Stumbling Through Adulthood

Went to my beloved wildland park today. I haven't been since the big pre-Thanksgiving storm. It was closed for a while after that, and while -ahem- I have ignored the closures in the past, I didn't this time.

It was... pretty awful.

Lots of really big and really old trees down... those big trees around here often have very shallow root systems, and during this storm, the wind came mostly from the east, not our usual wind pattern. There were several spots where 4-10 trees came down, probably taking each other out as they did.

Those root systems, btw, when they end up vertical, are impressively high, probably at least 12ft/4m.

So. Storm blew in Tuesday evening. It was pretty bad. Power went out almost immediately. We are the last few hours on the grid and the last bit of repair to get us online will affect only 2 houses. Since our fucking utility fired all its linemen and contracts out now, the response to this storm has been, to say the least, pathetic.

At this point, they are saying "Saturday".

But another storm is due in a few hours so.

All the food in my fridge and freezers is going to need to be tossed. I spent most of last weekend doing Thanksgiving prep. All that work is gonna end up in the landfill.

I'm so freaking angry. Yes, I know. We have lots of trees in the area and blah blah blah.

But.

Seattle City Light is almost 100% back online. OK, one could argue, it's more urban. But downtown Bellevue is out and it's pretty damn urban, as is dt Kirkland and Redmond. Also, Snohomish County, north of us, is also pretty much back only. The big different because SCT, Snohomish PUD, and PSE? They're public utilities. Somehow, we got shafted at some point with a private utility, and they've been pathetic for as long as I remember. This contract of everyone else up with power and PSE customers still in the is nothing new, it's been going on for years.

There was a campaign a few years back to try to move us to a public utility district but... Covid happened and that was that. I think it needs to be revived.

Normally I hang out on bluesky, but today I was on twitter. While bluesky is wonderful, most government and other entities are still on the Nazi site so I spend the day rege-tweeting at PSE over there.

The two things that have a lot of people pissed, aside from everyone else being online and not us:
-- the lack of communication. They're lying, and not updating, and keeping everyone, literally and figuratively, in the dark.
-- they've proudly stated that they've gotten all these schools back online. Only... the schools are fucking closed and typically around here, they stay closed until the areas around them have power. So.

But yeah. I'll have to make a dump run this weekend. So much food is going to hit the trash. Considering how cold it's been, maybe my good freezer, which is in the garage, might be ok but I haven't opened it at all to check.

Blah.

Here's the storm that hit Tuesday.



I'm currently in a conf room at dh's work. He has a trains board meeting that he can't take a home without power. Perry has fled to Anne-Chloe's.

1. My sister visited my aunt, and says that yeah, our impressions are correct: she's slipping a lot faster than my mom did. I have to get up to visit her or figure out a better way to call, she's hard to reach on the phone and evenings really don't work. I'm incredibly sad.

2. This week is dragging. I'm doing BORING stuff at work that has to be done, and as a result, I keep on thinking we're further on in the week than we actually are. I mean, I'd have sworn it was Thursday today, only not.

3. I am so tired of this heat. It's been above 80 (mostly high 80s) for weeks not and it's nasty. When is Fall again?

1. It's hot. OMG. It's fucking hot and going to get hotter. I'm in a state of incipient panic over this. I despise the heat.

2. Complete slug-dom this weekend. We wanted to get up and out for a short bike ride, but we're also refinishing the deck and both need to be done early, see above, heat. So skipped the bike ride, sigh.

3. Went to Nordstrom's yesterday to be fitted for a bra, none of my old ones sit properly, and going down in size didn't help. Turns out, that's just reality, nothing really fit. It's my third time doing a fitting, and the two previous times, at larger sizes, they fit me with no problem. This time, NSM. I did get one bra, but it's not perfect, though fits better than my current one. And it's ugly. But it fits better. Sigh.

Yes, it's Junuary. Summer will be here eventually. For now, well, I just still wear my down jacket.

1. Yesterday my twitter feed was all Bridgerton breathlessness, today it's all Kate Middleton (about 50/50 hateful vs breathless). I'm not overly invested in either, but I love seeing people happy or excited about things.

2. When BamBam does a cat loaf, he looks like a loafed cat. When Auri does a cat loaf, she looks like a loafed cat. When Twisp does a cat loaf, he looks like a turkey.

3. Bless them. Years ago, when we moved in, we had a view of the lake to the south. Then Jan, two owners ago, put up some shit trees on her fence line with her neighbors. Over the years, they obscured over 1/3 of our view, to our dismay, but hey, not our trees, and we didn't feel like we could say anything. Well, the current neighbors trimmed them big time, restoring a lot our view (and only marginally improving theirs), so we're quite happy and have thanked them profusely.

1. UW Campus. I've been watching for the cherry blossoms since I started walking around the university when I started early March. They finally showed up last Monday. I was there early in the morning and it was glorious! Too many people, I thought, until I went back Saturday with dh and saw the meaning of OMG people. Anyhow, I went by every day this week except Friday, when I wandered down to the water and today when I stayed home.

There are loads of photos on my Flickr account but here are few anyhow.











One of the things that was beautiful and/or fun was seeing women in kimonos, people holding up dogs, and the UW women's swim team in bathing suits on a chilly morning.

There are flowers all over campus, the fountain had been turned on for the duration, and we had several days of beautiful weather this week which made it all even more incredible. Yay Spring in Washington, one of the most spectacular times.

2. We were supposed to go to Vancouver to see my aunt, but my mom balked this morning and refused to go, coming with excuse after excuse until it was too late. Funny exchange with my siblings.

Sigh.

3. Our eclipse trip is coming and I'm both excited and nervous. We tried and failed to get day passes at a few TX state parks, so we'll be spending a night in San Antonio and heading west early on the morning of... like 4am early. We'll probably get killed by setting a foot on some rancher's territory. Fingers crossed for good weather!

It was cold this morning... when I went outside to check it had already started warming up and it was 28F.

Perry, of course, was rowing. The lake was foggy (and they do not row in the fod) but the canal was clear so they went there. This was taken then, along with some video, and Perry said that what the photo cannot show is the wall of fog in the lake to the east.






some video from Instagram.

1. Marine air rolled in this morning. Sky was blue with fluffy white clouds and a yellow sun, rather that the heavy yellow/orange ickyness of the past few days. After a week of either extreme heat or smoke, today's coolness and breeze felt especially wonderful.

This image was taken Sunday at the Space Needle cam.



2. We saw a bear on the trail this morning. My idea of nice wildlife encounter is an owl, a lizard, frog, or newt, or a pileated woodpecker. A neutral encounter is deer. Bear? Not too happy. It was right off the trail as we walked by. Dh saw it before me and reminded me to just keep walking, which we did. Two bears in a bit over a week, one at home, one on the trail. WTF? I mean, I've seen bear prints and bear scat before, and I've had people warn me of bears on the trail, but this is the first time I've actually seen one in this park... I've seen them elsewhere, of course. Anyhow.

The only sad thing? The trail dipped right after we passed the bear, so it was behind and above us and staring right at us (I peaked back). A selfie would have had the perfect bear photobomb, LOL.

Linnea absolutely cracked me up this morning. I started the text exchange.

Me: First day of spring quarter 'fit?

Linnea: Not dressed yet. Making breakfast // Also I think I have allergies. Can you diagnose me // If you give me a couple extra hours I can get a first day of school in front of the blossoms. I'll take one at home just in case

Me: Oooh, that would be fab! Trees are in bloom? Wow. The ones here at UW are a week late.

Linnea: Oh that's embarrassing for them

Me: 🤣🤣🤣🤣

* Linnea went back to Bellingham by herself today, almost a week before school started. She insists she is not planning on a party or anything for NYE. Since Anne-Chloe insisted on going out on NYE one year, promised us she'd not drive anywhere and then went out with friends, and proceeded to take up with Dishit, fall of the Dean's list to end up barely passing classes... well, I am a bit scared about seeing Linnea head down this same pathway, despite her "I really have to do this" bullshit. Ugh. Parenting sucks. Felt the same way when Perry decided to be a covidiot and go back to Bellingham to finish the quarter by himself in his apartment back in 2020, something he freely admits in retrospect was a horrid mistake. Anyhow.

* Christmas at my sister's, got to hang out with my fab niece. Anne-Chloe managed to make it down, with Dipshit, alas. Nobody likes him, and I'm concerned they're getting their relationship back on track. He was really obnoxious, and everyone was kinda biting their fingers because we all wanted Anne-Chloe there, but Chris's loud braying, know-it-all-ness, and general annoyingness put everyone on edge.

* MIL has covid. So far she's doing ok. She didn't get her bivalent vaccine, WTF? She got her flu shot, but didn't want to get them on the same day (because her arm was sore last year) so waited on Covid and now this. Ugh. I hope she starts feeling better soon. She started on meds two days ago, and dh said she was better yesterday then before meds, so fingers crossed. Not giving up my N95 any time soon. Blah.

* We had lots of snow and some pretty awful weather. Seattle got freezing rain while we were away, but it looks like we didn't, I'm guessing the Cascades cold never allowed the warm air intrusion over us so not rain possible.

* Dh had to work during the holidays. Still not quite sure why, since while he did take off a month for vacation this year, he should have had accrued time. Ah well. There were some projects I wanted to get done, fingers crossed we can tackle them in January.

* Not liking the uptick in Covid numbers. Especially not liking the people who think that if we can ignore it for long enough, we'll miraculously be transported back to 2019. Not going to happen. The more research that comes up, showing how pervasive and cumulative the damage from repeated infections is, the more concerned I get for kids, who were thrown to the wolves and sent back to school with no precautions in place to catch it repeatedly, with no idea what the long-term consequences might be.

*

Ring Out, Wild Bells by Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

* Best wishes for 2023, people!