Long time no post

Sorry it's been so long! And there's so much to say....

Weather Report: Tropical Storm Alberto, a/k/a my roommate, delivered a surprise last month. A friend of his is relocating here from Washington, DC. She's been staying in the house since May 19 or so. For lack of a better naming scheme, let's call her Camille, more because I think the name is pretty than because of the destruction that particular hurricane wreaked, as shown here:

http://www.geocities.com/hurricanene/hurricanecamille.htm

In case you're wondering, Alberto and Camille are just friends, people. She's staying in the guest room. And her arrival forced Alberto to bring his girlfriend over for dinner a couple of nights. Now we know where he's been all that time!

Birthday party: Alberto and Camille were instrumental in helping me throw a birthday bash over Memorial Day weekend. Others deserving of major shout-outs for their help include Dawn's mom, dad and brother, and the LSC lady from Chavez who is also big in CAPS. She and Dawn's dad took over the grill. Dawn's mom made rice. Her big brother cut the lawn. And a big thanks to Su Casa for the loan of chairs, a table and the lawnmower!

We broke out the good tequila friends brought back for me from Guadalajara. On my weak stomach, it takes a village to drink a bottle of the stuff, so I'm glad real aficionados got to enjoy most of it. I just had a small taste.

The kids had a big water fight out front. My front lawn is still recovering.

Recent travels: I went to New Orleans for a conference last weekend. New Orleans is still in post-Katrina gridlock. It was shocking to see how little rebuilding has happened yet. The t-shirts said it all: "FEMA: Fix Everything My Ass;" "FEMA Evacuation Plan: Run M-F, Run"
"Meet the Fockers:" with pictures of Ray Nagin, Kathleen Blanco, Michael Brown (the FEMA guy). From what we heard at the conference, it sounds like they could have done that shirt with reps from the state and the New Orleans school board on them, too.

I did get Alberto a graduation present that wasn't any of those t-shirts. I went to a fun jazz benefit party last Saturday night at Donna's in the 7th Ward, and found a great t-shirt put out by a very Catholic Workerish group called Common Ground. They got their start last fall when a former Black Panther and New Orleans resident starting working to get doctors back in the city. Now they're doing all kinds of stuff, and they have really cool t-shirts, too:

http://www.commongroundrelief.org/

Back to neighborhood news in the next post!