One of the things preparedness thinking does for you, besides get you a rep as a doomer, is help you get through short-term emergencies better. We've always had kerosene lamps and candles and food ahead and so on.But we were thinking, okay, it's been more than a decade since we had the flu, and sometimes when we have, we were really out of it. As in the kids (this was back in the 80s) fed themselves (and the cat, and all the ducks) for three days while the suddenly useless adults lay in the depths of the mattress on the fold-out couch in the living room with no idea who we were, let alone that we had responsibilities.
They all remember this as a major watershed event in their lives. We got away with it, but it scared them -- and us, in retrospect, and we've "done things ahead" ever since, and emphasized training. The oldest child in the house knew all about calling family friends and 911 and so on, within days of our recovery.
I'm at home a lot now (and very busy in the front "forty"), but Beloved is a high-public-contact worker, as in rubber gloves level, so we figure our number is coming up. So the current justification of the Preparedness Game is oink-flu. Today I'm cleaning cereal boxes and assorted "paper" trash out of the kindling box, and loading it properly, with what to our eye looks like four weeks' worth of kindling. Similar things are happening all around the house, inside and out, and restocking of staples and the medicine cabinet goes on apace.
For a proper to-do list of this sort of thing, I recommend you go here.
'Kay, that's done. Off to look for some rose hips.
"One of the things preparedness thinking does for you, besides get you a rep as a doomer." Um, my friend, in Utah they don't call people who are into preparedness doomers, they call them "very faithful mormons." and yes, they have worn on me and so i do have 2 liter bottles of water hanging around and cans of this and that.. and i've learned about canning, dehydrating and vacuum packing veggies for the freezer. it's good good good.
ReplyDeleteso, i'm doing a trans 101 workshop here at utah state - the second public one ever on this campus (i also did the 1st one) - and thus you have been on my mind a lot. i like to think of you as my inspiration for doing this work - i hope you don't mind. now i've finally subscribed to your blog in google reader and will try to be in touch better.
:)
Ah, there you are!
ReplyDeleteMind? Hah! Anything that might do anyone some good, who's to mind? But when do you find the time?
If you get a Risa habit, you are in for trouble. There are almost 500 posts here ... :D