Wow. We are in a true winter wonderland here in Seattle. It’s been snowing almost non-stop since last week. Well, it doesn’t seem to be snowing right now, but it was all day yesterday and into the night. I don’t remember this happening in years. Maybe since the big snow of ’96? Where the whole city was immobilized and even the freeways were empty. People are cross-country skiing to the grocery store and using sleds to tote their kids places.
As I’ve discussed before, Seattle, as a city, is not prepared for this type of thing. We usually get a couple token snows per year, if that, and it goes away quickly. But Seattle is not ready for sustained snow. This makes many people cranky–especially people from parts of the country that get a lot of snow. They don’t understand why Seattle doesn’t just fix the problem and move on. This attitude, in turn, makes me feel a little bit cranky myself.
There are several obstacles to “fixing” the snow problem. For one thing, Seattle only has something like 5 snow plows for the whole city (seriously, 5). So, they’re not going to be plowing the little neighborhood streets anytime soon. Also, we have tons of hills. We happen to live on top of one. The only way off is down. And down + ice = disastrous driving conditions. Also, up + ice = disastrous driving conditions. A lot of people don’t want to walk to get where they’re going, so that makes things worse. So, snow + hills + no plowing + desire to drive but can’t + people from places where there snow is a common occurrence = cranky people.
OK, I’m done ranting. As you know, I love the snow. We prepare for it–we stock up on food and knitting supplies and candles. I think the knitting supplies are the most important thing, but dAhub and Girlfriend might differ. We have friendly neighbors we can go to for help or to play with. We are lucky on the employment front–dAhub can work from home if need be, but he had already scheduled the next two weeks off for vacation. And his company tells people to stay home when it’s too hazardous to come in. School is out, so we don’t have to worry about Girlfriend. We’re not waiting for a baby to be born any minute and wondering how to get to the hospital (I have a knitting bud in this situation–send her good vibes). We’re healthy. We live within walking distance to a grocery store, a pharmacy, a yarn store (yay), the library, movie theaters, and restaurants. A huge independent bookstore is a little farther away, but we can walk there. And even if all of these things closed, we are still OK and prepared. We also live next door to the park. Which I love. Here are some pictures from the last few days:
This is the view from my front porch:
This is my favorite: someone built a snowboarding ramp off of the gazebo in the park and left a skateboard with no wheels for people to use on it. This guy was gracious enough to demonstrate for me:
This is a picture where he feel off of the board–you can see his foot in the lower right corner. LOL!
The Giving Tree is almost totally covered–eek!
Miss Clavel is still outside. Someone please tell her to go indoors!
Also, below are a few pictures for the people whose chickens I’m taking care of. M+M: the chickens are OK and we got food for them. I gave them a big tub of water and I add warm water to it every day. That helps it not totally freeze over.
