The curtain closes.

*** BEGIN UPDATE ***

I finally got a replacement Bluetooth dongle so that I can transfer pictures off of my phone.  These are the two pics I took of the old 4-Runner after it died a painful death upon our second trip into Austin — Picture 1 & Picture 2.

*** END UPDATE ***

Well, apparently there is a great outpouring of need to view the remains of the recently deceased wHOReS NOLA.  The coffin is open and you may pay your final respects as you see fit.

The following represents less than one tenth of the pictures we took while at the house, scavenging for what we could rescue that was of any practical or emotional value.  Anything that we would have to eat out of or cook/serve food in was left behind.  We no doubt could have cleaned and sterilized it to our hearts content, but the visions of them soaking in the raw sewage and human-remains stew would remain forever.

• Exhibit 01 — Lady’s car — having been left in the driveway — was completely submerged.
• Exhibit 02 — The water line (marked here for clarity) was higher than originally reported… between five and six feet.
• Exhibit 03 — Here’s the front of the house looking deceptively intact.
• Exhibit 04 — This would be the remains of the computer room.  The main computer table collapsed under the weight of the two monitors, Pac got thrown to the ground, and pretty much everything else went everywhere else.  The Nintendo cabinet was the only thing that stayed where it was, and I have no idea how or why.
• Exhibit 05 — The ceiling fans were all growing various types of stalactites, looking suspiciously like a very large nose sneezed a copious amount of phlegm on them.
• Exhibit 06 — This is likely the best picture I have ever seen of the mold that grows on the walls after a flood.  Lucky me… paneling is the perfect breeding ground.
• Exhibit 07 — And here’s Pac.  He fell and blocked the door to the kitchen.  I was forced to break down my own front door with a sledgehammer to get to the rest of the house in as safe a manner as possible (safe being a relative concept).
• Exhibit 08 — This would be the sofa that gave all of us a place to be useless turds while watching movies all weekend long.  Anyone care to doze off on it now?
• Exhibit 09 — These are the remains of the dining room.  Note to the world: anything made of solid wood — hardwood floors, solid oak tables, chairs — left underwater for too long will swell.  That swollen wood has nowhere to go and therefore will shatter itself along its joints in the attempt to go someplace.  The floors were buckled and "teepeed" all over.
• Exhibit 10 — Here’s a closer view of the table after it ate itself…
• Exhibit 11 — … and one of the chairs.
• Exhibit 12 — This is the dearly departed china cabinet.  Everything inside of it was filled with some of the foulest smelling liquid I have ever encountered.  We rescued our wedding glasses from here and abandoned the rest.
• Exhibit 13 — And here is the "filling station" that we all held dear.  Drink up!
• Exhibit 14 — And here is the Donkey Kong Junior cabinet in the spare bedroom.  It too succumbed to the pull of gravity after a brief float.
• Exhibit 15 — Our lovely library, including the years and years of collected gaming books (most no longer in print and of some value).  Also, you can see the rocking chair where it landed on the DKJr. cab, and the ice-chest of photos that mostly didn’t survive.  Yay!
• Exhibit 16 — The brand new bedroom set that we bought ourselves for our anniversary and enjoyed for two weeks.  Also note the unfolded basket of laundry that I won’t have to worry about folding any more.
• Exhibit 17 — The dressers of the same bedroom set.
• Exhibit 18 — Here is an almost perfect picture to illustrate where the water line rose.
• Exhibit 19 — The dresser and light table in the studio.  I was able to save my lifecasts, but precious little else.  Shit was so tossed around I couldn’t find anything.
• Exhibit 20 — Jack, moldy as hell, never looked better as a corpse.
• Exhibit 21 — Jack from his ‘good side’.
• Exhibit 22 — This is the table where Triad and Fallout were housed.  You can just make out the bottom of Mensa’s emergency bottle of Capt. Morgan in the background.

The best way I can describe the devastation in the house is as such: imagine a giant took a humongous fiber enriched shit in there, filled it with water and shook it like an enormous snow globe.  Anything that could float, did so.  Anything that could be destroyed by water and mold was.  Doors had to be smashed to get into rooms and closets, and there wasn’t much to find once you did.  No amount of washing will clean clothing once it sits in water for over two weeks and is allowed to grow mold for another six.

Everything in the attic was thankfully still intact and mold free.  Unfortunately, it represents a small fraction of the things we held hope to recover.  I scooped up all my DVDs and CDs, still in their cases, and continue to this day to scrub and dry them in an effort to at least have something we invested a considerable amount of time and money gathering over the years.  Every time I don a pair of rubber gloves and sit before that big basin of sudsy water, I plunge into a black mood unparalleled by anything I have experienced in recent years.  It takes a good night’s sleep to dispel it, and until I’m done I get to look forward to the whole thing over again.

For those of you who returned to find your homes still intact, I feel a great deal of relief that you didn’t have to go through this nightmare.  You may have helped some other folks clean their shit up and pick through the ruins, but you didn’t have to have your heart broken every time you picked some ruined something up off of the ground and realize you’ll never get that back, ever.  For those of you who returned to ruin… there are no words.  You know what I’m feeling, and I know your heart too.  All that is left to do is move on.  This is not a godsend of insurance claims, no windfall at all.  There is no amount of money that can replace what we have lost.

My heart pains me on a daily basis.  My spirit is shaken to its very core.  Please for the love of all that is good and right, the rest of you stay safe.  I can and will get over the loss of a house and the shit contained therein, but to lose a friend or family member to something other than a peaceful death at a ripe old age will leave me broken.  I’m being very selfish here, but for a good reason.  I love you all and want you all to keep yourselves well.