On the Mend

Turned out to be a very good thing that I didn't drag myself out to the New Years Eve party as I had a miserable, miserable Friday evening, in bed by 10 and constantly awakened by hacking coughing and emergency tissues. I was luckily over the worst of it by the time Stephen got home at about 2. He was off to his annual Bad Movie Day by 10 am and I surprised myself by actually getting back to sleep and staying in bed until about 1:30 pm. That seemed to have done the trick and I've been steadily feeling better ever since. They capped off movie day by coming back here so Stephen could play the tape I brought with me of the SciFi Channel's Wizard of Earthsea, which turned into a major MST3K evening. People wimped out after about 2 hours but Stephen and I continued watching to the bitter end, at one point amusing ourselves by seeing whether our predictions of the next dialogue line would come true. (They mostly did but sometimes even we couldn't predict that impossible dialogue.)

The other extremely good news is that my voice suddenly got a bit stronger Saturday! Stephen's friends even noticed an improvement and when I called my brother today to wish him a happy new year, his first comment after I said "Hello" was "You sound great!" I'm hoping that this isn't just some weird result of my cold.

So, the new year is starting out a bit better than I expected!

On the Mend

Turned out to be a very good thing that I didn't drag myself out to the New Years Eve party as I had a miserable, miserable Friday evening, in bed by 10 and constantly awakened by hacking coughing and emergency tissues. I was luckily over the worst of it by the time Stephen got home at about 2. He was off to his annual Bad Movie Day by 10 am and I surprised myself by actually getting back to sleep and staying in bed until about 1:30 pm. That seemed to have done the trick and I've been steadily feeling better ever since. They capped off movie day by coming back here so Stephen could play the tape I brought with me of the SciFi Channel's Wizard of Earthsea, which turned into a major MST3K evening. People wimped out after about 2 hours but Stephen and I continued watching to the bitter end, at one point amusing ourselves by seeing whether our predictions of the next dialogue line would come true. (They mostly did but sometimes even we couldn't predict that impossible dialogue.)

The other extremely good news is that my voice suddenly got a bit stronger Saturday! Stephen's friends even noticed an improvement and when I called my brother today to wish him a happy new year, his first comment after I said "Hello" was "You sound great!" I'm hoping that this isn't just some weird result of my cold.

So, the new year is starting out a bit better than I expected!

The Tsunami

I haven't really said anything about the tsunami and its devastating after-effects because, after all, what can you say? It's impossible to get one's head around the numbers of dead and injured, and those likely to die in the coming days and weeks from the diseases that are an inescapable result of the lack of sanitary water. The news coverage here has been very good: the affected regions are common destinations for Australian tourists (107 Australians are feared dead and 950 are still unaccounted for) so I suspect the coverage has been more thorough than in the U.S. (I must admit to feeling a bit like the Angel of Death: when I visited Australia a year ago there was also a natural disaster on Boxing Day: the earthquake in Bam, Iran, that killed 26,000 people.)

Regarding aid, I had already given to the non-sectarian American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which has been doing this sort of work since World War I. This morning, I decided to make another contribution, to Doctors Without Borders. Imagine my surprise when I went to their web site to find the following statement:

As you know, it is very important to MSF that we use your contribution as you intend it to be used. This is why we want to let you know that at this time, MSF estimates that we have received sufficient funds for our currently foreseen emergency response in this region...

We kindly request that you contribute to our general Emergency Relief Fund, which is enabling our quick response to the current disaster in South Asia as well as humanitarian needs in war-torn Darfur, Sudan, and elsewhere in the over 70 countries where MSF is working around the world...

I suspect this might be a first in the annals of charities asking for contributions, and makes me at least feel even more secure that money donated to this cause does indeed go where you direct it.

The Tsunami

I haven't really said anything about the tsunami and its devastating after-effects because, after all, what can you say? It's impossible to get one's head around the numbers of dead and injured, and those likely to die in the coming days and weeks from the diseases that are an inescapable result of the lack of sanitary water. The news coverage here has been very good: the affected regions are common destinations for Australian tourists (107 Australians are feared dead and 950 are still unaccounted for) so I suspect the coverage has been more thorough than in the U.S. (I must admit to feeling a bit like the Angel of Death: when I visited Australia a year ago there was also a natural disaster on Boxing Day: the earthquake in Bam, Iran, that killed 26,000 people.)

Regarding aid, I had already given to the non-sectarian American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which has been doing this sort of work since World War I. This morning, I decided to make another contribution, to Doctors Without Borders. Imagine my surprise when I went to their web site to find the following statement:

As you know, it is very important to MSF that we use your contribution as you intend it to be used. This is why we want to let you know that at this time, MSF estimates that we have received sufficient funds for our currently foreseen emergency response in this region...

We kindly request that you contribute to our general Emergency Relief Fund, which is enabling our quick response to the current disaster in South Asia as well as humanitarian needs in war-torn Darfur, Sudan, and elsewhere in the over 70 countries where MSF is working around the world...

I suspect this might be a first in the annals of charities asking for contributions, and makes me at least feel even more secure that money donated to this cause does indeed go where you direct it.