APPEASING THE DISASTER GODS

Tahoe was its usually lovely self. Die-hard snow streaked the mountains and daffodils shot up in front yards. The Sierra was on pause between ski weather and summer. There were no lines. No waiting. The pizza maker was overjoyed to see two customers. During mid-season all is calm. You can walk the dog along that shiny sapphire lake and barely see a boater.

How, then, could it be that at the same time in China people were desperately clawing through crushed houses and office buildings to find their babies and grandfathers? And how could it be that in Burma, homeless children were starving because one government feared losing its stranglehold on power if it allowed other governments to donate food.

On the west side of Tahoe on a balmy morning a man in shorts shoveled the last patch of snow from his garden into a wheelbarrow.
A few people took the sun outside a coffee house to read newspapers and check their email. Back home the Bay Area was dealing with record scorching temperatures. In the mountains it was 30 degrees cooler than San Francisco. We wondered how our new tomato plants were surviving.

Tomato worry seemed so trivial. As trivial as the price of gas and the drop in your home equity compared to a place where gardens, roads and houses were lost in minutes. Where normal was gone forever.

What happened to the Chinese and the Burmese were a cyclone and an earthquake, within nine days of each other. There’s no way to rationalize when and where a natural disaster strikes. The same thing could happen in this paradise. Lake Tahoe is not exempt from seismic activity; its famous beauty was created by fault shifts and landslides.

What can you do, but be grateful you’re here and not there – under water in Burma and under rubble in China. But that seems not good enough. You can promise to send a check to a relief organization. You can vow to check your earthquake supply barrel as soon as you get home and buy one of those special wrenches to turn off a gas line.

“Why are we spared” you ask and then hope you haven’t tempted the calamity forces to look your way.

By last Sunday a kindergarten class in China had been buried for 100 hours.

Havoc is happenstance. The world spins like a roulette wheel. Who knows where the ball will hit to decide who gets lucky. The day Katrina swamped New Orleans and forced people to hang onto rooftops and huddle on bridges, people in Rangoon certainly enjoyed their placid sea. People in Chengdu tended their vegetable gardens.

On the way home from Tahoe we pulled into Davis at a drive-through burger place, one where they offer whole lettuce leaves and sautéed onions on their cheeseburgers and allow you to feel less guilty for eating fast food.

On the edge of the parking lot a man in a ball cap and glasses held a sign that said he was jobless, homeless and hungry. A man having his own personal earthquake.
We could see him in our rear view mirror as we ate.

“Have any cash left,” asked my husband. “I was thinking the same thing,” I said and handed the man a $10 bill on my way to the restroom. Going back to the car I overheard him at the front of the line say “yes, please” to onions.

You do what you can to appease the gods.
SUSAN@JUICYTOMATOES.COM