What I Did On My Summer Vacation: The Second Installment of My African Journal

It's been just about a month since returning from a trip to Europe and South Africa--a family odyssey that we'd talked about for many years that, through a trick of synchrony, finally happened. I'm a big believer in the concept Karl Jung developed and every day find some hope and comfort in little coincidences that come together in such a way that I see as the puzzle pieces of the universe snapping together. Not so much in the time frame we'd like to see it happening, but happening nonetheless.

Since my days at the Columbia University School of Public Health, where I worked with some of the great leaders in international public health including the late Dr. Allan Rosenfield, I've wanted to spend time working abroad in maternal-child health, which is my specialty. But with young children, the time just never seemed right to leave them behind for even a short stint, and burden my husband with the role of  a single working parent.

It was our last full day in Cape Town, and efforts to get to Robben Island, the site of Nelson Mandela's political imprisonment, had been complicated by wind and weather that kept the ferry from running. This was  our last chance, and we went to the V & A Waterfront in spite of the fact all departures for the day were sold out. After being turned away, the voice with a lovely British accent stopped us. "I think I can help."

My husband and I looked at each other--scalpers are everywhere in NYC and we'd had our New York radar up for the entire trip. But the woman speaking explained that her youth organization had 65 tickets paid for but only 50 kids from the township on the excursion. Their mission: To show the teens and young adults more than shanties and rubble, and that there is a life outside and they can and should enter it. Sounded great, and the tickets looked real so we turned over the rand and rode the ferry three hours later with a very excited and well-mannered group of kids in green t shirts. Before we got off the boat on Robben Island, Ingrid and I had exchanged cards and agreed to communicate. Some of their needs include dental care services, education for the parents about the dangers of drinking during pregnancy (migrant workers in the vineyards are paid with wine), healthy eating and living in general--all simple projects for a program like the one I work in that does this in the medically underserved areas of The Bronx, using teams of professionals and paraprofessionals in conjunction with community health organizers.

So, now the time is right and after our trip, my whole family wants to get involved in a project to help out in the South African townships.  My daughter and I will be doing a Girl Scout project this year to get backpacks and school supplies to Langa, the township we toured.

Dr. David Appel, the director of the Montefiore School Health Program, anticipated what I was proposing when we met last week and said the magic words, "Let's do it." Now comes the long process of finding linkages, which will likely include the CUSPH, MMC, and some of the contacts I made on my journey, narrowing down the project to a manageable scope, finding funding, and finally, organizing the trip. I estimate it will take about two years to happen, which seems like a long time but one which has been even longer in coming. In the words of my beloved Yoga teacher Ronnie, "What time is it? The time is now."

Cry, the Beloved Country: The First Installment of My African Journal

I've been back a little over two weeks from what I've dubbed my family's three weeks, three continents tour. The latter half of the trip we spent in Cape Town, visiting my son who is doing a study abroad semester at the University of Cape Town.  He's an English major, minoring in International Education and  Education Policy--loving the literature like Alan Paton's famous novel and the work he's doing in class and in the townships.

I've seen poverty right here in America. And in Peru, where people were living out of puddles on highway medians. But something about the gestalt of Cape Town remains inherently disturbing--clearly the after effects of apartheid and its devastating effect on the Blacks and Coloreds (those are terms used in South Africa, not mine) who were uprooted from their homes and tribal lands and plopped down in townships that still exist today. And in those townships, one of which we spent an afternoon touring, there are many people living in overcrowded tin shanties, with dirt floors, little if any running water let alone hot water for sanitation. One woman recounted that when it rains hard, snakes get washed into the house along with the mud, slithering across the same floor her kids put their mattresses down to sleep on every night.

What makes this so disturbing is the curious juxtaposition with million dollar homes, wine estates (that have in the past paid their migrant workers with wine, leading to an epidemic of alcoholism and fetal alcohol syndrome), luxury beachfront resorts with high rise buildings that destroyed the natural landscape,  and upscale shopping malls. Poetic justice that the gorillas are wreaking havoc along the Cape of Good Hope, breaking into homes and cars, venting fury that their natural habitat is gone along with the now extinct black lions, and the waning populations of Cape zebras.

At times I could have been in London, Paris,  New York City or Montreal, with the fusion cuisines and ubiquitous British, French and West African influence until I looked up and saw Table Mountain, The Twelve Apostles, Devils Peak and Signal Hill--then turned a corner to find groups of men hanging out, begging, hawking souveniers. or screaming out windows of mini vans promising us the cab ride of a life to city center or back to the suburb of Mowbray, where we were staying.

Needless to say, Americans are not blameless when it comes to our past treatment of minorities and Native Americans. And parts of our country have pockets of poverty as well. But I'm still struggling to reconcile my feelings about being a "have" as opposed to a "have not" in a land where there are three classes: rich, poor, and destitute.

On a chilly, gray winter day, the residents of Langa welcomed us into their township, their home and their schools-and yes, a shabeen where I drank beer from a communal bucket (even though I hate beer) to show solidarity. And we sprang for the entire tab R20.00, which is about $2.00 US for enough home made brew (it wasn't bad) to intoxicate about fifteen adults.

No one knows what will happen to this fragile, lopsided democracy when Nelson Mandela dies. There is conjecture, fear, and resignation that, without the moral compass that he and other political prisoners and exiles set will be spinning aimlessly when he is not lying in that hospital bed and the daily prayer services and tributes have ended. They're trying hard to build houses on top of the rubble of shanties at townships like Langa, just outside of Cape Town, but more spring up, tacking themselves onto every spare piece of land even if a dirty river with pigs  and chickens wading through it laps at the sides.

My daughter and I will be starting a Girl Scout project to send book bags and school supplies to the children of Langa, so stay tuned. And, as if I don't have enough to do, I'm going to try and organize some sort of nursing, dental, and medical team to go down to a township for a special project focused on women's and children's health needs.

We did spend some time in Europe (Italy, Vienna, and Amsterdam) en route to Africa and on the long road back--hence the three continent reference. And from Johannesburg to the Numbi Gate to Kruger National Park. It was an incredible family journey with multiple flights, train, bus and van rides, reminiscent of the TV show The Wild Thornberries. When we cleared customs at Kennedy, the officer asked how long we'd been away surveying bags full of dirty laundry and souveniers,  including four bottles of wine and an African drum from Mamanapusa.

"Three weeks." I said at 9 p.m. EDT in North America  in our 36th hour of travel, at what felt like 3 a.m. in Africa.

He stamped our passports, each in turn, then pushed them across the counter with a smile. "Welcome home."

Indeed.

The Un-Answerable Question

            Last week at this time, I was hunkered down finishing a mid term assignment for my ongoing doctoral studies on a real life quality management project. Buried deep in abstract organizational and management theory, I struggled surprisingly hard to pull real life quality metrics and benchmarks out of the literature and a myriad of government and accreditation agency publications. Got it done. On time. Over the page limit (as usual). Irritated.

            The next day, the real-life process of quality improvement continued at a late afternoon meeting. Anxious to get home, get my head out of academia and work related problems, I flipped on the radio for a traffic report and instead heard breaking news about the bombs at the Boston Marathon. Zap. Back to 9/11/01 with my heart racing, my mind struggling to comprehend the reality, listening for every tidbit that would indicate it wasn't as bad as it sounded. My mind wandered back to what it was like on 9/11/01 working in the hospital, waiting for the casualties that never came because there were no survivors. The fear, the grief, the helplessness, the anguish. The big question-Why?

            I, along with a lot of my colleagues, have PTSD related to the events of that day. We go into health care to be heroes, to save people, to run toward the screams and the danger—not away from it. But that theoretical desire collides with reality big time in disasters—and my heart goes out to the first responders, doctors and nurses in the Boston emergency rooms who had to deal with all that—plus their own grief and horror as they pronounced the dead and made life and death. decisions in minutes on whose leg needed to be amputated and who got to go to the OR first.

            Coincidently, I am working on a Moth Storytelling based event about my experiences on 9/11 to commemorate National Nurses Week. And I made my home in Boston during my residency, not far from the big Citgo sign I see on all the pictures of Kenmore Square, deserted while the good people huddled in their basements and maniacs lobbed a bomb out their car window and shot anything that was moving. I've always said if there was another city I could live in besides New York it's Boston—and now both have their own sad legacy of terror and its aftermath.

            This has infused even more emotion and reality into my oral re-telling but it re-opened the wounds. It's hard to concentrate, focus, complete anything. I refused to make my son an airline reservation for his European trip that goes through Moscow, wishing he wasn't going at all. I'll pay more, much more, for what seems like a less risky itinerary but who would have thought watching a running race was risky? Who would have thought going to work one day in the Twin Towers would have involved mortal peril?

            One tidbit I do remember from the chapter on management of complex systems is to make some changes, no matter how small. So, I got on the subway yesterday to go to ballet class. The trains were packed with weekend construction disrupting several train lines and routes. I read my book, moved like a robot across the platform from the local to express, one eye on all the bags and backpacks around me. Walked from 86^th and Lexington up to 93^rd instead of from 96^th and Lexington down. No choice—the Number 6 was bypassing my usual stop.

            I danced till my legs hurt more than my heart and got back on the train, sipping water from a bottle, scanning the faces, the bundles, the baggy clothes, the hoodies, looking for anything amiss. Got home and went to see "42" with my family and munched popcorn (loved the movie).

            Meanwhile, Bostonians held vigils for the dead and injured, celebrated the capture of the surviving suspect, and the death of the supposed mastermind. They took back their civilized and cultured city. They will recover. We will all recover. But we will never forget. We can't. We'll keep asking the un-answerable question: Why?

Not Your Mothers Book and Other News From The Nonfiction Front

I've just gotten word that the opening story of my mommy memoir, Karma, Kickbacks and Kids, which bears the same title in on the table of contents for Not Your Mother's Book: On Parenting. This brings the total of stories contracted for this updated and  irreverent and humorous take on the Chicken Soup for the Soul series to two, and I have six other stories on submission there.

This is exciting, coming on the heels of the rave reviews for Not Your Mother's Book: On Being a Woman, which was released in October. Hurricane Sandy nixed my plans to coordinate readings and book signings before the holidays with other local authors represented therein, but hopefully something will work out this spring when NYMB: On Parenting has it's currently scheduled release in April.

Unless, of course, we have a spring Nor easter blow through shattering the already tenuous control we have on the cleanup and recovery and the streets go through their usual springtime collapse after frigid temperatures, snow, tons of salt and the sheer volume of New York City traffic.

But let's be optimistic.

I am in Week 9 of 12, with an intentional capitalization, of a killer semester in my doctoral program, deeply immersed (and often befuddled) with statistical methods and trying to stay on top of the latest health information technology issues for the second course. I live with the realities of HIT daily, interfacing-or facing off-with no fewer than four electronic medical record applications in the throes of interoperability and meaningful use compliance while trying to focus on my real mission: patient care.

To that end, course work has complemented my workplace realities and I hope that my current project will benefit my employer, so generously reimbursing my tuition as well as advance my progress toward the DNP. But I have to write the papers, due in two weeks, first and therein lies the challenge as I have finally succumbed to the virus afflicting so many of my patients and my daughter's classmates--including her.

It will happen because I will make it--and look forward to a long rest after a few all nighters. But I'm looking forward to a brief rest and an easier next semester with only one course to allow me to put the finishing touches on my research proposal. It felt like I'd never finish graduate school either but I did and look at me now.

My fiction writing is on a serious hold, of course, but if anyone wants an update click over to my fiction blog. There are stories in the making, appearances planned in Westchester at the Hilton Rye Town with signings (my nonfiction will be on sale as well) for the weekend of March 15-17. Hope to see some of you there.

Visit my Amazon author page for updated details on the Twitter Feed or follow me on Twitter.

Holiday Gifts from Sweet and Inspirational to Irreverent

Signed copies of all my new and re-releases are available for holiday gifts. Contact me for personalization and details about which anthology would best suit your intended recipient. I can also gift bag any combination of the books and send them directly if you'd like.

Grandma might not like Not Your Mother's Book: On Being a Woman, but then again, maybe she would. It's gotten five star reviews on Amazon as hysterical and a great present for all your (girl) friends.

"A Catholic Schoolgirl's Primer" is an excerpt of my memoir Someday I'm Going to Write a Book: Diary of an Urban Missionary.

For the less intrepid, a tribute to my dear Grandma Clo, who died on November 18, 1999, appears in A Quilt of Holidays, an anthology of sweet, inspirational stories. This one, along with other excerpts of Someday in Thanksgiving to Christmas and This Path, are work and family safe.

My new fiction: urban fantasy stories set in the world of my novels, featured in the Ten Tales Series Anthologies edited by Rayne Hall are very easy to gift since they are ebooks in all formats. And I can send you personalized gift cards.

Carole Ann Moleti is a nurse-midwife in New York City, thus explaining her fascination with paranormal and urban fantasy that infuses everything she writes. Her newest fiction is featured in Beltane: Ten Tales of Magic. Excerpts of Carole's memoir, Someday I'm Going to Write a Book: Diary of an Urban Missionary range from the sweet and inspirational in A Quilt of Holidays to the edgy and irreverent in Not Your Mother's Book: On Being a Woman.

Follow Your Conscience To The Polls

As you prepare to go to the polls, think about this: A Mitt Romney presidency and a Senate and House in Republican control will doom America to four years of old, white men making the rules. They are hell bent on subjugation of women, minorities, immigrants, and anyone else who believes that government is in existence to serve its citizenry, not itself. For women, a Romney presidency is the beginning of a real life re-creation of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, because their god insists women carry a pregnancy even if it endangers their life and that those who've been brutalized and raped accept a resulting pregnancy as a divine gift.

Their god, again no typo there, has been conjured up as one who champions their views, but the God that most of us believe in would never endorse those in power abandoning the less fortunate or failing to provide for those, both in this country and abroad, who are in need. And turning a blind eye to their poisoning and destruction of the Earth, human rights violations, and mass murder because a country has resources we need. Or relentlessly vowing to bulldoze through whatever little land Native Americans have left and through areas where the residents have emphatically said no to the Keystone Pipeline.

Mitt Romney has pledged to abolish FEMA. Even with the National Guard and Army Corps of Engineers, and federal loan and service programs, many of us in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut tri state area are stranded and shivering in the cold, wasting time on gas lines instead of getting back to work, school, and our lives. What would Romney do to help stricken areas? When asked, he didn't answer.

Think about that before you vote, because with climate change, another thing the Republican Party refuses to believe is real, the next big one might be headed your way, blowing up nuclear power plants and oil rigs in densely populated and environmentally sensitive areas. Hydro fracturing might pollute your water supply, poisoning you and your family before you realize it. You might find yourself ill, without a job and health insurance and no Medicaid or Medicare—if the Republicans have their way. Then what?

Fact is that George Bush got us into the situation we still haven't gotten out of—including two wars and the investment firm/banking debacle and economic collapse. 9/11/2001 happened on Bush's watch, so let's not let the unfortunate embassy attack on 9/11/2012 distract us from that—and the fact that Bin-Laden was taken down during Obama's. We've come a long way since 9/11, and Romney wants to take us back to the 1950s rather than onward into the 21st century.

We don't need more of those failed policies that serve the rich and debase and disregard the rest of us "freeloaders."  If you think Romney and the Republicans are are going to create jobs, ask next what will the price be, and just what those jobs will be. Will they be enough to pay your bills, including your medical tab, since low paying ones do not include adequate benefits?

Say a prayer to the real God or whomever or whatever you believe in as the guiding truth—then vote your conscience, which might not allow you to walk the plank with the party line. 

New Nonfiction-From the Sweet and Inspirational to the Edgy and Irreverent

Here is the official press release for my latest publications. Publishing Syndicate is planning a book tour for authors featured in the debut book in the Not Your Mother's Book Series.  I don't have details as yet, but will let you know where and when I will be reading and signing.

"A Catholic Schoolgirl's Primer" is an excerpt of my memoir Someday I'm Going to Write a Book: Diary of an Urban Missionary.  It appears in Not Your Mother's Book: On Being a Woman, which was released on October 9 and already has five star reviews on Amazon. Not for the easily offended, this book will make you laugh out loud and is a great gift for like minded girlfriends--and guys who really want to understand the down and dirty details of what being a woman is all about.

For the less intrepid, a tribute to my dear Grandma Clo, who died on November 18, 1999, appears in A Quilt of Holidays, an anthology of sweet, inspirational stories. This one is work and family safe.

The press release also contains links to my new fiction: urban fantasy stories set in the world of my novels, featured in the Ten Tales Series Anthologies edited by Rayne Hall.

I have copies to sign for anyone who'd like them so please email caroleATcaroleannmoletiDOTcom for details.

Carole Ann Moleti is a nurse-midwife in New York City, thus explaining her fascination with paranormal and urban fantasy that infuses everything she writes. Her newest fiction is featured in Beltane: Ten Tales of Magic. Excerpts of Carole's memoir, Someday I'm Going to Write a Book: Diary of an Urban Missionary range from the sweet and inspirational in A Quilt of Holidays to the edgy and irreverent in Not Your Mother's Book: On Being a Woman.

My Life Is A Three Ring Circus

In the First Ring:  Fiction. In the Middle:  Non Fiction. In the Third Ring: Doctoral Program. And I'm juggling the full time job, the per diem job,  one husband  three kids, a dog, a cat, and a garden.

Publicity tours, readings, signings-it's great to be famous.  Seriously, I love meeting readers and other writers. World Con rocked. So did the "Ghosts and the Afterlife" Panel in Portsmouth, N. H.  with Renee Mallet, Chelsea Cameron, hostess Terri Bruce, and Me.

Got to visit Salem gearing up for Halloween and Samhain.  (all right pay back was finishing and submitting my Philosophy paper with free in room Internet  at 1 am in the Courtyard by Marriott, Andover but you only live once).

So far, I'm keeping up. Staying up, too. Average bedtime is midnight with the outliers being 10 pm and 2 am. Wake up is 5:30 am, except for one Sunday in the last three weeks that I slept until 8.

Lost five pounds. That's good. Lot of aches and pains--all stres related. Not so good. Trying to schedule in some yoga and dance classes to limber up and lighten up the mood.

What am I reading? Ha! About 150 pages of peer reviewed research and academic articles a week, plus writing at least one major paper a week.  Sometimes two. In APA format. In third person, passive voice. In a scholarly voice. (The last one is the hardest)

New electronic medical records at work+ Lots of training sessions=Decreased productivity=Angry bosses+Cranky, tired midwife who doesn't get lunch or go to the bathroom all day.

How am I doing it? Not sure. But since I got a lot of writing done over the summer, most of my creative writing has been editing. And when I get the chance to write fiction, like the short story I polished yesterday called "Dance With the Devil," it's a relief rather than a burden.

There are three new releases out or coming out, and one in the pipeline. Here's the line up:

Kudos and Thanks to Rayne Hall for putting together yet another great anthology. My story "Mishmash Magick" is an excerpt of Boulevard of Bad Spells and Broken Dreams adapted to a short story format (as is "The Dhampir's Kiss" in Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires).  All Ten Tales books are PG13 and in most electronic formats.

Buy it here

Very suitable for all audiences, these gentle anthologies contain stories about life. This Path features two of my favorite excerpts of Someday I'm Going to Write a Book, including "The Dance Class" and "Endless Possibilities."
It was published a few years ago but just re-released as an ebook

A Quilt of Holidays contains "Artichokes," a tribute to my grandmother and family memories.

I have signed copies. Contact me for details.









And finally, on October 9, "A Catholic School Gir's Primer" will
be published in Not Your Mother's Book: On Being a Woman
Warning, this book, and my true life account about "becoming a
woman" is not for the easily offended.
But it's all true, edgy, and funny--if you have a sense of humor.

Stay tuned for details. There is a huge publicity tour in the works for this, one of the first in PS Publishing's Not Your Mother's Book Series.

And I'll catch you, and catch you up when I can!

A New Endeavor

Today was back to school day. For me! I logged on early this morning, worked out the technical glitches, and started my on line doctoral program at Walden University.

I have this coffee cup sitting in my closet, chipped, broken, stained.

It shows a harried woman in a business suit, holding a briefcase, baby hanging onto her ankles and toys scattered all around her.

The sentiment:

I am working woman

I hold down a job

I am nuts

Only now I have three jobs plus a husband, three kids,  a dog, a cat, a garden and a car sporting three bumper stickes: Peace, Not a Republican, and I'm in the 99%.

The black one with flashy red letters proclaiming "This IS My Brilliant Career"disappeared from the office I shared with about fifteen other people. Either someone stole it or broke it--but it doesn't matter. Fact is, I stepped off the fast track in 1990, when I was pregnant with my first child, knowing I could never do it all. And that a career is never as important as family. A lesson learned the hard way when my first marriage ended in divorce.


It's all in my two memoirs Someday I'm Going to Write a Book: Diary of An Urban Missionary and Karma, Kickbacks and Kids.

So, my am I going to spend the next 15-18 months researching and reading the most boring, dense, and academic material one can imagine then re-synthesizing it into my own theoretical framework for clinical research?  Because I know that my fledgling theory of management of psychosocial risk can help clinicians like me take care of the toughest, most vulnerable patients--and help them get off a path that leads either nowhere or to self destruction. And unless I prove it, no one will pay any attention to it.


So in about two years, I will be Dr. Carole Ann, and still be doing what I love: taking care of patients., focusing on creative writing, and reading for pleasure instead of work.  It goes by in the blink of an eye, especially when you're back on the fast track.

In the meantime, fiction sales are humming along. More about that on my other blog. I just got back from Chi-Con, the World Science Fiction Convention where I met up with many of my like minded writer friends

And non fiction ain't doin' too bad either.

Two of my favorite essays, "The Dance Class" and "Endless Possibilities" are in This Path, just reissued as an e book. And a tribute to my grandmother is coming out in A Quilt of Holidays in the next couple of weeks. Sometime this fall, an excerpt of Someday, "A Catholic Schoolgirl's Primer" is due out in Not Your Mother's Book: On Being a Woman. Not for the shy or easily offended, but I've never been one to sugar coat things.

Time to sign off now and get to that 150 pages of reading and two papers due by next Friday. I still owe my editor two short stories. It will all get done. It always does.

This Path: Free Today

This Path is a collection of essays that was just re-released today. It contains two of my favorites: "The Dance Class" and "Endless Possibilities."

If you'd like a free copy on Kindle, you can download it today only. If you have a Nook, contact me.

And please let me know what you think.

I have two new essays coming out this fall, so stay tuned.

After sending out six excerpts of Someday I'm Going to Write a Book, my next nonfiction project will be a book proposal for Silent Echoes, a collection of essays on pregnancy loss and the death of newborns, infants and young children.

I've worked in Perinatal Bereavement for many years and hope to edit an anthology that might offer comfort and closure to many families.

If you'd be interested in contributing, please let me know.

Shit Happens--An Update

According to a note I got from Credo, the Delaware River Commission meeting for November 21 has been cancelled, signaling that the plans to allow hydrofracturing in the Delaware Basin did not have the support of President Obama and the Governors of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. 

Thank you to everyone who wrote, called, or clicked on the Credo button to send your public comments to the President and to your Governor. Surely our collective voices were heard, but as always, we must remain vigilant and guard the back door.

For more insight on the plight of Upstate New York residents in the wake of Hurricane Irene, please see my previous post. I still can't believe what I saw in those pictures, and similar scenes of devastation can be found in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 


The time for denial about the truth of climate change is over.  It is time to stand up for the environment before things get any worse. Hopefully, it will not be too late to remediate the damage that has already been done.


On a more personal note, I am recovering well from my arm injury, enough to be able to make my acting debut on November 5 as Hannah Townsend Lawrence at the Bayside Historical Society's tour of Lawrence Cemetery. And on November 21, right after my lecture on OB/GYN emergencies for the Emergency Room Nurses  Course at Montefiore, I'll be headed to Manhattan.


Fellow urban fantasy author April Gray and I will be chatting about the genre of urban fantasy and I'll be reading from my novel in progress Boulevard of Bad Spells and Broken Dreams at the Columbus Library.  I will sign copies of anthologies containing excerpts of Someday for your holiday gifts.


Next week, I plan to muse about the Occupy Wall Street movement and another example of  the government  mishandling a situation by not responding to the concerns of We, the People.

Shit Happens

I apologize in advance for the language, and the idioms you are about to endure, but I'm in a morose Brooklyn/Bronx mood these days. The frozen shoulder I woke up with on September 10 turned out to be tendonitis. I'm better since the steroid injection, but am still limited in my range of motion and how long I can type before the pain—from right thumb to my neck—roars back. Physical therapy is a slow process, with some good days interspersed with a few bad ones. Shit happens and, this too, shall pass.

Seems like nothing in comparison to the sights on a recent trip upstate to close our summer cottage: The devastation wrought by Hurricane Irene on the already depressed towns in the Catskills where floods wiped out whole towns, roads, bridges, and a lot of farmland and livestock. At one low lying intersection, at the bottom of a hill, next to a stream between Cobbleskill and Middleburg, remnants of hay bales dangled from treetops, where they were deposited by raging flood waters. I can only imagine what it was like since more than a month has already elapsed with most roads at least passable, but many homes and businesses damaged or in ruin and fields underwater.

This courageous homeowner, somewhere between Potter Hollow and Preston Hollow, has chosen to count his/her blessings and remain positive though the property is a total loss.

The Preston Hollow Little League field, home to a team that once made the Little League World Series, is a mudflat and the playground equipment a tangled ruin, testament to the power of floodwaters in one of those rare weather events that come along once in a lifetime—we hope.

Has over development, acid rain denunding the northern forests, and global warming caused major changes in the ecology, the environment, and weather patterns, which caused this area to suffer more damage from Irene's wind and rain than Coney Island, Brooklyn where the storm made landfall (another cosmic joke, though none of this is really funny)? Yes, I think so.   

( Locust Point, Throggs Neck (Bronx) after tidal surge from Hurricane Irene. This area was under mandatory evacuations but obviously not everyone left. Thanks for the photo Karl, Jr.)

Which might mean that this sort of shit will happen more often in places that it has never happened and no one is prepared for or equipped to handle it. Like the Indian Point Nuclear Plant, Buchanan, New York, which is up for license renewal and advertising like hell, using a female engineer who sounds far too young and naïve (and brainwashed) to reassure me and others in the fall out zone (approximately the surrounding 250 miles, which is just about where Potter and Preston Hollow are) that the plant has been built to withstand hurricanes, floods, is protected from aerial terrorist attacks or airplane accidents at nearby airports, and is "perfectly safe."

I ain't buyin' it—though I'm from Da Bronx, not Brooklyn. Floodwaters with the power of those in the Catskills would surely create another Fukushima Daiitchi scenario and we ain't got the Fukushima Fifty kamikazes around here to go in to try and fix it. Hell, we can't even get home on Friday nights never mind evacuate the tri-state area about to experience nuclear meltdown. And in upstate New York, "you can't get there from here'" right now with many bridges still badly damaged.

Who knows what the proposed hydraulic fracturing (say it isn't so, Governor Cuomo) will do to the topography and environment, exposing this area and our watersheds to pollutants and further degredation and ecological and environmental systems? Big business has paid for a smooth talking, snake oil salesman to sell the idea, but the signs are all over the muddied lawns upstate, and I concur. "No fracking way!" "No drill, no spill!"

Fugetaboudit. Give up those gas guzzlin' cars, turn out the lights, reduce your own carbon footprint, and reuse and recycle. We can do without "alternative energy sources" which could kill us all either the quick and dirty way, or the slow and insidious evolutionary way.

Yeah, shit happens, and we're shoveling, pumping, and mopping enough of it in New Yawk these days.

Ten Years Later-Tread Lightly On Our Memories, The Pain Is Still Great

I knew this weekend would be difficult and it is. I am physically sick today, and do not believe that my (minor) case of PTSD is not to blame for this otherwise unexplainable pain.


View my photo scrapbook: 9/11, Then and Now here


Please go to my other blog for my thoughts on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11/01 attacks


Here is a retrospective on The Twin Towers and The Lowly Parking Meter that I wrote last year.


And here is part of the 9/11/01 chapter of Someday I'm Going to Write a Book:

It was pleasantly busy. A few women in labor, triage was quiet. I got coffee

from the food cart, Starbucks, with a shot of French vanilla. I made sure to get skim milk because I treated myself to a scone.  They have almost my whole day’s allotment of calories. That Starbucks has enough caffeine to jazz me up for 12 hours.

“Wow, you have to see this,” said Janine the unit clerk. “A plane just hit the World Trade Center.”

A few of us went into an empty patient room and saw live footage of the gaping hole and the smoke.

“Someone must have lost control of a small plane, there have been a few helicopter crashes recently,” I said. “I hope not too many people got hurt.”

No sooner were the words out of my mouth when we saw, live and in living color, the second plane crash into the south tower. Flames exploded, debris and what we now know were people were flying out. Even the news commentators were stunned, stumbling over their words like drunkards.

“Ohmigod!”

“What the hell just happened?”

“Someone just flew a second plane into the other tower!”

“Shit!”

“It’s terrorists!”

I don’t remember who said what. One hand over my mouth to hold back the vomit, I held onto the wall as I walked, my knees like rubber. External disaster codes were activated. Bells clanged and the operator called out instructions.

“THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”

“Blue team to basement.”

“Red team to lobby.”

“Green team to ER.”

Automatic fire doors slammed shut. Strobe lights flashed.  Footsteps pounded in the hallways. Panic bars clicked on the doors as they smashed open against the walls then slammed shut. People ran around like an uncovered nest of roaches.

 “The phones are down!”

“The pagers aren’t working!”

“Make sure all emergency equipment is plugged into red outlets in case we lose power!”

“My husband is in that building!” screamed someone, falling to her knees.

“My father is down there,” said Janine through tears, trying in vain to get a cell phone, any phone to work.

“Joann, let’s get you into the lounge. Turn the TV’s off in the patient’s rooms!” I tried to help her to her feet and ease her out of the hallway.

“A plane just went down near Philly. It was supposedly headed for the White House. There are 8 planes missing from the flight controllers, they are going to shoot them down, the US is under attack.” Josie read the CNN headlines to us but she spoke like she was the President.

Of course, when planning an attack the enemy knocks out communications first. The World Trade Center is very close to here. We have no phones…

The fear, not for myself, but for my country was so profound I was beginning to panic myself. Outbursts and screams from staff that had relatives in lower Manhattan  reminded me that my job was to help others, not to dissolve under pressure.

Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be thy name…

“Joann, just because he’s not answering his phone doesn’t mean anything, they aren’t working.”

 Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…

“Here have a drink of water.”

“Lisa, your husband works blocks away, I’m sure he’s fine.”

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…

 “I know Denise’s husband is a fireman, they know what they’re doing, in 1993 very few people got hurt.”

 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now and forever, Amen.

 “She wants to push? OK, I’m coming Josie.”

“Carole, the south tower just collapsed. It’s gone.” Josie whispered in my ear as she tied my surgical gown for me. The splash guard on her mask fogged up with her warm tears.

“Push mommy, the baby’s coming, don’t be afraid. Everything is alright, nothing bad is happening to you.”

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee, Blessed are you amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus…

“You’re doing great, see the baby’s head? I know it feels terrible but really, nothing bad is happening. Just push.”

“One more push, you can do it, you’re strong. The baby’s almost here, soon you’ll be done. Great, here comes the baby! It’s a girl!”

I dried the baby and gave her to her mother. I helped her father cut the umbilical cord. They took pictures. I

delivered the placenta, did some suturing. Josie whispered to me as we cleaned up and got the baby to nurse.

“Carole, both towers are down.”

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.