First-World Refugees

After Hurricane Sandy, Tiffany and I were displaced from the basement of our friends, where we were already displaced, to the spare bedroom of other family friends who took me in during another time I was displaced (aka, graduate school). Weary of living out of boxes and bags-which we've been doing since we moved from San Francisco in August and will continue to do until we move into our Manhattan apartment in 27 days-I stubbornly refused to pack anything but work clothes. Of course, then I was unable to go to work, so I have been wearing the same "casual" outfit for days.

On the day of the storm, we filled up our car with gas, bought a bunch of bottled water, and then plopped down in front of the TV to "use the electricity while we've got it!" by having a Glee marathon. Along with my mom, whose weekend visit was extended by the storm, we took turns charging our cell phones in the car even though they were rendered virtually useless by the power outages all around us.

Every time the lights flickered, we gasped, collectively, and when they came back on we looked around and congratulated ourselves for being lucky.

When the power did finally go out, for a 12-hour period the day after the storm, we huddled around the fireplace, reading until we couldn't see anymore. After our electricity was restored, we shut off all the lights and stayed right where we were by the fire, Glee be damned.