Posts Tagged ‘Hurricane Katrina’

Gustav has been a royal pain in my ass since he formed. We evacuated to Tuscaloosa, and WITH reservations at a hotel that we’d had since Thursday, mind you. After the 4 hour trip turned into an over 10 hour trip, it’s safe to say we were exhausted. When we got to the hotel, the real nightmare began…

We had to “check-in” at a window on the street. No lobby, no grand welcome, not a care in the world that we were evacuees. It was annoying, to say the least. And obviously, it was in a shady part of town. Everything else was booked though, and we needed a place to sleep.

When we got into the room, I thought S was going to vomit it stunk so bad. Then the light was flipped on, and we realized… we were at a real life roach motel. The roaches scattered.  I screamed. Hell no. No way were we staying there. We called the 800 number, and S and I both had our turns yelling at the idiot on the phone until finally, he hung up on us. We left, and chewed out the guy at the front desk and are supposedly, not going to be charged for any of it. If so, you can bet we’ll be raising hell.

We headed to Waffle House, it was after midnight, to try to regroup and find a place for the night. The crew at Waffle House were beyond rude, and never waited on us, so I chewed out some waitress and we left. I was in tears. Here we were, in Alabama with 3 kids and nowhere to go. Tired & hungry.

We called information to find out about any shelters in the area and they gave us all the info. We ate at a gas station, and headed to the shelter. It’s not been a bad experience, just a few bumps in the road (like a pervert scouting for kids, that I’ll tell you about later) but overall it’s a nice place, on a college campus, and the people have been extremely nice. Just waiting to hear when we can get back home. Hopefully tomorrow, but I guess we’ll see. Meanwhile, we’re living it up on our cot… which reminds me, S just texted me and said some brat dove onto my cot and collapsed it, so I guess I get to go throw a fit about that. I’m throwing a lot of fits lately, I think I am on the edge again…

The cops here are cute. Please excuse the camera phone pics. I don’t trust anyone enough to bring in the Nikon… lol

• Family finds shelter, seeks comfort
• Build Your Own Electric Roach Motel: They Can Check In, But They Won’t Check Out [Electric Doom]
• Wii Attracts Roaches Like Week-Old Pizza, Your White Trash Cousins? [Animal Farm]

Gustav is pissing me off. Seriously.

Looks like he is coming to Louisiana to kick our ass. Not really anything we can do, but it still pisses me off. I don’t want to see New Orleans in despair again… it’s way too close to home. Close enough to call home.

N is terrified of Hurricanes. I have no choice but to evacuate. I wouldn’t force him to go through that. But, the parish president is talking of a mandatory evacuation for our parish.

Trying to find a hotel now, and make reservations. The hassle and stress of all of this is really getting to me.

Especially that I have to do it alone.

I have always done it all alone, but the aloneness of this responsibility is a resounding echo in my soul right now. It makes me angry, and makes me feel lost and panicked all at the same time.

Maybe we can just make a vacation out of it, and have fun, regardless.

But for now, I have to get to work… and help deal with everyone that is going to have chest pain (I’m sure) due to the impending hurricane that is heading straight for us. Especially the ones who lost everything from Katrina, and are just starting to get back on their feet.

I don’t blame them. I get how they feel. I feel it right along with them, and may end up with chest pain myself if this doesn’t end soon…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Weather Worries.
• Gustav’s impending arrival looms over Saints
• New Orleans on evacuation alert as it prepares for another hurricane
• Katrina Revisited

Not anytime recently, mind you. At least a decade ago. However, his recent tour seemed to attract every single solitary person from the age of 25 to 40 in this town to his concert. People around here love him, and to be honest, I’ve never understood why.

I’ve come to realize, it’s not his music – because I like his music. It’s not really anything to do with him.

It’s everything to do with that “meeting Kid Rock episode gone wrong” night of my life, way back in the day. Let me set the scene for you…

It was me, Rachel and I think Amy. We were headed to New Orleans to the House of Blues to see our beloved Phunk Junkeez (whom we were more than a little bit obsessed with, and saw an obscene number of times that I won’t even mention). It never mattered if we got to their concerts early or not, as long as we were in the building when they took the stage. We had mucho practice at manhandling our way to the front of the crowd and being front and center. We never, ever failed at this task.  And yes, I’m quite proud of this accomplishment.

However, we got to this particular concert a little bit early. Early enough to see the opening act, which was some punk ass redneck wanna-be rapper that called himself Kid Rock. I was not impressed. I do not even recall hearing his music. His presence simply made me want to roll my eyes, and visit the lady with the toiletries in the bathroom to see if she had any good loot.

The concert went on, it was a success as usual. We were front and center, I believe Rach touched the Soul Man’s leg that night and therefore, she was in heaven. We had much to drink, and more fun than ever. Man, those were the days. When the concert was over, naturally we had no plans to go home – for crying out loud, we were in the Quarter. Look out Bourbon Street, here we come!!

On the way OUT of the House of Blues (it’s kind of an alley way) there was some guy handing something out. It was dark, so I couldn’t see much more than his silhouette until we were up close. Of course if they were handing out something for free, I wanted to see what it was. Well, this punk ass fella hands me a cassette tape. Remember those? haha. I crack me up….

You know the single style casettes, wrapped in the thin cardboard and shrink wrapped. He handed it to me, and my meeting / conversation with Kid Rock is as follows:

Me: What is this?

K.R.: It’s my demo tape.

Me: Who the F are you? (sorry y’all, I was like 22 and way drunk and severely uncensored)

K.R.: (standing a bit taller, and poking his chest out rooster style) I’m Kid Rock!

Me: Never heard of ya.

K.R. (something to the effect of …) Have a listen to the tape, you might like it…

Me: (busted out laughing) Yeah okay, whatever.

I couldn’t NOT laugh because Rachel was in hysterics right next to me from the point where I asked who the F he was – she did that a lot, she would laugh and leave me to struggle through conversation. I miss her crazy ass.

So we continue on our merry way down Decateur Street and there are a bunch of construction workers building/renovating the building that was to become Bubba Gump’s. They started with the cat calls, which is typical. I called one of them out, had a few choice words for him, and his attitude changed a bit. He hollared to ask where we were coming from, I said a concert at the House of Blues. He asked if it was any good, I said one band was. He asked about the other one, I said it was some punk then said “Here, see for yourself” and TOSSED HIM MY KID ROCK DEMO CASSETTE TAPE.

I just knew then that I had no use for it. Now I wish I had it, just because it was proof that I met Kid Rock when he was nobody. But you see, I thought he would remain nobody…

Two months later, I saw a familiar looking punk on MTV, and realized… it was Kid Rock.

Who’s laughing now?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Whatever Happened to New Orleans?
• Kid Rock Says Illegally Downloading Music Is Like Stealing Cars
• Unplanned New Orleans
• What the Barenaked Ladies Know