Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Alan, are you supposed to be blogging about what happened at a bachelor party?

Well, technically no. But I feel justified in doing so for two reasons. First, I won’t say anything incriminating. Secondly, I feel that the bachelor’s frequent calls home and Facebook updates from the party meant that some transparency was allowed. And as an aside, the bachelor in question forbade me to call home during *my* bachelor party, or even refer to my bride-to-be by name. So yeah, I can write a shot blog post with some highlights.

• You’re getting old when you look around the bachelor party and see that most left index fingers are wearing a wedding band.
• There’s a vodka that tastes like whipped cream.  It sounds gross, but it’s actually pretty good.
• A good friend of mine whose name rhymes with “Shmony Gru” is one of the loudest snorers on earth.
• When playing poker against a “professional amateur,” bet conservatively.
• Blackjack is way more fun when the entire table is all friends; in other words, when there are no random strangers to make awkward small talk with.
• Despite what some people may claim, you do not ALWAYS double-down on 11.
• A good friend of mine whose name rhymes with “Meve Dopleff” is never allowed to make me a gin and tonic again.
• S’mores pancakes are as delicious as they sound.  Actually, all of the food we ate at Harrah’s was quite good.
• Last-minute roulette bets that help you win back all of the money you previously lost are VERY much appreciated.
• A good friend of mine whose name rhymes with “Ken Grfulavitch” still doesn’t know thewords to the last verse of Ice, Ice Baby.

I think that’s about all I can say without putting myself in jeopardy with any of the attendees, other than to say good times were had by all, and that, with the above exceptions, what happened in Atlantic City will remain in Atlantic City.

Happy New Year, loyal readers!  I haven’t written anything all year (ba dum bum), so I’ve got a handful of random thoughts to share with y’all from the past week plus.  Here goes:

So Eli is really into Thomas the Tank Engine, and I don’t get it.  The train cars themselves are sentient and conscious, but they still have drivers?  Who controls who?  What’s the point of having living train cars if they still need drivers?  Sir Topham Hatt needs to run a tighter operation over there on the Isle of Sodor.

Also, it occurs to me that one day Eli will hear a George Carlin routine and not understand why the narrator from his Thomas movies is using such dirty language.

And speaking of things that are pretty bizarre, we had on Back to the Future the other night, and I remembered something that always bugged me about the movie; even after George knocks out Biff, there’s ANOTHER bully that grabs Lorraine on the dance floor, that redhead kid with the creepy laugh (pictured above). Just mere moments after Biff was pawing Lorraine crazy in the parking lot, this other guy is forcing her to “dance” with him. I mean, Christ, how many rapists were in the Hill Valley High Class of ‘55?

We took a road trip to Sesame Place, and in spite of the cold, Eli had an amazing time. Between the rides, the slides, the characters, the bouncy play areas, and the shows, there was basically everything an Elmo-aficionado such as himself could have wanted. There was just one thing that struck me as odd – in the live Elmo’s World, the holiday of Hanukkah was explained by… Santa. I mean, he did a good job of setting the story, but it just seemed like a strange choice to have the patron saint of Christmas tell the tale of the Maccabees.

I finally got in a little bit of time with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I love it, though I know it’s going to be a very long time before I actually beat the damn thing.

We finally saw Cars 2, and I have to agree with the general consensus that it just wasn’t up to par with the normal Pixar level of excellence. It wasn’t bad or anything, I laughed multiple times, and it is pretty cool that they went in a completely different direction for the sequel. But Mater is a pretty one-note character (he’s dumb – get it?!), and the big mystery of who was behind the evil plot was pretty obvious to anyone who ever saw a single Bond movie. But my biggest complaint was that there was no real “heart,” which is what the Pixar movies are known for. Oh well – it was still entertaining, and I’m sure Eli will love it eventually.

We spent New Year’s Eve with some really adorable kids that talked like adults. I love that. Here are some things that the various kids (ages 5-9, give or take) said to me throughout the evening:
“I don’t know why, but anything that goes fast, like cars, trains, trucks, planes, rockets, I just love ‘em!”
“So, tell me about yourself. Do you have any cousins?”
“Have you ever seen the movie Star Wars?”
“How old is your mom?” (I answer) “Is she well?”

The more I listen to The Muppets soundtrack, the more I love it.

I am blown away by how quickly Eli has picked up on how to use our iPod touch (and Mommy’s new iPad) – he can turn it on, unlock it, pick the game he wants to play, and do it, only occasionally needing help from one if us. It’s a fairly intuitive interface, but still, watching him swipe pictures to get to the next one is pretty fun to watch. But that’s nothing, because he actually CHANGED THE BACKGROUND PICTURE of himself on the iPod. Yeah, really. We had an old picture on there, and Courtney said a while back she was going to update it. I turned it on, and noticed that there was a newer shot on there, and I complimented her on her choice. But she told me she didn’t do it, and she thought I did. Apparently, Eli took matters into his own hands, and picked one of his own personal favorites. Which, incidentally, is a solo shot of him, replacing a picture of him with Sherlock. Hey, he knows he’s a star, and he doesn’t feel like sharing the spotlight!

Hope everyone has a great 2012!

Christmas is tough.

Being Jewish, and having grown up in a household where Christmas passed each year with varying degrees of indifference and hostility, I never really had to do anything to mark the occasion. But thanks to Courtney’s influence, I’ve become more into the holiday over the years; more so now that Eli is able to get something out of the fun. Hell, I can even stand the music in (very) small doses. Sometimes.

Still, decorating the house for the holiday is more or less a suicide mission.

It began innocently enough, with a simple light-up snowman. Frosty was sold more or less assembled, save a few zipties that had to be strategically placed to ensure no strong winds would tear it asunder. The process was more challenging than I anticipated, but I was able to get our front-yard decoration up and running fairly easily and with all of my fingers still attached. Then, I decided to hang a few “icicle style” lights from the front of the house.

As an aside, Courtney was not terribly insistent about these decorations, and truth be told, I was rather adamant about needing to put up *something.* We agreed that Eli would get a kick out of the snowman, and I felt strongly that we just had to do something else in addition. Driving around town, I mutter to myself every time we pass a house with a ridiculously intricate set-up, with the lights all over the house, on every bush, with Santa and his reindeer soaring through the trees, with inflatable Mickey’s and Winnie the Pooh’s and Spongebob’s covering every square inch of their property. I mean, being next to these houses, if you don’t put at least some effort into your decorations, *you* end up looking like a jerk. It’s crazy, right?

As Courtney pointed out, I have been swept up in the insanity of suburban life.

It was hard to argue with her as I found myself struggling to maintain my balance on our 8-foot ladder outside our house, trying to get a handful of lights over our bay window.

When we bought the lights, we also bought a “kit” that helps you put up the lights – it’s am extendable rod with hooks that allow for easy installation of lights – no ladder required!

Suffice it to say, it didn’t help much.

Trying to jam the hooks for the lights under our shingles was no small feat, and it did require a balancing act on a very tall ladder, resting on uneven dirt.

Also, why is it that these icicle lights, that are supposed to hang down vertically (hence the name), much prefer to stay in little bunches? Straightening these things out while on a tall ladder is not my idea of a good time.

Despite my struggles, I was eventually able to get the lights up, but it occurred to me that I struggled mightily with just one pathetically small amount of decoration, while all of our neighbors seem to have no trouble doing much more every year. Maybe I’ll get better with practice… if I don’t kill myself or tear down the house in the process.

Which brings me to the next part of my story. Saturday night we went out to pick out a beautiful Christmas tree under which Santa can put all of Eli’s many toys. We found a place that was open late, offered free hot cider, and are happy to attach the tree to the top of your car for free. How nice!

Until of course, I attempted to drive into the carport with the tree still on top of the car.

Yeah, I did that.

It sounded something awful, and I immediately imagined the entire carport collapsing, crushing us, our cars, and the Balsam Fir that we never even got to decorate.

Luckily, we didn’t seem to do any major structural damage to the carport, and as a bonus, getting the tree off of the car was much easier now that the carport roof had done most of the work for me. Plus, there were just a lot of branches on there that made the tree look far too healthy and full for my tastes. Now, we have a much more “Peanuts”-esque tree at home. Like this:

Hey, less tree means less pine needles to sweep up later! Right?! Ugh.

Alright, Christmas, you’ve bested the Jew this year, but I’ll be ready for you again next December!

Maybe.

Thank G-d, there were apparently no injuries in the fire.

What freaked me out, other than the obvious, was that at first, I didn’t even notice the bus.  There looked to be a large crowd ahead of me on the west side of Seventh Avenue, so I crossed over to the east side.  People were all looking and pointing at something, but I just assumed it was tourists gawking at a minor celebrity or TV filming or something like that.  Come on, can’t you see I’m walking here?

Then I saw the bus.  It had stopped smoking, but it had been totally burnt out.  Then I started to really worry.  What happened?  Were there kids on there?  Are they OK?  Jeez, it’s almost Thanksgiving – what’s going to happen to those families?

Thankfully, the initial reports said that the bus was empty, and that no one was hurt.  Now I can only imagine the parents of the kids that got off that bus before it burned up, hugging their kids tighter than ever before.  It’s scary and awful, but things like that are a good reminder for us all to be grateful for the good fortunes in life.

It’s my mom’s 60th birthday!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

To mark the occasion, Chuck, Sam, Courtney and myself threw a surprise party for the (now officially) old lady (just kidding!) this past Saturday. Keeping the affair a secret was a big enough challenge, but things were made even more tricky with two very special out-of-town guests, Aunt Georgia and Cousin Ellen, who were secretly staying with us before the big bash.

That wouldn’t have been an issue, except that my mother will usually come by one night after work to hang out with Eli. Which is all well and good, except last week she asked if she could come by on Thursday, instead of her usual Wednesday. Only problem: Aunt Georgia and Ellen were going to be at our house on Thursday night.

Whoops.

My mom asked about coming over on Thursday over the phone, and I knew I had to make up a lie quick. Fun fact about me: I’m a terrible liar. I was floundering, trying to come up with a lame excuse. Courtney began pantomiming brushing her teeth. I had no idea what she was doing at first, but then I got it in a flash.

“You can’t come over on Thursday, Mom. That’s when we’re bringing Eli to the dentist.”

OK, maybe it wasn’t the greatest lie in the history of the world, but it worked…

At least at first.

See, on Friday, I had to call my mother again, this time to tell her that we’d be taking her out for lunch the next day. (We let her think it was going to be a simple lunch with just the immediate family – that way we could get her to the party location at the perfect time without arousing suspicion, while also maintaining the surprise that what was actually waiting for her was a big bash with the whole family and a bunch of friends.) Anyway, the call had gone perfectly, and everything was all set for the next day…

Until, just before saying our goodbyes, my sneaky mom (reference!) asked an out of the blue question:

“Oh, by the way, I wanted to ask how Eli did at the dentist. How many teeth does he have?”

How many teeth does he have? Who asks that? And how the hell should I know???

I’m floundering again. I have no clue how many teeth Eli’s got. What’s a good guess? Six? Ten? Eighty-Three? I look at Courtney, but this time, she is NOT being helpful. Instead of holding up a particular number of fingers, or a piece of paper with a good answer on it, she’s just covering up her mouth, doing all she can to not burst into hysterical laughter. Thanks, Babe!

I wasn’t thinking – I just blurted out a number. “Twelve!”

Being a terrible liar, my mom quickly sensed something was up. “Why are you so surprised that I asked that?”

“Uh, no reason,” I replied. “He really did well at the dentist…” Then I went into an overly long and detailed story about how they had cartoons on in the waiting room, and then they put on an Elmo DVD during the exam, which put Eli at ease. I figured I had totally blown it.

But my mom, ever trusting in her children’s nonsensical ramblings, was convinced.

See, that’s the great thing about my mom – she’s always going to ask a thoughtful and caring question about her family… and you can count on her to not get overly suspicious when the answer is dubious at best.

(As an aside, no, I never took advantage of my mother’s faith in her kids as a teenager. A certain sibling who’s name rhymes with Bamantha is another story, but that’s neither here nor there…)

Anyway, the party went off without a hitch, and Carole Abramson was able to ring in her seventh decade (!) on Earth in style! There was good wine, tasty food, a pair of good-natured roasts, and, because I was involved, a cheesy photo slideshow. Behold:

Have a great birthday, Mom!

This was Eli’s second trip with us (not counting the time he was in utero – he didn’t really get to take in many of the sights that year), and he definitely got a lot more out of the trip compared to last year.  Last October, he couldn’t walk or really talk, and while he was certainly aware of the world around him, he had a tougher time interacting with it.  This year, he was able to run all around on his own (for better and worse), and really let us know when he was enjoying something.  We always make a day out of going to the Iron Kettle Farm, a local farm that is totally decked out for Halloween – complete with corn maze, hay ride, haunted house (and a companion not-at-all-scary version), pumpkin patch, farm animals, and the like.  Last year we carted Eli around the place, and I think he enjoyed it.  But *this* year, he was giggling like crazy on the hay ride, he booked it to a fake kiddie bus he wanted to play in, and he even tried to pick out a pumpkin that he liked.  (It was a bit too heavy for him, but the effort was still commendable.)

It occurred to Courtney and I that each year, this trip will be more and more fun for the little guy, and that he’ll really get even more out of the things that we are dragging him to now.  Of course, that is, until he gets too old to want to do any of this stupid annoying stuff with his lame parents, and why can’t he just stay at home anyway?  But I figure we have a while before we’ll have to cross that bridge, so we might as well enjoy it while we can.

Other highlights from the long weekend:

• We didn’t stay at a bed and breakfast this time – we opted instead to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn downtown.  This was the first time we stayed at this hotel, although many of our wedding guests stayed there four years ago.  It was a pretty nice place, and it was super convenient being on the Commons.
• Courtney drove up on Saturday – Yom Kippur – and although I was hungry, I never turned into the super cranky oh-so-pleasant to be around fella who usually shows up during my yearly fast.  (Seriously, I turn into a major grouch if it’s been too long between my late breakfast and my early lunch.)  I don’t know what it is exactly, but there’s something in the air up there that just calms me.
• Incidentally, we broke the fast at The Nines, with corn nuggets and deep dish pizza.  Perfect.
• Speaking of food, we unfortunately weren’t that impressed with the new places we tried.  Maxie’s Supper Club was a fun atmosphere, and the drinks were really good, but their food was pretty meh.  The Mexican cuisine at Viva Taqueria also failed to impress.  And while we did enjoy the tapas at Just A Taste, the service there was really pretty bad.  At first we thought it was because they weren’t thrilled that we were coming in there with a baby, but they didn’t seem to be particularly attentive to the other people around us either.  Eli was well-behaved at our meals out for the most part, but we may end up being relegated to the local Chili’s, Applebee’s, and one of the various Friendly’s around town next year just to be safe.  (Does The Heights even have highchairs?)
• You know where you always get good food?  Collegetown Bagels/Ithaca Bakery.  This trip we actually managed to hit up four out of their locations.

Good times were had, though it is of course nice to be back at home, reunited with our favorite beagle.  (Special thanks to Grandma and Gramps and Aunt Sami for dog-sitting!)  But pulling out of the Wegmans parking lot yesterday, we were already starting to think about next year’s trip.

Today is the 32nd anniversary of my birth.  It is also the fourth anniversary of my wedding.  But this post isn’t about those things – it’s about what happened five years ago today, on October 6, 2006.

But to tell that (very long) story, I need to properly set the scene.  I proposed to Courtney in June of 2006, and we had been going over options for our wedding ever since.  We ultimately decided to get married at Cornell, since it is where we met, fell in love, and got engaged – and since it served as a “neutral ground” that wasn’t particularly close to the majority of either of our families.  (Instead of upsetting half of the guests by making them travel, we’d upset ALL of our guests by forcing them to travel.  Brilliant!)

Then we decided to get married in the fall, since that is when Ithaca is its most beautiful.  (It is, of course, ‘gorges’ year-round.)  Then we thought that Fall Break would be the perfect weekend, since it is a short break and the campus wouldn’t be chock full of students.  That Saturday happened to be my birthday. But it was the perfect day for what we wanted, so that was the date we decided on.

We also chose to have the ceremony in Sage Chapel and our reception in Willard Straight Hall.  Those are beautiful choices, but they come with some rather bizarre rules for reserving them.  First come, first serve is apparently far too simple a policy for weddings at Cornell University.  At Sage Chapel, they begin taking reservations on the first business day of the month, one year in advance, at 8am, according to the Cornell Clocktower.

No, I’m serious.

When the woman explained this to me on the phone, I simply asked if we could just start calling at 7:30am to guarantee we would be the first call of the day.  She told me they clear the lines first so that trick wouldn’t work.

Apparently I wasn’t the first person to have that idea.

Well, we had our clocks synced up to the clocktower, and called precisely at 8am on the morning of Monday, October 2, 2006.  Somehow, another couple got through first – I seriously have no idea how – and we had to take our second choice of time slot for the chapel.  It ended up working out fine, but you should be starting to get a sense of not only how crazy Cornell’s policies are, but also how crazy the people are who want to get married on campus – us included.

Now, here is where things start to get really insane.  To book the Memorial Room in Willard Straight Hall, you have to hand in a check – IN PERSON – one year to the day in advance of your event, first thing in the morning.  Yup.  Not surprisingly, I once again had some questions about this policy.  How exactly would it work if two people showed up at the same time?  Would there be a foot race once the building opened, up to the administrative office, with the winner being the one who put their hand on the door first, grade school style?  I was told simply to do what was necessary to make sure we were there first if we wanted the room.

Now Courtney was pretty upset about us not getting our first choice of time at the chapel, so we were determined not to lose our first choice of reception venues.  So we decided that in order to ensure we would be the first people there with a check on the morning of Friday, October 6, 2006, we would leave work early the day before, and camp out in the building that Thursday night.  Sleeping on the floor for a night would be a small price to pay.

On Wednesday, October 4th, something possessed me to call the woman at Willard Straight Hall that I had been talking to.  I don’t know that I had a specific objective in mind for calling; it was more to just check in.  I asked her about October 6 of the following year, and her response filled me with dread.  “I don’t know what it is about that day,” she said, “but a lot of people keep calling and asking about it.  If I were you, I would plan accordingly.”

I quickly hung up and called Courtney.  I told her there was a change of plans.  We were leaving for Cornell.  Now.  Right now.  I quickly told my boss I needed to leave, Courtney did the same, we got to our apartment in Queens as fast as we could, and started driving upstate.

(As an aside, we were both lucky to have very understanding bosses, who were happy to let us do what we needed to do.  Courtney’s boss was a fellow Cornellian, and my boss was planning her own wedding, so fortunately there was enough empathy to go around.)

Panic set in.  What did she mean by “a lot of people?”  Did she also tell all of them to “plan accordingly?”  What would happen if we got there and someone else was already waiting there???

We drove straight to campus; no stopping for food, no pee breaks.  There were no guarantees, so we didn’t want to take any chances.

As we got to campus around 10 pm, we became worried that the building would be locked for the night, and we wouldn’t be able to get in.  Technically the building was in fact shut down, but I caught the door as one of the cleaning guys was walking in.  The specific office we needed to be in front of was in a hallway that had its own lock, so I resigned to waiting in the main hallway, while Courtney elected to sleep in the car.  Neither of us were at all comfortable – she was freezing, and I was surrounded by the echoes of whistling custodians, rolling garbage cans, and humming floor waxers.  In the middle of the night, one of the workers yelled at me, saying that I shouldn’t be sleeping there; it wasn’t a hotel, after all.  I groggily told him I was only there because I had to be.

As the administrators came to work on the morning of Thursday, October 5th, they found a bleary-eyed weirdo lying on the floor.  After a single look at me, it was clear why I was there.  Still, I was told that I had showed up a day early.

I explained that we wanted to make sure we wouldn’t lose the Memorial Room, so we opted to camp out for two nights instead of one.

And you know what?  They all looked at us like *we* were crazy.

Because after all, having to give a deposit, in person, one year to the day in advance of an event is completely normal.  Having a policy that virtually guarantees people will sleep on a floor for a night to reserve a room?  Nothing weird there.  But people camping out for TWO nights?  Now THAT’S just crazy.

Apparently no one ever had *that* idea before.

Whatever.  We were told that we would in fact have to stay the next night, as that is what the rules were, and rules were rules, no matter how nonsensical.  But at least the pressure was off – everyone in and around that hallway knew that we were there first, and the room would be ours the next morning.

The rest of the 5th was a bit of a bore.  Courtney and I could take turns venturing onto campus (one person had to stay put to hold the spot at all times, obviously), and we were allowed to use a large open room nearby to relax on comfy couches and take advantage of the free wi-fi.  And when everyone left for the evening, we were even granted special permission to stay inside the main hallway that the office was in, which was quieter, had carpeting, and a small couch that Courtney could sleep on.

While we were hanging out that evening in our glamorous hallway (that’s me there in the picture at the top of this post), we were greeted by another couple.  It turns out that they wanted to reserve the Memorial Room for the same day in 2007.  Not for themselves, mind you, but for their daughter’s wedding.  She really had her heart set on the room, but she lived in New York City, and her folks lived in Binghamton, so she sent them to wait it out on her behalf.

Needless to say, I was not full of sympathy for her.  (Her fiancee didn’t even go to Cornell!  I mean, the nerve!)

The mom and dad were disappointed, but good sports about having come in second – mostly.  The father joked that he had a government job, and could probably kill us and no one would know.  I knew he was kidding – and I had some murderous hypothetical thoughts when considering the possibility that we would find another couple that had beat us to the punch.  It was still a bit disconcerting, but in a weird way, I was glad that these people came that night.  Why?  Because if we had stuck to our original plan of leaving work early that day and only camping out for one night, this other half-Cornell couple would have gotten *our* room.

In other words, the fact that these people showed up proved that our preposterous two-night gambit had been necessary.

After they left, Courtney and I passed the time by watching some Lost DVD’s, and at midnight, she gave me a black and white cookie with a candle in it.

It was now October 6.  Courtney was worried that my birthday had been ruined.  Not only would every future birthday have to be shared, but now I was losing this one, too.

And while I wouldn’t have ever guessed that this would be how I would be spending my birthday – hanging out on the floor of an administrative hallway on a campus I’d graduated from six years ago – my birthday that year was far from ruined.  In fact, it was pretty awesome.  I got to have a truly unique experience with my bride-to-be, and I was able to help make our dream wedding take a big step closer to becoming a reality.  What more could a guy ask for on his birthday?

(The black and white cookie and the fact that the Mets won their NLDS game against the Dodgers the night before certainly didn’t hurt either.)

Later that morning, we officially put down our deposit on the Memorial Room – after yet another parent showed up trying to get the room for his daughter’s wedding.  With our room locked in, we were able to finally leave Willard Straight Hall, and take some desperately needed showers over at AEPi; then we spent the rest of that weekend in Ithaca doing more wedding planning.

It was definitely an odd experience, but it makes for a great memory.  And it started what has begun a yearly tradition of going up to Ithaca every Columbus Day weekend to celebrate our anniversary.  And go to Wegman’s, get some Collegetown Bagels, and bring Eli to the Iron Kettle farm, among other things. They’re short trips, but we look forward to them every year.

And every year since 2006, we stay in much nicer accommodations than the hallway in Willard Straight Hall.

Totally unrelated, but I also wanted to share this (non-embeddable) video – starring Eli’s two favorite characters!

And finally, if you want to start 5772 off on a positive note, do yourself a favor and buy this book. (And, while you’re at it, Like the Facebook page.) It’s called My Sweet Saga, and it was written by a friend of mine, Brett Sills. (He also blogs – check out his page while you’re in a link-clicking mood.) I haven’t read this book yet, but I have had the pleasure of reading some of Brett’s other writing, and it has always been amazing. I just purchased my copy, and I can’t wait to read it!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I had started as an NBC Page in late August of 2001, so on September 11, I was still one of the new kids. That Tuesday morning, I was working with the audience for The Rosie O’ Donnell show, which taped at 30 Rock. That meant that I was in the city early, keeping the line of people hoping to get standby tickets orderly. Just the week before, one person wanted in so badly that he attempted to bribe me with tickets to the Jackson 5 reunion concert that took place at Madison Square Garden on September 8.  (I declined the tickets.)  We had brought the audience up to the ninth floor, but for some reason there was a hold up on bringing them into the actual studio.  Then another Page, Jonathan, reported back that he heard Rosie was upset, and she wanted to cancel the show because a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  The first thing that went through my head was the scene at the end of Airplane! when the plane, during it’s hectic descent, knocks off the antenna of a disco station.  I just assumed it was some kind of small accident – only a few weeks before, a paraglider had crashed into the Statue of Liberty, and that story was handled by the news by and large as a joke.  But Jonathan and I wanted to know what was going on, so we went off to the “mini-control room,” the final stop on the NBC Studio Tour.  Normally the studio was sued as a way to show the people on the tour what a working news/weather studio looks like, but Jonathan knew how to turn the TV’s in there to live news.  It was in that room that we saw the fire smoldering out of the North Tower.  This was clearly something very different from that paraglider incident.  We sat there for a few moments in utter horror.  Suddenly Rosie’s decision to cancel her show didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

The audience was loaded out, and Jonathan and I, along with the rest of the Pages, were all summoned back to our office space on the 7th floor.  It was on the TV’s in there that we saw that the South Tower had been hit as well.  People began to panic.  I remember one guy whose father worked in a World Trade Center building in Texas, and he was growing increasingly worried about him.  The news then reported that an explosion had rocked the Pentagon in Washington DC.  We were told to evacuate, and that we would all go together somewhere safe.

We were in the locker rooms, changing out of our uniforms, when somebody said that one of the towers had fallen.  We rushed to get out of the building as fast as we could.

I was eager to get home, but there was talk that there was no way to get out of the city.  Someone – I don’t recall who exactly, though I assume it was a woman named Carrie who supervised the Pages, decided we should all walk uptown.  Sara, a fellow Page, was gracious enough to offer he apartment on the Upper East Side.

While we were crossing Fifth Avenue, we saw the North Tower collapse.  Granted, we were in midtown, but the sight was still unbelievably haunting.

As we walked, there was more talk about what else had happened.  That another plane had hit Battery Park.  That every ridge and tunnel out of Manhattan had been bombed.  That planes were basically raining out of the sky around the country.  Of course none of those things turned out to be true, but after everything we saw that morning, it all seemed plausible.  Was I really stranded in the city?  Was this it?  The End?

Keep in mind that this is before the era of smart phones.  This was even before the age when every person on earth had a cell phone.  A bunch of us were taking turns using Carrie’s phone, with limited success.  I remember not being able to get a hold of Courtney, my mother, or my father, but after calling every number I could think of, I was able to get a hold of Chuck. I told him I was fine, and I gave him everyone else’s numbers to call.

Also on the long walk of town, I overheard a small boy asking his mother about what had happened. I remember the conversation vividly.
Boy: “Were there people in the buildings?”
Mom: “Yes.”
Boy, after a pause: “Are they OK?”
I saw the mom struggle to answer, and we kept on walking.

When we finally made it to Sara’s apartment, we did what most of the people in the country were doing – we huddled around the TV. There was an announcement made that if people in New York City wanted to help, they should not head downtown where things were still too chaotic, but instead go to a local hospital and donate blood. Myself and a few other Pages left Sara’s to find a nearby hospital. We found one, and what we saw was profoundly moving: a line of blood donors so long that the hospital had to turn people away. That sight epitomizes to me the great spirit of this city; sure we’re not always the most gracious or kind to the people we pass on the street, but if a stranger is really and truly in need, we’ll step up and do whatever we can to help.

As the day went on, they announced on the news that LIRR trains were up and running again, so I headed back home. The train was packed, filled with people in sheer disbelief about what they had witnessed and experienced.

When I got home, I hugged everyone as tightly as I could, and began making all of the requisite phone calls to check-in. Most of those calls were of the “I’m fine, glad that you’re fine also” variety… except for one.

The days that followed were totally surreal. No one knew what to say, or what to do, or how to react. So many people were missing, and the acknowledgment that that word was just a way of denying the painful truth was a long and slow process.

It’s not easy to remember that day and those that followed, but I do think it’s important to reflect on those memories, and acknowledge what we lost, and how we felt, and how we’ve been able to move on.

So where were you?

While we were sleeping on Saturday night, the power suddenly went out. I don’t know exactly how long it was out, but by the time Eli woke us up, the clocks were once again flashing, and we had electricity once more. It was wet outside, but there had not yet been any major carnage. And when the storm proper really hit… ACES was once again sleeping; this time taking a nice Sunday nap. Hey, we were tired!

When we awoke, w nervously checked out the house, and were relieved to find that we had gotten through without a scratch. There were an awful lot of downed branches in the back and front yards, but nothing to get excited about. We made our requisite calls to check in on family and let them know that we were OK, and then we went out for a ride to see the damage in the rest of the neighborhood. (Yeah, we were “those” people…)

Driving around, we very quickly realized how lucky we were. We’re not that close to the water so we didn’t see much flooding, but there are an awful of of trees around, and quite a few big ones had fallen down. Some into the street blocking off people’s homes. Some landed on people’s homes. Some were literally resting on power lines. By the time we got home, we appreciated even more just how fortunate we were to walk away from all of this nasty weather totally unscathed. Courtney made dinner, and just as we were finishing up, BAM.

The power went out.

I, who knows nothing about electricity or power grids, knew instantly that a transformer had blown.

So much for getting through totally unscathed!

I know it is a petty thing to complain about. I know that some folks were badly hurt, and even killed. I know that some people’s homes and businesses are out a small fortune because of the damage that Irene caused. But dammit, having no power is ANNOYING! I’ve really come to depend on things that require electricity, believe it or not. At night, I like to watch TV, check Facebook, grab some snacks from the fridge or freezer, go to sleep in an air conditioned room, and fall asleep with the white noise machine on. It’s mighty hard to do those things when the power’s out.

OK, I’ll stop whining. The family is safe and sound, the house isn’t damaged, and It’s a beautiful day.

Well, let me whine a little bit more. Our FiOS comes with a box/adapter thing that provides phone service in the event of a blackout. Nice, right? Except that after a few hours, it stops working, and it beeps every five seconds to remind you that the power is in fact still out. And – fun fact – that sucker will have the energy to go on beeping long after the phone is dead.

All right, I’ll stop whining now.

But the other annoying thing is that now LIPA is saying that some places on the Island may not have power back until Friday. FRIDAY! It’s Monday! We might have to live like cavemen all week?!?

That’s it, I’ll really stop my complaining now.

But honestly, Irene, you couldn’t have just left that one last transformer alone? Jerk.