Hurricane Sandy Part 15

I haven't posted since Thursday, but that does not mean that the Sandy aftermath is over for us.

I've written a draft of an article in detail about my experience teaching with minimal materials and notice on Thursday. I hope to have that revised, finished and published soon so I can link to it. I also would like to write a second article about Friday. Teaching once again with almost nothing this time was an elevating
experience. We were all together in a shul this time and so there was a buzz and sense of community. There was also a real sense of urgency to our coming together and the Shabbat oneg we ended with was like none I'd ever experienced.

Again, I hope to find the time to write that all down later.

For now I'm just tired.

Please remember that we are some of the very very lucky ones... no loss of power even. But still the worry and effect of seeing what's happened around us is profound.

As an example, on Friday when I had to go teach at the shul, we were running out of gas in one car, so U. gave up going to work that day and drove us to where we needed to go. Afterwards we decided to go out for lunch -- partly to spare our pantry and partly just for the diversion. The only place Kosher place we found was a pizza place in Teaneck. The streets were nearly deserted. The lights were all out. And it was very very cold out. The pizza place was ONLY able to offer pizza and fries. ND and I played in the cold playground in the park behind the restaurant while U. waited for the pizza. It took awhile. The place was dark, cold and not terribly clean. It was also packed as it was the only option. We ate with our coats on. When ND needed a bathroom I used U.'s and my phones as flashlights to light up the pitch black room.

Shabbat we would have liked to have host someone without power, but our community is so giving that everyone had a place without our help.

We spent Sunday trying to just be normal together, raking leaves etc.

Today was our first day back at the school. All day you could eavesdrop on almost any conversation from kids or adults and hear, "When did you get it back?" "I still don't have it," referring, of course, to power.

My great challenge was to get gas. As I mentioned before, one of our cars was nearly empty and today U. had to drive out of town for a meeting. So he took the more fuel efficient car. I got ND and me out the door very early to find gas. I hit Route 4 thinking I would have half a dozen choices of places to get it. Not one was open. Every single one of them was dependent on electricity that they didn't have. I arrived at school over an hour early with an almost empty tank and almost nothing to do. ND and I kept busy until we finally went into our otherwise back-to-normal day.

After work a friend of mine tailed me in case I ran out of gas before finding a station. The first place I banked on, right before the place where she had to pick up her son from daycare, was closed and I began to panic. She picked up her son and headed with me towards I-208. Lo and behold, glowing orange numbers never looked so good to me before.

A police sat outside checking license plates to make sure only the odd numbers took gas today. The station only took cash and I think may have owed me change that I didn't get. Not sure about that. Regardless, I was grateful that ND had received her first Scholastic book order in her bag that day because I read her 5 books in the half hour it took us to get our gas -- much less time than I had actually predicted, so I'm not complaining.

It took nearly an hour to get home from there with all the detours I had to take around other gas station lines and traffic blockades.

Now everyone is talking about an approaching 'noreaster. I don't know what to make of it. Regular weather report just shows cold wet weather. But maybe this isn't over yet for a lot of people, the lucky ones or the not so lucky ones.