The Ick

For the last three weeks we have been embroiled in Ick. The weathermen call it Inversion, but it's really just Ick. For those of you who don't live in Utah, who aren't surrounding on all sides by mountains, who don't have an enormous smelter biting off entire mountains and chewing them to rubble, delving too greedily and too deep, I will kindly explain Inversion.

This is what Inversion looks like:

And this is what Inversion smells like:

And this is what Inversion sounds like:

And this is what Inversion feels like:

My mornings start very early, and in the midst of the Ick I had to drive across the valley. My mind wandered as I drove, and with a start I realized I had no idea where I was. I glanced about for familiar landmarks. Yet, I could see nothing around me but Ick. No billboards, no street signs, no buildings. Only gray and lifeless fog, the flickering flames of hazy tail lamps and the dreaded thick Ick. I suddenly realized where I must be: No color, no beauty, red flames, and the hopeless stench of a sunless sky. I was in hell. "Now just a minute!" I cried out in my mind. "I'm signed up for the eternity in Paradise plan. I fear there's been some horrible mistake." It began to dawn on me that I was not in fact in hell. I was in Utah in mid-January in the Ick. "Our situation has not improved."

I was born in Miami, and there are days where I remember that I was made to be a Florida girl. Days where 95 degrees and 95 percent humidity sounds down right divine and palm trees seem better scenery than sage. Mostly these days occur from January 7th to February 28th.