Back of the Envelope

I don't usually do any catblogging, but these guys were just too darn photogenic for me not to take their picture.

Officially, these are barn cats. Yes, we have a barn and everything, although technically, they aren't staying in it. Frankly, we have no idea where they've been staying. Their mother gave birth to them right in the middle of our patio, then promptly carried them off. We hadn't seen them for about three weeks, and we were beginning to think they might have died off. But it turns out that their mother had been taking good care of them, and she's recently brought them back to our patio, where they get way more attention than is good for them from both humans and other cats.

Just so you know exactly how big the town my parents live in is, I thought I'd show you a picture of the phone book.

This is both the white and yellow pages. And it covers the entire New Roads area, not just St. Francisville, but also New Roads, Morganza, Rougon, and Tunica. Maybe I shouldn't be holding my breath for them to get high-speed Internet access here.

Today's been a pretty miserable day for me, breathing-wise. When my allergies are really bad, I start sneezing, repeatedly. I never count them, so I don't really know how many times I sneeze, but it can go on for ten or twenty minutes, rapid stacatto bursts of sneezes separated by a couple of minutes of being almost ready to sneeze. In between the sneezing fits, my nose runs and I sniff a lot, my eyes water and burn, the roof of my mouth itches horribly, my lungs, and for some reason my arms, feel sore and weak, and all in all I feel terrible. It helps to eat--I'm not sure why, but it seems to suppress the sneezing impulse, and it reduces the itching in my mouth--but after a while my stomach starts to get annoyed at all the food I'm putting into it without being hungry, so now my stomach, while not upset, does feel uncomfortably full. On top of that, sneezing starts to hurt. My chest muscles ache with every sneeze, the roof of my mouth doesn't just itch, it hurts, as do my nostrils. The skin around my nose and mouth, rubbed raw by tissues, handkerchiefs, paper towels, and whatever else is handy, starts to feel chafed and burned. Every once in a while my nostrils become clear, only to quickly clog up again, one before the other. I have been unable to do much of anything productive until a couple of hours ago.

A typical day in Louisiana, right? Well, not quite. Yesterday, I felt fine. I am, of course, on medication, in my case Claritin, and I was just thinking that it must be working pretty well. Until this all started last night. And I think I can guess the source. Last night, because of the hurricance, my sister brought two cats and two dogs into this house. I'm now pretty certain that my allergies began acting up when they arrived. They're gone now, and I'm hopeful that my allergies will settle down soon. Maybe then I'll be able to blog again.

Yesterday was pretty tense as we waited for the hurricane to come this way. My sister and her daughter came over since they didn't want to be in their trailer when the hurricane came. She brought animals. Lots of animals: two cats and two dogs. The cats are hers, while the dogs belong to a friend of hers. My allergies did not take well to them, and I had to retreat to the room over the garage in order to sleep. After all that, however, the storm passed us by. I don't think we even got any rain, and it's even sunny out right now. Unfortunately, the storm did make landfall somewhere, and Mobile got the storm we didn't. I am glad New Orleans didn't get hit too hard, though. A good hurricane would wipe New Orleans from the map.