Pizza and a walk after dinner

I was in Alabama when Hugo hit South Carolina, and my biggest memory of that time is trying for hours to call my parents back home to see if they were OK. The lines weren’t functioning, and weren’t functioning, and just weren’t functioning, but finally the call went through and a stranger answered the phone. I nearly fainted. I knew it was police or the coroner recovering my parents’ bodies. Turned out it was their friend Larry who lived in Charleston and evacuated inland to their house, and they were all fine. They sent pictures later of upside down Volkswagens perched in trees, of houses without roofs or walls, trees down everywhere.

My mother’s a nurse and legally mandated to report to the hospital in emergencies like this—I was telling her last night about reading about the nursing staff in one of hospitals in New Orleans, people who’d been on duty since before the hurricane and couldn’t leave. They were required by law to work their shifts. I try to imagine what it must be like, to work in the hospital, pumping air for patients without oxygen, not able to go home, probably not even having a home. What are the doctors and nurses with children doing? The whole thing is so unimaginable that I keep having to focus on things like the nurses and who’s taking care of their kids, the students at Tulane and all the other affected schools who will be attending universities across the country because Tulane had to cancel their fall semester. I think about how difficult it must be to be Tulane’s president, and how glad I am that I not on the committee in charge of this problem. Because I can’t think about the rest of it.

I’m not sure anybody else can much, either. People here are mostly bitching about the gas prices, which are terrible—nothing like a national disaster to bring out the profiteer in everybody. I guess the pipelines aren’t back up to speed yet, since many of the local gas stations have bagged their pumps. I don’t remember the energy crisis in terms of gas—I remember having to turn the lights out at school when we left class, and the little stickers next to the light switches reminding us to save energy—so this is like nothing I’ve seen before. And when they’re done with the gas discussions, which take a very long time, then people seem to wander around talking about the lawlessness, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and raising money, which I think makes us feel we’re doing something. We had a call tonight from one of the district’s administrators asking if we supported donating half the money we’ve been raising for library books during Rolling Hill Reads. If we don’t, there’s a phone number we can call. I didn’t bother to write it down, even though I know people will give money to the Red Cross, but our district literacy drive is only once a year and there won’t be more money for books when this is over. But I can’t bring myself to call. I already made my Red Cross donation through Amazon, and I guess I’ll just donate a little extra for the books this year.

I made pizza for dinner. Laura’s spending the night with Adeleigh, Chris and Will and I took a walk after dinner, and Kitty’s here rubbing around my ankles. I finally stopped reading CNN and the New York Times, and we’re going to make popcorn and watch a movie. Will doesn’t know about any of this, because I don’t want him watching what’s happening on the news. Laura knows a little, but she’s plenty immersed in the healthy self-centered girlhood where her only problem is that we made her pick up her clothes off the floor before she could go to Adeleigh’s house. So we go on with homework and the cross country meet tomorrow and laundry and a walk. It all feels surreal, and like dancing on somebody’s grave. But what else is there to do?