In Their Shoes

Hurricane Katrina - Shoes
Originally uploaded by Mary-Jane Maybury

This week marks the 5th year anniversary of the devastating hurricane - Katrina - that rocked the Gulf coast. I remember, like yesterday, how I watched on TV as the elements so utterly ravaged the city of New Orleans and was speechless and angered when I saw how callously the Bush Administration was in its response to the aftermath. If anything, the hurricane peeled back the layers of how truly uncaring those bunch of morons really were. Nice work, Mother Nature!

While, it's tough to leave aside all of the horror and outrage that Katrina wrought, it is even tougher to realize that a mere 5 years later with an entirely new administration (Obama) and an entirely new natural disaster (BP oil spill), we are straddled with a similar response: utter indifference.

Which is why I was almost flooded with relief when I picked up the latest issue of Esquire at the library and read a piece about the oil spill that put its cost into perspective. Written by Tom Junod, the piece recounts the night that Deepwater Horizon - the rig that started it all - exploded claiming the lives of 11 men ranging in age from 22 to 56. It has been a long time since I read an article that so poignantly made an attempt to connect readers in a tangibly human way to an event that due mostly to media saturation and confusion, leaves the average brian reeling. Junod shapes the lives of these 11 men into a touching eulogy and manages to do what the 24-hour news cycle has somehow managed to evade: make sense all the images of gushing wells and oil-drenched birds that have pounded us into senseless submission.

Eleven men with stories died on that day and it will be impossible for me now not to see the story of this disaster a little bit through their eyes.

Rememba! Rememba!

Hey People-

I'm back from vacation happy, rested and looking to get my creative jones on. Let's hope that that particular impulse can overcoming my other overwhelming desire of dropping everything in my life and watching all the movies they made passive reference to in the Entertainment Weekly magazines I read on the dock.

To that end, yesterday we went to see the film of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Awesome. Beyond awesome. Get your ass to the theatre and see this film. It is funny, sweet and so highly entertaining that I am scheming to get my ass in that theatre seat again. Plus, my sister worked on it and there is nothing more satisfying than seeing your siblings name roll by on the same screen on which on you just watch Micheal Cera (he off the Gumby voice and even gumbier body) kick the asses of half of US Weekly's Hot Under 25 list. Sweet.

I did have a hilarious conversation with my daughters at the theater. Here's how it went.

Enter scene. Concession stand of the Whitby 24 theatre complex. The song Fame! comes on and it is blasting overhead like a drill sargent in an Oliver Stone film. Myself and the old gent in the line beside me (age approximately 75) are trying not to get down.

FAME! I’M GONNA LIVE FOREVER! BABY REMEMBER MY NAAAAAME. (Remember! Remember!)

Xenia: Who sings this?

Me: Pausing dramatically. You know, I have no idea.

Bryan: But Mom! She only asked you to do that one thing.

Here's another little something that made me chuckle.

Nice, huh? This is funnier to those who have no children, I suspect.