Updated Diary of a Refugee 2012

We're home! Our place had no power for a total of 7 days, luckily we were able to spend 5 of those at Ash's place.

Day 1: Monday, October 29th
In Long Island, Superstorm Sandy produced up to 75 mile-per-hour gusts. At our place, we lost power around 2 p.m. on Monday, and for some reason it clicked back on around 5:30 p.m. I cleaned the entire apartment after the power went out. We cleverly ordered pizza for dinner before our neighborhood lost power. We were in high spirits and James entertained us at night by singing and dancing.

Day 2: Tuesday, October 30th

Getting up with James at 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning in the dark was not fun. I started getting bored and antsy so we took a walk around the neighborhood. Kevin stood in a long line for some Dunkin Donuts coffee. That evening I started getting cold and we knew the temperature was dropping. We had cold spaghetti for dinner because our stove is electric not gas. There was less dancing Tuesday night and more huddling for warmth. I wrote more about Monday and Tuesday here.

Blackout dinner: Cold spaghetti by dinner

Day 3: Wednesday, October 31st
Wednesday afternoon we drove up to Ash's house. We heard news of the devastation in the area for the first time. We saw crazy mile-long lines for gas in New Jersey. It was Halloween so we dressed up James and let him run around. Ash's parents are also staying with her because they lost power. Ash made us an awesome hot meal for dinner.

Those are not tiger feet!

Day 4: Thursday, November 1st
Ash didn't have to go to work today, but because she had 5 noisy people staying with her she wasn't able to sleep Wednesday night, and spent some time making up for that on Thursday. I got up with James at 5 a.m. and we did our thing, and Kevin got up a little later and went hiking in Sterling Forest. When he got back, Kevin, James, and I walked around the main street, but most places didn't have power so we came back without actually going inside anywhere.

In Ash's backyard

Day 5: Friday, November 2nd
Ash's birthday! Sadly, she had to go to work so we missed her for most of the day. We tried going to the main street again, but places still didn't have power so we went to the grocery store and picked up some supplies and birthday goodies. I wrote more about Ash's birthday here.

Chilling with Ash on her birthday

Day 6: Saturday, November 3rd
Kevin tried to get gas, and despite waiting in two lines, he wasn't able to get any. Now we were worried that even if we got power back, we'd have no gas to actually get back. I didn't worry for too long though because Ash and I had plans to go to a spa and get sushi. Yay!

The Clous squeezed into the guest bathroom (Ash thought it was funny)

Day 7: Sunday, November 4th
This morning was  the end of daylight savings.  You know what's worse than the end of daylight savings with a toddler who will want to get up an hour earlier according to the clock? The end of daylight savings when you're a staying with a friend because you lost power in a storm. True story.

James coping with the end of Daylight Savings time

Kevin successfully got gas in the morning, so he relaxed by going hiking in Sterling Forest again. We walked to Main Street again and this time some of the places were finally open. We got a call from our neighbor that power came back, but we decided to stay through the day to spend more time with Ash. Kevin, Ash, James, and I went to Pennington Farm.

Ash trying to train James to be a stair gargoyle

Days 8-9: Monday, November 5th- Tuesday, November 6th
And on Monday we were back in our place with power, heat, cable, and internet! Hurray!

No one is happier than Harley. James chased him every day yelling, "Cat! Cat!"

Tuesday was a normal day with no natural disasters.

Days 10-11: Wednesday, November 7th- Thursday, November 8th

Except, then the Nor'easter hit us on Wednesday, and we lost power and heat in the middle of the night. It was cold in our apartment without heat, so Thursday afternoon James and I went to stay with my mom. Of course, the power came back as soon as we got to my mom's. 

At Nana's on Friday

Days 12-13: Friday, November 9th- Saturday, November 10th

Kevin came to get us on Friday and I was home for a few hours before I left for Girls' Weekend on Saturday morning.

In 13 days, I was able to be at home with power all day for 3 or 4 of those days (depending on whether you count last Friday or not since I could have been home but wasn't).

Pennings Farm and Market 2012

We'd been in Warwick for a bunch of days when we heard we got power back on Sunday afternoon.  I wasn't super eager to leave Ash immediately though, and Kevin doesn't work on Mondays, so it made sense to stay and spend more time together. We walked up and down the main street in Warwick, and then we had a little more time so we decided to go to Pennings Farm. Lately I've been really obsessed with taking James to farms, and I'd scoped out Pennings when we were in Warwick for New Years Day in 2010.

At the Pennings Farm Petting Zoo

As of this weekend, James can say, "Ash!"

James was only moderatly interested in the animals, and he was less interested in the animals than he was in Ash's cat, Harley.  In fact, he definitely called the goat, "cat."

James thinks goats are just big cats.

Riding the toddler train


Peekaboo with Ash

The market itself is really nice, and you can buy fresh produce from the farm, or buy a warm meal or snack. We got sweet potato fries and pumpkin soup. There was also a bar inside the market with local beers and ciders. Kevin was particularly pleased that they had a television playing football. James was a little terror inside the market though and I had to chase him and repeatedly take tomatoes and traffic cones away from him.

Okay, I stopped to take a picture one time.
That probably sends the wrong message, huh?

Ash's 33rd Birthday 2012

As previously discussed, Ash's parents and the Clous invaded her home because of Superstorm Sandy. So when her birthday rolled around on Friday, we had a built-in party. After work on Friday night, her parents took her to dinner, and when she got back we had two birthday cakes (I failed to coordinate with her mom) and two previously purchased ice creams. She also had multiple flowers and a balloon. Yay!

Ash and her parents

There was some difficulty operating the candle lighter and hilarity ensued.

Having a little trouble here.

We got it! I bet she's wishing the Clous never leave. Ha!

Ash's dad is secretly still mesmerized by the lighter.

Ash gives him a little tutorial.

After a gluttonous evening, Ash and I decided we need to spoil ourselves even more and spent the afternoon at a local spa, and then picked up enormous amounts of sushi for dinner.

At the spa, pre-massage. We don't look stressed at all though.

Fun! Let's celebrate Ash's birthday again next week? Yes, please.

Michele's Goodbye to NYC 2012

Before Superstorm Sandy, the worst thing that happened to New York this year was Michele leaving. In addition to trying to hang out with Michele as much as possible before she left (and becoming even more emotionally dependent on her than I already was) we decided to give her a big send off.  Her friend Kirsten lovingly and appropriately nicknamed it "Tears in our Beers."

Before we started drinking, we decided to do one last crazy thing in New York. Ash, Michele, and I participated in something called Accomplice New York, where you tour a part of the city in the guise of helping some mobsters commit a crime. You have to follow clues from one location to another, passing on messages and items to help the mobsters along. I was going to blog in great detail about it, but I decided that it might ruin it for anyone thinking of doing it. It was pretty fun, and we got along well with the tourists that were in our group. If you do it, I think I would recommend having a full group of 10 so that your group doesn't split up too much and you don't miss things.

Michele, me, and Ash in City Hall Park during Accomplice

One crazy thing about the fact that we did Accomplice on Saturday was that a lot of it took place in the South Street Seaport area, which was a Zone A flood zone, so there's been a lot of flood damage there since the Superstorm Sandy. Some restaurants and bars have had to be completely gutted because of the damage. Luckily, the bar we spent the most time in, Jeremy's Ale House, only had a little flood damage and is reported to be okay for the most part.

Our entire Accomplice team at Jeremy's Ale House in South Street Seaport

So then we went to Jadis wine bar in the Lower East Side to meet up with Michele's other NYC friends who wanted to come say goodbye. Things weren't sad, probably because everyone was in deep denial like me. Though there was some talk of getting back together for a support group when the reality of a Michele-less life sinks in. We all wore clever little name tags that said, "Goodbye. My name is ---."

Enjoying good company at Jadis

Michele and Yianice getting in some more snuggles

Some of my favorite ladies: Rachel, Ash, Michele and me at Jadis

Nina, Vinay, and Michele

Cutest baby ever and she has more attitude than Harper Beckham

After some drinks at Jadis we took the party to Loreley Beer Garden, where we had huge German beers and delicious German food. Some craziness ensued.

Yael watering Michele like a sexy plant?

From now on, I always want to wear matching lipstick with my girlfriends.

People always ask how I met Michele. We both went to GW undergrad. Freshman year, almost everyone lived in the large Thurston dorm with a 1000 plus students. There was a smaller freshman dorm on the other side of campus, called Adams Hall (and then later called Lafayette) of about 160 students, where Megan, Christina, Michele and I all lived. I lived on the 8th floor, and I knew Megan and Christina who lived on the 4th and 3rd floor respectively. But because Michele was one extra floor away on the 2nd floor, I didn't really know her. This is very detailed, but I think about it sometimes because what if you just walked by one of your best friends in the whole world on a daily basis and just didn't know her? And kept not knowing her for 11 years even though you had a close friend in common? Super super sad.

Rachel, Ash, Michele, and Janice in my dorm room when I didn't really know Michele

Even though I'm sure I met Michele and saw her countless times, I didn't really know her until I re-met her through Ash at Ash's 2008 Barn Party. I was a little jealous because she and Ash were so close and having so much fun. Luckily I got over it, and then we actually started hanging out about a month or so later. At first, we hung out mainly when Ash came to town, but eventually we were friends on our own, though we always still miss Ash when we're hanging out and she's not there. For the last 4 years, she's been there all the time, in good times and in bad. She's super fun, smart, and understanding. I basically feel bad for everyone who is not friends with her, especially for myself from 1997-2008.

  

Greenwich Village Bar Crawl, October 2008

Self-determined bar crawl in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, November 2008

At my bachelorette party in April 2009 (Shut up, my face is awesome.)

The night before my wedding, June 2009

This is when things started to get out of control. The rest is blog history.

I tried not to be too terribly sad when saying goodbye to Michele, because I plan on still seeing her as much as possible so I'm focusing on that. She officially drove a moving van out of New York City today, and now that it's super real I am having a little trouble coping. I can't hang out with Michele next weekend? And the weekend after that? No. No. Nooooooo.

I might have staged a protest outside her apartment, except that she is off to self-actualize in Richmond. She is starting a food co-op in Richmond, most likely with a clever name like Richmond Food Co-op. I'm not much of a risk-taker myself, but I can tell from the planning that she's put into this, from knowing her, and from hearing about the other people involved, that it will definitely be a huge success. Again, otherwise I would have chained myself to her moving van. Not. kidding.

Bonus picture of a super fun night in 2010.

Happy Halloween 2012!

Happy Halloween from our refugee outpost in Ash's house! I am a few posts behind because we haven't had power or heat at our place in Long Island since Monday. So we left. Since we are one of 2 million people without power right now, we don't expect that we'll be going home anytime soon.

I'll share more details later, but in the meanwhile, enjoy our little Halloween tiger. Last year he was a monkey, so I was looking stay on a zoo theme until he starts requesting his own costumes.

We found this tiger, and he says, "Rawr!"

Our generous benefactor, Ash, with a tiger.

Tiger on the run

Nana came by too! The Warwick area officially has 2.5 Cuban refugees.

We dressed him up a few times in advance of Halloween so his other grandmother and Michele both got to see him in costume.

Michele tickling tiger feet

Hurricane Sandy is Coming 2012

The local media is all abuzz about Hurricane Sandy hitting New York, but no one here seems especially worried. Probably because Hurricane Irene was a hyped last year, and all that really happened in our neighborhood was some damage from trees and a power outage. (We lose power a lot in our neighborhood so we're kind of used to that.)

The Mayor is closing the subway and Long Island Rail Road tonight at 7 p.m., though that did not stop my husband from going into the city today to watch football with the guys. Ah, priorities. If he gets stuck there, James and I will be very displeased with him.

The Mayor also declared some areas of the city as mandatory evacuation zones, but I'm not really sure what that means since I don't think they actually force anyone to evacuate. We're not near the coastline so we're nice cozy here. But we almost always lose power, so if you don't hear from me, that's why.

New York City and Long Island Evacuation Zones