Well, as I suspected, things did not go well after my
Raspberries and Frankenstorm post on Sunday, October 28. That was the day before the “biggest storm in
100 years.”
However, keep this in mind as you read this: on the day there was sun again, there was
one, lone, bright, ripe raspberry in the very middle of the raspberry patch. It was gleaming, just begging to be
picked. In the middle of the patch means you cannot get to it, because raspberry
vines are covered in thorns. Okay, do
you have that visual? Let’s proceed.
So on Sunday after my post we discovered that the hot water
heater was leaking. We have a PSE&G
“Worry Free” contract, so they came out within hours, as promised, to check it
out. I had said to Marc beforehand that no
matter what they said, don’t let them turn off the hot water heater—I would
rather deal with a leak or minor flood in that section of the basement than no
hot water for days. The tech said the
hot water heater could break and water could go all over. He shut off the heater and left. Then Marc told me it was off.
And so it began.
Because of the impending storm, none of the plumbers in the
Worry Free system would come out to replace the hot water heater, but one
promised to call after the emergency to make an appointment to come out right
away. Heavy sigh. No showers Monday morning. (Thankfully I had
done laundry all weekend, so at least we had clean clothes.)
Monday, October 29 we were taking the storm seriously and
preparing for the hit that was to come sometime Monday evening. I had convinced Rachel to stay here and not
go back to the city on Sunday, so it was the 4 of us at the house: Marc, Rachel, Wil, and me. My entire company
worked from their homes to stay safe. All
day Monday there was unbelievable wind.
Trees wer bending 45 degrees or more, stuff was flying everywhere; I could
not fathom how most of the leaves were still on the trees. I had a surprisingly productive day and was
ready to call it quits at 6:00 when I made dinner for everyone.
It was right around that time that the real rain came. And the wind
that we thought was bad…it got worse. A
lot worse. I don’t think I’ve
experienced that kind of wind except once when I was a small child and lived
closer to the shore and there was a hurricane.
Not sure what year. I was very
small. I just still have an image in my
mind of the world gone black and white and grey, with pine trees bending over
unspeakably. Lightning, thunder, and being
told to get away from the windows. So
this was familiar in a prehistoric memory kind of way.
Then a little before 9:00 the power went out. It had been flickering most of the evening
but kept righting itself. This time, the
ship went down. I said aloud, “Well,
that is real and it’s going to be off for a long time.” Just didn’t know how long long was going to be. Well, let me tell you about long.
I insisted the kids sleep on the couches in the family room
rather than in their beds upstairs as a precaution against breaking glass. Marc and I slept in our room on the ground
floor as usual. The cat was happy for
the kids’ company and slept between them on the floor.
The worst of the storm was over by the time we woke up on
Tuesday morning, and foolishly I thought “it” was over. Marc went out to reconnoiter as he likes to
say, and came back with dismal news.
Trees were down everywhere, he’d never seen anything like it. So many roads were closed, it was almost
impossible to get around. There were
hardly any traffic lights working, even on the major roads. And there was no power at the office. In fact, there didn’t seem to be power
anywhere.
With no power and no hot water, Wil went to his dad’s house. Rachel decided to hang out here. She started
hearing how badly hit Manhattan was, and after the talk of parties turned to
talk of dismay at no power and no water pressure, she seemed glad to be with us
and not in the city.
I worked to get Internet connection on my devices, but it
was tough. Everyone at DBE worked
remotely using their smart phones to connect to the Internet. We had no email because our ISP that hosts
our website had no power after his generator died. No website meant no domain level email. We created temporary Gmail accounts and
alerted our clients to use those or texts to reach us—as predicted, texts
worked better than phone calls. Phone
calls didn’t go through, texts went through slowly, eventually, or after you
resent them several times.
With no hot water, we heated water on the stove (lit the
burners with matches) and then cooled it with cold water to wash
ourselves. I became the family
shampooer. I didn’t mind. It was kind of nice washing their hair over
the kitchen sink in the morning light.
It felt spiritual and primitive, a necessary rite.
Wil’s dad came to pick him up because it was his day with
Wil and he had power at his house. Rachel
decided to stay here. We took a ride
around in the afternoon to reconnoiter again.
Things looked bad. Marc said they
were no improvements from earlier. We
saw not 1 PSE&G truck. Rachel
was doing well during the day, but as night approached and the thought of
another night with no creature comforts encroached, she was open to being
driven to her dad’s house. She seemed to
feel bad about leaving, but of course it was better to be warm, showered, and
Internet-connected than not, not, and not. It took us almost an hour to get
there with all the downed trees and detours, coming back the way we had gone
there included a few additional detours we hadn’t expected. By the time we got back to the house, we just
went to bed and hoped there would be light and heat by morning. Wrong.
Wednesday was spent trying to get an Internet connection and
to stay warm. The temperature was
dropping. We lit the fireplace and left
it on all day. Our neighbors generously
allowed us to keep recharging our devices because they had a generator at their
house. Made a note to research
generators, the new “must have” item for climate change survivors.
Honestly, the day was a blur. I prioritized my work down to the most
essential things to keep the time on the Internet to a minimum because the
connection was so slow, unreliable, and aggravating. Wil showed up unexpectedly—he was taking
someone’s shift. He said he was staying
the night and I was trying to imagine what that was going to be like—where
would he sleep that he would be warm.
When 5:00 rolled around, I declared the work day done and had a shot of
bourbon. We were going to go to dinner
but I didn’t want to put on makeup and I didn’t want to risk Wil coming back to
an empty house if we were delayed. We
ate prepared food from McCaffreys on the couch in front of the fireplace and
chatted.
When Wil came home, we talked for a while and then I
insisted he sleep in front of the fire on the couch instead of upstairs. He agreed.
In the middle of the night, the carbon monoxide monitors
started going off. The first one went
off at midnight. Two hours later, the
other one went off. I was now convinced
the monitors were trying to tell us something. The fireplace! Of course, it must be the fireplace. Try Googling carbon monoxide monitors at 2:30 a.m. and you’ll see that they are
set off by gases from an assortment of things, including faulty furnaces. Fireplace =furnace to my bedraggled
mind. Of course! That’s why the day was such a blur! I was being poisoned!
So we shut off the fireplace and told Wil he’d be fine and
that there was low risk of becoming a popsicle.
Then the other monitor went off at 4:00 a.m. Marc decided to read the manual. I fell asleep, exhausted beyond
imagining. Maybe I was being gassed to
death, but I was too tired to care. Marc
discovered that the monitors are meant to run on electricity,; the batteries
won’t last more than 20 hours. He pulled
the batteries on both monitors and went to bed.
That seems logical. And I was
surprised to not wake up dead.
In the morning the temperature was easily less than 50
degrees. Even if I could see the
temperature app on my iPhone, I didn’t want to know. Marc was going to work at Deepa’s and I was
going to work at Bethany’s. Marc
reconnoitered like the dove leaving the ark but came back with no olive
branch. He learned that a client had
power and decided to work there since he needed to meet with them anyway. Bethany wasn’t feeling well, so I went to
Deepa’s. It was very nice there. Warm people, warm home. They kept trying to feed me all day—Deepa
worries that I don’t take care of myself.
They don’t understand that I don’t like to eat during the day, and kept
bringing me fruits and crackers with peanut butter, almond milk, and some salty
water beverage that Deepa insisted I drink when I stood up too fast after
sitting for 4 hours straight at the computer.
(I had no idea when I’d have broadband Internet again and wanted to make
good use of every second before I headed out at 5:30, grateful for their
hospitality.)
I got back to the house before Marc but after a series of
unexpected detours due to closed intersections.
I saw my first line for gasoline and felt panicked. Lines anywhere make me nervous, even if
they’re for something nice, like cheap theater tickets. I always sense agitation on the part of the
people in the line and am fearful of an eruption of tempers. I don’t like crowds in general—when they line
up, it only makes them a little less scary.
When I did finally get home, the house was cold. Bone chilling cold. I wrapped myself in a blanket and wandered
through the house. It felt sad and
forlorn and that’s not good karma for a house.
Marc came home and we headed right out for dinner at KC Prime, a local
steakhouse that has an identity crisis. On
the way there, we saw 30, maybe more, utility trucks just sitting silently in
the mall parking lot. Just. Sitting.
There.
KC Prime was warm and our reservation got us a table right
away. The food is consistently good and
the drinks are awesome—that’s where I discovered my favorite cocktail, the
sidecar. The servers are always
attentive but not unctuous. You can show
up there wearing sweat pants if you want to—I’ve seen people do it—and that’s
okay too.
Joe Queenan has this very funny piece in his book Red
Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon.
He writes about how the people who regularly eat at Red Lobster think
it’s upscale and they dress up in their leisure-suit best for it, and then look
down their noses at the people who “just don’t get it.” I’ve turned into that person at KC
Prime. Not that I’m rude about it, but
to me, it’s where we go after work so we’re usually wearing our business-casual
best. We’ve had a hard day and we want a
nice cocktail in an upscale but relaxed environment, close to home. So it’s funny when people show up in shorts
or sweats because, well, hey, “they” just don’t get it. J
Our waiter Thursday night was friendly and smart. He didn’t need to be told that we were two of
the barely washed masses who were there for a meal. He paced everything beautifully so that a
dinner we typically have in 90 minutes-- if that--lasted well over 2
hours. I blessed him the way one best blesses
waiters—with a sincere verbal thank you and a tip that relayed the same message
in the coin of the realm.
Back to the house.
Icy cold now. My brother and
sister both had power and offered for us to stay with them. We can’t go until Saturday, after Wil takes
his SATs that morning. We make plans to
go to Barnegat on Saturday to spend the night.
Marc found us a hotel room for Sunday and Monday night. Tuesday we’d already made plans to stay with
friends after the election. But how long
would this all go on? My friends Carol
and Mark texted—they had a hotel room and had offered us to stay with them. We thanked them and didn’t want to
intrude. But we would take them up on
the offer of a hot shower the next morning at 8:00.
But first we had to get through Thursday night. Marc brought
Rachel’s twin mattress down to the family room and we repositioned the couches
to be opposite each other, perpendicular to the fireplace. The mattress went in the middle. After a few rounds of “Do you want the
mattress or the long couch?” I flopped on the mattress and ended the game. I was exhausted when I managed to get through
to my sister on the cell—4 bars!!!—and we talked until the call failed and we
texted our good nights.
The cat slept on the edge of the mattress right next to my
head all night and as cats do, he considered me the intruder and was annoyed every
time I moved around, which I do a lot when I sleep. It was so cold! All I kept thinking through this whole ordeal
was, “What are people with little kids doing?”
I really felt bad for them. I
fell asleep thinking about the stilled trucks in the cold outside and the
stilled children in the cold inside.
It had to be in the 40s when we woke up and got ourselves
dressed to head over to the Westin and our showers. On the way there, we saw that the traffic
lights near the office were working.
After our showers (thank you Carol and Mark!) we swung back to the
office instead of to our client’s office in Pennsylvania where we were going to
work.
Delight! Sheer delight.
The office had power and wi-fi!
We worked there all day. We
offered our space to others who needed power.
We planned to sleep there if there was no power at the house, but Wil texted
at 4:00 that yes, power was back at the house!
I texted Carol but she said they were still out of power, so
I offered for them to have dinner with us but they had plans for that night and
would come Saturday instead. We offered
them to stay with us until they got power, and they said they would.
I cleaned the house up, went shopping, arranged for the
cleaning lady who usually comes on Thursday morning to come on Sunday. Bought thank you gifts for our neighbors of
the generator, Dave and Donna, and met Donna for the first time. Their generator was still running; they
didn’t realize power was restored. They
thanked me. And I thanked them
again. Lots of thanking back and forth. We’re going to have them over for dinner
soon. I like them a lot.
Back to the house.
Wil was supposed to go out with friends but plans fell through. He was stuck with us, poor kid. Friday night is pizza night. Yeaaa.
“What’s on TV?”
What?!? Comcast is
out. No TV, no Internet. The DVR worked but nothing else. We assumed we would have lost everything on
the DVR as happened with other outages but there must have been a quantum leap
with technology when we weren’t looking because all our recordings are still
there. Sweet. We watch Jon Stewart’s Night of Too Many
Stars and laugh our butts off.
Bedtime 11:00. I
didn’t sleep well, have no idea why other than maybe too much coffee during the
day. Gotta work on that.
Up at 4:00 a.m., can’t sleep any longer. I didn’t try to go back to bed because I had
to drive Wil to take the SAT in Princeton.
At 5:30, Wil came downstairs and said the SAT was postponed according to
the email he got. Made Wil French toast
and chatted a bit. I was convinced he would
stay with me because there’s no Internet so no video games. Ha! How
foolish of me! He said he was cold and
invited me to go upstairs with him. I
said, “What are you going to do up there if there are no games?”
“Well,” he said, “I’m going to sit, or lay down.”
“Really?” I asked. “You
can do that right here where I am.”
“Well, I’m probably going to get warm and stay in my bed,”
he said.
“Oh, so you’re going to, what do they call it, sleep?” I
asked.
He smiled and headed up stairs.
And so he’s upstairs, sleeping I think.
I’m training the cat to be more doglike than he already is,
and finishing this blog post. I’ll
upload it via hotspot if I can get one going.
The hot water repair guys are here. They forget you can hear everything they say,
they’re just below me in the basement. I
am enjoying their conversation. Work
banter.
I’m picking Rachel up from her dad’s house at 3:00. Carol, Mark and their boys are coming over at
6:30. I think I’m making chicken
stew. Ali and Marc will be here. It will be nice to all be together. Am I asking too much to have hot water and Internet
by then?
Honestly, as long as there’s Internet at the office on
Monday, and heat here and there, I will be thankful. Because you know what really sucks? Five days after the storm, half of my
neighbors still don’t have power. This
isn’t a remote location. It’s New Jersey--the
most densely populated state in the country.
So after all of this, I’m wondering about that raspberry out
in the patch outside the kitchen window.
Is it a sign of hope, or is it taunting me? So close and yet so far….
