Defending New York

A woman recently visited the office to change her address for her subscription. A temporary affair it turns out…she’s a Florida snowbird.

“Oh, sure,” I joked. “New York is good enough all summer long, but the minute the temperature heads south, the rats abandon ship.”

You would have thought I’d just told her I’d run over her dog. On purpose.Winter, it appears, has finally descended upon us, and not a moment too soon, as far as I’m concerned. Winter in New York is, at the very least, beautiful. Exquisite. Incomparably so. Icicles hang on eaves, trees appear to have had coats of white painted upon them. Sparkling white, white, white goes with everything. I love the sparkly snow.

But New York winters, especially Upstate New York winters, bestow so many additional gifts on those brave enough to endure it.

First of all, New York is the prestidigitation master of the universe. Our plow operators pull off feats Houdini and Copperfield could only dream of. Abracadabra - a foot of slippery white stuff. Poof! Within a work shift, bare roads. Even Lucy couldn’t explain that.

All crawling and flying pests, at least temporarily, disappear, either by death or hibernation. There is very little that can convince me to travel 2,000 miles south for the privilege of seeing a combination of the two: the palmetto bug - a large, flying cockroach. I’m told by those in the know that bugs serve a purpose on this earth. Yeah, for my turtles to eat them. Really, I think those in the know like to lie to people who don’t like bugs.

The heat and humidity hate fat people. So do summer clothing makers. Bad enough we have to endure it for a couple of months up here, but year round? Forget you. I’m enjoying the September through May sweat-free exercise months (until you fall down the stairs and break your ankle mid-September…will definitely time that better next time).

New York = fireplaces and warm comforters. Florida = ‘Don’t-touch-me-I’m-hot-enough-already.’

Doughnuts. Mmmmm…doughnuts. Not Krispy Kremes, either, which the south has a-plenty. The kind you do in your car. The fun of traditional doughnuts has been somewhat diminished by the advent of the front-wheel-drive vehicle. If you haven’t figured it out already, the trick now is that you have to do them in reverse. Not that I would know. I mean, that’s what I’ve heard. (A hand brake or standard transmission can also enhance the effect.) If 30 years from now you see a 60-something old woman spinning in a parking lot somewhere, it might be dementia, but it’ll probably be me.

Potholes all but disappear for some of the smoothest, quietest driving anywhere, and winter storms make for the best driving because there’s no one else on the roads. I love cleaning off my car. I don’t mind shoveling, except I frequently have the overwhelming urge to just flop down and roll around in the snow…it is a source of never-ending frustration for my husband who is pro-New York and anti-snow (?). Maybe he's bi-snowler? In any event, if anyone ever finds me in a snowdrift with a shovel imprint in my face or appearing as if I’d been put through a snow-blower, it’s probably because he got sick of hearing me say, “Look! It’s the sparkly snow I love so much!”

Reprinted courtesy Eagle Newspapers, Syracuse.