scared? who me?

i win the Worst Blogger Ever award.

a hurricane (ok, tropical storm. erm, hard rain) passed over my city this weekend and i didn't take one picture. not one!

this means i didn't capture the "BRING IT! - NYC" that someone tagged on a boarded up coffee shop. or the sign at the bar that said "We'll be open NO MATTER WHAT! Come in for a hurricane shot." nor did i capture a picture of the storm swell that i saw in Queens, which would have shown a perfectly calm river, only an hour before the rains, with not a ripple in it.

what did i do? i fled my apartment in the early afternoon. i put plastic soup containers around the legs of my couch and moved all the electrical things into my bedroom. if it flooded, there wasn't much else i could do. out on the street, i immediately saw how skewed my vision was by my subterranean living. from my windows all i saw were ominous grey skies and rain, but out on the street? life!

every neighborhood i road through was full of people -- laughing, eating, drinking. all the restaurants i passed were slammin'. maybe in a few hours there would be total devastation, but in the meantime, New Yorkers were gonna enjoy their last bit of peacefulness.

it was a good lesson in "you experience life based on how you choose to experience life." one person's hurricane is another person's fiesta.

so after that initial bout of "do i stay and protect my apartment or leave and protect my sanity" it turned into a great day. i went to a bbq. met some great people. ate and drank my butt off. then watched a hitchcock movie and slept over at my friends. at night, their house got rocked by rain. in the morning, brooklyn was leaf strewn and beautiful. riding my bike home, i watched the first tentative people emerging from their apartments looking like i felt. awed.

we'd lived through something. something that turned out to be nothing. and now we have yet another "remember when?" nyc story and a lot more canned goods in the house because of it.

* thanks to all the sweeties out there who left me great hurricane advice and wishes of safety and concern in my comments. you guys are amazing! i felt so much better prepared and cared for because of it.