Prep

It is winter and I am retired. That means, for the most part, I do not need to leave the house unless I want to. There is comfort in this. It also means that I have the time to prep myself and the house for the onslaught of freezing winds, snow, and ice.

This winter (2019) has had a few particularly nasty days. I did not grow up with the concept of wind chill, so I tend to discount the figures as inflated for breathless weatherpersons, but reports of ten below zero grab my attention.

I retrieve the extra heavy black ski jacket. Next to be fished out of the back of the closet are fleece lined Patagonia pants, wool hats, and recently purchased Thinsulate mittens. I also rummage through the dresser drawer for long sleeved UNIQLO extra warm t-shirts, and just in case put long underwear on alert.

To add to this, I fuel the snow blower and start it to assure that when push comes to shove it will work. Snow shovels are strategically placed at the front, back, and garage doors along with containers of sand to prevent mishaps if the ice proves intractable.

And while in the garage, snowbrushes and ice scrapers along with shovels are placed in the car’s trunks. One car, an overpowered sports coupe, is slippery on anything other than dry pavement, so as a reward for a life spent driving beaters, come around November I fit it with four snow tires.

When the cold materializes windows and doors are searched for air leaks. Various types of barriers are employed to seal what is ultimately an un-sealable house. There is more but at the moment, I can’t think . . . . No wait, I oil the Bell & Gossett circulating water pump on the boiler, and bleed the radiators of accumulated air.

In late September, the storm windows are lowered in place. A portable electric radiator is put in the back porch and the crawl space underneath it is packed with fiberglass insulation. Of course, the front and back water spigots are drained along with what water is left in the garden hoses.

I have a few survivalist tendencies, so I stock up on pasta and canned tomatoes and red wine, and let’s not forget cookies and flour and yeast. To add to the above list, in September I did much the same thing to Carrie Rose, our handsome cruising tug.

Is it any wonder that Chicago’s population shrinks every year. Instead of constantly raising taxes and fees, the city should be paying us a hazardous duty stipend. The block I live on is magnanimous. Once I have the snow blower running I will continue south for three or four houses, and occasionally some gracious soul will clear the snow from the entire block’s sidewalks.

In October, I pull R. H. Blyth’s Haiku Vol. 4 down from the bookcase’s upper shelf, and read Buson’s haiku: My bones feel the quilts; A frosty night. That about sums winter up for me.

Only now can I take the liberty to think of winter’s preparation. It is March, and there is hope in the still frigid air.

March 2019

Boxes

Much of life is tucked away in boxes: hidden in attics and crawl spaces, in storage units and garages. An unofficial duty of mine is to patch together the multitude of boxes that contain the implements of chanoyu, the tea ceremony. Some boxes are pristine, others look like they have been through a war, and maybe they have.

Despite their artistic contents, they can be works of art unto themselves. They are platforms for their own history. The joinery is perfect. The wood is clear, fine grained and pale, though some boxes have the patina of age.

If there is a nail, it is because of an uninformed attempt at repair. For all the beauty and artisanship of their construction, Chicago is not a forgiving place for them. It is toxic. Japan is humid and so is Chicago, but not in winter. Humility disappears in January and February.

In my 1913 bungalow, cracks appear in the kitchen's wooden backdoor despite yearly attempts to mend them. The humidifier is turn up and while this prevents an almost fatal shock each time I touch metal, the humidity still hovers in the low thirties. The leaky storm windows break out in a forest of ice crystals with the added moisture, and still wood shrinks and cracks.

When the straight grained wood that these boxes are made from splits, it does so cleanly. Though I have never heard it happen, it must make a tremendous sound. Maybe it contributes to the constant creaking of my 106 year old house.

My first step in the restoration is to carefully inspect the box, and come up with a plan to mend the damage: less is more when making a repair. Often the wood is split and the dowels that act as nails are damaged. A judiciously sectioned toothpick will replace a dowel. With the new dowel in place, a bit of hide glue is added, and then hefty clamps are applied.

Most boxes have a rim around the bottom with four centrally placed slits. A ribbon is passed, though the middle of each. The middle of the ribbon meets the two straggling ends at the top. These, once tied, hold the lid on. The knot used is similar to tying shoes but of course, as I have learned, Japanese knots are tied opposite of Western knots. I grew up sailing and take pride my ability to tie knots, but these confound me.

Chanoyu uses a plethora of knots, which, of course, I thought I would be able to master. Think again. It is a constant frustration to be confronted by the same knots and fail each time to tie them properly without pedantic instruction.

The lids are made of the same wood as the rest of the box, but because of their construction, they tend to warp instead of split. There are two wooden rails on the bottom side of the lid to keep it in proper alignment. The rails are affixed to the lid with small wooden dowels. The dowels shear as the lid shrinks and warps. It is clever, because if they were nailed the lid would be damaged.

Though the glue sets in twenty minutes, I leave the lid and box to rest overnight. There is no hurry. Once returned to its owner, the box and its precious contents will be put away, and become a memory until needed. It could be months, it could be decades. The renewed box will again protect the little spark of life that went into the creation of the treasure within it: hidden or not.

February 2019