Like Sands in the Hourglass...

These are the days of my life. How exciting are they. Yeh. So, some may have noticed that I have another blog up, but there are no entries on it. As of yet. Well, the plan was for me to update that blog every week or so, but I have yet to write a single word. But keep posted. My Labor Day weekend. I had family visiting, my nephew, whom I haven’t seen in years, and my ex-brother-in-law. It was okay, we just mainly sat around, and doing nothing so it was no stress for me. We went into Baltimore’s Inner harbor and had a nice walk around and lunch. My nephew played x-box, and we watched the Bourne saga. It was very relaxing. I finally washed my hair last night. I wanted to re-color it, so I need to do that with-in a few days. Those pesky gray hairs are rearing their ugly heads, yet again. Jason is in France. I recall there was talk about taking me as well, but then he was a big slacker, and by the time we looked at airfare, it was like 1800 USD to fly over there, so. He’ll be home on Sunday, though. Me mammy is already driving me mad. When Jason is gone, she just all invades my privacy. She usually won’t come back into our room when he is home, but I have been half-naked and in the process of getting dressed and she will just barge on in. This bothers me on several different levels. One is that I am a very modest person. The only people who I don’t mind seeing me naked or half naked are Jason and Martin (and he because he is too young to even have a clue about naked mommy). Granted, I will shower at the gym, but that is different. But in my own home I would prefer not to be standing in front of my mirror, putting on mascara wearing bra and pants, and have me mammy come barging in, saying “where’s the mayo” like it couldn’t wait until I was dressed. Two, she can’t take a hint. Just because Jason is gone, does not mean I crave human companionship. Just the opposite in fact. I love being ALONE when Jason is gone. Just sitting there, alone. Watching TV, alone. Reading, alone. ETC. But she will stay out in the family room late. Jason, Martin and I will usually head down there for an hour after dinner, before Martin’s beddie-bye time. Just a nice hour of family time. She usually goes into her room. When Jason is gone, she stays out in the family room. This is so annoying. Especially since she watches Law and Order, which I am not a fan of. OK, enough complaints about me mammy. I hate our master bath. The décor is horrible, and my personal hygeine products stacked everywhere does not help. I think while Jason is gone I will: 1. Find alternate places to store my facial products and my make-up brushes besides the vanity top 2. $Get a panel or scarf for the window$ 3. $Get some fake, heat safe plants for the top of the medicine cabinet$ 4. Scrub the shower and throw out all unused containers of shower products 5. Wash the shower curtain, rugs and towels 6. Finish painting the trim 7. Replace the trash basket 8. $Possibly buy some new vanity items. A toothbrush holder, and a soap dish$ That’s the plan. So, I am not sure about the items that require an expenditure of cash. But I think the importance is item 2, 8 then 3. I think I have a few bucks left on a Linens and things gift card, so we shall see. Oh yeah. I also won a coup. I will be allowed to buy some furniture for the kid’s room. Whee. Go, me. So now, I have a few thoughts on the hurricane situation in New Orleans. So if you are easily offended, stop here and stay happy. And if you do read it, and you don’t agree with my points, I only ask two things of you. Please, by all means contact me if I have gotten a fact wrong and correct me. But DO NOT flame me. These are my opinions, and I know that I have a right to free speech. I haven’t said anything yet, because I really wanted to get my thoughts in order, before I went shooting my mouth off, half-cocked. These are my feelings on the situation. Americans are way too complacent. Even our poor are complacent. The comparisons between this hurricane and the Tsunami in Indonesia boggle my mind. Here, I’ll make a table.

Hurricane Katrina	Indonesian Tsunami
A few days notice	No notice
Corruption-infested region	Corruption-infested region
Poverty and tourism	Poverty and tourism
The poor were the hardest hit	The poor and the rich were equally affected (immediate)
New Orleans was in a bad location, unfortunate enough to be in a hurricane prone region	The region was just another coastal area, unfortunate enough to be in the path of a tsunami
Guns	No guns

So, those are some quick observations I made. basically I don't even fully undertand how you can even compare the two diasters. In one case, people had NO warning. I mean, they were people sun-bathing on the beach and this huge wave comes and washes them out to sea. On the other hand, I don't think anyone in NO was blissfully relaxing in the middle of a hurricane. They knew about it DAYS in advance. Damn! Stop comparing the two. Both are terrible, but please stop saying, "It's our tsunami" because it isn't. I can’t really comment on the difference between the reaction time between the two disasters. I do recall help rolling out for the tsunami, I just don’t recall how soon it happened. In the case of NO, I think the rescuers were probably scared off initially by the crazy, gun-wielding folk there. Everyone makes it sounds like there should have been all this help the day after the ‘cane hit. Well, in a perfect world, sure. But I think we all know we don’t live in a perfect world. So help took a few days. And by the time it got down there, some people had really makes a nice, big, lawless mess of it all, which took even longer to sort out. So what do I mean by the complacency issue? Well, in Indonesia, the majority of poor people probably would have left if they knew of the tsunami. Why? Well, you don’t have to evacuate quite as far in the case of a tsunami. If they had the kind of warning they get in the pacific, I think there would have been very little loss of life there. Some would have stayed, surely, but for different reasons, I think. I was reading stories about some poor people in NO. This one guy who was living month-to-month sat down and figured the cost of his flight from NO would be several thousand dollars between airfare, rental cars, etc. OKAY. I can appreciate the fact that he didn’t have a car, but did all public transportation systems stop functioning before the storm hit? Did Greyhound stop their buses? Were his legs broken? I would think would be a lot easier for someone who had begun the evac and ended up stuck in some random spot in the middle of nowhere with a few bucks in their pocket, a few suitcases of their belongings, than for someone who had to run up to their attic when the waters started rising and have NOTHING. Nothing. These people have nothing. Not to even mention access to running water and sewage. Maybe I have just been on the other side too long. But people in this country just DO NOT GET IT. If they can’t evacuate in a comfortable manner, they just won’t. I invite people to read stories of WWII, when people in Europe had to evacuate their homes. Guess how they started? On foot. I don’t think a typical American walks more than 200 yards a day. Even poor Americans who don’t own a car. So, those are a few of my thoughts. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I feel terrible for the people of NO. I just wish that more of them had really exhausted every avenue before giving up.