Fools and housemakers

The Winter Storm Watch that Chicago was under yesterday continued most of today. At first, we wrote this off as more alarmism. After all, as of this morning, the precipitation had weakened to flurry strength and there was little sign of the "up to 8 inches" that weathermen were chattering about. But though lighter, the snow simply never let up. And by early afternoon, it came so thickly you couldn't see more than a couple blocks in any direction.

So naturally we decided to go out into it.

In truth, plans had been laid a week ago for us to spruce up my old apartment in advance of putting it up for sale again starting Monday. Waiting a day would've been reasonable, but monshu is never comfortable putting things off, so we packed up a bromeliad and a floor lamp and headed out into the blizzard.

And I'm happy we did. As I told, as much fun as it is to watch the snow fall from the comfort of a roaring fire, there's joy to seeing more scenery than can be taken in from a window. Moreover, it felt so mild once we were in the outside air that I felt silly even thinking we might stay home. The main thoroughfares were plowed, the busses were running normally; getting to my place was fine. Spending four hours sweeping, swiffing, scrubbing, and straightening was less of a joy, but there were compensations: The moment we stepped out of the back door, we saw that the clouds had parted and a beautiful full moon was shining down upon us. I sincerely wanted to take a stroll through the park to admire it, but I knew monshu wouldn't be up for it.

So we turned our backs to the moon and marched on over slush the consistency of mashed potatoes to Thai Pastry so the Old Man could get his tom yum fix. (He talked me into it by waving the prospect of dessert before my nose; there's something terribly decadent about going out for ice cream on a snowy day.) I decided to go for the specials: panang curry calamari and an appetiser labeled "meang kum" (เมี่ยงคำ). According to the infallible interwebs, this means "leaf-wrapped morsel", which indeed it was: roasted splinters of coconut served on betel leaves with peanuts, scallions, a small section of lime, and a dried shrimp. The first didn't transcend the ingredients in the way I expected, so I figured out I wasn't adding enough sweet sauce; I was loving them by the end.

My calamari were less successful: Excellent panang sauce, decent stuffing, but only so-so squid. monshu had more luck with his soup and green curry. I hit the jackpot with dessert, however, for God so loved the world that he created buko pandan ice cream. When my server told me that the only flavouring was screwpine leaves, she lied: There were tender chunks of young coconut (the "buko" in "buko pandan", as I am now aware). It was glorious--far more interesting than the monshu's too mild scoop of lychee flavour.

We were back by around 8:30 and almost immediately leapt into bed. The GWO naturally fell asleep after reading for only a few minutes and I nearly followed him (sitting up, mind you, since I couldn't lie down and let the curry escape). The plan for tomorrow is plenty of nothin'. I can already see myself lounging in the front room making long-overdue calls to friends and family or huddled beneath the sheets plowing through Allende's memoirs.