A Deluxe Cave In the Sky

We woke on Wednesday to the racket of our building's ancient, smoke-belching backup generator. This meant there would be two lights on in each hallway, and in the stairwells. One unreliable elevator would be running until the problem was fixed.

The lights and water pumps would be dead until about 2 p.m., according to the office. We got through on a cell phone, having dropped the land line a while back. So blessings: we had phone contact with the outside world, heat was unaffected, and city water pressure was sufficient to reach us on the 15th floor. Based on the dribble though, I estimated everyone in cave levels 18 to 27 were going to have to carry water through the tunnels.

We washed up minimally and went to work, Jane braving the elevator because she uses a wheelchair. Stairs – while not impossible – are a pain. We made it down without incident, though our making the journey without the help of an elevator tech was far from guaranteed.

Wednesday night after work we both arrived home to find the power still off. The office wasn't picking up, and we went into Level Two Inconvenience Mode. In order to get some beer and ice, we risked the elevators once again. Janie didn't have to come shopping, but she didn't want to sit alone in the dark and I don't blame her.

Upon our return, I marched a couple blocks to Ruam Mit for some Pad Thai (hot - like biting on an electrical cord) and #36 (with tofu, mild). We ate by candles and then sat staring at one another. Candles aren't quite good enough to read by. We had a couple drinks and then decided to defy the elevator gods yet one more time, going over to my nearby workplace to Gather on my work computer.

While there we brewed a couple pots of hot water in the company coffee maker and took them back with us.  When we got across the street we discovered the one elevator running on auxiliary power had konked out. We could hear someone in there yelling. Another wheelchair user was there with us, but he had a friend he could go visit. Jane and I would climb the mountain.

The condominium high-rise sits on top of a large parking ramp that goes up to level 11. Not trusting the elevator in the ramp either, Janie and I spiraled up from level 2 up to 11. From there I carried the wheelchair up a couple levels, come back to run up the hot pots, and then I'd help her get from the top of one set of handrails to the bottom of the next. I needed the exercise. Janie was a champ.

A man with some tools came hustling up the stairs.

"(h), (h), (h), We'll have the elevator up in a bit folks, h, h,(h),(h)."

Elevator repairman – that's got to make the undesirable job list. No doubt you have to be on call to rush over and get the job done before someone has a serious physical or mental meltdown. And how many people emerge from a stuck elevator with smiles saying "Jolly good! Thanks so much, you fine upstanding man, you!" Not many I'd guess.

Voices drifted from other levels in the stairwell. "Five, I hear."  "My knees." "You got water" "Yeah, but they said two yesterday." "Me neither." "My knees." "I can't believe this . . oh, here's someone handy looking! Well, hurry on then, fine upstanding man, you."

We ran into a neighbor we'd never talked to, and she carried the hot pots the last little way to our door. Nice kid.

We sat around in dark and silence for about an hour and a half before going to bed.  I took a brief and dark "shower" using the little dribble of cold city water. This morning we poured the hot pots in a big pan so Janie could wash her hair.

Overnight we learned the transformer for the building had failed. In the process of replacing it, they noticed that water had gotten into the central wiring in a way that would take weeks to fix. In the meantime, they were going to string a cable from somewhere in the parking ramp out and up to the 12th floor. It would be temporary, but effective. "Sufficient power should be restored by 5 p.m." said the note attached to our doors.

Since there was no power to charge Janie's wheelchair overnight, she had to call the History Center and explain the situation.  We couldn't trust the elevators anyway until full power was restored.  They're not so hot even when supplied with full power. The building residents recently "chipped in" for new elevators.  Don't ask how much that cost per unit (eek).

Janie sat at home all day with no power, being *very* patient. A friend brought some bottled coffee drinks from the 22nd floor and returned up the stairs with a couple jugs of water.

When I returned home Janie was ready to get out of there, and was willing to risk all nature of pains or indignity. We pushed the down button, but there was no sound. The trash chute had a note saying "Do not open for any reason. Men working below." The single elevator was indeed dead. The voices below might have been elevator techs, power company workers, prisoners – it was hard to tell. We decided walking down the stairs and then back up would be too much.

Back at our Deluxe Cave In the Sky, we looked down 7th Street St. Paul, with all its functioning street lights and pretty good restaurants. "This is nothing like New Orleans" we told ourselves, and couldn't help but think that that had occurred to many of the 400 or so residents of our building. "Not even close."  Our power will be back. The water will run. No one is shooting at us.We have a dry place to sleep. We don't need FEMA or NSA or GWB or OHS or any other BPITA (thank God). Shopping was just a short ways away.

I broke out a pint of ice cream I bought when I made a battery run earier in the day. We had two walkmans.  The headphones were wrapped around our necks so we could talk and listen. Marketplace was on.

"How'd we do today."

"Dunno."

The World talked about Charles Taylor's apprehension.

"Three hundred thousand people!!!"

"(           )"

Terry Gross was interviewing Thomas Friedman when Janie said,

"The kitchen light's on."

Only 39 hours. Life is good.

.