What would you take?

Since there has been nothing to do at work, I have been following the Hurricane Katrina coverage obsessively. Still worried about dreamflower02, of whom there has still been no word, even second or third-hand. Understandable, yet difficult.

What if I were in such a situation? I read about all those miserable frightened people huddled in the Dome and can all too vividly imagine myself and my family in such a situation. (That's the trouble with a writer's well-developed imagination.) How would I do holding my girls together in a situation that starts our like a surreal adventure and turns into something like a nightmare, and you're trying to push away the thought, is there a chance we might actually not survive this?

I looked at Poppy Z. Brite's entry here and wondered what I might do? If you got the weather disaster evacuation order, and you had only fifteen minutes to a half an hour to grab what you could (it has to be able to fit in your car), knowing that everything else you leave behind might be destroyed--what would you take?

Me:

My thirty years of paper journals
The family history/geneology box
Photographs, photograph albums, negatives
Both computers
Jewelry
A suitcase of clothes (very small; I'd depend on the Red Cross for the rest)

Edited to add: Oh yeah. And I hope it would occur to me to take our camping equipment. Tent, sleeping bags, and propane stove would come in very handy. Duh.

The girls I imagine would take:
Their Kit and Kirsten dolls
Their treasure boxes (filled with their favorite childhood keepsakes)
Delia would take her bunny blanket

After that, I'm not sure what they would try to save.

Rob? Not sure.

And you?

Hurricane causes Bush to cut his vacation "short"

This just makes me insane. The hurricane hit on Monday morning. Hundreds of people killed, hundreds of thousands homeless, and he stayed on his ranch, what, cutting brush? Until today? (Edited to add: Oh, my mistake. He was off playing guitar.)

I keep on thinking I should try to find something good in this man, because damnit, yes, he is our President, and I want to model respect for the office to my girls at least, even if I cannot bring myself to respect the man. However, every time I try to find something to respect, he sinks to new lows.

Shame on him.