(no subject)
Ivan the Terrible? Perhaps Ivan the Anticlimactic might be a more appropriate name, at least for New Orleanians and locals of surrounding areas.
Whew. What a whirlwind! Monday started out quite normally, but by five or six o'clock, the entire Loyola campus was in chaos. Every conversation I overheard or was part of involved the hurricane, and rumors were flying about the university's plans for the next day. After spending a few scary hours trying to find out what was going on, and if I was going to be trapped in New Orleans for the hurricane without my family, I heard the news. My friend Joe came running out of the library, and told me, "They're going on lock-down until Monday. Get out of the city!" He is a theatre major, after all. I packed up my stuff, shut down my dorm room as much as possible, then Mom and Dad picked me up around midnight. On Tuesday, we spent the morning securing things around our land, preparing our house, and packing up our car. We drove by B.'s house so I could say goodbye to him, then left for Palestine, Texas. (Where my aunt and uncle live.)
Anyway, the worst of it blew past New Orleans completely, and we're all quite relieved. It really could've been a disaster. Ivan had a lot of people, myself included, very worried. An antique dealer in the French Quarter said in a newspaper interview, "People in New Orleans must know how to pray or something, because this one could have been bad."
Yup. My thoughts exactly. I just hate to see Florida get smashed for the third time. I mean, good lord. Jeanne's going to hit them soon, as well? Does Florida have a large sign on it saying, "Hurricanes Welcome Here?"
So, I can barely remember all that's happened since Monday. At least I got to spend some rare time with my family, which was lovely. That outweighed the stressful, rather upsetting moments.
Tonight we're finally home, after battling our way back through traffic- made up of the ten zillion other people who decided to come home at EXACTLY THE SAME TIME, ON EXACTLY THE SAME ROUTE as us. Ooof. Now I have to put my room (at home) back together, after having dismantled it in preparation for a category five hurricane. Sigh.
Instead of putting things back together, cleaning the house, straightening the land, unpacking, packing to go back to school, finishing my physics and math assigments, then going back to Loyola and putting my dorm room back together and getting organized for the week ahead....
What I really want to do is- jump into B.'s pool in the morning, make everyone a special breakfast, go hat shopping for D.'s wedding, talk to Shirley about altering my dress, drive around town to inspect the wind damage, send off Grandma and Grandpa's Loyola coffee mug, take pictures with my black-and-white film, go see a movie with my love, pretend like it's still summer and lie under the stars in the boat, and spend as much of the weekend with B. as possible.
Whew. What a whirlwind! Monday started out quite normally, but by five or six o'clock, the entire Loyola campus was in chaos. Every conversation I overheard or was part of involved the hurricane, and rumors were flying about the university's plans for the next day. After spending a few scary hours trying to find out what was going on, and if I was going to be trapped in New Orleans for the hurricane without my family, I heard the news. My friend Joe came running out of the library, and told me, "They're going on lock-down until Monday. Get out of the city!" He is a theatre major, after all. I packed up my stuff, shut down my dorm room as much as possible, then Mom and Dad picked me up around midnight. On Tuesday, we spent the morning securing things around our land, preparing our house, and packing up our car. We drove by B.'s house so I could say goodbye to him, then left for Palestine, Texas. (Where my aunt and uncle live.)
Anyway, the worst of it blew past New Orleans completely, and we're all quite relieved. It really could've been a disaster. Ivan had a lot of people, myself included, very worried. An antique dealer in the French Quarter said in a newspaper interview, "People in New Orleans must know how to pray or something, because this one could have been bad."
Yup. My thoughts exactly. I just hate to see Florida get smashed for the third time. I mean, good lord. Jeanne's going to hit them soon, as well? Does Florida have a large sign on it saying, "Hurricanes Welcome Here?"
So, I can barely remember all that's happened since Monday. At least I got to spend some rare time with my family, which was lovely. That outweighed the stressful, rather upsetting moments.
Tonight we're finally home, after battling our way back through traffic- made up of the ten zillion other people who decided to come home at EXACTLY THE SAME TIME, ON EXACTLY THE SAME ROUTE as us. Ooof. Now I have to put my room (at home) back together, after having dismantled it in preparation for a category five hurricane. Sigh.
Instead of putting things back together, cleaning the house, straightening the land, unpacking, packing to go back to school, finishing my physics and math assigments, then going back to Loyola and putting my dorm room back together and getting organized for the week ahead....
What I really want to do is- jump into B.'s pool in the morning, make everyone a special breakfast, go hat shopping for D.'s wedding, talk to Shirley about altering my dress, drive around town to inspect the wind damage, send off Grandma and Grandpa's Loyola coffee mug, take pictures with my black-and-white film, go see a movie with my love, pretend like it's still summer and lie under the stars in the boat, and spend as much of the weekend with B. as possible.