I am tired. Holy crap, I’m tired.

I got up at the usual hour, got the kid ready for daycare, drove her there and slowed down enough to push her out in a semi-controlled fashion. She’s learning how to tuck and roll quite well, actually.

Then went back home and waited for Mom to show up so that I could drive her to the airport. She’s going to Nairobi to study Lions.

Okay, It’s not like I want my mom to kick off or anything, but really, if she were to get eaten by a lion, I mean, how cool would that be to tell people? “Mom passed away last month.” “Oh, dear! I’m so sorry. What happened?” “She was Thanksgiving dinner for a lovely pride of lions.”

No, really, I’m kidding. I don’t want my mother to be eaten by lions for Thanksgiving.

Anyway.

After dropping mom off at the airport I drove over to Slidell by way of New Orleans East and the Twin Spans bridge. Although it’s not really a Twin Span anymore since one span is mostly in the lake and the other span is two way traffic. Driving through N.O East is a sobering experience. There’s just so much devastation… it feels like driving through a war zone. I swear, much of the area looks like footage from Iraq.

I made it over to my house in Slidell a little before noon and got to work on the ongoing and at times herculean task of getting the place cleaned up, stripped out, and ready for a new tenant. I managed to get the carpet pulled out of the back room, and was surprised to find that beneath the carpet was some quite decent linoleum that looked a lot nicer than that ugly-ass carpet. I think that a thorough mopping and a decent area rug will be more than sufficient.

But the big chore was pulling up the nasty and rotted linoleum in the stove room (thus dubbed because there’s a wood burning stove in there. Not that anyone would ever use the wood burning stove to burn wood, but it’s kinda cool and decorative.) I had to take a break and go to Home Despot to buy a special tool for scraping the linoleum up, which made it only marginally easier. I also discovered that the former feline occupants had made liberal use of the floor in lieu of a cat box. Before I left I poured about half a bottle of odor-removing enzyme stuff all around the perimeter of the room. The next time I get over there I’ll Kilz the whole floor a couple of time, which will hopefully kill off any residual smell.

Now I’m whupped. And stinky. And sore. And also incredibly thankful that my house only requires a bit of replacement flooring. There are lots of people still working on gutting their houses after taking several feet of water.

Hard to believe that it’s been almost three months since the storm.