I can’t let December pass without recalling fondly the seventeen inches of snow that suddenly showed up. The snowfall of Saturday, December 19 (and a bit on Sunday), broke a bunch of records, the most easily remembered one being “the most snowfall in Washington in a single day in December,” something like that. For me it was right up there with the Presidents Day blizzard of 1979 and the Presidents Day weekend blizzard of 2003. That’s February for ya. December’s supposed to be a little more civilized. On December 22, right after the white onslaught subsided, the Washington Post ran a story about how the mayor of Moscow wanted to expand the use of cloud seeding to prevent big snowfalls in the city. It’s just too expensive to clear the stuff away. Up to now they’ve used the technique sparingly, to ensure nice weather for the big patriotic holidays. I thought: “Good work, WashPost! The timing couldn’t have been better!” Then I noticed that the story originated with the Los Angeles Times—that it ran on December 8, and the Post picked it up from the syndicate after the city got whacked. So I should say, “Good work, WashPost, for holding off on the story until a big storm hit, which you must’ve known would happen!” Something like that.
I’m a Clevelander, so snow always makes me happy. I wasn’t at all bothered that the Volvo was buried …
… but, damn, look at this!
Luckily that’s my backup bike (my Trek is warm and dry inside—and gloating, no doubt). But the point is this: I had to take the Metro all week! Okay, okay, it was a short week, with Christmas and all. But still—no biking makes me ornery.
Usually. But snow always pleases me somehow. And the walk to and from the Metro gave me a chance to see the snowy sights I might miss on the bike. For instance, this—the fattest snowman I’d ever seen, digesting happily near the festooned deck of the Dancing Crab:
As for this, I have no idea what it was meant to be—a decorated pile of snow, I suppose:
In taking this shot, however, I learned something about those signs made of dots that run from right to left (there’s probably a fancy name for them—the devoted reader will clue me in, I’m sure). The dots must get filled in from top to bottom as well, because the word “cigar” (or the phone number, whatever) was clearly visible when I snapped the picture, but not all the dots are lit up in the photo. Even such minuscule enlightment is enlightenment, right? My spouse (who is truly enlightened) would not agree, of course, but that’s okay. Many paths etc.
And I saw this, which has nothing to do with the snowstorm:
“Captain Arturo, fighting for nonviolence.” I’m a sucker for heavy irony, especially when it comes to aggressive or antisocial behavior.
Speaking of which, let’s commemorate the can’t-do attitude of the new upper-northwest branch office of TD Bank (“America’s Most Inconsiderate Neighbor™”). Unlike most if not all of the businesses around them, they declined to shovel the public sidewalks along the two streets abutting their marble-and-glass palace, never mind that it is a requirement imposed by force of local law, if not also and equally by the natural and healthy urge of a properly developed social consciousness.
As of Monday evening (thirty or forty hours after the snow had stopped falling, but who’s counting?), they had not cleared the sidewalks, and by Tuesday the local Yahoo listserv was buzzing with complaints—tales of women slipping and falling, bank personnel saying they have no intention of shoveling the sidewalks, etc.). Also by Tuesday, the bank had shoveled the sidewalks, but it was too late—the bile was out of the bladder.
The chronology is funny, if you find really stupid, inconsiderate things funny: at 5:45 am on Sunday, heavy equipment arrived to clear TD Bank’s parking lot and drive-through lanes—the kind of heavy equipment that beeps whenever it backs up. The nearest residence is right across the alley from the bank, and it’s residences all the way up the street. But apparently the job wasn’t really done, because at around 11:00 pm on Monday, the heavy equipment shows up again, this time with a big dump truck. They’re going to haul away all that snow, you see. For whatever reason. And this is when the guy shows up with a shovel to do the sidewalks. Funny, eh?
In response to a query about how long they intended to work, the man in charge said, “As long as it takes.” Did that mean “through the night”? Yes, it did mean that. Who told them to start work at 11:00 pm? We were hoping for a name, but the answer was: “The property owner.” The property owner—isn’t that the bank? No, it’s not the bank. And indeed, the property owner is not TD Bank. We forgot. They’re leasing the site from … from some … well, rumor has it, a couple of greedy sisters up in Rockville sequestered behind some LLC. Well, sisters anyway—the greedy part is obviously editorializing, based on how they ran off a popular movie theater (The Outer Circle) and a restaurant (Round Table, which had cleaned up its act and had turned into a very neighborly establishment indeed) because they weren’t bringing in enough dough, and who, because they wanted to lease the land rather than sell it, constricted the pool of tenants to the likes of a 24-hour CVS (which was already situated a few blocks south on Wisconsin Ave.) or a bank (of which there were already five in a four-block stretch, from Fessenden to Jenifer). According to this nocturnal snow-removing demon, it was the old ladies in Rockville (or their rep) who arranged for the work that disturbed the sleep of the bank’s neighbors for a second night straight—not the bank. (He, of course, didn’t say “the old ladies in Rockville.” We’re putting two and two together, that’s all.)
Oh, well. That’s all blood under the bridge by now. The rains came, the snow melted, the squirrels are frolicking, and the sidewalks along TD Bank are incredibly clear. Let’s not even think about the nine months of construction hell in 2009, and the years of hassles and ANC meetings because of the bank’s original plan to use the nearby alley as a driveway for its two drive-through windows, and so on, and on and on. The new year is almost here. Perhaps the bank learned that customer convenience doesn’t trump common decency toward its neighbors. And no doubt the plans for the big new super-Safeway down the block will be just fine and the project will be a monument to enlightened urban life.
