#25 My Last Day

Today was my last day. A day of paperwork and a lot of running around. I had to turn in my phone, but that would be the last thing to do, In the meantime, I would redirect the checkout of my ARC computer so that Boss could continue to use it, and proceed with a lot of other checkouts. I finished the report off, made copies and handed it in. At lunch, I went to the mall, bought cds and sleeves, then returned. In between checking out of departments and finishing my final paperwork, I somehow managed to burn cd copies of all of the pictures that I had taken while I was in Louisiana. One for each person in the department, along with a sheet of paper containing everyone's name address phone # and birthday.

"Tandeleo" asked if I was on speed or something. Coming from the original wild woman, I had to laugh. One by one, I said goodbye to everyone. Went back to CLS and said my goodbyes there, avoiding the bad cookies who even under threat, wouldn't touch me with someone else's ten foot pole. In between I finished more paperwork.

I believe I have stated it before, but the ARC fells entire forests to fulfill its paperwork requirements. It is one of the most archaic processes that I have ever gone through, but then I am both self employed and the boss. I have never been subjected to arcane processes and rituals in my real life. Of course I thought of twenty different ways to streamline this silly inefficient process and fifty different ways that the Red Cross would try to thwart me or anyone else who tried to change their dumb-ass process so that it was logical, or at least up to date. Thinking about it made me laugh and it pissed me off.

After, lunch. Which once again was made from a selection of cheetos, fig newtons and other donated trash food ever available in the canteen. We had one variety of fruit per day, so I pretty much lived on that before dinner as I didn't take lunch breaks except once when I went to a local restaurant called "Betty's Sweet Potato". The usual fruit provided by the ARC canteen was apples. One time, eating all of those apples made me think of Eve. Then it made me think of snakes....lol...then I started to think that maybe I was working for some of them.

Once the canteen tried to pass off that crappy canned water on the volunteers. What a laugh. the whole vat of those nasty white Anhauser Busch cans just sat there floating in the ice all day. Unsuspecting newbies would grab one, open it and take a swig. The resulting grimacing and spitting were hilarious. Into the trash the full cans went. We could have at least used that water to wash something, and I guess while we were at it, we should have recycled the cans....sigh.

Speaking of "what were they thinking", I finally got around to the mental health part of my check out. I waited with others outside of the cubicles where the mental health workers were giving their e-valls,(evaluations). FInally my name was called. I turned and was greeted by a truly strange and singular person. My....uh.... "mental health evaluator". Stunned though I was, she did manage to lead me into one of the sealed off cubicles that were reserved for the purpose of questioning the departing volunteers. I do not for the life of me remember the actual name of the "mental health professional" that checked me out that day. She and her appearance wiped the possibility of any other memory clean out of my head.

I will call her "Rhonda", just for clarity's sake. "Rhonda at 5'4" was average. The mousey brown hair which she wore with a headband to tuck it back was average too, except that it was dirty. The hair that is. Oh..the headband too. Her smock was dirty, as was her dress, except that it wasn't really a dress, it was a slip. Not a slip-dress, a slip. A dirty somewhat transparent slip. It was purple. Over that, "Rhonda" wore her red cross smock. That was really dirty. She sported torn stockings and with those wore ruby slippers. Yeah, you read that right. ruby slippers. The kind with the cheap glue-on spangles, only the shoes had seen better days and the spangles were falling off in several places.

"Rhonda" wore glasses. The cat-eye kind from the fifties. As if that picture was not enough, tucked into the pocket of her dirty ARC smock was a small stuffed tiger. The tiger had an official ARC badge with an official ARC number, and an official ARC photo on it...... of the tiger. "Rhonda asked me if I would like a hug? I declined. She then took the tiger out of her pocket pushed it towards me and asked if I would like to give the tiger a hug. I wondered if this was a test?

Ok, we had now established that the ARC "mental health professional" was officially or otherwise insane. What to do? Who was evaluating whom? You think I am kidding, but put yourself in my place. This fruit loop wanted me to hug her stuffed toy tiger that she had given a name and procured an official ARC ID badge for. If I didn't hug the tiger was I going to be evaluated as mentally deficient? If I did hug the tiger was I going to be evaluated as mentally deficient? We had already established that at least in some circles, working for the Red Cross might have established me as mentally deficient, but did I really want to confirm that?

In the end I did not hug the tiger, but I did think about it. Rhonda continued her evaluation, leaning towards me like Michelle Pfeiffer (yeah yeah...so you know how to spell it...who cares?), in that horror movie with Harrison Ford, intoning in a very low voice, asking if I had, " been disssturbed by anyyything I had sssseeeeen?" Well.....there was her, and Slidell, and the thunderingly inefficient and abusive way that the ARC was being run, but then I couldn't exactly say that now could I? I hesitated, but replied, "not really". She pressed, hissingly, "but ssssurely, there were ssssome thingsss that upssset yoooou?" Again, she was upsetting me now, but I sucked it up and again replied, "no, nothing that I can think of".

She leaned back suddenly, cocking her head like a dog. Tucking in her chin and raising her eyebrows she then asked, " and why do you think that isssss?" Turning her head even more sideways and cocking it to the other side as she ended the sentence. Think the nurse in "Young Frankenstein". What went through my head was, Wellllll...the system and resulting situation that the government and the ARC has created for volunteers and evacuees was blatently out of control, and had passed dangerous, about a month ago, but that somehow this fiasco was all being treated as: 1. normal, 2. par for the course, or 3.Huh? Is something wrong? Looks ok to me........ So where do I start? Or do I start? I will start, but not with her. I tell her that my nonplus is probably because I live in Los Angeles. Interestingly, that seemed to explain it to her.

Somehow I made it through what was surely the stupidest interview done by the looniest toon I have encountered in recent memory. As I left, she looked at me, smiled and said,"here, let Sam,(or whatever she called the damn thing), hug you. She then proceeded to assault me with her tagged stuffed tiger. I assume she put every volunteer mustering out through the same ordeal. Where the hell do the ARC find these people??? Did anyone finally turn on her and shove the damn Tiger head first into the trash? Or elsewhere? Was she ever caught and returned to the ward that she had apparently escaped from? I will never know.

Finally went over to transfer my phone, and saw boxes of discarded phones. Not just one or two, but close to 100 or so. These were phones that were going to be thrown out as they were useless. Some were broken, but most had answering messages that had their official codes changed by the user against policy, which rendered them useless to some extent to the next volunteer as with an unknown code, messages on those phones could not be retrieved. You would have thought that after all of those weeks of dummies changing the codes, some other dummy would have figured out to check the dang code on each phone before the last user disappeared. You would have thought.

Other than that, I was ordered to go to an ATM to take out $150 to pay for all of the extras that I was forced to purchase for my volunteer time. We were told to bring the most unbelievably stupid things, most of which I never used. Hey...they were stupid. Like high rubber boots when it hadn't been wet or even rained for weeks. Paper, office supplies and pens. Baton Rouge had enough office supplies to open its own Office Depot for crying out loud. Many of the stupid required purchases just sat in my suitcase for the duration, taking up space and weight. One chapter actually had their volunteers lug gallons of water with them. Other chapters had equally moronic requirements. There was no organization, continuity or consistency. Heck, there was no accurate information on the situation in Louisiana for that matter. It was an Emperor has new clothes situation through and through.

Although I believe my chapter and others did their best with the pointless directions they were given by the National office, at no time during my deployment was I even near anything larger than my own suitcase that needed lifting. The initial requirement at my chapter was that I had to be able to repeatedly lift 50 to 100 pounds,remember? Where did these guys get their information from? What a waste of everyone's time, what a waste of donated money. If it wasn't such a tragedy all around, you would have laughed out loud at the sheer foolishness.


Speaking of money, I had loads left on my ARC issued credit card when I went to check out. I had paid for many of my meals myself as a further contribution. The volunteers at the checkout desk were surprised, especially because of the number of days that I had been there. I wondered if somehow the Rockefellers had volunteered for the ARC, and were somewhere running up their ARC cards eating quail on toast points at the RC's expense or something. Perhaps some did, but I did not have that many expenses. I turned in my card there as the financial volunteer requested. He did give me some cash to get home from the airport with and catch a cab, so that was a nice touch.

So that was it, I was out! Not so fast....Before the day was over, Big Daddy would wring out of me every drop of volunteerism, do-gooding, fixingit, filling in, writing and organizing that he could possibly stuff in or drag out during my sorry self in my remaining hours. He even got Boss in on the act. There was still loads of work to do. They were going to miss me. Hell, I was going to miss them.

Apparently, the joint was breaking up. Some were staying in Baton Rouge, another contingent was being sent to New Orleans. There were different official disaster #'s to learn and official papers to go through. The ARC hadn't screwed up Baton Rouge nearly enough, they were now on to screw up New Orleans. I was asked if I would like to stay on and head a department in New Orleans. I actually would have if I had the time, but I had a home and a child to go back to, companies of my own to run and things of my own to fix. Maybe later.

Daddy and Boss had written my evaluation. They had recommended me for a management position. They had written glowingly of me, singing my praises in writing. It must have been the stress of the situation...lol. I in turn, told only the truth and said what great guys they were to work with. Silly Geese.

We ended the day with Daddy, Boss and I decided to go to dinner one last time. I don't remember everything, but I think that "Jaqui" may have tagged along. I do remember that it took forever to get to the place, and the dinner was in a nice restaurant. We ordered steak and such and each had one glass of wine to toast with. Which we paid for ourselves of course, as the ARC rightfully so, does not pay for alcohol, drugs or firearms. Probably for the best. We all hugged good night.

The restaurant had been at the end of the Baton Rouge earth, so it took me a good long while to get back to my shelter. As I entered, it was quiet. "Bob" had transferred so no snoring, and besides, there was almost no one left. I stayed up a while writing, and went to sleep after the alien barreled through the pipes one last time.I would leave tomorrow.

#24 Slidell...Part II

Today we all drive back to Slidell to do the walk through inspection. SInce I have been there, I go with "Mo".We take along "Anna", my only good recruit. Boss goes with cleaning boy and the environmental b-word. Driving down, we talk and talk and talk. We hear everyones past and present. We are girls yakking. We get there in no time flat. Same turn off, same houses with blue tarps,but this time we know where we are going, and there is no invented emergency.

We drive up and are greeted by the now familiar staff. There is still no water. Boss, the Boy and the b-word all go on an official tour of the joint with the staff Brass. "Mo", "Anna" and I peel off on our own, snapping pictures, smiling and talking under our breath. It is worse than we thought. Nothing in this shelter is regulation. Nothing about this shelter is safe. The food is all placed directly on the floor in the middle of the sleeping area. which is the only area. The cots abut the open food containers which are placed around randomly.

Most containers are open. Perishables, diapers, canned goods, paper goods, fruit, are all stacked on top of each other open and closed, with no regard to inventory or contamination possibilities. The cots are placed within inches of each other and inches of the food. We interview the volunteers and are told that the clients have been eating on their cots until today. They have to eat on their cots as there are no chairs or tables for them. There is also no refrigeration outside of one Coca Cola point of sale cooler that has no temperature gauge and that we can tell without one is way too warm to prevent bacteria from forming.

Leading this charge is "Anna", who back home is the manager of a popular restaurant. She is horrified at the conditions. "Anna" tells us that if any of these violations had happened at her restaurant, someone would have been arrested. This was just the tip of the iceberg. We realize that there are lots of elderly and diabetics at this shelter and the staff tells us that they have nothing for them to eat other than crackers. Crackers.... Many of these folks are on oxygen and bed ridden. I know we are all doing the best we can, but ai yi yi!

Someone else approaches us and tells us that the shelter Nurse wishes to speak to us privately. Nurse Nancy tells us that the incidents of illness are rising rapidly, that the bio hazards are stored right behind the only freezer in the shelter, and the meds in the fridge are surrounded by food and water. All violations. She also tells us that because of the storage problems, the clients have been helping themselves to food at night causing even more contamination and escalating the cases of diarreah that was increasing daily. Compounding that is the lack of water and facilities that threaten to possibly go on for days.

Through all of this, I am snapping pictures and the girls are taking copious notes. We get going finally, after I explained to Boss and the others the importance of Vienna Sausages being ordered for this shelter post haste. I took a lot of ribbing for it, but that is what was important to these clients, so nurtz to the nay sayers. Boss finally got that I was dead serious and promised to hand deliver that weenie greenie, (invoice), himself when we got back.

Before we drove back, the three of us decided to tour the area. "Mo" had been here before, so she pointed the car at the worst of it. Yesterday was a cake walk compared to this. More and more houses, more and more destroyed. Empty lots with just boards sticking up from the ground where houses used to be. Across the street fields and fields of what looked like large toothpicks and what used to be bits and pieces of homes. Every square inch was covered with the woody sticks. In one case we saw the front of a beautiful house near the water with a lovely palm tree still standing untouched, only to realize as we passed that only the front half of the house was intact. The entire back section was sheared off. Like when a kid takes a swipe of icing from a cake with his finger.

The girls and I continued into the woods.We saw that every building was collapsed, flattened or destroyed. In some places only the roof remained of what looked like a house of cards when it collapses. At other houses, thirty foot trees had been uprooted and lay on the roofs, or what was left of them. The trees and houses looked like battered old toys that kids had finished playing with and forgot to put away. It took our breath away. Deciding to drive farther in, we pass something that looks like piles of kindling. It was a house. The only thing left standing to let us know that, is a bright blue curved slide. One that used to be on the edge of a swimming pool. The house is gone, the pool is unvisible. Filled and covered with pick-up-stix. Just the blue pool slide remaining. It was weird.

Because we are near the water, boats are everywhere. Everywhere but in the water that is. Unless of course they are underwater, but then all we see is an occasional mast sticking up a foot or two to let us know what's down there. We see boats on the grass, in the trees, in houses, on houses. We see boats upside down, ripped in half. We see one boat way off in the trees, nose pointing straight down trapped in branches twenty feet up. That boat was at least fifteen feet long. We see boats on cars, cars on boats, boats on boats. The remains of a former seagoing people are everywhere. As we pass one woody area, we see trees festooned with crab pot and their red floats. It looks like a forest full of funky christmas trees decorated for the holidays. It makes us crack up. It almost makes us cry.

A we approach a large hangar-like building, on one side is a jeep upright but ripped apart, its tires shredded. We see that the corrugated sides of this building have been peeled back like a sardine can. Everything in it and around this building is decimated. Where one side has ripped off we can see eight perfect, retro, red cushioned bar stools......still bolted to the floor, standing neatly in a row in the middle of the carnage. Nearby is a Coke machine tossed like a dog toy. It must have been a restaurant or a bar. The image is stunning. We take pictures and press further on.

Turning into a road by the sea, is a long grey line of brush smoldering along the length of the road. It gives off a ghostly smoke floating ahead of us. The telephone poles all tilting precariously towards the road at an almost toppling angle. This reminds us of all of the pictures we have seen in magazines and in the movies of WWII. The clasic burning aftermath of war. What used to be houses are only empty concrete pads where houses used to stand. There is no kindling, there is no debris here. Just what could cling to the earth in the eye of the apocalypse. It is as though the earth has been scrubbed clean of human imprint. Hurricane whipped and scoured. One house alone, heavily damaged stands among tens of the missing. It is raised, still on its pilings, painted pepto bismol pink. We wonder why it survived when there is virtually nothing that remains of any other house for at least a mile?

Up the way, we see a big rig. It is torn in half. The cab is upside down on one side of the road. The battered thrty foot trailer is wrenched and twisted, lying across the street some three hundred feet away, inside of where another house used to be. Small trees somehow remain. That is amazing. Some of the trees have some sheets of clunky black stuff wrapped around them. We realize that it is layers of asphalt that have peeled off of the road like so much scotch tape, flown away and curling around anything left standing. Other layers of what used to be the road have been lifted and carried, laid in sections like so many mixed puzzle pieces on what used to be lawns.

There was little of what used to be road left. The wind had somehow torn it out and taken it somewhere else. We decided to stop. The girlz slowly opened the doors of the car, and one by one we unfolded ourselves to stand and look. We had become somewhat numbed to the destruction and total devastation in the past weeks, but this landscape truly looked as if bombs had been dropped and detonated, again and again. There are no words to express our hearts twisting as we looked at this mess. It takes a second, but we realize that here on this little road to what is now nowhere, there seems to be a cloak of complete and total silence surrrounding and muffling us and everything around us. There is an undescribable closeness to the air. We remark on it. The auditory sense is as if we were in some way miles underground, buffered by the earth and yet still somehow in the sun. There was not a sound to be heard. Nothing. No winds, no rustling of leaves. Our words once spoken somehow hung dead in the air and then clattered around us. It was as though the world had ended, and only we three had been left as witnesess.

When the shock wore off, we walked forward a bit, and noticed the strangest thing. Butterflies. Butterflies were everywhere. Flying, landing, opening and closing. They floated all around us. It was though every coccoon on earth had been dropped in Slidell Louisiana, and opened all at once. When the surprise of the butterflies began to subside, we noticed that there were actully a few small birds flying around among the insects, zipping about like so many little arrows. Although their sharp little songs were barely cutting through the dead air. It was a hopeful sign.

In thinking later about the loss that the people of Louisiana experienced and are still experiencing , one of the single strongest images that I will carry forever with me, was that barren landscape, the quiet, the butterflies, and the bird song.

"Anna", "Mo" and I got back into the car and made it back to the highway. On the way back, we saw a hand letterd sign posted to a tree on a lot where there used to be a home. It said" take a Break", "We will return","Not for sale". These people are a tough breed.

We stopped in a small town on the way at a sandwich shack that posted a sign reading" Shrimp lover parking only. All others will be shelled". We each ordered shrimp po boys. We didn't talk about what we'd seen. For the rest of the return trip. Instead, with me on the laptop, the three of us collaborating wrote up our entire report and the recommendation that this Slidell shelter be closed. By the time we got back to headquarters, the pictures had been uploaded and attached. All that remained was for us to print it out and sign it. That took about ten minutes.

After work we were whacked. I was grabbed by a bunch of people from the department, and went to dinner at some cheesy chain crab shack. We made jokes,insulted each other and decompressed. I didn't talk about the day, but it was on my mind. It still is. I was sorry that I hadn't thought to take a picture of the butterflies. I was sorry that it all happened in the first place. What was next?

#23 Slidell Part I

Oh I am tired!!! What the hell!!??? Wasn't this supposed to be easy!!??? Oh yeah....no...it specifically was not supposed to be easy. I forgot. Sorry about that. Get into work and start in on the paperwork lots of paperwork. Someone has thrown us a barbeque outside, I of course miss the Que, and end up with the dregs of chicken bits. So what else is new?

Suddenly there is an emergency. So what else is new again? Everything around this place is an emergency, unless it is a real emergency. A real emergency seems to be a signal to the paid staff and long timers to go to lunch, or get their nails done, or just go out and invent something else, that isn't actually an emergency. This was again, not a real emergency. Well not exactly.

Apparently, CBS News was planning to shoot a segment in the heavily damaged town of Slidell at one of our shelters. Unfortunately, that shelter didn't have enough blankets for the clients who were already sleeping on miserable cots in crowded stupid conditions. Bad press = emergency. Hmmmm.....not having enough blankets for the clients is an emergency, but not because CBS News is going down there to shoot a segment. Not having enough blankets for the clients is an emergency because the clients are cold without blankets.

This may be a warm state, but in these cavernous concrete bunkers that we have turned into shelters, it is as cold as a witch's nursing part when the air conditioning is on.....and it has to be on. It is beyond uncomfortable not to have a blanket to sleep under in those conditions, but this was an ACR emergency because the ARC would look bad to America when devastated evacuees living in shelters being filmed for CBS News didn't look perky and happy because they were cold....because they didn't have enough blankets, that the ARC hadn't supplied them with to begin with. Get it? Sigh.....One wonders how long these clients went without blankets before CBS decided to take a look. Interesting definition and timing of an emergency.

...And while I am ranting, why the hell isn't the Federal Government supplying the dang blankets and shelters and help in the first place??? The Red Cross is supposed to be a stop-gap aid, not completely take the place of our totally useless government in an emergency. That was never a part of the ARC job description! The Feds don't show up to save the locals from the storm, then they pointed the finger at anyone or thing in sight other than themselves as the culprit. To add insult to injury, these jokes for human beings continue to check out the pigeons flying by and twiddle their thumbs while people are still lost, homeless, peniless, injured, destroyed and without blankets!!!............................................... End of lecture # 361.

Anyway, this BS all came from the top brass on down to we the underlings. "Banana Man", who I have previously refered to as, "The Old Man", I have since decided deserves no respect or distinction, this rude, pitiless, mis-begotten "top rat" of the whole Baton Rouge mess apparently ordered this mission his own self. From what I have seen, its about the only thing he has done since I have been here. He is a useless arrogant appendage that should have been amputated eons ago. What is the ARC thinking??? Apparently the Hornet thought it was a good idea too. Now what is she thinking? Even after everything between us, I truly thought better of her.

In any case, I was suddenly assigned to roar down to Slidell, beat CBS, and make it look like: Hey.....? Blankets???? Why of course we have blankets! That would be bordering on criminal not to supply our freezing clients with blankets! My new job: Liar to the stars...I mean the press....I mean America. I am not amused. I am told I will be the hero shoudl I beat the media there. I think my cape should be tucked between my legs if this is what constitutes heroism.

So ok, blankets. Where the heck am I gonna get blankets? Aha! The famed River Walk shelter is shutting down. I will go nab blankets at River Walk. Plan is in place. I have the keys to Moosie, and am ready to roll. Thing is, I can't go alone. I am fine going alone. I want to go alone. Boss thinks that I am safer alone than having to babysit any of our staff who would go with me. However "rules" dictate that female staff don't go alone to dangerous areas. Since the hurricane, Slidell is considered a dangerous area. For some time, female staff were not allowed at all in some areas of the state due to the dangers. Just male volunteers accompanied by the Army. It was that bad. Slidell has been devestated. Flattened. It ain't good. I ain't going alone. Besides which, Big Daddy has forbidden it.

About an hour ago, some guy named "Bobby" from California came around looking to transfer to our department. Said he would do anything. This might be that. My alternative is "Jaqui" She that might be a he. the "Jaqster" is oh so eager to go with me. Although, truly she is not that bad in short spurts, I think that this particular trip might be two hours of torture by "Jaqui", so I go looking for "Bobby". "Bobby" is a Mexican guy from my neck of the woods. Thank god....someone I might be able to relate to. In fact, our department is populated by several sunny Californians, so "Bobby" might fit right in. Mid sized and squat, "Bobby" looks like one of those Toltec gods off of an urn. I know nothing about him at all other than that. It seems like a great idea. Its interesting that in this situation, we are al reverting to the fifties descriptively. I am the Jew, "Bobby" is the Mexican guy, then there is the Puerto Rican Woman and the Italian. It goes on and on....Sigh......

We tell "Jaq" that she ain't along for the ride, and I go fetch "Bobby". Yeah man, he is so up for it, so off we go. He drives, I navigate. We get to the River Walk in no time flat, and go tearing into the loading bay. Meeting us there is "Georgette". Remember her from Shreveport? The other troublemaker? Well "Georgette" has been the logistics coordinator for the River Walk since we snagged her from Shreveport/hell.

Anyhoo, There she is with a bunch o' blankets. In we stuff 'em, along with toys, sheets towels. Anything at all that we can grab to take with us, figuring that if the Slidell shelter hasn't been given something as basic as blankets, then god only knows what else they are doing without. I am hoping/assuming that some boss "greenied "/invoiced at least some of this stuff prior to our arrival. We know for certain that the blankets were. Everyone on the dock at River Walk is there to help. Bosses think they are rescuing the ARC from CBS News. All of the volunteers involved figure we are rescuing Slidell clients from the ARC.

Loaded up, and off we go. Volunteers are good people. They come from all over the globe. They want to help because today's victims of disaster may be any one of us in some future crisis. They work overtime, past time, with little time to themselves, few breaks under gruelling pressure cooker conditions. Its amazing that most of them are still standing. Sure there are a few bad apples, but they are the exception, not the norm. Other volunteers root them out and turn them in if they can. God help you if you are screwing over some client. the volunteers will tear you limb from limb. Oh....I am not talking about staff by the way. Volunteers and clients are the enemy to many of the staff and long term volunteers. Those without lives or other existence. Excepting my department of course. They are all great and good....lol.

So into the woods. Driving along, we figure out somehow to get where we are going. On the way I hear the life of "Bobby" it is long and colorful. It has involved the law, and not in a good way. ARC not doing its job screening again. FOr that matter, I don't think that the ARC has done any screening....at least they didn't screen me or anyone I had met. Good thing in this case as "Bobby" is a good guy and a hard worker. Our first clue at to what has gone on in the storm is as we are approaching Slidell. We see that the trees in on either side of the road are snapped off at about the level of a two story house. All of them. It is weird. Then we see the billboards ripped up from the ground and crumpled like so many wads of discarded paper.This was looking eerie. We had no idea.

Coming up along "Bobby's" left was a pile. well not exactly a "pile",because a pile would be a mound of stuff in one lump. this was an endless smoldering mountain of wood, debris and the bits and pieces of peoples' lives. It was about three stories high, and went on in a flowing dune for a mile or more. It scared us. We couldn't pry our eyes from it. It was also confusing, because we had never seen anything like it. What did it mean? Was this trash? Clean up? We weren't really sure what the hell it meant, but we knew that it couldn't be good.

The road began to narrow. It was a freeway, but we were being funnelled off. We could see that the opposite direction was closed down completely. There was a long line to exit the road, but we were in a hurry. We pulled out our get out of jail free Red Cross badges, skirted the line and turned right at the exit. The directions got a little sketchy from there. We pulled into the only gas station in sight. We could see the houses across the road from us. Except for the blue tarps covering all of their roofs, the line of houses looked intact, and pretty good for that matter. I walked up to the doors of the mini mart of the gas station, and it was then I noticed the chains across the door.

I looked inside the mart, and it was destroyed. Cans, bottles, cheetos, all over the floor of the store it was dark inside. I turned and saw the bags over the gas nozzles. I hadn't noticed that either. We take so much for granted. Its as if your brain simply completes the picture for you without you really having to look. "Bobby", was busy asking strangers where the heck this shelter was.

None of the folks at the gas station knew, because none of them were from the area. All of these people had come down from neighboring states to make a buck off of the distraught. The guy at the pumps next to our car was an especially vile specimen. He was short, dirty and ugly. His thinning Raggedy Andy hair was scattered to the wind. He had a violent bubbling red and purple birthmark that covered half of his face, and dragged down one eye so that it drooped and watered constantly. To detail the portrait, this joe was missing a goodly number of his choppers. He was drunk. You could smell it from where we stood 12 feet away. He was a crude cruel looking scum of the earth. This is who had come down to,"help".

All around us, in cars and trucks bearing license plates from everywhere *but* Louisiana, there were twenty more like him . We asked this creep if he was familiar with the shelter that we were looking for. He told us that he "was a f***ing roofer from Michigan", and that, "no, he couldn't F***ing help us". God help the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.

We drove on looking at the useless map that we had been given. Looking at the blue tarped houses that were getting closer. We saw as we neared, Boats thrown on lawns with no water nearby. Trees ripped apart and RVs tumbled over like toys. We turned around and drove the other way. We finally found the shelter in a place that had no relation to the map that we had been given. Over a bridge and at the end of an otherwise empty spit. It looked like it was not completely built.

Rushing in, we figured we had beat CBS, only to find that they had been there about the time that we had left Baton Rouge. It didn't matter to us. The clients still needed the blankets, and we had them. "Bobby" went to unload the Moose, and I went to get help for him. Who do I run into, but, "Amy", from day one at my shelter. This is where she has been sent for her assignment. We said our hi's, and she gave me an upbeat overview of the site. As I went inside I saw that our first impression was right. This shelter wasn't finished. Not even kinda. What the heck was going on?

I saw cots amid food, and even more food. Dry goods scattered everywhere. Doors wired shut, wires exposed, walls torn up and worse, some kind of pump had blown, and there was no water. None for washing, none for cleaning, no water for sinks or toilets. I spoke to some of the staff, but they had developed Stockholm Syndrome, and were more concerned that I would turn in the fact that they were in a half built wreck of a building, than the fact that they had clients and themselvesin an unsafe shelter in unsafe conditions. Made my head spin. I knew we were coming here tomorrow for a walk through, so I took mental notes as to what to look for.

"Bobby" had finished, the unload, and we were ready to turn around and go back. We headed out of the shelter, talking to a few clients along the way. These clients loved the Red Cross. They all wanted to shake our hands. Because the ARC volunteers lived day in and day out at this shelter with the clients, they shared everything, food, lack of water, sleeping arrangements and had formed a tight bond. Most of these clients had lost everything, and the sense that someone understood what they were going through was important. Many asked if the ARC was going to send any more VIenna Sausages. Huh?

I went back in and asked the ARC staff about the little weenies. The staff informed us that that particular product had taken on a singular cachet among the clients at this shelter. Arguments had even broken out about them. A "greenie"/requisition had been put in a week prior, but still no saucies. The situation was getting dire. The staff seemed as stressed about it as the clients. Vienna Sausages eh? I could see that when you have lost everything, it is the little things, no pun intended, that become important. It is similar to prison in that way. Tubular canned meat products, processed to within an inch of their lives into a overly salty somewhat unpalatable end result had taken on an overwhelming importance in this shelter. These wee weenies were a serious matter to them, no matter what I thought. Ok then. I think I understood. I would be absolutely sure to ask about the hot doggies in a tin when we got back.

Before ripping back to Baton Rouge, "Bobby" and I decided to go have a look around Slidell. We drove in the direction of the blue tarped roofs, thinking that would be a good place to start. As we got closer, we saw that although the houses looked intact, they were definitely not. In this area, the water had risen to second floor level destroying all of the contents of the house if not ripping the things out of the house and scattering it outright. On either side of each and every house and across the street were smaller versions of the dunes of trash that we had seen earlier on the way into town. Couches, tables, bedding, toys. appliances, chairs, tanning lotion. We saw all of it, and all of it was totally destroyed. Anything and everything that any one of us might have in our own homes was in one or most of those plies of detritus. Ruined. The sheer volume of personal things was overwhelming.

I stopped to take some pictures so that I would remember this in detail. The water marks on the walls, the marks on the houses made by rescue crews telling everyone how many died in this house or that, or if there were none. Luckily, there were almost none. The spray painted marks made by insurance companies letting all know that this house had been inspected. The boats on the lawns picked up and thrown like so many dice on a craps table.

The one image that has stayed with me to this day on that forlorn street was the dishwasher that had been ripped apart and thrown. Two baskets that used to be in the washer lay amidst items that had formerly summed up peoples day to day lives. One basket contained all of the dishes just as they had been placed by the homeowners when they had loaded them up to be washed.The second basket was about thirty feet away, the glasses and cups placed in the basket in the same careful way. Nothing was broken, nothing was cracked. It was as though the tableware had just been loaded in to be washed, only it was all akimbo on some random trash heap now. Untouched. It was all we could do to keep from crying. and this was one of the "good" streets.

As we drove farther we saw cars that had been dragged up from somewhere wet, completely trashed. In the end, there would be three hundred thousand cars recovered from the affected areas. Each car would have to be stripped. Tires disposed of separately from useless engines. Toxic batteries taken out and dismantled. It is and will be a nightmare, and that is just the beginning.

In every area we would see refrigerators with the words, "full", painted on them, taped shut. "White teams" were hired to remove home appliances which had to be dismantled one by one to remove the toxic elements in each one, like the mercury in the refrigerators. There were hundreds and thousands of these too. Where was it all going to go? how were the governments going to fix this, dispose of that? As we all know, they haven't.


"Bobby" and I drove on. We saw giant 40' boats tossed around like potato chips. Some were piled on top of each other like pick up stix. Several of these former luxury yachts were thrown into and onto houses and apartments. We saw houses that had collapsed into themselves, gigantic trees lifted up and thrown onto roofs. Cars in trees,suspended in mid air...... Upside down. Another three story apartment complex had its bottom floor totally stripped down to nothing but 2x4's and studs by the intensity of the winds, while the two floors above it were so unscathed that bycicles and shade umbrellas still sat untouched on patios. We drove to the end of one road where a salvage company was dragging up boats that had sunk. They were lined up tilted on the grass. Ghost ships dripping algae as if they were being prepped for some Disney movie. It had been some storm. Driving back towards the highway, we passed one apartment building with a simple, plaintive, spray painted message: " I want to come home".

As we headed back to Baton Rouge, we didn't talk much. we had seen too much. Part of why you volunteer for a disaster such as this, is because you want to see it first hand. We had. It wasn't even the worst of it, it wasn't even much of it. What had happened here that our government was so oblivious to the danger and the outcome? We were ashamed that anyone had to experience something of this magnitude with no help and no support. Seeing house after house destroyed, and the inhabitants, now our clients and what they were reduced to made us even more ashamed. If nothing else, it gave us a renewed compassion,and an empathy that couldn't be gained only from watching news reports. We would never forget.


We got back to HQ late. Dropping off "Bobby", I ran into two people from another department who had a clipboard, a flashlight and a miner's light on one of thier heads. They were going into the parking lot to try to find some of the missing rental cars. By the end of my deployment, the ARC had apparently misplaced or lost hundreds of them. Our HQ was no different. "Bobby" and I said our goodbyes. I went back to Moosie and began to turn out of the lot.

Just as I was almost gone, who do I see but Big Daddy and some of the Material Girls. They stop, I stop, and we all decide to go to dinner. After this day, I needed a break. Off we went to some rib joint down the way. Walking in to be seated, we pass a no necked man about the size of a volkswagon. He was an amazing sight, and we couldn't tear our eyes from him. He was sitting on a stool, that we couldn't see because of his girth. I could almost swear that the steel pole that held it was bending, but I digress.

Daddy, "Mo", "Minna" and I were seated at a plank style table. I showed a slide show on my computer of the things we saw that day. Others from the restaurant gathered around to watch. No one asked questions, the pictures spoke for themselves. Apparently at some point, "Mo had whispered to the waitress that it was Daddy's eighty- third birthday. The waitress was thrilled. Daddy was not. He is sixty two and it was not his birthday. To make it more interesting, we also told her that I was his wife. Waitress-girl gushed all night how Daddy looked so good for his age, and married to such a young woman too. At one point we all practically laid down on the seats we were laughing so hard. This went on for the whole night, and only got worse. The climax came when the excited waitress brought out the birthday cake and the whole restaurant sang Happy Birthday to poor Daddy. We all about strangled ouselves out-cackling each other. What a bunch of hens.

Night ended at last. I felt as though I had been attacked by elves and beaten with sticks. What a day. And it was just another day in this screwed up situation. If you like stress, intensity and constantly having to think on your feet in a situation that will change completely from one second to the next and inevitably screw itself up some way, no matter how hard you try, then join the Red Cross in a disaster. It is certainly not for everyone, but we were happy and proud to do the best job that we possibly could.

Finally got back to the shelter about midnight. Stayed up writing on the computer, finishing some more drafts of fliers that I had promised for other departments. Tomorrow we all go back to Slidell. Can you believe it?

xxoo

Lisa

#22 Day Who's who.

This brings us to my new department and inevitably to ""Tandaleo". How the hell does any organization allow someone like "Tandaleo" to get past their radar?? Description: Short, heavy, bottle blond. Diabetic, pop-eyed chronic drinker, possibly bi-polar. Nasty nasty temper, manipulative, unreasonable, erratic, dramatic, overbearing, mean . On the up side: Loud, sarcastic, funny, quick witted and really at times kinda fun. She's a lotta laughs. Look in the dictionary under: "train wreck". For some bizarre reasons she likes me. For some bizarre reason, I kinda like her too. Go figure.

"The Material Girls". At least that's what we call them "Minna", "Mo" and "Jaqui". We loove them. "Minna" is a tall dark haired mama, thin and wiry, married with children, possessed of a smile that goes ear to ear. She is also a very efficient employee. "Mo" is the actual Lesbian at the fort. Of course for the first few days of contact, yours truly had like no idea whatsoever. In fact, so far, I had thought that just about every woman in sight was over on that side of the fence, but her. Shows to go ya, that you can't trust me at all in this department. Anyhoo, "Mo", is tall, no nonsense and blond. Looks like a slightly butch surfer girl. She also has an ear to ear smile, and is as raunchy as a Hustler magazine, only in the pink version. We all love her to death too. "Mo" doing her job is like sending Sherman in to take Baton Rouge.

Ahhhh "Jaqui". Hmmmmm......how do I put this? We all think that there is the distinct possibility that "Jaqui" may be a manski. Ok...she looks like a girl...sort of....ok..I mean she looks like a girl. She is attractive, thin, taller than average. Dark and of indeterminate nationality, race, and or background. All of the correct parts in the correct places, only something is amiss. Or a mister. For one thing, she wears a big poufy wig. I can't help looking at the thing each time I talk to her. Secondly, she just doesn't relate in any tangible way to any of the other girls,including "Mo", who came up with this theory in the first place if I remember correctly. Thirdly, well...I don't quite know what thirdly would be, except that she might be a guy. "Jaqui" is oh so quiet and proper, unless of course she is busy popping out something that you just can't believe came out of her mouth. Some weird non-sequiter that brings the room to a full tilt halt when she says it. I don't know how to make this clearer, but then if it was clear in the first place, I wouldn't have to would I? "Jaqui" does her job, although she does have a tendency to winge over it and everyone else's job from time to time. Hey, maybe she is a girl.

So part of today was spent on writing about yesterday's walkthrough at Shreveport, and my resulting report. That which has never been written before at the ever amazing ARC. Just think about it, I feel like Dr Livingston...I presume. Apparently, no one in anyone's memory contained in this derelict old building can remember anyone doing a photo walkthrough of a site. Now that is just sick.

In other words, all of this time, pre-me, the ARC has been throwing away perfectly good donation money on shelter sites due to sheer ineptitude salted with a dash of laziness. I mean no one has bothered to take pre-use photos, or even post use photos until moi? Yew have got to be kidding? Why don't we just burn the cash and charge admission? It would make more sense. When I brought up the question, one of the long termers told me that we , "didn't have the time". Damn. Didn't have an hour to walk through and document what was right and wrong either before or after we had used the joint for our nefarious housing purposes. Ergo, Mr Owns-The_Place can say:"Sob sob....woe is me....this was the Taj Mahal until the American Red Cross got aholt of it. Alas, alak.....sob sob...guess the ARC will just hafta pay bundles of dough to bring this dung heap..I mean magnificent edifice back to its formerly sartorial splendor....And then we apparently do. Yark!!!!

Well LOGIC WOMAN to the rescue. Or at least Handy dandy camera and computer to the rescue I guess. So I wrote up the walkthrough and attached the pictures, et voila! Instant Protocol. Or so says Big Daddy. I spend the rest of the afternoon doing show and tell with my computer, teaching the rest of the somewhat reluctant Logistics staff the new and future permanent way to do a walkthrough. Photos and narrative. Ain't I special? The girls took it better than the boys, that's for sure. Gals sucked it up, Guy thought I sucked. The usual division of opinion. Like it or not this is now ARC protocol for walk throughs. They have to be kidding? Apparently not.


In the midst of all of this protocol crap, Boss walks up to me and tells me under his breath that "they", want to hire me on permanently. Paid. I of course took Boss man to be speaking of invisible aliens, as the only alternative available would be the All American Red Cross, and we knew that was not a possibility. Not in this dimension at least. Boss swore that he had heard rumor, I was ergo convinced that I was being punked in the worst way. Next up to bat was Big Daddy, who sidles up to myself, and whispers to me that the ARC ought to be paying me. Would I consider hiring on to the dark forces for lucre? I was guessing by now that this was Doggy Daddy's bright idea, and so it was. Had me going for about a tenth of a sec there. Daddy's plan was to put the bug in the ear of the forces that be to hire me to overhaul their sorry rear ends and make everything right. Yep...that was going to happen soon. I told him that I would hire on to consult for money, but they would never listen to anything I have to say. The ARC would hire me when hell freezes over. That's a fact.

Big Daddy. Big Daddy as I said before, had been an honest by god colonel in the Army. As he explained it, he had been, "a spook" in other words, a spy, which resulted in further explaining and much doubling over in hilarity when he used this description to our local self proclaimed felon/thug/former gang member that annoyed....I mean worked in our department. "Joey" told the tale of being an "OG" Original Gangster. Shot, knifed, mugged and mugger. Jailed and jacked. Jammed up an jammer upper The Joe portrayed himself on the fringe with a criminal record as long as your arm, oh but he was now reformed. In reality, "Joey" was most likely a grocery bagger from Compton, but he did like to show his colors to get a rise out of anyone who would bite.

One Day the Dad, the thuglet and another volunteer, also black and from the west were driving back from some recon mission. Thuggie asked Daddy what he used to do. Daddy replied "spook in the Army" Thug was unfamiliar with the terminology in any sense other than the Jim Crow back in the day sense and felt as though a thorough pummelling of Daddy might just be in order. "Joe-bob" proceeded to quite vocally express his very strong opinion, much to Daddy's confusion. In between laughing like hell and random riotous snarfs of the nasal sort, the western volunteer attempted to explain to Thugster the espionage take on "spook", and to Daddy the venacular of the same. It apparently took a while through the tears and rolling around on the floor of the car gasping for a breath between choking on laughter. She of course was the only one who thought it was funny which of course made it even funnier. Cured Pops of the "spook" line for at least a little while though.

Mid day, we are told that we are all to go and inspect a local church shelter, so we all pile into a few cars and shoot off to the church. Its not that far from HQ, which is tweaked, because this is a bustling city full of people who live here. The shelter thing does just twist the brain around a little bit, but then when you think about it, we are all staying in shelters and so it seems is half of Louisiana. "Nough said.

Get to the church and we are given a run down on the staff prior to entry. I tell the two new ones to please listen and not speak if they can help it so that the staff doesn't feel cornered and get their back up. There are five of us. As soon as we get there, we all introduce ourselves, and Boss starts talking to the big church boss in charge. From what we understand, the clients have done thousands of dollars of damage, and the church wants the red Cross to again scrub down and replace everything. "Cootie Sydrome" again. Again, there has been no prior photo walk through done. Again, I have brought my camera.

The two recruits can't keep their yaps shut, a serious problem with the female who is wound tighter than a top. I have no one to blame but myself as I recruited them. She is an environmental engineer. He has a cleaning service in his home state. Sounds like they would be great for our department no? No. From all appearances, she is here to be in charge. Show the world htat she is better smarter sharper than anyone on the planet. She is there to kill something or someone. She is one unhappy puppy. I gotta remember to look up once in a while when reading a resume dang it. He is going through a bad divorce. Two days into his deployment we have all heard all of it. It is not pretty, but he is sorta ok. She is sorta not. We will have to live with them. Mea Culpa.

Walk through begins. Armed National Guard troops are posted everywhere. Clients are everywhere. The building is like a giant evacuee anthill. We go hall by hall, room by room, documenting and taking notes. Boss has made a bunch of ccolorful Cat's Cradle loops for the kids, and is busy teaching them the game. I am almost the only one who can do the game, but he is persistent. Kids do love it even if they can't do it. He and we teach them anyway.

In one hallway I come across an interesting sign. It says something about clients leaving bags of body fluids in bags in the halls, and threats to lock doors. Apparently some of the clients have been sneaking hookers through the back at night. One wonders if the "girls", are taking ARC credit cards. I so do not want to know. One of the things we do notice is the bleach stains on the carpets all over.

A sure sign of the Red Cross is bleach stains. The RC founder, Clara Barton who began the ARC in the 18oo's dictated the use of bleach for cleanliness. The ARC still adheres to that for some stupid reason, but then the ARC is still having volunteers and clients fill out gigantic stiff paper forms with carbon paper for f's sake. Oh yeah...I forgot, those forms can be folded into handy dandy folders. ARC origami if you will. There are only a handful of us at the ARC who have noticed that Clara Barton has been dead for quite a while, and that the rest of the world seems to have entered the twentieth century without her. The majority of the ARC apparently still worship at her dusty altar.

While everyone else was jotting and noting and schmoozing with bosses, I recorded all on a digital card, then slipped off and happened to find the departing manager, who told me that the church had already voted to pay for repairs itself, and that some meddling somewhat racist deacons' wife was the one making all of the noise about clean up. This manager told me that the church fully expected the type and scope of damage, and wished to take care of it. That it was not seen as a problem, and that there were twenty deacons at this church so as far as the church was concerned, the old trout could go whistle dixie...hmmm...whistle dixie. Perhaps that is a poor choice of musical selection considering the local.

My new info was confided to the group. It was a relief, as we had been gearing up for a chess match. Meaning, leave the church as we had found it, but no massive redecorating project a la the desires of unnamed wives of deacons. Whew!! We all said our goodbyes, took our notes and went back to HQ to write the whole thing up. Not me this time thank the lord. Or at least thank Boss and Big D.

End of the day. Where did it go? paper and more paper. Forms, protocols, lectures. What the heck? How did I get here from there I ask you? I am tired. went to din din, went to the shelter which is thinning out considerably since they plan on closing this one soon. Volunteers have slowed to a trickle, and I am still here. Cots are folding up and disappearing, Blankets are being bagged, air matresses are being deflated and stored. Looks like the ARC is giving it all over to the church which makes no damn sense at all as it was donated to the ARC, not the Hebron Baptist Church.

What the heck does the ARC plan to do in the next go round? Get more donations? Not from me. After seeing all of the waste, I will be damned if I give a penny to the good ol' ARC as much as I admire most of the organization. This donation and distribution thing is just a royal mess. In my time here I have witnessed massive wastes of money time and resources. It is supremely discouraging. I really pray that they get a handle on it before some doo doo hits some fan somewhere and you know it will. My time is another thing. I will give my time. In any case, my time is almost up, and the shelter is almost empty. Whats up with that? I plan to stay here until I go. I don't mind the drive, after all, I am from Southern California. Land of the long haul. I am in this for the long haul.

See you tomorrow.

xxoo

L

#21 a day at the office ...and then some.

Today I slept, and slept, and slept. Wish I wasn't lying. How do you sleep when they slam on the overheads at six am? Some can, like crazy "Bob", the maroon that got me my new jobski. "Bob" could snore his way through armageddon. I figure he will. When the evening is done and all is quiet, everyone is abed, tucked in and exhausted from the day, you can hear "Bob" , at decible 13,486, attempting to singlehandedly cave in the roof with the ungodly racket coming out of his sleeping mouth and nose. If you heard and saw it in a bad "I Love Lucy" rerun, you would watch, frustrated. Impatiently wishing that the show wasn't so over the top. That was "Bob".Every single bad episode of "I Love Lucy", all rolled up into one fat neurotic dork who snored like a house on fire. Kill me now.

In any case, this morning was the same as most other mornings. I rousted myself up, only I did meander instead of rush through the particulars. In any case, I was too groggy from yesterday's whirlwind trip to Shreveport, Clansville of the north, to be fully awake. I finally dragged my sorry rump through the door of headquarters at about 9:30. What decadence. Needless to say, Boss Daddy and the girls were all there waiting for me, paperwork at the ready, with big grins on their faces. I had promised them that today I would re-up. What was I thinking?

So far, my first ARC stint had been designed by the same guy that thought "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", was entertaining. Oh yeah...it was. Never mind. You get the idea. It was like living in the funhouse without the fun. Like looking in those crazy mirrors and having a laugh only to leave the mirror maze and find out that the way everything looked in those bent and twisted mirrors was how things really were. That was a good part of the reality of the ARC. The rest of the reality was all of the nice competent people who made up for the bulk of the midway. I guess I was signing back up for them.

I went through all of the rig-a-ma-roll to re-up. Go here, sign this, go there, sign that , answer this, no, that's wrong, answer that. Oh, we made a mistake, you have to start over again. Is that right? No, ask her, oh, ask him. Yes that is how you do it. No it is not, yes it is. Do you need more money? No? Why not? didn't you spend all of yours? No? Why not? Oh, well, ok, but if you need more, then let us know by tomorrow. Is there a supervisor who know how to do this? Yes, but she just signed on today, she won't know. Do you know? Yes, I told them I knew. This is how you do it, this is what I sign. These are the right papers, these are the wrong papers. They believed me. After multiple hours. I was in again for the next four days at least, if not longer. What next?

As you stick around Baton Rouge and the Red Cross, you began to get a feel as to those who fit in and those who didn't. There was a kind of uniform. Not that stupid smock with the big red cross on it. Those were for the hicks and the newbies, those who wanted to be a visible part of the club, for whom this was summer camp and a chance to trade collectable pins. Not for us, we were the cool kids. Our kind of uniform that developed out of practice and convenience. For example. No one in our department wore that idiot smock. It fit noone, got in the way, and in any case, if you were running around the inside of the building with a Red Cross badge around your neck, bearing your picture, someone would figure out eventually, that you were actually with the American Red Cross. Good grief!

Our cell phones were these little jobs that got lost easily. Several of us figured out, that if you folded the thing over the cord holding your ARC badge, it was readily available. A necessity, as someone or another called you every 2 and 1/2 minutes on the average. Easier, than running around looking for you in the cavernous old WalMart where we were stationed. We wore comfy clothes and sports shoes. Unlike my real self, here, I wore makeup and perfume every single dang day. Can't really tell you why. I just felt it was more corporate or some semblance of what I thought corporate looked like on TV. In any case, Mascara and Moschino were derigeur as far as I was concerned. So there we were, mostly women, mostly made up and scented, trotting around in hip hop clothes with little phones swinging from cords around our necks, carrying clipboards and writing while walking most of the time, while talking on our flip phones. We looked like a really lame, ugly cult.

About mid day, I got a call from "Dora" up in Shreveport. You remember, the ultra Christian woman from Kentucky who's son in the airforce had married that nice jewish girl? She had an awful story. Turns out that the night I stayed there, she had left her wallet on the bedside table. "Dora" had apparently forgotten it was there when we left the next morning. When she returned to the room later, "Dora", discovered that the wallet had been stolen. Lock stock and barrel. Damn damn damn!!! Ok, she didn't say that, but she was really upset about it. I didn't blame her. If it was my wallet, I would have been upset about it too. She asked me if I had seen it at all? I told her that by the time I crawled into bed, the lights were out, and I didn't notice a thing. Not even the next morning as I was packing to go.

She pushed me to remember something. Anything. "Didn't I see it at any time?"" No, I wish I had." "Well," she said, "the police will be calling you ." She had filed a report, and there was an investigation in progress. "It was going to be really serious." "DIdn't I remember anything? The police would call and they would be questioning me in depth."I thought that was silly, as I had just told her that I hadn't ever seen the wallet, but I didn'[t say anything. Instead I sadi, "No, I remembered nothing at all about her wallet. Never even saw it" We continued to speak as I walked across the building. I was incensed that this nice woman had been robbed. I told her that, "she should be able to leave her damn wallet out in plain view with cash hanging out of it, and all anyone ought to think about it, is where to return it to." She agreed wholeheartedly. She said that "she only wished that →whomever← had stolen it had taken only the money, and had left her identification and the rest of the contents." The poor thing. I felt so sorry for her.

I got back to my desk and told Boss about "Dora's" wallet. everyone in the department listened raptly. They exchanged glances that I didn't pay much attention to at the time. As I walked back across the building to make some copies, I was thinking, "hmm...now, I bet I could get copies of her identification for her, as we had those here in headquarters. Yeah, that's what I would do!" Midway across, I came to a screeching halt and clapped my hand across my mouth. If I could have writhed on the floor on my back, kicking my heels, pounding my fists on the ground, screaming at the top of my lungs, while throwing my head from side to side, at that moment, I would have. Son of a bitch!!!! "Dora" thought that "the Jew" stole her wallet!!!!!!!!! That was me, "the Jew" !!!!!

She actually believed, and had evidently told others that I had stolen her wallet as she slept. That was what the call was all about, and I had missed it. Here was a woman, that had spoken at length about her Christianity and her belief in God, yet there it was. "The Jew stole her wallet". I realized, that no amount of fact would ever convince this woman otherwise. She would go to her grave thinking this was reality. There was little I could do.

I ran back to Boss and blurted it out. He and everyone else had already gotten there on their own. Beat me to the punch in fact. They were madder than I was if that was possible. Really, though, I wasn't mad at all. Just disheartened. "Dora" and I had talked into the night. I believed naively, that I had made an impression upon her that "Jews" were just like her. We lived the same lives, dreamed the same dreams, raised our children with the same love and worry, shared the same God. I was a fool. I had to laugh at myself for it.

Even funnier, was the fact that my father was a Jew. I am technically not. That would have required a conversion that I had not had, but this was the south, and ergo I was a jew. I had never been so Jewish in all of my life. I waited for the police to call. Of course they never did. I was able to confirm later that yes, "Dora", believed to the bottom of her heart," that Jew ", had stolen her wallet, even though others told her that they had been robbed by the staff at this particular hotel. Later, the whole crew moved to another hotel because of the thievery, but "Dora" still held on to her beliefs.

Weeks later, Boss still wanted to call her up and have a serious talk about it. I told him not to bother. Even though I didn't tell him, he knew that it broke my heart.

#20 Shreveport Part Deux

Up-and -at-em! Woke up in a bed, what a pleasure. My last for a while. Took a shower and washed my hair, "Dora" took hers, we packed up for the day and together, down we went, to breakfast with the boys. Breakkie was short and sweet. Boss and I were off to close a shelter with problems. What did I care, I was leaving the ARC day after tomorrow. It was the end of my tour. My attitude was: Bring it on!

A local university had opened its doors to evacuees. This I was told, was a black university. What a funny designation. Marking a school of higher learning by the dominant color of those who attend...sigh. We got to the school, and soon found the fellow in charge. As I took out my camera and started shooting photos of what might be considered damage, the conversation with in-charge guy took an interesting turn. In-charge guy wanted the whole place, "disinfected floor to ceiling". His words. In fact he was insisting upon it. Apparently he seemed to believe that poverty was contagious, as none of the evacuees had been found to have leprosy.

Before I go further into how clean he wanted the place, the disinfecting, the scrubbing, the thorough revulsion of the evacuees that peppered this guy's language, let me describe him. Standing about 6'3", he was tall and thi, slightly stooped. Balding, in his 50's, casually dressed, soft spoken, black. Thaaats right. Black. This was a "black university" , he was the "black" in charge. This man went through each room with us, me snapping photos, telling Boss and I how the dirty contaminated evecuees had wrecked their place of temporary residence, and how he wanted it rectified. To our eyes, the university was in very good shape. Barely dirty in fact. But no. Señor fix-it felt that every surface had to be scoured, in order to rid the rooms of the stink of poverty. The Black haves against the black have-nots. Holy mother of god.

At one point he took us into the laundry room, and insisted that the evacuees had destroyed the new washer and dryer that now had to be replaced. Believe me, we were willing to replace them. Boss took a look, and wrote down "replace" on the form. By this time, I was pissed, so I turned on the washer. Lo and behold...Hallelujah! It worked. I started the dryer. It worked too. I didn't say a thing, but I left both machines on as continued the destructo tour of poverty contamination. Every once in a while, I would force both Boss and Fix-it to return to the laundry room to check on the cycles, with the excuse that I didn't want to leave the school with appliances that were missing some cycle or another. In fact, I was rubbing in the point. Couldn't help it. Needless to say, both washer and dryer were in tip top shape. We weren't replacing them.

In the end, it was Boss-man who figured out that fix-it believed that because of some rumor he had heard, white schools who had volunteered their facilities were getting thousands of dollars in compensation, while the ARC was stiffing the darker section of town. Had to stop myself from banging my head on a wall, or at least trying to bang his head on one. ARC national is truly color blind. That is not to say that the local volunteers had a collective brain in their heads because they didn't, but it wasn't color directed, they were just stupid. Someone had sent in something asking for payment of some ridiculously high cleaning bill. That did not mean that they would get their wish. Just meant that they sent it in and were giving it a go. National would review it and laugh heartily and tell them to go f* themselves in short order when they saw the amount was ludicrous. Tons of moolah were being misdirected, but not on my watch.

We finished the walk through, I had the pix. The cleaning staff was up in arms as Fix-it felt that his black staff was too lazy to get the job done correctly, and he wanted some white contractor to do the job. Shall I tell you how well that went over with everyone? We just nodded, and figured to take it all up with management when we returned to HQ. We left as the cleaning staff and the coach were spitting nails.

From there we went to lunch. VIncent's High Point Cafe. What a place. All seafood all the time. Chock full of locals eating gumbo and seafood. Boss continued his tour de chicken fried steak, and I had the gumbo with a side of fried green tomatoes and crab fingers. I wanted them to throw in one fried green pickle, and I was disappointed when I didn't get it. No oysters here either. They say that the oyster beds won't come back for at least two years. That is a huge let down.

Took us a while to notice, but as far as the local restaurants and bars are concerned, colors don't mix here. Chances are if they knew I was half Jewish, someone might find my body sometime next spring or not at all. That impression was pretty strong. The waitresses all did decide that they just loved my perfume though. Especially when I told them that I was from Malibu. The girls made me write down the name so that they could all go on-line and get the same. Somewhere in some little racist dive in Shreveport, there are a bunch of over-dyed, over-plucked young delectibles wearing Moschino, not knowing how to pronounce it, but happy that they are wearing the same perfume that some lady from Malibu had on.

Next we toured the warehouse. Got there and looked around. everything looked normal except that staff wasn't following any kind of sensible non contamination procedure. Body fluid soaked cots were inside, strewn about, instead of bagged tagged and out of the building. Staff was sorting buckets and buckets of donated clothes without gloves or masks. When we brought it up, we were told that they were handling things correctly. They weren't. We had been told of the water shortage, but we could see pallets upon pallets of canned water sitting outside. When we asked why, we were told that the evacuees wouldn't drink the stuff. Thinking that It couldn't be that bad, I tried one, with the resulting suggestion that the cans of water be used to wash the dirty cots. It was that disgusting. Bleah!!!

After scraping my tongue with my shoe, we went off to check on the shelters before we headed back home. On the way, boss called HQ about the decontamination procedures. I listened as they gave him the run around. FInally, as I could see his frustration mounting to the boiling point, I asked him to pass me the phone. After ducking same phone furiously thrust in my direction, I took it in hand, and In my softest little girl voice, I asked the nice doctor on the other end of the line if the ARC had to comply with OSHA standards? When he replied with some bluster, "of course", I pointed out that OSHA standards required dust masks for sorting new clothes and materials, goodness knows what they would think of sorting used unwashed icky ones without protection of any kind. I meweled that we could stand out in a really bad way, and might get the whole of the ARC in serious trouble for non compliance with government standards. We didn't want the Feds to get involved, did we? I suggested that the big strong knowledgeable doctor-poo could be the hero by making a stand and fixing it all. To OSHA standards of course. By the time I said goodbye, Boss had pulled off the road and was laughing so hard and holding his sides, he was almost crying. He told me very decisively, that he would remember not to cross me anytime in the near future.

At Hirsh Center, it was a madhouse. What a horrible place to be stuck. Cots on cots in a dark dank arena. It was a huge dungeon. Too many people, few supplies. Under-trained staff. Not enough medicine or equipment, and the system wasn't working for anyone. They had a great nurse in charge though, fighting hard for them, and the new day supervisor was caring and smart, so these evacuees were at least getting another chance at things going right. It was an uphill fight. this place was a mess.

On the way in, we met up with the local troublemaker "Georgette", only it turns out that "Georgette" was a troublemaker in my mold. She was trying to get things done in the face of the CLS, complete with identical run-ins with the same dingbats that went after me. We decided that on our return, "Georgette" would transfer to our department ASAP. As we were talking to her, I looked on the ground beside us and noticed a dime bag of marijhuana. Well how-dee-doo! This tiny baggie was stuffed to the gills with weed! I picked it up and laughed, waving it at Boss and "Georgette".

To my surprise, Boss literally snatched it out of my hand. Did he think I was planning to use it? God knows under the trying circumstances, if I did do that, and I don't, I might have, but as I didn't, it hadn't entered my mind. Ai yi yi! Before I could ask what he was doing, Boss opened the bag and strewed the contents around the grounds, walking around and shaking the bag violently, finally ripping the seams to make sure that every last bit was gone. I was totally stunned. I loved Boss, but anyone this anal could have certainly used some weed. In the end, we took the empty bag over to the police who were stationed in front of the shelter and in an AHA! moment, Boss handed it over with a flourish, as though the cops didn't have any idea that this was going on. Poor Boss. He was such a nice guy, but so behind the times. I didn't have the heart to tell him.

While we were there, "Barney" showed up with the day's bananas. When called on the carpet, again, he gave Boss-man a talk to the hand motion, and stalked off. That would have been my cue to send ol' "Barn" back to Iowa, or wherever he came from, but I think Boss doesn't like actual confrontations, so Monkey-boy stayed, much to my disgust.

As we drove out of Shreveport, I noticed the beautiful architecture and Victorian details of the older section of town. It was a really pretty place if you could forget the racism stupidity and isolationism that seemed so pervasive. On the way back, Boss talked a bit about his life, and asked if I would re-up for another few days. What could I say. He and Daddy had saved my butt. I called HQ on the way back, and got the paperwork in motion. Sigh...

We got back to HQ late. I picked up the car that was left for me and hauled my tired self back to the shelter. I had had one night in a bed, and a bath. I had agreed to sign up for another four days at least. What a roundheels. I had lost my mind....again. So what else is new?

#19 Shreveport

Left the shelter this morning late. Late. Just wonderful. They rescue me from the CLS, and I am late. To compound my transgression, there is suddenly massive amounts of traffic backing up back to east nowhere. I am in east nowhere. Notice that I have a message on my cell phone. Uh oh.......Get the message. More good news. Boss wants to make sure he reaches me before I left the shelter. Not quite. Sigh.

Boss wants to make sure that I have packed for an overnight, because we are going to Shreveport. Just he and me. Yeah, I know that's grammatically incorrect, but it sounded cool didn't it? SIgh sigh sigh. I am not packed, I did not get the message in time and I am late, stuck in traffic, one third of the way into headquarters. Great start to a great morning.

Turn around, call Boss, grovel at 50 mph in a 35 mph zone, roaring back at warp speed to the shelter. Squeal into the church parking lot looking like a flufffy blond Popeye Doyle. This sucks. I pack at the speed of light, run back to the car, well actually it is a Ford Explorer the size of my living room. I have dubbed it "The Moose". Leap into Moosie, and I am about to screech out of there when I remember that I forgot my jammies. That would have been an unfortunate intro to my new employer. Jumped back out, bailed back in, got the jammies and tore back to the car. Drove into Headquarters like a bat out of hell. Or at least like a dingbat out of California. Yikes!

I was out of breath and way late. Boss didn't even look up. Just sat me down at my new desk, actually a six foot foldable table that I shared with him and whomever chose to sit across from me that day. Had to steal one of the "good" chairs every day until I finally marked one with blue tape bearing my name, the words, "my chair", and a picture of the skull and crossbones on it. Good chairs were solid plastic and cream colored. Bad chairs were flimsy plastic and brown. It was a pecking order thing. I own a flock of chickens at home, so I know from pecking orders. I made sure to grab only the good chairs. guessing that it might make me one of the head chickens.

In any case, Boss man right away, started to give me things to do. He called it debriefing. I called it a lot of notes. It was: call this guy, ask this thing, find out this, find out that, go here and coordinate those etc...etc..etc... There were about twenty things on the list. It took me about an hour to do them, and get it all on paper, answers printed out using my laptop. I gave Boss the printout notes of the finished tasks, and he just looked at me and laughed. Big Daddy came over, and Boss gave him the list, and then Daddy laughed. I couldn't figure out what was so funny. Turns out what was so funny was that I finished a list of to do's in an hour that had in the past taken others days to get through. I figured they must have been forced to work with some new ARC rule that required their basic intelligence to be tied behind their backs or something.

Somehow, in this situation, I became my previously unknown super-hero alter ego: LOGICAL WOMAN. Around here, I appeared to come from another planet. that worked for me. Luckily, it worked For Boss and Daddy too. Boss and I hung out for a few hours solving ARC puzzles, and finally hit the road to Shreveport. It was going to be a five hour drive. We got over the bridge in about forty minutes, and stopped to get directions. I took the opportunity to obtain some pork rinds, pralines and a pecan pie. I love weird foods. Boss was horrified. Off we went, into the next town. We noticed that we needed gas.

Problem number one: There was no gas. Anywhere. The electricity was out, and the pumps were down and there was no gas to be had. Station after station was either locked up completely, or had plastic bags over their nozzles, and were making hay selling pork rinds to tourists like myself. Crud! Around we turned and back we went, over the bridge and back into Baton Rouge until we found a gas station that had gas. How the heck did we not notice that virtually no one had any gas? Turned out that many in Baton Rouge had no gas either. We just hadn't noticed before, because the station near Headquarters always had gas. SIlly us. 40 minutes later, we were back over the bridge and on our way. An hour and a half detour. Hate it when that happens. Deja vu of this morning all over again.

Drove and talked and drove and drove some more. Boss hit the exhaustion wall, and I took the wheel. I am from Southern California. With me driving, we averaged 85 to 90 on the almost empty roads. I ignored Boss' white knuckles, and we made up the time that we had lost. Hey! I said I was from L.A. Cars, ya know? Got to Shreveport in chop chop time.

The Shreveport ARC chapter was in the middle of a run down residential area. I was later to notice that much of Shreveport was somewhat run down. I also noticed that there was a church of some kind on virtually every corner. Some streets had two churches within a couple of hundred feet of each other. They all had names like: "The Blood of the Lamb and the Righteous Light Baptist Church". This did not bode well to my way of thinking. Not because I am half Jewish, hey, the other half were a bunch of Unitarian ministers, but because of something that I have noticed. What I have noticed has happened so frequently, that I have made up a rule for it. I like to call this little rule, "The Rule of Devoutness". "The Rule of Devoutness" holds that anyone publicly making the declaration, "I am a Christian", does so only when it is right before or right after, they have done, or are going to do something absolutely despicable. Things like throwing a five year old out of a preschool because his mama's a stripper. Often, it involves something so un-christlike, that it makes your head spin. This berg had the statistical propensity to hold myriad of these kind of folks.

We went through the office meeting, "our people". Technically, these guys worked for our department. In actuality, because of the lack of staffing and leadership from Headquarters, many of the outlying chapters had created their own little feifdoms, picking and choosing the rules and regulations that suited them, ignoring the ones that didn't. This was one of those.

At first glance, They were a swell group. "John", the short, wiry, mixed asian leader from San Francisco was upbeat, friendly, cheerful, and decidedly in charge. It was his way or the highway. "Barney", was the warehouse/not a warehouse manager. We weren't allowed to call the warehouse a warehouse for some bizarre reason, the locals didn't want a warehouse in their neighborhood. Felt it ran the area down. The area couldn't get any more down. Funny idea, as though not calling it what it is would make it into something else. Gotta love that way of thinking. In fact, from here on out, you can call me a 22 year old. Is it working yet?

Barney was an interesting specimen. He couldn't figure out for the life of him how to create a flow chart so that he could order supplies ahead of need. Instead, he would rush out to the store using a credit card to make "emergency" purchases, which consisted of anything the shelters might need on that given day. He would then rush back and get reimbursed by the chapter. He did this single dang day mind you. Unfortunately, this was totally against policy, and the chapter was going to be oh so surprised when National refuses to reimburse them. Barney was doing this for the benefit of thousands of clients currently housed in arenas and other sites across the area. Barney was also financially screwing the ARC and his chapter because of his own laziness.

When I pointed out that his method was not cost effective, as we had already contracted for and stored in our own ARC warehouses, many of the things that he was paying top dollar for at the local WalMart, he just refused to get it. His statement?: "Well...like how could we order things like bananas? I mean, bananas are perishable and we need them right away?" Interesting that a total monkey would use bananas in an analogy. I suggested to ol' "Barn", that bananas came from Costa Rica, a far toss from the Shreveport WalMart, and somehow that WalMart managed to order bananas in advance all the way from Costa Rica so that he could rush out every day and buy them. Hmmmm.... One would have thought that he might have seen the irony, but not so. Instead, I, who knows virtually nothing about creating an ordering type of flow chart, but do possess an IQ higher than room temperature, spent the next half hour drawing out and explaining how invoicing and projecting need works. Sigh.

Later that day, Barney was faithfully filling out invoices, and then not sending them out and rushing back to WalMart. When caught in the act, he said that he didn't trust that my system would work, but knew that going out and buying the damn bananas worked just fine. It turned out that " Barney" was unclear that I was his boss, and that my instruction was not a suggestion, but a direct order, no matter how politely I had put it to him. In this feifdom, he thought that "John" was king, and Boss-man and I were just a couple of know-nothings from Headquarters. Well we may have been a couple of know-nothings, but as things stood, we were the know-nothings in charge of "Barney", "John", and the whole Shreveport chapter. Our faithful employees. It was going to be a long trip.

Boss and I then sat in on a meeting between the head of the Chapter and the ARC volunteer heads that we were there to supervise. The chapter head was a guy named "Roman". A tall powerful looking man of fifty-something, with a ready grin, a good ol' boy aura and a mostly full head of dyed red hair. In this area of the state, This guy was the ARC god. Unfortunately, he was not a kind, caring and gentle god. Midway through the meeting, in discussing the dissatisfaction with our operation that some clients were voicing, the words, spoken in exasperation: "These people are getting free money!" slithered out of his mouth. No one said anything to counter him, and several actually agreed. Ok, time to step up to the plate....again. I took a deep breath, as it was a David and Goliath moment. Shreveport was the longtime home of the Grand Dragon/Moron of the Ku Kux Klan. The town was pretty much segregated by unspoken agreement. From what we had seen, blacks and whites did not mix in this part of the country. Although the area was 70% black, whites were owners and blacks were not. Things were not equal by a long shot, but this was just the way it was around here. Nobody planned on changing the status quo anytime soon.

I took that breath, and in the gentlest way possible said, "excuse me "Roman", but "these people", are our clients, and we are here to serve them." You could have heard a pin drop, and that was in a room that had wall to wall carpeting. He turned to me and started to rant about how I just got here and I don't know all of the things that had happened, and I didn't understand the culture and all of the good things that his chapter had done for "these people". When he was done and out of breath, and in a high state of disgust and anger with yours truly, I gently but firmly reiterated, "I am sure you have done many good works, and accomplished a lot. I am sure that you are frustrated and feel at times that your job is thankless, none the less, "these people" are still our clients, and we are here to serve them as best we can." No one stood behind what I had just said. Not one of them said a word in support. Not even my own Boss. I think he was still too shocked at me correcting an apparent racist in charge in the middle of Klan country, in front of the whole group. I was shocked that "John" the asian guy didn't say something or even catch it, but then he had to work with this joker.

The meeting adjourned soon after with nothing of substance decided as far as I could tell. Next on the agenda, Dinner! About time. Went in a mule train to some restaurant, that turned out to be in a casino. Loud as a brass band in there. It was a buffet of every variety of heavy greasy southern chow that you could ever dream up. It was great. The piles of boiled shrimp alone were worth it. I did notice, that I was one of the only ones to eat anything green. Wonder what the heart attack rate is outside of Southern California?

FInished dinner, and dragged ourselves to the hotel. Hotel. Let me just savor that for a wee moment. A Bed! Ahhhh. A BATH! Whoopie!!!! Got our room keys, and said our goodnights. Knew it was too good to be true. There was a knock on the door. Turns out that Boss' room already had occupants. A couple of evacuees who had lied and said that they were Red Cross in order to get a free Room. They would be summarily turned out and charged to boot the next morning, but for tonight, Boss was commandeering my room. Drat! I was to move into the extra bed in "Dora's" room across the hall.

"Dora" was a coordinator in the Shreveport office. She was small and sturdy with jaw length straight brown hair and soft brown eyes. She'd married young and had three kids, one of whom was in the military. "Dora" was really sweet, she came from Kentucky and was now stuck with me. She was actually pretty gracious about it, although I could tell that it wasn't her first choice.

She did all of her bathroom stuff, and then went to bed. We talked for quite a while. Turned out that she was a very devout christian, and her son had gone off and married some Jewish girl. No one was happy about it. She was sure I would understand. Just as she was about to launch into that subject, I let her know that I was one of the tribe. She backpedaled as quick as her mouth would carry her and we ended up talking a lot more. In the end, it felt as though I might have made at least a small inroad into the Kentucky preconception of "my people", as we shared some mutual understanding, and she seemed to relax about it at last.

Odd. I have never before actually felt Jewish. My father is Jewish, but my mother is decidedly not. I wasn't raised in any faith, but I identify myself by who my enemies are, and if this was 1939 and the trains were leaving, chances are I wouldn't have been left behind because I was only half Jewish, or, I didn't look Jewish. What do you think?

Finally, I went to collapse in the bathtub. It felt so good that I fell asleep in the water. Lucky I didn't drown I guess. When I finally extracted my now prunish self from the water, dressed and came out, the lights were out and "Dora" was sawing logs. I sat up for a bit in the dark with the computer, but finally, even I passed out.

#18. Day 8: Out of the Frying Pan......

Somehow, somewhere I missed a day in this vercachkte narrative....and I haven't been writing for a while. Maybe I needed to catch my breath before I wrote it all out. Sorry about that. Anyway..... this is what happened next...:

Ahem... So I signed out of CLS. Land of inept whaleassian, bubbleheaded monkeys. I know, I know, what do I really think? I have signed into Logistics yesterday. I kiss the ground they walk on so far. I went back to the Bellemont and said my goodbyes. kiss kiss, hug hug. Glad as hell to be gone from that mess. I find out that the powers that be are sending "Simon and Lois" home. I am pissed. They were hung out to dry.

A little while later, there I was, happily ensconced in headquarters doing Boss's bidding. Oh. Boss: He's just great. I love him to death so far. Kinda stringy, kinda built, kinda medium height. Nice hands and arms. No hair. Wears a cap most all of the time in the off chance that we won't notice the lack of coverage. No such luck. He has piercing blue eyes which do make you forget from time to time that he's hiding under his hat, but everyone knows that he's way bald. No squirming out of that. Wouldn't even notice if he didn't try to distract you from it so hard. Boss's been married for thirty five years. Wow! You've gotta love, admire and respect that. I voiced my homage on the subject, and he wistfully turned, looked at me and said, "yeah.. but I missed a lot". Oh geez, like what? Dating?? I won't even start in on that, because you will be listening to me rant for a week. I like the guy. Can you tell?

Aaaaaannnyway, Big Daddy. Big Daddy is Boss' boss. and everyone elses' boss too. Big D is quiet. He is about 69. Tall as a bean pole, lanky, big ears, glasses and also bald. No hat though. A slow and quiet speaker. Big Daddy is very deliberate. You prick up your ears and listen when he speaks. Everyone listens when he speaks. Some of the department are a little teeny tiny bit, ok, seriously intimidated even. Come to find out, that Daddy was a full damn Colonel in the Army. More on that later. In the three few hours I have been on the job, Big D and I have become best friends.

In my first hour on the job last night, Big Daddy had asked Boss what he thought my new job was? Boss' reply was that I was his , "New Man Friday". Daddy's reply was that he was going to watch boss very carefully, and if he thought that Boss wasn't using me in the very best possible way, I was gonna be Daddy's,"New Man Friday". Men fighting over me already, (kidding!). I just love these guys.

Deep in my new work, intent on doing well, I was trotting across headquarters, formerly known as "the old WalMart", when I run into the Hornet. I expect a nice smiley, "hi", "how're ya doin", to which I would reply, "hi", "I'm doin' great, hows about you?" Didn't happen. I live in a fantasy world. What I got was the Hornet coming to a full screeching halt, look of shock and horror spreading across her face as she realized just who was in front of her. Immediately a finger was raised at my mug and the screech of screeches emanated in an escalating scale of notes from her widening pie hole, "YOU!!!!! ??? What are YOU doing here?????!!!! YOU WERE SENT HOME!!!!!!" Well hell, that was news to me, and I said so. "Uh, well, no, I wasn't". Seemed pretty obvious to me that I wasn't, as I was standing there plain as day right in front of her ever reddening nose.

"YES YOU WERE!!!! YOU WERE SENT HOME!!!! THAT WAS TAKEN CARE OF!!!!!!!!!! YOU WERE SENT HOME!!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!!!!!!!!??????????" Hmmm.....now here was a dilemma. Apparently Hornet got her antennae crossed somewhere,her stinger was in a full twist and it seemed as though I was about to ruin her day, if I hadn't already. Fact is, "Home" was never discussed with me by anyone at any time, unless it was on Hornet-time over a couple of margaritas with the rest of the idiots-as-managers-team, without my scintillating presence gracing the event of course. I figured she was delusional. The delusion continued.

I told her that in fact, (as was self evident to my way of thinking), that I had not been sent home, in fact, I had transferred departments over to Logistics. her unfortunate hallucination continued: "YOU DIDN'T TRANSFER!!!!! YOU WERE SENT HOME!!!!!" Apparently, on the planet Hornet, saying it makes it so. Not on my planet. Not only did I not vanish in a puff of smoke in response to her certainty that I was not really there standing toe to hoof with her, I told her that I had transferred yesterday, and that everyone knew it, and that her staff had signed off on it without even reading the transfer. Did that just for fun, and because I could. It was in lieu of laughing in her face and saying F-you, because she was being a total public lunatic.

Her response was, "YOU!!!!! OVER THERE!!!!!!!!(mandatory finger snap, pointing at me, pointing at her desk. Damn. You think these people got their basic training from the Shirrelles? Snap snap, shuffle shuffle dooo-wop doo-wop.), GO OVER TO MY DESK AND SIT THERE!!!!!!!!! " Sigh. Schnauser once more. When will it end? Instead of heading for her desk, I started to walk towards my new desk. Hornet-from-hell stops dead, in at least a semblance of total shock, and asks where I think I am going???? I reply that, " I am going to get my things." Duh.

Get my things while she shrieks over to Client Services on the nutball mission from Hornetvile. I tell Boss, "Hornet wants to send me home, I have no idea what the hell is going on" He looks at me, shocked and questioning, but I don't wait to explain, what the hell would I say anyway, that Hornet was having a bad drug flashback and believed that I did not exist in the HQ hive, when all empirical evidence pointed to the contrary?

Instead, I turned and slauntered over to Hornet-home tout de suite. From my perch in the Hornet's nest, I could see Hornet in CLS waving her hands and ranting at a group that includes Chicken Little, "LB" and the Viper. Soon she is in my new department, all CLS psychopaths in tow, waving her hands at Boss, Big Daddy and available others. Her screeches carry to where I am sitting 300 feet away. Always happy to make an impression on someone new.

As I sat there, "Merri Sheri" from Public Affairs cruises by and shoots me a questioning look. I tell her that I don't know what's going on, but that Hornet wants to send me home. She asks if I have already transfered? I nod yes. She asks if the transfer has already been signed? I answer again in the affirmative. She then gets this positively devilish grin in her face, and clasping her hands in the universal gesture of "goody goody", gleefully tells me that there is nothing Hornet can do about it, as I have legitimately transferred to another department. "Merri" is from Iowa, and looks like your maiden aunt, so her assisting in putting one over on the Hornet is doubly delicious.

Hornet is screwed, I ain't goin' anywhere. Besides which, it soon becomes clear that my new department and my new bosses haven't turned turtle on me. They have to my shock and unending pleasure, remarkably gone against the screaming lot of harridans, and instead gone with their guts and refused to turn me over or out. The fitting completion to Hornet's bad dream. When I realize all of this, I try mightily not to flatten my ears against my head, close my eyes into slits, flare my nostrils and grin like a hyena.

Soon, "Partay" sashays over, sits oozily next to me and asks what someone with my "talent", is, "doing in the Red Cross"? I assume she is being ironic, as I can't imagine after all that she and her witless department have said and done, that she can possibly be serious. Of course, if she is serious, that sums up the problems the ARC is having in a nutshell. Nut-shell being a very fitting word considering the circumstances. They can't imagine what anyone with any intelligence is doing in their organization. Wonder why they are having trouble? I don't bother to answer her. Soon enough the rest of the gang is at the table. "LB", looking balefully basset-like and Hornet in full thwarted fury.

Hornet hunkers over, looking for all the world like Richard Nixon at his worst and makes an almost laughable declaration: “You have been manipulating the system!”. Well that was news to me. "Manipulating the system" eh? Dang, if I had known, I would have manipulated it into giving me thousands of unearned RC dollars instead of just manipulationg it into providing much needed information to clients and volunteers. Who knew? I did ask her with some surprise, “uh....to what end?” She replied, that I was, “ out of control, and that no one could figure out what I was doing at any time.” No surprise there. If you have your head up your nether parts,then you are unlikely to know what is going on around you. Is that news to anyone?. I did manage to point out, without laughing out loud, that every time I had been at headquarters, it was on the instruction of my site manager, "Simon", which I was certain he would confirm. If anyone in all of the time I had been requesting logistical support at headquarters had bothered to call him, they would have known that.

I did happen to mention, manipulative genius that I am, that not only did I have an excellent review from the Bellemont, but that Public Affairs had printed up dang near 14,000 fliers and posters, that little ol' me had independently written in my cot at night in the shelter, all the while going up through official channels, who didn't know what the hell I was doing, because they weren't paying attention, and didn't care anyhow. All of which were approved by Ms Hornet herself, and that she, the supreme Hornet, had instructed those posters and fliers that I had written in my spare time be placed at most of the client service sites and shelters across the country. OOOPS!!! Hate it when that happens, don't you?

Unable to resist rubbing it in, I did let drop, that everything I did was conducted within the proper chain of command. Note to self: I have got to stop pissing off small minded, unhappy, middle aged, fat women. Even though it does provide a small sense of amusement, it is not in the end, in my best interest.

The truth is, I have never worked for or with any of the managers that found me "troublesome". Not Hornet, not Chicken Little, not the-moron-who-lives-without-a-brain, "Deliah", not "LB", not "Carrie", or even the Viper. My Site Managers, as well as the HQ Health Services professionals, on-site Mental Health professionals, EMT’s , site supervisors as well as the Public Affairs Department, had all complimented me repeatedly on what little I was able to accomplish, both on site and off.

Based on the supreme Red Hornet's statements, it is my belief that not only did CLS Management not understand that what I was doing went properly up the chain of command, they did not trouble themselves to find out. Quelle surprise. Add that to the list of ineptitudes that make up my former department. The whole lot of them seem to operate most comfortably on personal assumption rather than fact. No surprise then that the ARC is on the news every night in a negative light. Let me introduce you to the monkeys that have taken over the zoo.

Ah Hornet, Hornet, Hornet, alas....the next hubristic statement just about sums up the professional atmosphere and intellectual depth of the sorry department that I had so recently left to sniff my dust. Ol' Red Hornet turns to me, leans in and says: “I don’t know if you are off of your meds or what?” I went to pat ol' grits for brains pea pickin pollen eater, on her hairy little arm, but she flinched. None the less, I assured her that I do not take medication, all the while wondering to myself what meds she had forgotten to take to make a statement like that in front of witnesses. Whoa doggies.

The next question had me on the floor. Hornet asked , what I do in “real life”........whoopsy....

I quietly and concisely told Ms McHornet, that I am the President of two multinational landholding corporations, CEO of two other multinational landholding corporations, and chairman of the board of directors for those same four companies. Believe it or not, that is the truth. it is what I do day in and day out as a result of my father croaking and leaving me with a monumental mess of an entangled legacy. It consists of those companies. FInally, working for nothing pays off in the oddest of ways.

To clarify solely for anyone reading this: Due to the lack of anyone else stepping up to the plate, I am President of "Port X, SA" and "XYZ- France S.A." In addition, I am CEO of "MNO Club S.A." and "Companie des XYZ Occidentales SA. " although it is true, and I am not giving the blogging public the actual names of my companies, I will tell you that "S.A." stands for “Societé Anonime. That designates us as a corporation with considerable assets, as opposed to a small business, or a Quiznos franchise. I am in fact, chairman of the board of directors of all four entities. We have stockholders. The stocks are not publicly traded, although they are registered with the French Stock Exchange. The companies are collectively called “The XYZ Group”. We are based out of Paris France, and St Martin in the French West Indies. I also own a jewelry design and manufacturing company in the US called Byzantia. In my now spare time, I make jewelry, but then most of you already knew that part..

Excuse the expression, but Hornet's eyes positively bugged out at this info, and she sputteringly indicated that she didn’t believe me. "LB" and "Partay", wisely remained silent throughout this . I sighed, and held up my cell phone. I noted that I had three law firms in my employ on speed dial. That although it would cost me upwards of $450 for the call, and one of them would be unreachable as it was in France, in another time zone, she was welcome to contact them and confirm my position. She declined. She did say though that I, "didn't look like a CEO". Well thank god for one small favor.

She then asked me if I had a secretary. I have an assistant. No one in this century has ever called Yawovi a secretary. Not to quibble, I said, “of sorts”. Ms Hornetski then asked me if anyone in my companies could access me, or did they have to go through my "secretary" I informed Ms out-of-touch-bug, that my companies have been together for 37 years. That I, and my father before me who held the same positions, were accessible to any employee at any time. That all employees and stockholders had all of our numbers including my home phone number. That I had confidence in the abilities of my employees, and valued creative input from my small staff. It was a concept foreign to Ms Stinging Insect, who instead indicated that she again was not sure that she believed me. It was fast becoming a tedious interview a while ago.

Ol' Bug Eyes looked at me, and again repeated the “meds” comment, then she told me she was going to, “be blunt”. As if she hadn’t been before. Hornet then tilted towards me and intimated the following revelation. She perkily stated, “We have treated you like crap. I will admit that, but since we have treated you like crap, why would you want to stay?” She repeated that statement several times, in case I may have missed it the first time, or perhaps because she wanted to assure herself that she really was making that absurd remark aloud.

Truthfully, I was shocked into silence. Apparently, Bug Breath did not get the memo telling her that I was not there for her, but rather for the clients. I do not remember what exactly I said. I remember distinctly the conversation that I was having with myself in my head, about her and her kind needing to soon be an integral part of a publicly televised Auto de Fe, but wisely chose not to express that. I did tell her rather diplomatically if I do say so myself, that only a handful of her personal staff had treated me poorly, and that I believed in my short time, I had accomplished quite a few positive things. I also left out the , "despite all of you" part.

Ms Hornet regarded me long and hard. Finally stating, “I can’t figure out if you are a loon, or too good to be true”. I couldn't figure out if she had escaped from an asylum, or if this was just par for the ARC paid staff. I replied somewhat disingenuously that, “ perhaps I was a little of both”. Thinking to myself that I must be out of my effing mind to put up with this crap. On the other hand, I also realized that in this situation, I was an anonymous volunteer. Instead of simply donating money, I had for some masochistic reason purposely placed myself in this position. I had done such a silly thing because I had wanted to contribute first hand and see first hand how the Red Cross was run. I certainly found out. Now that was a good idea wasn't it?

So Ms Stripey-Butt regarded me, and then turned to "Partay" and "LB". "LB" true to form, had yet to express a word. If the Hornet was going down, LB" had no plans to go with her. The Red Hornet took a deep breath, and told them that “she was going to go with her gut, and let me stay”. Having already been apprised of the parameters by "Ms Sheri", I remained silent. Gloating, but silent. No one spoke. Hornet turned to her cohorts and asked if, “everyone is all right with that?…… On a scale of one to ten?” No one replied. I returned, escorted by Hornet cerimoniously to my department where she insisted on introducing me to people I had already met.


I took my seat at my desk, and no one said a word. I went back to work. Game, Set, Match.The rest of the day was uneventful. I got to know the rest of the crew, and they got to know me. I hoped that they wouldn't be sorry that they kept me. I planned to make it up to them for their trouble.

That evening, I got stuck carpooling with "Bob" the missing Marx Brother. He wanted to go and see the Mississippi, and I was too tired to say no. We went off to some idiotic riverboat replica casino on the water, full of lights and sounds and smoke and idiots flushing their money away.

The Mississippi was beautiful though. I watched it for a while, and thought about the old days. The plantations, the south, the war the slaves and the things and people that had gone up and down this river and was awed. 'Bob" not withstanding. I watched the sun set and ate yet another bad fried meal, where my choice of wine was red or white, with a boob in the seat in front of me, and it still didn't manage to diminish the experience. It had been a long day. I felt as though I had done battle with the forces of evil and won.

Of course, it wasn't that simple. I had done battle, but it was only with the ongoing forces of stupidity and bureaucracy, and what the heck had I won? the chance to stick around and get kicked around some more. So who was the dummy in this scenario? You be the judge.



Ready for some more stories? We are now into part two.



Best,



Lisa