Greetings, and welcome to our on-line Christmas newsletter.
Last Christmas, the world was saddened by the tsunami that struck southern Asia. This Christmas, New Orleans, southeast Louisiana, and the Mississippi gulf coast find themselves recovering from their own tsunami, Hurricane Katrina. Events like these remind us that everything on this planet is temporary, and much of it (including ourselves) exists precariously. And they remind us to appreciate what really matters.
We are fortunate to have come through Katrina in fairly good shape. Though we were displaced from our home for more than two months, we are among the lucky few Orleanians who are now living in their own houses. We resumed living here on November 5, with a big blue tarp covering our damaged roof and an ice chest in the kitchen substituting for our ruined refrigerator. Today the house still needs some work, but it now has a brand new roof, and the kitchen now has a brand new refrigerator. One step at a time, we're getting back to normal.
Many Orleanians lost their jobs because of Katrina. We're among the lucky ones who still have ours. Ray practices law at Adams and Reese LLP, where he concentrates on appellate advocacy. Suzanne works for the State of Louisiana, Department of Social Services, Office of Disability Determinations, where she evaluates claims for Social Security Disability benefits.
2005 got off to a difficult start, with both Ray's mom and Suzanne's dad becoming seriously ill. Molly died on February 3, and Ignatius died on April 24. But not everything was a trial. Below are some of the notable things that happened to us in 2005:
- In January, Ray was called for jury duty at Criminal District Court. Unfortunately he didn't get to sit on a jury. Nonetheless, the experience was an education. You can read about his experience by clicking here and here.
- Near the end of February, Molly's cat, Alexis, started living with us. This raised the feline population at 6227 Magazine Street to four. The others are Rocky (pictured above), Jelly Roll, and Wednesday.
- Shortly after Molly died, we found her genealogy, which included a reference to an ancestor who was the brother of Hans Landis, beheaded in 1614. The family had no idea who Hans Landis was or what he did to get beheaded. A few months later, Ray stumbled on the answer. It seems that Hans is a famous Anabaptist martyr. You can read about him by clicking here.
- Besides lawyering, Ray serves as publications chair of the Defense Research Institute's Appellate Advocacy Committee. That job includes editing the committee's newsletter, Certworthy, which Ray modestly describes as "the best damned appellate newsletter on the planet." To read about the Summer 2005 issue, click here; to download it click here. To read about the Winter 2005 issue, click here; to download it, click here.
- Ray also wrote a short piece for the January 2005 issue of the DRI magazine, For the Defense. The article, titled Good Writing, Good Reading: Advice on Typography, contains advice for using principles of typography in legal writing. To read the article, click here. (The December 2005 issue will carry another article written by Ray.)
- In March, Suzanne was featured in the Times-Picayune, in a regular column titled The Best Revenge. To read the story, click here.
- In August, Suzanne became certified as a Level 1 practitioner of Reiki. (To find out what Reiki is all about, click here.)
- In September, Ray was honored by his alma mater, the Franciscan University of Steubenville, with the President's Award, for outstanding achievement in the field of law or government by a member of the Class of 1980.
- Ray continues writing on his own web log, Minor Wisdom. And would you believe that people actually read it? No kidding—over the last six months, Minor Wisdom has averaged 154 visitors per day. And probably dozens more people read it by RSS feed.
Meanwhile, there was Katrina
All these things are interesting footnotes in a year dominated by Katrina. For those who haven't heard our Katrina story, here it is:
When we woke up on Sunday, August 28, we thought we would ride out the storm here. That changed when we learned that the mayor had ordered a mandatory evacuation of the entire city—something that had never happened before. So we packed enough clothes for a three- or four-day road trip, corralled the cats, loaded up the car, and headed for Jackson, Mississippi. There, we were welcomed into the home of Holmes and Gayle Adams. (Holmes is a partner of Adams and Reese.) We spent a week at the Adams' house, then another week in Jackson at the home of Jerry and Susan Sheldon. (Jerry is another Adams and Reese partner.)
When we arrived in Jackson, we thought we'd be there for just a few days. We were discouraged to learn that our sojourn would be much longer. On the other hand, our hosts in Jackson were most gracious. In fact, we liked the hospitality in Jackson so much that we thought about staying there until New Orleans re-opened. But Adams and Reese had a better idea: the firm opened a temporary "New Orleans West" office in Baton Rouge and encouraged its New Orleans personnel to report there for work, which Ray did. Moving our base from Jackson to Baton Rouge was a chore, but a worthwhile one, as it brought us closer to home and re-united Ray with his colleagues.
Finding housing in Baton Rouge proved difficult; we ended up renting a couple of rooms in a house north of St. Francisville, an hour north of Baton Rouge. Meanwhile, the cats were boarding in Jackson. Eventually, we leased a condo in Baton Rouge near LSU, only 15 minutes' drive from "New Orleans West." Even better, the condo owner let us have our cats—all four of them! So on September 30 or thereabouts, the family was reunited under one roof.
Our zip code in New Orleans re-opened on October 7, and on October 8, we visited our house for the first time since Katrina. The good news: The flood didn't reach our house. The bad news: The wind took off a chunk of our roof, and the rains from Katrina or Rita or both caved in the bedroom ceiling. (To see pictures of how things looked then, click here.)
We spent the next few weekends cleaning things up and making the house liveable. Sometime between October 9 and October 16, a contractor put a blue tarp on the roof; and on October 16, some FEMA folks made some improvements to the tarp covering. Meanwhile, Adams and Reese was working toward re-opening its New Orleans office. That happened on November 7. We moved back in the weekend of November 5 and 6. For the following two weeks, Suzanne continued to spend Monday through Friday in Baton Rouge, using the condo there and spending weekends in New Orleans. Finally, just before Thanksgiving, Suzanne's office announced that it was returning to Metairie, just outside New Orleans. So on Thanksgiving, Suzanne came home for good.
There's still much Katrina stuff to deal with: insurance adjusters, contractors, estimates, repair work. But as we deal with those things, we will be together, under one roof—our roof. That's something to be grateful for.
Best wishes to you and yours for a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and a happy and healthy New Year.
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