Things have started to settle down a bit now and I feel safe as I've been working from home this week to not risk getting stuck somewhere away from the family again and I feel safe in our newly built house and neighborhood without nuclear plants and dangerous factories in the immediate vicinity. We do have a "plan B" of relocating temporarily to Grandmother Sunshine if things get really bad, but at this point, I feel that home is the safest place to be.We're of course concerened for our own safety with the situation with the Fukushima plant, but we're still over 200kms away from it here in the Salaryman base of operations with enough supplies to last us quite long (that huge shipment of Swedish hard bread came timely a few days before the quake!) and even the toilet paper crisis seem to have been resolved as the in-laws managed to scavenge up one package for us and the diaper situation is still manageable. Now also, the real tragedy is coming up as lone survivors of whole families wiped out are shown on TV (making me a bit worried about the mentailty of our Baby Sunshine as I came down stairs to find Mrs. Sunshine in tears while Baby Sunshine was happily laughing at her).
The situation in the most affected areas isn't made better by winter coming back to northern Japan with temperatures below freezing and snowfall. The big challenge now is to get the infrastructure up again so supplies (including toilet paper) can reach those in need, for those wanting to help out a bit more directly, the Red Cross should be a reliable organization and the Salary family have donated through the Japanese organization and web-page which accepts credit cards making it a little easier.
Well, with that little more serious status update out of the way, one thing that has made me quite annoyed is the news reports, particularly in some foreign media, discussing the "WORST CASE SCENARIO". First of all, I find the whole concept of "worst case scenario" disturbing to say the least, since you could put anything in there unless you put up some probability check.
A WORST CASE SCENARIO for the Salaryman family could look something like this;
I wake up with a hangover and itchy body only to find that baby Sunshine has pooed out her entrails due to a new and extremely infectious virus while Mrs. Sunshine has gone mentally insane and tries to kill me, meanwhile another huge quake has cracked Japan in two and all nuclear power plants in Japan has exploded while my mom back in Sweden has fallen down and broker her leg and my brother's car has run out of gasoline, and at the same time, one of my closest oldest friends tells me that he never really liked me to begin with, toilet paper has of course run out.
But that all of this would happen is probably not very likely, but I can not completely rule it out in a worst case scenario. And if I still find a roll of toilet paper, at least I will have avoided the WORST case scenario.
So, no, I'm not preparing for a worst case scenario, but I am following the news closely and trying to get an understanding for what a reasonable worst case scenario is.
Posts
10 comments:
agree - what is the point in even giving a worst case scenario. To panic the masses?
Am hoping your worst case scenario never eventuates.
If you're having a nappy crisis I can send you some up from Oita - send me your address at gaijinwife at gmail dot com.
xxx
I can send you cloth nappies if you ever experience nappy crisis, but that's provided you have water and soap to clean them with.
Thanks for that. The native-wife made me explain to her and the native-mother-in-law why I was sneezing out coffee.
Yeah, if you find yourself lacking any of the necessities, let us know. Those of us who are in the southern parts of Japan still have access to well-stocked shops.
The pic of the North Korean puppet always inspires hope
I couldn't agree more about the news coverage. It's really quite irresponsible at home and it is distracting attention away from the humanitarian crisis in the north.
Oh and I'm more than willing to send you or your neighbours some supplies too.
Gaijinwife - Yeah, and it's a bit irresponsible and thank you as well for the diaper offer! I think we're ok for another week and I hope that stores will get a bit better stocked up now in the coming days since things have been calm
Lina - Thank you very much for the offer, but same as the above! Could be interesting to use cloth nappies though (better for the environment too)
Mr. S - Well, hope you didn't ruin the keyboard (but still, that's not the worst case scenario)
Blue Shoe - Thank you too very much for the offer, really appreciate everyone being so supportive!
Chris - Yeah, she's a beacon of light in a depressive world! Maybe I should have added to the worst case "...and Chris is heading over to my place to knock my teeth out"
Hanta - Yeah, at least in Japan it's not only power plants, but I completely agree, the real tragedy is the people stuck up north in shelters without food, blankets and medicine! Thanks for the offer too!
That's not a worst case scenario. Where are the robot-dinosaurs?
Been reading your blog for ages, but haven't commented before - hope everything's well with you and your family.
You order your bread? Where from? Is it rye bread? I am buying Finnish rye-bread from Kinokuniya on Omotesandou and not only is it hella out of the way, it is also outrageously expensive?
Post a Comment