A white post-Christmas

I spent a lovely Christmas holiday in Texas with its warm weather and delicious Czech pastries. It was a particularly fancy and well-0rchestrated Christmas in which both the good silver and holly-embroidered napkins made appearances. My mother and I even briefly thought that it would be a good idea to make rolls from scratch (er, or with the help of my mother's bread machine). This seemed like a good idea when we gamely wheeled our cart past the inferior brown-and-serve rolls in the grocery store. Less so on Christmas morning when we realized it still takes about 3 hours to go from ingredients to completed rolls even with the help of the modern technology of rapid rise yeast and an Oster. Also, we think we may have made some errors in the dough making as what should have been soft, yet malleable, bread dough turned out as this:My mom insisted we capture this moment for posterity. Or perhaps as a cautionary tale.

At any rate, I'm now back in Astoria, although just barely, as I caught one of the last flights out on Sunday before a massive storm hit the east coast. Although I think the media dubbing the storm "Snowmagedon" or "Snowpocalpse" are over-stating the case a bit, we did get a solid 20'' of snow which they've yet to clear from all but the major avenues of Astoria. Yesterday, I just stayed inside, watching the blizzard and the unluckly few floundering through it. I also, naturally, took a few pictures. Behold! Astoria in Snow.

This was the friendlier snow that I was willing to go out in because I didn't have food in my apartment.

30th Ave this morning. Suddenly glad I don't own a car.

I was hoping the office would be closed this morning, but considering the owner of the company lives in walking distance, it was sadly not to be. Since I have no personal days left at work and live within 3 blocks of a train that was inexplicably running on time despite being an above-ground train, I really had no excuse to call out. I showed up at work and was one of 15 people (of a total of about 100) who did so. Those of us who showed up were treated to lunch and got to leave an hour and a half early (despite most of us showing up at least a half an hour late). I could get used to this snow business. Also, going into the city enabled me to take some lovely Manhattan-in-snow shots. Here I am walking down the middle of Broadway. Luckily there were no cars because the sidewalks were not yet shoveled.

A path forged through Madison Square Park.

The few. The proud. The true Shake Shack devotees. Heat lamps or no, I have no idea why these people are eating outside.

Things are supposed to return to business as normal tomorrow (sadly, likely no more free lunches). Also, the snow will all transform into brown slush and treacherous ice. That said, perhaps because I had so few of them in my youth, I'm quite the fan of snow days.