The New Normal

It was a new day yesterday,
But it's an old day now.
- Jethro Tull - Stand Up

With H-K now over two weeks behind us, I keep hearing people say variations of the same thing: "I can't wait for things to get back to normal."

As I've told the schmedlets a number of times, "chids, we've got us a new normal now."

Traffic around Baton Rouge has gotten a little better, more so in the mornings than the afternoons. Gasoline appears to be plentiful enough, and seems to be price-stable at about $2.50 a gallon. Cellular phone service is much more reliable, regardless of area code. Stores are still having trouble getting shipments of some items - bread, ice cream, sugar, underwear, toiletries to name a few - because so many wholesalers operate out of the New Orleans area. My Dear Sweet Wife called me from the grocery on Monday observing that she had to buy generic rice. I didn't mean to laugh, but fellow Louisianians will understand what I told her - "go look, and I bet you won't find any red beans* either" - (she had, and not a package remained!).

The local office of Saltmines Я Us is what you might call a beehive, with so many of us "home-office" bees gumming up the works, it's a wonder folks are still smiling. Some of us - excluding yours truly of course - are simply getting in the way. Our N'arlins customers have been generally appreciative of our recovery efforts, salt being an essential element of commerce and all.

But all that pales in comparison to what the evacuees and transplants have as their new normal. Still staying with family or friends if they're lucky, several thousand awaiting the readiness of the "FEMA Farms" - trailer homes set up in instant parks. An asnide - if those gummint trailer parks are so effective at dealing with the homeless, why aren't they set up in or near all major metro areas with significant homeless populations? Hmmmmm? (I'm just askin'.)

Some have realistic hopes of getting back home, but, as Frodo and Samwise discovered, victory is rare that leaves no scars on the homeland. Many N'arlinian Hobbits will find their respective Bag Ends dramatically different, even if their own homes are relatively unscathed.

N'arlins businesses that survived the storm may be slowly strangled to death by the United States Postal Service who, in their profound ignorance, have held up everybodys' mail as "undeliverable" despite changes of address and/or forwarding orders. Money those businesses have earned, whose customers have paid, are sitting in the Post Office equivalent of that gummint warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark while the businesses are cashless at a most vulnerable point in their recovery efforts. Even the massive Saltmines Я Us is feeling the effects, though our extensive reserves of salt will easily carry us through until Geraldo gets on the story and exposes the postal mess.

There's part of the new normal that I like - I'm down from a 150 mile round-trip a day to approximately 25 (that's about 20 litres of petrol a day down to 4). And while I'm used to sitting in the schmedmobile for upwards of 3 hours a day, most of the time it's been at 70 mph or so. Still, I'm getting home a bit earlier than normal and can hang around the Giant Mug a bit later in the AM. And since the powers that be at work know better than to re-enable Internet access at all levels, that means all my devoted readers get this tasty post today.

Enjoy, y'all.

* Red beans and rice is stereotypically standard fare for N'arlinians and others in south Louisiana on Mondays. There's a reason for it that goes back generations, but I disrecall it just now.