May 13, 2008
My luck shall explode everywhere
As the pigeon crapped on my head yesterday, I immediately thought about the Russian adage that 'if a bird poops on you, you will have good luck.'
Actually, first I frantically squeegee'd my head, tried not to make a huge spectacle, and THEN I thought about the adage.
Oh luck, please be at Bed Bath and Beyond, where I am buying a vent for the bathroom window to help with the stench in the apartment.
Posted by G at 05:38 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
May 12, 2008
What I am going to spend all the insurance money on
Screw replacing the mattress, my printer, that sort of thing. I MUST HAVE THESE.
It is ONLY $2900, which means nothing, as I was suddenly 8 years old again, seeing Star Wars for the first time in the theater. I think I should buy 2.
Posted by G at 07:50 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 11, 2008
Smoky and the bears
I didn't go to work on Wednesday and Thursday, as the renters insurance paid for two companies to come to the apartment- one for picking up all our clothes to be dry cleaned, and the other one for cleaning everything in the house. We had smoke and water damage all through the house, so once all the clothes were hauled off, the other company wiped down EVERYTHING.
This made the apartment dramatically more liveable, although the walls still smell, and we keep finding stuff that is still grimed over. No matter how clean it is, the smell of smoke is still pervasive, as the insurance guy said it will remain until they begin cleaning up what remains of the top floor of the building. This is just the beginning of the suckiness, as we have giant gaping holes in our ceiling, like this one:
That superior duct tape work would be my work, as would be the sealing of the window in the bathroom, since the management and super still haven't begun any repairs or cleaning work since Tuesday. I have to say that the management has really done a crap job so far. Friedman Management has decided to not move forward on anything whatsoever until their insurance pays them, so all of us in the building have no working elevator, filthy hallways, and unless you do like I did, you have debris falling into your rooms even if you clean.
It is really frustrating, because we could either have a massive upheaval, try to find a new place to live, or hope that the insurance company will pay quickly so that they start to repair the building, starting with the elevator. Bear has a bad back leg, so going up flights of stairs is a strain. We also have no clothes, as we basically kept just a few changes of clothes. We had to clean all our coats, so tomorrow is going to be a bit cold for me. Also, if they don't start cleaning all the debris upstairs before we get our clothes back, it will have been a wasted cleaning.
We thank everybody for the offers to stay somewhere, but we both hate the idea of being in limbo, although we might be changing our minds if the ashes keep filtering into our place.
I'm calling our management on Monday, pressing for a definite time frame, as we need to be able to make informed decisions, one way or the other.
I also see an IKEA run in my near future. That's both a good and bad thing.
Posted by G at 11:59 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 07, 2008
Lesson for today: get tenant insurance
Derrick and I are listening to the occasional plunk of parts of the ceiling drop onto the floor in our wrecked bedroom. It's like rainfall, but with more masonry.
We're on the couch in the living room tonight, after staying at our friend J & P's house last night. The bedroom is a bit of a disaster, with about half the ceiling collapsed, mattress and clothes marinating in smoke-filled water, and the walls blistered and peeling.
Not exactly what I wanted to face after my first attempt at Bikram yoga in Harlem, but I guess that having such a relaxing and exhausting workout before the smoky panic of a fire probably balanced. I did the yoga for NINETY minutes, then had a wild craving for Taco Bell to offset all of the healthiness and goodness. I got home, dropped onto the couch, and realized Derrick was at a play.
While I sat on the couch, apparently some bubble headed child upstairs decided to play with candles at his family's shrine. No, I have no idea why the family had some shrine in their apartment, but maybe it was some form of prayer to NOT HAVE A PYRO for a child. Maybe they should have had more candles. One bad idea leads to another, and pretty quickly the entire 6th floor was burning. I'm on the 5th floor, and I hear the fire alarm on the floor BELOW me going off. I hear some screaming, open the door, and smoke flooded into the apartment. I yelled for the neighbors, ran back into the apartment, grabbed Bear's leash (and my new iPod!), and raced down the stairs. I contacted Derrick, then waited with the rest of my neighbors, hoping that everyone made it out, hoping our place wasn't going up in flames.
When we finally were allowed back into the building around 10:30, water was pouring down the stairs, people were crying, and the air grew more acrid the higher we trudged. Derrick showed up around 10:45 and helped me sift through what a few hours before had been an exceptionally clean apartment. Now everything in the bedroom, bathroom, and part of the living room was dripping with fouled water and smoke. We tried to move as much as possible that could be saved away from the damage, and went to our friends' house for sleep, as the fire alarms were still beeping, and the water was still dripping.
Not necessarily a good thing, but we are still so lucky. Things could be so much worse. The fire could have happened during the winter, it could have happened much later at night when everyone was asleep, and we could have been uninsured. None of our neighbors up on the 6th floor were insured, and they lost everything.
Today I called my insurance and they had their evaluator to my apartment by noon. Tomorrow a special company is picking up all of our clothing and linens to try to clean them, and another agency will be sending people to wipe down our walls and clean everything. Our landlords will probably take a lot longer, but we're alive and have a home. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the rest of the piles, but again, I am so lucky. Derrick is okay, Bear is okay, and I'm okay. Thanks for all the phone calls and well wishes.
Posted by G at 09:08 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack
May 06, 2008
So our apartment building was on fire
And our apartment is trashed. The fire was on the 6th floor, we live on the 5th floor, and we have water and smoke damage everywhere. I'm fine, Derrick is fine, Bear is fine. We both have renters insurance.
When it smokes, it pours.
Fuck the planned blog post about my first yoga experience.
Posted by G at 11:21 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
The Rubber Room
Joe sent me a link to an education article that discusses what is known as 'the rubber room.' When a tenured teacher is suspended, they are sent to a holding office. The main focus of the article was that $65 million is wasted supporting these 700 teachers. These teachers aren't teaching because they are going to have a hearing to remain or be fired, with the average wait being 19 months.
As a teacher, I would say a few things. First off, the list does include every teacher with a problem- all the way from a teacher who participated in a war protest to the teacher accused of inappropriately touching a student. The DOE always errs on the side of caution, and I'm glad that they protect the rights of teachers by not suspending someone without pay. When compared to the total number of teachers, they represent 1/2 of one percent. I laughed about the room descriptions, as the hot, stuffy rooms sound identical to most classrooms in NYC.
$65 million is a lot of money, although you have to again realize that means it is also just 1/2 of one percent of salaries paid to NYC teachers. I do not know the process of the hearing personally, and I would hope that for most minor offenses that the wait time is minimal. What is important is that safe teachers be returned as quickly as possible to the classroom, while unsafe teachers are kept away from kids.
For a bureaucracy, the DOE is a relatively fair program. Granted, I have not been stuck in a rubber room (yet). Would the hiring of more people to speed the process work? Possibly, but it could also be the problem of both a defense and prosecution team requiring time to be ready. I also am not sure if I would want some of these rubber room people performing other responsibilities, so I would think that it is one of those 'least bad' options.
My two cents on 65 million.
Posted by G at 06:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack