Katrina Refugee Kids Get Help :)

Here is something that Trey just forwarded to me...

August 31, 2005 - 10:48AM

AUSTIN (AP)

The children of Hurricane Katrina refugees will be able to enroll in a number of school districts in Texas, including Beaumont, West Orange Cove, Houston and Dallas public schools while they're sheltered in those cities.

Texas public schools will enroll children of Hurricane Katrina refugees sheltered within each district.

Texas Governor Rick Perry Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco today agreed to move thousands of Katrina refugees from New Orleans to Houston.

Most of the refugees are sweltering in the Louisiana Superdome. The plan calls for them to be moved to the Astrodome.

The Texas Education Agency has been directed to provide all needed support for districts having to absorb children from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

T-E-A has said the refugee children can qualify as "homeless" and may enroll without proof of residence.

Also, health officials say normal immunization requirements for attending school or child-care facilities in Texas will be temporarily waived for children displaced by the hurricane.

I Love You, Houston

We live in a sweet city full of hospitable people. Hurricane Katrina http://www.click2weather.com/news/4908558/detail.html
has blown many folks from Louisiana west on I-10 into our city. Many of these Louisiana residents are filling up hotels everywhere in our area. On the radio this morning, I heard that if you are one of these people and you have a Louisiana state license plate on your car, you do not have to pay for metered parking downtown. How nice is that? Also on the radio, I heard people calling in with ideas of how to take good care of our neighbors... Like, if you see somebody with Louisiana plates at the gas station, pay to fill up their gas. If you are in a restaurant and discover that there is a table of Louisiana people there, pick up their tab. There were bunches of other sweet ideas... I love that there are so many thoughtful and caring people out there. I long to live in other places (especially the Northwest), but I have thus far found it too heartbreaking to just *think* about fixing my gaze upon the people of Houston in my rearview mirror.

Happy Birthday, Chris Seals!!!

You are a wonderful friend and I love knowing you!

Erika

"Waiting" by John Burroughs

Here's the link for the poem that Cheeseburger sent me:

http://www.bartleby.com/248/879.html

It has everything in it.

To: The Converse Gang

1. Thanks to you guys, I can now say "Why, yes" when somebody asks me, "Have you ever tried Stalinistic, Communistic, NonPutinistic beer?" That's going to win me a cool dude one day... just as the cigar smoking won a certain girl a certain boy. :)

2. Another thanks to you guys that I can use the word "hoppy" as a describing word and the phrase "fermented in the bottle" whenever I feel like now.

3. Let's start a probhibition-prohibition group in our lonestar state.

4. "Do I have white powder on my face?"

Thanks for letting me hang out with y'all last night, even though it wasn't "THAT kind of a party!" :) :) :)

It was a joy and pleasure. :) I hope to see y'all on Saturday night.

Poem Recited by Cheeseburger, My Dear Friend in Salt Lake City

A Poem by John Burroughs:
(Cheeseburger says that the words/order may be off a little...)

serene, i fold my hands and wait
nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea,
i rave no more gainst' time or fate
for lo! God's own shall come to me.

i stay my haste, i make delays
for what avails this eager pace?
i stand amid the eternal ways
and what is His shall know my face

asleep, awake, by night or day
the friends i seek are seeking me
no wind can drive my bark astray
or change the tide of destiny

the waters know their own and draw
the brook that springs on yonder height
so flows the good with equal law
unto the soul of pure delight

what matter if i stand alone?
i wait with joy the coming years
my heart shall reap where it has sown
and gather up its fruit of tears

What to do?

What am I supposed to do when I miss my faraway friends like crazy... so much that it hurts inside?

Summer's Out for School!

For those of you who are You've Got Mailers ~ Where's my bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils? At that, where's my Tom Hanks? I trust that God knows. :)

Tarantula

The night before I left for H-town, I saw a tarantula on the driveway. It was big, black, furry, and dead. There were a ton of ants all over it doing their job of breaking it down, but I didn't like it. I felt so sad for it. Plus, I thought that maybe there was a chance that the tarantula was still alive and just defenseless. It looked like the ants were hurting it :(, so I started throwing chunks of my chocolate Tastykake at the ants (and the tarantula, I guess). It worked! At first, the ants got confused by the chocolate meteor shower and they scurried about aimlessly. Then they started going for the chocolate. I also saw the tarantula move, but I wasn't sure if it was because it was still alive or if it was because a chunk of chocolate Tastykake hit it. So I threw another chunk of cake at it to see what would happen (How messed up is that???). About 5 seconds after that point, I felt bad for intervening with Mother Nature. I figured out the the tarantula was indeed dead. I decided to scoot the tarantula and the chunks of chocolate together onto the lawn. I went inside and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I went outside to see if the ants had taken care of business and I found that there was not a trace of the tarantula (or the Tastycake) left. How amazing is that? Those amazing ants!

I felt grateful for ants that morning:

#1 They are swell decomposers and you know it would be nasty out there if they weren't around for that job.

#2 They got rid of the evidence that I totally wasted a good Tastykake that I took from my mom's sandwich shop. She sells them. My mom would have DIED had she seen chunks of one of her Tastykakes(which = wasted money) all over her driveway. Phew! And to tell you the truth, while I was throwing the chunks down that night, I kept my eyes and ears open for any sign of my mom. Had I seen her, I would have done whatever necessary in order to divert her from discovering what I had been doing.

Yikes!

Do you ever find yourself acting like you're still a little kid and your parent is still the big, scary, anvil-in-the-hand grown-up?

Trey's Question (You're getting too much attention on my blog, Trey. Don't let it give you a big head.)

What have you been doing down there?

This is the end. Tomorrow I return to Houston. I was actually in Houston Saturday/Sunday for a wedding. As I drove into Montrose, I felt refreshed by the beautiful familiarity of it all. I felt totally excited about my near return. But now, as I am about to pack my car to be ready to jet tomorrow, I feel heartbroken to find the end of this time.

In this last week, I have spent some sweet time with some of the most important people in my life. I got to see my cousin Katwoman and family. I got to watch "Abigirl", my little niece, take swim lessons (she rocked!) and Abigirl got to see me see her. After the swim lessons, she hugged me and said "You proud me." I got to spend the day relaxing, talking, and laughing with my best friend from middle school and high school and her family. We hung out at her mom's house which is a place that holds many growing-up memories for us. It felt good to be back there. I also got to go that wedding in Houston. I didn't expect it to be as interesting and entertaining as it was. It was a catholic wedding in Vietnamese. Usually, people have a hard time making it through a lengthy wedding in English. Imagine it being in VIETNAMESE. I had almost no clue as to what was happening the whole time. The only word I recognized was hallelujah. Even though I couldn't understand what was being said, there were some simple delights by sight. The young bride, who married my third cousin, used to be a nun. Many of her sisters from her convent were there to see her get married. They filled the entire two pews in front of me. The reception kept my attention as well. We sat at a table with a Hawaiian entertainer who at one point sang for all of us. He also gave me his lei. It was my first real lei from a real Hawaiian! Delight!

Aside from the above moments, I have had special nature and wildlife moments. I saw one of the most beautiful TEXAS SUNSETS over some AMAZING hills just northwest of Austin. A few days ago, I was driving at night and I saw a BEAUTIFUL RED FOX for the first time in real life (that is, not on Disney). It was short and it had a long, red furry body with a bushy tail that had - get this - A WHITE TIP. It was a fox! For some reason, I assumed that the fox from The Fox and the Hound wasn't that close to what a real fox looks like... just like the Little Mermaid chic probably doesn't look like real mermaids. Other than the fox, I have seen roadrunners and I have "dealt with" a raccoon (cute and scary at the same time). I have also heard plenty of unidentifiable noises at night.

So there's that.

Tomorrow: Houston.

I love Houston and it will be so good to be back and to be in my new home... but I'm sad about the end of this. It's good to be sad about the end of things. It means that the things meant something to me.