United put on an extra flight to Newark to accommodate those of us who were booked for Mon-Tues-Wed. Discretion being the better part of a fistfight, I opted to check my carry on bag as I visualized 448 standby passengers crowding the gate area vying for the 108 seats available.

Au contraire - they couldn't give those seats away. We perhaps had 60 people on board, and my briefcase looked mightly lonely in a giant overhead bin. They tried to upsell the economy plus seats at the gate for $39/$49 with limited success. Everyone in E+ had an entire row of seats to stretch out, work on Suduko and enjoy a short nap.

We arrived nearly 45 minutes early. I held fire, imagining the following sequence:

Pilot comes on the PA system: "folks, we're at the gate. Can't figure out where those gate agents are. We'll probably sit here for at least 35 minutes before the ground staff is mobilized. 50 feet from an actual early arrival - aaarg! I'm required to tell you "Don't you dare take off your seat belts and keep those carry on items right where you put them for landing." Now - fire up those cell phones and call everyone you can think of - hey, how about this? Here's the number for the gate staff. If one of you manages to get them to pick up the phone, tell 'em to get that jetway hooked up and let us out of here. In the meantime, the rest of you can grouse to whoever you've reached United can manage to get you here on a perfect flight 45 minutes early, but we can't close the 50 foot gap between the plane and the jetway to let you actually arrive early"

Au contraire. Gate staff managed to get the jetway connected in about 5 minutes' time. I mused "what planet am I on now? This has not happened since the days of pre-airline deregulation" as my fellow passengers actually were polite and patiently deplaned. At least the gate agent was complaining to her colleagues "what's with flight xxxx? We don't have it on our schedule. How'd they get here? Was I supposed to let them off?" as I sailed past the gate desk. Whew. At least that tete a tete by the scapegoats of the airline companies, the gate agents, restored my faith I was not entirely imagining this trip.

I headed down to baggage claim and figured I'd grab my bag and then try to get a connection with Gary's cell phone. I still had some empty Suduko puzzles to pass the expected 45 minute wait for Gary to meet me.

Au contraire. He'd arrived at the airport 2 hours early to enjoy a hot meal and relax after two very surreal, busy days. The bags were delivered within 15 minutes of arrival and off we went to PA.

Traffic on I-95 was very light. As reported, one had to stay out of the right lanes as the traffic back-ups approaching the rest stops stretched for literally miles as people waited in line to gas up their cars. What a relief to finally get home, have heat, water and see the birds. They had quite the ordeal while we were gone.

We got up relatively early and I started to toss out all the stuff in the refrigerator here. I had the not so bright idea to use the garbage disposal for emptying jars, bottles, etc. It stopped working in record time. The plumber actually came over right away, letting us know we had the builder grade disposal and it conveniently lacks the feature whereby you can unjam the thing if it gets stuck. OK then - time for a new garbage disposal.

Friends in the storm zoned asked if we could bring up some extra gasoline to keep the generators running. Fortunately, PA has managed to restock after their run on items needed when the power goes down. (side note: we've still got part of the town here without power). All we found were 1 gallon gas cans, so those would have to do. No gas lines here - so we filled the car and headed off to Mo Beach, thinking we were properly provisioned.

This was my second chance to muse "what planet am I on?" as we got closer and closer to our home. Piles upon piles of soaked upholstered furniture, flooring, insulation, massive piles of downed trees, and other damaged goods along everyone's property for trash pick up. It's like you're just not trying if you don't have at least 100 of the contractor sized black garbage bags out front by now. I was prepared to see some of that from my experiences with Hurricane Katrina's recovery; but not nearly in the quantity or the assortment of all the lost items.

Our town has been hit as hard as reported. The only two roads open for car traffic are manned with police/national guard check points. One must provide (a) proof of property ownership in town or (b) proof a property owner wants you there for flood damage restoration or (c) proof you have a contract to resupply the businesses in town or you are not getting in. Period.

The guy in front of us thought he;d sail past the checkpoint while the police were talking to someone leaving the town. A supremely bad idea - the police are exhausted, having been on high alert since Saturday; undoubtedly the driver is exhausted; and no one has much physical or mental bandwidth to stand down from a confrontation. The guy was rude when the police told him in no uncertain terms "HALT" has only one meaning in New Jersey. It escalated in a nanosecond, as he was swiftly booted off the road.

Once we turned into our street, it hit me hard to see all the devastation. We are lucky in that all the homes have roof and structures pretty much intact. For us, it's a remediate then restore path to recovery. I did get further east late in the day, where there are homes which will need to be leveled and entirely rebuilt.

Our house was crawling with eight burly guys with sledge hammers trying to break up the stone flooring over the crawl spaces, cut out the wet drywall, pull out the wet insulation and put all the damaged goods out on the curb. No power, no power tools. We still need to pump out our crawl spaces, and spent much of the day getting that process underway. A general contractor who works with our flood damage contractor came out and made the minor roofing repairs needed to keep further water from entering the house.

The gas shortage is the biggest obstacle right now. We have to have power to pump out the crawl spaces, and that means gasoline. More gas stations had opened from the prior day. Good thing - the ones that opened early are entirely out of gasoline. Police are at the stations and very necessary to keep order while patience runs thin. The town has a 7 to 7 curfew, so we got out of there with about 15 minutes to spare. Weather was cool to cold all day; fortunately, I'd worn my smartwool socks, fleece and gloves to stave off the worst of the chill. Rain was starting to fall as we left. What an insult, considering all the injury to date!!!!!

So .. I have a new short term profession. Gasoline transportation and delivery. We collected gasoline cans from the neighbors, took orders for batteries and headed back to PA. I'll need to ask the neighbors here for a few of those big ice chests and fill them with bagged ice before we leave this morning. Buying out Dunkin Donut's coffee boxes is a must, along with a carton of milk and some sweeteners so people have a hot beverage when we arrive.

For those of you who are in disaster prone areas and have forsworn your land line telephone service - give that a rethink. The cell phone systems are at the breaking point. It doesn't matter which carrier you use up there; after 30 seconds, your call is gonna be dropped. It takes several tries to get past the "we're sorry .. all circuits are busy now .. please try your call again later".

The part we just can't stand to think about is the nor'easter due to hit on Wed and Thursday of this coming week. Proof positive of the old adage we'd hear from our parents when we felt ripped off about something "You know, life is NOT fair".

Cheers, Anne