I come to the east coast from California and we have an earthquake?
And in a few days we’ll have a hurricane?
We’ve already had hail here in Connecticut. Oh, and there was the tornado that touched down not too far from us.
So that leaves what, exactly? Snow in August? Mother Nature is such a kidder.
Photo: Susan Sternberg
I’ve had a case of survivor’s guilt lately.
I think it started after the earthquake/cholera epidemic in Haiti. I watched the TV coverage obsessively and then I had to change the channel. I couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t stand watching people suffer.
Next came the uprisings in the Middle East. Night after night there was gunfire and terror and people screaming. I had to stop watching that too.
And now, of course, we have Japan. The situation there is so awful I can hardly think about anything else. It’s created a low-level feeling of doom that pervades my days and nights. How can I enjoy life, goes my thinking, when so many are in such dire need?
Then came an email from my friend Kathy. She had flown to New Zealand on vacation the very day of the earthquake in that country, but she got in touch with me after she arrived to say she was safe. I was very relieved but wondered how on earth she’d be able to have a good trip amid so much destruction.
This is how she did it.
When she sent me this pic of her skydiving, I just howled. Talk about throwing caution to the wind! Why not skydive? Life is short and we need to appreciate every minute of it, although I would probably pick an adventure that didn’t involve being off the ground. But that’s just me.
…But here in Santa Barbara we were lucky. No real effects of the waves except a bit of high surf. But the earthquake in Japan and the horrific tsunami there did make me say to Michael, for the 100th time, “Are we prepared for an emergency?”
We came close to having to evacuate a couple of years ago when a wildfire raged dangerously close to us. We’ve certainly experienced our share of small quakes. And several years ago, at the suggestion of a friend, we went online and ordered a pair of “Ready Freddy’s.”
They’re knapsacks that come with all kinds of emergency gadgets like a battery-powered charger for a cell phone, a flashlight, a transistor radio, a compartment for important documents and another for medications, even dried food of the type that astronauts take on their missions in space. (Check out ReadyFreddy.com and you’ll see how cool they are.)
The problem is we haven’t updated our supplies. The dried food has probably disintegrated by now. The batteries in the battery-operated gizmos have undoubtedly died. And our important papers? They were important seven years ago but we haven’t replaced them with new papers.
The truth is we’ve gotten complacent. An earthquake of the magnitude that hit Japan could hit us and we’d be utterly helpless. So I vow right here and now to do something about that. If I don’t, feel free to nag me.
