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A man walks past the New York Stock Exchange as it snows - Source: Reuters -
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New York loves a blizzard almost as much as it loves money. The snowstorm, predicted for a couple of days, has arrived. "Say it ain't snow!" cried a local tabloid.
But it is. As much as a foot of the stuff predicted in the next 12 hours.
As I write from a 5th floor eyrie that's downtown-ish, I can hear plough blades hitting asphalt. This, plus the salting of streets, plus broiling summers is why the roads are no better than those in, say, Djibouti.
I can also hear cars accelerating, then braking, accelerating then braking.
You repeat the above, until the rear wheels of your Crown Victoria cab cease spinning.
Oh, and there are people shouting drunkenly. Fans of 70's disaster movies will recognise this trope: the person (and friends) who decide to mark any caesura in the natural order with a pint of rum/ whisky/vodka.
Or all three of the above.
My cab skidded and slipped riding here.
I called my sister Pip in Tauranga. Her toddler answered. She wasn't so interested in the snowstorm; nor was said-toddler's older brother.
Pip came on. She was worried about my getting back to New Zealand.
There's no accounting for taste. Tonight, I feel like I never want to leave New York. Nothing works. The avenues are deserted. The flights out are all booked. Everyone's stuck, everyone's at Mother Nature's pleasure.
And I'm impressed, truly. My taxi dropped me a few blocks from here. I walked through the teeth of the white cross-hatching, watching the albino pedestrians taking snaps of one another ("Me with Bart snow"), watching the blizzard deposit itself, frozen comma by comma, on to the bag I was carrying, and the white roses too. Blizzards are when New York says, "Okay, I'll take a break."
Tomorrow, we'll waken to a city transformed, muffled, decorative, more inconvenient than ever, but transformed, the ideal snow-job.
Oh, the President came on TV today, wearing a blazer, and no tie. He apologised for dragging reporters out in this weather, then got down to brass tacks, declaring victory in the healthcare reform struggle, and climate control fight.
Alltogether different and serious matters, surely.
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