Month: November 2012

I woke up this morning at 5:30 and caught the 6:08 train. It was absolutely packed, more so than I think I’ve ever seen a morning train into Manhattan, and I spent the entire hour-long commute standing in the crowded aisle, listening to podcasts.

I got to the office around 7:30 — I stopped to get an iced tea and a muffin, apricot and French vanilla chip, respectively — and proceeded to try and get back into the swing of working. I have a lot of work that needs doing, and in fact could have used an extra week, not a week lost to freak storms and power outages. While I don’t think I got anywhere close to “caught up” today, even with that extra morning hour and a short lunch, I think I’m at least better positioned to tackle what’s left. Now that I know how tall the mountain — or, moreover, have discovered that some paths up it have been blocked or are no longer viable options — I’m better equipped to make the climb.

It’s still a mountain of work, though.

This evening, I get another very crowded train, but at least this time I got on board in time to get a seat the entire ride home. Then it was right back out the door to drive to the airport with my mother, to pick my sister and her husband up from their incoming flight. (They’ve been on vacation overseas and missed last week’s frankenstorm entirely, except via the international version of CNN.) I finally had dinner, a sandwich, around 9:30.

And now I am too tired to even think straight. I’m thankful I don’t have to go back to the office tomorrow. I now have my work laptop again, and I plan to tackle more of that mountain with it, but from home, tomorrow.

For now, though, I sleep.

My long, storm-imposed exile from work comes to an end tomorrow. After what was supposed to be a relaxing three-day weekend — and what turned into a considerably less than relaxing nine-day weekend — I go back to the office. I’m just hoping the return to the daily commute won’t be too terrible. Power is still out in parts of Manhattan — and parts of Long Island, including right across the street…and right here, briefly, early this evening. The trains are running on a reduced and modified schedule, and I’ll likely be getting up rather earlier than usual just to catch one into the city.

But there’s a lot I need to do at work. This maybe wasn’t the worst time to have been out, but it was pretty close.

And seriously, we’re going to throw Daylight Savings Time and Election Day into this crazy mix?

I’m not really complaining. Beyond the power going out, and some of the food we had to throw out, we suffered very little damage during the storm. Some siding came off of the house — cosmetic, not structural, damage — and the tree in the front yard lost a bough. Things haven’t returned to normal, not completely. But, for us, they’re getting there. (Lots of people were, and are, not so lucky.)

It’s going to be weird going back to work, but I think weird in a good way.