City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York.

About midday on Sunday, December 26, known to some as Boxing Day, snow began to fall in New York City. It continued overnight and into Monday morning. This snow was a true blizzard, with lots of wind and some thunder and lightning, too. Quite a show.

I was working on Sunday, and was relieved to be granted permission to have the shop close a bit early. We had shoveled the sidewalk and entrance way leading to the shop several times during the afternoon, but our efforts were quickly covered by those energetic flakes.

All of us who were working on Sunday were fortunate to have access to public transportation in the form of our underground subway trains. I had an easy time getting home, and was so glad to be indoors as the storm really got going.

I woke several times during the night to peek out my front window and was amazed that wind was so strong, bending the trees along the street, and swirling the snow to create a curtain blocking a northern view past the brownstone houses just across the street. Remarkable. The occasional thunder surprised me every time.

Morning arrived. The light was that unusual glow of snowy ground cover mixing with falling snow, and muted sunlight shining from way above the clouds.

The following picture shows the view from my bathroom window, where my fledgling paperwhite bulbs were backed by a drift of snow on the other side of the glass. I thought that drift made a strange little miniature landscape.

Gradually the snow began to lighten, and once again I could see past the buildings across the street, as my usual uptown view returned.

Ah, but below the rooftops the view was very changed. The brownstone's front steps were smoothly covered. No one had entered or left that building overnight. The little garbage cans to the left of the steps were covered with their polka dots of snow. It was clear that at least one New York City snow plough had scraped some snow from the actual street, but not many vehicles were brave enough to venture down the block.

Here is another photo of the same view that indicates just how quiet and still and even was that snow.

That tranquility would have been lovely to have enjoyed from inside my apartment. The snow was about 18 inches deep, deeper in places.

I had to go to work. The option of keeping the shop closed was not available. Again, those of us scheduled to work on Monday were fortunate to have access to public transport that was functioning. Many of the City's bus and subway and railroad lines were not functioning. The wind was still very strong, and as I walked down my street (in the street) I was lucky not to find myself blown over.

It was strange being at work on such a quiet day. The downtown neighborhood of the shop is normally filled with tourists and really buzzing. This was not true on Monday, but we did have some business.

Again, we had to shovel out the sidewalk and entrance way. It's the law!

Again, we were fortunate in being granted permission to close the shop early.

When I slipped and slid my way to the subway for the ride home, I saw something I have never seen in all my years in New York. There was actually an accumulation of snow along the platform where we travelers wait for the next arriving train. The snow had be able to force its way underground through the grating in the street above.

The following photo documents this. It is not a pretty picture, but shows how commuters had tramped down a passageway that would align with a doorway to an arriving train. In the background you can perhaps see a train stalled in the station, with an Out of Service light in the space that would usually indicate its destination.

Once again, it was relatively easy to get home. And again on Tuesday, I was scheduled to work. Again, all staff scheduled for Tuesday got to work.

Signs of normalcy began to reassert themselves around the neighborhood. Various delivery services were again able to make their deliveries. The City's Sanitation Department had cancelled garbage collection services until more of the snow had been dealt with. City sanitation trucks have snow ploughs attached to them and are used to clear the streets. There are many, many streets to clear.

Our shop makes use of a private garbage collection company, and a representative of that company informed me that they were resuming service...if we could provide them access to the actual curb location usually used to stow the garbage on collection nights.

Well. The City snow ploughing had created curbside drifts that were about four feet tall. I am not a large person, but I do have inner strength, and so, I shoveled snow for about three hours yesterday to create an opening in the snow drifts that we could use for our required garbage collection.

As I was working on this channel, I realized that it was also useful for tourists who wished to cross to the popular restaurant opposite our location. A few said thank you in various languages. One, repeat one, polite man asked if he could help me. I declined.

By the time I got home I was pretty tired, and little sore. I stopped by my neighborhood pharmacy to ask the wise pharmacist what he recommended for someone who had my symptoms. He made a wise recommendation.

I was asleep earlier than usual, and woke up with very minor aches. This was a day off! I was able to get all today's errands done.

The magical glow of our blizzard has now been transformed to the inevitable slushy aftermath.

I offer you all a few photos of today's view from that same apartment window.

You can see the sidewalks are clear, the street is pretty clear, and those curbside drifts are still formidable.

The staff of the large building across the street has kindly cut a channel through the ice-coated drift to allow access to the street. Their channel is larger than mine, but strong men created their channel!

I am delighted to be indoors with warm, dry feet. It's grand to have a hot cup of tea. One little tablet from that Advil bottle seems to have been all it took for my muscles to recover overnight.

The new issue of The New Yorker magazine has arrived with a funny cover reminding us that it's just about time to say...

Happy New Year!