Katrina Plus Ten

A different kind of then and now: Dani gutting my office after Katrina, and the same corner, today, at the end of the post.

After ten years, Katrina has slowly become, for me, a kaleidoscope of indelible memories and jumbled emotions: Watching the first feeder bands of the hurricane sweep across the lake as we try to evacuate (my mother kept refusing to leave) and realizing that, yes, we really are about to get walloped. Huddling in the dark in my older daughter's tiny one-bedroom student apartment in Baton Rouge (five people, five unhappy cats, no power) and listening to sketchy news on a scratchy transistor radio. Reading the hysterical text messages (phone calls were impossible for about a year) sent by one of my daughter's  friends who did not evacuate and ended up on her roof watching in terror as the water rose, and rose, and rose. (How does a 15-year-old get over something like that?) Hearing some idiot reporter announce that everything between the I10 and the lake in Kenner is under ten feet of water, and throwing up (my house is by the lake in Kenner, and I'd had to leave my Press Cat behind because he wouldn't let me catch him).

But for me, the most powerful memories are actually those from the days after the storm: waiting anxiously at 3 am in a moonlit sugarcane field at the parish line one week later, when authorities finally allow us back in. Getting lost when we drive into the city because everything is such an unrecognizable horror. Seeing soldiers with machine guns standing on once-familiar streets. Driving up to our house, hoping maybe, somehow, it will be all right, and then that moment of raw despair when I realize it isn't. The soaring joy of finding Press Cat scared and unhappy but alive, alive, alive.

I could go on and on, but I won't. Neither New Orleans nor anyone who went through Katrina will ever be the same. Some of us are irreparably damaged, some of us learned valuable life lessons that will never be lost, and an untold number of us are dead. Ironically, there is no official counting of those who died. There isn't even agreement on who to count. The new trend is to count only those who drowned or had something like a tree fall on them (which is why the number has been going down), and not count those who died of heat stroke or a heart attack or some other medical emergency in the chaos and horror of the aftermath. We have no wall engraved with the names of Katrina's dead, although recent efforts at a proper accounting suggest the actual number of direct and indirect deaths is somewhere around 3,500. I guess no one wants to remember the victims of government incompetence.

It seems odd to realize that at some point when I wasn't even looking, those days became, finally, the past. Yes, vast swaths of New Orleans are still a wasteland, but so much is vibrantly normal again. We have now been back in our house nine years and one month. Yet some tasks still haven't been finished, and just this past week I had to replace three doors that had been stressed by Katrina and finally rotted out. The timing struck me as ironic.

Come Saturday, Steve, Danielle, and I will go out to dinner, share a bottle of wine, and laugh about the days when we had to drive up to Baton Rouge for groceries and drinking water and gas; when the entire city reeked of mold; when Danielle had to drive down to Florida just to take her SAT, and start back to school in a building with buckled floors and not much of a roof (her school was actually the first in the city to reopen; if there'd been any health authorities, they wouldn't have allowed it, but Katrina got rid of them, too). We'll remember learning how to gut houses and bleach walls, and how much we laughed through it all. Because if Katrina taught us anything, it was this: that as long as you can keep laughing, you'll be all right.

Cheers, everyone.

Come September

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with September. As a child, September was irrevocably associated in my mind with back to school (I really, really hated school). I was very much a child of summer; I loved the long days of blue skies and golden light, of endless lazy hours spent reading or fishing or running through ripening hay fields with my dog.

But there were still things I loved about September. I’m a Libra, so September means my birthday (unfortunately not as welcome these days as it was at the age of ten or even twenty-one). All those years in Idaho, Oregon, and Colorado left me with a nostalgic yearning for crisp, wood smoke-scented mornings and the sight of frost-nipped trees blazing in brilliant scarlets and yellows against a fiercely blue Indian summer sky. But my favorite time of year was still summer.

When I moved to Adelaide, Australia, everything turned upside down. Suddenly, September meant spring, the beginning of a new year of growth coinciding with the beginning of my new year. In a sense, it was a perfect match. For a time.  Then I moved to New Orleans.

The summers of New Orleans aren’t the warm, balmy days of my childhood or even the hot, dry days lightened by cool breezy nights that made Adelaide so wonderful. Here, summers are a brutal thing to be endured, with an enervating heat and a level of humidity reminiscent of being smothered by a steaming wet towel. These days I spend summer dreaming of its end, the same way I once waited for the passing of the cold, dark days of a northern Idaho winter.

Except, of course, September in New Orleans is still ferociously hot. Not only that, but the most dangerous time for hurricanes is three weeks on either side of September 10^th. So all through September, the first thing I do every morning is turn on my computer and look at the “Severe Weather” section of Weatherunderground.com to see if anything is brewing out there. Ask me my favorite month these days, and I think I’d say...October. Or maybe April. April sounds good.

How about you? What’s your favorite time of year? Does it change depending on where you live?

Katrina Plus Nine

Nine years is a long time. Sometimes I feel as if Katrina happened to someone else, and I suppose that in a sense it did. I’ll never again be the woman I was on August 28, 2005. (Yes, Katrina hit on the 29th, but for me the most painful anniversary is the day before, the day we packed up and fled our city; by the time midnight rolled around, we knew we were doomed.). That woman, the B. K. one, was more carefree, more naive. Less anxious. Certainly less skilled in how to rebuild a house and restore flooded furniture.

She didn’t know how to gut a house with a wrecking bar or hang and finish drywall. She didn’t know—really know—just how thin the veneer of civilization is,  how quickly so many things she once took for granted--food, gas, police, firemen--could be torn away. Can be torn away. She’d never sat at the bedside of a loved one dying in a hospital with boarded up windows and no laundry service. She’d never had to bury someone at a cemetery in a small town up the river because the family mausoleum was still under water. She’d never looked at mile after mile of destroyed houses for so long that they started looking normal.

Every year, we go through this. The anniversary rolls around, and we remember, and then we try to forget. Last year, we spent Katrina Plus Eight without power as yet another hurricane took aim at New Orleans and didn’t seem to want to go away. At least this year when we raise our glasses in remembrance, we’ll be able to see what we’re doing.

Cheers, everyone.

RT's Bourbon Street Pub Crawl

Imagine 2,000 dedicated, hardcore romance readers, ten publishers set up in ten Bourbon St. bars, free drinks, free beads, loudly blaring music, and a bevy of male cover models: that was last night's RT Bourbon Street Pub Crawl. If you ask me, the authors stationed at each bar were largely extraneous, since (unsurprisingly) the beads and the booze (and some mysterious giveaway at the end to those who collected at least seven out of the ten sets of beads) were the real draws.

I am glad I went, though, because half a dozen readers did come seek me out and talk to me (if only the music had been a little quieter). One blog reader, "vp," found some old F. van Wyck Mason paperbacks in her collection--including Rivers of Glory--and actually brought them to me! (She said she reread them first and warned me they have not aged well.) Thank you again, Vickie; that was an amazing thing to do.

I also had a good time talking to  new Penguin author Jan DeLima, who writes urban fantasy, and another author whose name I never did quite catch (did I mention the LOUD MUSIC?).

Thanks to a late, unseasonable cold front that came through on Wednesday, the temperature was balmy, which helps when it comes to Bourbon Street. And coming up on Saturday is the Lemonade Social, which I trust will be a bit more book friendly?

RT Booklovers Convention in New Orleans

Planning to attend the RT Booklovers Convention in New Orleans in May? If so, I might see you there because I will be present at several of the events. I didn't get organized in time for the "Giant Book Fair"--it was already full when I tried to sign up months ago. But I will be at the Penguin Lemonade Social, which will be taking place from 2:30 to 3:30 pm on Saturday, May 17, at the convention hotel.

I should also be at the Berkley/NAL sponsored stop on the RT Pub Crawl on Bourbon Street, from 6:30 to 8:30 on Thursday night, May 15. I'm told we will be at the bar at The Beach. Anyone familiar with Bourbon Street at night is probably thinking, "That sounds like a really bad idea." Frankly, I couldn't agree more! But barring any unforeseen catastrophes, I'll be there. So be sure to tell me if I should look for you!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

I've always loved St. Patrick's Day--even before I knew I have a smidgen of Irish in my family tree. New Orleans throws a great St. Patrick's Day parade, complete with flying beads--and cabbages and potatoes and carrots! All the makings for an Irish stew. (Yes, they really do throw cabbages off the floats, and believe me they hurt if they hit you in the head!)

There are also walking clubs of men in tuxes or kilts who hand out roses in exchange for a kiss. It's a fun day--in fact, I enjoy it more than most of the Carnival parades, largely because of the atmosphere.

These pictures are actually from a few years ago; we didn't go this past Saturday, as it was misty and cool and our elder daughter had just driven in for a long weekend from San Antonio. We decided to simply curl up with hot chocolate and spend the day talking. And talking and talking....

Carnival!

It's Carnival time here in New Orleans, which is a really, really bad time to have a book coming out.

The next installment in the Sebastian St. Cyr series, Why Kings Confess, hits the stores tomorrow ... except in New Orleans, where all the bookstores will be closed for Mardi Gras!

I originally had a booksigning scheduled at Garden District Book Shop for Saturday the 15th, then we realized, Oops, that's the day of the St. Patrick's Day Parade (which is a really, really great parade here, by the way--they also throw beads). So the signing has now been rescheduled for Saturday, 29 March. We couldn't do it the 22nd because that's the weekend of the Tennessee Williams Festival. Did I mention that March is a seriously bad month for my books to be released every year?

So, even though I won't see it, tomorrow is the day!

Enough Already!

Yes, I know our winter hasn't been cold by almost anyone else's standards. But for New Orleans, this is miserable.

Last week's freezing blast effectively cut off the city: the Causeway over the lake, the long elevated spans through the swamps of the I-10, I-55, and I-12, and the bridges over the river were all closed. And now they're talking about doing it again tomorrow. Schools and universities are all closing, which is rather amazing to those of us who went to school up north and remember trudging through blizzards, but I guess it's all relative. They're saying we might even get snow, which would actually be rather nice. I mean, I already have a dead garden, so we might as well have snow!

Kitten Update: I mentioned in the comments section of the last post that Banjo was having trouble; he was having some sort of seizures and wasn't able to swallow food, and I was afraid maybe we were looking at the end. But he's rallied and is back to normal (or at least, he's back to his normal). So while it's worrisome and I'm having to accept that he is not going to be an old cat, for the moment he's still with us. His sister, Scout, is doing great. Both are getting amazingly big.

Oranges and Lemons

"Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clements..." It's the beginning of an old English nursery rhyme and singing game, and it kept echoing in my head on Sunday while I was harvesting my citrus crop ahead of our Big Freeze. In a good year, I can leave the fruit on the trees all winter and simply wander out to pick some whenever I need it. Last year I had freshly picked and squeezed orange juice every morning until the fruit finally ran out in March. Not this year, alas. I've packed my fridge, and the fridge at my mom's old house, and the rest is going into bags for friends.

At the same time, I'm also dealing with another sort of lemon. Anyone who has read this blog for long has heard me whinging about my LG Katrina Klunkers. In the last few months, I've finally given up and replaced both my refrigerator and my hot water heater. Well, the Saturday before Christmas (as we were leaving for the airport to pick up a friend coming in to spend the holidays with us!), my dishwasher made a sound like a rocket taking off and then crashing back to earth, and quit. And then, the day after Christmas, I was typing up some plotting notes for Sebastian #11 when my range suddenly started shrieking and flashing all its lights (I wasn't even using it at the time), and also died. So I now have a new dishwasher, and the range is supposed to be delivered this afternoon (fingers crossed). The timing, needless to say, was lousy. But maybe I could send a bag of lemons to LG?

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Great Whatever You Celebrate

So I finally got my tree up...

It was so late, I didn't put my village and train at the base of the tree this year. But I did set up the one on the buffet...

My packages are all wrapped, the Christmas cookies are all baked (and mostly eaten!), and this year we finally did something I've been wanting to do forever...

We went up the river to watch the lighting of the Christmas Eve bonfires along the levee in St. James's Parish. This picture was simply snapped with my phone, but hopefully I've some better ones on my camera that I can upload after Christmas, because it was really quite spectacular.

At any rate, I hope everyone is having an enjoyable holiday season. Cheers!

Eight Years On

It was eight years ago this morning that Katrina slammed into New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, changing our city--changing us--forever. So much has happened in the past eight years that in some ways those horror-filled hours and days and months seem long, long ago. And yet...

I can still feel the gut-wrenching despair of opening my front door for the first time after the storm and seeing what the floodwaters had done to the inside of my home. Still vividly recall the anguish of sitting beside my dying aunt in an understaffed hospital with boarded-up, shattered windows and orange FEMA blankets (because their laundry service had been swept away). Still remember the endless, strained jokes about blue tarps and National Guardsmen with machine guns at the corner and driving up to Baton Rouge for groceries and water. And none of us will ever forget that inimitable stench of decay that clung to the city for months and months--and, in some places, years.

They tell us the city has now regained 75% of its pre-Katrina population. That means more than 25% of us never came home, because our population today includes many volunteers who came down here to help, fell in love with the place, and decided to stay. It also includes new Hispanic residents who came to work on the reconstruction and also stayed.

In many, many ways, New Orleans is "back," as they like to say, although the changes are there, and heartbreaking. Yet change is a part of life, as are trauma and renewal. None of us will ever be the same again, in some ways that are good, but in others... Not so good. The memories of Katrina are always with us, a part of who we are. Yet every year on this date, those thoughts push their way to the front of our consciousness, and we go through our day shadowed by the old hurt and fear, shock and horror, despair and pain, disillusionment and bewilderment.

And we mourn what we have lost.

Can I Just Say, I Really Hate This Time of Year?

Ah, it's that time again. Time to stockpile water, get the generator serviced, make sure the shutters close, count cat carries and little noses, make sure the car is always full of gas, and lay in fresh batteries and a supply of canned food we'll never eat unless forced by circumstances I try not to think about.

Despite some of the computer projections, Tropical Storm Chantal is not really expected to hit us. But it does serve as a wake up call, if one were needed. Chantal is the third named storm of this season. Normally, the third named storm doesn't form until the middle of August, rather than the 8th of July. Previous years when this happened included 2005 (think Katrina) and 2008 (Gustav). This does not bode well for those of us who live along the coast and have anxiety issues.

Some incidents in our lives we never really recover from, and for me, Katrina falls into that category. I simply don't want to go through that ever again.

Christmas in New Orleans

We don't often see photos of New Orleans decked out for Christmas. So come with me, and let's go for a stroll. We'll start with St. Louis cathedral and Jackson Square, the heart of the city in the days when we were a French and Spanish colony:

Then we'll cross the street and climb over the levee to the Mississippi River, where the steamboat, the Natchez, is decked out for the holidays.

While we're down in the Quarter, we might as well pop over toward Bourbon Street...

And, not too far away, on the Uptown side of Canal, is the old Fairmont Hotel. Now the Roosevelt, it's long been famous in New Orleans for its elaborate Christmas decorations (it's also a lovely hotel, if you're ever looking for someplace to stay).

Finally, let's hop on the Canal streetcar and head out to City Park for Celebration in the Oaks. It's nothing like what it used to be before Katrina, but still a fun stop. And while you're there, don't forget to visit the Cajun Papa Noel...

I'm almost ready for Christmas, and hope to get some pictures of my tree and villages up soon. How about you? If you celebrate, are you ready?

A Lost Week

Hi all! It's been a miserable week, but we were amongst the fortunate. Far too many of the surrounding parishes are still battling floodwaters. (Remember the plantation where Steve and I spent that wonderful retreat weekend? It was in Plaquemines Parish. I haven't heard if it survived.) Our losses are simply a fence, part of the garage roof, a lemon tree (loaded with lemons), and my beautiful 25-foot orchid tree (which luckily fell AWAY from the house). With 18 inches of rain in 24 hours (plus lots more rain the day before and the day after), there was one point where the drains were overwhelmed and the water started creeping from the street toward the house. One advantage to not evacuating is that because you are home, you can clean the debris from the storm drains in front of your house. One of the disadvantages to not evacuating is that you find yourself out in the middle of a hurricane with water swirling around your knees as you try to clean clean debris from the storm drains in front of your house.



We are amongst the lucky few who now have power. At about ten o'clock last night, just as we were contemplating trying to go to sleep without air conditioning on a hot, sticky, airless night, our electricity blinked back on. A rousing cheer--reminiscent of the night the Saints won the Superbowl--echoed around our little neighborhood. Something like 80% of the city is still without power. One takes his life in his hands venturing out to find ice and food (can I just say that I'm getting really sick of PB&J sandwiches?), since most streetlights are still out and major intersections--think eight lanes--have simply turned into four-way stops.

I have written almost nothing in the past week. Sunday and Monday went to storm preparation. I think I managed to scribble 4 pages on Tuesday before the winds got so high that I couldn't focus. Then it was too dark (no electricity+storm shutters on the windows=dark house), and I spent most of my time simply listening to our little hand-cranked radio (note to self: buy new batteries before the next storm). We've spent the last couple of days trying to clean up, and it will probably take at least another week. Now that we have power, we can get to work cutting up the downed trees and trying to do something about the downed fence. Everything is still such a mess; hurricanes strip the leaves (and lots of branches) off the trees and plaster them everywhere. You can barely see the walk to my front gate buried beneath the leaves and trash:

In the past, here in south Louisiana, we tended to sneer at Category One hurricanes, with people saying, "It's just a Cat One." I don't think we'll do that again.

Still Alive--and Some Good News

Sorry for the long absence. Without going into too much detail, I had a nasty reaction to some prescription meds. The past month is a bit of a blur, but I'm starting to feel better and hopefully will be back up to steam soon.

Now for the good news: I've accepted a new contract for two more Sebastian St. Cyr books, Numbers 9 and 10 in the series. They actually wanted the next book in nine months, but since I was trying not to die at the time, I had to say "No, better give me 10 or 11 months, just to be safe."

(The photo of the cat sleeping in the window of a French Quarter art gallery comes from when I was walking around during a break in the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival last month.)

Yes, Please?

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This is a satellite image of a trough of low pressure, currently located over the Gulf of Mexico, which we're told has a strong possibility of developing into a tropical cyclone that will probably hit Louisiana. They're saying it has the potential to dump a lot of rain on us, but since it's already so close it probably won't have time to strengthen too much before it comes ashore.

Don't get me wrong; I don't want any flooding or high winds or damage of any kind. But there's this nasty marsh fire that's been burning right on the outskirts of New Orleans all week. Think of how a swamp smells. Then think about how that would smell if it were burning. Yeah, pretty sickening. Literally. It's sending the old, the young, those with respiratory problems, to the emergency rooms.



So a nice hard rain would be great about now. Not too hard. No flooding. No trees crashing into houses. Just enough water falling from the sky to stop a fire that is now threatening the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge. Please?

UPDATE: Okay, make that No Thank You! Now they're predicting 10-20 inches of rain and warning residents to clean out their gutters, park their cars on the neutral ground, avoid driving through flooded streets, etc, etc. Good grief. Hey, can't we just get a nice, solid rain? Like, you know, 1 or 2 inches? Must it always be drought or flood?

Wake Me Up When September Ends

When I first started thinking about my annual Katrina anniversary post, I searched for just the right photos to illustrate it. But I won't be using them. After spending the weekend watching what Hurricane Irene did to the east coast, I just can't look at any more flooded streets, any more shattered houses, any more white swirling clouds. So instead, for anyone and everyone savaged by this latest storm, this song's for you:
,
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While hurricane season technically lasts from 1 June to 1 December, everyone in New Orleans knows that the truly dangerous period extends for three weeks on either side of 10 September. It's during that nasty six week window that the Gulf is at its hottest and conditions are somehow ripe for funneling killer storms our way. Betsy, Camille, Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike...they all fell within that six week period

This is the time of year when I just sort of hunker down, shut my eyes, grit my teeth, and wait for it all to be over.

Monday will be the sixth anniversary of Katrina. Next year will be seven; soon it will have been a decade, then a quarter century. With every year, Katrina recedes farther and farther into the past. I recently reread some of the posts I wrote in the months after the storm, and I was frankly astonished at the number of the things I'd forgotten from those days. But one thing I remember quite clearly about the weeks after Katrina is the way people kept playing Green Day's Wake Me Up When September Ends. Our houses were either open to the sky or protected by flimsy blue tarps; water was still standing everywhere; the levees were battered, weakened, or gone. We knew if another hurricane hit the city, at that point, all truly would be over. So we watched the sky, and hoped, and held our breath, and waited for that six-week danger period to be over...for September to end.

Breathing Easier

The Corps has opened the Morganza Spillway, which has actually dropped the river level at New Orleans by about half a foot and is taking potentially lethal pressure off the metropolitan area's levees. We are all breathing a lot easier today even as our hearts go out to those with homes along the Atchafalaya who are now facing increased flooding.

We went and looked at the river yesterday. Yes, it's still scarily high, especially at Audubon Park, above. But you could see that it had been higher, and the levees in Jefferson Parish (below) still had reassuring stretches of concrete and green grass showing above the water line. In the picture below, the river is normally on the left side of the batture trees. That's the bike path you see running along the top of the levee; the River Road is far below, to the right.



I snapped these pictures with my phone, which made them easy to email. But I have other shots I hope to get uploaded, including of a truly impressive mass of debris piled up against the pier in Kenner's old town.

The Pig Coming Down the Python

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As anyone watching the news knows, the Mississippi River is flooding. Badly. Those of us sitting down here at the mouth of Old Man River can only watch as the crest of high water rolls relentlessly towards us.

The flood is expected to hit the river at New Orleans on May 21, cresting on May 22 at 17.5 feet. (Update: They are now projecting a crest of 19.5 on May 23rd.) The levees along the river are built to take a 20-foot flood. Am I uncomfortable? Uh, yes; although thanks to protective measures taken after past river rampages, I know we are in a much more secure position than many upriver or even in other parts of Louisiana. I saw yesterday that the state has started evacuating prisoners from Angola, which is at St. Francisville, just above Baton Rouge. At the same time, Baton Rouge is borrowing thousands of sandbags from St. Charles Parish, although St. Charles made them promise to give them back before hurricane season. (Cue sick laugh here.)

The ironic thing about all this? We’re in a drought. All the storms sweeping through the South have gone north of New Orleans, so that we’ve had endless high winds but no rain since early April. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I look at the devastation caused by those storms in the other states around us and my heart aches for those effected.

The last truly devastating flooding of the Mississippi at New Orleans took place way back in 1927. Since then, the huge Bonnet Carré Spillway has been constructed. The Bonnet Carré (gloriously mispronounced by locals as the "Bonnie Carrie") is basically a 1 ½ mile mechanically controlled weir that runs along the Mississippi a few miles north of my house. When the river starts getting high, the Corps opens the spillway gates and diverts some of the floodwaters into a 7,600 acre floodway that runs for six miles to Lake Pontchartrain. It’s been opened nine times so far, the first time being in 1937, the last in 2008. In 2008, they only opened 160 of the spillway’s bays, although all 350 have been opened in the past.

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Word is the spillway may be opened as early as Monday. Already, water has started seeping through the bays and roads in the area are closed.

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In the meantime, all we can do is wait, and watch.

Update:The state is likely to also open the Morganza Spillway north of Baton Rouge. This spillway is connected to the Old River Control Complex that keeps the Mississippi from shifting its course to the Atchafalaya (opening it will divert more water from the Big Muddy to the Atchafalya). The Morganza has only been opened once, in 1973, when it caused extensive flooding to communities down river. This move will be worse than blowing up the levees near Cairo because there are homes and businesses in the Morganza Floodway. (In fact, whether the Morganza opens or not, those communities will flood simply because increased water will flow down the Atchafalya whether anyone wants it to or not. But if the spillway is opened, they're going to be looking at 10 feet rather than 2 or 3.) At this point you're probably wondering, Why is she writing about all of this? I guess the answer is that I find the forces of nature--especially water--fascinating.There is something mesmerizing about watching this destructive wall of water roll towards us, and realizing how powerless we really are to do anything about it. We are looking at a tragedy unfolding. It's only a matter of, How bad will it be?

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Katrina Klunkers

It's a common problem faced by those of us who rebuilt in the months after Katrina: the demand for appliances at the time was so high that companies shifted into high gear their manufacture of everything from washing machines and stoves to hot water heaters and refrigerators; production went way up and quality control went out the window. As a result, most of the appliances purchased after Katrina are pieces of #@$%.

In the last five years, my fancy, bells-and-whistles post-Katrina LG washing machine has broken down six times (can you say, "bitter"?). The dryer once. The refrigerator twice. The stove twice (it still doesn't work right). The dishwasher once (it still doesn't work right). The downstairs central air conditioning broke down just a couple of weeks ago. This week, it's the hot water heater's turn.

Of course it went out on a Saturday. (Why do these things always happen on a weekend?) No one would even come look at it until Monday. Then they needed to order the parts. I said, "Why don't you just replace it?" They said, "That'll run you about $900." I said, "Okay; order the parts." At least it's still under warranty, so the parts are free even if the labor isn't.

The repair men are here now. That's right, I've been without a hot water heater for five days. Yes, it's been relatively warm here, but even in the summer an icy shower right before you go to bed does not help a writer's chronic insomnia.

I've decided hot water heaters are mankind's greatest invention. Now pardon me why I go pay my plumber $175 for fifteen minutes' work. I'm in the wrong business.