New Orleans Levee



Standing on the levee


We all know that New Orleans flooded when the levees broke after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In case you've never been able to visualize what the levee looked like, here's a picture. It's not all that wide, and wasn't as tall as I'd expected, or at least, not as tall as I'd expect something to be if it was intended to hold back hurricane floods.

This picture is taken in the Lower 9th ward, which was one of the most severely damaged areas. The locals say a barge plowed through the wall, creating a huge hole that let the storm surges through. The grassy area in the background used to be a neighborhood of houses.

Year Two

This is it - the first anniversary of my blog. I managed to post and write about a picture for 365 days in a row and have been deliberating if, or how, I'd like to continue. I've had several ideas.

I thought maybe I'd change the focus, or actually, create a focus, since I don't have one. I toyed with the idea of switching to a travel blog, which I hope to do someday. I also thought about writing once a week instead of once a day. I could just write occasionally, though that seemed like a lot of pressure to write something good, if it was to be worthy enough to post. I thought about calling it a wrap and just letting "Daily Snapshot" be a wonderful memory.

But then I sat down with a man at work whom I only knew in passing. We talked about writing. His writing, my writing, and writing in general. He asked me about my process when I'm writing different pieces, and he said that he wished he could get back to doing some creative writing instead of spending all his energy putting words on paper at work. I understood completely.

Part of the reason I'd debated whether or not to continue blogging is because my work life is about to get a little crazy. It is getting harder and harder to strike a balance between work and home and blogging seemed like one thing that I could take off my plate. Why pressure myself to write every day when sometimes I just don't have the time or inspiration to do so?

But that thought is exactly why I have to continue. I was re-motivated and inspired after talking to that man at work. I left work that day more energized than I had in a long time, and realized again that I must keep myself connected to the writing world somehow, no matter how crazy things get. It would be so easy to just let go and write occasionally -- but how sad is that? It goes against the grain of being a writer and sitting your butt down in a chair every day and writing down words whether you're "inspired" or not. Writing takes work. Writing takes discipline. And most importantly, writing makes me happy.

So, I have decided to continue. I will continue to write daily because that's what I need to do. I have decided to keep the blog unfocused, and relish in the freedom that it gives me. I did change the background (slightly), but am otherwise keeping things the same. Hopefully Daily Snapshot will continue to keep me tethered to the writing world when I could so easily be swept away by the other demands of life.

Here we go. Year Two.

Gobblesnort Road

"There's no way I'm going down there," Ricky told his friend Jake. "I'd rather cut through the cornfield."

Jake looked down at his bike tires. The front wheel was nearly flat. "I don't think I can make it through the cornfield. It's too rough. Those stalk stumps might pop my tire."

Ricky shrugged and turned his handlebars away from Gobblesnort Road. "Do what you want, but I'm not going anywhere near there. Some kinda freak lives down there." He jerked his head toward the house down the lane. "My brother says he saw a goblin down there once."

"There's no such things as goblins," Jake argued. "Besides, we'll go fast. Nobody will even be able to catch us."

"No humans, maybe."

"There are no goblins." Jake pushed off. His bike wobbled onto Gobblesnort Road. Ricky watched as Jake awkwardly pedaled toward the old white house. A patch of weeds blocked a rusty metal mailbox. Ricky supposed it had once read 'Smith' though 'S  th' was all that remained of the ancient black lettering along its side.

"You coming?" Jake called over his shoulder.

Ricky shook his head but couldn't bring himself to turn his bike into the cornfield. Jake was right about the cornstalks being rough. He didn't relish trying to make his way through the bumpy, sharp shards of stalk sticking up through the ground.

He watched Jake near the white house and saw a hand move the curtain inside the window.

"Jake!" he screamed. "The goblin!"

Jake swiveled his head quickly, first back at his friend, then toward the window of the house where he saw blue drapes move inside. Startled, he drove into the gravel shoulder of the road and skidded into the ditch. Ricky raced toward his friend, pedalling fiercely as he neared the shoulder. "Are you okay? Come on!"

Ricky whipped his bike back around as Jake jumped up and ran beside him. They turned off Gobblesnort Road and paused, both of them breathing hard. Jake panted a moment, then crouched down to inspect his knee. He'd skinned it up in his fall.

"Man, that was close!" Ricky said as he looked back down the road at the sinister white house.

"I know. I saw him!"

"You saw him? The goblin?"

Jake swallowed and shook his head as he caught his breath. "No. It wasn't a goblin. It was some kind of... monster. Half pig and half human. It was creepy!" Jake backed further away as he told his tale. "I'm never going down there again."

Ricky nodded and stared at the house. Then his eye caught sight of the metal heap near the road. "Oh, man! Your bike."

Jake exhaled loudly and shook his head. "I'm not going back down there. He can keep my bike. I'm not going anywhere near that thing again."

Ricky nodded and made room on his seat for Jake. Then he stood on his pedals and began making his way through the cornfield. "Wait'll I tell my brother."

Half A Life

I was the fortunate recipient of one of Kristan's book giveaways and received Darin Strauss' memoir Half a Life in my mailbox a few weeks ago. I love memoirs and quickly sat down to delve into the aftermath of a car accident Strauss had as a teenager. He was on his way to play miniature golf with his friends when a high school classmate riding a bike suddenly swerved into his path. He begins his book with this cold, hard fact: Half my life ago, I killed a girl.

Sounds gripping, no? It seemed like it would be, but it wasn't. If anything, Strauss spent 190+ pages telling us that he didn't know how the accident had really affected his life. At times, it seemed that he was pretending the accident had a more profound effect than it actually had. He often said he felt he was just playing the part that he thought he should be playing, and acting the way he thought people expected him to act. Interesting, and honest, but not that compelling. But it could be that as with all readings, I brought my own life perspective to the book and just didn't find the answers I was hoping to find through Strauss' introspection.

You see, my ex-brother-in-law, Steve, once killed a girl on a bicycle, too. I believe he was a teenager when he was driving his car -- drunk. And I believe that the girl he hit was younger; an adolescent girl, not a teenager who swerved into a car, like in Strauss' case.

Steve went to jail. That's all I know. He had already been released when I met him, and was a recovering alcoholic when I met him. But we didn't talk about that. We didn't talk about his drinking, or the accident, or his jail time. We didn't talk about anything with Steve. He was a very troubled, damaged soul with demons that I could not begin to imagine.

Steve was in and out of the picture during my marriage to his brother. He went from a zealous Bible-thumper with teetotalling views on sobriety to raging benders of alcoholism that lead to more bouts of crimes and jail time. Steve was an enigma to me. I was frightened of him, yet so curious about him. I knew so little and was afraid to ask.

And so I turned to Darin Strauss' book to shed some light on what might have gone through Steve's mind in the years after he killed a girl on a bicycle, too. But I think the similarities between Strauss and Steve ended there. Maybe Steve shared some of Strauss' anguish and 'what-if's.' He must have, mustn't he? But I'll never really know how that day, that moment of recklessness and tragedy, affected Steve. I don't even know where he is anymore. I never did.

Le Mode

Uh oh. It says here that purple is out. Turquoise is the new color this fall.

Where am I going to find turquoise tights?

Victory in Vevay!

I've mentioned before that I'm a big I Love Lucy fan. So when I learned that there was a Grape Stomp at the Swiss Wine Festival in Vevay, Indiana, I had to go.

Here was my chance to play Lucy. I'm referring to the episode of I Love Lucy where the Ricardos and Mertzes travel to Italy and Lucy is offered a part in an Italian film titled Bitter Grapes. Lucy being Lucy, she decides to do some research and finds a winery that still produces wine by stomping grapes. Lucy decides to "soak up a little local color" and pretends to work there. So she climbs into the vat of grapes with an angry Italian woman and begins to stomp. But Lucy and the other woman soon get into a fight and are slinging gobs of grapes at each other and wrestling in the vat of purple juice. Lucy arrives back at her hotel, splotchy and stained and too purple to be included in the film.

I was all set to re-enact as much of that episode as I could. First of all, I donned a peasant skirt and blouse like Lucy wore (so that she could blend in with the Italian women workers). I was even going to tuck my skirt up into my belt like Lucy and her co-worker did before they began to stomp grapes. But my experience in Indiana was a little different than Lucy's, so I didn't get to emulate as much as I'd hoped.

To begin with, the Vevay Grape Stomp was not composed of a large vat of grapes, but rather, four wooden buckets on a stage. That was okay. I didn't really expect that we would all be standing in a vat. I also didn't expect to look into the bucket and see brownish grape residue from the previous two days of the festival.

But then they added fresh grapes - green grapes, since those were local and were used to make local Indiana wines.

So I stepped into my tub of grapes, I barely had a moment to register that it was cold and squishy before the music began. We had two minutes to stomp grapes while our "swabbers" worked to clear the screen inside the bucket that lead to a hose that directed out juice into a plastic pitcher below. My poor husband. He was my swabber. What that really meant was that he had the disgusting job of putting his hands into the grape goo I squashed and had his face near enough to the bucket of grapes that he was squirted with juice as I stomped and kicked my little heart out.

I had the grapes and I had my Lucy costume. Now all I needed was a good fight so that I could "soak up a little local color". My mother was stomping in the bucket next to me. I considered giving her a little shove since she'd understand that I was just being Lucy, but when I looked over at her, she wasn't stomping all that hard; she was dancing! She was stomping to the beat of the music instead of trying to get the most juice. I couldn't pick a fight with her for that! For all I knew, she was throwing the competition so that I had a better chance of winning.

We (I) stomped for two minutes in front of a huge crowd of spectators. It was a little daunting to see them all watching so intently. Not cheering, but watching, with iphones recording the spectacle before them, and cameras out. I was very glad that I hadn't tucked my skirt up into my waistband like Lucy had. I was already afraid that my performance was soon to be on Youtube.

The music ended and so did the competition. We gingerly stepped out of our slippery, slimy tubs and walked off the stage with grape-skinned feet. The festival was kind enough to provide a hose behind the tent so that we could wash our feet off as they measured the amounts of juice each swabber had collected. We put our shoes back on and walked back around to the stage. Low and behold, we discovered we'd won! Lucy may have had purple-stained skin and hair to commemorate her grape stomping adventure, but we got t-shirts!

Dailies



Pretend this is ice cream.


When I was young, I remember being captivated by the premise of Richard Scarry's A Story A Day: 365 Stories and Rhymes. This book was for everyone! Every reader could pick out his or her birthday story and claim it as his own. I loved this idea, and realize now that it has played out many times in my life.

When I think about chunks of time, I think of it in days. I do things in daily increments, such as this blog, keeping a journal, reading the newspaper, etc.. One year, my New Year's resolution was to do something new every day. Not surprisingly, I then journalled my new experience. For a year. That's my second time chunk, or the culmination of my daily activities: the year.

I am quickly approaching one year of daily posts on this blog. It's a little overwhelming to think of tackling another 365 days. But I won't think about that just yet. I'll scoot back to just thinking about today, and share Richard Scarry's birthday rhyme for August 28th:

I scream,

You scream,

We all scream

For ice cream!