren Polo Green with Gold Candlestick Trim. While I say all that with such detail, it is Blaine Kern Mardi Gras world in my living room, okay? My dining room walls are surrounded by New Orleans Jazz Fest Prints of Dr. John, Satchmo, Al Hirt, Harry Connick Jr. and Blue Dog. Yes, we all support NOLA with our pride.

There are now neighborhood meetings, Reunite New Orleans meetings, Rebuild New Orleans Meetings, Bring New Orleans back meetings, etc. People are actually attending them and listening and participating. They are starting to really care. They almost lost something so precious to them.

Even "natives" that thought it was too touristy to do something, or to go to certain places, now go and are grateful that they are still there. We all are.

I am saddened to hear that looting is still going on. Some call it looting. I call it grave robbing. It equates out to the same thing.

I worry at times about someone trying to come into the house here with the wall damaged so badly until it can be repaired, but then I think, well...it would be the L-A-S-T time they ever tried it. And worried as I might get, I find a renewed strength and an anger build, almost wanting them to just try it.

Blissfully, I managed to get the supplies, this week however, and have started to repair the wall, so unwanted entries should not be a problem, at least through there.

We are doing the work ourselves, partly because I still have not seen hyde nor hair of insurance just yet, and partly because I find a certain reward in doing as much as I can myself. I am learning in this process. Still, there are things that are outside the scope of my knowledge, and it would be nice to have the insurance check to be able to hire someone to do what needs to be done on all of it, but that's okay. We are still blessed. So very blessed. Eventually, we will get it all done. The walls will be repaired, the ceilings will be repaired, the garage will eventually be rebuilt, the fence will eventually be rebuilt, the house will be painted-both inside and out, and we may even be able to incorporate some changes that we'd been planning all along while we are at it. Gotta find something positive out of all of this, right?

Hopefully, all this can get done before I end up having to find a different job, and while I have my Monday thru Friday's available to work on it, but I don't know how much longer that is going to be possible, but that is for a different blog...