So here is the snow that fell about a week before. Nothing too notable, the only reason I remember it at all (besides the picture) is that Chris hit me from about half a block away with a snowball, right in the back of my head, that all the boys at work are still recounting.
This is the snow I woke up to on the morning the supposed blizzard was coming our way.
It was pretty snowing. Mostly, it was blinding the way the snow blows into your eyes. Pictures don't really capture that.
My subway stop, still in Queens.
Made it to work! It's fashion week, and we actually had a lot of jobs for this day at one point. All of them were canceled by the clients, most of them canceled the night, but definitely that morning with everyone freaking out that it was only going to get worse. The only job not canceled was the one in the building, which was a Nissan something. I don't know what it was, but it involved moving car chassises into the building. This is two forklifts trying to bring in a half of one in a huge box on a slippery sidewalk, where we were doing our best to salt and shovel. Eventually we ran out of salt and went inside to try and thaw out while the snow accumulated again. The boys and I hid in the freight elevator on the 2nd floor and watched as they took a complete chassis, packed in a roofless box, off of a semi and somehow managed to get it in on those forklifts. It was crazy!!
I ate some soup and fixed some wiring issues on lights. This one was really burnt. The boys got out a really old coffee maker and we all chipped in for coffee and milk. It was a great day for a long coffee break.
View from the 4th floor landing. Around noonish.
In between another round of shoveling and some more shoveling, I cleaned a VL Spot. (That's a moving light. Vari-Light is the brand. VL 2000 Spot. We have washes too but I don't know how to clean them yet.)
Crunch time! Some absolutely amazing guy who happens to own a four wheeler and a tiny shovel blade in NYC (?!?!) drove by and shoveled off the sidewalk for me and Chris (George and James had to go uptown to shovel some other property). So now we only had to shovel the giant pile of snow-slush-ice hybrid that is coating the side of the street, at least enough to get a truck in and lift gate down and room to load, because we need to load up a job. This is tricky because we're not worried about getting hit, but we are worried about getting sprayed by slush. So we use the old Wayne's World trick and just yell "Game off!" and rush to the sidewalk every time one of us spots a car coming. And of course "Game on!" when it's safe to go back.
James and George come back, and we all finish pulling the list as quickly as we can, and start loading at sunset. It's still snowing, but rather than the getting worse everyone predicted it seems to be slowing down slightly.
We finish loading the truck in the dark and have an amazing snowball fight in the parking lot next door. Seriously, it was a great fight.
How glad am I that I bought these boots? They may be ruined by salty slush puddles, but my feet have never been dryer or warmer in the winter.
A view from the elevator the next day. Now hardly any snow is left but they're predicting more tonight. We'll see.
So in case you can't tell from the pictures, the first one is a trash truck with a plow blade attached to the front, and the second is a real snow plow, sprinkling salt and everything. What they were doing in Astoria on this sunny morning is a mystery, but at least now I know they DO use trash trucks. Austin and Drew are so wise.
