Blackout postmortem

Loisida was on of the last neighborhoods to get back online. The power came back on at 9:00 last night. Friday morning there was no hot water and I was starting to wonder about the water pressure. We took a siesta until mid afternoon and then walked across 4th street to Marcella and Rich’s building were we paged them the old-fashioned way - by yelling "hey Marcella" up to their window. A few minutes later she was down on the street and we exchanged blackout notes. We walked east and noticed almost everyone was eating or carrying some kind of ice-cream. "They’re giving out free ice cream on 4th and B," one woman informed us, so we walked to the bodega where the last bit of the nearly-melted ice cream stock was being picked over by enthused and overheated residents. I passed on the Powerpuff Girls popsicles, and eventually hit the jackpot with a half-full box of ice cream sandwiches. We ate some, Marcella kept one to bring back to Rich, and I distributed the rest to some surprised-looking people on Ave. B.

On the was back we ran into Nao, the guitar player in Nao’s Superfortress, a band I used to play drums with. Nao said that there was some kind of mini-burningman scene in Tomkins Sq. Park Thurs night, with bonfires, drumming, and people dancing naked and burning their clothes.

We hung out at Marcella and Rich’s (and their cat’s) apt for a while, then all went over to Zum Schneider were they were selling plates of bratwurst, bread and sauerkraut on the sidewalk for 4 bucks. Went over to Tompkins Sq., found a bench and ate the sausage. At 9th and A it was possible to see through to beyond Broadway were a single glowing green traffic light told us the power was back up on the west side of town.

We stopped at La Linea on the way back and wrote a collaborative poem on four business cards. Each person would write a line, then we would rotate them around. The high-quality rhyming doggerel that resulted can read here.

We went home and rested in the candlelight around 9:00. When the power came up loud cheers echoed through the neighborhood. It reminded me of the cheers in the theater when I first saw Star Wars, and the Rebels blew up the Death Star.