Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks

Anticipation

The tickets have arrived and now my girls and I wait with anticipation to see the Moscow Ballet perform a Christmas Classic:

The Nutcracker

It's a Basic Concept

On the way home from co-op yesterday I drove past a Catholic church in a neighboring city. Punctured in the grass, between the roadway and the sidewalk, were countless signs that read:

(This image is courtesy of Illinois Right to Life Committee)

Almost in the exact time frame that my mind registered the ironic significance of these little signs by telling myself: "Have we really come down to this factor as a nation?" I heard the voice of one of my children pipe from the backseat: "Mommy, why wouldn't we vote pro-life?"

Why indeed!

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And, because I'm an Acadian and proud of my heritage, I'd like to inject this post from the Maxwell family at Titus 2:  The Demise of the Acadian People

You Are Never Alone

When the voting curtain falls softly shut behind you on Tuesday, remember these words written by Effie Caldarola:

" 'You know, really, what difference does it make if I vote?'

"When you go into a polling booth, you are acknowledging that you are a member of a community with precious rights and corresponding responsibilities.

"You are remembering the women, many beaten and imprisoned, who fought for the right to vote in this country. You are remembering the civil rights workers, many of them murdered, who fought to overturn laws that barred blacks from the polling booth.

"You are carrying with you the thousands of freedom fighters and journalists and religious activists all over the world who suffer in prison because they stood up for their rights and freedoms and do not have the protections we take for granted.

"You carry with you the words of papal encyclicals that insist that we have inherent rights and human dignity, and that these rights carry obligations. You walk into your precinct with the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights written between the lines on your voter registration card.

"When you cast your ballot, you do so with your fellow citizens, thousands locally, millions nationally, who with one communal voice rise up and make their choice. You affirm your membership in that precious community by voting.

"...your one vote may not make the difference. But the votes of all of us can change the world, and don't ever miss out on your chance to say you were part of that.

"You may pull back the curtain and enter the polling booth by yourself, but you are never in there alone."

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The whole article is worth reading in its entirety: You're Never Alone in the Voting Booth by Effie Caldarola and, as the mother of two teenagers and a young adult, I want to personally thank her for giving me words to share with them when they question, "What difference does my vote make?".

We Rode the Wave

...almost literally.

While our community in SW Louisiana is happily mottoing, "This was not another Rita" (praise the Lord) the storm-surge cape that trailed behind Ike's wrath was superior to Rita's wind-swept skirts. (Rita still gains 1st prize for extreme wind damage and power outage which kept us evacuated for almost a whole month).

Area photos of Ike can be viewed here: KPLC Photo Gallery

This time around we had no power failure at home (though I lost Internet Saturday morning and most of our family and friends lost power in spotty areas of town). No trees went down though at 11:00 Friday night my oldest son came into the house and said, "Mom, I just don't know what's holding those pecan trees to the ground."  Contemplate a pecan tree being used as a slingshot to dart green-encased pecans through the air.

The next morning Corey brought me outside to look at the scattered leaves in our yard. Countless leaves. All pelted and looking as though they had been put through a shredding machine. Raindrops did that?! Yes, indeed.

Probably the worse thing for us has been no milk in the house for two days. We drink a lot of cafe au lait down here so that would usually be critical. Except...

My brother's house flooded, almost a foot of water soaking everything from sofa to bedsprings to clothes in the dresser. Everything is ruined.

I'm taking a late lunch break at the moment before heading there with the boys to help clear out whatever we can clear out.

Thank you again for the prayers and concern. We are all safe, just lots of work to be done.

Here's something Annie Claire wished to share with all of you...

(Photo: Annie's Hurricane Hors d’oeuvres---orange & apple slices)

What Watching the News Media Does to People

This has been the looooongest day ever. Simply stale and boring.

Watching news coverage of Ike is more exhausting than the storm itself. Trust me on this one.

We are under a strict curfew at home. The government and other people are actually telling me (a 21-century mother) to stay home with my children.

Who would have imagined.

Even when I walk out in the yard, my brother-in-law who lives next door is apt to holler with good-natured snarkiness: "Hey! don't you know we're under a curfew order!"

We do a lot of napping (or try to, as seen above), partly due to boredom and partly because we aren't sure if we'll sleep tonight. The storm is due to hit its peak at 1:00 AM Saturday.

As you can see in the picture above, my free-spirit child is getting her own gusts of wind and is fixing to blow.

I've baked an apple pie and chocolate chip cookies already. They're almost gone. I warmed-up a pot of chicken/sausage gumbo and cooked rice. It's all gone.

I've washed two more loads of clothes. And folded them.

I've commanded three grimy little urchins to get out of the dirt and go take showers. Incase the water goes out with the electricity. Leaving me with two of the grimy little urchins in a hot, sticky house with no running water.

I've also been enjoying my new book friend Cooking for Christ by Florence Berger which came by postal carrier today. Yes, through rain, hail, sleet, snow, or as the hurricane blows...What a pleasant surprise! I've very tempted to curl up with a quilt and a flashlight while the winds blow and just veg.

I've watched countless minutes of FOX's coverage of Galveston and, yes, I did see Geraldo Rivera take a spill on the seawall. Poor guy!

I've allowed the children to watch lots of mindless television and play lots of computer games in order to power-up their 21-century supply of null time when the power fails the western world as we know it today.

The older girls are a little more creative with their time. They've napped, watched movies, and sat on the front porch to read books and play Sudoku.

Card games and kerosene lantern are on the table for tonight.

Now I have to go cook some more. Troops are getting hungry.

Ike! Say "Cheese!"

 

Thoughts Before the Storm

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

HT: Catherine at In the Pantry

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Riding this storm out might be one of my many "blunders and absurdities". True.

As of 5:00 AM, as the wind pulls at the sitting room storm door and crusty leaves dance along my driveway, I am indeed ready to "finish the day (and tomorrow) and be done with it."

It isn't anything...yet...but the anticipation is worse than the actual event. Like the bride waiting for the organ to cue her down the aisle, I am constantly looking out the kitchen window, out the sitting room door, out the unboarded bedroom window to see if the music has begun to play.

Let's get this show on the road already!

In the living room, which will be our main hunkering down area, the plywood has boarded out the sounds from outside. I heard a "clunk" about forty minutes ago but I think I would have heard the "clunk" with or without Ike's clumsy presense. And, yes, I know it's early and we're just getting Ike's spaghetti band winds right now. This is certainly not the whole pot of pasta. I know that.

Why have we chosen to stay this time? Couple of reasons:

1) There was no mandatory evacuation given to us, though officials warned us we could get Category 1 winds and will be loosing power and services and strongly advised us to leave.

2) My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are staying with their children and grandchild right next door. So are our good neighbors to the side and in back of us.

3) Again, it's a Catch-22. We're staying because, as my hs friend Brandie worded it this morning, we "don't know where we could go that would be better."

4) I have other people's children here with me.

5) Our house is an old country home. It was built when people built things to last. It has weathered many storms and is rock solid on a ridiculously thick slab. We're on high ground.

6) In my 40+ years, I have never been to a hurricane party. Good enough? (My mother will read this later and think "She's worse than a teenager!"  I know, Mom. Children never listen to reason. I know. I have a few ( ;)

Okay, that was more than a couple of reasons, but the calm before the storm is indeed a boring time to sit and ponder.

On a closing note, today is my father's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OPA! We hope and pray you have a good hurricane birthday party up north. We'll save the pork spare ribs for next weekend.

Hunkering Down

We're on the bad side of Ike so we're using precautions, but brother-in-law (next door), neighbors and friends are staying put so we're hunkering down at home too.

What a rip it was to tell my teenagers that there is a mandatory curfew starting tomorrow at 10 AM...and I didn't set it!

Please pray for all those in harm's way, especially that this storm stays a meek Category 2 on landfall.

Seriously, I don't think anyone wants a Christmas tree in their home this early in the season.

Decorating the house Labeling the plywood so we'll know which boards go on which windows...next go-round.

Remembering the example Tasha Tudor set for us, makes it that much easier to find peace in the mist of strife.

Top 10 Reasons Hurricane Season is Like Christmas

Number Ten:
Decorating the house (with plywood).

Number Nine:
Dragging out boxes that haven't been used since last season.

Number Eight:
Last minute shopping in crowded stores.

Number Seven:
Regular TV shows pre-empted for 'Specials'.

Number Six:
Family coming to stay with you.

Number Five:
Family and friends from out of state calling you.

Number Four:
Buying food you don't normally buy . . . and in large quantities.

Number Three:
Days off from work (and school).

Number Two:
Candles.

And the Number One reason Hurricane Season is like Christmas:
At some point you're probably going to have a tree in your house!

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Love that last one.  :)

As an Honorable Mention, I'd like to add...you're always in crisis mode. True?

HT: Thank you to jville who emailed me this funny as I sit here waiting the reality.

Riding the Wave Until Tomorrow

We're holding our breaths and sitting like ducks playing Russian roulette as Ike takes the same projected path Rita took just three years ago and which Audrey took over 50 years ago.

Cameron Parish has been evacuated. Calcasieu Parish schools have been closed for the reminder of the week.  We sit and wait and watch and pray...again.

I'm not one for much blogging about evacuation scenerios. You just can't "blog" about those. You have to sit and talk them through with friends who have experienced them with you. Like my friend Kimberly and I and all the other moms did last Friday at the ballet class while sitting in the studio's lobby.

Kimberly shares a little of her Hurrication on her blog and another Louisiana lover of picture books, Dianne de Las Casas, gives a thorough evacuation account on her blog for those interested in the nitty-gritty details: Story Connection

Speaking of Dianne, check out this post about her upcoming book The Cajun Cornbread Boy (scroll down until you see the cover). Years ago I watched and heard Dianne present this wonderful story at our local library. As soon as she finished the spicy retelling to an awed audience of little cornbread eaters, I turned to my mother and said, "Now that's a book just waiting to get published."

Do I have the gift of foresight or what?

I'm so proud of Dianne because I know how hard she has worked and toiled to see this book in print and I know she has many more books and plans ready to pop! out of her Cajun oven.

Now, speaking of books...

For the month of September, the girls and I have been reading The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill.  Love this book! We're also reading chapter by lovely chapter of Little House in the Big Woods because I want my youngest daughter to fall in love with family life the same way we did.

But these books don't exactly wrap around our current state of affairs like the hurricanes are doing; unless you count the setting of Miss Agnes which is Alaska, so there's a good link to one of the main characters in our current political election.

So I've pulled two more books off our bookshelves that we will read through the rest of September and October:

My Louisiana Sky by Kimberly Willis Holt and Galveston's Summer of the Storm by Julie Lake

Hopefully, by then, the waters of the Atlantic will have gone to sleep and the ghosts of hurricanes past will be at rest.

We Are Home

We are safely home. Thank you all once again for the many prayers. Our home area was hardly hit. Nothing compared to Hurricane Rita three years ago.

Hurricane Gustav was Tropical Storm Gustav by the time it hit north of us. We caught the west side which is the better scenerio.

Still...here is a picture of my oldest on the lakeside dock just as Gustav began making his appearance known.

Please continue to pray for those who have yet to return home due to evacuation restrictions and damages to their home.

From the birth of my very first blogging efforts, I thought I'd share some old posts from that time (Rita '05) in our lives:

Image of Hurricane Rita

Into the Night

Storm Surge

A View from the Roof

Home Sweet Home

Two Months and Yesterday