Pink is for Healthy


I've started, and deleted, this post half a dozen times -- and there's just no easy way to begin.



My cousin Pam has been diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer. Although she has complained of extreme fatigue and upset stomach for some months, her doctor attributed those symptoms to general stress. She's a busy woman, what with her landscaping work and helping to manage a grandchild while her daughter finishes her degree, and the doctor didn't bother to look any further than "stress," which angers me to no end -- if I were a doctor, and had a middle-aged patient complaining of exhaustion, coughing, and constant stomach ailments, and if I also knew that patient was a smoker, I certainly would have done a routine chest X-ray months ago. There is no such thing as "just stress."

Two weeks ago, she went to the emergency room, feeling terrible with a sudden infection, and after only a few tests they diagnosed extensive lung cancer, which has already metastasized into the surrounding bone and into the liver. I'm not an oncologist, but I simply don't see how it advanced so fast when she's been to the doctor several times in the past few years.

Anyway, they started chemo immediately, and after four doses, she's gone home until the next round. She has chemo scheduled every couple of weeks until Christmas. She is sick, she is in pain, she is weak, and her beautiful cedar-colored hair will fall out.

I am beside myself, proundly sad and profoundly angry at once. Partly angry at her doctor for failing to use basic diagnostic tools ... partly angry at cancer in general ... very, very angry at cigarettes in particular ... and angry at the government for continuing to coddle the tobacco industry. I'm also, perhaps irrationally, angry at my cousin. Why didn't she quit smoking? I quit, twice. I was hard, but I did it, and now I am a non-smoker. She's often talked about quitting, but said she didn't think she could ever find the willpower. But that particular anger visits infrequently, and leaves quickly. I can't stay angry at her for not quitting. I have to be angry at the cancer instead.

I find myself far more angry at the cigarette culture we both grew up in, the cigarette culture that started sucking us in as small children -- otherwise why would I still remember a TV announcer intoning "This is Marlboro Country" forty years after the commercial aired? Why do I clearly remember men who would "walk a mile for a Camel" or who would "rather fight than quit?" Those commercials aired during Batman and Lassie and during westerns like Bonanza and Gunsmoke -- shows watched by millions of American kids. And while the cigarette companies always argue that their TV ads were not aimed at little kids, little kids internalized them nonetheless, and then when we hit the rebellious teen years, we already knew what brand we wanted to try. Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should! You've come a long way, baby! Taste me, taste me ... come on and taste me!

But although being angry is a normal stage in the grieving process, anger doesn't help, and it sure as hell doesn't cure cancer. I need to feel this anger, experience it, and let it pass out of my system, but anger won't cure the cancer, and feeling angry while knitting a chemo cap defnitely does not infuse it with love and healing energy.

So I called up Ray at Knitivity and chose the cherry colored Down Home Cotton Fleece, both because Pam will look as vibrant as possible in that color and also because I am envisioning clean, healthy, pink lungs with each stitch I knit. I also have some Koigu for a second hat.

I think it's important to set a proper mood when knitting things intended for loved ones recovering from an illness or a rough time in life. I like to set aside special time when I can be uninterrupted, so I can concentrate on the person for whom the gift is intended. Lighting a candle helps. I knit, focus my thoughts, and meditate on clear mental images of that person healing, smiling, dancing, running and enjoying stellar health. If there is a particular body part in question, I like to envision that body part as clean, healthy and strong. I hold those images firmly in my mind as I work on the item, and when I stop knitting, I blow out the candle and set the knitting aside.

If I have the luxury of a little additional time and fine weather, I carry the knitting with me to sit beside a lake or stream, to be around vibrant green and growing things, flowing water, flowers and other symbols of the life force.

I keep some lavender in the bag with these projects, for calming and restfulness for the recipient, and, if possible, a picture of the person for whom I'm knitting the item.

The chemo hat I am making for Pam will be a beret with a deep, soft headband. I will choose some traditional gansey textured patterns for the crown, patterns symbolic of life and abundance. And I'll take the cap out on a bright October day when a cool breeze is blowing, symbolic of clean, fresh air going into healthy lungs. I have also set aside a tote bag just for this project -- everything I can do to focus positive energy specifically on Pam.

I can't cure the cancer, but I can knit a hat, and offer moral support. I want to suggest that she shave her own head before the hair starts falling out in clumps. Deciding when and where to become bald is one of the few acts of control that a chemo patient has. "Don't let the cancer take your hair away," I will say. "Take it off yourself, all at once, under your own terms, and save it in a special place."

It seems like a small thing, but I have seen how empowering this single act has been to other cancer patients.

This will be a new chemo hat pattern, and I will share it as I work on the design. If you have someone in your own life for whom you need to make a chemo hat, perhaps, together, we can make this a knit-along project.

Mystery Wheel

I stopped at an estate sale one day this fine weekend and what did I see for sale but this -- click on the picture to make it larger and see the details:

This is a spinning wheel of considerable vintage. Likely pre-Victorian. It came from the estate of a couple who collected antiques from Europe and the British Isles.

The estate sale managers were trying to sell the wheel itself and the alternate flywheel separately, describing it as an "extra wheel," and speculating that someone might buy it as a decoration. I urged them to sell the wheel and the alternate flywheel together, because they are a set, and it's bad enough that the treadle and footman are missing, along with some other parts, but to sell the alternate flywheel separately would completely degrade any remaining value on the wheel. It was priced a bit out of my range for speculative purchases, but no one else bought it, and the seller is warehousing it for at least a few weeks. That will give me time to consider whether it is worth purchasing, with a goal of restoration in mind.

According to the references I have inside my head, in books at hand, and what I could find on the Internet, I think this is likely a Northern European wheel.

Let's see what components we have at hand:

Spindles, treadles and footman are missing.

However, there are two flywheels, and they are easily interchangable, turning smoothly once inserted into position. One flywheel is heavier than the other by at least eight ounces. having a stouter rim, a larger hub, and stouter spokes. So my guess is that this wheel was likely used both for linen and woolen production, and the flywheels interchanged as needed.

Each flywheel has an iron axle on one end that sets into the frame, and on the other end, the axle rests in a slot on the frame, with the crank (a curved piece of wrought iron) extending beyond the frame to meet the footman. If the footman were there, that is.

In all likelihood this was originally a spindle wheel, and not a flyer wheel.

Although at first glance the upper mother-of-all sits perpendicular to the frame, if you click on the picture to make it larger you can see that it easily rotates to the right or left, because it actually screws onto a vertical wooden screw shaft. It rotates easily in this position. The screw mount is raised and lowered by a carved thumb nut, which sits directly atop the wheel frame. This upper mother-of-all may have sported a flyer at some time.

What puzzles me is that there seems to be no means to firmly secure the upper mother-of-all in a position perpendicular to the wheel. Is a part missing, or was it secured in some other manner?

There is a second mother-of all mounted lower down, in the form of a horizontal wooden bar that rests within grooves above the flywheel inside the frame, and the maidens sprout from this bar, pointing toward the spinner. This bar is attached to the vertical wooden screw shaft, and is raised and lowered by means of the thumb nut atop the frame. The screw shaft continues upward, and the upper mother-of-all screws directly onto it.

The lower maidens appear to be set up for use with a spindle. It looks like it held a spindle with a very small whorl -- I think that is called a "bat's head" whorl. It rests in such a position that a spindle could have been extended out to the right, using this mount, while the upper mother-of-all was positioned with the working end to the left, and two people could have sat on a bench next to one another, spinning simultaneously.

One side of the frame base is shorter than the other, which also puzzles me, unless it was made that way deliberately so someone's foot could rest there -- either the right foot of a spinner treadling with her left, or the feet of someone sitting next to her, spinning off the lower spindle.

It also occurs to me that the upper mother-of-all could have been added later as an update, to support a now-missing flyer. That does seem to be the case -- the upper assembly is a different type of construction and a different wood has been used. Some clever person may have designed this to screw directly onto the existing screw shaft.

Overall, this wheel is in fairly good condition, however, the wood is so old it is actually somewhat soft in places. There is no apparent insect damage. Just age.

I was a bit frustrated because somewhere in the past I had seen a reference to a very old castle-style wheel, similar to this one and also with interchangeable flywheels, described as a "weaver's wheel," but for the life of me I couldn't recall the reference.

While Googling for information on this particular wheel configuration, I stumbled across a public domain photo of a painting by Victorian artist Marianne Stokes, a native of Austria. The painting is entitled, "St. Elizabeth of Hungary Spinning for the Poor."

The wheel in the painting is strikingly similar to the wheel I ran across. Considerably larger, but very similar:

I learned that St. Elizabeth lived in the 1200s, and for about eleven seconds I got all excited and said, "holy cow, an 800-year-old spinning wheel!" But almost immediately I realized that a Victorian painter likely would have used a spinning wheel readily at hand for a prop, rather than try to obtain an authentic six-hundred-year-old wheel to add authenticity to the painting. Most young women at the time would have been reasonably competent spinners, so the artist could simply have seated a young woman in medieval costume and hairstyle at the nearest wheel and told her to spin. No doubt a good way to make the model sit still for awhile, too.

So. Almost certainly not a medieval wheel, but it's likely to be circa 1850 or perhaps a lot earlier.

The painting clearly depicts a spindle wheel, with an interesting distaff attached to the top, but the construction is very similar to the wheel I found. I suspect that the artist painted the wheel in still life before seating her model and putting her to work making yarn.

I told the seller of this wheel that I was interested but it was more than I wanted to pay for a wheel missing critical parts, and he said he would consider a lower price. I think it would be a real thrill to obtain and restore a truly antique wheel.

So that's the extent of my sleuthing. Ideas or input, anyone? Surely there must be someone -- probably several people -- among my readers with a firmer knowledge of spinning wheel history than my own.

The Early Bird Gets To Frog.

Y'all, I am a day person and all that, but this business of garage sales, of getting up at 4:30am so you can be fully caffeinated and have all your battered paperback novels, old clothes and other craptastic junk laid out in time for the early birds who descend upon your merchandise at Moslem dawn (the moment a black thread can be distinguished from a white one, when the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer) ...

...well, it's for the birds. The early birds.

Although I suspect that the American Orthodox Bargainhunter interpretation of Garage Sale Dawn is determined, not by the visibility of contrasting threads, but by that point in the process of daybreak at which the garage sale merchandise can be discerned from the surrounding shadows. That exact moment is the time when, according to the Ancient and Secret Doctrine of Garage Sales, you are officially open for business.

The time you want your own garage sale to be open -- say, eight o'clock or some other halfway civilized hour -- is irrelevant. Higher forces are at work here, and if your merchandise is not on display and ready to be purchased at first light, the faithful hordes will pound on your door until you accommodate them on their crusade.

So it behooves you to be up at half-past-crazy, fortified with copious amounts of caffeine.

Which is what I did. Coffee in hand, I ventured outside to arrange my offerings, early enough for disgruntled bluejays to throw things at me for waking them up.

If you put out your junk, they will come.

And they did.

Items that people were actually looking for, which, of course, I did not have:

• Antique corkscrews
  
• Old bottle openers, either hand-held models with advertising printed on the handle, or the wall-mounted kind
  
• Beer steins


• Retro ashtrays. So far, we seem to have a theme going, but then it changes to ...


• Salt and pepper shakers


• Antique shoehorns (people collect shoehorns?)


• Tinware


• Commemorative plates


• Beanie babies (people are still into that?)


• Coca-cola merchandise


• Retro clothes (sought not by early birds, but by college students, those enviable creatures who rolled out of bed considerably later in the morning)

Note to knitters: Those of you who do not have a stash-tolerant housemate might want to arm yourself with the above information. And here is why:

After the ashtrays-and-Coca-Cola guy went away, I considered that if he collects ashtrays and Coke merchandise with enough enthusiasm to drive around pawing through other people's junk at six o'clock in the morning, then it is entirely probable that he needs at least as many cubic feet of storage space as the average knitter devotes to yarn stash, except ...

The Coca-Cola signs and ashtrays are not stored. They are, no doubt, all over the house. On display. Everywhere. This means that there are entire houses in my city -- and yours, too -- with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ashtrays, shoehorns, beer steins, commemorative plates and pressed-tin Coca-Cola signs mounted on every wall and laid out on every level surface.

So stand firm, look your yarn-intolerant housemate straight in the eye and say, "It is yarn. At least it is not Coca-Cola signs. Or shoehorns."

Items not for sale, each of which I could have sold ten times over:

• A can of WD-40, which I had used to lubricate the rowing machine that was frozen into the upstroke from disuse (although it did make one dandy hanger for dirty clothes) ...


• The two folding tables displaying books and oddments


• The write-on, wipe-off whiteboard easel I'd written prices on


• The comfy folding chair I was sitting in, to which I even had the foresight to tape an index card marked NOT FOR SALE with a bold red marker ...

Item most definitely not for sale, which I could have sold once:

• The tote bag containing a gansey-in-progress, which is very nearly done

The actual events leading up to this last offer went as follows:

I had a little flurry of customers all at once, so I tucked my knitting bag under my chair when I got up to answer a question about an item. The moment I was finished with that individual, a tall and breathless woman thrust my own knitting bag under my nose and wagged it at me.

"How much?"

Offering an appropriately pleasant look, I said, "Oh, that's not for sale. That's my knitting bag. I put it under my chair ... the one marked NOT FOR SALE."

I reached for the bag. She hesitated.

"Are you sure you don't want to sell it? My sister always wants yarn."

"No, I'm sure. It's not for sale. I'm working on a sweater ... see?" I grabbed one handle of the bag and tugged a corner of the garment into view. See? Sweater! Evidence that I am actually using this item! The needles are still warm!

"I'll give you two dollars for all of it. I can unravel it. She doesn't mind unraveled yarn. She makes rugs."

"No." I clutched the bag, politely but firmly. This was quite a situation.

First, this woman did not seem to understand that my own personal knitting was not for sale.

Second, she offered me two dollars for it. Two dollars! I felt like a Klingon whose honor has been called into question. I struggled against thoughts of grabbing the nearest bat'leth, shouting "Qa'pla'!!" and commiting some serious mayhem upon this person.

"Three?" Persistent wench, she.

"I. Said. No. " I pulled the bag away.

The woman shrugged. "Your loss," she said.

I think not. There is 90% completed gansey in Inca Alpaca in that tote bag. But even if it were knitted up in the cheapest, bleakest yarn money can buy, it most certainly would not be my loss.

I put the bag on my shoulder and clamped onto it with my elbow until Crazy Garage Sale Lady scooped up a small wire basket and a Tom Clancy book and went on her way.

As soon as there was a lull, I popped into the house to stash my gansey away.

Close call. That was scary!

So I found the most simple, most basic sock I have in progress, precisely because it would fit into the little belt-bag I was wearing to hold the envelope with the garage sale money.

Or at least I picked up what I thought was the most simple, basic sock I had in progress. It is a mindless, all-over, mini-cable ribbed pattern. And?

It is my own original pattern. A pattern I have knitted dozens of times. It lives in my head. To make it, I cast on 72 stitches to make socks for my husband, and 64 to make socks for me. It is my default pattern. It is the pattern I knit when someone is in the hospital and my brain won't work for anything else.

This particular pair of socks is intended for my husband. So I knitted along uneventfully ... a round here, a round there, in between customers after the sunrise stampede had dispersed a little, my knitting safely in my belt-bag where no one else can snatch it up. Then I divided in half for the heel, and worked away on a 32-stitch heel flap a few rows at a time.

When the flap was finished, it came time to turn the heel.

And that is when I noticed that I had just knit a 32-stitch heel flap.

On a 72-stitch sock.

No matter how hard I stared at the heel flap, no amount of algebra, geometry or trig would convert "thirty-two" into "half of seventy-two."

I promise, I can count. Quite well, thank you. I can even do math in my head, except for long division. But, when forced to face a bargain-hungry mob at an hour when any sensible person would still be in bed, or at least fishing ... that is, if the fish were out of bed ...

... apparently, by mid-morning, I am unable to tell whether I am making a sock for my husband, or for me.

Frogged the heel furiously, counted off 36 stitches properly, and put all knitting projects away for the rest of the day, being fearful of knitting a third sleeve, a flipper or maybe a beak onto the gansey.

You understand.

P.S. Jigsaw sincerely thanks you all for all your kind thoughts. She's holding steady ... and sleeping a lot.

This ...





...is Jigsaw, and this is why I was carrying on about finishitis and shawls the other night, because she had to spend the night at the vet after having a tumor removed from her back, and a long-overdue blog update was the best possible way to distract me from climbing the walls for awhile.

I found a lump on Jigsaw's back last week. She was scheduled for surgery the other day. We are awaiting the lab results on the excised tissue.

At least Dave and I are awaiting the lab results. Jigsaw is simply wondering why I have to keep shoving analgesics and antibiotics down her throat. I had to follow the poor dear to her hiding place to take this picture.

Our vet thinks we caught it in time. I hope so. Until we get the test results, I will be resuming my normal duties as a professional worrier. Jigs is one of our older cats, and I will be chewing my nails until I see the results.

Pouring coffee into myself at the moment. I am not up at 4:30am for funzies. We are having that garage sale today.

Folks, today would be a good time to check your own pets for lumps, bumps and other anomalies. Gently palpate your pet all over, especially between the shoulder blades. This was the most common site for vaccines until recent years, and some varieties of rabies vaccine are strongly associated with this type of tumor. Jigsaw's tumor felt like it was about the size of a lentil, and it moved freely because it wasn't yet attached to other tissue. Attached lumps don't move as easily. If you find anything out of the ordinary, schedule an appointment with your veterinarian as soon as possible.

Finishitis.

One of the side effects of startitis is that eventually, I do have an attack of finishitis. In between, I may not have a whole lot of knitting to report, except maybe for the occasional pair of socks or a hat. But then all of a sudden a whole bunch of things start lining themselves up to be finished and present themselves for admiration, more or less at once.

Still, I don't seem to make a lot of progress in the middle, and overcoming inertia is particularly problematic in the late summer, because even if I set myself up directly beneath the air conditioner and venture outside only to earn money for cat food, yarn, tea and peanut butter (note my priorities), it is just too damn hot to work up my best effort for major knitting projects.

But when the first hint of anything remotely autumn-like begins to happen -- and that can be something as simple as the the first suicidal leaf, the merest hint of a breeze and a ten-percent drop in the humidity, even if the actual daytime temperature barely drops into the eighties -- the motivation finally kicks in to finish up some big things, so they can actually be worn this fall or winter.

This fine October morning dawned mild, dry and breezy, and the light was good, so I thought ahead for lunchtime today, and visited one of my favorite local haunts for a quick photo shoot.

This autumn, the first object to fall off my needles in a finished state is:

...the final version of my Voodoo Shawl pattern done in Koigu KPPPM. I have knitted this shawl four times, in four other yarns, while developing the pattern, three of which were gifts for friends, and one which will soon be auctioned off for a fundraiser (watch this blog for details!).

Of course, it does not really swoop up at the center back like that. I just used the convenient points on the cast-iron fence for display. The photo below shows the way the neckline truly sits. This shawl, finally, is for me. Me, me, me, me, me:

Here it is, draped on the headstone of a lady who died almost two hundred years ago. I bet she hasn't been close to a pretty piece of lace in a long, long time, so I didn't think she'd mind a visit from the shawl.

My venue for today's photo shoot was Highland Cemtery, the oldest registered cemetery in Baton Rouge. I couldn't think of a better place to display the Voodoo Shawl than a genuine Louisiana graveyard, with the dead of 1812 resting peacefully beneath the oak and crepe myrtle trees. Highland Cemetery is a tiny and well-tended burial ground, just half a block outside the south gate of the LSU campus. Long ago, I lived in some student apartments across the street, and in nice weather, I spent a lot of time studying in this peaceful spot. Today, condos have been built right up to the edge of the ancient cast iron fence:

I love old cemeteries, and I'm so glad this one is so well maintained by the historical society.

I'm pleased with the final version of the shawl, and soon Lisa Louie will test-knit one from the beta pattern. After that, and perhaps after a bit of editing, the pattern will be offered for sale.

Stay tuned.

Of course, the moment I had this shawl blocked, I immediately cast on another one in the laceweight Carina Nebula colorway from Knitivity. It's a Christmas gift for my Mom:

All together now ... "aaaaaaawww, ain't it so cute and little?"

Do not laugh. I know Christmas is only 82 days away.

But I am a Saints fan. And also a Cubs fan.

I believe anything is possible.

Besides hanging around in graveyards and taking pictures of knitting, the first hint of fall also spurs me each year to go on a frenzy of housecleaning. Most other people do their big, annual cleaning in the spring, but I consider autumn cleaning as a means to shake the debris of the opressive summer out of my life and welcome the new year with a super-clean and de-cluttered house.

Yes, I said "new year. " It's in my DNA. I observe and respect the old Celtic tradition of all Hallow's Eve marking the beginning of the New Year, and, in fact, that's where you'll find the roots of our modern Halloween festivities.

The ancient Celts believed the dead could cross over to the other side only on the last day of the year. Throughout each year, the souls of the departed remained in this realm, wandering from place to place, looking in on those they'd known in this life, awaiting their time to move on. But on the last night of the year, all of the dead were believed to take to the road in one mass-migration to the other side.

Naturally, the prospect of parading spirits generated fear among the citizenry, who left cakes and ale on their doorsteps to sustain the dead on their journey, much in the same way that footrace fans today hand out Gatorade to runners in the Boston Marathon -- "here, have a gulp and run along, quick!" The offering was, in effect, a bribe for the departed to have a sip and a bite, and hurry on their way.

No one wanted the migrating dead to linger too long in any one place, lest they wander indoors to be trapped for another year, and most people believed that folks who were foolish enough to neglect to leave an offering would be visited with some form of otherworldly retribution. So the doors were shut tight, and candles were placed outside along with the food, to help light the spirits along their journey.

It didn't take too many generations for young people to figure out that those who were brave enough to venture outside on that night would be rewarded with all the ale and sweetcakes they could consume -- and that it wasn't too hard to carry on, and to fake supernatural outrage at the homes of those who failed to set out some sustenance.

And thus we have the early origins of "trick or treat."

Autumn is a good time to mark a new year, because it gives us a clean slate: the big work of the year has been accomplished, the harvest is done, the fields are clear, and now we have the business of settling down by the hearth to prepare for the winter months, a time in which to repair tools, make garments, preserve meats, spin yarn, make babies to be born in the bounty of the upcoming summer, and tell the stories and legends that help create cultural continuity. Thus the origins of "to tell a yarn," because the spinner was often the family historian as well as the keeper and teller of ancient legends.

Winter was also the premium time for travelling bards to earn their bread and board reciting the current news and events, and recounting heroic tales, while members of the household gathered round the hearth to spin yarn, knit socks and sharpen their farming implements.

Either way, stories were told while yarn was spun, and a particularly good story no doubt took enough time for the spinner to fill an entire spindle, and then wind off a hank of yarn. And thus today, we "tell a yarn," particularly if the story is prolonged, exciting and perhaps more than a bit exaggerated.

So I guess it's the Irish in me that spurs me to fling open our closets every autumn and purge those things no longer worn or used, to make the house fit for the refreshment of winter, visiting guests, and the news they bring.

And so, in the ancient and venerable tradition of the American South, we are having a garage sale this weekend.

It amazes me, the crap we accumulate over a period of less than a decade.

Particularly amazing are the clothes we hang onto in the vain hope that their eventual reappearance as retro fashion items will coincide with the mystical reappearance of our college physiques. And since my 1978 body most definitely did not come back into style like my 70s clothes ... out go the clothes, and we'll take care of the '80s while we are at it as well.

Best forgotten, the '80s, methinks.

Don't panic -- I am saving a few very sentimental things. My blue suede poncho, a paisley shirt, the disco-days prom dress which caused my mother to swoon before she even saw the actual garment, when she saw how small the bag was when I brought it home -- the poor lady no doubt had visions of me swathed in a grand, femme and fluffy creation like her own prom gown, the amazing sort of garment which somehow manages to present you as identifiably female, while completely diguising, padding and blocking any view of, or access to, all the important parts.

Instead, she got a daughter wrapped in a yard of shimmery, stretch Qiana.

And yes, my date had a powder-blue tuxedo, a ruffled shirt and John Travolta hair. We had a good time at the prom, pointing at the ceiling while we danced and drank spiked punch. He is now in law enforcement, and I have every intention of using that photo as my get-out-of-jail pass, should I ever Martha-Stewart myself into any sort of trouble involving insider trading on Koigu and Noro futures.

But I digress.

Onward through the strata of junk.

There will be unwanted books, and strange kitchen oddments, unidentifable tools and random pieces of mismatched furniture. There will be surplus office junk and some random computer components. There will be surplus cages, aquariums, shoes and clothes. You'll find Christmas things, and art supplies, and music that we have grown tired of. Also, I am a costume junkie, so I decided to part with a few costumes in time for someone who is still a size 6 to enjoy them at Halloween. I have to be realistic. If I lose about 15 pounds, I could easily be back in a size 8. But I haven't seen size six since Ronald Reagan was in office, and I need room in my closet.

Note to area knitters: y'all are welcome to come by and sit and knit, but I am not destashing.

Some of the clearing out involves throwing away things that are too shabby to offer for sale or for donation. Among the things I'll be needing to toss out are my summer PJs, which are ratty beyond belief. So I need to buy new ones.

And with this being the end of summer (according to the calendar, if not the temperature), you would think that the retailers would have some summer PJs on deep discount, for me to buy now, save money and squirrel them away for next year.

But apparently, I am asking too much. All I want are some simple, cotton pajamas. Pajamas exactly like the ones I had in college, please: boxer-type drawstring bottoms without the boy's fly, and a collarless short-sleeved top cut like an old-fashioned baseball shirt in a simple, woven cotton fabric. Not a solid, wan pastel, please ... just a cheerful print or maybe some cute stripes.

Is it just me? Because I cannot find women's summer pajamas to suit me, on sale or otherwise.

I can find lacy things, frilly things, leopard-print things with black feathers around the breastal area, nylon lace spiderwebs, and stretchy things that glow in the dark. I can also find granny gowns and ruffle-edged short sets in a pastel pink cotton-poly blend. And this time of year in our student-saturated neck of the city, I can also find untold numbers of knee-length dorm shirts bearing the local universities' logos.

But I cannot find pajamas.

I do not want a nightgown, a sleep shirt, a teddy or a negligee. I do not want a camisole top paired with stretchy micro-shorts or capri pants. Nor do I want a handful of ribbon and lace to deploy strategically upon my nether regions. I want pajamas that were intended to be slept in, and not some tiny scrap of frill intended to remain upon my person during my most private moments. If I want to be that private, the PJs come off. I'm pretty straightforward about most things in life, including private moments. PJs are for sleeping in, and non-sleeping activities do not require gift wrap.

My college warm-weather PJs were the best pajamas ever. I wish I'd had the budget and the foresight to fill a bunker with them, and I also wish I'd had the foresight to stockpile them in a variety of sizes while I was at it. One turquoise-colored set sported a Hawaiian print with tiny surfboards, palm trees and hibiscus flowers. The other set had super-thin stripes in white, hot pink and indigo. I could hang around the dorm in those PJs and not be embarrassed in the least if I was stretched out with a textbook, catching the breeze on the big, wide windowsill in the common room and the maintenance man happened to walk by with his toolbox, or some giggling girl dashed past me, towing the boyfriend she was sneaking into her room (in which case I was soon joined in the common room by a grumpy and temporarily evicted roommate).

Before I got married I made it clear to my husband that I was not a Victoria's Secret kind of gal (to this day, I adamantly maintain that the real secret is that Victoria herself wears nothing but holey grey sweats, eats Cherry Garcia ice cream all day long, and never leaves her apartment except to dump off sketches of the new torture-bra designs that pay her tabs at Starbucks and Takee Outee)....

Huh? Sorry, I got temporarily derailed in a recurring fantasy which involves living in New York City and subsisting entriely on coffee, ice cream and Chinese delivery...

...anyway, I most deifnitely do not sleep in anything scratchy, ruffly, or with wings attached.

I just want some pajamas, and I have learned a cold, hard fact:

Nobody seems to make simple, presentable, warm-weather pajamas for grown-up women anymore.

Looking online and in the stores today, if I was ten years old, I could have summer pajamas with poison dart frogs, fish, planets, turtles, bluebirds, or retro-hippie daisies. And if I were a grown-up guy, I could have boxer shorts with sharks.

Sharks! Cool!

Me? I would snatch up some guy-jammies with sharks on them in a second, but apparently the Fashion Facists have decided that guys no longer need pajama tops. I think the idea is to sell the pajama bottoms for the same price as a whole set of pajamas -- great for the ol' profit margin --but this presumes that either the guy is either so smokin' hot that he doesn't need a top, or that a less pumped-up dude will provide his own ratty t-shirt to somplete the ensemble. This fashion industry decision was made sometime around 1988. Guys can even get long flannel bottoms for winter. But just try finding a top. I dare you.

Anyway.

Pajamas. Plain, simple, loose, cotton, US size 10. Also, not pastel. Any leads?

A Quickie

With the Yarn Harlot

New Orleans is certainly the only city in the United States where two women can stroll into the front door of a tourist shop, thrust a sock-in-progress into the gaping jaws of a full-grown stuffed alligator, and take photos without the shopkeeper so much as asking a question, thinking it the slightest bit strange, or getting up off his stool.

And not just any sock, either.

The Sock.

The first thing you need to know about Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is that she is just exactly like she is on her blog and in her books, only live and in person. Devastatingly funny, wicked smart, and deeply compassionate.

But you knew that already.

The second thing you need to know is that she is also the most regular sort of person you can possibly imagine, the sort of person you might run into at the farmer's market of a coffee shop, a person completely devoid of that little bubble of me-ness which usually envelops people who find themselves in possession of a certain amount of fame.

My first reaction, when I learned that Stephanie was making a book stop in New Orleans and that she wanted me to give her a quick tour and be the hat collection person for her event, was to squee.

I did not squee in public. Nor did I squee in front of my husband, or even in the presence of most of our cats. I squeed privately, at my computer, with the door closed. Only one cat heard me squee, and she is nineteen, so she probably did not hear it very clearly.

"Stephanie just asked me to be her driver and her hat lady. Squee!"

If you have read my blog for any amount of time, you have probably ascertained that I am a person who does not squee. I never squee. I am pretty much a Vulcan in that respect. You would not expect Mr. Spock or T'pol to squee, would you?

The last time I squeed, I was five years old and I got to pet Lassie. Squee!

I did not even squee when I ran into Jimmy Page at the Old Absinthe Bar, many, many years ago. I stammered, but I did not squee.But, considering that Stephanie accepted my offer to be her Nawlins tour guide ... well, you will understand that a squee was in order.

My delight was mixed with a smidge of anxiety, because the Borders book store hosting the event was not in New Orleans proper, but in the adjacent suburban city of Metairie. Metairie is a proper city, and a fairly large one, and full of lovely people, but it is a city in precisely the same way that Fort Worth is a city -- an enormous number of suburban developments connected by shopping malls, Wal-Marts and car dealerships, a city whose real purpose is to provide a bedroom community for the other city right next door.

I figured that Steph's agent -- as agents are wont to do -- would ensconce her in a hotel as close as possible to Borders, which is located on Veteran's Boulevard, within range of The Gap, Target, Chili's, TGIFriday's and various other generic American retailers that nobody from anywhere would get on a plane to bother to have a look at. And I was worried that I would have to get her across the vast sprawl of Metairie, into New Orleans, see some important sights, and get her back across town through rush-hour traffic to be at the book signing on time.

And? She expected to have about three hours altogether in which to do this.

So it was a great relief when I got a call from her Monday morning and learned that she was parked like a rock star at the Crown Astor on the corner of Bourbon and Canal. This would cut our commuting time in half. Steph needed enough time to wash off the grunge of the DFW airport, change her clothes and work on her blog entry a bit, which coincided precisely with the amount of time I needed to commute to her hotel.

First thing on the agenda: food. Steph had enjoyed exactly one small packet of airline almonds since midnight and by the time I arrived, lunch was the first thing on the agenda and the best place in New Orleans to find a vegetarian po-boy sandwich is Frank's Italian restaurant across from the French Market.

Frank's is one of those venerable Italian restaurants which is so authentically Italian, you fully expect to see Michael Corleone sitting at a corner table, having a serious conversation with somebody named "Louie the Finger."

Some of you may wonder why I took her to an Italian eatery. I can hear you: "Hey, you're in New Orleans! Why didn't you take her someplace French?"

I took her there, partly because Frank's was open at a belated lunch hour ... and partly as a way of demonstrating that New Orleans is not entirely a French city, as so many people believe, but rather a deeply multicultural one ... and partly to show that nearly every menu cross-pollinates: local icons like Gumbo, Jambalaya and Po-Boy sandwiches appear on restaurants of every ethnic heritage. Even Vietnamese restaurants offer Po-Boys.

And besides, Frank's makes a killer veggie Po-Boy, with grilled bell peppers, zucchini and onion, Italian olive salad and two kinds of cheese, dressed with lettuce, tomato and mayo and served up on crunchy French bread.

The Po-Boy is an inherently messy sandwich genre, and I feel compelled to report on the full efficacy of good Canadian table manners. New Orleans natives take note: Steph is the only person I have ever witnessed consuming a Po-Boy without making a mess or using up her napkin allotment.

From Frank's, it was a quick stroll to the Cafe Du Monde. No visit to New Orleans, however brief, is complete without a cup of French Market coffee and a plate of Beignets.

One of the things I love deeply, profoundly and enduringly about the Cafe Du Monde is the fact that there are no options for a "skinny half-caf hazelnut mocha cappucino latte ... and a low-fat, sugar-free granola-cranberry bran muffin." At the Cafe' Du Monde, you can have coffee, or you can have Beignets, or you can have both. I do think they also offer decaf if you have a legitimate medical condition.

And then you can sit in the shade, beneath the ancient ceiling fans, and watch your Canadian friend and her Sock enjoy them both.

Stephanie was deeply impressed with our local coffee. In fact, she was so impressed that she took a picture of her cup. If anyone else did this, I would have needed Depends, but with Stephanie, it made perfect sense.

We lingered over our coffee for a few minutes and moved on to our next stop:

The Quarter Stitch. Here is Stephanie standing on a centuries-old banquette (sidewalk) approaching the shop. She hovered for a moment in front of the adjacent tavern, but decided her schedule was regretably too tight for a nice cold Dixie beer.

Stephanie took pictures, made lots of appropriate noises regarding the yarn, the ancient building itself, the Koigu corner, and the shop's famous Yarntinis:

Amazingly, she restrained herself, having both a new stove to pay for and luggage to haul. So, as any good, loyal and true friend would do, I had a little falling down in the Koigu department, just so she could have a photo-op for the store's world-famous packaging of all purchases ....



Stephanie's keen insight into yarnly matters enabled me mightily. She pointed out to the shop staff that some of the hand-dyed yarns out there are true investments. Koigu, for example. Each and every batch of it is one of a kind, produced by one human being who has no apprentice, and when she is gone, there will be no more.


Ergo, I reasoned, Koigu is no longer a mere self-indulgent splurge.


I am buying yarn futures.


After a proper and dignified moment of silence upon learning of the recent demise of the Quarter Stitch's elderly shop dog, and then some further admiration of the shop's garment samples, and a hearty round of goodbye hugs and photos, I whipped out my official Dukes of Hazzard Southern School of Driving certificate, and we were off for the car tour. I need to point out that by the time we'd had lunch, coffee, one yarn stop, and a much-too-quick walk through the French Quarter, we had used of half of the time Stephanie had available before she had to report for duty at Borders at 7:00.


And this is where it gets difficult.


I did not want Stephanie's visit to be All About Katrina, in exactly the same way that you do not want a visit to your favorite, hospitalized aunt to be All About Cancer. Yes, the cancer must be discussed, and faced bravely and compassionately, but you also want to talk about what's going on at home, what the family is up to, and things of that nature.


So I'd wanted to show Steph the pleasantries first. A far-too-brief walk through the heart of the French Quarter, some good food and coffee, a quick peek at the Mississippi River -- "Wow that thing is wide!!!" -- and then a stroll around Jackson Square and the St. Louis Cathedral, past the antique shops and art galleries of Royal Street, a quick and mandatory two-block jog past the strip clubs and cheezy T-Shirts joints of Bourbon Street, a promise to wine and dine her at Galatoire's if she ever returns, and then I tugged her into a public parking garage to retrieve my car.


Consider: two women, one car, two and a half hours, one very complicated city.


Here, in a speeding Volkswagen, I gained a major insight into the essence of who Stephanie is.

Stephanie wanted to know it all: why can't people come home? Have whole families been living in those tiny little drafty white trailers for two whole years? What do the spray paint markings on the houses mean? Exactly how did the water come into the city? How does the city's water pumping system work? Which way is the river, the lake and the sea, and how did their effects combine? How are the schools and hospitals coming back if half the people haven't come home?


She homed right in on all of the major Catch-22's of Katrina. At one point she pointed to a vacant corner grocery and said: "Dez, the neighborhood stores can't re-open without the people who live there to support them, and people can't move home without the infrastructure of neighborhood groceries, shops and pharmacies." She instinctively understood that without the people who can't move home, the restaurants and hotels won't have cooked food, fresh sheets, clean dishes, or tended bars ... so the restaurants and hotels have no choice but to hire the second wave of immigrant workers who followed the construction crews. So even if displaced New Orleanians could find a way home and find the means to repair their homes, they won't have a job to return to. She realized that all the real work was being done not by the government, but by real people, by New Orleanians and by volunteers from all over the world, one nail and board at a time. And she voiced the irony that America is spending billions of dollars to blow up another country, instead of fixing two of its own states blown away by two storms.


Stephanie is the very first visitor I have not had to explain this all to.

It occurs to me that most decision-makers in Washington who deign to visit our suffering region spend perhaps the same amount of time in New Orleans as Stephanie did, and perhaps a few hours on the Gulf Coast, and maybe, just maybe, a drive-by or flyover of the almost-forgotten southwestern part of our state, which was so utterly devastated by Hurricane Rita.

I often imagine Members of Congress trying to appear concerned as they peer out of their airplane windows down into the wreckage of Southwest Louisiana, on their way to a barbeque at W's place in Texas.

If any of these public officials had one-tenth of Stephanie's capacity to absorb, process and comprehend the complexity of New Orleans' dilemma in the same day trip ... and maybe if they possessed one one-hundredth of her compassion ... maybe, just maybe, we would have some real progress around here. The fact that a Canadian knitter, author and doula can drive through this tangled mess of hope and sorrow and cut right to the heart of our problems both gives me hope that real, living, breathing, ordinary people in the rest of the world still can empathize with Gulf Coast residents ... and simultaneously deepens my despair in the knowledge that these very attributes of observation, absorption, comprehension, and compassion are completely lacking in 99.3% of our elected officials.

Even In the hardest-hit parts of New Orleans -- the Ninth Ward, Gentilly, Pontchartrain Boulevard -- the streets have been basically "tidied up." Even in the saddest, most abandoned, most tragic parts of the city, the fallen trees have been hauled away, and many collapsed homes have been hauled off. Boats and dead animals have mostly been removed from trees and rooftops. The debris has been bulldozed off the streets, and the mountains of ruined human possessions and house guts which once lined every street have mostly been hauled away. Half a million ruined refrigerators have been removed from the curbsides. Most of the remaining mess is now more-or-less contained in junk heaps on private property and in the thousands of boxcar-sized dumpsters parked on every street.

But Stephanie was able to look at each and every gaping house, imagine a family living inside it, and mentally reconstruct the disaster. As we drove through the Ninth Ward she was aware that the roof on that now-roofless house over there must have landed somewhere else, and that the streets were recently impassable. She was able to clearly imagine people drowning in their attics and clinging to their rooftops.

Stephanie spoke so eloquently of our tour on her own blog that I won't post pictures of devastation. Instead, I will tell you more about Stephanie.

She stopped several times on our walk through the French Quarter to ogle the now-recovered ferns, vines and flowering foliage dripping from the wrought iron balconies. I was informed on several occasions that various large and lasciviously blossoming plants were considered a houseplant in Toronto, and a wee one at that, carefully nursed through winters in a sunny window, and deployed outdoors for the brief summer to soak up some rays. I explained that the bouganvilleas die back every winter and explode again every spring. Yes, they grow that much every year.

She was gobsmacked by our native live oak trees, which pleased me to no end, because even thought I am a lifelong resident of the South, those trees never cease to humble me with their grace, strength, beauty and survivability.

Stephanie asked why so many of the live oaks were still standing after Katrina, so I explained to her how they have evolved to shed their smaller branches when the wind kicks up around gale force, leaving the important structural branches for the wind to pass through, so the the entire tree doesn't act like a sail, for the wind to catch and throw it to the ground. Bald cypress trees have evolved the same mechanism. Small branches are not firmly attached to these trees, and thus our oaks and cypress can drop their smaller branches in the teeth of a hurricane in the same manner in which a gecko drops its tail as a snack for a predator, so that the rest of the gecko can survive.

Because they evolved down here, in the land of wind and rain, live oaks don't grow straight and tall like most other oaks. Instead, they spread their arms wide for balance, and crouch relatively low to the ground to stay out of the wind. Their branches also grow in a slightly corkscrewed manner. "You're a spinner," I said. What happens when you twist the fibers in a bit of roving?"

"They get stronger," she answered.

"Same principle," I replied. "The twist also gives the trees some elasticity, just like spun wool, so the large branches can usually withstand some brutal thrashing around."

She lit up. A tree that behaves like wool. Oh, to this we can relate!

Onward, to a tour of St. Charles Avenue, and a quick zip past some grand homes in the Garden District, and even grander ones further down St. Charles. Steph is quite talented at taking pictures from a moving car. With me driving, she needs a short shutter speed.

We got to Borders at exactly 6:54

Stephanie, I totally swear that I timed it that way on purpose, really. Honest. So you would not have time for the jitters. I am not making this up. I knew that if we cut through Lakeview and avoided the Interstate, you could see as much of New Orleans as possible -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- and that I could still Daisy-Duke you into the Borders parking lot on time, so you could talk to the knitters...

... and so the knitters could see you. I counted about 45 people.







There were knitters ready with hats at hand for Covenant House for the winter months, and yarn shop owners (dear Garden Disrict Needlework and Bette Borneside, Steph promises a second visit to Our Fair City), and a knitter with a baby, and knitters with works in progress ....







... and of course there were many knitters who wanted their books signed ....

Stephanie, I wish we had had more time, even a few more hours. I would have showed you the venerable McDonough Oak in City park. I would have taken you to the Audubon Zoo and the Aquarium of the Americas to show you how they are recovering from Katrina. I would have driven you out of the city to see what a real swamp looks and feels like. We would have sat on the seawall at Lake Pontchartrain with Dixie Beer and yarn, and we would have knitted socks. I would have taken you to hear some real jazz at a proper jazz club, and to Tipitina's to hear some funky music and have a few Abita beers. We would have had another po-boy at Domilese's or Guy's in the neighborhood where I grew up.

I also would have taken you down into the parts of Katrinaland which have fallen off the national radar even more so than New Orleans has: to St. Bernard, to the devastated community of Violet, and deep into Plaquemines Parish. I would have taken you to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to see how truly devastated Biloxi is and how just plain gone Waveland is. Gone, as in, not there any more.

The charming Vanessa gave Stephanie a ride back to her hotel, and along the way they passed a bottle tree. Y'all, happening across a bottle tree was much more than Kismet or serendipity. It was a gift. If you haven't already read Stepanie's account of the bottle tree, go to her blog right now.

This was so much more than merely a delightful chance to have lunch and a cuppa with a knitting author I admire. Thank you for coming here, Stephanie. Thank you for your amazing ability to see New Orleans both with an appreciation for the good, growing, living, persistent parts and with such genuine compassion for the parts still broken and bleeding, and to recognize the unsinkable spirit of our people.

And thank you again for honoring the knitters of New Orleans with a visit, with the gift of your time and humor. Your visit was a tremendous morale boost. Some of the knitters who came to your book signing are still living in tiny little FEMA trailers. Some of us fared better than others with the storm, but we are all working together to rebuild. We really are trying to put our region back together, one stich at a time.


And?



I got to hold The Sock.






Merci, Stephanie.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

I have a post in progress to document the Yarn Harlot's Trip to New Orleans. However, I am backed up on work today, as I took Monday off to "tour and chauffer." It was an honor and huge fun at once.

Stay tuned while I write about her keen insight into Katrina-related issues, her observations of local flora, and the fact that she took pictures of her coffee.

Slacker.

I have been a blog slacker the last couple of weeks, and for that I apologize. It's not that I wanted to neglect my dear readers. I've just run out of gas.

I'm sure it's happened to you. Days when a flamethrower couldn't light a fire under your butt. Like the times when you want to pour yourself a nice cup of coffee and plant yourself in a comfy chair and phone an old friend for a nice, long, uninterrupted talk? But petty demands encroach on your time and before you realize it, days, even weeks, have gone by, and you haven't picked up the phone.

The first week of September was consumed with personal obligations, and the lack of any sort of real break in the heat has been dispiriting. But the thermometer nudged down just a tiny squeak last week, and by Tuesday, I was all ready to write a nice chatty post, and put up finished-object pictures. But after I got some morning paperwork done, I turned on the television to see what the noon news had in store and, of course, it was 9-11 all over again.

The calendar date had honestly slipped my mind. I'd brought the newspaper in, but hadn't opened it, so as not to be distracted from a grant application. I had made coffee and diligently crunched away with calculator and paper for a few hours, when my stomach alerted me to lunchtime and I turned on the TV news.

So much for the chatty, cheerful post I had planned.

I wrote about my own recollections of 9-11 last year (see the archives if you'd like to read that). So I couldn't think of anything new to say on Tuesday.

It's different than my feelings about the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I feel that if I don't bang a drum loud and hard on that day, people who were not directly exposed to the storm or the relief efforts will someday forget.

On 9-11, I have a hard time watching TV -- the visual image of the towers falling over and over again all day long messes me up. My grandfather was a firefighter, and I know exactly where he would have been, if he were in New York City on that day.

However, I can tolerate listening to the radio, and I feel that I am honoring the dead if I listen to the oral history of that day. I just can't watch it anymore. My visual memory is far too clear. So I knit.

Sorry for the lack of recent postings. I'm downsizing my office and moving my operations into the spare bedroom in our house, so I've been swamped the past few weeks.

Coming soon:

• Finished Objects
• The Yarn Harlot Visits New Orleans
• Hat Drive for Covenant House in New Orleans
• Mohair from Hawaii

Stay tuned.

Knit 2,
Post-K

Two years ago today, Hurricane Katrina tore through the city of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Today, we take a break from our regularly scheduled knitting for a brief culture report -- the good, the bad and the ugly:

Scads of our people still are living in trailers in our front yards. Our insurance companies screwed us over, we've run out of savings and now it's either "Design on a Dime" for those of us with the money for building materials and the skills to do the job ourselves ... or a painful waiting game for those of us too aged, unskilled or impoverished to hang drywall ourselves. New Orleans is a heavily elderly city, and when old folks run out of money to pay other people to repair their homes ... well, you know. It just doesn't get done, and it's not their fault.

The ray of hope? A program called The Road Home, which offers grant money to help people repair their homes, provided they actually plan to live in them. I am grateful that I had enough savings to remove the tree from Mom's house, fix her roof and get her interior repaired, livable and painted, but we still applied to the Road Home Program for help in finishing the job.

The home below is only a few blocks from my high school. The water was about eight feet deep around here. My old school is back up and running, but this family still has a tree on their house and a blue tarp for a roof. The car, previously a prized vintage vehicle, was smashed by a falling tree which tumbled across it on the way down. The black mass to the right of the car is the overturned root ball of that tree -- the trunk, about five feet in diameter, which was blocking the street, has been sawed off and hauled away. That's a tire snagged on a root on the far right:

And the car? It didn't belong to the white house. It belonged to a neighbor down the street.

Repairs have not even begun in huge parts of the city. The unflooded section has largely come back to life, even though many wind- and tree-damaged homes are stalled in progress, their owners overwhelmed and out of money. But vast stretches of New Orleans remain untouched, ungutted, and un-come-home-to. Their former occupants, about half the city's Pre-K population, remain in Houston and other cities.

This is as far as one of my relatives was able to get on her home. It is now gutted and ready to repair. She has applied for a low-interest loan and grant money so she can begin work. See the water marks? There is a high water mark, and various lower levels as the floodwaters were pumped out of the city over a period of weeks:

Fly-by-night contractors are still ripping people off. We can only pray for instant Karma, and hope they get their balls caught in a nail gun. If they ever actually pick one up, that is.


The city's homeless population has doubled. Many people made homeless by Katrina have joined the ranks of those who were already homeless before the storm hit. A considerable number of homeless people are camping out in other people's abandoned homes.

As a result, the fire department has been busy.


Rats Rule. Where do rats go when the water rises? They go where it's dry. 80% of New Orleans flooded during Katrina, so the surviving rats from that portion of the city swam to the unflooded section. And? They have been reproducing quite well. The part of the city that stayed dry now has a rat population to rival Medieval Europe.

Fortunately, one of my Mom's cats thinks that he is Ted Nugent, and rats are deer.


Katrina is still killing people. Or, welcome to Hospital Rwanda! If you get seriously sick in New Orleans today, you have a 47% greater chance of dying from your ailment than you had before Katrina shattered our health-care system. Why? If you're poor, or working and uninsured, Charity Hospital is gone. And if you have insurance and can otherwise afford a doctor, there simply aren't enough doctors and hospital beds to go around.

New Orleans used to be a great place to live -- now it's a great place to die. I know that seems amazing, as we are arguably in the First World and all that, but consider that only one fourth of the city's major hospitals are back online. The numbers get worse when you consider how many smaller hospitals, dialysis clinics, and other second-tier hospitals are gone. This isn't due to poor care standards. Nurses and doctors are doing the best they can with what they have. It's simply due to a shortage of bed space and a doctor-to-patient ratio to rival any third world nation. It's also due to the fact that one of the finest trauma centers in the world -- Charity Hospital -- is gone.

The remains of about a hundred and thirty storm victims remain unclaimed. A memorial for these unknown victims of Katrina soon will be erected. Update: I made a trancsription error when I first posted this; I accidentally typed only "thirty."

Se Habla Espanol. This isn't a bad thing at all, it's just new, and interesting, and it takes a little getting used to. The flavor of New Orleans is changing from "Creole" to "L.A. South." New Orleans had a fair representation of Latino food and culture pre-Katrina -- and some mighty fine hot tamales, I might add -- but now it's like, "hello, carnitas! And pass the menudo, please."

Menudo is a lot like boudin -- once you acquire the taste, you like it a lot. And, like boudin, you really don't want to know what's in it.

I love the cultural cross-pollination -- it took the Latino drywall and roofing crews about three weeks to figure out how to make crawfish empanadas. And I might add that New Orleans enjoyed an unusually festive Cinco de Mayo this year.

Side note -- I would be soooo grateful if one of y'all would tell me how to make the "~" sit on top of the "n" like it's supposed to. I can't figure out how to make Blogger do it.


Vera's marker has been demolished. This does not bode well for the karma of the empty lot on the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street, just a block away from Garden District Needlework.

In the first desperate days after Katrina passed through and the city began to flood, a hit-and-run driver ran over a woman named Vera, who later died on the street from her injuries. Neighbors and strangers on the street had no alternative but to construct a makeshift tomb on the sidewalk. Her body was covered with some plastic sheeting and people arranged bricks both to hold the sheeting in place and to provide a modicum of dignity by marking the spot with what they had at hand. Someone painted a makeshift headstone on these bricks: SHRINE -- VERA -- 8-30-05 -- GRAVE -- NEVER MOVE:

Well ... somebody moved it.

After Vera's body was recovered, the marker bricks stayed for over a year and a half. During that time, steady offerings of flowers, cards and Mardi Gras beads appeared at the marker. But the last time I passed by, the bricks were gone, and a real estate agent's sign has appeared in its place.

Vera's spirit, however, is still there. I don't think the real estate agent is aware of that fact.

In the photo below, the sign closer to the camera is planted exactly where Vera's body lay:

President Bush today ventured into the city to mark the anniversary of Katrina, two years after he stalled on taking charge of the situation -- two years after he utterly and completely failed to dislodge himself from his vacation in order to manage one of the worst crises in American history.

Two years too late. In his speech today, he said that he understood what people were going through.

I am absolutely certain that he does not.

I find it hard to believe that two whole years have gone by since I was up to my neck in wet, filthy and frightened animals. My mind holds a dizzying array of images from the past two years: at one of the emergency animal shelters, I recall a veterinarian in blue scrubs, trying to catch a short nap on top of a pallet of donated dog food ... the trash heap in front of the house I grew up in ... an elderly lady planting flowers in front of her still-ruined home this past spring ... the bones of a small child discovered months after the storm, found by one of our SPCA officers in pursuit of a stray dog in the 9th Ward ... a truck resting in the branches of an ancient live oak tree ... dead cows and horses in other trees ... an enormous barge perched atop a levee ... armies of ruined refrigerators lining the streets ... FEMA food tents late at night ... the vast stretch of raw earth, destruction and nothingness where the town of Waveland, Mississippi once stood ... boats on rooftops ... an overturned New Orleans city bus wedged sideways across a narrow street ... heavily armed Guardsmen in camouflage riding around in Humvees ... and vast stretches of my home city rendered completely unrecognizable.

And the smell.

I also remember the stars shining over the black and vacant city.

Local pianist Phillip Melancon recalls this phenomenon in song:

"Stars coming out in New Orleans ... for the first time see their grace ... what a price we must pay in New Orleans ... to see God's freckled face.."

When I talked to Lisa Louie tonight, she reminded me that you can't come to closure with a tragedy when you are still in the middle of it. Lisa survived Hurricane Iniki in 1992, a devastating storm that hit Hawaii only days after Hurricane Andrew visited his wrath here on the mainland.

It takes a long, long time to come to terms with a disaster of this nature. If you were lucky enough to be able to repair your own home, you can't start emotional healing while half of your neighborhood is still a rubble heap. There is the dreadful combination of joy and guilt that your home was spared the worst of the flood when others were not, and a deeper guilt in the knowledge that your own property is mostly repaired and functional when other people are still crammed into tiny white trailers or even living on the street. There is the fear and anxiety over when you will see some of your friends and relatives again, if they will ever come home, and what will happen in the long run to your home town.

And if you worked in the rescue and recovery efforts, there are still the nagging doubts. Did I try hard enough? Could I have done more?

I am haunted by the voice of a woman on one of the animal-rescue phone lines, begging for help. She was in her attic, with her dog and her cell phone. She had heard the animal rescue number on the radio. The water was rising. "Please," she begged. "Please, somebody come get us. I need to break the attic window so we can get out on the roof."

I had taken down her address, confirmed it, and was in the middle of giving her some instructions when she was cut off.

Silence. I felt like someone had punched me.

I ran to the triage table and handed over her information, making sure that it was dispatched immediately as critical. That was the only thing in my power to do.

I have to believe that the call just dropped. Cell phone service was crashing everywhere.

Or maybe she dropped her phone in the water.

I have to believe that she and her dog got through the attic window and out onto the roof.

I try to envision them on the roof, looking up into the night, waiting for the helicopters.