Snowmageddon 2016

aka, an ode to my dog

I’m an adult, and I have absolutely no shame in saying there is nothing better than a snow day.

In approximately 24 hours, somewhere between 20 to 27 inches of snow fell on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

It was awesome.

Around 11pm in Central Park, I climbed a hill, up to my knees in snow, and found a metal folding chair on an outcropping of rock, overlooking the road below. I put my boot on the chair and watched as a gaggle of adults sled down a nearby hill, whooping.

My phone turned off due to the cold before I found said metal chair, so here’s a photo of me and a stop sign.

While walking down the center of Columbus Avenue, I lamented a blue Honda Fit parked at the end of the road with a giant NYC snow plow crashed into it.

Do you leave a note for that sort of thing?

The park today hosted more people than I’ve ever seen before in my life — more than the most beautiful summer day. Maybe due to the sound muffling properties of snow, or maybe because cars still haven’t really started driving on the roads, the entire place echoed with the laughter and screams of children.

My dog, Pancake, is not a huge fan of her balloon-like booties, but people on the street see her and absolutely lose their fucking minds.

I was taking a photo of this snowman when a stranger started laughing and told me I had to get Pancake into the frame. The stranger and I talked for five minutes. Who does that anymore? Me, apparently, when it snows.

There’s something about the silences that descends on this city when a blizzard rolls in that brings out the children in all of us. The streets close and and everyone — young and old — pull on some snow boots and stroll down the middle of the busiest street they can find. They make snow angels in intersections. They stop spontaneously to talk to complete strangers for extended periods of time.

Tomorrow, I’ll be grumbling over sludgy boots in the lobby of my office building. But today? Today I’m jumping into the deepest snow drifts I can find.

This morning, I got to make a slo-mo video of my miniature dachshund sprinting through snow deeper than she is tall.

Optional music highly recommended.

How can it ever be a bad day when you get to experience that?

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