One flight up

Watching Irene from the window of our empty apartment

We were supposed to move to Italy this weekend. All day Friday, while the packers were realizing they'd understaffed our move, and I kept running here and there to get them drinks and takeout, an Irene-shaped cloud hovered. Would our flight make it out in time, or not? Would our furniture make it to the warehouse? More specifically, would the sofa make it out the front door? We couldn't find the super to remove the hinges.

In CZ's empty (except for her piano) room, I heard my voice echoing as I called Alitalia--will you cancel? Can we reschedule? Call tomorrow, call tomorrow, they said.

The movers spent until 10 p.m. packing (against the building rules), and then said they'd have to come back on Saturday to finish (also against building rules). My revised plan was to clean the apartment for the tenants around the movers' efforts to get the sofa out, and leave for JFK by three. Thankfully, our neighbors had offered us their furnished rental apartment through the end of the month, so we were staying only one flight upstairs.

I got up around 2 a.m. on Saturday, sleepless--how to stock up on storm groceries just in case when I'd just emptied the pantry for an international move? And how to explain the extended move to the co-op board? I checked e-mail, and there was the cancellation.

I sent CZ out early to get some grocery staples (thus avoiding lines out every grocery door by 10 a.m.), while I supervised and cleaned downstairs. Bob spent three hours on hold with Expedia on his Blackberry, only to get disconnected. When the movers finally left at noon, the subways were shut down and there were seemingly no groceries left in the entire city. We didn't have much to cook, but we had tons of oil and vinegar that the movers had rejected, so we were good for salads until 2012. Bob and I doubled our phone efforts via Skype, and I called Alitalia. After four hours on hold, we finally got a rescheduled flight--for September 5th. But the customer service rep was very proud of the fact that the plane was brand new.

Once we got over our initial dismay (CZ would miss a camp with her new violin teacher in Italy), we started to see a silver lining in the cloud, so to speak. We had been wanting to say a proper good-bye to our city all summer, but we didn't have time. Now we would. Besides, after a week with an international move, an earthquake, and a hurricane, all I really wanted to do was sleep. So I did. I slept soundly all through the hurricane's approach!

Of course, this storm, just like the earthquake earlier this week, was more notable for disrupting regular New York life than for any destruction here. But I think it made the week memorable. This is the week the curtains shook from side to side, the rain broke the subway, and we didn't move to Italy. I wonder what will happen next week?