snoooooooow.

It snowed. A lot. Man do I hate winter. Last Friday, in light of the coming storm, my coworker from London told me how excited she was for her first New England snowfall. Needless to say I didn't share her enthusiasm.

Prior to the discovery of the imminent BIGGEST STORM EVER IN NEW YORK CITY HISTORY, I had already decided to go to New York for the weekend. I originally had plans to go into Manhattan and spend time with friends. Those quickly transformed into sitting at home all weekend with my parents and alternating between ZEE TV and the Weather Channel. The Weather Channel, by the way, is run by a bunch of sadists. How else to explain their continuous display of the current temperature in Jamaica (the island) during breaks between blizzard coverage?

After the storm, a group of men in a pickup truck came by and offered shoveling services. Now, there is a luxury worth spending money on. I agreed to a price. But I will admit something: I monitored them from the windows like a hawk. I mean, service is service is service, right? At some point, my mother and I were both watching them from our living room. She turned to me and in Hindi said:

"They need to do the part near the end of the driveway ... and they are piling too much on the right, how will we get the car out?"

Therein is one of the funniest and most natural elements of immigrant life. When you want to talk about someone, you revert back to Mother Tongue. Mind you, the shovelers were outside. They couldn't hear us. But my mom delicately lowered her voice and altered her language in order to convey mild criticism. Gotta love it.

I was booked on a flight back to Boston this morning at 6:30 AM. Amazingly, it took off and was only about 40 minutes delayed. I feel a little bad; everyone who was booked yesterday had their flights canceled and will have to struggle to get a flight back at some point today. But serendipity led me to book my ticket for early this morning as opposed to last night, and as a result, here I am. Blogging at work. Glad it was so crucial for me to rush back ahead all those other passengers.

*~*~

If you can watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and not tear up even the littlest bit when Ty and the family scream "MOVE THAT BUS!", then I declare you positively inhuman.