This is a tale that can only happen in Seattle. Probably.

In the week leading up to Christmas, snow fell on the city. Every other day, a few new inches blanketed the city in a bright white coat.

We called it the Snowpocolypse. Or the Snowmagedon. Your choice. We had accumulated anywhere between 4″ and 12″ of snow. The city and its suburbs where brought to a stand still.

For those of you who live in parts of the country that never–or rarely see–snow, you can imagine what the situation may have been like. For those of you who live in parts of the country that regularly see snow you may be inclined to think that we Seattleites are “wimps,” keep in mind that we live in “hills.” When I say hills, I mean foothills to mountains. And when I say foothills, I’m talking hills that are bigger than mounds in other parts of the country that are called “mountains.” I won’t go into my Phoenix story here.

Getting back to the hills and their vertical rises, it means any amount of snow creates treacherous situations. One friend’s hill was shut down by a stuck FedEx truck. One friend’s hill was shut down by a stuck police car. The bus system only ran on routes that were flat. That is to say, very few busses ran.

Between the 18th and the 26th, I got to work only twice. I missed all of the holiday parties and family gatherings. I got so stir crazy, I attempted to shovel out our drive with an entrenching tool. 1 1/2 hours of back-breaking labor produced a clear spot 6 feet wide and 4 1/2 feet long. It wasn’t enough to facilitate escape that day. One day when we chose to sally forth, the trip nearly ended in divorce.

Don’t weep for me Argentina. Since traveling anywhere presented issues, we stayed at home and gamed. And worked on comics. And websites.

The rain came on the 28th and washed away the white stain from our city.

Since then, the world has edged back toward status quo. Rockin’ new years party, a post Christmas/Let me dumb Christmas left-overs on you/Gift exchange thing with the parents and my sister’s family, and counting the number of UPS trucks scurrying about trying to catch up all provide entertainment.

We had not forgotten the White Terror. We tried not to think about it, but our eyes could not but drift heavenward searching for the signs of its return. On the fourth, I headed out to a birthday party. As I headed into the city, the small white harbingers of doom started to drift down. By the time I got to the restaurant, a half inch had accumulated.

I stayed for a while, but then my fear of the Frozen Horror, drove me to get on the roads and return.

The four letter, non-explative s-word now creates panic in the eyes of Seattleites. We now talk about preparing for the next coming. In becoming prepared for that most horrible eventuality, we have now been gifted with marvelous technology. My parents gave me a snow shovel for Christmas.

I’m not super adventuresome when it comes to food, but I’ll try most foods once. Unless they contain mushrooms (allergic) or peanuts (hate with the passion of a thousand suns).

As mentioned in a previous post, I went to a birthday party. A friend held her birthday gathering at Quinn’s Pub. Take a moment and look at the menu.

I fell in love with the idea of the Wild Boar Sloppy Joe. I didn’t care how it tasted, I knew that’s what I was going to order then I got there. Upon arriving I nearly left due to the aforementioned snow. However, I decided to tough it out. I was glad I did.

We settled into our table and ordered appetizers–Pate and Escargot. The pate was good. Quite good. Very good. I’d never had escargot before, so I wanted to try it.

The thought of eating snails turns many people’s stomachs. However, there are some people who really, really like snails. I wanted to know. I had to know.

I popped one in my mouth.

The clouds parted, the angels started to sing, and the most beautiful flavor filled my mouth. It was butter, garlic and bacon in a perfectly balanced three-part harmony that lifted my very being toward eternal bliss.

Then I started to chew.

The clouds turned stormy, the singing turned to screaming, and I realized that I had something that was part semi-solidified rubber and part gelatinized mucus in my mouth. I quickly grabbed my water and washed it down. Fortunately, since it was still largely whole, went down easily.

I am torn about the experience. Escargot, at least as prepared by Quinn’s, has the most amazingly flavor (in the good sense) and surpasses anything else I have ever eaten. Yet, it is also the most disgusting thing I’ve had in my mouth. Ever.

I guess, in the end, I have to recommend the Wild Boar Sloppy Joe. It was very good, and didn’t remind me of slime.

We cursed and yowled at the snow demons. We cried to the rain spirits for their intercession. They answered in abundance. Roads that were once closed due to snow are now closed due to flooding. Escape from the city to the East and South is not possible.

In case you are curious, here is a spreadsheet/calendar that shows where I am in my buffer: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p3jlgg0dMC8HN8CHLqPpAWw&output=html&gid=0&single=true

Helps keep me honest the more people that see it.

Yeah. I am.

I should preface this by saying–perhaps obviously–that I am a huge nerd. My parents are not nerds. My partner is also a nerd. When it comes to Christmas gifts (or Birthday gifts), they have no idea what she and I would like.

Except that they know we like food.

We got close to 10 pounds of meat for Christmas. In the package there was pork garlic sausage, smoked pork chops, rib eye, and some tender loin from Owens Meats in Cle Elum, Washington (they don’t have a website). We ate the pork chops last night. They were pretty good. I cooked them a little too long, but thus is life. The pork drippings went into the mashed potatoes.

What I really want to talk abut is the pork garlic sausage. Properly it is Grampa’s Garlic (if you ever happen to get to Owens’ and see it in their case).

On one of many camping trips as a child, we were headed through Cle Elum going to . . . someplace. Probably the Teanaway River, but I don’t remember. For reasons also unremembered, we stopped at this somewhat dingy looking place. Dingy on the outside. However, the entire town of Cle Elum looked dingy, so that wasn’t necessarily a strike against it.

My parents picked up a few things, including some of this sausage for breakfast the next morning. We cooked it up, and I remember Mom remarking on how little fat was coming out of the sausage. The smell that filled our small travel trailer was unlike any other breakfast smell we’d had.

There is a smell and taste that the typical American breakfast sausage has. It’s a bit peppery. It smells fatty. It is even a bit smoky. These aren’t bad things. I’m just trying to build a vocabulary. Jimmy Dean sausage is the archetype of those qualities.

Grampa’s didn’t follow that arc. In fact, the smell was so clean, that we were afraid it wouldn’t have much flavor.

We were wrong. The archetype can be over-powering. This was not. It was pork and garlic in harmony, and the garlic was the supporting note. Since we didn’t go through Cle Elum very often, we’d only get the sausage a couple times a year. It became a special treat.

I’ve loved it for many years. I’ve even tried grinding my own sausage to capture that essence. I was very excited to see two pounds of this sausage in the Christmas gift. I couldn’t wait to cook some up, so my partner could try it.

“Too garlicky,” she said. My heart broke. My soul wept.

Then I remembered that she has the palate of a pallet. So I just sat and watched her cover the sausage in ketchup.