RETURN TO NEW ORLEANS

I played phone tag with Marcus early Wednesday. (By the way, in phone tag, who wins? The person who finally answers the phone or the person who gets the other person to answer? I say it's the person who answers because he broke the cycle.) Anyway, Marcus tells me that I can come into work Wednesday. Paul and I were planning to leave later Wednesday, but I convinced him to come back early. I couldn't take the no power anymore.

We decide to have a final group meal before returning to the city. Allen and I go to Domino's and pick up some pizza. The wait was only fifteen minutes. (I think God struck down this sign with Gustav because the sign isn't updated. The deal is now three pizzas for 5.55, which makes sense because it's the 5-5-5 deal. Get it?)

At right, this is the best shot I got of an uprooted tree. This is on Lee. But that is a huge ass trunk. I only saw one tree that fell on a house, but that picture didn't come out well on my camera. It's hard to take pictures while someone is driving. I did my best.



This is a shot of a cop who was directing traffic at an intersection right before we got on the Interstate. He was eating lunch as we were going through. I was scared to take a picture of him going to town on his sandwich because he was only ten feet away. Can you get in trouble for that? I didn't want to find out. So I waited until he wasn't looking in our direction. Don't know if you can tell, but he is about to take a bite in this shot. The sandwich is in his right hand.


We ran into a little traffic coming into the city, but I made it to work by 4:30 p.m. I didn't see one other car on the road in the city. Not one. I saw two on the way home. Our deadline was 9 p.m., and the wire was down. That made typing boxes a bit of a chore. What would normally take me 12-15 minutes took me an hour and a half. Gee whiz. I got home right after 10 p.m. and went straight to bed. That no power fiasco wore me out. Probably because I hardly slept during it.


THE TINA CURSING CORNER

Mom is talking about the results of Gustav at the house. "The fucking pine cones and tree limbs. There was a tree limb missing. I couldn't find it. Found it on the other side of the fence. A big ol' motherfucker."

Mom sees that I bought something at Best Buy while I was gone for the storm. Yeah, I might be the only person in Southeast Louisiana who has a special edition of season 4 of The Office. "Fucking Best Buy. It was open in Baton Rouge?"

Mom wanted me to unpack quickly. "Pick all this shit up. I don't want any bullshit."

Mom slept on the hallway floor. "I said, 'Let me check the living room.' Good thing I did. Fucking soaked."

We don't have cable at the house. "The asshole from Cox comes on. Answers all the questions but one. (Cox is following Entergy around. But we have power, so how do we get cable back?) We might be fucked. If this happens next year, I won't have any fucking cable."

POKER BONANZA

We played poker Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Five bucks a person. I didn't win a hand the first two nights. But then I came in second Monday and split with Bert Tuesday to finish ahead by five bucks plus some quarters. I haven't been to the casino to play poker for three weeks. This poker marathon helped.

PARTING SHOT

During the drive back to New Orleans, Paul takes note of how far we are away.

Paul: We're still in St. John Parish. (He looks at the parish sign. He apparently only reads the end of it: the Baptist Parish.) This is a Baptist parish?

Me: No. St. John the Baptist.

Paul: Oh. Kind of funny. St. John wasn't a Baptist. But he was.

THE DAILY TOP LIST

My top five turnoffs in a potential girlfriend.

5) Being taller than me.
I have to be taller. That's just the way it is. Or the same height. Or close enough.

4) Use of the world like.
I like can't stand this word. I like hate it.

3) Not being independent.
I don't want her depending on me for everything. This is the 21st century after all.


2) A slut.
Been there. Haven't done that.

1) A smoker.
No way. No how.