I did that thing this morning where I got up, got dressed, went back to bed and slept until 8:30. For no real reason, either, seeing as I went to bed at 10:30 last night. I was sorry to have woken up - I had been having a lovely dream about being in the mountains in Washington with my friend Tilda, who called last night from Seattle.

Tilda and I did our first wilderness hiking trip in the Olympic Peninsula in 2003. Apparently our friends and families didn't think we were going to survive but of course we did. We saw a bear and sang at it, hiked all the way up to the glacier, and swam with giant fishes in an extremely serene mountain lake. We had the most improvised Shabbos dinner at a youth hostel in Seattle, too, overlooking the parking lot of a strip club. I sawed an candle in half and made holders out of aluminum foil, and the next day Tilda used some body spray and two matches to bid the holy day adieu. I like to think we were keeping the spirit of Shabbos, in an ecumenical way, even more than if we had gone to someone's house for dinner with proper candlesticks and plates and things. Tilda is one of those rare people whom I consider to be a seeker of truth, rather than just being Religious.

I was watching 48 Hours last night and it was all hurricane victims . . . Reading the paper is one thing, but seeing grown men and women cry on TV is something else. I wish I could do/were doing something to help down there. It's sobering to see how quickly civilization can fall apart in the event of such a catastrophe; and sobering, too, in a good way, to see how people reassemble their own little pockets of civilization.

The government has seriously failed these people. I think that some light is shining through the cracks in this administration at long last. Fingers crossed that we can come to our senses and not let something like this happen again.