Okay, I'll say it.

I'm sure we won't know for weeks yet exactly what the damage to New Orleans is really going to be, or how much it will cost to repair. And I'm a tad wary of expressing my opinion based on the response to some of Democrublican's recent posts that danced around the subject of humans living in inadvisable locations, whatever the reasons. But a certain book has been on my mind a lot since I first heard about Katrina's predicted path last week. If you haven't read it, immediately find yourself a copy of John McPhee's Control of Nature, and read the section on the Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi River. It will explain a lot of where I'm coming from, and may explain a lot about where I presume Democrublican is coming from, if not his actual comments.

But I'll go ahead and state it anyway, as a geoscientist who understands the principles of geomorphology, as someone who has worked with the USACE, as someone who has never been there or known anyone there, and most importantly, as an uppity know-it-all with an overly high opinion of my opinions.

We should abandon New Orleans.

Let it fill with water and leave it.

It was a stupid place to have built a city in the first place, and it has only gotten more precarious as the levees were built higher and higher. This was bound to happen sooner or later, and is bound to happen again.

Even if the costs of rebuilding are not as great as I fear they will be, perhaps we should take this as the opportunity to get out now. We've been raising the levees for years because "we're already there, and sure it wasn't a great idea in the first place, but there is a city there now, and we can't just abandon it" (sounds remarkably similar to a lot of the current justification for our presence in Iraq). We could spend the reconstruction money on grants to the former residents so they can live elsewhere. If we do rebuild, the next catastrophe will be even worse. It may take hundreds of years, but it will happen sooner or later. Eventually, Ol' Man River is going to shift into the Atchafalaya River, despite the best efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers. Or the next hurricane will stay at category five and strike just to the west of N.O.

I wonder if any of our politicians or pundits on the right or left will have the cohones to put forth this idea in public. I haven't heard a peep on the subject yet.

Okay. All that said, I'm going to go send some money to the Red Cross, and I wish the best of luck for the unfortunate souls that are caught up in this mess.

Busy Weekend

A busy weekend without as much slacker or chore time. But I did lots of things, so the laundry/dishes/vacuuming/filing/sorting will just be delayed for the millionth time. In addition to spending a lot of time sweating my future, there was a bunch of other stuff...

So. Saturday, I went gaming with the geeks. Arrived a bit late, missed the beginning of the first game. Played a bunch of Magic. Got stuck in a game that went on forever. Missed the start of the next "big" game. Played more magic. Left, Baltimore to make it to A's for a scrabble date(?). I am beginning her education as a scrabble player. First goal: Get her to stop pishing away all her S's. Second goal: get her to kick her mom's ass. Third goal: Figure out where this train is headed. This would be a lot easier if she wasn't easy on the eyes. Or the most interesting conversation I've had in months. Or a mother of two.

Home very late.

Sunday: Up very early. Met up with MeanG and GayBee (as well as my niece, Rosie) at the National Arboretum.

Highlights included the water gardens/koi pond, the Capital Columns, the little trees, and the Gotelli Dwarf Conifer collection.

I think the Arboretum really needs a rock garden. I wonder who the appropriate person to talk to about that would be...

Alas, if only I had the time, money, inclination, and property to do amazing things with plants at my house. Anyway, more Rich Planty Goodness from the arboretum this way.

Home late in the afternoon. Futzed about the yard. Worried about my housing/life situation. You know, the usual.

Watched Rome. I suppose the boobies should be enough to get me back for next week. Though I'm not sold on the show otherwise. Yet. It did look good though. But will it be good enough?

What to do... What to do...

All of a sudden my plans just got a lot more complicated than trying to figure out what to do for my birthday.

DingleG, my roommate of 1 year and coworker of the last three is moving to NY. The work will be less fun but the promotion/buckets of cash offered are too good for any mere mortal to pass up.

I will (eventually) be given a new kid to work with. Or something like that. I also will need to find a new living arrangement. I can, in the short term, keep this house by myself. But I can't keep that up for very long, and frankly, it would be rather silly to do so.

The real stress here is that I've been thinking about other things to do with my life for some time. And doing a lot of hemming and hawing. It is me, after all. But if I'm getting out, nowish would probably be a very good time to get my shit together.

But my shit is ever-so-untogether.

*worry*

It's easier to write about plants

The rich planty goodness flows out of me. Or something. Perhaps I should remember the lesson of my educational career: I only apply myself to things that I enjoy. Or something.

Anyway, being planty does cause a certain degree of observation of the detail of the world around me. Or the yard around me, as the case may be.

me take good pictures! see pretty butterfly?

So I got that going for me.

But here are my thoughts of the moment:

a) Charlie & The Chocolate Factory: Quite good, really. Excellent Oompa Loompa songs, not just lyrically, but musically. I'm not sure portraying Willy Wonka as quite that bipolar/OCD was neccesary though.

b) I like toast. It is crispy and warm and is excellent with jelly on it.

c) I am suffering from outrage burnout. Nothing our president or his cheerleaders in the punditocracy do of late seems to really piss me off. I wish I could say that it is because they've hit bottom. Alas, I'm quite sure they can sink far far lower.

d) I'm turning old soon. I feel like I ought to do something to celebrate the occasion, but few of my ideas are truly exciting me. Though a beer-b-que would be nice. But do I really feel like doing the work?

e) Girls are confusing.

That's all I got. My goodness, what a thoughtful and coherent post.