Best We Did It! We Survived! Pt. 1

. . . so far, at least.

I'm going to skip my pre-storm post for now to bring you my up to the minute Sandy reporting.

Last night the storm never got very heavy or windy around my house but at just about 9:45 on the dot the lights went out and the candles got lit.

Derrin and I got a text from Neighbor Di that she was having an ice cream party.  See, in times of adversity, it's good to try to give service to others to remember how much you really have.  Our service: Getting that ice cream eaten before it melted.

Di's apartment was so much better-candled than ours.

We decided to take a group trip to the roof.  Neighbor Rochelle had a new head lamp to try out.

Up on the roof?  Unreal city.  That glow of green?  That's the jail.  Lucky prisoners with all that electricity.  The Freedom Tower dark was a sight to see.

Roommates!

Roommates!!

Darkness all the way to the Empire State Building.

Now let's focus on our blacked-out neighborhood.

Something was going on at the building next to ours.  An ambulance came, too.  There was shouting.

We went down to street level to check on things.  A little bit.

These trees were not knocked over by the storm.  They were knocked over by hooligans Sunday night.

Not sure if this pumpkin was wrecked by man or storm, though.

We gave our block one lap and then called it a night.

Then this morning I went out on an adventure walk.  The German tourists were out and about.  Nothing can keep tourists from Little Italy.

Man praying in front of closed temple on Canal street.

Decided to walk half the Manhattan Bridge for a view of the river and city.  Decided not to follow these instructions.

River looked high, but it had already receded.  Wasn't all up on the highway or anything.

It actually got kind of sunny and the city was really bustling.

I didn't see any extraordinary devastation.  Toppled leaves, not trees.

But maybe this guy's owner had blown away?  No, probably just didn't feel like going for a walk.

The few delis I saw that were open had big lines.  Big lines of unprepared people that needed a morning bagel so bad.

Strangest thing I saw?  This guy was rinsing a bag of nuts with water from a fire hydrant? 

All around there were signs like this.

I am starting a new hurricane fashion blog, the Sandytorialist.  Lots of flannel!  And storm braids.

See?  I'm with it.  Also: I cooked bacon this afternoon.  I'd received notice that it was very good hurricane food.

Roommate Derrin sported a sporty-casual hurricane look.

My lunch: Cooked all my bacon then toasted some bread on the pan in the bacon fat, then fried an egg in the bacon fat. Like an Indian I use all parts of the fat.

Let me tell you that sandwich was good, hearty storm eating.

By the evening we'd all had enough of this blacked-out, no cellphone service, no internet lifestyle and headed out.

Hopped a cab to the Upper West Side.

A nonsense wonderworld full of electricity where people are jogging at the gym like nothing even happened last night.

Now we're having an awesome party at Alpha's, eating soup, listening to the news, contacting friends and family.  Surviving, in other words.