Looking Back 5-years ago this weekend

My birthday is Sunday and I'll be 35-years old. I'm not going to lie. I'm a bit bummed about turning this age. It seems like just yesterday that I was turning 30?


Sunday also marks another event aside from my birthday though. The 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Yep. Katrina hit on my 30th birthday which is something I'll never forget. My ex-boyfriend had planned a big party for me that was slated to start in New Orleans on the 31st and continue to Baton Rouge where we were going to tailgate and attend the first LSU game of the season.

I was set to hang out with my besties like Jodee(below)and sip hurricanes from Pat O's and one of my favorite bars in the city(and the oldest in America)Lafittes Blacksmith Shop.

(This picture below was taken just a few months before Katrina.)

But...Mother Nature had something else planned. I had taken the whole week of my birthday off and went to SF and Napa the first part of the week with my Mom and met up with all my West Coast friends. The plan was to fly back on the 30th and then fly back out to Louisiana on the 31st.

Then...I started getting calls from all my friends in La. talking about some hurricane. My response was 'oh, calm down -- it was come through and everything will be back open in time. That's what always happens. There's no way they will cancel the LSU game!'

So, I went about my trip and figured things would work out. On the 28th of August I stayed up all night in my Napa hotel room watching the weather. Hoping, praying...and guess what?! NOLA dodged the bullet!!

I was STOKED!!!
That next morning we had a wonderful private wine tasting at Beringer. Things were looking up and on track.
This was suppose to be the last big event of the trip.

Then a birthday lunch at the Culinary Institute of America The Greystone.

From there we drove back to San Francisco and checked into our hotel and turned on the TV.

OMG!!!! WHAT HAPPENED???

The levees had broken.........

I was heartbroken watching the television. Thank goodness I knew all my friends had gotten out.

We called my brother and his family who live in a town not too far from New Orleans. It took us FOREVER just to get through to them because the phone lines were jammed.

They said it was chaos.

To make a long story short -- we didn't go to La. and Mom and I stayed in CA. We toured Carmel, Big Sur, etc.

But to be honest.. it wasn't any fun. The whole time all we could think about was my brother, our friends, family and those people living in the Superdome.

It was a traumatic time for sure. I cried after talking to my friend Jodee who was living in a hotel room in Houston with her boyfriend, mom, dad and 80-year old grandmother. She wasn't sure if there home was underwater or not. She wasn't sure when or if she would go home. She was in graduate school. What would that do to her semester that had just started?

Life changed forever. The Gulf Coast region changed forever.

The America people came together in a way we had not seen since the attacks of 9/11. I just wish it didn't take things like that to get that kind of response.

So, all in all...my birthday is always bittersweet and I always take time to remember all the lives lost in Louisiana and Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina and say a prayer for all of the people that are still rebuilding to this day.