Journal of a Sabbatical

January 21, 2001

snow removal madness

Today's Reading: John Greenleaf Whittier: Life and Letters by Samuel T. Pickard

Stiff aster? Wavy leafed aster maybe? The walking buddies had our annual Christmas party yesterday - a little late but Rita kept the decorations up for us so it would still feel holidayish. Rita gave each of us a framed pressed wildflower from North Conway. I could identify everybody else's but mine stumped me. It looks like some kind of aster but I couldn't find anything in my books that had that shape leaf with such tiny flowers. I scanned it and emailed a copy to Zsolt to see if he could identify it in his copious free time. I know it's not a tree but it does grown in the temperate zone forest with or near conifers.

Anyway, we had lunch and exchanged presents. I gave everybody mystery novels involving cats - it's a theme with us - which I found on the remainder table for $4.98 each. Two cents under budget! Claire made us all warm headbands (the kind that cover your ears) and mittens out of Polartec remnants she got at the Malden Mills factory sale. Joan-east gave us all tubes of her favorite hand cream, and Priscilla gave us pretty things she'd picked out for each of us at the thrift shop back in October. Mine was a blue enameled butterfly pin.

We didn't walk because the streets were a solid sheet of ice. Friday night's snow storm turned to freezing rain and made everything slick. There was some question as to whether we would even get the party in on Saturday because the weathermen were predicting a big storm with 6 to 11 inches accumulation and high winds. Given how pitiful the last big storm was, I didn't quite believe.

After the festivities, I drove down to Nancy's in Providence for the Rhode Island portion of my life. We planned to cocoon because of the predicted storm. Even though it was barely snowing after we went out for dinner at Taste of India, we rented a video for a night at home. We chose The King of Masks: a story about a "change faces" performer in old Sichuan who is desperate for an heir to whom he can pass on the family art. I loved this movie. All the actors had wonderfully expressive faces, even the monkey named General. Actually, especially the monkey. Every shot was visually stunning. The characters were vivid and complex. The relationships between the characters were vivid and complex. Rent this movie immediately.

The snow didn't seem to be adding up very fast, but I was glad to be in Providence instead of my condo complex so I could avoid Busy Body's snow removal madness. I knew if my car was not in the parking lot at all, it couldn't possibly affect whether she gets plowed in or not. And so to bed, thinking I'd escaped the snow removal madness.

In the morning it was still snowing until almost noon, then started to clear. Once it had stopped, I went outside to clear my car off. The street hadn't been plowed. That was sort of strange but not totally out of the ordinary because it's a side street and the storm had just ended. The landlady hadn't done anything about getting the steps or walkways or driveway shoveled yet. A few people up and down the street were just beginning to shovel out. Pretty typical for a Sunday morning storm.

Nancy's downstairs neighbor was next door helping push a stuck car for a woman who was praising the Lord every time the car moved a little. I watched for a minute, unsure whether they needed another body but they managed to get her out before I mobilized myself to walk over there. The downstairs neighbor then came over to ask me if I knew where the shovel was for our building (I have explained to her before that I don't live there, but somehow...) or who was supposed to shovel the steps. Legitimate questions both.

But then...

Ah then...

Her: "Is snow unknown in Rhode Island?" Me: "Hunh?"

There followed a bizarre discussion of snow removal that surpassed even my Busy Body neighbor's snow removal obsession. We went from the fact that the landlady had somehow not provided a shovel for the building even though the building next door, which she also owns, has one and someone had shoveled their steps already. I suspect it was the downstairs tenant in that building who shoveled, or maybe her teenage daughter, because she is a domestic goddess. Anyway, this building was not yet shoveled out and the snow had been over for about an hour by this time. I noticed up and down the street that most people had not begun to shovel so didn't think this was strange.

So the downstairs neighbor just started ranting not only about the landlady, but about how in Detroit where she's from they plow the sidewalks and how when she asked the landlady about when the city of Providence was going to plow the sidewalks she was surprised by the question. Silly me I tried to explain that individual property owners are responsible for their own sidewalks. I grew up in a suburb of Boston and that was the way it was. That's the way it is where I live now and in Providence. I believe there are some parts of Boston where the city does plow the sidewalks, but not during or immediately after the storm. Why am I defending Providence to this woman.

She went on and on about how she thought surely since Providence was in "the Northeast" they would be used to snow and have all this big snow removal equipment like Detroit. Silly me again, I tried to explain the climate and weather conditions and how they differ in Providence from Boston and certainly from what she's thinking of when she says "Northeast". She does not understand the warming effect from the ocean and looks at me like I am the one who is insane. I make a lame attempt to defend Providence again saying that it really doesn't make economic sense for a city the size of Providence to buy the kinds of snow removal equipment they will use only once every 5 or so years.

All this time I'm looking around and there really isn't that much snow. Maybe 6 inches, if that. Hardly the type of storm for this woman to be this worked up about. She's got one of these big SUV things and can get out of the driveway easily. I'm not sure what the problem is.

She borrows the shovel from next door and starts clearing the steps, complaining all the while that the shovel is useless and why don't they have real shovels like they do in Detroit, etc., etc. etc. When I get my car cleared off, I drive over to Benny's to buy a shovel for her, and some ice melt. Benny's only has plastic shovels, no heavy metal ones with thick wooden handles like I have at home. I am reluctant to drive all the way to Home Depot in Attleboro, so buy a plastic shovel with a curved blade.

The neighbor is back inside her apartment when I get back so I finish off scraping the steps, which are brick and kind of uneven so hard to clear. There's still a thin coating of snow and ice on them and I am afraid it will get slippery so I dump ice melt on it, which works nicely. By the time I take Nancy out to lunch and we come back, the steps are clear. I leave the shovel and the bucket of ice melt on the porch.

I'm not doing this whole encounter justice, I think I'm too tired to give it the wit and sarcasm it deserves. But I'm tired and it was a long drive back. One thing it does confirm for me though is that people whom come to Providence from the big wide world to go to grad school or whatever they have a really hard time adjusting. The previous downstairs people came from New Orleans for the woman, who's a doctor, to do her internship at Hasbro Children's Hospital. They had a hard time with Rhode Island beaches not being what they were used to from the Gulf Coast. I remember one day when the guy was going on and on about not like the sand I tried explaining the geology and oceanography of why Rhode Island beaches are the way they are. Defending Rhode Island again. And he had something against eel grass too, which I vehemently defended as necessary to the ecology of the Rhode Island fisheries if nothing else. Those folks never adjusted and went back to Louisiana as soon as her internship was finished.

Y'know, New England weather can be kind of hard to take, but without it what would we talk about?