Postal Malarkey

You may be familiar with the postman's motto: "Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet nor gloom of night will keep me from my appointed rounds." Well, I can tell you that it is a load of baloney. Granted, we've had more snow than I can ever remember having in the lowlands, but we haven't had our mail delivered in days.

Enumclaw - it's some nasty doody

The other day on the news, they were reporting on the combination of snow and strong winds in Enumclaw and at the end of the report the newsman said, "that is some nasty duty." I doubt that he read that off the teleprompter; he must have been ad-libbing and didn't realize what that sounded like. Sad thing is that he has no idea how right he was to call the Claw, "Nasty Doody."

Speaking of the Claw, I am now going to shamelessly promote my t-shirt designs inspired by my distaste of Enumclaw here

Fun and danger in the snow!

I still can't get over how much snow we've had. It makes Stacey and I feel giddy. Stacey also goes into nesting mode, so she has been cooking and baking up a storm. I haven't eaten this good in a long time. I know what you are thinking, but I have been assured it is the snow and Stacey is not pregnant. So Stacey and I decided to go sledding today on the hill below our house. It was loads of fun, and it was fortunate that we were on the hill at that time. There were a bunch of kids that were also sledding and playing in the snow, but then I heard a small voice calling for help. Stacey and I tried to figure out where the voice was coming from when I spotted a hand waving frantically. It was our elderly neighbor and she had fallen outside on her deck. Stacey raced up the stairs leading to our street, while I called my brother who was at the house. I also flagged down two other neighbors who were snowshoeing and they headed to her place as well. I continued talking to her until Stacey got there, then sprinted up the hill myself. I first attempted to climb the hill - in the snow it doesn't look that steep, but considering I am not a mountain goat, my attempt failed miserably. Well, long story short, we got her off the deck and into the house and I called 911. The medics checked her out and decided she didn't need to go in, but Stacey and I stayed with her for the afternoon and took care of her and her dog. What an adrenaline rush. I guess that makes us heroes, eh? Seriously though, if we hadn't heard her, she could have died of hypothermia. The lesson of the day is that snow can be really fun, but can be very dangerous as well, so be safe and stay warm.

This is stacey sledding on an old snowboard.

Snowmen of Seattle

It's crazy who you see smoking these days!

This snowman was in front of the flying fish place at Pike Place Market. The eyes are real fish eyes and I think the mouth looks like a slice of salmon. Sushi anyone?

It's not just a commute, it's an adventure!

So after hearing the weathermen cry, "Snow!" so many times over the years, I was hesitant to believe that the prediction of snow would actually come to fruition. It did. In fact, it dumped in West Seattle. This place is to' up! Despite the lovely storm, I decided I would still try to make it in to work. I really didn't want to use up any vacation/sick time because of a snow day. Plus, I really enjoy walking through downtown in the snow, so I hiked up to Admiral to catch a bus. Little did I know how big of a mistake that was. Basically, the abridged version is the first bus got stuck so I hiked down the hill to Alki, waited for a bus for a long time, walked to another stop, waited more, got a bus that dropped us off at the bridge, waited some more, watched a full bus go by us without stopping, walked to another stop, finally got a bus downtown, got off at Westlake and hiked up Olive/Howell to finally reach Met Park. The whole trip took over 2.5 hrs. Since I only live a little over 8 miles away, I averaged about 3.2 mph. I could have made the trip on foot faster, although I probably would have froze to death in the process.

This is a picture down on Alki. We ended up getting, I say, about 4 inches of snow. I'm glad I don't have to go back to work tomorrow because the commute is going to be awful. On my way home, I found out that all of the buses that had gone to West Seattle, got stuck there so it took quite a while to find a bus home and I had to walk the last mile or so.

It's a snow day

We didn't think it would be prudent to drive down to Puyallup today because of the snow and ice. On the news, it said that the West Seattle bridge was downright treacherous, so we are staying close to home today. Mark, Stacey and I took a walk down to Alki. Just walking was dangerous enough - I ended up crossing the street on my knees and going down the stairs to the beach on my tuchas - safety before dignity. Speaking of undignified - Stacey took her hat off and put it on Mark while we were watching a seal or seal lion (not sure which) in the Sound.

Cute Shoes

OK - I have no idea what possessed me to get these shoes, but you gotta admit they are hot. I blame Nikki - I haven't come up with a logical explanation for laying the blame on her, but I just know that somehow this is all of her fault. They look great, however, after about 5 minutes of wearing them, my feet start to complain...LOUDLY. I got them at DSW - the greatest shoe store in the world. Nikki also got a fierce-looking pair of heels. In fact, she got the ultimate compliment yesterday when one of the checkers at Met Market, who obviously must be gay, commented on how great her shoes were. It wasn't fair though because I had my hot shoes, but they were in the car because there was no way I could've handled walking around the store in them. I didn't want to be left out, so I told him that I had cute shoes too, they just weren't currently on my feet. Is it sad that I have a need for validation from a gay man on how cute my shoes are? What is happening to me?!!

Mini Vaca

Entiendo español, pero no entiendo español del borracho

So I was waiting for my bus this evening when a highly intoxicated Mexican fellow stumbled over to me and started speaking to me in Spanish. Although I haven't used my Spanish much since moving to Seattle 7 years ago, most of the time I can pretty much understand what someone is saying. Despite the slur, I can even usually get the gist of the conversation from someone with a thick Puerto Rican or Cuban accent. However, the one accent that totally stymies me is "Drunk Spanish." It's even worse than "I forgot to put in my dentures today Spanish." "No Dentures Spanish" is difficult, but not impossible to understand, and the guy I know who speaks it doesn't reek of cheap beer and wine. Basically, all I got out of his alcohol impaired rambling speech was that he was from Mexico, had two kids in Oaxaca and two kids in California (don't ask me why he told me that) and that he had no papers (no duh - can you say, "fishing for a greencard?"). When my bus arrives I say a farewell, only to have him follow me onto the bus and sit his drunk butt down next to me. I finally am able to get through to him that I have no money and unless he has the cash to pay the fare to West Seattle, he better get his tuchas off at the next stop. Lesson learned: Next time someone starts speaking to me in Drunk Spanish, pass myself off as a Greek. OK - that's all for now; gotta go learn me some Greek.