Memo to Ernesto: Kiss my Ass
In Atlanta, I walked to my old house on Riderwood Road right off LaVista Road. AA doesn’t live far from there, so the Bean and I took a long walk. It was funny to see the house because the first memory I had was when my mother packed up the van with all her belongings and her dog Max (who had fallen out of my window and injured his leg permamently) and drove all night like a bat out of hell to New Orleans leaving my father behind, bewildered. Well he shouldn’t have been bewildered since he had been verbally abusing her most of my life.
Her destination – my sister’s wedding. My sister was marrying G, a Catholic, and my father had torn his tee shirt in the synagogue and pronounced her dead. My brothers followed suit. My mother fled to be by her side.
Her only regret was having left her jewelry behind, which my father wouldn’t give her. So one night in some flight of fancy, my sister and I hopped on a plane to Atlanta and rented a car and while my father was gone, we put a ladder up to the second story window and broke into the house. We tried to open the safe but he had changed the combination, so we tried to attack the safe with everything we could find but still couldn’t get it opened. It was a big safe and my mother had A LOT of jewelry – Spanish Jewish men really like jewelry and buy a lot of it for their wives (FYI).
On the way back, it had gotten hot on my walk and the Bean needed to rest. So we perched against a rock fence. My old house was three levels, a ranch style like all the other houses in the neighborhood EXCEPT for the big monstrosity where I was fence hanging on. It was a CHATEAU of some gross proportion. And apparently from the signs in everyone’s yard there was another going up on a vacant lot where lots of activity was happening. The signs said “No Inappropriate Infill in Riderwood Estates.” For their sake I hope they win – how much square footage does a person need and if they do, why don’t they take their eyesores out to the country.
L text me from Florida saying Ernesto is on his way to NO and let’s have a Hurricane Party! I said, good god, can I just get the LaLa done before it is wiped off the face of this earth? I called H, my erudite scientist in residency, and he said no worries, if it weren’t for Katrina, no one would be paying attention to Ernesto. Well, then I come home to learn that there is this cone thing that Nagin is talking about and we might be in the cone and there is this 36 hour mandatory evacuation thing and well, Ernesto, just stay where you are for godsakes.
On Tuesday, we are gathering on the footbridge to commemorate Katrina – god willing we will not be evacuating the next day.