Surviving Sandy in Woodside

I hope and assume that if you are reading this, you are safe.  It was difficult to get a picture of  Hurricane Sandy at its worst at night, and this one taken yesterday afternoon does not do justice to the force of the wind even in the afternoon, but the howling in our buildings' hallway as well as outside will stay in my memory for a long time.

Now that the worst is over, it is clear that in Woodside we escaped the worst and for that we should be thankful.  According to ConEd's information, four of the five outages in our area are affecting single customers, while the remaining outage is affecting 11 customers.  That may mean those outages will be lower priority and slow to be restored, which will be a big inconvenience for those involved,  I haven't been out and about since before the storm, but from my balcony I could not see any trees down, but that is very much a preliminary assessment based on limited information.  Our hearts go out to those who suffered more, even as we begin to consider how to deal with the disruption we will face in the coming days as the MTA deals with flooding it suffered.  I hope those of you who read this are safe.

Jin's Big Apple Goes Organic

Ever since I returned from vacation, I've been so busy that I have not had the creative energy to keep this blog going on a weekly basis.  It isn't that there aren't things to write about.  There are, but it takes spare thinking time to recognize them.  For example, on return I couldn't help but notice the improvements the folks at Jin's Big Apple had done.  The new shelves were to be honest badly needed,  and it was nice to see the expansion of their organic products so that now they are only carrying organic dairy products.  Yet even with my concern about food, the obvious need to note this hear just didn't come into my head, chocked full of concerns about my new part-time teaching gig as it was.  Yet, really I think this is a great thing for our neighborhood,  and it is yet another sign that the limited availability of local and organic problem does not reflect lack of interest on the part of Woodsiders.