I’m sending my best wishes and hopes for safety to everyone in Rita’s path, but my mind is on a few in particular. Two of my best friends and their houseful of pets are heading north from Lake Charles, LA tonight. I hope they get where they’re going safely. I figure they’ll probably be all right because they’re pretty much experts when it comes to road trips under difficult conditions. They might even have made it to Georgia by now, but probably not because they would have let us know. Another couple we know less well is on the road from Houston. They have a destination set up, but we don’t know if they’re stuck in the traffic or not.

Most worrisome is a friend in Houston who didn’t get out at all. She’s alone and tried to leave but was running out of gas without getting anywhere at all. She got back home and is going to try to ride it out, last we heard. And then, the New York Times reports that a lot of poor people were left behind again. Maybe things won’t be as bad as they look now. I sure hope not. Whatever happens, I hope we don’t blame the people who get stranded this time.

Last year at this time, as we were moving the upstairs downstairs and vice versa, my daughter said she was afraid of what this September would bring. It’s become a convention in our house that September is something to dread. It’s only since the big one - 9/11 - that it’s seemed that way, but starting that year, Septembers have been a time to get through. Whether it’s global or personal, it just seems like that’s a prime time for things to hit the fan. This time, of course, the upheaval came to the residents of the Gulf Coast, and not us. That was so tragic it was hard to watch, but we did watch every day for a couple of weeks.

Since we haven’t lost everything, and we haven’t been afflicted by anything like Katrina, we really don’t have a thing to complain about. So, I’m not complaining, just mentioning that I still don’t much like September. Between global catastrphes that bring intense human suffering and just our own personal aggravation, I could really do without this month.

This year only one person in our family has moved, and that’s my son, as explained in the post below. Rudy the bassett hound finally returned from the hospital today, after surgery to remove a piece of dog toy that no one can account for. His family will be paying off that bill for quite a while. Rudy is still very much a convalesecent and isn’t the best patient in the world. He’s refusing to touch his prescription dog food, but has to be restrained from munching on rocks and sticks. This isn’t going to go smoothly.

There’s a vibe in the air, too. We’re sniping at each other. Not much, but more than is usual. We’re all too easily offended or something.

I’ve been pretty quiet because I’ve been in a funk since Katrina hit. Mostly because of all the personal devastation, but also because it exposed just how far our nation has sunk in the Bush years. It’s depressing, is what it is.

Finally, I’ve been sick for the last week, and trying to just work through it and make it go away through force of will. Now I’m trying the antibiotic approach and that seems to be working better. All in all, I’ve had little to say here or in person.

Things will improve, or at least my attitude will. But lately, I just don’t care for September.

My son (that’s him, with the guitar) moved out today. People tend to come and go here. This is the third time he’s moved somewhere, but this is the first time he’s moved off Long Island. No stopping by for a quick visit when he’s got a little time to kill. No dropping in to see what’s in the fridge or to do his laundry or to catch a quarter or two of a football game with his Dad. It’s the right thing to do. It makes perfect sense. I’d do exactly what he’s doing if I were in his place. He’s more than old enough. It’s time. I’m going to miss him so much.

Today we’re all just worried sick about Rudy. That’s him on the right. On the left is Roxy, his older, but not wiser, companion. That picture was taken a few months ago. He’s only about a year old now, so he’s bigger than that now. Mostly longer, actually. Roxie and Rudy are my grand-dogs. It works just like grandchildren. You get to enjoy them and you don’t have to clean up after them or do any of the hard work. Rudy is the sweetest dog you’d ever want to meet. He loves everyone and is reasonably well behaved for such a youngster. He got sick on the weekend. He went to the vet and got sent home much improved but now he’s relapsed and he seems very sick indeed. He’ll be going back to the vet, of course, but the thing is that no one, including the vet, seems to be exactly sure what’s wrong. We’re worried.

I’ve been neglecting this blog. I’ve been posting pretty much daily on the other one. Posting has been confined to political rants inspired by the criminally inept response to Katrina by our administration. Time Goes By has been covering similar territory, possibly in a more organized way.

There have been other distractions, too.

Techno distractions

While the big things were happening, the revamped Opera Community opened up. Opera now offers full featured blogs, photo albums and a lot of other community features. After resisting for a day or so, I gave in and started a blog there just to see what it was like. It’s a nice inferface, but with a lot of limitations for the moment. One thing that’s a bit off-putting is that it seems that you have to be registered with Opera Community to post comments on the blogs. That’s a big limitation. Of course it’ll stop comment spam. I don’t seem to be able to find a balance with this blog on that issue. I really don’t want to make comments subject to moderation before they’re posted. I tried that and didn’t like it. Sometimes it’s hours before I get back to the blog and sometimes I miss them altogether. There’s a spam filter plug-in but I’ve gotten false positives with that. On the other hand, I have had to delete quite a few spam comments and trackbacks and close a couple of old posts to comments and pings.

Personal distractons

It’s been a medical kind of week. Nothing unusual about that, these days. I went to the dermatologist for another follow-up. He increased the Targretin to the full dose of 300 mg. That meant going to Bay Shore to get it. Targretin is hell on one’s triglycerides so the doctor increased my Lipitor prescription to 40 mg a day. That’s a lot. I started getting more pronounced pains and when I stopped at my primary care doctor’s office to get orders for bloodwork in a form the insurance company would accept he expressed a lot of concern about the pains. If it’s the Lipitor that’s doing it then it’s a serious thing and I have to stop taking it right away. Now it’s Sunday and I woke up with severe pain all up and down my left leg. I’m not entirely sure what to do. I have to call a doctor tomorrow. I’m not sure which one. And I’m not sure what I should take or not take today. On top of that, I’ve developed a stubborn itchy rash in the last few days. A couple of years ago that wouldn’t be worth noting, but now it kind of freaks me out.

In other personal concerns, Rudy the bassett hound, who is a granddog of mine, is at the vet and under the weather. We’re all hoping that Rudy has a swift and complete recovery. He’s a lovely dog.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
I miss it, each night and day
The longer I stay away
Miss the moist covered vines
The tall sugar pines
Where mocking birds used to sing
And I like to see the lazy Mississippi
Are hurrying to spring
The Mardi Gras memories
Of creole tunes that fill the air
I dream of oleanders in June
And soon I’m wishing that I was there
Do you know what is means to miss New Orleans
And there is something more
I miss the one I care for
More than I miss New Orleans

I haven’t written much in a while, because I’ve been busy ranting on my other blog whenever I haven’t been watching the coverage of the devastation in the south on TV. Sometimes I’ve been doing both at once. This millennium is certainly off to a crappy start. I hope the next one is a lot better.

Even if you’re not apalled at our government’s response to this catastrophe, chances are you’ve been moved by the tragedy of it all. The humanitarian crisis that it’s brought about all over the region is the most important thing, but we’re mourning for the city of New Orleans itself, too. That is one thing that this has in common with 9/11. People all over the country and the world were hurting for the wound suffered by New York City. I think that even people who didn’t care all that much for New York wanted it to be as it always seemed to be - arrogant, proud and tough. Not wounded or broken. New York recovered a lot faster than New Orleans will be able to. Most of the city was intact. We could work around Ground Zero. You can’t work around what’s happened on the Gulf coast. Even those of us who’ve never set foot in New Orleans are mourning it. We want it to be there - wild and contradictory, mysterious and decadent and beautiful. I’ve never been there, but it was on my shortlist of places I’d like to see. I don’t come close to knowing what it means to miss New Orleans, but I miss the fact of it being there.

My son’s band was booked to play there in November for the first time. They were looking forward to it so much, not because it was an especially great career opportunity. Just like when they first play in any city, they were no doubt starting out at some little bar that no one outside of the city or maybe even the neighborhood had heard of. Some other gig in the south will no doubt be booked to replace it. They were looking forward to it because for a band like theirs, New Orleans is the epicenter of the most musical region of the country. It is the birthplace of the things they value the most. When you say “New Orleans”, chances are that music is one of the first things that comes to mind.

They’ll rebuild the city. It’ll take a long time and a lot of money. I hope they do the coastal restoration that is required to do the job right, too. I can’t help wondering, though, if a rebuilt New Orleans will be the same as the original. With all the people that made it what it was so widely dispersed, and maybe too poor to get back home if they get settled where they go next, will it be entirely real? Will housing be built for the very poor or will something more profitable be what’s constructed? So many places don’t seem quite real anymore, especially if they attract tourists. Sometimes it seems like the whole country is turning into an Epcot-like simulation of what it once was. New York is like that in parts now. I hope that somehow or other, New Orleans retains the unique culture that we knew was there, even if we never saw it for ourselves.