Should We Talk About the Weather?

Seems like a banal enough thing to break LJ silence over, but hey.

The winter precipitation which finally hit the New York metro area this month was as weird as all of the weather this winter has been. (To wit, "no snow, not even flurries, in December 2006--first time on record" and "70F in January/warmest January on record" with bursts of "weeks colder than Stalingrad", but we get that from time to time so it's not quite as weird.)

So, two weeks ago we finally got the frozen precipitation. In lower Westchester, we got an inch or two of snow covered by a thin but very annoying layer of ice--just enough to be somewhat nasty. In a reversal of the natural order of things, our street (a tertiary road for ice-removal purposes) was almost bone-dry following a couple of plowings, but the arterial road a block away was nasty slushy for a full day. What was really unexpected, though, was what I found when I went to Nassau County for my Friday night gaming group: The host's front yard, sidewalks, and streets were one solid sheet of ice. Driving wasn't a problem--Subaru all-wheel drive to the rescue!--but the simple task of walking to and from the car was epic. The cuts on my left hand from where I fell still haven't healed completely.

It then stayed cold for two weeks. Most of the snow and ice are gone from the paved parts of our neighborhood, but there's a thick crust of ice right at the base of our driveway; again, driving over it is fine, but walking to the car that we leave parked in the street is altogether too much of an adventure. And now They (the mysterious "They") are threatening another round of wintry mix for tomorrow evening; it's going to be fun.

How's by you?

A pest is just a pet misplaced

New York has two major pieces of rodent news.

First, of course, is the Rats Gone Wild in a Taco Bell/KFC in the West Village (West 4th and 6th Ave, for those who Need To Know).

( Enter--the Cavorting Rat Zone! )

I, of course, think the footage is adorable. There's a bit about twenty seconds in where one of the rats stops to scratch itself which is just TEH CYUTE! Opinions may differ, of course.

The other news is that a wild beaver has been spotted living in the Bronx River, near the Bronx Zoo. It is believed that this is the first wild beaver found within the current limits of New York City in 200 years. My commuting path runs alongside the Bronx River for several miles, so I consider it very much a part of my home; I'm glad that the years of environmental restoration of the River are bearing such furry fruit.