Day 8: Hope and Despair

Lost power last Monday in the afternoon, so I consider this to be Day 8 without power and heat.

Had a fraction of Hope last night as I was coming back from picking up some Chinese food. I was waiting at a light to cross a major road near where we live when I noticed a whole fleet of power company trucks in the parking lot of the motel across the street. And sure enough, the power kicked on for that motel and then headed north all along the west side of the harbor that we live on.

So I rushed home, embracing the warmth of street lights in our neighborhood for the first time since the storm. As I turned to make my way across the bridge, my heart sank. That's where the power stopped. I live on the east side of the harbor and we are still in a black hole. Turns out it was only the barest minimum corridor of power that ran along the other side of the water. The rest of the town behind that corridor still looks like a war zone. Downed trees and lines everywhere. We actually fared much better with the trees on our side of the water. But still no power.

So I'm back here...with my good friend Despair.

Oh, I know. So many people have it worse than me. I have hot water and occasional access to the Internet (thanks to an extension cord from a neighbor and his generator). But I'm still bumming, man.

This shit needs to end.

The Rest of the Trip

Note - Added a new little something over there on my sidebar. The beginnings of what will most likely be a very long list of my favorite bars, mostly in NYC. Check it out - it's right under my tattoo! - Earl

Rather than go into lengthy detail surrounding the rest of the baseball trip I spoke about a few days ago, let me just give you the highlights. Bullet-style!

• Milwaukee was more fun that we expected. Met a bartender whose brother just got a job as an intern with Miller Brewing. "And dat's a good jahb, ya know. Eh?" Sounds funnier when spoken aloud with a Wisconsin accent by a blonde chick with big cans.
• Ate at the original Morton's of Chicago while in, well, Chicago. They offered smoking and non-smoking tables (remember this was July of 2001) that were right next to each other. Not exactly sure how that worked.
• Saw two games at Wrigley, one in the famous Wrigley bleachers. Met these two off-duty cops, a father and son, who lived around the corner. The Jew saw them smoking and asked if it was OK if he joined them. They talked for a while when the father asked "So [The Jew], are you one a dem Jewish fellers?" I nearly spit out my beer at that one. When he told him that he was, the father replied "Dat's cool. We like da Jews. Der good people. Not like da spics or da blacks...good people." Once again, much funnier when spoken aloud with a Superfans accent.
• Detroit was the hell-hole that it was reputed to be. On our cab ride over to the new stadium, I asked our driver if it was an easy walk over to the old Tiger's Stadium from the new park. He told us it was, but after looking at us up and down he said "Three white boys like you shouldn't try it. Hell, I wouldn't even try it." For the last time, much funnier when spoken aloud by a tough-looking older black man.
• The train schedule got wonky on the way from Detroit to Cleveland. We actually had to stop in Toledo for 2 hours. To kill time, The Jew and I went looking for a bite to eat and found the greasiest greasy spoon Diner on the face of the Earth. It's looks, however, were deceiving. I had maybe the best breakfast of my life in that little joint. So good, that we found Bob to tell him about it and we went back for seconds. No idea what the name of the place was, but it was in the middle of the nicest post-Apocalyptic neighborhood you ever did see.
  
• We were done with baseball by the time we made it to Cleveland. I was also done with The Jew at this point. He got stupid drunk before the game and proceeded to annoy the fuck out of us over a woman he used to be obsessed with. After two innings I stood up, told Bob to get The Jew back to the hotel, and I headed out to a bar across the street. Bob ignored my command and followed me to the bar. Don't really know how The Jew made it back to the hotel, but he remembers something about riding in the back of a police car.
• That night, angry and horny, Bob and I tried hitting on just about every woman in the bar. And there were a lot of women in the joint. The only ones that even gave us a cursory glance were grandmothers or mutants recently released from the mental ward. Deciding that the reason behind this wasn't our sparkling personalities but rather our flabby bodies, we made a pact. Full-time diet and exercise for the rest of the Summer. And no drinking. We made it too...mostly. Almost two full months. We both broke down and got drunk on the same exact day, however. September 11th, 2001.