Oh Sandy

I'm really grateful that all of my friends in NYC and VA are doing ok.  Some are without power and fresh water but happy they have friends that have those things and are willing to share.  I miss NYC but I would have been one of those without power this week.  It's not an enviable position.

My DC Hurricane Experience and Necessities

1) iPhone - thank you for all of the Facebook and Instagram updates.  Loved seeing all of the photos.  I learned my Twitter feed is all about NYC but I'm slowly adding DC sites. I'm sad how often I picked this phone up but it's my link to my friends and loved ones.

2) Cable - so so happy this did not go out.  I watched such classics as Ghostbusters and Dazed and Confused.

3) Time - I did those things that have been hanging over my head for months like balancing my checkbook and filing.  I also watched the two Netflix dvds that have been gathering dust because I was kind of dreading watching them.  It turns out A Separation is beautiful and not slow like I had thought.  I also finished watching the last chapters of The Decalogue which is incredible but not uplifting or happy.

4) Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies - I found the recipe here and it is delicious.  The trick is not just eating them today.

5) Books - I kept the reading to today thinking that my power would turn off eventually.  It didn't but I grew tired of TV.

I don't know how I got this book on my list.  I looked at it when it finally arrived and realized it was a nonfiction book about the holocaust.  I was not excited.  I'm finding it to be extraordinary.  It's a thoughtful attempt to look at the roles the prisoners played, the importance of communication, the grey areas of camp life, specifically in Auschwitz where Levi was imprisoned.  

Another nonfiction book that Brigham recommended.  Mitchell was a writer for the New Yorker magazine for years and this is a collection of many of those writings.  I loved learning about the eccentrics of New York in the early Twentieth Century.