Raincharm’s Weblog

Slept in a bit, but won’t claim uninterrupted wakefulness to midnight.  Our new year was welcomed by light snowfall  (or rain or hail depending on your specific locale). It remains in places not touched by the sun.

And it is sunny, so we are out on a walk.  And at this moment in time I am on a blog, and Carl is on a play. 

We both spent some time in our home gym this morning, but I would not refer to this as a resolution.  More like an opportunity. 

One of the prettier sights today. 

And one of the more frustrating. 

Enterprise apparently can’t distinguish their parking area from the sidewalk. (If you enlarge the sign above the No Parking sign, it is trying to educate folks from not parking in the new bike lane.)

Time to head back towards home. 

Christmas 2016 – Our day started at a relatively reasonable hour. As with many families the youngest member got us up and moving – even though she was in NYC. She had people to see and places to be, so we got on Skype to say our Merry Christmas. It was a bit reminiscent of when the kids were very young and would literally take most of the day to open their presents. [They would stop and play with each as it was opened.] We had several phone calls with grandparents that included statements like, “We don’t know whether they like it, we have not opened it yet.”]

After breakfast, coffee and presents, we made contact with other far-flung family members, had a snack and set out into the fairly deserted streets. The percentage of walkers to drivers was definitely higher than normal. We figured some were walking off their dinner. We, on the other hand, were building up our appetites. Our path meandered a bit, but generally headed downhill to the Fremont Troll.

Carl wanted to go look at the Patches Pal (and Gertrude) picture. [They were a kids TV show duo local to Seattle. Too early for our kids, but right in time for many of our friends that grew up in the area.] Carl got down on the ground and verified there is a hidden message under Gertrude’s skirt. “Caught you peeking”

It was a great walk down, cool temperatures, but no rain.
Of course, what goes down must come back up. That meant a long uphill to get back home. Not anything too steep, just a constant up hill incline.

The Inuit have many different words for snow. Seattle  has many different terms for precipitation; fog, mist, drizzle, showers, rain, downpour, wintery mix and of course snow. The showers and rain differential is start and stop versus constant. When somebody says it is being Seattle outside, they are normally referring to the 30-day drizzle that is sometimes called November. [We once had an out of town visitor that was considering a move to Seattle. They visited in November, and left after a bit, saying they could not take the constant grey.]

We also managed to get a few chores done during the holiday break.
The house is a bit lighter as we reduced our TV count from 4 to 2. 1 had been waiting for about a year as the 27-inch behemoth had been replaced last Christmas by a beautiful flat screen (thanks to the kids). The second was actually a bit harder to part with – my original TV. A black and white set purchased from Sears in 1978. It still worked, but just was not used any longer. It moved from Colorado to Seattle, buckled into the front seat of the little brown Honda. It was our only TV until we went for a small color set sometime in 1985 or 86, so Carl could more easily tell which team was which (color and all). The B&W was never connected to cable, but did successfully transition to digital TV when forced.

We did get to spend a few more days with Rey, and that was fun, but we all had to get back to work. (At least I did. Carl had the week off and Rey got an extra vacation day on his return.)

And in case you have 10 minutes to spare and want to see one of my work bits from 2016, here is a link to my Groundwater talk. This is a group that puts together short videos that teachers can use to support their classroom work. Another co-worker volunteered that we would participate, but then suggested I knew more about the subject than he did. I did, but relied heavily on our Groundwater Hydrologist consultant for pictures and details.

Since it is New Years Eve – don’t do anything too crazy. Let’s get 2017 off to a great start, and maybe we can coast through the rest of the year. [We are going to pick up some friends at the airport (no snow, no snow, no snow please), and then be cozy and warm at our house while we try to make it to midnight to toast the new year.]

​That happy feeling of anticipation of Xmas as a small child.  Don’t feel it very often anymore, but this morning I am having a difficult time concentrating and staying on task, and there are little butterflies flitting around. The anticipation is not focused on presents although they can be fun (my requests nowadays tend to the practical). Rather it is people we get to see and spend time with.  
So here is our solstice time in pictures.

Notice the sun and the son.

Carl and friend 

Sleeping octopus 

Okay, this was from a bit before the solstice.  December 10th if I recall correctly. Notice the snowman is wearing the Sounders’ colors. [Snowman’s remnants are still gracing the front yard, and it really has not snowed since.]

We managed to finish the traditional Christmas Eve chores* on the 23rd, so today is free. 

*Standing in line at Larsen’s Bakery and the Honey Baked Ham store. About 100 in line in front of us. In the picture below we were still outside, with a light rain/snow mix.

Rey will be making Sausage balls later for our visit to the Shannon’s.  He said no Tennessee party is complete without them. 

Merry Christmas Eve 

Okay. That’s almost funny . 

I intended the title of the post to be , “The S Word.” I am typing on my phone, focused on the keyboard, and when I looked up it had chosen  SUNSHINE as the “S” word. In my mind it had been SNOW.

But the snow was yesterday. 

Today it is cold. And  SUNNY.

No plans today beyond work and a little decorating. 

Today we headed downtown to meet friends and see a concert.
The venue was Benaroya Hall, and the performers were the Seattle Mens Chorus.
A choral group of about 250 men. Quite good – as they already are.
Christmas focus, some serious, some funny. And their traditional Silent Night that they finish in complete silence, performing it in sign language.

There is a light rail station is right under Benaroya Hall, so we did not get too far into the shopping district and see all of the decorations. On the way home we did get to see the packed trains arriving from the north, full of Seahawk Fans. The game is being played just south of downtown, starting about an hour after the concert (a matinee) ended.

On the way to the light rail station we saw a raptor flitting from street light to street light. (Can raptors flit?) Here is my best picture. I am thinking peregrine falcon, it seemed a bit small for an osprey. But I could be completely wrong. Notice that it is sitting on this light in spite of the “No bird spikes”.

And in the Rey report – the fire was a lot closer to his apartment than I had imagined.
I had been looking at a Tennessee newspaper map that showed burned business, but it was not focusing on residences. Tonight Rey pointed me to a map put together on the Sevier County website. It shows that the fire essentially stopped at the road in front of his building. The trees across the road are charred. In the picture below – it shows in red the houses that burned.  Green had minor damage. Rey’s apartment is a blue dot.

Here is a closer view. He is not sure whether the road and gravel parking lot were enough of a fire break, or if it was active firefighting that saved his building group.

Tomorrow he is going to the work building in the area that was heavily burned. He will likely be driving in amoung a lot of damaged and destroyed houses. They are also having a full staff meeting at the Park Headquarters, where I am sure they will be given an update on park services. He had considered volunteering to drive supplies around this weekend, but they wanted people with pickups, not Corollas.

[The one day weekend is because I worked Saturday. I got a lot done, and can’t imagine trying to fit 8 hours of straight undisturbed work into the regular work week.]

And it is supposed to snow tonight.

I was a few minutes late this morning.
I had gotten up on time, washed my hair, got dressed, packed my lunch (prepared by Carl), poured a travel cup of coffee, and headed out to the car to pick up my carpooler.

But as I turned on the windshield wipers to clear the window I heard the unmistakable sound of sckrrrrch. Frost on the pumpkin windshield.

The minutes it took to scrape off the ice and let the interior de-fog, were the minutes I was late.

On a further update from Rey – he now has power AND internet.
He continues to work in the Townsend section of the park, at least for this week.
His normal place of work is in the Twin Creeks area. It appears the building survived, but the fire was all around and they have to make sure utilities are in working order (electrical/water/etc).

Tuesday evening report. After a day lounging in Knoxville on administrative leave, Rey was able to return to his apartment Tuesday evening. He had power but no Internet. 

I was relieved and happy for him. Then I was browsing news reports and found a link to a map showing where some of the buildings that burned were located. One is located just down the road from his apartment. On the map below the marker is a building that burned. Rey’s apartment is about above the word Spring in Spring Valley Road.

A bit closer than I had expected.

Tomorrow he is to report to work at the Townsend side of the park, away from Gatlinburg. 

You may have noticed a theme lately – mentioning the rain.
It has been fairly relentless, although I only barely used the windshield wipers during both commutes today. And fit in a walk at lunch with only spitting rain.

Rey, on the other hand, has not had much rain lately in Tennessee.
And there are wildfires all over the area from Georgia, North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. He called this evening to say that he had been evacuated from his normal work site at the Twin Creeks Natural Resource Center (in Smoky Mountain National Park). By the end of the day the wildfire was within 150 yards of the picnic area associated with the office. He did work at one or two other sites for the rest of his day.

From the parking lot as he was leaving his place of work.

Then he got home and after doing some laundry was evacuated from his apartment. Note that his apartment is in Pigeon Forge, about 15 miles from his work site. He has decamped to a friends apartment in Knoxville. We are hoping for the best. This map shows a possible route from Twin Creeks to Rey’s place, which is a bit south of Dollywood, which has also been evacuated. (Gatlinburg is under the part showing the travel time.)

On another topic completely, the Seattle Sounders have made it to the MLS finals!
We do know the final game should be on December 10th.
We don’t know whether it will be played in Seattle against Montreal or against Toronto in Toronto. Montreal currently has the edge, so we may have one more game to get drenched. (Not complaining!)

Black Friday. We slept in until about 8 AM , so no fighting crowds for the door busting sales. Instead some of the morning was spent boosting our emergency rations. 

After the requisite turkey sandwich we set out for a walk in the SUNSHINE. That’s right. We walked in the sunshine.

To the mall. On black Friday. We had one purchase on our list, and after a successful search and buy, turned and headed home. One more stop at 10,000 Villages- a store I try to support every year. It’s local to our house, found across the country and has goods from around the world. We picked up a little bauble that would not fit in a bag and had to muscle it the last 9 blocks.

The walk, probably 6+ miles and no rain. 

Can you tell we are excited about a dry day? I have not even looked at the weather for the next few days.

Ashlan spent at least part of her day absorbing culture at the Metropolitan. She found this in honor of her father.

Who knew the Met had a sports section.

In which new traditions are tried.

1. The much anticipated pick up of a fully prepared thanksgiving feast. This involves a holiday themed waiting on line. These are traditional for us around Christmas, including the Larson Brothers Bakery and Honey Baked Ham stores. Whole Foods was new for us.

When we arrived home we found the fully cooked turkey to still be frozen. A 30 minute COLD water bath seemed to solve that problem, and now we are wondering whether we conquered the thawing too early.

2. Detroit Lions football, on TV, and they were winning.

3. Thanksgiving power outage. A new tradition for us, although not uncommon for the area. But power outages at our house are just plain uncommon, so it caught us off guard.

Plan A is to drink the coffee before it gets cold and keep the refrigerator closed. The 2 hour projection to power is probably survivable for the food.

Plan B is to try to use the gas stove and cook away. Easy to light the burners, but not sure about the oven with no controls working.

Plan C is to call friends outside the outage area, hope they are home and have room in their oven or refrigerator.

Plan  D is to go to work where there is a refrigerator  (actually 3) and a stove, and a generator.

Plan E would include trying to get our old rarely used charcoal grill into operation in the rain. 

I am hopeful for Plan A as we appear to be the only outage in town.