Vooshhh, vooosh

Nothing sounds more evil than a coffeemaker.

New Orleans, pt. 2

On the anniverary of the hurricane I met Hilary Duff, the idol of pre-teen girls everywhere. She was very sweet and her mother facilitated small talk between us. Recognizing her own mother, Kelley and joked that Mrs. Duff was trying to hook up her uninterested daughter and I ("why don't you go out with that nice boy from the volunteer place instead? He goes to college. And he has no tattoos and says "ma'am."')
Because that night was the anniversary, the only appropriate course of action was a levee party on Lake Ponchartrain. After the night wore on the now-toxic Ponchartrain looked apealing. We swam there and now have odd bumps on odd places. If we die anytime soon Kelley and I respectfully request that we be added as belated Katrina victims.
On the way back we visited my 97 year-old great-grandmother in Louisiana, who accussed herself of being senile for saying "generate" instead of "germinate" and for forgetting the word "cataract." She is very sweet and only became militant when ordering Kelley and I to eat gumbo, which turned out to be the best gumbo I've eaten.
It was hard to peel ourselves out of Louisina after six days, but, though Kelley and I froze ourselves at a Waffle House, we successfully made it back home before classes.

New Orleans

Austin brieftly got boring after a round of heavy socializing and visiting with people whom I hadn't seen for over a year. When it did, I called Eric to get Kelley's number so I could have a drink with her, but after hearing him babble about New Orleans the goal became to drive to New Orleans. Kelley's generally ambitious about maintaining her spontaneity, so we took off that night at 2.45am, and at the peak of Louisiana's sauna-type weather the next day we checked into the volunteer camp in St. Bernard Parish, a gutted elementary school. The school had met its end in its original purpose after being submerged in eight feet of watger and after 95% of the population of St. Bernard had left, but it has since become a center for distributing food and clothes, and for housting Habitat for Humanity and Americorps volunteers, who still spend most of their time gutting houses.
An Americorps volunteer showed us to our cots, but soon Eric came and showed us his miniature kingdom, inherited from a previous volunteer. It was made with bed sheets hung on wires to make walls fastened together with clothes pins, two mattresses and several sleeping bags and books.
Eric introduced us to some interesting likeable people, including people named Turtle, Coyote, Cranberry Juice, and John Booth (after the man who shot Abraham Lincoln), a few of whom gave us tips on how to lure and trap alligators. We went to the end of the road that had been washed out by the hurricane and threw rotten turkey and stale bread at the alligators. They came up to the shore, and while they never made a decision that indicated much intelligence, their strength and the swarming mosquitos outlasted us and we left the bayou.
We spent the days handing out food, church dresses, diapers, and cleaning supplies to the residents of St. Bernard's Parish, and got to know volunteers from every region of the country, drifters, hippies, college kids, locals and other people with good will and free time. We also drove around the area and talked to the people who came through the camp, and while the individual stories of residents rebuilding and reestablishing themselves were inspiring, the totality of the city still reeks of death and obliviation. Most of the houses were still spray-painted on the front with the number of dead found inside, and piles of debris still clutter the fronts of the abandoned businesses and neighborhood sidewalks. The exceptions, like the French quarter, were generally the areas that were never badly damaged in the first place.
Nonetheless I noticed that people in Louisiana are extremely gregarious, as there seems to be not any social barrier that has to be crossed before getting into detailed conversations. It worked to my advantage when a chatty waiter/bartender at a Cajun restaurant hurled trivia questions between taking our orders and was excited enough when I knew that Babe Ruth and Elvis Presley died on the same day that he gave me a free shot tequila, tequila enough that it actually soothed my throat instead of burning a hole through it. At the gas store the next day I filled up Kelley's tank,
"I'd like 25 dolalrs on that car on pump 7 and are these pies any good? I see them around the counter here everywhere."
"Yes, they're very good."
"Oh these these are the best. Which one do you have? Oh, the lemon, that's a good one. You should also get the banana or chocolate, which are best chilled, the chocolate chilled with a scoop of ice cream on the side, or the apple pie, that's best warmed over with a scoop of ice cream. You're not from around here?"
"No, Texas."
"where?
"Austin-"
I was stationed tehre when I was in the military, near Austin, it's a great city, let's see...there's 3rd street, 4th street, 5th street..."
As I walked out a lady who seemed neither desperate nor crazy asked us for a few bucks for gas. (This request was made matter-of-factly and I noticed that I never really saw that when I was in Sweden. Only once did I break down and ask for money from strangers. First I had to get the butterflies out of my stomach and mentally prepare myself to ask for the rough equivalent of one dime (one kronor) and then scanned the audience for the right person. I finally settled on a man who happened to be a Korean businessman who spoke neither English nor Swedish, and I had to to point out in his coin purse which likeness of Karl XVI Gustaf i needed.).
So, the lady got her gas and my banana pie, at at room temperature at the gas pump, was delicious.

The Texas Legislature, as always...

Texas Capitol
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

During their glory years:

"in 1971 it unanimously passed a motion honouring the Boston Strangler, which a playful member had sponsored to demonstrate that his colleagues passed bills without reading them."

Around the same time Texas chicken tycoon Bo Pilgrim walked around the floor of the House waving two thousand dollar checks to any member who voted for legislation favorable to Pilgrim. I believe one or two members took the checks. Up until the early 90s margarita machines could be found in the halls of the Capital, but the most extreme forms of public drunken debauchery were stopped when one of the House members took to the podium aggressively pounding the gavel, obviously trashed. But as recently as a year ago free alcohol came along easily. The only scare I had as an intern there came when I went to one member's office one night during debates at a Spurs-Suns playoff game party and reached for a beer out of the ice chest. A grave-looking man and lady asked if I had ID. I was 20 and mumbled something about getting a beer for my older brother but as I stood there awkwardly they laughed and high-fived each other and said just so long I wasn't 12, I was ok. I then showed my brother and Duylinh to the chamber, where members from Dallas were pointedly interrogating the members from San Antonio on whether they had seen the Mavericks win that night. Sadly that noble body of democracy won't meet again till January.