it's just snow, people

why hello boys and girls. perhaps you've noticed that i haven't posted anything in ohhh 9 months. maybe i had a baby? no. absolutely not. i did not have a baby. let's make that clear. but my friend did. and i could have. and that's what matters.

 actually, this hiatus lines up almost perfectly with the amount of time i have been at my new job. you figure out the rest. so i thought i'd start back up in a way that makes you not even miss this at all!  this post has photos! yay! lots of photos. but it also has words! boo! lots of words! read it if you dare.

backstory: i work in south street seaport and i live (sort of) in hoboken. my job may or may not make me dumber and less interesting. you be the judge. let's begin.

i wake up on the day after christmas (boxing day!) thinking of all the pancakes and candy i can eat, all the epic mickey i can play, and all the hours i can stare at my dog. (she sleeps a lot now.) i am told at 8am that the snow is going to start early and that if i need to go to work monday i need to go back to the hobo soon.

 i call hoboken 'the hobo' in hopes that one, just one, person may hear that and think i live in an actual homeless person.

after debating greatly whether i should go back to hobo or just screw it and stay home, i decide to make the journey.  i had some kitties to kittysit and i really like to hoard my PTO. plus my roommate had just called me up saying she had done the inevitable panicked grocery store run and bought loads of food. she didn't buy gallons of water (i asked) or fill the bathtub up with water (i assumed), so we didn't reach y2k crazy yet.

as my brother drives me to the train station we can tell it is clearly escalating in my home town. 

look at how that stick struggles! it knows what is to come.  i saved it from almost certain death and flung it on the lawn with its friends.

i get to the train station and try to wheel my wheely bag. this does not work well with snow, for the record. so i carried it with a lean like a peg-legger. it was heavy and i am weak. after a few chilly minutes standing next to a british person discussing his regrets over not asking for leftovers of the tasty ham (rookie mistake. even a veg knows that), the train arrives.

it was just nj transit, not the polar express.i looked for both santa and josh groban, but i only saw a guido and his lady friend. both of whom foolishly thought a tiny umbrella would help them in a blizzard..its a blizzard kids. i did not take a picture of these stereotypes in fear of someone calling me bro and trying to make me go to the gym. 

after a surprisingly efficient and undelayed ride, i get to the hobo  and drag my new draggy bag to my apartment. 

we spent the greater part of sunday evening watching the fools struggle up this hill. i mean really. where do you POSSIBLY have to go that you think its a good idea to slide your minivan all over the narrow hilly street?    the tires squealed like wildcats, and it made me come a-running to enjoy the show. i should note that no one was hurt and no parked cars were hit. though people did try to cross the street 1.5 feet in front of a car battling it out. we yelled things at those people.

then we went to sleep. 

i wake up and check my work email hoping they would close the office, like the normal people do, but alas, no such luck. we were given the offer to work from home, but since i was not set up for that, i decided i was going in. it's just snow. and i have snow boots and a dream. and a fancy camera phone.and by god, i will not use a PTO day.

 i make it down the stairs and stand in the vestibule that i once found a homeless man sleeping in (he made it very clear that he had no real intention of leaving when he moved aside to let me in). oh the memories.

and here is  what i see.

at this point in the story i get very indignant and slightly outraged. i let out an audible 'REALLY?!' and think REALLY?? HAS NO ONE LEFT BEFORE ME? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE. i told this section of the story to a coworker who was quick to stop me and explain that i had it all wrong and that i was the crazy one. and she's right. i suppose i could not think others were crazy for not leaving, when nj had declared a state of emergency. (yes hoboken is nj, despite the people who live here who don't seem to understand that). 

but i have come this far! and i am not about to give up due some precipitation buildup! so after several hip checks to the door (which creaked a whoooolllee lot - but it's fine landords! don't you worry. ps SHOVEL MAH STOOP). i ninja kick my way out, despite a minor back injury and my dry-clean-only pants (whatever, i rolled them up). once out the door i quickly realize my journey has just begun.

yeah. my stoop has some snow. thats not a mini ski slope. that's my stairs. and my gate. i use my shovel boots and find a few stairs, then do the only thing an office assistant can do. threw caution to the wind and jumped the gate to a little snowy alcove below.

there were some immigrant workers shoveling the bodega down the street and no doubt mocking my 7 minute struggle. the signs of which remain in the photo above.

i get to washington street only to find that no one has even bothered trying to plow. YET PEOPLE STILL KEEP DRIVING. OMG.

yeah, this guy is probably an office assistant too. bet his stoop was shoveled. OFFICE ASSITANTS... UNITE!

don't even think for a minute that you can rest. there is no  rest for the weary here in the snow-crippled-square-mile town of hoboken. but i bet there was still a line for the cake boss. jesus christ there are always so many people in line for the cake boss.

at this point i tried to take a video to document a moment or two. kind of like 127 hours only instead of filming because i had to hack my arm off because i got stuck while doing something interesting, i filmed in case i decided to just throw myself face first into a 6-foot snowdrift because i lost the will to go on. the video turned about to be about 15 seconds of foot crunching and wind before the whole video turns black because my computer hand is too cold and just can' take it any more.

these guys dont have any idea where there are or whats happening. i think the front two are partaking in some ritual, synchronized, pagan, anti-snow dance in hopes that horror will all go away soon. THE HORROR, I SAY. for nothing is more horrible than this foreign white substance plaguing our town!

 i come across a familiar struggle halfway down the nearly deserted artery of hoboken. YES, boys and girls, YES. this IS the same van that i mocked while it crawled up the hill outside my apartment. and yes, it was getting mocked again.

  those men in the matching boots either work for the city or are just real pissed off men who shop at the same shoe store, but there was a whole lot of profanity for a peaceful, blustery monday morning. things like " WHY DON'T YOU GET SOME REAL FUCKING TIRES??" yes, solid point. but perhaps what we should really focus on here is " WHY ARE YOUR DRIVING YOU INCOMPETENT FOOL? DO YOU NOT NOTICE THE BLIZZARD?". i hate everyone.

finally i make it to the path station

it looks misleadingly glorious as the sun tries to show its face while it continues to snow. but don't be fooled! it was an hour and half long convoluted journey that took me deeper into nj before taking me to the WTC. but don't worry. i made a friend. jessica... or jennifer. i guess we're more 'acquaintances' then...

finally. i make it to nyc. where the streets look like this:

 and i decide i want a donut. so i go to one dunkin donuts. NO DONUTS. well, i think, that's two strikes for you, DD-that-ran-out-of-donuts-on-free-donut-day, i should have known better. so at this point i am already an hour late, and decide to try the other DD. because as i learned from the quick center: "it's easy to be late", but it's just as easy to be late with donuts."

 and i wanted a mother effin donut. oh what's that DD #2? OH. OK. YOU DON'T HAVE DONUTS EITHER. THAT'S FINE. NOT LIKE IT'S IN YOUR NAME OR ANYTHING. why are they even open? sigh.

i give up and soon see this lovely sign:

they are so not kidding about the falling ice. and somebody measured out the caution tape remarkably well. i was about 7 feet from the door of my building laughing about how i should have stayed home and i see a giant icy flash out of my peripheral vision. then a large crash, and my legs are showered with icicle shrapnel. totally almost Die Hard 2ed right there.

IT'S ICICL-ING SIDEWAYS!

i get inside around 10:20 and the security man at the desk says with utter surprise " Stacey! you made it! is there even anyone up there?". the answer to that is yes. 11 people in fact. in my office. i later find out from the cleaning woman that our office had more people there than the rest of the building combined. its a 35 floor building. people in my office are crazy.

i decide i am leaving at 3:30 and i dont care who knows it. and so i do. and go back on another 2 hour journey that should take about 30 minutes. i regret not staying home home with the schnauzer, but then i wouldn't have experienced the 'city that never sleeps' taking  a little power nap.

oh and i took the ferry the next day. 

 i shall end with a quote from twitter that expresses my feelings better than i can:
 EricCunningham 

  

Let's agree to not call every snowstorm the Snowpocalypse. Save it for the real Snowrapture when Santa returns.11:14 PM Dec 25th via Twitter for iPhoneRetweeted by you and 63 others