For Japan With Love

This week has gone by in a slow flowing daze.  The disaster in Japan has been at the forefront of my mind all day every day no matter what I'm doing.  If I stop for just a second the images are right there, and I can't help thinking about what the Japanese people are going through and how badly they need our help.  This could happen to any of us living on the coast.  

Tomorrow I've decided to pitch in with many others in the blogosphere and not post as an act of solidarity and moment of silence paying tribute to Japan.  Many thanks to Ever Ours and Utterly Engaged for putting this together.  In addition to a day of silence, they have coordinated fundraising efforts.  Would you consider giving to ShelterBox?  One of the first organizations asked by Japan to assist, ShelterBox was on hand the Saturday after the quake.  Each large, green ShelterBox is tailored to a disaster, but typically contains a disaster relief tent for an extended family, blankets, water storage, purification equipment, cooking utensils, a stove, a basic took kit, a children's activity pack and other vital items. I can't imagine how much I would appreciate one of these if I were in their shoes.

You can also contribute to the Red Cross here.  Let's do all we can to let the people of Japan know they have our support.  

Pause. Rewind. Reflect

I'm back, I'm alive and I'm grateful.  If you've been keeping up on twitter or facebook then you've heard brief blurbs here and there, but this is the first real moment I've had to sit down and put a post together since my parents left this morning.  So much and yet so little has gone on in the six brief days they spent with me in Southern California.  I guess I'll start at the beginning.

Last wednesday evening I rolled into my usual hair salon for a color job.  Three hours later I rolled out with orange roots...think not far off the "publish post" button on blogger.  Can you say gong show?  My scalp was on fire and I was spent.  What was supposed to be a routine touch up ended up a total sh*t show when someone decided to inject their two cents into my INOA treatment.  Suffice it to say I went home, finished cleaning until 3am and returned to the salon by 10am for correction.  By noon I was at LAX chasing down some poor woman who had half a mile of toilet paper trailing behind her shoe as she exited the restroom while I waited for my mom.  All in a day's work, I guess.

After dropping bags and still being a mite bit stunned and somewhat choked up that my parents were actually visiting me in SoCal (it's been over 10 years and my dad's never been) we headed over to the Chef's new restaurant so they could take a peek through the doors.  

He's just waiting on the final papers to begin construction...exciting!

My family loves food so it's tough to actually tell who is more excited.  hehe

From there we indulged in mad amounts of Mexican food - this is only one stop -, and took in a few
 sights before heading back to my place to get some rest.  Famous last words.

For whatever reason I stayed up late that night.  Just as I was about to turn off the television I slipped quickly past the news and learned about the tsunami.  It took my breath away as I sat for over two hours in a total state of shock.  By 2am they had listed my neighborhood with a potential arrival time should it hit the west coast, and they were recommending evacuation.  

My parents live on a farm.  My dad has only been to California a handful of times in his life and doesn't like the idea of earthquakes.  Now I had to tell him about Japan, as well as the possibility of backlash in the west?  Jesus take the wheel.  I'll keep it brief and say a bit of panic swept through my home.  Thankfully I have the best of friends a bit inland who are really like my family here.  Their daughter goes to UH and they already had been texting me about her evacuation plans, so we were able to go to their place and wait it out.  Thankfully nothing rolled in, but to say it was a nerve wracking experience is an underestimation - only exacerbated by footage of the all out devastation in Japan.  

It was here that this visit changed.  I had been wound up wanting them to have a boat load of fun and really like it here.  My focus shifted to sheer gratitude that we were together period.  The next few days consisted of more food, a wonderful trip to Palm Springs to visit some of my parents' friends who winter there, a great stay in a fun hotel, and getting some rad pics of my dad standing on the shore of the Pacific Ocean.  Here's a photo montage if you're still reading along.

mmmmmmcheese

Winter Kate

Road Trip

Palm Springs

Hotel

My Dad and the Chef

I said "act lively" - um, okay Chef - hahaha!

Feet in sand

The Original Cat Whisperer

I swear my dad wore all kinds of clothes, but I never seemed to catch him in anything other than this.  Woops!  Anyway I'll cut it short with the pictures, but am so tempted to post the one of him darting off in a jog across the sand calling out, "get one of me doing the fitness thing like everyone else around here."  I swear I almost peed my pants laughing - it was so awesome. 

Here's to getting back into the swing of things, although I'm not sure how any of us can do that with all of the trauma and chaos in Japan.  My heart bleeds for the country and its people.  This trip with my parents was quick, but it seemed to go by in a slow haze because we can't stop thinking about it - this could happen to any of us.  Have you helped out?  I'm going to give to the Red Cross here and here, but would also like to hear if you know of other ways we could help out.  Thanks everyone - hope you're all hanging in there.