Madness

Recently (yesterday), you may have seen a news video of a bus hanging over the highway in Seattle.  Thankfully, I was not on that bus. However, I am quite annoyed with the state of things in this city right now. 

For some reason (I've heard several different explanations: it doesn't snow enough here to be worth the cost, salt runs into the Sound and harms the environment, there isn't enough money in the city budget...), Seattle is completely ill-equipped to deal with frozen water falling from the sky. Therefore, the 1.5 inches of snow we got on Thursday just stayed where it fell, was driven and walked on until it became a nice slick sheet of ice, then froze even more solidly overnight. The very steep hills are unmanageable (and the roads are closed, although people ignore that)...there is no getting up or down them by foot or by car without risking bodily injury. Coincidentally, the major hospitals in the area are all at the top of a giant hill. 

A very nice woman that I work with who lives nearby gave me a ride to and from work yesterday, otherwise I don't know how I would have gotten there. Her car has four wheel drive, but even so we averaged 22 mph and passed many, MANY abandoned cars on our way up the hill. We arrived to hear that 16 people had called-in 'sick' (being state employees we are legally not allowed to call in and say we can't get there because of weather), several of my fellow employees had spent the night at the hospital, and one guy fell on the ice when he was walking down the hill after work the night before. He had a splint on one hand, and when I asked what happened, he lifted up his phone to show me a picture of his hand...with his pinky finger bent at a 90 degree angle!!! That image is going to be seared into my brain forever.

So, now I'm trapped in my apartment until the temperature gets above freezing and this stuff melts off the roads and sidewalks. And it's supposed to sleet/snow again on Sunday :( All I want for Christmas is for that NOT to happen. If things get really bad, I will just call in 'sick' next week. I'm not going to risk my life to get to work. 

Please call and/or send me amusing internet videos to keep me entertained...my roommate just left for Portland for the holidays and I am going to go stir crazy.

Toboggans in the snow...

Recently there's been a lot of excitement about the weather. The threats of Cold and Snow have been looming for the last week. My roommate assured me that they always make a big deal about the possibility of snow here, and that it usually doesn't pan out. Lo and behold, it snowed! Only a little bit (and hardly any of it stuck to the roads since it's been so warm), but right now it is 28 degrees and it snowed and it's a BIG DEAL. It's supposed to stay below freezing for the next week, and the local newspeople can barely contain the excitement in their voices. I'm sure they are hoping for hazardous road conditions, accidents, and various other weather-related catastrophes. 

So yesterday I was planning to go to my church's Christmas concert, and I called Amy's friend Kara to see if she and her husband would be interested in joining me (they live about 50 minutes south of the city). Kara said that she was actually going to call me and see if I wanted to come to a concert downtown that she had two extra tickets to (she and a friend from work had been given 4 tickets for free from a client). I said yes, and invited my friend Wendy from work. Amy is back in Chicago for a few weeks for break, otherwise she would have been there, too :( 

It was the annual Winter Warmth concert, by 103.7 The Mountain, at the Paramount Theater downtown (www.theparamount.com).  The lineup included Matt Nathanson, Ingrid Michaelson, Augustana, and The Pretenders. All of them sounded familiar to me except the Pretenders. Sorry if that makes anybody feel old. The crowd was probably 75% middle-aged (and up) people. You could totally tell who was there for which artist. Matt Nathanson was great...he came out onstage with only an acoustic guitar. He was funny and a talented performer. Ingrid Michaelson was also impressive. A beautiful voice (although I've realized that I tend to like male voices just a little bit better than female ones), and some really moving lyrics. She was also funny, and seemed like somebody authentic that you could chat with in a bookstore or something. Augustana was...well they made me feel old. First of all, I don't think males need to wear jeans that tight, ever. Secondly, the lead singer appeared to be doing his best impression of Captain Jack Sparrow meets Michael Jackson. On several occasions he would let go of his guitar mid-song to wave his hands spastically around in the air (like out of control spirit fingers). I wondered if this was normal behavior for him, but Kara had seen them in concert before and verified that he was in fact "coked out of his mind." Pretty sad what 'success' can lead to. When the Pretenders finally came on, the old people went nuts. It was quite funny to see them all bobbing around, throwing the 'rock&roll' hand into the air, and singing along. I kept waiting for a song I recognized, but one never came. So we left before their set was over. I felt the judgmental looks of the middle-aged people around us, but chose not to feel guilty about the year of my birth. It's not my fault that I'm young, people. 

When we left the concert, the flurries had turned into genuine flakes. I walked 8 blocks through the city, about 10 feet behind Eyeball guy who was popping his eyeball out with a plastic spoon every time people approached going the opposite direction. Mostly people ignored him, which says a lot about this city. "I live in Seattle. I am completely unfazed by a stranger walking up to me on the street at 11 o'clock at night and popping his eyeball out." By the time I got to my bus stop, the flakes were HUGE (seriously the biggest I've ever seen). It was beautiful. Eyeball guy (of course he was getting on the same bus as me), turns to me and says, "Isn't it weird how when your hands get really cold they get all retarded? Like they don't work right...they're retarded." I nodded politely and then looked away when he popped his eyeball out at me. I almost offered him my gloves, but they were bright purple and I didn't want to offend him. In retrospect, he probably wouldn't have minded.

Christmastime means laughter...

When I returned to my apartment after Thanksgiving, this is the first thing I saw upon opening the door:

Bewildered by such hideousness and a bit startled, I stepped closer...

And felt the coal-black eyes of the sock reindeer peering into my very soul.

Thank goodness it was just a joke. I was worried that Kara and I had very different taste in Christmas decorations, and I couldn't think of anything positive to say that wouldn't be an outright lie. Of course, now we've decided to keep him up because he's grown on us, and we like to observe the varying reactions of our guests. They can be quite entertaining.

Yesterday I did a little Christmas shopping, and then decorated the apartment:

Found the perfect little tree at Target.

Here it is in the light.

And a garland for the 'kitchen.' 

It's very wonderful and Christmas-y feeling. I cannot wait to have the lights off and the tree on and sit by the fire drinking eggnog and listening to carols. I've already bought the eggnog...

I'm in love with a girl

And her name is Irene / AKA Sparky / AKA my Baby Niece (no longer tiny). I took these pictures while I was holding Irene in one arm and my camera in the other. She thought that my camera was the best and most interesting toy ever...which made it easy to get some cute close-ups.

So my trip home for Thanksgiving was pretty great, but a little too short. Thursday was a daze of turkey and family and dogs and the baby...I only managed about 2 1/2 hours of sleep during the red-eye flight (which, to be fair, was only 3 hours long), then a 30 minute nap on the second flight. Planning a trip around the thought that "I'll just sleep on the plane, it'll be fine," is a terrible idea.

A good chunk of Friday was spent at Jeff and Amie's place, putting together furniture from Ikea (which everyone knows I love to do). Then in the afternoon/evening all the family from Chicago who came to town for the baby shower came over to my parents' for pizza. Porca Fuera was played, and a fun time was had by all. 

Saturday was Amie's baby shower,which was really fun in spite of the fact that I did not win the celebrity baby names game. I left me wondering what kind of shower I could convince someone to throw me without getting married or having a baby. Perhaps a "6 month anniversary in Seattle" shower, or a "finished with orientation" shower, or a "becoming an aunt for the 2nd time" shower. Just so you know, if anybody wants to run with any of these ideas, they totally can.

My flight home on Sunday morning was slightly delayed due to the beautiful winter wonderland that I awoke to. They had to de-ice all the planes (how necessary is this, MGW?), and for some reason they can't do it until everyone is crammed onto the plane like overstuffed livestock. I was all the way in the back, surrounded by a sea of whiny kids (one of whom insisted on kicking my chair about every 2 minutes for the entire 4-hour flight). I felt sort of like one of those cranky, kid-hating people by the time I got to Seattle. Funny, considering the way this post began.

Anyway, coming home (to Seattle) did feel like 'coming home' which was kind of unexpected. I guess home is where your stuff is :) It was great to see my family, friends, and dog...but it's good to be back, too.