Sunshine and Olly

by Jonathan Blaustein

Everyone has moments, (I believe,) when they realize life is not predictable. 

Most people cling to routine, almost superstitiously, so that things can make sense, but there inevitably comes a time when the illusion is shattered. 

For me, the great New York City Blackout of 2003 was such an event. 

I remember it so clearly. 

It was summer, (after my first year of graduate school,) and I was working HARD for Bobby Flay, at his then-restaurant Bolo, near Gramercy Park. 

I was hired as a waiter a few days after they received a 3-star rating from the NYT, and it was bedlam each day, whether the lunch or dinner shift. (I often worked doubles.)

That whole summer was all about waiting tables, banking money, so there wasn’t much fun to be had.

One particular late afternoon, I was sitting at a table with my friend Seth, eating staff meal, and I was really conscious of my surroundings. 

Because I had the most vivid thought: today is going to be just like every other day. The customers will come soon, I’ll run around like a madman, making everyone happy, and it will be hard work. 

This, I know for sure. 

I actually thought that. It wasn’t an assumption, I ran it through my mind. 

And then, just like that, the power went out. 

Literally, a minute after I consciously thought, today will be like every other day. 

Except I was wrong. 






We quickly realized it was a big deal.

The refrigerators and freezers went out. 

The cell network was down. 

No one knew what was going on, but probably within a half hour, the restaurant decided to close. 

A bunch of us lived in Williamsburg, or Greenpoint, so we took off walking, in a caravan, and it was a party-like atmosphere. 

They gave us free beer, and Seth had grabbed an apple, made a make-shift bong, and we smoked weed on the streets as we headed towards the Williamsburg Bridge. 

It was insanely fun, and unlike anything I’ve lived though, before or since. 

Until I got home, that is. 

Because the cell networks were down, I couldn’t reach Jessie. 

I waited, and waited, but she never came home. And because she had to walk through some sketchy parts of Brooklyn, from her job in Bed-Stuy to our apartment, my mind ran through all sorts of scenarios. 

It was one of the most stressful nights of my life, but in the morning, she called to let me know she stayed at a co-worker’s house, because she didn’t want to walk down the wrong street on the wrong night. 

Holy crap.

I remember like it was yesterday. 

Not sure I’ve had an experience quite like it.

Until last week, that is. 

A week ago Saturday, Jessie and I were hanging out, having a nice evening. 

It was rare, as since our daughter began suffering from some serious depression and anxiety, life has been pretty stressful. 

Jessie said something like, “I hope Amelie’s doing OK at camp,” (on a mountain in Southwest Colorado,) and I replied something like, “Of course she is, or we would have heard by now.”

Famous last words, as they say. 

But the next day, our first quiet Sunday in forever, I asked Jessie what she wanted to do, and she said something like, “Nothing.”

That wasn’t going to work for me. 

Life has been a bit lonely here on the farm, and I’ve been trying to actively grow my local social network. 

I just didn’t want to sit around and watch TV all day, or walk the dogs endlessly, so I reached out to a jiu-jitsu friend, and asked how he was doing? 

One thing led to another, and he invited me to come by his place in Peñasco, which is about an hour away. (The greater Taos area is huge.)

It was the first time I’ve done anything like that in years, but it felt like a big step. 

Getting out of my comfort zone. 

Embracing mental health. 

Of course, the cell phone coverage is spotty out there, as it’s deep in the mountains, on the famed High Road to Taos, but so what? 

It was a quiet Sunday. What could go wrong? 

And Ikhide and I had a nice enough time, shooting the shit, drinking a beer. (My first in months.)

His house abutted the main road, without much parking, but he lived across the street from the Post Office, so I parked there. 

(No big deal, it was empty on a Sunday.) 

I was there for about 2.5 hours, and it really did feel different. Getting out of the house. Forgetting about the illness that had hung over our home. 

I left with a smile on my face, and as I approached the car, (only 20 yards away,) I lifted the phone to text Jessie and let her know I was headed home. 

This, (I’m afraid,) was the moment before the moment. 

(Everything was OK, until it wasn’t.) 

Because before I could bring the phone to my face to voice-text, Jessie's text came through. (From two hours prior.) 

I didn’t have my reading glasses on, but could get the gist.

Amelie was having a mental health crisis, on a mountain 5 hours away, and we were being summoned, immediately, to pick her up. 

They’d given us a two hour window of time to arrive, (again, 5 hours away, across 3 dangerous mountain passes from where I was,) and told us to show up at some random campground-trail-head.

The details were spottier than their satellite phone coverage, but none of it was good. 

I tried calling Jessie, to get more details, but there was not enough cell service to reach her. 

What little I knew was: get home ASAP, gas up the car, get some snacks, and we need to get the fuck up to Colorado. 

Just like the Blackout, everything changed in an instant. 








I wish I could say things improved from there, but they didn’t. 

It started to rain, and the mountain roads were super-difficult. 

People who live in civilization would have a hard time understanding, but there is nothing out there in these mountains. 

No cell service. 

No houses. No businesses. 

Just wildlife, and not a lot of cars. 

A deer ran before us, once, and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident. 

Onward we drove, still not really knowing where to even find our daughter. 

Finally, nearly three hours into the drive, they agreed to meet us at a restaurant we’d be able to locate. 

Jessie and I did our best to stay chill, but the stress was thicker than the syrupy Dr. Pepper we drank. (For the caffeine and sugar.) 

And this was actually the good part. 








Finally, we made it to the little road in Bayfield, CO, that would take us up to the reservoir where they were camping, high in the mountains. 

I’d brought some food along, to feed Amelie when we got her, and decided to have some myself, so I could drive the first shift home, as Jessie had taken over driving in Chama.

(We were planning to go back across the mountains at night, which was not a good idea, but all we could do was wing it.)

For the first time in hours, I took my eye off the road, in the passenger seat, to look down at the pasta I was eating. 

And that's when I heard a terrible THUNK, and felt the car jump like it had run over something. 

Which it had. 

The roads were slick from the rain, but thankfully it was still light out. 

Jessie was driving, saw a herd of deer on the right side of the road, and slowed down, but then a straggler, a Bambi deer, sprinted under the car from the opposite side. 

Literally committed suicide under the wheels of our Kia. 

And yet, we had to keep going. 

There was no choice. 

We were less than 30 minutes away, it would be dark soon enough, and we had to get our sick daughter. 

That’s when things really started to get bad.

Because when we arrived, we didn’t see her and her counselors. They must have been there, but we couldn’t see them. 

(Stress level 10.)

Finally, they found us, barely said two words as they handed her off, and disappeared into the darkness. 

I turned on the car, and right away, the check engine light popped. As did the car’s diagnostic system. 

Something was seriously wrong. 

And we were in the middle of nowhere. 

But at least there were gas stations, and presumably hotels, at the nearest town, Bayfield, back on the highway. 

I figured we’d drive there and assess. 

The car seemed fine enough. Jessie speculated maybe we could just drive it home and have it looked at in Taos. 

So I took it slow back to the highway, went to a gas station, and had the thought to call my mechanic at Kia in Santa Fe.

It was 9:30 pm on a Sunday night, and I was imposing on someone I barely knew. 

But JC is a great guy, and he called me right back, told me to check the damage. 

I saw fluid leaking from below the engine, and he said that was enough for him to know we were fucked. 

Time to park the car, and get it seen by a mechanic in the morning. 

I went into the gas station to ask where the nearest hotel in town was, and they told me there were no hotels. 

The nearest was a casino 10 miles away, (in the wrong direction,) but JC said even 10 miles was too risky. 

The nice lady at the Marathon gas station pulled out the yellow pages, (there wasn’t enough cell service to use the internet,) and told me about an RV campground just up the road. 

I called them, and the operator said he could book me an RV slot, but for a glamping-tent-room, I’d just have to show up and hope for the best. 

He said drive there, and ask for a place to stay, so that’s what I did.

Except the place was shut up tight.

Not a human to be found. 

What to do? 

There wasn’t much to do. No internet, spotty cell service, and a car that was broken. 

We’d left Amelie’s medicine at home, because she had a bunch with her, and we were intending to get home late that night anyway. (But her counselors had forgotten to return the meds, so she felt awful.)

So there we were, in a broken SUV, with nowhere to sleep but the car we were in.

We had some water and Dr. Pepper, some junk food, but nowhere to use the bathroom. And no transportation. 

We settled in for a long, long night. 

And of course I had to pee. 








In the end, we peed on the lawn several times, (over by a little pond,) and I scanned the horizon constantly, to make sure no one would see me, as the tractor trailers whizzed by on the highway. 

I slept fitfully, about four times, but spent much of the night staring out the window at the vacancy sign that taunted me. 

Honestly, I had no idea how we would get home. Or where we would eat in the morning. Where would we use the bathroom, once it was light out? 

(Where would we go #2?)

I know it was only temporary, (thank goodness,) but it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to being unhoused. 

And it was a horrible, horrible feeling. 

Even today, more than a week later, the stress hasn’t totally receded. 

So what happened next? 







In the morning, as soon as it was light out, I noticed a public park, right across the street. 

There were two very obvious bathrooms, not 40 yards away, that were clean, well stocked, and had hand sanitizer. 

(Never would you find that in New Mexico, but Colorado is different.)

So that solved an immediate problem. 

My old boss, Rob Haggart, lives in Durango, so he recommended a mechanic, who then passed us along to a repair shop even closer to where we were.

The cell service was better in the morning, thankfully, so we called the insurance company to make a claim, and order a tow. 

Everyone was helpful and friendly. 

The tow truck driver, (also a wilderness firefighter,) gave us a ride to the mechanic. 

The insurance company arranged a rental car, but when I called Enterprise, they said they were overbooked, and we’d be stuck another day. 

I put on my kindest voice, and told the truth: our daughter was sick, her medicine was 4 hours away in New Mexico, and we really, really had to get home.

I could hear him, (Jeremy,) on the other end of the line, pausing, thinking. 

He finally said no promises, but if we came to the office, and waited patiently, he’d see what he could do. 

The mechanic had a free shuttle to the rental car company, where we were nice and polite, and after 3 hours of sitting in the waiting room, they offered us a car. 

(And they definitely bumped us ahead of some annoyed people.)

So we prepared to head East, with 4 hours of hard driving ahead of us, but not before everyone we spoke to said hitting deer was the most common thing to happen in SW Colorado.

Everyone we met had a story. 

Everyone said we were lucky to be alive. Fortunate it wasn’t an elk, or heaven forbid a moose. 

As bad as it was, as miserable a night as it had been, literally everyone said it could have been so much worse. 

So we drove our little, rental, Nissan Altima East, stopped for Mexican food in Pagosa Springs, (where I forgot to avoid the lettuce,) and eventually we made it home. 

Because that’s how life works. 

We think we know what’s coming tomorrow, or later today. 

But really, we’re kidding ourselves. 

Stay safe out there, and catch you next time.