Tag Archives: ice

4 Comments

Igloo

  By

DO NOT OPEN: THE DISCARDED REFRIGERATORS OF POST-KATRINA NEW ORLEANSrefr

Laborde, Katheryn Krotzer (McFarland, August 2010, ISBN 9780786437894)

Colin knew the igloo would cause trouble. I’d erected it in our freezer from rings of ice-cubes I shaved so they’d lean in to make a dome. A tiny ice Eskimo kept watch near the door until, one day, Colin snapped it off to put into a drink. With its dying breath, the Eskimo vowed revenge. It placed a curse on the freezer.

After Colin moved to California to marry a woman he met on the internet, Hilary insisted we clear out the freezer so we could store food there. A hairdryer had no effect, so I started chipping out the igloo with a butter knife and mallet. Continue reading

No comments

Ice Currency

  By

COIN LAUNDRIES: ROAD TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCElaund

Higdon, Emerson G. (Mountain Pub, June 2001, ISBN 9780962317392)

No apartment building in suburbia qualifies as complete until it has its own laundry room. To pay for it, instead of tacking a few extra bucks on to everyone’s rent, we attach coin boxes to the washers and dryers and everyone keeps big jars of change. Each week when you attend to your laundry, rather than the pleasant sense of sharing a resource with your neighbours, you have the sense of an external “management” inconveniencing you for the sake of two dollars in dryer money.

A few years ago, a shrewd friend of mine started to strike back by manufacturing his own dryer change out of ice. He freezes disks of ice in his icebox using the plastic rings from the necks of soda bottles and then shaves them down to the right thickness. The coin slot never knows the difference. Continue reading

  • You might also like

    • It’s a Sair Fecht

      OUTLANDER Diana Gabaldon (Delacorte Books, 1991) ISBN: 0385302304 ***WARNING: the following review contains SPOILERS and discussion of sexual violence, torture, and sexual identity.*** When I first heard of Outlander, a time-traveller’s love story set against the Jacobite uprising in 18th century Scotland and written by an American, I cringed.  This … Continue reading