Who Is In CHARGE?

I really need to turn off the Breaking News by CNN on my Twitter because every hour on the hour it informs me how many have died during the flooding or how many people are missing in Kenya after an explosion. Just today alone a plane has crashed, people are FLEEING Uzbekistan and Spirit Airlines had a strike. Today. You want to know what I did today? I ate a bagel sandwich, went to Meijer and applied for a job in Paw Paw. What is happening?! Who is in charge here?

It got me to thinking about Mother Earth. Partly because I recently watched the documentary Babies and they feature the song "The Earth Is Our Mother" and I was all "oh for pete's sake you bunch of hippies, the earth is not my MOTHER. The earth is like, a close friend. Someone I hang out with occasionally. She certainly isn't ODE WORTHY" which is actually kind of sad and sheltered of me. Just think. If we had been born even one hundred and fifty years earlier, a large portion of our lives would involve being outside, tending and killing animals, cutting down trees and trying to figure out how to make running water a feasible option. That's right. NO RUNNING WATER. That means pooping outside.

Pooping outside?! Are you kidding me? The biggest question I have today is how to get my laptop cord to stop unplugging itself randomly so I don't lose power while I'm in the middle of a rant. Think about how awful it is whenever you lose power on a grander scale! No running water? They might as well inject us all with Ebola and wish us adieu. That's exactly what losing electricity is like. Contracting Ebola.

So what does pooping outside, losing power and Uzbekistan have to do with an explosion in Kenya and poor Mother Earth?

I'm not good enough to her. I don't appreciate her enough. And this year she is definitely trying to tell us something, and that something is that she is PISSED. Epically, tragically, "you crashed the family car while I was out of town and you didn't even have your license" kind of angry that only a true mother can possess. Think about it. The natural disasters are abundant. Nashville and Little Rock are drowning. Haiti and Chile are shaken to destruction. Iceland has exploded. Sink holes are showing up in California and Guam.

The earth IS our mother, in a really bizarre way. And perhaps you forgot to get her a card on Mother's Day or didn't take the trash out or maybe even something really, really bad like forgetting to put gas in the tank after you borrowed her car. Whatever it is, you need to jump on it. We all do. I don't know if this means we need to plant more trees or buy cork shoes or what. But start thinking and think hard. Perhaps we can put our heads together long enough to stop a spill or prevent the next tsunami. For everyday something hasn't shown up on my door with 'destruction' spelled out on it's forehead is one more day that I'm just lucky. Because it could get here any minute now. And I'm nowhere near ready.

But then again, I'll bet Arkansas wasn't either. And they're only 764 miles away. I got lucky by 700 miles.

And so did you.