So Cold It Feels Like the End of the World--If the World Were To End in Ice not Fire (see Robert Frost)
I’m still working on my New Year’s resolutions. Maybe by
year’s end I’ll come up with a few.
Right now it’s about motivation, getting back into the
writing/creating groove. Mostly I’d like 2014 to bring me health and wealth. I’d
like for writing to become a career rather than an ambition.
Perhaps brain freeze has something to do with my current lethargy.
It doesn’t exactly help that the windchill is a billion below zero. All major
highways/arteries are shut down. Blowing and drifting.
I’m a morning cook. I make breakfast for 300 people—though today
I knew it was going to be a bit slow as most people had the day off because of
school/work closings. Normally the kitchen is cold when I come down, but after
getting things turned on and the fan blowing it warms up. EXCEPT someone turned
off the heat last night.
Why you might ask—I know I did. Why the hell would you turn
off the heat on a night when it’s the end of the world according to the weather
report.
The kitchen felt like end-times. Icicles hung like stalactites/mites
from faucets/pipes. Most of the machines were too cold to work properly. Slowly
I got things running, but about an hour later PSSST the pipes burst. I saw
water spraying out of the riveted, stainless steel lined walls.
I quickly got the knobs down below the sinks turned off.
But that wasn’t the end of the problem. The pipes in the
walls went next. Down in the basement it was as if the ceiling was draining. I
grabbed a bunch of guys from the dining room and we chained food out of the
pantry onto a high and dry area. We worked in ankle deep ice-cold water, the
whole time new cracks opened up above our heads. Steam from burst hot water
pipes steamed and hissed, rained down upon us. An odd contradiction of humidity
and artic temperatures. It felt like a military operation with the enemy firing
from the heights.
An hour later we had a sump pump going and the water turned
off. Right now the plumbers are working on the pipes. On a Fuji scale of disaster my morning was a 5.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
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