June 14, 2005

Gloom and Doom Week Continues

filed under: Idle Chatter

The bicycle accident last week has finally been supplanted as the latest post on Procrastinet! To be replaced by:

HELICOPTER CRASHES THREE FEET FROM MY HEAD!

Okay, I'm exagerrating. It actually crashed about a block away from me. But still.

Reports are saying that all 7 people aboard were rescued after a helicopter landed tits up in the East River, off of Pier 11. What it was doing off of Pier 11 when the heliport is 300 yards downstream is anybody's guess.

I'm sitting in the cafeteria, munching a spinach salad, trying to get farther than 1/8" into Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (which is 3" thick at LEAST), and a fire truck blasts by. Fine.

Then another. Still normal. Then two cop cars. Fine, yes, good, something's on fire.

Then three fire boats go streaking by on the river, followed closely by two Coast Guard skiffs, another fire boat, and a NYPD boat. "What ho," thinks me, "something's afoot!"

As soon as I stepped outside (because yes, God help me, I went to look, and no I don't know what's gotten into me) I smelled the fuel - which, as the view from above later showed, had spread in a nice slick a good way upriver. A crowd was moving towards Pier 11, and in the distance people were moving in that way that you can immediately tell is "emergency" mode. I almost got dashed underfoot by two newspaper photographers with lenses eight feet long who were running past - wearing, I was sorry to see, gas mask bags on their hips.

I called Lisa at her mother's place, and they gave me the scoop - relayed from one of the veritable swarm of news choppers buzzing overhead. Disappointingly, I couldn't see the helicopter from the shore, or from the 34th floor directly overhead, to which I retired when it was clear I couldn't see anything from ground level (as soon as it was reported that everyone was safe, I gave the voyeuristic impulse free reign).

Anyway. Happy ending this time. Hallelujah.

Posted by rjt at June 14, 2005 02:25 PM
Comments

Glad nobody was lost in the helicopter. I've been doing my best not to think of the fact that you are biking so much in a world of crazy drivers (much as I love biking, I prefer bike trails even in sane traffic areas!), but at least I don't think of you taking a helicopter everywhere you go!

Just so you know, you are encased in a bubble of "Procrastimom-imaged-light" everywhere you go -- all of you -- makes me feel better anyway!

Posted by: Procrastimom at June 15, 2005 12:11 PM

Well, I will report with some disappointment that, since the accident last week, I've severely curtailed my bike riding. I went back and forth on the decision, but for now have decided not to use my bike for the work commute. Anyone who bikes in NYC knows intellectually that they are taking their life into their hands - but knowing it in such a specific, concrete and immediate manner as this proved to be too much for me to handle. I'm still taking Max for rides in the Park, but that'll have to do it for now - and even for that, I'm taking the sidewalk, very slowly, to and from.

In some ways it feels like a defeat, like I failed to "get back on that horse." After all, just walking down the street here - or anywhere - is theoretically dangerous. Cabs hop curbs, pedestrians are hit crossing the street, etc. But then I have to admit that there's a quantitative difference between walking on the sidewalk and riding just feet - or sometimes inches - from traffic.

As to your last point, I don't know anyone who could object to a little benevolent-light-bubble-encasing. So encase away.

Posted by: rjt at June 15, 2005 03:46 PM