On "blizzard watch" (or is it "warning"?) here in the Big Apple (and between funerals)

It didn't look quite like this yesterday, but the site's natural beauty definitely carries over to the winter version. By the way, I've discovered that the "tours" are accomplished via maps provided by the office or via download.

by Ken

We're on "blizzard watch" (or is it "warning"?) this morning, and the rest of the day, here in NYC. And since it's already snowing and sticking, it doesn't seem likely that we're going to be spared as we were with last week's monster storm, which left us here in the city untouched while wreaking havoc all around us.

Already yesterday the schools were ordered shut today, and I was still up at 5am watching the local cable news channel to see some actual snow and get up-to-date prognostication as to whether we're really gonna get it today. By the 5am hour, finally there was actual snow and actual sticking. The forecast for today was still 6-10 inches, with increasing winds, and more to come tonight (a predicted total of 10-14 inches by tomorrow, when the storm passes).

A difference of a few degrees would make the difference, I learned, and that difference was expected to be accomplished with a slight shift of winds -- from northeasterly to northerly. Because we all have to make the decision: to venture into work, now when the venturing will be relatively straightforward, or not, knowing that the homeward leg of the trip could be a trial.

A coworker I spoke to yesterday informed me that our HR chief had circulated a memo instructing us not to be "heroic" today. Of course it occurred to me that if we choose not to be "heroic," the day comes out of our precious reserve of personal time off. If I go in, I'll probably be sent home early. Hmm. Heroism comes in different forms.

The reason my coworker had to tell me about the memo was that I wasn't in the office yesterday. When I spoke to her, in much the same way we were poised between two giant storms, I was poised between funerals -- one (for someone I've known for probably 30 years, maybe more; long enough that the defining dates have become blurry in my head) just accomplished, the other (for someone I've known all my life) still to be scheduled, though it could be anytime now -- or maybe not.

(I managed to panic myself yesterday by venturing out, I later discovered, without my cell phone, which is how I had told the people down South to reach me if it was necessary, which it turned out it wasn't.)

Well, it's coming, that second funeral. As Heidi Klum points out every week of Project Runway, "In fashion, one day you're in, the next day you're out." Life works like that too. In much the way that coaches and managers are "hired to be fired," we're all born to die. Still, the doctors officially gave up on this case two years ago, so the end may not be as close as it has appeared a couple of times in the last week.

I don't know why I'm even writing about this. I tried writing about it yesterday, and wrote a pile of something, but decided it didn't have any evident purpose beyond prompting outpourings of sympathy, which seemed kind of gross.

Well, today is another day, and today we're on blizzard watch. Yesterday was quite a lovely day for the trip to Valhalla and back. If you have to have a funeral in New York in February, yesterday was the day. Sunny and clear, all the way up in the mid-30s.

Technically, you're not really supposed to come back from Valhalla, are you? Not if you're one of the heroes Wotan has gathered unto himself there for his own insidious purposes. But then, this wasn't that Valhalla. This was Valhalla, the "hamlet" way up in the wilds of Westchester County. It's quite a lovely cemetery they've got up there.

I had gone online to see if I could find out how the heck to get there by public transport, which I didn't. Instead I found a stirring tribute to the cemetery -- offered by the cemetery management itself, but surely they wouldn't kid about the beauty of the setting, or its worthiness for a tour. I didn't advance far enough to find out whether they actually offer such tours (otherwise, why bring it up?), but I did learn that numerous luminaries have made it their final resting place.

Some of those luminaries are local-ish, but it's still a noteworthy group. I jotted down:

* from the world of the arts, legendary screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, legendary New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno, the great composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff, composer-broadcaster Deems Taylor, and big-band great Tommy Dorsey;

* from the world of comical, pseudophilosophical nonsense, Ayn Rand;

* from the world of broadcasting, David Sarnoff and Fred Friendly;

* from elsewhere in the entertainment world, comedian and crusader Danny Kaye and legendary Broadway producer Flo Ziegfeld (yes, he of the Follies);

* from the New York sports world, Yankees great Lou Gehrig (and his wife Eleanor) and longtime team owner Col. Jacob Ruppert;

* from the New York State political world, former governors Al "The Happy Warrior" Smith and Herbert Lehman;

* from the world of fashion and retail, Henri Bendel and Paul Bonwit.

There was no opportunity to visit, however, let alone tour. In the end I didn't have to make the transit trek, which as best I divined would involve two buses and still a taxi. My friend's coworkers, who had actually organized the funeral, included transport from Midtown, and I was welcomed into the group.

As I learned afterward, organizing the funeral on a minuscule budget had involved a miracle of sorts. The chief organizer stumbled onto a funeral director who understood the problem so keenly that he went into cahoots with a rabbi of his acquaintance to put together a comprehensive funeral procedure -- and a fine dignified, purposeful funeral it was -- for a pittance relative to the going rates. The funeral director and rabbi in question both believe it's a sacred obligation to make sure that people have a decent burial, and for them it's not a matter of lip service; it seems they periodically practice what they preach.

I was startled to find out afterward that the funeral director, who seemed so involved that I wondered if he was an old family friend I didn't know about, isn't Jewish, making it an ecumenical miracle. I mean, he had explained what a "mitzvah" is in asking us all to participate in shoveling the earth back on top of the coffin -- the ultimate mitzvah, he explained, one without any possibility of repayment, the departed being beyond any such capacity. As I say, it wasn't till later that I learned what a mitzvah this whole funeral had been on his part. Kind of heroic, if you think about it.

Which, I'm thinking, may not be a bad place to stop -- and free myself to devote full, or almost full, attention to the blizzard (watch, or is it warning?). Out my window it seems to be hardly snowing. Hmm. So maybe I'll go in after all?

Wherever you are, have a safe day. Don't do anything, God forbid, heroic.


UPDATE

I finally did make it into the office. We're being sent home at noon.


2ND UPDATE: SPEAKING OF FUNERALS . . .

When I arrived in the office this morning, I found my Amazon-ordered copy of the complete DVDs of Six Feet Under. Spooky!

#