I hope no one's tired of reading about it. It's just such an enormous thing; I find myself thinking about the images and the things I've read and watched at the oddest times, and even though I am not directly affected, I think we all have been indirectly affected. Like the September 11 terrorist attacks, this disaster makes us all feel more vulnerable, and especially in the wake of questions regarding the response to a natural disaster here nearly on the anniversary of the attacks, it makes you think. What really has changed? Can we respond to such an enormous problem? Did the resolve to combat terror blind our leaders to the danger in nature?
I think that like September 11, the Katrina hurricane and its aftermath will redefine our country. It's an experience that crosses generations, ethnicity, and class. I only hope some good will come out of all this.
For those of us not actively affected, life goes on pretty much as normal, with a few exceptions. I've volunteered on the Katrina Help Wiki and asked the local Red Cross if I could help; they're so overwhelmed with offers that they deferred me for now, asking me to call back in a few weeks since ongoing help will be needed. We're getting refugees from Katrina in the Bluegrass en masse now, starting with 500 today and up to 1500 soon. This is in addition to the individual families that came on their own. I haven't been able to donate much yet, but I may be able to do more at the end of the month. I'm going to give blood later on today. That's about all I can do for now, and it's a little frustrating, but hopefully I can do more later. That's the problem of not being a member of a church or some other philanthropic group, I suppose...it's hard to find something to do if all you can donate is time. I may check around and see if they'd mind a pagan helping out. :)
The main thing for me this month, since I'm not so scheduled or spending time any time with the people I usually do, is that I'm spending time alone. The first few days I sort of flailed because I'm so unused to having time to myself. But mostly it's been pretty nice so far, if a little lonely. I caught myself singing along to the jingle of a local rural electric co-op's commercial this morning on the way to work. Thankfully, D and N are back at work, so I can look forward to some conversation at lunch. (Most of the people I normally eat with have been hard to catch the last few days, with other plans, etc., so even lunchtime has been unusually quiet). I've had a chance to really bond well with my dog and cat. Cerys has remained bouncy, for which I'm grateful; I thought spending time away from the other dogs would bother her, but it doesn't seem to be. Darius has been particularly cuddly, something no one who knows this cat would normally believe. If I'm sitting at all, he wants to be on me, except when I'm at the computer, in which case he's content with being on the monitor. It both makes me miss Spock (who died this summer) and yet also fills the void left by him.
Well, I guess that's all for now. I have to get ready for work. I'll probably blog a bit more than normal, to reassure me that there's someone out there, or at least I won't look so crazed blogging as I would talking to myself. :)
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