this is not a journal title

My father's baffled by the gas shortage in NYC, so I cobbled together my best explanation of why, revised below.

1. Right after the storm, early last week: NY Harbor closed to tankers. Some gas stations had no power so there was less gas to go around. There's a gasoline pipeline into NYC, which may have been barely enough to meet the demand at first. At this time the main demand for gas is to run generators where there's no power.


2. A day or two after the storm, middle of last week: Those gas stations which did have power began running out of gas without sufficient resupply. Businesses reopen, but much of NYC public transit does not, increasing the usage of gas as people drive to work.


3. End of last week: NY Harbor opened around Thursday last week, but it takes time for that gas to work its way into the system. Meanwhile, people driving to work are starting to need to gas up.


4. Last weekend and early this week: More of the same, but panic buying sets in, which more than offsets the reduced need for gasoline for generators.


5. Middle of this week: The gasoline pipeline into NYC suffers some sort of damage, and I think that was the straw that led Gov. Cuomo to ration gas in NYC and Long Island.

The NY Times seems to confirm aspects of my points 1-4.

Does anyone have things I left out, or different explanations?

Originally posted on Dreamwidth. comments there. Comment here or there.

My mother is under the impression (no sources, just an impression) that hotels in China will have outlets identical to those in the US. My father is under the impression that every city will have a different type of outlet (shape of plug, voltage, frequency) from every other city. His only source is Wikipedia, which appears to directly contradict what he says (it says all of China uses one particular type of outlet).

Anyone know the reality and/or have reliable sources? We're starting in Beijing, traveling across the NW of the country, then flying to Shanghai and Hong Kong.

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As soon as Joe's Shanghai opens we'll place an order for their famous soupy dumplings (and other things of course) - yes, Chinese take-out. We'll take it over to Nga Boo (Chinese grandmother), who's at a Kosher Jewish nursing home. We're supposed to eat in the non-Kosher cafeteria, but that's often full on holidays so we may sneak the food upstairs and eat on her floor instead. Dad (Jewish) will of course complain that we're being horrible to do so, but he'll be the one who suggests it.

Ah, traditions. :)

From my Dad

There's a new Chinese supermarket next to the bagel bakery where I get breakfast. It's aptly named "New York Mart".
Check out their new sign!

At least they got "ATM" right.....
I wonder if the top part of the sign is correct.
What's really weird is that they have several other signs, all spelling the name correctly.

Mom's in Ahmedabad. It appears to be one province over from Mumbai (the city formerly known as Bombay). Thankfully, though I wish it were further.

I posted this as a comment to amavia's post on class structure in the US, and thought it deserved space of its own.

Sometimes I am amazed by people's stories of different classes. My Nga Boo (maternal grandmother) was from a rich family in Shanghai. They had servants, wet-nurses (Ama), and "companions" (as my family calls them) - I think a companion is the child of the wet nurse who was born at roughly the same time as the family member.

She was a rebel though, she broke off an arranged marriage to marry a Cantonese peasant, who later was part of the Nationalist Army. He (my Nga Cone) borrowed an army buddy's passport which had permissions to come to the US, and somehow arranged for asslyum for my Nga Boo and infant mother. They took a boat here, my Nga Boo strapping my three-year-old mother to her back so that she wouldn't get washed overboard on the stormy journey. Once here, Nga Cone opened a resturaunt, Nga Boo waited tables, and Mom bussed the tables after school.

And at family reunions not only do I bow to my Boo-boo's (grand aunts), but also to one woman who was the companion of a Boo-boo. She never married: even here in America her main goal in life was to serve as my Boo-boo's companion. She could have left at any point in time, but she never did.

The weekend of the Hunt Dad had his first (left) knee operated on, to reattach the tendon between the kneecap and the quads. Today it was the other one. The actual cut was smaller (I guess it was less bad?), but there were issues with the anesthesiologist, where s/he couldn't find dad's veins, and then it wasn't enough, and the nerve blocker didn't work, and they ended up giving Dad morphine during the operation... He's in the hospital for a few days recovering, and when I talked to him this evening he said they had him on oxygen b/c of the morphine they'd had to give him. After a few days he'll get moved to a nursing home that's near their apartment so Mom can more easily come to visit.

In case anyone's been kept up at night worried about it, Dad had knee surgery on his left knee on Saturday last weekend. The nerve blocker they used was really good, but of course when it wore off the next day wasn't so good. He's got a hard brace on his whole leg. Within a month he'll get the same surgery on the other one, followed by some 6 months of rehab. :( Could be worse! It turns out that he'd torn both knee-quad tendons 3/4 of the way through.

Today a parental neighbor I had not yet met asked Dad "is this your son?" I kinda blinked and chalked it up to the fact that he's Korean and I could hear that English wasn't his first language. However, Dad kept talking right over him, and a minute later he had to repeat the question. Dad said "pardon?" and I said "daughter," with a smile. I was amused. Thankfully he wasn't horribly embarrased and didn't make a big deal out of it. The man's daughter was also there, and Dad said she rolled her eyes at her father in an OMG kinda way. I'm not all that happy with my current haircut, it does look more boyish than usual, and I was wearing a jacket that's actually men's, and really baggy, so I can kinda see where it'd happen, but... <shrug> At least I've a good sense of humor and it was a source of amusement rather than offense. I think it's the gender stereotypes that the mistaken identity implies that irritates me more than someone thinking I'm a boy. I like to think of myself as fairly gender neutral except for occasional times I like to be girly.

I wonder what they said to each other after we were out of earshot.

Good news, Dad tells me he's hobbling around with his crutches! He's about to get around the house, shower normally, and even took the elevator down to the basement and walked/crutched the length of it on his own. :) He still has a combination of pain and weakness doing so, but the true difficulty remains in the getting up and down. Such as when he drops the soap in the shower. Upon Mom's suggestion he drilled a hole in a couple bars of soap and threaded them with string. Homemade "soap on a rope." Why is that phrase so famous anyway?