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Could the Nuclear Crisis Happening in Japan Happen Here?

image via www.webulb.net on flickr

Please be careful with me

I’m sensitive, and

I’d like to stay that way.

-Jewel, “I’m Sensitive”

“Could the Nuclear Crisis Happening in Japan Happen Here?”

This is a headline that I’ve been seeing, in slightly varying forms, all over the place these last few days (here’s one about the plant in Limerick, PA), as the situation in Japan slowly worsens.

I’ve found it terrifying that the situation in Japan has been reported differently in Europe than it has here. I can’t help but wonder if it’s because we’re protecting the reputations of the plants we have, and the ones they want to build.

And yet. People are starting to ask. Could this happen here?

You know what I have to say about that right now?

Honey badger don’t give a shit. Honey badger don’t care.

This is not the time to get all selfish & wonder, could this happen here.

IT’S ALREADY HAPPENING. RIGHT NOW. IN JAPAN.

To recap:

There was a mothereffing 9.0 magnitude earthquake in Japan. There have been hundreds of sizeable aftershocks. Hundreds.

There was a mothereffing tsunami after the earthquake.

It is cold. There has been snow.

Grocery stores are empty.

And now, and now, those people who have already been through so much more than I can even begin to wrap my head around (today is THURSDAY, almost a full week has gone by), there is fear of radiation. You know, so people can worry the rest of their lives about elevated cancer risks for themselves & their children.

Those workers who are trying to make it all stop? I am assuming this is pretty much a suicide mission for them.

I think about how this is just the beginning.

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Meanwhile, my Facebook and twitter feed today are littered with Irish stereotypes, references to beer and pots o’ gold.

Look. I have been accused this past week of being a bad-news addict. I have been told— ordered, really— to quit taking the situation in Japan so emotionally. I have been told that Japan is a wealthy country and not to donate a cent of my family’s hard-earned money. I have been asked what the Japanese have done for me.

I’ve been told there’s only so much we can do and to not think about it.

I don’t work that way.

I can’t help but think of my family in that situation. What if my kids were on the bus, making their way to school when the quake hit? My husband at work in the city? How would we find each other? How much pain would I be in until I found them? How overwhelming the terror in their hearts? Even if we made our way quickly back to each other, how would they be affected by the numerous aftershocks?

Up to 100,000 children have been displaced by the earthquake and resulting tsunami.

Save the Children has just opened a child-friendly play area in Sendai:

Child-friendly spaces are protective environments where children can gather to play and talk about their experiences with supervisors and each other, allowing them to establish a routine in a chaotic situation.

Play and routine are recognized as important ways for children to overcome traumatic experiences.

The supervised play areas also give parents time to concentrate on finding food, search for missing relatives and meet other pressing needs in the aftermath of a disaster.

Donations can be made to Save the Children’s “Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund” or by calling 1-800-728-3843. Or text “JAPAN” to 20222 to donate $10 to Save the Children for Japan earthquake relief (U.S. Only, standard message rates apply).

In addition, who knows how many pets have been injured or displaced.

You can laugh at my bleeding heart all you want. But if this happened to us I can’t imagine how much better and more secure my kids would feel with their Jimmy and their cats returned to their sides. For the elderly, the people that live alone and have no family to make them feel safe…

photo courtesy of Global Animal

Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support is a coalition of three groups— HEART-Tokushima, Animal Garden Niigata, & Japan Cat Network— who have united to provide shelter, rescue, & an exchange of information for animals of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami. Any donated funds will be used directly for animal rescue & support of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami.

Donations can be made to Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support by Paypal through Chip-in. When you get to the Paypal page, change to English via a drop down menu on the upper right side of the page.

World Vets has a whole series of relief teams lined up and on standby pending the outcome of our first responder deployment. As long as radiation and nuclear threats remain they are considering the safety of volunteers and not contributing to potential victims. At this time World Vets is not recruiting volunteers for its disaster response efforts in Japan.

HOWEVER. Veterinary supplies and/or medicines that are being requested: De-worming medicines, vaccinations, fluid replacements, wound treatments, and cages. Donations of these items can be shipped to: World Vets headquarters, 802 1st Ave N, Fargo ND 58102. You can like World Vets on Facebook for further updates.

Artists all over the place are stepping up for the cause in Japan.

Design Crush has a nice list of prints whose proceeds benefit disaster recovery.

And, for the traditionalists out there,

you can text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief, or donate via their website.

Charges will appear on your wireless bill, or be deducted from your prepaid balance. All purchases must be authorized by account holder. Message & Data Rates May Apply. Text STOP to 90999 to STOP. Text HELP to 90999 for HELP. To see the full terms applicable to donations, please visit www.mgive.org/T. Receipts for donations are available at www.mgive.org/receipt.

American charities have raised only $49 million for Japan so far, compared to $296 raised in the first week for Haiti.

Why?

I can’t begin to answer that question, although this article puts forth some convincing arguments.

I’m just going to implore you to unharden your hearts.

I don’t know why we wear it as a badge of success that we don’t let misfortune touch us. This disaster is a reminder of the fragility of life, of the capricious nature of fate, and of the power of our connection as human beings. It touches my heart, and I won’t apologize for it.

There are people in immediate need of help and we have the ability to help them.

I want my children to know that when it was in my power to help others, to help dispel the fear in children’s hearts, I did whatever small bit I could. Never let it be said I walked away and said, “Not my problem.”

I have been through a lot of horrible things in my life. And the moment that I allow it to make me hard, to “toughen me up” so that I am not deeply empathetic to the pain of others— then going through it all becomes completely meaningless.

That’s not how I work.

I’m sensitive, and

I’d like to stay that way.

March 17, 2011
Wordless(ish) Wednesday: Woolly Bear Caterpillar
The trouble with weather forecasting
is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it
and wrong too often for us to rely on it.

-Patrick Young

QUICK FUN FACTS FOR THE DAY:
- The legend of the woolly bear is: if the brown stripe is longer than the black, we get a mild winter.
- I found this one a few days ago and he is ALL BLACK.
- But before you get all worked up about next winter:
- Turns out all woolly bears start out black and then develop a slowly-lengthening brown band as spring and summer and fall pass by. So how brown a woolly bear is in fall (when we would tend to note that sort of thing) is actually an indication of how severe last winter was; i.e. how early in the season it warmed enough to hatch out.
- Also turns out woolly bears like to play dead, so I’m hoping I didn’t kill this one like I thought I did, moving him into the sunlight for his close-up.
- I photographed this woolly bear below in October of 2008. In the post, I mention that I’d seen another that was much more brown.
That winter, Dec 08 through Feb 09, temps were near average across the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895.

The United States experienced its fifth driest December-February period on record. NJ and DE had their driest February on record.

Do with that what you will 🙂 and let me know if you see any woolly bears!
March 16, 2011
Pretty Neat Review & Giveaway
Out of clutter, find simplicity.

Albert Einstein

Ever need to clean up a room right quick and just sort of sweep everything into a big bin, and throw it under the bed or in a closet?

But then forget about the big box in the closet, until one day you’re looking for something and you open it up to discover the huge jumble inside?

And it’s just too much for you at that moment, so you pretend you didn’t see it and quietly put it back?

How about that time your house got robbed, and the fingerprint guy was totally overwhelmed by all the stuff falling out of the bedroom closets and said, “Whoa. They really tore this place apart, huh?”

And you just looked at him, slack-jawed, and then nodded yes, totally blaming the robbers for your unholy mess?

No? Just me?

That day with the forensics team was a turning point for me. It was, quite simply, the most embarrassing moment of my life, on an already difficult day.

I am physically incapable of leaving the house a mess now. Rooms need to be picked up, laundry in baskets at the very least, beds made. You just never know when your house might get robbed and people are going to be asking you, “Was this here when you left?”

I dug in, buckled down, and ruthlessly decluttered. I was flyin’ with the FlyLady. (That was short lived. Too! Much! Enthusiasm! for! Me!) I set up daily chore lists and enforced nightly ten-minute cleaning drills. I was a lean, mean, housekeeping machine.

Only… that was over five years ago.

And… then I got a job working from home full-time.

And also… I started a blog, in my “spare” time.

And did I mention… my brother and his family stayed with us for a few months, while they settled on a house for their growing family. So everything that we used to store in those rooms… came to live upstairs with us for a while.

Yeah. Somehow the clutter has crept back up on me. And set down roots.

You know when the clutter has grown out of hand and you don’t know what to do with it? And you go to the store and you buy all these fancy organizers that you think are going to solve the problem, but they don’t fit in the drawer right or you just don’t get around to using them?

You know how you empty three rooms of craft supplies and Christmas decorations and never-used wedding china and handed-down-waiting-to-be-grown-into clothing into a corner of your office and you have no freaking clue where you’re going to put it all?

So your husband builds a loft in your bedroom?

No? Just me?

The stairs are twisty-turny

view from bed

One day there will be a door to the attic, but for now it's a fancy piece of foamboard

So. I have this loft. And I know it was very handy and nice of my husband to build it, but… I feel like we have turned into crazy people, suitable for reality tv. I call it Elton’s Folly.

And I have all this STUFF. Most of it is stuff I actually need to keep. It was semi-organized when spread out over three rooms— I knew where to find things, even if it looked messy to the casual observer— but when Jeff moved it, he just dumped it all into one big pile on the floor.

And I don’t know where to start. I have an extra room and I still don’t know where to begin.

I just keep thinking of The Cat in the Hat.

And this mess is so big
And so deep and so tall,
We can not pick it up.
There is no way at all!

Well, I don’t know about you, but when I’ve got a mess that’s staring me in the face that I can’t quite deal with, what I like to do is… read a whole lot of books about decluttering and organizational techniques! I’ve become quite a connoisseur over the years.

Pretty Neat: the buttoned-up way to get organized & let go of perfection by Alicia Rockmore & Sarah Welch is a fun-to-read, practical, usable approach to getting your life in order. First of all, the authors get the mom schedule, how we have to work in ten-minute increments around the rest of our lives. They get the fact that no matter what we do, our houses are going to look lived-in, not like a magazine spread. And they are OK with that, and that is the place we begin from. Amazing!

Their first pieces of advice:
- develop your own meaning of organized
- prepare yourself for imperfection
- prepare rebuttals in advance
Can I get an amen?

The following family-friendly chapters include tons of personal anecdotes from women who have been there, done that, and found a working solution; as well as helpful tips for delegation of duties, learning to say no, mastering your to-do list, settling schedules, taming toys, winning the battle of the overflowing inbox, and mastering home-cooked meals.

This last chapter covers picky eaters, menu planning, the issue of time, and “how to hit the trifecta: healthy, good, and easy.” One of my favorite passages points out that processed food does not reduce average preparation time, it just gives that illusion since it reduces prep work like chopping.

This chapter all by itself is worth it. This is news you can use, friends.

And you can win it!

All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me something embarrassing that’s happened as a result of a cluttered house, a cluttered schedule, or a cluttered mind, so I don’t feel like the most disorganized slob in the world. (I didn’t even tell you about the day I missed my son’s parent-teacher conference.)

Or, an extreme you or someone close to you has gone to to try to overcome the clutter.

Or, if you can’t think of anything that fits, you can just tell me why you’d like to win this book. I’m flexible like that.

This giveaway will end at 11:59pm on March 20. One U.S. commenter will be chosen at random to receive a copy of Pretty Neat: the buttoned-up way to get organized & let go of perfection.

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And that’s not all! Know what else is pretty neat? Several other bloggers have also posted reviews and giveaways of this book. Once all the giveaway winners have been reported, one will be chosen at random from across all blogs to receive a $200 gift card (same as cash) plus a selection of Buttoned Up products (ARV: $50) to be used towards her own reasonable organizational goals for her life.

Yeah. That’s awesome. I totally hope you win.

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Full disclosure: I received no compensation for this post, but I did receive a copy of the book to review (and highlight and dogear and otherwise get full use of). My participation in this Global Influence campaign puts me in the running for a $100 gift card (same as cash) plus a selection of Buttoned Up products (ARV: $50). I hope I win, too!

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March 14, 2011