weather

Day after snowday

It was back to work for me this morning, after yesterday’s unexpected snow day. The roads were still pretty terrible, at least between here and the train station, but at least the trains themselves were running on time. (Or whatever the Long Island Railroad decides to define as “on time.”) It felt a little like Monday, oddly enough, which just makes the fact that tomorrow is Friday — with a three-day weekend after it, no less — all the sweeter.

We had a couple of planning meetings for upcoming conferences at work today, including one I’ll be attending in San Jose at the end of March. (On my birthday, as it happens.) I shoveled a little more snow this evening, to clear the foot of the driveway, and discovered a huge branch that had fallen from the neighbor’s tree into our back yard sometime last night. And that’s about as exciting as my day ever got.

But hey, tomorrow’s Friday.

Oh, THAT snowpocalypse!

It snowed a whole lot here today, and is in fact still snowing, with no sign of letting up any time soon. The photo up above is from about nine o’clock this morning. I wouldn’t want to guess at how much snow has fallen throughout the day since then, but we’ve had to shovel and snowblow the driveway and path several times just to keep it clear.

Our office closed at noon today, but I’d already decided by around seven not to go in at all. The entire Long Island contingent (all three of us) stayed home, though my father braved the railroads and snow to get to his job. He said it actually wasn’t that bad, though even he came home early, since I think it was the uncertainty of rush hour that everyone was most afraid of. There’s no telling right now what will happen tomorrow, but I suspect I’ll be pulling on my boots and going in to the office. An unexpected snow day is a lot of fun, but there’s only so many of them to go around.

Besides shoveling and playing in the snow with the dog, I didn’t do a whole lot. I wrote a little bit, finished editing what I think is the last story for Kaleidotrope‘s April issue, and watched last night’s episode of Lost. I also watched Moon, which arrived this afternoon from Netflix. I really enjoyed it. It’s a small, quiet piece of science fiction, but it’s atmospheric and Sam Rockwell’s really quite good in it. It was actually kind of nice to have the option of watching a movie in the middle of the day.

Right now, I may watch a little something else or read a little, but then I think it’s time for bed. Despite my snow day, I was actually up a little earlier than usual, deliberating about whether or not I should go into work. Though I was home all day, I’m still kind of sleepy.

Snow’s a’comin’

They’re predicting a lot of snow for tomorrow — all that we didn’t get, I guess, over the past weekend and then some — but to hear people talk, you’d think they were predicting the end of the world. My sister, who works in Washington, DC, where they did get a lot of snow already, has been snowed in at home since the weekend and will be lucky if she goes back to work at all this week. We were reminded about our company’s emergency phone number this afternoon, just in case, but snow accumulation tends to be much less of a problem in Manhattan, if only because of all the tall buildings that keep it from getting to the ground (and all the traffic that keeps the ground from being there for the snow that does make it down). The snow on Long Island is sometimes another story altogether, and the railroad seemed almost giddy this evening with the prospect of canceling trains on Wednesday. If it’s really and truly bad tomorrow, just getting to the station or getting a train into Manhattan, I may take the day off regardless.

It’s already started to snow a little outside, but it’s not all that impressive so far.

Beyond the weather, there’s not much to report. I spent most of the day working on test questions for an art therapy research book we’re developing, occasionally posting grammatical questions to Twitter out of idle curiosity and boredom. (“Suppose a sentence like ‘Lions, tigers, bears, etc. are living in these woods,'” I wrote, for instance. “Should there be a comma after the etc.? If so, why? Why not?” I think the jury’s still out on that one.) That’s just the kind of Tuesday it was.

Nomaggedon

I edited a few stories for Kaleidotrope‘s next issue today, thankfully none requiring too many rewrites. As a general rule, I don’t accept stories that need extensive revisions — if it feels like a first draft, I’ll let the author know, politely reject the story, and hope they’ll submit again when it’s rewritten. But even the best story can use a good copyedit and proofreading. Otherwise, I’m not doing my job, and then why am I even bothering? I’m actually pretty booked with material for the next few issues, with some stories accepted a while ago that may be pushed back until October. If I had the time, money, and resources, I might consider putting out a third issue a year.

Beyond that, it was a pretty uneventful day. Really cold, though the so-called Snowmageddon passed us by almost entirely, except for a very light dusting before noon. You almost wouldn’t know it had snowed at all, looking out the window now. It’s amazing to see just how much snow landed only a few miles away. My sister in Maryland got about two feet, so it’s probably good we picked last week, despite the bad weather then, to visit for her birthday.

This evening, I watched The Hurt Locker. I don’t know that it was the best movie of 2009, but I enjoyed it so much more than Avatar, the other top favorite for this year’s Oscar. It’s a pretty intense movie (something I don’t think Avatar ever really is), and a dark character study. I’d definitely recommend it.

And that, as they say, is that.