Winter Wonderland

This weekend, Seattle got its first snow of the winter. Some years, snow in Seattle never falls. Or there will be a one and only snow. This winter, we're having our third snowstorm tonight. I hope it ends soon.

I'm a winter gal, both by when and where I was born (Minnesota in January), so there's a lot I like about winter. Unfortunately, in a place like Seattle, winter can't quite make itself at home and we can't quite get comfortable with it either. The temperature either hovers around freezing, creating ice, or it deep freezes the city which is used to winter temperatures in the 40s most of the time.

Added to that is the fact that very few people in Seattle know how to drive on snow, and even those that do tend to be a bit confounded by the size of the hills encountered when trying to get around the city (many of which get closed when it snows).

All my friends seem to have horror stories from our second snow storm, which came through Monday night (5 hour commute with 2 hours on foot, a bus that just refused to go any farther, or just getting trapped by ice). My story just involves waiting for buses in 20-something degree weather. Monday night, it was 25 minutes for the first bus and another 25 or so for the second bus. Last night, it was 60 minutes downtown waiting for any of 3 buses (I waited about 25 minutes for a bus that was 16 minutes late when I left; then I waited over 30 minutes for either the 6:30 or 6:44 bus, the latter of which finally came at 7PM).

One forgets living in such a temperate place such as Seattle how painful and tiring the cold can be. After being outside for 40 or so minutes with no sign of a bus, I was on the verge of tears. When the bus finally came, my toes hurt.

I really did enjoy the snow the first night. And even the second night. There is something magical in the beauty of falling snow. But a city paralyzed by cold and ice is not a fun place to be. It's been sleeting outside for awhile now, and it is supposed to freeze overnight. The city will be a skating rink in the morning, and there is no fun in that.

Vote Kinky!

I can't believe I've not blogged yet about Kinky Friedman's gubernatorial campaign, and now it is Election Day 2006.

While I myself have never lived in Texas, I have four half-brothers that do, and at least one of them is voting for Kinky. That brother, Pete, also said that everyone he knows is voting for the Kinkster. Fingers crossed that the turn out is good, with no issues like the flooding going on in my own state.

I first learned about Kinky when I was working at the American Jewish Historical Society. My boss, Dr. Kaganoff, avidly collected anything from anyone even remotely Jewish. And so Kinky Friedman's mystery novel, Frequent Flyer came along my desk to be cataloged. Very occasionally, I "borrowed" a book from the library before it was cataloged (the AJHS library has never been a circulating collection). I enjoyed it enough to seek out the rest of his mysteries. When I moved to the Seattle area, I checked out a CD of his band, Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, thoroughly enjoying the music, especially the lyrics, despite my general dislike of the country music genre.

I was thrilled to hear Kinky was running for Governor of Texas, especially given one of his slogans is 'How hard could it be?' I've watched some of his ads from his Web site (http://www.kinkyfriedman.com) and found them refreshingly focused on issues and what he wants, rather than reacting to or mudslinging at his opponents. He is a statesman.

I've no idea what his real chances are of winning, but I'd love to see it happen. So, if you can, Vote for Kinky! And, if you can't, go ahead and vote anyway.

Thwarted, redux

Like too many things over the past few days, tonight has not gone as planned. I wanted to blog, get all the many things that November is about thus far, but I'm already off schedule and SO need to go to bed (especially as the mounting frustration of continual thwarting is wearing on me).

But now, here with my fingers on the keyboard...

National Novel Writing Month

Friends of mine were talking about this last month, and now I've signed up. I did write my first 937 words tonight (I was only 5 minutes behind then!). See the fun for yourself at http://www.nanowrimo.org/

November in Seattle

After some incredibly cold (for Seattle) days, today started the real November--gray and wet. Very, very wet. Three months of winter started yesterday. Hopefully I'm prepared.