Thank You from All of Us

Last week I commented on Urban Chick's blog: "I sincerely hope we are not asking poor nations to help us at this time ... for our own sense of nationhood. We have been the ones who came to help in different, more noble times ... I hope we have not come to the point of being supplicants to an international community who for the most part, and some with good reason, seem to detest us. For our own good, we need to have more pride than that."

But ...

I cry easily and often, but this information from MSNBC this morning again brought me to tears: more than 60 nations have reached out to help New Orleans ... and America.

From Germany, 25 tons of food rations and more on the way.

Mexico (EDIT): A convoy of 45 vehicles and 196 soldiers of the Mexico Army, including military specialists, doctors, nurses and engineers carrying water treatment plants, mobile kitchens, food and blankets arrived today to help refugee operations in San Antonio, Texas; this is the first Mexican military unit to operate on U.S. soil since 1846.

From France, Red Cross workers flew to Baton Rouge to join in the relief effort.

Afghanistan pledged a hundred thousand dollars.

Singaporeans are now flying rescue helicopters over New Orleans.

Sri Lanka, who took so much of the brunt of the tsunami, offered $25,000 to the Red Cross (I hope we didn't take it).

As much as we are grateful for the tangibles, I think we can be even more grateful to not be alone, to be a member of a community of nations. Not the rescuer this time, but the one being helped.

Thank you.


Today's fragrance, continued: Roses break my heart. Because we're usually so temperate, they can bloom year round in Seattle. So you'll round a corner in February and see a rosebud. A gray, cold, wet day and you see a shivering promise of summer warmth. This scent by clearing -- pour une saison -- is a bit like that. It would be wonderful to have around this winter, a reminder that summer returns and it will be warm again. Pepper heat verging on sweetness. And ginger, hot but sweet. Those are the secrets of this scent: hot, hot, hot, folded tightly within rose petals. One more secret, the sweet dry hint of chamomile in its broom note. When you don't expect it and will need it most: sweet heat. For a season.