Yes Virginia, there is STILL a Staten Island

I'm back home now, post Sandy.  I'm completely shot.  I mean really shot.  My eyes are burning and red as I will myself to type.  I know that I am going to forget so much of what I've been thinking about since last Sunday before the storm came.. but I wanted to at least check in for a minute to clear my head, even if I can only clear a fragment of all that's jamming it up right now.
I haven't seen the news yet, about what happened in Staten Island this past week. I've heard a lot of horror stories, and witnessed a good amount of destruction and heartache myself.. but I've yet to see photo and/or video images of the "real" physical damage.  I'll save that for tomorrow, I suppose.

Today was about putting the pieces back together.  Cleaning out the fridge and freezer of all of that wasted produce and meat...  doing tons of laundry with the machines that had been rendered useless for the past week. Linens, pj's all of the basic necessities that we've been doing without, and/or wearing kinda funky.
I weathered the storm here at home for the first three days, and then packed up and headed south to my twin sister's house on Wednesday night after I decided that the boys and I had had enough cold and darkness..
At my sister's house, we sat around the radio in her generator heated house and tried to put together the pieces of what was left of our home town..  We didn't get a whole lot.  The news focused on the Jersey shore towns and the lost icons of Jersey shore lore..  the boardwalks and amusement parks.. hotel and motel towns that gave thousands of families summer memories for as long as anyone can remember. Gone.
Staten Island was not much of a blip on the radio in South Jersey, anyway.  Her local station was kind of annoying to listen to- especially when you're used to the best of the best broadcasting talent in NYC... not to mention my twin used to be an on-air personality for Fox news radio back in the day before baby number 2 came along...  listening to local radio can make you want to smash your face in a little bit.
The female announcer kept making repeated references to the famous, "Yes Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus" letter... ugh... so off.  So cheesy and bad..  I just wanted to hear about what condition my neighborhood was in, and what to expect in the near and distant future of our city... and all I could hear was corny, overly-thought out comparisons to an old time fuzzy nostalgic news piece.  Save it.