Tag Archives: snow

March comes in like a Lion…

02 Sunday Mar 2014

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…so that old saying goes, right?  Last weekend was consumed by overnight work (which my team does on a regular basis)…so while the work shift itself wasn’t super long, it hung over my head all weekend and I couldn’t mentally relax and unwind.

THIS weekend was time to let loose. You could feel the energy at work on Friday.  The sun was out and it was pretty warm outside (mid 50s!).  Ohhhh, the promise of spring!  Many people took the afternoon off just to cut loose.  After last weekend’s work, we all were ready for REAL weekends!

So much for that warm Friday afternoon…yesterday Mother Nature slapped her big ol’ reminder on us that it’s WINTER.  Wet, biting cold.  And SNOW where I ended up later!

WP_000524See the “bald spot” on the top of the ridge in the background?  That’s where I hiked on Saturday with two women from the Lean Eating program I’ve been involved in since last July!

C, G and I met in the parking lot of Issaquah High School which you can see in the picture at right.  The trail head is just a short walk away!  And the top of that ridge is called…wait for it…Poo Poo Point!  More on that later.

We were originally planning to do an urban-style easy hike (more of a walk, really) at Carkeek Park in north Seattle. But one of the women was driving in from eastern Washington, and the last hop into Seattle would have added an extra hour to her drive.  So, Issaquah it was!  Not too far off of I-90 once you head westbound over the mountains.

I was grateful C and G were open to a somewhat-later start.  We met up at 11:00am and were on our way by 11:30.  This hike was 8 miles round trip with a near 1700′ elevation gain.  We even had C’s Boxer mix, Hank, along for the journey too!  Adorable.

The trail was in great condition – a little muddy in places but nothing a good pair of hiking boots can’t handle.  MAN oh man…those switchbacks!  I got a good, stiff wakeup call that the treadmill and doing intervals at the gym is NO comparison to some good, butt-kicking uphill switchbacks.  I had to stop and catch my breath a few more times than C and G needed to and felt bad, but they were very understanding.  There was NO way we weren’t going to make it to the top!

WP_000521And the top – WOW.  This is paragliding and hang gliding heaven right here!  Too cold for any of that action today but in the summer this place is hopping!  You just run and launch right off the ridge!  No railings down there at all.

I took in the views and watched the fog roll and swirl so rapidly – kept changing by the second!

And later, it started to snow.   So beautiful!

Now, you’re probably still wondering…why the heck is it called POO POO Point?  Kinda makes you giggle a little, right?

Well, I learned that the name comes from the sound the steam whistles would make when signaling the loggers.  Yeah I guess that could sound like a POO POO of sorts?

WP_000522Now seeing THIS kinda freaked me out a little. A few other girls were there, walking WAY down the slope of the ridge and laughing, taking pictures of each other.  Ummm…NO THANKS!  That kinds of stuff makes my heart pound and not in a good way.  What was hilarious was that they were decked out in San Francisco 49ers gear head to toe.  Including red backpacks.

Am I the only one who thinks it’s a little morbidly funny that girls in 49ers gear were standing on the edge of a cliff deep in Seahawks country?  Death wish much?  I was wearing my Super Bowl XLVIII champs knit hat and hoped they noticed!  Ha ha.

It only took an hour and a half to get back down to the high school parking lot.  What an adventure!  It’s definitely one I will do again!

Later that evening I went to a party at my dear friend P’s house.  She had recently returned from an incredible few month’s of travel in Belize, Australia and New Zealand!  She cooked us food from all 3 countries (ceviche!  Kangaroo sliders!  Pavlova for dessert!).  YUM.  And had her incredible pictures displayed in a slide show on her TV.

Check out Alaskagirlatheart.com to see them for yourself!

Cabin Fever Week

22 Sunday Jan 2012

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How quickly things changed in 24 hours.  I came home from work last Friday (the 13th, which was a good day save for saying good bye to a co-worker who is relocating overseas), relaxed at home and slept in gloriously late into Saturday.  Know that feeling when you wake up and it just ‘feels’ different?  In my bleary just-out-of-bed attempt to wake up I couldn’t quite figure out what it was…other than it was super quiet outside.  No dull drone of street noise.

Aha!  It SNOWED!  Where did I miss this on the TV weather forecasts?  I suppose I should not have been too shocked – it is January, after all. I don’t even know where to start with this one.  Other than Snow + Seattle area is a very bad combination.  For getting around, that is.  Otherwise, it’s gorgeous.  Exhibit A – the view off my back deck. 

We got around 6 inches or so in my area – by the time it was done the faint line markings from the deck in that picture were completely covered over.  After hearing news reports and reading countless local-area Facebook posts we had anywhere from around 3 inches to over a foot depending on where you were.

The power stayed on here and my furnace is working.  Everything else after that truly is all gravy.  Check out my Cold Where It’s Supposed to be Cold post from (*gulp* wow time flies) November 2010.  Two furnace repairs and a crapped out fridge just a couple months prior to that made it an expensive end of that year…after just starting to get some decent income again following a long unemployed streak.  So anyway, here we are in 2012 and I relished my warm townhouse, hot showers and the beautiful snow falling outside.

After a couple of days it got old.  Driving in the snow in the Seattle area is a hot topic for sure.  In general, it’s not a good idea.  Seriously…a few inches of snow will literally bring us to our knees.  We’re hilly.  We don’t have a ton of snow removal equipment.  We’re not like other parts of the country who deal with this routinely and life goes on.  Around here, it just doesn’t.  Hell, when a UPS truck gets stuck in your driveway, you know it’s bad.

What is it about snow?  It brings a huge Hush Hug over everything in its embrace.  I stay in my jammies all day and take naps.  At noon. 

But soon it was time to get back to work.  Thankfully this team is all about playing it safe and not trying to be heroes getting into the office.  We can all work remotely, although in the type of work we do it’s not ideal for long periods of time as I learned.

There was one small problem.  The power cord for my work laptop was still in my office!  I never bring it home because I never work from home.  It still reminds me too much of when I was unemployed, and frankly I’d rather get out of the house and be around people during the day.  In my last work assignment my work laptop was the same brand as my home one, so it was easy to just swap out the power cords between the two if I ever did work from home on rare occasion.  Not this time, however.

On Monday I was able to squeak by with doing email either from my phone or through my home laptop.  But I didn’t have full access to the internal resources I depend on to get work done.  And I attempted a few times to get the work laptop connected with my home cable modem, but the modem is new and I was unfamiliar with the steps to switch connectivity (I don’t use a router).  And I watched the battery power indicator slowly sink southward as I chatted with our corporate Helpdesk and all to troubleshoot.  No luck. 

So I knew Tuesday I needed to get into work somehow to get that power cord.  They were predicting heavy snow Tuesday into Wednesday.  Turns out the main roads were pretty clear.  It’s the side streets, sidewalks and driveways that are the problem. 

I got into work just fine and was pleasantly surprised to see my officemate there already.  Ahhh, human interaction!  We had both planned to stay for a few hours, but then got a phone call from her husband around lunch time that it was really starting to snow hard and we better get home. I’m so glad he called, because our office does not have a window and it was snowing much harder up near where my officemate and I live compared to work.

When you’re stuck at home snowbound, the cabin fever grips tight.  The novelty wears off quickly.  So to fight it off, I vowed to get out of the house at least once a day for a walk.  And it really helps – and is pretty good exercise too stomping through heavy, wet snow.

Thankfully by Friday the snow turned to rain and everything turned into a big slushfest.  Relief was coming!  Freedom! 

And what a great way to blast back into the routine of life with a wonderful Saturday.  My friend L ventured out this way to the suburbs (I joke that he’s mentally allergic to them but that’s another story).  With iPad in hand, he and I walked through the townhouse here and talked about tons of ideas to update my place.  I know my place needs work, and I know I need to keep an open mind.  We jumped around all over the place with ideas and chitchat.  And we agreed on a general plan to start work upstairs here where the bedrooms are and then slowly work our way downstairs.  

Oh boy.  That means my 3rd bedroom – the Room of Crap – is in the hotseat first.  And that’s actually a great idea as it is very underutilized space save for a large bookcase and random stuff on the floor that needs to get boxed up into storage or thrown out.  And I get to think about paint colors too, for it’s still Insane Asylum White like the rest of this place was when I first bought it.  Oh, the possibilities!  L wants to convert it to my home office and have the home office where I am now become a guest bedroom, as this room is larger and can hold a queen-sized bed. Interesting idea!

Later I headed out (Out! After not driving for 5 days!) to meet friends for our annual Chinese New Year dinner at China Clipper in Woodinville.  They have wonderful, pretty close to authentic Northern Chinese cuisine.  We had a blast at dinner and then headed over to J’s house for board games and laughter.  Know when you laugh so hard that tears stream down your face? 

Fantastic.

The Blahs, the Blues and the Bling

27 Sunday Feb 2011

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Oh February, February, you fickle bitch you.  Teasing us with the promise of spring – love seeing those crocuses coming up and even a few zings of sunshine – and then whomping our butts with SNOW and COLD as we’re about ready to dive into March!  Yep, we had a few inches of snow, icy winds and temperatures down the in the teens at night.  UGH, my power bill is going to be out of control yet again this month.  The snow is beautiful…but no thanks so late in winter.
So how do you banish the blahs?  You get out of the house and downtown for a change of scenery and some down & dirty live blues! 

Exhibit A:  the Highway 99 Blues Bar in Seattle.  Gotta hand it to my friends D & B who invite a group of us out several times a year for different kinds of live music and dancing.  A couple months ago it was live disco – now, the Blues!  And I’m a suburban girl who needs to get my city fix on more and more, plus I LOVE checking out new venues.  Great friends, great music and a big ol’ dance floor – sounds good to me!

So ironically a few hours before hearing the Blues, I got smacked with the Blues myself.  Totally came out of nowhere. 

Let me back up here a little.  And come with me on this tangent. I’d invited G to come along with me to this a few weeks ago, even before he left on his trip to Australia.  And I was sooo excited he said yes.  This was going to be the first time introducing him to a few of my friends and I was so over the top giddy!  Weeee! 

But the reality is he came down with a really bad bug a few days after coming back home.  And who wouldn’t after flying in a tube with hundreds of people halfway around the planet sharing god knows what icky germs for hours and hours, plus the shock of weather change from Australian summer to our freakazoidal cold snap here right?  Yuck. We jokingly called it the Australian Wallaby Flu.

So he laid low for a few days and I had a couple of girls nights out earlier in the week, just keeping myself busy meanwhile.  By Friday I was missing him so bad!  And he came by to take me to dinner.  We thought a margarita at the Mexican place walking distance from my house would kill off the germs but no dice.  He was still hacking away.  But you know I was so happy to see him, it didn’t matter that by 8pm he was pretty much toast.  Dang, this was a bad bug already, not leftover jeg lag!  And ahhh, kisses and walking back home.  I took his arm as we walked.  You know, I really love that feeling.  Nice and strong.  A little stargazing too – LOVE that.

Now it’s Saturday, and he’s still feeling like crap.  And he calls me and says he’s really sorry but he’s gonna have to bail on going out to the club with me.

Oh no oh no oh no. My heart sank.  And I mentally started to topple over into a shitty thought place I’d thought I’d left behind over a decade ago. Being flaked out on.  Being let down at the last minute.  Guys who say they’ll be there for me and change on a dime with no rational reason and don’t show up.  Fuck!

But screechy record sound already.  The dude is sick!  He doesn’t flake out on me!!  And it’s not 2000 or 2001!!  And oh dear lord this mental yin and yang was gonging in my head and I choked up. The rational vs. the emotional.  My voice wobbled on the phone I’m sure.  I don’t recall all of what I said but I told him I felt totally bummed and now didn’t feel like going either.

Meanwhile, the Bling.  Yes, I got this call about a half hour before I was expecting some girlfriends (and my Mom!) at my house for an informal jewelry show and open house. Had my dining table decked out in beautiful scarves (nice alternative to a tablecloth) and trays of gorgeous jewelry ready to be touched and tried on.  A little wine, sparkling water and some munchies.  Weee!  And now I’m feeling like a deflated balloon.  But I gotta dig deep, shake it off and be the happy Hostess here!

And I did and was.  We had a wonderful afternoon – this was a mix of friends who had not yet met eachother, nor had anyone met my Mom yet either!  We had a great time.  And you know, girl talk helps too.  B (of D & B) came by too and when I told her G couldn’t make it after all she was all oh man that’s too bad, but next time.  Just hearing those words made me realize that my old residue feelings from many, many years ago, have no place here.  It’s the PAST. No room!  It has nothing to do with G and me. And my feelings, while, yes, they are my feelings, aren’t the point here.  Meaning, G is sick, end of story.  He’ll be back to normal in a day or two.

HUHHHHHHH.  So that was my mental workout and I was glad to have friends with me, B’s keepin’ it real advice, and time to sell a little bling.  In fact, the party sales put me past the goal I’d set for myself when I started this side business!!  Woo hooooooo!

Then, it was time for the Blues.  G called while I was just about at the club and it was so good to hear his voice.  I was feeling a lot better about everything and even about ready to laugh at myself for how I’d reacted earlier.  And when I was still not sure exactly where this club was, he looked it up on his laptop and helped me find it over the phone.  Which was awesome, by the way.  

I met up with D, B and a couple other couples (wow, good thing they got there early and got a table – the place was packed!).  LOVED the music.  There were two bands that night – first was the Karen Lovely band (she’s in the pic up top).  If Janis Joplin had a niece, this woman would be her.  Freaking killer pipes.  I was totally blown away – she far outshone the second act.

Then, I suddenly felt tired.  And feverish. And then chills and my throat was sore. What was going on here? Did I catch something from G? Or was it the combo of a fun, sweaty basement bar and talking loudly, combined with a pulled pork sandwich and a couple of Stellas?  

Nope.  I was coming down with a cold.  Who knows where it came from.  But how ironic.  B even said she’s been battling one over a week now.  Yes, it’s February alright.  

As we left the bar later and walked back to our cars, the cold air blasted right into my lungs.  Cold, icy wind off the water.  When I got to my car, I looked up and smiled.  For I’d parked just steps from the steam plant where my Dad was CEO for many years before he retired.  Something about seeing that building that literally put food on the table for my family and so much more, where Dad invested years in his career and turned the company from a bump on a log to a thriving operation made me do a big mental full circle.  The plant chugs along 24/7 as it has for over 100 years.  My past.  And my emotional loopy doop was the last gasp (let’s hope please!) of an old head rhythm whose tune is long past its prime.  

DONE.