It's become a joke in town to take the new shit that life deals you and "Blame it on Katrina." On Friday, Andrew and his friend Colin were in an automobile accident on Carrollton Avenue. They'd just finished their last final and were driving uptown to play golf. Colin went through a flashing yellow light at an intersection that also had STOP signs in the grass that'd been put there because of the power outage. Seven months after K, this busy, broad street still doesn't have working traffic lights. A car hit Colin, and Colin's 4-Runner flipped three times and landed on the driver's side. Andrew had just taken off his seatbelt to change his clothes, and he was leaning into the back hunting around for his stuff. He didn't see the accident and was thrown into the back of the SUV. Neighbors pulled Colin out of the car and helped Andrew out of the top of the passenger side. EMTs and police came and an ambulance took Colin to the hospital because he was having trouble breathing; his arms were bleeding. He'd had on a seatbelt but had been thrown halfway out of the driver's window and his arms and side were torn up by the street. "The car was on top of me," he told his mother.

When I got to the accident, Andrew was in the street in his socks, calm and in shock. He's okay. We picked up stuff that'd flown out of the car: loose change, a can of AXE, CDs, a pack of golf tees, and waited for the wrecker to right the car so we could get their bookbags, clothes, shoes, golfclubs, out of it.

Colin is in the ICU with a lacerated liver and a contusion on his lung. He's not yet taken a turn for the better, and A and I are going to visit him in a few minutes. Andrew doesn't understand why he doesn't have a scratch or a bump. "What does this mean?" he asks. Last night he wanted to go to the hospital and watch LSU with Colin, but only two are allowed in the room at a time and his Mom and Dad are with him.

The two policemen came to the hospital and, apologetically, gave Colin's mom his ticket for not stopping at STOP signs. "But the light was flashing yellow," I said. The office said, "Yellow means you come to a complete stop." "No, no," Andrew said. "I just took the test for my permit on Monday, and yellow means proceed with caution." "No disrespect," I said, "but what does flashing red mean?" "You also come to a complete stop," the officer said.

Driving back from the hospital on Friday, Andrew and I drove by where the accident had happened, and at that same corner, two cars had just collided. The man who owns a business on that corner said he's seen six accidents at that light in the last few weeks. As of Friday, there'd been eight.  

My webmaster is very kind to step in and shake the place up a little, and to add all of those colorful feeds. What is a feed? I don't know how to use them, only how to flaunt them. Does this mean you feed me, or that I feed you? What a lousy hostess I've been. Can we start over?

Nothing much is happening in New Orleans; the city looks just like it did after the levee breaks except that green grass has pushed through, and shrubs and flowers are blooming in spite of the brackish water that flooded their root systems for three weeks. Now we need rain.

Birds sing again in the trees, lucky birds.

The mid-city Save-A-Center reopened and they upgraded the store with hardwood floors and a big ass wine & flower section. Some of the neighborhood's restaurants are back, so we don't have to drive into Metairie to pick up Chinese food. Andrew walks in after school with a 16 oz. green apple snoball because Pandora's reopened and the line's long and eager. The Carrollton streetcar will roll by in time for Jazz Fest. What a fine, jangly sound that'll be.

I've been tutoring twice a week at a charter school. I work with two beautiful and gentle sisters - Keyola and Adrienne - who're in the sixth grade and don't know their multiplication tables, and a good-natured kid named Roland who reads haltingly but with gusto. His mother drives him in from a town that's 40 miles away. I'm afraid of not being able to help them learn what someone should've taught them three years ago. This city's a pile of old lies, apathy, unpunished crimes, sins against children.