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.