Snow Day!

I've spent more than 80% of my life in the New York City School system. Between being a student and teacher that's more than four decades.

And I can count the number of days school has been canceled during those four decades on one (okay maybe both- but no more than both) hands.

When my older daughter was born (27 years ago this week) a snow storm stuck me in the hospital for two extra days because my doctor couldn't get in to release me. My husband came to visit on cross country skis - which totally blew the mind of my roommate's Dominican husband. (We talked about mind blowing in those days)

Anyway did New York City schools close? Well- our decentralized district did. The superintendent of our district and the one directly to the east had the unreasonable idea to look out at the more than three feet of snow covering the wheels of the vehicles, the unplowed streets and the sidewalks encrusted with glazed over precipitation and closed the schools. They had the mistaken idea that title "superintendent" gave them the power to do so.


It cost them their jobs.

But that is ancient history. Our current mayor has removed even the illusion that anyone but him has the power to mess with Mother Nature (or least concede to her). So he dismantled the local school boards and replaced them with an army of (hey I don't know what to call them- especially since I'm committed to not making this "a whine against the system blog).

Okay- for lack of a better word - I call the mayor's minions- the Blackberry users. If you're goinna have a centralized "top down" managed system- you got to have a way of getting directive"down"- fast. So I'm used to well dressed people walking around the school with a Blackberry.

So it wasn't surprising that the man in the dean's office pulled out his and read the message. What blew my mind (okay- I'm stuck in the 80's) is that he announced the mayor had decided to close schools.

Amazing.

All that advance warning too! The chicken is roosting, the cake baking and the wine chilling.

Who knows at the rate of one snow day a decade- I'm going to enjoy this one, it could be the last one of my career!