Hosting FEMA Refugees

It is now Wednesday, and AEP cannot promise any better than to have 90% of Columbus residents up and running with power by Sunday. Here is what I am thinking: Not only is our government sorely unprepared for natural disasters and terrorist attacks on our resources, so are our private corporations.


So Osi and I are offering our lit, air conditioned and water-heated home to any of our friends here that need it. If you have power at work and are reading this, give us a call. Tonight is pasta ant homemade meatballs night. Tom and Bryan joined us for sweet and sour crock pot chicken and mashed potatoes last night. Julie came over this morning and got her first hot shower since Sunday morning.


I am telling you this not to say "Hey, we are FANTASTIC friends and neighbors!" (although we are), but to underscore the point made in my first paragraph. What the hell happens if - God forbid - a metropolitan city should be off the grid for 2 weeks? Chaos. (Apparently, in our neck of the woods, underfed, stinky chaos, but chaos nonetheless.)


So, do me a favor: check on your friends. Your elderly neighbors. Julie lives 2 blocks over and has no power. I checked on Miriam and Marty this morning and they are clean and fed (my elderly check is now complete. If I take on the whole of Sisterhood, I'll be calling people for weeks...).


If you have stuff, share it with your friends that don't. It's a lesson I have been trying to teach The Toddler. You would think the adults could set a good example, no?


Of course, we are not in a Katrina situation over here. Tom and Bryan were just sick of looking at each other after having no TV for several days and no light to read by. So they came over to look at us for a while. Having judged us less good-looking than themselves, they went home full of yummy goodness and smugness. They shall subsist on that another day :)