*I have this idea that for the rest of the winter I could name blog entries after chapter titles in The Long Winter. Need to find some reason to have a blog post called “ANTELOPE!”
Coming home early on Tuesday afternoon and watching the blizzard begin was an exquisitely giddy experience. I just sat by the big window by my desk and watched the snow come in careening gusts of wind.
No, I didn’t try to make this snowstorm one of my Little House reenactment projects, though I did have lots of Long Winter thoughts, and they swirled around in my head with all my modern neuroses. Like I was thinking that if the power went out I could use my quaint, adorable oil lamp, and then I remembered that my laptop’s battery function was broken, which of course freaked me out because THEN I’d have to make a tiny little generator with the old-fashioned coffee grinder and spend every morning hand-cranking a meager little serving of wireless while Chris twisted Chicago mayoral campaign junk mail into bundles of fuel.
But that didn’t happen. Our power stayed on, though the wind blew so hard I could feel our building shake, and there was lightning and thunder (which in a snowstorm looks and sounds really insane, like the earth is going to break open and fling up Superman’s Fortress of Solitude or something), and we were fine. Our car was stuck in the garage for three days until Chris was finally able to shovel out a narrow passage allowing the car to just barely squeeze through the waist-high snowbanks; the first time we pulled out the snow squeaked, like giant styrofoam wedges. And if I were to describe the blizzard experience overall, I would say it was almost fun, thanks to this improbably comfy world we live in, with all this home insulation and central heat and horseless-carriage-plows.
And “almost fun” except for the free-floating sensation that’s been lingering these few days after the storm, when everything seems to stand still and sometimes it’s all I can do to complete the simplest tasks, even when the weather has kept me at home and opened up new vistas of spare time. But I guess it’s no coincidence that Laura feels “stupid” so many times during The Long Winter. (And I love that Google Books lets me look that up.) I have so much to do in the next few months between work and the book coming out, but maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself when I find myself wanting to just sit around and stare at the stove fire (or, really, Season 3 of Jersey Shore).
Hope you all are doing okay with your own Long Winters.
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Wedding Planning Question Corner (which will perhaps be an occasionally recurring feature this year): What do you have to do to get to talk to a caterer? We’re still looking for one and I seem to be sending a lot of emails and voicemails into the void lately.
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Book release stuff: my event schedule is being finalized right now, so if you’re in or near Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Iowa City, or Kansas City, I’ll have news for you soon…
Hire me to make your wedding cake please!!
Make sure you do let me know when you’re coming to Iowa City. 😉
My personal rule was that I gave any vendor three chances. No answer after 3 attempts at contact, I moved on. Way too many caterers in Chicago for you to have to settle for substandard service.
Having recently relocated to San Francisco, we’re thinking we definitely chose the right winter to do so. I still have quite a lot of Chicago knowledge in my head, though, of course, and I can tell you that our wedding was catered by Food for Thought and we really, really liked them. (Although, of course, I can’t guarantee they’ll return voice mail, but they were pretty professional with us.)
I’m an event planner, and I don’t know that I would give a vendor even two chances. If you get a recommendation from a friend, I would drop that person’s name in my email/voicemail to the caterer, then wait for them to call you back. They either need your business and care enough to work for it, or they don’t. And if they are spotty communicators now, it won’t get better. Most caterers I know are in the habit of promptly replying to any new business call, so I would take it as a warning sign if you don’t hear back pretty quickly. Good luck!