SHAME ON THE LONG ISLAND POWER AUTHORITY (yes, I'm shouting!)

Here follows a rather Shakespearean (in my opinion) letter my Dad wrote to LIPA. Note the wonderful sarcasm in the last line:

The power to 5 houses on Regent Drive in Lido Beach went out at approximately 3:30 PM on Saturday, 9/2/06. It is now 12:24 AM on Monday, 9/4/06, and the power has not yet been restored. LIPA crews have been out here three times, the first to look at the burning tree (the one that knocked the power out in the first place), the second time -I'm not sure what they did the second time they came out, but they sure as hell didn't restore power (then the tree crew came out to chop up the offending tree), then a third crew came out, actually there were two crews to replace a fuse in a transformer, and still, no power. If it sounds as though I'm angry, you are quite right. I just came in from driving around the area looking for a repair crew: none to be found in Long Beach, Lido Beach or Point Lookout, although your outage report shows a total of 89 current outages in this area. WHY AREN'T THEY WORKING AROUND THE CLOCK HERE TO RESTORE OUR POWER?????????

This was a minor storm by comparison to what could have been; is this what we can expect from our power utility in a major storm, weeks of no power (by extrapolation). I never thought LIPA would be able to make FPL look like super heroes; but you did it this time. So much for our northern expertise and sophistication!

Just being able to talk to a human would have helped us though what started as a minor inconvenience and evolved into a very major annoyance, making the calmest of us come to the brink of utter rage. Richard Kessel and company should hang their heads in shame for the complete bungling of this situation, which could probably have been minimized by proper monitoring of local trees, and the proper crowning and pruning instead of the butcher job I've seen your crews do.

It has now been 35 hours since I've been able to put up a pot of coffee or read my newspaper in the evening, or watch a movie on TV. I am able to write this only through the generosity of my next door neighbor, who just happened to be lucky enough to be on the other side of the utility pole.

SO KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, LIPA, AND DON'T BE TOO SURPRISED WHEN THE PUBLIC DEMANDS HEARINGS INTO YOUR TOTAL INEPTNESS IN HANDLING A STORM SO MINOR THAT IT DOESN'T EVEN RATE A CATEGORY!

Blackout!

Gotta love LIPA...apparently because there are only 3 or 4 houses on my block that are suffering a power outage, they don't seem to think it's a priority. THINK AGAIN MFs! It's going on 30 hours here with no power or hot water. Our next-door neighbors, who miraculously escaped the blackout, let us plug a super-long extension cord in one of their outlets so we can have a little piece of the electrical pie. As a result, our refrigerator and computer are running...you know, the essentials.

They're working on it right now, supposedly, and it will take "5-30 minutes." Yeah right. They were supposed to be working on it yesterday too, but first they had to clear the damn trees that caught on fire when the electrical wires snapped. Oh man, never a dull moment on Regent Drive.

Since I'll be working on Long Island, I'm going to make it a point to go into the city at least once a week or else I might shoot myself. So what are everyone's plans for this coming weekend? Doing anything for Labor Day? It's going to be major suck-o with the weather so I might do a reverse and do a city thing for a change. Unless the weather suddenly changes and it's a beach day, then you're all welcome to come down to LB.

This crap weather really needs to stop. Of course it would figure that the last few days of Summer would suck weather-wise.

Flipped out!

I saw a car flip over on Old Country Road today. I'm not talking about a teeny tiny sports car either, I'm talking a full-on truck! I didn't actually see how it happened. All I know is that I heard a very loud metallic sound and I looked over and there it was, mid-flip, then teetering back and forth. Very unsettling.

Garage Sale

The garage sale was a huge success, even with the initial crappy weather. To accommodate, we had to open the first floor of the house to let people come through and look at stuff. As a result, we got a lot of people commenting on how nice the house is and what a great artist my mother is, etc. I didn't really get too sad when that happened, though, which makes me feel like I'm getting over the whole moving thing finally. I'm actually sort of looking forward to the change in a way. We found a place to live in the interim in the dunes section of Lido Beach, so that's a huge weight off right there. It will be sort of cool to live in the house I lived in as a baby, even though I don't remember a damn thing about it. It was weird, but my dad took me through the house recently and nothing jogged my memory at all. It will be like a whole new house anyway since we are getting it remodeled.

I would like to remark on a subject I like to call "Garage Sale People." These people go around to garage sales every weekend, meet the same people so they're all friends in a demented sort of way, and try to bargain the shirt off your back. I can't really say I dislike these people but they are certainly an interesting breed. One woman came with her measuring tape to take measurements of the clothes we had on sale. Another woman was chatting my mother's ear off, distracting her from the other customers so she couldn't see what was going on. That's not to mention the people who saw the ads and came a day, two days, THREE days early to try and get a head start on the merchandise. I'm sorry, but this is not normal people. Anyway, the sale was sort of fun and became a neighborhood bonding event. We had some neighbors come and help us keep an eye on people while they were in the house and help control the flow. It was nice.

I feel like a new person

I finished organizing all my stuff for the garage sale and man does it feel good! I pretty much threw away anything extraneous and trust me when I say that most things are. I even tossed about 2/3 of my wardrobe, which may end up being a mistake but I don't care! I was just so sick of it, clothes that I'd kept for ages and didn't need, clothes stuffed into drawers that have a musty smell and are wrinkled like crazy. While pricing things for the sale, my mom made a very good point that seeing all the stuff you own that you don't want or need laid out in front of you sort of makes you think twice about being a consumer. Obviously there are some things you need, but just think of all the stuff you own that aren't necessities. I'm not trying to say everyone should become an ascetic monk, but it really does feel good to do some kind of cleansing of the extraneous every once in a while. Plus, you might even make some cash back!