Snow!

Yesterday it snowed for the third or fourth time this winter. Yilin and I did a lot of walking in the morning, as the giant flakes were falling, and it was great. I really miss the snow. Of course, snow in NYC is always interesting, mostly because of the things you witness other people doing.

One observation I've made, that demonstrates New Yorkers' lack of consideration for anyone else, or their own future predicaments, is the way people handle parking on the street if there's a lot of snow. You see, the plows, which are garbage trucks with plow blades on the front, just pack all the snow up against and between the parked cars lining the streets. When the owners of the cars go outside to use their vehicle they typically just get in and pull out of the space. Of course, it is never that easy, because there is an incredible amount of snow in between the cars. Rarely do people attempt to remove any of the snow. Often the cars struggle tremendously, get stuck, etc. And when the car finally pulls out, it leaves behind a packed down icy mess, and a large mound of snow for any other car to overcome in the course of parking in that same space. Nobody uses shovels, nobody cares that anyone else might want to park, and nobody thinks, "Hey, maybe if we just shoveled out around our own cars, it would make parking again much easier."

Yesterday, I didn't see any of that as it wasn't nearly enough snow to warrant plowing. However, I did see some odd things. I saw a man shoveling the sidewalk with a spade. I found that odd, and overly cumbersome, as the blade was 5 inches wide and metal. I saw another guy spreading Kosher salt outside of his restaurant, presumably because he didn't have any regular sidewalk salt.

Yilin and I also witnessed something horrifying. We saw some parents out with their young kids, and one of the kids picked up snow off of the sidewalk and started eating it. Mind you, there was no untouched virgin freshly fallen patches of snow anywhere. This was snow that had been shoveled and stepped on, and who knows if any dogs had previously visited that area. (Dog owners in NYC seem to think it's OK to leave dog shit on the sidewalk if there is snow to cover it. There are hidden traps everywhere.) So you can imagine my disgust at witnessing this kid reach down, pick up some tainted snow and eat it! And her parents did nothing! She's probably going to die of viral meningitis, or some other disease carried by rats or pigeons, and the doctors are going to ask her parents if she'd been licking the sidewalks or eating bird feces, and her parents will respond, "No, but we let her eat snow off of the sidewalk! Bwaahhh!"

This morning the snow was mostly gone, as usual. The subway trains, electrical lines, cars, trucks, and buses produce heat, while all of the concrete, blacktop, metal, buildings, and the impenetrable cloud of CO2 surrounding New York trap heat. So snow rarely lasts more than 2 days. I'll just keep praying for snow.