I used to be a very busy lady but now that I am virtually trapped in my home I have time to think about the big problems that coastal Mississippi has. Oh! I am not leaving out the other counties in Mississippi at all, just reflecting on the losses in our area and how it will affect the rest of the state. Businesses up and down the coast are not working at 100% efficiency so that makes for less state taxes collected.

I am probably one of the very few who filed my taxes before the August 28th extension granted by the federal government for Katrina Victims. Even had common sense not told me that there would be a huge problem, the CPA did. The floodwaters destroyed the people's records

In an earlier post I showed a picture of Pascagoula's makeshift post office. I am out of stamps again but to enter a Fema trailer makes me uneasy. Of course, when you enter there is the inevitable long line awaiting you. I feel as if we have regressed back to another period of time. To a time my mother told a story about a line she stood in for hours during World War II to get a pair of "nylons" (nylons were hard to get as it was needed to make parachutes) and when she finally got to the front of the line she discovered she was in a "bread" line. Is that why I am uneasy? Am I afraid to find out what is really at the end of the line? I think I am.

There is virtually no entertainment. There are bars but I don't frequent bars. I will retract that statement and say, "I don't go to bars at all". Occasionally, the daughter and her husband rent a movie and we pretend we are at the theatre.

Before the storm I was not "Twiggy" slim but nicely trim and now after eating my way through pounds of candy and bags of chips, I am Katrina plump. It's a psychological thing. Hey ... that means maybe I am not plump but only think I am. Forgive me if I am speaking a little crazy but Katrina has devastated more than property. Most of us have never experienced a disaster so we have had to figure out ourselves that we are really acting normal in a very abnormal situation.

Hang in there Mississippi!