[Prestidigitweeze]

Mayor Bloomberg and his jailbird grandson, Con Ed, had been promising Manhattan's electricity would be back by Saturday, but various insultants now say Sunday at the earliest, and some commentators translate that to mean Monday or later for people who live east of 14th Street (and whom our distinguished Mayor seems not to consider actual citizens). It's really up to the people who are pumping water out of the facilities and how fast they're able to go.

However, many people in New Jersey and Long Island won't have power for at least another week and some are in far worse situations than most of my neighbors. One acquaintance had the entire first floor of her house flooded and is now worried that the home she's had to flee is being ransacked by looters.

Traffic without traffic lights has been an interesting experiment. In the beginning, pedestrians reported narrow misses by drivers who were actually aiming for them, and the break-waist speeds observed did suggest that certain speedomaddicts perceived this to be their outlaw moment. Then the streets grew impossibly congested, passenger limitations were imposed, a gas shortage dampened the spree whims of the Sadean, and a new drivers' consensus opted for careful cooperation. Jalopies now stop at every block, which makes them look like scarab beetles pausing between the cycles of ballroom dance steps.

The most dangerous part of the blackout might be the lack of heat, since temperatures have been dropping to the forties and will continue to do so through the weekend. We can't warm ourselves by the oven briefly because a default switches off the gas to stop the narcoleptic among us from snoozing their way to nonexistence.

It was scary and fun getting to work tonight without street lights, transportation or police. I saw tourists walking with flashlights trained on the area just in front of them, while particularly nervous types panned their beams back and forth as they scanned the vicinity for stealth muggers.

You can tell recent arrivals by the constancy of their beams, which are no doubt helpful VLDs (Victim Location Devices) for said muggers. The rest of us know how well our eyes can adjust to the darkness, which soon changes from total to relative. We make our way through the shadows as quietly as we can.

Mi sigilo es su sigilo.