Friday, August 23, 2013

NOT A FULL WEEK


 It just felt full

ATMOSPHERE

 
Several friends stressed, myself somewhat sleep deprived, world news disasters and their aftershocks, the neighborhood sagging under the weight of garbage in clear,  black,  and blue plastic bag, vehicle-traffics swoosh, beep, thud, clatter and screech, students rolling in waves and gaggles, pouring into the many schools, into the streets buzzing with construction noise, into chain stores and thrift shops, into the bars and clubs, into apartments no longer silent.  Illumination of the electrical sort obscures night, while the lack of it obscures day behind storms of activity
 
ELECTRICITY
I've adjusted somewhat at last.  Liberated this hotplate gem from the topmost kitchen cabinet, memento of past emergencies
Time to make a hot soup, so
stripped three ears of raw corn
 steamed Carrots, Fennel. Onion.Garlic
added a quart of chicken broth and enjoyed a bowl

Even the compost looks pretty enough to eat.
 

CONSTRUCTION
Commences at 7AM-ends at 4PM daily
Cracked place on my floor
 Since the ceiling's been removed
I see right through to the apartment below
 Another cracked place
 In fact, my floors suddenly have a whole lot more creaky places than they had before the work began down there.  This is the third D/R in the past eight years.  I'm wondering how much more of assaultive events the old prewar structure can take before imploding.

 AIR AND LIGHT
 Walked around the church garden
 Sat in the shade,
thinking about butterflies
This bush ready for Monarchs

GAS
Can you see the tiny arching blue spot
at the center of this shot? 
It's the flame at the back of my stove!
Con Edison came, without warning, this morning, accompanied by our unhappy Superintendent, whose life has been made miserable these past weeks, not just by the lack of gas for his wife to cook with, but also due to the extra labors he's been forced to perform for all the apartment dwellers.

Thus ends the outage
July 23rd through August 22nd
not with a whimper, but a flame.

WEATHER
Cool reverted to hot and humid, plus the charge of energy swirling around me has me dreaming of more vegetative landscapes, wider skies and the company of critters with straight forward agendas, little baggage, and not constrained by fear of extinction. 
Like deat Melanie, who lives at a local store

YOGA
Had a restorative hour with others at
'Gentle Marvins' 


FRIDAY
Lucked out with this 'gladiola' discard
free from Trader Joe yesterday
Lotus like color
softens the view
Onward to the weekend, where an essay on friendship, two dinner invites, and a friend's birthday for which I'm making an organic vegetable soup await my pleasure, and, if external weather and internal energy allows, I'll cut back the ragged edges of the garden, throw a bit of plant food around the flowering perennials, and gather in some Echinacea.

Thanks for keeping me company friends.


"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." --Ralph Waldo Emerson--

FRIENDSHIP
by Cole Porter according to Lucy and Ethel
 
 

8 comments:

deanna7trees said...

sooooo glad to hear that you once again have gas. figures it would be turned on just as you liberated the hot plate.

grace Forrest~Maestas said...

i am glad. glad for the flame. it
lends some comfort to the feeling
that comes with the cracks in the
floors. that would make me uneasy.

i hope you are at least thinking
about a Plan B.

LOVE....

Ms. said...

Grace, the ceiling below will be covered soon, and eventually the creaks will level, and I'm going up to Massachusetts from the 30th right through September 12th...I've been right here since 1969, and what carried me through will continue to carry me until a natural portal opens. Meanwhile, though you can't always tell, I have many moments of joy and satisfaction even when it seems the world ain't on my side.

Ms. said...

yeah...Deanna...wouldn't you just! That's when it gets brushed with humor.

Nancy said...

So relieved to hear you are gas-abled again!! Yay! I love reading about your world, may even like to visit the city...but I could not live there. You've got some grit gal!
Fun video man me chuckle.
Since 1969, same place? Wow!

jude said...

city life.

glad to hear the fire is still burning....

Deb G said...

I like how you gather your weeks...

Mo Crow said...

what a good post Michelle, you bring back the memory of beginning the school year after the long summer vacation but why do the kids go back so soon? school didn't start til September the last time I lived in the US... in the 60's... nearly 50 years ago! & that is so cool living in Manhattan since then you have seen so many changes!