donderdag 27 maart 2014

donderdag 27 maart 2014 Up at 3:45. Turn on BBC News. Obama meets Pope Francis in Rome. President Barack Obama called himself a "great admirer" of Pope Francis as he sat down at the Vatican in their first meeting with the pontiff he considers a kindred spirit on issues of economic inequality. Switch to KOMO News. KOMO 4 sets up a phone bank. Support for mudslide victims is pouring in.

Some of 90 missing in mudslide may not be found. Teriyaki salmon with rice for breakfast. Walk up Westlake to work. Listening to KOMO Radio on the way. I almost can't take the sadness of the reports from Darrington and Oso. It's a busy day with the Tree Frogs. They don't like it when their primary care-givers go on planning time. They cry... a lot. We manage to muddle through it... for 4 hours. I feel relieved to go into a dark and quiet nap room. I browse through their books while they sleep. I see that the favorite thing - lately - for the Seahorses is lions. They're reading an old French story - The Happy Lion.

I walk around downtown before I get home. My Starbucks gift card has $2.44 left. Nevermind. No Starbucks. Nothing. Anxiously, I watch KOMO News. Weary mudslide rescuers battle rain, exhaustion.

It's strange to me. As a release of stress, I like to cut up veggies and cook spaghetti. Chili spaghetti... extra veggies... for dinner.

I see John Pennington in the background - Snohomish County Dept. of Emergency Management. And he's contributed greatly to the rescue effort. Yet, I see and hear the emotional toll this has had on him... on both these guys... including Chief Travis Hots. I'm used to stories about mudslides over the Amtrak rails and the Sounder rails. This is a disaster. We have had so much rain in March that it could break the rainfall record.