Neighborhood fire update

The building that burned down early this week will be demolished, possibly very soon. There was a meeting earlier this evening to collect suggestions and assistance for the business-owners: the posters solicited (among other things) suggestions on places the businesses might re-open, job opportunities for the people who had worked there, and ideas on fund-raising. I suspect the largest short-term impact for people who didn't own or work at those businesses is that there may not be another laundromat as large anywhere nearby.

The largest effect on me personally is that the elevator from the street down to the subway station is out of service, estimated repair date February 4; my knees were not happy last night on the way home from the gym, or this evening coming out of the station. I suspect I'm going to be back to keeping careful track of how many stairs I climb; so much for the lunchtime jaunt to Chinatown I'd been thinking of at the beginning of the week. Thursday morning I was thinking "okay, I can handle this" but it's going to take some combination of caution and lots of NSAIDs. (I may try getting off the A at 175th and taking a bus the rest of the way, but I don't have the time to do that in the morning.)

Oh, I forgot to post that I went to the gym yesterday; worked with Emilie, the same kind of thing we normally do, with reasonable cardio first, but I fell off the foam roller while doing balance stuff, and decided to do an exercise where I lie flat on the mat to steady myself, emotionally: sometimes it's good to know that I won't fall off the floor.