after 371 days

Today did not exactly end as I expected . . .     We had not yet seen Pirates of the Caribbean (2) and when I checked the listings while at work yesterday, it was no longer showing during the afternoons in H'burg, but it was in G'port. So we made a plan to go down there today. Son#1 came along. Great, fun flick. Then we went to Applebee's. Not sure about hubby & son, but my supper was really good and it was the fastest I have ever been served in an Applebee's!     The unexpected happened when we left the restaurant. Hubby turned not left, toward home, but right, heading toward the beach. My heart sank. He did ask me if I wanted him to turn around, but I said it was okay. He wanted to see for himself. He's been over south of New Orleans (Hopedale), where there is nothing left, he's been in Chalmette, where there is nothing left... he wanted to drive by Beach Road over to Bay Saint Louis. (Well, you can't get to BSL any more from Beach Road, duh. I think we knew that, but had forgotten.)     As so many others have noted, it is almost impossible to know where you are, to know even where things *used* to be. When we got to the USMMGCC, I was truly shocked at the amount of missing buildings. To see empty lot after empty lot, where the grandest and the simplest of beach homes used to stand, and only a very few with even a FEMA trailer sitting upon either sandy ground or bare slab, even fewer rebuilt or even signs of rebuilding...     There is no way to express the sadness and regret, most of all for the lost memories. It's the same feeling I had in 1989, when I came to MS to visit my parents and see the new house they were building where my grandparents home had stood. I was very happy for them, and the new house was great, but at one point I had to excuse myself. I walked around the end of the fence, hidden from everyone and cried my eyes out. What I felt, however, is infinitesimal to what the people of the Gulf Coast have had to endure.     To write about something else now seems thoughtless. Cyn