I had so many things I was going to write this week, it's my vacation, my birthday in a few days, my brother's birthday is New Year's Day, and my dad turned 76 last weekend. But then all thoughts of Christmas cheer and birthday shopping frenzy were overshadowed by the Asian Tsunami, it's so unbelievably tragic it's hard to think of anything else. Everything else seems so superficial and selfish when you consider what millions of people on the other side of the world are going through right now. The projected death toll crossed the 135,000 mark today.

Please at least give a donation to one of the groups trying to provide relief to survivors and families of the victims, I gave to Oxfam, which is not getting an Amazon plug like the Red Cross. Here's MoveOn.org's synopsis of their efforts:

We can help directly, as individuals, and save lives today. Oxfam is already scrambling on the front lines to fight off starvation and disease - and beginning to rebuild. Because Oxfam has worked for years with grassroots groups in the hardest hit areas, they were able to mobilize local leadership to help survivors immediately after the tsunami hit. And Oxfam will be there for the long-term, helping communities recover and regain their ability to meet basic needs. Oxfam needs to raise $5 million immediately to provide safe water, sanitation, food, shelter, and clothing to 36,000 families in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India. Your contribution can make this possible.

Click here to donate, or here to read more about their organization. But please give to at least one of the groups, it's the very least we can do.

Our government is doing the least it can do also, they've offered less money for aid than they are planning on spending on Dubya's $40 million+ inauguration party, isn't that nice?

Also see Careusa.org and RedCross.org to help. And beware in advance of the soon to come spam emails claiming to be collecting for this disaster, you know they're coming. Never click on an email link, you can double check reputable organizations through the media websites, CNN has a long list here of places to safely donate.

Wow, it rarely snows here in Houston, but all day we've been getting little flurries that seem to finally be sticking to the ground a bit now that it's back down to freezing again. It's very pretty but I'm glad we're staying in tonight, ice on the ground is one of my least favorite things.

Here's a couple of pics I managed to snap in the dark tonight as it came down. As you can see, the kitty is fascinated, she's never seen snow before. And to all a good night...

Sparky and I spent the evening in one of our first real leisure activities in what seems like months, we went to see Joel Schumacher's long-awaited film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. And it's as stunning and heartbreaking as the stage version, which we've seen twice on tour during the mid 90's. The casting is perfect, the acting is wonderful, and the music is as grand as ever. We both started crying during the prologue which is a good sign of what's to come.

But we're both very familiar with the musical from seeing it fourth row center and from years of listening to the original soundtrack. But anyone with a heart should be able to appreciate the spectacle and beauty of this film, and of course, the tragic relationship between the Phantom and Christine. Nothing against Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, they're both magnificent, but it was nice to see a truly young and innocent Christine (the actress who plays her in the film is a mere 18 and she is luminous) and a more threatening, rugged and handsome Phantom. In the stage versions we saw in person, the actors were actually closer to the film casting so it will be wonderful now to have a recording to match the shows we saw live.

Apparently the only one who did not do her own singing was Minnie Driver as the diva Carlotta, but she is so wonderfully expressive and bitchy she is perfectly cast. The entire Prima Donna number would make a stunning music video to entice anyone who's not familiar with the play to come see the film. it's such a fun version of the number, we'd been listening to the new soundtrack and thought the song was incredibly well done but with the visuals it's just stunning.

But if you want something to clear the fog in your brain from the holiday rush, and leave you humming and twirling through the house (when no one is watching), please go see this film and just let it wash over you, you won't regret it. Here's hoping a new generation of fans will be as entranced by this romantic gothic fantasy as Sparky and I have been. I really can't imagine anything they could have done to make this a better film, it's as moving and lush as I ever imagined it, and I have a very fertile imagination.

OK, I'm short on blogging time but I had to mention this. About ten minutes till 6 pm I'm sitting at my computer in my PJ's, the cat's in the window and Sparky was in his room watching Dan Rather and the whole house just shook. Really horrible sound, we thought a tree had fallen on the house. The weather was damp out and my first guess was it must have been a hell of a thunder clap (we've been getting a lof of window rattling storms lately... it's the end of the world, you know). I run to the back door to look and Sparky runs out front, Phoebe runs out of the window and looks at me with her "What the hell was that?" look.

It's almost dark outside, but half a dozen of our neighbors are out on their front porches also, looking around in panic. Nothing to see, though, that's reassuring. But I hear helicopters circling, something happened. My parents live like 6 blocks from us so I give them a call, but they don't pick up (it's dinner time). Then just as if it was scheduled, all the local news channels start their 6:00 news with images of flames shooting through the air, and a big mushroom cloud fireball that the traffic copters apparently caught as it happened. Holy crap... Some sort of chemical plant has blown up and is the whole thing is already engulfed in flames in just a few minutes. And it's on the next major street over from our house, but it's dark and all I can tell is it's somewhere off of Fondren and South Main. Don't know it it's north of south, I can't picture that area but I'm guessing it's north (on my side) because I remember there being some industrial areas near the hundreds of apartments and 70's tract homes in that neighborhood. Not to sound snotty, but we rarely go down Fondren because it's a really crowded area with too many people, and it's one of the more dangerous areas adjacent to us (way too many people walking and just "hanging out". Oh good, it is on MY side of the street, and it's about a mile away from my house and even closer to my parents house.

A few minutes into the news my dad calls back, yes they were eating, and yes they heard something, but they assumed it was thunder. By this time I'm flipping through channels, Sparky is flipping in his room, and I land on ABC and get see a caption of "the voice of an eyewitness" who's on the phone, and... it's my ex-boyfriend. Oh yeah, that's right, he lives in that neighborhood, he'd be out of the house like a shot for a gigantic explosion (and serving doughnuts to the firemen... long story, see 300 things). So I shout out to my dad "OMG, it's KP on channel 13!" And my dad starts talking about him, and I'm trying to pay attention, so I don't get to hear much of what he said about the fire other than that he lived right across the street literally.

It's raining now, which is apparently a good thing, even though it's some sort of horrid petrochemical plastic wax stuff that's burning (oh goodie, burning plastic, one of my least favorite smells). We can see the huge black cloud from our back yard. It's cool outside, but we turned the heater off. The local news covered the fire non-stop for two solid hours, more small explosions, the whole place is just burning like crazy. Apparently no one was killed, which is fricking amazing, but all of the apartments, churches and stores adjacent to it had their windows all blown out, and people were flying off of furniture. Not good. People are on the phone telling the news people that they heard it all the way across town, even outside of the city, camn...

There was more coverage on the 10 pm news after that, more eyewitnesses and neighbors. It had burned down some, but is expected to burn through the night. So it's kind of cold in the house here at 6 am, and I'm so stopped up I can't breathe, but I think we'll keep the air off for at least a few more hours. I'm guessing the poor fire department is still out there throwing water on it what's left of the fire 12 hours later. Should be interesting to see what the mess looks like in the daylight.

So when you see the giant fireball over and over on CNN today, that's my neighborhood in Houston.