Disaster averted! Dr. Motaghedi successfully fixed me. My ears are clean and clear and my pounding headache has subsided. Definitely got a little motivation to quit smoking. They had one of those "The consequences of smoking" posters hanging in the room and the lung of the smoke looked pretty nasty. If I had to spend one more moment imagining how similar my lungs were, I would have taken my pack and threw it out the window.
I dropped off Jack at the kennel today. Everytime I put him up for a week I get serious heart pangs. The new kennel I took him to made me a bit nervous. It's no Pooch's Palace. The guy who took him was gruff and grizzly. If I get any indication that Jack was hurt during his week, I will never bring him back to that place. He was so scared when they led him to the back. He was literally shaking. It made me really sad. I can never lose him.
I went back to New Orleans today to pick up Jack's vaccination papers for the vet and I must say that the city is back in full force. I've never seen it so busy. Every street was packed with traffic. The medians are littered with 12" by 12" info-mercials. One of those happened to be advertising the services of the one and only Kenya Rounds, the attorney I had met a few weeks prior at the Hookah Cafe. Small coincidence. Or is it? Maybe I need an existential detective.
I'm starting to get giddy about going home. Going to live it up with Jocelyn in the city for her birthday Saturday night. I plan on having lunch with Sarah on Sunday and sprinkle some Mossberg wherever I can get a piece. Monday night I'm going to the Sixers game with pops. It should be a hoot. They're playing really well right now and it's helping take my mind off the tragedy of the Eagles. Coincidentally (again) they are to play the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets. Oklahoma City just shouldn't be a part of the equation. No offense to those kind folks, and frankly I've never been within a hundred miles of Oklahoma, but they just don't seem like the kind of town to have a professional sports team. I dare you to prove me wrong. Just you go ahead.
I'm getting a digital camera in a few days and I can't wait to begin photodocumenting all this crazy stuff ravaging around me. I lost my old one in the natural disaster whose name I will not speak. I'll be able to post pictures of Jack, my school, New Orleans etc. the possibilities are endless. Plus I'm feeling a desire to be creative.
I feel like a poem...
Blood pumps through the veins and over the pot-holes of a cancerous city.
Strangers smile and talk about the ghost that leaves reminders in the medians and on the sidewalks.
The old familiar smells begin to reclaim their places at the street corners.
An old man walks slowly to his mark and brings his trumpet to his lips on South Claiborne Ave.
Streetcars still hibernate or maybe they're bannished to a greater infrequency.
The stray beads of past Mardi Gras have receded with the waters.
Ageless trees become modern art and priceless ruins.
Police sirens are oddly silent.
Fresh horse shit fertilizes the streets of the French Quarter.
Tourists arrive looking for horror and leave with guilt and a Katrina novelty T-shirt.
I'm locked outside the gates of a two A.M. curfew, looking in.
