Ice & Other Breakable Stuff

We just got home from the ICE! exhibit at the National Harbor with our fun friends the Kukawas. It is totally over the top. Millions of pounds of sculpted ice, mostly in the theme of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Every tiny detail is done in ice - everything.

On the way in to the exhibit hall freezer they handed each of us a massive blue jacket to put over our wool coats - yes, it was that cold inside and no, they were not flattering, (think overweight Smurfs). Almost a dozen signs were posted in the entry hall that said in huge bold letters, "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE ICE." Which basically meant touch nothing because everything everywhere was ice.

How do you not touch a massive green Christmas tree made of ice. I don't know because Dave touched it immediately. The rest of us laughed and said, "Did you not see the signs?" Dave looked confused and said, "No, what signs?" If there was ever a for shadowing moment...this was it.

Did I mention that everything in there was made of ice. Hundreds of thousands of hours were spent to sculpt each of these intricate pieces, the details were mind-boggling - a frozen butterfly net, a ham at the Christmas dinner table, and the fingers on the Grinch's hand. Or should I say the fingers that were on the Grinch's hand...

I knew we couldn't touch, but no sign said anything about not doing jumper photos. So Dave and I jumped at the opportunity, literally, to take a picture with a giant frozen Grinch sculpture (see ill-fated photo to the right). One small glitch, Dave accidentally swung his arm back on the landing and karate chopped off all five fingers on the Grinch's hand - yes, ALL FIVE!!! It was like he had a ginsu knife attached to his arm, they dropped to the floor with a massive thud.

Seriously, how do you recover from this? We're adults. Why were we jumping? How do you explain this and then what could possibly be the charge? If we were in a store and broke something we would obviously pay for it, no question. But when you whack off the fingers of a giant Grinch ice sculpture, there's no protocol for behavior - or at least none that we knew of. So we did what any four adults in giant Smurf coats with two strollers would do, we picked up the massive ice fingers, set them next to his hand, calmly walked around the corner, and then fell over laughing. The twenty-odd number of people who saw it happen were somewhat dumb struck, the room was silent.

Dave was mortified. He genuinely looked for someone to "report the incident" to, but without luck. So he chose to allow us hysterical laughter at his expense and then we all prayed we wouldn't be tossed in jail.

Luckily for us it's the last week of the exhibit. Dave feels terrible. If you happen to go to the exhibit this week, can you let him know if the Grinch has his fingers back on - is there super glue for ice sculptures?