You know, I kind of feel like a fraud for posting about Katrina. We didn’t lose much, our house was mostly fine, and our lives pretty much got back to normal pretty quickly. But it’s hard to avoid thinking about it, so I may as well post something.

Let’s see. Five years ago, I was up to my eyeballs in wedding planning. Our wedding was scheduled for November 12, 2005. I had my very first dress fitting scheduled for Saturday, August 27. I was insanely excited about it. I adored my wedding dress, and when George said I might need to reconsider driving an hour north to the dress shop when we should be getting ready to evacuate…well, I declined.

The thing is, on Friday night, no one thought much of Katrina. But there was a Saints game that night, so no one was watching the weather. No one except George (who hates football.) So he got up bright and early on Saturday to board up the windows, and I headed to my dress fitting. People were walking by the house as George nailed up the plywood, looking at him like he was nuts.

My plan was to go directly to my mom’s after that (an hour west of the dress fitting) for my sister’s friend’s baby shower. I loaded up the car with enough clothes for the weekend, and George was going to meet me at my mom’s later that day, after he was done with the house stuff.

By Saturday afternoon, people were starting to realize this was going to be a big deal. George barely managed to get Stinky (the cat) into her carrier, and thank god he did. We still thought we’d be home by Tuesday, so he considered just leaving her at the house with a ton of food and water.

To make a potentially very long story short, thirteen people, two dogs, a cat and a bird ended up staying at my mom’s house to ride out the storm. One friend didn’t know where her husband was. No one knew if their houses were flooded or destroyed. We ended up staying at my mom’s house for a few weeks, then we drove up to Washington DC to get away from it all for a while. Upon returning, George was all set to go back to our house, when Hurricane Rita hit, and the city was once again closed.

It was a frustrating time. Too many people in a house not meant to hold that many. Too many people in a city (Baton Rouge) not meant to hold that many. But we were so lucky. We did have to move our wedding from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, but no matter. It was beautiful and our friends and family were there. We went on an awesome honeymoon in England and Wales.

Anyway. Sorry for the nonsensical post.

Five years. Woo hoo.