September 28, 2005

Gifts

I made it back to Texas after two more days of depositions and one day in court. This was the first time I've ever been to court (and that includes traffic court, folks) wearing something other than a business suit. I didn't know I was going to attend a hearing, so I didn't bring one of my two new (and only) suits with me. The Judge was really nice and didn't seem to mind my khaki pants (any more than he minded other people's jeans).

I was exhausted when I got to my mom's house, but immediately perked up when I got my mail. I received a lovely gift from the fabulous Helen! She sent me a Lush bath fizzie which smells divine, some massage lotion and a beautiful antique necklace. I'm dying to use the bath fizzie, but am so tired right now I wouldn't appreciate it, so I'm saving it for a special evening. And I will definitely be donning the necklace once I buy some clothes that are worthy of the jewelry! Thanks so much for cheering me up, Helen. You have no idea how much it means to me.

Posted by Kitty at 06:52 PM | Comments (1)

September 26, 2005

Confusion

I'm trying to figure out which is weirder: entering a contest to describe things in my city that no longer exist, or entering a contest to win a car that the company no longer makes.

I'm back in north Louisiana for depositions, and am currently surfing the web while listening to internet radio on iTunes. I'm also avoiding making a budget for us to use for the forseeable future while we rebuild the house, etc. Budgets make me tired.

Posted by Kitty at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2005

Weekend Update

Dude, Alan Greenspan has a party and I don't even get an invite? Man, it's bad enough that my house is gone, but now I'm getting snubbed by the party man himself? Too much.

Archi-Sapper is here in north Texas with me for the weekend. We went and spent copious amounts of money today at Ikea, mostly re-stocking our kitchen. We also picked out furniture we plan to later buy and have delivered to us in Nola (hah! I know. We'll be waiting a while).

Posted by Kitty at 04:02 PM | Comments (2)

September 20, 2005

NM HK

How did I miss the latest Hello Kitty offerings at Neiman Marcus?

Posted by Kitty at 09:19 AM | Comments (1)

September 19, 2005

Convoy

I made it back into Nola on Friday and that place is uninhabitable.

We met up with the convoy at 7:00 a.m. Friday morning (happily, they moved the time back from the previously scheduled 4:30 a.m. -- ouch) in Lafayette. We zipped down I-10 to Baton Rouge where we met others in the convoy at a grocery store parking lot. From there we took Airline Highway to New Orleans, meeting up with local law enforcement along the way (they escorted us into the city).

We drove down Airline Highway to River Road and then down St. Charles Avenue into downtown. I was surprised to see that several hotels and businesses on St. Charles still had wooden boards on their windows which were spray painted with their messages to looters: "You loot, we shoot." There were huge trees everywhere that had collapsed and downed power lines all over the roads.

Once we got downtown we saw that our building was in good shape. If it had any water damage, I couldn't tell. It stunk to high heaven after sitting in the primordial ooze for so long, but otherwise seems to be fine. It was eerie to stand on the sidewalk outside the building and hear Army helicopters buzzing overhead and see Army humvees drive by. One humvee stopped outside our building and the soldiers got out to unload, while one soldier stood guard holding a rifle. It was the safest I've ever felt in New Orleans.

I never made it my house, but Archi-Sapper did. He took pictures and they're grim. You can clearly see the water line on the outside and inside of the house, and it is five feet off the ground. The inside of our house is so destroyed it is unrecognizable. The power of the surging water was so strong, it picked up the island in our kitchen and tossed it aside. Our refrigerator is lying on its side. Our sofa was carried into another room. Our seven drawer dresser in our bedroom was carried across the room and uprooted. Our 8' tall bookcases, full of heavy books, were emptied and tossed across the room. Everything in the house is covered in a slick goo. All I can think when I see the pictures is that I'm so glad we left.

Archi-Sapper is in the process of finding alternate housing for us, as we'll need some place to stay while our house is rebuilt. At this point, it doesn't look like we'll be back any time soon, especially since I see the Mayor has halted the repopulation of the city.

Posted by Kitty at 10:41 AM | Comments (6)

September 15, 2005

Updates

What a difference a day makes (well, two days, but I'm not keeping track that closely). Although I've been trying to make the best of this situation and not let it get me down too much, Tuesday was not a stellar day. I found out that my firm has been having to make some difficult decisions in the wake of this disaster (not surprisingly), and that's never fun. Although that hasn't affected me personally (yet), it is still unsettling. In addition, Archi-Sapper finally heard the first news report that actually mentioned our neighborhood. A member of the Army Corps of Engineers told the news media that they were pleased with their work in our 'hood on Tuesday, since they had just drained SIX FEET of water out of it. And they still had more water to go. *sigh* I would comment on that, but I don't even know what to say.

Happily, though, yesterday felt like more of a turning point that took me in a positive direction. I went to my first depositions since the hurricane, and it felt great to get back to work, even if I'm not working in southeast Louisiana. I got to catch up with a friend I hadn't seen in a while and I just generally feel more productive.

However, today has been even better. I've had two exciting developments -- and both before 10:00 a.m.! The first was the delivery (at the now painful hour of 9:00 a.m.) of my new iBook! Wahoo! I am currently blogging this entry from a coffee shop near my mom's house that has excellent muffins and free wifi. It took me longer to unpack the laptop than it did to get it set up and surfing. I love this thing. If ever I were to leave Archi-Sapper for a piece of electronics equipment, this would definitely be in the running.

And secondly, I checked my checking account balance online and saw that our Fema money came through. Fabulous.

I'm going to have to sign off soon and head back home to make pb&j sandwiches for our road trip. That's right, I'm hitting the road again -- and this time, I'm going home! Well, I'm not actually going home (I'm not even sure where home is any more) since our house still has water, but I'm going to my office. My firm is sponsoring a convoy that will leave tomorrow morning at the excruciatingly painful hour of 4:30 A.M. (I know, I know) from Lafayette and head to the firm. They have received permits from the city to get access, and we can all head in, grab as many files as we can and process back out. Given that it's looking like we'll be able to get back in the city permanently much sooner than expected, I'm not going to take a ton of stuff, just the basics. However, I really can't pass up the opportunity to see the city again and say that I've entered a hurricane-ravaged city at daybreak via a pass from my city's leaders. Sounds like a once in a lifetime opportunity to me. At least, I hope I never have to go through this again.

Posted by Kitty at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

September 09, 2005

TV Star

The irony is that now that I don't have a job to go to every day and I have tons of free time, I'm blogging less than before. I'm seriously considering buying a laptop this weekend which would change all that.

Archi-Sapper and I checked out weather.gov to see if we could find our house. We did, but that probably wasn't the best idea (supposing that our goal is to remain happy, that is). The house is clearly underwater, although since the photos are aerial shots, it is difficult to tell how much water there is. We couldn't see any cars (and I know they're there), so the water is at least that high. It might not be quite so depressing if there was something we could do about it, but there's not.

In an attempt at finding some of this elusive happiness, I've been listening to the mix-cd's we received (they rock) and I had my one, shining moment of greatness this afternoon: I was a caller on the Suze Orman show! No, I'm not kidding. I visited her website the other day to see if she had posted any tips on finances during a natural disaster. Sure enough, she had posted something about insurance, as well as a request that people who had disaster related financial questions e-mail her. I did and got a call from someone from CNBC who verified that: 1) I actually like the show, and 2) that I had a legitimate question I could articulate in less than a minute. They told me they'd call today between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. and I could ask my question.

I waited for the call, feeling like I was waiting for the cable company, and someone from her show called. She was very nice, and repeated to me the question they expected me to ask. I actually had two questions, and the day they initially called me they said I could ask both. When they called today, they said I could only ask one, because someone else asked my other question (bastards!) I asked my question, she gave me a brief, but spot-on response and we hung up. I was happy that I got my answer and started doing my crossword puzzle (hey, a girl's gotta do something with her copious amounts of waterlogged free time). A few minutes later, the phone rang again with someone from her show. She said that Suze wanted to talk to me again, because she didn't feel as though she'd spent enough time talking with me, and she wanted me to discuss my feelings some more (anyone who has seen her show is likely not surprised by this). So, I talked to her again and she was cool. I don't know when the show is going to air, but it will be a special natural disaster show which will air on an upcoming Saturday on CNBC. Stay tuned.

Since I know everyone is on the edge of their seat wondering what sort of question I asked her financial highness, my question was this: If you have a flood insurance policy on your house and you make a claim against it and exhaust your policy, can you ever get a flood policy on that property again? The reason I asked is because we have a flood policy (which we will certainly been using, and soon) and some friends of mine who work for insurance companies had convinced me that the answer was no. This would be a huge problem, since mortgage companies require Nola residents to have flood insurance. Suze came to the rescue and said that yes, you can get another flood policy, and in fact, can get them over and over again, though if you keep cashing them out, you're going to pay for it through much higher premiums.

Posted by Kitty at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2005

Rebuilding

So far, I've been doing some rebuilding of my own. I've been rebuilding my wardrobe. Since we only left with three days worth of clothes, I was getting pretty stinky after a while. Mom swooped in to the rescue and took me shopping (and there's no better place for that than Dallas).

In fact, I feel like a true Texan now that I've engaged in retail therapy. We made a trip to Half Price Books last night where I picked up a number of books. And happily, two friends have given us mix cd's, so we now have some excellent music to keep us from obsessively watching CNN coverage all day.

Mood: trying to stay upbeat.

Posted by Kitty at 11:37 AM | Comments (1)