Snow What Matters

A blizzard in New York is polarizing. Living in Manhattan is a breeze, even with the high wind. You don't have to shovel anything. You can walk anywhere and get what you need, unless it's a salad from Whole Foods (more on that later.) But if you live way out in Brooklyn or Queens, it can ruin your day, or even a couple of days. People whose only access is an elevated subway train can't make it work, and most of those people aren't paid when they can't show up. Many people who work in offices that aren't newsrooms can work from home, changing the dynamic of everyday life in your neighborhood. Different people are at the gym or out to lunch. It can be a luxury, almost like a snow day when you were a kid, for those who get to work from home. Generally, it's a lighter workload and those working from home can sneak out to the gym or linger over sashimi instead of slurping down some bodega soup at their desk wishing they were in Spin class. While newspepople need to get to work regardless of where they live, there's little argument that financial services execs should have to trek to the office. Are investors really eager to rebalance their portfolios in the wake of thundersnow? I think not. Yet some bosses, or at least Mike's, decided it was essential for them to staff the office. Funny how Mike was one of three people in the otherwise empty building yesterday. One left at 1 p.m. after muddling his way into Midtown from that faraway planet we call Jersey where he could have been cuddling with his wife and kids.

Back to Whole Foods. My father-in-law, who is visiting for Michael Alexander's first Christmas, went out to get salads from my mother-in-law and me. He returned empty handed as none of the regular salad selections were stocked. I made a second run with him to see what we might forage. In place of usual mezzes and cobbs was a stockpile of greens topped, or toppled, with quinoa and rice. Clearly the salad maven couldn't make it in from the outer Bronx so the guy who restocks housewares and cleaning supplies was summoned into the land of Caesars and Nicoises. The butcher and the fishmonger couldn't make it in either, so the protein of choice (or no choice) was quinoa. I managed to muster my taste for something called a harvest salad comprised mostly of red grapes. I do like grapes, but rarely as the star ingredient in a savory salad. Still, they were more appetizing than a giant lump of unseasoned quinoa. Quinoa is a good source of magnesium and phosphorus, and an excellent source of manganese. It's a complete protein, meaning it is one of the few grains that contain all the essential amino acids. But, still, they could throw in some veggies to brighten up the greens. Veggies, not grains, need to be the bigger player in the plastic tub. I digress. The real problem here is that the salad maven, the fish monger, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick stocker who couldn't make it to Union Square yesterday lost a day of pay. Meantime, Whole Foods saved on wages and reaped sales from these substitute salads as snowmageddon shoppers crammed their carts for fear the staaaahrm will never cease and even the Chinese takeout places that fueled the shattered city on 9/11 would shudder.

I can kind of, sort of, understand the fear of a Depression era born rural Vermonter who must travel 10 miles to Johnsons' General Store and about 150 miles to the nearest supermarket. I get why he might fire up his pickup truck and scour the megamart shelves after the forecast hits. But really Manhattanites? Really Union Squarers and East and West Villagers? You really, truly fear you will starve if you don't pile your puny apartment with perishables you'll purge after the slush subsides? It never ceases to amaze me how people will act, or react, to a storm that means nothing more than donning an extra layer and risking destruction of your favorite shoes. That's the woe of Manhattanites in winter. You don't even need to leave your walkup. A myriad deliverymen will climb seven flights to bring you steaming sacks of specialties from the Seven (or close to all of the more than 100 identified by the International Hydrographic Organization) Seas. What should concern you is how polarizing such an event is for NYC. While many, if not most, Manhattanites steal a day or two to complain about the whiteout and embrace any excuse to be lazy and order in, outer borough dwellers are largely losing a big chunk of their piddly weekly hand-to-mouth wages. It's so easy to lose perspective and forget about other peoples', most peoples', struggles when we're luxuriating in the city that will serve us whatever we can pay for, whenever we want it. Snow or no snow, the deliveryman will show.

I'm guilty of this, too. I just let my conscience come out occasionally so I can rant.
Being a Manhattanite is completely different from life in New England where I was born and grew up. In my early years as a newspaper reporter and AP newswoman, I was buried in storm coverage. I'd work around the clock to cover every fatal crash, rushing to the scene on the same dangerous streets that claimed those lives minutes ago, and keep constant tabs on every outage. I could drive through what TV "reporters" called "impossible" conditions. I do not miss having to play rugged, wake at 2 a.m. to dig out my car and clear the first few feet from my driveway and the street below. I don't miss being one of the few motorists on the snowy, icy streets, and usually the only one with any confidence in her skills to get where she's going. Living in the city makes life so easy. Yet for most it just makes it easier to complain about something different. The snow that "cripples" your commute. Ha! Yeah, none of us buys it. You just might be lucky enough to have a boss who is as wussy and proud as you. Try being a newsperson. I mean a real newsperson who covers every detail of every second and gets fired for getting to work a minute late even when the apocalypse hits. Seconds count, even more so when the thundersnow strikes. You were supposed to be at the office ahead of that. So stop asking your Facebook friends if it's safe or feasible to travel those two miles to work from Brooklyn. Even trudging through snow won’t take more than an hour and you’ll see the city in all its glory, enveloped in white. My AP colleagues will attest to this. That little bit of incidental cardio (walking two miles is NOT exercise; you must go to the gym for that) will help clear your mind. It can even merit a story in its own right. My musings on my walk to work during the New York City Blackout of 2003 was fun to write, especially in the trenches during a 15-hour shift with no flush toilets or food. Be lazy if you want to be lazy, but don't forget that those who really can't make it to work aren't getting paid enough to order curry.

Etiquette, and Common Decency, Plunge Down the Shaft

After living in rent-stabilized walkups, including an eighth-floor studio (pre-war buildings on the Village with lettered apartments on the entry floor got away with adding an extra floor, each with four tiny flights of narrow stairs) for more than a decade, I appreciate every ride to and from my 17th-floor one-bedroom. For Mike and me, living in an elevator doorman building is a luxury we do not take for granted. Even when one elevator's being repaired or used for a move in or out, we've got another one. Sure they're often slow, but that's mostly the fault of our fellow tenants. Yesterday I went after the sociopolitical sins of suburbia. Today I'm making it abundantly clear that Manhattan's got its share of social criminals.

There are still some rent stabilized tenants in our building, including a lovely older couple who live across the hall and are polite under all circumstances, including when the elevator's being held on a lower floor. But most of our neighbors pay the same premium we do for amenities such as an elevator. It's little surprise that the biggest complainers include those pay the least to live here. Then there are those who seem not to care how much they spend, though they think their share entitles them to VIP treatment. Most days I can shrug this off, appreciating the luxury even as others are ungrateful. But today, every ride up and down was rife with rudeness. I could chronicle each offender, like the mumbling man who forced his way into the car, ramming Michael Alexander's stroller, which already was flush with the wall, and dragging his tobacco-infused winter coat in my baby's face. Or the woman who balked that she had to hold her bouquet of flowers closer to her heavily made up face to make room for others. But I'll focus on one chronic culprit. Mike and I call her Cougar. Her real name's Beth and she's a freelance writer, though I suspect she works about four hours a week, max, as she's mostly out shopping or bitching on her cellphone through a mouthpiece. She has a housekeeper, sends her laundry out and orders in frequently. And apparently, she thinks the elevators are her private cars.

Oh, yeah. We call her Cougar because she's a well-heeled 40-something woman with a late-night appetite for younger men. She's attractive, in that manufactured, moneyed Manhattan way. She's very trim. I'd say fit, but I think she's just blessed with a monster metabolism, as I see her at the gym exerting about as much effort as it takes me to watch Bravo. She doesn't break a sweat on her infrequent stops in Spin class. Of course, she doesn't add any tension to the bike. After all, that could crimp her salon blowout. The horror! Cougar's antics are absurd, and usually a source of comic relief. There's the time Mike caught her making out with a tall, younger Brit in an empty apartment being prepped for the next tenant. (Mike was taking out the trash and saw her and her conquest of the night in the apartment next to the compacter room.) Disposing of rubbish, albeit inappropriately, seems to be the only chore she'll tolerate. She can't be bothered to toss trash down the chute so she drops it near the recycling bin. And often, she dumps things in the hallway, right in front of our door. There were the Topshop panties. There was the letter from the insurance company chronicling her withdrawl of her claim that she "lost" an engagement ring, only to later "find" it in her apartment. The list is exhaustive. Nightly refuse includes giant bottles of sake. The better to cougar you with, my dear! On the trash room floor, I've seen more panties, candles, books on the occult and fancy boxes from the many freebies she gets to abet her "job" covering food and luxury goods. But her elevator abuse is no laughing matter.

She's always scurrying, tiny dog in tote, to and from the elevators, cursing as she's realized she forgotten whatever it is she needs for a day of dallying or an eve of cougaring. On multiple occasions, I've seen her place her designer handbags, unzipped with wallet exposed, in the elevator doorway to hold it while she fetches her cougar gear. Our apartment's right in front of the elevators, so I hear her every profanity-laden trip, punctuated by her pooch's high-pitched yapping. I've been tempted to kick her tote into the car and send it down for a ride. But I'm a nice person, really I am. I just have these thoughts. That, and the shrill shoutout when she discovered it gone would scare the baby.

Today, I had the displeasure of taking two rides with her, and witnessing her make four other attempts to get downstairs. On one occasion, Michael Alexander and I were headed up from the basement laundry room. (I wonder if Cougar even knows there's a laundry room. Another luxury for Mike and me, as we used to tote our laundry several blocks from the walkups.) She got in the car on the first floor, only to realize she needed to complain to the doorman about something. "Hold it!" she hollered as she left behind the dog and went to ask for some favor without tipping. We waited as four other people came in and got in the car. "Hold it!" she repeated. Once she finally decided to join us, she sighed and said "There's no room here." About an hour later, as Michael Alexander and I returned from an errand, we got behind five other people waiting for the elevator, including an elderly man with a walker. As soon as he saw the stroller, he backed out and said "Women and children first." I told the four others waiting to go first, but they all insisted I take the lead. Just then, Cougar and her canine arrived, and she hurried past the others, following me into the car. Though she weighs no more than 105 pounds, soaking wet, and her dog's the size of a small cat, she sprawled across the car and hit the door close button, even as those before her waited. "There's room for at least three more people," I said, gesturing to my neighbors. "No! There is no room!" she quipped, giving me a look of deep-rooted contempt and pounding again on the door close button. Joining us for the ride was a young woman I didn't recognize. But she was friendly with Cougar, lamenting that she'd trekked all the way across Union Square Park to go to Sephora only to find her favorite eyeliner sold out. Oh, no! Cougar sympathized, equating the young woman's suffering with her own struggle in the "crammed" car. Cougar was back for another ride as Michael Alexander and I returned from another trip to the laundry room. The door was closing behind us, taking a man to the 18th floor. "Hold it!" she called out, making this her mantra, or at least the only words she uttered to me directly today. "It's going up," I said, not looking back. She sighed and launched into another round of swearing and self-loathing.

Yesterday I used this blog to voice a serious concern, hoping to raise some consciousness. Today, I'm guilty of being snarky, even somewhat self-serving. Don't send me down the shaft. It's Friday.