Stumbling Through Adulthood

1. Perry had a bit of a day the day before yesterday (Tuesday). He went to the boathouse early for his afternoon session to get a run in and ended up... doing CPR by the side of the trail. Elderly man. Lived in one of the houseboats, I guess. Women walking her dog saw him slumped over in his chair outside, she realized something was BAD, called 911. They told her to get him on the ground and start CPR. Another dude who was passing helped her get him on the ground, and then... neither knew CPR. That's when Perry ran by and they called at him. He does, in fact, know CPR. Checked pulse and respiration and started CPR. He stayed at it until the paramedics got there and took over and did their thing. They eventually did get a pulse back (for whatever that means, ya know?). Perry made his statement to the police when they got there and got to the boathouse just a bit late for his coaching session. He had a bit of a cry and went on to coach, at least they were on land so he didn't have to focus quite as hard. He was a bit shook up. So, yeah.

2. We went up to Vancouver last Saturday. It would have been my aunt's 83rd birthday. We had lunch with her group of close friends, and it was good to see them, catch up, and feel again how much JoAnn was loved. I miss her.

3. Every other time I've looked for a job, I've at least gotten interviews. I've applied for about 50 jobs, probably 40 that I am actually well qualified for and not a single call. Depressing.

4. Going down to California in a few weeks for a quick trip chasing a steam locomotive. It should be fun. Alas, it'll be too early in the year to get to the trail I want to do in Northern CA. Next time, I guess. Or I'll plan another trip.

5. Read a really good book recently: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson. Book 2 isn't out yet. WAH. Highly recommend.

6. Weather has been all over the place these past few weeks, with wild swings and major amounts of wind, mostly in the afternoons. Snow, hail, rain, wind, and sunny days. Sometimes all in one day.

7. Because he's popped up on my twitter feed three times this morning, I think Ilia Malinin is one of the least appealing skaters out there. Not personally, just... I find his skating ugly, for lack of a better word.

8. New Harry Potter series, which, no, I won't be watching. But OMG, BLACK Snape? NO NO NO. It completely shifts the dynamics of the whole story, adding racism in a way. I mean, WTF? I never liked Harry himself, but it turns him, and his father (and Sirius Black) into racists/white supremacists in a way the books did not intend. Are there problematic racist things in the books? Oh hail, yes. But not this. Black Hermione? Sure! (My only reservation is my inner child wailing that those of us cursed with curly frizzy hair who cannot use braids to tame in need some representation too, LOL, but I'm not really upset.) But Black Snape changes something fundamental and not in a good way. But whatever.

9. I've been knitting. Haven't gotten back to my beanie, my sister was here and I didn't want to try and concentrate on reductions when I was also talking with someone. So I taught myself to do cables. Still not great at them, but eh.

The beanie with extra rows added since the previous version was ridic small.
I hope it fits this time!

The cables. I hate the color of that yarn. I have no idea where it came from, but it's my scratch yarn.

10. Sunday, we drove out to Snoqualmie Falls for a quick walk with my sister and BIL. The falls were quite impressive. Not the highest I've seen, but.

11. Still struggling to take off the pounds I gained when I was off Zeppy in early December. I just can't seem to get them gone again. I have to say. I never understood people who complained that they were 10 lbs over their preferred weight because eh, I was A LOT MORE over mine, 🤪 , but while I never said it, I now get it a lot better. I mean, this is oodles different from way before, but I certainly felt different 12 lbs ago. I'll figure it out. Even if it means waiting for retatrutide to come on the market if Trump's FDA ever gives its approval.

12. A few weeks ago, I was in a sculling boat. There was someone else in the boat who hadn't sculled much either. We both came off the water looking like we'd murdered someone and dumped their body in South Lake Union. I mean, my right hand was dripping blood, my left palm was smeared with the blood, and the front of my hi-viz yellow jacket was covered. It was... pretty bad. This happens to inexperienced sculler because the nails on your left hand, even if they are short like mine, tear up the back of your right hand. Anyhow, I sculled again a few days after that, and only made a tiny new wound, and took a scar off an old one, but nowhere near as dramatic as the previous week's had been. Then I didn't scull for a few weeks and everything healed. Sculled again Monday. Just as we were about to cross to take it in, I noticed that I had not done further injury to my hands, and I was quite pleased with that. And proceeded to take a chunk out during the last 10 strokes. 🤪 I'm getting better, though.

13. My life feels so very small.

I truly do not understand how people can live in hotter climates than mine and indeed I salute their fortitude. Because this PNW heat is kicking my sorry ass.

We had an Astrophotography Camp this weekend, down by Mt St Helens. It was organized by a local camera shop and the whole things was absolutely fantastic. Because of the rain reschedule it ran Thu PM-Sun AM, so an extra day over what we'd initially thought.

We, dh, my sister and BIL, bailed on Saturday.

Camping was a gigantic field -dry camp to boot- near the Cowlitz River. It was hotter than fucking Hades during the day -high 90s, with real feel because of the humidity in the 100s, highest 'feels like' I saw was 105- and then coolish and clammy at night. Everything wet in the morning, with miserable shoe soaking walks to the porta-potties at the other end of the field.

We had two fantastic nights of photographing, dh and I managed to get to Mt Rainier for a very short hike one day -really an excuse to be in the air-conditioned car- and it was a great event, but the heat was just too much. I get a feeling of incipient doom, or a very low rumble of panic, when the temps are too high, or are going to be and I was miserable and stressed because of that. Dh and my sis and bil were also feeling the heat so we just made the decision to leave early.

It was hot yesterday. It's going to be hot today. We are under an extreme heat warning. We will not see anything even remotely ok until Thursday and indeed the temps are not predicited to be comfortable again (mid 70s, even high 70s) until late next week. Ugh.

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.