an Ice glossary.

big red.
1. cinnamon-flavored chewing gum, with 1980s advertisements featuring suspiciously wholesome white couples making out to the jingle 'kiss a little longer / longer with big red.'
2. gargantuan down-filled parka issued by the CDC (clothing distribution center) and modeled by co-worker kris at left. worn at mcmurdo station (polies have green parkas). piled in mounds at indoor events such as parties, sometimes ending up 'lost' and then sold on eBay. has pockets large enough to hold jimmy hoffa and a roll of mentos. I don't have a big red because the small size they offered me at the CDC was too big, so I opted for the brown Carhartt parka instead. it makes me feel like a total badass, and it's easy to find at parties.

boomerang.
a situation in which a flight is turned back from its destination and forced to return to its point of origin because of bad weather or mechanical problems. this is a common occurrence with transantarctic flights, for obvious reasons, and much dreaded. sack lunches given to passengers before flights contain two sandwiches and lots of snacks in case of a boomerang. with C-17 jets making the trip from Christchurch to McMurdo in about five hours, a boomerang is potentially 10 hours long...but a prop LC-130 takes eight and a half hours, for a potential 17-hour boomerang.

boondoggle.
a boondoggle is a trip out of town, sometimes on a helicopter or a snowmobile. they are offered to us as a 'bonus' of sorts, or as a morale booster, by the national science foundation through our supervisors. GAs (general assistants) seem to go on lots of boondoggles, especially the ones that require a lot of snow to be shoveled, because that is what GAs are mostly paid to do. the trip could be to a dive shack on the sea ice to put radio collars on seals, or to 'penguin ranch' to herd penguins into a corral (see photo), or to cape evans for ice fishing. I have yet to go on a boondoggle, but I hope to be selected for one before the end of the season. to this end, I have been e-mailing pictures of myself in various capable poses (with ice drill, outfitted with spurs and lasso, etc.) to the NSF representatives.


bunny boots.
white rubber boots issued by the CDC as part of extreme cold-weather gear package. have air-valve to release air trapped between two layers of boot for extra warmth. ugly as sin and heavy as a lead brick, but they do keep your feet warm. I only wear mine on station-sanctioned trips such as sea ice school, preferring my sorels for work and for short hiking trips.

CHCH.
shorthand for christchurch, pronounced 'cheech.' the nearest city in the civilized world to mcmurdo. full of amiable kiwis, ginger beer, and pretty trees and flowers.

crud.
a catchall term for the flu/cold that affects everyone, every season. because mcmurdo is such a small, insular community, germs spread quickly and hygiene seems to be an obsession. signs in the bathrooms and kitchens urge everyone to wash their hands after peeing, making mud pies, using computer keyboards, playing rugby, and so forth. echinacea and vitamins are available for free in the clinic, and there is a multi-person handwashing station in front of the galley (in the photo at right, Hilary, one of the janitors, is restocking paper towels). I think I'm starting to get a little obsessive about cleanliness myself. today I saw a girl use the restroom and leave without washing her hands, and I almost ran after her and spanked her. bad, bad germy person!

FNG.
pronounced 'finjee' and stands for 'f*cking new guy.' used to describe anyone who is a first-season mcmurdoite. neutral in tone, sometimes derogatory. can also be used as a verb, as in 'we FNGed together in 2003, but he went back and got a job in denali national park and I wintered over.' see winter over, below.

freshies.
all food is flown in by cargo plane, and while most of what we eat is cunningly and deliciously fashioned by the capable galley workers from frozen or canned supplies, sometimes fresh salads and fruits appear in the dining hall. these are collectively known as freshies. people rush to pile their trays high with green salad and cantaloupe. the salad bowl is the size of my niece's wading pool (see photo, right), and it empties in a matter of minutes. (there is also a small greenhouse on station that produces things like mint and butter lettuce, but it is run more as a hydroponics experiment and less as a source of roughage.)

green brain.
small dark-green notebook issued to all workers; used to keep notes, wish lists, phone numbers, dark thoughts regarding having to get up at 0430 every day, etc.

herbie.
1. a mediocre 1968 film about a playful volkswagen beetle.
2. a storm out of the south, usually of the condition 1 variety. derived from a combination of the words 'hurricane' and 'blizzard.'

hercules.
nickname for the LC-130 (ski-equipped) and C-130 prop planes that bring pax and supplies to the Ice.

the Ice.
a generic term for antarctica, as in the saying 'the first year you come to the Ice, it's for the experience. the second year, it's for the money. by the third year, it's because you don't fit in anywhere else.' (jerri nielsen, the doctor who wrote a cheesy book about her 'heroic rescue' from the south pole after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, used the phrase 'of the Ice' to describe herself and others who have worked in antarctica. no one I have met here has ever used or heard that phrase.)

midrats.
short for 'midnight rations,' the midnight meal served to night-shift workers from midnight to 0100. also well-attended by people who need drunken munchies after a night at the bar; but the night-shift workers get served first provided they have their ID cards and don't smell like beer.

pax.
shorthand for passengers, as in 'cindy, why do you keep that axe handle behind the seat?' 'I use it on unruly pax.'

polie.
someone working at the south pole station. rumored to be a crusty, hard-core lot with overgrown ZZ Top-like beards (Tom, right, has trimmed his). wear green parkas instead of Big Red. apparently also see McMurdo as a bit of an overcrowded luxury resort, and McMurdoites as a noisy, spoiled group of FNGs.

skua.
1. an aggressive, scavenging gull-like bird; hangs out near the galley on station and has been known to swoop down on people carrying trays of food back to their rooms. relatively fearless; one was run over by the Terra Bus last year after it refused to budge from the middle of the road. I took the picture at left standing two feet away from the skua, who stared at me with beady, soulless eyes. I feel certain it was sizing me up as a potential hot meal.
2. a general term for the practice of reusing and recycling things that you no longer need, such as clothing, room decorations, electronics, books, and so forth (usually at the end of the season, when you leave to go backpacking in new zealand and don't want to take the sweater that aunt faye made for you). can also be used as a verb ('where did you get that awesome framed print of bob marley?' 'oh, I skuaed it from 210.') or a location ('have you been in skua central lately? there's nothing there but stretched-out wife-beaters and some dirty socks.')

winter over.
refers to the season from february through october, when most people leave antarctica and a skeleton crew stays behind to keep things running. temperatures drop to a horrific low and, except for the aurora australis (southern lights), the sky is dark for seven months. pluses: everyone gets their own room, the station is quiet; lots of time to work on personal projects; impressive beards; no problems finding a table in the galley. minuses: a tendency to not finish spoken thoughts, simply ending mid-sentence and drifting off; lots of blank staring; depression.