My Gas Ring

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Battle Savage Your Superpower is Psychic Your Weakness is Cowboys Your Weapon is Your Gas Ring Your Mode of Transportation is Hovercraft

What's your Superhero Name?

Capertons on the Move

Jefferson parish has these signs they put up during street repairs, or road extensions, whatever that say "Jefferson Parish on the Move." I think they should hand out bumper stickers that say that.

Kent and I, after being in town for 26 hours, have left again. I know there will not be a direct hit from Rita, but 6 inches of rain could break the levees again. Since it was already so close to the weekend, and it's just the two of us, we figured it's not that hard for us to just get out again. So, we're in Zachary. No levees, no big lakes, no river...we're inland.

I cleaned out the refridgerator yesterday. GUH-ROSS!!! I had to clean a lot of mold. It was so stinky! This time we took all of our refridgerated food with us. Plus we'd just gone grocery shopping yesterday and we didn't want to waste all of that food.

Anyway, Southeast Texans and Southwest Louisianians...I will say a prayer for you.

Stay Safe.

Heading Back Home

As you probably read on Kent's blog we are once again saying "goodbye" to Lafayette and heading back to "Met-tree," as we lovingly call it. I have slightly mixed emotions about going back. I'm ready to be back home, back to somewhat normal. We both love it there and are anxious to live there again. However, I'm not ready to be working in the same environment as usual. The "bosses" in my company are quite harsh. I don't like it.

As an added bonus, the environmental inspectors found ecoli in my office!! How awesome is that. Now, not only do I get to work around grouches, I also get to work around a deadly bacteria. It's really just amazing.

Actually, I'm very very very thankful for this job. They've let me continue working through the whole evacuation and everything and that's been good. It's really the perfect job for our current situation as far as compensation and benefits are concerned. It's just kind of a downer environment. I'll deal with it though. I should just spend less time complaining about it and more time being thankful that God gave me this job. It is what we need at this time.

We leave on Wednesday and will have a few houseguests when we get back. I am excited about that. I've enjoyed living with people in the past and now we'll get to experience it from the other side.

It's been fun hanging out in Lafayette. Thanks for the good times and I guess we'll see all you Lafayettians at Thanksgiving.

Quizzes

Your Brain's Pattern

Your mind is a multi dimensional wonderland, with many layers. You're the type that always has multiple streams of thought going. And you can keep these thoughts going at any time. You're very likely to be engaged in deep thought - and deep conversation.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Mmm...about 50% me. Deep conversation - Rarely. Deep thought - always

How You Life Your Life

You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside. You tend to avoid confrontation and stay away from sticky situations. Your friends tend to be a as quirky as you are - which is saying a lot! Some of your past dreams have disappointed you, but you don't let it get you down.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Pretty accurate I think.

How Observant are you? B-

Your senses are pretty sharp (okay, most of the time) And it takes something big to distract you!

How Observant Are You?

I was actually hoping to be a little more observant than a B-

Perfect...A Cold

I have a Cold so I am Les Miserable. My voice tends to get a little deep when I have a cold so it's kind of cool to sing like a man. I called my mom yesterday and she answered the phone and I said, "Mommy?" She said, "What?" I said, "Is this my mommy?" She said, "I don't think so. This is ________ _________ . You might have the wrong number." I said, "YOU DON'T RECOGNIZE YOUR OWN CHILD'S VOICE!" Then she new the obnoxious shriek was me. I wasn't hurt, just thought it was funny.

We are in Lafayette now. It's cool because Kellie just happened to be here too! It's been fun to see her. We also saw Damon and Erica's new house yesterday. Very nice! I am excited for them. Onnie sat on my lap! We saw Beth and Korrie too. I finally got to meet Brian who comments on this blog sometimes. I've only known him through his blog. We've also gotten to see Drew and Kristy's house too. Also very nice! I am excited for them too. I had lunch with Kirstin yesterday, so that was super cool.

My car, that I've been putting off fixing for like 2 months, is finally fixed! YAY! It needed new CV joints. Aww Car...

Anyway, the pressure inside my head and nose is getting unbearable. I don't take cold medication because even if its non-drowsy it makes me have a medicine head. Plus, any thing with that Sudafedrine (I think that's how you spell it) sometimes makes me have heart palpitations. So, I stick to Cold Eeze losenges, Afrin, steamy showers and hot tea.

I miss my pup!

Coca is our baby! I haven't had her in about 5 days! I really miss her. I talked to her on the phone this morning and bought her a new dress on Thursday. Can't wait to see ya Cokes!

Dave Berry

I think Dave Berry is very funny. I was a fan of The Dave Berry Show based on the humor of Dave Berry. Unfortunately that show was cancelled (btw...the house in that show is the same house now used on Yes, Dear, as far as I can tell anyway) and I'm forced to read his column when I happen to catch it (we don't get the newspaper) or flip through his books at B&N. I read the following article in The Advocate yesterday although this particular article is several years old. I found it very humourous and enjoyed the comic relief. I hope you like it too:

We're just a few dinosaurs short of a full tank
BY DAVE BARRY
(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on April 16, 2000.)

If you've been to a gas station lately, you have no doubt been shocked by the prices: $1.67, $1.78, even $1.92. And that's just for Hostess Twinkies. Gas prices are even worse.

Americans are ticked off about this, and with good reason: Our rights are being violated! The First Amendment clearly states: 'In addition to freedom of speech, Americans shall always have low gasoline prices, so they can drive around in `sport utility' vehicles the size of minor planets.''

And don't let any so-called ''economists'' try to tell you that foreigners pay more for gas than we do. Foreigners use metric gasoline, which is sold in foreign units called ''kilometers,'' plus they are paying for it with foreign currencies such as the ''franc,'' the ''lira'' and the ''doubloon.'' So in fact there is no mathematical way to tell WHAT they are paying.

But here in the U.S., we are definitely getting messed over, and the question is: What are we going to do about it? Step one, of course, is to file a class-action lawsuit against the cigarette companies. They have nothing to do with gasoline, but juries really hate them, so we'd probably win several hundred billion dollars.

But that is a short-term answer. To truly solve this problem, we must understand how the oil business works. Like most Americans, you probably think that gasoline comes from the pump at the gas station. Ha ha! What an idiot. In fact, the gasoline comes from tanks located UNDER the gas station.

These tanks are connected to underground pipelines, which carry large oil tankers filled with oil from the Middle East.

But how did the oil get in the Middle East in the first place? To answer that question, we must go back millions of years, to an era that geologists call the Voracious Period, when giant dinosaurs roamed the Earth, eating everything that stood in their path, except for broccoli, which they hated.

And then, one fateful day (Oct. 8), a runaway asteroid, believed by scientists to be nearly twice the diameter of the late Orson Welles, slammed into the Earth and killed the dinosaurs, who by sheer bad luck all happened to be standing right where it landed. The massive impact turned the dinosaurs, via a process called photosynthesis, into oil; this oil was then gradually covered with a layer of sand, which in turn was gradually covered by a layer of people who hate each other, and thus the Middle East was formed.

For many years, the Middle East was content to supply the United States with as much oil as we wanted at fair constitutional prices. But then the
major oil-producing nations -- Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Texas -- got all snotty and formed an organization called OPEC, which stands for ''North Atlantic Treaty Organization.'' In the 1970s, OPEC decided to raise prices, and soon the United States was caught up in a serious crisis: The Disco Era.

It was horrible. You couldn't go to a bar or wedding reception without being ordered onto the dance floor to learn ``The Hustle.''

At the same time, we also had an oil crisis, which was caused by the fact that every motorist in the United States was determined to keep his or her automobile gas tank completely filled at all times. As soon as your gas gauge dropped from ''Full'' to ''Fifteen-sixteenths,'' you'd rush to a gas station and get in a huge line with hundreds of other motorists who also had nearly full tanks. Also a lot of people, including me, saved on heating oil by buying kerosene space heaters, which enabled us to transform a cold, dank room into a cold, dank room filled with kerosene fumes.

Buying gas and dancing ''The Hustle'' with people who smelled like kerosene: That was the '70s.

So anyway, the oil crisis finally ended, and over time we got rid of our Volkswagen Rabbits and replaced them with Chevrolet Suburbans boasting the same fuel economy as the Pentagon. Now, once again, we find ourselves facing rising gas prices, and the question is: This time, are we going to learn from the past? Are we finally going to get serious about energy conservation?

Of course not! We have the brains of mealworms! So we need to get more oil somehow. As far as I can figure, there's only one practical way to do this.

That's right: We need to clone more dinosaurs. We have the technology, as was shown in two blockbuster scientific movies, ''Jurassic Park'' and ''Jurassic Park Returns with Exactly the Same Plot.'' Once we have the dinosaurs, all we need is an asteroid. Or, if he is available, Michael Moore.

If this plan makes sense to you, double your medication dosage, then write to your congressperson. Do it now! That way you'll be busy when I siphon your tank.

Update on the update

So, now it looks like we are going to try to get into Jefferson Parish tomorrow. The line will probably be insane, but we'll see. I'm just glad we have something to go back to. This trip is just to gather items. We've been told to different things as far as returning for good...could be a week, could be a month. We just don't know yet.

Update

So maybe we won't be going in on Monday. It looks like they just don't have the resources for that yet.

13 out of 41 months of marriage we've lived with other people

Why should that stop now? About 32% of our married life has been spent living with either my parents, Kent's parents, or my grandparents. Now, we are staying with my parents again and soon we'll be headed to Lafayette. As of Tuesday, I'll be working out of our Lafayette office. I'm just so thankful that I'm still getting paid. A lot of people don't have an opportunity to temporarily transfer their job. We're especially blessed to not have to rent a hotel for that time. We have family.



About our house...I'm trying to stay positive. I talked to our landlord yesterday. He told us not to worry about rent this month since we couldn't live there anyway, which is great! That will help make up for the work Kent is missing. The landlord told me he heard from his friend that his house only had an inch of water in the garage. His house is raised like ours. He only lives about a mile closer to the city than us. So, that's good news. He also said that the school that's one street over from us had the roof torn off completely. So, that could mean our area may have had a lot of wind damage. We have a huge old oak tree and a great big pecan tree in our yard...so we'll just have to wait and see. Whatever happens I know we'll be okay and we'll make the best of it. God has not let us down yet and I'm sure he won't start now.

On a sadder note, I found out one of my co-workers had been trapped at his house for 4 days. He hadn't eaten anything. He finally got in touch with me yesterday and said he was on his way to the hospital to get some food. He said he thought he was going to die. The good news is that a team from our corporate office is on its way to Covington (this guy lives on the northshore-Slidell-and one of our buildings is attached to the hospital in Covington) right now with cash, gas and food for him and additional supplies and generators for the hospitals and others.

Brunson's Safe & Lock Co.

Brunson Safe & Lock Co
4137 Plank Rd
BATON ROUGE, LA 70805
Phone: (225) 356-3515

As you all know I'm in property management - the job that never stops. I'm technically still working even though I'm not in the city. Today, I had to copy building keys and overnight them to our main office. Commercial building keys can't just be copied at Wal-Mart or Home Depot. I had to go to a Locksmith. First of all, the keys say "Do Not Duplicate", so I had to explain the whole situation to the Locksmith and thankfully he said okay and copied them anyway. When he finished I held out my debit card and he said that debit cards are not working today. So, Kent and I pulled out our cash to pay him in cash, but he refused to take it. He would not accept our money because we are from New Orleans and he couldn't take it knowing all the problems we have there right now. We tried to insist on paying him, but he simply would not take it. So, Kent shook his hand and we thanked him. Although it wouldn't have broken us to pay for those keys, it was just a small example of the kindness being extended by this city and nieghboring communities to the evacuees from New Orleans.

WHAT??!!!

It's just unreal. Kent and I live in Jefferson Parish. I have no idea what our house looks like now. I get choked up just having read what I'm now posting. The following is from the WWL TV website:

****ALL RESIDENTS ON THE EAST BANK OF ORLEANS AND JEFFERSON REMAINING IN THE METRO AREA ARE BEING TOLD TO EVACUATE AS EFFORTS TO SANDBAG THE LEVEE BREAK HAVE ENDED. THE PUMPS IN THAT AREA ARE EXPECTED TO FAIL SOON AND 9 FEET OF WATER IS EXPECTED IN THE ENTIRE EAST BANK. WITHIN THE NEXT 12-15 HOURS****

The following was posted before the item you just read:
Jeff Parish President. Residents will probably be allowed back in town in a week, with identification only, but only to get essentials and clothing. You will then be asked to leave and not come back for one month.

I'm speechless.

Katrina Shelter - Donations Welcome

The Plains Presbyterian Church in Zachary, LA is opening as a shelter for Katrina refugees. If you have any mattresses, sleeping bags, pillows, towels, diapers or of course food that you'd like to donate. Please deliver to 22929 Old Scenic Hwy. Zachary, LA 70791. Phone: (225) 654-2960.

Hunkering Down

For those of you who may be wondering, Kent and I have evacuated to Z-town. We're here with my dad and mom, Laura, my oma and aunt Suzette. My grandma and grandpa just happened to be in FL so they stayed there. As far as I know Aunt Naomi, Uncle Alan and Crystal have left too. I worked all day Saturday.

The property management business gets pretty hectic with the threat of a major hurricane. I was WAY stressed.

Anyway, we left yesterday around 5:30, so I think we missed the worst of the traffic which is today. I'm so thankful that we have my parents' house to go to as there are no hotels available. I guess we'd have Kent's parents' house as well, if my parents didn't live here Zachary. We'd just have to be on the miserable interstate a little longer. Maybe Kent and I should invest in four-wheeler and ride in on that during evacuations. I bet you'd be moving faster than how fast they're moving on the interstate now.

I guess all we have left to do is to pray for the safety of those who couldn't leave. There are thousands of people in New Orleans who rely solely on public transportation. The superdome is open for them, but I still can't help but feel guilty that I'm here and they're not.

Just Two Good 'Ol Boys

Kent, Laura and I went and saw the Dukes of Hazzard last weekend. I REALLY liked it! Sometimes I don't know what is up with those critics. Two and a half stars...what..Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact that Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson are the worst actors that ever walked the planet. Other than that, it was great. A lot of it was filmed in and around Zachary which was even cooler. If you've seen the movie there's a kitchen that Uncle Jesse and Pauline are in. I took my first art lessons in that house. I could actually see the room I used to work in. Then there's a roadblock that is right next to the spot that I had a booth of my work in Downtown Clinton at the Clinton Street Market. Also, the bait shop is actually at the house of someone we know from Zachary. Very neat. Anyway, I liked the movie too. It was funny and had cool cars.

So I just found the NEATEST website!

Check it out kitties! Maybe I'll actually make friends!

Of Course it doesn't look so bad...

...now. Today's dinner was a force to be reckoned with. I, being the Donna Reed that I am, was hurriedly fixing dinner for my husband tonight because he had to leave for a meeting at 6:05. I am no good rushed. I produce a much higher quality work when I have no time constraints (but do I ever finish anything? No.) So, I decided to make Jambalya. Only I'd bought turkey sausage because it's better for us. Well, you have to thoroughly cook Turkey Sausage in the skillet. Uhg...So I'm following the directions. "Grease skillet...saute' sausage" Sounds easy, right? Yeah...first of all, the sausage looked gross! I don't think I've ever worked with raw sausage and I'm not sure that I will again. GAG! I put a link in the skillet and it immediately started splattering. So much so, that it splattered me on the eyelid with hot grease. So I grab my eye. Right at the same time Coca runs in and I call to Kent "PLEASE GRAB HER, SHE'LL GET BURNED!" In that same instant I knock a serrated knife off of the counter and into my "tallman" toe! The blood actually splattered...which freaked me out at first because I am so not good with blood. Kent ran off to look for a bandaid and I got brave enough to look closely at my toe (normally this would be Kent's or my mom's job. I will lose it if I have to tend to my own bloody injury). I realized it wasn't near as bad as when I dropped the scissors on my toe and decided to clean it up myself. I didn't even get weak while wiping it up. Of course the blood on my toe was like the size of a sunflower seed. Anyway...Kent did get to eat before he went to his meeting, but it was not without a price.

Work

It seemed like a good idea at 7:30 AM...

...turned out - it was just weird. I have a pair of dark red pants that I wear to work. I also have a red purse (that can be switched to a backpack) the exact same color as the pants! Well, in my early morning, first day back from vacation stupor on Monday I decided it would be a good idea to remove the strap from the purse and wear it as a belt. It was not until around 5:30 that evening as I was slouching on the couch that I looked down and began to laugh at how weird it was that I wore a purse strap to work.

Me and mornings - not a good team.

Back to Reality

Well, we're home from the beach trip with my family. It was so wonderful. We had a GRRRREAT time! 9 DAYS IN A ROW OF NOT GOING TO WORK!! It was like a dream come true. No stress, no high heels, no dress clothes, no brushing teeth (okay I did brush every other day), no make up...mostly just no working. I totally do not want to go back tomorrow. I am not ready to be tense again. I will just think about the beach when I get stressed. Anyway, here are some pictures:

Kent's thirsty...
Beachy
Me and my sissy
Phase 10...Love it..
Kent making a kissy face
Beach birdies
WE LOVE THE BEACH!