We Got TV and Water

We got tv!! Now I won't have to drive to Tennessee to watch the season premier of Desperate Housewives in two weeks. (Sorry Sis, but I won't be there to watch it with you.) Our paper this morning said that so far 10-20% of the area has cable restored right now, so apparently we are in that lucky percentage. Our internet is not working quite right though, but it's better than nothing.

Our local tv news is rather interesting. It looks like a primitive 1960's news set. Since they are obviously unable to broadcast from their regular set in New Orleans and are using a remote location, they don't have their fancy news desk, studio set, or teleprompts. Instead, they are having to "rough it" with a regular desk and hard copy sheets of paper. Behind them is a big tv screen with the station's logo, white walls and only one camera to shoot it all. I gotta hand it to them though, they are there and they are getting the news out. The show must go on.

We got water! Someone spraypainted our "boil water" sign at our neighborhood entrance to say, "water ok", so I called the parish to verify this, and our water is ok as of yesterday. There are still several neighborhoods in Slidell that are not ok, so if you are looking for information on this, the number for the St. Tammany Parish Dept of Environmental Services is 898-2535.

We also got comics! We have been getting a small version of the local paper for the past few days - about 6-8 pages total. Today it is much bigger and it had comics in it! Woohoo! The return of the funny papers! I also especially enjoyed Chris Rose's column in the paper this morning, especially where he wrote, "By reporting this scene, I have become the media covering the media covering the media." He is one of my favorite local columnists. I recognized him from his photo and said hello to him once at a Mardi Gras parade last year.

The paper also had news about the schools in Slidell. Two of them will not be reopened by the Oct. 3 start date goal, and four others are going to be cutting it close to meet the deadline. One of those schools is where my youngest daughter attends 1st grade . If it's not able to open in time, she will be attending the school next door. Hubby is going over there this afternoon to see if they need volunteers to help get it ready. The best thing about her school is the amount of parental involvment it encourages. Parents are involved in everything. It's a wonderful school.

We haven't had any more mail delivered since that first batch of two-week-old mail a couple of days ago. That mail was probably already at our post office before the storm. So we're not sure if new mail is able to get through yet or if it's being held up somewhere. Normally it goes through the New Orleans distribution center. Hmmm.

I spent 45 minutes standing in line at the checkout at Walmart yesterday. I have never spent that long in line at Walmart, even during the holiday shopping season. I read two magazines from cover to cover and then had to take a formerly frozen item back to the shelf to replace it with one that was still cold, and it still wasn't my turn yet. For the most part, people in general are pretty patient with everything, although one guy in his car got mad at me in the parking lot when I was trying to avoid a big pile of metal debris in the road as I left the store. I guess the return of tempers flaring is another sign that things are returning to normal. :-)