A week ago tonight we had dinner with friends. Earlier, our host tried to go to Whole Foods to buy a little food for the dinner, but she discovered that lines already wrapped around the perimeter of the store. Whole foods is huge, but our host said she didn't know how to tell between who was shopping and who was standing in line.
A storm was coming.
Our host then abandoned her shopping cart and phoned us to bring extra food, which we were happy to do--use supplies while we could. I had a feeling our power would go out once the storm hit, and our freezer was packed.
While the storm was still hundreds of miles away, I had gathered provisions at the same store, packed our shopping cart with what I thought we might need: water, chocolate, hummus, S wanted dried organic mango that I made her put back (but then once the power was out for awhile, wished I'd hadn't). I bought a can of organic stuffed grape leaves. I bought bananas, cereal. I forgotten the candles.
One thing I remember, I thought we should gather delicious things.
I never got around to opening the grape leaves.
But I do have to say that all those days without power--four of them (only long when you're in them), I learned a thing or two about my relationship to food storage. More on this later.
Whole Foods was closed the following day and the days after. A. just went by there tonight. It's this gargantuan store, but there were gaping holes in their stocks. No eggs. Not much dairy. It's strange to see cracks in things that always have their best face forward--when huge corporations are crippled, unable to patch themselves up.
The night before the storm hit, I sat nervously at our host's house trying not to be too anxious to leave. I had spent the entire day moving things off the floor, sweeping, locating batteries and flashlights. Setting up a Super Storm Sandy station on a couple of folding tables. And I felt the need to get home and hunker down. On the way there, we walked against wind gusts.
We had our sandbags out, but not in position yet.
We learned that school for that Monday would be cancelled.
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Post storm: A. just talked to a woman in our building who, today, spent the day volunteering in the hardest hit borough, Staten Island. She said she bleached out a woman's home. Helped change a baby's diaper that hadn't been changed in days. Signs were on residences where bodies had been removed.
I hope no one minds, I'm going to be spending the rest of this week at least talking about this.
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