Tactful Tactic

During our nighttime events, we light our sites with lanterns in order to provide a certain atmosphere to the proceedings. Along the path to the parking lot, the lanterns are secured to their stakes with plastic zip-ties to discourage theft. Needless to say, there are occasional attempts to walk off with a lantern.

Last Friday, some asshole cut the two zip-ties and walked off with a lantern. One of our contracted parking valets, seeing the guy carrying a clearly stolen lantern, intercepted him and grabbed the lantern, saying: "Thank you, sir, for picking up the lantern that fell to the ground."

It was a perfect response, unexpected enough to unbalance the guy, tactful enough to let him leave chastened but with some semblance of dignity (though clearly looking like a total thieving asshole to any witnesses.

The valet who pulled off this coup is an immigrant from Latin America, his English is okay but not fluent- but certainly good enough to navigate a particularly prickly social encounter while yielding the best possible result. The valets who work for our parking contractor deal with the public all the time, encountering dicks and d-bags on a regular basis. They are all post-graduate students in the study of human nature... an education that a lot of overprivileged natives never get.

I love these guys.

School of Snappy Comebacks

I'm so glad I enrolled in the school of snappy comebacks years ago, it comes in handy in various situations. During our nighttime events, we typically illuminate our sites with lanterns to provide some atmosphere. During last night's event, a teenager deliberately broke one of our lanterns and he and his cohorts were ejected from the premises. After the event, the Creative Director of the event was mulling over it, and asked me the question:

"Why would anybody punch a lantern?"
"Because it killed his father."

In TV Tropes terms, one of the roles I play is Deadpan Snarker.

Slight Touch of Déjà Vu

Five years ago, Superstorm Sandy hit the area, imiserating millions of persons in the NY metro area. I escaped unscathed, though I did have to camp out on the job for four days without heat or electricity because no gasoline was to be had, so a lot of my co-workers were unable to get to work, and it fell on me to 'shelter in place' on the job, which was preferable to getting stuck on the side of the road with an empty gas tank.

Well, today we're experiencing a tropical storm, with heavy rains and potentially hazardous winds. While this storm is piddly compared to Sandy, it was enough to get us to cancel our fall fundraisers for the evening. I spent a good deal of time outdoors making sure that people who hadn't checked their email for cancellation notices were turned away in a diplomatic fashion. I also made sure the drains and sewer grates weren't blocked by fallen leaves and pine needles, and put some flood barriers and absorbent synthetic 'sandbags' in the basement in case of local flooding.

The power is on, as you can surmise by this post, and the storm isn't nearly as fierce as Sandy, but I can't help but feel a twinge of déjà vu. Five years ago, one of the managers and I were scrambling madly around the site, taking down lanterns and lantern-stakes to prevent wholesale breakage. Tonight, we were making sure the hatches were battened down in the main building, and turning away visitors. It wasn't as frantic as it was then, but the general feeling that we've been through this storm-crap before is unshakeable.

Not the Best Weekend

Whew, I finally returned home from a thirty-two hour endurance tour on the job. I had pulled an afternoon-to-morning all nighter, then returned to my home to recharge my cell phone, the company phone, and my laptop on Saturday morning, knowing that I'd be returning Saturday afternoon. My workplace had been sans electricity since approximately 11PM last Monday. I knew that I would not be having a fun time.

Fortunately, we have a lot of lanterns on the job because we use them for atmospheric illumination during night events. I relied heavily on a small radio/LED combo with a solar panel and a hand crank throughout my "purposeful camping" trip.

When I returned on Saturday afternoon, I knew I wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. One of my co-workers had called to tell me about the ordeal of trying to find gasoline in his Bronx neighborhood. In Yonkers, all of the gas stations near my house were completely sold out of gasoline, and the open gas stations I passed on my way to work had half-mile lines. I had about a quarter of a tank left, so ditching the car in the parking lot at work was my plan. The buses and trains were running, so I knew I'd have options (funny how most suburbanites are completely ignorant of their local public transportation options, even though almost everybody in my neck of the woods heads down to Manhattan on a fairly regular basis) if fueling up were a problem.

Saturday night into Sunday morning was no picnic. It was dark and cold and, worst of all, there was no internet access (HORRORS!!!). I don't creep out easily... at the best of times, my job is not one for someone who's easily rattled. I didn't get creeped out, but I wasn't exactly happy. The worst sensation was the chronic lack of warmth- I had put on several layers of clothing, but I didn't have a place to go for additional heat. It's not a fun sensation after the first few hours. When the skeleton crew came to work the day shift (both guys had lost power at home for most of the week), I stretched out on a settee and zonked out for a few hours. Oddly enough, I really didn't need that much sleep- my need to go outside and feel the sun's warmth and chat with my co-workers outweighed my need for sleep.

As I'd suspected, the guy who was scheduled to relieve me was still unable to purchase gas and, to compound matters, his ninety-two year old mother was in the process of being transferred from a hospital to a rehabilitation-oriented nursing home. My problems were nothing compared to his. Besides, the local gas stations were not operational because of the lack of electricity. I was actually relieved to be able to hunker down for some more time while the infrastructure was being returned to normal.

After dark, I began to see some activity on the road adjacent to my office- the good folks at Consolidated Edison had a couple of bucket trucks on the scene. Those people are absolutely heroic- they've been working outside, in the cold and darkness, around the clock. I had no heat, but I was sheltered from the elements, and I really wasn't busting my ass (I spent much of my shift spending some quality time with Will Shortz, having grabbed a bunch of past issues of The New York Times from the recycling bin). The power finally came on around 10PM. Wow, what a transition! I actually did a little happy dance before running all over the site checking the outbuildings and resetting the various alarm systems. I also sent text messages to management and the bigwigs in "physical plant" to let them know that power had been restored. The only wrinkle was that there was no internet access because the server wasn't online. Can't complain, though, the sheer fact that I was able to see clearly was cause for celebration.

When my relief came in at midnight, I headed immediately to the nearest all-night gas station, which had started the pumps only two hours earlier. There were four or five cars ahead of me, so I didn't have to wait more than five minutes before I could gas up the car (my primary concern at this time). I lucked out, the gas stations near my home are still out of fuel.

As soon as I got home, I decided that I'd put up a post recapping my sucky weekend. As soon as I hit "publish", I'm going to take a long, scalding shower. Thirty-two hours is too long a time to spend catassing in the cold and dark.

As sucky as my weekend has been, I want to stress yet again that I got off easy. My home is intact, and I was relative safe ensconced at work. I'm extremely fortunate, and I'm going to make damn sure that some of my O.T. goes to the relief effort for my people.

Socially Distanced Contact Sport?

 Yesterday, I went to my volunteer coaching gig, with a sort of prop, a sadly deflated old basketball I borrowed from my neighbor Georgie,  who has a knack for destroying balls.  The plan was to use the ball as a proxy target, standing in for the feet that we sweep in several judo throws.  The sad shape in which I found the ball was a boon, I didn't want anything that would roll far.  We formed the kids into a circle and we passed the ball around using our sweeping techniques.  At one point, a six year old girl who hadn't studied with us raised her hand.

"Yes, young lady, what is your question?"

"Is this a real sport?"

In the back of my mind, I thought, "Not this year, kiddo, not this year."  As my actual response, I turned to my great and good friend Frenchie (the man who took my profile picture, who is, of course, Italian) and we decided to break the social distancing mandate for a while in order to show the kids what the sport is all about.  We went through the throws we were mimicking with the ball, the o-soto-garis, the ko-uchi-garis and o-uchi-garis, the de-ashi-barais... this allowed us to seque into ukemi, the techniques we apply to fall without injury.  

We spent quite a bit of time falling and rolling, on a soccer field rather than the mats we usually work out on.  Even as I rolled and slapped the ground, I kept on thinking, "You're going to feel this tomorrow."  Yeah, today involved a couple of aspirin and a nigh-scalding shower before I was functional enough to head to work.

After our classes in this not-quite-sport-no-not-this-year, we met with the two heads of the program and conferred about the rest of the semester, and probably year... with the colder weather coming upon us, and the impossibilities of social distancing indoors, and the unfeasibility of disinfecting equipment between classes, next Saturday is going to be our last session for the duration of our current crisis.  We typically run twenty weeks from October to March, this year we experimented with an eight week September to October session.  We worked hard, and we succeeded, but COVID is a bigger enemy than we are equipped to handle.

One thought that has been in the back of my mind for a year is 'don't be that guy'.  Last year, when an artistic director wanted to bring lanterns into one of our buildings, it was 'don't be that guy who is working when the building catches fire'.  This year it's 'don't be the guy who spreads COVID-19 to twenty or thirty six year-olds'.  We can't socially distance a contact sport, gimmicks and props notwithstanding.   I haven't set foot in a dojo since March 10th, the soccer pitch judo was an expedient, a somewhat soreness-inducing one, but the experiment has run its course.  Next Saturday will be melancholy, but the right choice is to go on hiatus, or in this case you could call it medical leave.

Sandy Aftermath

Sandy, to put it succinctly, kicked my ass, but not to the extent that last year's hurricane Irene did. I got to work before the brunt of the storm hit, around 2PM on Monday, knowing that I would not be leaving the site before 9AM the following morning. I packed as if I were going on a camping trip- plenty of food and several changes of clothes.

When it hit my neck of the woods, Sandy differed significantly from a typical tropical storm in that there was comparatively little rainfall. Out of the several times when I had to be outside checking up on things, I only had to wear my rain poncho once. The wind, however, was pretty brutal. My workplace lost power around 11PM (two of my co-workers were also pulling all-night duty, one lost power early on, the other didn't lose power at all).

The weird thing about losing power in a public building is that there is emergency power that kicks in to provide enough lighting to allow an evacuation of the building. Of course, I was not evacuating... it's a bit eerie sitting in a dim building, watching the lights slowly dying, listening to the beeps of the alarm system growing fainter with time. Luckily, I had access to candles (during our nighttime fundraisers, we put lanterns up on site to provide "atmosphere"), and I made sure to "top off" my electronic devices throughout the evening while I still had power.

Knowing the power would not come on for a while, I had to engage in "resource management"- I had to use the gigantic rechargeable flashlight sparingly and conserve phone battery power (the phone is an emergency light source as well as a communication device in instances like this). I only used my phone frivolously once, to snap a picture of a tired, unshaven, raggedly looking bastard working by candlelight:

It was pitch dark but luckily I had a torch and a match in my inventory.

About every three hours, I did a walkabout to gauge water levels on the site (Irene was primarily a flooding event in my neck of the woods) and checked for storm damage to the buildings on site. A sizable branch had narrowly missed my car, but we survived pretty much unscathed. During one of my rambles I saw what appeared to be an intense, though extremely localized, fireworks display- probably a transformer explosion. The police, fire department, EMTs, and ConEd work crews were out and about- the night was punctuated by wailing sirens and flashing lights. By the time the site director and site manager arrived at 9AM, the storm had subsided, and I had a comprehensive report on the extent of the minor damage done to the site. I sent several text messages to my department head to appraise him of my situation and convey the reports of my two overnighting co-workers.

I returned home on deserted roads and found that my neighborhood had never lost power. A large oak tree came down right where I usually park my car... I joked to my neighbor that I was lucky I worked an all-nighter- it's not the first time my car missed getting totaled by a falling tree by virtue of my work schedule. She joked about inviting all of her powerless friends over for the day- "If you have any frozen steaks you don't want to spoil, bring them over!"

I crawled into bed, bone tired, and zonked out until about 3PM, when I received a call from the guy who was supposed to work Tuesday afternoon- he was stuck at home by flooded roads and downed trees. Damn, damn, damn, I had to go back. Luckily, I had re-charged my cell phone- I arrived to find that the power was still out at work. Knowing that the power would probably be out, I made sure I had a fat, lurid paperpack, purchased for a quarter at a library book sale, and my wind-up radio/LED combo with me. Around 5PM, the Chief Financial Officer of the organization came over to conduct a spot inspection (much to my surprise). I took him on a Cook's destruction tour, pointing out the minor damage that the site had incurred. The rest of the night was uneventful- it involved using my resources sparingly, reading my trashy novel, and listening to radio reports of the massive damage that coastal areas received. I'm still not really caught up on current events, but Sandy pretty much supersedes everything as far as media coverage in these parts.