This is one that I figured I had better post now, before I totally forget. When we were visiting UT, a little over a month ago, Reagan made Piper’s name in the snow, next to the cat track in Grizzly Gulch. I was hiking back up to get a photo of it (that is me, hiking in the foreground), when my brother-in-law, who was still up on the ridge, informed me that they had it covered. The shot was actually taken by my bro-in-law’s brother. They forwarded the image a couple of weeks ago, but I kept forgetting about it, until today. It is a little bit reminiscent of the sand sculpture that Reagan made in Buzios.

It has been snowing all day. As usual, the local media totally hyped it, beforehand. Yesterday, NYC public schools preemptively canceled class for today. In fairness, it has been coming down pretty hard, all day, and is still coming down. Even though Reagan and I both had to work, we were both able to leave a lot earlier than normal. I wish that we could have had the whole day off, to be out and about, like our friends Kim and Ryan.  I did get a few snaps of my own, today, mostly on the way out of work.

^—Looking at Battery Park City, from 1 WFC.

^—-1 World Trade Center from the Vesey Street Bridge.

And my favorite, the ever timely snow-heart that someone made on our sidewalk.

Since Piper has been back at Columbia, I have been back to the old car moving routine. I have not enjoyed it. I normally get up at 6, so that I can get it done before there is any real traffic. The sweet spot is between 6 and 7. After 7, there is a garbage truck and a school bus blocking every single street in our neighborhood.

This morning, Reagan woke me up, while she was stirring around. I had one of those sudden moments of panic, like I knew I shouldn’t still be asleep. I had forgotten to take my phone off of silent, and the type of alarm that I had set for moving the car, doesn’t make any noise, when my phone is on silent. It was already 7. I got down stairs just in time for the blizzard to start, and in time to get stuck behind every school bus and garbage truck in our neighborhood, at least once. Hahahaha. I’m ok with that though, because the snow was very pretty and entertaining to watch, while taking breaks from watching the dudes toss garbage into the truck.

At long last, I did find a parking spot in time to make it down to work w/o being late, where I took the above photos of the storm. I know they are kind of boring. I liked these ones much more.

To add a little bit of contrast to the gray photos above, I thought I would post the image below. It has made its way around the internet by now, but I thought it was cool enough to share again anyway.

The image comes from artist Steven Worley’s blog. In his post, he outlines the history of Crayola’s color spectrum, and how the palette has expanded over the years, saying:

Crayola’s crayon chronology tracks their standard box, from its humble eight color beginnings in 1903 to the present day’s 120-count lineup.  According to Crayola, of the precious crayons of my childhood – the seventy-two colors from the official 1975 set – sixty-one survive.

So cool.

^—-This was our block, this morning. Yes, it turned out to be a legitimate snow storm. I still think that all of the hype was a little much, though.

Lucky for us, it apparently had been pretty windy on Ft. Washington. Because when we got to our car this morning, the wind had already done most of the job of clearing the snow off of Bebe. The rest of the job was done by the windshield wipers and sitting in a heated garage under the church. Hehe.  From the photo above, you can tell how excited Reagan was about the snow.

After church we headed up to Westchester County, to kick it with Piper. Our friend Leslie came with us. It was her first time meeting Piper. I didn’t want to say anything, but Piper was playing favorites today, and Leslie was clearly the winner. It is so cute, the way that she reaches out for people, when she is standing up, so that you can hold out your hand and let her walk over to you. She did this with Leslie more than once.

She did smile a few times, but we could tell that she was in a really mellow mood. So, she mostly just kind of lounged around on laps, while we talked. It was definitely not a bad way to wind down the weekend.

Here are a couple of more shots from our Piper visit, today.

There has been all this hype, for like 3 days now, about how we were going to be pounded with this massive storm. It is so funny to me the way that every winter, NYC pretends like it has never had a real snow storm before. The local news channels build it all up, like it will be some sort of apocalyptic free-for-all. Whatever, dude. The bodegas are still going to be open all night. Yeah, the DOS will hit a couple of cars with their plows and alternate side parking might be suspended on Monday. But really, is all of the hype necessary? I personally enjoy how quiet the city gets, when it snows like this, at night. Here are a couple of shots from our fire escape.

I definitely was not pleased this morning, when Reagan pointed out the fact that it was snowing. On a Friday? This seems like some sort of cruel joke. There go the plans for my roof-top Vernal Equinox barbecue! I’m kidding about the barbecue part. At least tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and almost 60 degrees. I hope that it happens. For whatever reason, good weather is a such a motivator for me. I’m getting in a groove, and I don’t want it killed by some fluke snow storm.

When I saw what I was up against today, I decided to work from home. It gave me a chance to go help shovel the sidewalks at our church (first time, for me), which was nice. It was also good to unload the foot and 1/2 of snow from the car, before it turned into a crusty impossible mess, overnight. It was a bit of a bungle trying to find somewhere to park, after shoveling, since alternate side rules are suspended today. I ultimately did find a spot that was being blocked by a fuel oil truck, filling a tank.

I tried to talk Reagan into taking a snow day. But she it too diligent. I hope the her boss, at least buys doughnuts or hot chocolate or something, for her efforts.

We woke up this morning to snow flurries. Not what one hopes for on March 1st. Lucky there was no real accumulation to interfere with our Sunday jaunt into Westchester County, to visit our favorite little star. She was in spectacular form today, wearing her red karate pants. Reagan had her sitting up in the rocking chair all by herself. Piper is one curious girl. I had the pleasure of holding her during most of our visit today, and Piper was very content just playing with my hands for over an hour. I will admit that I was very content as well. I feel like the picture above portrays very accurately the way that Piper and I were both just in the mood to kick back and marinate for a while. Sunday afternoon was designed for these types of events. Go here for the rest of the pics.

So much for the old sailor adage about red skies at night.

You can’t really tell from these pictures, but it is flurrying here in lower Manhattan. As in, SNOW flurries. I’m pretty bent out of shape (if it is possible for me to be anymore out of shape than I was before I saw this) about it. I checked the forecast and it said rain and snow tomorrow too. Fitness jokes aside, Come on! (spoken in the voice of Gob Bluth).