Thread Drift

[mimitabby]

I'm glad someone clarified that above tennis player was a man- I was having a hard time deciding.

are you serious? He's a lovely man!!

speaking of lovely men, my nephew showed up at the house tonight. He's 27 (same age as my french horn playing son)
He's been in hawaii for almost a year, is building an organic farm from scratch with a small team. He's so excited and the healthiest i've ever seen him.
He made his own little shelter between 3 nut trees, sleeps in a loft
with a mosquito net. Very earthy; but neat too.
this was his first return to the continent since he went to Hawaii
and he brought cool photos and stuff.

[winddance]

I think it's just the mane of hair. His ponytail is far fuller and shinier than mine.

I do like his arms.

[KnottedYet]

I didn't even see the pony tail. I thought it was a girl, too. Maybe because there is so much airbrushing in that picture. (how sad, that I see a doctored photo and instantly think "woman". Like every woman's photo has to be doctored...)

The media did it! The media has WARPED me!

[Lise]

I went to the website that has him talking about tennis (in Spanish). Clearly a man, but a "lovely" man (my favorite kind). He is from Spain, and has that Castillian accent I find so hard to understand. He also seems to have a bit of a lisp (aside from the accent!), sort of talks out one side of his mouth. Great action shots.
........................
The problem (a problem) with my job is that I eat almost constantly. Did a clinic today. B'fast. snack (V8, string cheese). lunch. snack (grapes). dinner (not much--bruschetta with rice cakes, fresh mozz). snack (yogurt, walnuts). Now it's 11:30 PM, I just ate the 400 calories of peanut noodle salad from Trader Joe's. I've got 10.5 hr to go--if I get some sleep, I stop eating. If I don't, I'll probably eat again at 3 AM, and 6 or 7 AM, and 11 AM...sleep a few hours...get up and eat...

I know that fatigue + stress ---> hunger. I'd probably lose 10# fairly easily if I worked a straight day job. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it!

[winddance]

I eat a lot at work. I keep checking my snack drawer to see if something new has magically appeared. I've been taking care to stock it with healthy snacks, but I definitely eat more when I'm tired, and work makes me tired.

I have a great idea. To combat obesity, we should all work less!

[crazycanuck]

Wahooeeey...

Got me AV jersey today in the mail...doesn't look too bad I must say. If anyone has an extra large & a large let me know how they compare...
It's a purty coloured joisy.

Our loan has been approved!!!(it was approved today!!!)ze house is ours..now all we have to do is sign ummmm hundreds of pieces of paperwork...That'll be early next week.

I had no clue who the tennis player was until someone saved the day & told us!!!

oops....http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5301172.stm?ls

I must ask, I haven't been paying attention to the 1yr anniversary of Katrina and would like to know if you mind asking a few questions? I know this isn't the place but you can always guide me to the correct place
1-Do you feel America's learnt much from the event? Have any attitudes changed?
2-If you were to suggest one change what would it be?
3-How do Americans feel about the event now? (similar to #1 but not quite?)

Tanks

c

[DrBee]

Good morning (or evening) all! I had one of those nights where I was awake for almost 3 hours. I should've done what Lise does and gotten up to eat. I was hungry. Today I make my slides for my meeting in SF. I turned in my shopping list. Glad that's done.

Windance mentioned "mane" and it made me think of a shampoo I was in Walgreens - "Mane and Tail". Seriously - it has directions for both human use and animal use. Have you seen this????

Lise - I hope the shift went well.

Nanci - how did the storm go?

Mimi - the nephew sounds like a cool guy!

CWR - perhaps you do need to visit civilization soon. Those freaky monkey faces creep me out.

[Nanci]

A few weeks ago there was a show on snakes on PBS. One segment showed how the Red Cockaded Woodpecker defended its nest from Corns by pecking the tree around its nest hole, causing sap to drip down. When the climbing Corn encountered the sap, it instantly dropped off the tree.

I was amazed at how easily the Corn climbed the bare pine trunk, and thought I would see if Maizey knew how to do that. It was so cool! I just touched her to the tree, and she instantly gripped it securely with her body. Here is her video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhN9IyED3So

[DrBee]

I must ask, I haven't been paying attention to the 1yr anniversary of Katrina and would like to know if you mind asking a few questions? I know this isn't the place but you can always guide me to the correct place
1-Do you feel America's learnt much from the event? Have any attitudes changed?
2-If you were to suggest one change what would it be?
3-How do Americans feel about the event now? (similar to #1 but not quite?)

Tanks

c

Well CC - I think I'm the one here that's closest to areas hit by Katrina so I'll take a stab at the local response. Others can give you the perspective from elsewhere. I and Mr. Fish have a number of friends and family that live in areas affected by Katrina. Many people are suffering from post-traumatic stress. If it rains, some people freak out. Same with wind.

I'm not sure what America has learned. People along the Gulf coast (that have homes) definitely are more prepared (in terms of supplies) this year than last. I think most will evacuate (if they can) if the call comes out. The rules have been changed in NO in that evacuation orders will be given days earlier now.

Many people still have not returned to the coastal areas or are still living with relatives or in FEMA trailers.

When I spoke with evacuees that came to our town some of them said that they had nothing to go back to so they would settle elsewhere.

Many people (from elsewhere in the country) say that NO should not be rebuilt. That is not feasible and is unthinkable, IMHO. NO has a unique culture that is made by the people living there (both rich and poor). The lower income component of the city is no longer there. Those people made up an important part of the culture. Most/all of the horrow stories from the Superdome were untrue. People were second-lining (a Mardi-Gras dance) in the Dome, not killing each other.

I do think that people in America did reach deep into their hearts and pocketbooks to help the people along the coast that were affected. We had 3000 evacuees come into our town (of 15000). At shelters that I visited (a month post-Katrine) I saw tractor trailer loads of goods being delivered (everything from baby food to dog food to toys). It was an amazing site. I organized the Mississippi part of a national volunteer campaign to provide kids with backbacks of personal items. In my little town that was already pretty tapped out - I collected 135 backpacks of goodies that were delivered directly to kids in the schools. There were more collected elsewhere around the state as well.

Talking to people in Louisiana recently and hearing their stories of last year deeply affected me. You can see how deeply the emotions go in people that directly impacted.

That was long - I hope that helped a bit.

[crazycanuck]

Fish-thanks for your reply!!! With news stories from the US, i like to ask you ladies your thoughts as you're not the media & don't have to sell millions of papers or keep viewers entertained.

The lower income component of the city is no longer there. Those people made up an important part of the culture.

I've not done much research into this but what's the attitude towards these people in thier adopted cities? Has thier life or lives improved & are the locals still happy to have them there? Are they still in the same situation they were before???

Good to hear you helped out in whatever way you could.

Night ladies, have a good day.

c

[Nanci]

Boy, I don't know. What a cluster that was. People either can't (no transportation) or won't (don't want to leave their home undefended, which I can certainly sympathize with) evacuate while there is time to do it in an orderly fashion. You know _days_ ahead of time when hurricane is heading your way.

There have been a series of articles in the New York Times about people affected by the storm. Those who left on their own, and headed east, say to Atlanta, have made new homes/lives for themselves, and count themselves better off than they were in NO. Those who were evacuated to Houston at the bitter end have not fared so well. For some reason they weren't welcomed into the community, and those who had lived lives of crime in NO squandered the help they received and continued on as they had been.

Some few people got modest insurance settlements, and rebuilt themselves, rather than waiting for federal help. They were uncertain, though, about if they would be "allowed" to rebuild their homes, as there was talk of turning the destroyed neighborhoods into parks or such- and no way to find out if that would happen to _your_ neighborhood. But there is a type of person who won't be beaten down, who gets up and rebuilds in the face of uncertainty, who has now created a liveable home in a rotting neighborhood, who hopes to be an example for others, who has their children back in their own school, who works, rebuilding, after a full day at a real job.

One man spoke of how he didn't know if the soil of his yard had been poisoned by the toxic soup of flood waters- if anything would ever be able to grow there. But after he cleaned things up, sprouts of grass appeared, and he re-landscaped and planted flowers and trees. He told how he had no electricity for months, and used a generator to run his tools and lights, but luckily he had good water.

As for the levees, who was to know. I don't know how you can blame the government for the failure of the levees any more than you can blame someone for the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers. If an occurance of that magnitude has never happened, how can one predict or even imagine what would happen? And even if you _did_ know that the levees could, in some circumstance, fail, who would have predicted that so many would, and how on earth could you go about rebuilding them to prevent it? The city just grew, without planning, getting closer and closer to the Gulf, and the engineering at the time seemed adequate, though it was found later not to be- but how could it be fixed? _Now_ they have the opportunity to rebuild from scratch and hopefully re-engineer things more safely.

They re-elected Ray Nagin as Mayor- they must have faith in him.

I've met several people affected by Katrina- one guy who was to do Ironman Florida, who lost everything. His forum rented a top-end bike for him, and gave him a place to stay. I met a guy at TOSRV who was living in a FEMA trailer, continuing on, waiting for an insurance settlement. I have a close friend whose house was destroyed, who went with his wife to live with relatives, whose wife wants to move back, although he doesn't. I guess they have to do what she wants to do. I transported a dog, who was moving in many legs by many volunteers from New orleans to Massachusets (sure I murdered that word!) to stay with a foster family until his owner had a place to stay in Florida where she could keep him. (And they have been happily reunited!)

[DrBee]

I heard yesterday that Houston absorbed 20,000 students into their school system! I haven't heard much about how people are doing wherever they have settled. I'm hoping that this mess provided an opportunity to start over and that that opportunity was taken advantage of.

[Nanci]

Nothing, absolutely nothing, maybe a couple sprinkles. Gorgeous and clear today. Here's a picture of Dill under an umbrella when I was determined to get everyone outside for their daily outing, even though the radar looked bad!

[Nanci]

It's hard to get a good pic of Dill- every time he'd hear the auto focus, he'd pop out of his hole like Whack A Mole and shake his head, right when the shutter clicked.

[Nanci]

Here's a pic of the unphotogenic shrinking violet, from last night: