Estee's Blog

Today is August 15th 2007. I am in Folsom, Louisiana helping my mother pack and watching the Weather Channel. It's the dog days of summer down here. We've been having record breaking heat and no rain.

After a week of packing and sorting through generations of stuff, we've gotten through about one fourth of this house. It's an emotional process going through my grandmother's stuff. She saved every letter ever written to her and that's not all. Mom is ready to purge herself of all this stuff, but it's hard to let go. Cherie, my grandmother, loved New Orleans so much. It was her city, and most of her possessions reflect her love of New Orleans and the culture. I had packed all these items when we moved her out of her house in Lakeview seven years ago. I keep reminding myself how lucky we are to have gotten it all out before the water came. These things are my memories that are still intact. They are not covered in mold in my mind. It's like perfume. (My mom just handed me a box of Cherie's old perfume bottles.) A scent that takes me back to a place that was safe and loving. Home...

Mom is moving around me, it's time to get back to work.

I am keeping my eye on Dean in the Atlantic and Erin, which formed overnight in the gulf. This storm is expected to become a Hurricane by the end of the day and dump a lot of rain on Texas. It is moving slow, so flooding is the biggest threat.

Estee Blancher