As you may have heard, there’s a big nor’easter parked over the, er, Northeast right now. Huge volumes of snow, high winds, and even some thunder are expected throughout the region. New York City may see upwards of two feet over the course of the thirty-six hour storm. Here’s the view from my window right now. Samwise is loving it. We just moved, and have a good street view for the first time, so this is sort of his first big snowstorm.
He’s just been watching it all day, when he hasn’t been sleeping. Some pigeons came to chill out on the windowsill for a while. Being the big city pigeons that they are, they were unfazed by a cat staring at them with murder in his eyes.
Anyway, we’ve been staying in, and would have been even if there weren’t a raging pandemic. Did some work. Made some pasta. Going to do a Chinese cumin beef thing we like tonight. Nothing to report, really. Just thought we could use a nice thread.
I have this song stuck in my head at the moment. I think of it whenever there’s a big snowstorm. What are some weathery songs you all like?
raven
Hands down the best
Stormy Monday
danielx
@raven:
Top shelf.
Mary G
So he came out from under the bed, good. That picture of him on the bed with the WTF expression on his face is so fun – I can just imagine him thinking “We never had this happen in California!”
And now I have that song “it never rains in California, but let me warn you, it pours” as an earworm. Thanks a lot.
JanieM
The Mermaid, Schooner Fare version.
No name
You can just sense how soft that kitty is ❤️ Nothing better than a snow day with a kitty or two.
geg6
California Dreaming
Perfect song for a day like today.
MagdaInBlack
I have a vet tech. friend in Lowell, MA who was wtf-ing under her breath at last minute customers. She’d kinda like to go home, ffs.
Eta: She’s home, in jammies =-)
opiejeanne
I am jealous. We got a couple of inches, maybe 3, on December 21, and nothing since. We really need the snow to help the fruit trees and certain plants stay dormant. Right now they seem to think it’s early spring and the buds are starting to push out already, and there’s almost always a hard frost in February.
piratedan
seems an appropriate time to drop this…. as an example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNTSk8EsoAM
It’s Cold Outside – The Choir
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Well yesterday I was looking at the overcast and singing “I got sunshine on a cloudy day” to my bride. (My Girl)
There’s a Randy Newman song I like a lot called “I think it’s Going to Rain Today” that has a lot of personal memories. Here’s a recording by Audra McDonald.
Can’t actually think of any good blizzardy songs. But a great orchestral piece for snowy days is the Sinfonia Antarctica by Ralph Vaughan-Williams. I believe it was originally a movie score.
WaterGirl
Samwise has asked me to politely inquire as to why he did not have a window before?!!!!
In any case, he informs me that he does not hold a grudge.
Happy day, Samwise.
zhena gogolia
Well, the street plows have come a few times and our driveway got plowed once — he’ll have to come again tomorrow. But at least there is hope we won’t be stuck for a week, as in (?) 2014
ETA: Samwise is beautiful, as usual!
Steve in the ATL
Steppenwolf “snowblind friend”
But that may be a different theme….
So, one of my kids moved to NYC last week. Should I check in her today?
danielx
Driving to IU Bloomington on a hot summer night with the windows down on a hot summer night with the smell of cornfields and grass filling the car….
And the sax break after the first verse is to die for.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
any chance that’s 1) and idiot proof recipe that 2) you’d be willing to share?
I like cumin, I like beef, anything beyond “Add ingredients to pan, turn up heat and stir” is pretty much beyond me
Ken
I imagine the savvy city pigeons know (1) window has glass, and (2) if the window is open and the cat pounces, it has a much bigger problem than does the pigeon.
evap
The last time my choir was able to have a holiday concert (Dec 2019), we did a great version of Let It Snow and that is now my current earworm.
zhena gogolia
This pup is so fucking cute
rikyrah
Samwise😍😍😍😍
raven
@danielx: We played IU on the last football game of the season and drove and RV over from Champaign. We broke down on the way back and walked though deep snow to a farm and the nice guy gave us a can of ATF and it got us home!
raven
@danielx: All night long, we sang that stupid song. . .
J.
I know that street. (It’s also easy to identify from the photos. Just sayin’.) Glad Samwise is enjoying the snow. :-)
Benw
One thing about a pandemic is much less reason to shovel out our big dumb LI driveway.
Curse the Weather by Royal Tusk: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gMKZv6z8Rvg
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: He had plenty of windows! With a great view of the neighboring building, ten feet away!
@J.: Yeah I thought about redacting a little but you know what, I’ve already posted these on Twitter, and in general a sufficiently motivated adversary could figure out my block without much difficulty anyway.
Danielx
@raven:
time and place…
Barbara
Snow seems to be picking up again in the Mid-Atlantic region. I think we had around 4 inches yesterday, maybe one or two more before it’s over. It’s nothing like what you are having. One big difference now is that a lot of local governments pre-treat streets with saline solution, and this really does seem to keep roads a lot clearer.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s from the excellent cookbook “Every Grain of Rice” by Fuschia Dunlop. Husband is using it at the moment, but I might be able to get it down for you later if you remind me.
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Let It Snow?
LuciaMia
“We’re having a heatwave…a tropical heatwave…”
Spanky
Still freezing rain here in Southern MD, and the cats are driving me nuts. Underfoot, on the laptop, on the lap, arguing with each other …
They just had their dinner, and I don’t think it’s helped the situation at all.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
Love that!
Major Major Major Major
@Spanky: what about second dinner?
BruceFromOhio
I love a rainy night.
Delk
Last song people
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: Found it at the NYT cooking section, if that’s the same one. Thanks for the tip.
I’m surprised they say cumin is rarely used in Chinese cooking. Not that I ever gave it a lot of thought.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That looks very similar to the version in the book!
There are some popular northern dishes that use it but it does seem to be, if not rare, then not something I encounter at restaurants too often.
VOR
Jethro Tull “Something’s on the Move” from their Stormwatch album. A song about an approaching ice age. http://youtu.be/_UYhULU3Yb0
sab
I learned this the hard way with my Shadow for the calendar: it is really hard to make a gray cat look gray in a photograph. Usually you succeed. This time you didn’t. I really like Samwise as a black cat. I’m glad he is okay with the move.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think cumin is mostly found in parts of Chinese cuisine with more of a Central Asian influence, which is not what shows up in most Chinese restaurants here in the USA.
Spanky
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ll put down some dry food around 6, when I start prepping for hooman’s dinner.
misterpuff
“Valley Winter Song” by Fountains of Wayne
Go find it on YouTube.
You will be in sync with the snow.
Roger Moore
@sab:
You have to get the exposure right. It might help to shoot in raw format and adjust the exposure in post processing to get the tone right.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Roger Moore: While that is admittedly a snowy song, and so is “Baby it’s Cold Outside”, I wouldn’t classify either as a good blizzardy song in the sense that I’d be likely to start playing it.
One of the quirky things I do sometimes when there’s a really good storm outside is try to find a good performance of King Lear’s “Blow, wind” speech.
My bride is very tolerant sometimes.
evap
@Major Major Major Major: One of my favorites! We have three of her cookbooks and they are all worth having.
Major Major Major Major
@sab: he does too look gray, especially in the second pic! But yeah, automatic white balance on the phone, whatcha gonna do
sab
@Major Major Major Major: He looks like a black cat that you can actually see, like in real life and unlike in photos
ETA In other photos you have shown he had a silvery sheen.
schrodingers_cat
Nothing more beautiful than Mumbai in the rains.
Rim Jhim Gire Sawan
grandmaBear
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: it’s also on seriousEats.com : Hunan beef with cumin
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Cumin is my favorite spice. I probably use it more than any other spice.
Major Major Major Major
@sab: yeah I can see what you’re talking about on the windowsill pic.
laura
Fog pelted kiki is beautiful and a perfect moggie. The Anthony Bourdain Beef Bourguinon is just underway, bubbling on stove top and driving Chet the slightly used weinie dog into a beef tizzy.
I’ve been thinking about When the Levy Breaks Stormy Monday, and Gimme Shelter.
Delk
Xi’an restaurants usually have cumin lamb on their menus.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: How soon they forget! :-)
Major Major Major Major
Yum, cumin beef
Yutsano
@Delk:
It’s common in Mongolian cuisine as well. Cumin most likely is a legacy of empire coming from the west. We wouldn’t be too familiar with Northern cuisine here in North America as we mostly have Cantonese and Szechuan restaurants available to us. Which is too bad as the diversity of Chinese food in China is amazing.
BC in Illinois
In June of 1972, Hurricane Agnes came through the Washington area. I was a Hospital Corpsman at the Naval Hospital (now doing business as Walter Reed Medical center) on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda. By the time Agnes hit DC, it was no longer a full hurricane; it was just lots and lots of rain. In the afternoon and evening, Mrs BC and I were visiting friends near Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring. In between Georgia Ave and Wisconsin Ave was Rock Creek, normally a shallow stream, which could even be forded at some places by a normal car.
That night, Rock Creek took out all of its bridges. And it did so, while we were on the road, trying to get to Bethesda. The bridge at East-West Highway was closed. A couple of other bridges were closed. We finally crossed Rock Creek on Connecticut Avenue. My brother, who was driving a wrecker for the Kensington Shell station that night, tells me that the Connecticut Avenue bridge was washed away, no more than 15 minutes after we crossed.
The point of all of this, is that the radio station we were listening to — WHFS, I think — played every song in their record library that had to do with rain. Look Out, Houston, Storms A’Coming Through and Bad Moon A’Rising were the two I remember. They had a lot of songs.
prostratedragon
From James P. Johnson, “Snowy Morning Blues”
Mart
Ten? years back in a crowded bar on top of a Chicago hotel with twenty-two inches of snow starting to come down; it was accompanied by tremendous thunder booms. So nearly all us professional business traveler types revert to age 12, and pound on the tables shouting “Thunder Snow”. And then we all laughed. It felt great.
worn
How’s about the magnificent voice of David Ruffin, with his originally unreleased ode to my home state? A Rainy Night in Georgia
Ascap_scab
Driving my life away – Eddie Rabbit
Riders on the storm – The Doors
Jacel
“I Think There’s A Change In The Weather” by The Kinks. Far less a downer than their earlier “Rainy Day In June.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWZx8I2IrtI
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mart: thunder snow is awesome
NotMax
Jethro Tull, anyone?
A geographic hop and a skip away.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@BC in Illinois:tina turner i can’t stand the rain