the pitter-patter of little paws June 30, 2007
Georgina is so small and fast that I’m afraid someone is going to accidentally step on her. This morning I sewed a little bell on her collar so the jingling will alert others to her presence. She jumped around for 10 minutes trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. God, she’s so cute. Sophmom is coming to town today and staying here, I can’t wait for the two of them to meet.
dispatches from the blue moon June 29, 2007
I got a call this morning from the office telling me that the air conditioner was out and I should dress “casually.” In the summertime, it is rare to see me dressed any other way. I can’t appear in court and I always have my nose in a file or a computer screen, so who am I trying to impress? My particular corner of the office is ahead of the curve anyway because we had been sweltering all week. The problem apparently spread to the whole floor this morning. Combined with the full moon, there was craziness in the air for the last two days.
When I left the office late yesterday, an elderly woman was standing outside the door. She asked me where the attorney’s office was. I told her that everyone had gone home for the day. She asked me if I thought we could help her with a personal injury. I asked her what happened. She told me that someone was trying to steal her identity.
“Well, if someone is trying to steal your identity, that is a crime.”
“It’s not a personal injury?”
She said she was getting some kind of government “widow’s pension” and someone was trying to get control of it. From what she said, I think her late husband worked for the Post Office and possibly some family member is trying to get control of her funds. Of course, she could be totally out of her mind, but young people do some pretty rotten things to old people. I told her she should go to the federal building and ask for help, and if that was unsuccessful she should go to Mary Landrieu’s office. I figured forget getting help from William Jefferson, he is busy trying to keep his whole family out of jail. Not that he ever gave a shit about people like this woman.
Then, today, a guy came in and tried to get us to notarize someone else’s signature on a power of attorney, and the other person was not there.
“I don’t understand. I’m telling the truth.”
“I know you are, but how would you like it if we notarized your signature without you being here?”
The building that I work in is creaky and weird. They keep telling us we are moving soon into a newly-renovated building, but I think that’s going to happen when Jesus comes back and hangs the sheetrock. A couple of weeks ago, I got in the elevator with an old guy and he said, “this is the slowest elevator.”
I said, “it sure is.”
“You know, this elevator fell on a guy a couple of years ago and killed him. It was the son of the owner.”
I didn’t reply. I was thinking, “what a weird old guy.”
When I went in the door of the office, two co-workers were standing there.
“You know what? Some old guy in the elevator just told me that the elevator fell on the son of the owner of this building and killed him. Isn’t that crazy?”
They looked at each other and then looked back at me.
“Get outta town! Is that true?”
“Yes. He was in the basement working on something in the shaft and it fell down on him.”
Gulp. I felt like a jerk.
When I worked in One Shell Square, I was stuck in an elevator between floors for 15 minutes during my second week of working there. There was a lawyer from Gretna in there with me. We called and called on the emergency phone and we couldn’t hear any answer, but then suddenly the door opened and there was a maintenance man with what looked like a large clothes hanger. The elevator was exactly halfway between floors. The Gretna guy boosted me out.
The next day, one of the lawyers told me that she used to represent an elevator company and she learned all about elevators. They have to have so many back-up safety systems that it is very rare for them to fall because of a malfunction of the elevator. She said that by far the most common lawsuits against elevator manufacturers are those that result from the elevator stopping just below the floor level, with people then tripping and falling on the way out.
Don came over a few days ago to meet Georgina. It was love at first sight. He brought a DVD of a movie by a local historian called “Too Black to Be White, Too White to Be Black.” He took it home with him, and I can’t remember the guy’s name. It will be shown at the cultural museum in Treme. It’s a popular history of creoles in New Orleans and it’s fascinating for the interviews alone. Just when you think you know a lot about New Orleans, you see a movie like this and it opens a whole different world to you.
Last night, David came over after being in New York for a month. I didn’t tell him beforehand that I got a dog. He could not get over the level of cuteness I’m dealing with. She thinks she doesn’t look real. In addition to being unbelievably cute and easy to take care of, she also never seems to bark. I’ve had her for a week, and she has barked all of four times. So far, I can say that the Maltese is not a yippy dog.
Janet came over tonight to meet the new baby and then we went to La Vita for dinner. We sat outside where there was a slight breeze and had bruschetta and pizza and a bottle of red wine. Janet has chosen the next book club selection, The Poisonwood Bible. I read it last year and thought it was great. I’m not reading it again because it’s still quite vivid in my memory, especially the story of the marching ants. I’m reading A Dance to The Music of Time by Anthony Powell, which I’m just getting into.
We talked about our cares - the health of loved ones, money issues, missing our kids (hers are at camp), she also gets crazy water bills, but then we talked about how bad off a lot of people still are, and how so many people have no homes to return to, and we decided we are alright for now.
dangerblond parenting tip
If you have teenagers who are starting to drive, have a sit-down with the kids, order a pizza, and look at all the photos on this website for car-accident porn.
hmmm. just as I thought. they’re lying. June 28, 2007
Ronald from Bourgeois Plumbing came out today and checked my house for leaks and then put in a new toilet. When he opened the water meter, there was about six inches of dirt packed on top of the dial. There is no way they read the meter. Then, he showed me that the dial was not moving. No leaks. I think those people at the Screwage and Water Board just pulled that $444 figure out of their heinies. Ronald is going to send me a bill that says he checked and there are no leaks. Then I’m going to get loaded for bear and head down there to talk with my employees at the S&WB about this phoney water bill.
Here is an interesting piece in the Christian Science Monitor that everyone is talking about. This reads like conservative propaganda to me. The headline makes it sound like all this private philanthropy is flowing into New Orleans. Then you read it and, basically, a library has been renovated. Nothing against renovating libraries, but at this rate, we’ll be getting decent schools in about 200 years. Maybe this gives insight into how Republicans think. They are just going to leave New Orleans to climb out of this on our own. When our population and economy have shrunk to the size of Key West, they’ll call that “letting the market decide.”
Let me caution that Republicans should not try to sell this form of Shock and Awe Urban Renewal too enthusiastically. In order for it to work, the major American city that is being rebuilt solely through private efforts has to have the same luxury that New Orleans had - the ability to ship our working poor and much of our middle class off to other cities, never to come back. How many times are they going to fall for that one?
before i open a can of whoop-ass, i call Rico
I called my main man for municipal matters, Enrico “Suave” Sterling, director of constituent services for Councilwoman Midura. I told him about the bizarre phone call I had with the Information Hot Line this morning. I said, “you know, it’s not that I want to pay another bill. I just want the city to do its business in a professional and accurate manner. Plus, I don’t want them to hit me unexpectedly with a huge bill at sometime in the future, and make me have a no-good, horrible, very bad day.”
So, he called me back after he had gone to the mysterious Department of Finance Treasury. They told him that they “are not back online yet” and will be soon. He told them that I was not interested in being “retro-fitted” in the future with a cumulative bill. They told him that they would not do that, that’s not the plan.
“What does that mean, they ‘are not back online yet?’”
“I really don’t know.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird that they have the ability to legitimately collect money for the municipal coffers and they’re not doing it?”
“Yes, I do.”
Enrico is unflappable.
I’m imagining that City Hall is filled with a bunch of total fucktards who can’t get it together to send out garbage bills. If you burned that place down with everyone inside it, it would probably raise the average I.Q. of New Orleans by 20 points.
brazil on the big muddy and the march of the garbage cans
We had a meeting last night at Chez Huitre to plan the second Rising Tide conference, to be held August 25-27, 2007. I will be writing more about what we have in store this year, but I don’t have time right now. Anyone who is interested in attending, please e-mail me. I have received a few e-mails from people that I haven’t answered yet because I didn’t have any answers. I’ll be getting back to ya’ll soon.
I have a plumber here right now to check my water lines for leaks, so I decided to phone over to the S&WB about my “City Sanitation Charge” of $0.00. When you call the S&WB number (529-2837), the recording tells you to call another number if you have a question about your City Sanitation Charge, 658-2299. That’s the “Information Hot Line.”
“Thank you for calling the City of New Orleans Information Hot Line, how may I help you?”
“Hi, I have a question about my City Sanitation Charge on my water bill.”
“What we are instructing the citizens of New Orleans to do until further notice is to write “Vacant” on the bill, draw a line through the…”
“Wait, that’s not my question. I don’t have any charge on my bill and I wanted to find out-”
“YES ma’am. What we are ASKING the citizens of New Orleans to do UNTIL FURTHER NO-TICE, is to write “VA-CANT” on the bill, draw a line through the fee and subtract it FROM THE TO-TAL. Make a copy of the bill and mail it to the City of New Orleans Finance Treasury Department, City Hall, First Floor 1W37, 1300 Perdido Street, P-E-R-D-I-D-O Street, New Orleans 70130.”
“Do you have a phone number for that department?”
“Well, it’s hard to get them on the phone, that’s why they are asking the citizens of New Orleans, until further notice…”
“Right. What’s the phone number?”
“658-1700. But it’s sometimes hard to get through.”
“Do you have a name of anyone over there that I can ask for?”
“Uh. No ma’am.”
There is not a snowball’s chance in hell of anyone answering the phone at 1W37 City Hall, First Floor, let me tell you.
I was angered that this woman was not answering my question or even listening to me, and was talking to me like I am stupid. Well, maybe I am stupid, because I don’t know what the HELL is going on here.
What kind of municipal agency, in a town that is trying to repopulate, tells you to write “Vacant” on your garbage bill and send them a copy? What is stopping them from preparing accurate bills and sending them out to the residents? Why is it impossible to get anyone to answer the phone at OUR Department of Finance Treasury? This is bullshit, people.
I had an idea for the next march on City Hall, which I now think is inevitable. Let’s take our big-ass new garbage cans and decorate them and make floats out of them.
the displaced June 26, 2007
I went to Lafayette this weekend and apparently there was a crime wave here in Country Club Gardens while I was gone. Someone went down Bellaire stealing things out of cars. Don said there were around 80 e-mails about it on the neighborhood listserve. It’s a good thing I’ve got this watchdog now.
I went to Folsom to pick up Georgina on Friday after work. I was so anxious about having another baby at my age that I think I went temporarily insane. I was sitting in these people’s house playing with the dogs and thinking, “everything in here is disturbingly new. Don’t these people have anything old, like a dishtowel even? I wonder if they are in the witness protection program.” Then it dawned on me, hello, they’re from St. Bernard Parish.
I guess I’m slightly oblivious to the displaced because I never see them. I see the replaced and those like myself who are more or less in the same place as before. I have to remind myself that all those empty houses used to be full of people and those people are elsewhere now, with all new stuff in their houses.
The Barneses, breeders of the Boudreaux line of the Maltese dynasty, have several grown children and grandchildren and they all lived within blocks of each other in St. Bernard. They had water up over the roof of their house and no flood insurance. They didn’t have a mortgage, either, so they just lost everything they owned instead of losing everything they owned except for an enormous debt. Their kids have scattered and are settling down where they have landed, including some in Lafayette. The Barneses got a large sum from the Road Home, which allowed them to buy the house in Folsom.
Mrs. Barnes doesn’t like it, she feels cut off from everything, but she is safe from storm surge. I didn’t want to tell her, but I used to live in Folsom and there are two rivers up there that flood every few years. It’s always something.
I left from Folsom to drive to Lafayette. I took a country highway that I remembered to get to Interstate 12 in Robert. It was getting dark as I drove down the road and I could not believe it when I rounded a curve and saw what looked like a lit-up town, sitting where there used to be woods. It was an enormous trailer park filled with camper trailers and RVs. This was not a FEMA trailer park, it was very mix and match and full of lights, cars and people. I looked back and saw that the lit-up trailers extended as far back into the woods as I could see. Again I was shocked by the sight of all these displaced people. There must be 1,000 people living in that trailer park. That’s more people than some of the small towns across the lake had on August 28, 2005. And they look like they are settling in.
Georgina has been displaced twice in a few days and she is taking it pretty well. She was sad to leave the Boudreauxs behind, especially her twin brother, Buddy Boudreaux Jr. In Lafayette, she was both fascinated and terrified by Jackson. People with small children should definitely not get Maltese puppies because they are just so small. I was amazed at her fortitude. He was crazy about her and wanted to hug and kiss her and pick her up. Georgina liked the hugs and kisses, but she was not down with the picking up. I worried that she would be lonely here with no other dogs, but she’s fine.
My getting a dog seems to have clinched it with Jackson. He now wants to come to my house, definitely. He asked me various questions about my house and what the arrangements would be. I told him I couldn’t take him because I don’t have anyone to keep him, and he said, “what about tomorryou?”
I am so impressed by Jackson’s mother, Amy. She has been exhausted and, Jackson being an almost three-year-old, he will not leave her alone to rest. He is in the “why” stage and he has questions about everything. “Why did it rain on my shoes?” “Why is it dark?” “Why are you sleeping?” She patiently responds to everything, down to the last “why.” She listens to what he has to say, and as a consequence he says what he wants you to hear. Jackson is picking up a lot of coon-ass talk and more and more he is adding “no” to the ends of sentences - “I don’t want that, no.” “Doggie’s not scared, no.” Amy said she was going to have to take him back to Franklinton to get his redneck back on.
I was watching Jackson cut up some leaves with scissors and he started with the left hand and later switched to the right. I think Laurence was around this age when his grandfather was the first to notice he was left-hand dominant. I also noticed that Jackson is getting more patient with tasks and lengthening his attention span slightly. He is gaining more manual dexterity, so he enjoys a small task with more details.
His movie of the week is the new Superman, where Kevin Spacey is the villian. At one point there is a close up of Superman’s eyes, which were bright blue. I said, “Superman has blue eyes.”
Jackson said, “He’s got blue eyes, like us!”
Later on, he was sitting next to me on the couch and I had my feet propped up. He said, “Grandma, you got big feet?”
“Yep.”
“You got big feet like us!”
Well, we do have a lot of footage in this family. I wear size 10, as does Jackson’s mother, Amy. Laurence wears size 15, and so do Amy’s brothers. When Jackson was in utero, we didn’t know if the baby would be a girl or a boy, but we knew it would have big feet and blue eyes. His birthday is coming up next month. At this time in 2004, we were waiting for him to arrive any day.
what is better than dangerblond? two dangerblonds! June 25, 2007
101_4678
Originally uploaded by dangerblond.
Dangerblond is proud to announce the arrival of Georgina W. Bush Marshall (pictured above). Georgina’s birth parents are Mr. and Mrs. Buddy Boudreaux (Zoe) of Folsom, formerly of St. Bernard Parish. Georgina, formerly known as “Quack-Quack Boudreaux,” was born on March 27, 2007, and now weighs almost three pounds. She is welcomed into the pack by sisters Daisy O’Doodle Marshall and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Marshall, and by brothers Laurence Landon, Leicester Landon and William Marshall.
we’ll cross that bridge when it comes to us June 22, 2007
I love this post by Mark Folse at the Wet Bank Guide. It expresses exactly my attitude toward hurricane forecasts. It doesn’t really matter how many storms are predicted this summer, or indeed how many there turn out to be, or what categories they are in. The only thing that matters is whether or not a tropical cyclone makes its transition from water to land here at 29 degrees North latitude and 90 degrees West longitude on any given day.
I remember the weirdness of sitting in my son’s house in Lafayette in August of 2005, where not a single leaf was disturbed by wind and not a single drop of rain fell outside. The power never went out there, so I watched news reports as people’s homes were being shredded along the Louisiana-Mississippi border. I remember thinking, “how can it be so calm here?” That’s the thing about nature - you really have to be there.
sewerage & water morons June 21, 2007
I called the Sewerage & Water Board this morning to attempt to get to the bottom of why I received a bill for $444.20 for one month’s service. The bitch that answered the phone very haughtily informed me that my bill has been estimated since January, 2006, and now they have decided that it’s time for me to pay for all that free water and sewerage I have been receiving.
“My water meter is about six inches from the street. Why haven’t you been reading my meter?”
“I don’t know why they haven’t been reading your meter ma’am. All I know is that it has been estimated all this time and now they have corrected the underpayments.”
“Well, I don’t have 400 extra dollars laying around to pay surprise bills.”
“We have been notifying everyone that we are doing this. We’ve notified people through the media.”
“The media? Why do I have to get information through the media? I’ve been living at the same address for years.”
“You can dispute your bill IN WRITING, ma’am.”
“I’m going to dispute my bill by calling my councilwoman’s office.”
“Go ahead, ma’am.”
“Fuck you, you motherfucking WHORE!” I didn’t say that but that’s what I was thinking.
Then I called Midura’s office. I was connected to Enrico Sterling, who is in charge of constituent services. I told him the problem and he said he was going to call the Sewerage and Water Board and see if the bill was accurate.
“Enrico, I don’t think you understand. Even if I have used that much water, which I doubt, how can they come back and bill me for a year-and-a-half’s worth of water in one bill? Are they doing this to other people? Where are other people getting the money to pay this?”
“To be honest with you, Mrs. Marshall, I have a problem with that, too.”
“Enrico, you are not exhibiting the proper level of outrage. I think you need to have another cup of coffee.”
I faxed the bill over to him and he called me back later. He said he had talked with someone at the Sewerage and Water Board and he discovered that my bill has “spiked” before. Most recently it was nearly $200 in October. Why didn’t I complain then? Because Don just paid it and didn’t ask any questions. There is a new sheriff in town now, one that bitches and complains.
He had a lady from the Sewerage and Water Board, who is not a bitch, call me. Her name is Diane Eugene. When I answered the phone I was crying.
“What’s wrong, ma’am?”
“I am sick and tired of being screwed around by this city. I would like to put my house up for sale and move, but no one will buy it because no one is stupid enough to want to live here.”
“Well, we don’t want you to leave.”
“Really? You could have fooled me.”
She said that it’s possible that I have a leak. She suggested that I put baby powder in the toilet and see if it moves around. She said that I can pay whatever I can afford until I get it paid off and they will not shut off my water.
I don’t think I have any leaks, but I called Bourgeois Plumbing and arranged for them to come over next week and check for leaks and replace my old blue toilet (which color I hate) with a new white one. The blue toilet is old and you sometimes have to “jiggle the handle,” but I can’t believe I forgot to jiggle the handle $400 worth of times. I’m going to make damned good and sure that there are no leaks or running commodes.
I called my neighbor and asked him if he had been screwed by the Sewerage and Water Board lately. He said his bills are usually around $20, and then occasionally he will get one for around $200. The one he got yesterday was for $60.00. I also found out that if the bill has an “E,” that means it’s been estimated. If there is an “R,” that means the meter was actually read. My neighbor has not had his bill estimated in over a year. He lives right across the street, so why are they reading his meter and estimating mine?
I said, “Chuck, can you tell me why I still live here.”
“I don’t know. I only live here because of my wife’s job.”
He also told me that there are 22 houses in our neighborhood that are up for sale. That’s a large number of houses, we only have three streets.
After I see if there are any leaks, I will deal with this bill. I have decided, though, that I am not paying any more estimated bills. If there is an “E” on my bill, I’m going to write to them and request that they come out and read my meter and provide me with an accurate bill. No more going back in time to make up for incompetence and laziness. Can you imagine anything more unprofessional? Just imagine the business you work for telling a customer, “uh, we’ve just been estimating your bill for over a year and now we’ve had the time to do some addition and subtraction, and, uh, anyway, you owe us $400, payable July 10.” Bullshit.
Also, here’s another clusterfuck coming down the road: There is a section on the bill for “City Sanitation Charge.” My City Sanitation Charge this month was $0.00. How hard can it be to send out a garbage bill? Are they going to charge me nothing for 18 months and then hit me with a garbage bill for $1,000? Bullshit. I’m going to send them a letter and tell them that I will not be paying any back garbage bills, ever. As of now, I owe nothing for garbage and if they want me to pay for garbage they need to get it together NOW and send me an accurate bill. What do I look like? The Dangerblond Bank and Trust Company?
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