Lisa’s (Old) Place

This might be the last day for awhile that New Orleans is dry, after Hurricane Gustav comes ashore on Monday. 

I believe it would be an excellent idea if they would change the interstate traffic to be all outbound.  It’s my understanding that sometimes this is done during a hurricane, when evacuation is required or seems like a good idea (my dad may be along to correct or confirm this later, being an inhabitant of a hurricane-affected area), and the traffic is at a stand-still.

The evacuation effort seems to be loads more organised than before.   The skilled nursing/hospital/mental health patients are being evacuated.   People are reporting constantly on CNN.. even about the affect on fuel prices, since offshore oil rigging provides for a 1/4 of US oil supplies.   When the rigs are shut down, and sometimes damaged, due to hurricanes, the prices shoot up (but our prices may still be loads lower than yours).  

Ray Nagin always amazes me… “Get your butt out of New Orleans..”   LOL  Maybe people will react to this “tough love” sort of statement.    I hope the message makes a difference in the number of people who choose to stay.

New Orleans is shaped like a bowl that lies below sea level.  It’s not good (to say the least) when the bowl fills up with water.   Evidently, the levees are still relatively not in good working order.

I’m hoping for a strong reduction in hurricane class before landfall ….  a tropical storm, perhaps.  It is unlikely, I know, but it doesn’t hurt to hope.   Stranger things have happened.

I visited New Orleans in the 1990’s.   It’s a wonderful place; lots to see and loads of fun things to do.   The only thing that is a waste of time in New Orleans is taking a shower, although I did anyway.   The reason is because the humidity runs into the 90’s or 100% nearly every day (it seemed anyway).   Walk outside, and you’re sweating instantly in the high heat and humidity.    

This is easily rectified by buying a frozen daiquiri from one of the many shops in the city center. (you have to click on that link, just to see the daiquiri machines on the wall…)       You can walk through the street with alcohol in this city.   Mardi Gras requires that capability.

(fingers crossed)

btw, here is an example of a New Orleans cemetary.   The “Voodoo Queen of New Orleans” happens to be buried here.    See how there might be things floating around later? (unfortunately) 

Good things:  This week, England had a bank holiday.  Next week, it is our turn.    3 day weekend, yay!  Oh, and boss on vacation all next week.    Hmmm… work from home whole week…   ok, no.

Wonderful things:    Supportive boyfriend to the rescue. )  Hormones suck.   Boyfriend who deals well with hormones: priceless.

Good Ideas:   Laptop-free vacations.     This is the way vacation should be.      People can have more fun this way.     (I don’t practice what I preach, though, do I).

Oh, I am making much needed frozen Sangria.   Well “making” might be a strong word.

My mom thinks I might do something magic with banana bread.   I’ve made her swear to never make it without applesauce.          This is all it takes:

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 large ripe bananas (when they start turning brown, use them in this recipe)
• 1/3 cup shortening, margarine or butter
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup natural (sugar free) applesauce

Turn the oven on 350 degrees F.     In a large bowl, mash the bananas with an electric mixer.   Toss in the shortening, milk and eggs, and mix very well.

Stop the mixer.    Pour the dry ingredients into the bowl.   I pour them ontop of each other, then blend them lightly (not into the wet ingredients, but ontop of..) with a fork  (this saves dirtying another bowl just to mix the dry ingredients).

Turn the mixer back on, then mix this all together for a minute or two.   

Toss in the applesauce and mix it just for a second or two.

Turn the batter into a greased bread pan.      I like to toss a few things ontop, like white sugar or cinnamon sugar or walnuts, then toss it into the oven for an hour.

After reading most of “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living”, I came up with a strategy to help me deal with difficult moments.    It’s a simple question:   “What’s the worst that could happen?”   After making a mental or written list (usually a mental list), then the next question is:  “Then what?”.

You have to be able to see yourself “losing” and resign yourself to the fact that it could happen.   Then figure out what you’d do in the event it did.    What’s the worst case scenario?   What would I do?

It empowers you, because in your mind, you’re working out a way to fix or survive something that you initially feel is insurmountable.

Another thing that helps me is writing.    It doesn’t help to vent, really, but writing in a way that’s constructive can be soothing.    Tonight, on the way home, I pulled over, parked my car, and wrote my boyfriend an email.     It was taking time out for myself, and for him, and that made me feel happy and productive.

After I was done, I drove on, feeling rather good about my day.

.. or “happen” as the case may be.  

I am divorced today.

This morning, I accepted the court’s invitation to discuss the dissolution of my marriage.    After making my way through heavier-than-usual traffic, I found a good parking spot at the courthouse.   I looked at the directory information on the wall and quickly determined that I had to walk a couple of flights up.

After milling about for 1/2 an hour and texting pictures of the courthouse to people, my attorney showed up.  She went through the questions with me… all “yes” or “no”.

I sat in the courtroom for awhile waiting for the judge to be ready.    My attorney invited me to the table where the plaintiff usually sits with his/her attorney.   The judge came in and we stood.   The judge asked us to be seated.

The judge verified with my attorney the purpose of our hearing this morning.    He confirmed that everyone who planned to show up was indeed present, then invited me to the witness stand to sit down and be sworn in.

There was no bible… just my right hand raised.

There were about 10 – 15 questions, all to do with whether or not I believed the marriage was irretrievably broken and all reconciliation attempts would be futile, are the marital assets equitably split, do I still agree with the parenting plan (who gets TLK and when), etc.

At the end of the questioning, the judge had no additional questions and excused me from the stand (he was quite nice throughout the whole thing, as I’d hoped).

He signed off on the decree, thanked us for being able to decide our decree without the benefit of trial and wished me luck with my future.

Which I plan to take him up on.

First step, coffee and cheese danish (yum).. so not on my diet, but who cares right now?   And, of course, there is October.        Can’t wait.  Is it October now?

I have loads to do now… change my tax deduction from my pay to be single instead of married (ouch), change the beneficiaries to whatever policies I have available, and for my pension plan (thanks to 20 years at my former employer, I at least have a pension from those idiots!)     … and draw up a will, because it’s apparently all up to me who my child lives with if I should die for some unanticipated reason.

But this can all wait till tomorrow.

I had an assignment at work.

The assignment involved creating 300 signature blocks for Outlook, our email program of choice.   The signature blocks involved a logo and text specific to each person, the department they work in, their desk phone number and their fax number.

I mentioned this to Ian in passing, and he said something to the effect of, “I could write a program to do that for you.”

“Really?”   … not being able to imagine the possibility.

Today, I was presented with the perfect program, producing just what I needed with the functionality he thought would be beneficial (rightly so) and simple buttons to choose along the way.    I’m betting that even our end users could use this program themselves.   Ok, maybe that’s dreaming, but in a right world where everyone knows how to follow instructions, it should be quite easy to do (there’s just that little tricky bit with attaching jpg files as signature blocks that they’d likely need instructions for).

Most excellent!    This probably saved me days of work (maybe weeks!  I can’t imagine having to do 300 files one at a time..)

I showed my boss.   I was too excited about it to let it go till the morning, so I showed him while he was packing up his stuff to leave for the day.

Me:  “Do you have a sec where I could show you something REALLY cool?”

Him: “Yes.. what is it?”

I showed him.   He was extremely impressed.  

Magic.

I had just fixed dinner (leftover chicken, mashed potatoes (instant..sorry!) and green beans.)   TLK got up to put The Simpsons Movie in the DVD player and tried to rest her plate on mostly air while she did that.  

She got upset.    I handed her my plate of food to eat and told her it was not THAT big a deal.    I went to the kitchen and got some more food.

I asked her later why she had gotten so upset.   “I thought I would get in trouble”.         

She forgets that I was the one who laughed when she accidentally did the same thing with a whole pitcher of grape Kool-Aid.   Yes, we should probably be more conscious of where the counter is, but really, grape Kool-Aid went EVERYWHERE (including all over me), and it was accidental.   At least she did it in a room where there was ceramic tile.   I cleaned it up.   No big deal.

Some things are just not worth getting worked up about.   I appreciate moments like this, where it’s proven that life doesn’t have to be so serious.