Ice glazing a porch rail, spotted behind Star Liquors on Willy Street when we made our semiweekly stop to resupply our beer locker (the gap between our back door and the storm door).

Thursday night is guy-food night.

And you're looking at one of the finest examples of guy food on the planet: beef bratwurst boiled in beer.

Oatmeal stout, to be precise. I've used ordinary beer before this, but tonight I wanted it to be special.

The brats are from a local farmer, delivered to our doorstep by the Blue Marble Dairy. Just thought I'd put a plug in for the local guys.

Brats in beer normally call for a tab of butter and an onion rolling around in the pot, too, but they were plenty tasty with just the beer. I fried up the onions separately so My Darling B could eat them as a garnish on her brats because she's a heathen and won't eat them with the customary saurkraut garnish.

From the boiling pot they go to the griddle for a few minutes to brown, and then to the table where they were eagerly gobbled up by your friendly neighborhood O-Folk.

People will collect anything. I shouldn't be surprised when I discover the next unusual thing that they consider collectable, but people are nothing if not surprising.

At an estate auction today I came across this table covered with old electric space heaters. I'll admit to a certain fascination with gazing into so many parabolic copper reflectors, but my fascination doesn't extend beyond snapping a few quick photos of them.

Then the bidding started. When the auctioneer moved on to the space heaters I expected a dead hush to fall over the crowd. If he got more than a buck apiece for these, I thought to myself, then nothing makes sense anymore.

And I was right. Nothing makes sense anymore.

On the first round of bidding, several went for fifteen bucks each. On subsequent bidding they went for less, but they always got more than a buck, and all the bidders had the overjoyed look of a collector who can't believe his good fortune.

I resolve not to be surprised at the next collectable I find.