Tuesday's Ups and Downs

This is my somewhat disjointed account of yesterday and why I have no blog post.

Tuesday proved to be a very  unusual day.

I normally post overnight, but word of Dottie Gutenkauf's passing led me to write a short memorial in the morning. (Be sure to read Sergio Bichao's piece about Dottie in the Courier News today.)

A large donation landed in my PayPal account.

Looking around the basement, I noticed a lot of debris left by the workers that have been doing repairs since mid-September, but decided it was not my problem -yet.

Back upstairs. The letter-carrier rang the bell, which made me jump and made the cat run under the bed, indicative of our mutual state of nerves over all the recent disruption. Some letter carrier lost a lot of keys, she said, so she will be ringing the bell to get in to our building. (The workers have been doing the same for a few weeks now.) I asked how this problem could be solved and she said the property manager had to provide a key. The property manager said the letter carrier had to initiate the process. The USPS telephone robot lady was no help.

I got a call about a gas leak and evacuation downtown but could not do any reporting. Later someone sent photos, but I still could not do any reporting, as my press credentials expired when I retired in 2003. Maybe there was a way, but brain fog took over and I couldn't figure it out. My caller said babies in cribs had to be wheeled out of a day care center into the chilly wind and she got nearby merchants to let the cribs in their stores.

I heard a commotion downstairs and found out a worker had to go into a first floor apartment through the window. The tenant had apparently moved out without notice.

My usual walking route to the PMUA was detoured by the ongoing gas leak response. Had to take a slightly scary alternative in the dark.

I got home after the meeting to find the power out on our block. The elastic on my headband light from Hurricane Sandy was worn out and the lamp flopped over uselessly. No sooner had I pinned it up than the power came back.

Feeling I needed a break, I sat down to listen to the radio and crochet for a while. Later I saw that I had dropped some stitches and made a foot-length of a scarf all wrong. Ripped it out. When I went to blog around midnight, the FiOS was out - no internet or phone.

In bed, I fixed the scarf but couldn't sleep. Got up to try the computer and it worked. Drank coffee at 2:30 a.m. but still couldn't concentrate enough to do my leftover council story or a PMUA story.

Now it's 3 a.m. Giving up on blogging and hoping for a less unusual day when I get up in the morning.