snow days

The blizzard of 2008 has continued on longer than even I could have reasonably hoped for. I was stuck going to the office everyday for most of it. It was like nothing out of the ordinary was happening outside. Be in your chair at 8, or else watch your vacation time tick away. I did a lot of staring out the window and marveling.

Once I finally got out of the office and the stress was gone about getting to work without the bus running, I really started to enjoy myself. I snowshoed down to Lake Washington and said hello to all the other people snowshoeing and skiing around. I scoped out the best sledding options and returned with my saucer to Yesler Way between 30th and 31st. I joined the neighborhood kids who had already compacted a great surface for sliding. I stepped things up a notch by building a sweet jump partway down the hill with a high school girl. My tailbone still hurts a little.

Christmas eve, Mark and I built a seven foot tall snowman. Then we built a locomotive with a coal car for my nephews to sit in. Show sculpting skills come right back, even when it's been a long time since you used them. There aren't really any other opportunities like snow for art. A free, lightweight, sticky substance falls from the sky in great quantity for you to make what you please with it. Then it melts away on it's own and you don't have to clean up or store anything. Incredible.

Christmas day, we watched The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, so it seemed reasonable to make the Death Star with the 4 new inches of snow we received that morning. Stephen, Heidi and I rolled a 4' diameter snowball, then added some detailing.

I really enjoy the snow. And I've never seen so much of it for so long at my home. I fear for my perennials in the garden and I feared to drive my car (although she has performed flawlessly each time I have taken her out - incredible piece of machinery). Overall though, I like the disruption snow has on our lives. A forced sabbath. An automatic adventure. It's like taking a trip somewhere new, not knowing what is going to happen the next day. I like the feeling, even if it means canceled parties and dented fenders. If only work got canceled like school used to.

f-word

9-22-2008. 15:40. This is the time fall actually arrives. Not in July. Not in August. Not even Sept 15th. Contrary to popular advertising. No one is allowed to use the word around me until it is actually fall. I don't dislike fall, it's just that it happens to coincide with the death of summer, and is therefore a guilty bystander. It drives me crazy when people start talking about the special chill in the air at the end of august and how that means fall is here. Maybe that's a late summer chill, not a fall chill?! Oh, how the days are getting shorter! Fall is here! The sky is falling too!

Common people. We need to work together. Seattle is in the north. The bad weather lasts forever and we all say that we live for summer. So why then do we start dismissing it halfway before it's over? We need to respect summer, and give it some space. Or else it's going to get offended and never come back. Then what will we have? Maybe for all you fall lovers, on some fine sunny day, with our sweaters and our red leaves, I will start carrying on about the morning's fog and how winter's dark, stormy doldrums are upon us. The oppressive gray sky that descends down to 100 ft and tries to trick us into believing the sun has burned out - it's coming! Fall is over now! Winter, winter, winter!! Then I would pound my fist once onto the table for effect.

Of course, now that fall is actually starting tomorrow, I can try to see the bright side. I like boots. I like sweatshirts. I like resting. I like reading. I like not having weekend plans. I like making soup. I like quilts. I like scarves. I don't so much like freezing all the time, burning natural gas to heat my home, feeling tired all the time because of the darkness, sweating when I walk because of too many layers, then freezing again right after. I will bury these feelings deep away inside me and put on my sunny face, since this is my home and I know I can do this. I can make it again, until next summer, when I swear I am going to quit my job and lay in the shade everyday.

little full, lotta sap

When was Jesus born? Last month of the year. And let's just pause to appreciate the timing. Just as the scary, cold, windy rain begins to fall, you just stay in and bake, trim trees, make wreaths, hang stockings, gain 5 pounds and listen to music. This Saturday as we drove back to my parent's house after felling the Tannenbaum, it began to snow. And not just pretend snow mixed with rain that never sticks to anything, but big fluffy snow that piles up and makes me smile.

I was already giddy after making the trip out to Westby's tree farm, where my family has gone for the Christmas tree for all my years. While nothing has changed about Westby's, everything has changed about the land around it. Instead of woods, fields and pastures, there is now Shaunesy, Mill Crest, Woodland Viewridge, Cedar Brook Vista and Lakeside Alder Glen. Boxy Buglies (Big-Ugly-Houses) built right up to the roads with hardly an arborvitae to screen their heinousness. Who is in charge over there? Dead end cul-de-sacs miles away from anything helpful equals a car-dependent, traffic-ridden, homogeneous, virtual neighborhood. Eeew.

I didn't let the poor choices of hundreds of my fellow American's ruin my Christmas Tree spirit anyway. We wandered around looking at all the trees until our toes became numb, and then selected and harvested the two best trees on the farm. Grand firs, which smell the best and have the best needle/form combination, in my opinion. One for my parents and one for my house. When the snow started falling, my excitement for the season went from high to jumping-around high. My parents always get a lot of snow compared to the rest of the city, so it was thick and beautiful within the hour. I stared out the window and took it all in.

Today I awoke to snow falling in the city! Hurrah! I jumped out of bed and then promptly got back in after turning the heater on and opening the shades, forgetting that I sleep in an ice cave, similar to the Fortress of Solitude. After it warmed up enough to get out, I went downstairs and started making preparations for bringing in the tree. My roommates and I spent the entire day decorating our 9' tree, which is perhaps a little large for our room. It's an amazing tree though, don't you think? We listened to Sufjan Stevens Christmas music and I also made a wreath for the door. I was so happy putting on lights and getting the tree set up straight. I haven't felt this happy in months, with the exception of one particular dinner experience this past week. So thank goodness for little lights and celebrating the redemption of West Heather Ridge through the baby Jesus, during a month without a lot else going for it but the occasional snow.

snow day

As most of you from Washington know, yesterday was a snow day. I was pleased that I had wrestled my old snow saucer from the depths of my parent's shed earlier this week. It was time for action. I dressed for snow, convinced Melissa that it would be fun and we set out to a hill in a park that I had scoped out last time it snowed. The last time I had used that saucer I was is the 7th grade and made a complex snow saucer park in my friend's backyard. We had planned to charge admission, but it all fell through when I landed on my tailbone and had to go in for the rest of the day. We walked 15 minutes to Leschi Park and found that yes, sledding is still fun, even when you are old.

More fun than the actually sledding was hanging out with the kids. Mostly, children don't talk to strangers anymore. If you carry a toy, you suddenly become accessible again. 7 year old Alexander, who I thought was a little girl due to long curly hair and an angelic face, made for some great competition racing. He even let me try his saucer, which was of course, way faster. A tiny Asian girl in a pink snowsuit, about three, watched me come down, then said, "my turn!". She rode bravely down the hill, laughing delightfully. Upon completion, she exclaimed, "I did it!!". Her brother was scared and kept dragging his heels to slow himself. I like to think that I just started the little girl on a lifetime of adventure sports.

On the way home two tough looking kids, about 4' tall, stood along the path and told us that no one could pass, unless they paid 50 cents. If you refused to pay you would be pelted with snowballs. Melissa pleaded, I cowered under my saucer, and they attacked. We ran up the path, screaming dramatically to the pleasure of the militant kids. I'm glad that some things haven't changed too much since I was 4' tall.

warning: following subject matter may be too beautiful for those with heart problems

I was awoken a few mornings ago by a pink glow coming in the window, as I never draw my shades at night hoping to enjoy the palatial lake view even in my slumber. It was 7:00am and normally not much can get me out of bed in a hurry. I did a sleepy double take before leaping off the end of the big bed and tumbling over to the window. The most wonderful sunrise I have ever seen was in the process of turning from a reddish orange to pink. From Kirkland to Renton, the sky was ablaze! I starting taking photos interspersed with wow!s and geez!es. What a great show. As the colors faded back to an ordinary blue I got back into bed and slept for another hour and a half.






Today I went up to get a closer view of the pass and snowshoe with some friends. It was lovely, lovely, lovely. I ran around, tried to sled on my bum and had grilled cheese and tomato soup from a thermos. I think I want some snowshoes. Next time I am taking my snow saucer. There were so many kids on sleds and dogs playing in the snow. I went up with Whitney, Nathan, Liz, Chris and Emily. Between that and snowboarding lessons starting next week, I may spend every day until work starts up with my new love, snowy mountains.

Maybe winter in Seattle isn't so terrible after all.

storm!

The state of emergency placed on my home can now be lifted. The situation has stabilized and I have returned from my refugee status. This photo is of what I have been seeing a lot of lately.

The night of the big wind storm '06, Claire and I had just returned from an evening of tooling around Fremont and being caught in the strongest rain shower I have ever seen. The streets were flooded, ravenous, class V rivers and sheets of water were blowing parallel to the sky. We parked the car and screamed with delight as we leapt across multiple bodies of water and got half soaked before we fell into the door of Cafe Ladro. We couldn't believe our eyes and stuck our faces up against the glass windows to watch the spectacle. We gasped and gaped and looked around the cafe for some wild-weather camaraderie. The shop was full of people, working away on their laptops. No one even looked up. You would have thought it was a perfect summer day the way people were non-responsive. Even the Barista looked uninterested and failed to comment on what was surely the most interesting thing of the day, happening at that very moment. Claire and I decided these people were obviously stiff or had lost their imaginations. The only response was a group Ctrl-S when the lights flickered.

After we returned home the wind was already blowing hard and shaking the house. We stayed up and sat in the massage chairs in my room, watching the tree tops blow. After a couple hours of sleep I was jolted awake in my bed as the house swayed under the pressure of gusts of wind. I got up and looked out the window to see the trees bending over and shingles flying off of roofs like confetti. I jumped back in bed and covered my head, trying to fall back asleep. I peeked out and stared over my covers at Bellevue, while the bed shook. The electricity surged and the clock radio turned itself on. Before I could get over to turn it off, everything went black. I looked out and saw the whole of the Eastside, black. I got so scared as the winds grew worse, that I ran to Claire's bedroom and jumped in bed with her. I thought maybe the roof would come clear off. We were both awake for the next 4 hours hearing trees fall, garbage cans fly and our window screens popping off. I wasn't sure we would make it through the night.

We did. The wind stopped and before it did I got so tired even the shaking house couldn't keep me awake. The last three days have been spent seeking out fallen trees, smashed cars, and general disaster, while calling around to evaluate electricity status. Claire and I both awoke with frozen brains the second morning, so we abandon ship and stayed at her parents' place. The electricity was finally restored after 72 hours, and we returned. It was all very exciting. Between the snow and the wind, I expect a small migration of those less tolerant from the city. Only the strong survive.