Raincharm’s Weblog

As I was driving home tonight I had some time to observe my surroundings.
I left late enough that traffic was light.
It was also late enough that I had to scrape ice off of the windshield to drive.

They have put in several informational signs along the freeway.
Tonight’s offering was, “DUI Patrols Tonight.”
As I was driving under the sign a State Police car passed by.
About a minute later I caught up to the State Police, with a paying customer on the side of the road.

Continuing along the freeway I came to the I-90 floating bridge.
As I was heading west on the bridge, a parade of Christmas Ships was heading east.
My first sighting of the season.
I would have taken a picture, but my phone was stowed, and it would have been illegal to find it and use it – and there were those extra patrols around.

When I got home I found that Carl has started the decorating in earnest.

Mantle - 2011

Today started with no telephones!
After determining the phone issues were handled by others, I settled in to work uninterupted, at least not by folks from outside of the office.

Phone outages are actually pretty serious, and at least we did not have any emergencies. Reception managed to get calls forwarded to a cell phone. Of course that meant, “I will take a message, and we will call back when we can.” The phones were fixed mid- afternoon, and life resumed.

In addition, our primary Xmas treat provider brought in thee platters of goodies. I managed to avoid them all day. Here is a picture of one of his creations. It is not reallya good example, as most of his treats are home-made, not home-put-together.

Chocolate laden sleighs

Work is over for the day.
Not too bad as workdays go.
Of course, most of what I worked on was not on my radar when I arrived at work. But a bit was. Plus there were a few letters that I had been sorely remiss in getting out the door, that went out today.

Question: why do I blog about work so much?
Answer: because I have no life.
Wait, strike that. Carl probably thinks we do.
Perhaps it is because I have been blogging on the drive home from work, and it is still front and center of my mind.
(Also the reason for limited formatting and pictures.)
((And for the occasional Jerome.))

Why is it that work appears to be accelerating.
I spent a good part of yesterday at work. But that was after going in late due to a doctor appointment. (My first small skin thingie frozen off. Actually, first 3) I did not see Carl until I got home, and he was already in bed.
Highlight of the morning was a bird trifecta, a Jerome on each side of the freeway, and a bald eagle on a light over the freeway. Very symetrical.

Definitely feel the holidays approaching. Vacations, visitors and a bit of shopping here and there.

I NEED MORE TIME.

Really – sunshine and cold.

So, after spending the morning with the newspaper, we set off.

Our errand for the day was to pass along some tire chains, and then check out a few bookstores. We managed to fit 7.7 miles around chain delivery (I was quite happy when the chains were out of my backpack), 2 new bookstores (new to us, that is), a new restaurant (to us that is) for brunch, another bookstore for repeat business, and a grocery store.

In one of the new bookstores they were having a book-signing about urban farming. Carl recognized one of the folks as a parent at the school where his kindergarteners hang out.

In the new restaurant there was a good business going on, and it seemed that the operators were having at least a small disagreement. In greek we think. They also had a fake tree in one corner. One, obviously regular, family with 3 kids came in and sat at the table under the tree. Then the two older (3-6 yrs old) kids headed, I thought, for the restroom. But instead they stopped and interacted with one of the proprietors and a string. We finally realized that by letting the string out, a spider would descend out of the tree into the midst of the “unsuspecting” diners at the corner table. What fun.

Met up with an old friend (as in, have not seen him for a while) while traversing around a portion of Green Lake.

At the grocery store we did get some food for dinner, beer, 2-buck chuck, and a few other bits and pieces for our larder.

At this point the backpack was starting to feel like the tire chains were back, so we stopped at one more bookstore. But at least we were close to home.

(Does this sound like the Ice Cream Soup book?)

November December in Seattle with sun and no rain. Spectacular.

Which of course means that no house chores are getting done.

COLD
But Beautiful.

Our goal was to go do some Christmas errands, and then take a walk.
Like all great plans, it started well, and quickly fell apart.
It did not really fall apart, but some parts just took longer to reach their conclusion.

To be specific the first part. (Not counting getting up and dressed and out the door, which does take some doing on certain days.)

In the end Carl was quicker at the first part than Jay.
So he took off and got other errands completed, came back, took off and got other errands completed, came back, and took off for home.

When Jay was done, she walked home.

So – in the end, it all got done.

Yesterday I was full of plans for so many things to do.
Maybe a movie, always more work to get done, flinging things around the house.
But in the end, I let an impulse take over.

Somebody had set a few jigsaw puzzles out on the table for the taking.
JIGSAW PUZZLE!
[We do not need any more stuff in our house – so my idea was to take, and then return.]

The last jigsaw puzzle I recall doing, was not so long ago, but was memorable because we finished it by flashlight. It was a 1000 piece painting by Norman Rockwell, in the basement of my parents house. Somehow the power manages to go out whenever we visit. We stayed up until almost 2 AM to finish the puzzle.

Last nights venture ended up with about 1/4 of the pieces installed.
Carl started out assisting, but then decided it was time for bed.
I persevered until after the Late Night talk shows start, but left before they finished.

Maybe tonight.
I am going to try to stay up for SNL – being hosted by Steve Buscemi. I enjoy his work, so this could be fun.

The word for the day is Pasties.
As in, “My boss spent a fair amount of time in northern Wisconsin, and was introduced to UP pastors, and learned how to make them himself.”
I benefited with a tasty lunch.
Did I feel bad that there were not enough for everyone in the lunchroom?
No.

I have been very busy at work. Stayed late last night so I could check something off my list. Stayed late tonight to let the traffic for the Seahawks game simmer down. (Seahawks 14 – Eagles 0 at this point)

Probably work a little more after I get home, so I can check another thing off of my ever growing list.
(Not quite like Santa’s list)

Happy December.

That is day 3 at home.
I think Carl is starting to run out of ideas of how to keep me entertained. To that point we are currently watching “The Big Lebowski.” This is not the first viewing, but Carl was in the mood.

We did do some shopping today.
A bit for us, and a bit for others.
Not too much into the throngs of shoppers, except when we went near the Pike Place Market. That was to get a bit for us. Coffee to be exact. Seattle’s Best #4. I dropped Carl off to run into the store. With the large number of shoppers around, we did not think it was a good plan to spend 30 minutes trying to find parking for a 5 minute errand. So, Carl exited, and it almost took me 5 minutes to make the next turn onto the street that parallels the Market stalls. At the corner there were pedestrians crossing in front of me, at 90 degrees to me (where the turn would go), and then, when I finally made the turn, walking directly in front of me. (Must have a really quiet car.) Once around the block, and he entered the car again. Of course, I had to do the dance one more time to get away from the area.

Tonight’s entertainment is to be the Seattle Men’s Chorus, with Megan Hilty.
Our review of the show will come later.

So today had a bit less staying around the house.
Because it was SUNNY!

We started out about 10 AMish (Carl noted the time, I did not.)
Dropped a movie off at the video store (wouldn’t be a walk without an errand).
Tried to get on the sunny side of the street, as there was still frost around.
Walked an extra block in the shade to avoid one of the more odoriferous folks that habitat our streets.
[Honestly, I do not dislike this person, always polite and quiet, but he reeks.][[Maybe the cold air would have dampened the odor, but we still waited the extra block.]
Over the freeway, and up the hill, into the neighborhoods we went. Zig-zagged our way down to the north end of Lake Union, and across the Fremont Bridge. Followed the Lake Union (Cheshiahud trail) trail along Westlake, through the new South Lake Union Park, past the center for wooden boats, restaurant and yacht sales row (sort of like an upscale auto row), and onto the road that follows close on the eastern shore of Lake Union. Finally back to Eastlake Avenue to cross the University Bridge (no Occupy Seattle protesters in sight). Up Roosevelt to 45th. We did a little job to avoid walking where we had before (only doubled on one block). Home again.

Settled in to check out the end of a football game and browse the paper. Looked at the ads for all of the sales that had since ended.

Then time for a movie. This time it was Intolerable Cruelty starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones. A Coen brothers movie. This was a funny one. Moved along, and kept us laughing. A good flick to rest our legs.

Dinner is in the oven now. Turkey casserole.

Total mileage today – 9.5 miles.
Money spent. $0 on the Black Friday sales, but a few $$ on groceries (yogurt, bananas, etc.).

This is a report on our Thanksgiving.
And since we spoke with many most of my readers, you can probably skip this one.

We arose in the morning.
Actually, it was after 8 AM. I had woken up a bit earlier, but Carl was actually sleeping, and I did not want to wake him up. (Stuffed up nose and a C-Pap, make for disjointed sleeping.)
But we managed to roll out of bed, and it was not dark out.
This meant that there were not clouds completely obscuring the orb in the sky.

At this time of year in Seattle it is dark more than it is light. Combine the shorter days and generally normal cloudy sky, and sometimes it is hard to tell the time of day by looking out a window.

So we launched on a morning walk, albeit a short one.
Destination – Starbucks, for a morning coffee.
We chose the 1-mile Starbucks. There is another that is about 1/2 mile, and another that is 1-1/2 miles (maybe 2), and … (Well, this is Seattle.)
Upon arrival it looked like a cocktail party outside the door. People mingling in groups.
At first I mistook this for the line, but then realized they were all holding cups.
So we went inside, and got in the interior line. Not too long.
But what caught our attention was that this store was now only about 1/4 the size of the store we usually visit in this location. The barista said they were remodelling, and in a few weeks it would be back to full size.

Got our coffee and headed home.

Once home the food preparations began, and so did the rain.
Turkey with an apple, onion, cinnamon stick, rosemary and sage aromatic stuffing, and soup in a pumpkin – onions, breadcrumbs, sage, nutmeg chicken stock and Jarlsberg. And of course the pumpkin added its flavoring too. That was pretty much the dinner – followed by apple pie for dessert.

We spent some time catching up with our family flung far and wide. (Actually – I guess we are the ones that flung, and then ours did some further flinging.) And then a movie (in-house).

The movie was Somewhere, starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning, directed by Sophia Copolla. I believe it won an Academy Award, and Carl thought it was quite good. I think you needed to have taken a film studies class, or just have been ready to look for symbolism. To me, it was OK, but I wasn’t properly prepared for looking deeper at that moment.

And so a bit later my altitude went from upright to slouched to horizontal to bed. I guess this was the nap I had been expecting earlier.

Today has dawned sunny, bright and frosty.
Our weather choices seem to be warmer (40’s) and rain or sun and cold.
I do believe we are preparing to venture forth. Report later.