Japan update!

Wow....Thanks for all the well wishes and great news Jimbo!

As far as I know at this time is that all my people are fine. I’m just not sure about many of my business aquatints have faired. As I have been out all day and just catching up, this Nuclear issue has me terrified.

I’ll share a story with you.... My god daughter (my best friend from kindergarten daughter) is in Grad School a Waseda University in Tokyo. To set the story up.... I was the one who introduced her to Japan with several trips to Japan over the past few years. She really took to it and Majored in Japanese language at San Francisco State. She even did a live abroad program in Japan during that time. She has since gone back for grad school and is engaged to a Japanese guy and to be married this year.

So when this tragedy happened..... I had the most sinking feeling of being responsible for her being in Japan. If anything happens to her (still) I don’t know how I would/will be able to deal with this.........

Well her dad and I were trying to get hold of her to see if she was safe..... we could not get through on her cell phone or any of her friends or my friends phones. About 2AM I see her pop up on AIM.....that alone was SUCH a relief !!!!!

I message her to go to Skype.... she tells me she was at work and is scared...she can’t get a hold of her fiance and doesn't know what to do. She had no idea the scope of this disaster.... I had to tell her about the tsunami.....she was freaked. I call her dad and tell him to go online....Rachelle is fine and on Skype now.

An hour later I get her on skype again and she tells me what went down.

She was at work at a Vetenary Clinic (she is the most dedicated animal supporter I know....she has been active in ferrel cat programs for years.)

The Vet she works for was off picking up his daughter from school when the quake hit. It was just her and a co-worker.....She said minutes before the quake hit....the dogs were barking for no apparent reason......she said the quake hit hard and lasted forever.... things were being thrown off shelves..... refrigerator moved across the room. She said in the heat of the moment she lost all sense of speaking Japanese and told her co-worker “****we gotta get outta here!" She grabbed a dog and ran out the door...... looked back and her co-worker wasn’t behind her......She handed the dog off to somebody who she didn’t know..... and went back in for her co-worker..... her co-worker was trying to get another dog out of a cage so Rachelle got another dog and a Guinea Pig!

So as of right now..... I’m very happy, very scared and very proud. My god daughter proved in real tragedy of great enormity that she put herself in harms way to save a friend and a few animals.....

Other notes:

• Trains were halted. (if you know anything about Tokyo you know that alone is chaos)
• People were packed in the streets going every which way.
• Traffic was jammed.
• Fresh foods were gone in a hurry at stores....she grabbed canned foods.
• She is lucky to have electricity and internet.
• Her fiance said many of his co-workers slept at the office cause they lived to far away to walk.
• Aftershocks were happening while I was on Skype with her.
• She was surprised how calm, orderly and polite people were, she said it was calming for even though she has never been so scared.
• I was going to Japan on the 23rd. 
• It is just now, thanks to you all here on OH that I have really taken the time to write this and process just how real this is.......and I’m afraid it’s not over by a long way.

Thanks for your thoughts.

frisco