Now that Madison, Wisconsin has beat their record for snow by A LOT, there is no more to say about the weather. This was not the winter to move here, but that’s life. So, here I am stuck in my temporary living suite for the day watching the snow flurries and occasional snow plow and perhaps insane driver go by. Since most of my belongings (books, hobbies, CD, movies, etc.) are in a storage locker on Long Island, I have little around me to keep me occupied. Yes, one can really miss their stuff. Although I am fairly certain that if the weather were nicer I wouldn’t miss all that stuff as much.
In NYC, there is so much close by and public transportation makes it easy to get around that days like this just never meant being banished from venturing out if even to the corner coffee shop for some greasy eggs and bacon with all the other claustrophobics. I will admit I did complaint about the winter weather in NYC as much as I do here. So now you know some about my personality.
About half the weekends I have been here I have worked at least one day. I spent a couple weekends running errands and a couple more house hunting. This was probably the first weekend I spent almost exclusively in this apartment. So what have I been doing? OK, I admit, I have been reading a fair amount for work. But mostly I have been surfing the internet. Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without the internet these days (I am not much of a TV watcher). If there is such thing as internet addiction, I have it!
So, here are some internet findings I am sharing. My brother-in-law actually found this YouTube video Frozen Grand Central. (By the way, YouTube is a great way to amuse oneself - for HOURS!) It was filmed in Grand Central Terminal in New York City in February. I passed through Grand Central nearly every day of the week when I lived in NYC. I took the subway to Grand Central, worked close by, did much of my food shopping there, my wine shopping, card store shopping, make-up, eye glasses and occasional Starbucks. I knew how to take advantage of the tunnels and corridors to avoid a few block of bad weather. So, the video was a little walk down memory lane as well as a reminder of the crazy happenings one would come upon while living in NYC.
SKYPE. For those have not discovered Skype, I highly recommend it especially if you are stuck in record-snow-fall-country and want to see a friendly face. It’s free internet video calling. With a camera (my Mac has one built in but you can buy one) I can see and talk to my family living across the country. We bought cameras for all of our family members, since we are spread out and I must say it is really nice to be able to see my four year old niece ballet across the floor or my two year old nephew hanging about in his superman pajamas.
New York Times on-line. For those of you who like a to peruse the Sunday paper and are environmentally conscientious.
National Public Radio - NPR. If you didn’t catch all those great stories during the week, you can listen to them here while your doing your laundry or cleaning your house. You can also access local public radio stations. Yes, I still listen to New York Public radio WNYC every day. I have to remind myself when they give the weather forecast that I am not living there anymore. Last week they were giving the forecast saying how cold it was going to be, only in the 20s they said, and I thought, if only it were that high here (we were barely above zero that day!).
Just a note, if your going to be listening to music and radio on your computer, I highly recommend buying some decent speakers. In fact, I don’t even own a stereo, but I play all my music through my computer. Which brings me to another favorite pastime, iTunes. Not just for music but I have a number of audio books. It’s nice to be able to listen to a book while hemming those new pants you just got at the we-have-to-get-rid-of-this-stuff-before-inventory-counting sale.
I suppose I could bore you to death with all of this, but I thought I would list a few of my on-line snowy day favorites and hope someone else trapped in this wintery bliss will appreciate it. Stay warm.
Filed under: Best Picks
