Sandy

Sandy hit New York a little less than a week ago now and it both feels like it's been longer than that and much shorter at the same time. Everything was fine for me here in Brooklyn. We never even lost electricity. Other than a few down trees and branches, my neighborhood is about the same. It goes without saying that this is definitely not the case for many people and their neighborhoods.

New York City, as I've heard people say time and time again over the past few days, is like several different worlds post-Sandy. My neighborhood is fine and the Upper East Side where I work is fine, but places inbetween and further out Long Island, Staten Island, and many, many more on the East Coast are destroyed. My boss' family lives out on Long Island and they are still without electricity, heat, and dealing with this crazy gas shortage while she comes to work in the Upper East Side where everything seems to be perfect always (in this case, geography was responsible, I know).

It's strange to feel so close to the horrible mess that happened but still so far away. The fact that this is NYC really adds to that feeling for me. New York is the standard. It's where commercials and movies and books are set. Sometimes when I see the news, I still feel like I live in Virginia because I was so used to just hearing about New York anyway.

For me personally, I felt the effect of Sandy mostly through the subway system being shut down. I missed three days from work and for two days carpooled in my boss' car with another co-worker so that we would pass the 3-people-per-car rule to enter Manhattan. Today was my first day commuting by subway again and though I was unable to take my normal route, I can say I'm totally impressed and thankful for how fast New York and the MTA got these things running again. All of the trains were shut down less than a week ago so to have so many up and running so fast is amazing.

I didn't know if I was even going to write anything about this on here and now it's ended up being much longer than I expected. I know this blog doesn't have a large audience, but I wanted to put something out there 1.) because it felt weird to start posting about things like my shop again without any mention of this huge event and 2.) because I wanted to ask anyone that sees this to please do something to help your fellow human beings. Places to volunteer or donate can be found all over the web but I will speficially mention the Red Cross because it's so easy to just give a little money and know that everyone's donations are adding up to really help people. What's more important than helping each other? We're all humans on this here planet and we're in this together! (A good sentiment before Election Day too, I might add).

Here's a link to the: Red Cross Donation Page


Well, I guess that's it for me for now. Tomorrow I'm navigating my way to work again and voting! I'm pretty worried about this Executive Order Governor Cuomo passed saying that New Yorkers can vote at any polling place... sounds like it could get messy. Maybe won't be a big deal as NY always goes blue anyway. (Wish I was voting in VA!) We'll see.