I've spent the last week powerless. Hurricane Wilma (who thinks up these names, anyway?) took out the power for most of Florida, topped my favorite mango tree, decapitated the grafted side of the avocado tree, and almost killed my koi.
The RLA and I were out there with bicycle pumps, trying to keep the koi aereated while our generator was being repaired. The koi are troopers, though, and came through just fine, unlike the awning over them.

For almost a week, I could go out at night and see the Milky Way, even though I live in an urban wasteland. The nights were cool and, except for the rattle and gasp of the generators, quiet. You could, if you were listening, hear the owl in the old tree next door, or the peeping of the tree frogs.

We need to rethink our cities, the way we live, so that you can always see the stars.

I rose with the sun, and went to bed with the sun. I knitted and read by candlelight. I took sponge baths with water that had been heated on the gas stove. The RLA and I were out in the yard all day, sawing up the downed trees with hand tools, because we don't own a chain saw.

I made coffee in a French press, and we kept our milk cool with a block of ice.

Everyone I know has been complaining of the horrors of being without electricity, but you know? I loved it. I loved being aware of the hours of the day by the location of the sun or the moon. I loved being able to walk in the street and talk to my neighbors who are usually in their own hermetically sealed cocoons. We shared ice, water, flashlights, stories, alcohol and the experience.

I thought it was wonderful.

Frankly, the biggest hardship for me was having to watch America's Next Top Model on a hand-held, battery-operated tv with a screen the size of a matchbox.

Oh, there's more, of course. This was the first hurricane of my life where I actually felt fear. Well, what I felt was the roof lift. It is an indescribable sensation, but there was no doubt as to what the change in pressure was. The roof held. There are no leaks. The power is back on. People are started to be assholes to each other again.

Life as we know it, is back to normal.

I pass this sign every day. I know enough Spanglish to understand that the show is called "Ground Zero" and that these guys talk about sex and drugs and rock and roll and sex. But is it just me, or is Javier really Jay (Jason Mewes)?

What happens when an irresistable force meets an immovable object?

Well, nothing. Because it's a paradox. There can be no such thing as an irresistable force, nor an immovable object.

However, in real life, what happens is this: The (non)irresistable force is my rapidly foreward-moving foot. The (semi)immovable object is the leg of a heavy chair.

As Sancho Panza says in "Man of La Mancha", whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone, it's going to be very bad for the pitcher.


And that is what my broken toe looks like two weeks after the force met the object.

It's not exactly that I'm a shut-in. It's more that I'm shutting myself in.

I don't feel fit for human company. I don't want to see anyone, I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to be around others.

Depression? Yeah. I suppose. Stress? Oh, definitely.
So what to do tonight and tomorrow? It's the two holiest days of the Jewish calendar. I don't have tickets for services, although Star has offered me one for tonight.

Tonight is Kol Nidre. I love this service. I can lose myself in the ancient melody. Which is precisely the point. But I just don't feel up to the rest of the ritual: the saving of seats, the gossiping about others, the false faces and air kisses. I don't want to get dressed up. I don't want to be with others.

I haven't been able to go to temple since my father died. Last year, there was a hurricane and it pre-empted services. This year the only thing pre-empting me is my own ennui and depression.

I did manage to get a rabbi to visit my mom on Sunday, and he read a blessing over her for the coming year. I cried and cried and cried.

No, I think I'll make a nice pre-fast dinner for the RLA and myself, listen to a lovely recording of Kol Nidre variations and stew in my own misery for another evening.

Off to run errands.

I love this. These delivery guys are all over my building in the morning, with steaming cups of cafe con leche, and aromatic Cuban toast (a loaf of water bread. split along its length, loaded with a dizzying amount of butter or oleo, then toasted flat in an aluminum foil-lined press).

But, if it's a Cuban cafe, and believe me, it is... why is their logo the Eiffel Tower, and the name of the place the Paris Cafe?

When I was just a yellow pup, ordering books from the Scholastic Book Service was always a big treat. I loved, and still love, buying books. It is an indulgence which nobody can fault. If you collect shoes (whistling innocently and looking up and away), people will find you self-indulgent and frivolous. Wasteful, even. If you have a fondness for more art supplies than you will ever be able to produce artwork from, again, you could be found guilty of avarice.



But nobody, ever, ever, looks askance at an addiction for books. Anyway. I digress.



One of my favorite Scholastic Books was "Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle" and it is an anthology of poetry.

I have loved so many of the poems in this book, for forty years or so now. And the other morning, when I saw this from the train platform, I was reminded of yet another poem from the book.







"Steam Shovel



The dinosaurs are not all dead

I saw one raise its iron head

To watch me walking down the road

Beyond our house today.

Its jaws were dripping with a load

Of earth and grass that it had cropped.

It must have heard me where I stopped.

Snorted white steam my way,

And stretched its long neck out to see,

And chewed, and grinned quite amiably.



Charles Malam"