Southern hospitality

I have been amazed and pleased with so many people last week. Two people emailed me and offered space in their Austin-area homes for my family, if my family wanted to stay in Austin. All kinds of people have emailed, phoned, or stopped by my desk at work to ask how my family is doing, do we need anything, etc. My hairdresser even called. People have been buying my t-shirts, some of them people I don’t know. Links to the t-shirt site are appearing all over the place.
(Feel free to link or to email the link to anyone you like, by the way. Someone asked me about that and I wanted to make sure it was clear that the more the merrier.)
The Red Cross chapter in Austin is taking applications for volunteers … they have more than they need at the moment. Hopefully when they call the rest of us in a couple of weeks, we’ll still be eager to help. Austinites have donated tons of clothes and shoes and food and anything else they can. Businesses are pitching in too.

My mom called this morning and told me that people had brought food for them to my aunt and uncle’s house. Covered dishes, cake … you know. I remember people bringing food to my family when my mom had my baby brother, when my grandparents died … but somehow hearing that they were getting food now was particularly touching and sad. My family is in a situation where people are bringing them the covered dishes. And they don’t even need the food … I wish we could magically transport all that stuff to needier families, but I suspect it’s partially a symbolic gesture from the neighbors. They can’t bring jello salad to the survivors in New Orleans or in the Astrodome, but at least they can bring it to my family in Alabama. Everyone wants to do something to help.
My aunt and uncle, and my cousins who live around the corner, opened their homes to my family and to some members of my aunt’s family. People are doing this all over the South. Come on and stay awhile. My cousin’s wife gets some extra points for organizing a “slumber party” for my niece where she, my niece, and my sister stayed up “late” (for a five-year-old) and watched The Princess Diaries 2. That’s not a big deal, but my niece has been confused and upset and it was touching to hear that my cousin’s wife took time to play with her and try to make her feel better. I am so grateful to this particular branch of relatives (my dad’s youngest brother’s family) for making my family feel so welcome.
My mom wants to leave on Friday and start heading back to Louisiana, stopping at another relative’s house for the night to visit my grandparents and pick up the family cats. My dad left today with a second cousin, to go to the North Shore (aka St. Tammany, Covington, etc. for those of you who don’t know the area). My second cousin is going to my great-aunt and uncle’s house to persuade them to go stay with him in Florida.
My great-aunt and uncle have no electricity, no water, and possibly no sewage. Their house, which is in a rural area outside of Mandeville, has definitely sustained some damage. However, I’m told they’re remarkably cheerful about it. They spend most of the day in town, and they take most of their meals at … wait for it … the Waffle House. When I told my Waffle House-fanatic boyfriend about this, he pointed out, “They could eat hash browns a different way every meal until things are back to normal.” So they could. They want their son to help them fix up their house. They have no intention of leaving. I wonder who’s going to win that battle.
My dad is planning to work on my sister’s house, because that’s where they’ll stay until Jeff Parish is habitable again. He took a gas-powered chainsaw with him. He says he’ll call my mom and sister when the electricity is on, and then they can head for the house. The school where my sister works is planning to start again in early October.
My grandparents moved out of the hotel and into my cousin’s apartment in another part of Alabama, where my mom’s sister’s family lives. My cousin moved in with her parents for awhile. I sent my grandparents a card today. My grandparents lost the most of all my relatives in the storm: their house was near the 17th Street Canal. I looked at the satellite photos and yeah, it looks like the house was entirely flooded. Everything gone. They have lived in that house since my mom was a girl. My dad has a plan for getting them a condo in a nice area, and they were getting a little old to maintain a house and yard, but it is still awful news.
My married brother managed to sneak into Jeff Parish on Sunday (people weren’t officially allowed in there until Monday) to check on other houses. My parents’ house has a tree in the driveway and no other major damage. My brothers’ houses are fine apart from minor stuff like some missing roof shingles. I suspect he also grabbed some clothes from his house—he started teaching high school in Houston on Tuesday. I’m hoping he can find somewhere in Houston for his family to stay; they’re currently still in Lafayette.
One upside: my brother had to throw out all the food in my parents’ fridge and freezers. Some of that food was probably years old. If you’ve seen Albert Brooks’ film Mother, you understand about the protective layer of ice. Some of those foods were so old that the protective layer of ice had even decayed. My mom will have to start over with empty freezers. Maybe I should give her a giant block of cheese.
My brother talked to my parents’ neighbors while he was checking my parents’ house. They are still staying in their house down the street. They found an open convenience store where they can buy gas, and they go to a Red Cross station for ice.
My mom, telling me this: “The Red Cross gives them ice and bottled water and MP3s.”
Me: “Um, MP3s are music files, Mom.”
My sister, in the background: “It’s not MP3s, Mom, geeez. It’s MRIs.”
Mom: “I mean MRIs.”
Me (trying not to bust out laughing): “MREs. They’re MREs.”
Mom: “Oh, whatever. Anyway, when they get the food and the water they drive into New Orleans and give it to people on the streets. There are still people everywhere, staying on the neutral ground where it’s not flooded, with nowhere to go.”
(“Neutral ground” is the New Orleans term for a median, by the way.)
My baby brother started back at LSU this week. He found a place to live for the semester: sounds like an instructor in his department offered him a separated room-and-bath in their house. The condo where he lived has been occupied by its owners, whose house took a serious beating in the hurricane.
Several people I know who live in Baton Rouge have emailed me, asking me if my brother needs anything, if they can help out with his finding a place to stay, etc. He sounds fine except for a burning desire to get to my parents’ house and move all his treasures to safety, although I have no idea where he’d find space. I can see him sleeping on a pile of DVDs and Star Wars figures and other collectible stuff. My mom is worried that he might not have regular access to a kitchen and if not, what kind of junk he might eat, but I pointed out that he probably hadn’t ever used the condo kitchen either. Aren’t I comforting?
So I have a lot of friends and relatives to thank, and even some people I don’t know, like the couple who found room for my brother.
I’ve also been helped a lot by reading blogs/journals from other people who lived in New Orleans at some point, or who currently live nearby, particularly the following three people:
Ray in Austin—Ray has been writing about Austin hurricane relief efforts and other related news. He also posted a photo of crawfish etouffee that looked so good, I had to restrain myself from stalking him and tracking down his house to steal it.
Toni at Electric Mist—Toni lives in Baton Rouge and has been sharing local information that otherwise might not have trickled over to Austin and other regions. Toni’s efforts during this time make me feel like a slacker.
Chuck at Looka!—Chuck played The Meters’ “They All Ask’d For You” on his radio show the other night, which caused me to just bawl my little eyes out. (Weirdly, I had that song stuck in my head for awhile before the hurricane hit and had been planning to buy a Meters CD, but just hadn’t gotten around to it.) Chuck compiled the boxed CD set “Doctors, Professors, Kings and Queens: The Big Ol’ Box of New Orleans”, and if you buy it directly from Shout! Records, the proceeds go to hurricane relief efforts. (I own the set myself and love it.)
Go read these Web sites. They are more eloquent than I could be about some of the effects of this disaster. They’ll thank you for stopping by and staying awhile.