Sandy afternoon

Hot chocolate with salt, maple syrup, orange oil, cinnamon and vanilla, just perfect after a long, cold walk. Wind is still strong and cold down by the Verazzano Narrows Bridge. My neighborhood, and I, are relatively lucky. This is the bottom of Bay Ridge, facing Staten Island, what the cabbies describe as 'under the bridge'. We have power. There's a large downed tree uprooted from the sidewalk and fallen across the street fortunately just short of hitting the opposite house, partly because some branches broke off. Lying across the road it's about the height of a man's waist.

Down by the Narrows, there's a large hollow pipe, half the width of this tree trunk but at least half again as long, lying on the rocks below the boardwalk and partially submerged. The exposed end is full of bolts and other fittings, I try to guess what it is: something from a ship, or a pier, perhaps? Somewhere a business is probably filing an insurance claim for this lost pipe. There's a tremendous amount of debris in the water, from the expected plastic trash cans and traffic cones to what looks like someone's kitchen table. A sweet watering can goes by, the kind with an embossed flower on one side. So many pieces of people's lives washed into that water.

In return the sea has given what I think must be sand from the bottom of the water. The water is a browny-green, like tropical river water, and quite unlike it's usual northern, Atlantic-coast blues. There's sand deposited in curves on the boardwalk of the park, and across that and the bike lane and small road -- a total of about 50 feet -- on the surface of the parking lot. Stones, also, about 1/2 to 1 soccer ball in size, mostly of a color and shape not like the rocks against the retaining wall below the boardwalk. The sea and the storm have brought them from elsewhere. They are too large to have made it through the protective railing. I guess the water must have literally thrown them over the waist-high railing.

There are smaller stones. Several very small children, perhaps demonstrating the resilience of our species or at least of New Yorkers, are busily tossing the smaller stones back into the river. To them it's a lovely game, a day when parents are unexpectedly and wonderfully at home.

All over the neighborhood, as I walk, is the evidence of hard working and determined people. I only managed to force myself out, pushing through the oddest panicky feeling, at a quarter to three in the afternoon. There were sounds outside from first light, and by the time I'm out much of the debris is done, miscellaneous debris bagged, tree limbs cut down to be hauled away. It's still messy, but the piles of trash-bags and testimony to how much has worse it was. One house has a side covered with that plastic sheeting one sees on construction sites, either a very quick repair or an ongoing job, I can't tell. Many stores, in this neighborhood which didn't flood except down by the water, are open, all the ones where people live close enough to get in to work. There's still food on the shelves, and no panic. I am not the only one taking pictures, though, and walking around marveling. We all know we're tremendously lucky to be in a neighborhood that's come off so lightly. I pass the subway station, and wonder when it is I'll be able to get to the city again. It smells musty, or perhaps I'm imagining it.

I've heard from most of my friends in Sandy's path, but not all. I am wishing this hadn't happened, that the storm of the century hadn't been bred by persistent denial of climate change. I'm remembering my NASA years and thinking how futile it is to know so much when we, as a country and a people, do so little. I am anxious too, remembering Katrina and New Orleans. I know New York won't be like that, but don't know what it will be. I'm wondering about life, and choices, probably in the same generally anxious and tired and not very smart way most people are today. The last days have been a blur of pre-hurricane prep, which in this city means hauling stuff around through the subway or on foot from stores, carrying water bottles and that last carton of milk and canned soups and such, all those foods one never buys except for such emergencies. Yesterday as the hurricane approached, and then during, there was the building and the howling of wind, and then more howling, and louder, a maddening sound that freaked out the body without stopping to consult the mind, and then there were the images and reports of horrible things happening, flooded streets and exploding power stations and fires...

I come home from my walk, and write this, and get ready to post my pictures, and wish I had something intelligent to say, a better closing thought than how to make amazing hot chocolate, but I don't. There's only waiting now.

One final thought. I am grateful, sitting here waiting to see what will happen to my city after a hurricane, that Obama is in the White House and not Romney, who would have us privatize disaster relief and who thinks climate change is a myth. I don't want what Bush let happen to New Orleans to happen to me. Call me selfish. But it could be you and your city next time.

Be safe, you all.

a passing stranger

"Do you know what happened to me today?" This from a slight, well-put-together woman I smiled at during a walk. She said, "My job is so stressful, I just walked from..." 3+ miles, and she was in work clothes & shoes. She had meant it as a casual, would you believe, how funny, comment. But then she broke down. Not for long, she pulled herself together pretty quickly -- 5 mins of letting it out, tops. But what are we doing to people, in this country? Millions and millions on the edge of endurance. I was home sick on Sunday, and read myself the service out of an antique prayer book. There are verses from the Bible read during services. The surprising thing was that this very old version of the prayer book had about 3x as many verses about the responsibility of the wealthy to give, share, sustain, as the contemporary prayerbook. God, despite the evil that is coming out of the far-right, is not a fiscal conservative. We are, in fact, our brothers (or sisters) keepers. I told her to make herself a cup of tea or coffee, eat, take a walk by the water and relax over the weekend, while I patted her arm and rubbed her back. We exchanged hugs. It was pathetically inadequate. I hope Paul Ryan imploded tonight, and lets the hatefulness of extreme conservatism show through.

Brooklyn, NY - 6/25/12

We had a storm this morning, early, not a monsoon but in that general direction: lighting, thunder, wind, rain. And now it's past and the sounds are shifting down from that wildness. The hush surprises my ear. There's one remark from an arguing seagull.

Other sounds slowly begin to make themselves heard. It's like the pause between movements in a symphony. Now the songbirds are tuning up. The slow movement is starting. There's a shushing sound, car going by on wet road. It's going to be an urban pastorale. Hah! And now a crow!

And here is the wonder of it, to me: this entire landscape of sound could be happening in Port Klang, Malaysia. If I close my eyes I can see the domes of mosques, a restaurant overlooking fishing boats and serving chili crabs... I never expected this in Brooklyn. The world is vast and almost unbridgeable, sometimes, and then there are moments when the far is achingly near. Good morning, friends.

just an afterthought

four hours after the quake. Still awake for some reason. My spouse just moved the thesaurus and the German tapes (heavy, because German) to lower shelves.

wondering: what does one do after an earthquake? Is there an etiquette?

Alum Rock Earthquake

hi folks. Just writing this down so I remember myself. Thought I'd pass it on.

about 5 mins past 8 this evening, first sensation was a rumbling noise. At first I actually thought it was the kid upstairs, who does produce a sound like thunder, and a little shaking in the in-between floor (California construction, don't ask). And then it got louder, so I thought, real thunder, as it is about the time of year that N. Cal monsoon-ish rainy season (cold monsoon rain, *very* weird to somebody from my original part of the world, but that's another story). Right after that 'thunder' thought came the realization 'but the house is shaking' (much more than even the kid upstairs could do) and then the slowly dawning idea that this was an earthquake actually strong enough to feel. After that, several seconds to think, what is it we're supposed to be doing now and a fascinated staring at pictures on the wall, to see what they would do. And then deciding we should locate the most sensible part of the space to move to, figuring it out, and then further seconds yet to actually get moving, by which time the earthquake got tired of waiting for us to get it, and, fortunately, left. For the moment.

after the earthquake, a chagrined process of checking on our earthquake readiness status (flashlights, food...), combined with a sense of wonder that the building seemed to be handling it okay.

checking online next, and encountering this on the USGS site
"Please wait several minutes for the earthquake to appear"

after several minutes, the verdict: mag 5.6, about 17 away as the crow flies. Although somebody at Stanford, just up the street from us and with an active population of earthquake geeks, logged it at 6.0 (by the amount of stuff flying around, etc).

warnings of aftershocks, probably minor, but 5-10% possibility of a stronger quake yet.

taking Rescue Remedy. Monitoring the web for a while. Finally remembering to eat dinner, followed by a trip to the grocery store for the correct amount of bottled water, crackers... On the principle that carrying an umbrella prevents rain (yes, I have a degree in physics, but I still believe this) we have helped prevent the big one. At the store, the 'ENTER' key on the cash register stuck, and rang us up about a hundred bags of sunflower seeds. Possibly a small, mechanical earthquake victim.

wondering what the people on the trains felt like, when things started to shake and the trains stopped for a while. Glad I wasn't sitting in a train in a tunnel. Wondering what it would have been like to handle a car, or be on a bike, during a quake. Realizing we have no idea.

home again, sitting down to write this post, realizing that I'm sitting right up (inches, CA condos are *small*) against a tall bookcase. We put the chair in this location on the assumption that anybody sitting in it would have sufficient brain to pick themselves up and move if the ground started shaking. Shaken to discover I didn't have sufficient brain. Or anyway the wrong kind.

Realizing this is a disadvantage of not having kids. With kids we would have conscientiously run earthquake drills after moving here. With only two adults, we assumed (wrongly) that our brains would figure things out in realtime.

Now thinking about how to develop a higher level of practical intelligence, and very glad, for everybody in the bay area, that nothing more happened.

drinking sherry. Would prefer a good bottle of wine, but forgot the wine at the store. Several other people there buying water in quantity, and whatever they consider essential nutrients (chocolate syrup...)

on a completely unrelated subject, I'm rooting for John Edwards for the Democratic nomination.

signing off now.

the next four years start now

Now that the Republicans control House, Senate, White House and Supreme Court, their agenda is going to play out. Anything that happens in the next four years can be laid at their door. It's an appalling thought that we need to rise above.

We 'liberals' are supposed to be 'soft' and we will be expected to roll over and play dead or hang our heads in shame or something, and hide our politics. If we don't do that, but instead use every opportunity to hold up a mirror to this government, and make sure that the people who voted as they did out of a concern about American family values is forced to see that the conservative agenda doesn't value American families, there may be some hope for the future, and in particularly we will be able to face ourselves.

It's also important to continue to reach outside the circle of talking to ourselves: every time a mother holds a bake sale because her son or daughter in Iraq needs body armor the government isn't giving them, every local paper around should have letters saying, "See?" Every time a plant closes, and somebody trades a skilled union job to work for minimum wage in Burger King or WalMart, every time you hear a story about somebody being unable to afford health care, and so on.

Until tomorrow.
Shymala