Friday Photo
the horrifying power of nature

How's this for irony. Yesterday I wrote a silly, fluff piece that I contemplated posting for today, when the thought flashed through my mind to wait in case there was an image I wanted to publish for Friday Photo instead.

Sometimes my subconscious scares the crap out of me. Is it intuition? I don't know, but this is the last image I wanted to have to share.

Last night I went to bed with the usual stupid criticisms, concerns and complaints. This morning as I was scrolling through the interweb while doing my "morning business" and waiting for the shower to warm up, (okay. ewwww, but I know for a fact I'm not the only one who scans the web while performing my own personal download. And I totally wash my hands afterward which is more than can be said for a lot of sales women. Trust me. You do not want to shake hands with most of those ladies. Where was I? Oh yeah...) I found a flurry of tweets from my niece, Regi who lives in Hokkaido Japan telling of the huge 8.9 magnitude earthquake and aftershocks she was currently living through.

My heart sank like an anchor.

I read in increasing horror the links she shared to news reports regarding the wide-spread devastation, worrying for her safety. When she posted news of a pending tsunami with upwards of 23 foot waves, I felt sick.

She's a brave soul, my niece. She lives alone in a completely foreign country, literally halfway across the world and she's not even 24 years old yet. This is a terrifying ordeal to go through surrounded by family and friends, let alone all by yourself. I can only imagine how frightened she was.

Reg wisely hopped on a bus and fled inland to Sapporo. She finally met up with a friend with whom she is staying. Together they'll figure out how best to proceed. At this point she hasn't heard from her English friend, Reggie who also lives in Hokkaido or another friend who is living in Miyagi just north of Sendai which got the direct hit from the tsunami.

I don't know what's next for her. Whether she has a home or workplace to go back to is unknown at this time. She lives on a low-lying river bed on the east coast of Hokkaido. As of this writing, she's been unable to contact anyone in the region. Chances are a tsunami storm surge has flooded or worse yet, toppled the buildings there. All we know is part of it is on fire.

I have cried so many tears today, I think my eyes are permanently red. I just want her to come home. What do you think, Reg? I'll buy you a pony.

You know Twitter is usually full of lots of frivolous, narcissistic bullshit, but from this day forth it will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Thank you Twitter for existing. Without you I would not have been able to converse with my precious Regi, to know she is alive, to know she's safely inland, to know she's not alone. And for that alone, I will be forever grateful.

Twitter...you and me, we're family now.