...would your morning commute be hampered by a horse-drawn carriage. Yeah, I'm totally not kidding.
We finally took D.'s car to the shop, and I took him downtown to his office before making the long-ass drive out to St. Rose this morning. Whilst on S. Peters this morning, we literally crawled along the left lane as a carriage moseyed towards the French Quarter.
I would have LOVED to have followed the carriage just to watch it cross Poydras and Canal, but maybe I'm just mean...or a glutton for gleefully watching drivers honk and get irate as a horse saunters across the street.
In related animanimanimal news, there's a new Mike the Tiger, and his name isn't Roscoe T. Parrish...or is it?
And since tomorrow marks two years since Katrina viciously unleashed unimaginable destruction of my beloved gulf coast, I think it's important for people to remember that the toll here was far beyond CNN ratings and FEMA jokes. Two years later, suicides along the gulf coast are at an all-time high, debris still litters the 9th Ward, and whole towns in southern Mississippi are virtually nonexistent. Here are some great articles about what is still missing and what still provides hope here:
But there is good news - NOLA's population is up to two-thirds of its pre-Katrina numbers. Tourists are coming back. The casinos on the Mississippi coast are back in high gear. New residents of the gulf coast are infusing new blood and hope into a tragic, sad place.
Tomorrow morning, I'll bow my head for a silent moment and say a prayer for those who perished or lost their homes, loved ones, pets, cherished belongings, etc. two years ago. I'll mourn for the neighbors who lost touch, the children who still struggle to understand what happened, and for the ignorance of Americans who sneer at New Orleans and think it's the sum of the bad people and things here. And then I'll join my friends for a hurricane at Pat O'Brien's and boisterously celebrate the good here.
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