Thursday, August 9, 2007

City Views, Country Dreams

Good morning from New York.

It is a beautiful morning, quite unlike yesterday when part of our city (Brooklyn) actually had a tornado pass through. The rest of the city and area settled for an intense thunderstorm and many inches rain in a very short period.

I had planned to get to the shop early to meet the new cleaners, well before our official open-up time. That plan went to smithereens, as I discovered that our public transportation system had lost its struggle to keep up with the weather. Flooded tracks, signal problems. Many subways not running at all by 8 a.m. Not enough buses pulled into service to take up some of the slack.

So, we New Yorkers either decided to stay at home (not an option for me) or to walk to our destination. In heat and humidity that were other storm souvenirs. Two and one half miles for me. I was a bit limp on arrival at the shop. The cleaners also had not been able to arrive.

I drank a lot of water. Then realized that something looked a bit different in the office part of the shop. Wet spots spread across the ceiling tiles. Plastic covers over the fluorescent light fixtures were full of water. Oh boy. There was more. One of these plastic covers had not been able to take the pressure of the water, and had fallen to the stairwell below it. Releasing lots of water.

The stockroom in the shop basement was flooded. Not deeply flooded, no damage to any of our goods, but still. Oh boy.

About this time my stock associate arrived with his own transportation story and then we got into action. Made phone calls, more phone calls, showed everything to the superintendant of the building so that he could contact the landlord. More phone calls to our corporate offices, the cleaning company, all sorts of folks.

Time to open the shop.

As the day wore on, everything began to get sorted out. Half of my staff were unable to come to work. Very few customers came in. We kept seeing lots of people walking purposefully back and forth on the Fifth Avenue sidewalk outside our front window. They were either just reaching their destination, or leaving that destination to try to return home.

Having gotten official permission to close a bit early, I prepared a little "early closing" sign for our window, and we began to prep the sales floor for the evening. Then...of course, customers began to come in. So, we did not close early, but actually had some good business during that last hour.

Then we closed the shop, locked the door and went home. I treated myself to a long, but uncrowded, bus ride back uptown.

So many people were greatly inconvenienced by the transportation problems. My day was relatively mild. But it was so good to finally have a shower!

And I did have pleasant dreams.

13 comments:

  1. Sounds like a really steamy day Francis. I bet that shower felt good. Toady

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  2. With all the floods in this country over recent months I really do not envy any kind of flood anywhere! Hope everythings okay now.

    Crystal xx

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  3. some days it just goes wrong, and typicaly of the general public,
    They sense when you want to leave early and come in..I hope your employers value you, your priceless.........xxoo

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  4. I thought of you when I heard on the news about the awful weather in New York. Glad to hear you weren't too badly affected and hope things have now settled down! Seems there's freaky weather everywhere!!

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  5. Sounds like a really hassly day, poor you.

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  6. Hello Dear Frances,
    I do hope that the weather in NY will be a lot kinder. Your vacation will soon have you feeling more relaxed I pray. The weather here has been so fickle these last few days, quite cold at the moment, so much so that I have turned on the heating for a few hours.

    Camilla.xx

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  7. Cerikey - that sounded like a day and a half . . .hope your weekend is a bit calmer.

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  8. Brilliant blog Frances, but tell me, what do you do for excitement? Never a dull moment. You have my admiration for your calm in the midst of all the turmoil. Fair play to you!

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  9. Quite a day - so glad you had sweet dreams! I echo Irisheyes - you do always give the impression of being the calm at the centre of the storm!

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  10. Totally agree with the above ...you do give out a very calm signal even in the face of adversity

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  11. What a week you had! I'm so glad to know that you're on holiday now and can relax and let the worries of the shop go to someone else!
    Maybe you'll have a chance to blog about your connection to this part of the continent???

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  12. Hello Frances,
    It has taken me until now to read all about your eventful day . So glad to hear you are having such a well deserved holiday. Even more pleased to hear it is to contain lots of creativity, that all the tools are at the ready. Good for you. I am hoping to get back to doing some drawing, it has been a busy time. As it is holiday time I too have been catching up with friends and enjoying some days out.
    I see more super photographs, has the camera met your expectations ? When you have more free time I am sure you will have lots of camera fun. Look forward to seeing more of your wonderful paintings and art work .
    MILLY

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  13. Hello Frances,
    Lovely to catch up with you again. I have just got up and it is a lovely surprise on a Sunday morning to see a lovely long comment from you. I do agree with you about long-time friends etc and also with the 'connection' between some of us on this site. Kindred spirits I guess.
    I'm so glad you have enjoyed your week off.
    I love your blogs and your art, they are unique.
    Caitx

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