I didn't take pictures of the streets we rode up and down in the Lakeview section of New Orleans. Metairie has some messy spots but is back to civilization. Driving down Veterans from Metairie, you cross over the canal into Lakeview and it's a different world. Most houses appear abandoned. The high water marks are almost to the roofs. A pile of debris in front of a house is a good sign that someone has gutted and is reclaiming. Our friends Julie and Aimee's house on Gen. Diaz was gutted and was getting fogged for mold. After that they have to get various inspections for electrical and gas before putting up sheetrock. There is no power in that area. Multiply the long process of gutting, fogging, repairs and inspections times the miles of ruined homes and you get an idea that the rebuilding will take years.
Crack & Sniff is what they call the checking of homes by crews and markings on the houses follow a formula: "the iconic graffiti of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, the ubiquitous orange "X" left by rescue and recovery teams. The symbol records, clockwise from the top, the date searched, the unit searching, the number of bodies found, and the existence of hazards, such as unstable structure, leaking gas, biological toxins, and so on." Sometimes a new code number appears, like one for snakes. Then there's the language of messages scrawled on refrigerators left on the curb for pickup. On the West End Blvd neutral ground, there are mountains of garbage, one for household contents, one for trees and branches, etc.
Crypt Flies or Coffin Flies, as if New Orleans needed a new insect, have appeared.
On the medians everywhere there are flocks of signs swaying with the breeze like flowers that announce something that is now open or where something has relocated to or names of companies that do repair work. But the most amazing signs are the ones that offer $6000 sign-on bonuses for Burger King. The minimum wage there is at least $10, and most businesses have limited hours because they don't have enough workers. There aren't places for the workers to live, and why would you return if you didn't own your house? On the way to Slidell, New Orleans East appears shabby and abandoned. Ginny & John's house in Eden Isles sustained a lot of damage. It was at that point that Melissa and I started to think like renovators. We're used to looking at beat up buildings and seeing what can be done with them. That house is very fixable, but all their furniture and stuff is on a dump somewhere, and there's another hurricane season next year; so they are moving on. At the end of that day, it was good to have dinner and a rack of beer samplers at the Abita Brew Pub with Anita, Malissa, and Connie.

On the lakefront in Mandeville, we saw houses built up on 10 foot brick or metal piers that were just fine. Most other houses were destroyed. Our friends Jinx and Peg's house can be saved but they will lose the bottom floor and a rear addition. If I lived in N.O. and had investment money, I'd buy houses in places like Lakeview at a fraction of their former worth, tear out the bottom floors and replace them with decorative 10 foot piers. The bottom floor would be a place to park your car. That should be the building code. Because the federal government doesn't give a crap about maintaining the levee system and the local governments are paralyzed by petty politics.

Reading the Times-Picayune is like watching change that might happen but probably won't. A bill in the legislature to consolidate all the local levee boards into one regional board failed. They probably can't find a way to escape political fiefdoms and corruption, but they have never had a better stimulus and one can only hope.

A few restaurants are open; Julie and Aimee took us to a place called Dick and Jenny's on Tchoupitoulas Street for an amazingly good meal. We had lunch with Dave and Ana at Mona's on Frenchman Street, and of course there was Zia's in Metairie. We had quick visits with other friends including Barb Johnson, Dawn Wesson, and Ida the Spider. At our family gathering, David made a duck andouille gumbo and grilled oysters (Robert showed me how to scrape them off the shell with your front teeth). At a farmer's market in Mandeville I found a big white and green striped squash called cushaw and Melissa cooked it to childhood mythology specifications.

There was even a musical moment in our trip. On Sunday, we wandered down to the quarter with David, Colleen and Jeanne, and while having beignets and coffee, heard an interesting trio with a cool jazz violin called Mother Tongue. Their usual vocalist is a protege of Bernice Reagan Johnson, but Pops did a good job filling in.