Just a quickie...

I'm home.

I'm tired, and my legs and back hurt.

I only have three mosquito bites and about five nearly-healed fire-ant bites.

A very nice 84-year-old man has a house ready for HVAC, drywall, and windows. Then he can take his name off the housing list (which he's been on for months), send back his FEMA trailer, and move back into the house he built 40 years ago for his wife, who died about 15 months ago. He also has a passel of new friends and two fabulously cute and lovely great-grandchildren who will rule the world one day as much as they ruled our hearts this week.

I did more sweating in the last week than I've done in the past 20 years.

People are stupid, and incredibly resilient, and kind, and hard to get along with.

I will never...ever...inmylifetime...live within 100 miles of the ocean.

Bourbon Street...is psycho. Think of the worst frat party you ever went to. Add clashing styles of music, armed gang members and clueless tourists, mix in 90 degree temperatures and 100% humidity along with the smell of sewage wafting up from the drains...and the smell of fatty foods of any and all varieties cooking. Yish.

A very productive 84-year-old woman--a.k.a. my mom--has probably had yet another stroke and looks like she's heading back to the nursing home for rehab.

My sister, on the other hand, has found out that the PD has not started eating her brain, at least not in a way that's obvious on the brain scan she had last week.

I have drywall mud in my anniversary ring, mixed in with the diamond chips, and that's ok; it's every bit as valuable to me as the diamonds.

I, Cat., She-Who-Hates-All-Things-Camping-and-All-Things-Sweaty, did not want to leave D'Iberville.

Everything we've heard about Katrina isn't anything compared to seeing first-hand even 1% of the damage inflicted on manmade structures by this storm. There is no word that encompasses what the Gulf Coast looks like, 10 months later.

Sonic: not All That. Unless the concept of young girls on roller skates does something for you.

Sixteen hours is a long time in a car when the only way to avoid carsickness is to look out the windows or sleep.

FEMA--the new four-letter F-word.

Did I mention I'm tired?