japan and christchurch, nz

I have not written of what happened last week and prior, and what continues to happen there.  It's not because I don't care.  I may care overly much and feel there is little I can actively do from such a distance. I have made the Red Cross donation call. I donated a bit to send rescue dogs to Japan to look for survivors, and not survivors. I've found out about everyone I personally know and others I know in the this weird new virtual realm that has shrunk the world to even smaller than it seemed before. Small world, indeed. I also spent a couple of days trying to keep abreast of the whereabouts of a local friend who was caught on a train between Yokohama and Tokyo. I called and kept his wife company even before the disaster for the week plus he was away, but spent last Friday night with her and other friends, doing what we could to distract her, and keep their young son occupied after we all found out he was safe. By Sunday he was home safe, only about 24 hours late.

My thoughts and prayers, of course, go out to everyone in Japan and in Christchurch.  I am concerned about the nuclear reactors. I am concerned people aren't getting food and water. I cried over the dog that stayed by his other dog friend who was hurt and I've cried over the four month old baby who was pulled out of the rubble. I bawled over the parents of the eighteen year old girl whose car was swept away in the wave when they discovered her. I have watched video of the water overwhelming the land, the awesome power, the utter devastation. I have contacted anyone I know who was in the potential west coast tsunami zone that, thankfully had little affect.

I get overwhelmed by things of this magnitude easily.  It's Haiti, Indonesia, New Orleans, and 9/11 going back to the San Francisco earthquake in 1989. In the meantime, there's the people of Wisconsin and it seem much of the Middle East and beyond starting revolutions and trying to be free.

I think right now, the best I've been able to do is not get so overwhelmed. I am going about the business of my life,and while I've personally piled more on to my own kind of mayhem, and gotten through the majority of it in the past few weeks, I have been extraordinarily grateful that my little corner of mayhem is mostly just full of life and family and love and a little frustration, aggravation with a lot of laundry thrown in.

Peace and goodwill to the people of Japan and Christchurch, New Zealand.

In my little corner of the world, I am taking Mr. Cynic to work in a soup kitchen today. It's what I can do.