Alligators and other stuff

Just about everyone has probably seen the photo of the huge crocodile that was reportedly eating New Orleans flood victims. It is a hoax of course, although the photo is real, but it was taken in Congo. First of all there are no crocodiles in North America. We have ALLIGATORS in the United States, not crocodiles. They are quite different. HERE is a photo of an actual alligator in someone's swimming pool from the flood. It is a small gator, but a gator just the same. And just as pesky! The photo was in our local paper with the following caption, "A young alligator floats on the water of Warren Pope's pool at his Gentilly home. Monday, October 10, 2005. STAFF PHOTO BY RUSTY COSTANZA".

Now that we've cleared that up, here's an update on what we've been doing for the past couple of days. The kids finished their first week of school. My two oldest kids have settled right back into their routine and seem happy to be back with their friends. My youngest is having some trouble adjusting to post-K life (post Katrina, or post-kindergarten, you pick). She seems to cry easily and is easily frustrated lately, much more than she used to be. I invited a friend of hers over for a few hours on Sunday and that seemed to help.

The paper published the school attendance for the week. My children attend two different schools. One had attendendance down 30% and the other was down 29%. This includes all the new students who just started attending since the storm. Wow. They are already discussing layoffs of some of the teachers in the district, but I think they will wait at least until next semester to see if more students return.

Our roofing company is supposed to start our roof tomorrow, but there is a shortage of roofing material now, and the contractor called me to see if we could substitute a different type. We're going to look at it in the morning to decide if it will work for us. I hope it does, otherwise, we'll be waiting a few more weeks for our roof repair. We don't have the insurance money straightened out yet anyway.

Our dog Oscar had another checkup for his injured eye today. He was full of energy at the vet's office. I guess he's feeling much better. His eye is still making good (but slow) progress. He has to wear the collar for another three weeks and keep getting the eyedrops. His next appointment is on Halloween morning. He's so lucky because he'll be wearing his Halloween costume all month. He gets to be a Direct TV satellite dish. Lucky dog.