The house I grew up in is sufficiently inland that storm surge is no threat. But that is going to be a lot of rain and wind. I imagine my grade school and the college where I took piano lessons will flood. It’s crazy how Tampa Bay is, or was earlier, emptied of water, as the storm has sucked so much of it away. People are out stepping in the muck but that’s not smart. Neither is being there in the first place.
So glad to have rid myself fo my father’s old place. It took something like 5 years to find a buyer and in the end I basically made nothing. That’s appropriate, since the property is worthless and I wish only the best for whoever bought that dump.
…
TOday found me rambling around Bellerose and other pockets of that range of Queens I don’t really know. I learned a few days ago that there are actually homes and businesses with addresses on Grand Central Parkway.
I encountered a miniature version of hell on earth for rats. A cluster of rats trapped in sticky traps, trying to get out, with one of them looking like they might actually make it. Will look at the video later but man, that’s gnarly.
I helped save Chico’s sweater. On a Q46 bus from Bellerose to Forest Hills I heard kids yelling at Chico, telling him he left his sweater behind after exiting the bus. The kids yelled for the driver to pen the back door again, so Chico could get his sweater. The driver got the message and opened the back door. I had already spotted tthe sweater on the floor and was ready to hand it to Chico when the door opened. Everyone was a hero in this spontaneous show of samaratinism. The woman next to me laughed, and called it “a real team effort.”
I did not actually have to pick up the sweater or hand it to Chico. He could easily have picked it up himself. But it seemed to fill the moment that I did something.
Bellerose seemed far but I think I could have used the Q36 instead of the 46. Or else waited for a Q46 Limited. It doesn’t matter. It was a beautiful day. The sideways bus seats are kind of jarring. The windows seem enormous.
I think the stretch of Grand Central Parkway I was on also housed a bunch of mental health facilities. This GCP is not the actual Parkway with all the cars but no trucks. It’s what I guess is a service road supplement. There are two paralell stretches of GCP with houses and business on them. They are both named the same. One is not GCP South or GCP North. Just two parallel streets with the same name. I’ll have to unravel that.
I got almost Bermuda Triangle lost in Alley Pond Park. I was on the brink of asking “Does Alley Pond Park ever end?” but I sorta kinda knew where I was, with the big GCP to my right. I emerged at 233rd Street and Horace Harding Expressway, a same intersection where I happened to have been last week.
Phone numbers are interesting. You never used to see numbers like 212-500-0000 but now you do. I would think 212-000-0000 is not far off. I don’t know the technical limitations but I know that simply allowing area codes to have 2nd digits that were not 0 or 1 was a major hurdle for the phone companies to cross. Physical switching, I think. Pieces of mesh?
I drank a lot last night. The job is starting to kill me. I think I’ve gained 10 pounds. Need a colonoscopy. Never had one and I’m past due. Don’t care to live a long life. Not too long, at least. Too long is when you think you matter more than the others just because you are old. I’ve passed through those incarnations. Seniority.
