And your little dog, too.
The storm wakes me up at 5 or 6 AM. The strobe-like frequency of the lightning and the closeness of the strikes reminds me a little of the storm that hit IDA on my 30th birthday. I unplug my computer and pull the pillow over my ear and fall back asleep.
I wake at 8 AM to the sound of drivers honking their horns incessantly. My apartment in Fancybread is much more quiet than my old garret overlooking the Broad Way, with its garbage trucks and the Dominican Debate Team practicing outside my window for 20 hours a day. My alarm goes off a few minutes later and I get on with my morning routine. The honking is still going on, but it's not until I get outside that I realize why. Trees are down everywhere. Big ones. Trees are down on houses, on cars. Road crews are cutting up branches and trunks, piling them up on the side streets of Ocean Parkway. I make my way to the Church Avenue stop on the F train. A lot of guys hanging out in front of the entrance. The storefront of a Bangladeshi eatery is twisted and smashed on the sidewalk like a bomb went off. Glass everywhere.
Train platform is packed with a mob of sweating people. No train for half an hour. An attractive, confused young man in a wife beater comes up and asks me what's going on, I shrug and say "the storm." and he laughs. "The one at six this morning?" and I say "Dunno. Maybe power lines down." He nods. Then the appropriately named F-train comes, completely full.
The mob is shoving to pack themselves into the train. The train is 100% full already and people are jamming themselves through the doors, worse than cattle, worse than sardines. I get in line for the door but think better of it. A woman who can't get in yells at the people inside "Oh sure, it's okay for us to wait another half an hour! You get to go to work, we have to be late!" The people in the train are already miserable as the doors shut and open and shut and open and finally shut, and they're off.
One minute later a completely empty F-train arrives. I get the first seat. The rest of the passengers pile on, elated. "Like I was about to cram my ass into that other train!" The train pulls out and we slouch our way towards Manhattan.
An hour and a half later I arrive at Rockafeller Center, and walk the remaining blocks to Madison and 52nd. Fortunately, Joe was understanding of my being late.
The Times had this to say. Note that two of the photos were taken less than three blocks from my new place in Fancybread.
I wake at 8 AM to the sound of drivers honking their horns incessantly. My apartment in Fancybread is much more quiet than my old garret overlooking the Broad Way, with its garbage trucks and the Dominican Debate Team practicing outside my window for 20 hours a day. My alarm goes off a few minutes later and I get on with my morning routine. The honking is still going on, but it's not until I get outside that I realize why. Trees are down everywhere. Big ones. Trees are down on houses, on cars. Road crews are cutting up branches and trunks, piling them up on the side streets of Ocean Parkway. I make my way to the Church Avenue stop on the F train. A lot of guys hanging out in front of the entrance. The storefront of a Bangladeshi eatery is twisted and smashed on the sidewalk like a bomb went off. Glass everywhere.
Train platform is packed with a mob of sweating people. No train for half an hour. An attractive, confused young man in a wife beater comes up and asks me what's going on, I shrug and say "the storm." and he laughs. "The one at six this morning?" and I say "Dunno. Maybe power lines down." He nods. Then the appropriately named F-train comes, completely full.
The mob is shoving to pack themselves into the train. The train is 100% full already and people are jamming themselves through the doors, worse than cattle, worse than sardines. I get in line for the door but think better of it. A woman who can't get in yells at the people inside "Oh sure, it's okay for us to wait another half an hour! You get to go to work, we have to be late!" The people in the train are already miserable as the doors shut and open and shut and open and finally shut, and they're off.
One minute later a completely empty F-train arrives. I get the first seat. The rest of the passengers pile on, elated. "Like I was about to cram my ass into that other train!" The train pulls out and we slouch our way towards Manhattan.
An hour and a half later I arrive at Rockafeller Center, and walk the remaining blocks to Madison and 52nd. Fortunately, Joe was understanding of my being late.
The Times had this to say. Note that two of the photos were taken less than three blocks from my new place in Fancybread.