Saturday in CinCity. The Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens Edition.

 We were in the tornado zone yesterday. All is well with our little family, other than our tomcat has somehow injured his foot in the storm, though I hear both our hospitals are seeing more and more casualties. HoneyHaired lives in a dorm built to survive WWIII. NurseGrrrrl, a little ways south of us, had to evacuate her unit of her hospital yesterday and herd them back. But, LTown seems to have gotten off lightly. Others not so lucky.

Certainly makes you think. I woke up thinking of a book I'd read, Here If You Need Me, A True Story, by Kate Braestrup. It's actually a book I'd bought for NurseGrrrrl, and it never quite changed hands, but I digress...

 an excerpt:

"Jim comes back to the firehouse with a heavy heart. He has scratches on his cheek, twigs in his hair, pine needles down his pants, and his mother is still nowhere to be found. Yet he takes in the scene before him, mops the rain from his face, and smiles.

"Look at this," he says. "Look at this! This is incredible." 

The firehouse is filled with people. The old coots in flannel shirts, the middle-aged dog handlers, and the college students with piercings are sharing American chop suey with the state senator and his teenage daughter. The U.S. Marines are comparing blisters with the soccer players, the sheriff's deputies are breaking bread with the convicts, game wardens share Jell-O with equestrians, the stained-glass artist offers the retired state trooper an oatmeal cookie.

In a little while, they will go back out and search some more. They will try to find a body, living or dead. For now, they are here together, joined in community, bent on the common purpose of love.

"Everyone in the world is here." the lost woman's son exclaims. "It's a miracle!"

Amen."