Thursday, August 2, 2007

What I Know of Now. (I-35W Bridge Collapse)

I know that I am getting an hour or 90 minute nap and then am reporting back to Red Cross HQ. I know that this incident, tragedy, disaster, whatever term you would like to call it, is now a national story with national magnitude -- and here we are, us Minneapolitans, Minnesotans or transplants helping out.

I don't know much than the average person. I know what I have witnessed with me eyes and my own reports. Right now the most important thing is for people to stay away from the area. Everything last night was roped off from the Guthrie and all the way East. I'm sure today it is even more of the same. And probably even then some.

Having been part of the Red Cross response team and will continue to be part of the recovery team that happens over the next days and months, I have no idea what happened. I am thankful that nobody I personally know is missing and that I was prepared to help when this disaster struck MPLS. We can only hope and pray that people continue to be prepared in the future.

It's the Moments When Time Stands Still.

A few things to consider. I am a live-long Minnesota girl. Growing up in the northland and frequently visiting the Twin Cities, along with going to the school @ the U of M, leaving off of 10th Street Bridge, and all other occurrences, I like prolly nearly anyone else in the Twin Cities has crossed that bridge on 35W going north or south. prolly a more accurate number is a few thousand times. it was how i got to class, to work, to visit family up north. it is prolly something I have traveled frequently.

When I was younger, I got bored easily and I wanted things to "happen" in my life. Now at 26, I realize I was too young and dumb to know better. My generation the cusp of X/Y has been shaped by 9/11, a war in Iraq and if you live in Mpls now a bridge collapsing. You remember where you are. You remember weird details --- smells, sights, how the world seems to slow down. And then you think of your loved ones and who could possibly be affected.

I am lucky all of my loved ones family and friends are safe.

I am also lucky to live and Minnesota and serve as a public affairs volunteer for the Red Cross Twin Cities Chapter. Nobody could have predicted that this would happen. Nobody would ever venture that a main atery to transportation would just fall into the Mississippi River 60 feet below. But I am lucky that we were ready. Volunteers, medical teams, first responders were calm, level-headed and acted heroically, whether they had a camera on them or not. Unless you were at the sight, the photos will tragic and castatrophic don't even give an actually glipse of what your eyes see before you when you are next to the River. It is something that "eyes only" should see.

And this made news fast. At the Red Cross I was fielding phone calls from Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, France, the BBC or heard about people that were checking with phone calls from around the world. Loved ones in India wanted to know if there U of M grad student son was okay. There were hundreds of stories like this, just like there were hundreds of stories of Red Cross staff, volunteers and regular citizens who remained calm and acted the best that they could.

I am suppose to look for new places to live today. Ironically, one place I like is the StoneArch Aprts near the StoneArch Bridge. Don't think I will be visiting there. And that's ok. It's weird to move forward. I am still on-call for the Red Cross, so my life is a little bit in up-in-the-air, and that's ok as well. All of us in the Twin Cities will be okay again, eventually.

We are still in recovery mode and will continue to recover in months, years and decade. No one will forget where they were. Everyone will hug their loved ones a little closer. Even as I'm not a religious person, you can't help but send a happy thought or a loving thought out to those who have lost someone, or don't have answers.

I am MPLS proud for all sorts of reasons. And after only a few hours of sleep -- I didn't get home from Red Cross HQ until 3:45 a.m. -- I am hopeful, concerned, calm and doing the best I can to be the humane person I hope I am. I think the rest of the Twin Citians are doing the same.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Who has a case of the irritables? (I do, I do.)

Warm weather makes me cranky. The humidity. The heat. I strongly dislike it. Won't it just freakin rain -- ASAP.

Nine degrees, or the boyband 98 degress has never done a thing for me. Muggy = Ms. Mpls crabby. And I can be a pill when I have the irritables? I don't like it. I'm snappy, meaner than usual and way more sarcastic and rude.

I'm not making excuses. I just want a label for my mood. And MAYO doesn't quality heat and humidity as medical irritability -- but you know what, fuck 'em @ Mayo. That's my policy.

Speaking of policies. I am heavily considering public policy school. Still a thought. But would be a good one. So where do I go from here?

Into a deep freeze cooler would be fantastic. Now if I could only get myself into one and not die like Punky Brewster's friend --though technically it was a freezer that she/he suffocated in. Oh Punky --- where are you and your boob reducation now?

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Thanks for the memories KG

i am not, nor have ever been a basketball fan. my love for sports -- the four major ones is as followed:
high school hockey, WCHA hockey, professional baseball, football, college football, NHL, college b-ball, NBA.

so i am not bill simmons when it comes to basketball. but i'm a little sad to see KG go. not that a think the KG deal is a bad one. with his monster contract there is no way the t-wolves can contend. they have a decent young nuclues to work with, as long as the kids don't bolt a la marbury style. but as a PR person i heart KG. always there with the charitable causes. good guy in the community, hell he even took a swing at Rick Rickert which is a-ok in my book. (never been much of an East Greyhound fan.)

but it still seems a bit surreal. and strange. no more KG. i hope he gets a ring. he deserves one.

what else? a bunch or weird random stuff has occurred since i left the friendly confines last week. just got back into good old MPLS late last night. gotta catch up on Age of Love, see how my final four is panning out. at this point -- i just want a coug to win and not Amanda. but what's a twenty year old cougar in the making to do?