Today’s theme: STATIONARY
It’s still for now, but the weather has been so uncharacteristically warm lately (re: summer in March) (which, let’s face it, this is Chicago, where schizophrenic weather was invented) (it might snow next week, you never know) (or it could stay in the 80s until October) (hard to say) I will soon pull the bike down from its hanging post in the garage and put it in motion to go toodling around the neighborhood. COUNTRY ROADS BEWARE.
To say that this winter has been mild would be an understatement. The past couple weeks we’ve been in DC have been especially warm, though that hasn’t ended sightings of commuters bundled up in scarves, gloves and hats as they bustle to and fro. Which means that hasn’t ended me rolling my eyes at said commuters and yelling, “It is 50 degrees outside! This is not Antarctica! It’s not even Alaska! Their mountains are much bigger!”
Okay, I didn’t really yell that. Except that one time, at that one girl. But it was in my head, so I don’t think it really counts.
And so now, at the risk of bringing another snowpacolypse down on our heads, I’m just going to go ahead and say it: Happy Spring, everyone!
And I swear to God if I see you walking through McPherson Square bundled up like Nanook of the goddamned North I will crack you upside the head.
From my office to my train stop it’s about a mile walk. And that’s a mile’s worth of time that my knees turn red with cold, my fingers stiffen, my nose runs, and while I don’t notice it at the time, my ears chill quite considerably, if the burning thaw-out that occurs when I finally enter the warm waiting station is any indication.
Most people moan and complain and fear Chicago winters.
But to be honest, spring is the bitch you need to watch out for.
The problem with a Chicago spring is that you never know which one you’re going to get. There are days like the one we had last week that was bright and cheery and made you want to tear off your pants and run around in your chonies with glee.
And there are days like the ones that remind me of high school soccer practice, when we’ve finally been set loose on the field instead of training in the gym. Those first outdoor practices under a gray sky, kicking the ball around a muddy, soggy field heavily doused with the smell of dewy, humid, budding grass and fresh tree leaves. It was chilly enough to make your nose run, with a splotch of balmy air that made it fine—great, even—to run around in nothing more than a sweatshirt and trackpants in the fading twilight.
And then there are days like today that are that are beyond overcast, that whip winds past you and slice through your clothing like a sharp pair of dressmakers’ scissors. Days that make you seriously wonder about the feasibility of winter—or at least a version of it—actually lasting forever.
A Chicago spring brings out the best and worst in people. A sunny day means sunny people. A day like today will serve up the churlish and annoyed, people wanting to take out their confusion on how to proceed with such weather on someone, anyone, anything. Winter, you see, can be easily handled by adding on another layer. Summer is dealt with by stripping those layers to the bare minimum, and it’s followed by fall, which Chicago very kindly eases into gently, making the transition between two seasons as non-threatening as possible. But spring.
Spring goes for the “HA! HA! MADE YOU LOOK!” followed by a sucker punch to the gut and maybe a shin kick if it’s feeling feisty kind of seasonal change, forcing you to think long and hard about how you’re going to handle and react to the season’s apparent mood disorder on a daily basis.
Or at the very least, it makes you double check the weather forecast for the next day. And seriously reconsider your planned outfit.
Dear Capital Weather Gang,
I’m writing to inform you of something very important.
Despite the fact that collectively, among the members of your gang there are tens of years of schooling under your belts, along with twenties of years of experience in reading meteorological maps and systems, and despite all points to the contrary (this being January and all), we will not be getting any snow this winter.
And no, this is not a slam or snarky reference in any way to The Storm that Wasn’t last week that bypassed DC completely, and instead decided to engage New York and Philly in a battle of snowdrifts.
And I’m not writing this to ask you to take me on a whim or to just “trust me” on this one because I’ve got a “feeling” that things just seem “snowless” this winter. No, no, I have a cold, hard, guarantee we will not get any snow this winter, and we will certainly not have another Snowpocolypse like we did last year. And that guarantee is this:
I now own snow boots.
Last year, if you’ll remember, when the skies dumped so much snow on the area a snowplow broke down on the street in front of The Swede’s house, we took to relieving our stir-craziness through gin, baking, and walks through the blanketed neighborhood.
Now, the gin and baking pretty much take care of themselves. But the walking was another issue, seeing as how it meant trudging through three feet of snow, and I owned neither snow boots nor snow pants. I sucked it up on the pants issue, and went old school on the boots, improvising my way to dry feet, not wanting the getting out of the house to be a pipedream of an idea.
And then came Alaska, where they wear nothing BUT snow boots and grizzly bear furs all year long. I borrowed boots from Captain Deb, then bid the boots goodbye before I hopped the plane back to the Mid-Atlantic.
After all of that, I kept thinking to myself that I should get me some of those snow boots. You know. Just in case.
So for Christmas, I carefully perused the L.L. Bean catalogue, picked out the pair I wanted, passed the information to my mom, and then pretended to be surprised on Christmas morning when I opened up a pair of wool-lined zip boots, size 9.
I wore the boots pretty much every day from the time I got them until we got back to DC. Because of course, before I got them, Chicago had a few inches of snow fall. (Once I had them in my possession, no more snow fell.) It also averaged 12 degrees, at which point I wanted to shake the hand of the person who invented wool lining.
But now that my boots and I are back in DC, Capital Weather Gang, you can put away your snow charts and your Farmers Almanacs, because there will be no snow.
I’m prepared for a blizzard.
Therefore we will have nothing but dry skies.
It’s not a theory (conspiracy or otherwise) that I have, it’s just the cold, hard facts of my life: If I am prepared, the preparation will be in vain. To the opposite end, if I’m not prepared, well, obviously we got the answer to the question of what happens then last February. (Similarly, “unpreparedness” also answers the question of why I did so poorly in Honors World History my freshman year of high school. And consequently, why I now know appallingly little about World History. Though I can at least tell you that many historical world events? ALSO HAPPENED BECAUSE PEOPLE WERE UNPREPARED.) (Ergo, I am living history.) (Wait…what?) (Nevermind.)
I’m sorry to take your jobs away from you, Capital Weather Gang, and I’m sorry to disappoint school children everywhere who were looking forward to a snow day. (Though to their parents: You’re welcome.) Think of this not as me usurping your power as Weatherpeople, but as me giving you a gift, the gift of time. Now that you can rule out any semblance of snow for this winter, you’ll have LOADS of free time on your hands. Think of all the books you can read! Or you could learn to make flan! Think of the vacations you can take—especially since you won’t have to worry about flight delays at Reagan due to snow! Though it is true you’ll now have to head out to Colorado or maybe up to Vermont if you want to partake of any skiing. Sorry ‘bout that. But what can I do? I didn’t ask for this power to control the weather, it was just bestowed upon me.
So if you wouldn’t mind, help me out in alerting the DC Metro area about this change in weather conditions for the next few months. I’ll try getting on the local news and calming the public fears about another snowtastrophe, and you guys should run something in that paper of yours.
Let’s use our collective weather powers for good, Capital Weather Gang.
Sincerely,
McPolish
Is deceptive, really, this weather.
Was quite warm last week. Quite warm. Almost too warm for This Girl. But not too warm, thankfully. It was just right. It was perfect for this:
And now it’s gone back to chilly. Sunny, but chilly.
So it’s deceptive, really.
Because when you look out the window, it makes you think of this
and this.
But it’s not quite that. It’s almost that. But not quite.
Thankfully, though, it’s not still this
or this.
Because I’ve had enough of that at the moment. So for now, I lurv what I do have. And look forward to this:
The end.
Captain’s Log:
We are on Day 3 of Snowpocolpse/Snowmageddon/Snowtastrophe 2010. The snow stopped falling a day ago, but the streets remain sloppy, and the plow truck that broke down on Saturday morning outside the house is still stuck in the middle of the street. I think it has given up its will to live. Come springtime we will paint the doors a cheery fuscia and pull out the headlights, using the empty holes to grow dahlias. We will up-turn the plow itself and start a community garden. It will be beautiful and serve bounty to the neighborhood.
For our own curiosity and sanity’s sake, we have managed to get out of the house a couple of times. Curiosity because we wanted to see how other streets were faring (so-so), and sanity because you can only do so many hot laps around the apartment without banging your shin on the stereo speakers and/or someone’s head.
It is here I admit that I was ill-prepared for the heavy snow we currently endure. Oh, I was prepared in many essential ways: food, laptop, booze, reading materials, and crossword puzzles. I have two coats, a hat, gloves, a scarf. But I do not, and have not, owned snow boots in approximately 24 years. I just…haven’t. And since living out here in DC, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind to purchase snow boots until recently, and that’s only because I’ve got BIG PLANS! for a trip to Alaska in March to visit my friend, Captain Klein.
And yet I never got around to it.
And of course I really could have used them over the past few days.
But I soldier on! A measly lack of snow boots was not going to stop me from exploring the neighborhood in these snowpocolypctic times, and more importantly it was not going to stop me from hurling myself over the porch railing and into the sweet, sweet fresh air of freedom. Damn those walls that try to contain me! I will not be penned in!
I am nothing if not innovative. I dug deep into my roots, into the memories of the snowy tundra of the Midwest, remembering the ache of icy feet, miserably slogging around in cold, wet shoes. I needed my freedom, I needed to inhale the crisp smell of that which had been packed and plowed and sledded and skated over, but I did not need to catch my death of pneumonia or even spend any time complaining about how uncomfortable my fucking feet were. I dug deeper into my memories and inspiration sauntered forth. Stealing into the pantry I plucked out two plastic grocery bags, and happily sat down to ready my feet for their adventure outside the confines of home.
Do not underestimate the power of the baggie bootie.
Behold!
It’s entirely too simple of a solution for its own good. It is so good that you think there is no possible way it can even work. Oh, that it does. For over an hour we trekked and slid and toddled our way through the streets, through banks of snow and barely-blazed trails, sinking up to our knees through weak spots of piled snow.
And when I returned home, my feet were dry. And warm. A bit sweaty, even.
Plastic-wrapping your foot will do that, I guess.
No matter. What matters is we breathed in deep the air and sunshine that will eventually eliminate the snowy barriers from our lives. And my feet stayed warm.
And there is still a plentiful amount of gin in the liquor cabinet.
So, hey, did you hear?
DC got shit on with snow this weekend!
Sorry, that was a bit crass, wasn’t it?
M’bad. This is what happens when you are stuck inside because of so many feets and inches of snow even the snow plow gets stuck.
Because this area? This area sees snow like this once in a decade.
Whatever. The point is, while I did manage to get out and take a walk through the snowy, snowy lanes earlier, I’ve spent the majority of the time indoors because, well, there is just no other place to go.
What that has to do with me swearing like a goddamned sailor, umm….yeah, I’m not so sure.
Who cares?
I made biscuits!
I saw this recipe on Tasty Kitchen the other day, and let me tell you, I thought it looked divine. So when I hit the Safeway on my lunch hour the other day to stock up on whatnots for THE SNOW OF DOOM, I got the ingredients I needed to make these, as I knew I’d also be making a big old pot of turkey chili. Because nothing says 16,000 feet of snow and stir crazy like chili.
Ta-daaaa!
And jazz hands.
Or maybe jazz hands just say “crazy.”
Either/or.
Do you know that I’ve never made biscuits before? I mean, ones that are not from a can? It’s true! And frankly, I find them a little intimidating. I have no idea why. Maybe because there is always so much pressure to make a biscuit that is not just good, but awesome. Because biscuits? They can only go one of two ways: lovely and delicious, or hard as a fucking hockey puck. And while I love hockey, I don’t want to gnaw on a circle of…whatever hockey pucks are made out of. Anyway, I figured since I’d already finished watching my Netflix of Glee, I may as well give biscuit-making a go. It was time. (Let’s just forget about the fact that we’d already eaten the chili, as at the time I was too hungry to make the biscuits to go along with it. So these ended up being dessert biscuits. Kinda.) (Or something.) (Whatever.) (Don’t judge me.)
Since I wasn’t cooking in my home kitchen and hadn’t printed out the recipe beforehand, I, A) got to use a groovy Kitchen Aid mixer, which I am always a fan and fond of, and 2) had to jigger my usual set up so it looked something like this:
It turns out, biscuits are surprisingly easy to make. I’m not really sure what I was freaking out about. I’ll just blame it on the weather. The snow-crazies. Yeah….that’s it.
So throw the flour and baking powder and salt in the mixing bowl, then dice up cold butter and throw it in there with it, mixing until it’s the size of peas. While the mixer is doing its thing, I highly recommend having a gimlet.
And if you’re feeling frisky, maybe sing along to some Modest Mouse or Pavement, or whatever you happen to have on hand.
It can’t hurt.
In fact, I think it actually helps. I think the biscuit dough likes it when you sing to it. At the very least, if you sing to it, it won’t threaten to kick you out of the car like my friend Beh Beh does when I sing to her.
After you mix that up, you add a buttermilk/beaten egg combo to the dry ingredients and mix some more.
And then here is where the snow-crazies really get to me, and I go a bit wild. WILD! I say. Remember earlier, when I went to the Safeway? Apparently there was a run not only on milk, eggs, lean meats and toilet paper, there was also a run on jalapenos. Had I needed mini-Japanese eggplants I would have been set. But jalapenos, I was totally shit out of luck.
But
I had green onions that I’d forgotten to use in the chicken dish I’d made the other night, and if you think cheddar cheese and onions don’t go together like peas and carrots then you are a fucking moron.
What?
Sorry.
Snow-crazies. They bring out the sailor-mouth in me. Well, more so than usual.
Instead of slicing and dicing a jalapeno, I sliced and diced some green onions.
I threw that into the dough with some cheddar cheese and called it a day.
Okay, I didn’t really call it a day, but I did turn out the dough on the counter, kneaded it and rolled it out. And now is the point in our story where I reiterate that math is not my strong suit. And sometimes neither is reading. Because had a read the directions, I would have read that I was supposed to have rolled the dough out to a square of about 10 by 5 inches. Though even if I had read that part, there is no way I would have even made a close guesstimate of what that size would look like. The only way I would have gotten it is with a ruler, which, wouldn’t you know, I did not have on hand. Which clearly means only one thing.
Back to the gimlets!
In the end, when the rolling was through, this is the size I ended up with:
Which, to me, looked a little thin on some squares, so I pressed a couple together to make them a little thicker. Throw them on a baking sheet and throw ‘em in the oven.
Now, the directions say pump up the heat to 425 on the oven, but I thought that was a bit much. The first batch got way too brown on the top from the egg wash and high heat and browning cheese, so for the last few I dropped the heat down to about 375, left off the egg wash, and cooked them for only 15 minutes rather than 20. I think, had I had my math proportions better, ergo the biscuits were a little thicker, it would have all gelled nicely. Alas, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do when she’s stuck in the house because of a Snowpacolypse.
Voila!
Cheddar-onion biscuits.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do hot laps around the living room and wonder how it is possible for a swamp to turn into the motherfucking Alps in less than 24 hours.
I was definitely not prepared for how chilly and fall-like it was going to be while I was in Chicago last week.
I loved it.
And when I go home next, at Christmastime, it will be even colder, and there may even be snow.
!!!
Most people, when they hear “Chicago” and they are not from there and most often have never even been there except to occasionally fly through O’Hare, immediately react with an “it’s so cold! there,” and a mimed shiver. And 9 times out of 10 it is followed up with an “I could never live there.”
To which I say, well then, you’ve never truly lived.
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