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6:56 a.m. - Friday, Jan. 06, 2006
MsLeslie builds some shelves
Today I�m going to keep working on the organization of my garage. Am I justified in having so much pride in the fact that after six months in my new (old) home, I have finally built two wall racks to hang my shovels and rakes and started on some shelves? Maybe so, considering all the obstacles I�ve had to get past, just in order to cut up some scrap lumber and nail it to the wall.

The lumber, as a matter of fact, came as a byproduct of one of those obstacles� Katrina. Isn�t it strange that I don�t even have to say �Hurricane Katrina�? Worldwide, we all know what.. no longer who� Katrina means.

Anyway, I was lucky as hurricane survivors go. My brick house withstood the winds. Not even a broken window. But I did lose a significant amount of roofing, which revealed that the plywood decking underneath was entirely inappropriate. In an effort, I guess, to save some money, someone had decked this house with 3/8� plywood. Inadequate ventilation had caused the decking to start coming apart, so that there really was nothing to which my new shingles could be nailed. So in the process of replacing my storm-damaged roof, I had the contractor replace all my decking� about 2000 square feet� with new 5/8� exterior plywood. At post-Katrina prices, it cost me nine of the eleven thousand dollars I got from my insurance company. But hey, I got to keep the scrap plywood and a few short 2x4s with which to make my garage shelves.

Katrina came just a few days after I had returned from Utah. I had planned a trip to go out there and accompany my mom to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. My sister, who always had a flair for bad timing, died in my mom�s basement just a week before my scheduled flight, however, and so I was required to add another five hundred dollars to my fare and fly to Utah early for the funeral festivities. Her funeral took place during Hurricane Dennis, which I watched on TV before and after the ceremony. I was lucky again, for that hurricane just missed my unpacked house. I was on the �good� side of that one.

So all in all, I guess I�m doing OK. I�ve spent most of the time after Katrina trying to clean up my yard after the loss of all fifteen of my trees, looking for money to fix my leaking roof, waiting for the contractor to finally begin, and hoping that when it�s all over, I�ll have enough money to buy a pickup truck so I can haul the materials I will need to buy to do all the rest of the repairs myself. It�s going to be a very long process. I�ll have to work as I get money. But it all begins with building shelves from scrap lumber in my garage.

In other news; My beloved swimming pool was destroyed, along with most of the rest of the Gulfport VA Medical Center. I really miss that pool. Seeing that it was gone is the only thing that has brought me tears. Oh, and my little apartment on the beach, where I spent most of the last five years, was also washed away. It would seem that I bought this house and moved just in the nick of time. I don�t cry over that, but I also don�t go look at it either. It just seems like every place I�ve ever been had been destroyed after I leave. I suppose that�s why I don�t go back over old territory anymore.

Well, it�s getting light outside. I�m feeling like going out and making those shelves happen today.


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