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As a Cajun my heart hurts still for what happened last year and I cry at every commercial for TV shows and movies I won’t be able to watch. I don’t always agree with the approach the journalists have taken. There was gross incompetence and senseless deaths but there is also hope and a need to encourage.
I heard a quote from a Cowboy Mouth band member on a rerun of Ellen. (Cowboy Mouth is the best rock band there is back home. They are best enjoyed live- you just couldn’t understand unless you’ve seen them. And I love their website.) The guy said: “We, down here, we talk too loud, we laugh too long and I’m pretty sure we invented ‘having a good time.” That is the best description I’ve heard and I just don’t think that anyone who hasn’t lived there could understand. Southern Louisiana has it’s very own very unique culture- an incredible blend of cultures and values from centuries ago.
For that reason I almost understand why people didn’t evacuate New Orleans when told to. But they should have. When I heard Mayor Ray Nagin’s appeal to leave last year on TV I burst out crying. I knew this was serious! We are easy going folk. I’ve gone outside to play in the rain for almost every hurricane that has passed through and when you hear that one is headed your way your first thought is to stock up on some beer and call your friends. For him to scream that ‘the sky was falling’ as directly as he did- YOU KNEW THIS WAS BIG- and there is really no excuse for many of them to have stayed.
As for the racial angle: that’s bullshit! The residents of Cameron Parish, on the coast just south of where my mom lives, are even poorer and they are mostly white. They managed to get out and when they came back to their bare slab of a house they rebuilt, with little/no government help for any of it. They banded together and did what they could themselves. That’s the kind of ’sense of community’ I was raised knowing. In the past, the residents of the areas of New Orleans that were hit have done the same. Everyone will tell you that. I don’t exactly know why this time they are just waiting for the government to do it for them. Maybe all the talk and hand-outs early on raised the expectations, the hand-outs going around were too focused on patch jobs and not enough on getting the community together to rebuild or to talk about what they want to see. It was too much about “big government” coming in and deciding what they needed and not enough rallying the residents together to share a common goal and work together. But I can say that it wasn’t racism. Poor planning and bad luck and lapse of community support were responsible.
And to play the race card implies that the white’s got treated better- which is just wrong. My mom had her house wrecked last year and is still not able to live in it. She’s upper-middle class. People in trailers (black and white) got scratch from the government or insurance. And they were living in a trailer because they couldn’t afford more- now they have no support and the cost of housing has doubled. What do they do??
The positives moving forward:
All levels of government have come together to release a smart and common sense plan of action for the future. Finally some attempt at good planning.
Corps of Engineers say they’ve got the levee shored up to be stronger. (Some are questioning them- but that’s okay- checks and balances, man) The feds finally have released the funds for this that Louisiana has been begging for for years. It took massive death to convince them- but at least now we’re talking.
The people who lived in the Lower Ninth of New Orleans were not only poor but mostly sheltered by where they lived. I pray that they come back and bring their music and joy and easy smiles back with them. New Orleans will never be the same if they don’t! We need them. On the other hand, I see it as a positive that so many were able to get out for a spell and see what it was like somewhere else. Every year more and more, it seems, were relying on welfare to support themselves. I hope that when they come back they bring with them some industrious notions gained from living in another environment.
And lastly, we see again the power of churches to help. All denominations. The churches were the first to step up and they are still there. My mom works for the catholic diocese of her area and she took up the task of distributing aid- giving her another full-time job on top of the one she already had. (Her first job there is to schedule training for anyone working with kids and to set up protocols and to make sure that children in her diocese will never have to endure abuse from any spiritual leader)
So that’s what I’m thinking about right now.
Tallskinnykiwi had this video on his blog along with references in the Bible that support nose rings. Ezekiel 16 and Genesis 24.
Pretty funny.
I was reminded of a funny clip while surfing around.
Meet Joe Black gained an unexpected, somewhat anonymous claim to fame when a clip of the crash scene early on in the film became something of an internet phenomenon, leading many unsuspecting online viewers to believe it to be authentic footage.
And also this:
While filming Fight Club, director David Fincher and actor Edward Norton found themselves giggling and rewinding this segment of Meet Joe Black over and over. Says Norton: “I think [Pitt's] getting whacked by the car is the best thing I’ve seen in years.”
I found the clip here.
I love mazes. My brother and I used to draw up mazes for each other on our chalkboard. But as I was just contemplating my life again I’ve realized my life’s like a maze, but for some reason it’s not nearly as fun as it used to be.
I’m 32 years old. ACTUALLY- I turn 33 in a couple of weeks! I have a university degree (I’m a Ragin’ Cajun!) that I’ve never actually used. I have a job doing all the bookkeeping/payroll/accounting for our framing business but I’m mostly a stay-at-home mom. A few times a year I redo my resume and look around. Ideally I could find a job that pays enough for childcare plus to make up what I earn from our business. Then I could carry on doing payroll but we could hire out the accounting part of it- which is very, not fun.
Right now in Calgary there is absolutely no excuse for not having a job. EVERYONE is hiring. We’re talking massive labor shortage. My only excuse is that childcare for my 2 boys costs as much as most entry-level jobs. In most cases, all told, it costs me money to work.
But here’s the thing. As I bounced between 3 scheduled meetings and a few drop-ins all before lunch while working on 3 missions projects simuntaneously while dragging my kids around (one who through-up banana and chocolate milk all into the back of my car) I realized that I’ve got this other full-time job I’m not even getting paid for. And why am I job searching things that I know will eventually just soffocate me when I’m too busy to do what I feel matters to the world in the grand scheme of things. Suddenly I understand why I never took up the jobs I’ve seen that seemed possible. It’s like when you arrive at a fork in the road and when you look down a new path you can already see that down the line is a dead end. I’ve been in a maze this whole time! It’s taken me 33 years just to figure out what I don’t want and to figure out what’s at the end of the path I do want.
Now I need to figure out how to make money doing what I love doing for free! And if I can figure that out we all win.
I was “P-chouette“. (P-shwet)
My brother was “Nu-nouille“. (new-nui)
My sister was “Puda-Wuda“. (the “ud” sounds like the “ould” on the word “could” or “would”)
I just read on a french message board the meaning of “Chouette”:
The first meaning of “chouette” is “owl” but I have no idea why it came to mean “kind” (for a person), or “peachy-keen”.
Which would make P-chouette to mean “little kind one.” That’s nice. However with “Nouille” meaning “noodle”- my brother didn’t get off so well. And my sister always hated hers.
I love little names of endearment, though.
My dad called me his princess or his “Cocotte” which actually means “casserole” but is used to mean “honey or darling” and in another sense could mean “tart” for a flirty young girl.
So, then, my parents used to call me “Owl Casserole.” Maybe I didn’t get off so well after all.
I love that phrase. I just wanted to post it so I’d remember- like my own little pocket note pad.
It means “With Pleasure and Good Cheer.”
When Desi and I met we had both given up on Christianity- for a time. After having had strong faith backgrounds we had fallen away. We loved God but couldn’t deal with the restrictions put on us from the christians… and we needed room to breath, room to mess up, room to play. We met at the bottom and came back to God together. In our talks at that time Desi was afraid to “come back to Christianity” because he knew that if he did God would send him as a missionary out in the middle of Africa somewhere. His parents were missionaries. 12 schools in 12 years. All he wanted was to live his life in Calgary, in the same house. No more moving around. Stability. Community.
I, on the other hand, secretly prayed and prayed that God would one day call him to Africa and that when that time came he was ready to go. I have been ready to pack up and go since a South African preacher came to our church when I was 12. I want to walk the roads, help carry water, meet the people, eat the pumpkin leaves, learn their songs and sing and dance and laugh -even in the face of death.
I grew up traveling around a lot. Gone summers and some holidays. I grew up in two languages. My dad is French- his dad is now retired from being a high ranking officer in the French military so they’ve lived in Casablanca…- and my mom is a Louisiana Cajun. However, I graduated high school with the same private school classmates I first met in Kindergarten. So I was grounded but had a global perspective. Honestly, you could plop me down anywhere and I think I’d be a-okay. Possible exceptions are areas of high rape (Congo) or where I would be really scared to eat anything (parts of China). But for the most part, I do eat anything, I get along with everyone, I can communicate well with or without words and could learn a new language easily, and I dream of walking into little dirty hospitals with AIDS children in the middle of a forgotten village in Africa and just holding a child in my arms. I want to love them by accepting them. They are our family. They need to be shown our support. They need to be inspired to be better than thier surroundings. They need us to value them for who they are, too.
So George Snyman is here, at our church, with us, in Calgary, this week. His stories need to be published in a book. Really. He’s humble and speaks with a low voice from a broken place. But his stories are about his experiences growing up as an Afrikaaner in South Africa who after peaking behind the curtain and really seeing what was going on with the blacks of his country was appalled enough to give up his house and his job and devote his life to loving the poorest of the poor of Africa. He just keeps saying- Africa is dying, the house is burning down, if you saw a house burning down and children were inside would you stop to try to rescue a few….
Desi’s been to Africa twice now. South Africa and Zambia for a month each and is scheduled to go to Mozambique next year. His most moving stroies almost always involve George. It’s funny to remember how he was afraid to become a Christian because he might be called to Africa. Now he has been. I’m behind the scenes pushing him to go again. I go through him. I’m home with the kids hanging on each tale. I want to hear about each person he meets and each road he walks down. I would love to go- but like anywhere in the world- Africa needs MEN. The men need to step up and inspire the men to be men. The women are supporting Africa and I would love to go and acknowlege their work and help them in it… but what Africa really needs are men who are stepping up and who are asking the African men to step up. He can do more good than me there. It’s a GREATER GOOD thing.
For now I dream of Africa in my sleep.
The e-mail said, “Our South African version of an iPod. Recharging is a little bit of a problem,… but hey, the battery life is great.”
Haley Joel Osment charged with DUI
Actor fractured rib, injured shoulder in car accident last month
Matt Sayles / AP |
Be sure and pick up your robe and slippers at the door and you’ll just love the purple kool-aid.
Desi proposed started a commune the other day. He’s a funny guy.
I couldn’t understand why we couldn’t just call it a village or something and resisted some of his approaching-communist-style ideas. Once we got back home he went online. That’s when he found this Wikipedia article on Cohousing. And then we entered this whole funky dream-world of possibilities. It actually sounds perfect for us. Both Desi and I and both of our kids love being surrounded by community. What’s also perfect about his idea is that when you retreat into your house it’s even more private than if you weren’t living in community due to the common areas that you share.
So our plan has been to live on an acreage with my in-laws. Imagine living on an acreage of about 30 families sharing (over time as these get developed) a common space that includes parks, natural flower gardens/organic vegitable garden, kitchen and dining hall, a study/library, a games room well-insulated for loud music (& teens), maybe a gym, maybe some pathways and a pond, maybe a guest suite, a workshop where everyone stores and shares tools, an art studio, recycle bins with pick-up… Then you can have solar panels and the homes/townhouses/whatever can be more space efficient (smaller footprint), can be more energy efficient… And if done well, it could cost less than a comparible alternative.
Fun.
We’ve just ordered a book (the Bible of Cohousing) to study the concept further.
A woman goes into Wal-Mart to buy a rod and reel. She doesn’t know which one to get, so she just grabs one and goes over to the register.
There is a Wal-Mart associate standing there with dark shades on.
She says, “Excuse me, Sir… can you tell me anything about this rod and reel?”
He says, “Ma’am, I’m blind, but if you will drop it on the counter I can tell you everything you need to know about it from the sound that it makes.
She didn’t believe him but dropped it on the counter anyway.
He said, “That’s a 6′ graphite rod with a Zebco 202 reel and 10 lb. test line. It’s a good all around rod and reel, and it cost $20.00.”
She says, “It is amazing that you can tell all that just by the sound of it dropping on the counter. I think it’s what I’m looking for, so I’ll take it.”
He walks behind the counter to the register, she bends down to get her purse and farts. At first she is embarrassed but then realizes that there
is no way he could tell it was her. Being blind, he wouldn’t know that she was the only person around.He rings up the sale and says, “That will be $25.50.”
She says, “But didn’t you say it was $20.00?”
He says, “Yes ma’am, the rod and reel is $20.00, the duck call is $3.00, and the catfish stink bait is $2.50. And thank you for shopping Wal-Mart.”
Hmmm. How do you know you live with too many boys? You laugh at fart jokes.
Got this one from here.
