Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Cold Food--Post-Storm Memoir, Day 6

It's 11:30 pm, and I've just gotten a hold of a computer in this house. Here is the last installment of my Sandy memoir. Because it's so later, I'm going to save my storm recommendations for tomorrow:

Friday, November 2, 2012 8:15 am: Woke up. I need to get up early. I want to be up when the sun is up. Ate cold cereal with the rice milk I've kept cool on the window.

 The whole pineapple I cut up from the bodega is still good. It's nice to have fresh fruit post-apocalypse. It's cloudy and cold. The religious candles A. bought in Spanish Harlem don't throw out much light. 

Yesterday, a member of my community found us at home and brought in a lot of food from his motorcycle. Four loaves of bread, five jars of peanut butter, a huge jar of jelly and Nutella. Beef jerky and cookies. As petulant as it seemed, I bagged a good portion of this to take over to a shelter (kept the Nutella).  I decided I didn't want any more cold food in my cold apartment, apocalypse or not.  I'll never eat all this bread before it goes bad.  No freezer.  No way to toast.

There's nothing more depressing than cold food when you're cold--and you haven't had a shower in five days.

One realization I've had this week: our lives would have been so much better this week had we'd been able to cook, heat water, etc.

I'd always prided myself as someone who could do without a hot meal, but this week a hot meal was all I thought about.

Every day this week, my priority had been about figuring out where to go for a hot meal and how to bring it home before nightfall. My daily obsession.

 On my way back from the shelter, I took photos of notes taped up in windows. I was fascinated by the appearance of so many hand-written notes.

 Z's still sleeping. I need to get her up so we can walk across the bridge for hot food, hot drink, and electricity for our phones. We need to charge our phones in order to get ahold of S. The power's supposed to be back tomorrow.

 I'll believe it when I see it.

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