The Week in Meep: Shoveling Snow in New York, First Sunday of Lent, IKEA!
Dreaming about spring (achoo)
Warming up for the next snow dump, while some of the prior snow remains on the ground:
Let’s see what the week has been like.
New York City: Be an Emergency Shoveler, Bring ID!
Okay, look, this is silly.
Fox News, 21 Feb 2026: NYC seeks emergency snow shovelers for blizzard, requires IDs not needed to vote
New York City on Saturday put out a call for emergency snow shovelers ahead of a powerful nor’easter bomb cyclone, requiring workers to submit multiple forms of identification — contrasting the city’s election policy for most voters.
For the first time in nearly a decade, a blizzard warning was issued for New York City, with expected snowfall totaling 19 to 24 inches and wind gusts up to 55 mph.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a State of Emergency for New York City, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced outreach teams have been mobilized.
Guys, this is not a strong point.
Needing an ID for a job (which this is, and there’s nothing special about the ID needed for job applications here. Anybody needing to fill out an I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, has to do this.
Nobody has a right to a job.
There are rights to vote.
All that said, I was a bit alarmed by the requirements for emergency snow shovelers.
While pay is generous, starting at $19.14 per hour and increasing to $28.71 per hour after the first 40 hours worked in a week, workers must meet a number of requirements to be eligible.
Shovelers must be at least 18 years old, able to perform heavy physical labor and eligible to work in the U.S., according to the department.
Uh, guys…. plenty of people are able to perform heavy physical labor who would be in danger of cardiac arrest for snow shoveling!
ARGH!
It’s primarily men between 45-65 years old who are at risk (as older men wouldn’t be hired - plenty of older men die from shoveling their own walks).
Are they really screening any of these guys? I doubt it.
An earlier article from the NY Post showed the hiring numbers were too low:
8 Feb 2026, NYP: Mamdani failed to recruit enough emergency snow shovelers for storm: critics
The Mamdani administration dropped the snowball by failing to recruit enough emergency shovelers for the recent winter storm that dropped nearly a foot of snow on the Big Apple, critics said.
As of Tuesday [Feb 3], 1,800 people were signed up for the temporary work this winter season, and a peak of 550 were out shoveling bus stops, crosswalks and other public areas since the Jan. 25-26 storm that continues to delay trash pickup and many other city services, a City Hall source said.
In comparison, 6,454 shovelers were recruited for the 2015-16 winter season – which saw nearly 33 inches fall on Central Park – and up to 3,500 shovelers simultaneously worked at peak times that winter.
I guess we’ll find out next week if they managed to hire more folks.
First Sunday of Lent
As per usual, lots of people show up for ashes on Ash Wednesday (and many people hop in and hop out after getting ashes… nothing wrong with that.) I went to a local nursing home to distribute ashes… and for those who don’t know, there are multiple things one can say at the imposition of ashes. It’s not only, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In a nursing home, one doesn’t need that reminder.
I used the other major saying: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”
Stu used to work as the secretary at the chapel at NYU (and I just kinda hung out there). Ash Wednesday services at the NYU Chapel were always packed, as people would just walk out of Washington Square Park for ashes and walk back.
Going to services or receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday is not required of Catholics (the fasting is). Even further, you don’t have to be Catholic or even Christian (or baptized or whatever) to get ashes. We don’t ask. We don’t care. There are no requirements. You are welcome to receive a sign of repentance!
(And in case you were wondering, the ashes come from palms from the prior year’s Palm Sunday.)
That was a big lead-up to talking about the First Sunday of Lent… and I went to the Saturday vigil Mass, which I don’t normally do, because I was concerned about the snow today. I don’t know what the Saturday evening Mass usually looks like at my church, but it was PACKED. Whether it was the usual “lots of people come back to church during Lent” or “Lots of people coming on Saturday because we’re expecting a blizzard on Sunday” — I do not know.
In any case, the Gospel reading for today is the Temptation of Christ in the desert… so let’s get some art!
Uh, that doesn’t look like the desert.
I don’t know why there are all these trees in the desert.
So… the devil is tempting Christ with fruit from the tree?
Are we getting our Bible stories confused?
[Maybe that’s supposed to be the stones to be turned into bread; it’s not clear to me.]
All these European artists living in forested areas are having trouble with the concept of a desert.
IKEA!
Because of my autistic son, all of my furniture is from three sources:
family hand-me-downs
thrift shops
IKEA
We went for a trip to Paramus, NJ on Presidents Day (huzzah), and had bought the stuff we could schlep in a minivan:
And some items were chosen to be delivered (and assembled) later:
Dreams of Spring
The following photo is distorted because I took it in panoramic mode at MoMA in a visit 8 years ago:
You can see MoMA’s page for Water Lilies here.
The digital image, flat, doesn’t give you the impression of standing in the room with its almost 42-foot-long, 6.5”-high bulk. I used to have a poster of this work when I was in high school/college, iirc, but that also did not give the same effect.
I saw many other things that day (and took many other pics), but I will leave you with my feeling as I left.
Comments are open.
"Uh, that doesn’t look like the desert."
Desert doesn't have to be sandy and dry! A "desert" is land that's "deserted" or abandoned. A place where nobody lives. Out in the sticks.
We probably associate it with sandy wastes, specifically, because people live just about everywhere else nowadays, but that's not the original meaning of the word, it's a later connotation.
The right to vote is conditional on citizenship. To ignore that is to imply that it is a universal human right.