Anniversary, Shmanniversary

Not long ago a few of us at work realized that one of our co-workers would soon have been at Workplace for fifteen years. Such longevity being a rarity in our department, we decided the occasion merited some recognition, however informal. A card featuring carefully bland cartoon animals expressing slightly jokey cartoon sentiments was purchased and circulated for everyone to share their good wishes with our sincerely beloved co-worker.

One busy employee misunderstood the occasion provoking the card. Among all the scrawled lines of "Congratulations on fifteen years, Jill!" and "We're so glad you're here!" which filled the card was this short missive: "Congrats to you and your husband. May you enjoy many more happy years together!"

Brainache

This afternoon found me short-tempered at work. I dismissed it, assuming I was letting work stuff get to me, but as soon as I left for the day I promptly got a migraine. That will teach me to listen more closely to what my body's trying to tell me.

Lucky for me, my "migraines" are almost always pain-free. (When they're not, of course, they are excruciatingly painful. All or nothing!) Attempting to read something will lead me to notice a small dark patch obstructing part of my vision. The dark part is usually flashing or glowing bright around its edges. It will grow in size until I can scarcely see anything that I focus on directly; I have to let my gaze sidle up on things using my peripheral vision. Luckily again, this strange flashing blurriness usually dissipates within about half an hour.

I don't get them terribly often, but the frequency seems to be increasing, which is why I'm musing "out loud" about them here, trying to keep track of when I get them, what I was doing just prior, food I had eaten earlier, and that kind of thing. (For the record: today around 4:30 on the bus; staring at a computer screen for most of the day; Triscuits and dried apricots, and earlier than that, half a leftover calzone. And I did have coffee that morning.)

The brain is a strange thing, eh? As much as I used to pine for some kind of mystical experience, I know that I'd gnaw it to death after the fact. I'm not sure I'd ever be able to trust that it wasn't just one more trick of my unfathomable brain. "Flashing lights! Dead pixels in the middle of your eyes! Jesus Christ enfolding you in a loving embrace!" Is one of these things not like the others? Am I certain of that?

The Final Straw

It wasn't the night last spring that someone came to our door at midnight. We were both sleeping, and Chloe's furious barking woke us up. Muzzy-headed, I staggered into the living room and peered out the front window. A shadowy figure stood hunched up against our front door. "There's someone out front!" I hissed. Mr. Thel and I crossed paths as I retreated back into the living room, and he ominously strode to the front door. He opened the door about five inches, blocking the opening with his body. In a low voice that would've made the devil himself take a step back, Mr. Thel asked, "What seems to be the problem?"

The bulky stranger was nearly to the road by now, but he turned to say that he needed his car jump-started. In the same quiet tone, Mr. Thel calmly explained that it was midnight, that we were sleeping, and that he wouldn't be able to help just then. Then he gently but firmly closed and locked the door. (He then told me that he'd helped someone at the (alleged) crack house who needed a jump earlier that same day; he says this wasn't the same guy, but that he did watch this fellow walk back to the (alleged) crack house after we turned him down.)

But that wasn't the last straw.

It wasn't even the late summer night when we discovered them stealing our water.* Mr. Thel was at band practice that Sunday night. I was reading in the living room when I heard a weird rushing sound. I dismissed it and kept reading; a few minutes later Chloe sounded the alert, and at first I irritatedly shushed her for barking at nothing. Then I heard the quiet male voices just outside. A peek through the bedroom blinds revealed two figures huddled in our side yard, right up next to our bedroom window.

I will freely confess to you that I am, by nature, a timid person. Two men skulking in my yard after 9 pm? The phone was smoking from the speed with which I dialed 911. I kept an eye on them while I talked to the dispatcher, who took me very seriously and had a patrol car at our house within five minutes. But by then, I had watched the two stagger away carrying between them an obviously very heavy laundry bucket sort of container. When the police came, two excruciatingly polite and adorable fresh-faced young officers** had me show them where I'd seen the trespassers. The yard there squelched wetly, though we hadn't had rain for days. One cop ranged out to the street and remarked, "Well, there's a trail of water down the street here."

They strolled off following the wet trail. I watched it lead them unerringly to the (alleged) crack house. Quiet voices, no loud confrontations; soon the police trudged back. One of them told me, "We got up there and asked them about it, and they were like...'Water? Oh, yeah, we do have a bucket of water back here, but that's our own, we didn't take it from anyone.' I was like, 'Dude, we just followed the trail straight here.' We told them they can't be trespassing like that, and they said they were real sorry..." He shrugged. "You got the best alarm system around, though, with that puppy in there," he nodded approvingly.

The next day one of the residents of the (alleged) crack house came by to apologize directly. "Our water's been shut off, and I told them when I left for work that day that I just wanted the toilets flushed by the time I got home. But my God, I sure didn't tell them to go take water from our neighbors." She seemed genuinely angry with the men in her house--relatives or friends, who she said came to stay through a rough patch and hadn't yet hauled themselves out of the roughness yet--and embarrassed about the situation. And yet her best defense was that she had told them to take the water from the other blue house on the street, the one that didn't have anyonen living there. And the neighbors next to us say they had the same water-thieving situation a few nights later. (Mr. Thel cleverly shut off the valve to the outside spigots at that point. I wish I could say we've been merely happy, instead of retroactively disgruntled, by how much lower our water bill has been since then.)

But that wasn't the last straw, either.

It wasn't the constant foot traffic in and out of that house. It wasn't the steady stream of cars that pull up to that house for a minute, wait while someone runs out to them, conduct a brief exchange, and drive away. It wasn't hearing the neighbors' story of seeing one of the residents at the (alleged) crack house get beaten by several other men in the front yard, one of whom (allegedly!) kept yelling out, "Where's my money, man? Where's my money? Get me my money, man!" between punches. It wasn't hearing the neighbors tell us that the victim broke away and ran off to hide in our dark back yard from his assailants.

No, those things piled up, and we said to ourselves, "We need to start documenting this." We got used to rolling our eyes about the (alleged) crack house, and telling ourselves we should figure out where to report this kind of thing.

But a final straw has been detected. A five-gallon bucket, last seen tucked against the corner of our house, has disappeared. Water is one thing; water, after all, is life. Skulking around to steal it is Not Okay, but it's understandable. But setting foot all over our land and taking actual stuff? Even our cheap plastic car-wash bucket? Oh HELL no, y'all.

And that, my friends, was the final straw.

For your reference, the number to call is one of these:

Narcotics Section (206)684-5797 (8:00 am - 4:00 pm)
Non-emergency 9-1-1 (206)625-5011
Community Police Team:
North Precinct (206)684-0851
South Precinct (206)386-9180
East Precinct (206)684-4370
West Precinct (206)684-8996

More info here. The person you speak to will be interested and polite, if my experience is any guide. And it won't be an instantaneous process. I'll keep you posted.


*That was the same night that Chloe locked me out of the house. While I was out talking to the unbearably cute policemen, she was still amped up over all the agitation and excitement. She jumped up against the door several times. She knows the general principle of a doorknob, being foiled in attempts to operate them only by her lack of opposable thumbs. Failing to open the door, she managed instead to lock the deadbolt securely. Naturally my keys were still in the house. Fortunately Mr. Thel arrived mere minutes after I convinced the cops it would be okay to leave me there for the few minutes it would take him to get home.

**I know I sound like such a crone. But it's all true.

Oh Christmas wire, oh Christmas wire

I had a germ of an idea about a Christmas tree, this year. Our house has no room for a cut tree. In the past, purchasing a potted tree hasn't worked out very well for us either. (We neglect them to death.) Perhaps, my idea-seed whispered, I could make some kind of a facsimile of a Christmas tree. After all, I'm a crafty soul, am I not? Do I not have creativity a-bubble in my soul?

Having not planted this germ, nor thought further on it in any way, I found myself last Friday evening with the news that snow would probably fall on Saturday. Mr. Thel and I went out to see August Rush (an insufferable, cloying, eye-rolling, suspension-of-disbelief-puncturing blot of a movie that I am almost completely unable to recommend), and on the way home I made him stop at a Fred Meyer. I had a vague idea about using wire; couldn't find wire. Maybe coat hangers? Only wooden ones available. Frustrated and idealess, I wandered through the home section willy-nilly, hoping inspiration would strike. I paused at the live trees for a moment, feeling defeated, but a burst of defiance led me out into the garden area.

Aha! Madness and inspiration struck me like a hammer. I bought one package of something similar to these:



plus one roll of green tape. $8 later I scurried out the door, cackling and rubbing my hands with glee. Metaphorically.

Saturday morning, of course, the sketchily imagined project itself turned out to be a bit harder to create than I had airily visualized. No doubt buying a potted tree and plunking it down in the living room would have been several times easier and faster than wrestling with wire all morning. Nevertheless, I finally ended up with a roughly conical structure that let me wrap a strand of colored lights around it, hang all my ornaments on it, and even throw a star on top. Without falling over. And it never needs watering! Works for me. Ring in the holidays, my "tree" is decorated and proud.

December 4

What Thel Saw

1. On my blog statistics. I had more visitors yesterday than any other day in Heavy Duty Power history, y'all. This pleased me until I realized that at least half of them were due to my excerpting a big chunk of news from KOMO's website, leading people interested in storm updates straight to this scraggly little corner of the internet. Oops. Sorry about that. But if you like occasional pictures of a wily German Shepherd, or rambling about about riding the bus through Seattle, do stick around.

2. On the bus. Scratched in a plastic panel, amidst all the gang graffiti and illegible scrawlings, is a well-done rendering of Homer Simpson's head.

3. At Real Live Preacher, some words that resonated with me:

Are you just ornery enough to stare down an empty universe and say, “I DEMAND that there be meaning in these skies.” And then you stare real hard and angry right into the Milky Way. Then you laugh because of how small and silly you are. You laugh at yourself, but you keep staring. You ARE going to stare down the universe.

I might stare for awhile, but then I crumple away and slink off in anger and terror. Still, something makes me keep coming back for another attempt at bending the universe to my will. Smart.

4. At home. Unfinished knitting projects compete with Robin Hobb's Tawny Man< series for my attention. Guess which group won? As if I could set down book 3 of the Farseer Trilogy and not be impatient to move on to see what happens next.

5. On the bus again. A boy of about 2 years plays with his sister, closer to 4, while their mother tries to get some paperwork finished. He darts away once too often, and mom has sharp words for him. She makes him sit still in his seat, and he sobs at the injustice of being unable to run up and down the aisle any longer. Then--I wasn't staring, I could see their reflections in the window--his big sister gathered him up into her arms, tucking him up onto her lap and patting his back soothingly while he cried softly. Aw.

And the floods came up

At last we bid farewell to December 3, 2007: the second-wettest 24-hour period in Seattle's recorded weather history.

I thought there weren't any signs of the extreme rainfall near my house as I approached tonight. But then I got off the bus and saw that I was wrong. Just around the corner from us is a P-Patch which has become a lake. The picture doesn't convey how deep that ditch is that leads down to the gardens. The corner of the new pond was spilling steadily over the sidewalk; fortunately the storm drain there was handling it capably.

Perfect use of the internet

It's no secret that, like many people, I get a little obsessed with severe weather events. Refresh, refresh, refresh on the local media sites.

The Seattle Times has set up an interactive updateable map of local areas affected by the recordbreaking rainfall today:



Not too many folks have updated yet (likely people with flooding houses don't have "update the internets with my plight!" at the top of their task list), but it could be a really helpful resource.

Down came the rain

Uh, holy Northwest hurricane, Batman:

Updated Monday 8:30 a.m.
Current Headlines: Winds easing a bit along the coast, but still over 60 mph. Peak gusts from 80-120 mph recorded. Almost all major roads along coast are blocked by down trees and power lines. Several local mudslides and urban flooding problems. Amtrak service suspended between Eugene and Vancouver. Flood Warnings continue for several rivers. Freezing rain is falling at Snoqualmie Pass. Heavy rain continues to fall across Puget Sound -- Seattle well over 2.5" of rain since midnight.

SEATTLE - The largest of three consecutive storms was moving through Western Washington Monday, bringing heavy rain, damaging wind, and potential for major flooding along Olympic Mountain-fed rivers.

The Washington and Oregon coast were severely battered by the storm Monday morning. Wind speeds have been clocked at 85 mph in Astoria and 81 mph in Hoquiam. (Hoquiam has since lost power, so we don't know if it's been worse.) Meanwhile, an unofficial report out of Bay Center, Wash. (near Long Beach) had a measured gust of 119 mph. (They stick out on a headland a bit and have a free shot at strong wind.)

But these aren't occasional gusts -- there have been steady gusts in the 65-75 mph range in those areas all morning. Meanwhile, weather instruments at Tatoosh Island and Destruction Island along the coast are reporting sustained winds of 70 mph, gusting to 85 mph.

Power outages and hazardous driving conditions have forced many school districts to delay or cancel classes. (See complete school closure list)

Grays Harbor County Sheriff Mike Whelan says the storm damage on the Washington coast is the worst he's seen in 30 years in law enforcement.

The Washington State Patrol says most major roadways in Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties, including U.S. Highways 12 and 101, are closed or blocked due to high winds and numerous trees and power lines down across the counties. It is not known when roads will reopen.

Two Grays Harbor PUD power line workers trying to restore service were injured, one seriously in a 40-foot fall, when a windblown tree hit a lift truck bucket Sunday night, sheriff's deputy David A. Pimentel said. Both were hospitalized, one with head injuries and the other with back injuries.

Whelan says rescuers had to use chain saws and dodge falling trees to clear the highway to get an ambulance to the scene. One worker has been taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The other is at Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen.

Whelan is a storm victim himself. A falling tree smashed his truck in the driveway at his home. He had to be picked up by a patrol car.

Grays Harbor PUD says they have at least 33,000 people without power, but won't be able to further assess the damage until daylight. In the interim, they have pulled all their crews off the streets until the winds calm down.

Schools in that area closed for the day due to lack of power.

Problems were plenty in the Puget Sound area as well. Sounder service between Everett and Seattle was canceled because of some mud on the tracks. There are extra buses in Everett and Edmonds to help with commuters.

Mudslides halted north-south Amtrak passenger train service between Eugene, Ore., and Vancouver, British Columbia.

In the greater Seattle area, heavy rain -- storm totals of over 2" since late Sunday night -- is creating local flooding problems.

A mudslide blocked part of Westlake Avenue North in the 2400 block. Another mudslide blocked one lane of Highway 99 near 14th Avenue South, and a sinkhole ruptured the road at Golden Gardens Drive NW and NW 85th Street near Ballard.

Standing water was also a big problem on all area roadways.

Several Warnings In Effect

Here are the myriad of warnings and watches in effect for the storm:

A HIGH WIND WARNING remains in effect for the coast, Admiralty Inlet area, northwestern Olympic Peninsula area, the greater Everett/Snohomish County area, the Hood Canal area, the lower Chehalis Valley, and the area around Port Townsend through 4 p.m. Monday.

This storm is expected to bring sustained winds of 40-50 mph, gusting as high as 80-100 mph along the coast and Sekiu/Clallam Bay, Neah Bay area. For the rest of the places listed in that warning, gusts are expected as high as 60 mph.

The largest gusts are expected until around 7 a.m. along the coast, then the winds are expected to abate a bit through the morning (still very windy though), and then perhaps another wave of wind toward late morning/midday, but not quite as strong as before.

As to why the seemingly sporadic locations for the Wind Warning, this storm is poised to bring out a local wind-generating effect, which I'll get to a little later in this discussion.

For the rest of Western Washington, including the greater Seattle-Tacoma (but not Everett since that's in the warning) area, A WIND ADVISORY is in effect for the same time frame. (A Wind Advisory is a notch below a High Wind Warning). Here, winds are expected to gust as high as 40-50 mph. Yes, while the coast is going gang-busters, this does not look like a big wind event for the I-5 corridor, save for perhaps the Snohomish County area, as the Olympics are providing a barrier to strong wind here.

A WINTER STORM WARNING remains in effect in the Cascades through Monday morning. Conditions have warmed considerably, but pockets of cold air near the surface means continuing snow for Stevens Pass, and freezing rain problems in Snoqualmie Pass.

FLOOD WARNINGS are now in effect for all rivers that feed of the Olympic Mountains. That includes the Bogachiel, Skokomish, Elwha, Dungeness, Satsop, Deschutes, and Chehalis Rivers. A FLOOD WARNING has also been issued for the Puyallup River near Orting, the Tolt River and the Issaquah Creek.

The information is fast changing so the best advice is to go to and bookmark this link:

forecast.weather.gov. ( You might need to scroll down. Some of Portland's flood warnings will be listed there too, and it's listed chronologically by update time.)

That is the direct page to the National Weather Service Flood Warnings. It has specific details on all rivers under Flood Watch and Warning.

As much as 6-10 inches of rain are expected in the Olympic Mountains, and some Olympic-fed rivers could see record flooding with this event. If you live in this flood plain, take immediate precautions and finalize them as soon as possible. Flooding will likely begin Monday and continue through Tuesday and possibly into Wednesday as the water flows downstream.

The Cascades will also see rain approaching 5 inches, so flooding is expected on Cascade rivers as well, but hopefully not to the extent the Olympics will get it.

A FLOOD WATCH remains is in effect for all other mountain-fed rivers in Western Washington in anticipation of Monday's heavy rain, but many Cascade rivers could go on Flood Warning soon.

A HIGH WIND WARNING is also in effect for the mountains, where ridgetop winds could reach 80-100 mph gusts -- especially in the Olympics. This is not a time to be hiking or mountain climbing. Pass travel will also be very difficult.

A HIGH SURF WARNING is in effect for the coast, where seas have been recorded as high as 40-45 feet off the north Oregon coast, and 39 feet off the south and central Washington coast.

And in a related warning, a COASTAL FLOOD WATCH is in effect from Sunday evening through Monday evening for problems associated with high surf and beach erosion.

Finally, an AVALANCHE WARNING is in effect for the Cascades through Monday as conditions are very dangerous in the mountain backcountry.

Storm Stats So Far:

Wind: Peak Gusts So Far


Bay City, Ore.: 129 mph (Unofficial)
Bay Center, Wash: 119 mph (Unofficial)
Tillamook, Ore. (tide station): 100 mph
Florence, Ore: 91 mph
Clallam Bay: 90 mph (estimated)
Hurricane Ridge: 86 mph
Astoria, Ore.: 85 mph
Destruction Island: 84 mph (Sustained 65-73 for several hours)
Tatoosh Island: 82 mph
Hoquiam: 81 mph (Station went dark at 4 a.m.)
Tillamook, Ore (Airport): 74 mph
Aberdeen: 62 mph
Forks: 58 mph
Bellingham: 53 mph
Shelton: 51 mph
Oak Harbor: 49 mph
Kelso: 41 mph
Olympia: 39 mph
Rain: Storm totals since Midnight through 8 a.m.


Shelton: 3.71"
Seattle: 2.58" (About to climb into Top 10 wettest days ever.)
Olympia: 2.17"
Everett: 1.70"
Tacoma: 1.41"
Sequim: 0.18". (The Olympic Rain Shadow is in full force today. Take a peek at the radar and note the big hole over the northeastern Olympic Peninsula.)
The Rain Timeline

Heavy rain will continue through the day and into Monday evening before finally tapering off. As much as 2-4" of rain is expected in the lowlands, while 8-12" of rain are expected in the Olympic Mountains, and 4-6" possible in the Cascades.

Combine that with warm temperatures (highs Monday will be well into the 50s), and that's a classic recipe for major flooding.

And with that much rain in the lowlands, urban flooding is possible as well. You can help by trying to keep drains clear of leaves.

The Wind Timeline

For the areas listed in the High Wind Warning:

Strong winds will pick up along the coast in the wee hours of Monday morning, and continue to blow through the day. This is not a typical windstorm where we have the low center pass through and we get 2-5 hours of wind. This is an extended event where strong winds are expected from 6-10 hours in the areas listed in the wind warning.

So high winds are expected to blow through the day Monday and then taper off Monday afternoon or early evening.

For the areas listed in the Wind Advisory, it shouldn't blow quite as strong or as long, but it will still be a very blustery day.

Why Snohomish County for the Wind Warning?

As we mentioned before, this is not our typical windstorm where the winds don't pick up until we have a big area of low pressure passing through to our north. Those typically last, oh, 4-6 hours on the coast, and 2-3 hours inland.

This one is different, but difficult to explain in layman terms. Suffice to say, even though it's farther offshore, it's a rather large storm, and the way its fronts are aligned, it'll "open the door" to the winds to race out toward the low earlier than usual. That door will open very early Monday morning and won't "close" until late Monday evening, thus making for an extended period of strong winds.

Aside from that, we have something forming called a "lee-side low" or "lee trough". This is a very localized effect caused by large amounts of air rushing around a mountain. On the other side, it'll form an eddy on the back side of the mountains where the air is rushing. (You might see this on the beach, when waves rush past a rock, note how the water swirls in wake of the rock.)

In this situation, the lee trough is forecast to form around the northern Hood Canal area. This creates a localized effect where that low will cause a "mini-windstorm" and enhance the pressure difference over a small area. That area is expected to be that Admiralty Inlet, western Snohomish County, North Hood Canal and the northeastern Olympic Peninsula, like Port Townsend and Port Ludlow.

The other areas in the warning outside this area are just in the warning for "normal" winds to get strong. What a crazy way to start December!

Bus fuss

I waited in the teeth of the wind as the daylight faded. If you wait inside the bus shelter, out of the worst chill, the bus will not see you; it will rumble past without slowing, and you will wait another fifteen minutes. Ask me how I know this. So I waited outside, hunching my back against the wind.

The bus, when it came, was warm, all the windows heavily steamed up from all the passengers. A couple of people stood in the back, and I resigned myself that all seats were taken and staggered down the aisle toward them as the bus lurched into motion. Just a few seats from the front, though, a young woman wearing a fuzzy white hat sat in the aisle seat with only her tote bag slung across the window seat. White earbuds plugged her ears and her head nodded rhythmically to her music. Stopping at her side, I waited expectantly.

She didn't look up. I cleared my throat. She finally tilted her head toward me. I pointed at her bag. She raised her eyebrows. I enunciated carefully, "I'd like to sit down."

Surprise flitted across her face. "Oh, um. Okay," she said. She slowly picked up her bag, drew it onto her lap, and turned her body slightly sideways, leaving a gap of about four inches between her knees and the seat in front of her. When it became clear that this was as far as she was going to move, despite my own body being slightly wider than four inches, I dragged myself through and flopped down heavily into the window seat. "Thanks," I said, and then I snidely added with a little smile, "I don't think your bag needs a seat all to itself!"

I wasn't sure she heard me; she said nothing, and soon her head began to bob rhythmically once again. But soon my conscience smote me mightily for my passive-aggressive little act. Once I'd gained the seat, there had been no call for further verbal barbs. An apology was in order, obviously. Or was it? On the balance sheet of our interaction, had my rudeness outdone her own so much that I had fallen into her debt? I wasn't sure. Yes, I'd been a sarcastic brat. But she had forced me into it through her own headphone-wearing oblivious selfishness!

She began to hum softly to her music. Probably not on the verge of sobbing, then. And now minutes had passed. Wouldn't it be obtrusive and weird to turn to her and abruptly apologize? No, an apology would be too much, now. It would draw us into a conversation that her humming, head-nodding ways were obviously meant to forestall.

Still, I had to do something. And it came to me. I determined to thank her when we parted ways. When at last she or I rose to depart, I would catch her eye and give her a humble smile. No, it would have to be not so much a smile as a wry look of slight regret, and shame. I would also manage to tinge it with gratitude and forgiveness.

I would fix this incredibly communicative expression on my face and softly say, "Thank you." And in those two words, I would pour out all the emotion in my remorseful soul. With that look and those two words, I would let her know that she had been oblivious, and that I had been rude, but that it was all behind us now. My face would make plain that we were two sisters on the bus, bound by our transit route, and the world stretched anew before us. Somehow my glance would make her resolve to be more aware, and would tell her that I vowed to be less snappish. She would hear my thanks and know that I was grateful not just for the seat, or for her forgiveness and her new intentions; she would know that I was grateful to be alive, on this bus, and that I wished her well in her struggles. She would feel a flood of gratitude for our human family, foibles and all.

And perhaps I could add just a slight twinkle of humor to my eye, to share my amusement at her increasingly loud humming--no, no, better not make any further comments on her behavior. No twinkle, then. Just the World's Most Expressive Look and Heartfelt Thanks. My mind made up, I mentally rehearsed this upcoming performance until we drew up to my bus stop.

I turned to her. She swiveled her legs, once again leaving me a scant few inches to squeeze out. Nevertheless, I strengthened my resolve. I looked her in the eye, and nodded. "Thank you," I said with a smile.

She ignored me. Putting her tote bag where I had been, she settled back into her seat and adjusted her earbuds.

Clearly my performance needs more work. Next time I also probably shouldn't roll my eyes and sigh loudly before I walk away.

Welcome, winter

Last year at this time we'd had snow on the ground for a week straight. This afternoon it began to fall again, heavy wet flakes blizzarding in the breeze. Mr. Thel and I strolled up to the taco truck for lunch, and the wait outside turned us into snowcones. Luckily my year-old wool hat, knitted at Thanksgiving last year, kept my head toasty. My khaki-clad legs were not so lucky; I was happy to scuttle back inside with my ginormous burrito.

Mmmm, carne asada. Mmmm, snow.