I was all set to come in and bitch about my weekend spend with headaches on the sofa and no phone calls from the US because the stupid phone company gave us the wrong phone number, which I predictably have programmed into my mobile phone and then gave out to my family. Then I came to work today and spoke with Joe, who began the conversation with “did you hear what happened this weekend?” which is never a good opening. My boss’s wife had a miscarriage on Sunday, which is tragic enough except that she was 8 months pregnant. That scares me. She’s in her early 30’s. It seemed to be a normal pregnancy. How does that happen?? My weekend doesn’t looks so bad after hearing that. It’s amazing what a little perspective can do.
In other news, the Irish people that were in New Orleans on the holiday from hell returned home last night. They’ve got some wild stories according to the paper. Many people are still missing, so breath is still being held. A lot of people have asked what the news coverage here is like dealing with Hurricane Katrina. For the first couple of days it wasn’t a big story. I think no one realized the extent of the destruction until we kept hearing about it from the US. And then we started getting the pictures and the comparisons to a 3rd world nation. It dominates the news here now. And probably will for another week unless something worse happens. God forbid… We do hear a lot of blaming the president. We hear a lot about the looting, the rapes, the shooting, etc… Unfortunately we never hear any good news out of the area. A few miracle stories would be good right now. The Irish contingent that returned last night was quoted as saying that the US Government had a lot to answer for. I’m not sure how it’s the Congress’s fault, or the presidents. I think this, like the World Trade Center, is one of those things that is just blameless due to the sheer scale of it. (Rescue efforts, not the act of flying a plane into the buildings) No one could have imagined how bad it would be if someday a really bad storm washed ashore. As far as I know (which isn’t much really) very few cities outside of Florida have plans for evacuating the entire city in a few hours. That’s a monumental undertaking. And it would require a lot of citywide fire drills. Who does that? No one. I wish people would spend more effort finding some good news to report to the world than taking swipes and placing blame. That doesn’t help anyone. Besides I’m tired of the smirks people have when they talk about how quickly people turned violent. Like looting could never happen here and we’re all animals in the US; they let us have guns ya know. Mind you, this has only happened a couple of times, but it really pissed me off. Which might explain why I bit Hot German Guy’s head off the other day when he tried to relocate a sink. Hmmm…
I fielded a lot of questions from co-workers about having relatives in the area, which thankfully I don’t. (Dan + Jenn, BIG thank you for not having the wedding in Florida) And then I got to explain the area to people. Most of them didn’t know that New Orleans is under sea level. Or that the coast is one of the poorest areas of the US. Or that many major prisons are located in those states and one (at least) had to be evacuated. They didn’t understand that moving people to Texas in August can be a deadly proposition because of the heat. And they certainly don’t understand how large of an area we’re talking about. The distance from New Orleans to Houston is the same as the distance from Southern to Northern Ireland. It was an interesting position to be put in, having to explain why it’s such a catastrophe aside from the water. I wouldn’t recommend it.
On another front entirely, we now have internet at the house. So I got to listen to Prarie Home Companion yesterday. Yeah!! I’ve missed the News from Lake Woebegone and the commercials from Bertha’s Kitty Botique to the Ketchup Advisory Board. Some days you just need a bit of home. I got to listen to Morning Becomes Eclectic too. I miss my Sunday afternoon radio habit. Strange the things we miss. I was really craving Cheetos the other day at lunch. Cannot tell you why, just really would have paid a lot of money for Orange fingers.
It’s sunny today, not a bit windy and close to 80 degrees. I think I’ll go for a bike ride along the sea tonight. Talk to you all tomorrow. Happy Labor Day everyone!
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