The power of coincidences.

My great uncle is okay. Well, if by "okay" we mean "sitting in a shelter somewhere", which is fairly okay, all things considered.

How do we know? He was interviewed briefly for the London Observer. A relative in England read the paper/was called by a friend who had read the paper, and saw his name. Admittedly, it is a unique name (i.e. unique to my relatives and only to them), but for us to be just that lucky...

There truly is an advantage to one's relatives being what one might politely call "characters". It's easier to find them.

Feeling so indredibly much better now.

The orders of the day.

Thanks for all your good wishes; I feel very loved. *hugs everyone*

I have learned several things today.

1. There is someone in the world named Evangelist Minnicomma. I made Mom make that phone call, because I wasn't sure I could say, "Hello, is this Evangelist?" without laughing.

2. For obvious reasons, people named Evangelist are not at home on Sunday mornings.

3. I am doomed to be a total geek. My mother's father is an English professor, my father's uncle (the non-crazy one) is an English professor, my father's cousin is an English professor. It's in my genes! My destiny is closing in!

4. I am horrible at being a Mary Sue. I mean, conveniently placed natural disaster and my relative survives? There's something in the Mary Sue Charter against that. On the other hand, his books are dead. RIP books. *tear*

5. Clearly, "crazy" does not preclude "has some modicum of survival skills". Good to know. Great-uncle Harry is in New York, apparently, staying with some friends. Mom is so, so much more relaxed now. It's wonderful.

6. My idea of cute: the SCA packing up their camping gear and heading down to help out, because, by golly, they know about living without electricity. Sweet, and weird enough to be worth noticing.

7. If anyone can donate time, PeopleFinderWiki needs help consolidating the missing/found persons lists.

I spent 4-5 hours at the Red Cross doing data entry, making phone calls, and generally kicking around. Probably not going back tomorrow (still have only 5 English editorials done, yipe!), but soon. Community service hours yay!