Last Friday, I received a strange text message on my cellphone that read "hison." First of all, what is a hison? Secondly, it was sent from my mom who has never sent me a text message in her life. Five minutes later, my mom sent me this message: "howdoimakespacesandquestionmarks" Now I know what 'hison' means. I texted the words "call me" back at her.

Apparently, my mom's long time friend Vicki was teaching her how to send text messages in case the worst were to happen during Hurricane Gustav. Besides playing Mah-Jong with my mom, Vicki is an interesting character. She has operated an art gallery in the French Quarter for close to 40 years and lives in an apartment just above her shop on Bienville Street. Vicki looks like an old hippie-chick with long flowing gray hair down to her waist covered by a leather hat. Vicki dresses like a teenager sometimes and always wears sandals. She has lived in the Quarter for a long time and has never made evacuation plans. Because she rode out Katrina she plans on riding out Gustav. Vicki is always warm and speaks affectionately of her friends and neighbors. Most of us think of the Quarter as the rowdy part of town filled with bars and strip joints. For Vicki, it is her neighborhood and her whole life revolves around her art gallery, seafood and red wine.

While I was talking with my mom on the phone, she was telling me that dad was boarding up the house and getting the dog ready for the trip up to Monroe Louisiana. My parents were going to the same motel that they stayed at during Katrina.

Even after Katrina, my parents still ask me to move back down there. I have grown to love Colorado and it is now my home. I would rather remember the New Orleans from my childhood. Riding bikes and fishing with my childhood friends, coming home in the humid Louisiana air that would be perfumed with the aroma of barbecue or the smell of dinner on the neighbor's stoves with open doors. In those days, the Gangster Disciples or The Latin Kings weren't lurking in neighborhoods.

One of the crazier things from the past was a hurricane ritual that several people, including my parents, used to participate in. Scores of neighbors would be outside pounding plywood over their windows and loading up their cars with irreplacable papers. But this was no evacuation. Back then, this hurricane ritual, like so much in New Orleans, was accompanied with a party. People would meet at a home on higher ground where pots of gumbo were cooked. Beer and Hurricane drinks were slammed down during these hurricane parties that defied logic and nature. My parents always escaped. They had survived hurricanes Audrey, Hilda, Betsy and Camille. But they sensed something wrong with Katrina and this time there was no bravado. My parents evacuated for the first time in a hurricane. With the news of Gustav being the "mother of all storms" there was no more anxiety in my mom's voice but total dread. Feeling absolutely vulnerable, Katrina took away the idea of the hurricane party and something else that most us of take for granted - a home. Even something as simple as the phone call I received early this morning from my dad is something I have taken for granted.

They are doing fine.

Dad says that they won't get a chance to see what damage was done to their newly rebuilt home for a few days. From what he has been able to find out, their neighborhood sustain minor wind damage and little flooding. They are surviving on restaurant food, sparse phone calls and the prayers of total strangers.

Hopefully, they can get back home and move on with their lives. Perhaps, they can throw a party after the hurricane. They could invite Vicki over and I'm sure she will be toting her bottle of red wine.

I need to respond back to a text message, "iloveyouson" ........Yes, mom ,I love you too.