Draped to the Ankles

Erratic

I go through periods where I think I need to post about art if I am to post at all. Then I wind up with an empty blog. But frankly, I haven't seen anything worth blogging in the art world.

Now in the quilt world, that's different. The Post Office has released stamps commemorating the quilts of Gees Bend. I talked about them here. The stamps can be seen here. It almost makes me want to start collecting stamps.

In other news, Brian has been at school for two weeks now, and he is certainly getting the full "high school experience." He encountered the vast bureaucracy of school administration when they switched his schedule on him. He has discovered that not everyone thinks his obnoxious quips are funny and now has a couple of bullies after him. He's already missed a day due to illness and missed handing in homework. He's already doing poorly in a couple of classes because he just isn't trying very hard (I obviously did not make him work hard enough at home. That would change if he quits). And he's met a bunch of girls. You can probably guess which of those is keeping him going back every day.

I caught him reading a book for English class, and at first I was happy. I didn't think they would bother with an actual book. But then I saw the book, "House on Mango Street." Brian's words were, "It's written for first graders!" And indeed, I would never have a 9th grader reading such childish writing. I'm sure that for a 4th grader, it would be fine, but it isn't high school material by any means. So, he's coasting in English. But his science class is hard. His teacher has high expectations, and Brian has been begging me to let him drop it becuase it's "too hard." What he means is, there's a lot of work involved. I encountered this attitude at home, so I know exactly what it is - pure laziness. His father and I both agree that he needs to be challenged by at least one class, and this is it. I looked at the book, and it really is basic stuff. He can handle it if he tries. I just hope he realizes that he actually has to work to get good grades in some of these classes before it's too late.

One other thing. Brian was asked to pick a book to read during "reading time" in English class (I can't imagine they get much read in ten minutes 3 times a week, but there you go.) The book he finally chose (with some prompting from his overly-educated parents): The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Very cool, B-Man!

Spammed

I got seriuosly spammed again, so the comments are closed on the last few entries. If anyone know of a spam blocker for MT blogs that is easy to install, let me know. This is when I really miss the ease of Blogspot.

Blogging Duty

Here's something every blogger should consider doing:

Go sign up to write a tribute for one of the 2966 people who were killed on 9/11. It doesn't have to be someone you know. In fact, most of us never knew the person we will be memorializing. I just think it's a nice way to commemorate 9/11 five years later. Personally, I'm still too shell-shocked to go see the new movie, but I suppose that's a good way to remember the day as well.

Manuel L. Lopez, age 54.
Place killed: World Trade Center. Resident of Jersey City, N.J. (USA).
Manuel L. Lopez will be honored by Alexandra at the blog Out of Lascaux. This was the 1684th blogger to sign up for the 2,996 Tribute project.

I've noticed some people have already put up their tributes, but I think I'll wait until 9/11. It seems more fitting.

Flood 2006: The Ordeal

So, my last assignment has been handed in and I finally have time to tell everyone about the cleverly named "Storm 2006" (at least , that's what kvia is calling it.) Most of you probably know that El Paso is in a desert. It's a high, mountain desert, but we do have a monsoon season most years in July and August. Well, this year has been a bitch.

Thursday, August 1 (my mom's birthday!): when I got up and it had been raining steadily since the evening before. Rain always worries me, because the newer parts of our house were poorly constructed and are not waterproof at all. So instead of turning on the computer, I turned on the weather channel. After checking the garage and back room for water, I sat down for breakfast. I had just finished when I saw the trickle of water coming from the garage into the back room, headed for the back door. Phooey! I've done several things to keep this from happening, and the last had worked up until now. There was just way too much water to keep in check.

So I spent a pleasant hour trying to mop up the water. That was hopeless. I finally just moved everything that could be damaged by water to higher ground, thinking I would just give up. But it started raining even harder, and I found myself trying to push water out the back door. Unfortunately, the yard was flooded too, and it was basically just coming back in.

At one point, I was tossing water out the front door when I noticed a) an unusual river running from both sides of my house down the street in front of us and b) the water roaring through the drainage ditch sounded different. I moved just a few feet from my door and was horrified to see the neighbor's houses just the other side of the drainage ditch engulfed in a torrent of water. It was rushing through the houses on my side of the street, across the street, and crashing into the houses on the other side. I have to say I was terrified. I called my husband, and we agreed I should gather the cat carriers and be ready to bug out. There's nothing like immenent destruction to change your perspective. One minute I was worried sick about the one or two inches of water in my back room and garage, the next I was worried about getting me and my animals to safety.

I calmed down enough to run across the street to where some other neighbors were watching the devastation. My neighbor cheered my up by saying God would destroy the world in fire, not water. I said I would keep that in mind. She also said she had seen this kind of rain before, and wasn't half as scared as I was.

I went back inside to get out of wet clothes and find an umbrella. Umbrella? In El Paso? Who needs it? And who can find it when you do need it? Not me. I finally found a raincoat and floppy hat, grabbed my camera, and headed out.

I only had to walk to the edge of my next door naighbor's property to get as close as I wanted to get. That's when I realized that I and my animals were safe, because the water was pouring down from the mountain, into a brand new Blockbuster Video, down the empty space between that and the houses, and into the houses below. Where we are situated, there are no empty spaces, and no road for the water to rush down from.

So, here are some of the pictures.

This is the view from in front of my next door neighbor's house. It is Fiesta St. looking north.

This is taken from the fence which encloses the drainage ditch. It runs along my next door neighbor's house. On the other side of it are the houses that had the water pouring through them. The building with the blue roof is what is left of the Blockbuster. Brand new building. It had only been open for about 3 months. The water rushing down Thunderbird St. slammed into this new strip mall, undercut the ground beneath it, and cracked the Blockbuster open like an egg. No one was injured (in fact, no one in the whole city was injured!) The manager had already sent everyone home. We were finding DVD's scattered in the street and behind the houses for several days afterwards.

This is the corner of Balboa and Fiesta looking up towards Mesa St, the main drag. At one point, people could not even cross the street for fear of their car being swept away. The guy in orange is one of my neighbors from across the street. He spent a lot of time directing traffic.

This just gives you an idea of why this flood was so bad. We are in the path of water rushing down from this mountain trying to get to the Rio Grand below us. That's my next door neighbor's house to the left of our house.

Another shot of Fiesta St looking north. The red car had floated down from the cross street behind it.

So the rain abated later in the day, and it only took my husband 3 hours to get home (it normally takes about 25 minutes). Our little section of town, just our neighborhood, received 7.75 inches in 24 hours. Our yearly average is only 14. The weather people were telling us it wasn't over, and I just wanted it to stop. Fortunately, we never did get more rain like that. Other parts of town did, and parts of far west, central, and the east side had to be evacuated. However, the most dramatic damage was done to Mr. Salas' house, one door down from mine. And no one in El Paso has flood insurance. Why would we? His house is full of mud and rocks. It looks structurally sound, but it completely unliveable.

This was taken standing in the street in front of his house. The white thing is his refridgerator. It was tossed through the front window by the water. That pink house is another house that was basically destroyed, as well.

This is Mr. Salas' house. Or what's left of it. Doesn't look bad from this shot, but you can't see that his picture window is gone. In the back of the house, you have to stoop under the porch roof just to get inside, the dirt and rocks are that deep in his yard.

This was taken by my son two days later. It's the part of the parking lot where Blockbuster joins the second building in that new shopping area. Notice the sidewalk, and the fact that there is no longer anything beneath it.

This was a power pole that stood behind the Blockbuster.

This is a great shot Brian took of the inside of the Blockbuster. He put the camera against the window. Then he was chased away because they were fencing it off as unsafe.

It took some serious earth movers to clear the street, and several dumptrucks. The street has been officialy closed since then - the barrier is still up in front of the house. And you wouldn't believe the number of tourists! For a few days there was this constant parade of cars and pedestrians coming to see the damage. I sure hope they consider giving Salas some money after parading around what's left of his property. And they pissed me off by parking in front of my garbage cans on collection day. My neighbor and I had to run out there when the truck showed up so we could move them to where he could access them (automated garbage trucks with those big grabbing claws).

Well, I could go one forever about this, but it is over now. It has finally stopped raining and we need to move on. Now I just have to figure out how I am going to pay for replacing the sheet rock in the back room. It has black mold growing about a foot up the walls. Ugh!

Dodging the Bullet

This TV station is only two block from my house, and most of their coverage is within three blocks of the station. More details to come.