February 10, 2007

Frigid In Minnesota

This morning I boiled a small pan of water, took it outside, and threw it into the air. Only two-thirds of it exploded into white vapor. CAN THIS BE THE END OF WINTER?

But seriously. A couple of nights ago, I burned the packet of wishes I had collected at my Mom's memorial service. They were basically little pieces of paper with private notes written by people who knew Mom. I asked for private thoughts and swore not to read them. Two people requested that I do so, and they were lovely.

The wish cards went into a small envelope, which I placed a bowl on the stove-top and then set on fire. The stink of burning paper proved too strong for the kitchen's puny fan, so I relocated to the bathroom midway through the burning. I propped the tiny bathroom window open about five inches to let the smoke and fumes out, and this worked wonders for the air quality.

When they were cool, I took the ashes and emptied them into a little zip-loc bag. The process was eerily similar to the heartbreaking task of scooping my Mom's ashes into another bag just like this one, but this time it was actually very mellow and nice and not creepy or horrifying at all.

After the ashes were safely sealed in the bag, I crunched them up good to destroy any sentiments that might not have been fully incinerated. Then I slid the packet under Mom's box.

Two hours later I was in dire need of a shower, but all was not well. I had left the window open all that time, and the bathroom was now freezing. Not just freezing. Frozen. As in, the shampoo and conditioner were solid as rocks. There was a thick rime of ice on the toilet's surface, and I couldn't flush until it thawed out. All this from a 5x18" gap in the window.

The shower experience itself was pretty awesome. The air was cold, the water super hot. My lungs got a spectacular steam treatment from the white clouds that quickly filled the bathroom.

Later that morning, Jesse's thrown water erupted in a proper and spectacular FLOOMP of vapor and not a drop hit the ground. Minnesota is a strange place.


PS - I've noticed quite a few people, even Northerners who should know better, have expressed disbelief at the existence of this phenomenon. You just want to cry for them.



5 comments:

  1. Will you have my love babehs?!

    Mmm....babehs.....

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  2. Oooh. Nice layout. Very clean.

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  3. You should send some of those non believers to northwest ohio, where in a certain house, there is a certain bathroom where the heating duct wasn't hooked up. Long story short, anything left on the floor liquid or otherwise gelatinous freezes in less than an hour -_-o It makes for very cold, but steamy showers <3

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  4. Awesome box, I'm sure your mom would have picked it out herself if given the chance.

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