Be Careful Not To Overcook The Lamb

Holy shit, it’s like 70 degrees today:

The lamb has arrived early with temperatures reaching a record-breaking 72 degrees in Central Park. The old record of 71 was set in 1955.

“I usually take the bus [to work], because I work on the East Side and live on the West Side. But since it was so warm I decided to walk,” said one New Yorker enjoying the weather.

Others walked their dogs, who also seemed to enjoy the spring scent in the air.

I saw dogs sniffing around, too, but unless I’m mistaken about what was on my leg, it wasn’t clear they were after any sort of spring scent.

Why Would Anyone Do That?

A “small but influential clan” of fashion-conscious New Yorkers are avoiding watching the weather, confounding — and making rich — clothes designers everywhere:

House keys? Check. Cellphone? Check. Last minute consult with weatherman. Er . . . In planning her day, Melissa Briskman did give the weather a cursory thought. “Before leaving the house I stuck my head out the window,” said Ms. Briskman, an actress and English teacher, who shivered perceptibly as she waited outside Cafe Gitane on Mott Street on Saturday.

Her only defense against the wicked storm forecast for that day was the light wool coat she had pulled halfheartedly over a tissue-weight tunic and leggings. “I just wear what I want to wear when I want to wear it,” she said, “and I make it work.”

Earlier in the week Patricia Black, the director of a fashion showroom in New York, just as determinedly blew winter a raspberry. Ms. Black arrived at work in a summery dress of white cotton eyelet. “I knew it was awfully cold out,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘Oh, maybe this dress would be a little breath of springtime in February.'”

Ms. Briskman and Ms. Black are members of a small but influential clan of New Yorkers, mostly young, who in a week when temperatures plunged to the 20’s ignored sullen skies and stinging winds and, along with them, conventional notions of dressing for the season. Sure, some wore leggings, granddaddy sweaters, chunky boots and jeans, but mainly to set off their filmy tops and flowery dresses.

A Honest Day’s Work

A Sun reporter does a stint as one of the city’s emergency snow laborers and files this report:

The work isn’t steady or easy, but it beats minimum wage by $3.25. Several laborers confided to me that they didn’t think it was much of a sacrifice to give up comfort and the integrity of their lower back for that wage. “That’s a lot of money,” one told me.

. . .

The job is fairly simple: Clear out the areas near fire hydrants, bus stops, drains, and intersections; throw the snow into the street and let it melt. A supervisor from the Sanitation Enforcement unit of the department hovers in the background, occasionally grabbing a shovel to help out, and keeping the van in proximity to the crew — mine included small-time cigarette hustlers, maintenance workers, and elevator repairmen.

Before we headed out, we met at a giant sanitation garage full of trucks. Light filtered through pale yellow windowpanes. Ray, who lives in the nearby housing projects, was the first one there. A jack of all trades, he works as a busboy, dishwasher, factory worker, and part-time laborer, among other jobs. “I do whatever’s available,” he said, showing a cracked tooth.

To get on the list for the much coveted snow jobs, you have to be in line as early as 7:30 a.m. (7 a.m. on busy days). A grumpy sanitation administrator named Willie takes down names and doles out the jobs. In theory, if a laborer puts in 40 hours, he gets a raise to $15 an hour. This is nearly impossible, though, because Willie gives out jobs to newcomers first and veterans second. Several old-time snow laborers said this wasn’t the case last year. At eight hours of wages, the city spent about $41,000 on the 512 extra workers yesterday. The storm could end up costing the city more than $100,000 in emergency snow labor.

. . .

At first, the work was easy and almost fun. There was a pleasure in the immediacy of the progress. It’s all right in front of you: a cleared path, an unburied hydrant, or slush going down the drain. But it quickly becomes clear that this is a thankless job. Several times young women with large sunglasses rudely interjected “Excuse me” as we shoveled and scraped — as if we were being selfish by taking up part of the sidewalk. A few passers-by smiled, but it seemed like it was mostly out of awkwardness in having encountered our ragtag clean-up crew.

At every corner my squad members razzed each other and the attractive women that walked by. When you carry a shovel and are working for the city, you can’t help but have a bit of a swagger.

Mmm . . . Brackish Salty Muddy Daiquiris

“Strawberry daiquiris” are probably the last thing I think of when I see slush:

And then there was what was underfoot, an unpredictable and potentially slippery coating on the pavement.

“You have to concentrate,” said Evelyn Gatzonis, who owns a spa in Astoria, Queens, and walked to work in leather boots with 4 1/2-inch stiletto heels. (It was Valentine’s Day, after all, she said.)

There was a lot to concentrate on: avoiding potholes in the making, and avoiding the sludgy, brackish liquid that had already filled them.

“It’s like a strawberry daiquiri that’s been out for five minutes and the stuff has started to separate so the syrup’s on the bottom and ice is on the top,” said Adele Morrissette, an investment banker whose office is in Rockefeller Center. “In this case, the syrup . . . you don’t want to know. The streets weren’t clean before it snowed.”

Pwetty Pwetty Bwizzard . . . Fwuffy Wike Persian Cats!

The Times takes great pleasure in pointing out that the Blizzard of 2006 was not so bad after all:

Even as the snow fell, and fell and fell, late Saturday and throughout Sunday, it never felt like the end of the world. Almost no one lost power. No one died from the storm. Hospitals were not swamped with shoveling-related heart attacks. No state, county, city or borough of emergency was declared.

As for why, various explanations are offered, including an inventive Persian cat comparison:

Because the track of this storm was relatively far offshore, it did not pack the wallop of wet warm ocean air that northeasters can, so the snow was dry and fluffy. Very, very fluffy. Like a Persian cat in a roomful of hair dryers. Thus it blew right off tree branches rather than snapping them down onto power lines. It practically shoveled itself.

Then there’s the issue of measurement:

News of the record-breaking storm that rolled through this weekend did not particularly impress Mr. [Billy] Slavin. “They keep records for Central Park,” Mr. Slavin said. “This is Elm Park [Staten Island].”

Mr. Slavin hit on another mitigating aspect of this storm. There really was less snow in Elm Park. And it wasn’t just Elm Park. Borough Park, Ozone Park, Parkchester, Park Ridge, Minnewaska State Park, the Vince Lombardi Park & Ride — just about any park other than Central, the record-breaking storm actually broke no record at all.

For according to Geoff Cornish, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University, the heaviest snow fell in a 15-mile-wide band that passed directly over Midtown Manhattan, the southeastern Bronx and northwestern Queens. Thus La Guardia Airport in Flushing received 9 inches more snow than Kennedy, and nobody in Brooklyn saw even 20 inches, let alone two feet.

In fact, of the 17.7 million people who live in the National Weather Service district that includes Central Park, fewer than half live in counties that recorded a two-foot snowfall.

One more thing. Not to cast doubt on a record — or on the hard-working people who keep it — but do you know who measures the snow at Central Park? The security guards at the zoo. They read the numbers off a stick set in a flat, tree-ringed clearing near the sea lion pool.

Therefore, the words, “According to the National Weather Service, the snowfall in Central Park . . .” actually mean, “According to the security guards at the Central Park Zoo.”

Well, thanks for spoiling it. Jerks.

See also: Language Log’s “The Storm Is Real, The Word Is Still Fake” on the use of “nor’easter”.