Fires & Other Mini Disasters

It's hard not to stress a bit about the Loveland fire, but I take comfort in the fact that my neighbor is not sending me panicky emails. You all are reading the same reports we are, so you know the firefighters are "cautiously optimistic" about containment, but worried about the winds that are expected today. The fire is currently about ten miles west of our home.

In keeping with the disaster theme, Pandey and I dropped into 7 World Trade Center to visit a friend who works at Inc Magazine -- most significantly, on the 29th floor. From his conference room you can look down on the WTC site and see progress in the making. And from that vantage point, cranes seem to fade into the background and buildings rise from the soil. As of two weeks ago, there is also a stand of trees. Our friend enjoys watching the site come back to life, but laments the recent loss of his bird's eye view of the Statue of Liberty.

An aside: Yesterday, after almost three months of wandering around NYC, I had my first public transport mishap. Feeling smug about my ability to get around, I guided Pandey off the train and onto the subway. But instead of jumping on a downtown-bound train, I went uptown. By the time I figured it out we had arrived at a station with no walkway to the other side of the tracks. After some time we managed to board a train headed downtown. After several stops the train had a mechanical problem and we were unceremoniously dumped off at the same station where the entire mishap began. And now we were quite late for our appointment. Throughout this fiasco, Pandey stood by with a beatific smile on his face, assuring me that the gods would take care of us and there was no need for "upset."