The Big UnEasy

Cameron is officially on "vacation," as Ana has left for hers and thus closed the daycare. Not that it matters much, since he can officially start at Crawmers Critterz on Thursday... but we had already made some very special arrangements before that whole turn of events noted in an earlier blog. Yes, Cameron is on vacation because his Grammy is here to spend the week with him while mommy and daddy slave away at work.

As she was the reigning Club Champion since the summer of 2004, we insisted that Grammy stay in Sandpoint this past weekend and play her match to try and defend her lofty title. Alas, Marceen Williams (again) stole the crown and is now queen of Ladies Club at Hidden Lakes for another year. But Grammy had bigger fish to fry... she had to hurry and pack to come spend the week with Cameron. She arrived Monday afternoon, just as Mia and Joey were readying to leave our house. Mia and Joey came to spend the day at Cameron's Castle so that their mommy could have a quiet day with her friend Barb after receiving her first chemo treatment on Friday. After our guests went home, we loaded into the car and went for groceries for the week.

I am sure glad Grammy is here this week of all weeks, what with Katrina leaving her ugly devastation and the American Red Cross in an utter ker-fluffle over what to do about her. I like to call it the Big UnEasy.

First, it must be noted that Ryan, George and Bridget Ott are all safe and sound in Waco with George's mom. They had to leave Ryan's gigantic pickup parked next to the house (couldn't get it in the garage) and a just-filled freezer in the garage as well, but they left about an hour before the giant race out of the city. No word yet on their return, since according to Ruth, Ryan doesn't yet know what, if anything, he'll be returning to both at home and at work.

I expect it will still take a couple of days for our staff to assess the full impact of what Katrina will do to our organization; as of this past weekend we already had three volunteers en route to help with Katrina's victims in Florida but I'm sure they were promptly re-routed to more western states once she turned into the Gulf. We haven't yet heard from those three, a fourth and fifth were recruited by National and most likely won't report for quite some time, and a sixth and seventh volunteers were recruited today and will be traveling tomorrow. It's been reported that our little chapter has to help satisfy lofty goals of sending hundreds of volunteers to the east coast in the coming weeks-- all the while with threat of wildfires in Central Oregon which forced the evacuation of a neighborhood this past weekend.

Fortunately I will only be periphally involved in this recruitment and sending-off of folks to the east, as I have my own battles to wage on the finance front whenever disaster strikes. For the recent Asian tsunamis alone, more than half of the Chapter's entire year's revenues crossed my desk in five weeks-- every dollar of which had to be accounted for and forwarded on to support that international relief effort. I expect something similar to happen for Katrina-- it is a true testament of the generosity of Central Oregonians who donate their time and treasure to help complete strangers half a world away.

But that's for the first of September... for now I'm busy trying to wrap up my annual audit of last fiscal year while trying to dodge what might become the inevitable: traveling to east coast myself. My only line of defense right now is my parental obligations to Hurricane Cameron and the devestation he may very well wreak on our peacful existence should mommy leave for three weeks. Only time (and my deft dodging abilities) will tell, but on the flip side I may get a visit with Miss Bridget Ott out of the deal. Keep 'ya posted.