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Closing the house in Fire Island during the Great October Snow Storm: A True Tale.
My wonderful friends Bea and Donna agreed to come with me. I promised to remember them in my will. It was snowing in Bay Shore -- AT NICKY'S!
The boat ride was terrifying. Fifty-foot waves washing over the boat, sharks following closely behind us in case we sank, the captain crying quietly in the wheelhouse with the door locked holding what looked like prayer beads.
Land at last! Sleet, hurricane winds whistling through the trees that you could hear (but not see) falling everywhere, thick ice beneath our feet, baseball field covered with huge hail, not a human in sight, darkness falling, and wolves starting to howl not far away. The Saltaire Yeti was there – somewhere. Yes, It was. It was too cold for It to be doing any harm, but It was scary anyway.
Finally the house! Temperature inside was 12 degrees. The sheets were solid ice. My lovely little cardinal was frozen solid on the perch of the empty bird feeder. The wolves were getting closer.
We burned the furniture in the fireplace for a little warmth, and then ate the fabulous short ribs in tomato sauce that I had spent the previous two weeks preparing. We saved the bones just in case we couldn’t get out the next day.
Played scrabble. Donna and Bea cheated. I lost.
Burned the scrabble game for more warmth.
Burned Monopoly game just in case.
Then I burned the score sheets.
Watched weather reports from 197 individual locations in the “Metropolitan area”. Neither Suffolk County nor Long Island were ever mentioned. Much less Fire Island. We didn’t know whether or not it was all right for us to be so cold. Opened front door. Storm still raging. Closed door.
We were tired. Took remaining furniture, piled it on top of blankets for additional warmth, slept. Ignored the barking of the hungry hyenas and the clatter of the deer eating the garbage we had temporarily stored on the porch. Hyenas no longer hungry, no further sign of deer.
Woke up. Pretended to be fine. Ate everything in refrigerator, freezer, shelves, closets and drawers. Picked scraps of weeds from vegetable garden and boiled them with the short ribs bones for lunch.
Locked door. Went home. Looking forward to Spring.
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An ariel view of the fire damage of November 14 in the Fire Island Pines. You can see the Pavilion's and LaFountaine's buildings severely charred. The whole damaged complex is slated to be bulldozed.
