"A perfect place to remember and anticipate."

The rumor started two full days ago. Snow overnight Friday. We'd heard this story before. Sometimes it came about, sometimes not. With a two day window, nobody flinched. The day before, most remained sanguine. By the day of, I started taking the warnings seriously, but the prediction proved false. Two cold fronts, meant to meet and party over us, had slowed. The northern contingent decided to hover over the Wyoming/Colorado border overnight, the southern one still hounded Las Vegas, and had a lot of territory to traverse before bothering us. We headed out the morning after, keeping a weather eye on every horizon, for this storm would approach from at least two directions at once.

We managed to successfully restock the larder before anything but freezing fog fell. As morning turned into afternoon, a fog settled in to signify the arctic cold arriving, but the moisture pump streaming in from California had been further delayed. I stared out the window, once we'd stored away our morning's purchases, seeing hardly more than a hundred yards through the ground-level cloud cover. I felt myself filling with anticipation, for the threat of snow rivals Christmas morning for impending drama. I simultaneously hunger for a good dumping, understanding that once some invisible border's crossed, it will snow no more for six months or more, and a near miss which would leave us ambulatory for the next few days. The Muse has a conference downtown next week. She might not make the first day.

By mid-afternoon, the long anticipated dumper's begun. Talcum powder snow turns to table salt snow which seems unlikely to accumulate beyond a dusting, except it's insistent. Infinitesimal flakes accumulate quickly, surprisingly. After an hour of staring into the near distance, I can believe that we might well manage to catch more than the predicted foot, maybe much more than a foot, of the stuff over the next two days. The anticipation seems worth it then. The parking halfway to Christmas because the supermarket parking lot was packed in anticipation, seems worth the trek. The Muse asked as we crawled up the scenic route back to The Villa in a dead fog if I'd returned those movies to the library. I had not. We can binge on them and even pay the overdue charge. Snowed in would provide the perfect excuse.

I set a lamb breast in to sou vide overnight. Twenty hours soaking in a 142 degree water bath should leave me with the perfect prime ingredient for a fine snowy Sunday night ragu. The house feels warmed when a nearly Spring blizzard whispers outside. We walked last night around downtown Denver, looking for a venue for a celebration of life scheduled for a dear departed who explicitly requested no celebration of his life. We're insolent souls, those of us still living and anticipating and living under the threat of something so gentle we'd never suspect it of having designs on us. We rejected both prospects due to noise level. People, many people, can't seem to keep their big yaps from getting even bigger in public. We this morning visited a jazz club which seemed the perfect venue. The proprietor explained that on the night of, he'd have a big band starting at seven thirty and it will make a lot of noise. We figured that the celebration which was not supposed to be a celebration would be lubricated enough by then to either join in the dance or slink off for a quiet supper somewhere else, anyway. A perfect place, we decided, to remember and anticipate.

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Reconsidering , #PureSchmaltz