Day 16, 10.03.08

Friday was very eventful so here are some highlights:

Top Ten List

10. Meeting Mrs. Paula the Director of Neighborhood Centers she was so sweet and took such good care of us that day. Her church even brought us bagged lunches to eat, with BROWNIES! Oh and congrats to Neighborhood centers for all the funding they received that day! Mrs. Paula was really excited and you could tell she worked hard to get funds for the center.

9. Being called FEMA all day and finally getting the point across to Mrs. Paula that we weren’t FEMA.

8. Seeing Cobi drive up after her 4 hour search for a tire to replace the flat she acquired on her drive back from taking Jane to the airport. 10 tire stores, 4 cities, and an hour wait on the freeway for AAA, she was still ready for our next adventure.

7. Finally getting a decent internet connection at a site(also part of the reason for the delay in our highly desired blog entries)

6. The fact that people actually came to the lab to get help and use the center we had maybe 3 dozen users, which is a lot better than none.

5. Meeting 3 mayors and 4 city council members in one day. Only in a small town can you call the mayor and have him be somewhere in 15 minutes.

4. The entire day, and especially the Rodeo experience, was the epitome of every Texas stereotype you could ever imagine. From the Sunday best couples to the bowlegged cowboys; the country music with the fiddles and “she left me twang”; the smell of horses and fried pickles, the big belt buckles, and overall the true southern hospitality. Needless to say, our crew stood out like sore thumbs, but we were welcomed with open arms.

3. Watching Katie Hongle (aka Cat) ride the bull. She was the only one brave enough to try!

2. Hearing everyone’s stories. We had a lot of survivor interaction on Thursday and it was really rewarding to hear everyone thank us for just letting them vent. A mom and a daughter who lost everything and were frustrated with FEMA, a family whose mobile home was damaged and they had no food and a mother, niece and son who needed help creating resumes and printing documents. One of our patrons, Derrick Drew(26), actually stayed for 3 hours, he recently had a pre-stroke(3 days ago because of IKE stress) and I think spending time away from it all really helped him because he thanked us dozens of times and we all got big hugs as he left.

1.The Pasadena Rodeo and Livestock Show in a suite with lots of tasty goodies (ribs, potato skins, cheese cubs, fresh fruit, rolls and honey butter) and the best seats in the house with AC and no smell of horses, courtesy of “Barry the man Beasley”. The show was mesmerizing, those cowboys and cow girls really know how to put on a show, from barrel racing to the calf wrangling and of course good ole fashion bull riding.

A cowboy and a bull. We had a great view of the process to get the bulls ready and of the cowboys from our suite!