1:56, a very fast time….for gas

I pulled into the right lane of traffic on a main thoroughfare in Queens currently being used as a gas line.  I stepped out of my car and walked around to the passenger side window of the vehicle in front of mine.  What gas station and how far away, I asked through his window.  ‘Hess’, he replied, ‘and about 4 blocks I think.’  I sauntered back to my CRV thinking two things.  One-I suppose the configuration of that guy’s heating system takes down his hot water along with his power as he was in desperate need of a shower and two-I can see more than four blocks away and couldn’t see a gas station.  

I got off the line, drove away and found the dubious oasis of a pit stop nine and a half blocks away.  Crazy still, they were not pumping any gas and were just waiting for a delivery.  These scenes are playing out all over the NY Metropolitan area.  And as a caveat to this particular encounter, it was 6am.  The vast majority of these wannabe fuel patrons had been sleeping overnight in their cars.  I heard that another nearby Queen’s gas station was shut down by the police while pumping fuel when a fist fight broke out, so add the sum of all those cars next to you in line now.

Notwithstanding all that, in the continual darkness, I navigated myself and my quarter tank of gas back home for breakfast.  Fuel something I suppose.

But getting home is not a sure bet either these days.  Intersections with dead traffic signals are meant to be treated as 4-way stop signs.  Most drivers are either unaware of that fact, or perhaps just don’t care to lower their scarce MPG’s; other great thinkers seemingly believe an expressway has been suddenly opened.  Crossing these major junctions has become dangerous.  I have seen a couple of serious accidents and heard of others who have been badly injured.

And there exists a growing contingent of folks who are riding their bicycles around in pitch black conditions as well.  The combination of not yet removed fallen trees, tangled among down power lines by the sides of unlit roads, sleep deprived bike riders and vehicle operators who now seem desensitized to danger via the omnipresence of police tape and caution cones is a troubling mix. 

The NYC Board of Education has announced that schools will reopen Monday.  However, many schools in the tri-state area are still closed due to lack of power, significant water damage, or they may be functional but are being used as a community shelter.

Throughout the region, homes near the shores were completely destroyed and many other properties will have to be torn down. 

Much of the subway system may be up and moving again, but a better check of reality is that more than 100 people lost their lives in Sandy’s path, at least 42 of those in NY. 

Knowing all this, I could not believe Mayor Bloomberg had even been contemplating going forward with the NYC Marathon that been scheduled for today, but was thankfully canceled as of Friday afternoon.  I’m glad he finally came to his senses.  Police, Fire, Ambulance and other city services are still greatly needed elsewhere.  And the only time results worth measuring today involve how long it will take to move the needle on your dashboard from E to F.

Certainly NYC will continue its rehab and soon be strong, vibrant and healthy again.  For now though, it must begin to walk before it can run.

© 2012 Christopher’s Views

Alas, with a bit of luck a tank of gas will help bring food and clothing to some of those in need. 

In search of shelter

After cleaning up some storm debris from our backyard I turned around to find this rabbit on our lawn.  He/she was sitting there looking exhausted and interested only in eating a small apple it must have picked up from a few yards away.  I think I could have walked right up to the fury friend to pet his/her head, as I was not in the least bit scary compared to what the bunny must have experienced for the prior 24 hours.

Several million people are also glad that Sandy has left the neighborhood.  The temporary and, unfortunately for some, permanent moving efforts have begun.  Many people will be without power for quite some time.  Last year, during Irene, we lost power for four days so I was expecting to be without power for a week or more this time.  Yet for some thankfully strange and unexplainable reason we did not lose power in this storm.  Three large trees fell along our block but none hit power lines.  And even though I saw electrical transformers explode out our back window at night, the lights stayed lit. 

Some of the fatalities that have been reported are terribly heartbreaking and tragic. 

The footage of the extensive flooding and property damage is difficult to comprehend.  Evidently it could have been even worse as the eye of the storm moved in earlier than originally predicted and came ashore before high tide.

My heart goes out to all those who suffered losses.

I don’t think ‘surge’ describes what happened.  This hurricane certainly opened my eyes and no doubt many others about how far the Atlantic Ocean can temporarily relocate under the wrong set of conditions.

© 2012 Christopher’s Views

Awaiting her call

Perhaps you are the lucky one who got that last loaf of seedless Rye bread before I rounded the corner of aisle 5 in my third trip to a supermarket.  

Or maybe you are the unfortunate driver now in need of an audiologist as you can’t escape the residual echo’s that bounced off your front and rear windshields while you were trapped by the line of blaring horns that follow and haunt your wrong side sidling trip to the gas pump this afternoon.  You may try to cozy up with a book on your sofa or easy chair but you feel stuck, jammed and unable to make a move without taking out the large cubed ice machine or pyramid stacked water bottle display as well.

I imagine that some of us who have charged every gadget in our domain will fall victim not to a tropical depression but rather will fidget, twist and linger in a back lit screen induced mode of sleep deprivation.

Conceivably you are still searching for ‘D’ batteries.  Hint: you have a better chance of capturing Big Foot.

I know you are feeling mighty connected to your generator about now and I hope it doesn’t get flooded.

I would recommend trying to ignore that constant clanging of the high hanging wind chime you forgot to remove from beneath the front gutter before stowing the ladder behind all the lawn furniture.  Soon the wind will solve your problem and also move up the timeline for remodeling your porch windows.

Optimistically, you haven’t overbought on meat and poultry for when the power goes out this week.  Or possibly you did and I’ll be invited to the luau.

Don’t forget to check the sump pump and if your driveway is long enough make sure to park the SUV away from the reach of the big oak tree soon to give way.

If you need any extra duct tape, I am really sorry.  But as Jane said from the stall, I can’t spare a square.

May the sand bags work, may the dry lock hold, may the water be forever running away from your home, and until we speak again may the cooler currents off the Jersey Shore protect us from the swagger of Hurricane Sandy.

I will stay put with my go-bag, LED key chain, a cup of green tea and a cat that seems to know something is out there.

And with all sincerity I hope that all of you stay safe and that the meteorological trifecta fails to show.

© 2012 Christopher’s Views

hoping for more

Last week I spent some time revamping all of the connectivity services for our family.  I upgraded our smart phones from some dated clunkers to iPhones.  I purchased a high definition Bose Bluetooth that works better than the factory installed hands free feature in our late model vehicle.  And I waited the annoying 30 minutes on hold with our cable provider to negotiate a new triple-play program that provides us internet, TV and phone at a lower cost while adding on a total movie package. 

By the time I got to put my feet up and get ready to watch the first presidential debate I was feeling pretty good.  I mean hey, if I’m not sure about something I can ask my iPhone just about anything and get the right answer.  What a great tool, great invention, great company, great country…damn that’s great progress.

 

But then as I watched the debate and saw Jim Lehrer sputtering along at the speed of a turtle suffering from heat stroke, Mitt Romney looking like a low budget commercial for a 5-Hour Energy Boost and President Obama appearing about as excited as if he were conversing over math homework with a parent at a birthday bowling party for one of Sasha’s classmates, the bottom quickly dropped out of my optimism.

 

The huge and discomforting contrast is that in everything from bumper stickers to talk radio to political speeches, ads and rallies I am forever reminded about the greatness of our people, our workforce, our cities, our country, our military, our ingenuity, our technology, and our universities and healthcare nonetheless.

 

Yet staring me in the face from an adjacent angle is the news of the continual dropping of our SAT scores, a falling of our life expectancy, that handguns really are given out to crazy people legally, that our national debt is 16 trillion dollars, that there are elected officials in Congress who think our planet Earth is 9000 years old and that a woman’s body will nearly always reject the pregnancy of a ‘legitimate rape’, that we basically do run on Dunkin Donuts, that Mitt Romney announced his fondness for Jim Lehrer but that it’s important to our economy that he pull the plug on both Jim and Big Bird anyway, and that our President looked as if he was mindfully absent from the October 3^rd debate while perhaps rethinking his bogey on the 9^th hole of a recent golf match instead of challenging his contender.

So…is this it?  Is this the greatness?  Is this what we strive for?  Is this why we wake up at 6am, fight traffic, pay tolls, pay taxes, work all day and go to bed at midnight?  Should I forget the debates, write off Washington and politicians altogether and just watch sports or a repeat of Homeland?

Reverting to my August longing, I really do think that I want Missy Franklin for President.  Undoubtedly, I am going to skip watching Joe Biden and Paul Ryan go head to head, as my body is near its safe limit for cringing this month.  

But before I stop off at DD on October 16th, grab a medium decaf without sugar and put my feet up while I tune in to watch the next presidential debate that will travel east to New York, I sincerely hope that Mitt will speak with his advisors and understand that his proposal for replacing the Affordable Healthcare Act does not cover pre-existing conditions.  

I equally hope that President Obama will realize that the term Obamacare is a slur….and embracing it makes him look silly.

I will wonder if Mitt can make an attempt to sound like he cares about anyone more than 8 years away from applying for Medicare.

I speculate that Michelle will make certain President Obama stays up late to study his material. 

I hope enough flags are flying in the halls of Hofstra to serve as a reminder of the threshold we hope can be met.

And if anyone takes a 5-Hour Energy Boost I sure hope that it will be Candy Crowley.

© 2012 Christopher’s Views

change by chance

My favorite nine-year old and I play quite a bit of basketball in our backyard, along with floor hockey and NY classics like stoop ball and box ball out front as well. We often play a modified version of the game 21-basketball. I have to shoot from markers further out than fav nine. We both can shoot for a 1, 2, 3 or even a 5 point score. Our house rule is that the 5 pointer must be thrown with one’s back to the hoop. And if I get a 5 point lead, MF9 gets two shots for every one of mine until he regains the lead.

Though not much movement is required for these games I typically bounce around the court, field, stoop or sidewalk grabbing rebounds, ricocheting pucks off a wall, running for pop-ups, purposely hamming up some catches, displaying some decent agility and spicing up the matches with a lot of narration.

Certainly my favorite buddy is far more nimble; he throws balls my way with some reckless abandon and playfully taunts me with his own banter and verbiage. In the end though, our games do little to change his basic perspective and his inclination to call me ‘old man’ on and off the court.

Counter to that, I suppose, our competitive play has done little to change my chief view of him as someone other than—my to be very carefully watched, and rather impulsive nine-year old.

Recently though, the landscape has changed a bit. We had been vacationing with another family and their three children (two teenage boys and a younger girl). We had vacationed with them several times before, yet had never been to a water park together, and so we decided on something new for all of us to try…kids, Moms and Dads alike.

Shortly after we squeezed through the crowded park entrance and had our wrists tagged, the three boys were 100 yards ahead of us and they were quickly mapping out their best plan for taking on the day’s attractions. I rarely allow favorite buddy out of my field of vision in such large crowds. But he was keeping up with the teenagers, staying focused and even taking first crack at the tallest and fastest rides. Without knowing it, I was beginning to see a mature side of him.

A giant water tube of sorts called the Pirate’s Plunge was clearly the top attraction and also the most heart pumping enticement at the park. The teen’s father and I spent most of our day avoiding that venue and took on the more modest excitement offered by various tube slides and lazy river draws.

That is until about fifteen minutes before the amusement park was set to close and the teen brother’s came running to their father to say, ‘the line on the plunge is short and now is your chance to do it’. So the four of us turned and made a meandering run past concession stands, cabana tents and wave pool escapees. We semi huffed and puffed ourselves up a seemingly endless and winding wooden staircase to where we finally found my son patiently holding our spot in line. Patient as he had been, however, fav buddy instantaneously bestowed a look of shock and pealed off what he was thinking upon my arrival in particular. ‘Oh my God, my Dad is going to go on this?'

Standing eight stories up I’m not even sure what I replied, but I confidently took my place at the end of the line and waited my turn to make the return trip back as a plummet. True to form fav bud went first. Sans any hesitation he approached the starting block with the glee of a dancer and the calm of a monk. Given that safety dictates a rider must complete his entire course before someone else can step up we all stood in a row to watch.

The dare itself is simple. You stand roughly 80 feet above the hot dog shacks before the opening of a large tube featuring two steep falls, which are separated by a connector that is angled at a lesser pitch. The idea is to grab onto a bar at the top of the tube, swing into a flat and on your back position with your legs crossed at the ankles, arms crossed at your chest and sleekly disappear into an instant drop off and gain speed. Water runs throughout the tube to enhance velocity and the connector allows you to experience a second drop, in the dark, as you throttle up to breakneck speed and try to scream ‘Holy Sh!!’, but the immobilizing centrifugal fright prevents your lips from moving. A split second later you are rocketed, rather than plunged, into a larger chute of water that acts as a brake and forces water to make a round trip through your nasal cavity at about 60 miles per hour.

MFB’s run went gloriously and the brother’s were up next.

I had once taken on a similar challenge when my daughter was younger and this was the source of my confidence as I waited. But I was fifteen years younger, in my thirties, not my fifties and that thought was causing my self-belief to slowly lose some air.

Three successful runs completed and my fifty-something counterpart turned to me and said, ‘you go first and if all goes well I won’t chicken out.' Figuring that the quickest way to leave this park was to take a couple of steps forward and close my eyes, I kept on moving, not daring to think, except to take note of the final instructions and then I let go.

When I hit bottom and the water shooting out of my nose made me laugh I turned towards the observation deck and saw favorite bud, pointing, cackling and playfully rapping on the railing.

Clearly, in that moment at least, I was not the ‘old man’ and he was no longer an always to be watched, impulsive nine-year old.

© 2012 Christopher’s Views