resident alien day 9...meeting Princess Meg after Sandy

Resident Aliens go places they never expect to go, like Freeport, Long Island after hurricane Sandy. It was a 3 hour drive from my house to an area I had never stopped at before, but had driven by many times to and from the East End of Long Island years ago. I met Meg the Alien.

I spent the day there working on Margret's house. Meg is a 72 year old Jamaican whose friends call her "Meg". She told me she was named after Princess Margarette so I called her "your highness" all day. I had come more prepared to talk to folks than work since I've been through times in my life of desperation. I started to swing my hammer and Her Highness would walk past me always busy, offering me food and drink.

When the flood came the canals across the street brought three feet of water into her house. Most of her personal items downstairs had to be thrown out. What she had left from downstairs had been piled up in one road. We spent the day removing the lower four feet of drywall and insulation on every wall of the lower floor then spraying the mold that had begun to grow.  We pulled up the flooring as well, every square foot, and hauled it out to the front curb for all the world to see...waiting for the bucket loaders and the dump trucks dispatched by the city to haul every ones memories to a mass grave.

But Her Highness kept smiling all day long...and singing. When it was time to break for lunch the group gathered and sang a Methodist Hymn as a blessing and thanks giving. Her Highness sang the loudest, praising God and thanking him for everything. While we ate I asked her about the water;

"Well" she said in thick accent,

"In the beginning God made the earth and the water separate, and we been taking away from the water and making into land for a long time. God just wanted to make it water again."

When you run into an alien you just know it. One of two things happen; they bless you or you think they are freaks. 

I was blessed by a Princess Alien named Meg.

Oh, how could we ever sing God’s song

    in this wasteland?
 

If I ever forget you, Jerusalem,
    let my fingers wither and fall off like leaves.
 

Let my tongue swell and turn black
    if I fail to remember you,
 

If I fail, O dear Jerusalem,
    to honor you as my greatest.

Psalm 137-4-6