My Favorite Blizzard

Hiking to the pediatrician's
Hiking to the pediatrician's

A few months back I wrote a post about how disasters can be liberating, which I now know to be unmitigated, sentimental claptrap. Disasters are called disasters for one important reason: they’re disasters, as in, they mess stuff up.

Snow isn’t such a big deal, really, so long as you don’t have to do anything. I haven’t managed to make it into work these past couple of days after what’s lovingly being called “Snowpocalypse” by those sorts of people who come up with dumb names for things that are fucking up my vacation. I’ve worked from home, so that’s not a major problem. I managed to get the grocery shopping done before the anschluss, so there’s plenty of grub, a warm apartment, the TV works, as does the Internet.

But I also have a flight to Mexico tomorrow morning, where my brother, his two daughters, JP’s aunt, a set of grandparents (JP has three; four if you include Tomoko’s parents), and a free hotel room at a beach outside of Cancun wait. And I may not get a single fricking margarita out of the deal because of the snow (and our amazing, efficient, wonderful, lovely airline industry).

Before any of that fun stuff can happen I had to get Ellie to the pediatrician this morning for her next round of immunizations. My car is covered in snow, and the roads aren’t all the passable for non-four-wheel-drive cars. I couldn’t get a car service to come pick us up (I guess they’re snowed in, too). We tried the subway, which was running relatively well–three trains came by in under fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, they were so jammed with people that we couldn’t get on any of them.

So we walked; a good mile in the snow so that my little baby could be stuck with needles. Joy!

Published by Theodore

Theodore Ross is an editor of Harper’s Magazine. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, Saveur, Tin House, the Mississippi Review, and (of course), the Vietnam News. He grew up in New York City by way of Gulfport, MS, and as a teen played the evil Nazi, Toht, in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. He lives with his son, J.P. in Brooklyn, and is currently working on a book about Crypto-Jews.

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