Proper first day of winter

Last night, New York City lost another $10 to $16 million. If you'll recall from our previous lesson on NYC snow management, that's one million for every inch of snow that fell in the first big storm of winter, which is handy, because today is also the winter solstice and thus the first day of winter.

Way to get with the program, Mother Nature.

But MN wasn't the only entity with great timing yesterday. I myself stepped out of the laundromat with my heap of clean, neatly folded clothstuffs just as the first flakes fell, narrowly avoiding the dreaded task of dragging my laundry cart through the snow. My first winter snowfall in New York, I was sorting my laundry and thinking, "La la la, how fun this will be, to tow my laundry in the gently falling snow on this early winter's morn." Ten feet out the door, I thought, "This is really f**king awful!" Nothing is worse than dragging the laundry cart through the snow: ice gets kicked up from the wheels, people don't shovel their sidewalks so the cart becomes a plow, and you have to lift the whole thing up and over the ankle-deep puddles of slush and motor oil every time you cross the road. Blech. Of all things to be avoided in the wintertime, laundry in the snow tops the list, along with the joining the Coney Island Polar Bear Club and standing in line for four hours to ice skate in front of the tree at Rockefeller Center.

However, if you're like me and have no where to go today, and you've patched the leaky parts of the window frame with white duct tape (so it blends with the wall), and you've got a fire escape attractively heaped with undisturbed snow, winter in New York is a dandy thing.