Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Red Cross Ramblings



Busy, busy, busy...

...it's September...which means it's National Preparedness Month...

...which means I'm crazy, insanely, over-the-top busy with Red Cross.

Yesterday, I visited a local high school, and did back-to-back presentations on Disaster Preparedness. My first presentation was done with a class that was supposed to be "Team Sports." Boy, weren't the jocks surprised when they saw they weren't shooting hoops in the gym - but instead were having the wonderful opportunity of hearing me jabber about disasters for an hour.

They were thrilled - THRILLED - with sitting in a rather warm, stuffy library...after lunch...discussing how to be prepared if a tsunami were to hit the Midwest tomorrow.

Okay, enough with my sarcasm...it actually went pretty well...once they got over the shock and disappointment of it all. I think they actually had a bit of fun - but they would never admit it. They're teenagers, after all.

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Today was spent meeting with the Leadership Council of the American Red Cross....it was our monthly meeting, where we can sit and pow-wow...some good news came out of this, as we are just that-much-closer to finding our 5,000 beds for possible Louisiana hurricane evacuees.

In the meantime, I still say a prayer every time a tropical storm perks up in the Atlantic, invoking every thing that is holy that the storm will bypass our good friends in New Orleans. Now, don't get me wrong - I LOVE the people of the Big Easy - but I love them even more if they don't have to mandatorily come visit me here in Kansas City. And I have to house and feed them. For weeks. Possibly.

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Tomorrow, I have the unmitigated joy of visiting a community center in a nearby town, and doing a presentation on something near and dear to my heart...earthquakes.

You probably didn't know I was the Queen of Earthquake Preparedness, did you? Well, I am...and I have a kick-ass speech, full of pathos, humor, passion, joy, and amazing trivia - all about the Big One That Is Yet To Come....And all of the ones we've had before...such as the deadliest earthquake in recorded history, which was in China in 1556. I wasn't there, of course, but I have it on good authority that over 830,000 people were killed...can you imagine that? Unbelievable.

Now, see...? If the Chinese people had had ME come and do an earthquake presentation - they would have been PREPARED and would have known what to do when the ground started shaking. Think of all the lives that could have been saved...???!!

I'm just sayin'.....

Peace.

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