A non-holiday weekend

While I enjoyed the three days off from work, my heart wasn't truly into the holiday weekend. I imagine a lot of people were feeling the same way. I did have a good time, but I'd be lying if I said that a good portion of every day wasn't drifting down to the the South.

Late last week, the flurry of calls commenced to find and confirm that my godmother was okay. She and her husbad lived in Slidell, Louisiana, and the last we'd heard, their house was gone. Thankfully, they've been found to be fine, staying with her son. But all I've seen in my mind are memories of two years ago, when she and I met up for the first time since I was a little girl... and how she told me that I must come down to Louisiana soon, and that we definitely should come down for Mardi Gras, since her husband is the king of one of the parades.

I grew up getting a yearly supply of multicolored aluminum coins and long strings of beads. I didn't know what they were from at the time, but my godmother was always the cool relative who gave me dress-up toys.

I still haven't found a couple of my penpals who lived in southern Louisiana. Since I'm not clear as to the exact damage area, it's possible that they're just fine, but power hasn't been restored. From what I've gathered, areas in the deep southern bayous were slightly flooded, but weathered the storm okay. I'm hoping that that's the case. It may be months before I find out what happened, since the postal service is now starting to restrict or freeze delivery to some zip codes.

But my appointments with the Red Cross are now made-- 7 platelet donations over 6 weeks. The earliest they could get me started was in two weeks. Since I don't have the money to give right now, I'll do whatever I can. Hopefully by mid-month, I'll be able to give some on the financial side.