asteroid B612

People think I'm exagerrating when I say that New Orleans is basically Third World.

Well, the host on CNN made the comment that what we're seeing there now with all the looting is what one would expect from a developing world country. It's not an exagerration. I was not surprised at all.

The people were not homeless (now they are, as everyone else). They're poor. (Not to condone the looting or anything. I'm just not surprised.)

The poverty in the city is staggering. It upsets me so much that the areas with the worst flooding--the 9th Ward and St Bernard Parish--are some of the poorest. Is this a coincidence? Now they have even less.

Scott has a little information regarding Chris's former place of employment, which is now underwater. here and here, for those of you wondering...

I haven't followed the news so closely since 9/11. I'm looking at all the water in disbelief.

What's been interest is all the blog coverage. I've been reading the following updates:

Irish Trojan. This guy doesn't seem to have a personal connection to NOLA, but is good at gathering news bits.

New Orleans Metroblogging. They have a good post on what flooding in NOLA really looks like. As I said before, flooding is so sporadic, it's hard to know how deep the water is throughout.

Livejournal New Orleans. At this point mostly people asking for info.

nola.com. With the Times-Picayune (local paper) online, their blog NOLA view, and pictures.

WWL (local TV station). They have live streaming on the website (if your internet connection allows), which has been playing a lot of helicopter footage. This has been nice, because locals who actually know the area and can tell you what you're looking at are narrating (as opposed to the quick video clips of generic New Orleans that CNN and the like have been playing). They probably have the most frequently updated blog.

CNN has also sent out a couple of staff bloggers who are reporting from the Gulfport/Biloxi area.

So looks like mainstream media is taking advantage of this whole "blogging thing".

My friend who is a nurse said that they are safe and dry still this morning at Children's Hospital, but they were beginning to fear looters. Hopefully that is under control there. (Where in the world do these guys think they are going to take this stuff?! I'm just appalled.) She said they were predicting about 3 feet of water by this evening. (I'm telling you, New Orleans doesn't flood evenly.)

Oh yea, and we got new Philly-area cell phone numbers...check your email. If you want it, and didn't get it, leave a comment.

The blues song "When the Levee Breaks" keeps playing in my head.

A levee at the lake has been breached. It's right near the home of some of our good friends. They have a two-story place, so I hope at least the second stays dry. They are at one of the hospitals where she is a nurse and were safe when we talked to them last night.

I just feel like crying. I can't believe we just moved away from there!

Looking at all the pictures, though, it is still hard to know how to interpret the flooding. There are parts of the city more prone to flooding than others. Of course, they'll show the worst flooded parts on the news. So let's say the whole city floods, one part could have 18 feet of water, and it's very reasonable for another to only have 8. Where we used to live never flooded. During tropical storms somebody on the news would be standing thigh-deep in water, while we barely had any sidewalk puddles.

With a levee breaking, though, the flooding has got to be incredible. Water pouring in to flood the bowl of a city.

(our cell phone numbers seem to be working again.)

Ellis had his two month check up today. (Okay, so maybe it was more like almost 11 weeks checkup, but who's counting?) He's my big boy weighing in at 11lbs, 11oz, 23 inches. I don't what percentile that is, but it seems to be fairly average, which is pretty good for somebody who was born four weeks early. He got two shots. I hate it when he gets shots, but he was very brave. It's really nice, because we can walk over to the pediatrician's office. She has an office in her home, which is just a couple of blocks away.

Ellis is getting really fun and interactive. He smiles at us and stares into our faces, cooing and gurgling. He lights up when he sees his toys and laughs at them. Sometimes we put them in the line of flail, so maybe soon he'll get some degree of hand-eye coordination. In the past couple of days, he's taken to finding his thumb--it's this process of sucking on his fist, circling around the fingers until finally he lands on his thumb, which he seems to find the most calming thing to suck on. I'm enjoying the fact that he's learning how to settle himself. It's so fun to watch him grow!

I'm making little movies of him on our digital camera, and pasting them together in iMovie. Problem is that I can't seem to get them into an mpeg file...only avi, which they're recorded in, or quicktime's mov. Any ideas? I've got to get the movie over onto Chris's computer with the dvd burner. Hmmm. Yea, they're not the best quality movies in the world, but they're decent, and we'd like to preserve them somehow.

I never thought a hurricane would ever actually hit New Orleans. They always warned us about possible dangers, etc, etc. Everyone knows the story: New Orleans is a bowl between the lake and the river. A hurricane would just fill up the bowl. Yikes! I didn't think it would happen!

For updates visit nola.com. Levees are already being breached. Reports say that the levee is breached in the 9th Ward....where Chris's former students are from. We weren't worried about our friends, knowing that they had all evacuated. Chris was most worried about his former students. The 9th Ward is where the worst New Orleans poverty and many projects are. Many people couldn't leave. So we're hoping that they got to safety.

And...uh...our cell phones don't work, because we still have New Orleans numbers.

Sure am glad I don't live in New Orleans anymore! This is storm worth evacuating for!! (unlike some others) I know our friends there have left.

Now that our stuff is here from New Orleans, we're unpacking a few choice boxes. The rest are finding hibernation in the garage. Of the things we need books figure prominently. We have our shelves set up. Our desks set up. And Chris has been unloading a few of the book boxes, ones that we may need for our respective jobs as high school English teacher and at home dissertator. And, even more excitingly, Ellis's burgeoning library.

I'm reminded in the part of Howard's End where Helen and Margaret find that Mrs. Avery has unpacked their books. They fit so well at Howard's End as if beckoning the sisters to their rightful place. The books needed the women.

It's nice to see my old friends. I think I feel a little less aimless. I need tomes to hold my feet down.

I really appreciate all the encouraging comments from folks.

I realized that as I writing last night that perhaps my attitude seemed a bit cavalier. I don't really know. I did want to say that I truly am feeling pretty calm about everything. Believe me, I'm not one to deny myself tears, but I really am doing fine. A little apprehensive about how to proceed and all we'll need to do, sorting through it all, but overall fine.

I think it's partly a combination of the Lord's giving me calm and the fact that really when I look at him, I don't see him not hearing yet (except for the fact that he doesn't startle), so perhaps it hasn't really hit me. (I do feel a little sad that he probably won't be able to enjoy music like I do.) Maybe I'm in denial. Maybe I keep hoping that as he gets bigger and grows and further develops that his hearing will resolve itself. I don't know. I just keep thinking about the Dubles and how they lost their little boy, and I have a strong, healthy boy. So there's a lot to be thankful for.

There is also a sense in which I don't really know what to mourn over yet, because there is just not a lot defined with regards to the nature of his hearing loss and how much hearing assistance (whether in the form of hearing aids or even a cochlear implant) will be able to help him. Maybe with assistance he can have a normal hearing life. There are just still so many unknowns.

Today we had the next test for Ellis's hearing. The tests before were just hearing screens to determine on a black and white level whether or not he has hearing loss. On the test today they hooked up electrodes to his head and inserted these things in his ear that they played different frequencies on. They were testing his brainwaves for response. The doctor played through a range of frequencies to see how Ellis would respond at each pitch. For instance, he may respond to higher pitches but not lower ones. Well, Ellis didn't respond to any of them.

At Ellis's age, a complete no-response still doesn't tell them a whole lot, but it probably rules out the slight-hearing-impaired category. As he grows older and they repeat tests and see how he develops behaviorly to sound, they'll get a better understanding on the extent of his hearing loss. In the meantime, there is an extensive early intervention program in our school system that we can take advantage of even now as the seeds for his communication skills are being planted.

There are two basic types of hearing loss: conductive, which has to do with outer and middle ear and could be due to something as simple as fluid in the ear, and sensorineural, which is hearing loss caused by damage to the sensory cells and/or nerve fibers of the inner ear. It appears that Ellis most likely has the latter.

We're still really calm about it all. We'll do everything we can for him to help him with this particular challenge, of course, but this is not a tragedy. What would be a tragedy is if Ellis did not turn to Christ. We pray that God will bring His little child to Himself, using any unique challenges He's given him for his sanctification. And in that respect, Ellis is in no more need of prayer than any other covenant child.

We would appreciate prayers as we get to know what we can do for him so that we can help him the very best we can. I will say that the thing that overwhelms me the most is the possibility that we might have to learn sign language. That always has been a really intimidating language to me. I mean it's not like it has Latin roots or anything.

Since coming here to Philly, we've reconnected with old friends and made new friends pretty quickly. In fact, one could even say that we have *shock* a social life! There are several people at our church that are around our age/station in life--some couples, some singles, some babies. We're all roughly the same education, the same interests, the same experiences. The majority are on an academic schedule, whether grad students or teachers. A whole group of people like us!! In the past few weeks, we've hung out, watched movies, eaten dinner, renovated a new home with various people. It's so fun. We've never had this before!! Ellis usually just hangs out with us. Everybody wants to hold the baby anyway. Sunday night, though, I left him for the first real time (other than a quick run to the gas station) with Grammy. It was only a couple of hours. This could be really nice.

Last week we did go to Lancaster for a couple of days. My family was actually gone on vacation.
We enjoyed staying in their empty house, turning it into a mini-vacation. Our primary reason for going down was to visit my friend Erica from LSU whose mother lives in Lancaster, too, incidently. We had a great time, talking about school, life, etc. Even though I was glad to be done with coursework, I do feel wistful about not starting classes with everyone else this week. Cool thing: Erica's mom gave us a canoe! Can't wait to try it out!

Last week our stuff arrived from New Orleans. Yep, we're really moved.