Sonic Boom

Earthquakes were everywhere earlier this month: the tragedy in Italy, an earthquake shortly after in Anchorage, and friends who heard a "sonic boom" in Orange County on the same day as the Alaska earthquake.

Before all this happened, I picked up a book that's been sitting on my shelf for months, A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 by Simon Winchester. Much of the story is grim. There's a ripple effect where geological disturbance in one area is often followed by geological disturbance in another, and the human toll can be devastating. He presented dire evidence of escalating seismic tension in Yellowstone, which is theoretically due for a massive blow-out.

Naturally, tourists have flocked to Yellowstone in even greater droves since those scientific findings hit the press. We have a morbid fascination with disasters, to the point that we're sometimes willing to flirt with them ourselves. We've all rubbernecked at car wrecks and watched countless hours of 9/11 footage, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be tempted to peek out of the storm cellar to see a tornado. One of the minor disappointments of my years in California was that I didn't experience (or notice) an earthquake.

I was very proud, therefore, to experience an earthquake almost a year ago here in my non-earthquake-prone home, far from the San Andreas Fault. During a period of strange working hours, I was "working from home" and napping mid-day when I was suddenly roused by a loud noise. I leapt up, heart hammering, thinking a truck had run into the brick wall of my house, and ran outside. Nothing. No truck, no damage, no more noise.

I put it out of my mind until later than day when a friend told me there were rumors of a minor earthquake in my area. The timing fit, but my friend was skeptical when I said I'd felt such a small earthquake. But why else would I wake up? What was the noise I heard? I've been indignant about his skepticism for months now, and am always satisfied to gather more support for my earthquake experience. Winchester reported that people far away from the massive 1906 San Francisco earthquake heard loud noises similar to what I heard, and I don't think the "sonic boom" in Orange County shortly after an Alaska earthquake was a coincidence. In addition, the U.S. Geological Survey web site displayed reports of earthquake experiences from other people in my area that day.

So there, Skeptic!

God on YouTube

The Washington, DC Catholic church has started advertising on YouTube, trying to "reach people where they are" and convince them to come back to church.

Advertising and religion seem like strange bedfellows to me, but I can understand why the Catholic Church might see it as a necessity. According to a recent article I read, about 10 percent of American adults describe themselves as ex-Catholics. The article also claimed that if Ex-Catholicism were its own religion, it would be one of the nation's largest religious groups.

Apparently, ex-Catholics have become a target market for growing (Protestant) churches, and there's a small industry developing around people seeking the right church. I recently came across a site for "secret shoppers" where undercover agents rate churches on their message, service, friendliness toward newcomers, and a variety of other aspects. I don't recall reading anything about the quality of the coffee afterward, but I wouldn't be surprised!

Exploring the Neighborhood

I love working from home. Now that it's spring and starting to feel like it, I can throw the windows open and enjoy the fresh air. I can make the interminable and innumerable conference calls pleasant by either making the kitchen counters spotless or by standing on my deck with the cordless phone and catching some rays.

There's a downside - it's much harder to make the separation between work and the rest of life when you don't have that commuting boundary. But that same blending of work and everything else occasionally works in the other direction too.

Tuesdays are usually a little rough: an 11PM meeting Monday night and then a 7AM meeting Tuesday morning. By lunch this Tuesday, I needed a break, so I laced up the walking shoes and headed out with my iPod and camera.

Walking around on foot and in the daytime, I get a very different view of my neighborhood than I do whizzing past in my car. The man with a stroller in the nearby gardens. The woman grading papers on a park bench. The women volunteering their time to plant and protect seedlings. The couple having coffee. And my favorite, the guy promoting his new pizza restaurant by tossing pizza crust in the parking lot.

As I wander, I imagine these people's lives. What would it be like to have important things to do out and about in the world (instead of in an office) during daylight hours? What would it be like to have nothing particularly important to do during daylight hours? What would it be like to live in the cute little house surrounded by parklands, with big windows upstairs and a little red grill tucked onto the patio in the back?

I may not be able to answer most of those questions, but my pizza dinner that night was amazing.

Be a New Orleanian

Sometimes I feel very sheltered in my professional 9-to-5 (or -8!) world. I spend most of my day talking to people in my industry, many of them white Americans, and because I like them, I often socialize with them in the evenings.

This little world feels constricting at times, which is probably why I so frequently grab my passport and head abroad. I thrive on the differences between "there" and "here." (Aside: My recently-conceived definition of an "ugly American" is someone who leaves home and wants everything to be the same somewhere else. What a waste of time, money, and passport ink!)

I was recently reminded that you don't need a passport to find something new. In New Orleans, I was humbled and inspired by our hostess. She spoke easily of her friend the crack-addicted, call-girl-frequenting oil rig worker-cum-bouncer who lived with them for a while and took their dog on daily jaunts throughout the French Quarter. She told us about her bridesmaid, a woman who couldn't finish high school because of drugs and family issues but now owns a successful bar just off Bourbon Street. Our hostess had us in stitches reflecting on how she saw herself in an Ann Taylor-wearing, brunette transvestite with a similar name. She has the gift of acknowledging people's differences without sounding mean-spirited or judgmental.

This openness and easy acceptance of people and their foibles, regardless of profession, race, age, or education, seemed to be typical of the people we met in New Orleans. They say love is blind, but maybe what's really true is that it has its eyes wide open and accepts all traits in a person, not just the positive ones.

Although the stickers and T-shirts were created for a different purpose, I'm inspired to be more accepting, less judgmental, and just plain kinder when I see the motto, "Be a New Orleanian...wherever you are."

Rest

Every morning I swear I'm going to get more sleep, and yet here I am at 1 AM.

I have even more incentive to go to bed than normal. The bed I've been talking about about for 3 years arrived this afternoon. (I always seem to mull over large purchases for a year or more before surprising everyone who's bored by the topic and actually doing it.) I've added fresh sheets, not quite as warm as flannel but as soft... Soon I'll crawl in and pull the sheets up to my chin and drift off into blessed sleep.

In the meantime, I'm keyed up over things that can't or won't be addressed tonight. I need to let it go for a few hours.

P.S. Yes, I do realize that I've already dropped my picture-a-day effort.

St. Patrick's Day Parade, Part II

St. Patrick's Day last week was anticlimactic, since we'd already celebrated the holiday several times by Tuesday. We celebrated for the second time on Saturday (the 14th), the day the Irish Channel parade petered out around our friends' house.

We woke early(-ish) and trekked off to a stranger's house for breakfast burritos. We sat in a darkened, candle-lit living room under a chandelier hung with green garters and white lace panties with shamrocks and tried to make ourselves heard over the snuffling of the host's dog (how do they sleep at night?). The bits and pieces I could hear were odd: "prison rodeo," "inmates compete," "poker chip glued to a bull's forehead," "surely the infirmary is preferable," ...

All the while, the rain came down. On the way home, I stripped off my shoes and rolled my pants. My attention was split between watching for stones on the sidewalk and observing the beginnings of the day's festivities, and I narrowly avoided stepping on a crawfish that had escaped a local barbeque and was making a run for the storm gutter.

The rain tapered off, and far off, the parade started. By the time it looped around to our vantage point, the paraders were drunk, tired, wet, and running out of tchotkes, but we still made out ok. I got enough beads that my neck felt the strain. Green garters, a beer in a green plastic bottle, a felt hat shaped like a beer mug, a stuffed frog, plastic cups,a bag, several cabbages (green and purple), and my favorite, a hot pickle in a plastic pouch.

They do know how to celebrate in New Orleans!

Lost Things

This weekend I lost a St. Patrick's Day earring and a comfortable illusion. Tonight, however, I'm reminded that there are much worse things to lose. Your life, like the soldiers I wrote about earlier. Or your son, as in The Changeling.

If you haven't seen it, The Changeling is the story of a mother whose kidnapped son is returned by the police many months later. The mother insists from the start that the boy is not her son, but the police, under intense media pressure, insist that they've solved the case. I haven't seen the rest and wouldn't want to spoil the ending, but the premise is heartbreaking.

Not as heartbreaking, however, as the story I heard recently on "This American Life" on NPR. Bobby Dunbar was another small boy who disappeared (in 1912) and was later "found" in the company of a drifter. Media reports of his reunion with the Dunbars varied. The article quotes were well-chosen for effect - the ones where the parents immediately recognized the child read like puff pieces, whereas the serious, news-like articles represented the parents' hesitation.

Tragically, another woman, Julia Anderson, stepped forward to claim the child. An unwed mother with several children by several fathers and without strong moral standing in the community, she lost her court case, and the boy was raised by the Dunbars. Imagine the agony of knowing where your kidnapped son is and not being able to take him home.

The tragedy is still echoing almost a century later. A Dunbar descendant found the old articles and began doing her own research. Against her family's wishes, she conducted DNA tests on her father and his putative cousin that proved Bobby Dunbar wasn't a Dunbar (and probably was Julia Anderson's son). Much of her family has disowned her.

Comparatively, I can't complain.