It’s amazing what four inches of snow falling during an evening rush hour will do for my perspective. Even though I didn’t return home until after 9pm, I had a good night. The snow was unexpected. The notoriously unreliable Seattle weather people were expecting cold weather with chance of flurries. Prediction of precipitation is very tricky in Seattle. It has something to do with the large mountains and volcanoes that surround the area, as well as the rotations of the planets and their respective moons, and the astrological signs of the weather people’s children. It’s very complicated. I would draw charts but I’m not good with multi-dimension illustrations. The chart I’m thinking of would have at least eleven dimensions with three sub-dimensions for every fifth full dimension. (The string-theory people will know what I’m talking about. The rest of you will just have to accept its complications.) The weather people were right about one part: it was cold.
I had a feeling that snow was in the air. Besides my education in conformity in Syracuse, NY, I also spent much of my time working on a minor in snow studies. I learned the signs, and as I walked outside from a meeting at 4pm, there was an ominous and heavy silence, a sure sign of either impending snow or a large predator in the woods, like a sphinx on the prowl for an early evening supper. The outside was eerily quiet. By the time I went to my next meeting, things were bad and on their way to worse.
The van left work at our normal time of 5:30pm. We drove about one hundred feet past the parking lot when we realized that this was going to be extraordinarily bad. We had a short discussion and unanimously decided to return the van into the parking lot and walk to dinner. A few hours would make a great difference in the volume of cars. I jumped out of the van and directed traffic to facilitate the van’s backing up. (Who says I don’t add value to the van rides?).
The walk to the restaurant was invigorating. It was cold but the snow was perfect: it was wet and thick and stuck heavily to the ground and the trees, forming excellent snowballs and oversized but stable snowmen.
After a vegetarian dinner, we trekked back to the van. This is where it gets weird. After more discussions, we decided to put chains around the rear wheels. This took twenty minutes. Once chained, we started out on the roads, which had emptied in the two hours since we had first ventured out.
Once on the highway, the snow lessoned significantly. We thumped along on the chained tires, the driver pushing the van on the open highway. We were making wonderful time until we grew close to our exit. There was a large crash followed by a sick thumping sound. We slowly made our way to the shoulder where the real men went out to review the damage. (I stayed in the van, trapped in the far back seat—my opinion not asked for or required.) It turned out that the right tire’s chain had caught on the wheel well of the van. This caused the metal rim in the wheel well to bend down over the wheel until the metal rim rubbed on the tire and the chain. Two state police cruisers stopped as we tried to fix the problem. We removed the chains and they encouraged us to go on our way. We left the shoulder slowly and when the thumping grew louder, we tried to pull the van over again. The police would have none of it. There were much worse problems on the road this night, and because of the angle of the metal (it was facing the same direction as the tire spun), they didn’t think it would puncture the tire. They switched on their loudspeaker and made it clear that we could not return to the shoulder. “Stay on target, stay on target!”
The van thumped along and we leaned forward and to the right to try to keep weight off the tire. When we drove downhill or decelerated, there was no noise. Other times it was the loud thumping. The snow returned in force when we finally drove into our neighborhood. One moment we were driving through wet but clean asphalt, and the next snow buried the roads. By the time I walked back to the Castle from the drop off point, the snow was four inches deep and mostly pristine.
For such a long commute home, I was serene and enjoyed myself. It’s sometimes good to put things in perspective; to realize that everything is but a test of character and self, and without “everything,” there would be nothing, and I would be sitting around consternating and complaining all the time. (I’m not going there, don’t worry.)
In other fronts, my mother is angry with me. She has been telepathically communicating her anger. From what I was able to gather from my short telephone conversation with her tonight, she’s angry that I don’t telephone her enough. She was waiting until I called to tell me that, I guess to prove her point. (For the record, I called yesterday to see how everyone was doing, but didn’t get a hold of her.) The truth is I love my mother very much, but I’m not a good caller. The only person I consistently call is Julie. Everyone else is on a monthly schedule. It’s partly that I’m lazy and partly that I don’t have much to say (as evidenced by the thoughts I record on these pages). Her passive-aggressive strategies did impress me. The problem with her strategy, however, was that it may take me a long time to remember to call, leaving her telepathic message unanswered. How am I supposed to feel guilty if I don’t even know I’m supposed to be feeling guilty?
Photos taken during the snowstorm of 2007.
This has been a strange summer in Seattle. Where we usually have drought warnings toward the tail end, this year has been beautiful and rainy. This past week in particular was rainy. While a nice break from the constant sunshine, I paid for the changing weather with two and a half days of migraines. The change in pressure destroys me.
This doodle was drawn way before that, though. I like the thick, translucent rain. The rain jumping from the puddles could have been better, however.
Ah, rain in Seattle. The summers in Seattle are supposed to be rain-free. That's what they tell you before you move here. On average, Seattle has no more rain than NYC. The average is skewed because of the summers. If we take the median instead of the average, I bet that number changes significantly.
The mornings are growing colder and darker. Dragging myself out of bed these mornings is growing harder and harder.
Okay, not my best title. Many times, the title is the last thing I slap onto the doodle before posting. If nothing hits me while fingerpainting, I end up scratching my head before throwing nonsensical words onto the page.
My mother heard back from the doctors, and the news was very good. She'll need some follow-up treatment, but hopefully she'll make a full recovery. This has been a very scary two weeks. It's these challenges that remind me how unimportant the little things in life really are.
I didn't write much about it, but I did doodle a bunch while in the hospital. I'll write about what happened when it's time to post those doodles. This will give me time to put everything into perspective.
I've not had much energy to write these past few nights. I have given the Marathon a bit more thought. If only my thoughts translated directly to words, I'll be okay. It doesn't, for the record.
This is how I feel today. I must feel like this often because I drew this last month. The weather was nice today. But we've had our share of rain this winter. I shouldn't complain, as the Californians have it much worse with the fires. I can't believe how close they are to populated areas. There will be many unhappy insurance shareholders.
Even though we're less than a week away from closing on the Villa, we've not been that busy. Julie has just about finished scheduling all the contractors that will swarm the Villa once closed, and we've sent about a thousand copies of our financial documents to the banks (we remember fondly the non-doc loans that got America into this mortgage mess). But even though we're not busy, things are not quiet. The anticipation itself has a weighty roar.
As you can tell by my badly formed first paragraph, I haven't done much writing or creating recently. Even my doodles have dwindled from once a week to when there's a blue moon in Seattle when it's above freezing (which seems quite rare for early Spring). I keep kicking myself about falling into a rut, but kicking myself and doing something about it are very far apart.
Not that I should complain. There are other people who are supposed to be working on a ping-pong story, and who, while understandably busy with a new job and new apartment, have yet to provide a single update or progress report, other than, "wow, I'm really stuck on this."
We didn’t take photographs this weekend. This made Julie sad after she realized we wouldn’t have anything to post to document the weekend. To make up for that sadness I decided to write a short musing about our activities.
I don’t know when it happened but I’ve come to realize that photographs and musings make activities better. I used to be against photographing when we traveled; afraid that people would mistake me for a tourist if I carried a camera, even in situations where I clearly was a tourist. This always reminded me of the “Dune” prophecy (which I remember more from the movie than the book, as usual), “he shall know your ways as if born to them” (paraphrased). I enjoyed thinking of myself as that devout insider, someone who with little effort blended into a busy city or a rural countryside as if they belonged. This is quite strange when you consider how anti-social I am. I used to laugh at the Asian tourists who focused on obtaining the perfect photograph instead of enjoying what was around them. Now I find myself co-opting their approach by snapping a photograph or jotting down a well-turned phrase to remember the occasion. I turn what is enjoyable for a few moments into something that is enjoyable for a lifetime.
Enough throat clearing. We had dinner with two couples this weekend. On Friday night, we had Shabbos dinner with a couple that was introduced to us by the Rabbi at the local Shul. It was a blind couples date. They married about nine months ago and recently moved into a house in Kirkland. They cooked an excellent dinner of couscous and barbequed salmon and asparagus. I drank more than my share of the wine, and we had a good time getting to know each other. Jonathan is from South Africa, and Karen is from Boston. They convinced us that Friday night services at the Shul are worth attending. They’re much shorter than Saturday morning, and are a good way to end the week and meet new people. We’re going to try to go this week.
On Saturday night, we hosted Jeff and Mary. We visited them in their weekend home on Whidbey island (with the iggies!) a few months ago, and we finally got a chance to return the favor. I cooked a whole chicken, truffle oiled mashed potatoes, and baby bok choy. It was still a bit warm in the house from the day’s heat, but we had fun. I was feeling a bit less social after Friday’s activities. I’m not used to entertaining that many people in one weekend.
Speaking of the weather, it was hot this weekend. The days were unbearable, and we spent much of the time indoors and shopping. On Sunday we went to see a matinee movie, Wanted with Angelia Jolie. The action was good but the story was strained. They had a few good ideas in the mix, but lost them when they stirred too hard and fast. Watching as much anime as we do, I am learning how a good story comes together. When writing a science fiction or fantasy story, the world is the most interesting character. By giving away how the world works early in the movie, the story misses the opportunity to create mystery. The slow discovery followed by the ah hah! moment, such as found in the early twist of the “The Matrix,” makes for a more enjoyable experience. Probably the first time I saw this approach was in my reading of David Eddings's The Belgariad. Learning how the magic worked in the fantasy story (the thought and the word), was so exciting and long in coming that I read the series and its follow-up series many times over.
Yesterday afternoon we purchased a bicycle for Julie, and went for our first ride together to Noah’s Bagels on the island. After we returned home and showered, I remembered the camera. It was too late to change back into our biking outfits for the picture, which was why Julie was sad. I’ll let you picture the cute Julies, on her fancy new bicycle, with straight handlebars and a sparkling green frame, riding down our street and onto the bike path that would bring us to the center of the island.
We ended the day by taking the iggies to the dog park. With the weather so hot, that was the first time we took the iggies out during the weekend. They mostly stood around in the dog park, Ziggy not finding many dogs to play with in the heat. We settled down to an anime at night, cuddling with the dogs for fifteen minutes, before Button decided that she didn't like the couch. She's not used to being held, and always looks awkward. Hopefully she'll outgrow that.
Seattle has finally caught up to the rest of the country. We've had hot days and hot evenings lately. Summer was a long time coming, teasing us with a few days, and then returning to cold days and cold nights. Whenever it gets too hot, we yearn for the cool weather. When it's too cold, we yearn for the heat. It's true what they say: people want what they don't have, and quickly grow tired of it once they get it.
We're off to California for a long weekend tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to the airplane time and my next two books. I've been on a bit of tear on the reading front. One of these days I'll get around to posting my thoughts.
