Blizzard Bust

"A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water."

-Carl Reiner

The great blizzard of '26 has proven a bit of a bust in Lower Manhattan.

We drove back midday Saturday, me still aching from surgery the day before, trying to beat the massive snowstorm that was to arrive overnight. Portable signs along the side of the interstate warned of the blizzard, and directed that no commercial vehicles be on the road after midnight. We arrived back here a little before seven, curled up on the couch, and waited for the deluge.

On cue, the snow started around sunrise Sunday, getting heavier toward the middle of the day. The snowplows passed below our window every hour or so, seeming unable to keep up.

Then it tapered, then it stopped completely mid-afternoon.

Peg was extremely disappointed. We'd been promised a foot of snow or more by evening, and here we were with maybe a few inches. Life slowly returned to normal down on the street.

This morning's just another Monday in the city that never sleeps, with pedestrians carrying $8 coffees briskly along cleared sidewalks, and snow covered cars lined up on lanes flanked by grey slush. It's not supposed to get above freezing for maybe a couple weeks, and our friend Hal, a native of this place, has warned us that the leftover snow will only get greyer and nastier as it sits there, day after day.

Time for me to pull myself together for a pretrial conference in a few minutes. I dread these cattle calls, with dozens of lawyers onscreen as the judge tells us the same thing as the last docket call, then finally gets to us after an hour or so of wasted time to tell us when we'll go to trial by Zoom sometime late in February. All a massively inefficient way to do business, but here we are.

Later they're holding my first partnership tax class by Zoom, because of the storm. The prof in her email was apologetic about the fact that our first meeting would be virtual, but my knee hurts like hell today and I sort of doubt I would've been able to limp the mile in the snow this morning to meet her in person.