They weren't ready for this.

They weren't. They spent all weekend talking about how they've feared "The Big One" for years, but you know what? They truly weren't prepared for it when it hit. There's no other explanation for the chaos we're seeing on television. It's taking too long to get help in to these people, it's taking too long to get these people out, and nobody seems to really know exactly what's going on. Have they started sandbagging or not? Nobody knows. How long is it really going to take to evacuate New Orleans? Nobody knows. And on and on.

Not that I don't admire the effort underway, because I know it's an organizational nightmare. I know that people in New Orleans have hampered efforts somewhat with their descent into savagery. I know that roads are out and cell towers are out and phones are out and power is out. I know that none of us have ever seen a natural disaster like this in America. But still. After watching the last few days unfold, you can't tell me that anyone is following any sort of well-drawn out plan. It's infuriating.

On a more personal front, after seeing "Volunteers should not report directly to the affected areas unless directed by a voluntary agency. Self-dispatched volunteers can put themselves and others in harm’s way and hamper rescue efforts" on the FEMA website, I decided that getting into my truck and heading down there was probably not the way to go. I know that I could get there and easily find somewhere to fit in - there are thousands and thousands of people who need any kind of help they can get - but it's better to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Especially when I'm already grumbling about the lack of organization down there. So I filled out an application at the Salvation Army website and made it very clear that I would like to go south if I could, although I'll help with their efforts in any way that I can, and I got a preliminary email in response and am supposed to get a call from someone in the next few days. I'm also visiting the local chapter of the Red Cross tomorrow to talk to someone there about any opportunities they may have, both here and in the affected areas.

I guess the first one to claim me gets me, at least for this disaster. Beyond that, I'll have time to sit down and make a decision about what volunteer organization fits me best. Because I don't want this to be something I do once and then walk away from. It's time that I grew up a little bit more and did something meaningful and worthwhile with at least part of my life, you know?

Big Trouble in the Big Easy, pt. 2

I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's the one million-plus people who are currently homeless. Maybe it's the thought of the dead bodies floating through the streets of New Orleans being pushed aside as rescue workers race against time to try and save the survivors stuck in buildings and on rooftops. Maybe it's the way southern Mississippi got sucker-punched to a degree while the news media and most of the public focused on New Orleans. Maybe it's the horrifying pictures coming out of Gulfport, or the death toll that is certainly going to end up being a lot higher than anyone is letting on at this point, or the thought of the rising floodwaters in a city that thought the worst had passed... like I said, I just don't know. But something about Katrina has connected with me in a way that no disaster ever has before, not even 9/11.

(I suppose that merits clarification. Yes, I was horrified by 9/11, and I was glued to my TV for as much coverage as I could stand, and I went to bed every night for weeks with those horrifying pictures etched onto my brain, and I still get emotional when I let myself truly stop and think about it. But everyone felt that way about 9/11, you know? Not everyone feels that way about Katrina. We're all horrified, but there are a lot of folks out there who are just sort of horrified in passing. "Yeah, it's a terrible thing," these people say, "such a shame. So, did you see the game this weekend?" And here I am, knowing nobody in the affected areas, having no ties whatsoever to that part of the country, and I can't get the damn thing out of my head.)

We went to the store to get bottled water for the bookstore this afternoon, and I couldn't help but think about the hundreds of thousands of people down south who have no fresh water except what's being frantically brought in to them. I sat down for my lunch with a Subway sandwich, and I couldn't even finish the thing when I thought about all the people living on MREs and donated goods - if they're even getting that yet. I came home to my nice air-conditioned apartment and it made me almost sick to my stomach imagining those people down in the steamy bayous without electricity - let alone AC. Don't even get me started on my possessions, and how looking at my "prized" DVD/comic book/book collections makes me want to just sit down and cry because I can't help but think of all the people who have lost absolutely everything but their lives and the clothes on their backs.

Since Sunday evening, I've been about an eyelash away from loading up my car with some camping gear and rapidly gathered donations from friends like water and clothing and then heading south to try and lend a hand wherever I can. And that's not me. I'm a selfish person, really. They say that you should know your faults, and I know that's one of mine. But something about Katrina has (at least temporarily) pounded that part of me into submission, and I just can't stop thinking about how badly I want to help. Donating some money online to the Red Cross efforts earlier today didn't even make a dent in it. I know that I could call the Tulsa chapter and get involved with answering phones (which I know are swamped) or coordinating efforts to gather and send off the items like water and clothing that people are donating locally, but even that doesn't seem like enough. I have this almost overpowering desire to go, to use my mind and muscle wherever they need it the most down there, to look the people that I'm helping in the eye instead of doing it anonymously from 600 miles away.

Sigh. Such a horrible tragedy.

Big Trouble in the Big Easy

It's strange to think that by this time tomorrow, there may (for all intents and purposes) no longer be a city of New Orleans. I know the city went through all of this all last fall with Ivan, but at this point all of the meteorologists' "best-case scenarios" for Katrina are uglier than the "worst-case" ones that were associated with Ivan. It's bound to happen sooner or later, based on the geography of the city, but I didn't really think that it would be this weekend...

Between that and all the reading I've been doing in the last few days on the worrisome Avian Flu outbreaks in Asia (not to mention the monumental upheavals to be found in the last couple of hundred pages of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, although comparing that to real-world potential disasters is rather silly), I'm having rather a disastrous weekend. Not that it's been a bad one - it hasn't at all - it's just had more than its share of gloom and doom. I need to find something happy and cheerful to occupy myself for a while this afternoon.

Finally

After numerous random delays and an eventual decision to reread books four and five first (which I'm glad I did, because I had forgotten all sorts of stuff that happened, particularly in book five), I'm about ten minutes from heading upstairs to dive into Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Yeah, I know, I can't believe it took me this long either. All I can say is that it's been one odd and exhausting summer.

So. Yay new (to me) Harry Potter-ness!

And if Snape's not the HBP, I'll eat my hat. It's time for Rowling to tell his story, and there's no way she's nuts enough to try and cram it into book seven. *nod*

Bye!

Oh yeah, and...

The Ben Folds/Ben Lee/Rufus Wainwright show was seriously cool. Ben Folds did a cover of "Bitches Ain't Shit!" Nice. However, none of them rocked nearly as hard or as loud as Green Day did. My stuff is still ringing from that one. Good times.

I caught you a delicious bass.

• That doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of this mishmash. It's just a fun movie and it came to mind when I was casting about for what to say up there. That's how it goes sometimes.
• The heat finally broke for about four days, during which it rained about 80% of the time (and there was much rejoicing), but then the rain broke for more heat, and that's a serious pain because four days was just long enough for me to not be used to the daily 100-degree temperatures anymore, so now I'm all whiny and stuff about it again.
• Speaking of weather, we're going camping next weekend, so Mother Nature better have things all sorted by then or there's gonna be hell to pay. Yeah, you heard me, Mother Nature. Get your shit straight, you insane sadistic freaky crazy woman. *menacing glower*
• heh.
• Apostrophes are used: 1) before an "s" to indicate possession in singular nouns, such as "the dog's toy" or "his father's golf clubs." Pronouns such as ours, theirs, hers, etc. do not require apostrophes, and the word "it" is a pronoun, and so the *possessive* form of "it" is "its", as in "put it in its place." This is totally important, people. 2) before an "s" to indicate possession in plural nouns that do not end in "s," like "the men's room" and "the children's tears." 3) after the "s" to indicate possession in plural nouns ending in "s," as in "the companies' ad campaigns" or "the Cubs' slim chances." 4) to indicate a missing letter in contractions or colloquialisms, such as "can't" for "can not" or "it's" for "it has/it is" or "y'all better be learnin' these rules real good." APOSTROPHES ARE NOT USED TO PLURALIZE WORDS! That's goddamn right.
• Washington and Philly split a double-header, and San Diego, the Mets, the Braves, the Astros, and the Boobirds all lost. Excellent. However, we must pause to curse those stupid Brewers and Fish. But there's forty or so games left, a full quarter of the season, so anything can still happen, right? Keep hope alive.
• Outlaw Golf 2: Kinda goofy, kinda sexy in a cartoony way that probably impresses 13-year olds somewhat more than it does me, not a bad golf game (actually a surprisingly respectable one), rather amusing, and less than 10 dollars used so not a bad buy as far as a time-killer goes. But they gotta do something about some of these load times. Wow. If I had wanted to take a nap, I wouldn't have turned on the PS2.
• Twice at the bank this week. Tonight was one of those Regency parties with all the old folks and the kid playing piano, so I don't have a lunch menu yet, oh Tank Girl (and I apologize again for not taking your call this afternoon, frizzum frazzum "unknown" caller ID). I'll snatch one during lunch tomorrow and then blog ya the lowdown on what flavor of hash we're slinging these days. ^_^

Now with Bonus Movie Review!

Reptilicus: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! It's a rubber monster on a stick! Wait, it's a marionette! Wait, it's both! Eating a paper cutout of a farmer! In Copenhagen! With Danish Chamber of Commerce stock footage that has nothing to do with anything! Pricelessly awesomely spectacularific. Serious rating - half of a popcorn box out of five. Rating if you're watching it with a good friend (or friends) and you appreciate crazy-bad movies and it's late and you left sober somewhere behind you at some point in the evening - approximately seven hundred popcorn boxes out of five. Truly one of the rarest of gems.

woof

I want a dog. I absolutely need another cute/handsome furry thing to hang out with. I could get one, too, financially and apartmentally and so on, but the thing I hang up on is my roomie's kids. I mean, I know there are plenty of great dogs just hanging out in shelters needing to be saved, but I really want a puppy again. And I'm not sure about how that would all work out, having to housebreak and train a new little furball with a couple of rambunctious toddlers visiting for a couple-few days every other week. Would they get along with the dog? Would the dog get along with them? What if one of the kiddoes ends up being allergic? Yadda yadda yadda. Right now it's not an urgent need - although it's slowly getting stronger - so I guess we'll just have to see what we see. *shrug*

And in completely unrelated news, it's always nice to do that to the Cards no matter how much the Cubs may suck. w00t.

July 6, 1976

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds of us of all that once was good - and that could be again."
   -James Earl Jones as Terence Mann in "Field of Dreams"

I was a precocious four and a half years old and I was in Chicago for the first time with my parents. We'd flown up there for the festivities surrounding the bicentennial celebration and then stayed for a number of days while my parents took me to all the places they thought I'd love (I was so spoiled back in those days). Great America. The Museum of Natural History. The Museum of Science and Industry. The Sears Tower. Shedd Aquarium. All of these places played a large role in kickstarting my love affair with the Windy City, but none of them so much as Wrigley Field.

How can I describe that first day at the ballpark? Riding an elevated train full of diehard fans in full regalia to Wrigleyville and letting the throng carry us through the gates as surely and smoothly as a river's current carries a boat downstream? That first sight of the field, of the beautiful old scoreboard, of the lush green ivy blanketing the unforgving bricks of the outfield walls with illusory softness? The first juicy bite of a ballpark hotdog, the smell of the still-warm peanuts as my dad tore into the bag that the vendor had casually tossed our way? The first mad scramble for a foul ball? Hanging over the rails before gametime hoping and praying that a player would come my way and sign my first autograph? There are no words for these memories. But I'll treasure them always.

Steve Stone was on the mound for the Cubs, and to this day whenever I hear his voice it takes me back to the most perfect summer day I've ever experienced. It kills me that he and the Cubs split last year under such ugly circumstances - and don't tell me how baseball is a business, either, because I know it is. The problem is that sometimes these businessmen forget that it's so much more than that. After Stoney left the game, Bruce Sutter stepped in and cruised the rest of the way. Bill Madlock (who went on that year to win the National League batting title) had a two-run double early and the Cubs, wonder of wonders, actually won one for me that day. It was a 4-0 shutout, it was absolutely glorious, and I was completely hooked.

Things haven't gone so well for my Cubbies since then. They've come close a few times (oh, did 1984 break my heart - and if I thought 1984 was as bad as it could get, did 2003 ever prove me wrong) but, in the end, have always fallen short. I still haven't given up on them, though, and I never will. Someday they'll cast off that abhorrible "Lovable Losers" nametag and stun the world, and I'll find a way to be right there in the heart of it, cheering for my heroes. And later that night - or more likely, sometime the next morning - I'll be locked in my hotel room crying my damnfool eyes out. ^_^

Hey! And other stuff.

The "hey!":

• Tom Welling's in the remake of "The Fog!" Cool. (I've totally lost my Smallville focus, although I still do truly love the show. A couple of years back, I'd have known about this within a day or two of him signing on. But that's what happens when they mix a few too many craptacular episodes in with the good ones.)

The other stuff:

• Working nine doubles in twelve days isn't as easy as it used to be. I'm soooooooo not 18 anymore. Sigh. But two days from now it'll be over and I can hopefully get back to sleeping a little more than 4-5 hours a night. Of course, the kiddos will be down this weekend, so I don't know if I can bet on too much sleep until Sunday night... ah well, it'll all be worth it when I buy that shiny new laptop I've been craving.
• The bank finally noticed that they were promoting drug use and changed their sign (Tuesday during the day sometime, for those of you keeping score). How unfun of them.
• I'm either seeing "The Dukes of Hazzard" or "March of the Penguins" this weekend. At this point, I just can't decide. I really had no plans to see TDoH at least until it came to DVD (and I wasna even sure about that), but then today I saw a bunch of clips from it and it actually looks funny as hell. Who knew? I've still gotta catch "Wedding Crashers," too, because Vince and Owen are two funny freakin' dudes.
• The Cubs are pissing me off. Yeah, big shock there. Is it too much to ask that they pull it all together someday? (Apparently so.)
• Just over a month until season one of Lost is out on DVD! *insert happy dance here* And then Smallville season four comes out a week later. Guess we know what I'm doing for a good part of September.

I'm tired, and most of this probably isn't all that interesting to anyone other than me, so gnite.

More language silliness

MSNBC says that "babies born at night are at least 12 percent more likely to die, according to a new U.S. study."

Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't all babies have a 100% chance of dying? And yes, I read the article, and yes, I saw that it went on to more clearly define what this study said (in case you dinna follow the linkie, I'll tell you that these babies have a 12-16% higher rate of "neonatal mortality," which means death within 28 days of birth). But still. A vague opening statement like this is completely ridiculous coming from a professional writer/reporter. I swear, at the present rate of decline, in a couple of hundred years (if that) everyone in this country is going to speak and write like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel. Some folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...

ION, the bank is still offering free gifts to people who get their friends high. Snicker.