Post-Sandy Post

Hi everyone,
I'm pleased to report that we are all alive and well here in Teaneck, though this week did not pass without some excitement.

The storm was due to hit New Jersey by about 6pm on Monday evening, so on Sunday they cancelled school for Monday and Tuesday. Monday (Maya's birthday) was spent hanging around the house waiting for a hurricane. In fact, Eitan was getting quite impatient and could be heard periodically whining "Where's the stoooooooooooooooorm?" But luckily, things went according to schedule and at precisely 6pm the lights went out, and our power was gone. Thankfully we had a bunch of torches (flashlights) ready for the occasion and everyone found it quite exciting to walk around the house in the dark. For the first half an hour. Then it got a bit annoying. But we figured we could manage with this inconvenience for a couple of days. And it was quite cosy sitting around in candlelight playing wholesome family games and eating junk food. (Because what's a blackout without junk food?)

Monday night we brought all the kids' mattresses into our room and had a big family sleepover. Luckily the storm itself wasn't too scary for us and no trees fell through our windows. The storm was over by the end of Tuesday, but we still had no power and neither did the school, so school was cancelled for Wednesday too. The kids were devastated.

Avrom was also home all this time, but don't worry, he wasn't going to let a silly little hurricane interfere with his work. As part of his pre-storm preparations, in addition to buying the crucial batteries and chocolate eclairs, he had bought a special car adapter with plug sockets, so we could charge the laptops, phones and other devices in the car. So Avrom spent much of the week sitting in the car working, whilst I hung out with the kids in the house and tried to figure out what to make for dinner. We have a gas stove, so we could do some cooking, but the options were fairly limited, partly because we didn't have a working fridge or freezer. I can see that for a creative cook this would have been a fun challenge. Unfortunately I'm not a creative cook so it was just an annoying challenge.

People in Teaneck started getting power back on Thursday, but we did not seem to be one of the chosen few, and neither did the school, unfortunately. By Thursday it started to get pretty cold and Shabbat was looming. The prospect of Shabbat in the cold and dark was surprisingly unappealing, but, in the absence of any other options, I started thinking about shopping and how to make it not completely dire. I spent an hour wandering around the supermarket on Friday morning trying to figure out what we could eat other than tuna sandwiches. When you can't have hot food because you can't heat it up, and you can't have cold food because you have no fridge, what are you supposed to eat? That's right - tuna sandwiches.

Thankfully, the gods looked favourably upon us (or a friend here made some calls) and at midday on Friday I had two phone calls from people with electricity inviting us to stay for Shabbat here in Teaneck. These were not people we know well so it was really kind of them to have us. We stayed at one of them and went to the other for lunch. Shabbat was lovely and we felt very thankful to our hosts.

After Shabbat, I checked my emails and saw that the school had finally got power. Yay!!! Avrom drove home to see if we had power (we didn't) and then went out in search of petrol (gas), which is being rationed because of the crazy gas crisis. Only cars with an odd license plate number could receive gas today (I kid you not). He then came to pick us up from our hosts and  we went about our now familiar routine of lighting candles and throwing a log on the fire for some good old-fashioned heat and light. Then, without any warning, all the lights suddenly went on! It really was the most exciting thing we've experienced in a very long time. The kids were so happy and relieved, and Tzofi was heard squealing: "Yay! Internet!"

So now we are sitting in a bright, warm home and trying to figure out where to go with the kids tomorrow. The 5-day blackout was not high on our list of "fun American experiences" but it's certainly not something we'll forget in a hurry - tho we'd quite like to. Of course the week did have one positive aspect to it: No laundry! Woohoo!

We are now looking forward to a boring week with lots of school and electricity. Oh, and elections.

Have a great week!