Little Outpourings

About 15-20 people have offered housing to my in-laws while they are in Boston. Thanks.

My friend Molly emailed me and told me she was making a blackberry crisp, which Phil really likes, and was wondering if it was shippable from Colorado to Boston.

A guy waiting on me in the Cingular phone shop told me that he thinks the government should just cut people checks of $1,000 and send them to new cities to start new lives. I couldn't help but think, wouldn't they use it for drugs or booze or Happy Meals instead of bus fares, new apartments, and cheaper food. While the judgmental policy maker in me was doing overtime in my imagination playing through the idea of a $1000 redo check, the historian in me broke in: Wouldn't 40 acres and a mule have helped 130 years ago? Would we be here if the right thing was done back then?

At bedtime, Ramona usually prays each night for five things she is thankful for. This week she just wants to pray for "everybody’s' flooded houses".

I don't usually see people in t-shirts from Louisiana in the Bay State. Yesterday in the drug store, on the street, and while I was on a run this morning, I saw people dressed in support of those displaced folks from New Orleans and those still stuck there. Every shirt anyone ever bought on a tourist trip to New Orleans seem to be out of their basement storage box and on people's backs.

Finally, you gotta follow this link and hear this song. Once, when Phil and I were in college, he put a jazzy instrumental version of "Oh, When the Saints" on his voice mail. One day, his grandmother called and left a message on his phone singing (with her German accent) the first few lines of the song. We played it over and over. I heard this version yesterday. In the lead into the song, a New Orleans jazz funeral historian said he is thinking of those who have died from New Orleans and are now marching into heaven. I also am thinking of the help we pray is marching into New Orleans.