An Inconvenient Snow

Snowploughs were out unburying Inwood again after an even more annoying snowstorm than the last one.  It snowed for something like 36 hours, and though the streets are clear for cars and taxis, the sides of the streets, as you can see here, are clogged with snowdrifts.  Each corner has it's own man-made lake of coffee-colored sludge - all of New York turned into a giant dirt Slurpee.

Just the same, the trees look pretty covered in snow, so I took this shot standing on the corner of Dyckman and looking down Broadway toward Fort Tryon Park.

I've been pretty pre-occupied with getting my knee better after surgery, so I haven't been doing a lot of writing, but I'm please with myself today for getting through four hours of work on "Knock", the new play I'm working on.  As is usual with me, I've written the first 20 or so pages, and the last 20 or so pages, and now I'm working on graduating and balancing the tension in between so that it becomes a cohesive draft.  Which makes picking through this middle section like picking through Manhattan after a blizzard in a pair of cheap sneakers.

I heard about some guy that got killed yesterday walking through Central Park.  He was hit by a huge tree branch that collapsed under the weight of all this snow.  The first thing I thought was "Oh, well, I guess when it's your time to go it's your time to go"  And then the second thing I thought was that the Earth was trying to kill us.  Finally.  Seriously.  Think about it.

Killer whales at Sea World are not just suddenly eating their trainers - we recently discover that they've actually made a habit out of it.  Trees are attacking passers-by.  Haiti, Chicago, and Chile each has an earthquake, D.C. gets four feet of snow, and 15 countries are, as of this morning, on alert for a tsunami.  I think the Earth may just be sick of our shit.  Any second now they are going to discover that the Earth has started rotating in the opposite direction and flung everybody in Australia into the Pacific.

And why is the Earth trying to kill us?  Republicans.  The Earth has been watching the Republicans on CNN saying stupid shit like "If it's global WARMING then why is there so much SNOW?" and the Earth has been sitting back going "Holy Christ, they STILL don't get it!  I thought they were getting it when I saw that Gore guy get the Oscar, but they STILL don't GET IT!  I am SO going to VOLCANO their asses.  AAAARRRRRGHHHHHH!"  Cue the ride of the Valkyrie while the Earth blows molten lava all over the Southern half of the United States.

One of the things I do dislike about getting this much snow on weekends is I can't easily get out to the West Side highway to take a long walk.  Last weekend I was able to get through four miles, and follow it with 40 minutes on the treadmill at home the next day, but I kind of rocked my knee too much, and my physical therapist gave me a little shit for it.  I've revised my regimen so that I'm just doing the 40 minutes at a time (the four miles usually takes me over two hours) and watching Battlestar Galactica on the portable DVD player.

Maybe that's why I'm feeling kind of apocalyptic lately.  Between Battlestar Galactica, Caprica (which I Lo-Ooooove) and the lack of sunny skies, I've been quite a crab-ass.  Lucky I got to see Robby last night because he always makes me laugh.

When I got home last night, I discovered something in my front courtyard that I've never seen before - for those of you who are wondering what an apartment-sized snowman looks like, here you go.

I'm not sure who's responsible for el Frostinito, but in the 23 years I've lived here it is an original idea, so thanks, whoever you are.  It certainly is cute.

Another good thing about NYC when it snows is that it's really not all that cold.  I don't know what I'd do if I lived somewhere like Minnesota, where it's 20 below all through March.  Or in Maine, where my buddy Wanny lives.  She loves Maine, and it really is, as she puts it, "seductive in the Summer' - but in the winter you have to be really into the snowsports and the cold.  Luckily, her kids were all born in Maine or Michigan, so the cold doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest, and her husband is a Coloradan.  Me, I'm a klutz, so better the dirt Slurpee on the corner then a patch of ice that's going to take me and my endoskeleton down hard and nasty.  Bring on 40 degrees or more, for God's sakes - it's almost Easter.

I'm going to jump on the treadmill now and get my walk in - when we last left Battlestar Galactica, Captain Adama had just completed the hyperjump from the middle of the Cylon Battle and announced the colonies sojourn to Earth.  I'm hoping when they find it in the last DVD it won't be covered with molten lava, cockroaches, and dead Republicans.  That would suck.

Snowbombed

This is what it looked like outside of my fire escape at around noon today.  

Yesterday I walked into work, oblivious to whatever the news had to offer as I like to start my mornings quiet - no tv, no news, no music, just get dressed and get the hell out the door - and I took it with a grain when my co-workers told me I'd be smart to stay home today because we were going to get SNOWBOMBED.  Well, as we all know, we got snowbombed and I worked from home today and am  now going stir-crazy from being stuck in my squalid apartment for 25 hours and counting.

When I got home last night I stopped by the Park View and grabbed some dinner, because I hate going grocery shopping on an empty stomach.  I also knew that since I don't cook food in this apartment, it would probably be my last hot meal for a day or two.  Since we were expecting today's snow event, I figured I'd stock up on some supplies.  Most normal people were buying milk, bread, eggs, normal stuff. I came home with my version of supplies, which was Skaansen pickled herring in sour cream and onions, black olives, fruit cocktail, tunafish, Mug diet root beer, and a couple of cans of LeSeur peas which are good because they don't taste like regular peas.  Nothing works better to combat a case of cabin fever than a good jar of pickled herring in sour cream and onions.  Okay, nothing works to combat a case of cabin fever.  Sleeping, maybe.

Since I screwed up my knee, running around in the snow, particularly since I don't own a pair of boots, would be incredibly stupid of me.  So until the sun comes out again, I'll be working from right here - day job by day, messing around online at night.

My friend Robby told me that when he arrived home this evening he saw that the pub on the corner was filled to bursting with happy, snowy drunkards.  One of them decided to show his whimsical side and lie down in the street to make a snow angel.  Unfortunately, he was in the bus lane.  His drunkard friends barely got him slid over to the gutter before he was happy, snowy roadkill.

I really wish I could ring up the Garden Cafe and ask them to deliver some dinner, but I would feel like it would be incredibly bad karma to expect some poor delivery guy to come out in a foot and a half of snow just to bring me a seared tuna wrap and some field greens.  And besides, I'd have to tip the guy a ton, and I'm not feeling all that generous right now.

I was actually just in the Cafe on Sunday with my friend Aina, who was over from Ireland this week.  Say "hello" to Aine:

She was only over for a little while to take a course out in Jersey in cranio-sacral massage, and now she's back in Dublin, where I hope she's tucked up beside a nice roaring fire with a blanket around her and a hot whiskey.  I really miss her a lot since she's moved back over there.  She's a great one for an "auld chat", as she says, and she's always having adventures.

I'm hoping to get over to Dublin to visit with her in the spring.  Another reason to be a bit tight with money for once in my life - I need a real vacation soon.  Two weeks to just hack around and have some fun.

It's easy to dream about spring when you're under a pile of snow up here.  I can hear the ho upstairs yelling at her four year old grandson right  now.  The kid is hyperactive at the best of times, and when he's stuck inside four walls on a snowy day he's your worst nightmare.  For the past hour he's been basically tear-assing around the apartment like a demented goose while his grandmother tries to grab him, hold him down, and force feed him some Nyquil to get him to go to bed.   I've said it before and I'll say it again right here and right now - if she'd just gotten her silly ho daughter some birth control pills...

This weekend coming up is Valentine's Day, and this year's celebration is going to be just as exciting and heartwarming as last year's was - last year, of course, I was battling the flu, a broken computer, and my Mom's obsession with Lifetime Television for (Elderly) Women.  This year I plan a whirlwind weekend doing Mom's taxes.  It's also time to trim down the four rose bushes in her back yard so they won't grow like totem poles this summer, and make home made broth and soups for her so that she doesn't have to cook as much.

Yeah, okay, I don't mean to sound pathetic.  I would love to tell you that me and my Insignificant Other are planning something cheesy and fabulous, but everyone who knows me knows I'm a bad liar so I won't even front.  And I've never been the kind of woman that men buy flowers and cards for anyway.  On the rare occasion I've been given a gift I generally just feel like a deer in headlights and start speculating about ulterior motives.   The nicest thing a guy ever bought me was the perfect accompaniment to a dinner I was cooking for him - he brought me a "bouquet" of broccoli.  Quite an adorable fellow, that Dan Jetter.  But we weren't dating, we were just hanging around together. I hope he's married to someone who appreciates him.  And who appreciates broccoli, of course.

It is ever-so-slightly disappointing not to have someone buying me flowers, though.  (The picture on the right is the window of the flower shop up on B'way, north of 207th)  I do love flowers, and I'm glad I can grow them out in Jersey at Mom's because I may never have a house with a yard for myself.  I buy other people flowers for their birthdays because I love choosing them - choosing the arrangements and the blooms and colors.  I love the scent of flowers, too, but I can't grow hyacinth or lily-of-the-valley in Mom's yard anymore because she can't stand the "reek" she says.  Honestly.  Lily-of-the-valley reek?  Mom likes daisies.  They don't assert themselves with vulgar things like scent or wild colors - they just look pretty and cute and kind of sit there brightening up the side of the road as other people race by.  She would have liked me to be a daisy, I think.  She would have liked all three of us sisters to be daisies.  My older sister is a rhododendron - brightly hued and round and impossible to ignore.  My younger sister is a tulip, I think.  Always appropriate in any situation.  Always welcome.

It's been snowing now for fourteen hours, and the part of me that's desperate to get the hell out of the house is now fighting with the part of me that is already in flannel pj's and wondering what's on tv tonight.  Perhaps the world will roust itself out of hibernation tomorrow, go to work, and I'll be able to get a seat at the Park View for a nice, early breakfast.  I'll take a picture of the Christmas tree, which they've inexplicably left up in the median between Dyckman street and the entrance to the Henry Hudson.  What the hell did the Groundhog say again?  Six more weeks?  Jesus.