Entire communities of my neighbors in Oregon and Washington have been under water this week. Lives, homes and business have been devastated just weeks before Christmas. Power and phone service is still out in many places.
Given the ordeal so many are having to face, I'm fortunate to have a place to live that's warm and dry. For many, a sense of normalcy is weeks, maybe months away and who knows how many lives will be changed forever.
Yet, I can't get out of my own head. I'm wrapped up in my own, seemingly petty and insignificant issues.
I've been agonizing about how or whether to attend my grandmother's funeral half a continent away. I've decided countless times to go and to not go. I think I'm sure that I won't be going. Time and money are just too short, but those seem like such shallow reasons not to go. My parents are actually advising me not to go, which confuses, more than clarifies, the situation.
I want to be there. Not for my grandmother. Funerals aren't for deceased, they are ceremonies for the living to grieve and mourn. I thought my mom would want the support, but if what she says is true, my presence may potentially do more harm than good.
So, I'm not going. I'm sure this time.
I think.
I just don't feel good about the fact that at this point in my life I'm not in a position to do this one thing. It's a small thing, or should be, but it's become so huge somehow.
Showing posts with label natural disasters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label natural disasters. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Storm's aftermath
Brat is OK, but she was temporarily displaced due to an extended power outage in her area.
Fortunately she has family nearby, but outside the area hit by the storm, so she has relocated until power can be restored and she will be able to return to her home. A few people in the Midwest won't have homes to return to.
Natural disasters
Fortunately she has family nearby, but outside the area hit by the storm, so she has relocated until power can be restored and she will be able to return to her home. A few people in the Midwest won't have homes to return to.
Natural disasters
Monday, March 13, 2006
Touched by a tornado
I was talking to my friend Brat last night via MSN Messenger. In the background I could hear the TV newscaster talking about a tornado warning in her part of the country. As the storm got more severe in her area, her dog was freaking out and she seemed a bit nervous too.
At first I didn't think much about it. I grew up in the Midwest, where tornado warnings were common. We had tornado drills at school, the 1970s equivalent of the old nuclear attack "duck and cover" drills. When the drill began we would all go out into the call, sit down on the floor against the brick wall, and assume the "kiss-your-ass-goodbye" position. Tornado watches and warning were regular occurrences and usually led to nothing.
But it soon became apparent, even from two time zones away, that this one might be the real deal.
I did my best to keep a level speaking voice and act nonchalant, talking about other things to not add to the anxiety. It was obvious she was prepared for the storm, with some emergency supplies gathered, and she had moved to what she estimated to be the safest part of the house.
But during our conversation, the conversation went dead. Now, we often have some technology snafus during our discussions, but given the severe weather warnings in her area, I suspected this one might be different.
I sent her a text message to her cell phone to see if I could reach her that way, asking if she had lost power. But when I didn't hear back from her after several minutes, I decided to give her a call. I suspected I might get her voice mail, but I wanted to call anyway. To my pleasant surprise, she answered and I learned that the power had in fact gone out, but fortunately cell phones were still working.
We talked for a while while she surveyed the area. It sounded like there was some damage caused, either by the actual tornado, or high winds associated with the storm. Shingles and siding were off the house, tree limb were down, power was out in the neighborhood and a police car was in the neighborhood.
We didn't talk for too long in order to leave her with battery power for later if needed. And she needed to call her mother, who had already called once because of the news reports of how close the twister way to her community.
Normally, on a Sunday night, we talk until one or the other, or both, of us needs to get to bed. So the evening was eerily quiet. Even when I went to bed, I was restless, wondering what was happening several states away? Had power been restored? Was she still OK?
Getting back up out of bed and searching the Internet for news didn't help ease a restless mind. A second storm had quite literally blown through several hours later.
I'm not sure which is worse, having life disrupted by a storm like this, or waiting for word from someone who is in an area hit by some sort of natural or man-made disaster.
Natural disasters
At first I didn't think much about it. I grew up in the Midwest, where tornado warnings were common. We had tornado drills at school, the 1970s equivalent of the old nuclear attack "duck and cover" drills. When the drill began we would all go out into the call, sit down on the floor against the brick wall, and assume the "kiss-your-ass-goodbye" position. Tornado watches and warning were regular occurrences and usually led to nothing.
But it soon became apparent, even from two time zones away, that this one might be the real deal.
I did my best to keep a level speaking voice and act nonchalant, talking about other things to not add to the anxiety. It was obvious she was prepared for the storm, with some emergency supplies gathered, and she had moved to what she estimated to be the safest part of the house.
But during our conversation, the conversation went dead. Now, we often have some technology snafus during our discussions, but given the severe weather warnings in her area, I suspected this one might be different.
I sent her a text message to her cell phone to see if I could reach her that way, asking if she had lost power. But when I didn't hear back from her after several minutes, I decided to give her a call. I suspected I might get her voice mail, but I wanted to call anyway. To my pleasant surprise, she answered and I learned that the power had in fact gone out, but fortunately cell phones were still working.
We talked for a while while she surveyed the area. It sounded like there was some damage caused, either by the actual tornado, or high winds associated with the storm. Shingles and siding were off the house, tree limb were down, power was out in the neighborhood and a police car was in the neighborhood.
We didn't talk for too long in order to leave her with battery power for later if needed. And she needed to call her mother, who had already called once because of the news reports of how close the twister way to her community.
Normally, on a Sunday night, we talk until one or the other, or both, of us needs to get to bed. So the evening was eerily quiet. Even when I went to bed, I was restless, wondering what was happening several states away? Had power been restored? Was she still OK?
Getting back up out of bed and searching the Internet for news didn't help ease a restless mind. A second storm had quite literally blown through several hours later.
I'm not sure which is worse, having life disrupted by a storm like this, or waiting for word from someone who is in an area hit by some sort of natural or man-made disaster.
Natural disasters
Saturday, September 10, 2005
A perhaps brief return from exile
I haven't made a post here in more than a week. I wish I could say I've just been busy. But the truth is I've been, well, disengaged. This just hasn't seemed very important.
It's not like there haven't been things I've thought about posting about, like the morning I discovered on my way to work that a SWAT team was a few doors down in my apartment complex, guns drawn and looking all militaristic. Although, that wouldn't have been a very interesting post because I never found out what all the commotion was about.
I also learned this week that one of my friends from Eastern Oregon, one of the few people from home I've seen since I moved back to Oregon, was deployed with the National Guard this week to help with hurricane relief. I tried calling his cell phone because he was supposed to be here in Salem for a few days before being shipped out, but I go a busy signal on his cell phone.
As I mentioned in my last post, I have friends and people who nearly became part of my family living in Hurricane Alley. Most of them are in Florida and have been spared the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. But then this past week Hurricane Ophelia was lingering off the east coast of Florida, dropping rain all over the area I visited in the spring of 2004, where my ex's sister and nieces live. It was just hanging off the coast parallel to the city where my ex moved.
I was doing pretty good for a while, not thinking about my ex, but her birthday was in late August and then all this hurricane business. And yesterday I saw a job posting on the Internet for a job that looks to be the one she took almost exactly a year ago when she moved back to Florida after our break up. So, yea, she's been on my mind, so much so that I woke up this morning dreaming about her moving away again.
I don't know if women spend much if any mental energy thinking about past loves, lovers, boyfriends or whatever after a relationship ends. They seem, as a gender, much more adept at walking away than men are, or certainly than I have ever been.
I can honestly say I don't want my ex back. And for many, many months after our break up I would have taken her back in a heartbeat, no question asked, no hesitation. But that does not mean I don't care about what happens to her or her family. There are people I was ready, eager even, to make part of my family. And the ex was already more deeply interwoven into my life than I imagined or could understand at the time. It was only once I realized that was all gone and not coming back that I knew I had quit being and I and had become a we.
It took quite a while to get back to thinking and being singular again. And in recent weeks I've admitted to myself, a few people close to me, and I think even to readers of this blog that I am ready to now open myself up to the prospects of a new relationship again. So why do thoughts and worries and wondering about my ex and her family make themselves so stubbornly prevalent now?
I sent an e-mail last weekend to my ex's stepdad. I just wanted him to know I was thinking about him and his family. He was kind enough to write back and filled in a few details of happenings with his family over the last year. He didn't offer any information on my ex, except to make it clear that she was well. And I didn't ask. He and I grew fairly close in a few short visits in a fairly short period of time. It seems so unfortunate that we can't still be friends.
So, anyway, I'm sorry I haven't been around much to make posts or read your blogs for that matter. And next week about midweek I'm heading to Eastern Oregon for a business trip. I'll be attending the world famous Pendleton Round-Up for work. It's a rough gig, I know, but someone has to do it.
The Round-Up is a rodeo, for those of you not familiar with it. But as much as anything it is an excuse for a big-ass party. So I play to work a little, and hopefully, party a little as well. I'm hoping to run into some old friends while there.
I am taking a company computer along, so perhaps there will be opportunities to make some posts. But I make no promises.
Blogging
Relationships
Hurricane Katrina
Pendleton Round-Up
It's not like there haven't been things I've thought about posting about, like the morning I discovered on my way to work that a SWAT team was a few doors down in my apartment complex, guns drawn and looking all militaristic. Although, that wouldn't have been a very interesting post because I never found out what all the commotion was about.
I also learned this week that one of my friends from Eastern Oregon, one of the few people from home I've seen since I moved back to Oregon, was deployed with the National Guard this week to help with hurricane relief. I tried calling his cell phone because he was supposed to be here in Salem for a few days before being shipped out, but I go a busy signal on his cell phone.
As I mentioned in my last post, I have friends and people who nearly became part of my family living in Hurricane Alley. Most of them are in Florida and have been spared the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. But then this past week Hurricane Ophelia was lingering off the east coast of Florida, dropping rain all over the area I visited in the spring of 2004, where my ex's sister and nieces live. It was just hanging off the coast parallel to the city where my ex moved.
I was doing pretty good for a while, not thinking about my ex, but her birthday was in late August and then all this hurricane business. And yesterday I saw a job posting on the Internet for a job that looks to be the one she took almost exactly a year ago when she moved back to Florida after our break up. So, yea, she's been on my mind, so much so that I woke up this morning dreaming about her moving away again.
I don't know if women spend much if any mental energy thinking about past loves, lovers, boyfriends or whatever after a relationship ends. They seem, as a gender, much more adept at walking away than men are, or certainly than I have ever been.
I can honestly say I don't want my ex back. And for many, many months after our break up I would have taken her back in a heartbeat, no question asked, no hesitation. But that does not mean I don't care about what happens to her or her family. There are people I was ready, eager even, to make part of my family. And the ex was already more deeply interwoven into my life than I imagined or could understand at the time. It was only once I realized that was all gone and not coming back that I knew I had quit being and I and had become a we.
It took quite a while to get back to thinking and being singular again. And in recent weeks I've admitted to myself, a few people close to me, and I think even to readers of this blog that I am ready to now open myself up to the prospects of a new relationship again. So why do thoughts and worries and wondering about my ex and her family make themselves so stubbornly prevalent now?
I sent an e-mail last weekend to my ex's stepdad. I just wanted him to know I was thinking about him and his family. He was kind enough to write back and filled in a few details of happenings with his family over the last year. He didn't offer any information on my ex, except to make it clear that she was well. And I didn't ask. He and I grew fairly close in a few short visits in a fairly short period of time. It seems so unfortunate that we can't still be friends.
So, anyway, I'm sorry I haven't been around much to make posts or read your blogs for that matter. And next week about midweek I'm heading to Eastern Oregon for a business trip. I'll be attending the world famous Pendleton Round-Up for work. It's a rough gig, I know, but someone has to do it.
The Round-Up is a rodeo, for those of you not familiar with it. But as much as anything it is an excuse for a big-ass party. So I play to work a little, and hopefully, party a little as well. I'm hoping to run into some old friends while there.
I am taking a company computer along, so perhaps there will be opportunities to make some posts. But I make no promises.
Blogging
Relationships
Hurricane Katrina
Pendleton Round-Up
Friday, September 02, 2005
Basic necessities
So, when you can't sleep and you can't blog, what do you do? In my case I watch cable TV and play Monopoly at Games.com.
I was thinking a lot today about the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Things sound like they are getting pretty desperate in the gulf region devastated by the hurricane, particularly in New Orleans.
I have no desire to belittle the tragedy, so please, I hope no one takes it that way. But I am stunned by how the world for the survivors of that tragedy has changes in just a few days. All our modern conveniences don't mean shit right now. Fuck cell phones and pagers and computers and DVD players and cable TV and, well, frankly anything that runs on electricity or needs gasoline to operate. In the blink of an eye the clock has rolled back more than a century in time. It is Darwinian survival of the fittest.
People who survived the storm are dying in the streets and in attics and in rescue shelters. Our society has gotten so soft that we can't get by without air conditioning and refrigeration and electricity. Live is prolonged by modern science, medicine and other conveniences that we have all come to take for granted. I'm not sure I could survive in the post apocalyptic world the unfortunate citizens of New Orleans and other Gulf communities now find themselves in.
Fuck the ATM, people need to know how to hunt and gather and find water and shelter in a place where all such things are in short supply and mobs rule the streets.
In a strange way, I admire the people who are doing the unthinkable just to survive another day. God bless those people and may the cavalry arrive to carry them to safety as quickly and efficiently as possible.
It was not so long ago that I had never been east of the Mississippi River. But in the last few years I had the great fortune to visit Georgia, Tennessee and Florida and meet some wonderful people. I have also had several friend and coworkers from my last few jobs relocate to jobs in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and the Gulf region.
For the last few years the threat and reality of hurricanes has meant much more to me than the ever have earlier in my life, in no small part because I have friends who now live in harm's way each hurricane season. And the hurricane seasons of last year and this year have been so frightening and devastating.
My heart aches for my friends, and those who nearly became part of my family, and the talented former coworkers and colleagues who are far too close to this devastation. I miss them all and my heart aches for them, their families, and for those in and around the most severe devastation. May you find the comforts we all take for granted very soon: the comfort of friends and loved ones, a safe place to sleep, food to eat and water to drink.
And may the rest of us never take for granted those simple things, usually so easy to find, which can mean life or death when they are not so readily at hand.
Hurricane Katrina
Insomnia
I was thinking a lot today about the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Things sound like they are getting pretty desperate in the gulf region devastated by the hurricane, particularly in New Orleans.
I have no desire to belittle the tragedy, so please, I hope no one takes it that way. But I am stunned by how the world for the survivors of that tragedy has changes in just a few days. All our modern conveniences don't mean shit right now. Fuck cell phones and pagers and computers and DVD players and cable TV and, well, frankly anything that runs on electricity or needs gasoline to operate. In the blink of an eye the clock has rolled back more than a century in time. It is Darwinian survival of the fittest.
People who survived the storm are dying in the streets and in attics and in rescue shelters. Our society has gotten so soft that we can't get by without air conditioning and refrigeration and electricity. Live is prolonged by modern science, medicine and other conveniences that we have all come to take for granted. I'm not sure I could survive in the post apocalyptic world the unfortunate citizens of New Orleans and other Gulf communities now find themselves in.
Fuck the ATM, people need to know how to hunt and gather and find water and shelter in a place where all such things are in short supply and mobs rule the streets.
In a strange way, I admire the people who are doing the unthinkable just to survive another day. God bless those people and may the cavalry arrive to carry them to safety as quickly and efficiently as possible.
It was not so long ago that I had never been east of the Mississippi River. But in the last few years I had the great fortune to visit Georgia, Tennessee and Florida and meet some wonderful people. I have also had several friend and coworkers from my last few jobs relocate to jobs in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and the Gulf region.
For the last few years the threat and reality of hurricanes has meant much more to me than the ever have earlier in my life, in no small part because I have friends who now live in harm's way each hurricane season. And the hurricane seasons of last year and this year have been so frightening and devastating.
My heart aches for my friends, and those who nearly became part of my family, and the talented former coworkers and colleagues who are far too close to this devastation. I miss them all and my heart aches for them, their families, and for those in and around the most severe devastation. May you find the comforts we all take for granted very soon: the comfort of friends and loved ones, a safe place to sleep, food to eat and water to drink.
And may the rest of us never take for granted those simple things, usually so easy to find, which can mean life or death when they are not so readily at hand.
Hurricane Katrina
Insomnia
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Feeling small
I had a bad day. I'm feeling small and pathetic given the thousands on the Gulf Coast now have no homes, no food, no fresh water, no electricity, no jobs, no nothing if they were fortunate to survive.
I'm happy to have small problems that in the grand scheme of things don't mean a damn thing.
Hug your loved ones people.
Bad day
Hurricane Katrina
I'm happy to have small problems that in the grand scheme of things don't mean a damn thing.
Hug your loved ones people.
Bad day
Hurricane Katrina
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Hell hath no fury...
That Katrina is a mean, evil bitch.
God bless the people of the Gulf Coast in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and farther north in the path of hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane Katrina
God bless the people of the Gulf Coast in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and farther north in the path of hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane Katrina
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Overwhelmed by the tsunami
I admit it. I'm overwhelmed by the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami that has killed more than 137,000 people in the Indian Ocean basin.
I don't know what to say about it.
The loss of life is just too much for my small brain to calculate. It's just too much.
I'll leave the analysis and insightful posts to people with more cognitive power than I can muster.
Yes, it's a big story. A huge story. And yes, I'm in the news business. But I can't pretend to know how to address that carnage or the efforts of ordinary folks to try to do something to help.
I only hope that all the money being raised and relief supplies being shipped get to the people who need them. I won't be surprised if in a few weeks, or months, we hear about millions, or billions, of dollars in cash and supplies that were wasted or went to line some opportunistic bastards' pockets.
So, this may be my only mention of the tsunami. It's not that I don't care, I just don't know how to do the topic justice from so far away.
I don't know what to say about it.
The loss of life is just too much for my small brain to calculate. It's just too much.
I'll leave the analysis and insightful posts to people with more cognitive power than I can muster.
Yes, it's a big story. A huge story. And yes, I'm in the news business. But I can't pretend to know how to address that carnage or the efforts of ordinary folks to try to do something to help.
I only hope that all the money being raised and relief supplies being shipped get to the people who need them. I won't be surprised if in a few weeks, or months, we hear about millions, or billions, of dollars in cash and supplies that were wasted or went to line some opportunistic bastards' pockets.
So, this may be my only mention of the tsunami. It's not that I don't care, I just don't know how to do the topic justice from so far away.
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