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muckefuck ([personal profile] muckefuck) wrote2009-02-07 04:34 pm
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How we lost a horse: Part 1

That old Chinese proverb about the frontier man and his horse has been in mind ever since I read [livejournal.com profile] badukk's post on it a while back. You see, we had plans for today. But nothing worked out the way we had anticipated it would. I still don't know yet whether this was a curse or a blessing in disguise.

A couple months back, Nuphy and I each bought tickets to the see the live Met broadcast of Lucia di Lammermoor today. Since [livejournal.com profile] monshu loves opera, but never gets to go because we can't afford weekend tickets, I thought it was a great opportunity to take him out. Unfortunately, the River East was sold out, so we perused alternative venues and settled on the City North in Logan Square. Then a few days ago, [livejournal.com profile] innerdoggie proposed brunch at Meinl for this morning. I couldn't think of any better way to fortify myself for four hours of opera, so we made plans to meet at 9:30 or so, which would give [livejournal.com profile] monshu and me plenty of time to make it to theatre well in advance in order to secure decent seats.

My one misgiving was the predicted warm-up. You see, some weeks ago, the roof drain froze over. The drainpipe goes right through our portion of the back porch, so whenever there was a thaw, water came pouring down along the outside of it and covered everything in ice. Worse, the meltwater below the porch grew deeper. Eventually, it refroze, blocking the drain down there as well.

So I awoke to the sound of [livejournal.com profile] monshu desperately chipping a channel in the ice to redirect the water swelling at the rear door lintel into the drain. This came too late to prevent our hall carpeting from getting soaked, but we hoped by hacking away some of the ice higher up, we'd at least keep the puddle from growing larger. When 9:30 a.m. rolled around, it found me carving ice several inches thick into chunks for [livejournal.com profile] monshu and a neighbour to shovel into the rear courtyard. After we'd cleared our section of porch, I went up a storey and hacked away at the truly impressive mass of ice that was dripping onto our heads and then used a snow shovel to toss the pieces down.

Brunch ended up being chorizo and eggs from the local taquería gobbled in the backseat of a cab.

[identity profile] innerdoggie.livejournal.com 2009-02-07 11:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm glad you got that ice taken care of. Sorry about the opera broadcast.