Sunday, January 23, 2005
At night, the ice weasels come
Six years have I waited for snows the likes of this. I remember when I was getting ready to go to Chicago (from Florida), the only thing that anyone ever said to me was, "Aren't you going to be cold?" Well, I have been cold at times, but I've yet to have a satisfying winter. None of this 80 degrees in March bullhonky. I'm talking a foot of snow on the ground January 1st, and it doesn't leave until April. Given Chicago's infinitely schizophrenic weather patterns, this will obviously never happen, but I would settle for a decent couple weeks of heavy snowfall. To give you an idea of how desperate I am, I'm jumping up and down like it's Christmas ca. 1986 and there's only a foot of the white stuff down. That's what, an afternoon's worth of weather in Vermont? Ideally, we'd have more. Indeed, ideally, we would have 40 feet of snow, so I could jump out of my office window and it would be okay, and we would have to build an elaborate system of ice tunnels to get from place to place, and the hateful gaze of the Sun would forever be lost to us and we could live in happiness in a utopia of cold and darkness. Man, that would be great. But still, I'm pretty happy about the foot that's out there.
It is the tradition of my people to celebrate the coming of the snows with grilling, the "Sno-B-Q" (TM) as it were. I planned such an event for yesterday. However, I had not counted on blizzard conditions developing. Suffice it to say that getting the grill lit was an ordeal. Even after drenching the pre-lighter-fluid-saturated charcoal in yet more lighter fluid, the whipping winds prevented any fire from being maintained. A shelter was built, a wall of snow designed to cradle the minigrill and protect it from the winds, but in the end it was unsuccessful. It did serve as a delightful cooler, although the amount of snowfall meant that some of the cans placed within were hopelessly buried. Come the spring, when I am roused from my hibernatory state, I will relocate them and gnaw through to replenish precious bodily sucrose. In forcing us to forfeit the wall, the dogs of winter won a battle, but in the end, they lost the war, as the grill was relocated to the alley behind my apartment and so sheltered was lit without issue. And let me tell you, after hours standing in the driving snows, when those brats were finally finished they tasted as good as the finest meats of the Kaiser's private hoard. The Sno-B-Q failed that day, this is certain. But, tempered by adversity and through trial with the elements, a much rarer beast emerged from those frozen ashes: the Blizzarbeque. Long may its story be told.
Six years have I waited for snows the likes of this. I remember when I was getting ready to go to Chicago (from Florida), the only thing that anyone ever said to me was, "Aren't you going to be cold?" Well, I have been cold at times, but I've yet to have a satisfying winter. None of this 80 degrees in March bullhonky. I'm talking a foot of snow on the ground January 1st, and it doesn't leave until April. Given Chicago's infinitely schizophrenic weather patterns, this will obviously never happen, but I would settle for a decent couple weeks of heavy snowfall. To give you an idea of how desperate I am, I'm jumping up and down like it's Christmas ca. 1986 and there's only a foot of the white stuff down. That's what, an afternoon's worth of weather in Vermont? Ideally, we'd have more. Indeed, ideally, we would have 40 feet of snow, so I could jump out of my office window and it would be okay, and we would have to build an elaborate system of ice tunnels to get from place to place, and the hateful gaze of the Sun would forever be lost to us and we could live in happiness in a utopia of cold and darkness. Man, that would be great. But still, I'm pretty happy about the foot that's out there.
It is the tradition of my people to celebrate the coming of the snows with grilling, the "Sno-B-Q" (TM) as it were. I planned such an event for yesterday. However, I had not counted on blizzard conditions developing. Suffice it to say that getting the grill lit was an ordeal. Even after drenching the pre-lighter-fluid-saturated charcoal in yet more lighter fluid, the whipping winds prevented any fire from being maintained. A shelter was built, a wall of snow designed to cradle the minigrill and protect it from the winds, but in the end it was unsuccessful. It did serve as a delightful cooler, although the amount of snowfall meant that some of the cans placed within were hopelessly buried. Come the spring, when I am roused from my hibernatory state, I will relocate them and gnaw through to replenish precious bodily sucrose. In forcing us to forfeit the wall, the dogs of winter won a battle, but in the end, they lost the war, as the grill was relocated to the alley behind my apartment and so sheltered was lit without issue. And let me tell you, after hours standing in the driving snows, when those brats were finally finished they tasted as good as the finest meats of the Kaiser's private hoard. The Sno-B-Q failed that day, this is certain. But, tempered by adversity and through trial with the elements, a much rarer beast emerged from those frozen ashes: the Blizzarbeque. Long may its story be told.
Comments:
"Indeed, ideally, we would have 40 feet of snow, so I could jump out of my office window and it would be okay, and we would have to build an elaborate system of ice tunnels to get from place to place, and the hateful gaze of the Sun would forever be lost to us and we could live in happiness in a utopia of cold and darkness."
I can think of at least one way in which this might happen. But, nahh, that's a terrible idea.
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I can think of at least one way in which this might happen. But, nahh, that's a terrible idea.
