Sandy

For the second year in a row, I have returned home to have a big ugly storm barrel its way up the East Coast and reign down destruction on Long Island. Last year, it was hurricane Irene. Despite all the media hype, we were lucky with Irene and managed to escape with little more than a few inches of water on the property and some minor flood damage to the outside room and garage; miraculously, the basement remained dry. Living on the water, this was little more than a miracle.

This year, the monster was Hurricane Sandy. What made this beast such a threat, forecasters warned, was that the hurricane would be joining forces with a Nor'easter. This, coupled with a full moon which creates astronomical high tides, meant that this freak storm was going to savagely rape the east coast with 80 mph winds and astonishing storm surge. On Sunday, with winds intensifying, it was clear that Sandy was going to make good on forecasters' promises of destruction. We spent the afternoon frantically preparing as best as we could, and then hunkered down to ride out the storm.

For lack of a better term, shit got real on Monday night. Preparing dinner, we heard a soft thud on the house. "What was that?!" Mom said, panicked. "Oh my God, the tree's down!!" I grabbed a light and went out into the storm. Sure enough, the 50 ft. pine tree in the driveway had fallen on the garage, and nestled itself between the house and the garage. Miraculously, however, damage was minimal. I don't know how, but the tree broke two small holes in the roof, broke a water pipe, and ripped on of the gutters off---but that was it. "I can't believe how lucky we are that it didn't fall on the house, and that the damage was so little!" I said.

Oh, Hey!!

Pull your socks up Joey, those wellies won't cut it!!

The water really started to come up around 10, and it came fast. At about 11, it was two feet deep outside and beginning to gush into the basement like a waterfall. We tried to get the washer and dryer up, but it was a futile attempt. Before we knew it, the water had filled the basement five feet and was still coming. I started to go around the house trying to get things off the floor, but by midnight I was exhausted and collapsed. If the water comes, it comes.

Gushing in.

ALMOST came into the house!!

I woke up on Tuesday to a yard full of water. By some miracle, the water didn't make it into the house. The basement was completely full, but the house was dry. I made coffee, and stared out the window at the brilliant blue sky breaking through the clouds. Now there's a beautiful sight, I thought, and went to assess the damage.

Beautiful!

Backyard.

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

The destruction at Laurel St. pales in comparison to the incredible damage sustained at Davis Park on Fire Island. We took a ride over this morning to inspect the damage, and were awestruck by the decimation Sandy left in its path.

For starters, seven houses completely disappeared into the ocean, and two had sunk into the bay. What others remained were barely standing, their pilings washed out by the merciless onslaught of the ocean waves. The beach was completely littered with debris, and the ocean washed completely over the island to the bay at some points, leaving depositing thousands of tons of sand on people's properties. I think it's best to let the pictures do the talking , though.

The good end of Davis Park.

Phil now has oceanfront property.

End of First Walk. Compare with this from last year.

Second to Fifth Walks, decimated.

House post, snapped like a toothpick.

First Walk, bayside.

I don't envy those homeowners, but I really feel sorry for them. How lucky we at Laurel St. got off!!!

Florida: Land of serial killers and alligators

 "You know what? I'll check the prices. If they're cheap, I'll come down. It'd be good to properly catch up," I said over the phone a few weeks ago.
"Oh, it would be so much fun!!" Deb replied. I was on the phone catching up with Deb, my old Brooklyn roommate from several years ago. She was probably the best roommate I ever had (save Anna; sorry, Deb), and we had a lot of fun living together in Brooklyn. After being back a few weeks in the States, I dropped her a line to catch up. She told me that she had been living in Orlando for the past couple years, and after a long chat with her one day after work I entertained the idea of getting out of town for a weekend and heading down to Florida. Ticket prices were favorable, and the best part was that they departed from Islip, just up the road. The trip was booked, and Thursday afternoon I jetted away from the calico colors of an autumn Long Island, out over sleepy Fire Island and high up above the glistening teal Atlantic.

At the risk of sounding intensely pretentious, I haven't much experience flying on American domestic airlines. Most of my traveling has been around Europe, so flying with Southwest was an unaccustomed experience for me. To put it in the simplest of terms, flying with Southwest is like an extended carnival ride. During the pre-flight flight attendant spiel (which for some reason has always given me an intense feeling of serenity, watching the flight attendants demonstrate how to buckle and unbuckle the seat belts, activate the life vests, and use the oxygen masks, but, this time, made me slightly unsettled), the passengers were directed to look at the safety instructions in the seat pocket in front of us: "Read it, learn Spanish, use it as a fan!" We were also informed that there would be "no whining, no crying, and no smoking" aboard the flight, which I was pleased to hear, but was less entertained that the flight attendants would be coming around to "check our seat belts and make sure that everyone's outfit matches their shoes," and snorted cynically at the irony of this statement, because Americans are already so fashionable.
The flight passed quickly and uneventfully, as I slept through most of it. However, by the time we were on the ground in Orlando, I was ready to get off. Upon landing, the head flight attendant proceeded to "serenade" the passengers in an acapella improv number in her slight Southern drawl about the fantasticness of Southwest and being in Orlando. "Ya'll know what the plural of "ya'll" is? ALL YA'LL!!" Oh, God. I'm no prescriptive linguist, but it nonetheless made me wince in pain. Get me off this plane.

Deb was waiting for me in the pickup queue. I jumped in, gave her quick hug, and we tore away along a wide, sunny, Floridian highway lined by palm trees. I was starving. "You like Mexican?" she asked. Fifteen minutes later we were chowing down on carnitas laced with searing hot sauce. Not bad, but not even in the ballpark of the amazing Mexican I had in Chelsea a few weeks earlier. We spent the rest of the evening drinking "homemade" piña coladas and catching up.

Florida style.

 On Friday, we weren't sure about what to do, so we went to Ivanhoe village, an old art-deco part of Orlando where there were a bunch of antique stores (a common denominator over the past two weekends, I suppose). We browsed the various stores (shame I couldn't bring furniture back with me, amore!!) before seeking out something cool to drink (it was hot).

 

Getcha protein shake bra

Chairs, chairs everywhere!!

That's a linguistic conundrum.

Later that evening, Deb had arranged for us to go on a nighttime kayak tour. Apparently over in Merritt Island, near the Kennedy Space Center, there was an abundance of bioluminescent jellyfish and phytoplankton in the bay, which made for a unique nighttime spectacle. So we drove an hour and a half over to Merritt Island with her friend Jen for this nighttime kayak tour.

Kayak buddies.

Apart from being eaten alive by mosquitoes and no-see-ums, the tour was awesome. Everyone in the tour group was given glow sticks to wear in the kayak, and after sundown we set out with about thirty others, corralled by guides. I hung towards the back, as most of the others on the tour seemed to be amateur kayakers and didn't have a clue what they were doing. To be frank, I was concerned about gators---"Oh, anywhere there's water in Florida there's gators," Deb had said earlier. "I saw one crossing the road just the other day." I hung back and had a chat with one guide, while the others hurried to listen to what the lead guide was saying in the dark cove.
"So like, are there gators here?"
"Oh yeah," he replied in his Florida twang. "Chances are, tonight you'll pass by at least three or four gators without knowing it."
"Oh. Well, I mean, do they attack people?" I asked.
"Nah. Feel the water," No thanks. "The water's too cool for them here. They stay close to shore, where it's warm. They're scared of people anyway. They go runnin' when they hear ya."
"Well that's good," I said.
"Yeah, you don't need to worry about gators," he said. "Matter of fact, I learned to swim right over there where we launched from."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, definitely," he said. "Actually, we used to catch gators here."
"So then how do you catch 'em?" I asked.
"Well, you find one that's small enough and you jump on 'em," he replied. "But if you don't wanna do that, then you get some high-test fishing line and tie a chicken on one end and the other to a tree and leave it for a few hours. When you come back, you'll have either a softshell snapper or a gator on the line."
Wow. OK. I suppose it would be easy to assume the gator-catching bit was a bit of tall-tale telling, but he was so knowledgeable about the wildlife and mangrove channels that it was impossible not to believe him (and the accent helped a bit, too). He was obviously an experienced Floridian guide, born of the mangroves. Nonetheless, the thought of gators lurking in the dark waters below shook me, and I was wont to stick my hand in the water after that conversation.
But it was hard to resist. Inside the cove, the water glowed when I dipped my paddle in. "It's actually a combination of comb jellies and bioluminescent plankton that glow when you irritate the water around them," the guide explained. "You can run your hands in the water and when you feel something that feels like a giant ball of snot, grab it and pick it up. It's a comb jelly." I ran my fingers gently through the water by the side of the kayak; the water swirled a gentle blue glow in their wake---how unearthly, how cool this planet we live on is!!, I thought. Glowing water! Awesome!! I caught a comb jelly and held it in my hand, watching its glow slowly die down as it dehydrated. It all vaguely reminded me of swimming in the ocean in Delaware years ago, how sometimes in the summer lumpy phosphorescent jellies would plague the beaches and at night swimming in the warm water would upset them and make them flicker.
As the tour went on, the glow of the plankton became more intense, an incredible silver-blue sparkle that trailed behind your paddle strokes. "I feel like Harry Potter!" a guide said. "Just put a fist in and open it really quickly." I did, and a sparkling, magical plume shot forth from my hand towards the dark mangrove depths. Fucking cool, I thought. I looked up. Satellites scudded by high above, and to the east high clouds over the mainland flashed orange and yellow from a thunderstorm, reflecting off NASA's space center to the south.

Anti tourist-loss device.

After this after-hours excursion, we were hungry, so we found a Waffle House off of I-95 and had a near-midnight breakfast. Delectable---I hadn't had Waffle House for ages.
Since Jen drove, we had to go back to her house to get Deb's car and drive another half hour back to her apartment. At 1 am, just 200 yards from her apartment complex, I heard a pop and hiss, and the right side of the car sank: a blowout. We pulled off and I taught Deb how to change a tire. "See how lucky we are this happened so close to home?" I said. "If we had gone to Titusville with this car and you driving and this happened, we'd surely be a stain on the side of the road right now."

La casa de waffle.

Couldn't have had a blowout in a better place.

On Saturday, we woke up early and went to have the tires fixed and the oil changed at Sears. Afterwards, we went in search of a flea market I had found on the internet and wanted to check out. When we arrived, it was late, and most of the vendors were packing up, but it was clear to see that the market was a complete shithole. Dusty, depressing, and largely empty in the midday heat, being in the market felt like being in a third world country. "I feel like I'm in Ghana, except the markets in Ghana had better shit," Deb said. I agreed. I have never been to Africa, but that market was how I imagined it to be there: dusty, hot, and lethargic. Having nothing worthwhile except baby bananas---which are called "manzanas" in Puerto Rico, Deb says---we escaped.

The auto shop waiting game; definitely don't miss having a car.

Later that night, we went with Deb's roommate to a jazz festival in College Park, a neighborhood in Orlando. At the door, the ticket people requested $5 for an entrance bracelet. "Half of the money goes to these organizations," the woman said, brandishing a laminated list.
"Let me see that," I said. Most of the recipients appeared to be local schools and hospitals. However, at the top of the list "International Faith Organization" prominently stood. Seeing this left a sour burn in my mouth. I handed the woman two dollars.
"Two dollars?" she sneered.
"Yeah. Two dollars." I looked her in the eye. She leered evilly at me, took the money, and grudgingly handed me a bracelet.
Having been to a festival the previous weekend in upstate New York, this festival was by far much cooler. An entire downtown street was closed off, and there were three different stages featuring different bands. All along the street, groups of people had set up tables with white tablecloths, spread with cheeses and fruits and wines illuminated by chandeliers hanging from the trees above amongst the Spanish moss. It had a lot of character, and a great atmosphere. Now here's a festival, I thought---it felt like an outdoor dinner party. The music flowed, and I tried my best to mingle with some of Deb's Floridian acquaintances.

Jazz festival.

Laying in the intersection.

Jazz Age style.

The next day, the weather was nice---cool by Floridian standards, and clear. "I don't know what we can do here in Orlando," Deb said. "Let's go to the beach." So we headed off to Cocoa Beach.
I was surprised by the lack of people on the beach. I mean, there were people, but I expected more on such a lovely day in October. The sky was clear, it wasn't too hot, and there was a gentle onshore breeze. When the sun began to burn, we went for a swim. The water was perfect---cool, clear, and refreshing. We swam for nearly an hour and I thought, "This is probably the last time this year I'll get to swim in the ocean. What a shame!!" That was my only regret this year, that I hadn't been able to swim in the ocean as much as I like. After swimming and lazing around on the beach for a few hours, we drove back to Orlando. I cooked Deb dinner as a thank-you gift for having me, and we stayed up chatting and mindlessly watching TV shows.

My flight was at noon the next day, so we had to be out by 11. Opening the door, there was a large green marble on the doormat.
"Looks like you have an admirer," I said.
"Did you put that there?" Deb asked.
"No. But it's a token for you. It's how he designates his next victims. The serial killer, I mean. This is Florida, Deb."
"You watch too much Dexter," Deb said. She was probably right.

In the past, I've always ragged on Florida, but I had a great weekend there this past weekend. It is definitely too hot of a place to live in, but because there is so much stuff to do there and so much great nature, it really is ideal for a vacation, even without going Disney. I had a great time, and not so much because it was Florida, but because it gave me an opportunity to see more of this country of mine that I have seen so little of.

Beacon

Last weekend I drove up the Hudson Valley to visit my sister. Last time I was in the States, she lived in Ithaca, which is a five hour drive up into the Finger Lakes region. However, this spring her employment relocated to Peekskill in the Hudson Valley, so she relocated as well to a quaint town up the river from Peekskill called Beacon. I hadn't yet been to her new digs, and since I'd heard so many nice things about it and she had been begging me to come up, I drove up last Friday after work. One of the nicest things about her new town is that it is an easy drive (save that short bit in Connecticut that confuses you) from where I am on the Island. Setting off into the sunset, the magnificent skies foretold an awesome weekend.

Awesome.

The drive was smooth (save for the Connecticut bit) , and I arrived to her place around nine. It was a cute little two-bedroom cottage tucked back into the woods off a rural road, a real homey, quiet place. I found the tiny house quite cute and comforting; we lit the fireplace and cooked the shark meat I had brought for dinner and drank craft brews and caught up late into the night, giggling and reminiscing.

Awesome yard sale find.

Here I must go on a brief tangent about Margaret's life. Although she might not like to admit it, she is a full time nanny for three young children, for which I give her much credit. She does this for about 9 or 10 hours a day 5 days a week, something I don't even want to imagine doing. On top of this, her car is old, and because she doesn't want to put anymore money into it, she uses it as infrequently as possible, taking it out only to go grocery shopping or to work on rainy days. Hence, she usually takes the train to work. This seems normal, until you consider the fact that she lives about three miles from the train station in Beacon. She get to the station by riding her bike, a rickety old ladies' Schwinn she picked up at a yard sale for a couple bucks (the damn thing could be an antique). She told me this was her daily routine in her usual nonchalance, noting the difficulties of riding up and downhill on a three-gear bicycle. To say the least, I was amazed. Six miles, everyday, and 9 hours of kids on top of it. Sitting and listening to my sister tell me about her life, I looked around her little bungalow, her personality. How fucking cool she is!, I thought.  She moved to this town alone, not knowing anyone, and set up a little cottage with her cat Milo; she rides her rickety old Schwinn to the train station every day, her pretty wavy blonde hair blowing in the breeze; she goes to yard sales and sews her own curtains and goes hiking and bakes cookies, answering to nobody and not giving a shit about what anyone thinks. What a cool fucking sister I have, I thought,  and I immediately felt intense pride for her: that's my sister, a more awesome person than I could ever be.

La casa di Margaret

Home Sweet Home!!

The next day we were up early, stimulated by poached eggs and bagels. We had planned on hiking Mt. Beacon, so we were up early and out the door.
"Mt. Beacon is an asskicker of a trail," Margaret warned. I recalled my hike up Campaccio in July, all 1500 meters of it. "Bring it on," I said. Truthfully, I was correct in my gloating; Mt. Beacon was only a mile hike up, and while it wasn't as difficult as my summer alpine hike up to the lake, the steep switchbacks left me panting and Margaret lagging. Nonetheless, the views at the top were rewarding, and a climb up the mountaintop firetower provided enhanced vistas of the valley below.

Margaret, catching up.

Come on, let's go!!

Basking in the sun.

Beacon, from Mt. Beacon.

Remnants of an old funicular system.

We made it!

Looks like the fear of heights is genetic.

After lunch on the peak and coming down from Mt. Beacon, Margaret wanted to show me the town of Cold Spring, where the family she worked for lived. Just a short drive down the road from Mt. Beacon, it was cute, your stereotypical Main St. USA town with one grocery and one pharmacy and about 20 antique stores. I was excited about this; I love antiquing, hadn't done it in a while, and Cold Spring Main St. was the perfect place to reacquaint myself with this hobby. More specifically, I was looking for old typewriters. However, I only manged to find one, a broken old Royal for $80---overpriced, like most of the antique stores in shee-shee Cold Spring. I didn't find anything worth springing for on Main St., but a few blocks away we found a place called "Pop's Barn Sale". Pop, a cheery fellow, was parked out front and invited us to have a friendly look around. I found a few kitchen bowls I liked, and Margaret found a table for her new TV.
"Hey Pop, how much for this table?"
"Hmm....ten bucks?"
"Cool, what about these bowls?"
"Mmmmm.....twelve."
"I'll give you ten."
"How about eleven?"
"No, ten." I said.
"No."
"OK," I settled. "Eleven." I handed him $21, and we said thank you and began on our way. Suddenly, Pop ran out of the barn. "Wait, wait!" he called, "You forgot your change!"
"No, I gave you 21: ten for the table and eleven for the bowls." Pop laughed and shook his head. "No, no! It was ten for the table and a dollar for the bowls."
"Oh come on man, you're too honest for your own good!" I suddenly felt guilty about trying to bargain with him.
"Well, I only have eight singles to give you as change," he said.
"Oh yes, that's fine no worries! I'm sorry about that! Thanks so much! It's so nice to see there are still honest people out there." And it's true. Pop bid us farewell and we went on our merry way, happy with our purchase.
This bargain hunting went on all weekend with me and Margaret. We're both fans of yard sales, and since the weather was particularly nice last weekend, there was a plethora of yards sales. Needless to say, it took us a long time to get wherever we were going this weekend. "Yard sale!" I'd exclaim while riding down the road. Margaret slammed on the brakes---"Where!?!"---and we'd turn around to poke around in peoples unwanted stuff. This made the weekend even more awesome, as we found tons of cool stuff. It's a bit like treasure-hunting in a way....except you never know what you're going to find!!

I see a few treasures here I wish I had bought.

Later that afternoon, we went back to Beacon and showered up and took the train to Peekskill. Margaret's boss moved to Peekskill to become the brewmaster of Peekskill Brewery, and he and a bunch of Margaret's friends would be working the beer tent at a festival, the Hudson Hop and Harvest festival. Of course, this meant free beer, so we were looking forward to it.

It's a good thing Margaret was our in in the beer tent, because the festival was a mob scene. The food/drink ticket line was a mile long, and the wait for beer was even longer, because there was only one tent. "I waited an hour for beer!" I heard one woman complain. "Sucker," I thought. Whenever we needed a refill Margaret would just slip round the back and Chief would hook her up. In actuality, and in sympathy with the poor folks who stood in line, the folks who organized the festival were clearly unprepared for the mob of people that descended on Peekskill. Not enough ticket tents, not enough beer tents, and not enough food tents. Trying to get any kind of meal/refreshment guaranteed a wait of at least half an hour. Moreover, while there was supposed to be live music, it just seemed that one band played a short set and the next one had a three-hour tune-up. We met Margaret's friend Jesse there, and after waiting a collective 45 minutes for food, we agreed that the festival was lame. "Let's go to D.P. Quinn's," said Jesse. He was from Peekskill, so he knew all the places. "It's just up the road." We saw Chief on our way out. "Quinn's?" he said. "What are you going there for?"
"Is it bad?" asked Margaret.
"You'll know when you get there," Chief said.
He was right. Quinn's was a downright dive of a bar. Next to a busy road, there was only one bald, mean looking fellow in the whole place, frowning over his beer. He and the bartender leered at us as we came in. "What the fuck do you want?" the bartender asked. It turns out Jesse's brother was the bartender in this dive, and was actually a nice fellow, bought us a round and helped us get the dusty jukebox in the corner working. Jesse ordered a pizza and we hung around for an hour playing pool and darts, the bar to ourselves save the grumpy skinhead at the bar.

I lost, of course.

Tip for the bartender.

After a while, we decided it would be best if we headed back to Beacon, so we headed back into town. I wanted to stop and use the bathroom before getting on the train, so we stopped in the brewery, which was very busy. I was waiting a long time for the men's room, so I asked a guy standing there if someone was in there. "Yeah, someone's in there." After a minute, the door opened, a girl came out, and grabbed her friend and went back in, locking the door. Now I was pissed. I only had to pee and I had been waiting for like 10 minutes. A line was forming. It was clear that the guy standing there was friends with the two girls. "Is she getting sick in there? If she is she shouldn't be in the men's room, she needs to go to the ladies room or go outside. This is the men's room, and now there's a line because of her!"
"Just go wait in line for the other men's room," he said.
"No, I've been waiting here pretty long, I don't want to go there, I want to go here. This is a men's room, why is she even in there?" At this point the door unlocked and the drunken culprit emerged in a huff.
"Who said that?" she asked.
"I did," I said.
"You know what? FUCK YOU. Fuck you asshole!" she yelled. People dining turned around to stare. She then proceeded to grab my drink to try and upend it in my face. I grabbed her wrist, and before she could get her other hand on it, her friends rushed in and pulled her away. Margaret was livid. "What the fuck, bitch!?!" she yelled. The drunken idiot was escorted away by her friends, and I finally got to use the bathroom. Margaret was flustered about the incident for the rest of the night, but I just shook my head and thought, "Some people...."

This is where you get the train back to the city, crazy bitch.

The next morning after an omelet we headed into Beacon because there was a bunch of stuff going on. We went to the Sunday flea market, walked down Main St. and looked at the classic car show, and bought some produce and cider at the farmer's market ('tis the season--I love cider; and not that cider amore--it's cloudy and non-alcoholic here in the States!) before heading down to the riverside park. There was a pumpkin festival going on, so we were excited to check it out.
It was by far a better festival than the Hp and Harvest festival the night before---plenty of food, good music, stuff for the kids, a beautiful view of the river, and while there was no beer, there was pumpkin pie, and plenty of it!! Margaret and I stocked up on food and sat down to listen to the band play and admire the cool fall weather and the view of the Hudson.

Yes, this is why everyone in the world stereotypes Americans as fat.

'Tis the season!

Nothing more American than bluegrass and pumpkin pie in the park.

 On a final note, I just have to say that Beacon is awesome---the whole Hudson Valley is, and I look forward to many more trips up to visit Margaret, especially now that she's only a couple hours away. Thanks for a great time Margaret!