Down in N'Orleans

My daughter has been living and teaching in New Orleans for two years. Now she has her own little shotgun apartment, three rooms in a long rectangle, high ceilings, big windows, on the bayou. She has a fenced in backyard with a banana tree but there have been adjustments for someone who grew up in a town of 1000 in rural Maine.

One morning she came out to her car at 615 AM. One of the tires had been taken off and was stuck under her car. She couldn't figure out who would think that was a funny joke. She later found out the tire under the car was not hers, they were using it to prop the car up while they stole the tires. The police told her they are stealing the tires off Hondas all over the city. They must have been spooked and left before they finished. She is going to get theft proof locking lug nuts.

She called me in a tizzy one night saying "I can't believe this." After school she had gone to a pilates class. While she was there a huge downpour dumped heavy rain on the city. The rain had stopped by the time she drove home but when she got to her street, it was flooded, water was halfway up the doors of the cars parked there. She left her car on high ground and was pondering whether she should wade through the water when her neighbor came by in a kayak and rowed her to her apartment. I asked if her apartment was flooded. She said, no, because it is up on stilts. She never thought to ask why it was on stilts when she rented it this past summer. Now she knows. The water came down in a few hours. The pumps in the central city had failed.

She really likes living in New Orleans and finds the cost of living very reasonable there except for car insurance.

AN AIRPLANE TALE

My son was commuting back to Boston from his current job assignment in Indiana. His 6 pm flight had been cancelled. No problem, he called the Gold customer service number on his way to the airport and they scheduled him on a 6:05 flight. He boarded and, as is his habit, fell asleep through take off. He awoke a few minutes later and immediately felt uneasy without knowing why. Something felt different. A couple minutes later the pilot announced that the plane's instruments were not working and that they would turn around and return to the airport. No one paniced but the atmosphere was tense as he flew at a very low altitude and landed safely back in Indianapolis. They determined that the instruments could not be fixed immediately and passengers had to disembark. My son had called his Gold number before leaving the plane and headed straight for his new connection. This plane boarded and was in the runway queue ready to take off. There was one plane ahead of them when without warning the steering failed. A truck slowly towed the plane back to the gate. This time my son called customer service and asked to be scheduled on the first plane in the morning. When you take sixteen plus flights per month, stuff happens.